Justinian
Page 5
Now I felt embarrassed, for I did not know of this icon. "Tell me what you saw and heard of it," I urged him, not wishing to show my ignorance.
"I only hear this," he said. "They say a man, a witless fellow, strikes at the image with his spear." The last word came out in Latin, but it was one Myakes knew. "The spear goes into the column of stone. The man's hands go into the column, too, and all his ten fingers; they are stuck there." Arculf held out his own hands, the fingers extended, to show what he meant. He made as if to pull back and be unable; he had no small skill as a mime, though olive oil greased the skin of his right index finger and thumb.
He went on, "He is stuck, as I say. He prays- with tears, he repents. And God, 'who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn and live'"- he quoted from Ezekiel-"lets him go. But the marks where his fingers go into the stone, these are there to this day. It is a great icon, true?"
"True indeed," I said, and crossed myself again.
Then Arculf told me of an image of the altogether immaculate Virgin Mother of God. Inspired by the devil, a Jew took it down from the wall on which it had been set, threw it into a privy nearby, and then shat on it to dishonor Christ. A pious Christian, learning what had happened, rescued the icon, cleaned it, and washed it in pure water.
"Ever since that day," the Gallic bishop said, "it gives out from itself a pure oil, a good-smelling oil, that cures sickness better than any man of medicine. I see this image, I see this oil, with these eyes." He touched each eyelid with his index finger so I could not misunderstand. "These icons have much strength, true?"
"True," I repeated, making the sign of the cross once more. Now I had always known of the power of holy icons; had not the one human hands did not create helped defend this God-guarded and imperial city against the attacks of the followers of the false prophet? But Arculf seemed to be seeing these things with fresh eyes, and he made me see them so, too. Since that day, I have advanced the holy images in every way I have thought of, including some never used before in all the days of the Roman Empire.
MYAKES
Is that where he came up with his idea? Brother Elpidios, you could knock me over with a feather, and that is the God's truth. If I've thought of Bishop Arculf of Rhemoulakion or whatever the name of his town was three times in these past fifty years, it's a miracle, nothing else but. But it seems he never escaped Justinian's mind, which only goes to show you never can tell.
Old fool that I am, I'd forgotten about that icon of the Mother of God, too. I wonder how the Emperor Leo would explain its power, I do, I do. But he might have a way. He was always tricky, Leo was. Well, enough of that. Go on.
JUSTINIAN
As have all such, the sixth holy and ecumenical synod, the third held in Constantinople, proceeded on the course the Emperor had set for it from the beginning. I headed an ever-increasing number of the sessions myself, for my father began to be concerned with reports that the Bulgars, a loathsome tribe then newly arrived at the Danube, were raiding Roman cities and farms south of the river. He dared not let my uncles preside; both Herakleios and Tiberius, as I have noted, were vehemently of the monothelite party (although I feel certain they would have espoused orthodoxy with equal vehemence had my father favored monotheletism).
Thus I presided over the debates of the learned- and the not so learned- theologians as they worked their way toward consensus. Only one voice was consistently raised in opposition to the doctrine of Christ's two wills and two energies: that of Makarios, patriarch of Antioch. His patriarchal see being under the rule of the followers of the false prophet, he could uphold his own misguided beliefs without fear of retribution from the Emperor.
Like Theodore, former patriarch of Constantinople, Makarios justified his vile and erroneous dogma by means of Dionysios the Areopagite's phrase referring to the divine-human energy of Christ. The rest of the bishops hurled against him a great barrage of quotations from the Scriptures and from the writings of the holy fathers of ancient days. He refused to own himself beaten, but his views, plainly, were those of but a tiny minority of the assembled clerics.
Winter wheeled round toward spring. Lent began, ushering in the approach to the day of our Lord's holy resurrection from the dead. And then, at the fifteenth session of the ecumenical synod, one of Makarios's few backers, a scrawny cleric named Polykhronios, who had made himself notable both for ostentatious piety and for what was obviously a lifetime's abhorrence of cleanliness, presented me with a memorial addressed to my father.
