PAUL FREEDMAN: Alright, so
today the question
we're going to deal with is
the survival of the Roman
Empire in the East. Why did
the Empire, based in
Constantinople, survive,
whereas, as we saw last week,
the Western Empire based,
nominally, in Rome-- at times
in Milan, at times
in Ravenna--
collapsed in the
fifth century?
We're going to take a long view
of survival in the East -
that is, from the
fifth century to
the mid-ninth century.
After the mid-ninth century,
the Eastern Roman Empire
flourishes and has a period,
that we will discuss in a few
weeks, of great splendor
and prosperity.
But this long view is justified
by the fact that for
400 years, or so, this Eastern
Roman Empire faced tremendous
threats of invasion, sieges,
difficulties dealing with all
sorts of nations and peoples,
and, at the same time,
internal division, because
of religious controversy.
Or what the people who
won, called heresies.
I remind you that while we
call it the Eastern Roman
Empire or the Byzantine Empire,
they called themselves
the Roman Empire no adjective,
no qualification.
They were the successor to--
and if they were the only
successor, tough luck--
the empire of Augustus, the
empire of Diocletian, the
empire of Constantine.
In their base, before the
seventh century, they were, as
you see on the map.
The map really shows them, more
or less, at their height.
Eastern Roman Empire-- notice
that it goes as far as Spain
in the Mediterranean.
This was the accomplishment of
Justinian, and emperor of the
sixth century, whose reign
marks a kind of apogee, a
height of power of this
empire, within in
this period of crisis.
So while I'm saying that we are
dealing with about four
century's worth of sieges and
crises, there is this period
in the sixth century, in the
reign of Justinian, who
represents a kind of brief, but
very important, reconquest
of the West. And that's partly
what you're seeing, at least
the leftovers of it, in this
map, that shows you the
Byzantine or Eastern Roman
Empire in the year 600,
extending--
including Spain, North Africa,
the coast of what's now Libya,
Egypt, the Mediterranean
Middle East--
that is modern Israel,
Syria, Lebanon--
Anatolia--
that is to say Asia Minor,
modern Turkey--
and the Balkans, Greece,
and the Aegean Islands.
This empire was held together
by Constantinople, which, as
you see, and as we've already
spoken about, is strategically
placed to control access between
Europe and Asia,
across the Bosporus Straits,
and also between the Black
Sea, which is the access point
to Central Asia and the
Mediterranean Sea.
This city, modern Istanbul,
still has the walls built by
Theodosius II, in the
early fifth century.
The so-called Theodosian
Walls--
rather nastily restored
recently--
are an incredible monument,
still, in their ruined state,
to the power of Constantinople,
as they were
built on the landward side.
Constantinople--
very difficult to attack from
the sea, and, because of the
walls, very difficult to
attack from the land.
Until very recently, that is, I
would say, until the 1980s,
the Theodosian walls were
not reached by the urban
agglomeration of Istanbul.
That is, they were so big and so
far from the main center of
the city, that only in recent
decades has Istanbul, which is
one of the fastest growing and
most prosperous cities in the
region, has the city leapfrogged
over the walls,
and the walls are now in
the kind of midst of a
new part of the city.
Nevertheless, extremely
impressive accomplishment.
And the period we're dealing
with is mostly sieges of
Constantinople and heresies.
And if you just hold that in
your mind, this, somewhat,
"one event after another, that
I never heard of," quality,
that this will have, I think
will be, if not alleviated, at
least rendered comprehensible.
Before we go on, let
me just say a
few words about Procopius.
Who has read the Secret
History before?
OK.
So not too much.
You should have started it.
I should've warned you.
It has disturbing, even weirdly
pornographic parts.
It is a diatribe against
the Emperor Justinian.
I don't think I'm giving
anything away by saying that
Procopius' theory about
Justinian is that he's a
demon, a devil, a representative
of hell.
What makes this text
interesting, is it's an
intimate portrayal, even if it
may not be an accurate one.
But we will pay a certain
price-- we are willing to pay
a certain price for intimacy,
for immediacy, for the sense
of an extremely sinister
court.
