Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III

On the death of John IV., Theodorus, a Greek of Jerusalem, was made Pope: it is supposed by the influence of the exarch Isaac. He was the first of many Greeks, who, in this period, were made Popes: of all of whom, without exception, it is recorded that their integrity, as Popes, was in no way affected by any national feeling: they sacrificed nothing to Byzantine policy.

At the beginning of this pontificate, Mauritius, the officer called chartular, whose proceeding in the robbery of the Lateran treasury has been recorded above, raised a rebellion in Rome. He found people, nobility, and army embittered by the Byzantine domination, and used this feeling for his own purposes. He spread a report that Isaac was striving to be king, made party with those same turbulent Romans who had joined in the attack upon the Lateran, and induced the garrisons in all the castles of the Roman territory to refuse obedience to the exarch. When Isaac heard this, that all the army of Italy had taken the oath to Mauritius, he sent Donus as commander with an army to Rome. Thereupon the Roman army gave up Mauritius, and joined Donus. Mauritius took asylum at St. Mary of the Crib. He was taken out and sent with an iron collar about his neck, as well as the others implicated in the insurrection, to the exarch at Ravenna: but, before he arrived there, was beheaded, and his head carried to Ravenna and impaled. Isaac kept the other conspirators in prison, collared in the same way, but they escaped execution by the death of Isaac himself. Isaac was buried in the beautiful church of St. Vitale, in Ravenna, and his epitaph is preserved in Greek, and being a picture not only of the man, but of his time, is worth transcribing. It runs thus: —

“Here lies one, a brilliant commander, who for six years, preserved Rome and the West without injury for our serene lords, Isaac, the fellow-worker with emperors, the great ornament of all Armenia, where he was of illustrious race. Upon his death in great renown, his wife Susannah mourns over her loss like a chaste dove, the loss of a husband who gained glory by his labours both in the East and in the West, for he commanded the army of both.”

Isaac may be considered as the ideal exarch, and by contemplating his deeds, we may attain to a knowledge of the race of exarchs, viceroys of Italy, and images, in common clay, of their masters in marble, towards whom, for 200 years, St. Gregory and his successors had to exercise the virtue of loyalty.

Upon the accession of Constans II., in 642, the patriarch Pyrrhus, under suspicion of complicity with the empress Martina in the poisoning of the emperor Heraclius Constantinus, fled to Africa. His place was taken by Paulus, a still more zealous Monothelite. Pyrrhus, coming to the West, which was unanimous in rejecting that heresy, represented himself to have been convinced by the eloquence of the Abbot Maximus, in an African Council in 645, and came to Rome to lay the confession of his faith at the feet of the Apostle Peter. Pope Theodorus received the repentant patriarch with great ceremony in the Vatican Basilica before the assembled clergy and people, to whom he solemnly condemned his own errors. But, when he went to Ravenna, Pyrrhus fell back again. Pope Theodorus thereupon condemned him in a Roman Council.

In 646, the African bishops, in four councils, had condemned the Monothelite doctrine with the Ecthesis. Pope Theodorus, in accordance with the wish of these African Councils, admonished the new patriarch, Paulus II., at Constantinople, to return to the faith of the Church. Paulus sent a long answer, in which he expressed the Monothelite doctrine. Pope Theodorus condemned him after his nuncios at Constantinople had in vain endeavoured to draw from him an orthodox confession. At the same time Pope Theodorus named Stephen, Bishop of Dor, Apostolic Vicar for Palestine, with the charge to resist the heresy which Sergius, Bishop of Joppa, was spreading, and to depose the bishops intruded by him. The patriarchal chair at Jerusalem was, in fact, vacant, and the patriarchate laid waste by this usurper. Hence the Pope took charge of it. So afterwards John of Philadelphia was appointed Apostolic Vicar.

Paulus did not give way. He moved the emperor Constans II. in 648 to issue a new doctrinal decree, drawn up by himself, called the Typus, which was to take the place of the Ecthesis, and prepare in another way the spread of Monothelite error. It was to forbid under the severest secular punishments any dispute respecting One or Two Operations in our Lord or One or Two Wills. In itself it seemed intended to quiet the westerns, but in the actual state of things only for the prejudice of Catholics. Maximus the Confessor shewed that in it truth and error were alike intended to be suppressed. The eastern bishops were again compelled to subscribe. Those who refused were persecuted, even the papal legates. Their altar in the Placidia palace was destroyed, and they were forbidden to celebrate, and severe ill-treatment added.

