Chapter II: Monasticism, Clericalism and Hierarchism (2)

§ 46.6. =From Boniface I. to Sixtus III., A.D. 419 to
A.D. 440.=--After the death of Zosimus, 26th Dec., 418, a minority
of the clergy and the people, by the hasty election and ordination
of the deacon Eulalius, anticipated the action of the majority
who chose the presbyter Boniface. The recommendation of the city
prefect Symmachus secured for the former the recognition of the
Emperor Honorius; but the determined remonstrance of the majority
moved him to convene a Synod at Ravenna in A.D. 419 for a final
settlement of the dispute. When the bishops there assembled
could not agree, he called a new Synod to meet at Spoleto at the
approaching Easter festival, and ordered, so as to make an end
of disturbances and tumults in the city, that both rivals should
quit Rome until a decision had been reached. Eulalius, however,
did not regard the injunction but pushed his way by force of arms
into the city. The Emperor now banished him from Rome on pain of
death, and at Spoleto the bishops decided in consequence of the
moderation he had shown, to recognise =Boniface I.=, A.D. 419 to
A.D. 422, as bishop of Rome. His successor was =Cœlestine I.=,
A.D. 422 to A.D. 432. Apiarius, who meanwhile, because he
professed repentance and besought forgiveness, had been restored,
began anew to offend, was again deposed, and again obtained
protection and encouragement at Rome. But an African Synod at
Carthage energetically protested against Cœlestine’s interference,
charging him with having often referred to a Nicene canon
warranting the right of appeal to Rome which the most diligent
inquiries among the churches of Constantinople, Alexandria and
Antioch, had failed to discover. On the outbreak of the Nestorian
controversy (§ 52, 3) two opponents again sued for the favour
of the Roman league; first of all, Nestorius of Constantinople,
because he professed to have given particular information
about the Pelagian-minded bishops driven from Italy who sought
refuge in Constantinople (§ 53, 4) and had immediately made a
communication about the error of confounding the two natures of
Christ which had recently sprung up in the East. The brotherly
tone of this writing, free from any idea of subordination,
found no response at Rome. The letters of Cyril of Alexandria
proved more acceptable, filled as they were with cringing
flatteries of the Roman chair and venomous invectives against the
Constantinopolitan see and its occupier. Cœlestine unreservedly
took the side of Cyril, commanded Nestorius under threat of
deposition and excommunication within ten days to present to
a Roman Synod, A.D. 420, a written retractation, and remitted
to Cyril the carrying out of this judgment. To his legates at
the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, he gave the instructions:
_Auctoritatem sedis apostolicæ custodire debere mandamus.... Ad
disceptationem si fuerit ventum, vos de eorum sententiis judicare
debetis, non subire certamen._ The Council decided precisely
according to Cœlestine’s wish. The proud Alexandrian patriarch
had recognised Rome as the highest court of appeal; a Western
educated at Rome, named Maximian, thoroughly submissive to
Cœlestine, was, with the pope’s hearty approval, raised to the
patriarchal see of Constantinople as successor of the deposed
Nestorius; only John of Antioch opposed the decision. Cœlestine’s
successor =Sixtus III.=, A.D. 432 to A.D. 440, could already
boast in A.D. 433 that he had put himself superior to the decrees
of the Council, and in commemoration of the victory dedicated
a beautiful church newly built to the mother of God, now called
_S. Maria Maggiore_.[131]

§ 46.7. =From Leo the Great to Simplicius, A.D. 440 to
A.D. 483.=--=Leo I.=, A.D. 440 to A.D. 461 (comp. § 47, 22),
unquestionably up to that date the greatest of all the occupants
of the Roman chair, was also the most powerful, the worthiest and
most successful vindicator of its authority in the East as well
as in the West; indeed he may be regarded as properly the founder
of the Roman papacy as a universal episcopate with the full
sanction of the civil power. Even the Western Fathers of the 4th
and 5th centuries, such as Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine,
as also Innocent I., had still interpreted the πέτρα of Matt.
