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On the Person of Christ: The Christology of Emperor Justinian
These documents articulate the interpretation of Chalcedon's christological definition, and the Orthodox doctrine on the Person of Christ. Includes index.
204 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1997
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Justinian I
229 books12 followersFrom 527, Saint Justinian I, originally Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus, Byzantine emperor, held the eastern frontier against the Persians; reconquered former Roman territories in Africa, Italy, and Spain; and ruled jointly with Theodora, his wife, to 565.
Belisarius, his general, led campaigns against the Vandals in north and the Ostrogoths.
Saint Theodora, Byzantine empress, ruled jointly with Justinian I, her husband.
Saint Justinian I, traditionally also known as the Great in the Orthodox Church, reigned. During reign, Justinian sought to revive the greatness and the lost historical western half. Justinian constitutes a distinct epoch in the later history, and the ambitious but only partly realized "restoration" marked his reign.
Because of restoration activities, modern historiography sometimes called the "last" Justinian I. The partial recovery of the defunct west expressed this ambition. Belisarius, his general, swiftly eliminated the Vandal kingdom in north. After the kingdom of Ostrogoths for more than half a century, Belisarius, Narses, and other generals subsequently restored Dalmatia and Sicily. Liberius, the prefect, reclaimed the south of the Iberian peninsula and thus established the province. These campaigns again established control over the western Mediterranean and increased the annual revenue over a million solidi. During reign, Justinian also subdued the Tzani, a people on the coast of the Black Sea.
A still more resonant aspect of legacy of Justinian I rewrote the Corpus Juris Civilis, still the basis of uniform civil law in many modern states. His reign also marked a blossoming of culture, and his building program yielded such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia. A devastating outbreak of bubonic plague in the early 540s marked the end of an age of splendor.
Belisarius, his general, led campaigns against the Vandals in north and the Ostrogoths.
Saint Theodora, Byzantine empress, ruled jointly with Justinian I, her husband.
Saint Justinian I, traditionally also known as the Great in the Orthodox Church, reigned. During reign, Justinian sought to revive the greatness and the lost historical western half. Justinian constitutes a distinct epoch in the later history, and the ambitious but only partly realized "restoration" marked his reign.
Because of restoration activities, modern historiography sometimes called the "last" Justinian I. The partial recovery of the defunct west expressed this ambition. Belisarius, his general, swiftly eliminated the Vandal kingdom in north. After the kingdom of Ostrogoths for more than half a century, Belisarius, Narses, and other generals subsequently restored Dalmatia and Sicily. Liberius, the prefect, reclaimed the south of the Iberian peninsula and thus established the province. These campaigns again established control over the western Mediterranean and increased the annual revenue over a million solidi. During reign, Justinian also subdued the Tzani, a people on the coast of the Black Sea.
A still more resonant aspect of legacy of Justinian I rewrote the Corpus Juris Civilis, still the basis of uniform civil law in many modern states. His reign also marked a blossoming of culture, and his building program yielded such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia. A devastating outbreak of bubonic plague in the early 540s marked the end of an age of splendor.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 11, 2025
St. Justinian counters the heresies of Nestorianism and Monophysitism in several texts from around the time of the 5th ecumenical council (Constantinople II)
May 23, 2018
This is Kenneth Wesche's translation of three treatises by the Emperor Justinian (r. 527-565) on Christological topics: Justinian's Letter to the Monks of Alexandria Against the Monophysites; A Letter on the Three Chapters; and The Edict on the True Faith. These are the three texts edited by E. Schwartz in Drei dogmatische Schriften. The notes throughout largely mirror Schwartz's references, although I noticed that in one place, where Justinian cites Pope Leo I as having said something Leo did not say, Wesche did not include Schwartz's note saying that Leo's letter did not include the statement. Not to say that Wesche is deliberately fudging things, I guess, but he does have his own angle.
At the time of publication, Rev. Dr Wesche was an Orthodox priest in Minneapolis. He chose to make this translation because Justinian's Christology is basic to the Byzantine understanding of Christ and endures in the Orthodox Church today. Moreover, although Wesche does not say this, Justinian is relatively straightforward in his presentation of Christological thought and his defence of his own position. One of the concerns some of the less famous bishops of Late Antiquity had in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon was that, while they agreed with the council, they did not think it had anything to offer their own congregations. Christology at this level, they said, was for bishops to stop heresy, not for catechesing the faithful.
Justinian does an admirable job of trying to make clear what is easily obscure. The same problems plague him here as everywhere in the controversy from 451 onward -- the obstinacy of his opponents, the lack of clarity on terminology, etc. Nevertheless, I can easily see even a bishop looking at the long citations from the Fathers with commentary and tiring of what lies before him. That may be no fault of Justinian, but rather of human frailty.
The two targets here are 'Monophysites' (aka Miaphysites aka anti-Chalcedonian Cyrillians aka conservative Cyrillians), in particular the acephaloi, and supporters of the 'Three Chapters'. Concerning 'Monophysites', it can be difficult to keep them straight in our minds. Justinian's focus is not the orthodox (or nearly orthodox) forms of belief espoused by Severus of Antioch and Philoxenus of Mabbug, but the radical, intransigent arguments of Timothy Aelurus and the acephaloi of Egypt, a group who rejected the Archbishop of Alexandria through a radical commitment to mia physis -- 'one nature' -- Christology. If his quotations are accurate, Timothy Aelurus looks truly heretical to me. The main point Justinian argues against the 'Monophysites' is that Cyril's 'one nature' formula is perfectly compatible with 'two natures' when Chalcedon is interpreted properly.
