The Self-perception of Justinian

Justinian’s self-perception: Lawyer, Emperor, Chief of Staffs, Ecumenical Agent, Police for the Papacy, Theologian, Builder of 37 churches, caesaro-papist. 

Justinian saw himself as sacred as he said on the 6th November 529 “For what is greater or more sacred than the Imperial Majesty.” 

He actually wanted to come to the aspect of himself as the only

correct interpretation of the law and its ultimate center and concluded with others “We hold that every interpretation of the laws by the Emperor, whether in answer to requests made to him, or whether given in judgment, or in any other way whatsoever, shall be considered valid, and free from all ambiguity; for if, by the present enactment, the Emperor alone can make laws, it should also be the province of the Imperial Dignity alone to interpret them”.

On the 18th of 530, Justinian wrote that the ultimate power of the Romans is not the army but God Almighty.

About his Code Justinian said on completion of it “We have given thanks to Almighty God who has offered us the opportunity to fortunately carry on war, as well as to enjoy an honorable peace, and to formulate a most excellent system of laws, not only for the use of the present age but for that of those which shall come hereafter,and with pious mind, We have offered this work for the benefit of man.”

This Code was intended by Justinian to unify his whole empire ecumenically and ecclesiastically under the Catholic Church with the Papacy as primary authority. 

He saw himself as the great unifier or religious civilization architect. His relation with the papacy and the papacy with him is well illustrated in the letter of Justinian to Pope Johannes and vice versa. 

The Code is actually a law with discriminating biting teeth. 

It provided a definition for church in a monotone only. 

Any other color was not accepted and condemned, and in fact, discriminated against and even persecuted or killed. 

Justinian created the glove that was to become the backbone of the Middle Ages Catholic Churches Holy Roman Empire and the persecutions that happened during this period can all be tract back to this legal system that Justinian installed throughout his empire.

Persecution of private gatherings for worship besides state sanctioned worship

The Novella LXVII spelled out a number of rules for clerics regarding alienation of immovable property of the church and other related matters, dating to 538 and the implications must have been a difficult situation for the papacy since the papacy had to flee at times for his life and Justinian made it illegal of anyone to leave their churches.

They had to reside in the church and could not take long trips and ask members to send them money. 

Justinian prohibited anyone to start a house-church and one can see this as the beginning of persecution of private worship movements or small groups outside the domain of the public church. 

More evidence of Justinian and the persecution of heretics are the following. In Novella CIX of 541 Justinian outlined the state’s intolerance with heretics. 

He explained his epistemology behind his methodology that permanency of his reign can only be achieved if he found favor with God. 

Therefore the laws of the state should be based upon finding favor with God like Leo and Justin did, forbidding all heretics to have a share in public employments or offices so that they cannot use that office against the church. 

This rule they have built into the constitution. Heretics are defined as “those who are the members of different heterodox sects”ν “insane Hebrew doctrines of Nestorius”, “evil dogmas”, “impiety”, “all such as are not affiliated with the Catholic and Apostolic Church of God” which “preach the true faith and ecclesiastical tradition”.

A heretic is one who does not receive the sacraments from a cleric of the Catholic Church even though they call themselves “Christians”. Those who hold and embrace the doctrines of the Catholic Church shall have greater privileges than those who do not. 

If females are not a member of the church and do not receive sacraments they “shall be deprived of all the advantages of our Constitution”.

In Novella CXXIII of 541 Justinian described aspects that one would expect to find in a church manual as part of civil law. 

Evidence Justinian and Seventh-day Sabbath-keeping persecution are the following. 

In Novella CXLIV there is an example of Sabbath persecution. 

About the Samaritans Justinian said (undated) “And if any Samaritan,

after having proved himself worthy to receive baptism, should return to his former error and be detected in observing the Sabbath, or in doing anything else which proves that he was only baptized through simulated conversion, We order that he shall be proscribed, and sentenced to exile for life”.

