The Oxford History of Byzantium

by Cyril Mango

  From that point onwards there was no turning back. Constantine’s son Constantius II actively championed Arianism and even declared that his own opinion in such matters was to be ‘the canon’. Valens followed the same line and is remembered for burning alive a party of his Nicaean opponents. Theodosius I made a complete U-turn and ordered all his subjects to follow the Nicaean formula: dissenters were denied the right of assembly and even threatened with the death penalty if they engaged in agitation. At the same time imperial legislation established long lists of heresies whose adherents were to be subjected to persecution, expelled from cities, forbidden to celebrate their rites. The Theodosian Code contains no fewer than sixty-five decrees directed against heretics. The state had become a theocracy.

  Yet the appetite for deviant theological speculation was in no way diminished. Starting with Arianism, which took a good two centuries to suppress, Christianity went on a theological spree, which produced a rich harvest of heresies. If histories of the Byzantine empire devote so much space to this topic, that is partly due to the importance among available sources of the ecclesiastical history, a genre inaugurated by Eusebius of Caesarea and subsequently cultivated by Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and others. As Socrates admits, ecclesiastical historians would have had nothing to write about if bishops did not quarrel concerning matters of doctrine. But even if we allow for an over-weighting of the phenomenon, the fact remains that different interpretations of Christian dogma, especially as affecting Christ’s divinity, aroused a great deal of passion even among people who had no understanding of the issues involved. Arianism in its many manifestations was followed by Nestorianism, which was eventually driven out of the empire to become the dominant form of Christianity in Persia. Then came Monophysitism, which was never resolved and remained the prevalent faith of Syria, Egypt, and Armenia. It has never been satisfactorily explained why thousands of ordinary people were ready to suffer persecution, even death, for the proposition that the incarnate Christ was either in (en) or derived from (ek) two natures, but they were certainly convinced that their opponents were gravely in error in either dividing or confusing the person of the one Christ. Of course, the more the government persecuted dissidents, the more dissidents hardened their resolve. And then, just as mysteriously as theological fervour had started, so it died down. Or so it seems because no more ecclesiastical histories were written after the year 600. Monothelitism, which was but a pale continuation of Monophysitism inspired by political considerations, was laid to rest by the council of 680. That was the last of the ‘noble’ heresies. The issue of Iconoclasm, which was artificially inflated into a Christological heresy, was in reality concerned with observance, i.e. cultus, and that in itself was indicative of a new development: Byzantine Christianity had reverted to being a religio in the Roman sense.

  The fuss over abstract theology diverted attention from the realities of piety and observance which, almost without comment, witnessed a profound change in the fourth and fifth centuries. By far the most important, which ended by transforming Christianity into something closely resembling polytheism, was the cult of the saints. It had started innocently enough. A persecuted sect, Christianity had honoured the memory of its ‘witnesses’ (martyrs). The date and manner of their death were recorded and commemorative meetings, including meals, held at their tombs. Constantine honoured them with huge covered shrines—St Peter’s, S. Sebastiano, S. Lorenzo in Rome, Sts Mocius and Acacius at Constantinople. By the middle of the fourth century we find that the earthly remains of martyrs were not only honoured, but were working supernatural phenomena as a matter of everyday observation. In their presence, says St Hilary of Poitiers (c.360), demons bellowed, sicknesses were healed, bodies levitated, and women suspended by their feet—we are not told why they were so suspended—were not shamed by having their clothes fall over their faces. No wonder that possession of relics became an asset and the practice arose not only of shifting them from place to place, but even cutting them up in contravention both of Roman law and deeply held feelings about the inviolability of tombs. The government—not the Church—reacted to no effect by prohibiting this abuse. A decree of 386 proclaims, ‘Let no one divide or sell a martyr’s body’, just as the traffic in relics was assuming epidemic proportions. The possibilities of fraud were, indeed, obvious, not to speak of the unseemly character of the whole business. Yet, far from objecting to what strikes us as crass superstition, the most eminent churchmen rose to applaud it. Here is Theodoret of Cyrus in about 430: ‘The glory of martyrs does not wither. Their bodies are not hidden singly, each in his own tomb, but have been divided among cities and villages, which regard them as the saviours of souls and bodies, as physicians and guardians. Using them as ambassadors to the universal Lord, they obtain through them divine gifts. Nay, when a body has been divided, its grace remains entire, so that a small part has the same potency as the whole body.’ Once the logic of the argument is granted, it follows that there was an advantage in distributing relics as widely as possible: regions that had an excess could supply those that suffered a deficiency.

