The name of Justinian is so famous in history, and so connected with legislation both civil and ecclesiastical, that it would be unfair to our readers to pass it without a notice, though not immediately of the Latin church. He belonged to the East, and rather hindered the rise of the West.
In the year 527 Justinian ascended the throne of Constantinople, and occupied it for nearly forty years. The political and military affairs of the empire he committed to his ministers and generals, and devoted his own time to those things which he thought more important. He spent much of his time in theological studies, and in the regulation of the religious affairs of his subjects, such as prescribing what the priests and the people should believe and practice. He was fond of mixing in controversy and of acting as a lawgiver in religious matters. His own faith—or rather, slavish superstition—was distinguished by the most rigid orthodoxy, and a large portion of his long reign was spent in the extinction of heresy. But this led to many instances of persecution, both public and private.
In the mean time Justinian saw a new field opening for his energies in another direction, and immediately turned his attention to it. After the death of Theodoric the Great in 526 the affairs of Italy fell into a very confused condition, and the new conquerors were far from being firmly seated on their thrones. Rousing the national hostility of the Romans against the barbarians, the imperial army was united and determined;, and led by the able generals Belisarius and Narses, the conquests of Italy and Africa were achieved in a very short space of time. At the sight of the well-known eagles the soldiers of the barbarians refused to fight, and the nations threw off the supremacy of the Ostrogoths. The imperial generals now prosecuted an exterminating war. It is reckoned that during the reign of Justinian Africa lost five millions of inhabitants. Arianism was extinguished in that region; and in Italy the numbers who perished by war, by famine, or in other ways, is supposed to have exceeded the whole of its present population. The sufferings of these countries, during the revolutions of this period, were greater than they had ever endured in either earlier or later times. So that both the secular events of Justinian's reign and his own legislative labors had an important, but most unfortunate, bearing on the history of Christianity.
After erecting the church of St. Sophia, and twenty-five other churches in Constantinople, and publishing a new edition of his code, he died A.D. 565.
We now pass on to the third great founder of the papal edifice.