xvi. 18 partly of the confession of Peter, partly of the Person
of Christ. First in the time of Cœlestine an attempt was made to
refer it to the person of Peter. The legates of Cœlestine at the
Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 had said: ὅστις, ἕως τοῦ νῦν καὶ
ἀεὶ ἐν τοῖς αὐτοῦ διαδόχοις καὶ ζῇ καὶ δικάζει. Thus they claimed
universal primacy as of immediately Divine authority. Leo I.
adopted this view with all his soul. In the most determined
and persistent way he carried it out in the West; then next
in proconsular Africa which had so energetically protested in
the times of Innocent and Cœlestine against Romish pretensions.
When news came to him of various improprieties spreading there,
he sent a legate to investigate, and in consequence of his
report addressed severe censures which were submitted to without
opposition. The right of African clerics to appeal to Rome was
also henceforth unchallenged. In Gaul, however, Leo had still to
maintain a hard struggle with Hilary, archbishop of Arles, who,
arrogating to himself the right of a primacy of Gaul, had deposed
Celedonius, bishop of Besontio, _Besançon_. But Leo took up his
case and had him vindicated and restored by a Roman Synod. Hilary,
who came himself to Rome, defied the Pope, escaped threatened
imprisonment by secret flight, and was then deprived of his
metropolitan rights. At the same time, in A.D. 445, Leo obtained
from the young Emperor of the West, Valentinian III., a civil
enactment which made every sort of resistance to the divinely
established universal primacy of the Roman see an act of high
treason.--In the East, too, Leo gained a higher position than had
ever before been accorded to Rome on account of his moderation
in the Eutychian controversy (§ 52, 4). Once again was Rome
called in to mediate between the two conflicting parties. At the
Robber-Synod of Ephesus in A.D. 449, under the presidency of the
tyrannical Dioscurus of Alexandria, the legates of Leo were not,
indeed, allowed to speak. But at the next œcumenical Council at
Chalcedon in A.D. 451 his doctrine won a brilliant victory; even
here, however, much objection was raised to his hierarchical
pretensions. He demanded from the first the presidency for his
legates, which, however, was assigned not to them, but to the
imperial commissioners. The demand, too, for the expulsion of
Dioscurus from the Synod, because he dared _Synodum facere sine
auctoritate sedis apostolicæ, quod mumquam licuit, numquem factum
est_, did not, at first at least, receive the answer required.
When, notwithstanding the opposition of the legates the question
of the relative ranks of the patriarchs was dealt with, they
withdrew from the session and subsequently protested against the
28th canon agreed upon at that session with a reference to the
6th Nicene canon which in the Roman _translation_, _i.e._ forgery,
began with the words: _Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum_.
But the Council sent the Acts with a dutiful report to Rome for
confirmation, whereupon Leo strictly repudiated the 28th canon,
threatening the church of Constantinople with excommunication,
and so finally gained his point. The emperor annulled it in
A.D. 454, and Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople, was obliged
to write a humble letter to Leo acquiescing in its erasure; but
this did not prevent his successor from always maintaining its
validity (§ 63, 2).--When the wild hordes of Attila, king of the
Huns, spread terror and consternation by their approach, Leo’s
priestly form appeared before him as a messenger of God, and
saved Rome and Italy from destruction. Less successful was his
priestly intercession with the Arian Vandal chief Genseric,
whose army in A.D. 455 plundered, burnt and murdered throughout
Rome for fourteen days; but all the more strikingly after his
withdrawal did the pope’s ability display itself in restoring
comfort and order amid scenes of unutterable destitution and
confusion.

§ 46.8. =From Felix III. to Boniface II., A.D. 483 to
A.D. 532.=--Under Leo’s second successor, the Rugian or Scyrrian
Odoacer put an end to the West-Roman empire in A.D. 476 (§ 76, 6).
