Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/657

 JUSTINIAN

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JUSTINIAN

Naples, entered Rome in triumph, seized Ravenna, sustained a siege in Rome till 538, when the Goths retired. A second general, Narses, then arrived with reinforcements from Constantinople; Milan and all Liguria were taken in 539, and in 540 all Italy up to the frontier of the Frankish Kingdom was reunited to the empire. In 542 the Goths revolted under their published in the same year, 530. In 534, finally, the king, Totila; by 553 they were again crushed. Narses became the first Exarch of Italy. Verona and Brixia (Brescia), the last Gothic strongholds, fell in 562. The Roman armies then marched on Spain and conquered its south-eastern provinces (lost again in 623, after Justinian's death.) Meanwhile the Crimean Goths and all the Bosporus, even the Southern Arabs, were forced to acknowledge the rule of Rome. A second war against the Persians (540–45) pushed the Roman frontier beyond Edessa. From 549 to 556 a long war in Armenia and Colchis (the Lazic War) again established the empire without a rival on the shores of the Black Sea. So Justinian ruled once more over a colossal world-empire, whose extent rivalled that of the great days before Diocletian. Meanwhile the emperor was no less successful at home. In 532 a very dangerous revolt (the Nika revolution), that arose from the factions of the Circus (the Blues and Greens), was put down severely. Bury says that the result of the suppression was "an imperial victory which established the form of absolutism by which Byzantine history is generally characterised " (Later Roman Empire, I, 345).

From a VII-century MS. in the Laurentian Library, Florence

(2) The most enduring work of Justinian was his codification of the laws. This, too, was an important part of his general scheme. The great empire he was reconquering must have the strength of organized unity. He says in the edict of promulgation of his laws that a state rests on arms and law ("De Justin. Cod. confirmando", printed in front of the codex). The scattered decrees of his predecessors must then be collected in a well-ordered and complete codex, logically arranged, so that every Roman citizen could learn at once the law of the empire on any subject. This codification was Justinian's great work. He made many new laws himself, but his enduring merit is rather the classification of scattered older laws. The legislation that the world owes to Justinian is in outline this:—First, a commission of ten lawyers (including the famous Tribonianus and Theophilus) reduced the bulky and rambling Theodosian Code (published in 438) to an orderly compendium, inserting into it the laws made since it was written. So the "Codex" was produced in 529. Second, a mass of answers given by authorities (the responsa prudentum that formed acknowledged precedents) were arranged (omitting all superfluities) in fifty books, whereby a law library of a hundred and six volumes was reduced to about one-fifth. This is the "Digest", or "Pandects", published in 530. Third, a manual of law for students was compiled from the commentaries of Gaius (second century). This, the "Institutes", was published in the same year 530. In 534, finally, the whole work was revised, and a fourth part, the "Authentic", or "Novels", was added, containing later decisions made by Justinian's own courts. So the immortal "Corpus Juris Civilis" was produced consisting of four parts: (a) Digestæ seu Pandecta, (b) Institutiones, (c) Codex, (d) Authenticum seu Novellæ (an excellent account of its composition is found in Bury's Gibbon, ed. cit., IV, 461–510). It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this "Corpus". It is the basis of all canon law (ecclesia vivit lege romana) and the bases of civil law in every civilized country.

(3) The Catholic cannot applaud the great emperor's ecclesiastical polity, though in this, too, we recognize the statesman's effort to promote peace and union within the empire. It was a matter of course that this union was to be that of the "most holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God" (5 c, De s. tr., I, 1). The Corpus Juris is full of laws against paganism (apostasy was punished by death, 10 c, "De pag.", I. 11), Jews, Samaritans (who began a dangerous revolt in 529), Manichseans, and other heretics. The decrees of the four general councils were incorporated in the civil law. There was no toleration of dissent. True to the ideal of Constantinople, the emperor conceived himself as "priest and king", supreme head on earth in matters ecclesiastical as well as in the State. He filled his codex with canon law and assumed the most outspoken Erastianism as the law of the empire. And all through his reign he fell foul of the authority of the Church by his attempts to conciliate the Monophysites. Ever since Chalcedon (451) these heretics filled Syria and Egypt, and were a constant source of disunion and trouble to the empire. Justinian was one of the many emperors who tried to reconcile them by concessions. His wife Theodora was a secret Monophysite; influenced by her, the emperor, while maintaining Chalcedon, tried to satisfy the heretics by various compromises. First came the Theopaschite question. Peter Fullo of Antioch had introduced into the Trisagion the clause: "Who didst suffer for us." Pope Hormisdas (514–23) refused to admit it, as savouring of Monophysitism. But Justinian approved it and promoted a Monophysite, Anthimus I (536), to the See of Constantinople. Then followed the great quarrel of the Three Chapters, the lamentable attitude of Pope Vigilius (540–55),