The Church and the Barbarians | Page 5

Church life. The sixth century began, as the fifth had ended,
in strife from which there seemed no outway. Nationalism, and the
rival claims of Rome and Constantinople, complicated the issues.
Under Anastasius, the convinced opponent of the Council of Chalcedon
and himself to all intents a Monophysite in opinion, some slight
negotiations were begun with Rome, while the streets of
Constantinople ran with blood poured out by the hot advocates of
theological dogma. In 515 legates from Pope Hormisdas visited
Constantinople; in 516 the emperor sent envoys to Rome; in 517
Hormisdas replied, not only insisting on the condemnation of those
who had opposed Chalcedon, but also claiming from the Caesar the
obedience of a spiritual son; and in that same year Anastasius, "most
sweet-tempered of emperors," died, rejecting the papal demands.
{10}
The accession of Justin I. (518-27) was a triumph for the orthodox faith,
to which the people of Constantinople had firmly held. The patriarch,
John the Cappadocian, declared his adherence to the Fourth Council:
the name of Pope Leo was put on the diptychs together with that of S.
Cyril; and synod after synod acclaimed the orthodox faith. Negotiations
for reunion with the West were immediately opened. The patriarch and
the emperor wrote to Pope Hormisdas, and there wrote also a
theologian more learned than the patriarch, the Emperor's nephew,
Justinian. "As soon," he wrote, "as the Emperor had received by the
will of God the princely fillet, he gave the bishops to understand that

the peace of the Church must be restored. This had already in a great
degree been accomplished." But the pope's opinion must be taken with
regard to the condemnation of Acacius, who was responsible for the
Henotikon, and was the real cause of the severance between the
churches. [Sidenote: Reunion, 519.] The steps towards reunion may be
traced in the correspondence between Hormisdas and Justinian. It was
finally achieved on the 27th of March, 519. The patriarch of
Constantinople declared that he held the Churches of the old and the
new Rome to be one; and with that regard he accepted the four
Councils and condemned the heretics, including Acacius.
The Church of Alexandria did not accept the reunion; and Severus,
patriarch of Antioch, was deposed for his heresy. There was indeed a
considerable party all over the East which remained Monophysite; and
this party it was the first aim of Justinian (527-65), when he became
emperor, to convince or to subdue. He was the {11} nephew of Justin,
and he was already trained in the work of government; but he seemed
to be even more zealous as a theologian than as a lawyer or
administrator. The problem of Monophysitism fascinated him.
[Sidenote: The Emperor Justinian.] From the first, he applied himself
seriously to the study of the question in all its bearings. Night after
night, says Procopius, he would study in his library the writings of the
Fathers and the Holy Scriptures themselves, with some learned monks
or prelates with whom he might discuss the problems which arose from
their perusal. He had all a lawyer's passion for definition, and all a
theologian's delight in truth. And as year by year he mastered the
intricate arguments which had surged round the decisions of the
Councils, he came to consider that a rapprochement was not impossible
between the Orthodox Church and those many Eastern monks and
prelates who still hesitated over a repudiation which might mean heresy
or schism. And from the first it was his aim to unite not by arms but by
arguments. The incessant and wearisome theological discussions which
are among the most prominent features of his reign, are a clearly
intended part of a policy which was to reunite Christendom and
consolidate the definition of the Faith by a thorough investigation of
controverted matters. Justinian first thought out vexed questions for
himself, and then endeavoured to make others think them out.

From 527, in the East, Church history may be said to start on new lines.
The Catholic definition was completed and the imperial power was
definitely committed to it. We may now look at the Orthodox Church
as one, united against outside error.
{12}
A period of critical interest in the history of Europe is that to which
belongs the difficult and complicated Church history of the East from
the accession of the Emperor Justinian to the death of S. Methodius.
The period naturally divides itself into three parts--the first, from 527 to
628, dealing with the Church at the height of its authority, up to the
overthrow of the Persian power; the second to 725, the period up to the
beginning of the iconoclastic controversy; and the third up to its close
and the death of S. Methodius in 847. With the first we will deal in