It's a little bit like reading
about Stalin, or some other
capricious, extremely powerful,
hard-working, but
bloodthirsty ruler.
I think what you have to ask
yourself is, how could a ruler
of this particular time and
polity, not be bloodthirsty?
What seems to be Procopius'
problem?
And we'll elucidate some
answers on Wednesday.
Procopius, in part, is
interesting, because all of
this other works are lavish in
their praise of Justinian.
This is an historian who
knows nothing between
panegyric and diatribe.
Nothing between lavish servile
praise and the harshest
imaginable criticism.
The two go together.
The two are phenomena, again,
all of absolutist courts from
that of Louis XIV to that of
twentieth century dictators.
The same kind of enforced praise
can create a kind of
humiliation and rage that comes
out in other forms.
A Secret History had to be
secret, because had the
authorities read a few words of
this, Procopius would have
not died in bed, as,
indeed, he did.
We know this from one manuscript
in the Vatican
found in the seventeenth
century.
OK.
So that's my introduction
to Procopius.
When we talk about survival of
the East, we're talking about
survival under several
different kinds of
circumstances.
So our first concern is, how did
the East survive the fifth
century, which destroyed the
Western Roman Empire?
Part of the answer
is geography.
The East was easier to defend,
especially, as I've just said,
the position of Constantinople,
both as an
impregnable site and as a
commercial city with very,
very extensive trade, and as a
base to defend the two core
territories of the Empire.
By core territories, I mean
that, really, the essential
parts of this empire, which
are the Balkans--
including Greece under that
rubric, for the moment--
and Asia Minor.
And, of course, Constantinople
is ideally placed to protect
both of them.
Other advantages of the
East over the West--
a bit richer, more urbanized,
produced more taxable revenues
than the West. It's army
didn't fall apart.
It's civilian structure of
administration remained intact.
With the exception of Justinian,
very few these
emperors are that outstanding
in their abilities.
But their subordinates were very
capable, the government
worked well, and the East
survived a number of powerful
threats from the outside.
"From the outside" meaning it
had the same problem as the
Roman Empire, in an, admittedly,
smaller and more
defensible space.
It had an eastern frontier and
it had a northern frontier,
both of which were fragile.
The eastern frontier
with Persia--
we already talked about them--
and the Northern frontier, along
the Danube River, more
or less, with all sorts of
different peoples, from the
Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, all
sorts of nations that
would attack it.
It also had the disadvantage of
internal religious dissent.
And we're going to be talking
more about this.
These problems, eventually, did
affect the East adversely.
It would have a period of pretty
radical decline, not so
different from that of the West.
Beginning in the seventh
century, this decline can be
seen in the abandonment of
many cities, or their much
smaller population--
we've already seen that as
a feature of the West--
in the loss of territory.
We're going to be talking
about Islam
and the Arab conquests.
But they begin in the seventh
century, and, very quickly,
result in the loss, from the
Byzantine point of view, of
Egypt and the Mediterranean
Near East.
But unlike the West, the
Byzantine, or East Roman
government, never collapsed in
the face of these threats.
Although, it is a kind of period
of cultural decline.
Certainly, a period of military
defeats, of sieges,
of political problems, and
of religious dissent.
Nevertheless, the Empire
would survive.
In general, during this period,
what unites these 400
years-- we're talking about,
roughly, 450 to 850--
is the ability of the empire
to resist invasions, its
willingness to accept the loss
of certain provinces, while
protecting others, and its
domination of Constantinople
over its region.
At the opening of our period,
cities like Alexandria and
Antioch are extremely
important.
Their importance within the
Byzantine Empire declines.
But in order to understand
that some of the internal
problems, we're going to have
to talk about heresies.
I think I already apologized
for having to talk about
heresies, and I think I already
explained why it's important.
Questions, remarks,
denunciations?
OK.
Representatives of the
iconoclast defense fund want
to claim equal time?
OK.
This is just a selection
of heresies, right?
