BYZANTINE
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BYZANTINE
tian soil, grew up that ascetic concept of life which
attained such great importance as Byzantine monas-
ticism. After Alexandria, Syria was important as a
home of Christianity, its centre being Antioch, where
a school of Christian commentators flourished under
St. John Chrysostom, and where later arose the
Christian universal chronicles. In Syria, also, we
find the germs of Greek ecclesiastical poetry, while
from neighbouring Palestine came St. John of Damas-
cus, the last of the Greek Fathers.
It is evident that Greek Christianity had of ne- cessity a pronounced Oriental character; Egypt and Syria are the real birthplaces of the Gneeo-Oriental church, and indeed of Grseco-Oriental (i. e. Byzan- tine) civilization in general. Egypt and Syria, with Asia Minor, became for the autochthonous Greek civilization a sort of America, where hundreds of flourishing cities sprang into existence, and where energies confined or crippled in the impoverished home-land found an unlimited opportunity to dis- play themselves; not only did these cities surpass in material wealth the mother-country, but soon also cultivated the highest goods of the intellect (Krum- bacher). Under such circumstances it is not strange that about nine-tenths of all the Byzantine authors of the first eight centuries were natives of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor.
After this brief characterization of the various ele- ments of Byzantine civilization, it is to be inquired in what relation they stood to each other, how they mingled, anil what was the product of their combina- tion. It is extremely instructive to notice how the two fundamental elements of Byzantinism, the Roman and the Hellenistic, are connected, both with each other and with the culture of the East — what each one gains and what it loses, and what in- fluence it has upon the other. The Roman suprem- acy in governmental life did not disappear in By- zantium. It was even amplified, through the union of Roman Caesarism with Oriental despotism. More- over, the subjection of the Church to the power of the State led to that governmental ecclesiasticism always irreconcilably opposed to the Roman Church, which had triumphed over the secular power. On the other hand, the intellectual superiority of the Greek element was shown by its victory over the Latin tongue as the official language of the Govern- ment. Its last Latin monument is the "Novella;" of Justinian. As early as the seventh century the Greek language made great progress, and by the eleventh the supremacy of Greek was secure, although it was never able to absorb the numerous other lan- guages of the empire. Moreover, while the Greek world might artificially preserve the classic form of its ancient literature, the same cannot be said of the poetical feeling and the imagination. It was precisely in a stlii ti'- culture that the Byzantine Greek broke completely with the ancient traditions; in literature and in the plastic arts the spirit of the Orient was everywhere victorious. On the one hand, some ancient literary types, ( >. gr lyric verse and the drama, becai [uite extinct, while only in the minor de- partments of literature was any great degree of skill attained; on the other hand, the ancient sense of proportion, the feeling for beauty, and the creative DO ■! in poetry were wholly lost, and wire replaced by a delight in the grotesque ami the dispropor- tioned on the one hand, and in ornamental trifles mi the other. This injury, affecting literature and its
free development, was a result of social conditions which contrast markedly with those oi ancient Athens
anil ancient Home, while tiny lit in perfectly with
the masterful ways of the Orient. There is no trace
of a body of free : 1 1 1 < 1 <.hl--.it.il citizens, which
iii keeping with the Roman policy of close centrali- zation, and the consequently slight developmenl of municipal life. Constantinople was the city, and
no rivals were permitted. Literature was, therefore,
wholly a concern of the high official and priestly
classes; it was aristocratic or theological, not repre-
sentative of the interests of the citizens. Thus
classical standards could be imitated because only
the upper classes concerned themselves with litera-
ture. For the same reason it lacked genuine spon-
taneity, having no roots in the life of the people.
The Church alone — and here we come to its influence
on Byzantine civilization — for some time infused fresh
life into literature. But even this life was an Orien-
tal growth, for Greek hymnology is of Syrian origin.
In Byzantium therefore, ecclesiastical and Oriental
influences coincide. The Oriental influence is es-
pecially apparent in Byzantine plastic art. Here the
ancient sources of inspiration are even more com-
pletely obscured than in the domain of literature,
and we notice the same principles: complete absence
of feeling for architectonic proportion of members,
transference of the artistic centre of gravity to the
interior, i. e. to the wall-surfaces, and there the re-
placing of form by colour, of the plastic effect by
the picturesque; not, however, by broadly drawn
fresco treatment, but by the more artisanlike work
in mosaic, with its predominance of ornamental
motives. Wall-decoration and minor ornament are
thus combined in a fashion analogous to the By-
zantine treatment of annalistic and epigrammatic
poetry. And while Byzantine art, like its poetry,
goes back to the Alexandrian, yet it is greatly
altered and modified by influences from Syria,
Persia, and Asia Minor, so that it approaches the
Oriental.
The next point to be discussed is the influence of the Orient upon Church and State. Here we must distinguish between direct and indirect forces. Chief among the former is the office of Emperor. In so far as the emperor unites in himself both secular and spiritual power, there falls upon him a glamour of Oriental theocracy; his person is regarded as sacred; he is a representative of God, indeed the very image of God, and all must prostrate themselves before him; everything that serves for his use is sacred, even the red ink with which he underlines his signature. The Oriental character of the Byzan- tine Church appears in its tenacious dogmatic spirit, the establishment of Christian doctrines by councils, the asceticism which affected monastic life so far as to hinder the formation of regular orders with com- munity life, and also the mad fanaticism against the Roman West and the Church, which in the eleventh century finallv led to an open breach. The Oriental character of Church and State is still more pronounced considered in its effect upon civic life. The lack of a vigorous citizen-body, owing to the lack of large cities, has already been mentioned. The landed no- bility, officials, and priests controlled political, social, and religious life. Hence the aristocratic, exclusive, and non-popular character of the language ami literature, and the one-sided development of both, down to the twelfth century. The Church, too. kept in subjection by the State, though failing to ennoble the inner religious life of the citizens, sought all the more zealously to fashion their external life upon an ecclesiastical model. The church edifice even served as a model for secular building; every house had its ilin , and the family life followed ecclesiastical forms. On the other hand, we do not find the rich and fruit- ful interact ion between spiritual and secular affairs thai we do in western countries. The religious de- votion to Mary gave rise to no chivalric devotion to woman, and from the oratories there came no reli- gions drama. Theological and dogmatic interests out- weighed the religious and ethical; the individualistic sentiment was stronger than the social. Such, ap- proximately, was the result of the mingling of the diverse elements in the body of Byzantine culture.
