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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI, by
+Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI
+       The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I
+
+
+Author: Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 28, 2009  [eBook #29268]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM,
+VOLUME VI***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Paul Dring, Steven Giacomelli, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from
+digital material generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian
+Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/theholysee06alliuoft
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS
+
+FROM ST. LEO I. TO ST. GREGORY I.
+
+by
+
+THOMAS W. ALLIES, K.C.S.G.
+
+Author of the "Formation Of Christendom"; "Church and State As Seen
+in the Formation of Christendom"; "The Throne of the Fisherman";
+"A Life's Decision"; and "Per Crucem Ad Lucem"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London: Burns & Oates, Limited
+New York: Catholic Publication Society Co.
+1888
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTERS OF THE POPES AS SOURCES OF HISTORY.
+
+
+Cardinal Mai has left recorded his judgment that, "in matter of fact, the
+whole administration of the Church is learnt in the letters of the
+Popes".[1]
+
+I draw from this judgment the inference that of all sources for the truths
+of history none are so precious, instructive, and authoritative as these
+authentic letters contemporaneous with the persons to whom they are
+addressed. The first which has been preserved to us is that of Pope St.
+Clement, the contemporary of St. Peter and St. Paul. It is directed to the
+Church of Corinth for the purpose of extinguishing a schism which had there
+broken out. In issuing his decision the Pope appeals to the Three Divine
+Persons to bear witness that the things which he has written "are written
+by us through the Holy Spirit," and claims obedience to them from those to
+whom he sends them as words "spoken by God through us".[2]
+
+If the decisions of the succeeding Popes in the interval of nearly two
+hundred and fifty years between this letter of St. Clement, about the year
+95, and the great letter of St. Julius to the Eusebianising bishops at
+Antioch in 342, had been preserved entire, the constitution of the Church
+in that interval would have shone before us in clear light. In fact, we
+only possess a few fragments of some of these decisions, for there was a
+great destruction of such documents in the persecution which occupied the
+first decade of the fourth century. But from the time of Pope Siricius, in
+the reign of the great Theodosius, a continuous, though not a perfect,
+series of these letters stretches through the succeeding ages. There is no
+other such series of documents existing in the world. They throw light upon
+all matters and persons of which they treat. This is a light proceeding
+from one who lives in the midst of what he describes, who is at the centre
+of the greatest system of doctrine and discipline, and legislation grounded
+upon both, which the world has ever seen. One, also, who speaks not only
+with a great knowledge, but with an unequalled authority, which, in every
+case, is like that of no one else, but can even be _supreme_, when it is
+directed with such a purpose to the whole Church. Every Pope _can_ speak,
+as St. Clement, the first of this series, speaks above, claiming obedience
+to his words as "words spoken by God through us".
+
+In a former volume I made large use of the letters of Popes from Siricius
+to St. Leo. I have continued that use for the very important period from
+St. Leo to St. Gregory. Especially in treating of the Acacian schism I have
+gone to the letters of the Popes who had to deal with it--Simplicius,
+Felix III., Gelasius, Anastasius II., Symmachus, and Hormisdas. I have done
+the same for the important reign of Justinian; most of all for the grand
+pontificate of St. Gregory, which crowns the whole patristic period and
+sums up its discipline.
+
+I am, therefore, indebted in this volume, first and chiefly, to the letters
+of the Popes and the letters addressed to them by emperors and bishops,
+stored up in Mansi's vast collection of Councils (1759, 31 volumes). I am
+also much indebted to Cardinal Hergenröther's work _Photius, sein Leben,
+und das griechische Schisma_, and to his _Handbuch der allgemeinen
+Kirchengeschichte_, as the number of quotations from him will show. Again,
+I may mention the two histories of the city of Rome, by Reumont and
+Gregorovius, as most valuable. I acknowledge many obligations to Riffel's
+_Geschichtliche Darstellung des Verhältnisses zwischen Kirche und Staat_,
+with regard to the legislation of Justinian. The edition of Justinian
+referred to by me is Heimbach's _Authenticum_, Leipsic, 1851. I have
+consulted Hefele's _Conciliengeschichte_ where need was. I have found
+Kurth's _Origines de la Civilisation moderne_ instructive. I have used the
+carefully emended and supplemented German edition of Röhrbacher's history,
+by various writers--Rump and others. St. Gregory is quoted from the
+Benedictine edition.
+
+As these works are indicated in the notes as they occur with the single
+name of the author, I have given here their full titles.
+
+The present volume is the sixth of the _Formation of Christendom_, though
+it has a special title indicating the particular part of that general
+subject which it treats. I have, therefore, added to the numbering of the
+chapters in the Table of Contents the number which they hold in the whole
+work.
+
+  _September 11, 1888._
+
+NOTES:
+
+[1] _Nova Patrum bibliotheca_, p. vi.: In Pontificum reapse epistolis tota
+ecclesiæ administratio cognoscitur.
+
+[2] See p. 351 below; also _Church and State_, pp. 198-200, for the full
+statement of this passage.
+
+
+
+
+  TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I. (XLIII.).
+
+  THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  Introduction. Connection with Volume V. St. Leo's action,           1
+
+  Denial of the Primacy as acknowledged at Chalcedon
+  suicidal on the part of those who believe in the Church,            3
+
+  Subject of this volume as compared with the fifth,                  5
+
+  The second wonder in human history,                                 6
+
+  The acknowledgment of the Primacy and the political
+  powerlessness of the city of Rome coeval,                           6
+
+  The three hundred years from Genseric to Astolphus,                 9
+
+  St. Leo in Rome after Genseric,                                    10
+
+  Political condition of Rome. Avitus emperor, 455-6,                13
+
+  Majorian emperor, 457-461,                                         14
+
+  Death of Pope Leo; changes seen by him in his life,                15
+
+  Hilarus Pope and Libius Severus emperor, 461-465,                  16
+
+  The over-lordship of Byzantium admitted in the choice of
+  the Greek Anthemius as emperor, 467,                               18
+
+  Sidonius Apollinaris an eye-witness of Rome's splendour,
+  subjection to Byzantium, and unchanged habits in 467,              19
+
+  Anthemius murdered and Rome plundered by Ricimer, 472,             20
+
+  Olybrius emperor, 472; Ricimer and Olybrius die of the
+  plague,                                                            20
+
+  Glycerius emperor, 473; Nepos, 474; Romulus Augustulus, 475,       21
+
+  The senate declares to the eastern emperor that an emperor
+  of the West is needless,                                           22
+
+  The twenty-one years' death-agony of imperial Rome,                23
+
+  State of the western provinces since the death of Theodosius I.,   24
+
+  The first and the second victory of the Church,                    25
+
+  The effect produced by the wandering of the nations,               26
+
+  The Visigoth and Ostrogoth migrations,                             27
+
+  Gaul overrun by Teuton invaders,                                   28
+
+  Arianism propagated by the Goths among the other tribes,           29
+
+  Burgundian kingdom of Lyons. Spain overrun,                        30
+
+  The Vandals in North Africa and their persecution of Catholics,    31
+
+  The Hunnish inroads,                                               33
+
+  All the western provinces under Teuton governments,                35
+
+  Odoacer and Theodorick,                                            36
+
+  Odoacer succeeded by Theodorick after the capture of Ravenna,      38
+
+  The character of Theodorick's reign,                               39
+
+  His fairness towards the Roman Church and Pontiff,                 40
+
+  The contrast between Theodorick and Clovis,                        42
+
+  The dictum of Ataulph on the Roman empire,                         43
+
+  Ataulph and Theodorick represent the better judgments of
+  the invaders,                                                      44
+
+  The outlook of Pope Simplicius at Rome over the western provinces, 45
+
+  And over the eastern empire,                                       46
+
+  Basiliscus and Zeno the first theologising emperors,               47
+
+  How the races descending on the empire had become Arian,           49
+
+  The point of time when the Church was in danger of losing
+  all which she had gained,                                          50
+
+  How the division of the empire called out the Primacy,             51
+
+  How the extinction of the western empire does so yet more,         53
+
+  How the Pope was the sole fixed point in a transitional world,     54
+
+  Guizot's testimony,                                                55
+
+  What St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Leo did not foresee,
+  which we behold,                                                   57
+
+
+  CHAPTER II. (XLIV.).
+
+  CÆSAR FELL DOWN.
+
+  Great changes in the Roman State following the time of St. Leo,    59
+
+  Nature of the succession in the Cæsarean throne, and then
+  in the Byzantine,                                                  61
+
+  Personal changes in the Popes and eastern emperors,                62
+
+  Gennadius succeeds Anatolius, and Acacius succeeds Gennadius
+  in the see of Constantinople,                                      64
+
+  Acacius resists the Encyclikon of Basiliscus,                      65
+
+  Letter of Pope Simplicius to the emperor Zeno,                     66
+
+  Advancement of Acacius by Zeno,                                    69
+
+  Acacius induces Zeno to publish a formulary of doctrine,           70
+
+  John Talaia, elected patriarch of Alexandria, appeals for
+  support to Pope Simplicius,                                        70
+
+  Pope Felix sends an embassy to the emperor,                        71
+
+  His letter to Zeno,                                                72
+
+  His letter to Acacius,                                             73
+
+  His legates arrested, imprisoned, robbed, and seduced,             74
+
+  Pope Felix synodically deposes Acacius,                            75
+
+  Enumerates his misdeeds in the sentence,                           76
+
+  Synodal decrees in Italy signed by the Pope alone,                 78
+
+  Letter of Pope Felix to Zeno setting forth the condemnation
+  of Acacius,                                                        79
+
+  The condition of the Pope when he thus wrote,                      81
+
+  How Acacius received the Pope's condemnation,                      83
+
+  The position which Acacius thereupon took up,                      84
+
+  The greatness of the bishop of Constantinople identified
+  with the greatness of his city,                                    84
+
+  The humiliations of Rome witnessed by Acacius,                     86
+
+  How the Pope, under these humiliations, spoke to Acacius
+  and to the emperor,                                                88
+
+  The Pope on the one side, Acacius on the other, represent
+  an absolute contradiction,                                         89
+
+  Eudoxius and Valens matched by Acacius and Zeno,                   92
+
+  Death of Acacius, and estimate of him by three contemporaries,     93
+
+  Fravita, succeeding Acacius, seeks the Pope's recognition,         93
+
+  Letters of the emperor and Fravita to the Pope, and his
+  answers,                                                           94
+
+  The position taken by Acacius not maintained by Zeno and
+  Fravita,                                                           96
+
+  Nor by Euphemius, who succeeds Fravita,                            96
+
+  Euphemius suspects and resists the new emperor Anastasius,         97
+
+  Condition of the Empire and the Church at the accession of
+  Pope Gelasius in 492,                                              98
+
+  The "libellus synodicus" on the emperor Anastasius,               100
+
+  With whom the four Popes--Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus,
+  and Hormisdas--have to deal,                                      101
+
+  Euphemius, writing to the Pope, acknowledges him to be
+  successor of St. Peter,                                           103
+
+  Gelasius replies to Euphemius, insisting on the repudiation
+  of Acacius,                                                       104
+
+  Absolute obedience of the Illyrian bishops professed to the
+  Apostolic See,                                                    105
+
+  Gelasius shows that the canons make the First See supreme
+  judge of all,                                                     106
+
+  Says that the bishop of Constantinople holds no rank among
+  bishops,                                                          107
+
+  Praises bishops who have resisted the wrongdoings of temporal
+  rulers,                                                           108
+
+  The Holy See, in virtue of its Principate, confirms every
+  Council,                                                          109
+
+  Gelasius in 494 defines to the emperor the domain of the
+  Two Powers,                                                       110
+
+  And the subordination of the temporal ruler in spiritual things,  111
+
+  The words of Gelasius have become the law of the Church,          113
+
+  The emperor Anastasius deposes Euphemius by the Resident
+  Council,                                                          114
+
+  Pope Gelasius, in a council of seventy bishops at Rome,
+  sets forth the divine institution of the Primacy,                 115
+
+  And the order of the three Patriarchal Sees,                      115
+
+  And three General Councils--the Nicene, Ephesine, and
+  Chalcedonic,                                                      115
+
+  Denies to the see of Constantinople any rank beyond that
+  of an ordinary bishop, and omits the Council of 381,              116
+
+  Death of Pope Gelasius and character of his pontificate,          118
+
+  His own description of the time in which he lived,                118
+
+
+  CHAPTER III. (XLV.).
+
+  PETER STOOD UP.
+
+  Pope Anastasius: his letter to the emperor Anastasius,            120
+
+  He makes the Pope's position in the Church parallel with
+  that of the emperor in the world,                                 121
+
+  He writes to Clovis on his conversion,                            122
+
+  St. Gregory of Tours notes the prosperity of Catholic kingdoms
+  and the decline of Arian in the West,                             123
+
+  Letter of St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to Clovis on his
+  baptism,                                                          124
+
+  He recognises the vast importance of the professing the
+  Catholic faith by Clovis,                                         125
+
+  And the duty of Clovis to propagate the faith in peoples around,  126
+
+  How the words of St. Avitus to Clovis were fulfilled in history,  127
+
+  The election of Pope Symmachus traversed by the emperor's agent,  128
+
+  His letter termed "Apologetica" to the eastern emperor,           129
+
+  The imperial and papal power compared,                            131
+
+  The papal and the sovereign power the double permanent
+  head of human society,                                            133
+
+  Emperors wont to acknowledge Popes on their accession,            134
+
+  Inferences to be deduced from this letter,                        135
+
+  The answer of the emperor Anastasius is to stir up a fresh
+  schism at Rome,                                                   136
+
+  The Synodus Palmaris, without judging the Pope, declares
+  him free from all charge,                                         137
+
+  Letter of the bishop of Vienne to the Roman senate upon
+  this Council,                                                     139
+
+  The cause of the Bishop of Rome is not that of one bishop,
+  but of the Episcopate itself,                                     140
+
+  Words of Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, embodied in the act
+  of the Roman Council of 503,                                      142
+
+  Result of the attack of the emperor on the Pope is the recording
+  in black and white that the First See is judged by no man,        143
+
+  The eastern Church under the emperor Anastasius,                  143
+
+  He deposes Macedonius as well as Euphemius,                       144
+
+  Both these bishops of Byzantium failed to resist his despotism,   147
+
+  Eastern bishops address Pope Symmachus to succour them,           148
+
+  Pope Hormisdas succeeds Symmachus in 514,                         149
+
+  His instruction to the legates sent to Constantinople,            150
+
+  The bishop of Constantinople presents all bishops to the
+  emperor,                                                          157
+
+  The conditions for reunion made by Pope Hormisdas,                158
+
+  The treacherous conduct of the emperor,                           159
+
+  Hormisdas describes Greek diplomacy,                              160
+
+  The Syrian Archimandrites supplicate the Pope for help,           161
+
+  Sudden death of the emperor Anastasius,                           162
+
+  The emperor Justin's election and antecedents,                    162
+
+  He notifies his accession to the Pope,                            163
+
+  The Pope holds a council and sends an embassy to Constantinople,  164
+
+  The bishop, clergy, and emperor accept the terms of the Pope,     165
+
+  The formulary of union signed by them,                            167
+
+  The report of the legates to the Pope,                            169
+
+  The emperor Justin's letter to the Pope,                          170
+
+  Character of the period 455-519,                                  171
+
+  Political state of the East and West most perilous to the
+  Church,                                                           172
+
+  The Popes under Odoacer and Theodorick,                           173
+
+  How Acacius took advantage of the political situation,            174
+
+  The meaning and range of his attempt,                             175
+
+  The Pope from 476 onwards rests solely upon his Apostolate,       176
+
+  The seven Popes who succeed St. Leo,                              179
+
+  The seven bishops who succeed Anatolius at Constantinople,        180
+
+  The eastern emperors in this time,                                182
+
+  The state of the eastern patriarchates, Alexandria and Antioch,   184
+
+  The waning of secular Rome reveals the power of the Pontificate,  185
+
+  The Popes alone preserved the East from the Eutychean heresy,     185
+
+  The position of St. Leo maintained by the seven following Popes,  186
+
+  The submission to Hormisdas an act of the "undivided" Church,     187
+
+  The adverse circumstances which developed the Pope's Principate,  188
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV. (XLVI.).
+
+  JUSTINIAN.
+
+  Sequel in Justinian of the submission to Pope Hormisdas,          189
+
+  His acknowledgment of the Primacy to Pope John II. in 533,        190
+
+  Reply of Pope John II. confirming the confession sent to
+  him by Justinian,                                                 191
+
+  The _Pandects_ of Justinian issued in the same year,              192
+
+  Close interweaving of ecclesiastical and temporal interests,      193
+
+  Interference with the freedom of the papal election by the
+  temporal ruler,                                                   194
+
+  Letter of Cassiodorus as Prætorian prefect to Pope John II.,      195
+
+  Justinian all his reign acknowledged the Primacy of the Pope,     196
+
+  His character, purposes, and actions,                             196
+
+  Succeeds his uncle the emperor Justin I.,                         198
+
+  Great political changes coeval with his succession,               199
+
+  He reconquers Northern Africa by Belisarius,                      199
+
+  The Catholic bishops of Africa meet again in General Council,     200
+
+  They send an embassy to consult Pope John II.,                    201
+
+  Pope Agapetus notes their reference to the Apostolic Principate,  202
+
+  Great renown of Justinian at the reconquest of Africa,            203
+
+  Pope Agapetus at Constantinople deposes its bishop,               204
+
+  Justinian begins the Gothic War. Belisarius enters Rome,          205
+
+  He is welcomed as restorer of the empire,                         206
+
+  The empress Theodora deposes Pope Silverius by Belisarius,        207
+
+  First siege of Rome by Vitiges,                                   210
+
+  The mausoleum of Hadrian stripped of its statues,                 211
+
+  Vitiges, having lost half his army, raises the siege,             213
+
+  Belisarius, having reconquered Italy, is recalled for the war
+  with Persia,                                                      214
+
+  Totila, elected Gothic king, renews the war,                      214
+
+  Visits St. Benedict at Monte Cassino, and is warned by him,       215
+
+  Second siege of Rome by Totila,                                   216
+
+  Rome taken by Totila in 546,                                      216
+
+  Third capture of Rome by Belisarius, in 547,                      217
+
+  Fourth capture of Rome by Totila, in 549,                         218
+
+  Totila defeated and killed by Narses at Taginas,                  219
+
+  Fifth capture of Rome by Narses, in 552,                          220
+
+  End of the Gothic war, in 555,                                    221
+
+  Its effect on the civil condition of the Pope, Italy, and Rome,   222
+
+  The sufferings of Rome from assailants and defenders,             223
+
+  The new test of papal authority applied by these events,          225
+
+  Vigilius, having become legitimate Pope, is sent for by
+  Justinian,                                                        226
+
+  Church proceedings at Constantinople after the death of
+  Pope Agapetus,                                                    227
+
+  The patriarch Mennas, in conjunction with the emperor,
+  consecrates at Constantinople a patriarch of Alexandria,          228
+
+  The Origenistic struggle in the eastern empire,                   229
+
+  Justinian theologising,                                           230
+
+  The whole East urged to consent to his edict on doctrine,         231
+
+  Pope Vigilius, summoned by Justinian, enters Constantinople,      232
+
+  After long conferences with emperor and bishops he issues
+  a Judgment,                                                       234
+
+  The Pope and emperor agree upon holding a General Council,        235
+
+  The emperor's despotism, and the bishops crouching before it,     236
+
+  The Pope takes sanctuary, and is torn away from the altar,        237
+
+  Flies to the church at Chalcedon,                                 238
+
+  The bishops relent, and the Pope returns to Constantinople,       239
+
+  Eutychius, succeeding Mennas, proposes a council under
+  presidency of the Pope,                                           239
+
+  The emperor causes it to meet under Eutychius without the Pope,   240
+
+  Proceedings of the Council. The Pope declines their invitation,   241
+
+  Close of the Council, without the Pope's presence,                242
+
+  The Pope issues a Constitution apart from the Council,            242
+
+  Also a condemnation of the Three Chapters without mention
+  of the Council,                                                   243
+
+  The Pope on his way back to Rome dies at Syracuse,                244
+
+  The patriarch Eutychius, refusing to sign a doctrinal decree
+  of Justinian, is deposed by the Resident Council,                 244
+
+  Justinian issues his Pragmatic Sanction for government of Italy,  245
+
+  State of things following in Italy,                               246
+
+  Justinian's conception of the relation between Church and State,  248
+
+  He gives to the decrees of Councils and to the canons the
+  force of law,                                                     250
+
+  Three leading principles in these enactments,                     251
+
+  The State completely recognises the Church's whole constitution,  251
+
+  The episcopal idea thoroughly realised,                           253
+
+  Concurrent action of the laws of Church and State herein,         254
+
+  Justinian further associated bishops with the civil government,   255
+
+  The part given to them in civil administration,                   256
+
+  A system of mutual supervision in bishops and governors,          257
+
+  The branches of civil matters specially put under bishops,        259
+
+  The completeness and the cordiality of the alliance with
+  the Church,                                                       261
+
+  Which differentiates Justinian's attitude from that of
+  modern governments,                                               262
+
+  In what Justinian was a true maintainer of the imperial idea,     264
+
+  The dark blot which lies upon Justinian,                          267
+
+  How he passed from the line of defence to that of interference
+  and mastery,                                                      269
+
+  The result, spiritual and temporal, of Justinian's reign,         270
+
+
+  CHAPTER V. (XLVII.).
+
+  ST. GREGORY THE GREAT.
+
+  The state of Rome as a city after the prefecture of Narses,       272
+
+  Contrast of Nova Roma,                                            274
+
+  The Rome of the Church a new city,                                275
+
+  St. Gregory's antecedents as prefect, monk, nuncio, and
+  deacon of the Roman Church,                                       276
+
+  Elected Pope against his will. His description of his work,       278
+
+  And of the time's calamity,                                       279
+
+  The utter misery of Rome expressed in the words of Ezechiel,      281
+
+  Contrast between the language used of Rome by St. Leo
+  and St. Gregory,                                                  283
+
+  St. Gregory closes his preaching in St. Peter's, overcome
+  with sorrow,                                                      284
+
+  The works of St. Gregory out of this Rome,                        285
+
+  The Lombard descent on Italy,                                     287
+
+  Rome ransomed from the Lombards, and Monte Cassino destroyed,     290
+
+  The Primacy untouched by the temporal calamities of Rome,         292
+
+  Its unique prerogative brought out by unequalled sufferings,      293
+
+  The new city of Rome lived only by the Primacy,                   294
+
+  St. Gregory's account of the Primacy to the empress Constantina,  295
+
+  He identifies his own authority with that of St. Peter,           296
+
+  Writes to the emperor Mauritius that the union of the Two
+  Powers would secure the empire against barbarians,                297
+
+  Claims to the emperor St. Peter's charge over the whole Church,   298
+
+  John the Foster's assumed title on injury to the whole Church,    299
+
+  What St. Gregory infers from the three patriarchal sees
+  being all sees of Peter,                                          301
+
+  Contrast drawn by St. Gregory between the Pope's
+  Principate and John the Faster's assumed title,                   302
+
+  The fatal falsehood which this title presupposed,                 303
+
+  The opposing truth in the Principate made _de Fide_ by the
+  Vatican Council,                                                  306
+
+  St. Leo against Anatolius, and St. Gregory against John the
+  Faster, occupy like positions,                                    307
+
+  St. Gregory's title, "Servant of the servants of God," expresses
+  the maxim of his government,                                      308
+
+  The fourteen books of St. Gregory's letters range over every
+  subject in the whole Church,                                      309
+
+  The special relation between the sees of St. Peter and St. Mark,  311
+
+  Asserts his supremacy to the Lombard queen Theodelinda,           311
+
+  St. Gregory appoints the bishop of Arles to be over the
+  metropolitans of Gaul,                                            312
+
+  The venture of St. Gregory in attempting the conversion of
+  England,                                                          313
+
+  St. Augustine commended to queen Brunechild and consecrated
+  by the bishop of Arles, and the English Church made by Gregory,   315
+
+  Work of St. Gregory in the Spanish Church,                        316
+
+  He relates the martyrdom of St. Hermenegild,                      316
+
+  His letters to St. Leander of Seville,                            317
+
+  Conversion of king Rechared,                                      318
+
+  St. Gregory's letter of congratulation to him,                    318
+
+  Letter of king Rechared informing the Pope of his conversion,     321
+
+  Gibbon's account of the government which was the result
+  of Rechared's conversion,                                         322
+
+  The important principles thus consecrated by the Church,          324
+
+  Overthrow of the Arian kingdoms in Africa, Spain, Gaul and
+  Italy, between Pope Felix III. and Pope Gregory I.,               325
+
+  The equal failure of Genseric, Euric, Gondebald, and Theodorick,  327
+
+  The part in this which the Catholic bishops had,                  329
+
+  The Spanish monarchy first of many formed by the Church,          331
+
+  Superiority of this government to the Byzantine absolutism,       332
+
+  St. Gregory as fourth doctor of the western Church,               334
+
+  St. Gregory as a chief artificer in the Church's second victory,  335
+
+  Summary of St. Gregory's action as metropolitan patriarch
+  and Pope,                                                         337
+
+  Councils held by him in Rome: protection of monks,                338
+
+  His management of the Patrimonium Petri,                          340
+
+  His success with schismatics and heretics,                        341
+
+  The Primacy from St. Leo to St. Gregory,                          342
+
+  The continued rise of the bishop of Constantinople,             343-5
+
+  The political degradation and danger of Rome,                     345
+
+  Long disaster reveals still more the purely spiritual foundation
+  of the Primacy,                                                   346
+
+  Testimony given by the disappearance of the Arian governments
+  and the conversion of Franks and Saxons,                          347
+
+  The patriarchate of Constantinople imposed by civil law,          348
+
+  The Nicene constitution in the East impaired by despotism
+  and heresy,                                                       349
+
+  The persistent defence of this constitution by the Popes,         350
+
+  The Petra Apostolica in the sixty Popes preceding Gregory,        352
+
+  As discerned by Hurter in the time of Pope Innocent III.,         353
+
+  As in the time from Pope Innocent III. to Leo XIII.,              355
+
+  The continuous Primacy from St. Peter to St. Gregory,             355
+
+  As Rome diminishes the Primacy advances,                          356
+
+  The times in which it was exercised by St. Gregory,               358
+
+  The opposing forces which unite to sustain the Petra Apostolica,  359
+
+  INDEX,                                                            361
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.
+
+    "Rome's ending seemed the ending of a world.
+    If this our earth had in the vast sea sunk,
+    Save one black ridge whereon I sat alone,
+    Such wreck had seemed not greater. It was gone,
+    That empire last, sole heir of all the empires,
+    Their arms, their arts, their letters, and their laws.
+    The fountains of the nether deep are burst,
+    The second deluge comes. And let it come!
+    The God who sits above the waterspouts
+    Remains unshaken."
+
+    --A. DE VERE, _Legends and Records_--"Death of St. Jerome".
+
+
+I ended the last chapter by drawing out that series of events in the
+Church's internal constitution and of changes in the external world of
+action outside and independent of the Church which combined in one result
+the exhibition to all and the public acknowledgment by the Church of the
+Primacy given by our Lord to St. Peter, and continued to his successors in
+the See of Rome. I showed St. Leo as exercising this Primacy by annulling
+the acts of an Ecumenical Council, the second of Ephesus, legitimately
+called and attended by his own legates, because it had denied a tenet of
+what St. Leo declared in a letter sent to the bishops and accepted by them
+to be the Christian faith upon the Incarnation itself. I showed him
+supported by the Church in that annulment, by the eastern episcopate, which
+attended the Council of Chalcedon, and by the eastern emperor, Marcian.
+Again, I showed him confirming the doctrinal decrees of the Ecumenical
+Council of Chalcedon, which followed the Council annulled by him, while he
+reversed and disallowed certain canons which had been irregularly passed.
+This he did because they were injurious to that constitution of the Church
+which had come down from the Apostles to his own time. And this act of his,
+also, I showed to be accepted by the bishop of Constantinople, who was
+specially affected, and by the eastern emperor, and by the episcopate: and
+also that the confirmation of doctrine on the one hand, and the rejection
+of canons on the other, were equally accepted. I also showed this great
+Council in its Synodical Letter to the Pope acknowledging spontaneously
+that very position of the Pope which the Popes had always set forth as the
+ground of all the authority which they claimed. The Council of Chalcedon
+addressed St. Leo "as entrusted by the Saviour with the guardianship of the
+Vine". But the Vine in the universal language of the Fathers betokened the
+whole Church of God. And the Council refers the confirmation of its acts to
+the Pope in the same document in which it asserts that the guardianship of
+the Vine was given to him by the Saviour Himself. This expression, "by the
+Saviour Himself," means that it was not given to him by the decree of any
+Council representing the Church. It is a full acknowledgment that the
+promises made to Peter, and the Pastorship conferred upon him, descended to
+his successor in the See of Rome. It is a full acknowledgment; for how else
+was St. Leo entrusted by the Saviour with the guardianship of the Vine?
+Those who so addressed him were equally bishops with himself; they equally
+enjoyed the one indivisible episcopate, "of which a part is held by each
+without division of the whole".[3] But this one, beside and beyond that,
+was charged with the whole--the Vine itself. This one point is that in
+which St. Peter went beyond his brethren, by the special gift and
+appointment of the Saviour Himself. The words, then, of the Council contain
+a special acknowledgment that the line of Popes after a succession of four
+hundred years sat in the person of Leo on the seat of St. Peter, with St.
+Peter's one sovereign prerogative.
+
+It is requisite, I think, distinctly to point out that Christians, whoever
+they are, provided only that they admit, as confessing belief in any one of
+the three creeds, the Apostolic, the Nicene, or the Athanasian, they do
+admit, that there is one holy Catholic Church, commit a suicidal act in
+denying the Primacy as acknowledged by the Church at the Council of
+Chalcedon. For such a denial destroys the authority of the Church herself
+both in doctrine and discipline for all subsequent time. If the Church, in
+declaring St. Leo to be entrusted by our Lord with the guardianship of the
+Vine, erred; if she asserted a falsehood, or if she favoured an usurpation,
+how can she be trusted for any maintenance of doctrine, for any
+administration of sacraments, for any exercise of authority? This
+consideration does not touch those who believe in no Church at all. They
+are in the position of that individual whom the great Constantine
+recommended to take a ladder and mount to heaven by himself. But it touches
+all who profess to believe in an episcopate, in councils, in sacraments, in
+an organised Church, in authority deposited in that Church, and, finally,
+in history and in historical Christianity. To all such it may surely be
+said, as the simplest enunciation of reasoning, that they cannot profess
+belief in the Church which the Creed proclaims while they accept or reject
+its authority as they please. Or to localise a general expression: A man
+does not follow the doctrine of St. Augustine if he accepts his
+condemnation of Pelagius, but denies that unity of the Church in
+maintaining which St. Augustine spent his forty years of teaching. The
+action of all such persons in the eyes of the world without amounts to
+this, that by denying the Primacy they disprove the existence of the
+Church. Their negation goes to the profit of total unbelief. Asserters of
+the Church's division are pioneers of infidelity, for who can believe in
+what has fallen? or is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ a kingdom
+divided against itself? They who maintain schism generate agnostics.
+
+But I was prevented on a former occasion by want of space from dwelling
+with due force upon some circumstances of St. Leo's life. These are such as
+to make his time an era. I was occupied during a whole volume with the
+attempt to set forth in some sort the action of St. Peter's See upon the
+Greek and Roman world from the day of Pentecost to the complete recognition
+of the Universal Pastorship of Peter as inherited by the Roman Pontiff in
+the person of St. Leo.
+
+I approach now a further development of this subject. I go forward to treat
+of the Papacy, deprived of all temporal support from the fall of the
+western empire, taking up the secular capital into a new spiritual Rome,
+and creating a Christendom out of the northern tribes who had subverted the
+Roman empire.
+
+There is, I think, no greater wonder in human history than the creation of
+a hierarchy out of the principle of headship and subordination contained in
+our Lord's charge to Peter. It has been pointed out that the constitution
+of the Nicene Council itself manifested this principle, and was the proof
+of its spontaneous action in the preceding centuries, while its overt
+recognition, as seated in the Roman Pontiff, is seen in the pontificate of
+St. Leo.
+
+There is a second wonder in human history, on which it is the purpose of
+this volume to dwell. The Roman empire, in which the Pax Romana had
+provided a mould of widespread civilisation for the Church's growth, was
+at length broken up in the western half of it, by Teuton invaders occupying
+its provinces. These were all, at the time of their settlement, either
+pagan or Arian. There followed, in a certain lapse of time, the creation of
+a body of States whose centre of union and belief was the See of Peter.
