INTRODUCTION zxix
the Byzantine view of the relation which should subsist
between Church and State can hardly be doubted: for* the
common welfare there must be harmony and collaboration.
As Daniel the Stylite said addressing the Emperor Basiliscus
and the Patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius: 'When you
disagree you bring confusion on the holy churches and in the
whole world you stir up no ordinary disturbance/ Emperor
and Patriarch are both members of the organism formed by
the Christian community of East Rome. It is thus, by the
use of a Pauline figure, that the Epanagoge states the relation.
That law-book may never have been officially published, it
may be inspired by the Patriarch Photius, but none the less
it surely is a faithful mirror of Byzantine thought. But it is
also true that bishops assembled in a Council were apt to
yield too easily to imperial pressure, even though they might
reverse their decision when the pressure was removed. The
breeze passes over the ears of wheat and they bend before it;
the breeze dies down and the wheat-ears stand as they stood
before its coming. But such an influence as this over an
episcopal rank and file who were lacking in 'civil courage* is
not what the term 'Caesaropapism' would suggest; if it is
used at all, its meaning should at least be strictly defined.
One is bound to ask: How did these Byzantines live? It
was that question which Robert Byron in his youthful book
The Byzantine Achievement sought to answer; he headed his
chapter 'The Joyous Life'. That is a serious falsification.
The more one studies the life of the East Romans the more
one is conscious of the weight of care which overshadowed
it: the fear of the ruthless tax-collector, the dread of the
arbitrary tyranny of the imperial governor, the peasant's
helplessness before the devouring land-hunger of the power-
ful, the recurrent menace of barbarian invasion: life was a
dangerous affair; and against its perils only supernatural
aid—the help of saint, or magician, or astrologer could avail.
And it is to the credit of the Byzantine world that it realized
and sought to lighten that burden by founding hospitals
for the sick, for lepers, and the disabled, by building hostels
for pilgrims, strangers, and the aged, maternity homes for
women, refuges for abandoned children and the poor.