Justinian changed the attitude towards Sabbath keeping in 538. In his diary of 1847, Hiram Edson said “The council of Orleans, held 538, prohibited the country to labor on Sunday, which Constantine, by his laws, permitted. This council also declared, “That to hold it unlawful to travel with horses, cattle and carriages, to prepare food, or to do anything necessary to the cleanliness and decency of houses or persons, savors more of Judaism than Christianity”.

Justinian and persecution of heretics is dealt with in his sources. In Novella XXXVII the fate of heretics are given by Justinian as follows “A heretic shall not confer the rite of baptism, or discharge the duties of a public office, and a catechumen shall not circumcise anyone. No heretic shall, under any circumstances, have a house of worship, or a place of prayer.” 

The civil law has teeth on ecclesiastical matters here: It is undated Novella XLV from 535 is ruling over heretics, Jews and Samaritans that they shall not be able to testify against an orthodox Christian or the government who is considered to be favoring orthodox Christians. The persecuting power of the state is seen in these laws.

Justinian persecution done with legal backing

Justinian’s laws of 534 actually provided jurisprudence as backbone for his persecutions.

Sources of Procopius are important to consider.

Emperor Justinian wanted to reform the jurisprudence of the Roman

Empire. 

He said former emperors made errors but did not correct it and now he wished to do it “with the assistance of Almighty God” namely, to revise the many constitutions, as well as codes after them, plus those they added themselves and “to combine them in a single Code, under our auspicious name”.

About the laws itself one has to make some points. 

Any rape action against a deaconess of the church is punishable by death. Justinian said “ravishers of virgins, widows, or deaconesses, consecrated to God, shall suffer the penalty of death, as having committed the worst of crimes. They shall, without granting them the right to plead an exception, subject them to the most severe penalties,and condemn them to the punishment of death.”

No judge may make the punishment lighter.

At the end of Title III he claims that no Jew should hold a slave who is a Christian. Justinian concluded Title III with “Violators of this law shall not only be punished with a pecuniary fine, but also with the penalty of death.” 

In this requirement, if a pagan slave suddenly becomes Christianized, the Jew lost all his rights if the slave just leaves instantly. One cannot miss the discriminatory aspects in this law. It is the ecclesiastical teeth of the Code. 

When politics and religion mix, 

the jurisprudence bites. 

In the section on Heretics, Justinian invented his bite of the law as well. He held that heretics may not bring witnesses to the court so he favored the Christians above the heretics as far as jurisprudence is concerned. He said “We therefore order that the right to be a witness, along with all other lawful acts, shall be forbidden to the Manicheans, the Borborites, and the Pagans, as well as to the Samaritans, the Montanists, the Tascodrogites, and the Ophytes. We desire that the privileges of giving testimony in court against orthodox persons shall only be forbidden to other heretics, in accordance with what has been already decided.”

Acceptance of the errors of heretics is forbidden in the law of Inheritance as Justinian said at Title V paragraph 12 “that no one who accepts the error of heretics can receive an estate, a legacy, or a trust.” 

Severe punishments were not necessarily designed by Justinian to the Jews because of circumcising a Christian slave in Title X but Justinian was the one who scooped up the imperial decrees regarding this matter with previous emperors and one can conclude that he, without revising it, agreed with it.

The punishment is death. 

*The same with the next Title XI on the illegality of pagan sacrifice at pagan temples. On the 18th of October 530 Justinian said in Codex I3.44 “Whatever the holy canons prohibit, these also we by our own laws forbid.”

Anno-mens-dies counting systems

Maassen indicated that from the time of pope Johannes I, they discontinued the practice of adding a month and day and thus only gave the year.

However, he cited the example of a Manuscript from Köln, the Codice Colon (Darmstadt 2326).

In folio 168 and 169 is a papal catalogue. It dates to the 6th century.

The header reads: nomina sanctorum episcoporum, qui sedem beati Petri sedere meruerunt. The first hand ended with the words: Dom Johannis sedet anni II mens III dies VI. Here is still a case where in the days of pope John I all three time indicators are used. 

Even in the case of Dom Agapetus sedet anni _____ mens XI dies XVIII. It is still the same hand. 