+That is the creation of Christendom proper. The wonder seen is that the
+northern tribes, impinging on the empire, and settling on its various
+provinces like vultures, became the matter into which the Holy See, guiding
+and unifying the episcopate, maintaining the original principle of
+celibacy, and planting it in the institute of the religious life through
+various countries depopulated or barbarous, infused into the whole mass one
+spirit, so that Arians became Catholics, Teuton raiders issued into
+Christian kings, savage tribes thrown upon captive provincials coalesced
+into nations, while all were raised together into, not a restored empire of
+Augustus, but an empire holy as well as Roman, whose chief was the Church's
+defender (_advocatus ecclesiæ_), whose creator was the Roman Peter.
+
+It is not a little remarkable that this signal recognition by the Fourth
+General Council of the Roman Pontiff's authority coincided in time with the
+utter powerlessness to which Rome as a city was reduced. That city, on
+whose glory as queen of nations and civiliser of the earth her own bishop
+had dwelt with all the fondness of a Roman, when, year by year, on the
+least of St. Peter and St. Paul, he addressed the assembled episcopate of
+Italy, ran twice, in his own time, the most imminent danger of ceasing to
+exist. Italy was absolutely without an army to give her strongest cities a
+chance of resisting the desolation of Attila. Rome was without a force
+raised to save it from the pitiless robbery of Genseric. Without escort,
+and defended only by his spiritual character, Leo went forth to appeal
+before Attila for mercy to a heathen Mongol. There is no record of what
+passed at that interview. Only the result is known. The conqueror, who had
+swept with remorseless cruelty the whole country from the Euxine to the
+Adriatic Sea, who was now bent upon the seizure of Italy itself, and in his
+course had just destroyed Aquileia, was at Mantua marching upon Rome. His
+intention was proclaimed to crown all his acts of destruction with that of
+Rome. This was the dowry which he proposed to take for the hand of the last
+great emperor's granddaughter, proffered to him by the hapless Honoria
+herself. At the word of Leo the Scourge of God gave up his prey: he turned
+back from Italy, and relinquished Rome, and Leo returned to his seat. In
+the course of the next three years he confirmed, at the eastern emperor's
+repeated request, the doctrinal decrees of the great Council; but he
+humbled likewise the arrogance of Anatolius, and not all the loyalty of
+Marcian, not all the devotion of the empress and saint Pulcheria, could
+induce him to exalt the bishop of the eastern capital at the expense of the
+Petrine hierarchy. But during those same three years he saw, in Rome
+itself, Honoria's brother, the grandson of Theodosius, destroy his own
+throne, and thereupon the murderer of an emperor compel his widow to
+accept him in her husband's place, in the first days of her sorrow. He
+saw, further, that daughter of Theodosius and Eudoxia, when she learnt that
+the usurper of her husband's throne was likewise his murderer, call in the
+Vandal from Carthage to avenge her double dishonour. This was the Rome
+which awaited, trembling and undefended, the most profligate of armies, led
+by the most cruel of persecutors. Once more St. Leo, stripped of all human
+aid, went forth with his clergy on the road to the port by which Genseric
+was advancing, to plead before an Arian pirate for the preservation of the
+capital of the Catholic faith. He saved his people from massacre and his
+city from burning, but not the houses from plunder. For fourteen days Rome
+was subject to every spoliation which African avarice could inflict. Again,
+no record of that misery has been kept; but the hand of Genseric was
+heavier than that of Alaric, in proportion as the Vandal was cruel where
+the Ostrogoth was generous. Alaric would have fought for Rome as Stilicho
+fought, had he continued to be commanded by that Theodosius who made him a
+Roman general; but Genseric was the vilest in soul of all the Teuton
+invaders, and for fifty years, during the utter prostration of Roman power,
+he infested all the shores of the Mediterranean with the savagery
+afterwards shown by Saracen and Algerine.
+
+This second plundering of Rome was no isolated event. It was only the sign
+of that utter impotence into which Roman power in the West had fallen. The
+city of Rome was the trophy of Cæsarean government during five hundred
+years--from Julius, the most royal, to Valentinian, the most abject of
+emperors. And now its temporal greatness was lost for ever. It ceased to be
+the imperial city, but by the same stroke became from the secular a
+spiritual capital. The Pope, freed from the western Cæsar,[4] gave to the
+Cæsarean city its second and greater life: a life of another kind
+generating also an empire of another sort. The raid of Genseric in the year
+455 is the first of three hundred years of warfare carried on from the time
+of the Vandal through the time of the Lombard, under the neglect and
+oppression of the Byzantine, until, in the year 755, Astolphus, the last,
+and perhaps the worst, of an evil brood, laid waste the campagna, and
+besieged the city. St. Leo, in his double embassy to Attila and Genseric,
+was an unconscious prophet of the time to come, a visible picture of three
+hundred years as singular in their conflict and their issue as those other
+three hundred which had their close in the Nicene Council. During all those
+ages the Pope is never secure in his own city. He sees the trophy of
+Cæsarean empire slowly perish away. The capital of the world ceases to be
+even the capital of a province. The eastern emperor, who still called
+himself emperor of the Romans, omitted for many generations even to visit
+the city which he had subjected to an impotent but malignant official,
+termed an Exarch, who guarded himself by the marshes of Ravenna, but left
+Rome to the inroads of the Lombards. The last emperor who deigned to visit
+the old capital of his empire came to it only to tear from it the last
+relic of imperial magnificence. But then Jerusalem had fallen into the
+hands of the infidel, and Christian pilgrims, since they could no longer
+visit the sepulchre of Christ, flocked to the sepulchre of his Vicar the
+Fisherman. And thus Rome was become the place of pilgrimage for all the
+West. Saxon kings and queens laid down their crowns before St. Peter's
+threshold, invested themselves with the cowl, and died, healed and happy,
+under the shadow of the chief Apostle. When the three hundred years were
+ended, the arm of Pepin made the Pope a sovereign in his own newly-created
+Rome. During these three centuries, running from St. Leo meeting Genseric,
+the pilot of St. Peter's ship has been tossed without intermission on the
+waves of a heaving ocean, but he has saved his vessel and the freight which
+it bears--the Christian faith. And in doing this he has made the
+new-created city, which had become the place of pilgrimage, to be also the
+centre of a new world.
+
+As Leo came back from the gate leading to the harbour and re-entered his
+Lateran palace, undefended Rome was taken possession of by the Vandal. Leo
+for fourteen days was condemned to hear the cries of his people, and the
+tale of unnumbered insults and iniquities committed in the palaces and
+houses of Rome. When the stipulated days were over, the plunderer bore away
+the captive empress and her daughters from the palace of the Cæsars, which
+he had so completely sacked that even the copper vessels were carried off.
+Genseric also assaulted the yet untouched temple of Jupiter on the Capitol,
+and not only carried away the still remaining statues in his fleet which
+occupied the Tiber, but stripped off half the roof of the temple and its
+tiles of gilded bronze. He took away also the spoils of the temple at
+Jerusalem, which Vespasian had deposited in his temple of peace. Belisarius
+found them at Carthage eighty years later, and sent them as prizes to
+Constantinople.[5]
+
+Many thousand Romans of every age and condition Genseric carried as slaves
+to Carthage, together with Eudocia and her daughters, the eldest of whom
+Genseric compelled to marry his son Hunnerich. After sixteen years of
+unwilling marriage Eudocia at last escaped, and through great perils
+reached Jerusalem, where she died and was buried beside her grandmother,
+that other Eudocia, the beautiful Athenais whom St. Pulcheria gave to her
+brother for bride, and whose romantic exaltation to the throne of the East
+ended in banishment at Jerusalem. But one of the great churches at Rome is
+connected with her memory: since the first Eudocia sent to the empress her
+daughter at Rome half of the chains which had bound St. Peter at his
+imprisonment by Agrippa. When Pope Leo held the relics, which had come from
+Jerusalem, to those other relics belonging to the Apostle's captivity at
+Rome on his martyrdom, they grew together and became one chain of
+thirty-eight links. Upon this the empress in the days of her happiness
+built the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula to receive so touching a memorial
+of the Apostle who escaped martyrdom at Jerusalem to find it at Rome. Upon
+his delivery by the angel "from all the expectation of the people of the
+Jews," he "went to another place". There, to use the words of his own
+personal friend and second successor at Antioch, he founded "the church
+presiding over charity in the place of the country of the Romans,"[6] and
+there he was to find his own resting-place. The church was built to guard
+the emblems of the two captivities. The heathen festival of Augustus, which
+used to be kept on the 1st August at the spot where the church was founded,
+became for all Christendom the feast of St. Peter's Chains.[7]
+
+In the life of St. Leo by Anastasius, we read that after the Vandal ruin he
+supplied the parish churches of Rome with silver plate from the six silver
+vessels, weighing each a hundred pounds, which Constantine had given to the
+basilicas of the Lateran, of St. Peter, and of St. Paul, two to each. These
+churches were spared the plundering to which every other building was
+subjected. But the buildings of Rome were not burnt, though even senatorian
+families were reduced to beggary, and the population was diminished through
+misery and flight, besides those who were carried off to slavery.
+
+At this point of time the grandeur of Trajan's city[8] began to pass into
+the silence and desolation which St. Gregory in after years mourned over in
+the words of Jeremias on ruined Jerusalem.
+
+Let us go back with Leo to his patriarchal palace, and realise if we can
+the condition of things in which he dwelt at home, as well as the condition
+throughout all the West of the Church which his courage had saved from
+heresy.
+
+The male line of Theodosius had ended with the murder of Valentinian in the
+Campus Martius, March 16, 455. Maximus seized his throne and his widow, and
+was murdered in the streets of Rome in June, 455, at the end of
+seventy-seven days. When Genseric had carried off his spoil, the throne of
+the western empire, no longer claimed by anyone of the imperial race,
+became a prey to ambitious generals. The first tenant of that throne was
+Avitus, a nobleman from Gaul, named by the influence of the Visigothic
+king, Theodorich of Toulouse. He assumed the purple at Arles, on the 10th
+July, 455. The Roman senate, which clung to its hereditary right to name
+the princes, accepted him, not being able to help itself, on the 1st
+January, 456; his son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, delivered the
+customary panegyric, and was rewarded with a bronze statue in the forum of
+Trajan, which we thus know to have escaped injury from the raid of
+Genseric. But at the bidding of Ricimer, who had become the most powerful
+general, the senate deposed Avitus; he fled to his country Auvergne, and
+was killed on the way in September, 456.
+
+All power now lay in the hands of Ricimer. He was by his father a Sueve; by
+his mother, grandson of Wallia, the Visigothic king at Toulouse. With him
+began that domination of foreign soldiery which in twenty years destroyed
+the western empire. Through his favour the senator Majorian was named
+emperor in the spring of 457. The senate, the people, the army, and the
+eastern emperor, Leo I., were united in hailing his election. He is
+described as recalling by his many virtues the best Roman emperors. In his
+letter to the senate, which he drew up after his election in Ravenna, men
+thought they heard the voice of Trajan. An emperor who proposed to rule
+according to the laws and tradition of the old time filled Rome with joy.
+All his edicts compelled the people to admire his wisdom and goodness. One
+of these most strictly forbade the employment of the materials from older
+buildings, an unhappy custom which had already begun, for, says the special
+historian of the city, the time had already come when Rome, destroying
+itself, was made use of as a great chalk-pit and marble quarry;[9] and for
+such it served the Romans themselves for more than a thousand years. They
+were the true barbarians who destroyed their city.
+
+But Majorian was unable to prevent the ruin either of city or of state. He
+had made great exertions to punish Genseric by reconquering Africa. They
+were not successful; Ricimer compelled him to resign on the 2nd of August,
+461, and five days afterwards he died by a death of which is only known
+that it was violent. A man, says Procopius, upright to his subjects,
+terrible to his enemies, who surpassed in every virtue all those who before
+him had reigned over the Romans.
+
+Three months after Majorian, died Pope St. Leo. First of his line to bear
+the name of Great, who twice saved his city, and once, by the express
+avowal of a successor, the Church herself, Leo carried his crown of thorns
+one-and-twenty years, and has left no plaint to posterity of the calamities
+witnessed by him in that long pontificate. Majorian was the fourth
+sovereign whom in six years and a half he had seen to perish by violence. A
+man with so keen an intellectual vision, so wise a measure of men and
+things, must have fathomed to its full extent the depth of moral corruption
+in the midst of which the Church he presided over fought for existence.
+This among his own people. But who likewise can have felt, as he did, the
+overmastering flood of northern tribes--_vis consili expers_--which had
+descended on the empire in his own lifetime. As a boy he must have known
+the great Theodosius ruling by force of mind that warlike but savage host
+of Teuton mercenaries. In his one life, Visigoth and Ostrogoth, Vandal and
+Herule, Frank and Aleman, Burgundian and Sueve, instead of serving Rome as
+soldiers in the hand of one greater than themselves, had become masters of
+a perishing world's mistress; and the successor of Peter was no longer safe
+in the Roman palace which the first of Christian emperors had bestowed upon
+the Church's chief bishop. Instead of Constantine and Theodosius, Leo had
+witnessed Arcadius and Honorius; instead of emperors the ablest men of
+their day, who could be twelve hours in the saddle at need, emperors who
+fed chickens or listened to the counsel of eunuchs in their palace. Even
+this was not enough. He had seen Stilicho and Aetius in turn support their
+feeble sovereigns, and in turn assassinated for that support; and the depth
+of all ignominy in a Valentinian closing the twelve hundred years of Rome
+with the crime of a dastard, followed by Genseric, who was again to be
+overtopped by Ricimer, while world and Church barely escape from Attila's
+uncouth savagery. But Leo in his letters written in the midst of such
+calamities, in his sermons spoken from St. Peter's chair, speaks as if he
+were addressing a prostrate world with the inward vision of a seer to whom
+the triumph of the heavenly Jerusalem is clearly revealed, while he
+proclaims the work of the City of God on earth with equal assurance.
+
+Hilarus in that same November, 461, succeeded to the apostolic chair.
+Hilarus was that undaunted Roman deacon and legate who with difficulty
+saved his life at the Robber-Council of Ephesus, where St. Flavian, bishop
+of Constantinople, was beaten to death by the party of Dioscorus, and who
+carried to St. Leo a faithful report of that Council's acts. At the same
+time the Lucanian Libius Severus succeeded to the throne. All that is known
+of him is that he was an inglorious creature of Ricimer, and prolonged a
+government without record until the autumn of 465, when his maker got tired
+of him. He disappeared, and Ricimer ruled alone for nearly two years. Yet
+he did not venture to end the empire with a stroke of violence, or change
+the title of Patricius, bestowed upon him by the eastern emperor, for that
+of king. In this death-struggle of the realm the senate showed courage. The
+Roman fathers in their corporate capacity served as a last bond of the
+State as it was falling to pieces; and Sidonius Apollinaris said of them
+that they might rank as princes with the bearer of the purple, only, he
+adds significantly, if we put out of question the armed force.[10] The
+protection of the eastern emperor, Leo I., helped them in this resistance
+to Ricimer. The national party in Rome itself called on the Greek emperor
+for support. The utter dissolution of the western empire, when German
+tribes, Burgundians, Franks, Visigoths, and Vandals, had taken permanent
+possession of its provinces outside of Italy, while the violated dignity of
+Rome sank daily into greater impotence, now made Byzantium come forth as
+the true head of the empire. The better among the eastern Cæsars
+acknowledged the duty of maintaining it one and indivisible. They treated
+sinking Italy as one of their provinces, and prevented the Germans from
+asserting lordship over it.
+
+At length, after more than a year's vacancy of the throne, Ricimer was
+obliged not only to let the senate treat with the Eastern emperor, Leo I.,
+but to accept from Leo the choice of a Greek. Anthemius, one of the chief
+senators at Byzantium, who had married the late emperor Marcian's daughter,
+was sent with solemn pomp to Rome, and on the 12th April, 467, he accepted
+the imperial dignity in the presence of senate, people, and army, three
+miles outside the gates. Ricimer also condescended to accept his daughter
+as his bride, and we have an account of the wedding from that same Sidonius
+Apollinaris who a few years before had delivered the panegyric upon the
+accession of his own father-in-law, Avitus, afterwards deposed and killed
+by Ricimer; moreover, he had in the same way welcomed the accession of the
+noble Majorian, destroyed by the same Ricimer. Now on this third occasion
+Sidonius describes the whole city as swimming in a sea of joy. Bridal songs
+with fescennine licence resounded in the theatres, market-places, courts,
+and gymnasia. All business was suspended. Even then Rome impressed the
+Gallic courtier-poet with the appearance of the world's capital. What is
+important is that we find this testimony of an eye-witness, given
+incidentally in his correspondence, that Rome in her buildings was still in
+all her splendour. And again in his long panegyric he makes Rome address
+the eastern emperor, beseeching him, in requital for all those eastern
+provinces which she has given to Byzantium--"Only grant me Anthemius;[11]
+reign long, O Leo, in your own parts, but grant me my desire to govern
+mine." Thus Sidonius shows in his verses what is but too apparent in the
+history of the elevation of Anthemius, that Nova Roma on the borders of
+Europe and Asia was the real sovereign.[12] And we also learn that the
+whole internal order of government, the structure of Roman law, and the
+daily habit of life had remained unaltered by barbarian occupation. This is
+the last time that Rome appears in garments of joy. The last reflection of
+her hundred triumphs still shines upon her palaces, baths, and temples. The
+Roman people, diminished in number, but unaltered in character, still
+frequented the baths of Nero, of Agrippa, of Diocletian; and Sidonius
+recommends instead baths less splendid, but less seductive to the
+senses.[13]
+
+But Anthemius lasted no longer than the noble Majorian or the ignoble
+Severus. East and West had united their strength in a great expedition to
+put down the incessant Vandal piracies, which made all the coasts of the
+Mediterranean insecure.[14] It failed through the treachery of the eastern
+commander Basiliscus, to whose evil deeds we shall have hereafter to recur.
+This disaster shook the credit of Anthemius, and Ricimer also tired of his
+father-in-law. He went to Milan, and Rome was terrified with the report
+that he had made a compact with barbarians beyond the Alps. Ricimer marched
+upon Rome, to which he laid siege in 472. Here he was joined by Anicius
+Olybrius, who had married Placidia, the younger daughter of Valentinian and
+Eudoxia, through whom he claimed the throne, as representative of the
+Theodosian line. Ricimer, after a fierce contest with Anthemius, burst into
+the Aurelian gate at the head of troops all of German blood and Arian
+belief, massacring and plundering all but two of the fourteen regions. But
+the city escaped burning.
+
+Then Anicius Olybrius entered Rome, consumed at once by famine, pestilence,
+and the sword. With the consent of Leo, and at the request of Genseric, he
+had been already named emperor. He took possession of the imperial palace,
+and made the senate acknowledge him. Anthemius had been cut in pieces, but
+forty days after his death Ricimer died of the plague, and thus had not
+been able to put to death more than four Roman emperors, of whom his
+father-in-law, Anthemius, was the last. The Arian Condottiere, who had
+inflicted on Rome a third plundering, said to be worse than that of
+Genseric, was buried in the Church of St. Agatha in Suburra,[15] which had
+been ceded to the Arians, and which he had adorned.
+
+Olybrius made the Burgundian prince Gundebald commander of the forces, but
+died himself in October of that same year, 472, and left the throne to be
+the gift of barbarian adventurers. Three more shadows of emperors passed.
+Gundebald gave that dignity at Ravenna, in March, 473, to Glycerius, a man
+of unknown antecedents. In 474, Glycerius was deposed by Nepos, a
+Dalmatian, whom the empress Verina, widow of Leo I., had sent with an army
+from Byzantium to Ravenna. Nepos compelled his predecessor to abdicate, and
+to become bishop of Salona. He himself was proclaimed emperor at Rome on
+the 24th June, 474, after which he returned to Ravenna. While he was here
+treating with Euric, the Visigoth king, at Toulouse, Orestes, whom he had
+made Patricius and commander of the barbaric troops for Gaul, rose against
+him. Nepos fled by sea from Ravenna in August, 475, and betook himself to
+Salona, whither he had banished Glycerius.
+
+Orestes was a Pannonian; had been Attila's secretary; then commander of
+German troops in service of the emperors. Thus he came to lead the troops
+which had been under Ricimer. This heap of Germans and Sarmatians without
+a country were in wild excitement, demanding a cession of Italian lands,
+instead of a march into Gaul. They offered their general the crown of
+Italy. Orestes thought it better to invest therewith his young son, and so,
+on the 31st October, 475, the boy Romulus Augustus, by the supremest
+mockery of what is called fortune, sat for a moment on the seat of the
+first king and the first emperor of Rome.
+
+Italy could no longer produce an army, and the foreign soldiery who had
+served under various leaders naturally desired the partition of its lands.
+Odoacer was now their leader, who, when a penniless youth, had visited St.
+Severinus in Noricum, and received from him the prophecy: "Go into Italy,
+clad now in poor skins: thou wilt speedily be able to clothe many richly".
+Odoacer, after an adventurous life of heroic courage, made the homeless
+warriors whom he now commanded understand that it was better to settle on
+the fair lands of Italy than wander about in the service of phantom
+emperors. They acclaimed him as their king, and after beheading Orestes and
+getting possession of Romulus Augustus, he compelled him to abdicate before
+the senate, and the senate to declare that the western empire was extinct.
+This happened in the third year of the emperor Zeno the Isaurian, the ninth
+of Pope Simplicius, A.D. 476. The senate sent deputies to Zeno at Byzantium
+to declare that Rome no longer required an independent emperor; that one
+emperor was sufficient for East and for West; that they had chosen for the
+protector of Italy Odoacer, a man skilled in the arts of peace as well as
+war, and besought Zeno to entrust him with the dignity of Patricius and the
+government of Italy. The deposed Nepos also sent a petition to Zeno to
+restore him. Zeno replied to the senate that of the two emperors whom he
+had sent to them, they had deposed Nepos and killed Anthemius. But he
+received the diadem and the imperial jewels of the western empire, and kept
+them in his palace. He endured the usurper who had taken possession of
+Italy until he was able to put him down, and so, in his letters to Odoacer,
+invested him with the title of "Patricius of the Romans," leaving the
+government of Italy to a German commander under his imperial authority. So
+the division into East and West was cancelled: Italy as a province belonged
+still to the one emperor, who was seated at Byzantium. In theory, the unity
+of Constantine's time was restored; in fact, Rome and the West were
+surrendered to Teuton invaders.[16] This was the last stroke: the mighty
+members of the great mother--Gaul, and Spain, and Britain, and Africa, and
+Illyricum--had been severed from her. Now, the head, discrowned and
+impotent, submitted to the rule of Odoacer the Herule. The Byzantine
+supremacy remained in keeping for future use. It had been acknowledged from
+the death of Honorius in 423, when Galla Placidia had become empress and
+her son emperor by the gift and the army of Theodosius II.
+
+The agony of imperial Rome lasted twenty-one years. Valentinian III. was
+reigning in 455: in the March of that year he was murdered, and succeeded
+by Maximus, who was murdered in June; then by Avitus in July, who was
+murdered in October, 456. Majorianus followed in 457, and reigned till
+August, 461: he was followed by Libius Severus in November, who lasted four
+years, till November, 465. After an interregnum of eighteen months, in
+which Ricimer practically ruled, Anthemius was brought from Byzantium in
+April, 467, and continued till July, 472; but Anicius Olybrius again was
+brought from Byzantium, reigned for a few months in 472, and died of the
+plague in October. In 473, Glycerius was put up for emperor; in 474, he
+gave place to Nepos, the third brought from Byzantium. In 475, Romulus
+Augustus appears, to disappear in 476, and end his life in retirement at
+the Villa of Lucullus by Naples, once the seat of Rome's most luxurious
+senator.
+
+Eighty years had now passed since the death of Theodosius. In the course of
+these years the realm which he had saved from dissolution after the defeat
+and death of Valens near Adrianople, and had preserved during fifteen years
+by wisdom in council and valour in war, and still more by his piety, when
+once his protecting hand and ruling mind were withdrawn, fell to pieces in
+the West, and was scarcely saved in the East. Let us take the last five
+years of St. Leo, which follow on the raid of Genseric, in order to
+complete the sketch just given of Rome's political state, by showing the
+condition of the great provinces which belonged to Leo's special
+patriarchate. I have before noticed how it was in the interval between the
+retirement of Attila from Rome at the prayer of St. Leo and the seizure of
+Rome by Genseric at the solicitation of the miserable empress Eudoxia, when
+St. Leo could save only the lives of his people, that he confirmed the
+Fourth Ecumenical Council. Not only was he entreated to do this by the
+emperor Marcian: the Council itself solicited the confirmation of its acts,
+which for that purpose were laid before him, while it made the most
+specific confession of his authority as the one person on earth entrusted
+by the Lord with His vineyard. From the particular time and the
+circumstances under which these events took place, one may infer a special
+intention of the Divine Providence. This was that the whole Roman empire,
+while it still subsisted, the two emperors, one of whom was on the point of
+disappearing, and the whole episcopate, in the most solemn form, should
+attest the Roman bishop's universal pastorship. For a great period was
+ending, the period of the Græco-Roman civilisation, from which, after three
+centuries of persecution, the Church had obtained recognition. And a great
+period was beginning, when the wandering of the nations had prepared for
+the Church another task. The first had been to obtain the conversion of
+nations linked by the bond of one temporal rule, enjoying the highest
+degree of culture and knowledge then existing, but deeply tainted by the
+corruption of effete refinement. The second was to exalt rough, sturdy,
+barbarian natures, whose bride was the sword and human life their prey,
+first to the virtues of the civil state, and next to the higher life of
+Christian charity, and thus to link them, who had known only violent
+repulsion and perpetual warfare among themselves, in not a temporal but a
+spiritual bond. The majestic figure of St. Leo expressed the completion of
+the first task. It also symbolises the beneficent power which in the course
+of ages will accomplish the second.
+
+The wandering of the nations, says a great historian, was of decisive
+effect for the Church, and he quotes another historian's summary
+description of it: "It was not the migration of individual nomad hordes, or
+masses of adventurous warriors in continuous motion, which produced changes
+so mighty. But great, long-settled peoples, with wives and children, with
+goods and chattels, deserted their old seats, and sought for themselves in
+the far distance a new home. By this the position of individuals, of
+communities, of whole peoples, was of necessity completely altered. The old
+conditions of possession were dissolved. The existing bonds of society
+loosened. The old frontiers of states and lands passed away. As a whole
+city is turned into a ruinous heap by an earthquake, so the whole political
+system of previous times was overthrown by this massive transmigration. A
+new order of things had to be formed corresponding to the wholly altered
+circumstances of the nation."[17]
+
+I draw from the same historian[18] an outline of the movement, running
+through several centuries, which had this final result. Great troops of
+Celts had, before the time of Christ, sought to settle themselves in
+Rhoetia and Upper Italy, even as far as Rome. Cimbrians and Teutons, with
+as little success, had betaken themselves southwards, while under the
+empire the pressure of peoples had more and more increased, and Trajan
+could hardly maintain the northern frontier on the Danube. In the third
+century, Alemans and Sueves advanced to the Upper Rhine, and the Goths,
+from dwelling between the Don and Theiss, came to the Danube and the Black
+Sea. Decius fell in battle with them. Aurelian gave them up the province of
+Dacia. Constantine the Great conquered them, and had Gothic troops in his
+army. Often they broke into the Roman territory, and carried off prisoners
+with them. Some of these were Christians and introduced the Goths to the
+knowledge of Christianity. Theophilus, a Gothic bishop, was at the Nicene
+Council in 325. They had clergy, monks, and nuns, with numerous believers.
+Under Athanarich, king of the Visigoths, Christians already suffered, with
+credit, a bloody persecution. On the occasion of the Huns, a Scythian
+people, compelling the Alans on the Don to join them, then conquering the
+Ostrogoths and oppressing the Visigoths, the latter prevailed on the
+emperor Valens to admit them into the empire. Valens gave them dwellings in
+Thrace on the condition that they should serve in his army and accept Arian
+Christianity. So the larger number of Visigoths under Fridiger in 375
+became Arians. They soon, however, broke into conflict with the empire
+through their ill-treatment by the imperial commanders. In 378, Valens was
+defeated near Adrianople; his army was utterly crushed; he met himself with
+a miserable death. After this the Visigoths in general continued to be
+Arians, though many, especially through the exertions of St. Chrysostom,
+were converted to Catholicism. Most of them, however, seem to have been
+only half Arians, like their famous bishop Ulphilas. He was by birth a
+Goth--some say a Cappadocian--was consecrated between 341 and 348, in
+Constantinople. He gave the Goths an alphabet of their own, formed after
+the Greek, and made for them a translation of the Bible, of great value as
+a record of ancient German. He died in Constantinople before 388--probably
+in 381.
+
+Under Theodosius I., about 382, the Visigoths accepted the Roman supremacy,
+and the engagement to supply 40,000 men for the service of the empire, upon
+the terms of occupying, as allies free of tribute, the provinces assigned
+to them of Dacia, Lower Moesia, and Thrace. After this, discontented at
+the holding back their pay, and irritated by Rufinus, who was then at the
+head of the government of the emperor Arcadius, they laid waste the
+Illyrian provinces down to the Peloponnesus, and made repeated irruptions
+into Italy, in 400 and 402, under their valiant leader Alarich. In 408 he
+besieged Rome, and exacted considerable sums from it. He renewed the siege
+in 409, and made the wretched prefect Attalus emperor, whom he afterwards
+deposed, and recognised Honorius again. At last he took Rome by storm on
+the 24th August, 410. The city was completely plundered, but the lives of
+the people spared. He withdrew to Lower Italy and soon died. His
+brother-in-law and successor, Ataulf, was first minded entirely to destroy
+the Roman empire, but afterwards to restore it by Gothic aid. In the end he
+went to Gaul, conquered Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and afterwards
+Barcelona. His half-brother Wallia, after reducing the Alans and driving
+back the Sueves and Vandals, planted his seat in Toulouse, which became, in
+415, the capital of his Aquitanean kingdom, Gothia or Septimania. Gaul, in
+which several Roman commanders assumed the imperial title, was overrun in
+the years from 406 to 416 by various peoples, whom the two opposing sides
+called in: by Burgundians, Franks, Alemans, Vandals, Quades, Alans, Gepids,
+Herules. The Alans, Sueves, Vandals, and Visigoths, at the same time, went
+to Spain. Their leaders endeavoured to set up kingdoms of their own all
+over Gaul and Spain.
+
+Arianism came from the Visigoths not only to the Ostrogoths but also to the
+Gepids, Sueves, Alans, Burgundians, and Vandals. But these peoples, with
+the exception of the Vandals and of some Visigoth kings, treated the
+Catholic religion, which was that of their Roman subjects, with
+consideration and esteem. Only here and there Catholics were compelled to
+embrace Arianism. Their chief enemy in Gaul was the Visigoth king Eurich.
+Wallia, dying in 419, had been succeeded by Theodorich I. and Theodorich
+II., both of whom had extended the kingdom, which Eurich still more
+increased. He died in 483. Under him many Catholic churches were laid
+waste, and the Catholics suffered a bloody persecution. He was rather the
+head of a sect than the ruler of subjects. This, however, led to the
+dissolution of his kingdom, which, from 507, was more and more merged in
+that of the Franks.
+
+The Burgundians, who had pressed onwards from the Oder and the Vistula to
+the Rhine, were in 417 already Christian. They afterwards founded a
+kingdom, with Lyons for capital, between the Rhone and the Saone. Their
+king Gundobald was Arian. But Arianism was not universal; and Patiens,
+bishop of Lyons, who died in 491, maintained the Catholic doctrine. A
+conference between Catholics and Arians in 499 converted few. But Avitus,
+bishop of Vienne, gained influence with Gundobald, so that he inclined to
+the Catholic Church, which his son Sigismund, in 517, openly professed. The
+Burgundian kingdom was united with the Frankish from 534.
+
+The Sueves had founded a kingdom in Spain under their king Rechila, still a
+heathen. He died in 448. His successor, Rechiar, was Catholic. When king
+Rimismund married the daughter of the Visigoth king Theodorich, an Arian,
+he tried to introduce Arianism, and persecuted the Catholics, who had many
+martyrs--Pancratian of Braga, Patanius, and others. It was only between 550
+and 560 that the Gallician kingdom of the Sueves, under king Charrarich,
+became Catholic, when his son Ariamir or Theodemir was healed by the
+intercession of St. Martin of Tours, and converted by Martin, bishop of
+Duma. In 563 a synod was held by the metropolitan of Braga, which
+established the Catholic faith. But in 585, Leovigild, the Arian king of
+the larger Visigoth kingdom, incorporated with his territory the smaller
+kingdom of the Sueves. Catholicism was still more threatened when Leovigild
+executed his own son Hermenegild, who had married the Frankish princess
+Jugundis, for becoming a Catholic. But the martyr's brother, Rechared, was
+converted by St. Leander, archbishop of Seville, and in 589 publicly
+professed himself a Catholic. This faith now prevailed through all Spain.
