"Cæsar I was and am Justinian,
Moved by the will of that Prime Love I feel
I clear'd the encumbered laws from vain excess".[121]

It is in this character that Justinian lives for all history, and his name stands out among all Byzantine sovereigns with a lustre of its own. I have therefore first quoted the most definite words of the great legislator, spontaneously acknowledging the right of St. Peter's successor to know and to judge of all that concerns the Church's doctrine and practice. The acknowledgment of this right is the more to be marked because, when it was made by the eastern emperor, that successor was not his own subject. That he was the head of all the churches of the world, that he was so by descent from Peter, that in virtue of this headship and descent he had a right of supervision over everything which belonged to the Church in all the world—this is what Justinian avows, and this, moreover, is equally what the Pope claimed then as he claims now.

Justinian ascended the eastern throne in August, 527, at about the age of forty-five. He would therefore have been born in 482. He was of somewhat more than middle height, of regular features, dark colour, of ample chest, serene and agreeable aspect. Through the care of his uncle he had had a good education, and had early learned to read and write. He was skilled in jurisprudence, architecture, music, and, moreover, in theology. His personal piety was remarkable. When he became emperor he bestowed all his private goods on churches, and ruled his house like a monastery. In Lent, his life approached that of a hermit in severity. He ate no bread; drank only water; for his nourishment he contented himself every other day with a portion of wild herbs, seasoned with salt and vinegar. We have sure testimony respecting his fasts and mortifications, since he has taken pains in his last laws, the Novels, to inform the world of them.[122]

His uncle Justin had died at the age of seventy-seven, after reigning nine years. His accession had marked a sort of resurrection in eastern affairs. Instead of three emperors, Basiliscus, Zeno, and Anastasius, alike ignominious in their government, unsound in their faith, infamous in their life, and remorselessly tyrannical in their treatment both of Church and State, Justin had crowned an honourable life as a general in the imperial service with a creditable reign, in which his fidelity to the Catholic faith was remarkable. The moment of Justinian's succession was coeval with great changes in the West. By the death of Theodorick, who in his last year had begun the work of active Arian persecution, the great kingdom which he had maintained for a generation seemed on the point of dissolution, through the intrinsic inaptitude for government which his Gothic subjects at once betrayed when let loose from the master's powerful hand. In Africa, moreover, a succession of cruel Vandal persecutors, almost equal to their original, Genseric, had shaken their tenure of the country. At the same time, the Frankish kingdom, strengthened greatly by the conversion of Clovis, was growing in power and extent—a growth not interrupted by his early death in 511, at the age of forty-five.[123]

Such was the state of things when Justinian directed the great power which the revenues of the eastern empire enabled him to wield, towards the restoration of that empire, first in Africa, and then in Italy. Later in the same year, 533, in which he addressed to John II. the explicit acknowledgment of his supreme authority with which I began, he despatched his great general Belisarius with 16,000 chosen troops, 6000 of them cavalry, to Carthage. The Vandal ruler Gelimer offered but a feeble and utterly ineffectual resistance. He surrendered himself at Carthage to Belisarius, by the end of the year, and was brought to Constantinople. There Justinian received Belisarius in what was like one of Rome's hundred triumphs, except that the conqueror marched on foot. The booty of the Vandal kings was borne before him, in which were conspicuous the precious things which Genseric had carried away from Rome—the vessels of the temple of Jerusalem. When the captive king was brought into the circus, and saw before him the emperor and countless rows of spectators, he is said to have shed no tears, but to have uttered the words of the preacher: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity". But his head did not fall under the axe of the lictors, as in the ancient Roman triumphs. He received in Dalmatia a great property, and lived there in abundance with his family. The other captives were enrolled in the Roman army, and Justinian and Theodora heaped presents upon the daughters of Hilderich, and all the descendants of that princess Eudocia, great-granddaughter of the great Theodosius, who had been obliged to espouse the son of Genseric in her captivity at Carthage.

Then Justinian divided North Africa into seven provinces—Tingitana, Mauritanea, Numidia, Carthage, Byzacene, Tripolis, and Sardinia, which last, having belonged to the Vandals, was put into the prefecture of Africa. This received a Prætorian prefect and proconsular governors, who were charged to maintain the land, and show to the inhabitants the difference between civilised Roman government and Vandal cruelty. Justinian restored many cities, and erected many great buildings, especially churches, of which five in Leptis alone.[124]

An early result of Justinian's reconquest of Africa was that the bishops met in plenary council, under the presidency of the primate of Carthage, Reparatus, successor of Boniface. After a hundred years of Vandal oppression, 217 bishops assembled in the Basilica of Faustus, at Carthage, named Justiniana in honour of the emperor—the church which Hunnerich had taken from the Catholics, in which many bodies of martyrs were buried. To their intercession the council ascribed their deliverance from persecution. After reading the Nicene decrees, they discussed the question whether Arian priests who had become Catholics should be received in their dignity or only to lay communion. All the members of the council inclined to the latter judgment. They, however, would come to no decision, but with one voice determined to consult Pope John II. They addressed a letter to him by the hands of two bishops and a deacon, in which they say: "We considered it agreeable to charity that no one should disclose our judgment until first the custom or determination of the Roman Church should be made known to us: honouring herein with due obedience the authority of your Blessedness, being such a Pontiff as the holy See of Peter deserved to have, worthy of veneration, full of affection, speaking the truth without falsehood, doing nothing with arrogance. Therefore the free charity of the whole brotherhood thought that your counsel should be asked. And we beg that your mind, the organ of the Holy Spirit,[125] may answer us kindly and truly."[126]

When the African deputies reached Rome, Pope John II. was already dead. But his successor Agapetus answered the questions of the council, attaching also the ancient canons which decided thereupon, to the effect that at whatever age a person had been infected by the Arian pestilence, if he became afterwards a Catholic he should not retain any rank, but that converted Arian priests might receive support from the Church fund. Pope Agapetus wrote expressing his intense joy at the recovery of their country: "For, since the Church is everywhere one body, your sorrow was our affliction. And we acknowledge your most sincere charity in that, as became wise and learned men, you did not forget the Apostolic Principate; but, in order to resolve that question, sought approach to that See to which the power of the keys is given".[127]

This council also sent an embassy to Justinian, beseeching him to restore the possessions and rights of the Church in Africa which the Vandals had taken away—a request which the emperor granted in an edict to his Prætorian prefect Salomo. And Agapetus expressly restored to the primate of Carthage any rights as metropolitan which the enemy had taken away.[128]