As to the enactments of the Roman state, although himself an
Arian, after seventeen years of a wise rule he left untouched the
orthodox Roman church, and the Roman bishops could under him, as
under his successor, the Ostrogoth Theodoric, also an Arian, from
A.D. 493 to A.D. 526, more freely exercise their ecclesiastical
functions than under the previous government, all the more
as neither of these rulers resided in Rome but in Ravenna.
=Pope Felix III.=, A.D. 483 to A.D. 492, in opposition to the
Byzantine ecclesiastical policy, which by means of the imperial
authority had for quite a hundred years retarded the development
of the orthodox doctrine (§ 52, 5), began a schism lasting
for thirty-five years between East and West, from A.D. 484 to
A.D. 519, which no suspicion of disloyal combination with the
Western rulers can account for. On the appointment of Felix III.
Odoacer assumed the right of confirming all elections of Popes,
just as previously the West Roman emperors had claimed, and Rome
submitted without resistance. The Gothic kings, too, maintained
this right.--=Gelasius I.=, A.D. 492 to A.D. 496 (comp. § 47, 22),
ventured before the Emperor Anastasius I., in A.D. 493, to
indicate the relation of _Sacerdotium_ and _Imperium_ according
to the Roman conception, which already exhibits in its infant
stage of development the mediæval theory of the two swords
(§ 110, 1) and the favourite analogy of the sun and the moon
(§ 96, 9). His peaceable successor =Anastasius II.=, A.D. 496 to
A.D. 498, entered into negotiations for peace with the Byzantine
court; but a number of Roman fanatics wished on this account to
have him cast out of the communion of the church, and saw in his
early death a judgment of heaven upon his conduct. He has ever
since been regarded as a heretic, and as such even Dante consigns
him to a place in hell. After his death there was a disputed
election between =Symmachus=, A.D. 498 to A.D. 514, and Laurentius.
The schism soon degenerated into the wildest civil war, in which
blood was shed in the churches and in the streets. Theodoric
decided for Symmachus as the choice of the majority and the first
ordained, but his opponents then charged him before the king as
guilty of the gravest crimes. To investigate the charges brought
against the bishop the king now convened at Rome a Synod of all
the Italian bishops, _Synodus palmaris_ of A.D. 502, so called
from the porch of St. Peter’s Church adorned with palms, where it
first met. As Symmachus on his way to it was met by a wild mob of
his opponents and only narrowly escaped with his life, Theodoric
insisted no longer on a regular proof of the charges against
him. The bishops without any investigation freely proclaimed him
their pope, and the deacon Eunodius of Pavia, known also as a
hymn writer, commissioned by them to make an apology for their
procedure, laid down the proposition that the pope who himself is
judge over all, cannot be judged of any man. Bloody street fights
between the two parties, however, still continued by day and
night. Symmachus’ successor =Hormisdas=, A.D. 514 to A.D. 523,
had the satisfaction of seeing the Byzantine court, in order
to prepare the way for the winning back of Italy, seeking
for reconciliation with the Western church, and in A.D. 519
submitting to the humbling conditions of restoration to church
fellowship offered by the pope. A sharp edict of the West Roman
emperor Justin II. against the Arians of his empire caused
Theodoric to send an embassy in their favour to Constantinople,
at the head of which stood =John I.=, A.D. 523 to A.D. 526, with
a threat of reprisals. The pope, however, seems rather to have
utilized his journey for intrigues against the Italian government
of the Goths, for after his return Theodoric caused him to
be cast into prison, in which he died. He was succeeded by
=Felix IV.= A.D. 526 to A.D. 530, after whose death the election
was again disputed by two rivals. This schism, however, was only
of short duration, since Dioscurus, the choice of the majority,
died during the next month. His rival =Boniface II.=, A.D. 530
to A.D. 532, a Goth by birth and favoured by the Ostrogoth
government, applied himself with extreme severity to put down
the opposing party.