+
+The Vandals, rudest of all the German peoples, had been invited by Count
+Boniface, in 429, to pass over from Spain under their king Genseric to the
+Roman province of North Africa. They quickly conquered it entirely.
+Genseric, a fanatical Arian, persecuted the Catholics in every way, took
+from them their churches, banished their bishops, tortured and put to death
+many. Some bishops he made slaves. He exposed Quodvultdeus, bishop of
+Carthage, with a number of clergy, to the mercy of the waves on a wretched
+raft. Yet they reached Naples. The Arian clergy encouraged the king in all
+his cruelties. It was only in private houses or in suburbs that the
+Catholics could celebrate their worship. The violence of his tyranny, which
+led many to doubt even the providence of God, brought the Catholic Church
+in North Africa into the deepest distress. Genseric's son and successor,
+Hunnerich, who reigned from 477 to 484, was at first milder. He had married
+Eudoxia, elder daughter of Valentinian III. The emperor Zeno had specially
+recommended to him the African Catholics. He allowed them to meet again,
+and, after the see of Carthage had been vacant twenty-four years, to have a
+new bishop. So the brave confessor Eugenius was chosen in 479. But this
+favour was followed by a much severer persecution. Eugenius, accused by the
+bitter Arian bishop Cyrila, was severely ill-treated, shut up with 4976 of
+the faithful, banished into the barest desert, wherein many died of
+exhaustion. Hunnerich stripped the Catholics of their goods, and banished
+them chiefly to Sardinia and Corsica. Consecrated virgins were tortured to
+extort from them admission that their own clergy had committed sin with
+them. A conference held at Carthage in 484 between Catholic and Arian
+bishops was made a pretext for fresh acts of violence, which the emperor
+Zeno, moved by Pope Felix III. to intercede, was unable to prevent. 348
+bishops were banished. Many died of ill usage. Arian baptism was forced
+upon not a few, and very many lost limbs. This persecution produced
+countless martyrs. The greatest wonders of divine grace were shown in it.
+Christians at Tipasa, whose tongues had been cut out at the root, kept the
+free use of their speech, and sang songs of praise to Christ, whose godhead
+was mocked by the Arians. Many of these came to Constantinople, where the
+imperial court was witness of the miracle. The successor of this tyrant
+Hunnerich, king Guntamund, who reigned from 485 to 496, treated the
+Catholics more fairly, and, though the persecution did not entirely cease,
+allowed, in 494, the banished bishops to return. A Roman Council, in 487 or
+488, made the requisite regulations with regard to those who had suffered
+iteration of baptism, and those who had lapsed. King Trasamund, from 496 to
+523, wished again to make Arianism dominant, and tried to gain individual
+Catholics by distinctions. When that did not succeed, he went on to
+oppression and banishment, took away the churches, and forbade the
+consecration of new bishops. As still they did not diminish, he banished
+120 to Sardinia, among them a great defender of the Catholic faith, St.
+Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe. King Hilderich, who reigned from 523 to 530, a
+gentle prince and friend of the emperor Justinian, stopped the persecution
+and recalled the banished. Fulgentius was received back with great joy, and
+in February, 525, Archbishop Bonifacius held at Carthage a Council once
+more, at which sixty bishops were present. Africa had still able
+theologians. Hilderich was murdered by his cousin Gelimer: a new
+persecution was preparing. But the Vandal kingdom in Africa was overthrown
+in 533 by the eastern general Belisarius, and northern Africa united with
+Justinian's empire. However, the African Church never flourished again with
+its former lustre.
+
+But Gaul and Italy had been in the greatest danger of suffering a
+desolation in comparison with which even the Vandal persecution in Africa
+would have been light. St. Leo was nearly all his life contemporaneous with
+the terrible irruptions of the Huns. These warriors, depicted as the
+ugliest and most hateful of the human race, in the years from 434 to 441,
+having already advanced, under Attila, from the depths of Asia to the
+Wolga, the Don, and the Danube, pressing the Teuton tribes before them,
+made incursions as far as Scandinavia. In the last years of the emperor
+Theodosius II. they filled with horrible misery the whole range of country
+from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. In the spring of 451 Attila broke out
+from Pannonia with 700,000 men, absorbed the Alemans and other peoples in
+his host, wasted and plundered populous cities such as Treves, Mainz,
+Worms, Spires, Strasburg, and Metz. The skill of Aetius succeeded in
+opposing him on the plains by Chalons with the Roman army, the Visigoths,
+and their allies. The issue of this battle of the nations was that Attila,
+after suffering and inflicting fearful slaughter, retired to Pannonia. The
+next year he came down upon Italy, destroyed Aquileia, and the fright of
+his coming caused Venice to be founded on uninhabited islands, which the
+Scythian had no vessels to reach. He advanced over Vicenza, Padua, Verona,
+Milan. Rome was before him, where the successor of St. Peter stopped him.
+He withdrew from Italy, made one more expedition against the Visigoths in
+Gaul, but died shortly after. With his death his kingdom collapsed. His
+sons fought over its division, the Huns disappeared, and what was
+afterwards to be Europe became possible.
+
+The invasions of the Hun shook to its centre the western empire. Aetius,
+who had saved it at Chalons in 451, received in 454 his death-blow as a
+reward from the hand of Valentinian III., and so we are brought to the
+nine phantom emperors who follow the race of the great Theodosius, when it
+had been terminated by the vice of its worst descendant.
+
+One Teuton race, the most celebrated of all, I have reserved for future
+mention. The Franks in St. Leo's time, and for thirty-five years after his
+death, were still pagan. The Salian branch occupied the north of Gaul, and
+the Ripuarians were spread along the Rhine, about Cologne. Their paganism
+had prevented them from being touched by the infection of the Arian heresy,
+common to all the other tribes, so that the Arian religion was the mark of
+the Teutonic settler throughout the West, and the Catholic that of the
+Roman provincials.
+
+Thus when, in the year 476, the Roman senate, at Odoacer's bidding,
+exercised for the last time its still legal prerogative of naming the
+emperor, by declaring that no emperor of the West was needed, and by
+sending back the insignia of empire to the eastern emperor Zeno, all the
+provinces of the West had fallen, as to government, into the hands of the
+Teuton invaders, and all of these, with the single exception of the Franks,
+were Arians. They alone were still pagans. Odoacer, also an Arian, became
+the ruler of Rome and Italy, nominally by commission from the emperor Zeno,
+really in virtue of the armed force, consisting of adventurers belonging to
+various northern tribes which he commanded. To the Romans he was
+Patricius,[19] a title of honour lasting for life, which from Constantine's
+time, without being connected with any particular office, surpassed all
+other dignities. To his own people he was king of the Ruges, Herules, and
+Turcilings, or king of the nations. He ruled Italy, and Sicily, except a
+small strip of coast, and Dalmatia, and these lands he was able to protect
+from outward attack and inward disturbance. He made Ravenna his seat of
+government. He did not assume the title of king at Rome. He maintained the
+old order of the State in appearance. The senate held its usual sittings.
+The Roman aristocracy occupied high posts. The consuls from the year 482
+were again annually named. The Arian ruler left theological matters alone.
+But the eyes of Rome were turned towards Byzantium. The Roman empire
+continued legally to exist, and especially in the eye of the Church. The
+Pope maintained relations with the imperial power.
+
+In the meantime, Theodorich the Ostrogoth, son of Theodemir, chief of the
+Amal family, had been sent as a hostage for the maintenance of the treaty
+made by the emperor Leo I. with his father, and had spent ten years, from
+his seventh to his seventeenth year, at Constantinople. Though he scorned
+to receive an education in Greek or Roman literature, he studied during
+these years, with unusual acuteness, the political and military
+circumstances of the empire. Of strong but slender figure, his beautiful
+features, blue eyes with dark brows, and abundant locks of long, fair hair,
+added to the nobility of his race, pointed him out for a future ruler.[20]
+
+In 475, Theodorich succeeded his father as king of the Ostrogoths in their
+provinces of Pannonia and Moesia, which had been ceded by the empire. He
+it was who was destined to lead his people to glory and greatness, but also
+to their fall, in Italy. Zeno had striven to make him a personal
+friend--had made him general, given him pay and rank. Theodorich had not a
+little helped Zeno in his struggle for the empire. The Ostrogoth, in 484,
+became Roman consul; but he also appeared suddenly in a time of peace
+before the gates of Constantinople, in 487, to impress his demands upon
+Zeno. Theodorich and his people occupied towards Zeno the same position
+which Alaric and his Visigoths had held towards Honorius. Their provinces
+were exhausted, and they wanted expansion. Whether it was that Zeno deemed
+the Ostrogothic king might be an instrument to terminate the actual
+independence of Italy from his empire, or that the neighbourhood of the
+Goths, under so powerful a ruler, seemed to him dangerous, or that
+Theodorich himself had cast longing eyes upon Italy, Zeno gave a hesitating
+approval to the advance of the last great Gothic host to the southwest. The
+first had taken this direction under Alaric eighty-eight years before. Now
+a sovereign sanction from the senate of Constantinople, called a Pragmatic
+sanction, assigned Italy to the Gothic king and his people.
+
+From Novæ, Theodorich's capital on the Danube, not far from the present
+Bulgarian Nikopolis, this world of wanderers, numbered by a contemporary as
+at least 350,000, streamed forth with its endless train of waggons. At the
+Isonzo, Italy's frontier, Odoacer, on the 28th August, 489, encountered the
+flood, and was worsted, as again at the Adige. Then he took refuge in
+Ravenna. The end of a three years' conflict, in which the Gothic host was
+encamped in the pine-forest of Ravenna, and where the "Battle of the
+Ravens" is commemorated in the old German hero-saga, was that, in the
+winter of 493, the last refuge of Odoacer opened its gates. Odoacer was
+promised his life, but the compact was broken soon. His people proclaimed
+Theodorich their king. Theodorich had sent a Roman senator to Zeno to ask
+his confirmation of what he had done. Zeno had been succeeded by Anastasius
+in 491. How much Anastasius granted cannot be told. Rome, during this
+conflict, had remained in a sort of neutrality. At first Theodorich
+deprived of their freedom as Roman citizens all Italians who had stood in
+arms against him. Afterwards, he set himself to that work of equal
+government for Italians and Goths which has given a lustre to his reign,
+though the fair hopes which it raised foundered at last in an opposition
+which admitted of no reconcilement.
+
+Theodorich[21] reigned from 493 to 526. He extended by successful wars the
+frontiers of the Gothic kingdom beyond the mainland of Italy and its
+islands. Narbonensian Gaul, Southern Austria, Bosnia, and Servia belonged
+to it at its greatest extension. The Theiss and the Danube, the Garonne
+and the Rhone, flowed beside his realm. The forms of the new government, as
+well as the laws, remained the same substantially as in Constantine's time.
+The Roman realm continued, only there stood at its head a foreign military
+chief, surrounded by his own people in the form of an army. Romandom lived
+on in manner of life, in customs, in dress. The Romans were judged
+according to their own laws. Gothic judges determined matters which
+concerned the Goths; in cases common to both they sat intermixed with Roman
+judges. Theodorich's principle was with firm and impartial hand to deal
+evenly between the two. But the military service was reserved to the Goths
+alone. Natives were forbidden even to carry knives. The Goths were to
+maintain public security: the Romans to multiply in the arts of peace. But
+even Theodorich could not fuse these nations together. The Goths remained
+foreigners in Italy, and possessed as _hospites_ the lands assigned to
+them, which would seem to have been a third. This noblest of barbarian
+princes, and most generous of Arians, had to play two parts. In Ravenna and
+Verona he headed the advance of his own people, and was king of the Goths:
+in Rome the Patricius sought to protect and maintain. When, in 500, he
+visited Rome, he was received before its gates by the senate, the clergy,
+the people, and welcomed like an emperor of the olden time. Arian as he
+was, he prayed in St. Peter's, like the orthodox emperors of the line of
+Theodosius, at the Apostle's tomb. Before the senate-house, in the forum,
+Boethius greeted him with a speech. The German king admired the forum of
+Trajan, as the son of Constantine, 143 years before, had admired it.
+Statues in the interval had not ceased to adorn it. Romans and Franks,
+heathens and Christians, alike were there: Merobaudes, the Gallic general;
+Claudian, the poet from Egypt, the worshipper of Stilicho, in verses almost
+worthy of Virgil; Sidonius Apollinaris, the future bishop of Clermont, who
+panegyrised three emperors successively deposed and murdered. The theatre
+of Pompey and the amphitheatre of Titus still rose in their beauty; and as
+the Gothic king inhabited the vast and deserted halls of the Cæsarean
+palace, he looked down upon the games of the Circus Maximus, where the
+diminished but unchanged populace of Rome still justified St. Leo's
+complaint, that the heathen games drew more people than the shrines of the
+martyrs whose intercession had saved Rome from Attila. In fine, St.
+Fulgentius could still say, If earthly Rome was so stately, what must the
+heavenly Jerusalem be!
+
+The bearing of the Arian king to the Catholic Church and the Roman
+Pontificate was just and fair almost to the end of his reign. He protected
+Pope Symmachus at a difficult juncture. His minister Cassiodorus supported
+and helped the election of Pope Hormisdas. The letters of Cassiodorus, as
+his private secretary, counsellor, and intimate friend, remain to attest,
+with the force of an eye-witness, a noble Roman and a devoted Christian,
+who was also Patricius and Prætorian Prefect--the nature of the government,
+as well as the state of Italian society at that time. We hardly possess
+such another source of knowledge for this century. But under Pope John I.
+this happy state of things broke down. A dark shadow has been thrown upon
+the last years of an otherwise glorious government. The noble Boethius,
+after being leader of the Roman senate and highly-prized minister of the
+Gothic king, died under hideous torture, inflicted at the command of a
+suspicious and irritated master. Again, he had forced upon Pope John I. an
+embassy to Constantinople, and required of him to obtain from the eastern
+emperor churches for Arians in his dominions. The Pope returned, after
+being honoured at the eastern court as the first bishop of the world, laden
+with gifts for the churches at Rome, but without the required consent of
+the emperor to give churches to the Arians. He perished in prison at
+Ravenna by the same despotic command. This was in May, 526, and in August
+the king himself died almost suddenly, fancying, it was said, that he saw
+on a fish which was brought to his table the head of a third victim, the
+illustrious Symmachus. What Catholics thought of his end is shown by St.
+Gregory seventy years afterwards, who records in his Dialogues a vision
+seen at Lipari on the day of the king's death, in which the Pope and
+Symmachus were carrying him between them with his hands tied, to plunge him
+in the crater of the volcano.
+
+Several writers[22] have termed Theodorich a premature Charlemagne. It
+seems to me that, as Genseric was the worst and most ignoble of the
+Teutonic Arian princes, Theodorich was the best. The one showed how cruel
+and remorseless an Arian persecutor was, the other how fair a ruler and
+generous a protector the nature of things would allow an Arian monarch to
+be. But in his case the end showed that the Gothic dominion in Italy rested
+only on the personal ability of the king, and, further, that no stable
+union could take place until these German-Arian races had been incorporated
+by the Catholic Church into her own body.[23]
+
+This truth is yet more illustrated by a double contrast between Theodorich
+and Clovis. In personal character the former was far superior to the
+latter. Clovis was converted at the age of thirty, and died at forty-five.
+Yet the effect of the fifteen years of his reign after he became a Catholic
+was permanent. From that moment the Franks became a power. In that short
+time Clovis obtained possession of a very great part of France, and that
+possession went on and was confirmed to his line and people. The
+thirty-three years of Theodorich secured to Italy a time of peace, even of
+glory, which did not fall to its lot for ages afterwards. Yet the effect of
+his government passed with him; his daughter and heiress, the noble
+princess Amalasuntha, in whose praise Cassiodorus exhausts himself, was
+murdered; his kingdom was broken up, and Cassiodorus himself, retiring from
+public life, confessed in his monastic life, continued for a generation,
+how vain had been the attempt of the Arian king to overcome the
+antagonistic forces of race and religion by justice, valour, and
+forbearance.
+
+It was fitting that the attempt should be made by the noblest of Teutonic
+races, under the noblest chief it ever produced. Nor is it unfitting here
+to recur to the opinion of another great Goth, not indeed the equal of
+Theodorich, yet of the same race and the nearest approach to him, one of
+those conquerors who showed a high consideration for the Roman empire.
+Orosius records "that he heard a Gallic officer, high in rank under the
+great Theodosius, tell St. Jerome at Bethlehem how he had been in the
+confidence of Ataulph, who succeeded Alaric, and married Galla Placidia.
+How he had heard Ataulph declare that, in the vigour and inexperience of
+youth, he had ardently desired to obliterate the Roman name, and put the
+Gothic in its stead--that instead of Romania the empire should be Gothia,
+and Ataulph be what Augustus had been. But a long experience had taught him
+two things--the one, that the Goths were too barbarous to obey laws; the
+other, that those laws could not be abolished, without which the
+commonwealth would cease to be a commonwealth. And so he came to content
+himself with the glory of restoring the Roman name by Gothic power, that
+posterity might regard him as the saviour of what he could not change for
+the better."[24]
+
+It seems that the observation of Ataulph at the beginning of the fifth
+century was justified by the experience of Theodorich at the beginning of
+the sixth. And, further, we may take the conduct of these two great men as
+expressing on the whole the result of the Teutonic migration in the western
+provinces. After unspeakable misery produced in the cities and countries of
+the West at the time of their first descent, we may note three things. The
+imperial lands, rights, and prerogatives fell to the invading rulers. The
+lands in general partly remained to the provincials (the former
+proprietors), partly were distributed to the conquerors. But for the rest,
+the fabric of Roman law, customs, and institutions remained standing, at
+least for the natives, while the invaders were ruled severally according to
+their inherited customs. Even Genseric was only a pirate, not a Mongol, and
+after a hundred years the Vandal reign was overthrown and North Africa
+reunited to the empire. In the other cases it may be said that the children
+of the North, when they succeeded, after the struggle of three hundred
+years, in making good their descent on the South, seized indeed the
+conqueror's portion of houses and land, but they were not so savage as to
+disregard, in Ataulph's words, those laws of the commonwealth, without
+which a commonwealth cannot exist. The Franks, in their original condition
+one of the most savage northern tribes, in the end most completely accepted
+Roman law, the offspring of a wisdom and equity far beyond their power to
+equal or to imitate. And because they saw this, and acted on it most
+thoroughly, they became a great nation. The Catholic faith made them. Thus,
+when the boy Romulus Augustus was deposed at Rome, and power fell into the
+hands of the Herule Odoacer, Pope Simplicius, directing his gaze over
+Africa, Spain, France, Illyricum, and Britain, would see a number of
+new-born governments, ruled by northern invaders, who from the beginning of
+the century had been in constant collision with each other, perpetually
+changing their frontiers. Wherever the invaders settled a fresh partition
+of the land had to be made, by which the old proprietors would be in part
+reduced to poverty, and all the native population which in any way depended
+on them would suffer greatly. It may be doubted whether any civilised
+countries have passed through greater calamities than fell upon Gaul,
+Spain, Eastern and Western Illyricum, Africa, and Britain in the first half
+of the fifth century. Moreover, while one of these governments was pagan,
+all the rest, save Eastern Illyricum, were Arian. That of the Vandals,
+which had occupied, since 429, Rome's most flourishing province, also her
+granary, had been consistently and bitterly hostile to its Catholic
+inhabitants. That of Toulouse, under Euric, was then persecuting them.
+Britain had been severed from the empire, and seemed no less lost to the
+Church, under the occupation of Saxon invaders at least as savage as the
+Frank or the Vandal. In these broad lands, which Rome had humanised during
+four hundred years, and of which the Church had been in full possession,
+Pope Simplicius could now find only the old provincial nobility and the
+common people still Catholic. The bishops in these several provinces were
+exposed everywhere to an Arian succession of antagonists, who used against
+them all the influence of an Arian government.
+
+When he looked to the eastern emperor, now become in the eyes of the Church
+the legitimate sovereign of Rome, by whose commission Odoacer professed to
+rule, instead of a Marcian, the not unworthy husband of St. Pulcheria,
+instead of Leo I., who was at least orthodox, and had been succeeded by his
+grandson the young child Leo II., he found upon the now sole imperial
+throne that child's father Zeno. He was husband of the princess Ariadne,
+daughter of Leo I.,[25] a man of whom the Byzantine historians give us a
+most frightful picture. Without tact and understanding, vicious, moreover,
+and tyrannical, he oppressed during the two years from 474 to 476 his
+people, sorely tried by the incursions of barbarous hordes. He also
+favoured, all but openly, the Monophysites, specially Peter Fullo, the
+heretical patriarch of Antioch. After two years a revolution deprived him
+of the throne, and exalted to it the equally vicious Basiliscus--the man
+whose treachery as an eastern general had ruined the success of the great
+expedition against Genseric, in which East and West had joined under
+Anthemius. Basiliscus still more openly favoured heresy. He lasted,
+however, but a short time; Zeno was able to return, and occupied the throne
+again during fourteen years, from 477 to 491. These two men, Zeno and
+Basiliscus, criminal in their private lives, in their public lives
+adventurers, who gained the throne by the worst Byzantine arts, opened the
+line of the theologising emperors. Basiliscus, during the short time he
+occupied the eastern throne, issued, at the prompting of a heretic whom he
+had pushed into the see of St. Athanasius--and it is the first example
+known in history--a formal decree upon faith, the so-called Encyclikon, in
+which only the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, and Ephesine Councils were
+accepted, but the fourth, that of Chalcedon, condemned. So low was the
+eastern Church already fallen that not the Eutycheans only, but five
+hundred Catholic bishops subscribed this Encyclikon, and a Council at
+Ephesus praised it as divine and apostolical.
+
+Basiliscus, termed by Pope Gelasius the tyrant and heretic, was swept away.
+But his example was followed in 482 by Zeno, who issued his Henotikon,
+drawn up it was supposed by Acacius of Constantinople,[26] addressed to the
+clergy and people of Alexandria. Many of the eastern bishops, through fear
+of Zeno and his bishop Acacius, submitted to this imperial decree; many
+contended for the truth even to death against it. These two deeds, the
+Encyclikon of Basiliscus and the Henotikon of Zeno, are to be marked for
+ever as the first instances of the temporal sovereign infringing the
+independence of the Church in spiritual matters, which to that time even
+the emperors in Constantine's city had respected.
+
+Simplicius sat in the Roman chair fifteen years, from 468 to 483; and such
+was the outlook presented to him in the East and West--an outlook of ruin,
+calamity, and suffering in those vast provinces which make our present
+Europe--an outlook of anxiety with a prospect of ever-increasing evil in
+the yet surviving eastern empire. There was not then a single ruler holding
+the Catholic faith. Basiliscus and Zeno were not only heretical themselves,
+but they were assuming in their own persons the right of the secular power
+to dictate to the Church her own belief. And the Pope had become their
+subject while he was locally subject to the dominion of a northern
+commander of mercenaries, himself a Herule and an Arian. In his own Rome
+the Pope lived and breathed on sufferance. Under Zeno he saw the East torn
+to pieces with dissension; prelates put into the sees of Alexandria and
+Antioch by the arm of power; that arm itself directed by the ambitious
+spirit of a Byzantine bishop, who not only named the holders of the second
+and third seats of the Church, but reduced them to do his bidding, and wait
+upon his upstart throne. Gaul was in the hand of princes, mostly Arian, one
+pagan. Spain was dominated by Sueves and Visigoths, both Arian. In Africa
+Simplicius during forty years had been witness of the piracies of Genseric,
+making the Mediterranean insecure, and the cities on every coast liable to
+be sacked and burnt by his flying freebooters, while the great church of
+Africa, from the death of St. Augustine, had been suffering a persecution
+so severe that no heathen emperor had reached the standard of Arian
+cruelty. In Britain, civilisation and faith had been alike trampled out by
+the northern pirates Hengist and Horsa, and successive broods of their
+like. The Franks, still pagan, had advanced from the north of Gaul to its
+centre, destroyers as yet of the faith which they were afterwards to
+embrace. What did the Pope still possess in these populations? The common
+people, a portion of the local proprietors, and the Catholic bishops who
+had in him their common centre, as he in them men regarded with veneration
+by the still remaining Catholic population.
+
+In all this there is one fact so remarkable as to claim special mention.
+How had it happened that the Catholic faith was considered throughout the
+West the mark of the Roman subject; and the Arian misbelief the mark of the
+Teuton invader and governor? Theodosius had put an end to the official
+Arianism of the East, which had so troubled the empire, and so attacked the
+Primacy in the period between Constantine and himself. During all that time
+the Arian heresy had no root in the West. But the emperor Valens, when
+chosen as a colleague by his brother Valentinian I., in 364, was counted a
+Catholic. A few years later he fell under the influence of Eudoxius, who
+had got by his favour the see of Byzantium. This man, one of the worst
+leaders of the Arians, taught and baptised Valens, and filled him with his
+own spirit; and Valens, when he settled the Goths in the northern provinces
+by the Danube, stipulated that they should receive the Arian doctrine.
+Their bishop and great instructor Ulphilas had been deceived, it is said,
+into believing that it was the doctrine of the Church. This fatal gift of
+a spurious doctrine the Goth received in all the energy of an uninstructed
+but vigorous will. As the leader of the northern races he communicated it
+to them. A Byzantine bishop had poisoned the wells of the Christian faith
+from which the great new race of the future was to drink, and when
+Byzantium succeeded in throwing Alaric upon the West, all the races which
+followed his lead brought with them the doctrine which Ulphilas had been
+deceived into propagating as the faith of Christ. So it happened that if
+the terrible overthrow of Valens in 378 by the nation which he had deceived
+brought his persecution with his reign to an end in the East, yet through
+his act Arianism came into possession, a century later, of all but one of
+the newly set up thrones in the West.
+
+In truth, at the time the western empire fell the Catholic Church was
+threatened with the loss of everything which, down to the time of St. Leo,
+she had gained. For the triumph which Constantine's conversion had
+announced, for the unity of faith which her own Councils had maintained
+from Nicæa to Chalcedon, she seemed to have before her subjection to a
+terrible despotism in the East, extinction by one dominant heresy in the
+West. For here it was not a crowd of heresies which surrounded her, but the
+secular power at Rome, at Carthage, at Toulouse and Bordeaux, at Seville
+and Barcelona, spoke Arian. Who was to recover the Goth, the Vandal, the
+Burgundian, the Sueve, the Aleman, the Ruge, from that fatal error?
+Moreover, her bounds had receded. Saxon and Frank had largely swept away
+the Christian faith in their respective conquests. Who was to restore it to
+them? The Rome which had planted her colonies through these vast lands as
+so many fortresses, first of culture and afterwards of faith, was now
+reduced to a mere _municipium_ herself. The very senate, with whose name
+empire had been connected for five hundred years, at the bidding of a
+barbarous leader of mercenaries serving for plunder, sent back the symbols
+of sovereignty to the adventurer, whoever he might be, who sat by
+corruption or intrigue on the seat of Constantine in Nova Roma.
+
+This thought leads me to endeavour more accurately to point out the light
+thrown upon the Papal power by the various relations in which it stood at
+different times to the temporal governments with which it had to deal.
+
+The practical division of the Roman empire in the fourth century, ensuing
+upon the act of Constantine in forming a new capital of that empire in the
+East, made the Church no longer subject to one temporal government. The
+same act tested the spiritual Primacy of the Church. It called it forth to
+a larger and more complicated action. I have in a former volume followed at
+considerable length the series of events the issue of which was, after
+Arian heretics had played upon eastern jealousy and tyrannical emperors
+during fifty years, to strengthen the action of the Primacy. But assuredly
+had that Primacy been artificial, or made by man, the division of interests
+ensuing upon the political disjunction of the East and West would have
+destroyed it. Julius and Liberius and Damasus would not have stood against
+Constantius and Valens if the heart of the Church had not throbbed in the
+Roman Primacy. Still more apparent does this become in the next fifty
+years, wherein the overthrow of the western empire begins. Then the sons of
+Theodosius, instead of joining hand with hand and heart with heart against
+the forces of barbarism, which their father had controlled and wielded,
+were seduced by their ministers into antagonism with each other. Byzantium
+worked woe to the elder sister of whom she was jealous. Under the infamous
+treasons of Rufinus and Eutropius, the words might have been uttered with
+even fuller truth than in their original application--
+
+     "Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit".
+
+Thus Alaric first took Rome. But he did not take the Primacy. Pope Innocent
+lost no particle of his dignity or influence by the violation of Rome's
+secular dignity. It was only seven years after that event when St.
+Augustine and the two great African Councils acknowledged his Principate in
+the amplest terms. The heresy of Pelagius and the schism of Donatus were
+stronger than the sword of Alaric. And only a few years later, when a most
+fearful heresy, broached by the Byzantine bishop, led to the assembly in
+which then for the first time the Church met in general Council since
+Nicæa, the most emphatic acknowledgment of the Primacy as seated in the
+Roman bishop by descent from Peter was given by bishops, the subjects of an
+emperor very jealous of the West, to a Pope who could not live securely in
+Rome itself.
+
+In all these hundred years it is seen how the division of the empire
+enlarged and strengthened the action of the Primacy. But this it did
+because the Primacy was divine. The events just referred to, but described
+elsewhere at length, would have destroyed it had it not been divine.
+
+But this course of things, which is seen in action from the Nicene to the
+Chalcedonic Council, comes out with yet stronger force from the moment when
+Rome loses all temporal independence. We may place this moment at the date
+of its capture by Genseric. But it continues from that time. The events
+which took place at Rome in the twenty-one following years, the nine
+sovereigns put up and deposed, the subjection to barbarous leaders of
+hireling free-lances, the worse plundering of Ricimer seventeen years after
+that of Genseric--these were events grieving to the heart St. Leo and his
+successors; but yet not events at Rome alone--the whole condition of things
+in East and West which Pope Simplicius had to look upon outside of his own
+city, despotic emperors in the East, with bishops bending to their will,
+allowing the apostolic hierarchy to be displaced, and the apostolic
+doctrine determined by secular masters; Teuton settlements in the West
+ruled by the heresy most inimical to the Church; the Catholic population
+reduced in numbers and lowered in social position; whole countries seized
+by pagans, and forced at once into barbarism and infidelity--in the midst
+of all these the Pope stood: his generals were the several bishops of
+captured cities, whose places were assaulted by heretical rivals, supported
+by their kings. Gaul, Spain, Britain, Africa, Illyricum, Italy itself, no
+longer parts of one government, but ruled by enemies, any or all of these
+would have rejected the Roman Primacy if it had not come to them with the
+strongest warrant both of the Church's past history and her present
+consciousness.
+
+Such was the new world in which the Pope stood from the year 455; and he
+stood in it for three hundred years. The testimony which such times bear is
+a proof superadded to the words of Fathers and the decrees of Councils.
+
+But there is one other point in the political situation on which a word
+must be said.
+
+From the time named, the Roman Primacy is the one sole fixed point in the
+West. All else is fluctuating and transitional. To the Pope the bishops,
+subject in each city to barbarian insolence, cling as their one unfailing
+support. Without him they would be Gothic, or Vandal, or Burgundian, or
+Sueve, or Aleman, or Turciling,--with him and in him they are Catholic. Let
+me express, in the words of another, what is contained in this fact. The
+Church, says Guizot, "at the commencement of the fifth century, had its
+government, a body of clergy, a hierarchy, which apportioned the different
+functions of the clergy, revenues, independent means of action, rallying
+points which suit a great society, councils provincial, national, general,
+the habit of arranging in common the society's affairs. In a word, at this
+epoch Christianity was not only a religion but a Church. If it had not been
+a Church, I do not know what would have become of it in the midst of the
+Roman empire's fall. I confine myself to purely human considerations: I put
+aside every element foreign to the natural consequences of natural facts.
