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527-565 suffered was terrible enough to justify the sinister fact recorded by John Lydus, "The tax-gatherers could find no more money to take to the Emperor, because there were no people left to pay the taxes." Justinian's administrative system had woefully miscarried.

In common with all the Emperors who had occupied the throne of the Caesars since the time of Constantine, Justinian gave much attention to the Church, as much for political reasons as because of his zeal for orthodoxy. His autocratic disposition was unable to realise that anything could be exempt from the prince's inspection in a well-regulated monarchy. He claimed therefore to exercise his authority not only with regard to ecclesiastics — the greatest included — but further, when questions of discipline or dogma arose his word was never lacking. He wrote somewhere that "good order in the Church is the prop of the Empire." He spared nothing which might lead to this good order. Both Justinian's Code and the Novellae abound in laws dealing with the organisation of the clergy, the regulation of their moral life, the foundation and administration of religious houses, the government of ecclesiastical property, and the control of the jurisdiction to which clerics were liable. During his whole reign Justinian claimed the right to appoint and dispossess bishops, to convoke and direct councils, to sanction their decisions, and to amend or abolish their canons. Since he enjoyed theological controversies, and had a real talent for conducting them, he was not deterred by pope, patriarchs, and bishops, from setting himself up as a doctor of the Church, and as an interpreter of the Scriptures. In this capacity he drew up confessions of faith and hurled forth anathemas.

In exchange for the mastery which he assumed over it, he extended his special protection to the Church. A crowd of religious buildings, churches, convents, and hospitals sprang up in every part of the Empire, thanks to the Emperor's generosity. Throughout the monarchy the bishops were encouraged to make use of the government's authority and resources to spread their faith as well as to suppress heresy. Justinian believed that the first duty of a sovereign was "to keep the pure Christian faith inviolate, and to defend the Catholic and Apostolic Church from any harm." He therefore employed the most severe measures against anyone who wished to injure or introduce changes into the unity of the Church. Religious intolerance was transformed into a public virtue.

From the beginning of his reign Justinian promulgated the severest laws against heretics in 527 and 528. They were excluded from holding any public office, and from the liberal professions. Their meetings were forbidden and their churches shut. They were even deprived of some of their civil rights, for the Emperor declared that it was only right that orthodox persons should have more privileges in society than heretics, for whom "to exist is sufficient." The pagans, Hellenes as they