§ 46.9. =From John II. to Pelagius II., A.D. 532 to
A.D. 590.=--Meanwhile Justinian I. had been raised to the
Byzantine throne, and his long reign from A.D. 527 to A.D. 565,
was in many ways a momentous one for the fortunes of the Roman
bishopric. The reconquest of Italy, from A.D. 536 to A.D. 553, by
his generals Belisarius and Narses, and the subsequent founding
of the Exarchate at Ravenna in A.D. 567, at the head of which a
representative of the emperor, a so-called Roman patrician stood,
freed the pope indeed from the control of the Arian Ostrogoths
which since the restoration of ecclesiastical fellowship with the
East had become oppressive, but it brought them into a new and
much more serious dependence. For Justinian and his successors
demanded from the Roman bishops as well as from the patriarchs of
Constantinople unconditional obedience.--=Agapetus I.=, A.D. 535
to A.D. 536, sent as peacemaker by the Goths to Constantinople,
escaped the fate of John I. perhaps just because he suddenly died
there. Under his successor =Silverius=, A.D. 536 to A.D. 537,
Belisarius, in December, A.D. 536, made his entry into Rome,
and in the March following he deposed the pope and sentenced
him to banishment. This he did at the instigation of the Empress
Theodora whose machinations in favour of Monophysitism had been
already felt by Agapetus. Theodora had already designated the
wretched =Vigilius=, A.D. 537 to A.D. 555, as his successor. He
had purchased her favour by the promise of two hundred pounds
of gold and acquiescence in the condemnation of the so-called
_three chapters_ (§ 52, 6) so eagerly desired by her. Owing
to his cowardliness and want of character Africa, North Italy
and Illyria shook off their allegiance to the Roman see and
maintained their independence for more than half a century.
Terrified by this disaster he partly retracted his earlier
agreement with the empress, and Justinian sent him into exile.
He submitted unconditionally and was forgiven, but died before
reaching Rome. =Pelagius I.=, A.D. 555 to A.D. 560, also a
creature of Theodora, subscribed the agreement and so confirmed
the Western schism which Gregory the Great first succeeded in
overcoming.--The fantastic attempt of Justinian to raise his
obscure birthplace Tauresium, the modern Bulgarian Achrida, to
the rank of a metropolis as Justinianopolis or _Prima Justiniana_,
and its bishop to the rank of patriarch with Eastern Illyria as
his patriarchate, proved, notwithstanding the consent of Vigilius,
a still-born child.

§ 46.10. =From Gregory I. to Boniface V., A.D. 590 to
A.D. 625.=--After the papal chair had been held by three
insignificant popes in succession =Gregory the Great=, A.D. 590
to A.D. 604 (comp. § 47, 22), was raised to the Apostolic
see, the greatest, most capable, noblest, most pious and most
superstitious in the whole long series of popes. He took the
helm of the church at a time when Italy was reduced to the most
terrible destitution by the savage and ruthless devastations of
the Arian Longobards lasting over twenty years (§ 76, 8), and
neither the emperor nor his exarch at Ravenna had the means of
affording help. Gregory could not allow Italy and the church to
perish utterly under these desperate circumstances, and so was
compelled to assume the functions of civil authority. When the
Longobards in A.D. 593 oppressed Rome to the uttermost there
remained nothing for him but to purchase their withdrawal with
the treasures of the church, and the peace finally concluded
with them in A.D. 599 was his and not the exarch’s work. The
exceedingly rich possessions of lands and goods, the so-called
_Patrimonium Petri_, extending throughout all Italy and the
islands, brought him the authority of a powerful secular prince
far beyond the bounds of the Roman duchy, in comparison with
which the rank of the exarch himself was insignificant. The
Longobards too treated with him as an independent political power.