+If Christianity had only been a belief, a feeling, an individual
+conviction, we may suppose that it would have broken down at the
+dissolution of the empire and the barbarian invasion. It did break down
+later in Asia and in all north Africa beneath an invasion of the same
+kind--that of barbarous Mussulmans. It broke down then though it was an
+institution, a constituted Church. Much more might the same fact have
+happened at the moment of the Roman empire's fall. There were then none of
+those means by which in the present day moral influences are established or
+support themselves independent of institutions: no means by which a naked
+truth, a naked idea, acquires a great power over minds, rules actions, and
+determines events. Nothing of the kind existed in the fourth century to
+invest ideas and personal feelings with such an authority. It is clear that
+a strongly organised, a strongly governed, society was needed to struggle
+against so great a disaster, to overcome such a hurricane. I think I do not
+go too far in affirming that, at the end of the fourth and the beginning of
+the fifth century, it is the Christian Church which saved Christianity. It
+is the Church, with its institutions, its magistrates, and its power, which
+offered a vigorous defence to the internal dissolution of the empire, to
+barbarism; which conquered the barbarians; which became the bond, the
+means, the principle of civilisation to the Roman and the barbarian
+world."[27]
+
+In this passage, Guizot speaks of the Church as a government, as a unity.
+At the very moment of which he speaks, St. Augustine was addressing the
+Pope as the fountainhead of that unity; and in the midst of the dissolution
+an emperor was recommending him to the Gallic bishops "as the chief of the
+episcopal coronet"[28] encircling the earth. The whole structure which
+lasted through this earthquake of nations had its cohesion in him--a fact
+seen even more clearly in the time of the third Valentinian than in that of
+the conquering Constantine.
+
+But looking to that East, which dates from the Encyclikon of a Basiliscus
+and the Henotikon of a Zeno, here the Pope appears as the sole check to a
+despotic power. He alone could speak to the emperor on an equal and even a
+superior footing. Would such a power not have repudiated his interference,
+had it not been convinced of an authority beyond its reach to deny? The
+first generation following the utter impotence of Rome as reduced to a
+_municipium_ under Arian rulers will answer this question, as we shall see
+hereafter, with fullest effect.
+
+I have adduced above three political situations. The first is when the
+Primacy passes from dealing with one government to deal with more than one;
+the second when the Primacy has to deal with an unsettled world of many
+governments; the third when it is the sole fixed point in the face of a
+hurricane on one side and a despotism on the other. I observe that the
+testimony of all three concurs to bring out its action and establish its
+divine character. As an epilogue to all that has been said, I will suppose
+a case.
+
+Three men, great with the natural greatness of intellect, greater still in
+the acquired greatness of character, greatest of all in the supernatural
+grace of saintliness, witnessed this fifth century from its beginning: one
+of them, during two decades of years; the second, during three; the last,
+during six decades. They saw in their own persons, or they heard in
+authentic narratives, all its doings--the cities plundered and overthrown;
+the countries wasted; all natural ties disregarded; neither age, nor sex,
+nor dignity, respected by hordes of savages, incapable themselves of
+learning, strangers to science, without perception of art; the sum being
+that the richest civilisation which the world had borne was crushed down by
+brute force. They saw, and mourned, and bore with unfailing personal
+courage their portion of sorrow, mayhap turning themselves in their inmost
+mind from a world perishing before their eyes, to contemplate the joy
+promised in a world which should not perish. But neither to St. Jerome, nor
+to St. Augustine, nor to St. Leo, did the thought occur that this barbarian
+mass could be controlled into producing a civilisation richer than that
+which its own incursion destroyed. That, instead of perpetual strife and
+mutual repulsion, it could receive the one law of Christ; be moulded into a
+senate of nations, with like institutions and identical principles; that,
+instead of one empire taking an external impress of the Christian faith,
+but rebelling against it with a deep-seated corruption and an unyielding
+paganism, and so perishing in the midst of abundance, it should grow into
+peoples, the corner-stone of whose government and the parent of their
+political constitution should be the one faith of Christ, and their
+acknowledged judge the Roman Pastor; and that the Rome which all the three
+saw once plundered, and the third twice subjected to that penalty, should
+lose all its power as a secular capital, while it became the shrine whence
+a divine law went forth; and that these hordes, who laid it waste before
+their eyes, should become its children and its most valiant defenders.
+
+Had such a vision been vouchsafed to either of these great saints, with
+what words of thankfulness would he have described it. This is the subject
+which this narrative opens; and we, the long-descended offspring of these
+hordes, have seen this sight and witnessed this exertion of power carried
+on through centuries; and degenerate and ungrateful children as we are, we
+are living still upon the deeds which God wrought in that conversion of the
+nations by the pastoral staff of St. Peter, leading them into a land
+flowing with oil and wine.
+
+NOTES:
+
+[3] "Episcopatus unus est cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur."--S.
+Cyprian, _De Unitate Ecclesiæ_.
+
+[4] Gregorovius, i. 286. "Das Papstthum, vom Kaiser des Abendlandes
+befreit, erstand, und die Kirche Roms wuchs unter Trümmern mächtig empor.
+Sie trat an die Stelle des Reichs."
+
+[5] Gregorovius, i. 200.
+
+[6] St. Ignatius, _Epistle to the Romans_.
+
+[7] "That Roman, that Judean bond
+      United then dispart no more--
+    Pierce through the veil; the rind beyond
+      Lies hid the legend's deeper lore.
+    Therein the mystery lies expressed
+      Of power transferred, yet ever one;
+    Of Rome--the Salem of the West--
+      Of Sion, built o'er Babylon."
+
+    A. de Vere, _Legends and Records_, p. 204.
+
+[8] Gregorovius, i. 208.
+
+[9] Gregorovius, i. 215.
+
+[10] Sidonius Apollinaris, _Epist._, i. 9. "Hi in amplissimo ordine,
+seposita prærogativa partis armatæ, facile post purpuratum principem
+principes erant."
+
+[11] "Sed si forte placet veteres sopire querelas
+     Anthemium concede mihi; sit partibus istis
+     Augustus longumque Leo; mea jura gubernet
+     Quem petii."--_Carmen_, ii.
+
+[12] Reumont, i. 700.
+
+[13] He says at the end of 500 hendecasyllabics (jam te veniam loquacitati
+Quingenti hendecasyllabi precantur):
+
+    "Hinc ad balnea non Neroniana,
+    Nec quæ Agrippa dedit, vel ille cujus
+    Bustum Dalmaticæ vident Salonæ,
+    Ad thermas tamen ire sed libebat,
+    Privato bene præbitas pudori".
+
+[14] For a well-told account of this expedition and its failure, see
+Thierry, _Derniers Temps de l'Empire d'Occident_, pp. 77-101.
+
+[15] There is a strange occurrence recorded by St. Gregory in his
+_Dialogues_ as having taken place in this church, which would seem to point
+at Ricimer's burial in it.
+
+[16] This account has been shortened from that of Gregorovius, i. 231-5.
+
+[17] Giesebrecht, quoted by Hergenröther, _K.G._, i. 449.
+
+[18] Hergenröther, i. 449-453.
+
+[19] Reumont, ii. 6.
+
+[20] Reumont, ii. 9.
+
+[21] Reumont (ii. 29-42) gives an admirable sketch of the government of
+Theodorich, by which I have profited in what follows.
+
+[22] Montalembert, Gregorovius, Kurth. Philips (vol. iii., p. 51, sec.
+119), remarks: "Wäre Theodorich der Grosse nicht Arianer gewesen, so würde,
+wenn er es sonst gewollt, ihm wohl nichts weiter im Wege gestanden haben,
+als sich zum Römischen kaiser im Abendlande ausrufen lassen".
+
+[23] Gregorovius, i. 312, 315.
+
+[24] Orosius, _Hist._, vii. 43.
+
+[25] Photius, i. 111.
+
+[26] Photius, i. 120.
+
+[27] Guizot, _Sur la Civilisation en Europe_, deuxième leçon.
+
+[28] Edict of Valentinian III., in 447.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CÆSAR FELL DOWN.
+
+
+When St. Leo refused his assent to the Canons in favour of the see of
+Constantinople, which, at the end of the Council of Chalcedon, the Court,
+the clergy, and above all Anatolius, the bishop of the imperial city,
+desired to be passed, and with that intent overbore the resistance of the
+Papal legates, the race of Theodosius was still reigning both at Old and at
+New Rome. The eastern sovereigns, Marcian and Pulcheria, by becoming whose
+husband Marcian had ascended the throne, had acted with conspicuous loyalty
+towards the Pope. The mistakes of Theodosius II. were repaired, and the
+cabals of his courtiers ceased to affect the stronger minds and faithful
+hearts of his successors. In the West, Galla Placidia, during all the
+reign, since the death, in 423, of her brother Honorius, with which her
+nephew Theodosius II. had invested her, was also faithful to St. Peter's
+See; the same spirit directed her son Valentinian, and his empress-cousin,
+the daughter of the eastern emperor. The letters of all exist, in which
+they strove to set right their father, or nephew, Theodosius II., in the
+matter of Eutyches. All had supported St. Leo in the annulling that
+unhappy Council which compromised the faith of the Church so long as it was
+allowed to count as a Council. But not for any merit on the part of
+Pulcheria and Marcian would St. Leo allow the mere grandeur of a royal
+city, because it was the seat of empire, to dethrone from their original
+rank, held since the beginning of the Christian hierarchy, the two other
+Sees of St. Peter--the one of his disciple St. Mark, sent from his side at
+Rome; the other, in which he had first sat himself. St. Leo could not the
+least foresee that the course of things in less than a generation would
+justify by the plainest evidence of facts his maintenance of tradition and
+his prescience of future dangers. He had charged Anatolius with seeking
+unduly to exalt himself at the expense of his brethren. The exaltation
+consisted in making himself the second bishop of the Church. His see, a
+hundred and twenty years before, had, if it existed at all--for it is all
+but lost in insignificance--been merely a suffragan of the archbishop of
+Heraclea. Leo saw that Anatolius, under cover of the emperor's permanent
+residence in Nova Roma, sought to make its bishop the lever by which the
+whole episcopate of the East should be moved. We are now to witness the
+attempt to carry into effect all which St. Leo feared by a bishop who was
+next successor but one to Anatolius in his see.
+
+The changes, indeed, wrought in a few years were immense. St. Leo himself
+outlived both Pulcheria and Marcian; and on the death of the latter saw the
+imperial succession, which had been in some sense hereditary since the
+election of Valentinian I., in 364, pass to a new man. As this is the first
+occasion on which the succession to the Byzantine throne comes into our
+review, it may be well to consider what sort of thing it was. I suppose the
+Cæsarean succession even from the first is a hard thing to bring under any
+definition. Since Claudius was discovered quaking for fear behind a
+curtain, and dragged out to sit upon the throne which his nephew Caius had
+hastily vacated, after having been welcomed to it four years before with
+universal acclamation, it would be difficult to say what made a man emperor
+of the Romans. So much I seem to see in that terrible line, that the
+descent from father to son was hardly ever blessed, and that those who were
+adopted by an emperor no way related to them succeeded the best. The
+children of the very greatest emperors--of a Marcus Aurelius, a
+Constantine, a Theodosius--have only brought shame on their parents and
+ruin on their empire. Again, if the youth of a Nero or a Caracalla ended in
+utter ignominy, the youth of an Alexander Severus produced the fairest of
+reigns, while it ended in his murder by an usurper. But strange and
+anomalous as the Cæsarean succession appears, that of the Byzantine
+sovereigns, from the disappearance of the Theodosian race to the last
+Constantine who dies on the ramparts of the city made by the first, shows a
+great deterioration.[29] There was no acknowledged principle of succession.
+Arbitrary force determined it. One robber followed another upon the throne;
+so that the eastern despot seemed to imitate that ghastly rule, in the
+wood by Nemi, "of the priest who slew the slayer and shall himself be
+slain". If the army named one man to the throne, the fleet named another.
+If intrigue and shameless deceit gained it in one case, murder succeeded in
+another. Relationship or connection by marriage with the last possessor
+helped but rarely. This frequent and irregular change, and the personal
+badness of most sovereigns, caused endless confusion to the realm. This is
+the staple of the thousand years in which the election of the emperor Leo
+I., in 457, stands at the head. On the death of Marcian, following that of
+Pulcheria, in whose person a woman first became empress regnant, Leo was a
+Thracian officer, a colonel of the service, and director of the general
+Aspar's household. Aspar was an Arian Goth, commander of the troops, who
+had influence enough to make another man emperor, but not to cancel the
+double blot of barbarian and heretic in his own person. He made Leo, with
+the intention to be his master. And Leo ruled for seventeen years with some
+credit; and presently put Aspar and his son to death, in a treacherous
+manner, but not without reason. He bore a good personal character, was
+Catholic in his faith, and St. Leo lived on good terms with him during the
+four years following his election. St. Leo, dying in 461, was succeeded by
+Pope Hilarus, the deacon and legate who brought back a faithful report to
+Rome of the violent Council at Ephesus, in 449, from which he had escaped.
+Pope Hilarus was succeeded in 468 by Simplicius, and in 474 the emperor
+Leo died, leaving the throne to an infant grandson of the same name, the
+son of his daughter Ariadne, by an Isaurian officer Zeno, who reigned at
+first as the guardian of his son, and a few months afterwards came by that
+son's death to sole power as emperor. The worst character is given to Zeno
+by the national historians. His conduct was so vile, and his government so
+discredited by irruptions of the Huns on the Danube, and of Saracens in
+Mesopotamia, that his wife's stepmother Verina, the widow of Leo I.,
+conspired against him, and was able to set her brother Basiliscus on the
+throne. Zeno took flight; Basiliscus was proclaimed emperor. He declared
+himself openly against the Catholic faith in favour of the Eutycheans. But
+Basiliscus was, if possible, viler than Zeno, and after twenty months Zeno
+was brought back. The usurper's short rule lasted from October, 475, to
+June, 477; exactly, therefore, at the time when Odoacer put an end to the
+western empire. It was upon Zeno's recovery of the throne that he received
+back from the Roman senate the sovereign insignia, and conferred the title
+of Roman Patricius on Odoacer. In the following years Zeno had much to do
+with Theodorich. He gave up to him part of Dacia and Moesia, and finally
+he made, in 484, the king of the Ostrogoths Roman consul, as a reward for
+the services to the Roman emperor. But, afterwards, Theodorich ravaged
+Zeno's empire up to the walls of Constantinople, and was bought off by a
+commission to march into Italy and to dethrone Odoacer. Zeno continued an
+inglorious and unhappy reign, full of murders, deceits, and crimes of
+every sort, for fourteen years after his restoration, and died in 491.
+
+Let us now pass to the ecclesiastical policy of Zeno's reign.
+
+The succession to the see of Constantinople requires to be considered in
+apposition with that of the see of Rome. The attempt of Anatolius had been
+broken by St. Leo, who also outlived him by three years, for Anatolius died
+in 458, a year after the emperor Leo had succeeded Marcian; and his
+crowning of Leo is recorded as the first instance of that ceremony being
+exercised. At his death Gennadius was appointed, who sat to the year 471.
+He is commended by all writers for his admirable conduct. St. Leo[30] had
+sent bishops to Constantinople to ask the emperor that he would bring to
+punishment Timotheus the Cat, who, being schismatical, excommunicated, and
+Eutychean, had nevertheless got possession of the see of Alexandria. He was
+endeavouring, after the death of the legitimate bishop, Proterius, who had
+succeeded the deposed Dioscorus, to ruin the Catholic faith throughout
+Egypt. All the bishops of the East, whom the emperor consulted, pronounced
+against this Timotheus. But he was supported by Aspar, who had given Leo
+the empire. Nevertheless, Gennadius joined his efforts with those of the
+Pope, and Timotheus Ailouros was banished from Alexandria to Gangra.
+Another Timotheus Solofaciolus, approved by Pope Leo, was made bishop of
+Alexandria.
+
+At the end of 471, Acacius succeeded Gennadius in the see of the capital.
+At the time he was well known, having been for many years superior of the
+orphans' hospital, where he had gained the affection of everyone. He is
+said to have been made bishop by the influence of Zeno, who was then the
+emperor's son-in-law. He immediately rose high in the opinion of Leo, who
+consulted him on private and public affairs before anyone else. He placed
+him in the senate, the first time that the bishop had sat there. Acacius is
+said to have used his influence with Leo to soften a severe temper, to
+restore many persons to his favour, to obtain the recal of many from
+banishment. He took special care of the churches, and of the clergy serving
+them, and they in return put his portrait everywhere. Acacius was
+considered an excellent bishop when Basiliscus rose against Zeno.
+
+In all this contest Acacius took part against the attempt which Basiliscus
+made to overthrow the faith of the Church. He had issued a document termed
+the Encyclikon or Circular, in which for the first time in the history of
+the Church an emperor had assumed the right, as emperor, to lay down the
+terms of the faith. In this act there is not so much to be considered the
+mixture of truth and falsehood in the document issued as the authority
+which he claimed to set up a standard of doctrine. But he could not induce
+Acacius to put his signature to it. Five hundred Greek bishops, it is true,
+were found to do so, but Acacius was not one of them. Basiliscus fell, Zeno
+was restored, and Acacius came out of the struggles between them with
+increased renown.
+
+Zeno's restoration was considered at the time a victory of the Catholic
+cause. Basiliscus in his short dominion of twenty months had formally
+recalled from exile the notorious heretic Timotheus Ailouros, and put him
+in the patriarchal see of Alexandria, as likewise Peter the Fuller in the
+see of Antioch. This Timotheus had moved Basiliscus to the strong act of
+despotically overriding the faith by issuing an edict upon doctrine.
+Basiliscus had been obliged, by the opposition of the monks at
+Constantinople, and that of Acacius, and the fear of the returning Zeno, to
+withdraw this document. The usurper had to fly for refuge to sanctuary, but
+Acacius did not shield him as St. Chrysostom had shielded Eutropius. He
+came forth under solemn promise from Zeno that his blood should not be
+shed, and was carried with wife and children to Cappadocia, where all were
+starved to death.
+
+In all this matter Acacius had gained great credit as defender of the
+Council of Chalcedon. He had himself referred for help to Simplicius in the
+Apostolic See. Zeno upon his return to power had entered into closer
+connection with the Roman chair. He had sent the Pope a blameless
+confession of faith, promising to maintain the Council of Chalcedon.
+Simplicius, on the 8th October, 477, had congratulated him on his return.
+In this letter he reminds Zeno of the acts of his predecessors, Marcian and
+Leo: that he owed gratitude to God for bringing him back. "He has restored
+their empire to you: do you show Him their service. And as the words which
+I lately addressed, under the instruction of the blessed Apostle Peter,
+were rejected by those who were about to fall (_i.e._, Basiliscus), I pray
+that by God's favour they may profit those who shall stand (_i.e._, Zeno).
+I receive the letters sent by your clemency, as an immense pledge of your
+devotion. I breathe again joyously, and do not doubt that you will do even
+more in religion than I desire. But mindful of my office, I dwell the more
+on this matter, because out of regard alike for your empire and your
+salvation I ardently wish that you should abide in that cause on which
+alone depends the stability of present government and the gaining future
+glory. I beg above all things that you should deliver the Church of
+Alexandria from the heretical intruder, and restore it to the Catholic and
+legitimate bishop, and also restore the several ejected bishops to their
+sees, that as you have delivered your commonwealth from the domination of a
+tyrant, so you may save the Church of God everywhere from the robbery and
+contamination of heretics. Do not allow that to prevail which the iniquity
+of the times and a spirit as rebellious against God as against your empire
+has stirred up, but rather what so many great pontiffs, and with them the
+consent of the universal Church, has decreed. Give full legal vigour to the
+decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, or those which my predecessor Leo, of
+blessed memory, has with apostolic learning laid down. That is, as you have
+found it, the Catholic faith, which has put down the mighty from their
+seat, and exalted the humble."[31]
+
+To appreciate this letter, it must be borne in mind that it was written by
+Pope Simplicius a year after the western empire was extinguished; that the
+writer had seen nine western emperors deposed, and most of them murdered,
+in twenty-one years; that it was addressed to the eastern and now only
+Roman emperor; and that the writer was living under the absolute rule of
+the _condottiere_ chief who had succeeded Ricimer, and is called by Pope
+Gelasius a few years afterwards "Odoacer, barbarian and heretic".[32]
+
+The whole East was disturbed at this time by the condition of the great
+patriarchal sees of Alexandria and Antioch. The Eutychean party was
+perpetually trying for the mastery. At Alexandria, Proterius, who succeeded
+Dioscorus when he was deposed at the Council of Chalcedon, had been
+murdered in 458. The utmost efforts of Pope Leo and the emperor Leo were
+needed to maintain his legitimate successor Timotheus Solofaciolus, against
+whom a rival of the same name, Timotheus Ailouros, had been set up by the
+Eutychean party, which was far the most numerous. It was on the death of
+this patriarch, Timotheus Solofaciolus, in 482, that the clergy and many
+bishops had chosen John Talaia as his successor. John Talaia had announced
+his election to the Pope in order to be acknowledged by him; also, as was
+customary, to the patriarch of Antioch; but had sent his synodal letter by
+some indirect manner to Acacius, who thus received the notice by public
+report, rather than in the official way. But in the four years which had
+elapsed since the restoration of Zeno, Acacius had acquired great influence
+over him. Zeno had published a decree in which, "out of regard to our royal
+city," he assured to that "Church, the mother of our piety and the see of
+all orthodox Christians, the privileges and honours over the consecration
+of bishops which, before our government, or during it, it is recognised to
+possess," in which he named Acacius, "the most blessed patriarch, father of
+our piety". Acacius had made his maintenance of the Council of Chalcedon go
+step by step with his claim to exercise patriarchal rights over the great
+see of Ephesus. This had led to fresh reclamations from the Pope. Acacius
+had gone ever forwards, and seemed, by the favour of Zeno, to be reaching
+complete subjection of the eastern patriarchates to the see of
+Constantinople. Incensed at what he considered the slight offered to him by
+John Talaia, he took up, with the utmost keenness against him, the cause of
+a rival, Peter the Stammerer, who had been elected by the Eutychean party.
+He worked upon the emperor's mind in favour of the Monophysite pretender.
+Peter the Stammerer himself came to Constantinople, and urged to Zeno that
+the utmost confusion and disorder might be feared in Egypt if the powerful
+and numerous opponents of the Council of Chalcedon had an unacceptable
+patriarch put upon them. At the same time, he proposed a compromise which
+would unite all parties and prevent the breaking up of the eastern Church.
+Acacius, a few years before, had denounced to Pope Simplicius himself this
+Peter the Stammerer as an adulterer, robber, and son of darkness. He now
+entirely embraced this plan, and not only won the emperor to Peter's side
+for the patriarchate, but induced Zeno to publish a doctrinal decree. This
+was to express what was common to all confessions of faith down to the
+Council of Chalcedon, to avoid the expressions used in controversy, and
+entirely to set aside the Council of Chalcedon. In 482 appeared this
+Formulary of Union, or Henotikon, drawn up, it was supposed, by Acacius
+himself, addressed to the clergy and people of Alexandria. It was first
+subscribed by Acacius, as patriarch of Constantinople, then by Peter the
+Stammerer, acknowledged for this purpose as patriarch of Alexandria; then
+by Peter the Fuller, as patriarch of Antioch; by Martyrius of Jerusalem,
+and by other bishops, but by no means all. Zeno used the imperial power to
+expel those who would not sign it.
+
+As Peter the Stammerer had gone to the emperor to get his election approved
+and supported by Zeno and Acacius, so John Talaia had solicited Pope
+Simplicius to confirm his election. This the Pope had been on the point of
+confirming, when he received a letter from the emperor accusing John
+Talaia, and urging the appointment of Peter the Stammerer. Acacius had not
+hesitated to absolve him, and admit him to his communion, and strove by
+every effort of deceit and force to induce the eastern bishops to accept
+him. The last letter we have of the Pope, dated November 6, 482, strongly
+censures Acacius for communicating nothing to him concerning the Church of
+Alexandria, and for not instructing the emperor in such a way that peace
+might be restored by him.
+
+On March 2, 483, Pope Simplicius died, and was succeeded by Pope Felix.
+John Talaia had come in person to Rome to lay his accusation against
+Acacius. Also the orthodox monks at Constantinople, and eastern bishops
+expelled for not signing the Henotikon, begged for the Pope's assistance,
+and denounced Acacius as the author of all the trouble. Amongst these
+expelled bishops who appealed to Rome were bishops of Chalcedon, Samosata,
+Mopsuestia, Constantina, Hemeria, Theodosiopolis.
+
+The Pope called a council, in which he considered the complaint now brought
+before him by John Talaia, as a hundred and forty years before St.
+Athanasius had carried his complaint to Pope Julius. It was resolved to
+support the ejected bishops, to maintain the Council of Chalcedon, and to
+request from the emperor the expulsion of Peter the Stammerer, who was
+usurping the see of Alexandria. For this purpose the Pope commissioned two
+bishops, Vitalis and Misenus, to go as his legates to the emperor. They
+were to invite Acacius to attend a council at Rome, and to answer therein
+the complaint brought against him by the elected patriarch of Alexandria.
+
+The legates carried a letter[33] from Pope Felix to the emperor, in which,
+according to custom, the Pope informed him of his election. He observed
+that, for a long time, the see of the blessed Apostle had been expecting
+an answer to the letters sent by his predecessor of blessed memory,
+"especially inasmuch as it had bound your majesty, with tremendous vows,
+not to allow the see of the evangelist St. Mark to be separated from the
+teaching or the communion of his master.... Again, therefore, the reverend
+confession of the Apostle Peter, with a mother's voice, renews its
+instance. It ceases not with confidence to call upon you as its son. It
+cries: O Christian prince, why do you allow me to be interrupted in that
+course of charity which binds together the universal Church? Why, in my
+person, do you break up the consent of the whole world? I beseech you, my
+son, suffer not that tunic of the Lord woven from the top throughout, by
+which is signified, as the Holy Spirit rules the whole body, that the
+Church of Christ should be one and individual--suffer it not to be broken.
+They who crucified our Saviour left it untouched. Do not let it be rent in
+your times. My faith it is which the Lord Himself declared should alone be
+one, never to be conquered by any assault: He who promised that the gates
+of hell should never prevail over the Church founded on my confession. This
+Church it was which restored you to the imperial dignity, deprived its
+impugners of their power, and opened to you the path of victory in
+defending it.[34]
+
+"Look at me, his successor, however humble, as if the Apostle were present.
+Look deeper into those ways which concern the reverence due to God and the
+condition of man; and be not ungrateful to the Author of your present
+prosperity. In you alone survives the name of emperor. Do not grudge us the
+saving you. Do not diminish our confidence in praying for you. Look back on
+your august predecessors Marcian and Leo, and the faith of so many princes,
+you, who are their lawful heir. Once more, look back on your own
+engagements, and the words which, on your return to power, you addressed to
+my predecessor. The defence of the Council of Chalcedon is expressed in the
+whole series." And he ends: "What I could not put in my letter I have
+entrusted my brethren and legates to explain. I beseech you to listen, as
+well for the preservation of Catholic truth as for the safety of your own
+empire."
+
+To Acacius also the legates carried a letter of the Pope, which he opened
+by announcing that he had succeeded to the office of Pope Simplicius, and
+was forthwith involved in those many cares which the voice of the Supreme
+Pastor had imposed upon St. Peter, and which kept him watchfully occupied
+with a rule which extended over all the peoples of the earth. At that
+moment his greatest anxiety, as it had been that of his predecessor, was
+for the city of Alexandria, and for the faith of the whole East. And he
+went on to reproach Acacius for not duly informing him of what was passing,
+for not defending the Council of Chalcedon, and not using his influence
+with the emperor in its defence: "Brother, do not let us despair that the
+word of our Saviour will be true; He promised that He would never be
+wanting to His Church to the end of the world; that it should never be
+overcome by the gates of hell; that all which was bound on earth by
+sentence of apostolic doctrine should not be loosed in heaven. Nor let us
+think that either the judgment of Peter or the authority of the universal
+Church, by whatever dangers it be surrounded, will ever lose the weight of
+its force. The more it dreads being weakened by worldly prosperity, the
+more, divinely instructed, it grows under adversity. To let the perverse go
+on in their way, when you can stop them, is indeed to encourage them. He
+who, evidently, ceases to obstruct a wicked deed, does not escape the
+suspicion of complicity. If, when you see hostility arising against the
+Council of Chalcedon, you do nothing, believe me, I know not how you can
+maintain that you belong to the whole Church."
+
+As soon as the two legates arrived at the Dardanelles, they were arrested,
+by order of Zeno and Acacius, put in prison, their papers and letters taken
+from them. They were menaced with death if they did not accept the
+communion of Acacius and of Peter the Stammerer. Then they were seduced
+with presents, and deceived with false promises that Acacius would submit
+the whole affair to the Pope. They resisted at first, but yielded in the
+end, and, passing beyond their commission, gave judgment in favour of Peter
+the Stammerer. They had broken all the instructions of the Pope, and
+carried back letters from Zeno and Acacius to him, full of extravagant
+praises of Peter the Stammerer. His former deposition and condemnation were
+entirely put aside. On the other hand, the character of John Talaia was
+bitterly impugned. The emperor asserted that he had treated Church matters
+with the utmost moderation, and guided himself entirely by the advice of
+the patriarch Acacius.
+
+In fact, Acacius was the spiritual superior of the whole eastern empire,
+and appeared not to trouble himself any more about the Roman See. He made
+no pretence to give any satisfaction for what he had done. Before he had
+been the champion of orthodoxy, now he had become in league with heretics.
+But he lost all remaining confidence among Catholics. The zealous monks of
+his own city withdrew from his communion, and sent one of themselves,
+Symeon, to Rome to inform the Pope of all that had happened, and disclose
+the faithless behaviour of his legates.[35]
+
+In another letter the Pope had cited Acacius to appear at Rome to meet the
+accusation brought against him by John Talaia, the patriarch of Alexandria.
+Acacius took no notice of this citation, nor of the complaint brought
+against him.
+
+Thereupon, the Pope, in a council of seventy-seven bishops, held at Rome
+the 28th July, 484, made inquiry into all this transaction. He annulled the
+judgment on Peter the Stammerer, passed without his authority by his
+legates, deprived them of their offices, and of communion. He renewed the
+condemnation of Peter the Stammerer, he had in the interval admonished
+Acacius again, without result. He now issued the decree of deposition upon
+him. It runs in the following words:
+
+"You are[36] guilty of many transgressions; have often treated with insult
+the venerable Nicene Council; have unrightfully claimed jurisdiction over
+provinces not belonging to you. In the case of intruding heretics, ordained
+likewise by heretics, whom you had yourself condemned, and whose
+condemnation you had urged upon the Apostolic See, you not only received
+them to your communion, but even set them over other Churches, which was
+not, even in the case of Catholics, allowable; or have even given them
+higher rank undeservedly. John is an instance of this. When he was not
+accepted by the Catholics at Apamea, and had been driven away from Antioch,
+you set him over the Tyrians. Humerius also, having been degraded from the
+diaconite and deprived of the Christian name, you advanced to the
+priesthood. And as if these seemed to you minor offences, in the boldness
+of your pride you assaulted the truth itself of apostolic doctrine. That
+Peter, whose condemnation by my predecessor of holy memory you had yourself
+recorded, as the subjoined proofs show, you suffered by your connivance
+again to invade the see of the blessed evangelist Mark, to drive out
+orthodox bishops and clergy, and ordain, no doubt, such as himself, to
+expel one who was there regularly established, and hold the Church captive.
+Nay, his person was so agreeable to you, and his ministers so acceptable,
+that you have been found to persecute a large number of orthodox bishops
+and clergy, who now come to Constantinople, and to encourage his legates.
+You put upon Misenus and Vitalis to find excuse for one who was
+anathematising the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, and violating the
+tomb of Timotheus of holy memory, as sure information has been given us.
+You have not ceased to praise and exalt him so as to boast that the very
+condemnation you had yourself recorded was untrue. You went even further in
+the defence of a perverse man. They who were late bishops, but are now
+deprived of their rank and of communion, Vitalis and Misenus, men whom we
+had specially sent for his expulsion, you suffered to be deprived of their
+papers and imprisoned; you dragged them out thence to a procession which
+you were having with heretics, as they confessed; in contempt of their
+legatine quality, which even the law of nations would protect, you drew
+them on to the communion of heretics, and yourself; you corrupted them with
+bribes; and, with injury to the blessed Apostle Peter, from whose see they
+went forth, you caused them not only to return with labour lost, but with
+the overthrow of all their instructions. In deceiving them, your wickedness
+was shown. As to the memorial of my brother and fellow-bishop John
+(Talaia), who brought the heaviest charges against you, by not venturing to
+give an answer in the Apostolic See, according to the canons, you have
+established his allegations. Likewise, you considered unworthy of your
+sight our most faithful defender Felix, whom a necessity caused to come
+afterwards. You also showed by your letters that known heretics were
+communicating with you. For what else are they who, after the death of
+Timotheus of holy memory, go back to his church under Peter the Stammerer,
+or, having been Catholics, have given themselves up to this Peter, but such
+as Peter himself was judged to be by the whole Church, and by yourself?