I mean, it's the proverbial
tip of the iceberg, the
proverbial icing on the
cake, the proverbial--
what do you call it--
crust on the chocolate
pudding.
But having said that, these
two are what are called
Christological controversies.
They're about the nature of
Christ. The relationship of
his human to divine nature.
And, grossly, to oversimplify,
the Nestorians emphasize
Christ's divine nature, and
the Monophysites, Christ's
human nature.
[correction: the nestorians
emphasize Christ's human
nature; the Monophysites
His divine nature].
The beginning of this
controversy is with the
Nestorians, named after the
patriarch, Nestorius, the
bishop, Patriarch of
Constantinople.
Nestorius seemed to teach --
and he's patriarch in the
420s, and the stories
would be deposed
in for 431, as patriarch.
His followers seemed to teach
that Christ was fully human
and that his divine nature was
either separate from is human
nature, or it was nonexistent
or irrelevant.
I should remind you that the
problem is posed by Christ
being God, and yet, being
crucified and
suffering and dying.
So this is a problem that,
logically, arises out of an
understanding of who Christ is
and what he does for humanity.
Nestorius was deposed by the
Third Ecumenical Council of
Constantinople--
I'm sorry, the Third Ecumenical
Council, which
meets in Ephesus, on the western
shore of Asia Minor.
Council of Ephesus, Ecumenical
Council-- the
third one in 431.
The first two had dealt
with Arianism.
I remind you that Arianism is
a different problem, because
it deals not with the nature
of Christ, but the
relationship of Christ
to God the Father.
Here, we're now just
concentrating on Christ. The
Monophysites, in opposing the
Nestorians, naturally
emphasized Christ's divine
nature, as the Nestorians had,
in their opinion,
overemphasized the human nature.
But from the point of view of
the group that we can call
Orthodox, the people who
believe neither in
Nestorianism nor Monophysitism,
both sides were
extremists.
The Monophysites over did
Christ's divine natures.
If the Nestorians taught that
Christ had two nature's, a
kind of fully human one and a
fully divine one, that were
separate, the Monophysites
seemed to be teaching, or did
teach, that Christ had
one nature, and that,
essentially, divine.
The relationship of the human
and divine natures in
Monophysitism was denounced by
their opponents as if you
threw a bucket of water
into the ocean.
The bucket of water representing
the human part.
What's at stake in this, and
why it's important, is how
Christ saves people.
If he is too human, then he's
just a human, elevated by God,
like some kind of ancient-world
hero.
And he doesn't seem, then, to
have the power to save people
from the devil, hell, original
sin, all of these terrible
things that God has saved the
followers of Christ from.
If he's divine, completely
divine, then what's the point
of distinguishing him
from God the Father?
And then, how did he suffer
on the cross?
Was his suffering real?
Can God, with no human
elements, suffer?
Questions about this so far?
We understand the difference,
then?
And we, sort of, understand
what's at stake?
Sort of, because maybe
we are thinking--
I hope not, because you're not
in a medieval frame of mind,
if you're thinking this--
You may be thinking, though,
none the less, "Well, why
don't they just agree to
disagree?" Or something like,
"Hey, you can believe in one
nature, I'll believe in two."
Or, "You can believe in two
separate natures, I'll believe
in two natures coexisting.
And God will reward your
good intentions."
That's really the problem, is
that we live in a society in
which, at least, so
we may think.
enlightened people don't really
impose their beliefs,
in detail, on others.
We're not really interested
in theology that much.
But the Bible, I've got to
admit, does say that it is
important to have the
right belief.
The Bible, particularly, but
not exclusively, the Old
Testament, is very bad on
rewarding good intentions.
The further back you go in the
Bible, the less are good
intentions rewarded.
Lot's wife was told
not to look back.
She looked back.
She was turned into
a pillar of salt.
Nobody said, "Oh, OK, you didn't
mean to look back" or
you know, "human weakness."
That's just it.
Or the guy--
now I'm betraying
my ignorance--
who stumbles as they're carrying
the tabernacle back
to Jerusalem, from captivity
with the Philistines.
Is it Usiah?
