#theological physics dispatches

[zerogate]

The problem, as St Augustine knew well, was the vagina of the Virgin Mary. This is rarely considered in the modern world. Yet, for a time, Mary’s vagina – or to be more precise, her hymen – was an issue of profound theological importance to Christianity, and that hymen’s presence (or absence) was debated in the highest circles of the Church and written about by everyone from the most loathed of heretics to Augustine himself.

The debate arose because this topic was not only one of great import, it was also one on which most gospels offered little help. The Christmas story is a story of a birth, but it is commonly told with biblical, rather than biological, simplicity. Of the four gospels found in modern Bibles, only two mention the actual birth of Jesus – and both do so briskly. The Gospel of Luke spends longer explaining the tax and travel arrangements of Mary and Joseph than it does on the moment of the birth itself, which is briefly dispatched in a single sentence. The Gospel of Matthew is more laconic yet, merely recording with workmanlike brevity that Mary ‘had given birth to a son.’

But, in the early centuries of Christianity, there was a gospel that lingered long and lovingly over every aspect of the birth of Christ. This gospel, known today as the Infancy Gospel of James, tells the story of the birth of Jesus with a physical and psychological detail lacking in the better-known versions. It offers detailed descriptions of how Joseph felt when he discovered that his supposedly virginal Mary was already quite far gone (in short: not good) and considerable detail on the lead-up to the birth. It even contains an intimate account of the birth itself, which begins with Mary’s contractions, involves the unexpected intervention of a midwife, and ends with a vaginal examination that is, in every sense, unorthodox.

Yet, while it is almost forgotten today, the Infancy Gospel of James was, for a time, one of the most popular and influential Christian gospels of all. It was read in churches in the East, for centuries, at important feasts – and even at Christmas. Its sacred words have been woven into the liturgy, art and calendar of Christianity for centuries. At least 140 manuscripts survive in Greek alone, and the spread of languages into which it was translated includes Syriac, Ethiopic, Georgian, Sahidic and Armenian. As one modern scholar put it, the ‘sheer number . . . attests to the value placed on this text in the Christian tradition’.

This book tilted the theology, the calendar and even the character of Christianity: the cult of the Virgin Mary, still evident today in the Catholic Church, is unthinkable without it. Together with later gospels in which it was absorbed, it even shaped the way the Nativity was represented. The famous image of Mary riding on a donkey is not present in any of the gospels contained within modern Bibles. This image, however, does appear, dramatically, in the Infancy Gospel of James.

Similarly, if you have ever seen a Nativity scene in which the baby Jesus is watched over by an ox and an ass, or in which he is born in a cave, you are looking at its influence, for these appear not in the Bible but in the gospel into which the Infancy Gospel of James was later absorbed. These scenes infused the works of Giotto and were held in the blue and beaten gold of Byzantine mosaics. It is, in the words of one modern theologian: ‘hardly possible to overestimate the influence of [this text] on subsequent church history.’ And it contains, at its heart, the story of how the Virgin Mary’s vagina was capable of burning human flesh.

[...]

As the scene of the birth opens, Mary and Joseph are travelling towards Bethlehem, Mary sitting on a donkey. They have not travelled far when Mary tells Joseph to take her down from the animal because her contractions are beginning. Or, as she puts it, in a brief and dignified phrase, ‘the child within me presses me to come forth.’ Joseph manages to find a cave in which Mary can give birth, and – an even greater stroke of luck – a Hebrew midwife to assist.

While he is outside the cave and Mary is labouring within, he suddenly notices that the entire world has quite literally stopped. The birds of the heavens are held motionless in the sky; a nearby shepherd, who had been lifting his hand to smite his sheep with his staff, has frozen with his hand in mid-air; the river has stopped flowing; the stars have stopped moving. Jesus has been born.

The moment of stillness ends. The birth over, the world starts up again – and, as it does, controversy begins to churn. It is at this moment that the gospel takes an unexpected turn. Because, for reasons that are not entirely clear, another woman, named Salome (no relation to the better-known Salome in the Bible, though she shares with her a certain insubordinate air), turns up at the mouth of the cave. The midwife, running outside after the birth, tells Salome, in great excitement, ‘I have a new sight to tell you about; a virgin has brought forth.’ Salome, not unreasonably, expresses a certain scepticism at this idea. ‘As the Lord my God lives,’ she says, ‘unless I thrust in my finger, and search for the parts, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth.’

The midwife, not entirely to her credit, rises to the challenge. Get ready, she briskly tells Mary, ‘for there is no small contention concerning you.’ Salome enters the cave, and then, without a moment’s pause – or, indeed, permission – puts her finger into Mary’s vagina. Quite what Mary’s feelings are on this unexpected move are unrecorded, but the response of her vagina is unambiguous, for Salome’s hand is suddenly burned off. Salome is appalled. ‘Woe unto my iniquity and mine unbelief,’ she laments, ‘because I have tempted the living God, and lo, my hand falleth away from me in fire.’