Gregory, therefore, may rightly be regarded as the first founder
of the temporal power of the Papacy on Italian soil. But all
this as we can easily understand provoked no small dislike of
the pope at Constantinople. The pope, on the other hand, was
angry with the Emperor Maurice because he gave no consideration
to his demand that the patriarch, Johannes Jejunator, should
be prohibited from assuming the title Ἐπίσκοπος οἰκουμενικός.
Gregory’s own position in regard to the primacy appears from
his Epistles. He writes to the bishop of Syracuse: _Si qua culpa
in episcopis invenitur, nescio, quis Sedi apostolicæ subjectus
non sit; cum vero culpa non existit, omnes secundum rationem
humilitatis æquales sunt_. And with this reservation it was
certainly meant when he, in a letter to the patriarch of
Alexandria, who had addressed him as “_Universalis Papa_,”
most distinctly refused this title and readily conceded to
the Alexandrian as well as to the Antiochean see, as of Petrine
origin (the Antiochean directly, § 16, 1; the Alexandrian
indirectly through Mark, § 16, 4), equal rank and dignity with
that of Rome; and when he denounced as an anti-Christ every
bishop who would raise himself above his fellow bishops. Thus
he compared Johannes Jejunator to Lucifer who wished to exalt
himself above all the angels. Gregory, on the other hand, in
proud humility styled himself, as all subsequent popes have done,
_Servus servorum Dei_. When he extolled the Frankish Jezebel
Brunhilda [Brunehilda] (§ 77, 7), who had besought him to send
her relics and at another time a pallium for a bishop, as an
exemplary pious Christian woman and a wise ruler, he may, owing
to the defective communication between Rome and Gaul, have had
no authentic information about her doings and disposition. The
memory of the otherwise noble-minded pope is more seriously
affected by his conduct in reference to the emperor Phocas,
A.D. 602 to A.D. 610, the murderer of the noble and just emperor
Maurice, whom he congratulates upon his elevation to the throne,
and makes all the angelic choirs of heaven and all tongues on
earth break forth in jubilees and hymns of thanksgiving; but even
here again, when he thus wrote, the news of his iniquities,--not
only the slaughter of the emperor, but also of his queen, his
five sons and three daughters, etc., by which this demon in
human form cut his way to the throne,--may not have been known to
him in their full extent.--Phocas, however, showed himself duly
thankful, for at the request of pope =Boniface III.=, A.D. 606
to A.D. 607, he refused to allow the patriarch of Constantinople
to assume the title of Universal bishop, while at the same time
he formally acknowledged the chair of Peter at Rome as _Caput
omnium ecclesiarum_. To the next pope =Boniface IV.=, A.D. 608 to
A.D. 615, he presented the beautiful Pantheon at Rome, which from
being a temple dedicated to Cybele, the mother of the gods, and
to all the gods, he turned into a church of the mother of God and
of all the martyrs.[132]

§ 46.11. =From Honorius I. to Gregory III., A.D. 625 to
A.D. 741.=--For almost fifty years, from A.D. 633 under
=Honorius I.=, A.D. 625 to A.D. 638, the third successor of
Boniface IV., the _Monothelite controversy_ (§ 52, 8) continued
its disastrous course. Honorius, a pious and peace-loving man,
had seen nothing objectionable in this attempt of the Emperor
Heraclius (A.D. 611 to A.D. 641) to win the numerous Monophysites
back to the unity of the church by the concession of _one_ will
in the two natures of Christ, and was prepared to co-operate in
the work. But the conviction grew more and more strong that the
doctrine proposed in the interests of peace was itself heretical.