Well, anyway, I shouldn't
get started on things
I'm not sure of.
But the guy stumbles, and
God strikes him dead.
He stumbled.
Nobody asks him, "Oh, I'm
sorry, I didn't mean to
stumble," or "a little rabbit
ran in front of me." He
stumbles: he dies: that's it.
God wants you to understand
what's going on.
Insofar as you don't
make errors.
Therefore, the right
understanding of Christ's
nature is important.
It's not just a matter of
convincing other people that
one band is better than another,
or one kind of game
is better another, or one team
is better than another.
It is crucial.
Gregory of Nyssa, himself a
theologian, writes, about 500
AD or so, that the mood of
theological controversy is so
great, that if you go into a
shop, and you ask about your
change, he says, the shopkeeper
philosophizes about
the begotten and
the unbegotten.
If you inquire about a loaf of
bread, the baker will reply,
that the Son is inferior, and
the Father is superior.
And if you ask if your bath is
ready, the attendant says that
the sun is made out
of nothing.
Now, all of this is a satiric
remark about the way in which
ordinary people are caught up in
this religious controversy.
It is not, exclusively,
a matter of
intellectuals or clergy.
But it's a political problem as
well, and that's the reason
that it really preoccupies us.
In the Council of Chalcedon
in 451-454.
So Ephesus, 431, Chalcedon,
451 to 454.
Chalcedon, also on the other
side of Constantinople on the
Asian side of what's
now Turkey.
The Council of Chalcedon
denounced the Monophysites.
It basically says that Christ
has two natures.
They are both perfect,
they are indivisible,
but they are separate.
Two natures, one person,
one hypostasis.
A "hypostasis" is a thing that
exists in its own right.
This solution was suggested
by Rome, by the pope.
The same Pope Leo
the Great, who'd
negotiated with the Huns.
The West had the advantage of
not experiencing these kinds
of controversies.
And so Constantinople,
far more powerful
than Rome in the 450s--
Rome, about to collapse
completely--
nevertheless, is beholden to
Rome for, at least what would
be the majority solution, to the
problem of Monophysitism.
Of course, actually, it's not
a solution, because not
everybody acknowledges the
Council of Chalcedon.
It provokes a split.
The Patriarch of Alexandria
would be the leader of those
resisting the Council, and
Egypt, Syria, and, to some
extent, Lebanon and Palestine,
would be Monophysite,
steadfastly.
Indeed, the survivors of
the Monophysites--
that is the modern-day
representatives of this part
of Christianity--
are the Copts, in Egypt, who
form ten percent of the
population--
Christian Monophysites--
and the Christians of Ethiopia,
who form a little
more than fifty percent of the
population of Ethiopia.
The so-called Coptic Christians
are the descendants
of the Monophysites.
The Nestorians also have some
scattered followers in the
modern world.
They were very strong
in Central Asia.
And if you've studied things
like the voyages of Marco Polo
and other Western travelers in
the thirteenth century, the
people who interpret for them,
who help them, who acquaint
them with central Asia and the
Chinese Mongol Empire, are
Nestorians.
But we're going to leave them
out, because they're not a
political problem for the
Byzantine Empire.
They're, pretty much, exiled.
The Copts are an internal
problem.
And the Monophysites, or
Copts, do not like the
Orthodox, the Byzantine
Emperors.
The Byzantine Emperors try
to compromise with them.
And I'll mention a couple
of these compromises.
The Emperor Zeno, from 474 to
491, issued a document called
the Henotikon.
We're back to emperors.
As with-- we saw as far back
as Constantine, emperors
trying to intervene
to solve religious
controversies, right?
The Henotikon says, one of the
Trinity was incarnate, and
we're not going to discuss
it anymore.
So first, it says this rather
noncommittal statement: "One
of the Trinity was incarnate."
And then it also outlaws any
further discussion.
Nobody liked this.
Zeno was succeeded by
Anastasius, who was a
Monophysite.
And then, as we'll see, the
great emperor of the sixth
century, Justinian, who we're
going to be looking at much
more closely, was a fierce
anti-Monophysite or
Chalcedonian, Orthodox.
