glory, seems to have been for theology and religion; it was in this field that his literary powers exerted themselves (for he wrote controversial treatises and hymns), and his taste also, for among his numerous buildings the churches are those on which he spent most thought and money. Considering that his legal reforms are those by which his name is mainly known to posterity, it is curious that we should have hardly any information as to his legal knowledge, or the share which he took in those reforms. In person he was somewhat above the middle height, well-shaped, with plenty of fresh colour in his cheeks, and an extraordinary power of doing without food and sleep. He spent most of the night in reading or writing, and would sometimes go for a day with no food but a few green herbs. Two mosaic figures of him exist at Ravenna, one in the apse of the church of S. Vitale, the other in the church of S. Apollinare in Urbe; but of course one cannot be sure how far in such a material the portrait fairly represents the original. He had no children by his marriage with Theodora, and did not marry after her decease. On his death, which took place on the 14th of November 565, the crown passed to his nephew Justin II.
Authorities.—For the life of Justinian the chief authorities are Procopius (Historiae, De aedificiis, Anecdota) and (from 552 A.D.) the History of Agathias; the Chronicle of Johannes Malalas is also of value. Occasional reference must be made to the writings of Jordanes and Marcellinus, and even to the late compilations of Cedrenus and Zonaras. The Vita Justiniani of Ludewig or Ludwig (Halle, 1731), a work of patient research, is frequently referred to by E. Gibbon in his important chapters relating to the reign of Justinian, in the Decline and Fall (see Bury’s edition, 1900). There is a Vie de Justinien by Isambert (2 vols., Paris, 1856). See also Hutton’s Church of the Sixth Century (1897); J. B. Bury’s Later Roman Empire (1889); Hodgkin’s Italy and her Invaders (1880). (J. Br.)
JUSTINIAN II., Rhinotmetus (669–711), East Roman emperor
685–695 and 704–711, succeeded his father Constantine IV.,
at the age of sixteen. His reign was unhappy both at home and
abroad. After a successful invasion he made a truce with the
Arabs, which admitted them to the joint possession of Armenia,
Iberia and Cyprus, while by removing 12,000 Christian Maronites
from their native Lebanon, he gave the Arabs a command over
Asia Minor of which they took advantage in 692 by conquering all
Armenia. In 688 Justinian decisively defeated the Bulgarians.
Meanwhile the bitter dissensions caused in the Church by the
emperor, his bloody persecution of the Manichaeans, and the
rapacity with which, through his creatures Stephanus and
Theodatus, he extorted the means of gratifying his sumptuous
tastes and his mania for erecting costly buildings, drove his
subjects into rebellion. In 695 they rose under Leontius,
and, after cutting off the emperor’s nose (whence his surname),
banished him to Cherson in the Crimea. Leontius, after a
reign of three years, was in turn dethroned and imprisoned
by Tiberius Absimarus, who next assumed the purple. Justinian
meanwhile had escaped from Cherson and married Theodora,
sister of Busirus, khan of the Khazars. Compelled,
however, by the intrigues of Tiberius, to quit his new home, he
fled to Terbelis, king of the Bulgarians. With an army of 15,000
horsemen Justinian suddenly pounced upon Constantinople,
slew his rivals Leontius and Tiberius, with thousands of their
partisans, and once more ascended the throne in 704. His
second reign was marked by an unsuccessful war against Terbelis,
by Arab victories in Asia Minor, by devastating expeditions
sent against his own cities of Ravenna and Cherson,
where he inflicted horrible punishment upon the disaffected
nobles and refugees, and by the same cruel rapacity towards
his subjects. Conspiracies again broke out: Bardanes, surnamed
Philippicus, assumed the purple, and Justinian, the
last of the house of Heraclius, was assassinated in Asia Minor,
December 711.
See E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. Bury, 1896), v. 179–183; J. B. Bury, The Later Roman Empire (1889), ii. 320–330, 358–367.
JUSTIN MARTYR, one of the earliest and ablest Christian
apologists, was born about 100 at Flavia Neapolis (anc. Sichem),
now Nablus, in Palestinian Syria (Samaria). His parents,
according to his own account, were Pagans (Dial. c. Tryph. 28).
He describes the course of his religious development in the
introduction to the dialogue with the Jew Trypho, in which
he relates how chance intercourse with an aged stranger brought
him to know the truth. Though this narrative is a mixture of
truth and fiction, it may be said with certainty that a thorough
study of the philosophy of Peripatetics and Pythagoreans,
Stoics and Platonists, brought home to Justin the conviction
that true knowledge was not to be found in them. On the other
hand, he came to look upon the Old Testament prophets as
approved by their antiquity, sanctity, mystery and prophecies
to be interpreters of the truth. To this, as he tells us in another
place (Apol. ii. 12), must be added the deep impression produced
upon him by the life and death of Christ. His conversion
apparently took place at Ephesus; there, at any rate, he places
his decisive interview with the old man, and there he had
those discussions with Jews and converts to Judaism, the results
of which he in later years set down in his Dialogue. After
his conversion he retained his philosopher’s cloak (Euseb.,
Hist. Eccl. iv. 11. 8), the distinctive badge of the wandering professional
teacher of philosophy, and went about from place to
place discussing the truths of Christianity in the hope of bringing
educated Pagans, as he himself had been brought, through
philosophy to Christ. In Rome he made a fairly long stay,
giving lectures in a class-room of his own, though not without
opposition from his fellow-teachers. Among his opponents
was the Cynic Crescentius (Apol. ii. 13). Eusebius (Hist. Eccl.
iv. 16. 7–8) concludes somewhat hastily, from the statement
of Justin and his disciple Tatian (Orat. ad Graec. 19), that the
accusation of Justin before the authorities, which led to his
death, was due to Crescentius. But we know, from the undoubtedly
genuine Acta SS Justini et sociorum, that Justin
suffered the death of a martyr under the prefect Rusticus
between 163 and 167.
To form an opinion of Justin as a Christian and theologian, we must turn to his Apology and to the Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, for the authenticity of all other extant works attributed to him is disputed with good reason. The Apology—it is more correct to speak of one Apology than of two, for the second is only a continuation of the first, and dependent upon it—was written in Rome about 150. In the first part Justin defends his fellow-believers against the charge of atheism and hostility to the state. He then draws a positive demonstration of the truth of his religion from the effects of the new faith, and especially from the excellence of its moral teaching, and concludes with a comparison of Christian and Pagan doctrines, in which the latter are set down with naïve confidence as the work of demons. As the main support of his proof of the truth of Christianity appears his detailed demonstration that the prophecies of the old dispensation, which are older than the Pagan poets and philosophers, have found their fulfilment in Christianity. A third part shows, from the practices of their religious worship, that the Christians had in truth dedicated themselves to God. The whole closes with an appeal to the princes, with a reference to the edict issued by Hadrian in favour of the Christians. In the so-called Second Apology, Justin takes occasion from the trial of a Christian recently held in Rome to argue that the innocence of the Christians was proved by the very persecutions.
Even as a Christian Justin always remained a philosopher. By his conscious recognition of the Greek philosophy as a preparation for the truths of the Christian religion, he appears as the first and most distinguished in the long list of those who have endeavoured to reconcile Christian with non-Christian culture. Christianity consists for him in the doctrines, guaranteed by the manifestation of the Logos in the person of Christ, of God, righteousness and immortality, truths which have been to a certain extent foreshadowed in the monotheistic religious philosophies. In this process the conviction of the reconciliation of the sinner with God, of the salvation of the world and the individual through Christ, fell into the background before the vindication of supernatural truths intellectually conceived. Thus Justin may give the impression of having
