BYZANTINISM.
MR. FREDERIC HARRISON'S very interesting Rede Lecture on " Byzantine History in the Early Middle Ages " affords another instance of the reaction against Gibbon's view of the tedious nature and comparative un- importance of the history of the New Rome. To the more modern historian, such as Dr, Hodgkin and Mr. Finlay, writing without Gibbon's prejudices and with a mass of knowledge which has been brought to light since Gibbon's day, the history of the great capital of the Eastern Empire is one of the most important* chapters of universal history. It is important because of the long continuous record of the splendid city, because of its value as a bulwark of social order, because it was the depository of all the learning of the antique world during centuries when the Old Rome on the Tiber was little better than a heap of ruins given over to shepherds and goatherds, and, above all, because it preserved the continuity of civilisation and the arts. Let us quote Mr. Harrison, who puts the case for the New Rome with his happy and vigorous eloquence:—" In the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries we may trace a civilisa- tion around the Bosphorus which, with all its evils and the .seeds of disease within it, was in one sense far older than any other in Europe, in another sense- was far more modern ; which preserved things of priceless value to the human race;- which finally disproved the fallacy that there had ever been any prolonged break in human evolu- tion ; which was the mother and the model of secular Churches and mighty kingdoms in Eastern Europe, Churches and kingdoms which are still -not willing- to allow any superiority to the West, either in the region of State organisation or of spiritual faith." This is well said, and we doubt not that it represents the - real view to which historical research has arrived. We, do not doubt - the immense services rendered by Byzantium to the world, nor are we about to take the other side. What we want to show is that Byzantinism is not so much a description of the condi- tion of a particular city or Empire, as a word expressive of the state into which many civilisations have ultimately evolved, and to note one or"twO of its leading characteristics.
A proud, rich, highly centralised Empire in which the ruling classes are content to live on the labour of others without making any practical return inevitably tends to Byzantinism. Gregorovius has pointed out that by the time of Hadrian the Old Rome itself had developed marked Byzantine traits in its political life. Free spontaneity, never very pronounced in the Roman -character, was dead, save where Christianity had effected a breach in the outworn paganism. All power was centred in one man, to him all bowed in a spirit of Oriental Servility. The soldiers and the people united in supporting him; the former had raised him to the Imperial power, the Latter received from him free grain and public banquets. IIe was 'the head of the system Of • public worship, 'and at his death was numbered with the gods. Founded on mili- tary power, the Empire of Julius Caesar was dragged down fatally into the most complete tyranny, until, in the later stages of the Empire, the spirit of Asiatic despotism bad overflowed into Europe. Now this spirit of the East, when not informed by religion; tends to a rich and corrupt soil in which the most luxuriant growth of certain tendencies and institutions known to mankind is possible. Hardy plants mature best in a temperate climate and in a comparatively light soil ; but Nature's most gorgeous products flourish amid tropical decay. • A decadent civilisation, bringing to the birth monstrous growths, also provides rich and splendid objects, is fertile in overripe products. is a great storehouse of antiquities, an heir of all the wealth of the past, a custodian of the many. treasures which men desire. Sticks civilisation was that of Byzantium. It had in it little that was original, nothing that was bright, fresh,. youthful; alli,as hoar with antiquity ;all- was musty, and corrupt; and mag- nificent; the blood of thousands of years of old Greek life met there, the combined streams of Roman and Eastern tendencies, the whole forming a certain luscious, thick, rich mixture which demanded for itself that gorgeous material embodiment, that splendour as of a grand sunset, which expressed itself in what was, and always must be, one of the central cities of the world.
Byzautiuism, then, appears to need as its basis a series of deep layers of civilisation, crust upon crust, each of that over- ripeness which so easily becomes rottenness; each recalling old moralities, old traditions of life, buried crimes, anciaPt, wealth, antique treasures of art and literature. It feeds on the past, it preserves the past, it fascinates by its rich, corrupt splendour, but it rarely or never initiates a new principle of life. What, then, are its products, what are the most obvious growths of this all too-luxuriant soil ?
A fatal stillness seems to seize the Empire which is under the sway of Byzantinism, not the stillness of confidence and strength, but of decay. The Government cannot brook, we will not say opposition, but criticism. The Eastern Emperor, like his Turkish successor, could " bear no brother near his throne." The rival must be mutilated, and
• cast into a dungeon so deep that his faintest moan shall never be heard.. The terrible state of suspicion into which the mind of the ruler is thrown is illustrated by Justinian's treat- ment of his great general, Belisarius,—a treatment so extra- ordinary that we cannot understand it till we can nestle, as it were, in the inmost mind of the Emperor. The persecution of Ohrysostom by the Empress is, in some respects, a parallel case. No one can speak above his breath ; a great fear falls on the people. There was no lack of ability in the New Roine, and yet -there was no possible political life there, because all intellectual spontaneity had died out. The power of the Eastern Patriarchate and .its defiance of Roman pretensions to supremacy might have made of the See of Constantinople a great centre of spiritual force had the life of the community been free. But as it was, religion degenerated into the most contemptible travesty of spiritual ideas that the world has ever known. At a most critical period, both in religion and politics, the chief subject of a great discussion in which the Emperor took part was whether certain heretical Bishops were, or were not, being tortured in hell. The degenerate Greek mind found in some of the leading Christian doctrines such material for endless refinement that, with crime and sin all round, the ecclesiastics could do nothing but spin words to a degree that would have amazed those Sophists whom Socrates held a thousand years before to have aided in the intellectual corruption of Athens. In no community was the discussion of doctrine ever keener than in the New Rome, and in no community was ever spiritual life more completely dead.
Moreover, Byzantinism leads inevitably to fierce and unbalanced reactions. As the undoubted Byzantinism of the Russian Church has led to the fanatical character of the many Russian sects, so did the Byzantinism of the New Rome lead notably to two singular phases of religious fanaticism : the Iconoclastic movement and the ultra-ascetic tendencies of the Eastern monks. Mr. Harrison attributes immense importance to Iconoclasm, which he regards as " a bold and enthusiastic effort of Asiatic Christians to free the European-Christians of • the- common Empire from the fetishism, idol-worship, and monkery in -which their life was being stifled." Yes, it was that, but the energy and fanatical zeal put forth is evidence of the dangerous result of the prevailing Byzantine spirit. So with monasticism also The Western orders of monks were in their origin beneficent forces making for social order and fellowship, making for industry and the arts among mankind. The Eastern monks, reared in the fatal atmosphere of Byzantinism, made for isolation, idleness, and an inhuman asceticism. Every re. action partakes of the vices of the system against which it is a protest, and is the inevitable outcome of that system-. We need not forget the very real 'debt which the world owes to that great and 'magnificent city on the Bosphorus, the-meeting. place of Europe and Asia,-when we say that its organised life, - centred in a splendid -despot surrounded by an Orientalised Court, so stifled the human spirit, that all generous aspiration died out, all public spirit decayed, and "sweet religion became a rhapsody of words." Such seem to be the most striking fruits -which spring from the heavy, richly cultivated soil of Byzantinism.
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