The relationship betweenthe Church and the State in the Christian Roman empire (the so-called “Byzantine” empire), is well known, and has been hottly debated through the centuries. It has also often been viewed with a certain bias, with a certain suspicion if not a downright hostility. Yet it suffices to mention the opposition to various state-sponsored (so they were viewed) heresies to show that we are far from a Church subjected to an all-powerful State. We remember all too well the Monothelite controversy, in which St. Maximus the Confessor eventually gave his life, or again the countless victims of Iconoclasm (mostly monks but also lay people) put to death by the Emperor for refusing to submit to the decree. We have in these examples a certain limitation already put upon the Emperors: they should not interfere with ecclesiastical matters, no matter how powerful they were.
But there was another domain in which the Church made its authority felt, and which would perhaps have deeper and more long-lasting consequences: the moral domain. This is primodrial because it addresses not just ecclesiastical matters, but social matters, that is, to the whole society, including (we could even say, beginning with) the emperor. We will recall St. John Chrysostom’s critics of Emperess Eudoxia’s extravagant behavior (for which he was twice exiled and died the second time). But the best and most powerful illustration of the Church’s guardianship of the new unwritten moral laws is perhaps the story of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, humiliating the Emperor. Let us briefly recall here that Theodosius, the emperor, had put to death 7,000 of the citizens of Thessalonica, Greece, in retaliation for the murder of the Roman governor there. On his return to Milan, the bishop barred him access to the church, holding this discourse reported by Theodoret:
“You do not reflect, it seems, O Emperor, on the guilt you have incurred by that great massacre; but now that your fury is appeased, do you not perceive the enormity of your crime? You must not be dazzled by the splendor of the purple you wear, and be led to forget the weakness of the body which it clothes. Your subjects, O Emperor, are of the same nature as yourself, and not only so, but are likewise your fellow servants; for there is one Lord and Ruler of all, and He is the maker of all creatures, whether princes or people. How would you look upon the temple of the one Lord of all? How could you lift up in prayer hands steeped in the blood of so unjust a massacre? Depart then, and do not by a second crime add to the guilt of the first.” –from Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History
The priest shutting the gates of the holy temple to the prince himself for a deed he could do on account of his power. This was never seen before in human history. We have here an institution that not only explicitely claimed that all power is not arbitrary but subject to the higher divine law; but it also acted out upon this claim with authority. In this sense, the legalization of Christianity by the Edict of Milan in 313 brought the ancient recognition already expressed by Antigone back to the core of political power, and pushed it further. It is clear that the vast power that the emperors had acquired under the Dominate could not remain unaffected by this new authority. But what is perhaps more surprising and significant is that huaman laws, too, were transformed to agree with this divine authority. Ambrose forced the emperor to sign a law that forbade him to enact the death penalty before a 30 day-period had elapsed and the judgment had been brought again for reconsideration, “for your [the emperor] resentment will then be calmed and you can justly decide the issue.”
