Sensibly, the synod affirmed and strengthened previous condemnations of adultery, fornication, abortion, and maintaining a bawdy house. It banned gambling with dice, and also outlawed appearing as an actor in a theatrical show. From the time when these rules were promulgated, I vigorously enforced them.
MYAKES
That he did, Brother Elpidios, that he did. You should have heard people grumble, too. You tell your Constantinopolitan he can't have his shows, you tell him he can't throw the dice, and he won't be very happy. I'd be lying if I said I never got down on my knees in the dirt myself, matter of fact. Yes, I was at the sessions. Yes, I heard gambling with dice condemned. Why did I do it? It's fun, that's why. I'm a sinner? Now give me news I haven't heard.
Eh? What do you want to know? Did Justinian leave off his drinking and fornicating after he set his signature on all those canons? He was twenty-two years old, give or take a year, and Emperor of the Romans. What do you think he did?
You're right. That's what he did. If you already know the answers, why ask the questions?
As I urged it to do, the synod condemned certain practices followed by the Armenians and by the barbarians in the west. The Armenian bishops raised no objection to the four canons that sought to regulate affairs in their church, nor, at the time, did the few clerics who had come from the west complain about the forbidding of fasting on Saturdays during the Lenten season, about prohibiting the eating of meat from strangled animals, or about other small-souled, exotic, and newfangled usages prevailing in that part of the world.
And so the synod moved on to consider canons pertaining to marriage. It affirmed that men previously married who were ordained as deacons or priests could, and indeed were required to, keep the wives with whom they had exchanged the holy and sacred vows of matrimony.
Here Basil, the bishop of Gortyna on the island of Crete, who, being under the jurisdiction of the pope of Rome, had also helped represent Rome at the sixth ecumenical synod, protested, saying, "The custom in the west is different, and requires complete celibacy of priests and deacons. Those there who have wives must put them aside to be ordained."
"This is but another barbarous error on the part of western clerics," the ecumenical patriarch said. "Have they forgotten the words of the book of Matthew: 'What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder'? For your reference," he added slightingly, as if Basil could not be expected to know, "this is the sixth verse of the nineteenth chapter."
Paul spoke as if explaining proper doctrine to a child, not to a fellow churchman. The bishops under the jurisdiction of the see of Constantinople made only the slightest efforts to conceal their amusement, having long since wearied of the arrogant pretensions of the popes, who, dwelling in the ruins of what was once a great city, think to dictate doctrine to the entire civilized world.
Basil of Gortyna held his temper. He said, "Practice in the west differs, and the differences are of long enough establishment to be tolerated under the principle of economy."
George and Daniel, Pope Sergios's regular legates in Constantinople, nodded in agreement. But Paul shook his head, saying, "The principle of economy covers differences of ritual without doctrinal importance. That cannot be said of rules pertaining to the proper ordination of priests and deacons."
Basil looked mournful. "The holy pope will not care to set his signature on canons going dead against the custom in his patriarchate."
He and the papal legates wrangled on with the ecumenical patriarch and the bishops from within the Roman Empire for some time over this matter and others, such as the canon that- only reconfirming the acts of the second and fourth ecumenical synods- placed Constantinople with Rome in patriarchal privilege, ranking after it only in the listing of the patriarchates.
I heard much of this later, for I did not attend all these sessions of the fifth-sixth synod, having other matters to occupy my attention. Chief among these was the return of the Cypriots, who again petitioned me to let them leave their island and settle within territory under the sole rule of the Roman Empire.
Where I had refused them before, I now accepted their pleas, resettling a good many of them in Bithynia, not far from the imperial city. Thanks to Abimelekh's insolent provocations with his coins and papyrus sheets, I was more inclined toward war than I had been previously, and, thanks to the exertions of Neboulos, who to my amazement was building his army to the size he had promised, more confident of the outcome.
In my honor, the Cypriots renamed the town in which I resettled them New Justinianopolis. This touched me even more than it might have otherwise, for their luck during the resettlement was not good: a storm sank some of the ships carrying them to their new home, while a pestilence raged among them after the transfer. But they sent John, whose acquaintance I had already made, to the fifth-sixth synod. Despite his previous foolishness, I was glad to see him there, as a sign of their making themselves at home.
Not long after the Cypriots had been moved to New Justinianopolis, Cyril the engraver asked for an audience with me. "Emperor, I have it!" he cried upon rising after prostrating himself.
"Splendid," I said agreeably, pleased to see one of my subjects so diligent in his service to me. I have it! being imperfectly informative, though, I asked, "What do you have?"
"The way you were seeking, Emperor; to show the deniers of Christ the folly of the ways and the glory of the true and holy faith," he answered.
I leaned forward on the throne; he had indeed engaged my interest. "Show me what you have," I said, and beckoned him to me, a rare privilege for an artisan, even one so skilled as Cyril.
As he approached, he reached down to a pouch he wore on his belt. A couple of the excubitores who stood nearest the throne stepped between him and me, pointing their spears at him with warning growls. But he had not come with assassination in mind; all he drew from the leather pouch was a sheet of papyrus on which he had been sketching in charcoal.
The papyrus, I saw, was one of the new sheets from Egypt, one on which the customary cross had been replaced by verses from the work of the Arabs' false prophet. That made Cyril's sketches all the more glorious, for they could have been taken to symbolize Christianity's triumph over the wicked doctrines Mouamet preached.
One sketch showed a Roman Emperor recognizably resembling me standing by and holding a step-mounted cross, a cross such as had been commonplace on the reverse of Roman nomismata for centuries. Cyril had lettered an inscription around the rim of the circular sketch: D. IUSTINIANUS SERVUS CHRISTI. Most of the letters were Latin, only a few Greek. "Lord Justinian, servant of Christ," he said, translating it into the tongue that had replaced Latin for most purposes in the Empire.
I nodded, but absently, for I was looking at the other sketch, which was of our Lord. Cyril had portrayed Him as Christ Pantokrator; the Ruler of All, His right hand flexed in a gesture of benediction, His left holding a book. The cross on which He was crucified appeared behind His head. Here the inscription read, again in a mixture of Latin and Greek letters, IES. CRISTOS REX REGNANTIUM. "Jesus Christ, King of Rulers," Cyril translated. He looked up at me. "Emperor, a nomisma with this on it will tell the followers of the false prophet what we think of him and of them."
"It will," I breathed. Coins go everywhere within the Roman Empire, and, thanks to the unchanging fineness of our gold, far beyond as well. A story told by a certain Kosmas, who sailed to India during the reign of my namesake, a century and a half before my time, comes to mind. An Indian prince asked him and a Persian merchant who was also present at his court which of them had a mightier sovereign. The Persian, of course, at once claimed his king was the mightier.