Western Civilization

because of human beings’ inclination to sin. And yet

the City of the World was still necessary, for it was the

duty of rulers to curb the depraved instincts of sinful

humans and maintain the peace necessary for Chris-

tians to live in the world. Hence, Augustine posited

that secular government and authority were necessary

for the pursuit of the true Christian life on earth; in

doing so, he provided a justification for secular political

authority that would play an important role in medie-

val thought.

JEROME AND THE BIBLE Another important intellectual

of the early church was Jerome (345–420), who pur-

sued literary studies in Rome and became a master of

Latin prose. Jerome had mixed feelings about his love

for classical studies, however, and like Augustine, he

experienced a spiritual conversion after which he tried

to dedicate himself more fully to Jesus. Ultimately,

Jerome found a compromise by purifying the litera-

ture of the pagan world and then using it to further

the Christian faith. Jerome was a great scholar, and

his extensive knowledge of both Hebrew and Greek

enabled him to translate the Old and New Testaments

into Latin. In the process, he created the so-called

Latin Vulgate, or common text, of the Scriptures that

became the standard edition for the Catholic Church

in the Middle Ages.

CASSIODORUS Although the Christian church came to

accept classical culture, it was not easy to do so in the

world of the new Germanic kingdoms. Nevertheless,

some Christian scholars managed to keep learning

alive. Most prominent was Cassiodorus (ca. 490–ca.

585), who wrote the workDivine and Human Readings,

a compendium of the literature of both Christian and

pagan antiquity. Cassiodorus accepted the advice of

earlier Christian intellectuals to make use of classical

works while treasuring the Scriptures above all else.

Cassiodorus continued the tradition of late antiquity

of classifying knowledge according to certain subjects.

In assembling his compendium of authors, he followed

the practice of late ancient authors in placing all secu-

lar knowledge into the categories of the sevenliberal

arts, which were divided into two major groups: the

trivium, consisting of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic

or logic, and thequadrivium, consisting of the mathe-

matical subjects of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy,

and music. The seven liberal arts would become the

cornerstone of Western education until the seven-

teenth century.

The Byzantine Empire

Q FOCUSQUESTION: How did the Byzantine Empire

that had emerged by the eighth century differ from

the empire of Justinian and from the Germanic

kingdoms in the West?

As noted earlier, in the fourth century, the Western

and Eastern parts of the Roman Empire began to go

their separate ways. As the Germans moved into the

Western part of the empire and established various

kingdoms over the course of the next hundred years,

the Roman Empire in the East, centered on Constanti-

nople, solidified and prospered.

The Reign of Justinian (527–565)

When he became emperor of the Eastern Roman

Empire, Justinian was determined to reestablish the

empire in the entire Mediterranean world. His army,

commanded by Belisarius (bell-uh-SAH-ree-us), prob-

ably the best general of the late Roman period,

sailed to North Africa and quickly destroyed the

Vandalsintwomajorbattles.FromNorthAfrica,

Belisarius led his forces onto the Italian peninsula

and defeated the Ostrogoths. By 552, Justinian

appeared to have achieved hisgoal.Hisreconstituted

empire included Italy, part of Spain, North Africa,

Asia Minor, Palestine, and Syria (see Map 7.4). But

his success proved fleeting. Only three years after

Justinian’s death, the Lombards conquered much of

Italy. Although the Eastern empire maintained the

fiction of Italy as a province, its forces were limited

to southern and central Italy, Sicily, and some

coastal areas.

Justinian’s most important contribution was his

codification of Roman law. The Eastern empire had

inherited a vast quantity of legal materials connected

to the development of Roman law, which Justinian

wished to simplify. The result was theCorpus Iuris Civ-

ilis(KOR-pus YOOR-iss SIV-i-liss) (Body of Civil Law), a

codification of Roman law that remained in force in

the Eastern Roman Empire until its end in 1453. And

because it was written in Latin (it was in fact the last

product of Eastern Roman culture to be written in

Latin, which was soon replaced by Greek), theCorpus

was also eventually used in the West and ultimately

became the basis of the legal systems of all of continen-

tal Europe.

162 Chapter 7Late Antiquity and the Emergence of the Medieval World

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