+Therefore, by this present sentence have with those whom you willingly
+embrace your portion, which we send to you by the defender of your own
+church, being deprived of sacerdotal honour and Catholic communion, and
+severed from the number of the faithful. Know that the name and office of
+the sacerdotal ministry is taken from you. You are condemned by the
+judgment of the Holy Ghost[37] and apostolic authority, and never to be
+released from the bonds of anathema.
+
+"Cælius Felix, bishop of the holy Catholic Church of the city of Rome. On
+the 28th July, in the consulship of the most honourable Venantius."
+
+This was a synodal letter,[38] signed by sixty-seven bishops, as well as
+the Pope. But the copy of the decree against Acacius sent to Constantinople
+was signed by the Pope alone, partly according to ancient custom, partly in
+order with greater security to transmit it to the eastern capital. Had this
+copy been signed by the bishops also, ruling practice would have required
+it to be carried over by at least two bishops, which then appeared very
+dangerous. A Roman synod of forty-three[39] bishops, in the following
+year, 485, wrote to the clergy of Constantinople: "If snares had not been
+set for the orthodox by land and sea, many of us might have come with the
+sentence of Acacius. But now, being assembled on the cause of the church of
+Antioch at St. Peter's, we make a point of declaring to you the custom
+which has always prevailed among us. As often as bishops[40] meet in Italy
+on ecclesiastical matters, especially when they touch the faith, the custom
+is maintained that the successor of those who preside in the Apostolic See,
+as representing all the bishops of the whole of Italy, according to the
+care of all churches which lies upon him, appoints all things, being the
+head of all, as the Lord said to Peter, 'Thou art Peter,' &c. The three
+hundred and eighteen holy fathers assembled at Nicæa acted in obedience to
+this word, and left the confirmation and authority of what they treated to
+the holy Roman Church; both of which things all successions to our own time
+by the grace of Christ maintain. What, therefore, the holy council
+assembled at St. Peter's decreed, and the most blessed Felix, our Head,
+Pope, and Archbishop, ratified, that is sent to you by Tutus, defensor of
+the Church."
+
+Three days after the sentence on Acacius, Pope Felix wrote to the emperor
+Zeno.[41] He reminded him that, in violation of reverence to God, an
+embassy to the Holy See had been taken captive, its papers taken away; it
+had been dragged out of prison to communicate with the officers of the
+very heretic against whom it had been sent. "Since even barbarous nations,
+who knew not God, allowed to embassies for the transaction of human affairs
+a sacred liberty, how much more should that liberty be preserved sacred,
+especially in divine things, by a Roman emperor and Christian prince?
+Putting aside the embassy, which even in the case of the Apostle Peter was
+disregarded, be assured at least by these letters that the see of the
+Apostle Peter has never granted communion, and will never grant it, to that
+Alexandrian Peter long ago justly condemned, and again by synodal decree
+suppressed. But as you have not regarded the words of exhortation I
+addressed to you, I leave it to your choice to select which you will have,
+the communion of the blessed Apostle Peter or that of the Alexandrian
+Peter. You will know by the letters of this man's abettor, Acacius, to my
+predecessor of holy memory, copies of which I enclose, how even in your own
+judgment he was condemned. But this Acacius, who has committed many
+atrocities against the ancient rules, and has come to praise one whom he
+affirmed to be condemned, and whose condemnation he obtained from the
+Apostolic See, has been severed from apostolic communion. But I believe
+that your piety, which prefers to comply even with its own laws rather than
+to resist them, and which knows that the supreme rule of things human is
+given to you on condition of admitting that things divine are allotted to
+dispensers divinely assigned, I believe that it will be undoubtedly of
+service to you if you permit the Catholic Church in the time of your
+principate to use its own laws, nor allow anyone to stand in the way of its
+liberty, which has restored to you the imperial power. For it is certain
+that this will bring safety to your affairs, if in God's cause, and
+according to His appointment, you study to subdue the royal will and not to
+prefer it to the bishops of Christ, and rather to learn holy things by them
+than to teach them; to follow the form traced out by the Church, not after
+human fashion to impose rules on it, nor wish to dominate the commands of
+that power to whom it is God's will that your clemency should devoutly
+submit, lest, if the measure of the divine disposition be overpast, it may
+end in the disgrace of the disponent. And from this time I absolve my
+conscience as to all these things, who have to plead my cause before
+Christ's tribunal. It will be well for you more and more to reflect that
+both in the present state of things we are under the divine examination,
+and that after this life's course we shall according to it come before the
+divine judgment."
+
+St. Gregory the Great, writing his _Dialogues_[42] about one hundred and
+ten years after this letter, informs us that the writer of it was his
+great-grandfather, and speaks of his appearing in a vision to his aunt
+Tarsilla and showing her the habitation of everlasting light. At the time
+of writing it, Pope Felix was living under the domination of the Arian
+Herule Odoacer. The great Church of Africa was suffering the most terrible
+of persecutions under the Arian Vandal Hunneric, the son of his father
+Genseric. Arian Visigoth rulers were in possession of Spain and France, of
+whom Euric, as we have seen, was described rather as the chief of a sect
+than the sovereign of a people. In all the West not a yard of territory was
+under rule of a Catholic sovereign. And he whom the Pope addressed, with
+the dignity of the Apostolic See in its reverence for the power which is a
+delegation of God, as Roman emperor and Christian prince, was in his
+private life scandalous, in all his public rule shifty and tyrannical, and
+in belief, if he had any, an Eutychean heretic. It may be added, as a fact
+of history, that the emperor went before the divine judgment sooner than
+the Pope; that during the seven years which intervened between the letter
+and his death he utterly disregarded all that the Pope had done and said.
+He suffered, or rather made the bishop of Constantinople to be the ruler of
+the eastern Church; he maintained heretics in the sees of Alexandria and
+Antioch. After this he died in 491, and the last fact recorded of him is
+that the empress Ariadne, the daughter of Leo I., who had brought him the
+empire with her hand, when he fell into an epileptic fit and was supposed
+to be dead, had him buried at once, and placed guards around his tomb, who
+were forbidden to allow any approach to it. When the imperial vault was
+afterwards entered, Zeno was found to have torn his arm with his teeth. The
+empress widow, forty days after the death of Zeno, conferred her hand, and
+with it the empire a second time, upon Anastasius, who had been up to that
+time a sort of gentleman usher[43] in the imperial service. Anastasius
+ruled the eastern empire twenty-seven years, from 491 to 518.
+
+The Pope further sought by a letter[44] to the clergy and people of
+Constantinople to remove the scandal caused by the weakness of his legates,
+and to explain the grounds upon which he had deposed Acacius. "Though we
+know the zeal of your faith, yet we warn all who desire to share in the
+Catholic faith to abstain from communion with him, lest, which God forbid,
+they fall into like penalty."
+
+Acacius did not receive the papal judgment against him, but sought to
+suppress it. A monk ventured to attach to his mantle as he went to Mass the
+sentence of excommunication. It cost him his life, and brought heavy
+persecutions on his brethren. Acacius met the Pope with open defiance, and
+removed his name from the diptychs.[45] He rested on the emperor Zeno's
+support, who did everything at his bidding. Every arm of deceit and of
+violence he used equally. The monks, called, from their never intermitted
+worship, the Sleepless, in close connection with Rome, suffered severely.
+So Acacius passed the remaining five years of his life, dying in the autumn
+of 489.
+
+His excommunication by the Pope caused a schism between the East and West
+which lasted thirty-five years, from 484 to 519. He met that supreme act of
+authority by the counter act of removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.
+This invites us to consider the position which he assumed.
+
+From the year 482 (that is, four years after Zeno had recovered the
+empire), Acacius appears in possession of full influence over the emperor.
+The position of the bishop at Constantinople was, in itself, one of immense
+dignity. He was undoubtedly the second person in the imperial city,
+surrounded with a pomp and deference only yielding to that accorded to the
+emperor, but in some respects superior to it. He was regarded as
+sacrosanct: all the respect which the Church received in the minds of the
+good was centred in his person. And as he had risen to all this dignity in
+virtue of Constantinople being the capital, there was a special connection
+between the capital and its bishop, which led it to sympathise with every
+accession of power which he received. There can be no doubt that the right
+acquired by that bishop over the great sees of Ephesus, Cæsarea in Pontus,
+and Heraclea in Thrace was extremely popular at Constantinople; and that
+when he proceeded further to show his hand over the patriarchate of
+Antioch--as, for instance, in nominating one of its archbishops at Tyre, as
+the Pope reproached him--the capital was still better pleased. Most of all
+when, breaking through all the regulations which the Nicene Council had
+consecrated by its approval,--which, however, it had not created, but
+found in immemorial subsistence,--he ventured to ordain at Constantinople a
+patriarch of Antioch. Thus Stephen II., patriarch of Antioch, had been
+murdered in 479 by the fanatical Monophysites, in the baptistry of the
+Barlaam Church, and his mangled body thrown into the Orontes. The incensed
+emperor punished the criminals, and charged his patriarch Acacius to
+consecrate a new bishop for Antioch. Acacius seized the favourable
+opportunity, after the example of Anatolius, to advance himself, and
+appointed Stephen III. Emperor and patriarch both applied to Pope
+Simplicius to excuse this violation of the rights of the Syrian bishops,
+alleging the pressure of circumstances, and promising that the example
+should not occur again. Simplicius, so entreated, excused the fault,
+recognised the patriarch of Antioch--though he had been consecrated in
+Constantinople by its bishop--but insisted that such a violation of the
+canons should not be repeated. Presently Stephen III. died, upon which
+Acacius committed the same fault anew, and in 482 consecrated Calendion
+patriarch of Antioch. Calendion brought back from Macedonia the relics of
+his great and persecuted predecessor, St. Eustathius; but presently Zeno
+and Acacius displaced Calendion. Acacius was using the power which he
+possessed over the emperor to advance his own credit in the appointment of
+patriarchs, and to establish two notorious heretics--Peter the Fuller at
+Antioch, and Peter the Stammerer at Alexandria. All this meant that the
+bishop of Constantinople's hand was to be over the East, as the bishop of
+Rome's hand was over the West. Then, ever since the Council of Chalcedon,
+the two great eastern patriarchates had been torn to pieces by the
+conflicts of parties. The Eutychean heresy fought a desperate battle for
+mastery. As to Antioch, from the time that Eusebius of Nicomedia had
+brought about the deposition of St. Eustathius, preparatory to that of
+Athanasius in 330, the great patriarchate of the East had been declining
+from the unrivalled position which it had held. As to Alexandria, from the
+time that the 150 fathers at Constantinople, in 381, had attempted to make
+Constantinople the second see, because it was Nova Roma, the see of St.
+Mark bore a grudge against the upstart which sought to degrade it. In spite
+of the unequalled renown of its two great patriarchs, St. Athanasius and
+St. Cyril, it was sinking. And now heresy, schism, and imperial favour
+seemed to have joined together to exhibit Acacius as not only the first
+patriarch of the East, but as exercising jurisdiction even within their
+bounds, and as nominating those who succeeded to their thrones. All which
+would only tend to increase the power and popularity of the bishop of
+Constantinople in his own see.
+
+Acacius had now been eleven years bishop. He had gained at once the emperor
+Leo; he had appeared to defend the Council of Chalcedon when Basiliscus
+attacked it; he had further gained mastery over Zeno; but, more than all
+this, he had seen Rome sink into what to eastern eyes must have seemed an
+abyss. St. Leo had compelled Anatolius to give up the canons he so much
+prized; since then northern barbarians had twice sacked Rome, and
+Ricimer's most cruel host of adventurers had reaped whatever the Vandal
+Genseric had left. If there was a degradation yet to be endured it would be
+that a Herule soldier of fortune should compel a Roman senate to send back
+the robes of empire to Constantinople, and be content to live under a
+Patricius, sprung from one of the innumerable Teuton hordes, and sanctioned
+by the emperor of the East; and Acacius would not forget that in the
+councils of that emperor he was himself chief.
+
+If New Rome held the second rank because the Fathers gave the first rank to
+Old Rome, in that it was the capital, what was the position of New Rome and
+its bishop when Old Rome had ceased in fact to be a capital at all? At that
+moment--thirty years after St. Leo had confirmed the greatest of eastern
+councils and been greeted by it as the head of the Christian faith--the
+Rome in which he sat had been reduced to a mere municipal rank, and its
+bishop, with all its people, lived under what was simply a military
+government commanded by a foreign adventurer. Odoacer at Ravenna was master
+of the lives and liberties of the Romans, including the Pope.
+
+Acacius had had this spectacle for some years before him, when Pope Felix,
+succeeding Pope Simplicius, called him to account for entirely reversing
+the conduct which he had pursued at the time when Basiliscus had usurped
+the empire. Then he defended the Council of Chalcedon and its doctrine;
+then he denounced to the Pope Peter the Stammerer as a heretic and a man of
+bad life, and had called for his condemnation and obtained it. He had now
+taken upon himself not even to ask from the Pope this man's absolution, but
+to absolve himself the very heretic he had caused to be condemned, and to
+put him into the see of Alexandria, with the rejection of the bishop
+legitimately elected, and approved at Rome, and to compose for the emperor
+a doctrinal decree, which he subscribed himself first as the first of the
+patriarchs, and was compelling all other bishops to sign under pain of
+deprivation; when, behold, St. Leo's third successor called him to account
+in exactly the same terms as St. Leo would have used, and required him to
+meet at Rome the accusation brought against him by John Talaia, a duly
+elected patriarch of Alexandria, just as St. Julius, a hundred and forty
+years before, had invited the accusing bishops at Antioch to meet St.
+Athanasius before his tribunal. He who resided in a state only second to
+the emperor in the real capital of the empire to go to a city living in
+durance under the northern barbarians, and submit to the judgment of one
+whose own tribunal was in captivity to such masters!
+
+But, on the other hand, Pope Felix spoke to the emperor as none but popes
+have ever spoken. He called him his son, but he required from him filial
+obedience. Above all he spoke in one character, and in one alone--as the
+heir of that St. Peter whom the voice of the Lord had set over His Church;
+he spoke from Rome, not because it was or had been capital of the empire,
+but because it was St. Peter's See, and precisely because he succeeded St.
+Peter in his apostolate.
+
+The respective action, therefore, of Pope Felix on one side, and of Acacius
+on the other, brought to an issue the most absolute of contradictions. The
+Pope claimed obedience, as a superior, from Acacius. When that obedience
+was refused, he exerted his authority as superior, and degraded Acacius
+both from his rank as bishop, and from Christian communion. And a special
+token of that sentence was to order his name to be removed from the
+diptychs, and to enjoin the people of his own diocese to hold no communion
+with him, on pain of incurring a like penalty with him. Acacius answered by
+practically denying the Pope's authority to do any such act. He asserted
+himself to be his equal by removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.
+There could be no more striking denial of any such authority as the claim
+to inherit Peter's universal pastorship, than to treat the Pope himself as,
+in virtue of that pastorship, he had treated Acacius.
+
+Even apart from this, the conduct of Acacius carried with it a double
+denial of the Pope's authority: a denial that he was the supreme judge of
+faith; and a denial that he was the supreme maintainer of discipline in its
+highest manifestation, the order of the hierarchy itself.
+
+He denied that the Pope was the supreme judge of faith, by drawing up a
+formulary of doctrine, which he induced the emperor to promulgate by
+imperial decree; and this independently of what doctrine that formulary
+might contain. Further, he did this by supporting two persons judged to be
+heretical by the Holy See--Peter the Fuller at Antioch, Peter the Stammerer
+at Alexandria. He denied that the Pope was the supreme maintainer of
+discipline, by making the two great sees of the East and South subordinate
+to himself. As the Pope expressed it in his sentence, he had done
+"nefarious things against the whole Nicene constitution," of which the Pope
+was special guardian. In fact, his conduct was an imitation of that pursued
+in the preceding century by Eusebius of Nicomedia, by Eudoxius, and all
+their party. It was even carried out to its full completion. The emperor
+was made the head of the Church, on condition of his leading it through the
+bishop of Constantinople. Acacius put together the canon of the Council of
+381, which said that the bishop of New Rome should hold the second rank in
+the episcopate, because his city is New Rome, with the canon attempted to
+be passed at Chalcedon, and cashiered by St. Leo, that the fathers gave its
+privileges to Old Rome because it was the imperial city. Uniting the two,
+he constructed the conclusion, that as Old Rome had ceased to be the
+imperial city, which New Rome had actually become, the privileges of Old
+Rome had passed to the bishop of New Rome.
+
+This he expressed by removing the name of the Pope from the diptychs in
+answer to his sentence of degradation and excommunication. As the Pope
+could not suffer the conduct of Acacius, without ceasing to hold the
+universal pastorship of St. Peter, so Acacius could not submit to it
+without admitting that pastorship. He denied it in both its heads of faith
+and government by his conduct. He embodied that denial unmistakably in
+removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.
+
+To lay down a parity between the ecclesiastical privileges of the two sees,
+Rome and Constantinople, because their cities were both capitals, is
+implicitly to deny altogether the divine origin of ecclesiastical
+jurisdiction. That is, to deny that the Church is a divine polity at all.
+The conduct of Acacius was to bring that matter to an issue. The end of it
+will show whether he was right or wrong.
+
+He lived for five years, from 484 to 489, strong in the emperor's support,
+who did everything which he suggested. And he had his part as a counsellor,
+as well as a bishop, in one most important transaction, which took place in
+this interval. The reign of Zeno was disturbed by perpetual insurrections
+and perils. In these Theodorick the Goth had been of great service to him,
+so that in this year, 484, Zeno had made him consul at Rome. But Theodorick
+afterwards thought that Zeno had treated him very ill. He marched upon
+Constantinople: Zeno trembled on his throne. Something had to be done. What
+was done was to turn Theodorick's longing eyes upon the land possessing
+"the hapless dower of beauty".[46] Zeno commissioned him to turn Odoacer
+out, and to take his place. In 489, Theodorick led the great mass of his
+people into Italy, at the suggestion, and with the warrant of, the man whom
+Pope Felix had appealed to as his son, the Roman emperor and Christian
+prince. And so, as an emperor and a bishop of Constantinople, a hundred
+years before, had led the Gothic nation into the Arian heresy, under the
+belief that it was the Christian faith, another emperor of Constantinople
+and another bishop turned that Gothic nation upon the Roman mother and the
+See of Peter, regardless that they would thereby become temporal subjects
+of those who were possessed by the "Arian perfidy". Beside Eudoxius and
+Valens in history stand Acacius and Zeno; and beside Alaric, let loose with
+his warlike host by the younger sister on the elder in 410, stands
+Theodorick, commissioned, in 489, with all his people, to occupy
+permanently the birthplace of Roman empire.
+
+The eastern bishops[47] crouched before the emperor's power and his
+patriarch's intrigues, who deposed those who were not in his favour, and
+tyrannised over the greater number, so that many fled to the West. John
+Talaia himself, the expelled patriarch of Alexandria, received the
+bishopric of Nola from the Pope, to whom he had appealed. This continued to
+be the state of things during five years, from 484 to 489, when Acacius
+died, still under sentence of excommunication. One of the greatest bishops
+of his time, St. Avitus of Vienna, characterises him with the words,
+"Rather a timid lover than a public asserter of the opinion broached by
+Eutyches: he praised, indeed, what he had taken from him, but did not
+venture to preach it to a people still devout, and therefore unpolluted by
+it". Another equally great bishop, Ennodius of Ticinum--that is,
+Pavia--says: "He utterly surrendered the glory which he had gained, in
+combating Basiliscus, of maintaining the truth"; while the next Pope
+Gelasius charges him with intense pride; the effect of which was to leave
+to the Church "cause for the peaceful to mourn and the humble to weep".
+
+But all this evil had been wrought by Acacius, and upon his death it
+remained to be seen how his successor would act. He was succeeded by
+Fravita,[48] who, so far from maintaining the conduct of Acacius in
+excluding the name of Pope Felix from the diptychs, wished above all things
+to obtain the Pope's recognition. He would not even assume the government
+of his see without first receiving it. It was usual for patriarchs and
+exarchs to enter on their office immediately after election and
+consecration, before the recognition of the other patriarchs which they
+afterwards asked for by sending an embassy with their synodal letter. It
+seems Fravita would make no use of this right, but besought the Pope's
+confirmation in a very flattering letter. It would seem also that, by the
+death of Acacius, the emperor Zeno had been delivered from thraldom, and
+returned to some sentiment of justice. For he supported the letter of the
+new patriarch by one himself to the Pope, and it is from the Pope's extant
+answers[49] to these two writings that we learn some of their contents. To
+the emperor, the Pope replies that he knows not how to return sufficient
+thanks to the divine mercy for having inspired him with so great a care for
+religion as to prefer it to all public affairs, and to consider that the
+safety of the commonwealth is involved in it. That, desiring to confirm the
+unity of the Catholic faith and the peace of the churches, he should be
+anxious for the choice of a bishop who should be remarkable for personal
+uprightness and, above all things, for affection to the orthodox truth.
+That the Church has received in him such a son, and that the pontiff, in
+whose accession he rejoices, has already given an indication of his rule in
+referring the beginning of his dignity to the See of the Apostle Peter. For
+the newly-elected pontiff acknowledges in his letter that Peter is the
+chief of the Apostles and the Rock of the Faith: that the keys of the
+heavenly mysteries have been entrusted to him, and therefore seeks
+agreement with the Pope. Then, after enlarging upon the misdeeds of
+Acacius, and his rejection of the Council of Chalcedon, and his absolution
+of notorious heretics, the Pope beseeches the emperor to establish peace by
+giving up the defence of Acacius. "I do not extort this from you--as being,
+however unworthy, the Vicar of Peter--by the authority of apostolic power;
+but, as an anxious father earnestly desiring the prosperity of a son, I
+implore you. In me, his Vicar, how unworthy soever, the Apostle Peter
+speaks; and in him Christ, who suffers not the division of His own Church,
+beseeches you. Take from between us him who disturbs us: so may Christ, for
+the preservation of His Church's laws, multiply to you temporal things and
+bestow eternal."
+
+In his answer to Fravita, Pope Felix expresses the pleasure which his
+election gives, and the hope that it will bring about the peace of the
+Church. He takes his synodal letter as addressed to the Apostolic See,
+"through which, by the gift of Christ, the dignity of all bishops is made
+of one mass,"[50] as a token of good-will, inasmuch as his own letter
+confesses the Apostle Peter to be the head of the Apostles, the Rock of the
+Faith, and the dispenser of the heavenly mystery by the keys entrusted to
+him. He is the more encouraged because the orthodox monks formed part of
+the embassy. But when the Pope required a pledge from them that Fravita
+should renounce reciting the names of Peter the Stammerer and Acacius in
+the church, they replied that they had no instructions on that head. For
+this reason the Pope delayed to grant communion to Fravita, and he exhorts
+him, in the rest of the letter, not to let the misdeeds of Acacius stand in
+the way of the Church's peace. "Inform us then, as soon as possible, on
+this, that God may conclude what He has begun, and that, fully reconciled,
+we may agree together in the structure[51] of the body of Christ."
+
+Fravita died before he received the answer of the Pope, having occupied
+the see of Constantinople only three months, and out of communion with the
+Pope.
+
+It would seem that the first successor of Acacius as well as the emperor
+receded both from his act and the position which it involved. They
+acknowledged in their letters, as we learn from the Pope's recitation of
+their words, the dignity of the Apostolic See. What they were not willing
+to do was to give up the person of Acacius. What the subsequent patriarchs,
+Euphemius and Macedonius, alleged, was that he was so rooted in the minds
+of the people that they could not venture to condemn him by removing his
+name from commemoration in the diptychs.
+
+In 490, Euphemius followed in the see of Constantinople. He was devoted to
+the Council of Chalcedon, and ever honoured in the East as orthodox. He
+replaced the Pope's name in the diptychs, and renounced communion with
+Peter the Stammerer, who had again openly anathematised the Council of
+Chalcedon; only he refused to remove from the diptychs the names of his two
+predecessors. Pope Felix had written, on the 1st May, 490, to the
+archimandrite Thalassio,[52] not to enter into communion with the bishop
+who should succeed Fravita, even if he satisfied these demands respecting
+Acacius and Peter the Stammerer, unless with the express permission of the
+Roman See. This condition he maintained, acknowledging Euphemius as
+orthodox, but not as bishop, because he would not remove from the diptychs
+the names of two predecessors who had died outside of communion with the
+Roman See.
+
+Euphemius had himself subscribed the Henotikon of Zeno, without which the
+emperor would never have assented to his election; but he confirmed in a
+synod the Council of Chalcedon. When, in April, 491, Zeno died, and through
+the favour of his widow, the empress Ariadne, Anastasius obtained the
+throne in a very disturbed empire, the patriarch long refused to set the
+crown on his head, because he suspected him to favour the Eutychean heresy.
+The empress and the senate besought him in vain. He only consented when
+Anastasius gave him a written promise to accept the decrees of Chalcedon as
+the rule of faith, and to permit no innovation in Church matters. On this
+condition he was crowned: but emperor and patriarch continued at variance.
+The emperor tried to escape from his promise in order to maintain Zeno's
+Henotikon, which he thought the best policy among the many factions of the
+East. Euphemius was in the most unhappy position with the monks, who would
+not acknowledge him because he was out of communion with the Pope on
+account of Acacius.
+
+Pope Felix, having all but completed nine years of a pontificate, in which
+he showed the greatest fortitude in the midst of the severest temporal
+abandonment, died in February, 492. Italy then had been torn to pieces for
+three years by the conflict between Odoacer and Theodorick. Gondebald, king
+of the Burgundians, had cruelly ravaged Liguria. Then it was that bishops
+began to build fortresses for the defence of their peoples. The Church of
+Africa was in the utmost straits under the cruelty of Hunneric. Pope
+Gelasius succeeded on the 1st March, 492. His pontificate lasted four years
+and eight months; during the whole course of which his extant letters show
+that he was no less exposed to temporal abandonment than Felix, and no less
+courageous in maintaining the pastorship of Peter.
+
+But the death of the emperor Zeno in 491, and the death of Pope Felix III.
+ten months afterwards, in 492, require us to make a short retrospect of the
+temporal condition of empire and Church at this time. Zeno, receiving the
+empire at the death of his young son by Ariadne, Leo II., in 474, had
+reigned seventeen years, if we comprise therein the twenty months during
+which the throne was occupied by the insurgent Basiliscus from 475 to 477,
+precisely at the moment when Odoacer terminated the western empire. Zeno,
+recovering the throne in 477, had acted as a Catholic during about four
+years. Pope Simplicius had warmly congratulated him on the recovery of the
+empire on the 8th October of that year. In 478, the Pope had thanked
+Acacius for informing him that the right patriarch, Timotheus Solofaciolus,
+had been restored at Alexandria. But from 482 all is altered. The chronicle
+of Zeno's reign becomes a catalogue of misfortunes. The publication of his
+Formulary of Union is a gross attack upon the spiritual independence of the
+Church. He imposes it upon the eastern bishops on pain of expulsion. He
+puts open heretics into the sees of Alexandria and Antioch. All this is
+done under the advice and instigation of Acacius, who is the real author of
+the Henotikon, and who completes his acts by open defiance of Pope Felix.
+When Zeno died he left the empire a prey to every misery. In Italy, Herules
+and Ostrogoths were desperately contending for the possession of the
+country. Barbarians beyond the Danube incessantly threatened the
+north-eastern frontiers. There was no truce with them but at the cost of
+incessant payments and every sort of degradation. Egypt and Syria were torn
+to pieces by the Eutychean heresy. The infamous surrender of Italy to
+Theodorick in 488 has been touched upon. By that the support which the
+Ostrogothic king had given to keep Zeno on a tottering throne, followed by
+the terror which his discontent had caused at Constantinople, purchased
+from the Roman emperor himself the sacrifice of Rome and all the land from
+the Alps to the sea. Such was the man with whom the Popes Simplicius and
+Felix had to deal. To him it was that, from a Rome which drew its breath
+under an Arian Herule, the commander of adventurers who sold their swords
+for hire, these Popes wrote those letters full of Christian charity and
+apostolic liberty which have been quoted.
+
+When Zeno died in 491, he was attended to the grave by the contempt of his
+own wife and the malediction of the people, whom his cruelty, debauchery,
+and perfidy had alienated. I take from an ancient Greek document[53] a
+note of what followed. "When Zeno died, Anastasius succeeded to his wife
+and the empire; and he assembled an heretical council in Constantinople on
+account of the holy Council of Chalcedon, in which, by subjecting Euphemius
+to numberless calumnies, he banished him beyond Armenia, and put in the see
+the most blessed Macedonius. Macedonius called an upright council, and
+expressly ratified the decrees of faith passed at Chalcedon; but through
+fear of Anastasius he passed over in silence the Henotikon of Zeno." "When
+now Peter the Fuller was cast out of Antioch, Palladius succeeded to the
+see. And when he died Flavian accepted the Henotikon of Zeno; and he
+expressly confirmed the three holy Ecumenical Councils, but to please the
+emperor he passed over in silence that of Chalcedon. Now the emperor
+Anastasius sent order by the tribune Eutropius to Flavian and Elias of
+Jerusalem to hold a council in Sidon, and to anathematise the holy Council
+of Chalcedon. But Elias dismissed this without effect; for which the
+emperor was very indignant with the patriarchs. But when Flavian returned
+to Antioch, certain apostate monks, vehement partisans of the folly of
+Eutyches, assembled a robber council, ejected and banished Flavian, and put
+Severus in his stead. He, called the Independent,[54] set out with two
+hundred apostate monks from Eleutheropolis for Constantinople, muttering
+threats against Macedonius. Now this man without conscience had sworn to
+Anastasius never to move against the holy Council of Chalcedon: he broke
+the oath, and anathematised it with an infamous council. So the emperor
+Anastasius had involved Macedonius of Constantinople in many accusations
+and expelled him from his see, and banished him to Gangra. Not long after,
+having sent away both him and his predecessor Euphemius, under pretence
+that the patriarchs had arranged with each other to take refuge with the
+Goths, he slew them with the sword. But the heretic Timotheus, surnamed
+Kolon and Litroboulos,[55] he gave to the Church as being of one mind with
+himself and obedient to his counsels. This man called a most impious synod,
+and lifted up his heel against the holy Council of Chalcedon. In agreement
+with Severus, they sent their synodical letters together to Jerusalem.
+These not being received kindled Anastasius to anger. So he banished Elias
+from the holy city to Evila and put John in his see, and sent thither the
+synodical acts of Severus and Timotheus."
+
+The emperor Anastasius, whose dealings with the eastern patriarchs in his
+empire are thus described, reigned for 27 years, from 491 to 518. It is to
+him that, in the long contest which we are following, the four Popes,
+Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus, and Hormisdas, have to direct their
+letters, their exhortations, and their admonitions. During the whole of
+this time, from 493, when the conflict between Odoacer and Theodorick is
+terminated, they will have exchanged the local rule of the Arian Herule for
+that of the Arian Ostrogoth. All write under what a pope of our own day has
+called "hostile domination". They write from the Lateran Patriarcheium,
+not, as St. Leo I., under the guardianship of one branch of the Theodosian
+house at Rome to another branch at Constantinople, but to eastern emperors,
+the first of their line who openly assume the right to dictate to Catholics
+what they are to believe. Zeno, Basiliscus, and Anastasius found
+patriarchs, who could sanction by their subscription much greater
+violations of all Christian right than St. Athanasius had denounced in
+Constantius, and St. Basil in Valens. They found, also, five Popes in
+succession, living themselves "under hostile domination," who resisted
+their tyranny, and saved both the doctrine and the discipline of the
+Church. Without these Popes it is plain that the Council of Chalcedon would
+have been given up in the East, and the Eutychean heresy made the doctrine
+of the eastern Church.
+
+We have seen the courageous act of the patriarch Euphemius in refusing
+absolutely to crown Anastasius, whom he suspected to be an Eutychean, until
+he had received a written declaration from him that he would maintain the
+Council of Chalcedon. In the first three years of his reign, Anastasius
+gained popularity by enacting wise laws, and by removing a severe and
+detested tax, so that, in the words of the ancient biographer of St.
+Theodore, "what was to become a field of destruction appeared a paradise of
+pleasure".[56]
+
+As soon as Gelasius became Pope, Euphemius sent him, according to custom,
+synodal letters. He assured the Pope of his true faith. He recognised in
+him the divinely appointed head of the Church. We have the answer of the
+Pope to his letter, and as this recognition on the part of the bishop
+immediately following Acacius is all-important, it will be well to quote
+the very words which show it.[57] "You have read," writes Pope Gelasius to
+Euphemius, "the sentence, 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word
+of God'; that word, for instance, by which He promised that the gates of
+hell should never prevail over the confession of the blessed Apostle Peter.