Another hand then wrote: Selverius -------Gregorius (I). Silverius reigned until 537. We have absolute proof here that the custom to add the year and date of reign to documents was used by the papacy. 

Year two for Pope John would be 471/72. 

When Justinian decided to announce that he is no longer to be seen as a soldier but rather as a theologian, the one thing he added to his coins that were not there before, is to simulate the papacy and adding the number of his year, Anno XII from 538. On 6th of March, 538, pope Vigilius wrote to Bishop Caesarius of Arles concerning the penance of the Austrasian King Theodobert on account of his marriage with his brother's widow. 

Later on the 29th of June, 538, he sent a decretal to Bishop Profuturus of Braga containing decisions on various questions of church discipline. 

Bishop Auxanius and his successor, Aurelian of Arles, wrote letters back and forth with the pope respecting the granting of the pallium (cloak) as a mark of the dignity and powers of a papal legate in Gaul. As a result the pope sent favorable letters to the two bishops. 

Justinian did not give up his dream as a selfappointed Secretary-

General of the (future) United Churches, so one finds him and Theodora involved in building flashy churches.

Justinian was involved with the building of the church at Ravenna. Theodora was involved with the building of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. 

Throughout all these religious projects of the imperial couple, they knew exactly what the chess-board of the church was all about. 

Results and Discussion

"In a doctoral dissertation by M. Grazianskij (2009) he set out to
explain his findings on a study of the role of Justinian’s politics mixed with religious objectives.

Grazianskij indicated that by 527 the monophysites may have been persecuted but that Justinian was working on an edict to prevent the persecution of heretics in the church. 

 

The Edict of 531 permitted the return of monks to their monasteries and Theodora worked together to help this come true.They built them a palace in Constantinople or safe haven in 532. (Grazianskij 2009: 57). 

Theodora brought nearly 500 famous clerics around her at that time. Justinian had political plans with the churches in their divided condition, namely to unify all the separate groups, and starting with the appeasement of the monophysites he had to play a balancing act with the pope by indicating in 533 that the decisions of Chalcedon Council, where things must first be consulted with the pope, is unchanged.

 

The monophysites and the orthodox church of the papacy were not in the same camp at this time. A demonstration took place in November 533 in favor of the monophyisites.

The palace of Hormisdas was given to them. Theodora use to visit them, talking to them in long conversations and wonder about their lifestyle and heavenly wisdom. 

They blessed her and advised her in religious questions. Justinian was aware of this. Egypt was the origin of the monophysitic doctrine and it was a zone to flee to until the year 537. 

 

The Syrian area was very harsh towards the monophysites. It is

found by Grazianskij that the Patriarch of Antioch, Ephraem, followed a strict anti-monophysitic politics. 

When the Syriac father Mar came from Alexandria to Constantinople in 536, he apparently spoke very strongly to Justinian and Theodora apparently in rude remarks.

While he was speaking the scribe did not want to record the harsh words. At the end the couple just said “Truly is this man a spiritual philosopher”. 

 

The imperial couple use to offer large sums of money to the Christian clerics when they came to complain to them. Scholars are divided whether Theodora or Justinian was the primary cause of
these benevolent actions towards the severian bishops. 

 

Grazianskij also investigated the role of Theodora and Justinian for the years 532-536 in religious affairs to see if Theodora was the prime cause or whether Justinian played an equal role. 

For this investigation, Grazianskij studied the religious developments until the council of Constantinople in the year 536. 

He started the investigation with the severian bishop discussions with the imperial couple in 532 that resulted in the Edict of Justinian that the Monophysite clerics can return out of their exile. 

In this Edict Justinian spelled out what they are to do for their freedom had a price. Justinian said that Diodor, Theodor,
Theodoret, Ibas, Nestorius and Eutyches should be accepted as condemned and the twelve Anathemas of Cyril should also be accepted. They could continue preaching the one-nature of Christ but they are not allowed to curse those who preach the two-natures of Christ. They should accept the council of Chalcedon only in so far as it condemns Eutyches and Nestorius. They should also retract their condemnations of the Tomo Leo (statements made by pope Leo). 