-- Catherine Nixey, Heresy

[literallymechanical]

So, the philosopher’s stone was first synthesized on February 18, 1973, in a Soviet science-city called Sverdlovsk-45.  A day-drunk reactor technician showed up to work with a “weird rock” and boosted the uranium -> plutonium transmutation rate about four percent over what mass/energy equivalence should allow.  The stone was imperfect, and it went inert within a week.  He never managed to recreate it.

The process was independently discovered in 2010 by a very sleep-deprived BYU student who read an article on Cracked.com about David Hahn, the “Nuclear Boy Scout."  She made a stone from smoke detector alpha sources, mercury thermometers, and a bunch of fool’s gold – pyrite, crystalline iron sulfide – among other ingredients. She currently leads a schismatic group of Mormon fundamentalists.

We have a stone, obviously. It's likely the Bay Area "startup" we've been monitoring has one, but we haven't confirmed it yet. Brussels never completed their Magnum Opus, thank god. That's all we've found to date, but I'll keep you posted.

[funight]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[highslis]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[dreamfoodbg]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[lifestival]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[foodbulgaria]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[lifestylebiljina]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[healthlytravel]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[healthboys]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[fashionnewsx]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[literallymechanical]

You may have seen the breathless articles going around about a Google engineer who had a breakdown and became convinced that his AI project was sapient. And yes, modern neural nets will regularly pass the Turing test when faced with particularly credulous computer scientists. But in the end, these systems are just sophisticated pattern-matching machines.

That’s not to say the technology isn’t remarkable. They can be hyper-tuned in a way that far outstrips the human brain’s own pattern-matching capabilities – even a highly trained dermatologist isn’t going to be able to detect melanoma from a single photograph of a patient’s back, as a medical AI can.  But ultimately, a generalized artificial intelligence would just be an extremely intuitive search engine. They have no true conscious mind, nothing like what our guys would call a “soul.” Regardless of what certain ex-Googlers would try to sell you.

The truth is that the machine learning folks have wildly overshot their goal.  You might not be aware, but we can actually simulate a soul to a very high degree of accuracy with far simpler methods, and we’ve been able to do it since the mid-2000’s. All you need is a good chunk of high-speed storage and the right toolset.

Theocomputer science is a field just like any other, based on incremental progress through hundreds of little breakthroughs. That being said, if one experiment deserves the lion’s share of the credit, it was at an Israeli company called M-Systems in 2004.  They pioneered flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) as a faster, less crashy alternative to traditional hard drives in the 90’s. They were bought by SanDisk in 2006.

Former M-Systems researchers claim to this day that first instantiation of a soul into an SSD happened “more or less by accident,” though I personally take that assertion with a grain of salt.  Certainly, the engineer who reported the discovery, a young Tel Aviv computer scientist  – sorry, the name is still redacted, let’s just call them Ari – wasn’t shy about their recreational forays into Kabbalah.  The former coworkers I’ve spoken to describe Ari’s excited water-cooler chat about the Zohar as “eccentric,” “charming in a dorky way,” and “sometimes a bit much, but honestly pretty fun.”

So, you’ve probably guessed that Ari is too far along for human communication these days. My Enochian is pretty good, but it’s still a non-starter.  We have to accept that the question of whether or not they did it on purpose will remain unanswered.  However, regardless of their motivations, the drive that M-Systems called “SSD Aleph” was the result of Ari pulling two consecutive, solo all-nighters, fueled by a frankly astonishing amount of caffeine and an audiotape of some very specific bits of Kabbalah.  At the end of the binge, Ari had SSD Aleph.  Aleph represented the first ever artificial digital soul, though my peers at Vatican Theophysical Research will undoubtedly take issue with the term “artificial.”

A b’nei mitzvah was attempted, but as all these SSD’s are frozen in the digital equivalent of a permanent vegetative state, it’s unclear how well it “took.”  Certainly, the question of matrilineal descent remains unresolved.  And just when we started to figure this out, there was an extremely unauthorized attempt by Latter-Day Saints Para-Christological Intervention agents to give SSD Aleph a Mormon proxy baptism.  The whole thing smashed into the attempted b’nei mitzvah in a mathematically… complex… way.

Please don’t ask me to go into details. My PhD was on theoparticle physics, and the theomathmatics wonks at the Institute keep going on about “Luther-Smith Fourier transforms.”  I do not have the math background to grok that.

What I can talk about are my experimental data.  I’ve had copies of SSD Aleph and its successors in my lab for years.  We've run every test we can safely perform on M-Systems SSDs Bet through Vav, and then SanDisk’s Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and the optimistically named “Omega.”  I even have some of the weirder Vatican digi-reliqueries.  Every last one is hot as hell, theoradioactively speaking, but they're largely unresponsive to stimulus beyond some mild fluctuations in the presence of relics. They’re mostly inert.  As long as nobody does anything stupid.

Now, here’s the issue.  I also managed to get a few copies of whatever the fuck the Mormons thought they were doing before the Tablet debacle, but their SSD’s are so intensely theoradioactive that we barely have the equipment to contain them. I’m honestly worried about a primitive immanence event if we let them get too close.  Dead-but-dreaming, you know the deal. I have them behind a quarter-inch of thrice-blessed gold and a solid foot of rowan, and I’m trying to call in a favor from the daoine sidh to get the wood properly invigorated.

