This book collects papers presented in 2019 at a conference held at Macquarie University in Sydney on the very subject on its title (“Foreword,” pp. vii-ix). The nine-chapter volume is organized chronologically from the reign of Constantine I to the dawn of the Komnenian era and is framed by a nine-page Introduction. Here the editors cast Byzantium as “a totalitarian state” whose “foundations were based on a hierarchy of power with the emperor at the top and Christianity as the dominating ideology binding the imperial power structures.” In this polity “persecutions and the silencing of subversive and dissident voices from various sections of society were deemed necessary for the maintenance of social order and the smooth operation of the empire” (p. 1). This offhand association of social order with persecution is not developed in the collected papers. Furthermore, if George Ostrogorsky famously defined Byzantine culture as constituted in equal parts by Roman political concepts, Greek culture, and Christian faith (Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, p. 27, 1969 edition), the readers of this volume will find here little that is not related to religion or religious policy and theological concerns. In this sense, the present volume has a rather more limited scope than the rich collection by Dimiter Angelov and Michael Saxby on Power and Subversion in Byzantium, published nearly a decade ago.
Thematic choices notwithstanding, a discussion of persecution and dissidence must engage with the question of violence. While the word appears in the Introduction (p. 4) and is central to the tone-setting first chapter, it is never defined. The effects of this lacuna are evident in Chapter 1, “The Avenging Sword? Imperial Legislation on Temples in the 4th and Early 5th Centuries” (pp. 13-51). Here Jitse Dijkstra engages with anti-pagan persecution in the hundred years after Constantine’s accession to the throne, following “[t]he movement of scholarly emphasis away from violence” (p. 16). Dijkstra undermines the introduction’s framing of Byzantium as a totalitarian state by describing laws as a form of dialogue with imperial subjects and as responses to their demands (pp. 18, 34). The claim has merit, as it aligns with evidence in the legal corpora (e.g., Justinian, Novel 19, preamble on publicly critiqued laws). Djikstra, in effect, takes Fergus Millar’s “reactive emperor” model well past Diocletian, thus aligning his argument with contemporary readings of medieval Roman history that stress its polyphonic nature, while also reinforcing his move “away from violence.” And yet, the author’s reading of violence requires closer scrutiny.
Dijkstra dismisses the “violence model” by engaging with the clauses relating to pagan temples in the Theodosian Code. Those are seen as evidence of a persistent problem for Christian authorities, the resilience of pagan ritual life despite actions against it (p. 25). To the author, this suggests a lackadaisical approach to persecution and disinterest in the destruction of temples that puts the lie to claims in sources such as the Life of Porphyry that the emperor supported the destruction of temples (p. 35). The Gibbonian association of such legislation with destruction of pagan life (pp. 12-15), cannot therefore hold. And yet, the reader might ask, how, in the absence of violence and with legislation that “was uneven and not aimed at the destruction of temples,” do we somehow end up with “most temples […] already abandoned” after 435 (p. 16)? The breakdown of measures enacted in each law (table in pp. 22-24) hardly makes the case that “the laws were primarily normative and often provide an ideal image that the emperor wanted to convey, mirroring imperial propaganda rather than reality” (p. 21). Here hefty fines are envisaged for high officials who fail to properly enforce persecutory clauses. Did Romans seeking advancement in a Christian imperial order ignore the emperor’s word? And if they fell in line, what would the effects of their adherence to the law have been? Imperial decrees posted in public spaces all over the empire were official dicta that set the parameters for the Roman lived experience. If extremist official propaganda begets deadly violence in twenty-first-century Charlottesville, can we minimize its effects in the distant past? Why are stipulations on rural temples dismissed (“the law only concerns rural temples”: p. 31, italics mine) in a study of what was a predominantly rural world? Is violence limited to the destruction of masonry? How would the legally mandated “silencing” of pagan ritual through denial of access to temples manifest itself in the archaeological record? In view of these questions, many will remain skeptical of the claim that the laws on temples cannot be “taken as evidence of widespread religious violence in the 4th and early 5th centuries” (p. 37).
