opinion, is worthy of all veneration and honor A, so much so that I consider my own kingdom to be honored through the honor shown to him, since God also knows how to honor those who pursue Him with honor. For this mountain, the highest of all within the borders of our kingdom, is a divine and holy mountain, shady and dark, illustrious with the works of the saints and every kind of virtue. If anyone wishes to call it a place of sanctification and the house of the God of Israel, he will come very close to the truth; and if one inquires more accurately, this divine house is indeed filled with much glory, so much so that at this very time a little of that glory redounds to my kingdom. Thus also, the glory which it had of old is increased more and more, according to the prophet. The most holy and venerable Metropolitan of Ptolemais. For I did not consider it at all worthy not to give ear to him A when he was making reasonable requests and such which, had they not been fulfilled, would have caused some harm to justice. This I did also because I consider such a mountain to be in every way venerable and worthy of enjoying every honor, and I believe my empire to be more honored by the honor shown to it, since God knows how to glorify those who glorify Him. For this is a mountain exalted above those in our lands, a divine mountain and the "shady, wooded" mountain of Habakkuk, covered with the works of the saints and every kind of virtue. And if anyone wishes to call it a place of sanctification and the house of the God of Jacob, the matter is appropriate and clings strictly to the truth; and if one considers it more clearly, this divine house is full of much glory, yet in these last times it will have a portion of the glory distributed by my empire. Thus also, the glory which it had of old, one might see increasing ever more, according to the prophet.
But I will now B say what this royal decree means. Whoever in subsequent times shall preside over Mount Sinai, let him rejoice in the dignity of the first, and among those who are of equal dignity, let him always hold the third place, and let him enjoy that honor in processions, chairs, councils, and assemblies; furthermore, let him be clothed in the vestments of the high priests, who were placed in the same honor both formerly and now, and thus whatever is fitting for them shall also be fitting for him, so that he is in no way inferior. For this reason this decree of my kingdom was given. In the month of the Greeks, Panemus or July, indiction 14.
THE SAME EMPEROR JUSTINIAN'S NOVELS AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAWS
(Exstant Patrologiæ Latinæ t. LXXII, col. 921-1110.)
YEARS OF THE LORD DLXV. AGAPETUS CONSTANTINOPOLITANUS DIACONUS. NOTITIA.
(Galland. Vet. Patrum Biblioth. t. XI, p. lx, 253.)
I. Agapetus, of whom this discourse treats, in the inscription of his work, calls himself Deacon of the most holy Great Church of God, that is, of Saint Sophia. We find that he flourished A under the beginning of the reign of Justinian, specifically in the year 527. At that very time, as the great founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals notes, whom Banduri transcribed, two archimandrites of the monasteries of Agapetus flourished in Constantinople, frequent mention of whom occurs in the acts of the Council of Constantinople under Mennas; from these, we and Baronius and Fabricius judge that our Deacon should be distinguished, although Banduri does not dare to affirm this. Furthermore, it is a fact that Justinian was a student of the most learned man, Deacon Agapetus, before he assumed power: this is concluded from a Greek manuscript codex which once existed in Constantinople at the home of Constantine Barinus, inscribed thus: *The twelve books or sections of Agapetus, Deacon of the Great Church, and formerly teacher of King Justinian the Great, addressed to the same King Justinian*. It seems highly unlikely that the aforementioned archimandrites performed such a duty. B Possevinus reports the inscription of a codex of this kind. This inscription, perhaps, may be confirmed by those things which Agapetus himself wrote to Justinian in his admonitory work: "In our times," he says, "a time of prosperous life has been shown, which one of the ancients predicted would come; when either philosophers will reign, or kings will philosophize: for then you were deemed worthy of the kingdom by philosophizing, and then indeed, by reigning, you have not departed from philosophy." Thus, clearly, it is to be believed that the excellent teacher did not rashly address his former pupil who had been properly instructed. Wherefore the distinguished Norisius, relying on these and other documents, rightly argues against those who unjustly assailed this same Justinian as if he were an illiterate person.
II. Therefore, Deacon Agapetus wrote seventy-two Admonitory Chapters, and dedicated them to Justinian when he was recently raised to the pinnacle of empire; their acrostic, or the connected series of the first letters, produces this meaning: C *To our most divine and most pious King Justinian, Agapetus the least of deacons.* A monument surely worthy of ecclesiastical antiquity: "As long as Emperor Justinian lent his ear to this, he administered the empire justly and rightly in all things; but when he deviated, he brought ruin upon himself and the Roman world." These are the words of Baronius. Furthermore, concerning the value of the work, Banduri says this: "How highly the Greeks valued this small work of Agapetus, one can easily infer from the fact that it earned the name *schedē basilikē*, 'royal notes.' Its subject matter is very grave; the style is almost Attic, such as you observe in Isocrates and Gregory Nazianzen, whom the author has imitated greatly. He uses paronomasiae throughout, and strives to observe a continuous acrostic. This type of writing was not infrequent among the ancients, especially in poems." These things having been set forth, the same D distinguished man narrates in a few words what labor he expended in editing this writer. First, therefore, he compared the Greek text of that latest edition with two manuscript codices of the Royal Library, with the help of which he corrected the text in many places and illustrated it with brief notes; in these notes, he marked one of the cited codices with the letter A and the other with B. Furthermore, he prepared a new Latin translation, since that old one was teeming with many errors and seemed barbaric to learned men. To this Bandurian edition, therefore, we have brought our own, and we have placed beneath the text the notes of the learned man which were read at the end of the second volume of his *Oriental Empire*. However, Fabricius diligently reviewed various editions of the small work of Agapetus; yet he omitted the Lugdunum edition, which Baronius used in transcribing the same small work inserted into his *Ecclesiastical Annals*. The aforementioned Fabricius also has some things elsewhere concerning this Exposition of Agapetus, where he speaks of the edition of Camerarius.