+And, therefore, you thought, with reason, because God is faithful in His
+words, unless He had promised to institute some such thing, He would not
+bring about a true fulfilment of His promise. Then you say that we, by the
+grace of the Divine Providence, as He (_i.e._, Christ) pointed out, do not
+fail in charity to the holy churches because Christ has placed me in the
+pontifical seat, not needing, as he says, to be taught, but understanding
+all things necessary for the unity of the Church's body. I, indeed,
+personally, am the least of all men, most unworthy for the office of such a
+see, except that supernal grace ever works great things out of small. For
+what should I think of myself, when the Teacher of the nations declares
+himself the last, and not worthy to be called an apostle. But to return to
+your words; if you have with truth ascertained that these gifts have been
+conferred on me by God, which, whatever goods they are, are gifts of God,
+follow then the exhortation of one who needs not to be taught, of one who,
+by supernal disposition, keeps watch over all things which touch the unity
+of the churches, and, as you assert, offers a bold resistance to the devil,
+the disturber of true peace and the structure which contains it. If, then,
+you pronounce that I am in possession of such privileges, you must either
+follow what you assert to be Christ's appointment, or, which God forbid,
+show yourself openly to resist the ordinances of Christ, or you throw out
+such things about me for the pleasure of making a show."[58]
+
+Euphemius[59] complained that the election of the new Pope had not been
+communicated to him, as was usual. He besought indulgence in respect of the
+conditions imposed on him, since the people of Constantinople would not
+endure the expulsion of Acacius from the diptychs. The Pope should rather
+forgive the dead, and himself write to the people. To this the Pope
+replied: "Truly that was an old Church rule with our fathers, by whom the
+one Catholic and apostolic communion was preserved free from every
+pollution by those who desired it. But now, when you prefer strange
+companionship before the return to a pure and blameless union with St.
+Peter, how should we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? How should we
+offer the old bond of the apostolic ordinance to men who belong to another
+communion, and prefer to it, according to your own testimony, condemned
+heretics." Euphemius, then, is inconsistent: he must either admit to his
+own communion all who are in communion with heretics, or remove all. The
+excuse of necessity and fear of the people will not stand, and is unworthy
+of a bishop, who has to lead his people, not to be led by them; who has to
+account to God for his flock, while his flock have not to account for him.
+If Euphemius is afraid of men, the Pope is more afraid, but it is of the
+judgment of God.
+
+But while, immediately after the death of Acacius, his successors, Fravita
+and Euphemius, were renouncing his pretensions, at the same time that they
+would not surrender his person, it is well to see how the bishops of
+eastern Illyricum, subjects of the emperor Anastasius, addressed the Pope
+upon his accession.
+
+"Holy apostolic Lord and most blessed Father of fathers, we have received
+with becoming reverence the wholesome precepts of your apostolate, and
+return the greatest thanks to Almighty God and your Blessedness that you
+have deigned to visit us with pastoral admonition and evangelic teaching.
+For it is our desire and prayer to obey your injunctions in all things,
+and, as we have received from our fathers, to maintain without stain the
+precepts of the Apostolic See, which your life and merits have inherited,
+and to keep the orthodox religion, which you preach, with faithful and
+blameless devotion, so far as our rude perception allows. For, even before
+your injunction, we had avoided the communion of Peter, Acacius, and all
+his followers, as pestilent contagion; and much more now, after the
+admonition of the Holy See, must we abstain from that pollution. And if
+there be any others, who have followed, or shall follow, the sect of
+Eutyches or Peter and Acacius, or have anything to do with their
+accomplices and associates, they are to be entirely avoided by us, who seek
+a blameless obedience to the Apostolic See according to the divine commands
+and the statutes of the fathers. And if there be any, which we neither
+suppose nor desire, who, with bad intention, think it their duty to
+separate from the Apostolic See, we abjure their company, for, as we said,
+guarding in all things the precepts of the fathers, and following the
+inviolable rules of the holy canons, we strive with a common faith and
+devotion to obey that of your apostolic and singular see ... and we beg
+your apostolate to send us some one from your angelical see, that in his
+presence arrangements may be made, according to the orthodox faith, and the
+fulfilling of your command."[60]
+
+Several letters of Gelasius show that the privileges claimed by the
+Byzantine archbishop came frequently into discussion in the contest
+respecting the retention of the name of Acacius in the diptychs. Thus he
+finds it monstrous that they allege canons against which they are shown to
+have always acted by their illicit ambition. "They[61] object canons to
+us, not knowing what they say, for these they break by the very fact that
+they decline to obey the first see when it gives sound and good advice. It
+is the canons themselves which order appeals of the whole Church to be
+brought to the examination of this see. But they have never sanctioned
+appeal from it. Thus it is to judge of the whole Church, but itself to go
+before no judgment. Never have they enjoined judgment to be passed on its
+judgment; but have made its sentence indissoluble, as its decrees are to be
+followed.... Should the bishop of Constantinople, who according to the
+canons holds no rank among bishops, not be deposed when he falls into
+communion with false believers?" No place among bishops, because the canon
+of 381 and the canons of 451 had not been received. Thus, in his great
+letter[62] to all the Illyrian bishops, he asks: "Of what see was he
+bishop? Of what metropolitan church was he the prelate? Was it not of a
+church the suffragan of Heraclea? We laugh at the claim of a prerogative
+for Acacius because he was bishop of the imperial city. Did not the emperor
+often hold his court at Ravenna, at Milan, at Sirmium, at Treves? Did the
+bishops of these cities ever claim to themselves a dignity beyond the
+measure of that which had descended to them from ancient times? Can Acacius
+show that he acted by any council in excluding from Alexandria John, a
+Catholic consecrated by Catholics; in putting in Peter, a detected and
+condemned heretic, without consulting the Apostolic See? In boldly
+assuming the power to expel Calendion from Antioch, and, without knowledge
+of the Apostolic See, put in again the heretic Peter, who had been
+condemned by himself? Certainly if the rank of cities is considered, that
+of the bishops of the second and third see is greater than that of the see
+which not only holds no rank among bishops, but has not even the rights of
+a metropolitan. The power of the secular kingdom is one thing, the
+distribution of ecclesiastical dignities is another. The smallness of a
+city does not diminish the rank of a king residing in it; nor does the
+imperial presence change the measure of religious rank. Let that city be
+renowned for the power of the actual empire; but the strength, the liberty,
+the advance of religion under it consists in religion holding its own
+undisturbed measure in the presence of that power." Then he refers to the
+fact how, forty years before, the emperor Marcian himself interceded with
+Pope Leo to increase the dignity of that see, but could obtain nothing
+against the rules; and then gave the highest praise to St. Leo, because
+nothing would induce him to violate the canons, and to the other fact that
+Anatolius, himself bishop of Constantinople, confessed that it was rather
+his clergy than himself who made this attempt, and that all lay in the
+power of the Apostolic See. And, thirdly, did not St. Leo, who confirmed
+the Council of Chalcedon, annul in it whatever was done beyond the Nicene
+canons? If it was said that, in the case of the bishops of Alexandria and
+of Antioch, it was rather the emperor who had acted than Acacius, should
+not a bishop suggest to a Christian prince, whose favour he enjoyed to the
+utmost, that he should suffer the Church to keep her own rules, and
+judgment on bishops should be given by bishops in council. If a bishop was
+the greater for being bishop of the imperial city, should he not be the
+more courageous in suggesting the right course? Then he quotes Nathan
+before David, and St. Ambrose before Theodosius, and St. Leo reproving the
+second Theodosius for excess of power in the case of the Latrocinium of
+Ephesus; and Pope Hilarus reproving the emperor Anthemius, and Pope
+Simplicius and Pope Felix resisting not only the tyrant Basiliscus, but the
+emperor Zeno, and they would have succeeded if he had not been urged on by
+the bishop of Constantinople. "And we also," adds the Pope, "when Odoacer,
+the barbarian and heretic, held the kingdom of Italy, when he commanded us
+to do wrong things, by the help of God, as is well known, did not obey
+him."
+
+In this same letter the Pope uses the following words: "We are confident
+that no one truly a Christian is ignorant that the first see, above all
+others, is bound to execute the decree of every council which the assent of
+the universal Church has approved; for it confirms every council by its
+authority, and maintains it by its continued rule, in virtue of its own
+principate which the blessed Apostle Peter received by the voice of the
+Lord, but continues to hold and retain by the Church subsequently following
+it".
+
+Pope Gelasius had in vain striven to gain the emperor Anastasius. After the
+return of his legates, Faustus and Irenæus, who had gone in the embassy of
+Theodorick to Constantinople, he wrote to the emperor, in the year 494, a
+famous letter,[63] warning him to defend the Catholic faith, which
+Anastasius had not yet openly deserted, nor professed himself an Eutychean.
+In it he says: "Glorious son, as a Roman born, I love, I reverence, I
+receive you as Roman emperor: as holder, however unworthy, of the Apostolic
+See, I endeavour as best I can to supply by opportune suggestions whatever
+I find wanting to the complete Catholic faith. For a dispensation of the
+divine word has been laid upon me; woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!
+Since the blessed Apostle Paul, the vessel of election, in his fear thus
+cries out, how much more have I in my smallness to fear if I shrink from
+the ministry of preaching inspired by God, and transmitted to me by the
+devotion of the fathers? I entreat your piety not to take for arrogance the
+execution of a divine duty.[64] Let not a Roman prince esteem the
+intimation of truth in its proper sense an injury. Two, then, O emperor,
+there are by whom this world is ruled in chief--the sacred authority of
+pontiffs and the royal power. Of these that of priests weighs the heavier,
+insomuch as they will have in the divine judgment to render an account for
+kings themselves. For you know, most gracious son, that pre-eminent as you
+are in dignity over the human race, you nevertheless bow the neck
+submissively to those who preside over things divine. From them you seek
+the terms of salvation; and you recognise that it is your duty in the
+order of religion to submit rather than to command in what concerns the
+reception and the distribution of heavenly sacraments. As to these matters,
+then, you know that you depend on their judgment, and do not wish them to
+be controlled by your will. For if, in what regards the order of public
+discipline, the ministers of religion, recognising that empire has been
+conferred on you by a disposition from above, obey your laws, lest they
+should appear to oppose a sentence issued merely in worldly matters, with
+what affection ought you to obey those who are appointed for the
+distribution of venerable mysteries? Moreover, as no slight responsibility
+lies upon pontiffs, if in the worship of God they are silent as to what is
+fitting, so for rulers it is no slight danger if, when bound to obey, they
+show contempt. And if the hearts of the faithful should submit as a general
+rule to all bishops when rightly treating divine things, how much more is
+consent to be given to the prelate of that see whom the will of God Himself
+has made pre-eminent over all bishops, and the piety of the whole Church
+continuously following it out has acknowledged?[65] Herein you evidently
+perceive that no one by mere human counsel can ever raise himself to the
+privilege or confession of him whom the voice of Christ set over all, whom
+the Church we venerate has always confessed and devotedly holds to be her
+Primate. Human presumption may attack the appointments of divine judgment;
+but no power can succeed in overthrowing them. Do not, I entreat, be angry
+with me if I love you so well as to wish you to possess for ever the
+kingdom which has been given to you in time, and that, having empire in the
+world, you should reign with Christ. You do not allow anything to perish in
+your own laws, nor loss to be inflicted on the Roman name. With what face
+will you ask of Him rewards _there_ whose losses _here_ you do not prevent?
+One is my dove, my perfect is one; one is the Christian, which is the
+Catholic faith. There is no cause why one should allow any contagion to
+creep in; for 'he who offends in one is guilty of all,' and 'he who
+despises small things perishes by little and little'. This is that against
+which the Apostolic See provides with the utmost care. For since the
+Apostle's glorious confession is the root of the world, it must not be
+touched by any rift of pravity, nor suffer the least spot. For if--may God
+avert a thing which we are sure is impossible--any such thing were to
+happen, how could we resist any error?--how could we correct those who err?
+If you declare that the people of one city cannot be composed to peace,
+what should we make of the whole world's universe were it deceived by our
+prevarication? The series of canons coming down from our fathers, and a
+multifold tradition, establish that the authority of the Apostolic See is
+set for all Christian ages over the whole Church. O emperor, if anyone made
+any attempt against the public laws, you could not endure it; do you think
+it is of no concern to your conscience that the people subject to you may
+purely and sincerely worship God? Lastly, if it is thought that the feeling
+of the people of one city should not be offended by the due correction of
+divine things, how much more neither may we, nor can we, by offence of
+divine things injure the faith of all who bear the Catholic name?"
+
+How distinctly, and with what unfaltering conviction, the Pope of 494, then
+locally a subject of Theodorick the Arian, set forth to the emperor at
+Constantinople the universal authority of the Holy See, grounded on what he
+calls the Apostle's glorious confession, on which followed the Divine Word
+creating his office, is apparent through the whole of this magnificent
+letter. Moreover, the distinction of the Two Powers and the character of
+their relation to each other, and the divine character of each as a
+delegation from God, solemnly uttered by the Pope Gelasius in 494 to the
+Roman emperor so unworthy of the rank which the Pope recognised in him,
+have passed into the law and practice of the Church during the 1400 years
+which have since run out, and will form part of it for ever. Anastasius
+disregarded all that the Pope said. He persecuted to the utmost his bishop
+Euphemius, because, though not admitted to communion by the Pope, inasmuch
+as he refused to erase from the diptychs the name of Acacius, he yet
+vigorously maintained the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon. At length
+the emperor, having ended his Isaurian wars and sufficiently strengthened
+the Monophysite party, succeeded in deposing him in 496. His instruments
+in this were the cowardly court bishops,[66] ready to be moved to anything,
+who had also on this occasion to confirm the Henotikon of Zeno. Euphemius
+was banished to Paphlagonia. The people rioted in the circus and demanded
+his restoration, but in vain. However, they always venerated him as a
+saint. While the emperor Anastasius was deposing at Constantinople the
+bishop who withstood and reproved his conduct in supporting the Eutychean
+heresy, while also he was compelling the resident council not only to
+depose the bishop, but to confirm the document, originally drawn up by
+Acacius, forced upon the bishops of his empire by Zeno, and now again
+forced upon them by Anastasius, Gelasius was holding a council of seventy
+bishops at Rome. What he enacted there synodically is a proof of the
+entirely different spirit which prevailed in the independent West. Here
+Pope and bishops alike were living under hostile domination, that of Arian
+governments, but they were not crouching before the throne of a despot. The
+Pope and the bishops passed at the synod of 496 the following decrees:
+
+"After the writings of the Prophets, the gospels, and the Apostles, on
+which by the grace of God the Catholic Church is founded, this also we have
+judged fit to be expressed: Although all the Catholic churches spread
+throughout the world are the one bridal-chamber of Christ, nevertheless the
+holy Roman Church has been set over all other churches, by no constitution
+of a council, but obtained the Primacy by the voice of our Lord in the
+Gospel: 'Thou art Peter,' &c.
+
+"To whom was also given the companionship of the most blessed Apostle Paul,
+the vessel of election, who, not at another time, as heretics battle, but
+on one and the same day with Peter combating in the city of Rome under the
+emperor Nero, was crowned. And they consecrated this holy Roman Church to
+Christ the Lord, and by their presence and worshipful triumph set it over
+all the churches in the world.
+
+"First, therefore, is the Roman Church, the see of the Apostle Peter,
+having neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing.
+
+"Second is the see consecrated at Alexandria in the name of blessed Peter
+by Mark, his disciple, the Evangelist. And he, sent by the Apostle Peter to
+Egypt, preached the word of truth, and consummated a glorious martyrdom.
+
+"Third is the see of the same most blessed Apostle Peter held in honour at
+Antioch, because there he dwelt before he came to Rome, and there first the
+name of Christian was given to the new people.
+
+"And though no other foundation can be laid, save that which is laid, Jesus
+Christ, yet the said Roman Church, after those writings of the Old or New
+Testament, which we receive according to rule, does also not prohibit the
+following: that is, the holy Nicene Council, of three hundred and eighteen
+fathers, held under the emperor Constantine; the holy Council of Ephesus,
+in which Nestorius was condemned, with the consent of Pope Coelestine,
+under Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, and Arcadius, sent from Italy; the holy
+Council of Chalcedon, held under the emperor Marcian and Anatolius, bishop
+of Constantinople, in which the Nestorian and Eutychean heresies were
+condemned, with Dioscorus and his accomplices."[67]
+
+Thus, twelve years after the attempt of Acacius to set himself up
+independent of Rome, and while his next two successors were soliciting the
+recognition of Rome, but at the same time were refusing to surrender his
+person to condemnation, a Council at Rome pulled down the whole scaffolding
+on which the pretension of Acacius had been built.
+
+For while this council omitted from the list of councils acknowledged to be
+general that held at Constantinople in 381, it likewise proclaimed the
+falsity of the ground alleged in the canon passed in that council, which
+gave to Constantinople the second rank in the episcopate because it was New
+Rome, which canon again was enlarged by the attempt at the Council of
+Chalcedon to put upon the world the positive falsehood asserted in the
+rejected 28th canon, that the fathers had given its privileges to the Roman
+See because it was the imperial city.
+
+The significance of this decree at such a time cannot be exaggerated. While
+the emperor's own Church and bishop are separated by a schism from the
+Pope, while the Pope recognises the emperor as the sole "Roman prince," and
+in that capacity speaks of him as "pre-eminent in dignity over the human
+race," he states at the head of a council, in the most peremptory terms,
+that the Principate of Rome is of divine institution, _not_ the
+constitution of any council. The decree thus passed is a formal
+contradiction of the 28th canon which St. Leo had, forty years before,
+rejected.
+
+When we come to the termination of the schism this fact is to be borne in
+mind as being accepted voluntarily by those whom it specially concerned,
+and whose actions during a hundred years immediately preceding it
+condemned. For the decree, besides, does not acknowledge the see of
+Constantinople as patriarchal. Acacius had been appointing those who were
+really patriarchs: here his own pretended patriarchate is shown to be an
+infringement on the ancient order of the Church. Here the Pope in synod, as
+before in his letter to the Illyrian bishops, declares of the see of
+Constantinople that "it holds no rank among bishops".
+
+And, again, the Roman Council, in all its wording, censures the bishops who
+had been so weak as to accept a decree upon the faith of the Church from
+the hand of emperors, first the usurper Basiliscus, then Zeno, and at the
+time itself Anastasius. And under this censure lay not only Acacius, but
+the three following bishops of Constantinople--Fravita, Euphemius, and
+Macedonius. For though the last two were firm enough to suffer deposition,
+and afterwards death, for the faith of Chalcedon, they were not firm enough
+to refuse the emperor's imposition of an imperial standard in doctrine, the
+acceptance of which would have destroyed the essential liberty of the
+Church.
+
+Two months after the violent deposition of Euphemius at Constantinople,
+Pope Gelasius closed a pontificate of less than five years, in which he
+resisted the wickedness and tyranny of Anastasius, as Pope Felix had
+resisted the like in Zeno. Space has allowed me to quote but a few passages
+of the noble letters which he has left to the treasury of the Church. It
+may be noted that with his pontificate closes the period of about twenty
+years, from 476 to 496, in which no single ruler of East or West, great or
+small, professed the Catholic faith. The eastern emperors were Eutychean;
+the new western rulers Arian, save when they were pagan. The next year the
+conversion of Clovis, with his Franks, opens a new series of events. We may
+allow Gelasius,[68] in his letter to Rusticus, bishop of Lyons, to express
+the character of his time. "Your charity, most loving brother, has brought
+us great consolation in the midst of that whirlwind of calamities and
+temptations under which we are almost sunk. We will not weary you by
+writing how straitened we have been. Our brother Epiphanius (bishop of
+Ticinum or Pavia) will inform you how great is the persecution we bear on
+account of the most impious Acacius. But we do not faint. Under such
+pressure neither courage fails nor zeal. Distressed and straitened as we
+are, we trust in Him who with the trial will find an issue, and if He
+allows us for a time to be oppressed, will not allow us to be overwhelmed.
+Dearest brother, see that your affection, and that of yours, to us, or
+rather to the Apostolic See, fail not, for they who are fixed into the Rock
+with the Rock shall be exalted."[69]
+
+NOTES:
+
+[29] See Philips, _Kirchenrecht_, vol. iii., sec. 119.
+
+[30] Tillemont, xvi. 68.
+
+[31] Simplicii, _Ep._ viii.; Photius, i. 115.
+
+[32] Pope Gelasius, 13th letter.
+
+[33] Mansi, vii. 1032-6; Jaffé, 359.
+
+[34] Mansi, vii. 1028; Jaffé, 360.
+
+[35] Photius, i. 123, translated.
+
+[36] Mansi, vii. 1065; Baronius (anno 484), 17; Jaffé, 364.
+
+[37] It is to be observed that the Pope calls his judgment the Judgment of
+the Holy Ghost, just as Pope Clement I. did in the first recorded judgment.
+See his letter, secs. 58, 59, 63, quoted in _Church and State_, 198-199.
+
+[38] Photius, i. 124.
+
+[39] Mansi, vii. 1139; Baronius (anno 484), 26, 27.
+
+[40] Domini sacerdotes.
+
+[41] Jaffé, 365; Mansi, vii. 1065.
+
+[42] iv. 16.
+
+[43] Silentiarius, in the Greek court, officers who kept silence in the
+emperor's presence.
+
+[44] _Ep._ x.; Mansi, vii. 1067.
+
+[45] "The recital of a name in the diptychs was a formal declaration of
+Church fellowship, or even a sort of canonisation and invocation. It was
+contrary to all Church principles to permit in them the name of anyone
+condemned by the Church."--_Life of Photius_, i. 133, by Card.
+Hergenröther.
+
+[46]                   "Cui feo la dote
+    Dono infelice di bellezza, ond' hai
+    Funesta dote d'infinite guai."
+                          --_Filicaja._
+
+[47] Photius, i. 128, who quotes Avitus, 3rd letter, and Ennodius, and
+Gelasius, _Ep._ xiii.
+
+[48] Photius, i. 126; Hefele, _C.G._, ii. 596.
+
+[49] Jaffé, 371, 372; Mansi, vii. 1097; vii. 1100.
+
+[50] Dum scilicet ad Apostolicam Sedem regulariter destinatur, per quam
+_largiente Christo omnium solidatur dignitas sacerdotum_. Quod ipsæ
+dilectionis tuæ literæ Apostolorum summum petramque fidei et cælestis
+dispensatorem mysterii creditis sibi clavibus beatum Petrum Apostolum
+confitentur.
+
+[51] In compage corporis Christi consentire.
+
+[52] Jaffé, 374; Mansi, vii. 1103.
+
+[53] The "libellus synodicus," says Hefele, _C.G._, i. 70, "auch synodicon
+genannt, enthält kurze Nachrichten über 158 Concilien der 9 ersten
+Jahrhunderte, und reicht bis zum 8ten allgemeinen Concil incl. Er wurde im
+16ten Jahrhundert von Andreas Darmarius aus Morea gebracht, von Pappus,
+einem Strasburger Theologen, gekauft, und von ihm im I. 1601 mit
+lateinischer Uebersetzung zuerst edirt. Später ging er auch in die
+Conciliensammlungen ueber; namentlich liess ihn Harduin im 5ten Bande
+seiner Collect. Concil. p. 1491 abdrücken, während Mansi ihn in seine
+einzelnen Theile zerlegte, und jeden derselben an der zutreffenden Stelle
+(bei jeder einzelnen Synode) mittheilte."
+
+[54] akephalos.
+
+[55] Words of infamous meaning.
+
+[56] Civiltà, vol. iii., 1855, p. 429. Acta SS. Jan. XI.
+
+[57] Mansi, viii. 5. _Ep._ i.
+
+[58] Ad veniam luxuriæ de me cognosceris ista jactare.
+
+[59] See Photius, i. 129-130. Civiltà Cattolica, vol. iii., 1855, pp.
+524-5.
+
+[60] Mansi, viii. 13. Rescriptum episcoporum Dardaniæ ad Gelasium Papam.
+
+[61] _Ep._ iv. _ad Faustum_; Mansi, viii. 17.
+
+[62] _Ep._ xiii. _Valde mirati sumus_; Mansi, viii. 49.
+
+[63] Mansi, viii. 30-5.
+
+[64] Ne arrogantiam judices divinæ rationis officium.
+
+[65] Quem cunctis sacerdotibus et Divinitas summa voluit præeminere, et
+subsequens Ecclesiæ generalis jugiter pietas celebravit.
+
+[66] Photius, 134; Hefele, _C.G._, ii. 597.
+
+[67] Hefele, _C.G._, ii. 597-605, has most carefully considered the text
+and the date of the Council of 496. I have followed him in his choice of
+the text of the best manuscripts, and inasmuch as the biblical canon--the
+same as that held in the African Church about 393--seems to have been
+confirmed by Pope Hormisdas somewhat later, I have not made use of it in
+this place.
+
+[68] _Epist._ xviii.
+
+[69] Qui enim in petra solidabuntur cum petra exaltabuntur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PETER STOOD UP.
+
+
+Seven days after the death of Gelasius, Anastasius, a Roman, ascended the
+apostolic throne, which he held from November, 496, to November, 498. We
+have two letters from him extant, both important. In that addressed upon
+his own accession, which he sent to the emperor Anastasius by the hands of
+Germanus, bishop of Capua, and Cresconius, bishop of Trent, on occasion of
+Theodorick's embassy for the purpose of obtaining the title of king, he
+strove to preserve the "Roman prince" from the Eutychean heresy.
+
+"I announce to you the beginning of my pontificate, and consider it a token
+of the divine favour that I bear the same as your own august name. This is
+an assurance that, like as your own name is pre-eminent among all the
+nations in the world, so by my humble ministry the See of St. Peter, as
+always, may hold the Principate assigned to it by the Lord God in the whole
+Church. We therefore discharge a delegated office in the name of
+Christ."[70] After beseeching the emperor that the name of Acacius should
+be effaced, in which he is carrying out the judgment of his predecessor,
+Pope Felix, he mentions the full instructions given to his legates, in
+order that the emperor might plainly see how, in that matter, the sentence
+of the Apostolic See had not proceeded from pride, but rather had been
+extorted by zeal for God as the result of certain crimes. "This we declare
+to you, in virtue of our apostolic office, through special love for your
+empire, that, as is fitting, and the Holy Spirit orders, obedience be
+yielded to our warning, that every blessing may follow your government. Let
+not your piety despise my frequent suggestion, having before your eyes the
+words of our Lord, 'He who hears you, hears Me: and he who despises you,
+despises Me: and he who despises Me, despises Him who sent Me'. In which
+the Apostle agrees with our Saviour, saying, 'He who despises these things,
+despises not man but God, who has given us His Holy Spirit'. Your breast is
+the sanctuary of public happiness, that through your excellency, whom God
+has ordered to rule on earth as His Vicar, not the resistance of hard pride
+be offered to the evangelic and apostolic commands, but an obedience which
+carries safety with it."
+
+The Pope, then, standing alone in the world, and locally the subject of
+Theodorick the Goth, makes the position of the Roman emperor in the world,
+and the Pope in the Church, parallel to each other. Both are divine
+legations. The Pope, speaking on divine things, claims obedience as
+uttering the will of the Holy Spirit, which Pope Anastasius asserts, just
+as Pope Clement I., five hundred years before, had asserted it, in the
+first pastoral letter which we possess. He, living on sufferance in Rome,
+asserts it to the despotic ruler of an immense empire, throned at
+Constantinople, in reference to a bishop of Constantinople, whose name he
+requires the emperor to erase from the sacred records of the Church as a
+condition of communion with the Apostolic See.
+
+This letter was directed to the East, the other belongs to the West, and
+records an event which was to affect the whole temporal order of things in
+that vast mass of territories already occupied by the northern tribes. On
+Christmas day of the year 496, that is, one month after the accession of
+Pope Anastasius, the haughty Sicambrian bent his head to receive the holy
+oil from St. Remigius, to worship that which he had burnt, and to burn that
+which he had worshipped. Clovis, chief of the Franks, and a number of his
+warriors with him, were baptised in the name of the most holy Trinity,
+never having been subject to the Arian heresy. Upon that event, the Holy
+See no longer stood alone, and the ring of Arian heresy surrounding it was
+broken for ever. The words of the Pope are these:
+
+"Glorious son, we rejoice that your beginning in the Christian faith
+coincides with ours in the pontificate. For the See of Peter, on such an
+occasion, cannot but rejoice when it beholds the fulness of the nations
+come together to it with rapid pace, and time after time the net be filled,
+which the same Fisherman of men and blessed Doorkeeper of the heavenly
+Jerusalem was bidden to cast into the deep. This we have wished to signify
+to your serenity by the priest Eumerius, that, when you hear of the joy of
+the father in your good works, you may fulfil our rejoicing, and be our
+crown, and mother Church may exult at the proficiency of so great a king,
+whom she has just borne to God. Therefore, O glorious and illustrious son,
+rejoice your mother, and be to her as a pillar of iron. For the charity of
+many waxes cold, and by the craftiness of evil men our bark is tossed in
+furious waves, and lashed by their foaming waters. But we hope in hope
+against hope, and praise the Lord, who has delivered thee from the power of
+darkness, and made provision for the Church in so great a prince, who may
+be her defender, and put on the helmet of salvation against all the efforts
+of the infected. Go on, therefore, beloved and glorious son, that Almighty
+God may follow with heavenly protection your serenity and your realm, and
+command His angels to guard you in all your ways and to give you victory
+over your enemies round about you."[71]
+
+Towards the end of the sixth century, the Gallic bishop, St. Gregory of
+Tours, notes how wonderfully prosperity followed the kingdom which became
+Catholic, and contrasts it with the rapid decline and perishing away of the
+Arian kingdoms. And, indeed, this letter of the Pope may be termed a divine
+charter, commemorating the birthday of the great nation, which led the way,
+through all the nations of the West, for their restoration to the Catholic
+faith, and the expulsion of the Arian poison. No one has recorded, and no
+one knows, the details of that conversion, by which the Church, in the
+course of the sixth century, recovered the terrible disasters which she had
+suffered in the fifth; a conversion by which the sturdy sons of the North,
+from heretics, became faithful children, and by which she added the Teuton
+race, in all its new-born vigour and devotion, to those sons of the South,
+whose conversion Constantine crowned with his own. St. Gregory of Tours
+calls Clovis the new Constantine, and in very deed his conversion was the
+herald of a second triumph to the Church of God, which equals, some may
+think surpasses even, the grandeur of the first.
+
+It was fitting that the See of Peter should sound the note, which was its
+prelude, by the mouth of Anastasius, as the pastoral staff of St. Gregory
+was extended over its conclusion.
+
+Scarcely less remarkable than the words of Pope Anastasius were those
+addressed to the new convert by a bishop, the temporal subject of the
+Burgundian prince, Gundobald, an Arian, that is, by St. Avitus of Vienna,
+grandson of the emperor of that name. Before the baptismal waters were dry
+on the forehead of the Frankish king, he wrote to him in these words:[72]
+
+"The followers of all sorts of schisms, different in their opinions,
+various in their multitude, sought, by pretending to the Christian name,
+to blunt the keenness of your choice. But, while we entrust our several
+conditions to eternity, and reserve for the future examination what each
+conceives to be right in his own case, a bright flash of the truth has
+descended on the present. For a divine provision has supplied a judge for
+our own time. In making choice for yourself, you have given a decision for
+all. Your faith is our victory. In this case most men, in their search for
+the true religion, when they consult priests, or are moved by the
+suggestion of companions, are wont to allege the custom of their family,
+and the rite which has descended to them from their fathers. Thus making a
+show of modesty, which is injurious to salvation, they keep a useless
+reverence for parents in maintaining unbelief, but confess themselves
+ignorant what to choose. Away with the excuse of such hurtful modesty,
+after the miracle of such a deed as yours. Content only with the nobility
+of your ancient race, you have resolved that all which could crown with
+glory such a rank should spring from your personal merit. If they did great
+things, you willed to do greater. Your answer to that nobility of your
+ancestors was to show your temporal kingdom; you set before your posterity
+a kingdom in heaven. Let Greece exult in having a prince of our law; not
+that it any longer deserves to enjoy alone so great a gift, since the rest
+of the world has its own lustre. For now in the western parts shines in a
+new king a sunbeam which is not new. The birthday of our Redeemer fitly
+marked its bright rising. You were regenerated to salvation from the water
+on the same day on which the world received for its redemption the birth of
+the Lord of heaven. Let the Lord's birthday be yours also: you were born to
+Christ when Christ was born to the world. Then you consecrated your soul to
+God, your life to those around you, your fame to those coming after you.
+
+"What shall I say of that most glorious solemnity of your regeneration? I
+was not able to be present in body: I did not fail to share in your joy.
