Wilken on Justinian

Sixth-century Mosaic of Justinian I in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna (Wikimedia Commons)

Continuing from yesterday, Wilken's chapter 26 is on Justinian. Here are my notes, with links. For more information, there is a Cambridge Companion (2005), edited by Michael Maas. 

Justinian (483–565) was born in Tauresium (wikipedia; see also "Justiniana Prima") in modern Serbia. 

Theodora (d. 28 June 548; wikipedia), wife of Justinian, recognized as a saint in the east.

Theodora, Wikimedia Commons

Procopius (c. 500–565, wikipedia). This historian's works are available in the Loeb Classical Library. His Secret History (wikipedia; a recent translation) is the source that says that Theodora was a prostitute before marriage. Justinian's constructions are chronicled in the work of Procopius called Buildings (wikipedia). 

Constantinople had 500,000 residents covering an area of five square kilometers (Wilken pp. 247–48).  

Church Buildings. "Justinian's architects ... broke with this tradition and turned to vaulted centrally planned structures with a dome carried on massive piers buttressed by semi-domes. ... Among churches in Constantinople constructed with domes during Justinian's reign, three stood out" (Wilken p. 249). 

• Church of Saints Sergios and Bacchos = Little Hagia Sophia (wikipedia), now a mosque. There is a church in Cairo with the same name (wikipedia), and it dates to the IV century and so has nothing to do with Justinian. 
• Church of Hagia Eirene (wikipedia). According to Wikipedia, it is one of the only churches in Istanbul not converted to a mosque, but today it serves as a museum and concert hall. 
• Church of Hagia Sophia (wikipedia), now a mosque. According to Wikipedia, from 1453 (the year of Constantinople's fall to the Turks), "it served as a mosque until 1935, when it became an interfaith museum, until being controversially reclassified solely as a mosque in 2020." For more, see further on wikipedia.

Hagia Sophia, Wikimedia Commons

Wilken (pp. 249–50) briefly describes the liturgy. 

Saint Catherine's Monastery (wikipedia; official website), also built on Justinian's orders. Egeria in the fourth century already found monks on Mt. Sinai. Procopius described the building (Wilken pp. 250–51). For the mosaic of the transfiguration described by Wilken, see here. 

Wikimedia Commons

As for the mosaics of Moses (two different ones) depicting his loosening his sandals and receiving the law, see images here. 

Roman law. Wikipedia: "Corpus Juris Civilis." "In some ways his most enduring project was the publication of a new code of law for the Roman Empire based on a revision of previous statutes" (Wilken p. 251). "It is made up of four different works: the Codex, a library of imperial pronouncements going back to the time of Hadrian; the Digest (or Pandects), a gathering of selections from the writings of classical jurists; the Institutes, an introduction to the Corpus and a summary of the laws and the basic principles guiding the revision; the Novels (novellae), more recent laws, particularly decrees of Justinian himself" (Wilken p. 252). Apparently Justinian instituted the procedure whereby people in a courtroom swear on a Bible. 

There are various English translations of the component parts of the Corpus Juris Civilis. The following are the most recent major translations I have been able to find. 

Codex: a 2016 3-vol. translation

Digest: a 1985 translation, under the direction of Alan Watson, reprinted, 4 vols. 

Institutes: a 1987 translation, a single volume

Novellae: a 2018 2-vol. translation

529 CE saw the closure of the Academy at Athens by imperial decree, and the establishment of the monastery at Monte Cassino by Benedict of Nursia. On the closing of the Academy, Edward J. Watts has a chapter in his book, Alan Cameron published a well-known paper in 1969, later reprinted in his collected papers. Wilken (p. 254) mentions Simplicius of Cilicia (wikipedia) and the Christian philosopher John Philoponus (wikipedia) and his "theory of impetus" (wikipedia). 

Justinian enshrined in civil law the decrees of the four ecumenical councils (Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon). See Novel 131, in an older translation here. 

Wilken does not mention Novel 146 (also here), the one wading into biblical translations, published on 8 February 553, thus providing the date for the annual International Septuagint Day. 

Three-Chapter Controversy (wikipedia), and the Second Council of Constantinople, 553 (wikipedia). This is mostly about the reception of the Council of Chalcedon. The 551 edict by Justinian on the True Faith is included in the Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings, vol. 4 (see here).