 

The monophysites rejected the suggestion and said that their authority is Severus who is the only one that could decide for them on these matters.

What Justinian said to the monophysites would become an agenda or template for Justinian to act upon for the next five or more years regarding religion. 

As Grazianskij found, Justinian had a new context with the papacy after 532. Justinian did not want to upset the monophysites, the papacy, the Orthodox parties, or the heretics. His main focus was for unification of the church in an ecumenical spirit.

Justinian’s statements seemed to be the role of a self-appointed “peace-maker” during this time.
His peace-making process was not one that is just haphazardly but acting with a definite and well researched agenda step by step.
 

There is no doubt that during this period between 532-536, Justinian

started an ecclesiastical course in the domain of Christology in Systematic Theology. 

Especially prior and during the Council of Constantinople, Justinian knew the positions of the different parties very well and he developed his own synthesis of the Christology problem yet within
the covers of the mood of ecumenism and thus his methodology was one of eclecticism, a-pick-and-choose between various parties of the theological debate. 

He had his own view of the nature of Christ which was formulated
apparently using the statement of Zeno but simulate it to form his own: unus ex Trinitate passus est carne. This was the hobby statement of Justinian and he was determined that all parties should pay attention to it at the Council of Constantinople. 

 

**The friendly attitude of the imperial couple must have upset the Orthodox positions of the papal see.

**Justinian knew it and was determined to now move to the phase of appeasing the pope. 

 

Since Justinian was highly convinced of his own view he wrote a kind of an Edict and sent it around with his statement of Christology dated to the 15th of March 533. In June of 533, Justinian took up the feather and wrote to the pope Johannes.

His main contention was the ecumenical reconciliation between all religious groups and the pope.  

The role of the papal power as king on Justinian’s chess-board of this theological game was fully understood by him.

 

He is going to follow the protocol and please everyone. 

What Justinian did not realize, is that his prioritizing of the pope as party in the debate, and actually led to his eventual downfall since it was the recognition by the secular Emperor power of the prime authority on church matters of the papacy.

In later years, around 540, this issue of the authority of the pope and the papal see’s power would be painted to Justinian very vividly by the pope in a letter at that time. 

He mentioned to the pope that those monks in Constantinople are restless and for them the main focus is to make all monks Nestorian as far as Christology is concerned.
Justinian entered the troubled waters between the two groups here and then formulates his own view to the pope that he thinks it is one hypostasis that is the uniting of two natures, a view that is fanning out the orthodox view of the pope as well. It was Justinian’s conclusion from his own principle unus de Trinitate passus EST carne. 

The letter took the form of an Edict and the pope agreed only after some anger about it. In fact, it took one year and ten days for the pope to agree to Justinian and he wrote about it to Justinian on the 25th of March 534. 

--The ingredient for a powerplay between two domains of power was already present in the delay to answer. Then Justinian also sent this
letter to the pope and to the Patriarch Epiphanios in Constantinople and the purpose seemed to be to demonstrate that the pope and the Eastern Church are also in this chess-game for unity between parties.

He supported the views of the previous Patriarch Proklos. In this letter of Justinian one can find the first time the formula that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our God, one of the holy Trinity. 

 

Justinian held out that all four general Councils decisions should
be proclaimed. Justinian is also against the condemnation of heretics. Pope Johannes wrote to the senators a letter.
When the pope agreed to Justinian’s position in 534, Justinian wrote to Severus the head of the heretics or monophysites in Egypt to come for union-meetings about the issues. 

Severus died in 538 and was the main character in these disputes.

After the death of Timotheos of Alexandria, Severus decided in February of 535 to go to Constantinople. 

On the 6th of August 536 Justinian made an Edict that the decisions of the Council of Constantinople have the power of a law.

Shortly after Anthimos became patriarch in Constantinople, Severus met him. Also Theodosius of Alexandria met with them. There is indication that the relationship between Theodora and Anthimos
were sour.