"Thank you, your reverence," I said, thankful mostly that he withdrew once more into the ranks of his fellow bishops.
"Read it, Prince!" he called in harsh, Syrian-accented Greek. "The salvation of your soul depends on it!"
A man who is ostentatiously pious can sometimes also get by with being ostentatiously rude. And, since the synod had been summoned for the salvation of souls, I could hardly disregard him. The memorial was legibly written; I could not dispute that. My lips moved as I rapidly took it in. "Your reverence," I said, "I see little here different from the views the assembled bishops have decided to be heresy and error, and so I-"
"They are not heresy and error!" Polykhronios shouted in a great voice, so that his words came echoing back from the dome of the great church. "They are the truth!"
When he interrupts the son of the Emperor of the Romans, even a man of ostentatious piety has gone too far. The ecumenical patriarch George said, "Reverend Polykhronios, surely you forget yourself. We who have gathered here at the Emperor Constantine's urging-"
"The truth!" Polykhronios all but screamed. He pointed to the memorial, which I still held. "Set those holy words on a dead man's chest and he will live again, just as Lazarus did when Christ called, 'Come forth!'a160"
He could not have cause greater commotion among the assembled bishops had he set fire to the great church. Some shouted that he was a fool, others that he was a madman. But still others, including a surprising number who till that time had seemed warm in their support for the doctrine of the two wills and two energies, shouted just as loudly in support of Polykhronios. One of them pulled the beard of a man who had remained loyal to that doctrine. His victim hit him in the pit of the stomach. They fell to the floor together, kicking and clawing at each other in what looked like a death struggle.
"Order!" I cried. "Let us have order!" That seemed to be only the first fight to break out of many that were simmering. What would my father do to me if, at a session over which I presided, the holy ecumenical synod degenerated into brawling and riot, making him a laughingstock not only throughout Christendom but also to the Arabs? Some lessons I did not want to learn. "Order!" I cried again, but my voice was still a boy's, high and shrill. They did not heed me.
I glanced back to the excubitores in mute appeal. Thank God, there behind my left shoulder stood faithful Myakes. His eyes asked a silent question. I nodded- desperately, I suspect.
"Order!" he and his comrades yelled together, a deep roar that cut through the bishops' bickering like a knife slicing cheese. The guardsmen slammed the butts of their spears down on the stone floor, so hard I hoped they did not crack it.
For a moment, I had silence. Into it, I said, "I do not think Polykhronios can do what he says he can." That threatened to start the hubbub anew. I looked back at Myakes again, and again he and his fellow excubitores struck their spears against the floor, which bought me another brief, tenuous stretch of quiet. I went on, "Let him prove it, if God grants him the ability." I pointed to him. "If the dead man does not rise, will you admit the doctrine of the one will and energy is wrong?"
"He will rise," Polykhronios declared, so confidently that I wondered if he knew exactly whereof he spoke.
George the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, whose church that of the Holy Wisdom was, said, "No corpse shall defile and pollute this shrine."
One of the excubitores shouted out, "Take the stiff to the Baths of Zeuxippos! He'll come clean there, by Jesus!"
MYAKES
I didn't mean it for anything but a joke, Brother Elpidios. How was I supposed to know they'd take me up on it? So Justinian never knew I was the one who yelled, eh? I didn't think he did. When you get right down to it, I'm glad he didn't.
Did I think Polykhronios could raise the dead? I tell you this, Brother: he surely thought he could. I'd never heard anybody claim that before. Matter of fact, I've never heard anybody claim that since. If he could do it, I wanted to be there to see it happen, you had best believe that.
