GREGORY’S SUCCESSORS

[1Sidenote: [604-649 A.D.]]

2Gregory left the papal chair far more securely settled on the lofty eminence where it had been placed than it was when he ascended it. But Sabinian, who succeeded him, expressed little gratitude for the service he had thus performed; indignant at finding the treasury exhausted of its gold, he accused him of having ruined the see by his liberality; and would have proceeded, but for the menaces of both the clergy and the people, publicly to burn his writings. He did not live long after this attempt; and his sudden death was ascribed to a blow on the head inflicted by the angry shade of the departed saint. A truer cause, however, may be found, perhaps, in the fact that he had made himself hated by the populace, by withdrawing the accustomed alms, that he might heal, as he pretended, the injuries inflicted by the liberality of Gregory; a mode of proceeding so little relished by his flock, that, whatever share they might have in his death, they conveyed his breathless body with contempt out of the city.

3It was during the pontificate of Boniface III, who resided as Gregory’s legate at the court of Constantinople, and owed his elevation to the emperor, that the Roman pontiff was first dignified with the much-disputed title of universal bishop. For this honour Boniface was indebted to the enmity existing between Phocas and the patriarch of his imperial city. He lived to enjoy his triumph only a few months; and several of his successors seem to have contented themselves with the duties of their station, without entering into direct collision with any rival in authority. It is, however, a singular circumstance, that to the attempts of Boniface IV, who obtained the papal dignity immediately after the pontiff just named, to bring back the separatists from Rome to her communion, a resistance was made by the celebrated Irish apostle Columbanus, breathing much of the freedom and intelligence of later days.

4Honorius, who succeeded to the papacy after the two unimportant pontificates of Deusdedit (Deodatus or Adeodatus I) and Boniface V, made a vain attempt to influence the Lombards to restore their king, Adalwald (Adalvaldus), whom they had deposed as a madman, and elected in his place an Arian named Ariwald (Ariovaldus). But the most conspicuous circumstance in his career was his agreement with Sergius, the patriarch of Constantinople, in establishing the celebrated edict by which it was intended to put an end to the monothelite controversy,[87] and render the renewal of it a crime against the laws of the empire. Yet Honorius, in the Sixth General Council, was solemnly anathematised, and classed with the known and most violent supporters of the monothelite heresy.

5The death of this pontiff was followed by the pillage of the palace of the Lateran--an outrage which had its origin with the emperor, and was committed by his own officers. Severinus was then placed in the papal chair, but his pontificate was not marked by any important event. The same observation applies to those of his successors, John IV and Theodore. Theodore was succeeded by Martin I, the earliest act of whose pontificate was the calling of a council to condemn the principles of the monothelites, and the late acts of the emperors. The assembly held its first session October 5th, 649; in the fifth and last, which was held on the 31st of October, twenty articles were drawn up against the heresy in question, and its authors, Theodorus, Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul, together with all such as should embrace their opinions, were formally anathematised.

6The Roman pontiff was by this proceeding brought into immediate collision with the emperor; and the power of the greatest potentate of the church was thus measured with that of the highest in the state. In this respect the issue of the controversy deserves particular note. Martin was a zealous and active churchman, learned and conscientious, strongly impressed with a sense of the importance of unity, and disposed to exercise the authority he possessed to the utmost in its favour. No sooner had the council given its decision, than he despatched letters to all orders of the clergy, acquainting them with the event and with the acts it had passed.

7But the information which the emperor Constans received of these proceedings filled him with the most violent indignation; and he at once resolved to punish the contempt with which his edict, and that of his predecessor, had been treated. He communicated his wishes to Calliopas, exarch of Italy, who soon after made the pontiff a prisoner and conveyed him to the island of Naxos. For three months he was kept nearly continually on board a ship, and carried from one place to the other, without being allowed even the commonest necessaries of life. At Naxos he remained twelve months in captivity; and was then taken to Constantinople, being exposed, during his passage thither, to a treatment which would have been cruel to a condemned malefactor.

8On his arrival, fresh indignities and barbarities awaited him. He was cast into a miserable prison, in which he lay apparently forgotten for more than three months, and when carried before the tribunal of justice was examined like a common criminal. The part he had taken in the late events, so far as they strictly pertained to religion, was not considered even by his fiercest opponents as involving a guilt sufficient to justify their severities. He was, therefore, arraigned as an enemy of the state. Twenty witnesses, of whom the greater part were soldiers, and who are said to have been bribed for the occasion, appeared as his accusers.