While the Greek emperor, led by his patriarch Paulus, was issuing his edict concerning the Christian faith, Muawia, as general of the third chalif, Osman, with a fleet of 1700 ships, great and small, being already in possession of Syria, had made a descent on Cyprus, occupied the city of Constantia, subjected and laid waste the whole island.

Pope Theodorus is recorded in the book of the Popes as “a lover of the poor, large-handed, kind to all, and very merciful”.

Chapter II. Pope Martin, His Council, And His Martyrdom

Martinus prærogativa martyrii ter maximus nuncupandusBaronius, Tom. viii., Preface

In the mean time Pope Theodorus, having during the seven years of his pontificate maintained the faith against the aggression of the Byzantine emperor and patriarch with the same resolution as his predecessors, Popes Severinus and John IV., died on the 13th May, 649, and was buried at St. Peter's. His death occurred just after the Typus had been issued, and perhaps before he had seen it. On the 5th of the following July, Martin was chosen to succeed him. Martin was then a Roman priest, had been a nuncio at Constantinople, a man distinguished by his virtue and knowledge, as well as by his personal beauty. By the fifteenth letter of this Pope we learn that the Roman clergy would not wait for the imperial consent to his consecration, and so in due time the Greeks pretended that he had taken possession of the episcopate irregularly. This pontiff, one of the most remarkable and vigorous that ever sat on the throne of St. Peter, although aware of the penalty imposed by the emperor Constans, in his Typus, shrunk not the least, but was rather kindled with greater zeal to summon immediately a council of the Bishops of Italy, which met on the 5th October in this year at the Sacristy of the Lateran Basilica.

Anastasius, the librarian, gives the following narrative of events which now took place concerning Pope Martin: —

“In his time Paulus, bishop of Constantinople, inflated with the Spirit of pride against the holy Church of God, presumed in his audacity to go against the definitions of the Fathers. Moreover he took pains to veil his own error for the seduction of others, so that he induced the emperor also to set forth the Typus for the destruction of Catholic belief. In this he deprived of their strength all the voices of the holy Fathers by the expressions of the worst heretics, laying down that one should confess neither One nor Two Wills or Operations in Christ our Lord.

“In defending his own perversion he did a deed which no former heretic had ventured to do. He pulled down the altar belonging to our Holy See in the chapel of the Placidia palace, prohibiting our nuncios from offering therein to God the adorable and immaculate Victim, or receiving the sacraments of communion. These nuncios by command of the apostolic authority had enjoined him to desist from his heretical intention. They also bore witness in suffering diverse persecutions with other orthodox men, and venerable priests, some of whom he imprisoned, some he banished, some he scourged. Well nigh the whole world being thus disturbed, many of the orthodox brought up complaints from various places to our Apostolic See, intreating that the web of all this malice and destruction might be rent by the Apostolic authority, so that the disease of their Ecthesis might not break up the whole body of the Catholic Church. Then most blessed Martin, the bishop, sent and assembled 105 bishops in the city of Rome, and called a Synod according to the institution of the orthodox Fathers in the church of the Saviour at the Lateran episcopal palace. Bishops and priests sitting, deacons and the whole clergy standing, they condemned Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paulus, patriarchs of Constantinople, who presumed to mix up their innovations with the immaculate faith. That is, in their haste to exclude this, they dressed up a confusion of heretical dogmas against God's Catholic church, for which they were smitten with anathema. This council now forms part of the Church's archives. And the Pope causing copies to be made, sent them throughout the East and West, placing them in the hands of the orthodox faithful. At that very time the emperor sent into Italy his chamberlain and exarch Olympius, to be viceroy of the whole land. His commands were: – ‘You are to carry out what Paulus, patriarch of this heaven defended city, has suggested to us. And if you find the province itself agreeing in the Typus set forth by us then lay hold of all the bishops, landed proprietors, dwellers, and strangers, and let them subscribe it. But, if, as Plato, the patrician, and Euphranius have suggested to us, you can carry with you the armed force there, we command you to lay hold of Martin, who was nuncio here, in the imperial city. And afterwards let all the churches read afresh the orthodox Typus, because it has been made by us, and let all the bishops in Italy set their names to it. But if you find the armed force opposed, keep it secret till you have got possession of the province, and are able to have on your side the army of the Roman city, and of Ravenna, that you may be able to execute our commands as soon as possible.’ The said Olympius, coming to Rome, found the holy Church of Rome united with all the bishops of Italy, whether priests or clergy, and wishing to execute the commands received he tried, by help of the army, to make a schism in the Church. This took a long time, and Almighty God did not permit him to accomplish what he was trying to do. Seeing then that he was overcome by the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of God, he thought it necessary to veil his bad intention, and to accomplish what he had not been able to do with the armed hand in heretical fashion at mass in the Church of God's Holy Mother, the Ever-virgin Mary, at the Crib. For while the holy Pope was giving him communion he had instructed one of his guards to murder him. But, Almighty God, who is wont to protect His orthodox servants, and to deliver them from all evil, Himself blinded the eyes of the swordsman of the exarch Olympius, and he was not allowed to see the Pontiff at the moment of giving communion, or the kiss of peace, that he might shed his blood and subject to heresy the Catholic Church of God. The soldier attested this afterwards on his oath to several. So Olympius, seeing that the hand of God protected the holy Pope Martin, thought it necessary to agree with him, and to disclose the commands which he had received. Then having made peace with the Church, he collected his army and went to Sicily against the Saracens who were there. And through the sin a great destruction fell on the Roman army, and then the exarch died of disease.”

