During the first millennium around 537 AD, emperor Justinian oversaw the completion of the Church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. It’s a common attribution that he said, “I have outdone Solomon.” The Wisdom of Solomon, includinig all sapiential scriptures, is known to have many connections to apostolic teaching and many typological references to Christ and his doctrines of resurrection, salvation, and judgment. Christ’s stands at the center of creation as Holy Wisdom Itself – a fulfillment of the prophets and patriarchs and priesthood. Justinian is also recorded to have said that God’s greatest gifts to us are the priesthood and “the dignity” of imperial rule. While the latter hasn’t surpassed the passage of time, the liturgical and royal priesthood have continued today. True royalty of the heart never fades and is always filled with treasures.
In God’s wisdom, much unlike our own thinking, he prophesied and promised to Abraham that “all nations” will be saved. The Apostles Peter and Paul teach that “all of Israel will be saved,” meaning every individual Jew according to the flesh in toto will be saved, and that until the totality (pleroma) of the nations enters the Church where Wisdom resides and saves, Israel awaits its salvation. Israel is hardened now for other nations of the world of whom we have been studying in these volumes, and about their particular history of conversion. Because Israel fell away the gentiles can be shown mercy and salvation. The Jewish people will not reject God forever, as the Apostle Paul clearly apportioned a temporary character to it, because God never rejects people forever. By keeping Israel in disobedience to have mercy on the gentiles, all Israel too will be shown mercy in the end. That logic of doctrine aligns with the teaching of the Wisdom of Solomon that God orders all things in mercy for all people teaching them the truth and virtuous way of life. It is Wisdom, the Word, the Logos, the Christ who opened the mouths of infants and the uneducated to speak wiser than the worldly philosophers, astronomers, emperors and law-givers. Solomon, not Solon, teaches that God shows mercy on “all beings” (panta onta). This explanation gives us a background for understanding how Christianity has been a fulfillment of the Old Testament and how it expanded within the Jewish, Hellenic, and Roman cultures from 70 AD to 1000 AD.
So, there were many martyrs under the Roman empire, and a long time afterward. The emperors were converted and many pagan nations converted: Latins, Greeks, Syrians, Arabs, North Africans, Britons, Gauls, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, the Slavic peoples. One after another each nation and ruler accepted wisdom as taught by king Solomon, the wisest of rulers, and by the apostolic teaching of the Orthodox Church. Christianity spread not only by martyrdom but also by monasticism and ascetical literature, and the piety of good people. The term laity is from French, Latin laicus, ultimately Greek laos (people) to refer to an uneducated person. Since that carries baggage from a certain period of history in western Europe when almost no one was educated, not even the majority of priests, and because most people are educated, it’s probably more accurate to call the people in the Church the royal priesthood or just the people. The eucharistic liturgy develops in the 2nd – 3rd c. Monastic hymnographers also have a great influence on the liturgical services in the 8th – 10th c. Fine arts and church architecture and iconography all develop, and along with that church singing grows. How else could the majority of the inhabitants of the known world be captured by Christianity? Wisdom through the Holy Spirit is stronger than the brute force of power. Wisdom is Christ Himself. He is given to us for our benefit in the liturgy, the eucharist, the feasts, the hours, the songs and cyclical services. These aspects of the Church are not just “developments of doctrine,” as if we have to be apologetic by the richness adorned in our worship, but the natural outgrowth of discernment, perception, astuteness, self-control, and the cultivation of holy wisdom in the apostolic teachings. Monasticism gained momentum in the 4th c. because they desired to pursue wisdom with a determination that could only be sought by dedicating oneself alone by tonsure and the bishops of the Church. They understood that truth appears like folly to the world. But earthily understanding is the true foolishness to be grieved. How else is it possible to make emperors and empresses bow down and kiss the holy icons? The Church vanquished iconoclasm and the basilicas rebounded with an abundance of icons to keep us from evil images and doctrines during the 7th – 9th c. The Holy Spirit instructs the Church and guides it by hierarchy (the bishops and priests and deacons) and also through the liturgical worship of the church as it is evident in history. These rules or canons teach us discernment, righteousness, glory of the virtues by hymns, scriptures, iconography, and ascetical literature or the lives of the saints. The end of the first millennium includes some setbacks in history. The social and political fabric of a unified Christianity begins to crumble. But wisdom is never perturbed by the tides and folly of human decisions, whether among monks, clergy, the people, or in councils and imperial courts. With that holy confidence and very brief summary we can proceed into the next chapter called Late Byzantium and into the second millennium of Christianity.