Читать книгу The History of Church - J. H. Kurtz - Страница 58

The history of the Roman bishopric during the first three centuries is almost wholly enveloped in a cloud of legend which is only occasionally broken by a gleam of historical light (see § 33, 3, 4, 5, 7; § 35, 5; § 37, 2; § 40, 2; § 41, 1, 3). Only after the martyr church became in the 4th century the powerful state church does it really enter into the field of regular and continuous history. And now also first begins that striving after primacy, present from the earliest times among its bishops and inherited from the political supremacy of “eternal Rome,” to be prosecuted with success in political and ecclesiastical quarters. Its history, for which biographies of the popes down to the end of the 9th century in the so-called Liber pontificalis (§ 90, 6) are most instructive sources, certainly always in need of critical sifting in a high degree, permits therefore and demands for our purposes at this point earnest and close consideration.

§ 46.3. From Melchiades to Julius I., A.D. 310 to A.D. 352.—At the time when Constantine’s conversion so completely changed the aspect of things Melchiades occupied the bishopric of Rome, A.D. 310 to A.D. 314. Even in A.D. 313 Constantine conferred on him as the chief bishop of the West the presidency of a clerical commission for inquiry into the Donatist schism (§ 63, 1). Under Sylvester I., A.D. 314 to A.D. 335, the Arian controversy broke out (§ 50), in which, however, he laid no claim to be an authority on either side. That by his legates, Vitus and Vincentius [Vincent], he presided at the first œcumenical Synod at Nicæa in A.D. 325 is a purely Romish fabrication; no contemporary and none of the older historians know anything of it. On account of the rise in Egypt of the Meletian schism (§ 41, 4) the 6th canon of the Council prescribes that the bishop of Alexandria “in accordance with the old customs shall have jurisdiction over Egypt, in Libya and in Pentapolis, since it is also according to old custom for the bishop of Rome to have such jurisdiction, as also the churches in Antioch and in the other provinces.” The Council, therefore, as Rufinus also and the oldest Latin collection of canons, the so-called Prisca, understand this canon, maintains that the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman chair extended not over all the West but only over the ten suburbicarian provinces belonging to the diocese of Rome according to Constantine’s division, i.e. over Middle and Southern Italy, with the islands of Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily. The bishop of Rome, however, was and continued by the wider development of the patriarchal constitution the sole patriarch in all the West. What more natural than that he should regard himself as the one patriarch over all the West? But, even as the only sedes apostolica of the West, Rome had already for a long time obtained a rank far beyond the limits of the Nicene canon. In doubtful cases application was made from all quarters of the West to Rome for instruction as to the genuine apostolic tradition, and the epistolary replies to such questions assumed even in the 4th century the tone of authoritative statements of the truth, epistolæ decretales. But down to A.D. 344 it was never attempted to claim the authority of Rome over the East in giving validity to any matter. In this year, however, the pressure of circumstances obliged the Council of Sardica (§ 50, 2), after most of the Eastern bishops had already withdrawn, to agree to hand over to the bishop of Rome, Julius I., A.D. 337–352, as a steadfast and consistent confessor of the orthodox faith in this age of ecclesiastical wavering, the right of receiving appeals from condemned bishops throughout the empire, and if he found them well supported, of appointing a new investigation by the bishops of the neighbouring province. But this decree affected only the person of Julius and was only the momentary makeshift of a hard-pressed minority. It therefore attracted no attention and was soon forgotten—only Rome forgot it not.