  The martyrs, here Onesiphorus, companion of St Paul, and Porphyrius, in their heavenly abode. Part of a ‘calendar’ of saints in the Rotunda of Thessalonica, built as the mausoleum of the emperor Galerius. Mosaic, fifth/sixth century.

  Above, left: Doric temple of Athena of the fifth century bc transformed into the cathedral of Syracuse.

  Above, right: The Temple of Rome and Augustus at Ankara, famous for its bilingual inscription detailing the achievements (res gestae) of the emperor of AD 14, was transformed into a church in the sixth century. The added Christian choir is seen through the doorway.

  It is a matter of personal judgement whether one regards the cult of saints as a superstitious debasement of original Christianity or, on the contrary, as a beneficial development that gave comfort and confidence to many ordinary people. Besides, was pre-Constantinian Christianity as virginally pure as we imagine it to have been? The kind of circus described by St Hilary as occurring quotidie could not have started overnight. In theory it was all defensible: saints were human beings who had won God’s friendship and with it the ability to hear prayers and intercede on behalf of their clients. As on earth, it was more efficacious to address a request to a patron who was influential at court rather than appealing directly to the emperor who was too busy to listen. For the mass of believers, however, saints were more than human beings: demigods might be a better description. And then there was the special case of the immensely popular St Michael, who was definitely not human.

  The great club of saints in heaven was admitting new members at God’s pleasure. Now that the path of martyrdom was closed or nearly so, asceticism became the preferred option. In a world that regarded the flesh as corrupt, mortification by abstinence or even self-mutilation (as in the case of Origen) offered a powerful appeal: not only was it good in itself, but by liberating the spirit, it facilitated the acquisition of those supernatural gifts which Christ had promised to his true followers—of healing, exorcizing demons, prophecy, and working ‘signs’, i.e. miracles. It was difficult, however, to be an ascetic amid the cares and obligations of everyday life: withdrawal (anachoresis) was the answer. And so in about 270 Christian monasticism was born in Egypt and spread like wildfire throughout the empire—to Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor, reaching the West with only a slight delay. At first the government did not know what to make of monks, who did not fall into any established classification. They were not clergy, but simply committed Christians, something like the Cynic philosophers of former times. A decree of the year 390 barred them from municipalities, bidding them to inhabit ‘desert places and desolate solitudes’, but two years later that directive was revoked. Indeed, they were becoming an object of intense interest, even at court. Observers were sent to seek them out in their desolate solitudes and report on their superhuman regimen. Their sayings were recorded and circulated in special collections. Mortification became compe
titive: if father Paul could survive during the forty days of Lent on a small measure of lentils and one jug of water, one could always beat his record. As abstention became vieux jeu, more extreme forms were introduced: one could wear heavy chains or shut oneself up in a cage or take off one’s clothes and graze like an animal in the countryside or stand on top of a pillar for many years. The last expedient, invented by Symeon Stylites (d. 459) and often imitated thereafter, drew maximum publicity.

  Byzantine magical amulets, worn for protection. The two on the left have the generic Holy Rider (good) spearing a demon (evil). The round amulets have other images (lions, snakes, etc.), incantations, magical signs, and a Medusa head that are considered uterine in nature. Fourth to eleventh century.