Ryan Strickler opens Chapter 2, “Monsters Dressed in Purple: Imperial Critique in Early 7th c. Byzantine Literature” (pp. 53-69), by noting that “for the Byzantines the emperor was an absolute monarch, appointed by God to serve as His chosen representative in government” (p. 52). Strickler sees acts of dissidence as extraordinary events stemming from crises (p. 52). Such acts cannot therefore be seen as systemic in nature, part of what others have recently described as quasi-republican, discursive politics.[1] The chapter proceeds by way of theoretical artifice. Introducing the theme of dehumanization, which runs through the examined texts, Strickler undergirds his analysis with contemporary theory from the field of social psychology. It is, however, unclear how social psychology helps one understand the complex social, political, and cultural realities reflected in the texts animating Strickler’s chapter. Theophylaktos Simokates, the author of the Life of St. Theodore of Sykeon, and the Jewish author of the Sefer Zerubbabel all dehumanize their imperial targets and yet, beyond the citation of passages substantiating the fact, it remains unclear how those texts engage with the Roman polity’s diverse publics. Here, a comparison of the two Christian sources with the Sefer Zerubbabel offers an opportunity not taken to explore how rhetoric influenced and shaped distinct Roman constituencies that were often hostile to one another.
Daniel Dzino’s “The Mission of Abbot Martin in Dalmatia and Istria 641 or 642: A New Interpretation” (pp. 70-91), discusses an obscure event attested in unreliable sources written mostly many centuries later (p. 71). The story told here is based on “circumstantial evidence” (p. 81), the confessional alignment of the Dalmatian peoples is a “reasonable guess” (p. 82), and the evidence of the mission’s connection to papal politicking is at best “indirect” (p. 85). Other than the chronological coincidence of the mission with the Monothelite controversy, there is little to link this chapter to dissidence or the persecutorial workings of the Byzantine state. Ivan Basić’s “The Inscription of Archbishop John of Split: Iconoclasm and Dissidence in Late 8th Century Dalmatia” (pp. 92-122) deals with communities on the margins of the Roman polity, straddling confessional, linguistic, and ethnic divides. The object of study, a bishop’s inscribed sarcophagus, showcases this cultural pluralism (pp. 100-1). Basić notes that scholarship on iconoclasm now recognizes the co-existence of competing factions in the provinces (pp. 104-105) and cites evidence which suggests that, outside the more pliable capital, in the western regions of the Roman polity, support for the emperor was “determined by concerns other than Iconoclasm itself” (p. 107). Consequently, the reality of ecclesiastical allegiance appears less fraught and contested than in narrative sources. And yet, Basić’s engagement with Bishop John’s funerary stylistic choices tells us little about persecution and dissidence.
David Olster’s “Justinian II’s Two Silentia” (pp. 123-137) presents a convincing argument on the efforts of Justinian II to appropriate decision-making in Church affairs. Conflating the rhetoric of canons and laws, Justinian is shown to be toying with the boundaries of temporal and sacerdotal power. Yet, while Olster’s chapter is valuable to those thinking about Church-state relations and the evolving nature of imperial authority, there is little in it on persecution or dissidence. Stephanie Forrest’s “A Quest for Uniformity? The Armenian Canons of the Quinisext Council” (pp. 138-160) considers the implications of the Trullan council’s Armenian canons for regions marked by confessional ambiguity. Forrest opens with a survey of the kaleidoscopic political reality in Armenia, to situate Justinian II’s canons in a shifting environment where campaigning had taken place and reconquest was expected (pp. 142-43). The author notes that, in the case of pre-Christian Armenian custom, a degree of conditional tolerance was envisaged (p. 145), while a firmer stand marked the council’s engagement with contemporary practices (p. 146). Forrest recognizes the council’s attempt to substantively engage with opposing views, thus taking our discussion on persecution in the direction of discourse and dialogue. Noting that those same canons were ignored at the council of Dvin in 719 (p. 154), Forrest suggests that the Romans likely never tried to impose them in Armenia (p. 155). Rather, she suggests, the canons were either spurred by Chalcedonian Armenians in areas where the Byzantine army had recently operated (p. 156) or may even be evidence of Byzantine negotiations with the Catholikos Shahak III (p. 157). The author, therefore, shows the canons to be part of an ongoing dialogue on confessional difference that does not appear to have gone hand-in-hand with tangible acts of persecution.