In the Council of the Lateran, held by Pope Martin in 649, the Pope carefully examined the whole history and documents concerning the attempt of the patriarch Sergius, and the emperor Heraclius, and the succeeding patriarchs at Alexandria, Constantinople, and Antioch, to alter the faith of the Church. The imperial documents, the Ecthesis of Heraclius, composed by Sergius, the Typus of Constans II. composed by the sitting patriarch, Paulus, both of them one after the other imposed by violence on the eastern episcopate, letters from many bishops, documents, in fact, of every kind, were subjected to careful reading. The Council drew up twenty canons which it imposed under anathema. The Pope at the head of the Bishops, subscribed in these words: “I, Martin, by the grace of God, Bishop of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the City of Rome, ordain and subscribe this definition, confirmatory of the orthodox faith, and condemning Sergius, formerly Bishop of Constantinople, Cyrus, Bishop of Alexandria, Theodorus, Bishop, Pyrrhus, and Paulus, also, Bishop of Constantinople, together with their heretical writings”. Then follow the signatures of the Bishops of Italy, the Archbishop of Aquileia and Grado first, the Archbishop of Milan adding his assent afterwards.

Pope Martin also wrote to the emperor Constans II., sending him the acts of the Council, together with a Greek translation. Thus, with the utmost force, and with the presentiment of hard trials, he strove to prevent the further spread of Monothelite error. He also declared himself against the heretical patriarchs, Peter of Alexandria and Macedonius of Antioch, deposed Paul, Archbishop of Thessalonica, and provided for sending Catholic bishops and clergy to the East.

In these events, we have this very striking fact, that within eleven years after the death of Pope Honorius in 638, we find four Popes his immediate successors, Severinus, John IV., Theodorus, and Martin, opposing two emperors, Heraclius, and his grandson, Constans II., censuring three patriarchs of Constantinople, Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paulus, besides other eastern patriarchs, and the last of them solemnly condemning “the impious Ecthesis and still more impious Typus,” and all manner of heretical expositions, whether made by patriarchs, or imposed by emperors. There can be no doubt that all these four Popes had been clergy of Honorius himself, and as little doubt that they were maintaining the doctrine which he held. There is no appearance that any one at Rome was the least inclined to the Monothelite heresy, and the insidious manner in which it was propagated by those who held it is conspicuous on every occasion. Nor must it be forgotten that the publication of this judgment of Pope Martin fulfils all the conditions of a judgment ex cathedra.

But the events which now took place are of so great an importance for all subsequent time that it seems necessary to enlarge upon the epitome of them just given, and to draw out the full range of their bearing, not only on the doctrine of the Church, but on its government at the time.