 

An antimo was asked to step down by pope Agapet and this process had the sanctioning by Justinian and Theodora as pope Agapet indicated.

Pope Agapet also condemned Severus, Petros of Apameia and the Syriac Monk Zooras, that was working restlessness in Constantinople. 

In a letter to Justinian, pope Agapitus indicated that “by your
[Justinian] holy interest, by which you wish the Catholic Church to be amplified." At the end of April 536, pope Agapet died. Ten days later the Council of Constantinople took place.

The purpose of the Council was only to give the papacy legitimacy on his decisions. On the 6th of August 536, Justinian pronounced an Edict to order the condemnation of Severus who was revered by many bishops and monks. He told him that he could not come to any big city and that he should pursue a quiet life in a remote area.
 

Justinian developed his own view during the debates and discussions with theologians between 535-536. After Severus died in 538, he was not finished with his work. Grazianskij indicated that Justinian wanted to use the theological arguments of Severus to his own favor. He apparently wanted to get the Severus teams on his side since
they had a very similar view of Christology. Justinian wanted to demonstrate that there is a unity of thought between the monophysites and the Christological position of the Imperial church. There was already a link between the imperial theology of Christology and Severus’ view as the Synod writings of Severus to Theodosios of Alexandria illustrates. 

Justinian wrote to pope Vigilius, probably in 538, about this afterglow of reflections. He still had his ecumenical dream and saw himself as the “Secretary General” of the United Churches, probably

Vigilius did not answer Justinian immediately and according to scholars, his answer is given different dates but it seems more plausible to accept the conclusion of Grazianskij, that the answer and rebuttal to Justinian took place in 540. Pope Vigilius is furious that Justinian wants to set aside the Tome Leo of pope Leo, since this touched upon the authority of the pope as the vicarius filii dei on earth and related to it, the infallibility of the papacy. 

 

Vigilius’ statement to Justinian is a very strong rebuttal of theological enthusiasm of the emperor by a pope.  

Justinian in fact left already the Chiefs of Staff position at the military in 538 since he was more involved in the synods and
seminaries than in the army barracks. 

This is the diffusion of the Roman Empire and the final fall of the Roman Empire. When politics took up theology, power of that entity shifted to the most trained in theology, the papacy.
 

Vigilius asked the emperor to read the decisions of Pope Leo one more time to remove his own doubts. If the emperor would do that, he would see that faithful correct spiritual people cannot be asked to throw away their own points of teaching. Vigilius is not only pleading the case of pope Leo but also those like Theodorus of Cyrus and Theodor of Mopsuestia. 

Despite the Council of Chalcedon he was not condemned, claimed Vigilius. When Vigilius was elected as pope, he was asked to
condemn the Three Chapters since Justinian felt that the monophysites would be upset by the situation and that Justinian will not be able to unify the church as his dream is. 

Vigilius was not satisfied with the letter from Justinian.

Vigilius felt that the revisionist approach to the Council of Chalcedon affected also the authority of the papacy since they have to be critical of the Tome of Leo. 

The main argument was that the revision of the Council of Chalchedon placed the authority of Pope Leo in question and with that also the authority of the
“apostolic chair/seat”."

Literature Review

The rise of the papacy as supreme power was presented in a book and paper by Frances Dvornik in 1961. 

Byzantium and the Roman Primacy. The American Ecclesiastical Review 289-312. Online available 12th of June 2016 at http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=1355.

 

The Collectio Avellana is a prime source for research of this type. These 244 manuscripts dealt with heresies and schism and how the papal and imperial powers approached the issues. 

It ends with the last letter written by emperor Justinian to pope

Vigilius on the 14th of May 553. 

 

The Corpus Novellae of Justinian is an ingredient part of this research.

 

The Liber Pontificalis is another source that is essential for a study like this. It originated in the year 510 in the days of the primacy of the papacy insistence pope Homisdas and the intention was to illustrate the role of the popes.