But his wife was, sort
of, semi-Monophysite.
This may have been politic.
Since they were both effective
rulers, the people who were
Monophysite could orient
themselves to Theodora, the
Empress, and the Orthodox,
to Justinian.
Ultimately, this problem would
be quote, "solved," because
the Arab Muslim invasion of the
seventh century would take
over the Monophysite
territories.
Again, I hope I'm not giving
away a secret, by saying that
the most striking, sweeping,
and dramatic event of
Mediterranean world or of the
Eurasian land mass, of the
period that we're dealing
with, arguably,
is the rise of Islam.
Mohammed's Hegira is
in the 632-633--
I can't remember.
Anybody know, off hand?
Anyone want to look
it up, off hand?
H-E-G-I-R-A.
Student: 622.
PROFESSOR: 622.
622.
By 660, Egypt, Syria, Palestine,
Lebanon have fallen
to Muslim rule.
And they are extending their
power as far west as North
Africa and as far east
as Afghanistan.
How this happens, why this
happens, is the subject for
discussion a little later.
But again, if you refer to the
map in 600, this is before the
Islamic takeover.
And again, if you look further
east, the Eastern Roman Empire
consists of all these parts,
many of which are about to be
taken away from it.
And the parts that were taken
away from it were pretty much
the Monophysite parts.
So the fifth century is the
story of the survival of the
Eastern Roman Empire, despite
these religious controversies.
The early sixth century, which
we'll talk about in more
detail, is the story of the
expansion of the Empire to
make a stab at reuniting, by
conquering the West, what had
been the single Roman Empire.
Justinian's empire was
overextended at least in
retrospect.
This is a reconquest that, at
least, consultants from a
later generation would have
said was a mistake, an
overexpansion Initially, the
main enemy of the Byzantine
Empire, after Justinian--
so in the late sixth century,
early seven century--
would be Persia.
But also, at the same time,
the Byzantine Empire would
start experiencing Danubian
frontier incursions, attacks
from the Balkans.
And here again, as
I said, it's all
invaders and heresies.
Invasions from Slavs and Avars
in the Balkans, and the
Persians
in the East. OK.
In 591, a revolution toppled
the Persian ruler, who,
peculiarly enough, fled to
Byzantium for refuge, where
the Emperor Maurice helped
him gain his throne back.
In 591, there was a peace
between Persia and Byzantium,
and Byzantium seemed to have
come out of this terrible
period of warfare of the
late sixth century.
This allowed Maurice to turn
his attention to his other
front, his Western- Northern
front, where the Avars were a
tremendous threat to him.
The Avars, a central Asiatic
people, who come in through
Central Asia into the Balkans.
And they carry with them, to
some extent, the Slavs. The
conventional portrayal used to
be that the Avars sort of lead
the Slavs; the latter
are kind of passive.
It's a little more complicated
than that.
The Avars had taken the great
cities of the Balkans.
And in 492, Maurice turns to
deal with them, to push them
back against the Danube.
His army rebels against
him, and he's
overthrown and killed.
The beginning of the seventh
century is the period of the
maximum danger of Byzantium.
It lasts, with intermittent
flashes, from 602, the
overthrow of Maurice, to
717, the Arab Siege of
Constantinople.
Immediately, this new emperor,
Phocas, is attacked by Persia.
The Persian King claiming to
revenge the murder of his
benefactor, but, in fact, simply
reopening the war with
Constantinople.
In 608-609, the Persians and the
Avars are allied, and the
Persians are really
on the march.
By 617, they have taken Egypt,
they have taken Syria, they
have taken in Jerusalem, and
the relic of the Holy Cross
has been taken back to
the Persian capital.
The emperor, at this time,
Heraclius, whom Wickham is not
very impressed by, admittedly.
Heraclius leads a resistance,
as does the patriarch, to a
siege that is on both sides of
the city of Constantinople.
On the one side, the land side,
the Theodosian Walls,
are the Avars and the Slavs
on the Bosporus.