9[Sidenote: [649-682 A.D.]]

10This mockery of a trial being concluded, the pontiff was carried to an open terrace, where, exposed at once to the gaze of the emperor and the populace, the base servants of the court insulted him in so gross a manner that even the multitude pitied his fate. His outward mantle having been torn off, the officers took him, and stripping off the best of his habits, left only his tunic remaining, which they next rent down on each side, from top to bottom. An iron collar was then fastened round his neck, and he was led from the palace through the midst of the city, chained to one of the keepers of the prison, and preceded by another bearing the sword with which he was to be executed.

11As they dragged him along, his lacerated feet stained the pavement with blood; and he presented an appearance of humiliation and misery which might well humble the spirits of the haughtiest churchmen of either Rome or Constantinople. But his sufferings did not terminate here. Instead of being executed he was sent into the Chersonesus where he lingered through four months of the severest hardship, then expired. He was succeeded as pope by Eugenius, indebted for his elevation to the influence of the imperial court and his too ready tolerance of its reigning errors. He was consequently regarded at Rome with equal suspicion and dislike. Vitalian, the successor of Eugenius, had the merit of being a strict disciplinarian, and of sending Theodore to England as archbishop of Canterbury.

12At his death, Adeodatus (Deodatus II) was elected. It was in the pontificate of his successor Domnus that the church of Ravenna became permanently incorporated with that of Rome.

13Agatho, the next pope, was not less conspicuous for the devoutness of his character; and the story which is told of his curing by a kiss some leprous person whom he accidentally met, indicates not merely the growing superstition of the age, but the influence which the pontiff’s piety had made upon the minds of the people. At his request it was that the emperor Constantine Pogonatus assembled the Sixth General Council; and it is somewhat singular to find that one of the main objects which his legates laboured at obtaining was a reduction of the sum usually paid by the newly elected pontiff into the imperial treasury. For this indulgence, Agatho willingly confirmed the ancient law, that no pope should be ordained till his election had been formally recognised and confirmed at Constantinople.

14The harmony which thus existed between the emperor and Agatho was happily continued through the pontificate of Leo II, in whose favour the monarch decreed that the new archbishop of Ravenna should receive his ordination at the hands of the pope. He possessed sufficient interest at the court of the emperor to obtain the important privilege for the Roman pontiffs, of being confirmed in their authority by the exarch of Ravenna, instead of having to make the long and difficult journey to Constantinople.

15[Sidenote: [682-701 A.D.]]

16The pontificate of John V was as unimportant as it was short; he was succeeded by Conon. Next, Sergius occupied the papal chair to the beginning of the eighth century; but, at the commencement of his pontificate, he saw himself opposed by two powerful rivals, and the palace of the Lateran was for some time besieged with open force by the partisans of these pretenders to the papacy. The contest was continued for a considerable period. Sergius, though supported by imperial influence, had to endure a seven years’ exile before he could possess himself of the dignity; and on his refusal to recognise the canons of the council _in trullo_,[88] was assailed by Justinian II with all the weapons of imperial authority.

17The conflict was thus renewed, which had so long disturbed the peace of Christendom; and another starting-point given, from which the two great candidates for universal and unlimited power were to begin the race. It is evident that the pontiff had not yet acquired strength sufficient to oppose his rival with certainty of success. At the council of Toledo, held in the year 688, the archbishop of that city obtained a resolution in favour of his opinions, which not simply established his creed in opposition to that of the pontiff, but was couched in terms of haughty defiance and rebuke. The contest, therefore, was as yet unattended by palpable prognostics of the final triumph of the papacy.

18[Illustration: ST. WULFRAN, BISHOP OF SENS, WHO DIED IN 720 A.D.

19(From a miniature in the Bibliothèque du Havre)]

20The troubles which the church had suffered from the continual motions of half-barbarian hordes were many and severe, but they produced an equivalent advantage. Amid all the struggles to which churchmen were urged by ambition, they displayed, as a body, some of the noblest instances of charity, of care for the poor and distressed, which the world had seen. Pressed by the frequent prospect of immediate ruin, they simultaneously acquired the virtues of resignation and the skill of politicians. It was to them the people owed their preservation when threatened on the one side by foreign enemies, and on the other by the tyranny of their rulers; and till they themselves became oppressors, popular liberty found its best champions among the heads of the church.

