The silentiary ushered into the emperor’s study, an elderly Chinese, upright of bearing, with a keen, good-humoured face, and clad in a saffroncoloured robe. He seated himself at the emperor’s invitation.
‘I am told your mind is troubled,’ the visitor declared in perfect Greek. ‘Excuse my bluntness, Serenity; unlike most of my countrymen I never learned the art of how to be discreet. To me, a spade has always been a spade, never an agricultural implement. Some members of your household — who shall be nameless, by the way — out of concern for your well-being have asked me to make contact with you. So, here I am. To help in any way I can.’ And Tan-Shing gave the emperor a beaming smile.
‘Some members of your household,’ thought Justinian, touched rather than offended by what others might interpret as presumption. That would include Paul the Silentiary and Theoctistus his physician, functionaries in whom solicitude for their employer transcended efficient performance of their duties. Clearly, some attribute possessed by this stranger had impressed such men sufficiently to make them send him here.
‘Well, Tan-Shing,’ replied the emperor, ‘I appreciate your offer. But if even my physician cannot cure my — sickness of the spirit, let us call it — I can’t see how — ’ Close to shameful tears, Justinian trailed off, moved that there were some who cared sufficiently to wish to help him, but oppressed by a terrible sense of hopelessness that nothing anyone could do would avail. With an effort, he pulled himself together and said with forced brightness, ‘Your Greek is excellent. I had feared we might have need of an interpreter.’
‘I have several tongues, Serenity. Apart from my native Mandarin, I speak Hindustani, Urdu, Persian, even Greek, as you were kind enough to mention. You see, in a past life, before I became a wandering monk, a Seeker after Enlightenment, I was a wealthy merchant who travelled the Silk Road many times.’
‘Enlightenment — what is that?’
‘It is not easy to define, Serenity. True Enlightenment can only be experienced rather than expressed in words. We who seek to find it, think of it as a mystic vision of the Truth, the All, the Infinite, the Transcendental — there are different words. It is to be attained through meditation and self-discipline, involving ultimately the annihilation of the Self in identification with the Soul of the Universe. The state of mind when this is achieved is called Nirvana. The Saddhus — the holy men of India — seek Enlightenment via a particularly ferocious form of ascetisism. Lord Gautama,* who lived a thousand years ago, prescribed a gentler way, one based on meditation and inner holiness through correct behaviour. His is the Path that I myself attempt to follow.’
‘This is all most interesting,’ said Justinian, who had indeed found the other’s discourse fascinating. ‘Your words remind me of our own Desert Fathers — Antony, Jerome et al. — who sought through abstinence and contemplation to find communion with God. However — ,’ he smiled at the sage and shook his head in mild puzzlement, ‘I can’t quite see how any of this applies to myself.’
‘I am about to embark on a pilgrimage, Serenity. To the Church of Saint Michael, at Germia near Ancyra** in Galatia. You see, the Path does not require you to be an adherent of any particular religion or philosophy over another. The priest at Germia, Father Eutropus, a most remarkable man, has gathered about him a dedicated following of. . seekers after Truth, I suppose you could call them, who engage in contemplation and religious discussion. It’s not officially a monastery; there’s no formal organization as such. Basically, it’s a loose community where minds can stimulate and react with other minds, perhaps thereby to reach a deeper understanding of the Nature of God. I confess to having a great curiosity to experience for a time the way of life at Germia.’ Tan-Shing paused and regarded Justinian earnestly. ‘Why not come with me, Serenity?’ he urged. ‘Germia may not provide an answer to your problems, but at least it could perhaps enable you to see things from a fresh perspective — which could only be a good thing, surely.’
One month later, having travelled three hundred miles due east from Constantinople, Justinian and Tan-Shing — the former on muleback, the latter, aided by a sturdy pilgrim’s staff, on foot — forded the Sangarius river and climbed up into a beautiful plateau of rolling grassland, stippled with flocks of sheep and herds of goats. Two further days of easy travel brought the pair to Saint Michael’s Church, an imposing multi-domed edifice in the midst of outbuildings surrounded by cultivated plots.
As they approached the complex, Justinian reflected on the journey (in the course of which, as ‘Brother Martin’ — a wandering monk, clad in a simple habit, he had never once been recognized). Tan-Shing had proved an ideal travelling-companion: silent when Justinian wished to be alone with his own thoughts, cheerful and talkative at other times, well-informed on a multitude of subjects, including the religious and philosophical systems as well as the literature of China, India, Persia and Rome. He was also endlessly resourceful when it came to finding lodgings for the night, supplementing their diet from Nature’s bounty, or haggling for foodstuffs in local markets. From the sage Justinian learned more about the Way suggested by Lord Gautama (the goal of which seemed to be the transcending of Self, linked to ultimate escape from an endless cycle of rebirth), and the ‘noble eightfold path’ which its disciples sought to cultivate: right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindedness, and — most importantly — right rapture. Whether it was the Chinese sage’s stimulating company, the healthful open-air lifestyle (so different from the sedentary Palace routine of receptions, ceremony, and administration), or the changing landscapes that each day’s travel brought, or by a combination of all of these, by the time the journey neared its end, Justinian was — he acknowledged to himself — in a calmer and happier frame of mind.
Father Eutropus proved to be nothing like the saintly scholar Justinian had vaguely imagined. Diminutive, rotund, with a bright indignant eye, and clad in a brown cassock, he put the emperor in mind of nothing so much as a fierce little robin. ‘Visitors are welcome, provided they’re prepared to work, and forego their former status,’ declared the priest, glaring at the two arrivals, as if they were pedlars proffering goods of suspect workmanship. Justinian was duly assigned to helping in the kitchens, Tan-Shing to maintenance and cleaning duties.
At mealtimes, held in common in a refectory, talk flowed freely among the guests whose backgrounds varied widely: artisans, senators, clerics, a retired general, a pair of Indian Brahmans, a Persian noble. . No subject was off limits. Passionate discussions about the Nature of the Trinity, the relationship of Christ to the Father, the doctrine of reincarnation — namely ‘varna’, the Indian theory of rebirth from a lower to a higher caste through leading an unblemished life — all took place in an atmosphere which, though often charged, was always one of mutual respect. (Anyone tending to express their views too hotly could expect to be chastened by a bellowed reproof from Father Eutropus.)
For the first time, Justinian found himself unable to impose his views by the fiat of imperial decree. Initially, he found this disconcerting, but soon, as ‘Brother Martin’, he began to relish the cut-and-thrust of debate, of having to defend his ideas by argument alone. In the process, he became — unconsciously and imperceptibly — more tolerant of views that differed from his own, less certain of ones previously held by him with unshakeable conviction. Gradually, the differences between Chalcedonian Orthodoxy and Monophysitism, which once he’d seen as irreconcilable, began to seem less absolute, almost like different facets of a single canon.
Especially was this the case, Justinian thought, when viewed from the standpoint of Aphthartodocetism — the doctrine that held Christ’s body to be incorruptible and which, in recent years, had begun to interest the emperor profoundly. Here, perhaps, lay hopes of finding a via media between the two opposing creeds, which might lead eventually to resolution.