Justinian

MYAKES

Is that where he came up with his idea? Brother Elpidios, you could knock me over with a feather, and that is the God's truth. If I've thought of Bishop Arculf of Rhemoulakion or whatever the name of his town was three times in these past fifty years, it's a miracle, nothing else but. But it seems he never escaped Justinian's mind, which only goes to show you never can tell.

Old fool that I am, I'd forgotten about that icon of the Mother of God, too. I wonder how the Emperor Leo would explain its power, I do, I do. But he might have a way. He was always tricky, Leo was. Well, enough of that. Go on.

As have all such, the sixth holy and ecumenical synod, the third held in Constantinople, proceeded on the course the Emperor had set for it from the beginning. I headed an ever-increasing number of the sessions myself, for my father began to be concerned with reports that the Bulgars, a loathsome tribe then newly arrived at the Danube, were raiding Roman cities and farms south of the river. He dared not let my uncles preside; both Herakleios and Tiberius, as I have noted, were vehemently of the monothelite party (although I feel certain they would have espoused orthodoxy with equal vehemence had my father favored monotheletism).

Thus I presided over the debates of the learned- and the not so learned- theologians as they worked their way toward consensus. Only one voice was consistently raised in opposition to the doctrine of Christ's two wills and two energies: that of Makarios, patriarch of Antioch. His patriarchal see being under the rule of the followers of the false prophet, he could uphold his own misguided beliefs without fear of retribution from the Emperor.

Like Theodore, former patriarch of Constantinople, Makarios justified his vile and erroneous dogma by means of Dionysios the Areopagite's phrase referring to the divine-human energy of Christ. The rest of the bishops hurled against him a great barrage of quotations from the Scriptures and from the writings of the holy fathers of ancient days. He refused to own himself beaten, but his views, plainly, were those of but a tiny minority of the assembled clerics.

Winter wheeled round toward spring. Lent began, ushering in the approach to the day of our Lord's holy resurrection from the dead. And then, at the fifteenth session of the ecumenical synod, one of Makarios's few backers, a scrawny cleric named Polykhronios, who had made himself notable both for ostentatious piety and for what was obviously a lifetime's abhorrence of cleanliness, presented me with a memorial addressed to my father.

"Thank you, your reverence," I said, thankful mostly that he withdrew once more into the ranks of his fellow bishops.

"Read it, Prince!" he called in harsh, Syrian-accented Greek. "The salvation of your soul depends on it!"

A man who is ostentatiously pious can sometimes also get by with being ostentatiously rude. And, since the synod had been summoned for the salvation of souls, I could hardly disregard him. The memorial was legibly written; I could not dispute that. My lips moved as I rapidly took it in. "Your reverence," I said, "I see little here different from the views the assembled bishops have decided to be heresy and error, and so I-"

"They are not heresy and error!" Polykhronios shouted in a great voice, so that his words came echoing back from the dome of the great church. "They are the truth!"

When he interrupts the son of the Emperor of the Romans, even a man of ostentatious piety has gone too far. The ecumenical patriarch George said, "Reverend Polykhronios, surely you forget yourself. We who have gathered here at the Emperor Constantine's urging-"

"The truth!" Polykhronios all but screamed. He pointed to the memorial, which I still held. "Set those holy words on a dead man's chest and he will live again, just as Lazarus did when Christ called, 'Come forth!'\a160"

He could not have cause greater commotion among the assembled bishops had he set fire to the great church. Some shouted that he was a fool, others that he was a madman. But still others, including a surprising number who till that time had seemed warm in their support for the doctrine of the two wills and two energies, shouted just as loudly in support of Polykhronios. One of them pulled the beard of a man who had remained loyal to that doctrine. His victim hit him in the pit of the stomach. They fell to the floor together, kicking and clawing at each other in what looked like a death struggle.

"Order!" I cried. "Let us have order!" That seemed to be only the first fight to break out of many that were simmering. What would my father do to me if, at a session over which I presided, the holy ecumenical synod degenerated into brawling and riot, making him a laughingstock not only throughout Christendom but also to the Arabs? Some lessons I did not want to learn. "Order!" I cried again, but my voice was still a boy's, high and shrill. They did not heed me.

I glanced back to the excubitores in mute appeal. Thank God, there behind my left shoulder stood faithful Myakes. His eyes asked a silent question. I nodded- desperately, I suspect.

"Order!" he and his comrades yelled together, a deep roar that cut through the bishops' bickering like a knife slicing cheese. The guardsmen slammed the butts of their spears down on the stone floor, so hard I hoped they did not crack it.

For a moment, I had silence. Into it, I said, "I do not think Polykhronios can do what he says he can." That threatened to start the hubbub anew. I looked back at Myakes again, and again he and his fellow excubitores struck their spears against the floor, which bought me another brief, tenuous stretch of quiet. I went on, "Let him prove it, if God grants him the ability." I pointed to him. "If the dead man does not rise, will you admit the doctrine of the one will and energy is wrong?"

"He will rise," Polykhronios declared, so confidently that I wondered if he knew exactly whereof he spoke.

George the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, whose church that of the Holy Wisdom was, said, "No corpse shall defile and pollute this shrine."

One of the excubitores shouted out, "Take the stiff to the Baths of Zeuxippos! He'll come clean there, by Jesus!"

Whoever he was- I could not tell- he brayed laughter like a donkey. The rest of the guardsmen laughed, too. But Polykhronios cried, "Yes, to the Baths of Zeuxippos!" and in a moment all the assembled bishops had taken up the cry. And to the Baths of Zeuxippos we went.