The 'Three Chapters' are: the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia; the letter of Ibas of Edessa to Mari the Persian; and writings by Theodoret of Cyrrhus against Cyril of Alexandria. These three items were condemned by Justinian through various approaches as part of his attempt to reconcile 'Monophysites' like Severus of Antioch with the imperial church. The supporters of these 'Three Chapters' were mostly (but not entirely) Latin-speakers for whom anything that abrogated or seemed to threaten the authority of the Council of Chalcedon was anathema. They argued that condemning Ibas's letter and the writings of Theodoret went against the council that welcomed both bishops into communion and rehabilitated them after they had been expelled from their bishoprics by the Second Council of Ephesus (449). They also objected to posthumous denunciations of people who died in the faith and peace of the Church like Theodore of Mopsuestia.
Justinian's strongest argument was that neither Ibas nor Theodoret himself was condemned. Rather, particular writings that were not in accordance with the faith were condemned. Moreover, Theodore of Mopsuestia stands condemned for heresy by his own hand already, regardless of his position in the church at his death. Theodore was a particular target, for in the later stages of the Nestorian Controversy, after the Council of Ephesus (430), Cyril of Alexandria and his allies realised that the theology of Nestorius that they so detested and found so dangerous would still persist as long as Theodore's teaching was allowed to be spread, since Theodore was the intellectual master of Nestorius. Therefore, through these condemnations, Justinian sought to heal the wounds of the eastern church.
Obviously, he failed. Indeed, his attempts at reconciling the East failed anyway, and they also brought about a schism in the West.
My one final concern about this book is Wesche's assertion in the introduction to the 'Edict on the True Faith' that western and eastern approaches to Christology are very different, and the edict shows that. Perhaps I am simply a poor theologian, or I've spent too much of my own theological training reading patristic and eastern books, but I do not see anything in Justinian's approach in this text that is counter to how I would think we do Christology.
At the time of publication, Rev. Dr Wesche was an Orthodox priest in Minneapolis. He chose to make this translation because Justinian's Christology is basic to the Byzantine understanding of Christ and endures in the Orthodox Church today. Moreover, although Wesche does not say this, Justinian is relatively straightforward in his presentation of Christological thought and his defence of his own position. One of the concerns some of the less famous bishops of Late Antiquity had in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon was that, while they agreed with the council, they did not think it had anything to offer their own congregations. Christology at this level, they said, was for bishops to stop heresy, not for catechesing the faithful.
Justinian does an admirable job of trying to make clear what is easily obscure. The same problems plague him here as everywhere in the controversy from 451 onward -- the obstinacy of his opponents, the lack of clarity on terminology, etc. Nevertheless, I can easily see even a bishop looking at the long citations from the Fathers with commentary and tiring of what lies before him. That may be no fault of Justinian, but rather of human frailty.
The two targets here are 'Monophysites' (aka Miaphysites aka anti-Chalcedonian Cyrillians aka conservative Cyrillians), in particular the acephaloi, and supporters of the 'Three Chapters'. Concerning 'Monophysites', it can be difficult to keep them straight in our minds. Justinian's focus is not the orthodox (or nearly orthodox) forms of belief espoused by Severus of Antioch and Philoxenus of Mabbug, but the radical, intransigent arguments of Timothy Aelurus and the acephaloi of Egypt, a group who rejected the Archbishop of Alexandria through a radical commitment to mia physis -- 'one nature' -- Christology. If his quotations are accurate, Timothy Aelurus looks truly heretical to me. The main point Justinian argues against the 'Monophysites' is that Cyril's 'one nature' formula is perfectly compatible with 'two natures' when Chalcedon is interpreted properly.
The 'Three Chapters' are: the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia; the letter of Ibas of Edessa to Mari the Persian; and writings by Theodoret of Cyrrhus against Cyril of Alexandria. These three items were condemned by Justinian through various approaches as part of his attempt to reconcile 'Monophysites' like Severus of Antioch with the imperial church. The supporters of these 'Three Chapters' were mostly (but not entirely) Latin-speakers for whom anything that abrogated or seemed to threaten the authority of the Council of Chalcedon was anathema. They argued that condemning Ibas's letter and the writings of Theodoret went against the council that welcomed both bishops into communion and rehabilitated them after they had been expelled from their bishoprics by the Second Council of Ephesus (449). They also objected to posthumous denunciations of people who died in the faith and peace of the Church like Theodore of Mopsuestia.
Justinian's strongest argument was that neither Ibas nor Theodoret himself was condemned. Rather, particular writings that were not in accordance with the faith were condemned. Moreover, Theodore of Mopsuestia stands condemned for heresy by his own hand already, regardless of his position in the church at his death. Theodore was a particular target, for in the later stages of the Nestorian Controversy, after the Council of Ephesus (430), Cyril of Alexandria and his allies realised that the theology of Nestorius that they so detested and found so dangerous would still persist as long as Theodore's teaching was allowed to be spread, since Theodore was the intellectual master of Nestorius. Therefore, through these condemnations, Justinian sought to heal the wounds of the eastern church.
Obviously, he failed. Indeed, his attempts at reconciling the East failed anyway, and they also brought about a schism in the West.
My one final concern about this book is Wesche's assertion in the introduction to the 'Edict on the True Faith' that western and eastern approaches to Christology are very different, and the edict shows that. Perhaps I am simply a poor theologian, or I've spent too much of my own theological training reading patristic and eastern books, but I do not see anything in Justinian's approach in this text that is counter to how I would think we do Christology.
October 13, 2017
Pure Chalcedonian Christology.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews