Justinian orders heretical books to be burned.
Book burning as purification
During the reign of Justinian I (Byzantine Emperor 527-565)1 a great number of books written by heretics were included in the Patriarchal Library2. The Emperor, in his desire to blot out heresies, ordered that all heretical books be burned.3
1
Maas, Michael, ed. (2005). The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian. Cambridge.
2
Papademetriou, George C. 2000. “The Patriarchal Libraries of Constantinople.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 45 (1–4): 171–90.
3
Herrin, Judith 2013. “Book Burning as Purification in Early Byzantium” in her Margins and Metropolis Across the Byzantine Millennium: Essays on an Empire. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013.