Author ORCID Identifier
Date Available
7-28-2019
Year of Publication
2017
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College
Arts and Sciences
Department/School/Program
History
Advisor
Dr. David Olster
Abstract
The emperor Justinian's religious policy has sometimes been characterized as haphazard or incoherent. This dissertation examines religious policy in the Roman Empire from the accession of the emperor Justin to the inception of the Three Chapters controversy in the mid 540's AD. It considers the resolution of the Acacian Schism, Justinian's apparent ambivalence with regard to the Theopaschite formula, the attempt to court the anti-Chalcedonians in Constantinople in the period leading up to the Council of 536, and the relationship between the genesis of the Three Chapters and Second Origenist controversies.
Even during these seemingly disparate episodes, this dissertation argues that it is possible to account for the apparent incoherence of this period. To do so, we create an account which includes and appreciates the embeddedness of imperial policy within a social context with two key features. First, we must bear in mind the shifting interests and information available to the individual agents through and over whom the emperor hoped to project influence. Second, we must identify the shifting and hardening symbolic and social boundaries established through the interactions of these same, competing agents. These form the basis for in- and out-group categorization. The individual interests of individual people—whether Justinian, Vitalian, Dioscorus, Leontius, Eusebius, Theodore Askidas, or Pelagius—within complex networks must always be accounted for to give a complete picture. When this social context is accounted for, Justinian's approach appears as that of a rational actor, having incomplete information, with consistent policy goals, working within inconsistent constraints to achieve those goals.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/ETD.2017.298
Recommended Citation
Powell, Joshua McKay, "THE PERSONAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT OF JUSTINIANIC RELIGIOUS POLICY PRIOR TO THE THREE CHAPTERS CONTROVERSY" (2017). Theses and Dissertations--History. 48.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/history_etds/48
Included in
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Byzantine and Modern Greek Commons, Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, History of Religion Commons, Sociology of Religion Commons
