"For which I thank you," I said. His opening obviously being preface for a request of one sort or another, I said no more, waiting instead to see how he would proceed.
"The sixth holy and ecumenical synod was a splendid jewel in your father's crown of accomplishments, perhaps the most splendid in all his reign," he said.
"Perhaps, though he would have been in a poor position to call the synod had he not protected Constantinople from the deniers of Christ," I returned.
"Rooting out the misguided doctrines of monotheletism and monenergism weighs more in the scales of God, Who surely aided him in preserving the imperial city so that he could restore correct dogma to the true and holy faith," the patriarch said.
"It may be so," I admitted after a little thought, for who can deny that the world to come, wherein we shall exist for all eternity, is of greater moment than our tiny eyeblink of life here on earth?
"It is so," Paul declared, luminous faith on his face. After a moment, he went on, "Magnificent as the ecumenical synod was, however, and marvelously as it established the doctrines of the holy Christian church, its work, regrettably, was incomplete. As had the fifth ecumenical synod before it, convened by the great Roman Emperor who bore the name with which your father endowed you, it dealt with doctrine at the expense of discipline."
I knew that, as my father had known it before me. Some questions of discipline, now, had awaited settlement for nearly a century and a half: not surprisingly, dogma had to be established first, whereupon, all too often, the zeal of the holy fathers flagged. I asked the question he no doubt expected me to ask: "What remedy do you propose?"
"A new synod, Emperor," he replied, "one that will deal solely with the matters of discipline the last two holy and ecumenical synods failed to cover. You must agree, these matters have gone neglected too long."
"I do agree," I said.
Paul took no notice. Once started on a chain of thought, he would pursue it link by link, even if the person to whom he was speaking had skipped several links and reached the end before him. Now he said, "Matters such as ordination, proper clerical dress, simony, and alienation of monastic property stand in urgent need of definition and legislation. So do less purely ecclesiastical matters like marriage and public morality, manumission of slaves, and the correct representation of our Lord Jesus Christ and the suppression of base and ignorant superstition."
He ticked off the points on his fingers, one by one, as if to make sure he omitted none. Plainly, he had forereadied them. I thought more of him for that, not less, having had many hours of my life wasted by lackwits unprepared for the audiences they had gained with me.
"All those matters, and others as well, do need regulation," I said. "I agree."
He gaped at me in glad surprise. "You do?"
"I said so. Twice, now." I put a hand on his shoulder. "Begin getting ready for the synod at once. Send out letters to bishops within the Roman Empire, to those under the control of the Arabs, and to those in the western lands the blond German barbarians rule. Set the date for the synod as, hmm, two years from now. That will give all the clerics wishing to attend time enough to come to Constantinople, and will give us plenty of time to prepare for their arrival."
He bowed. "Emperor, you are generous beyond what we deserve."
"Nonsense. Without the church, how shall we be saved?" After a moment, I went on, "And I want as many bishops from the western lands as possible to come. There were only a few"- I particularly remembered Arculf of Rhemoulakion-"at the holy ecumenical synod, which I suppose is why they would not admit their Pope Honorius was anathematized at the synod. I want no such, ah, misunderstanding after the synod to come."
"Quite right, Emperor," the ecumenical patriarch said. "The pretensions of the bishop of Rome grow tedious at times. Peter may have founded their church, but Andrew founded ours, and he too was an apostle. And Rome, these days, is a contemptible ruin of a town, as your grandfather discovered when he traveled to the west, while Constantinople is and shall always be the grandest city in Christendom. Let the ignorant western bishops see our magnificence and taste of our learning and return to their own lands better and wiser men."
"They will be as good as they will be," I replied. "Let them return with correct doctrine, and spread it through those barbarous regions."
"Yes, Emperor. That, too," he said.
MYAKES
Everyone who talked with Justinian around that time did his best to talk him out of resettling the Cypriots then and there. In all the hundreds of years of the Roman Empire, I don't think there's ever been such a man for resettling people as Justinian was. If you lived somewhere and your ancestors had lived there for the past five hundred years, to him that was plenty of reason all by itself to move you someplace else.
You know what it puts me in mind of, Brother Elpidios? It puts me in mind of the Assyrians in the Holy Scriptures, who resettled the ten tribes of Hebrews so well, they've never been heard from since. Ah, now I've gone and surprised you- I hear it in your voice. Yes, I've paid attention when they read the Holy Scriptures here. Why shouldn't I? I'm an old blind man; being read to is all I'm good for.
Anyway, this time we managed to keep him from shipping the Cypriots to Anatolia. He would sometimes listen to reason, and with everyone telling him to wait, to be patient, where reason lay was pretty plain this time.
Sometimes, of course, he wouldn't listen to anyone or anything at all. Life got\a160… interesting then, for him and for the whole Roman Empire.
JUSTINIAN
The next spring, I crossed over into Anatolia to see how the Sklavenoi I had resettled were getting along, and how Neboulos was progressing with the creation of the so-called special army. Most of the Sklavenoi had been transferred to points along the Gulf of Nikomedeia, the easternmost projection of the Sea of Marmara. Had I given more detailed orders to the men bringing them into Romania, they would have been widely scattered across Anatolia. As things were, though, their keepers had taken them along the military road to the eastern frontier, from Chalcedon across from the imperial city to Libyssa and then to Nikomedeia, and there, perhaps forty miles from Constantinople, had turned back toward the capital, leaving the Sklavenoi to fend for themselves.
That the sturdy barbarians had done. As I traveled the military road myself, I saw a good many thatch-roofed huts like those the Sklavenoi had made in the villages I had captured the year before in Thrace and Macedonia. The men and women working in the fields were fair-haired Sklavenoi, the sun making their yellow locks shine like gold. Although not long in their new homes, they had wasted no time in buckling down: sensibly so, for, had they dawdled, they would soon have begun to starve.
From Nikomedeia, the military road runs east. Another, lesser, road goes south from the fortified town toward Nikaia, site of the very first holy ecumenical synod. It leaves the Gulf of Nikomedeia at the harbor of Eribolos, ten miles south of Nikomedeia. I did not follow the road all the way to Nikaia, but went west along the southern shore of the gulf about halfway to the seaside town of Prainetos, for more Sklavenoi, Neboulos among them, had been resettled thereabouts.
Only a track hardly deserving to be called a road ran from Eribolos to Prainetos; most travelers from one to the other would have gone by sea. Sometimes there were cliffs right at the water's edge, with more high ground lying farther inland. But here, as on the flatter terrain north of the gulf, Sklavinian farmers were out in the fields, tending their crops and minding their flocks and herds.
As he had before he surrendered to me, Neboulos made his home in a village larger and wealthier than the mean Sklavinian mean. When, accompanied by my excubitores, I rode up to that village, I saw fair-haired men wearing leather jerkins practicing with javelins in a field close by. Neboulos himself stood among them. I could not follow his barbarous dialect, but he seemed to be congratulating the warriors who threw well and upbraiding those who did not.