JUSTINIAN
Though rebuilt after a fire in the reign of my namesake, a century and a half before the time of which I write, the Baths of Zeuxippos, between the palaces and the hippodrome, are far older than that; they were built by the Emperor Septimius Severus, more than a hundred years before Constantine the Great accepted Christianity and transformed Byzantium into Constantinople. I mention this because the baths were ornamented in pagan style, with eighty statues of philosophers and poets and even figures from their false mythology. Many of the bishops drew back in dismay on seeing them, some making the sign of the cross.
George the patriarch of Constantinople also crossed himself, but more as a gesture of peace than as one intended to turn aside evil. "They are but memories," he said.
And, to my surprise, Polykhronios agreed. "As Christ cast out demons, so shall the words of His pure and holy faith protect us against any lingering wickedness here," he said, holding the memorial before him like a shield.
We then had some little wait while the excubitores went into the city to find the body of someone newly dead. Polykhronios, I regret to say, showed no interest in using the baths for any but his own purposes. In the warm, steamy air within the bathhouse, his sharp stink seemed stronger than ever. Arculf bought a handful of chickpeas fried in olive oil from a vender for a copper or two and popped them all into his mouth at once, so that his cheeks puffed out like a squirrel's.
Presently the guardsmen returned, carrying the linen-wrapped body of a gray-bearded man who looked to have died of some wasting sickness, for he was skeletally lean. The aromatic odors of the wine and spices with which he had been washed fought against Polykhronios's reek.
Behind the excubitores came the fellow's kinsfolk, now wailing and beating their chests and pulling their hair, now looking hopefully to Polykhronios. "Make him live!" they cried. "Make Andreas live again!"
"Live he shall," Polykhronios said. A woman whose lined face bore the stunned expression of one who has lost someone dear- Andreas's widow, she proved to be- fell on her knees before him and kissed his dirty feet.
The excubitores laid the corpse on a silver table that at other times might have held casseroles of fish, cheese, and vegetables, or perhaps salt pork and cabbage cooked in fat, along with fruit and honey cakes for the pleasure of the bathers.
Polykhronios was about to set his monothelite memorial on dead Andreas's chest when another delay ensued: a runner came hotfoot from the palace ordering that he do no such thing until the Emperors Constantine, Herakleios, and Tiberius got there to witness the promised miracle.
By the time their sedan chairs arrived, the excubitores had to use spear shafts to clear a path by which they could approach the makeshift bier. Word of what Polykhronios intended had spread quickly through Constantinople, as rumors have a way of doing, and throngs of people, many of them arguing the theology of monotheletism with as much sophistication as the bishops of the ecumenical synod, gathered in the Baths of Zeuxippos to learn whether Polykhronios could do as he said.
My father limped in leaning on a stick, with his foot bandaged; his gout had been plaguing him again. In spite of that, he was making ready to attack the Bulgars when the weather grew more certain. He took his place by the patriarch of Constantinople. My uncles, by contrast, ranged themselves with Makarios of Antioc h and his followers. Nothing would have made them gladder than having Polykhronios vindicate the first Herakleios's dogma.
"Go ahead," my father told the man who claimed he could raise the dead.
Polykhronios bowed and, stepping up to Andreas's corpse with portentous stride, set his memorial on its chest. Everything in the bathhouse was silent as the tomb, save only a long indrawn breath from the dead man's widow.
Andreas did not move. He remained as he had lain since the excubitores set him on the silver table. "Live!" Polykhronios told him. But his eyes did not open, his chest did not begin to rise and fall, his pale, still, waxy features did not grow ruddy with vitality. In a word, he remained dead.
Several bishops sighed then: the monothelites who had hoped to see their doctrine proved in one fell swoop. A moment later, other bishops also sighed, these, I thought, with relief: the men who, like my father, supported the doctrine of two wills and two energies.
Thinking of my father, I glanced toward him. He had just finished signing himself with the holy cross, and now stared balefully at Polykhronios. "False priest, you are a fraud, and your dogma an error," he said, as if passing sentence. And so he was- sentence on monotheletism.