21But when the progress of Christianity itself is considered--that is, the very interests for which the church, with all its attendant powers, was called into existence--doubt and dissatisfaction are almost the invariable result of the inquiry. In Rome, piety was shocked by the open contests which repeatedly took place by candidates for the papal dignity, and by the little less disgraceful plots with which the contending parties prepared for the onset. The provinces, perpetually appealed to on the subject of obedience to the supreme pontiff, saw their own pastors at one time yielding with submissive complacence to his decrees, at another resisting them both openly and in secret.

22[Sidenote: [701-731 A.D.]]

23Sergius was succeeded by John VI (701), in whose pontificate Campania was invaded by the Lombards, under Gisulf, duke of Benevento. His successor, John VII (705), is noted only for having been guilty of the weakness of returning the canons of the council _in trullo_ to the emperor Justinian, without a single alteration. In his pontificate, moreover, the king of the Lombards restored the lands of which he had despoiled the church, and the deed which contained the grant was written in letters of gold. Sisinius was the next pontiff; but he died a few days after his election, and left the see to Constantine, a native of Syria, who retained it about seven years.

24He was summoned by Justinian to the capital of the East; but the object which the emperor had in view is unknown, and the only result of his journey seems to have been the restoration of Felix, the archbishop of Ravenna, to his diocese and honours. That unfortunate prelate had made an effort to recover the independence possessed by the former bishops of his see; but, though aided by the warlike masters of the district, his attempt failed; and the emperor sending a body of troops from Sicily, the walls of Ravenna were beaten down, and Felix, loaded with chains, was carried a prisoner to Constantinople. There he had to endure the punishment inflicted on the basest criminals.

25His eyes were put out, and he was banished to the inhospitable shores of Pontus--a punishment, it is said, which was regarded at Rome as the infliction of divine justice.

26Notwithstanding the want of positive evidence as to the express object of Constantine’s journey, it is usually believed to have been occasioned by the emperor’s unceasing anxiety to secure the co-operation of the Roman hierarchy in the establishment of the late decrees. It is also argued, and with seeming reason, that his attendance on the imperial commands is a proof of the still unavoidable subjection which the pontiffs had to endure; while his failing to oppose the canons so objectionable to his church affords a similar proof of his weakness and his fears.

27[Sidenote: [715-741 A.D.]]

28Gregory II, by whom he was succeeded (715), pursued a bolder line of conduct.[89] The part which he took in opposition to Leo the Isaurian has been already stated; and his determined attack on the Lombards, who made themselves masters of one of the Neapolitan fortresses, indicated the spirit which, in later times, placed Christian prelates at the head of mail-clad armies. Gregory was in all respects the firm defender and zealous advocate of papal authority. At one moment engaged in open hostilities with the emperor, he was at another employed in directing the labours of missionaries and founding monasteries. Germany, at his direction, was traversed by the ardent and pious Boniface; and in Italy the rule of St. Benedict became, under his patronage, the universal canon of monastic institutions.

29The pontificate of Gregory II lasted sixteen years, and he was succeeded by a priest of the same name, whom the people elected by some sudden impulse, while engaged in the obsequies of the former. Gregory III (731-741) carried the principles which had actuated his predecessor to a far greater extent. Unable to withdraw the emperor Leo, either by persuasion or threats, from the vigorous persecution of iconoclasm, he proceeded to the daring measure of excommunicating the sovereign, and then made known to the celebrated Charles Martel his readiness to proclaim him consul of Rome, on condition that he would enable him to support his separation from the dominion of the empire. Leo resented the conduct of the pontiff, by depriving him of part of his revenues and rejecting his legates.

30But the step which Gregory had taken led directly to the establishment of the papacy on the basis of temporal power and grandeur. A new career, new motives to exertion, were opened to the politicians of the church; and it was no longer with rival prelates the bishops of Rome were to contend, but with states and princes. The prizes for which they were henceforth to strive were to be tributary crowns and sceptres--the triumphs they were to celebrate, not those of truth over heresy, but of arbitrary superstition over the free-will, the natural sentiments, and the evangelical knowledge of Christian nations.[g]

31That reign of terror known as the struggle of the iconoclasts has been alluded to already in the history of the Byzantine Empire. It may also be summed up here with its consequences.