Michael Maas, Exegesis and Empire in the Early Byzantine Mediterranean, Recensione

Michael Maas, Exegesis and Empire in the Early Byzantine Mediterranean(Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 17), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003 (ISBN 3-16-148108-9), pp. 280, € 49,00.

di Paola Marone Università di Roma “La Sapienza”

Junillus Africanus lived at Constantinople and served Justinian as Quaestor of the Sacred Palace. Junillus’ main responsibilities as the top lawyer of the regime were to draft imperial legislation and handle petitions to the emperor. According to his own statement, he wrote a handbook about biblical exegesis called the Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis. In this way, at the beginning of the Three Chapters Controversy, Junillus made a contribution to the development of the theological and political culture. However since Heinrich Kihn published his edition in 1880, he has led a ghostly existence in a catena of encyclopaedia entries, scholarly footnotes and occasional articles, and his work have not been studied at length.
Just in recent years the book Exegesis and Empire in the Early Byzantine Mediterranean fills this gap. It places Junillus’ handbook on biblical exegesis in the context of imperial politics and doctrinal debate during the sixty century. Public religious debates occurred in this period. Throughout his reign Justinian staged religious debates in Constantinople, where discussions also occurred regularly between Chalcedonians Monophysites and Nestorians. The Instituta help to illuminate the political intrigues of his day that swirled around matters of exegetical authority. In the theological hothouse of Justinian’s Mediterranean, biblical exegesis carried significant political force. Therefore Maas, Professor of History and Classical Studies at Rice University, brings the voice of Junillus into discussion of the age of Justinian. In the first place he offers an evaluation of the man and his work (pp. 1-35; 65-74). He then discusses the North African background (pp. 35-42), the struggle between Justinian and the North African clerics (pp. 42-60) and the North African response to Justinian’s attempts to control sacred texts (pp. 60-65). At last he shows an excurses on the Schools of Antioch and Nisibis (pp. 94-111) and includes the text of the Instituta (pp. 116-235).
Certainly this book affords a fresh approach to Junillus by repositioning him in his sixth-century context. Rather than examine him simply as a road marker in the development of biblical exegesis in Latin Christendom, it presents Junillus as a man entirely complicit with Justinian’s plans and policies.
As Quaestor of the Sacred Palace, the most important legal officer in the Roman hierarchy, Junillus was a loyal servant of the crown. His combination of exegetical and legal interests, his career at court, his views on Christian education, and his intellectual purview that ranged from Syria to North Africa lent his voice its particular timbre. And Maas has seen the influence of the legal background on the structure and content of the Instituta. In fact Junillus drafted laws of many sorts for Justinian, including some that dealt with consequences of heretical belief in daily life. The question and answer organization of the Instituta reflects teaching practice in law schools as well as the methods of the antecessors. Beside, most significantly, Maas has seen that Junillus was abreast of the latest developments in legal thought in Costantinople. So by presenting the emperor as subordinate to God both as an exegetical authority and as the sole maker and interpreter of Roman law, the African provided another bit of evidence of the emerging Byzantine imperial theocracy.

Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, p. V
CHRONOLOGY, p. IX
ABBREVIATIONS, p. XI
MAP, p. XII

INTRODUCTION, p. 1
Junillus Africanus: Roman Lawyer, Christian Exegete, and Imperial Civil Servant, p. 1
Summary of the Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis, p. 6
Themes and Topics, p. 8
1. The Instituta between East and West: Lines of Communication and Circulation of Ideas, p. 8
2. The Instituta in Theological Debate: The Three Chapters Controversy, p. 9
3. The Stamp of Constantinople: Making the Instituta Orthodox, p. 10
4. The Lawyer as Exegete, p. 12
5. The Instituta and the Debate on Education, p. 13

DATE, SOURCES, AND HISTORY OF THE TEXT, p. 13
Date of Composition, p. 13
Junillus between Primasius of Hadrumentum and Paul the Persian. , p. 16
Other Sources, p. 18
Did Junillus Copy Paul the Persian?, p. 19
"Question-and-Answer" Format, p. 20
The Influence of Aristotle and the School of Antioch, p. 25
Primasius and the Circulation of Texts, p. 26
Paul the Persian and Public Disputation, p. 31
History of the Text, p. 32

THE NORTH AFRICAN BACKGROUND, p. 35
Roman North Africa Before the Vandal Conquest, p. 35
Vandal Rule (429-533): Disruption and Continuity, p. 36
Justinian's Reconquest of North Africa , p. 40

UNITY AND AUTHORITY: THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN JUSTINIAN AND THE NORTH AFRICAN CLERICS, p. 42
Lines of Communication in the Sixth Century, p. 42
Theological Grounds of Disunity, p. 43
The Three Chapters Controversy, p. 47
Exegesis and Authority over Sacred Texts, p. 53
Imperial Legislation on Christian Doctrine, p. 54
Imperial Condemnation of Doctrinal Texts, p. 57
Imperial Anathema, p. 58

THE EMPIRE WRITES BACK: THE NORTH AFRICAN RESPONSE TO JUSTINIAN'S ATTEMPTS TO CONTROL SACRED TEXTS, p. 60
The Decisions of Chalcedon May Not Be Challenged, p. 60
The Emperor Has No Right to Force Changes in Doctrine, p. 62
Only God May Judge the Dead, p. 63

JUNILLUS AND THEOLOGY, p. 65
The Question of Correct Belief, p. 65
Junillus and Imperial Authority, p. 67
Divine Sources of Authority, p. 67
Imperial Authority, p. 69

JUNILLUS AND LEGAL EDUCATION, p. 71
Legal Education Before and After Justinian, p. 71
The Arrangement of Materials, p. 74
The Methods of the Antecessors, p. 74

CHRISTIAN AND TRADITIONAL EDUCATION, p. 75
Christian Education, p. 77
Traditional Roman Education, p. 77
Emperors and Education, p. 79
Justinian and Education, p. 80

EXEGETICAL ISSUES AND BACKGROUND, p. 82
Junillus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, p. 82
Canon, p. 84
Biblical Text, p. 89

EXCURSUS ON THE SCHOOLS OF ANTIOCH AND NISIBIS, p. 94
The School of Antioch, p. 94
The School of Nisibis, p. 101

CONCLUSION: JUNILLUS IN CONTEXT, p. 111
Table of Manuscripts, p. 116
Additional Manuscripts Seen by M.L.W. Laistner, p. 116

INSTITUTA REGULARIA DIVINAE LEGIS, p. 118
Text, p. 118
Translation, p. 119

BIBLIOGRAPHY, p. 237
I. Critical Editions, Translations, and Commentaries, p. 237
A. Greek, p. 237
B. Latin, p. 240
C. Syriac, p. 244
II. Secondary Works, p. 247

INDEX, p. 263
I. Index of Passages Cited in the Introduction, p. 263
Biblical Passages, p. 263
Passages from Texts from Antiquity, p. 263
II. Index of Biblical References, p. 266
III. Index of Modem Authors, p. 270
IV. Index of Subjects, p. 275