We are witnessing a deliberate attempt by successive patriarchs of Constantinople to alter the faith of the Church as it had been laid down at the Council of Chalcedon. And not this only, but to make the mouth of their emperor the instrument for disseminating their heresy, and to use the whole material power of that emperor as despotic lord of Rome to overthrow the defence of the faith by the Roman See, the superior authority of which, at the same time, neither emperor nor patriarch denied. This attempt continues during forty years from the death of Pope Honorius in 638, and in the whole of that time, it was the constancy of the Roman See, the purely spiritual power of the successor of St. Peter, in the midst of the greatest danger and a helpless temporal position, which preserved the life of the Church, and foiled the Byzantine oppressor, together with the underplay of the Byzantine patriarch.

I take from the Acts of the Lateran Council of 649 the following: —

“Pope Martin said, ‘Let the copy of the Typus lately composed against the orthodox faith, by persuasion of Paul, Bishop of Constantinople, be brought before our consideration’.

“Theophylact, first of the notaries of the Apostolic See, said, ‘I bear in my hands the copy of the Typus ordered by your Beatitude’.

“Pope Martin said, ‘Let it be read in the presence of the holy Council, that we may accurately examine its meaning’.

“Theodoras, regionary notary of the Apostolic See, read it thus, translated from the Greek into Latin.” It must be remembered that the following are words of the emperor, spoken in that character.

“Since we are accustomed to do everything and to consider everything which concerns our Christian polity, and especially whatever touches the purity of our faith, through which we look for all our prosperity, we recognise how greatly our orthodox people has been disturbed. Some of them maintain One Will in the dispensation of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and His One Operation in divine and human things. Others maintain Two Wills and Two Operations in the same dispensation of the Incarnate Word. The one support themselves by saying that our Lord Jesus Christ, because of the One Person, wills and operates both divine and human things in the two natures, without confusion, and without separation. The others say, because in one and the same Person two natures are bound together without division, their distinction from each other remains, and according to the quality of the natures one and the same Christ operates both what is divine and what is human. Hence our Christian polity has been led into much variance and strife; the parties do not agree, and thus it is injured in many ways. Led therefore by Almighty God, we thought it fit to quench the flame of dissension thus enkindled, and not allow it further to feed upon human souls. We therefore proclaim to our subjects, who continue in orthodoxy, and the immaculate Christian faith, and belong to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, that it is no longer open to them to introduce any question, strife, or contention with each other concerning One Will or One Operation, or Two Operations or Two Wills. This we command, not as taking anything away from the pious belief of the holy approved Fathers concerning the dispensation of our Incarnate God the Word, but intending to put a stop to further contest on account of the said questions, and in these to follow and be satisfied with the sacred Scriptures and the traditions of the five holy Ecumenical Councils, and the simple unquestioned usages and expressions of the holy approved Fathers. Their dogmas, canons, and laws are those of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Add to them nothing of your own: take from them nothing: interpret them not according to your own view, but keep the form which existed everywhere before the contention upon these questions arose. None then laid down One Will or One Operation, or Two Wills or Two Operations, under any contention… Now to ensure perfect unity and concord, and to leave no opportunity to those who would contend for ever, we have ordered the documents (i. e., the Ecthesis) attached to the narthex of the great church in our imperial city, which contain the questions above mentioned, to be removed. Now those who transgress these commands will first be subject to the judgment of Almighty God, and then to the severe imperial indignation for contempt. If it be a bishop or clerk, he shall be deposed from his particular rank; if a monk, he shall be banished; if noble or military, he shall be deposed. If they be private persons, when of rank, their property shall be confiscated; when of low degree, they shall be scourged and banished for ever. So that all shall be restrained by the fear of God, and seeing the punishments respectively threatened, shall maintain unshaken and undisturbed, the peace of God's holy Churches.”