Andreas's widow let out a great wail of cheated hope, and would have attacked Polykhronios with clawed fingers had Myakes not seized her shoulders and held her back. As for Polykhronios himself, he answered only, "I am not beaten yet." He tugged at the dead man's shroud so his memorial could rest directly on flesh. Even after that, though, Andreas lay unmoving.
"Live!" Polykhronios said, this time in some annoyance, as if the corpse were a willful child disobeying its father. He muttered into dead Andreas's ears. I could not hear everything he said, but I think it was incantation, not prayer. Whatever it was, it had no effect.
After an hour passed with no resurrection, the assembled bishops grew restive. Arculf began popping handfuls of chickpeas into his mouth once more (in truth, he had not stopped doing that all through Polykhronios's performance, but he had slowed down).
And George the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, with wickedly sardonic glee, quoted from First Kings, the passage wherein Elijah mocked the priests of Baal when they proved unable to summon him: "Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is musing, or he is gone aside, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.'
Some of the bishops, recognizing the allusion, laughed out loud. Arculf was swallowing as George spoke, and almost choked to death. Hatred flashed in Polykhronios's dark eyes, but it surely was, as the corpse on the silver table attested, hatred of an impotent sort.
Polykhronios kept trying to persuade dead Andreas to live until my father at last lost patience with him. This took longer than I would have expected, but when it happened, it happened all at once. Pointing first to the memorial on Andreas's unmoving chest and then to Polykhronios, he demanded, "Having seen your own failure, do you now admit the error of your dogma?"
To my amazement- to everyone's amazement- Polykhronios shook his head. "No, Emperor, I do not," he declared. "Since the doctrine is perfect and true, the error must lie in me, and I-"
As I said, once my father lost patience, he lost all patience. He allowed the bishop not another word, but shouted, "Let Polykhronios be anathema!"
"Let Polykhronios be anathema!" Baying like wolves, the bishops took up the cry, loudest among them George. Polykhronios's protests were overwhelmed in an avalanche of scorn, and the anathema duly recorded for all time in the acts of the holy ecumenical synod.
***
On Holy Thursday, as was the custom each year, the three pieces of the holy and life-giving wood of the True Cross were removed from their case and set on a golden altar in the center of the great church. As always when the case is opened, a scent like that of all the flowers in the world came forth, and everyone in the church of the Holy Wisdom sighed
with pleasure.
My father advanced to the holy and life-giving wood, bowed his head, and kissed it. After him came my uncles Herakleios and Tiberius, the junior Emperors. Then it was my turn. Though I had performed the ritual every year of my life since I could toddle to the altar, it took on a special meaning with the bishops assembled for the ecumenical synod watching as I brushed the True Cross with my lips. The wood was smooth from countless kisses. At each knot, oil with that special fragrance welled forth. After Easter, that oil would be gathered and used to treat the sick, for whom it was a surer cure than any physician could give.
My brother Herakleios followed me to the True Cross. After him came Christopher the count of the excubitores- the commander of the imperial bodyguard- his mandator or chief deputy Theodore of Koloneia, and the other leading soldiers of the realm. I remember Florus, Petronas, and Kyprianos, still basking in the glory of their victory over the Arabs three years before, and the first appearance in the great church of a new general, a round-faced man named Leontios, who had won distinction in the endless skirmishes in Armenia. The procession of warriors continued until all the excubitores had kissed the life-giving wood.
On Good Friday my mother, the Empress Anastasia, led a similar procession of the women of the court. And on the Saturday of the Passover Sabbath, the bishops who had come to the imperial city for the sixth holy and ecumenical synod joined patriarch George of Constantinople and the other clerics who served the great church in adoring the life-giving wood. When the lips of Arculf of Rhemoulakion touched it, I wondered if he would leave on it oil different from that which it secreted of its own accord, as he had been eating olives again while the procession of bishops formed. But the man behind him made no complaint, so perhaps he had managed to wipe his mouth on his sleeve.