© GEORGE FINLAY
HISTORY OF
First Edition February 1906
The
influence of the provincial spirit on the legislation of the empire is strongly
marked in the history of jurisprudence during Leo's reign. The anarchy which
had long interrupted the official communications between the provinces and
the capital lent an increased authority to local usages, and threw obstacles
in the way of the regular administration of justice, according to the strict
letter of the voluminous laws of Justinian. The consequence was, that various
local abridgments of the law were used as guide-books, both by lawyers and
judges, in the provincial tribunals, where the great expense of procuring
a copy of the Justinianean collection prevented its use. Leo published a Greek
manual of law, which by its official sanction became the primary authority
in all the courts of the empire. This imperial abridgment is called the Ecloga:
it affords some evidence concerning the state of society and the classes of
the people for which it was prepared. Little notice is taken of the rights
of the agriculturists; the various modes of acquiring property and constituting
servitudes are omitted. The Ecloga has been censured for its imperfections
by Basil I., the founder of a legislative dynasty, who speaks of it as an
insult to the earlier legislators; yet the orthodox lawgiver, while he pretended
to reject every act of the heretical Isaurian, servilely imitated all his
political plans. The brevity and precision of Leo's Ecloga were highly appreciated
both by the courts of law and the people, in spite of the heterodox opinions
of its promulgator. It so judiciously supplied a want long felt by a large
portion of society, that neither the attempt of Basil I. to supplant it by
a new official manual, nor the publication of the great code of the Basilika
in Greek, deprived it of value among the jurisconsults of the Byzantine empire.
The legislative labours of Leo were not circumscribed to the publication
of the Ecloga. He seems to have sanctioned various minor codes, by which the
regulations in use relating to military, agricultural, and maritime law were
reduced into systematic order. The collections which are attached to the copies
of the Ecloga, under the heads of military, agricultural and Rhodian laws,
cannot, however, be considered as official acts of his reign; still, they are
supposed to afford us a correct idea of the originals he published. Some
abstract of the provisions contained in the Roman legislation on military
affairs, was rendered necessary by the practice of maintaining corps of foreign
mercenaries in the capital. A military code was likewise rendered necessary, in
consequence of the changes that took place in the old system, as the Asiatic
provinces were gradually cleared of the invading bands of Saracens. The
agricultural laws appear to be a tolerably exact copy of the enactment of Leo.
The work bears the impress of the condition of society in his time, and it is
not surprising that the title which perpetuated the merits and the memory of
the heterodox Leo was suppressed by orthodox bigotry. The maritime laws are
extremely interesting, from affording a picture of the state of commercial
legislation in the eighth century, at the time when commerce and law saved the
Roman empire. The exact date of the collection we possess is not ascertained.
That Leo protected commerce, we may infer from its reviving under his
government; whether he promulgated a code to sanction or enforce his reforms,
or whether the task was completed by one of his successors, is doubtful.
The whole policy of Leo's reign has been estimated by his ecclesiastical
reforms. These have been severely judged by all historians, and they appear to
have encountered a violent opposition from a large portion of his subjects. The
general dissatisfaction has preserved sufficient authentic information to allow
of a candid examination of the merits and errors of his policy. Theophanes
considers the aversion of Leo to the adoration of images as originating in an
impious attachment to the unitarianism of the Arabs. His own pages, however,
refute some of his calumnies, for he records that Leo persecuted the
unitarianism of the Jews, and the tendency to it in the Montanists. Indeed, all
those who differed from the most orthodox acknowledgment of the Trinity,
received very little Christian charity at the hands of the Isaurians, who
placed the cross on the reverse of many of his gold, silver and copper coins,
and over the gates of his palace, as a symbol for universal adoration. In his
Iconoclast opinions, Leo is merely a type of the more enlightened laymen of his
age. A strong reaction against the superstitions introduced into the Christian
religion by the increasing ignorance of the people, pervaded the educated
classes, who were anxious to put a stop to what might be considered a revival
of the ideas and feelings of paganism. The Asiatic Christians, who were brought
into frequent collision with the followers of Mahomet, Zoroaster, and Moses,
were compelled to observe that the worship of the common people among
themselves was sensual, when compared with the devotion of the infidels. The
worship oif God was neglected, and his service transferred to some human
symbol. The favourite saint was usually one whose faults were found to bear
some analogy to the vices of his worshipper, and thus pardon was supposed to be
obtained for sin on easier terms than accords with Divine justice, and vice was
consequently rendered more prevalent. The clergy had yielded to the popular
ignorance; the walls of churches were covered with pictures which were reported
to have wrought miraculous cures; their shrines were enriched by paintings not
made with hands: Acheiropoieta.