Across the city, on the
Asian side of the
Bosporus, are the Persians.
And what Heraclius does, is to
confide the city in the care
of the patriarch, and go
off and attack the
Persians from the rear.
The patriarch defends the city,
not only by organizing
the army, but by putting
wonder-working icons on the
walls, to face the enemy.
An icon is a painting
of a sacred figure.
So then, it is not a statue,
but a painting.
And it portrays a saint or Mary
or Christ. And in what
has come to be called the
Orthodox tradition, these
remain today, a figure of the
church, a very distinct kind
of aspect of the piety
of the East.
The Church -- patriarch ordered
that the Church melt
down all of the treasures that
had been given to it, to
decorate it, in order
to pay for troops.
So the combination of the icons,
the money, the spirit
of the populous, and military
means were able to withstand
this prolonged siege--
at times a double siege-- of the
Persians on one side, the
Avars and the Slavs
on the other side.
After many years of fighting
in the East, Heraclius
succeeded in overthrowing
the Persians.
At the battle of Nineveh
in 627--
this is a seventeen-year
war or so.
I'm sorry, Nineveh--
E-H.
Heraclius defeats the Persians,
and the Persian
Empire is virtually crippled.
627--
Byzantium would have seemed to
of have been triumphant.
The first Arab attacks, however,
were in 634, twelve
years after Mohammed's Hegira.
By 636, Syria had been taken;
by 638 Jerusalem had been
taken; and the True
Cross, again--
in this case, we lose
sight of it.
Persia, itself, would
collapse in 640 and
pass under Arab rule.
Egypt would fall in 645.
What's left of the
Empire, then, is
the Balkans and Anatolia--
some Armenian, some
Slavic elements.
So weak is this empire, so beset
by enemies, does it seem
to be, that a successor of
Heraclius, the emperor
Constans II, moved the capital
to Sicily, to the West.
Constans II ruled
from Syracuse--
Syracuse, Sicily, obviously--
the original Syracuse.
He would be the last emperor
to visit Rome.
And he was, actually,
the first since 476.
So in 662, when he moved the
capital to Sicily, we have the
spectacle of a kind of ghost
emperor visiting a ghost city.
Visit of Constans II to Rome,
and the severe crisis of the
Eastern Empire beset, as it was
now, particularly, but not
exclusively, by the Arabs.
And indeed, in 674, the Arab
fleet appeared off
Constantinople.
In 678, we hear, for the first
time, of the weapon of the
Greeks against the
Arab fleets--
a weapon called "Greek fire."
Greek fire is some kind
of flaming projectile.
In other words, something that
you can shoot with a catapult,
or some other propulsion
device, that
will burst into flame.
Obviously, you can't launch it
if it's already burning.
You have to have something
that--This is the essence of
basic bomb throwing--
you have to have something that
will explode on impact.
The Greek fire was,
particularly, effective on
wooden ships and on
rigging and sails.
It would set the
ships on fire.
And it's a weapon that seems to
have been unique, at least
for awhile, to the Byzantines
But, parenthetically, how was it
that the Arabs have a navy,
in the first place?
These people, who decades
before, had never seen a river
that flowed all year long, who
had no experience with the
sea, for whom the desert
was the sea.
It is an example of this kind
of very rapid adaptability
that we'll emphasize,
when we come to talk
about the Islamic invasion.
The East did survive
even this attack.
The seventh century--
we will be dealing
with in more detail--
is a crucial turning point.
By this time, the Eastern Roman
Empire we're talking
about as the East is pretty
much a Greek empire.
Justinian would be the last
emperor to speak Latin.
And the truncation of the
empire, with the loss of Egypt
and the Near East, means that
it is pretty much a Greek
empire and, also, pretty much
an Orthodox empire.
Orthodoxy is the Christian
faith that stands between
Nestorianism and
Monophysitism.
For the time, the Orthodox
world, in the East, and the
Catholic world, in the
West, are the same.
Their official break won't
come until 1054.
And as you know, to this day,
the Orthodox churches of
Russia, Greece, and so forth,
look very different.
