20 - Emperor Justin II, The Second Henotikon

Summary

Justin II became emperor upon the death of his uncle Justinian. During the first eight years of his reign (565–573), that is, before he descended into madness, Justin worked hard to establish a foundation on which the various Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian communities could reconcile. He convened a series of conferences that, despite their contentiousness, culminated in Justin issuing this edict in 571. Sometimes labeled the Second Henotikon because of its similarity in aim and strategy with Emperor Zeno’s Henotikon from nearly a century earlier, this edict drew heavily on Emperor Justinian’s Edict on the Orthodox Faith from 551 with a few crucial differences. Justin II deemphasized “two nature” language and shifted toward a “one nature” formulation: he insisted that God the Word was hypostatically united with the human nature to the extent that the two natures of Christ could only be distinguished theoretically. In fact, most of the edict is little more than a string of quotations from Justinian’s Edict on the Orthodox Faith, carefully modified to lesser or greater extents and subtly selected and woven together to express a Christology that could be the basis for reconciliation.