Chapter III: Peter Stood Up (3)

The submission of Constantinople in its bishop, its clergy, its emperor, its nobles, attested by the subscription of 2500 bishops throughout the East, is an event to which there can hardly be found a parallel. The submission was made to Pope Hormisdas when he was himself, as his predecessors for forty-three years had been, subject to an Arian ruler.[114] If there be in all history an act which can be called in a special sense an act of the undivided Church, it is this. It was made more than three hundred years before the schism of Photius. If the confession contained in this submission does not exhibit the mind of the Church, what form of words, what consent of will, can ever be shown to convey it? If those who subscribed this confession subscribed a falsehood, why pretend any longer to attribute authority to the Church? But it must be added, if their confession was the truth, why not obey it?

It is to be noted that this period of sixty years is full of events which caused the greatest suffering to the Popes, were unceasingly deplored by them, and resisted to the utmost of their power. The temporal condition of themselves, of the bishops, of their people in Italy, Africa, France, Spain, Illyricum, Britain, was most sad. The most vehement of persecutions desolated Africa. Again, there was the suppression of the western emperor, with the consequent subjection of the Apostolic See to the temporal government of the most hateful of heresies: the Oriental despotism of Zeno and Anastasius, continued for forty-four years, mixed with another heresy, and tending to destroy both faith and independence in the bishops subject to it. The Popes, as Romans, felt with the keenest sympathy the political degradation of Rome. Can any appeal be more touching than that which they made, and made in vain, to the "Christian king and Roman prince"? Out of all these things, whose natural consequences tended to extinguish their principate, came forth the most magnificent attestation to it which is to be found in the first five hundred years of the Christian religion.

NOTES:

[70] _Epist._ i.; Labbé, v. 406.

[71] Mansi, viii. 193.

[72] Epistola Aviti episcopi Viennensis ad Clodoveum regem Francorum.--Mansi, viii. 175.

[73] See for this narrative the German Röhrbacher, viii. 486; Civiltà, 1855, art. 9, pp. 152-3; Hefele, ii. 607; Photius, i. 136.

[74] Photius, i. 137. Der Einfluss des römischen Stuhles war doch mehr durch die Erneuerung des laurentianischen Schisma als durch die Macht der arianischen Ostgothen auf längere Zeit gelähmt.

[75] _Ep._ vi.; Mansi, viii. 213-217.

[76] Qualiscunque præsulis apostolici debes vocem patienter audire.

[77] _I.e._, Manicheans placed the seat of evil in matter, and Eutycheans denied the materiality of the Lord's body. The Pope alludes to the Emperor's Eutychean doctrine.

[78] Catholici principes quidem semper apostolicos præsules institutos suis literis prævenerunt, et illam confessionem fidemque præcipuam, tanquam boni filii, quæsierunt debitæ pietatis affectu, cui noscis ipsius Domini Salvatoris ore curam totius Ecclesiæ delegatam.

[79] Ubi te, rerum humanarum princeps, qualiscunque Sedis Apostolicæ vicarius contestari mea voce non desino.

[80] Ad eam sua protinus scripta miserunt ut _se docerent ejus esse consortes_.--Mansi, viii. 217.

[81] See Hefele, ii. 607 and 209.

[82] "Intuitu misericordiæ," says Anastasius.

[83] Hefele, ii. 216.

[84] Mansi, viii. 247-252; Hefele, ii. 623-5.

[85] _Acts of the Synodus Palmaris._--Mansi, viii. 247-251.

[86] Hefele, ii. 624.

[87] Mansi, viii. 293-5. _Ep._ xxxi. Migne, vol. lix, 248.

[88] Hefele, ii. 625-30; Röhrbacher, viii. 463.

[89] Mansi, viii. 284, _The libellus apologeticus_, pp. 274-290.

[90] Replicabo, uni dictum, Tu es Petrus, &c., et rursus sanctorum voce pontificum dignitatem ejus sedis factam toto orbe venerabilem, dum illi quicquid fidelium est ubique submittitur, dum totius corporis caput esse designatur.--Mansi, viii. 284.

[91] The narrative from Photius, i. 134.

[92] Ephrem, v. 9759.

[93] Ecclesia orientalis ad Symmachum episcopum Romanum.--Mansi, viii. 221-6.

[94] In qua fortitudinem Ecclesiæ suæ constituit. Epistola Anastasii ad Hormesdam pontificem.--Mansi, viii. 384.

[95] Mansi, viii. 389-393.

[96] Photius, i. 143-5, translated.

[97] _Ep._ x. _ad Avitum Viennensem._ Mansi, viii. 410.

[98] Theophanes, p. 248.

[99] Mansi, viii. 425.

[100] German Röhrbacher, viii. 532, book 43, 81, mostly followed.

[101] Mansi, viii. 435.

[102] Mansi, viii. 438.

[103] Mansi, viii. 441. Indiculus quem acceperunt legati Apostolicæ Sedis. It much resembles the former one, given to the legates sent to Anastasius.

[104] Photius, i. 148.

[105] Mansi, viii. 451.

[106] In qua est integra Christianæ religionis et perfecta soliditas.

[107] Suggestio Germani et Joannis episcoporum, Felicis et Dioscori diaconorum, et Blandi presbyteri.--Mansi, viii. 453.

[108] Sacra imperatoris Justini ad Hormisdam.--Mansi, viii. 456.

[109] Photius, i. 149, who refers to the Deacon Rusticus, _Disputatio contra Acephalos_.

[110] Mansi, viii. 60.

[111] Il granto manto, Dante.

[112] Quia in sede Apostolia inviolabilis _semper_ Catholica custoditur religio.

[113] Hergenröther, _K.G._, i. 333.

[114] See Photius, i. 149.