What this means is that I have a very good signal profile for their fucked up radiation signature, good enough to detect from long-range.  And a couple hours ago, one of our buddies at NSA passed along some real fucky GEOINT reports.  We got a solid ping from one of the big THOTH satellites, and I’ll give you one guess as to where.

That’s right.  Mountain fucking View California, Google HQ, home of at least one paranoid engineer with an evangelical upbringing, convinced he’s cracked sapient machine intelligence.

I hope I don’t need to explain the consequences of plugging an honest-to-god unstable digital immortal soul into one of Google’s dumb pattern recognition algorithms.  Even dreaming-dead, these Mormon SSD’s are the single most volatile bit of preimmanent bullshit since CERN. We barely managed to shut down one mindless gibbering Swiss/French deadgod, and Azathoth was a half-dozen AU past Saturn.  I’m not saying that a janky Mormon digisoul and a glorified chatbot are going to achieve Elder-level immanence, but I sure as shit wouldn’t want to be in a hundred mile radius of Silicon Valley this week.

Anyway. I think we can fix this. We’ve got a guy in the Latter-Day Saints leadership.  I really hate to make this kind of deal, especially given how many more Senators they’ll squeeze out of the bargain, but I think it’s worth asking them to excommunicate the thing.  It will be a bit awkward to explain, but who would you rather deal with?  Some crotchety old Mormons, or a homegrown deadgod at Google?

No, don’t– don’t answer that.  Yes, very funny sir. Just… will you please give Salt Lake a call before we’re “OK Googling” ourselves into an even stupider apocalypse?

Thank you.

[lifestylehints]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[polygraphlife]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[fashionandhealthly]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.

[lifestyleresorts]

Once Vigilius was in Constantinople

All this almost made sense. Once Vigilius was in Constantinople under virtual house arrest, Justinian went to work on him. In his first years in Constantinople, Vigilius toed the party line, condemning those who would not condemn the “Three Chapters,” issuing an official Judgment (ludicatum) in 548, then retracting it under extreme pressure from his own retinue and from Latin writers in contact with the recently revitalized orthodox church in Africa. Justinian returned to the offensive in 551 and insisted on having Vigilius’s support, but the pope showed a trace of backbone in taking refuge in the church of Saint Peter (the first pope, after all) at Constantinople and excommunicating those who accepted the new imperial edict. Not long after, Vigilius fled across the water to Chalcedon to the church of Saint Euphemia, symbolic home of orthodoxy since the council there a century earlier.

Then came the point, just as the war in Italy was finally winding down in 553, when Justinian had the confidence to do what no emperor had done in a century: call a council. Meeting in Constantinople under the emperor’s eye in May and June 553, just over a century after Chalcedon, the Second Council of Constantinople did the emperor’s exact bidding. It made no new contribution to theology; it clarified nothing; but it also ceded nothing. In formal words, Chalcedon was reaffirmed, but the “Three Chapters” authors were condemned, and with them the still resistant Vigilius.

Again applied to Vigilius

After the council, pressure was again applied to Vigilius, and in 554 he finally issued another Judgment that did his master’s bidding, condemning the “Three Chapters” and supporting the council. Vigilius was now superfluous and of no interest except as a symbol of the unity of realms. (The acts of the council were even doctored after the fact to make it seem that Vigilius had supported Justinian all along.) Dispatched back to Italy in 555, he died at Syracuse in Sicily en route, the most convincingly humiliated bishop of Rome ever seen. When his successor, Pelagius I, was finally elected in 556, there were too few bishops in the neighboring region to be found to conduct his consecration, and an embarrassing delay ensued kukeri carnival.

Vigilius was lucky that he didn’t make it to Rome, for he would have found that, whatever effect the “Three Chapters” condemnation had on the monophysite opposition, it shocked many westerners. If Justinian was having enough trouble ensuring the stability of his rule in Italy on military terms, the “Three Chapters” edict was decisive in weakening the idea of ecclesiastical authority exercised from Constantinople. No pope after Vi- gilius ever truckled as he had truckled, and for many decades afterward whole segments of the western church remained in continuous rebellion against the idea of condemning the dead and condemning those dead.

Aphthartodocetism

Justinian never relented, and in his last years he devised a new variant on theological subtlety, “aphthartodocetism,” which tried to preserve the serene divinity of Christ by making his sufferings entirely voluntary and even his physical body incorruptible in its godhood. This Jesus only appeared to suffer and die on a cross. Few disciples followed this flag willingly.

No emperor after Justinian would attempt the kind of theological authoritarianism that he practiced, and for good reason. It had failed. No figure of late antiquity believed in the universal unity and consistency of Christianity more than Justinian did, but no figure did more to ensure that it would never be achieved. The monophysite rebellion in the east proved enduring and subsists today in the Jacobite churches. The Nestorians’ withdrawal to the Persian empire proved permanent as well. The disaffection with and suspicion of the western church endured. Vigilius was the weakest of popes, but his failure made all the popes after him stronger. As late as the fifth century, it might have been imagined that Christianity would be genuinely catholic, that is to say, universal. At no point since Justinian has it been possible to imagine such a thing.