As one Bishop of Constantinople, Sergius, composed the Ecthesis, so another, his second successor, Paul, composed the Typus, but as Sergius did not give to his work the fitting form of an imperial decree, but the theological form of a creed, Paul showed himself more skilful, and dressed his Typus in imperial clothing. Constans himself says that he meant to restore the peace of the Church by this new decree. There is no reason to doubt this, since, in tearing down the Ecthesis from the wall of Sancta Sophia, he plainly purposed to quiet the minds of the Westerns and those who held with them. It is further clear that while the Ecthesis forbade contention concerning One or Two Operations, it inconsistently proclaimed One Will, that is Monothelism. But the Typus consistently rejected not only One Operation, but One Will. It wished in this to be impartial. This apparent impartiality is likewise the chief distinction between the Typus and the Ecthesis, for they are like each other in the main thought, which is, that the development of doctrine should remain at the point to which it had come in the five general councils, and that further questions should not be entered into. However, that impartiality is but a false via media, for it puts the true doctrine of the Two Wills upon the same footing with the heresy, and forbids both one and the other. Another distinction between the Ecthesis and the Typus lies in this, that the Ecthesis only required obedience in general. Constans, on the contrary, threatened every transgressor of his Typus with the severest civil punishments, and these he executed with the utmost cruelty.

The Typus is the fifth specimen of doctrinal despotism proceeding from the Byzantine emperors since the time of St. Leo. In all these the effort was the same. So far as the relation between the emperor and the Pope is concerned, the principle at issue is whether the Byzantine emperor, with the Byzantine patriarch as his chief agent, should dictate the creed and direct the government of the Church, or the Pope and the bishops.

The first attempt proceeds from Basiliscus, who, by insurrection got possession of the imperial throne for about twenty months, and in that short time issued the Encyclikon, in which Timotheus Ailouros, patriarch of Alexandria, helped him as to the composition, and 500 Greek bishops were found to accept and praise it. Basiliscus with his wife and children, was presently starved to death by the emperor Zeno.

The second attempt was by Zeno, when he had recovered the throne, and fallen into the hands of his patriarch Acacius. He then issued the Henoticon, which Acacius had drawn up, which was imposed by force on the bishops, and which Fravita, Euphemius, Macedonius, and Timotheus, successive patriarchs of Constantinople, submitted to subscribe, the first under Zeno, the following three under Anastasius. The wisdom and firmness of successive Popes frustrated this attempt, and Hormisdas finally obtained a full reparation, and the acknowledgment of his own charge over the whole Church, by the gift of Christ to St. Peter, which the bishops of the Apostolic See inherited.

Yet, notwithstanding this most solemn confession on the part of the bishop of Constantinople, of the emperor, and of the nobles of the East, some thirty years later, Justinian, having become direct lord of Rome, and having summoned Pope Vigilius as his temporal subject, to go to Constantinople, makes a third attempt, and issues to the Fifth General Council his own “Confession of Faith,” which a recreant court-archbishop, Theodore Askidas, supplies him with, and which the patriarch of Constantinople, Eutychius, then, by the emperor's nomination, presiding over the Council, as well as the eastern bishops in the Council, receive. The whole attitude and conduct of Justinian at the Fifth Council show how deeply this most distinguished of the eastern emperors was imbued with the doctrinal despotism of his throne. And from that time, the contention of his successors is still more pronounced, and their temporal power over the Pope, as their subject, is unsparingly exercised, not to deny his spiritual supremacy in itself, but to make its exercise subject to their imperial power, and in this the patriarchs of Constantinople, assuming by and with the consent of the emperors, the title of Ecumenical Patriarch, serve their sovereign as the chief instrument for reducing the Church to servitude. It is to be observed that Justinian conferred this title upon them in his laws. From that time they one and all clung to it.

The fourth attempt is made by Heraclius at the end of his long reign, when he had fallen under the influence of Sergius, as his predecessor, Zeno, had fallen under the influence of Acacius. Not only did Sergius hold the great see of the capital during twenty-eight years from 610 to 638, but things recorded of him seem to indicate that he was a man of extraordinary resolution. He had preserved Heraclius from deserting his capital, and flying back for refuge to his father at Carthage, after a long series of defeats from the Persians. He had acted as guardian of his son, and administrator of the empire during the marvellous six years when Heraclius, shaking off twelve years of apathy, and going forth in the name of God, and in publicly uttered commendation of his kingdom to the Blessed Mother of God, had triumphed over the Great King. Servius finally supplied him with the exposition, which was to present in seeming concord the wrangling episcopacy of his eastern empire, and overcome the Roman Pontiff in his maintenance of the faith.