This polemical paper discusses the three negative reviews written by Everett L. Wheeler, Ch.G. Makrypoulias, N.D. Barabanov, and G.G. Markaryan on the book “The Armenian Military in the Byzantine ...Empire: Conflict and Alliance under Justinian and Maurice” by A.M. Ayvazyan. The detailed analysis strongly questions the academic validity and sincerity of these reviews, reveals the low professionalism and extreme tendentiousness of their criticisms. The reviewers use a similar methodology for history falsification, which includes, among other things, deliberate fabrications, distortions of the original sources, disregard for the academic literature, malign substitution of the notions, and complete rejection of the patriotic narrative. All the three reviews visibly contain an anti-Armenian political-ideological bias. The paper also summarizes the positive reviews of the same book made by qualified specialists.
The paper examines the historical context of ethics of care in early Christian discourse. The historical context of the ethics of care enables us to comprehend the ways in which ethics of care was ...employed and disseminated as part of political ideology and public discourse, significantly influencing the social relations of the rapidly changing Roman world between the fourth and seventh centuries. The Byzantine Empire is a prime example of a political entity in which philanthropy was the driving force behind imperial politics and social relations. Emperor Justinian’s laws, which proclaimed social justice and protection for those in need, serve as a case study for an ethics of care. Also, the ethics of care is reconfigured within the context of Byzantine theology as a theology of care, in which the primary virtue of a true Christian is his fervent love for the community (agape). The ethics of care is then examined from the perspective of gender and the newly established cult of the Theotokos, which degendered the concept of maternal thinking and maternal care by making it a universal experience and the new moral code for all Christians.
The word ??? is found in two of the most important collections of Byzantine law: novellas and the Eisagoge, where it takes on diff erent meanings. The article analyses the preamble to the sixth ...novella, the Eisagoge, as well as other medieval texts to establish the meaning of the concept of the “symphony of the kingdom and the priesthood”. The author shows that two diff erent versions of the “symphony” were formed in Byzantium. According to St. Justinian the Great, good harmony, capable of providing all kinds of benefi ts to the human race, does not depend on the relationship between state and church authorities. The “imperial” model of a symphony arises when the kingdom and priesthood properly fulfi ll their ministry before God. The Emperor is obliged to justly rule the Orthodox people, take care of the clergy, and monitor the observance of dogmata and canons. The role of the priesthood is reduced to prayer and the performance of the Sacraments. The second version of the symphony, refl ected in the Eisagoge, on the contrary, involves communication between representatives of the kingdom and the priesthood. The harmony of the two powers is identifi ed with the agreement between the emperor and the patriarch. Only the Patriarch of Constantinople can play such a role. Other hierarchs, including the Eastern Patriarchs, do not matter for achieving “peace and prosperity for the Christian people”. As it is shown in the article, such a separation of the Patriarch of Constantinople from the episcopate can be compared with the ecclesiological model of Roman Catholicism, and the “symphony” of the priesthood and kingdom, presented in Isagogue, with the Latin concept of “the pope behind the back of the emperor”.
The article discusses the motives of Emperor Justinian to form the supermetropolitan authority of the fi ve patriarchs. In the 4th — 6th centuries when this highest level of church power was ...gradually forming, there was no “organic metaphysics” of the five major sees; accordingly, the author of the article points at the relativism of the use of the term “pentarchy” for the early Byzantine period of church history. This idea is confirmed by the attitude of Justinian to the most prominent sees; the number of incumbents he addresses his constitutions to changes from one to fi ve, while four of them presided over the Ecumenical Council. The emperor’s rule-making and administrative methods towards the major sees cannot be explained by the seeming aimlessness of his ecclesiastical policy. Justinian is aware of the actual structure of the imperial Church that had already developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. In addition, he avoids obvious blunders of his predecessors Zeno and Anastasius, who tried to make the Church agree on compromise with anti-Chalcedonites by means of extending infl uence over a single patriarch, while separating him from his bishops and other patriarchs. Justinian learns from previous experience of Emperor Leo I and, probably, of Pope Felix III who considered the model of a one-time, “horizontal” consensus of catholic bishops to be essential for reaching an agreement in the whole Church. On the contrary, Justinian could also be infl uenced by the idea of Pope Gelasius, who denies the need for such a consensus, thus the following constitutions of Justinian established equality of the five patriarchal thrones. The author of the article also pays attention to Justinian’s ideas on the exceptional nature of his law-making powers that made him feel free to form the church government of superior rank.
This article is devoted to the study of perception in the Russian written tradition of the preamble to the sixth novel of St. Justinian the Great. It contains a well-known theory of “symphony”. As ...follows from the text of the introduction to the novel, the signifi cance of the emperor for the emergence of “good harmony” is great: he must govern the Orthodox state in a fair way, take care of the clergy, monitor the observance of dogmata and canons. The role of the priesthood is reduced to prayer and performance of the sacraments. The preamble to the sixth novel was included in the collection on church issues, later translated into the Slavonic language. There are two versions of the novel in the Slavonic languages, the later of which considerably distorts the meaning of the text of the preamble. According to the later version, both the priesthood and the reign govern the state. Both editions are found in a number of manuscripts and had been circulating in Russia for several centuries. Up to a certain time, the diff erence in translation was not signifi cant for the perception of the preamble. Only in the 17th century, when the later edition of the translation became part of the Russian printed Books of the Helmsman, it infl uenced the formation of the concept of Patriarch Nikon. This concept assumed the existence of the “wise two” in the person of the king and the patriarch, to whom pertained all the duties before God in administrating the Orthodox people, whereas according to St. Justinian, these belonged to the Byzantine emperor.