§ 46.4. From Liberius to Anastasius, A.D. 352 to A.D. 402.—Julius’ successor Liberius,128 A.D. 352 to A.D. 366, maintained with equal steadfastness as his predecessor the confession of the orthodox Nicene faith, and was therefore banished by the Emperor Constantius in A.D. 355, who appointed as his successor the accommodating deacon Felix. But the members of the church would have nothing to do with the contemptible intruder, who moreover on the very day of the deportation of Liberius had solemnly sworn with the whole clergy of Rome to remain faithful to the exiled bishop. He succeeded indeed in drawing over to himself a considerable number of the clergy. The people, however, continued unfalteringly true to their banished bishop, and even after he had in A.D. 358 by signing a heretical creed (§ 50, 3) obtained permission to return, they received him again with unfeigned joy. It was the emperor’s wish that Liberius and Felix should jointly preside over the Roman church. But Felix was driven away by the people and could not again secure a footing among them. Liberius, who henceforth held his position in Rome as a Nicæan, amnestied those of the clergy who had fallen away. But the schism occasioned thereby in the church of Rome broke out with great violence after his death. A rigorist minority repudiated Damasus I., A.D. 366 to A.D. 384, who had been chosen as his successor by the majority, because he too at an earlier date had belonged to the oath-breaking party of Felix. This minority elected Ursinus as anti-bishop. Over this there were contentions that led to bloodshed. The party of Damasus attacked the church of Ursinus and one hundred and thirty-seven corpses were carried out. Valentinian III. now exiled Ursinus, and Gratian in A.D. 378 by an edict conferred upon Damasus the right of giving decision without appeal as party and judge in one person against all bishops and clergy involved in the schism. In consequence of this victory of Damasus as partisan of Felix there was now formed in Rome a tradition which has passed over into the lists of the popes and the martyrologies, in which Liberius figures as the adherent of a heretical emperor and a bloody persecutor of the true Nicene faith and Felix II. as the legitimate pope. He is also confounded with the martyr Felix who suffered under Maximian and was celebrated in song by Paulinus Nolanus, and is thus represented as a holy martyr.129 To the pontificate of Siricius, A.D. 384 to A.D. 398, the western church is indebted for the oldest extant papal decretals dating from A.D. 385 which contain a reply to various questions of the Spanish bishop couched quite in the hierarchical form and insisting in strong terms upon the binding obligation of clerical celibacy. Subsequently the same pope, burdened with “the care of all the churches,” feels himself obliged to issue an encyclical to all the churches of the West, denouncing the frequent neglect of existing ecclesiastical laws. In the Origenist controversy between Jerome and Rufinus (§ 51, 2) he favoured the latter;—whereas his successor, Anastasius, A.D. 398 to A.D. 402, took the side of Jerome.

§ 46.5. From Innocent I. to Zosimus, A.D. 402 to A.D. 418.—In consequence of the partition of the empire into an eastern and a western division in A.D. 364 (comp. § 42, 4), the claims of the Roman chair to ecclesiastical supremacy over the whole of the West were not only confirmed but also very considerably extended. For by this partition the western half of the empire included not only those countries which had previously been reckoned western, namely, Africa, Spain, Britain, Gaul and Italy, but also the prefecture of Illyricum (Greece, Thessaly, Macedonia, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Mœsia, Dacia) with its capital Thessalonica, and thus events played into the hands of those who pressed the patriarchal claims of Rome. Even when in A.D. 379 Eastern Illyria (Macedonia, Mœsia and Dacia) was attached to the Eastern empire, the Roman bishops continued still to regard it as belonging to their patriarchal domain. These claims were advanced with special emphasis and with corresponding success by Innocent I., A.D. 402 to A.D. 417. When in A.D. 402 he intimated to the archbishop of Thessalonica his elevation to the chair, he at the same time transferred to him as his representative the oversight of all the Illyrian provinces, and to his successor, in A.D. 412, he sent a formal document of installation as Roman vicar. Not only did he apply to the Roman chair that canon of the Council of Sardica which had referred only to the person of Julius, but in a decretal to a Gallic bishop he extended also the clearly circumscribed right of appeal on the part of condemned bishops into an obligation to submit all “causæ majores” to the decision of the apostolic see. From Africa a Carthaginian Synod in A.D. 404 sent messengers to Rome in order to secure its intercession with the emperor to put down the Donatists. From the East Theophilus of Alexandria and Chrysostom of Constantinople solicited the weighty influence of Rome in the Origenist controversy (§ 51, 3); and Alexander of Antioch (§ 50, 8) expresses the proud satisfaction he had, as only Western bishops had done before, in asking the Roman bishop’s advice on various constitutional and disciplinary matters. During the Pelagian controversy (§ 53, 4) the Palestinian Synod at Diospolis in A.D. 415 interceded with the Pope in favour of Pelagius accused of heresy in Africa; on the other hand the African Synods of Mileve and Carthage in A.D. 416 besieged him with the demand to give the sanction of his authority to their condemnation of the heretic. He took the side of the Anti-Pelagians, and Augustine could shower upon the heretics the pregnant words: Roma locuta … causa finita.—The higher the authority of the Roman chair rose under Innocent, all the more painful to Rome must the humiliation have been, which his successor Zosimus, A.D. 417–418, called down upon it, when he, in opposition to his predecessor, took the part of Pelagius and his companion Cœlestius, and addressed bitter reproaches to the Africans for their treatment of him, but afterwards in consequence of their vigorous remonstrances and the interference of the emperor Honorius was obliged to withdraw his previous judgment and formally to condemn his quondam protegé. And when a deposed presbyter of Africa, Apiarius, sought refuge in Rome, the Council of Carthage in A.D. 418, in which Augustine also took part, made this an excuse for forbidding under threat of excommunication any appeal ad transmarina judicia. Zosimus indeed appealed to the canon of the Sardican Synod, which he quoted as Nicene; but the Africans, to whom that canon was quite unknown, only said that on this matter they must make inquiries among the Eastern churches.130

§ 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.