+For the divine goodness added to these regions the pleasure that the
+message of your sublime humility reached us before your baptism. Thus that
+sacred night found us in security about you. Together we contemplated that
+scene, when the assembled prelates, in the eagerness of their holy service,
+steeped the royal limbs in the waters of life; when the head, before which
+nations tremble, bowed itself to the servants of God; when the helmet of
+sacred unction clothed the flowing locks which had grown under the helmet
+of war; when, putting aside the breastplate for a time, spotless limbs
+shone in the white robe. O most highly favoured of kings, that consecrated
+robe will add strength hereafter to your arms, and sanctity will confirm
+what good fortune has hitherto bestowed. Did I think that anything could
+escape your knowledge or observation, I would add to my praises a word of
+exhortation. Can I preach to one now complete in faith, that faith which he
+recognised before his completion? Or humility to one who has long shown us
+devotion, which now his profession claims as a debt? Or mercy to one whom a
+captive people, just set free by you, proclaims by its rejoicing to the
+world, and by its tears to God. In one thing I should wish an advance. This
+is, since through you God will make your nation all His own, that you
+would, from the good treasure of your heart, provide the seeds of faith to
+the nations beyond you, lying still in their natural ignorance, uncorrupted
+by the germs of false doctrine. Have no shame, no reluctance, to take the
+side of God, who has so exalted your side, even by embassies directed to
+that purpose.... You are, as it were, the common sun, in whose rays all
+delight; the nearest the most, but somewhat also those further off.... Your
+happiness touches us also; when you fight, we conquer."
+
+It is easy to look back on the course of a thousand years, and see how
+marvellously these words, uttered by St. Avitus at the moment Clovis was
+baptised, were fulfilled in his people. "Your happiness touches us also;
+when you fight, we conquer." So spoke a Catholic bishop at the side, and
+from the court, of an Arian king, and thus he expressed the work of the
+Catholic bishops throughout Gaul in the sixth century then beginning. An
+apostate from the Catholic faith has said of them that they built up France
+as bees build a hive; but he omitted to say that they were able and willing
+to do this because they had a queen-bee at Rome, who, scattered as they
+were in various transitory kingdoms under heretical sovereigns, gave unity
+to all their efforts, and planted in their hearts the assurance of one
+undying kingdom. We shall have presently to quote other words of St.
+Avitus, speaking, as he says, in the name of all his brethren to the
+senators of Rome: "If the Pope of the city is called into question, not one
+bishop, but the episcopate, will seem to be shaken". But that, which he
+here foresaw, explains in truth a process, of which we do not possess a
+detailed history, but which resulted, by the time of St. Gregory, in the
+triumph of the Catholic faith over that most fearful heresy which had
+contaminated the whole Teuton race of conquerors at the time of their
+conquest. The glory of this triumph is divided between St. Peter's See and
+the Catholic bishops in the several countries, working each in union with
+it. So was formed the hive, not only of France, but of Christ; the hive
+which nurtured all the nations of the future Europe.
+
+When Faustus,[73] the ambassador sent by Theodorick to Anastasius to obtain
+for him the royal title, returned to Rome in 498, he found Pope Anastasius
+dead. The deacon Symmachus was chosen for his successor, and his
+pontificate lasted more than fifteen years. But Faustus had hoped to gain
+the approval of Pope Anastasius to the Henotikon set up by the emperor Zeno
+at the instance of Acacius, and forced by the emperor Anastasius on his
+eastern bishops, and specially on three successive bishops of
+Constantinople--Fravita, Euphemius, and Macedonius--who took the place of
+the second, when he had been expelled by the emperor. Faustus, who was
+chief of the senate, with a view to gain to the emperor's side the Pope to
+be elected in succession to Anastasius, brought from the East the old
+Byzantine hand; that is to say, he bore gifts for those who could be
+corrupted, threats for those who could be frightened, and deceit for all.
+So freighted he managed to bring about a schism in the papal election, and
+the candidate whom he favoured, Laurentius, was set up by a smaller but
+powerful party against the election of Symmachus. Thus disunion was
+introduced among the Roman clergy, which brought about, during the five
+succeeding years, many councils at Rome, and embarrassed the action of the
+Pope more than the Arian government of Theodorick.[74] The difficulty of
+the times was such that, instead of holding a synod of bishops at Rome to
+determine which election was valid, the two candidates, Symmachus and
+Laurentius, went to Ravenna, and submitted that point to the decision of
+the king Theodorick, Arian as he was. That decision was that he who was
+first ordained, or who had the majority for him, should be recognised as
+Pope; Symmachus fulfilled both conditions, and his election was
+acknowledged.
+
+Symmachus, in the first year of his pontificate, 499, addressed to the
+Roman emperor, in his Grecian capital, a renowned letter, termed "his
+defence" against imperial calumnies. This letter alone would be sufficient
+to exhibit the whole position of the Pope in regard to the eastern emperor
+at the close of the fifth century. Space allows me to quote only a part of
+it.
+
+The emperor of Constantinople was very wroth at the frustration of his plan
+to get influence over the Pope by the appointment of Laurentius, and
+reproached Pope Symmachus with moving the Roman senate against him. The
+Pope replied:[75]
+
+"If, O emperor, I had to speak before outside kings, ignorant altogether of
+God, in defence of the Catholic faith, I would, even with the threat of
+death before me, dwell upon its truth and its accord with reason. Woe to me
+if I did not preach the gospel. It is better to incur loss of the present
+life than to be punished with eternal damnation. But if you are the Roman
+emperor, you are bound kindly to receive the embassies of even barbarian
+peoples. If you are a Christian prince, you are bound to hear patiently the
+voice of the apostolic prelate, whatever his personal desert.[76] I must
+confess that I cannot pass over, either on your account or on my own, the
+point whether you issue with a religious mind against me the insults which
+you utter in presence of the divine judgment. Not on my own account, when I
+remember the Lord's promise, 'When they persecute you, and say all manner
+of evil against you, for justice' sake, rejoice'. Not on your account,
+because I wish not a result to my own glory, which would weigh heavily upon
+you. And being trained in the doctrine of the Lord and the Apostles, I am
+anxious to meet your maledictions with blessing, your insults with honour,
+your hatred with charity. But I would beg you to reflect whether He who
+says, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' will not exact the more from you
+for my forbearance.... I wish, then, that the insults, which you think
+proper to bestow on my person, while they are glorious to me, may not press
+upon you. To my Lord it was said by some: 'Thou hast a devil; a man that is
+a glutton, born of fornication'. Am I to grieve over such things? Divine
+and human laws present the condition to him who utters them: 'In the mouth
+of two or three witnesses every word shall stand'. O emperor, what will you
+do in the divine judgment? Because you are emperor, do you think there is
+no judgment of God? I pass over that it becomes not an emperor to be an
+accuser. Again, both by divine and human laws, no one can be at once
+accuser and judge. Will you plead before another judge? Will you stand by
+him as accuser? You say I am a Manichean. Am I an Eutychean, or do I defend
+Eutycheans, whose madness is the chief support[77] to the Manichean error?
+Rome is my witness, and our records bear testimony, whether I have in any
+way deviated from the Catholic faith, which, coming out of paganism, I
+received in the See of the Apostle St. Peter.... Is it because I will offer
+no acceptance to Eutycheans? Such reproaches do not wound me, but they are
+a plain proof that you wished to prevent my advancement, which St. Peter by
+his intervention has imposed. Or, because you are emperor, do you struggle
+against the power of Peter? And you, who accept the Alexandrian Peter, do
+you strive to tread under foot St. Peter the Apostle in the person of his
+successor, whoever he may be? Should I be well elected if I favoured the
+Eutycheans? if I held communion with the party of Acacius? Your motive in
+putting forward such things is obvious. Now, let us compare the rank of the
+emperor with that of the pontiff. Between them the difference is as great
+as the charge of human and divine things. You, emperor, receive baptism
+from the pontiff, accept sacraments, request prayers, hope for blessing,
+beg for penitence. In a word, you administer things human, he dispenses to
+you things divine. If, then, I do not put his rank superior, it is at least
+equal. And do not think that in mundane pomp you are before him, for 'the
+weakness of God is stronger than men'. Consider, then, what becomes you.
+But when you assume the accuser's part, by divine and human law you stand
+on the same level with me; in which, if I lose the highest rank, as you
+desire, if I be convicted by your accusation, you will equally lose your
+rank if you fail to convict me. Let the world judge between us, in the
+sight of God and His angels; let us be a spectacle for every age, in which
+either the priest shall exhibit a good life, or the emperor a religious
+modesty. For the human race is ruled in chief by these two offices, so that
+in neither of them should there be anything to offend God, especially
+because each of these ranks would appear to be perpetual, and the human
+race has a common interest in both.
+
+"Allow me, emperor, to say, Remember that you are a man in order to use a
+power granted you by God. For though these things pass first under the
+judgment of man, they must go on to the divine examination. You may say, It
+is written, 'Let every soul be subject to higher powers'. We accept human
+powers in their proper place until they set up their wills against God. But
+if all power be from God, more then that which is given to things divine.
+Acknowledge God in us and we will acknowledge God in thee. But if you do
+not acknowledge God, you cannot use a privilege derived from Him whose
+rights you despise. You say that conspiring with the senate I have
+excommunicated you. In that I have my part; but I am following fearlessly
+what my predecessors have done reasonably. You say the Roman senate has
+ill-treated you. If we treat you ill in persuading you to quit heretics, do
+you treat us well who would throw us into their communion? What, you say,
+is the conduct of Acacius to me? Nothing if you leave him. If you do not
+leave him it touches you. Let us both leave the dead. This is what we beg,
+that you have nothing to do with what Acacius did. Making your own what
+Acacius did, you accuse us of objections. We avoid what Acacius did; do
+you avoid it also. Then we shall both be clear of him. Thus relinquishing
+his actions you may be joined with our cause, and be associated with our
+communion without Acacius. It has always been the custom of Catholic
+princes[78] to be the first to address the apostolic prelates upon their
+accession, and they have sought, as good sons, with the due affection of
+piety, that chief confession and faith to which you know that the care of
+the whole Church has been committed by the voice of the Saviour Himself.
+But since public circumstances may have caused you to omit this, I have not
+delayed to address you first, lest I should be thought to consider more my
+own private honour than solicitude for the whole flock of the Lord.
+
+"You say that we have divulged your compelling by force those who had long
+kept themselves apart from the contagion of heresy to yield to its
+detestable communion. In this, O chief[79] of human powers, I, as
+successor, however unmerited, in the Apostolic See, cease not to remind you
+that whatever may be your material power in the world, you are but a man.
+Review all those who, from the beginning of the Christian belief, have
+attempted with various purpose to persecute or afflict the Catholic faith.
+See how those who used such violence have failed, and the orthodox truth
+prevailed through the very means by which it was thought to be overthrown.
+And as it grew under its oppressors, so it is found to have crushed them. I
+wonder if even human sense, especially in one who claims to be called
+Christian, fails to see that among these oppressors must be counted those
+who assault Christian confession and communion with various superstitions.
+What matters it whether it be a heathen or a so-called Christian who
+attempts to infringe the genuine tradition of the apostolic rule? Who is so
+blind that in countries where every heresy has free licence to exhibit its
+opinions he should deem the liberty of Catholic communion alone should be
+subverted by those who think themselves religious?"
+
+"All Catholic princes," the Pope repeats, "either at their own accession,
+or on knowing the accession of a new prelate to the Apostolic See,
+immediately addressed their letters to it, to show that they were in union
+with it. Those who have not done so declare themselves aliens from it. Your
+own writings would justify us in so considering you if we did not from your
+assault and hostility avoid you, whether as enemy or judge ... but the
+accomplice of error must persecute him who is its enemy."
+
+Let this letter from beginning to end be considered as written by a Pope
+just after his election, the validity of which had been disputed by another
+candidate whom the emperor had favoured--by a Pope living actually under
+the unlimited power of an Arian sovereign, who was in possession of Italy,
+and who ruled in right of a conqueror, though he used his power generally
+with moderation and equity; further, that it was addressed to one who had
+become the sole Roman emperor, the over-lord of the king, who had just
+besought of him the royal title; that it required him to cast aside his
+patronage of Eutychean heretics; to rescind from the public records of the
+Church the name of that bishop who had composed the document called the
+Henotikon, the very document which the emperor was compelling his eastern
+bishops to accept and promulgate as the confession of the Christian faith.
+And let the frankness with which the Pope appeals to the universally
+admitted authority of St. Peter's See be at the same time considered, with
+the official statement that the emperors were wont immediately to
+acknowledge the accession of a Pope[80] and attest their communion with
+him.
+
+What was the answer which the eastern emperor made to this letter? He did
+not answer by denying anything which the Pope claimed as belonging to his
+see, but by rekindling the internal schism which had been laid to sleep by
+the recognition of Pope Symmachus. Before sending this letter, the Pope had
+held a council of seventy-two bishops in St. Peter's on March 1, 499, which
+made important regulations to prevent cabal and disturbance at papal
+elections such as had just taken place. This council had been subscribed by
+Laurentius himself,[81] and the Pope in compassion[82] had given him the
+bishopric of Nocera. Now the emperor Anastasius, reproved for his misdeeds
+and misbelief by Pope Symmachus in the letter above quoted, caused his
+agents, the patrician Faustus and the senator Probinus, to bring grievous
+accusations against Symmachus and to set up once more Laurentius as
+anti-pope.[83] In their passionate enmity they did not scruple to bring
+their charge against Pope Symmachus before the heretical king Theodorick.
+The result of this attempt was that Rome, during several years at least,
+from 502 to 506, was filled with confusion and the most embittered party
+contentions. Theodorick was induced to send a bishop as visitor of the
+Roman Church, and again to summon a council of bishops from the various
+provinces of Italy to consider the charges brought against the Pope. During
+the year 501 four such councils were held in Rome, of which it may be
+sufficient to quote the last, the Synodus Palmaris.[84] Its acts say that
+they were by command of king Theodorick to pass judgment on certain charges
+made against Pope Symmachus. That the bishops of the Ligurian, Æmilian, and
+Venetian provinces, visiting the king at Ravenna on their way, told him
+that the Pope himself ought to summon the council, "knowing that in the
+first place the merit or principate of the Apostle Peter, and then the
+authority of venerable councils following out the commandment of the Lord,
+had delivered to his see a singular power in the churches, and no instance
+could be produced in which the bishop of that see in a similar case had
+been subjected to the judgment of his inferiors". To which king Theodorick
+replied that the Pope himself had by letter signified his wish to convene
+the council. Then the Synodus Palmaris, passing over a narration of what
+had taken place in the preceding councils, came to this conclusion:
+"Calling God to witness, we decree that Pope Symmachus, bishop of the
+Apostolic See, who has been charged with such and such offences, is, as
+regards all human judgment, clear and free (because for the reasons above
+alleged all has been left to the divine judgment); that in all the churches
+belonging to his see he should give the divine mysteries to the Christian
+people, inasmuch as we recognise that for the above-named causes he cannot
+be bound by the charges of those who attack him. Wherefore, in virtue of
+the royal command, which gives us this power, we restore all that belongs
+to ecclesiastical right within the sacred city of Rome, or without it, and
+reserving the whole cause to the judgment of God, we exhort all to receive
+from him the holy communion. If anyone, which we do not suppose, either
+does not accept this, or thinks that it can be reconsidered, he will render
+an account of his contempt to the divine judgment. Concerning his clergy,
+who, contrary to rule, left their bishop and made a schism, we decree that
+upon their making satisfaction to their bishop, they may be pardoned and be
+glad to be restored to their offices. But if any of the clergy, after this
+our order, presume to celebrate mass in any holy place in the Roman Church
+without leave of Pope Symmachus, let him be punished as schismatic."[85]
+
+This was signed by seventy-six bishops, of whom Laurentius of Milan and
+Peter of Ravenna stood at the head; and the two metropolitans accompany
+their subscription with the words, "in which we have committed the whole
+cause to the judgment of God".[86]
+
+When this document reached Gaul, the bishops there, being unable to hold a
+council through the division of the country under different princes,
+commissioned St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to write in his name and their
+own, and we have from him the following letter addressed to Faustus and
+Symmachus, senators of Rome:[87]
+
+"It would have been desirable that we should, in person, visit the city
+which the whole world venerates, for the consideration of duties which
+affect us both as men and as Christians. But as the state of things has
+long made that impossible, we could wish at least to have had the security
+that your great body should learn from a report of the assembled bishops of
+Gaul the entreaties called forth by a common cause. But since the
+separation of our country into different governments deprives us also of
+that our desire, I must first entreat that your most illustrious Order may
+not take offence at what I write as coming from one person. For, urged not
+only by letters, but charges from all my Gallic brethren, I have undertaken
+to be the organ of communicating to you what we all ask of you. Whilst we
+were all in a state of great anxiety and fear in the cause of the Roman
+Church, feeling that our own state was imperilled when our head was
+attacked, inasmuch as a single incrimination would have struck us all down
+without the odium which attaches to the oppression of a multitude, if it
+had overturned the condition of our chief, a copy of the episcopal decree
+was brought to us in our anxiety from Italy, which the bishops of Italy,
+assembled at Rome, had issued in the case of Pope Symmachus. This
+constitution is made respectable by the assent of a large and reverend
+council: yet our mind is, that the holy Pope Symmachus, if accused to the
+world, had a claim rather to the support than to the judgment of his
+brethren the bishops. For as our Ruler in heaven bids us be subject to
+earthly powers, foretelling that we shall stand before kings and princes in
+every accusation, so is it difficult to understand with what reason, or by
+what law, the superior is to be judged by his inferiors. The Apostle's
+command is well known, that an accusation against an elder should not be
+received. How, then, is it lawful to incriminate the Principate of the
+whole Church? The venerable council itself providing against this in its
+laudable constitution, has reserved to the divine judgment a cause which, I
+may be permitted to say, it had somewhat rashly taken up; mentioning,
+however, that the charges objected to the Pope had in no respect been
+proved, either to itself or to king Theodorick. In face of all which, I,
+myself a Roman senator, and a Christian bishop, adjure you (so may the God
+you worship grant prosperity to your times, and your own dignity maintain
+the honour of the Roman name to the universe in this collapsing world),
+that the state of the Church be not less in your eyes than that of the
+commonwealth; that the power which God has given to you may be also for our
+good; and that you have not less love in your Church for the See of Peter,
+than in your city for the crown of the world. If, in your wisdom, you
+consider the matter to its bottom, you will see that not only the cause
+carried on at Rome is concerned. In the case of other bishops, if there be
+any lapse, it may be restored; but if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not
+one bishop but the episcopate itself will seem to be shaken. You well know
+how we are steering the bark of faith amid storms of heresies, whose winds
+roar around us. If with us you fear such dangers, you must needs protect
+your pilot by sharing his labour. If the sailors turn against their
+captain, how will they escape? The shepherd of the Lord's sheepcot will
+give an account of his pastorship; it is not for the flock to alarm its own
+pastor, but for the judge. Restore, then, to us if it be not already
+restored, concord in our chief."
+
+Even after this synod at Rome, the opponents of Symmachus did not cease
+their attempts. Clergy and senators sent in a new memorial to the king
+Theodorick, in favour of the anti-pope Laurentius, who returned to Rome in
+502; and it was four years, during which several councils were held, before
+the schism was finally composed. Theodorick then commanded that all the
+churches in Rome should be given up to Pope Symmachus,[88] and he alone be
+recognised as its bishop.
+
+Against the attacks made upon the fourth synod, which had dismissed the
+consideration of the charges against the Pope as beyond its competence,
+Ennodius, at that time a deacon, afterwards bishop of Pavia, wrote a long
+defence. This writing was read at the sixth synod at Rome, held in 503,
+approved, and inserted in the synodal acts. We may, therefore, quote one
+passage from it, as the doctrine which it was the result of all this schism
+to establish.[89] "God has willed the causes of other men to be terminated
+by men; He has reserved the bishop of that one see without question to His
+own judgment. It was His will that the successors of the Apostle St. Peter
+should owe their innocence to heaven alone, and show a spotless conscience
+to that most absolute scrutiny. Do not suppose that those souls whom God
+has reserved to His own examination have no fear of their judges. The
+guilty has with Him no one to suggest excuse, when the witness of the deeds
+is the same as the Judge. If you say, Such will be the condition of all
+souls in that trial; I shall reply,[90] To one only was it said, Thou art
+Peter, &c. And further, that the dignity of that see has been made
+venerable to the whole world by the voice of holy pontiffs, when all the
+faithful in every part are made subject to it, and it is marked out as the
+head of the whole body."
+
+From the whole of this history we deduce the fact, that the enmity of the
+eastern emperor was able by bribing a party at Rome to stir up a schism
+against the lawful Pope, which had for its result to call forth the witness
+of the Italian and the Gallic bishops respecting the singular prerogatives
+of the Holy See. They spoke in the person of Ennodius and Avitus. We have,
+in consequence, recorded for us in black and white the axiom which had been
+acted upon from the beginning, "the First See is judged by no one".
+
+Let us see on the contrary what the same emperor was not only willing but
+able to do in the city which had succeeded to Rome as the capital of the
+empire, in which Anastasius reigned alone.
+
+In the year 496, Anastasius had found himself able, as we have seen, to
+depose, by help of the resident council, Euphemius of Constantinople. As
+his successor was chosen Macedonius, sister's son of the former bishop,
+Gennadius, and like him of gentle spirit, "a holy man,[91] the champion of
+the orthodox".[92] However much the opinion was then spread in the East
+that a successor might rightfully be appointed to a bishop forcibly
+expelled from his see, if otherwise the Church would be deprived of its
+pastor--an opinion which Pope Gelasius very decidedly censured--Macedonius
+II. felt very keenly the unlawfulness of his appointment. When the deposed
+Euphemius asked of him a safe conduct for his journey into banishment, and
+Macedonius received authority to grant it, he went into the baptistry to
+give it, but caused his archdeacon first to remove his omophorion, and
+appeared in the garb of a simple priest to give his predecessor a sum of
+money collected for him. He was much praised for this. Yet Macedonius had
+to subscribe the Henotikon. Hence he experienced a strong opposition from
+the monks, who, in their resolute maintenance of the Council of Chalcedon,
+declined communion with him; so the nuns also. Macedonius sought to gain
+them by holding a council in 497 or 498, which condemned the Eutycheans and
+expressed assent to the Council of Chalcedon.
+
+Macedonius was by no means inclined to give up the lately won privileges of
+his see as to the ordination of the Exarch of Cappadocian Cæsarea, but he
+would willingly have restored peace with Rome, and have accepted the
+invitation from Rome to celebrate with special splendour the feast day of
+St. Peter and St. Paul. The emperor would not let him send a synodical
+letter to Rome.
+
+Macedonius could not be induced by threat or promise of the emperor to give
+up to him the paper in which at his coronation by Euphemius he had promised
+to maintain the Council of Chalcedon. The emperor, after concluding peace
+with the Persians, more and more favoured the Eutycheans, and seemed
+resolved either to bend or to break Macedonius. The people were so
+embittered against Anastasius that he did not venture to appear without his
+life-guards even at a religious solemnity, and this became from that time
+a rule which marks the sinking moral influence of the emperors. The
+suspicion of the people against Anastasius was increased because his mother
+was a Manichean, his uncle, Clearchus, devoted to the Arians, and he kept
+in his palace Manichean pictures by a Syropersian artist. The Monophysite
+party had at the time two very skilful leaders, the monk Severus from
+Pisidia and the Persian Xenaias. Xenaias had been made bishop of Hierapolis
+by Peter the Fuller, was in fierce conflict with Flavian, patriarch of
+Antioch, and raised almost all Syria against him. He carried the flame of
+discord even to Constantinople. There a certain fanatic, Ascholius, tried
+to murder Macedonius, who pardoned him and bestowed on him a monthly
+pension. Presently large troops of monks came under Severus to
+Constantinople, bent upon ruining Macedonius. The state of parties became
+still more threatening. Macedonius showed still greater energy; he declared
+that he would only hold communion with the patriarch of Alexandria and the
+party of Severus if they would recognise the Council of Chalcedon as mother
+and teacher. But Anastasius, bribed by the Alexandrian patriarch John II.
+with two thousand pounds of gold, required that he should anathematise this
+council. To this Macedonius answered that this could not be done except in
+an ecumenical council presided over by the bishop of Rome. The emperor in
+his wrath violated the right of sanctuary in the Catholic churches and
+bestowed it on heretical churches. The Eutycheans supplied with money broke
+out against the Catholics. They had sung their addition to the Trisagion
+on a Sunday in the Church of St. Michael within the palace. They tried to
+do it the next Sunday in the cathedral, upon which a fierce tumult broke
+out, and they were mishandled and driven out by the people. Now the party
+of Severus, favoured by the emperor and many officials, broke out into loud
+abuse of Macedonius. Thereupon the faithful part of his flock rose for
+their bishop, and the streets rung with the cry, "It is the time of
+martyrdom; let no man forsake his father". Anastasius was declared a
+Manichean and unfit to rule. The emperor was frightened; he shut the doors
+of his palace and prepared for flight. He had sworn never again to admit
+the patriarch to his presence, but in his perplexity sent for him. On his
+way Macedonius was received with loud acclaim, "Our father is with us," in
+which the life-guards joined. He boldly reproved the emperor as enemy of
+the Church; but the emperor's hypocritical excuses pacified the patriarch.
+When the danger was passed by Anastasius pursued fresh intrigues. He
+required Macedonius to subscribe a formula in which the Council of
+Chalcedon was passed over. Macedonius would seem to have been deceived, but
+afterwards insisted publicly before the monks on his adherence to its
+decrees. Then Anastasius tried again to depose him. All possible calumnies
+were spread against him--immorality, Nestorianism, falsification of the
+Bible; all failed. Then the emperor demanded the delivering up of the
+original acts of Chalcedon, which the patriarch steadily refused.
+Macedonius had sealed them up and placed them on the altar under God's
+protection; but the emperor had them taken away by the eunuch Kalapodius,
+economus of the cathedral, and then burnt. After this he imprisoned and
+banished a number of the patriarch's friends and relations; then he had the
+patriarch seized in the night, deported from the capital to Chalcedon, and
+thence to Euchaites in Paphlagonia, to which place he had also banished
+Euphemius. Macedonius lived some years after his exile. He died at Gangra
+about 516, and was immediately counted among the saints of the eastern
+Church.
+
+It cost Anastasius fifteen years to depose Macedonius, that is, from 496 to
+511, and this was the way he accomplished it. Thus he succeeded in
+overthrowing two bishops of his capital--Euphemius and Macedonius--neither
+of whom lived or died in communion with Rome, because, though virtuous and
+orthodox in the main, they would not surrender the memory of Acacius. They
+had, moreover, one grievous blot on their conduct as bishops. They
+submitted themselves to subscribe an imperial statement of doctrine and to
+permit its imposition on others. This was a use of despotism in the eastern
+Church introduced by the insurgent Basiliscus, carried out first by Zeno
+and then by Anastasius, tending to the ruin both of doctrine and
+discipline. During the whole reign of Anastasius the patriarchal sees of
+Alexandria and Antioch, which had built up the eastern Church in the first
+three centuries, which Rome acknowledged as truly patriarchal under Pope
+Gelasius in 496, and the new sees which claimed to be patriarchal,
+Constantinople and Jerusalem, were in a state of the greatest confusion, a
+prey to heresy, party spirit, violence of every kind. Anastasius was able
+to disturb Pope Symmachus during the first half of his pontificate by
+fostering a schism among his clergy, with the result that he brought out
+the recognition of the Pope's privilege not to be judged by his inferiors.
+But he was enabled to depose two bishops of the imperial see, his own
+patriarchs, blameless in their personal life, orthodox in their doctrine,
+longing for reunion with Rome, yet stained by their fatal surrender of
+their spiritual independence, subscription to the emperor's imposition of
+doctrine. They were not acknowledged by St. Peter's See, and they fell
+before the emperor.
+
+In the last years of this emperor, the churches of the eastern empire were
+involved in the greatest disorders and sufferings. He had thrown aside
+altogether the mask of Catholic: he filled the patriarchal sees with the
+fiercest heretics. Flavian was driven from Antioch, Elias from Jerusalem.
+Timotheus, a man of bad character, had been put by him into the see of
+Constantinople. In this extremity of misery and confusion, the eastern
+Church addressed Pope Symmachus in 512.[93]
+
+"We venture to address you, not for the loss of one sheep or one drachma,
+but for the salvation of three parts of the world, redeemed not by
+corruptible silver or gold, but by the precious blood of the Lamb of God,
+as the blessed prince of the glorious Apostles taught, whose chair the Good
+Shepherd, Christ, has entrusted to your beatitude. Therefore, as an
+affectionate father for his children, seeing with spiritual eyes how we are
+perishing in the prevarication of our father Acacius, delay not, sleep not,
+but hasten to deliver us, since not in binding only but in loosing those
+long bound the power has been given to thee; for you know the mind of
+Christ who are daily taught by your sacred teacher Peter to feed Christ's
+sheep entrusted to you through the whole habitable world, collected not by
+force, but by choice, and with the great doctor Paul cry to us your
+subjects 'not because we exercise dominion over your faith, but we are
+helpers in your joy'. 'Hasten then to help that east from which the Saviour
+sent to you the two great lights of day, Peter and Paul, to illuminate the
+whole world.'" They call upon him as the true physician; they disclose to
+him the ulcerous sores with which the whole body of the eastern Church is
+covered; and they finish by directing to him a confession of faith,
+rejecting the two opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches. They remind
+him of the holy Pope Leo, now among the saints, and conjure him to save
+them now in their souls as Leo saved bodies from Attila.
+
+But yet it was not given to Pope Symmachus to put an end to this confusion.
+He sat during fifteen years and eight months, dying on the 9th July, 514.
+The schism raised by the Greek emperor was at an end; and seven days after
+his decease the deacon Hormisdas was elected with the full consent of all.
+In the meantime the state of the East had gone on from bad to worse.
+Anastasius, by writing and by oath, had pledged himself at his coronation
+to maintain the Catholic faith and the Council of Chalcedon. Instead he had
+persecuted Catholics, banished their bishops, by his falsehood and tyranny
+sown discord everywhere. At last one of his own generals, Vitalian, rose
+against him. After a long silence he once more betook himself to the Pope.
+In January, 518, he wrote to the new Pope, Hormisdas, "that the opinion
+spread abroad of his goodness led him to apply to his fatherly affection to
+ask of him the offices which our God and Saviour taught the holy Apostles
+by mouth, and especially St. Peter, whom He made the strength[94] of His
+Church". He asked, therefore, "his apostolate by holding a council to
+become a mediator by whom unity might be restored to the churches," and
+proposed that a general council should be held at Heraclea, the old
+metropolis of Thrace.
+
+Hormisdas, after maturely considering the whole state of things, sent a
+legation of five persons to the emperor at Constantinople--the bishops
+Ennodius of Pavia, Fortunatus of Catania, the priest Venantius, the deacon
+Vitalis, and the notary Hilarius--with the most detailed instructions how
+to act. The intent was to test the emperor's sincerity--a foresight which
+after events completely justified. This instruction is said to be the
+earliest of the kind which has come down to us. Since nothing can so
+vividly represent the position of the Holy See as the words used by it on
+a great occasion at the very moment when it took place, I give a
+translation of it. In reading this it should be remembered that these are
+the words of a Pope living in captivity under an Arian and barbaric
+sovereign, who had taken possession of Italy about twenty years before, and
+had sought for and accepted the royal title from this very emperor.
+Further, that with the exception of the Frankish kingdom, in which Clovis
+had died four years before, all the West was in possession of Arian rulers,
+who were also of barbaric descent. The Pope speaks in the naked power of
+his "apostolate". The commission which he gave to his legates was this:[95]
+
+"When, by God's help and the prayers of the Apostles, you come into the
+country of the Greeks, if bishops choose to meet you receive them with all
+due respect. If they propose a night-lodging for you do not refuse, that
+laymen may not suppose you will hold no union with them. But if they invite
+you to eat with them, courteously excuse yourselves, saying, Pray that we
+may first be joined at the Mystical Table, and then this will be more
+agreeable to us. Do not, however receive provision or things of that kind,
+except carriage, if need be, but excuse yourselves, saying that you have
+everything, and that you hope that they will give you their hearts, in
+which abide all gifts, charity and unity, which make up the joy of
+religion.
+
+"So, when you reach Constantinople, go wherever the emperor appoints; and
+before you see him, let no one approach you, save such as are sent by him.
+But when you have seen the emperor, if any orthodox persons of our own
+communion, or with a zeal for unity, desire to see you, admit them with all
+caution. Perhaps you may learn from them the state of things.