This essay compares historically unrelated religiopolitical iconographic programs executed in Byzantine Empire and Northern Wei China of the sixth century, and points out the common mechanism, ...through which these two cultures made use of religious imagery to promote imperial authority. They deployed different religious topoi befitting their respective Orthodox Christian and Buddhist-Confucian statecrafts, but arrived at surprisingly similar visual experiences. The key to the visual tactic employed in both sites, I would argue, lies in the trinity and multiplicity of the divine. The apse of San Vitale in Ravenna, completed in the years 547, suggests a double parallelism between Emperor Justinian and Christ that is further mirrored in the relationship between Christ and God the Father. The Binyang Central Cave in Longmen, completed in 523, implies a parallelism between Emperor Xuanwu’s succession to his late father, Emperor Xiaowen, and the successive salvific endeavors of the Buddhas of the Three Ages. The religiopolitical theories of Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (260–340) and the Pure Land patriarch Tanluan (曇鸞, 476–542) provide significant clues to understand these similarities.
The year 395 marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Roman Empire. The division of the imperial territory into two portions proved to be final and, in the short-term historical perspective, led ...to the downfall of the western part. The article suggests that this event was caused by a deliberate position taken by the ruling elites of the Eastern Roman Empire toward their western counterparts. The main reason for the downfall of the West thus lies in the fact that the eastern government refused to subsidize the western infrastructural and military needs with its money and other resources, which up to that time had been the necessary condition for the maintenance of the Roman civilization in the westernmost part of the Roman Empire—praefectura Galliarum. The eastern ruling class used the unique situation of the virtual absence of the Roman army and its commanders, which had withdrawn for operations in Italy, to establish the rule of a civilian government. The refusal to support the West economically led to the rise of the eastern economy, as well as to the growth in importance of eastern regions such as Syria and Egypt, which were economically the strongest. These conditions, created within the Eastern Empire after the secession of the West, in many respects resembled those of the same territories during the Hellenistic period, with the exception that now they were kept together by the efficient unifying institutions of the Roman state of Late Antiquity.
In this magisterial work, Joseph O'Callaghan offers a detailed account of the establishment of Alfonso X's legal code, theLibro de las leyesorSiete Partidas, and its applications in the daily life of ...thirteenth-century Iberia, both within and far beyond the royal courts. O'Callaghan argues that Alfonso X, el Sabio (the Wise), was the Justinian of his age, one of the truly great legal minds of human history.
Alfonso X, the Justinian of His Agehighlights the struggles the king faced in creating a new, coherent, inclusive, and all-embracing body of law during his reign, O'Callaghan also considers Alfonso X's own understanding of his role as king, lawgiver, and defender of the faith in order to evaluate the impact of his achievement on the administration of justice. Indeed, such was the power and authority of the Alfonsine code that it proved the king's downfall when his son invoked it to challenge his rule.
Throughout this soaring legal and historical biography, O'Callaghan reminds us of the long-term impacts of Alfonso X's legal works, not just on Castilian (and later, Iberian) life, but on the administration of justice across the world.
This paper offers a contribution to the research of the initial stages in the
evolution of the thematic system. It focuses on the role of Emperor Justinian
II in the formation of the new imperial ...military and territorial
organization. Byzantine scholars have determined a long time ago that it is
Justinian II who should be credited with the founding of new military
districts (themes) in Hellas and Sicily. This paper, however, suggests that
the formation of the themes in Thrace and Kibyrrhaiotai could also be
considered a part of Justinian?s policy. In addition, the paper aims to
highlight Justinian?s role in the formation of the frontier military and
administrative system (the kleisourai of Strymon and Cappadocia), as well as
in the reform of military and territorial organization in the Aegean basin.
By creating new army units which were not based on the Late Roman heritage,
Justinian essentially abandoned the principles that the Byzantine army had
previously functioned on. Finally, the paper highlights the fact that the
establishment of new thematic units under Emperor Justinian II was coupled
with his extensive colonization measures.
Compared to other chronic conditions, gout has a remarkable position in medical, historical and other texts from the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century AD - the age of emperor Justinian. The ...disease and its treatment is thoroughly described in the medical literature, and an effective and still applied drug for treatment of acute attacks - colchicine - was invented already in the fourth century by Byzantine physicians. The disease was apparently accumulated among Byzantine emperors, and according to one source, Justinian was a patient himself. Also, gout may have been common among the citizens of Constantinople. As gout can be due to lead poisoning, a contributing cause for this accumulation may have been exposure to high levels of lead, originating from water pipes, wine containers and cooking pots used for producing the sweetening grape syrup sapa. Although gout seems to have been a significant, widespread and invalidating disease, its influence on the Byzantine society is uncertain. The position of the disease can be interpreted as an indication that lead poisoning was a common condition, thus contributing to other and possibly more important effects on the population and the society.
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