Justinian

THIRTY-TWO

The funeral, as befitted one of the best prefects Constantinople had known, was a grand and solemn service. A moving eulogy, delivered by Paul the Silentiary,* paid tribute to a distinguished public servant who had graced the world of scholarship and letters with his great History of the Wars of Justinian, having himself taken part in many of the campaigns he wrote about so eloquently. Above all, the Roman world owed an incalculable debt to one who, only a few short months before, had, by his expertise and boldness, foiled a monstrous plot to assassinate the emperor. All Constantinople had, it seemed, turned out to pay its last respects to the great Praefectus, as the cortege proceeded from the Praetorium to the Church of Saint Irene, where the body of Procopius was laid to rest.

Returning to the Palace, Justinian retreated to the garden where he and Theodora had first met and which, increasingly, had become a place of refuge where he could be by himself with his deepest thoughts. At last, he was quite alone, the emperor reflected sadly. In turn there had been taken from him: first Theodora, both cornerstone and central pillar of his life; then Belisarius, the friend and faithful servant he had wronged; and now, Procopius — whom, in some ways, he had loved like the son he had never known. Were all things transitory, he wondered, with loss and change the only certainties? All his life he had striven to establish good things that would endure: a Roman Empire that would last forever, serving to implement God’s Plan for the light of civilization and True Faith to shine in time throughout the world; laws that would guide men’s conduct down the ages; great buildings of a design and structure to defy the ravages of time. .

But perhaps it had all been for nothing. Everywhere, blind, uncaring forces seemed to be threatening all he had achieved. Ferocious Lombards were already casting greedy eyes on Italy, ravaged and weakened by twenty years of war; Slavs, Bulgars, and now this new threat from the East, a race more terrible even than the Huns — the Avars — menaced the Danube frontier. His attempts to forge religious unity between East and West — Monophysite and Chalcedonian — had foundered on the rocks of ignorance and stubborn wilfulness. When he passed away (and, at eighty-one, that time could not be distant, Justinian reminded himself), would all that he had worked for fade and vanish also, as ripples from a pebble cast into a pool were briefly seen then disappeared? Was his new-found interest in Aphthartodocetism — the doctrine that held Christ’s body to be incorruptible — merely a reflection of a longing for assurance that some things did not change, were immutable and permanent? Insidiously, a terrifying thought slid into the emperor’s brain. What if the very faith he had striven all his life to understand and serve were nothing more than empty superstition?

In the midst of these gloomy cogitations, Justinian was interrupted by a servitor bearing a book — not an old-fashioned set of papyrus rolls or volumina, but one of the newer kind with parchment paginae.

‘In his Will, Serenity, the prefect stated that he wished you to have the first copy of his final work.’ Bowing, the man handed the codex to Justinian, then departed. Inscribed in gold on the beautiful calf-leather binding was the title — Secret History. Welcoming this distraction from his mood of sombre introspection, the emperor opened the book and eagerly began to read. .

‘Justinian’s family was illiterate, boorish, descended from slaves and barbarians. . he [Justinian] was the son of a demon. . Justinian’s senseless wars and persecutions. . during his reign the whole earth was drenched with human blood. . without hesitation he shattered the laws when money was in sight. . was like a cloud of dust in instability. . never paused for a thorough investigation before reaching a decision. . was never able to adhere to settled conditions, but was naturally inclined to make confusion and turmoil everywhere. . while Justinian ruled no law remained fixed, no transaction safe, no contract valid. . an evil-doer and easily led into evil. . she [Theodora] could win over her husband quite against his will to any action she desired. . she would lie with all her fellow diners the whole night long; when she had reduced them all to a state of exhaustion she would go to their menials, as many as thirty on occasions, and copulate with every one of them, but not even so could she satisfy her lust. .’

With a cry of horrified disgust, Justinian dropped the book, unable to read on, each poisoned phrase seeming like a dagger-thrust to the heart. From what deep well of resentment had issued this astonishing outpouring of hate and malice? Shaken to the core of his being, Justinian felt, not anger — only sorrow, hurt, and incomprehension that a man he had always regarded as a friend, should see him (and Theodora) in such a baleful light. A black depression settled on the emperor, from which, for many days he was unable to be roused.

‘Serenity — Tan-Shing, the Chinese sage I told you of is here,’ announced Paul the Silentiary, standing at the entrance of Justinian’s tablinum. ‘Shall I admit him?’

‘Let us receive him by all means, Paul,’ replied the emperor with a wan smile, ‘though I doubt that anything he has to say can lift my spirits.’

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.

‘Read De Rerum Natura,’* suggested Tan-Shing, when Justinian broached the matter with the sage. ‘By Lucretius — one of your Roman poets from the time of the late Republic.’

In the commune’s well-stocked library, Justinian located a copy of the work in question — a poem in six books, each consisting of a separate scroll. A long read. Settling himself in a comfortable chair, the emperor unscrolled a section of the first volumen. .