 

D. Deliyannis, (2014). The Roman Liber Pontificalis, Papal Primacy, and the Acacian Schism. Viator Vol. 45/2: 1-16. For
the date of its compilation as between 514-530 see Liber Pontificalis by Duchesne 1886: XLV. Duchesne knows of two manuscripts Parisinus 5140 and Vaticanus 3764 (Duchesne 1886: XLVII).

 

The popes with whom Justinian and Theodora dealt that are relevant here are pope Johannes II (533-535); pope Agapetus (535-536); pope Silverius (536-537); Vigilius (537-555).

 

A helpful source for those who struggle to get access to the originals or good translations thereof of the papal letters to Justinian and other pertinent sources mentioned in this writing, is the Source Book Vol. 2 on AD 538 by Heidi Heiks (2010). 

 

For a helpful chronology of Justinian, the Gothic kings, the Vandals as well as the year from Creation as calculated by Jerome, see the Chronica Minora edited by T. Mommsen 1894.

 

Newton all calculated the 1260 days of Revelation and Daniel as 1260 years.

He felt that any period that indicated a division of the Roman Empire is a candidate for this event starting the 1260 years.
Bishop Newton apparently said that if one is to find the ten kings, one has to look at the broken pieces of the Roman Empire” 

For Frere the starting date for the 1260 years is 536.

Faber wanted it to start before 325 A.D. and Cuninghame suggested the thirteenth century.

Maitland used Frere and Cuninghame to argue against Faber that the date is not 606 but 533 with the Edict of Justinian.

For Mede the prophetic persecution started in 456 A.D.23 

Frere was in search for the year the Edict was published.

Hales suggested 620 A.D. Bishop Newton in 727 A.D. and Lowman in 757A.D. 

These are the times given for the ‘saints given in the hands of the beast’ as predicted by Daniel and Revelation. Maitland himself seems to say the event took place sometime in the fifth, sixth, seventh or eighth centuries. He called on all researchers of the 1260 days as 1260 years to cite their sources with accuracy and check
whether the source was correctly used and cited.
W. Spicer (1918) wrote on the 1260 years. In his diagram he dates it either between 533 to 1793 or between 538 to
1798. Spicer said that in 533 came the recognition of the supremacy of the pope and in 538 the sword came to Rome.

He found from secondary sources that used the originals that a turning point was in the year 538 when Vigilius became pope in the place of pope Silverius. He was removed in 537 but Justinian intervened and he was kept until 538.

H. S. Prenier, (1919), “on the 1260 days” Andrews University, James White library, Adventist Research Center lower floor.

In 1854 T. M. Preble wrote a manuscript which is a review of the argument to prove that the 1260 years started in 519 A.D.

A Millerite F. H. Berick (1853) wrote a research on 1260, 1290 and 1335. An article appeared on the opic of the end of the 1260 years in 1843. W. Digby, (1831), also wrote on the 1260 years. K. van Wyk, (1992), presented a devotional on new aspects surrounding the historicity of 538 regarding numismatics and Justinian.

 

Revelation 13:12 says that the “dragon gave him his power, his seat and great authority”... then the actions of Justinian, Belisarius answering the call of the pope to come to Rome with his military for defense, the coin change of Justinian in 538, his public announcement to the whole empire that he is a theologian and not a

soldier in 538 on his coins, his ecumenical and theological interest in Systematic Theology recognized by pope Johannes in his 533 letter to Justinian, Justinian’s emphasizing the supremacy of the papacy in his letter to Johannes, all these factors point to a paradigm shift in the history of that time: that is to say, the fall of the Pagan Rome Empire and the Ascendancy and development of the papacy to form the Holy Roman Empire. 

--With the seat of Justinian symbolically “vacant” as emperor, the “symbolic power gap” was there for the papacy to take it. Augsburger (1952) indicated that it was the church who fed the people after 538 A.D. described as disastrous years. 

--Diehl wrote “In this hour which marks for her (Rome) the end of ancient times, she was taking on the aspect that she was to keep during the whole Middle Ages and upon the debris of the palaces of the Caesars was slowly rising the authority of the popes.”