And they also have certain
doctrinal differences with the
West. And that's not our
subject, for the time being.
We do have, however, before
the close of business, one
more heresy.
A heresy that starts to divide
the Byzantine Empire in the
late seventh century, and
that is iconoclasm.
Iconoclasm, which Wickham talks
about in some detail,
and which he tells us
to take seriously.
What he means by that, is that
iconoclasm seems to be
something that must not be about
what it seems to be.
It's got to be about
something else.
Iconoclasm is the belief that
images, like icons, in
particular, are dangerous.
And that they lead to
inappropriate worship of the
image, rather than what
the image symbolizes.
So the iconoclasts believe in
banning images of persons.
A cross is fine but not
a picture of a saint.
Even, in some circles,
pictures of
Christ would be suspect.
The danger of this reverence
paid to icons, is that the
icons then, becomes a sacred
thing in itself, and you've
fallen into idolatry.
You're worshipping multiple
representatives of the divine.
Now it certainly seems logical
that this must have something
to do with Islam.
Because Islam, in its most
monotheist manifestations,
frowns on and bans the
representation of purportedly
divine figures.
And it, indeed, doesn't like
figural representation at all,
in decoration of
sacred spaces.
Lest this be interpreted as
exalting figures, even the
Prophet -- especially
the Prophet himself.
There are no pictures of
Muhammad for home consumption,
for mosque display.
And so it seems logical that
this is a response to
criticism from Islam, that
Christianity is really not
monotheist, that it's a form of
idolatry, because it has so
many sacred figures.
And that the success of Islam
and the success of the Arabs
against Byzantium, might be
caused by the abandonment of
monotheism--
the abandonment of the worship
of one god and the
proliferation of
multiple gods.
The problem is that there's
no real evidence of this.
And you don't have to
have Islam to force
this kind of thing.
If you look around the churches
of much of Northern
Europe, you will see statues
that have been decapitated by
Protestants, in the sixteenth
and seventeenth century, or
stained glass that was destroyed
by Protestants.
Protestantism is iconoclastic in
many of its forms, in that
it believed that the Catholic
Church was superstitious, paid
reverence to all of these saints
and human figures, and
forgot, in the process, to
concentrate on the single God.
Iconoclasm is a crisis
of the empire.
It is also, like these other
heresies, a recurrence of this
problem of how to represent the
connection between God and
human beings.
What connects the divine
with the humans?
Are there intermediaries?
Is Christ an intermediary,
or is he God?
And if he's God, how is
there intermediation?
Why does God care about us?
How does God care about us?
How many ways are there
to approach him?
It took until 843 to settle
this controversy.
It had many periods of
settlement and then a
recrudescence.
It's a controversy that lasts,
then, something on the order
of 150, 160 years.
At times, it divides the Empire
completely, at times not.
It tends to be supported
by the emperor.
If the emperor isn't
iconoclastic, it tends to wane.
It's supported by the emperors,
partly, as a way of
trying to unify and mobilize the
Empire around the figure
of the emperor, instead of
dissipating the energies
around the various
saintly figures.
So where are we, with this
empire, that seems to consist
of only sieges and barbarian
peoples and heresies?
In the ninth century, it would
seem that the cities, with the
exception of Constantinople
itself, had declined to become
little more than fortresses.
We seem to be at the end of
classical antiquity, in some
fundamental way, of that
society built around
Mediterranean cities.
Society even here, as in
the West, is rural.
There's not a whole
lot of trade.
There still are libraries, with
books in them, but they
don't seem to be
read very much.
We have very few texts
from this era.
It's a militarized society.
It's an intensely
religious one.
There's very little secular
literature--
really at the end of Greco-Roman
Pagan knowledge.
As it happens, however, this
period would usher in an era
of surprising, at least in
retrospect, prosperity for the
Byzantine Empire.
And we will be talking
about that later.
On Wednesday, we're going
to discuss the reign of
Justinian, through Procopius,
as a thing, in itself.
And then, we will turn to the
post-Roman world of the West,
subsequently.
Thanks very much.