‘It’s bleak — bleak and terrible!’ cried Justinian to Tan-Shing some hours later. ‘He postulates that all we are consists of an infinite number of tiny particles — each called atomos. The whole disintegrates when we die, leaving nothing of ourselves but the dispersed atoms — not even a soul!’

‘You are distressed, Martin,’ the sage responded calmly. ‘You have glimpsed the Truth, and it has frightened you. That is only natural, to be expected.’

‘But if Lucretius is right, it means I will not see Theodora again!’

‘Not in the sense, perhaps, that you and she will meet as individuals in some afterlife,’ replied the other gently. ‘She is already part of the Infinite, as you yourself will be eventually — both of you absorbed and re-united in God, the Universe, the All — in Heaven, if you like. Is not that an infinitely greater and more liberating prospect than one that only sees the limited, imperfect Self?’

‘I’ll have Father Eutropus excommunicated, anathematized!’ exclaimed Justinian. ‘His community will be broken up, his Church of Saint Martin deconsecrated!’

‘I do not believe that,’ said Tan-Shing with a patient smile. ‘There speaks Justinianus Augustus only. But already, as “Brother Martin”, you have moved on, experienced a tiny transformation — if you like, a foretaste of the Infinite. As Epicurus says, “We can never step into the same river twice”. Today, I leave Saint Michael’s to resume my pilgrimage. Meanwhile, dear friend, I offer a farewell suggestion: meditate on these wise words of Lucretius, “Nothing is lost”.’

Saddened by the departure of Tan-Shing, whom he had come to regard as a cherished comrade, and oppressed by a nameless sense of bewilderment and dread, Justinian set off from the commune into the countryside later that same day, in an attempt to clear his mind. Scarcely aware of his surroundings, he walked for miles, confused thoughts whirling in his brain, until, coming to a cliff edge, he was forced to stop. Exhausted, he sat down and contemplated the view.

Immediately before him, a precipice dropped hundreds of feet to an expanse of undulating pastureland. Peering over the edge, he spotted on a ledge far below, a large untidy nest in which two downy chicks were stirring. Moments later, an eagle, a tiny lamb gripped in its talons, alighted at the eyrie. Repelled yet fascinated, conscious of the mother ewe’s distress at the loss of her offspring, Justinian watched the eagle’s young tear at the offering with hooked and greedy beaks. For creatures to live, other creatures must die. Like Tan-Shing’s endless cycle of rebirth, transformation was the order of the Universe — if Lucretius was right, that is. Nothing was lost, the poet had affirmed. Could a practical example illustrate that? the emperor wondered. Take a river — its volume lessened as it flowed into the sea. But the surface of the sea evaporated in the sun, to form clouds which, blowing from the sea back over the land cooled as they rose, turning to rain, which restored the river’s volume. Therefore nothing was lost. The cycle was complete.

Was there a parallel here with Aphthartodocetism? as Tan-Shing had suggested. If, as Lucretius proposed, the individual atoms of which the body was made up dispersed after death yet remained constant — in quantity, then nothing, after all, was lost. In this sense, Christ’s body could indeed be held to be incorruptible. ‘If Christ be not risen, then is your faith vain,’ said Paul. But, even if one accepted Lucretius, the Ascension into Heaven could still be said to have occurred, only in a way not previously conceived. Justinian found the thought strangely comforting. In a state of mental excitement akin to an epiphany, he returned to Saint Michael’s, determined to think through the enormous implications of this most challenging of revelations, and to try to form from it some coherent doctrine. It would, he realized, have to be framed in language which, in order to be acceptable to Christians throughout the Roman Empire, must not offend or affright traditional believers. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, he felt as though the scales had dropped from his eyes, enlarging his perception to a terrifying yet exhilarating degree. As that same Paul had said in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, ‘For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’

Back in Constantinople, Justinian lost no time in promulgating the new doctrine of Aphthartodocetism. Even if his subjects might not fully comprehend its meaning (as he himself did but ‘in part’), he felt it was important that, at least on trust, they should accept it; complete understanding could follow later. Throughout that thirty-ninth year of his reign,* Justinian wrestled with refining and clarifying the new dogma, studying and comparing texts, taking endless notes. Night after night, lights burning in the Great Palace testified to the Sleepless One’s unceasing efforts for the spiritual welfare of his people. They were still burning when, on the night of the fourteenth of November, Callinicus, Praepositus of the Sacred Bedchamber, entered the emperor’s tablinum and found him dead, sitting upright at his desk. On his face was an expression partly startled, part enraptured — as though he had suddenly grasped the meaning of some tremendous yet elusive truth.

* Whose poem extolling the glories of Hagia Sophia had recently been recited at the re-dedication of that church.

* Buddha.

** Yerma, near Ankara.

* On the Nature of Things.

* 565.