  Facing, clockwise from top left:

  The small Umayyad bath of Qusayr ‘Amra, situated in the desert some 50 miles east of ‘Amman, is famous for its extensive painted decoration featuring foreign rulers defeated by the forces of Islam, a Zodiac, musicians, animals, nude women, etc., no doubt executed by local painters (c. AD 715).

  The ruined Umayyad palace of Khirbet al-Mafjar near Jericho (c.AD 743) contained a bath, a mosque, and several halls decorated with carved stucco and floor mosaics, mostly geometric, but also depicting a tree and wild animals.

  Mosaic in the apse of the little church of the monastery tôn Latomon (also known as Hosios David) at Thessalonica, depicting Christ seated on the rainbow, as seen by the prophets Ezekiel and Habakkuk (probably sixth century). The mosaic appears to have been deliberately concealed during the period of Iconoclasm.

  Head of the archangel Gabriel flanking the Virgin and Child in the apse of St Sophia, Constantinople (reproduced on p. 44). The elongated face is freely modelled by means of colour without the linearity characteristic of later Byzantine painting.

  Much ink has been spilt in recent years over ‘the rise of the holy man’, meaning specifically the wonder-working ascetic. Yet holy men were not a new phenomenon either inside or outside Christianity. Jesus was the archetypal holy man and the powers he vested in his disciples had been an integral part of the Church from its inception. The twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians details, if rather obscurely to us, the various types of charismatics that were part of the Christian community. Itinerant ‘prophets’ were to be received with honour unless they happened to be frauds, as we learn from the second-century Didache (Teaching of the Apostles). The tradition of ecstatic prophecy, reflected in the Shepherd of Hermas, persisted in Phrygia. Gregory, bishop of Neocaesarea (modern Niksar in north-east Turkey), worked incredible miracles in the 240s, acquiring the title of Wonderworker. The question to be asked is why supernatural charismata were usurped by the monks and, by and large, departed from the established Church. The short answer seems to be that after the Constantinian settlement the Church lost its glamour. It became part of the civil administration responsible for ideology and welfare. Salaried bishops handled large sums of money, oversaw agricultural and commercial properties, sat on municipal councils and exercised judicial functions. Few of them captured the popular imagination. Monks were different. Independent of the ecclesiastical establishment, they appeared to incarnate Christ’s persona. Even if they lived in the desert, they were not entirely cut off from society. A famous holy man would attract visitors who were willing to travel some distance so as to enjoy contact with him, receive healing or edifying advice. On occasion he would settle disputes, avert natural calamities, cause rain to fall or intervene with the authorities in a good cause. Yet it is true to say of eastern monasticism that social action was not its avowed purpose. The monk’s main goal was the attainment of personal perfection, which, as Justinian put it in his legislation, brought him close to God. Only on that condition could he confer benefit on the community through his prayers.

  Facing: Interior of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock, built on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem (AD 691–2). With its octagonal plan, marble columns and revetments, and mosaics depicting acanthus scrolls, the Dome of the Rock provides the most complete visual analogue of a Byzantine martyrium of the early period.

  We have highlighted a number of developments that were to exert a lasting impact on the Byzantine world, namely the intimate interpenetration of State and Church; the creation of a total system of Christian ‘philosophy’; an unresolved dichotomy between classical education and the radically different ideals of Christianity; the extraordinary diffusion of monasticism outside the established Church and the appropriation by it of charismatic powers. All these phenomena were rooted in the realities of the fourth century, yet survived nearly intact into a very different world. The one significant change, as we have pointed out, concerns the cessation of major theological disputes. After the Seventh Council (787) the Byzantine Church closed its books. It appeared that all the heresies had been annihilated. The approved body of doctrine was final and so perfectly formulated that nothing could henceforth be added to it and nothing taken away. As an archbishop of St Petersburg is quoted as declaring in the nineteenth century, ‘Our Church knows no development.’

