Subsiciva Byzantina

Abstract

I Zur ‘constitutio’ Βασιλικῆς – The Greek translation ‘Βασιλικῆς’ of the Latin constitutio Imperatoriam introducing Justinian’s Institutiones was not written in the 6th century but in the eighties of the 9th century. The translator could have been the grammarian Theognostos. II Συμβόλαιον – The importance of the term συμβόλαιον in the proem and title 13 of the Eisagoge of 886 is not due to a scholion of the 6th century but to patriarch Photios’ definition of the word in compiling the Eisagoge. III Καινοτομία – The term ‘kainotomia’ (originally ‘opening of new mines’ and then, metaphorically, ‘innovation’) had no particular juristic meaning in the 6th century, whereas from the end of the 9th century almost all Byzantine law books contained a specific title about ‘kainotomiai’. The author suggests that the patriarch Photios, when composing the proem of the Eisagoge and mentioning there the ‘sinful kainotomiai’, thought of the theological meaning of the term, namely ‘heresy’. His collaborator however, probably Stylianos Zaoutzes, did not fulfil Photios’ ideas in compiling a list of heresies, but created a new extremely vague juristic term stemming from the ‘opus novum’ in the Corpus iuris civilis. This sheds light on the codification process in the last year of the emperor Basil I († August 28th, 886): When Photios wrote the preface to the Eisagoge in 885 or 886, its text was not yet finished; otherwise such a ‘misunderstanding’ would be unexplainable.