All subsequent bishops of Rome therefore unanimously condemned as
an accursed heresy (§ 52, 9), what their predecessor Honorius had
agreed to and confessed. This explains how the exarch of Ravenna
delayed for more than a year the confirmation of the election
of the next pope, =Severinus=, A.D. 638 to A.D. 640, and granted
it only in A.D. 640 as amends for his wholesale plundering of
the treasury of the Roman church to supply his own financial
deficiencies. In the time of =Martin I.=, A.D. 649 to A.D. 653,
the Emperor Constans II., A.D. 642 to A.D. 668, sought to make
an end of the bitter controversy by the strict prohibition of any
statement as to one will or two wills. The determined pope had to
suffer for his opposition by severe imprisonment and still more
trying banishment, in which he suffered from hunger and other
miseries (A.D. 655). The new emperor Constantinus Pogonnatus,
A.D. 668 to A.D. 685, finally recognised the indispensable
necessity of securing reconciliation with the West. In A.D. 680,
he convened an œcumenical Council at Constantinople at which the
legates of the pope =Agatho=, A.D. 678 to A.D. 682, the fifth
successor of Martin I., once more prescribed to the Greeks what
should henceforth be regarded throughout the whole empire as
the orthodox faith. The Council sent its Acts to Rome with the
request that they might be confirmed, which Agatho’s successor,
=Leo II.=, A.D. 682 to A.D. 683, did, notwithstanding the
condemnation therein very pointedly expressed of the heretical
pope Honorius, which indeed he explicitly approved.--Once again
in A.D. 686, the Roman church was threatened with a schism by a
double election to the papal chair. This, however, was averted
by the opposing electors, lay and clerical, agreeing to set
aside both candidates and uniting together in the election of
the =Thracian Conon=, A.D. 686 to A.D. 687. Precisely the same
thing happened with a similar result on the death of Conon.
The new candidate whom both parties agreed upon this time was
=Sergius I.=, A.D. 687 to A.D. 701, but he was obliged to purchase
the exarch’s confirmation by a present of a hundred pounds of gold.
His rejection of the conclusions of the second Trullan Council
at Constantinople in A.D. 692 (§ 63, 2), which in various points
disregarded the pretensions of Rome, brought him into conflict
with the emperor Justinian II., A.D. 685 to A.D. 711. The result
of this contest was to show that the power and authority of the
pope in Italy were at this time greater than those of the emperor.
When the emperor sent a high official to Rome with the order
to bring the pope prisoner to Constantinople, almost the whole
population of the exarchate gathered out in the pope’s defence.
The Byzantine ambassador sought and obtained protection from the
pope, under whose bed he crept, and was then allowed to quit Rome
in safety, followed by the scorn and abuse of the people. Soon
thereafter, in A.D. 695, Justinian was overthrown, and with slit
ears and nose sent into exile. In A.D. 705, having been restored
by the Bulgarian king, he immediately took fearful revenge upon
the rebel inhabitants of Ravenna. Pope Constantine I., A.D. 708
to A.D. 715, intimidated by what he had seen, did not dare to
refuse the imperial mandate which summoned him to Byzantium
for the arrangement of ecclesiastical differences. With fear
and trembling he embarked. But he succeeded in coming to an
understanding with the emperor, who received and dismissed him
with every token of respect. Under his successor, =Gregory II.=,
A.D. 715 to A.D. 731, the Byzantine iconoclast controversy
(§ 66, 1) gave occasion to an almost complete rupture between
the papacy and the Byzantine empire; and under =Gregory III.=,
A.D. 731 to A.D. 741, the papacy definitely withdrew from the
Byzantine and put itself under the Frankish government. Down to
the latest age of the exarchate of Ravenna the confirmation of
papal elections by the emperor or his representative, the exarch,
was always maintained, and only after it had been given was
consecration allowed. This is proved both from the biographies
of the papal books and from the relative formulæ of petition in
the _Liber diurnus Rom. Pontificum_, a collection of formulæ for
the performance of the most important acts in the service of the
Romish Church made between A.D. 685 and A.D. 751. The election
itself was in the hands of the three orders of the city (_clerus_,
_exercitus_ and _populus_).--Continuation § 82.