--Gregory the Great described the rise of the church on the ruins of Rome of the Gothic wars Gregory described very eloquently the summary of the churches’ rise to power “Amid the frightful storms of the Gothic War classical civilization perished in Rome and throughout Italy. In cities burnt, desolated and mutilated, ruins remained the sole evidence of former splendor. 

The prophecy of the Sybil was fulfilled. The night of barbarism had descended on the Latin world, a darkness in which no light was visible other than of the tapers of the church and the lonely studentlamp of the monk brooding in his cloister.”

--George Butler in 1885, as a president of the Seventh Day Adventist church, cites a speech of a bishop at the Ecumenical Council in
1870 which said: "Pope Vigilius, A.D. 538, bought the papacy from Belisarius, agent of the Emperor Justinian; though to be sure he broke his promise, and paid nothing Is this mode of gaining the tiara canonical?" (Vatican Council 1870: 189 cited in George Butler 1885: from the American Tract Society Pamphlet with the title: "The
Speech of a Bishop in the Vatican Council"). 

Butler listed many outside scholars who already understood the 1260
years prophecy, the fall in 1798 and the beginning in 538. 

It was not an invention by Seventh Day Adventists since it is historical and Biblical, recognized earlier by many commentators and historians.

Introduction

"There is something to be said about each legal system, that they represent some fingerprint that gives it a peculiar character and even if that system is warmed up and rebaked in other centuries later, one can trace the fingerprint back to its original inventors. 

 

The code of Justinian became a handy tool in the hands of the successors in ecclesiastical circles in Middle-Age legal systems. This biased legal system led to the persecution of many people during the period between 538-1798.

 

When the new Catholic Canon Law came out, the role of Justinian in its design was fully recognized.

Justinian was the great compiler of a legal system that brought together ecclesiastical related matters to the civil law from the time of Constantine to his own and presented his world in 534 A.D. with a code mixed with Christian religion and state matters. 

He recognized only one religion and that is the Christian Orthodox religion with the supreme head at Rome. 

He became increasingly disinterested in state affairs and studied himself into Systematic Theology and the area of Christology.
--By 538 A.D. he publicly laid down his interest by declaring that he is no longer chief in Staff for the army but a theologian and that is how his image on the coins should look like. 

This religious fire in him brought him in trouble with many and he abused his imperial power for his own goals. It is very likely that the evils that he and his wife did (according to his biographer Procopius) were true and that their conscience plagued them every night and in order to squash the inner voice of self-acknowledged guilt, so that they embarked upon a religious overdrive, giving themselves the license to steal from the rich (with a robin-hoodism rationalization) and give to the ecclesiastical poor in many forms, which included the building-programs of 37 enormous churches throughout the empire. Many scholars have written about this imperial couple but none have made the iconography on the coins of 538 A.D. the pivotal point of investigation to understand Justinian in the context of a broader picture relevant also in our own times. 

 

The date 538 A.D. is fixed archaeologically by numismatics and with

the clear marker XII of twelve year of Justinian on it, which is significantly the first time they appeared. 

Why this happened and how it happened and what the consequences were for the shift in the life of Justinian was to produce a paradigm shift from Pagan Rome to the Holy Roman Empire. 

 

The more Justinian tried to be the Elijah preparer of the way for the millennium of the Messiah by building projects all over the empire, by trying to unify every aspect of the empire, politics, nations, religion, spreading Christianity, building Constantinople rather than
Jerusalem to impress Him, the more suspicious he had the papal See and them all concerned that he was playing in the hands of the Antichrist. 

*Procopius gave evidence of these eschatological concerns in those days. According to Procopius in Anecdota VIII 13-21 there is a correlation between the Antichrist connections of both Domitian and Iustinian. In this paragraph Procopius depicted the demonic aspects of Justinian that someone saw that he was suddenly headless and then the head appeared again. 

 

The relevancy of the investigation of the role of 538 A.D. in the life of Justinian, the papacy and prophetic interpretation is part of the modus operandi of this research.