MYAKES
Somewhere right around the time he was writing those words, Brother Elpidios, the Arabs took the southern Pillar of Hercules away from us, and ran up into western Iberia, the land I've also heard called Spain. And nobody- nobody Roman, anyhow- knows how far to the east they've spread word of the false prophet. These are hard times for us Christians; if Constantinople had fallen in that last siege, there might not be any Christians left in the whole world today.
What's that, Brother? On account of our sins, you say? Maybe, but aren't the Arabs sinners and followers of a false religion? Why do they flourish, when all we do is suffer? Eh, Brother Elpidios? Why is that?
That same summer, churchmen began arriving for the synod that would make good the lack of regulations issuing from the fifth and sixth ecumenical synods. Indeed, because it was intended to be a supplement to those synods, the ecumenical patriarch styled it in his letter of announcement the fifth-sixth synod, penthekte in Greek, and, I learned from western arrivals who had had the letter translated into the Latin more commonly used there, quinisextum in that tongue.
The synod itself was not to begin for another year. At first, I was surprised to learn of so many bishops coming so soon. But a moment's reflection sufficed to explain that. What man of sense, offered the choice between spending time in whatever dreary town he called home and in the Queen of Cities, could fail to desire the latter?
In that same otherwise quiet summer came a letter from the brother of Theodore of Koloneia, who served as bishop of the city from which Theodore had sprung. In it, he complained of the iniquities of the Paulicians, a heretical sect originating among the Armenians, by whose country Koloneia lies. Their crimes included not only misbelief by also idolatry.
Not wanting my name for the orthodoxy tarnished at a time when bishops from throughout the known world were gathering in the imperial city, I ordered the bishop to suppress these heretics (against whom, in an earlier outbreak, my father had also moved) by whatever means proved necessary, up to and including summoning troops from the Armeniac military district to break up their robbers' nests. Any who refused to recant their error or who returned to it after such recantation were to be burned alive.
After their leader, who, to help him escape detection, went by two names, Sergios and Titus, met death in this fashion, these Paulician heretics ceased to trouble the borders of the Roman Empire. To this day, I remain proud of having succeeded in putting them down once for all and in restoring the area to perfect allegiance to the orthodox faith.
MYAKES
What's that you say, Brother Elpidios? There are still Paulicians around, and they're still heretics and still bandits? I should be sad- I am sad, for I don't love heresy, not even a little bit. But that's not what I meant. I'm sad for Justinian's sake: it's one more thing he thought he did that turned out to be built on sand. That's the way of the world, isn't it?
Faith lasts, you say? God lasts? I pray you're right.
In the following year, a sufficiency of bishops having gathered, the fifth-sixth synod was convened. I ordered the sessions held in a domed hall of the great palace, for which reason I have sometimes heard the synod called that held in the dome. The westerners, in whose tongue the word dome is signified by trullo, are most prone to this usage.
As the synod opened, all the assembled bishops prostrated themselves before me. They having risen, I addressed them, as my father had addressed the bishops who had come to the imperial city for the sixth ecumenical synod.
"Holy fathers," I said, and my words came echoing back from the dome that gave the hall we were using its name, "employing me as His instrument, God has given you the chance to complete and perfect the work of the previous two ecumenical synods, which concerned themselves more with dogma than with discipline."
"You are the protector of the church, Justinian," the bishops responded. "Though we live in an age of corruption and despair, you will restore the light we once knew."
I made the sign of the cross, the bishops imitating my gesture. Such formal praise as that which they had just given me is not always sincere, but I basked in it nonetheless, knowing that by summo ning the fifth-sixth synod I had become part of a chain of Emperors dating back to Constantine the Great who would be remembered forever for their association with the holy ecumenical synods. How could a Christian want a memorial better than defining the faith and its rules, rooting out error, and making the truth shine forth?
"The problems before us are many," I said. "Even now, almost seven centuries after the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, pagan practices persist among the peasants. We Christians also stand in danger of corruption by the mischievous ideas of the Jews. Our morals are appallingly lax, this holding true for both layfolk and clergymen. And further, both in the west where barbarians rule and in Armenia, certain unacceptable practices have taken root and need to be eradicated."
In mentioning the Armenians, I did not refer to the Paulician heretics but rather to the customs that had gained acceptance within the regular Christian church of Armenia. That church has never fully reconciled itself to the condemnation of the misguided doctrine of the single nature of Christ, and, being more often than not under the power of the followers of the false prophet, is not so fully susceptible to ecclesiastical discipline as I should like.
"We shall make the world new and pure and holy," the bishops chorused. "We shall correct all errors, remove all ambiguities."
And that, over the next few months, is exactly what they set about to do. With my approval, they took severest aim at suppressing worship of the demons who had fooled the folk of the days before the divine Incarnation into thinking they were gods. Even in my time, people would- people do- swear oaths by these pagan gods. The synod made those swearing such oaths liable to excommunication, as they richly deserved to be for their thoughtlessness.
Men and women trampling out the vintage remained in the habit of calling on Bacchus, the false god of wine, as they did so. They too were made liable to excommunication, as were those who celebrated Bacchus's festival, the Broumalia; the great festival of Pan (who, as every educated man knows, died shortly after the time of our Lord, as the pagan writer Plutarch acknowledges), the Bota; and the old pagan New Year's festival near the vernal equinox.
Village dances celebrating the pagan gods were also condemned, laymen participating in them being made subject to excommunication and clergymen to removal from their order. The same penalty applied to those wearing masks- whether tragic, comic, or satiric- which were connected to the false cult of Dionysos.
The assembled bishops also outlawed divination, horoscopes, ventriloquism, and fortune-telling of all sorts because of their un-Christian nature. God's will may not be influenced thus, and may not be known until He chooses to reveal it in the fullness of time. Perhaps because offenses of this nature are so common, the synod decreed six years' penance for them rather than excommunication.
As it should have done, the fifth-sixth synod also protected us Christians against the pernicious Jews, who yet persist among us, steadfastly denying with their stubborn ignorance the reality of the new dispensation decreed by Jesus Christ. The bishops ordered laymen excommunicated and clergymen deposed who ate of the Jews' unleavened bread, who accepted medicine from Jews (whose reputation for skill as physicians no doubt springs from Satanic assistance), and who bathed with them or had other similarly intimate dealings.
While condemning these errors, the synod also perfected the laws governing us Christians. It forbade picturing Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, ordaining that He be shown only as the man He was, lest the ignorant conceive from the misrepresentation that God had truly sent His Son to earth in lamb's shape. And it prohibited using the cross in a floor mosaic, to keep feet from trampling on and profaning the holy symbol.