  Old paganism disappeared even before the collapse of the Late Roman state in the East. We have ventured the guess that at the time of Constantine Christians made up 10 per cent of the population. Their number may have grown to 50 per cent by the end of the fourth century and to 90 per cent by the end of the fifth. Justinian ruthlessly mopped up the residue of pagans, who were obdurate academics at one end of the scale and illiterate peasants at the other. Conversion was thus fairly rapid and probably dictated more by expediency than conviction, leaving a substratum of ‘superstitious’ practices: recourse to magicians and diviners, public dances, the wearing of masks, the invocation of ‘the detestable Dionysus’ at vintage time, the lighting of fires to mark the new moon. The Quinisext Council (692) ruled that such ‘Hellenic’ practices were to be banned, but they surely continued. Magical amulets form an important part of the archaeological record even if the invocations they bear are increasingly addressed not to pagan gods, but to angels and Christian saints.

  The artistic heritage of paganism had been comprehensively smashed by dint of Christian zeal. Starting in the late fourth century, statues of the gods were toppled from their pedestals, great temples demolished, others converted into churches after being stripped of their decoration. Of course, not everything could be destroyed without going to a great deal of trouble. In the Parthenon of Athens Christians defaced the carved metopes on three sides of the temple, then gave up. The battered remains of pagan art, e.g. sculpted sarcophagi in cemeteries, acquired a sinister, demonic aura. It was best to give them a wide berth. Somewhat surprisingly, however, mythological subject matter lingered on in the private sphere of the well-to-do, especially in floor mosaics, silverware, and textiles, until as late as the seventh century. It is not likely that it held any religious significance. The Dionysiac procession in the pavement of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (second half of the sixth century) is certainly not a sign of cryptopaganism, but a ‘literary’ reminiscence, one element amongst others of a pastoral setting.

  Above: Aphrodite with Adonis, Hippolytus, and Phaedra. Mosaic of the mid-sixth century at Madaba, Jordan. The classical subject matter stands in strong contrast to the primitive style.

  Right: Dionysiac procession. Detail of the Great Palace pavement, Constantinople, second half of the sixth century.

  The gap left by paganism was filled by the cult of saints on both a practical and an imaginative level. That is not to say that there was a simple substitution, that, for example, the sun god with his chariot (Helios) was replaced by the Prophet Elijah (Elias) who went up to heaven in a chariot, or that the Virgin Mary usurped the place of Athena or Cybele or Isis. What we observe is that certain practices were maintained under changed auspices, especially in the all-important domain of healing. Incubation (sleeping in) had been widely practised under paganism in temples of Asclepius, Isis, the Dioscuri, and other divinities. A patient would bed down in a sacred precinct, mak
e the requisite offerings and await a visionary visitation that would bring about his or her recovery. Exactly the same procedure appears under Christianity, but the cures are now worked by St Michael, St Thecla, Sts Cyrus and John, Sts Cosmas and Damian. Christian incubation, similar in all respects to the pagan, flourished between the fifth and seventh centuries and subsisted until the end of the Byzantine period.

  Silver plate depicting a dancing Silenus and Maenad, dated 610–29 by its control stamps.

  At the same time the cult of saints created a new mythology. Compared to pagan legends, the Christian ones were decidedly chaste, containing much violence, but no sex. They were also rather repetitive: all martyrs exhibited constancy, they never flinched, the only variable being the torments they endured—broken on the wheel, burnt in a fire, beheaded, frozen to death in a lake. The story of their sufferings was endlessly celebrated in sermons and depicted in painting and so became part of the mental baggage of the general public. Every inhabitant of Thessalonica knew that his patron saint, Demetrius, had been speared to death by order of the godless tyrant Maximianus and had a young companion, Nestor, who had killed a famous gladiator in single combat. It is pointless to ask whether this rather rudimentary story (there is not much more to it) has any foundation in fact. What is worth observing, however, is that nearly all the more popular saints in the Byzantine pantheon were fictitious figures from a distant past or so transformed as to have lost any historical dimension. Only by being stereotypes could they fulfil the role they were called upon to play.