Justinian

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.