In Michail Kitsos’ “Byzantine Christian Claims of Religious Legitimacy: Jews as Dissident Foils in Adversus Iudaeos Dialogues in Discussion of Icons” (pp. 161-177), the Byzantine debate on the icons is displaced into an imagined realm of Christian/Jewish polemics. The grounding of iconophile positions in the texts of the Israelites of old granted them legitimacy (p. 168), while the defeat of the Jewish dissident interlocutor with arguments drawn from the Old Testament strengthened the iconophile camp even as it reinforced the association of the iconoclasts with the erring Jews. Niels De Ridder’s “The Portrayal of Jews and Ex-Jews in the Byzantine Life of Constantine the Former Jew and its Historical Context” deals with a literary construct, a fictional Jewish convert whose life unfolds in the ninth century during the reign of Basil I, known for his persecution of the empire’s Jews. De Ridder explains that conversions, whether forced or voluntary (and in the Life they are fictional), did not satisfy critics (p. 178), who expected a stricter and more performative form of renunciation on the part of the convert (p. 182). In the Life, Constantine’s casual passage from Judaism to Christianity prompts discussions of suspicions on the part of fellow monks about his sincerity and attacks by members of the Jewish community against his person (pp. 183-85). These reveal moments of community boundary-policing and explain imperial laws against those who attack converts (pp. 185 and note 34). All in all, in summing up a hagiographical source associated with state persecution of religious minorities, De Ridder reveals fissures within the persecutory establishment and agency among the persecuted, who actively policed their communities to preserve their lifeworld.
Andras Kraft’s “A Clash of Eschatological Paradigms? The Condemnation of John Italos Revisited” (pp. 193-213) is an important intervention in the study of eleventh-century intellectual culture and suggests plausible causes for what has been seen by scholars as a Komnenian intellectual clampdown. By tracing the roots of Italos’ intellectual project to Neoplatonic (Origenist even) notions of universal salvation, Kraft explains the potentially revolutionary implications of the philosopher’s ideas. While Italos had barely avoided censure during the reigns of Michael VII Doukas and Nikephoros III Botaneiates, when Alexios I Komnenos acted against him it was because of the temporal implications of his eschatology. Italos was therefore persecuted because his views on universal salvation robbed the state’s fiscal machinery of critical ideological trappings. Here, salus patriae and the material needs of a struggling polity guided religious politics in a pragmatic, worldly manner.
Kraft’s elegant study brings this volume to a close. His valuable reflections on the intersection of philosophical thinking, theology, and politics point to the politically disruptive potential of rarefied speculation and offer valuable insights on the intersection of dissidence and persecution in the medieval Roman polity. While this volume does not always deliver such clear instances of analysis on dissidence and persecution in Byzantium, its contents nevertheless encourage readers to consider the nature of this Roman polity, the ideas and actions that animated it, and the space it offered for dissidence from and resistance to orthodoxies. In the present volume, those orthodoxies are strictly religious and, perhaps, adding this adjective to its title would have tempered expectations.
Authors and Titles
Introduction, Danijel Džino and Ryan W. Strickler
The Avenging Sword? Imperial legislation on Temples in the 4th and early 5th Centuries, Jitse H.F. Dijkstra
Monsters Dressed in Purple: Imperial Critique in Early Seventh-Century Byzantine Literature, Ryan W. Strickler
The Mission of Abbot Martin in Dalmatia and Istria 641 or 642: A New Interpretation, Danijel Džino
The Inscription of Archbishop John of Split: Iconoclasm and Dissidence of Late Eighth-Century Dalmatia, Ivan Basić
Justinian II’s Two Silentia, David M. Olster
A Quest for Uniformity? The Armenian Canons of the Quinisext Council (c. 691/692), Stephanie Forrest
Byzantine Christian Claims of Religious Legitimacy: Jews as Dissident Foils in Adversus Iudaeos Dialogues in Discussions on Icons, Michail Kitsos
The Portrayal of Jews and ex-Jews in the Byzantine Life of Constantine the Former Jews and its Historical Context, Niels de Ridder
A Clash of Eschatological Paradigms? The Condemnation of John Italos Revisited, András Kraft
Notes
[1] A. Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2015)