Nothing can better prove the extent to which superstition had contaminated
religion than the assertion of the Patriarch Germanos, that miracles were daily
wrought by the image of Christ and the saints, and that balsam distilled from
the painted hand of an image of the Virgin Mary.
The superstitions of the people were increased, and the doctrines of
Christianity were neglected. Pope Gregory II., in a letter to Leo, mentions the
fact, that men expended their estates to have the sacred histories represented
in paintings.
In a time of general reform, and in a government where ecclesiastics
acted as administrative officials of the central authority, it was impossible
for Leo to permit the church to remain quite independent in ecclesiastical
affairs, unless he was prepared for the clergy assuming a gradual supremacy in
the state. The clergy, being the only class in the administration of public
affairs connected with the people by interest and feelings, was always sure of
a powerful popular support. It appeared, therefore, necessary to the emperor to
secure them as sincere instruments in carrying out all his reforms, otherwise
there was some reason to fear that they might constitute themselves the leaders
of the people in Greece and Asia, as they had already done at Rome, and control
the imperial administration throughout the whole Eastern Empire, as completely
as they did in the Byzantine possessions in central Italy.
Leo commenced his ecclesiastical reforms in the year 726, by an edict
ordering all pictures in churches to be placed so high as to prevent the people
fron kissing them, and prohibiting prostration before these symbols, or any act
of public worship being addressed to them. Against this moderate edict of the
emperor, the Patriarc Germanos and the Pope Gregory II. made strong
representations. The opposition of interest which reigned between the church
and the state impelled the two bodies to a contest for supremacy which it
required centuries to decide, and both Germanos and Gregory were sincere
supporters of image-worship. To the ablest writer of the time, – the celebrated
John Damascenus, who dwelt under the protection of the caliph at Damascus,
among Mohammedans and Jews, – this edict seemed to mark a relapse to Judaism,
or a tendency to Islamism. He felt himself called upon to combat such feelings
with all the eloquence and power of argument he possessed. The empire was
thrown into a ferment; the lower clergy and the whole Greek nation declared in
favour of image-worship. The professors of the university of Constantinople, an
institution of a Greek character, likewise declared their opposition to the
edict. Liberty of conscience was the watchward against the imperial authority.
The Pope and the Patriarch denied the right of the civil power to interfere
with the doctrines of the church; the monks everywhere echoed the words of John
Damascenus, "It is not the business of the emperor to make laws for the
church. Apostles preached the gospels;
the welfare of the state is the monarch's care; pastors and teachers attend to
that of the church." The despotic principles of Leo's administration, and
the severe measures of centralisation which he enforced as the means of
reorganising the public service, created many additional enemies to his
government.
The rebellion of the inhabitants of Greece, which occurred in the year
727, seems to have originated in a dissatisfaction with the fiscal and
administrative reforms of Leo, to which local circumstances, unnoticed by
historians, gave peculiar violence, and which the edict against image-worship
fanned into a flame. The unanimity of all classes, and the violence of the
popular zeal in favour of their local privileges and superstitions, suggested
the hope of dethroning Leo, and placing a Greek on the throne of Constatinople.
A naval expedition, composed of the imperial fleet in the Cyclades, and
attended by an army from the continent was fitted out to attack the capital.
Agallianos, who commanded the imperial forces destined to watch the Slavonians
settled in Greece, was placed at the head of the army destined to assail the
conqueror of the Saracens. The name of the new emperor was Kosmas. In the month
of April the Greek fleet appeared before Constantinople. It soon appeared that
the Greeks, confiding in the goodness of their cause, had greatly overrated
their own valour and strength, or strangely overlooked the resources of the
Iconoclasts. Leo met the fleet as it approached his capital, and completely
defeated it. Agallianos, with the spirit of a hero, when he saw the utter ruin
of the enterprise, plunged fully armed into the sea rather than surrender.
Kosmas was taken prisoner, with another leader, and immediately beheaded. Leo,
however, treated the mass of the prisoners with mildness.
TO BE
CONTINUED