+
+"When you have an audience of the emperor, present your letters with these
+words: 'Your Father greets you, daily intreating God, and commending your
+kingdom to the intercession of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, that God
+who has given you such a desire that you should send a mission in the cause
+of the Church and consult his holiness, may bring your wish to full
+completion'.
+
+"Should the emperor wish, before he receives your papers, to learn the
+scope of your mission, use these words: 'Be pleased to receive our papers'.
+If he answer, 'What do they contain?' reply, 'They contain greeting to your
+piety, and thanks to God for learning your anxiety for the Church's unity.
+Read and you will see this.' And enter absolutely into nothing before the
+letters have been received and read. When they have been received and read,
+add: 'He has also written to your servant Vitalian, who wrote that he had
+received permission from your piety to send a deputation of his own to the
+holy Pope, your Father. But as it was just to direct these first to your
+majesty, he has done so; that by your command and order, if God please, we
+may bear to him the letters which we have brought.'
+
+"If the emperor ask for our letters to Vitalian, answer thus: 'The holy
+Pope, your Father, has not so enjoined on us; and without his command we
+can do nothing. But that you may know the straightforwardness of the
+letters, that they have nothing but entreaties to your piety, to give your
+mind to the unity of the Church, assign to us some one in whose presence
+these letters may be read to Vitalian.' But if the emperor require to read
+them himself, you will answer that you have already intimated not such to
+be the command of the holy Pope. If he say, 'They may have also other
+charges,' reply, 'Our conscience forbids. That is not our custom. We come
+in God's cause. Should we sin against Him? The holy Pope's mission is
+straightforward; his request and his prayers known to all: that the
+constitutions of the fathers may not be broken; that heretics be removed
+from the churches. Beyond that our mission contains nothing.'
+
+"If he say, 'For this purpose I have invited the Pope to a council, that if
+there be any doubt, it may be removed,' answer, 'We thank God, and your
+piety, that you are so minded, that all may receive what was ordered by the
+fathers. For then may there be a true and holy unity among the churches of
+Christ, if, by God's help, you choose to preserve what your predecessors
+Marcian and Leo maintained.' If he say, 'What mean you by that?' answer,
+'That the Council of Chalcedon, and the letters of Pope St. Leo, written
+against the heretics Nestorius, and Eutyches, and Dioscorus, may be
+entirely kept'. If he say, 'We received and we hold the Council of
+Chalcedon, and the letters of Pope Leo,' do you then return thanks, kiss
+his breast, and say, 'Now we know that God is gracious to you, when you
+hasten to do this, for that is the Catholic faith which the Apostles
+preached, without which no one can be orthodox. All bishops must hold to
+this and preach it.'
+
+"If he say, 'The bishops are orthodox; they do not depart from the
+constitutions of the fathers,' answer, 'If the constitutions of the fathers
+are kept, and what was decreed in the Council of Chalcedon is in no respect
+broken, how is there such discord in the churches of your land? Why do not
+the bishops of the East agree?' If he say, 'The bishops were quiet; there
+was no disunion among them. The holy Pope's predecessor stirred up their
+minds with his letters, and made this confusion;' answer, 'The letters of
+Symmachus, of holy memory, are in our hands. If, besides, what your piety
+says, that is, "I follow the Council of Chalcedon, I receive the letters of
+Pope Leo," they contain nothing except the exhortation to maintain this,
+how is it true that confusion has been produced by them? But if that is
+contained in the letters which both your Father hopes and your piety agrees
+to, what has he done? What is there in him blameworthy?' add your prayers
+and tears, entreat him, 'Let your imperial majesty consider God; put before
+your eyes his future judgment. The holy fathers who made these rules
+followed the faith of the blessed Apostle, on which the Church of Christ is
+built.'
+
+"If the emperor say, 'I receive the Council of Chalcedon, and I embrace
+the letters of Pope Leo, enter then into communion with me,' answer, 'In
+what order is that to take place? We do not avoid your piety, so declaring,
+since we know that you fear God, and rejoice that you are pleased to keep
+the constitutions of the fathers. We therefore confidently entreat you that
+the Church may return through you to unity. Let all the bishops learn your
+will, and that you keep the Council of Chalcedon, and the letters of Pope
+Leo, and the apostolical constitutions.' If he say, 'In what order is that
+to take place?' recur again, humbly, to entreaties, saying, 'Your Father
+has written to all the bishops. Join, herewith, your mandates to the effect
+that you maintain what the Apostolic See proclaims, and then let the
+orthodox not be separated from the unity of the Apostolic See, and the
+opponents will be made known. After that, your Father is even prepared, if
+need be, to be present himself, and, preserving the constitutions of the
+fathers, to deny nothing which is expedient for the Church's integrity.'
+
+"If the emperor say, 'Well, in the meantime accept the bishop of my city,'
+again beseech humbly, 'Imperial majesty, we have come with God's help in
+the hope of support on your part to make peace and restore tranquillity in
+your city. There is question here about two persons. The matter runs its
+proper course. First, let all the bishops be so ordered as to form one
+Catholic communion; next, the cause of those persons, or of any others who
+may be at a distance from their churches, can be specially considered.' If
+the emperor say, 'You are speaking of Macedonius; I see your subtlety. He
+is a heretic; he cannot possibly be recalled,' answer, 'Imperial majesty,
+we name no one personally; we speak rather in favour of your mind and
+opinion, that inquiry may be made, and, if he is heretical, a juridical
+sentence passed, that he may not be said to be unjustly deposed, being
+reputed orthodox'.
+
+"If the emperor should say, 'The bishop of this city consents to the
+Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope Leo,' answer, 'If he do so it
+will help him the more when his cause is examined; and since you have
+allowed your servant Vitalian to treat with the Pope, if he hoped for a
+good result on these matters, so let it be'. If the emperor say, 'Should my
+city remain without a bishop, is it your desire that where I am there
+should be no bishop?' reply, 'We said before there was a question about two
+persons in this city. As to the canons, we have already suggested that to
+break the canons is to sin against religion. There are many remedies by
+which your piety may not remain without communion, and the full judicial
+form may be preserved.' If he say, 'What are those forms?' reply, 'Not
+newly invented by us. The question as to other bishops may be suspended,
+and meanwhile a person who agrees with the confession of your piety and
+with the constitutions of the Apostolic See until the issue of the trial
+may hold the place of the bishop of Constantinople, if by God's help the
+bishops are willing to be in accordance with the Apostolic See. You have in
+the records of the Church the terms of the profession which they have to
+make.'
+
+"But if petitions be presented to you against other Catholic bishops,
+especially against those who shamelessly anathematise the Council of
+Chalcedon, and do not receive the letters of Pope St. Leo, take those
+petitions, but reserve the cause to the judgment of the Apostolic See, that
+you may give them a hope of being heard, and yet reserve the authority due
+to us. If, however, the emperor promise to do everything if we will grant
+our presence, urge in every way that his mandate first be sent to the
+bishops through the provinces, which one of you shall accompany, so that
+all may know that he keeps the Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope
+St. Leo. Then write to us that we prepare to come.
+
+"It is, moreover, the custom to present all bishops to the emperor through
+the bishop of Constantinople. If their skilful management so devise in
+recognising your legation that you see the emperor in the company of
+Timotheus, who appears now to govern the church of Constantinople, if you
+learn before your presentation that this is so contrived, say, 'The Father
+of your piety has so commanded and enjoined us that we should see your
+majesty without any bishop'. So remain until this custom be altered.
+
+"If an absolute refusal be given, or if it is so contrived that before you
+have an audience you are suddenly put with Timotheus, say, 'Let your piety
+grant us a private audience to set forth the causes for which we have been
+sent'. If he say, 'Speak before him,' answer, 'We do no offence, but our
+legation also contains his person, and he cannot be present at our
+communications'. And on no account enter into anything in his presence; but
+when he has gone out produce the text of your mission."
+
+The exact conditions which the legates carried to the emperor were these:
+"The Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope St. Leo to be kept. The
+emperor, in token of his agreement, to send an imperial letter to all the
+bishops signifying that he so believes and will so maintain. The bishops
+also to express their agreement in Church in presence of the Christian
+people that they embrace the holy faith of Chalcedon and the letters of
+Pope St. Leo, which he wrote against the heretics, Nestorius, Eutyches, and
+Dioscorus, also against their followers, Timotheus Ailouros, Peter, or
+those similarly guilty, likewise anathematising Acacius, formerly bishop of
+Constantinople, and also Peter of Antioch, with their associates. Writing
+thus with their own hand in presence of chosen men of repute, they will
+follow the formulary which we have issued by our notary.
+
+"Those who have been banished in the Church's cause are to be recalled for
+the hearing of the Apostolic See, that a trial and true examination may be
+held. Their cause to be reserved entire.
+
+"If any holding communion with the sacred Apostolic See, preaching and
+following the Catholic faith, have been driven away, or kept in banishment,
+these, it is just, to be first of all recalled.
+
+"Moreover, the injunction we have laid upon the legates, that if memorials
+be presented to them against bishops who have persecuted Catholics, their
+judgment be reserved to the Apostolic See, that in their case the
+constitutions of the fathers be maintained, by which all may be edified."
+
+Anastasius[96] tried again the old arts. He made a bid of everything to
+gain the legates. He seemed ready to accept everything save the demand
+regarding Acacius, which he was bound to reject on account of the Byzantine
+people. Both to the legates on their return to Rome, and to two officers of
+his court whom he sent to Rome, he gave honourable letters for the Pope,
+whom he invited to be present at the projected council, and endeavoured to
+satisfy fully by an orthodox profession of faith wherein he expressly
+recognised the Council of Chalcedon. One only point, he said, whatever
+might be his personal feeling, he could not concede, that regarding
+Acacius, since otherwise the living would be driven out of the Church for
+the dead, and great disturbances and blood-shedding would be inevitable. He
+left it to the Pope's consideration. He also wrote to the Roman senate to
+use its influence for the restoration of peace to the Church, as well with
+the Pope as with king Theodorick, "to whom," said the emperor, "the power
+and charge of governing you have been committed". It may be added that
+Theodorick favoured, as far as he could, the restoration of peace.
+
+Pope Hormisdas, in his answer, praised the zeal made show of by the
+emperor, and wished that his deeds would correspond to his words. He could
+not contain his astonishment that the promised embassy was so long in
+coming, and that the emperor instead of sending bishops to him, sent two
+laymen of his court, in whom he soon recognised Monophysites, who tried to
+gain him in their favour. In a letter to St. Avitus and the bishops of his
+province, he discloses the judgment which he had formed. "As to the Greeks,
+they speak peace with their mouth, but carry it not in their hearts; their
+words are just, not their actions; they pretend to wish what their deeds
+deny; what they professed, they neglect; and pursue the conduct which they
+condemned."[97] Still he resolved to send a new embassy to Constantinople
+in 517, at the head of which he put the bishops Ennodius and Peregrinus. He
+gave them letters to the emperor, the patriarch Timotheus, the clergy and
+people of Constantinople.
+
+Anastasius had endeavoured to delay the whole thing, and to deceive the
+orthodox until he found himself strong again, and was no longer in danger
+from Vitalian. To bribe the people, he gave the church of Constantinople
+seventy pounds' weight of gold for masses for the dead. With regard to the
+treatment of Acacius, he had the majority on his side, who were not easily
+brought to condemn him. Here, also, he had a pretext to break off impending
+agreements. When his wife Ariadne died, he showed himself still less
+inclined to peace. She had been devoted to Macedonius, and often interceded
+for the orthodox. As soon as he thought himself quite secure, he not only
+altered his behaviour and language to the Roman See, but, in the words of
+the Greek historian, about 200 bishops who had come to Heraclea from
+various parts had to separate without doing anything, "having been deluded
+by the lawless emperor and Timotheus, bishop of Constantinople".[98] The
+Pope's legates he tried to corrupt; when that did not succeed, he dismissed
+them in disgrace, and sent the Pope an insolent letter, in which he said he
+desisted from any requests to him, as reason forbade to throw away prayers
+on those who would listen to nothing, and while he might submit to
+injuries, he would not endure commands. Thereupon broke out a great
+persecution against Catholics, which the Archimandrites of the second Syria
+report to Hormisdas.
+
+In a supplication signed by more than two hundred, they address him:[99]
+"Most blessed Father, we beseech you, arise; have compassion on the mangled
+body, for you are the head of all. Come to save us. Imitate our Lord, who
+came from heaven on earth to seek out the strayed sheep. Remember Peter,
+prince of the Apostles, whose See you adorn, and Paul, the vessel of
+election, for they went about enlightening the earth. The flock goes out to
+meet you, the true shepherd and teacher, to whom the care of all the sheep
+is committed, as the Lord says, 'My sheep hear My voice'. Most holy,
+despise us not, who are daily wounded by wild beasts." All that the Roman
+See had gained was that the orthodox bishops and many conspicuous easterns
+attached themselves to it, and the formulary binding them to obedience to
+the decisions of the Roman See found very many subscribers. The empire was
+in the greatest confusion when Anastasius died suddenly in the year 518,
+hated by the majority of his people, as perjured, heretical, and rapacious.
+Just before him died the heretical patriarchs, John II. of Alexandria and
+Timotheus of Constantinople.
+
+Then suddenly,[100] as in the third century the Illyrian emperors saved the
+dissolving empire, another peasant, who in long and honourable service had
+risen to the rank of general, and was respected by all men as a virtuous
+man and a good Catholic, was called to take up that eastern crown of
+Constantine, which Zeno and Anastasius had soiled with the iniquities and
+perfidies of forty years.
+
+At Bederiana, on the borders of Thrace and Illyria, there had lived three
+young men, Zimarchus, Ditybiotus, and Justin. Under pressure of misfortune
+they deserted the plough, and sought a livelihood elsewhere. They started
+on foot, their clothes packed on their backs, no money in their purses,
+with a loaf in their knapsacks. They came to Byzantium and enlisted. Twenty
+years of age and well grown, they attracted the notice of the emperor Leo
+I.: he enrolled them among his life-guards. Justin served as captain in the
+Isaurian war. For some unknown fault he was condemned to death by his
+general, and the next day was to be executed. The general, says Procopius,
+was changed by a vision which he saw that night. Under Anastasius, Justin
+rose to the rank of senator, patrician, and commander of the imperial
+guard. On the death of Anastasius, the eunuch Amantius, who was lord
+chamberlain, and had been up to that time all powerful, sent for Justin,
+and gave him great sums of money to get the voice of the soldiers and the
+people, for a creature of his own, named Theocritus, in whose name he
+intended to rule. Justin distributed the money in his own name, and on the
+9th July was proclaimed emperor by army and people. He was sixty-eight
+years old, and, if Procopius may be believed, could not even write his own
+name, at least in Latin. But he was of long experience, and admirable in
+the management of affairs. His wife was named Lupicina, of barbarian birth.
+Justin, in the first year of his service, had bought her as a slave, and
+married her. When he became emperor he crowned her as empress, and with the
+applause of the people gave her the name of Euphemia. He had a nephew born
+at Tauresium, a village of Dardania, near Bederiana. He was called Uprauda
+in his own land; his father was Istock, his mother Vigleniza. The Romans
+changed these Teuton names to Justinian, Sabbatius, and Vigilantia.
+Uprauda, the Upright, was the future emperor Justinian.
+
+The accession of Justin was received with universal joy; and the new
+emperor at once sent a high officer, Gratus, count of the sacred
+consistory, to announce it to Pope Hormisdas, with a letter in which he
+said that "John, who had succeeded as bishop of Constantinople, and the
+other bishops assembled there from various regions, having written to your
+Holiness for the unity of the churches, have earnestly besought us also to
+address our imperial letters to your Beatitude. We entreat you, then, to
+assist the desires of these most reverend prelates, and by your prayers to
+render favourable the divine majesty to us and the commonwealth, the
+government of which has been entrusted to us by God."[101]
+
+The count Justinian also wrote to Pope Hormisdas that "the divine mercy,
+regarding the sorrows of the human race, had at length brought about this
+time of desire. Thus I am free to write to your apostolate, our Lord, the
+emperor, desiring to restore the churches to unity. A great part has been
+already done. It only requires to obtain the consent of your Beatitude
+respecting the name of Acacius. For this reason his majesty has sent to you
+my most particular friend Gratus, a man of the highest rank, that you might
+condescend to come to Constantinople for the restoration of concord, or at
+least hasten to send bishops hither, for the whole world in our parts is
+impatient for the restoration of unity."[102]
+
+The result was that Pope Hormisdas held a council at Rome in 518, at which
+all that had been done by his predecessors, the Popes Simplicius, Felix,
+Gelasius, and Symmachus, was carefully reviewed, and all present decreed
+that the eastern Church should be received into communion with the
+Apostolic See, if they condemned the schismatic Acacius, entirely effacing
+his name, and also expunged from the diptychs Euphemius and Macedonius, as
+involved in the same guilt of schism. And a pontifical legation was then
+named to carry out the desire of the council, and they bore with them an
+instruction, from which they might not depart by a hair's-breadth.[103]
+
+The Pope wrote letters to the emperor, to the empress, to the count
+Justinian, especially to the bishop of Constantinople, recommending his
+legates, and exhorting the bishop to complete the work which was begun by
+condemning Acacius and his followers; also to the archdeacon Theodosius and
+the clergy of Constantinople.[104] He points out especially that he wants
+nothing new, or unusual, or improper, for Christian antiquity had ever
+avoided those who had associated with persons condemned; whoever teaches
+what Rome teaches, must also condemn what Rome condemns; whoever honours
+what the Pope honours, must likewise detest what he detests. A perfect
+peace admits of no division. The worship of one and the same God can only
+hold its truth in the unity of confession which embodies the belief.
+
+The papal legates were received honourably on their journey, and found the
+bishops in general disposed to sign the formulary issued by the Pope. In
+March, 519, they came to Constantinople, where they found the greatest
+readiness. The patriarch John took the formulary, and gave it the form of
+a letter, which seemed to him more honourable than a formulary such as
+those who had fallen would sign. He prefixed to the document which the Pope
+required to be subscribed the following preface:
+
+"Brother most dear in Christ, when I received the letters of your Holiness,
+by the noble count Gratus, and now by the bishops Germanus and John, the
+deacons Felix and Dioscorus, the priest Blandus, I rejoiced at the
+spiritual charity of your Holiness, in bringing back the unity of God's
+most sacred churches, according to the ancient tradition of the fathers,
+and in hastening to reject those who tear to pieces Christ's reasonable
+flock. Be then assured that, as I have written to you, I am in all things
+one with you in the truth. All those rejected by you as heretics I also
+reject for the love of peace. For I accept as one the most holy churches of
+God, yours of elder, and this of new Rome; yours the See of the Apostle
+Peter, and this of the imperial city, I define to be one. I assent to all
+the acts of the four holy councils--that is, of Nicæa, Constantinople,
+Ephesus, and Chalcedon--done for the confirmation of the faith and the
+state of the Church, and suffer nothing of their good judgments to be
+shaken; but I know that those who have endeavoured to disturb a single iota
+of their decrees have fallen from the holy, universal, and apostolical
+Church; and using plainly your own right words, I declare by this present
+writing,"[105] &c.
+
+This is the preface given to his letter by the patriarch John; he then
+adds the formulary issued by the Pope from his council in Rome as the terms
+of restored communion between the East and West.
+
+"The first condition of salvation is to maintain the rule of a right faith,
+and to deviate no whit from the tradition of the fathers; because the
+decree of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be passed over, in which He says,
+'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church '. These words
+are proved by their effect in deed, because the Catholic religion is ever
+kept inviolate in the Apostolic See. Desiring, therefore, not to fall from
+this faith, and following in all thing the constitutions of the fathers, we
+anathematise all heresies, but especially the heretic Nestorius, formerly
+bishop of Constantinople, condemned in the Council of Ephesus by
+Coelestine, Pope of Rome, and the venerable Cyril, bishop of Alexandria;
+and together with him we anathematise Eutyches and Dioscorus, bishop of
+Alexandria, condemned in the holy Council of Chalcedon, which we follow and
+embrace with veneration, which followed the holy Nicene Council, and set
+forth the apostolic faith. To these we join Timotheus the parricide,
+surnamed Ailouros, and anathematise him, condemning in like manner Peter of
+Alexandria, his disciple and follower in all things; so also we
+anathematise Acacius, formerly bishop of Constantinople, who became their
+accomplice and follower, and those who persevere in communion and
+participation with them; for whoever embraces the communion of condemned
+persons shares their judgment. In like manner we condemn and anathematise
+Peter of Antioch, with all his followers. Hence we approve and embrace all
+the letters of St. Leo, Pope of Rome, which he wrote in the right faith.
+Therefore, as aforesaid, following in all things the Apostolic See, we
+preach all which it has decreed; and therefore I trust to be with you in
+that one communion which the Apostolic See proclaims, in which the solidity
+of the Christian religion rests entire and perfect,[106] promising that
+these who in future are severed from the communion of the Catholic Church,
+that is, who do not in all things agree with the Apostolic See, shall not
+have their names recited in the sacred mysteries. But if I attempt in aught
+to vary from this my profession, I declare that by my own condemnation I
+partake with those whom I have condemned. I have subscribed with my own
+hand to this profession, and directed it in writing to thee, Hormisdas, my
+holy and most blessed brother, and Pope of Great Rome, by the above-named
+venerable bishops, Germanus and John, the deacons Felix and Dioscorus, the
+priest Blandus."
+
+The names of Acacius, Fravita, Euphemius, and Timotheus, four bishops of
+Constantinople, also of the emperors Zeno and Anastasius, who reigned from
+474 to 518 (if we include a few months of Basiliscus), were erased from the
+diptychs in the presence of the legates. After that, at the instance of the
+emperor, the other bishops, the abbots, and the senate had signed the
+formulary, a solemn service was celebrated, to the great joy of the
+people, in the Cathedral on Easter eve, the 24th March, to mark the act of
+reconciliation, and not the least disturbance took place. The official
+narration[107] of the five legates to Pope Hormisdas records the enthusiasm
+with which they were received at Constantinople. "From the palace we went
+to the church with the vast crowd. No one can believe the exultation of the
+people, nor doubt that the Divine Hand was there, bestowing such unity on
+the world. We signify to you that in our presence the name of the
+anathematised prevaricator, Acacius, was struck out of the diptychs, as
+likewise that of the other bishops who followed him in communion. So also
+the names of Anastasius and Zeno. By your prayers peace was restored to the
+minds of Christians: there is one soul, one joy, in the whole Church; only
+the enemy of the human race, crushed by the power of your prayer, is in
+mourning."
+
+The emperor Justin wrote to Pope Hormisdas:
+
+"Most religious Father, know that what we have so long earnestly sought to
+effect is done. John, the bishop of New Rome, together with his clergy,
+agrees with you. The formulary which you ordered, which is in agreement
+with the council of the most holy Fathers, has been subscribed by him. In
+accordance with that formulary, the mention at the divine mysteries of the
+prevaricator Acacius, formerly bishop of this city, has been forbidden for
+the future, as well as of the other bishops who either first came against
+the apostolic constitutions, or became successors of their error, and
+remained unrepentant to death. And since all our realm is to be admonished
+to imitate the example of the imperial city, we have directed everywhere
+our princely commands, so great is our desire to restore the peace of the
+Catholic faith to our commonwealth, to gain for my subjects the divine
+protection. For those whom the same realm contains, the same worship
+enlightens, what greater blessing can they have than to venerate with one
+mind laws of no human origin, but proceeding from the Divine Spirit? Let
+your Holiness pray that the divine gift of unity, so long laboured for by
+us, may be perpetually preserved."[108]
+
+Thus history tells us that, in the year 484, Acacius, bishop of
+Constantinople, being condemned by Pope Felix, answered by striking the
+name of Pope Felix out of the diptychs, and that, in the year 519, the name
+of Acacius was erased from the diptychs in his own church; that his own
+successor not only gave up his memory, but, together with 2500
+bishops,[109] signed a formulary which attributes to the Roman See the
+words of our Lord to St. Peter, which declares "that the Catholic religion
+is ever kept inviolate in the Apostolic See," "in which the solidity of the
+Christian religion rests entire and perfect," and which lays down the rule
+that whoever does not live and die in the communion of the Roman See has no
+claim to commemoration in the Church.
+
+Let us now shortly review the facts which have passed under our notice
+since St. Leo returned from his interview with the pirate Genseric in the
+year 455.
+
+In that fatal year the Theodosian house became extinct in the West so far
+as government was concerned. Valentinian's miserable widow, daughter of the
+eastern, wife of the western, emperor, during a short two months the prey
+of her husband's murderer, became with her daughters the captive of the
+Vandal freebooter, and saw the elder compelled to marry his son Hunnerich,
+the future persecutor of the Church. Twenty years succeed in which emperors
+are enthroned and pass like shadows, until the Herule general Odoacer,
+commanding for the time the Teuton mercenaries, deposes the last imperial
+phantom, Romulus Augustulus, and rules Rome and Italy with the title of
+Patricius. The western emperor is suppressed.
+
+In 457, the Theodosian house becomes extinct in the East by the death of
+the emperor Marcian, before whom the heiress of the empire, St. Pulcheria,
+granddaughter of the great Thedosius, had died in 453. He was succeeded by
+Leo, a soldier of fortune, but an orthodox emperor, who supported St. Leo.
+The emperor Leo reigned until 474, and after a few months, in which his
+child grandson, Leo II., nominally reigned, the eastern crown was taken by
+Zeno and held till 491, with the exception of twenty months in which
+Basiliscus, a successful insurgent, was in possession. As Zeno had reigned
+in virtue of being husband of the princess Ariadne, daughter of Leo I., so
+Anastasius, in 491, in the words of the Greek chronicle, "succeeded to his
+wife and the empire," and he reigned twenty-seven years, to 518.
+
+During this whole period, from the death of the emperor Leo I. in 474 to
+that of the emperor Anastasius in 518, the political state of the East and
+West was most perilous to the Church. In the East, the three sovereigns,
+Zeno, Basiliscus, and Anastasius, were unsound in their belief, treacherous
+in their action, scandalous in their life. The Popes addressed with honour,
+as the vice-gerents of divine power, men whom, as to their personal
+character, they must have loathed. Their government, moreover, was
+disastrous to their subjects--a tissue of insurrections, barbaric invasion,
+and devastation; at home, civil corruption of every kind.
+
+In the West, Teuton conquerors had taken possession of the Roman empire.
+The Herule Odoacer had been put to death in 493 by the Ostrogoth
+Theodorick, who, like Odoacer before him, reigned with cognisance and
+approbation of the eastern emperor for thirty-three years. Both Odoacer and
+Theodorick were Arians; so also Genseric and his son Hunnerich, who ruled
+the former Roman provinces in Africa; so the Visigoths in southern France
+and Spain; so the Burgundians at Lyons. One conquering race only, that of
+the Franks, was not Arian, but pagan, until the conversion of Clovis, in
+496, gave to the West one sovereign, Catholic and friendly to the Pope. We
+have seen in what terms Pope Anastasius welcomed his baptism. The
+population in the old Roman provinces which remained faithful to the
+Catholic religion was a portion of the old proprietors, such as had not
+been dispossessed by the successive confiscations and redistributions of
+land under the victorious northern invaders, and the poor, whether dwelling
+in cities or cultivating the soil. And these looked up everywhere to their
+several bishops for support and encouragement under every sort of trial.
+All men were sorted under two divisions in the vast regions for which
+Stilicho had fought and conquered in vain: the one division was Arian and
+Teuton, the other Catholic and Roman. And as the several Catholic people
+looked to their bishops, so all these bishops looked to the Pope; and St.
+Avitus expressed every bishop's strongest conviction when he said, writing
+in the name of them all, "In the case of other bishops, if there be any
+lapse it may be restored; but if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not one
+bishop, but the episcopate itself will seem to be shaken".
+
+When the western emperor was suppressed the Pope became locally subject for
+about fourteen years to the Arian Odoacer, and then for a full generation
+to the Arian Theodorick. The latter soon found, by a calculation of
+interest, that the only way to rule Italy and the adjoining territories
+which his conquering arms had attached to Italy was by maintaining civil
+justice and equality among all his subjects. He took two of the noblest
+Romans, Boethius and Cassiodorus, for his friends and counsellors, and in
+the letters of the latter, from about the year 500 to the end of
+Theodorick's reign, we possess most valuable information as to the way in
+which Theodorick governed. Odoacer would seem likewise, during the years of
+his government until he was shut up in Ravenna, to have followed a like
+policy. But that the position of the Pope under Odoacer and Theodorick was
+one of great difficulty and delicacy no one can doubt. Gelasius speaks of
+his having had to resist Odoacer "by God's help, when he enjoined things
+not to be done".[110] And in 526 Pope John I. paid with his life, in the
+dungeon of Ravenna, the penalty for not having satisfied the Arian
+exactions of Theodorick in the eastern embassy imposed upon him.
+
+I mention these things very summarily, having already given them with more
+or less detail, but I must needs recur to them because, in weighing the
+transactions which the schism of Acacius brought about, it is essential to
+bear in mind throughout the embarrassed and subject political situation in
+which all the Popes concerned with that schism found themselves.
+
+Within seven years after the western emperor had been suppressed, and the
+overlordship of the East been acknowledged by the Roman senate as well as
+the Teuton conqueror, what happened?
+
+A bishop of Constantinople, as able and popular as he was unscrupulous, had
+established a mental domination over the eastern emperor Zeno. He reigned
+in the utmost sacerdotal pomp at Constantinople; he beheld Old Rome sunk
+legally to the mere rank of a municipal city, and the See of St. Peter in
+it subject to an Arian of barbaric blood. He thought the time was come for
+the bishop of the imperial city to emancipate himself from the control of
+the Lateran Patriarcheium. Having gained great renown by his defence of the
+Council of Chalcedon against the usurper Basiliscus, having denounced at
+Rome the misdeeds and the heresy of the Eutychean who was elected by that
+party at Alexandria, and having so been high in the trust of Pope
+Simplicius, he turned against both Pope and Council. He set up two heretics
+as patriarchs--Peter the Stammerer, the very man he had denounced, at
+Alexandria, and Peter the Fuller at Antioch. He composed a doctrinal
+statement, called the "Form of Union," which, by the emperor's edict, was
+imposed on the eastern bishops. It was a scarcely-veiled Eutychean
+document. He called to his aid all the jealousy which Nova Roma felt for
+her elder sister, all the pride which she felt for the exaltation of her
+own bishop. If he succeeded in maintaining his own nominees in the two
+original patriarchates of the East, he succeeded at the same time in
+subjecting them to his own see. He crowned that series of encroachments
+which had advanced step by step since the 150 bishops of the purely eastern
+council held at Constantinople just a hundred years before set the
+exaltation of the imperial city on a false foundation. In fact, if this his
+enterprise succeeded, he obtained the realisation of the 28th canon, which
+Anatolius attempted to pass at Chalcedon, and which Pope Leo had
+overthrown. But most of all, both in the government of the Church and in
+the supreme magisterium, the determination of the Church's true doctrine,
+he deposed the successor of St. Peter, and but one single step remained, to
+which all his conduct implied the intention to proceed. For the logical
+basis of that conduct was the assertion that, as the bishop of Rome had
+been supreme when, and because, Rome was the capital of the empire, so when
+Constantinople had succeeded Rome as capital, her bishop also succeeded to
+the spiritual rights of the Primacy.
+
+We may sum up the attempt of Acacius in a single word: the denial that the
+Pope had succeeded to the universal Pastorship of St. Peter.
+
+This, then, was the point at issue, and when the western emperor was
+suppressed, and the overlordship of the eastern emperor acknowledged, the
+Pope was deprived of all temporal support, and left to meet the attack of
+Acacius in the naked power of his apostolate. From the year 483, when the
+deeds of Acacius led to his excommunication, followed by the schism, to its
+termination in 519, the Popes, being subjects of Arian sovereigns, who were
+likewise of barbaric descent, braved the whole civil power of the eastern
+emperors, as well as the whole ecclesiastical influence of the bishops of
+Constantinople. Not only were Zeno and Anastasius unorthodox, but likewise
+they were bent on increasing the influence of that bishop whom they
+nominated and controlled. The sovereigns of the East had been able, even by
+a simple practice of Byzantine etiquette, to put their own bishop in a
+position of determining influence over the whole eastern episcopate. For
+we learn from the instruction of Pope Hormisdas to his legates that it was
+the custom for every bishop to be presented to the emperor by the bishop of
+Constantinople. The Pope most strictly enjoins his legates not to submit to
+this. The effect of such a rule upon the eastern bishops who frequented the
+court of an absolute sovereign exhibits another cause of that perpetual
+growth which accrues to the bishop of the imperial city.
+
+Every human power, every conjunction of circumstances, seemed to be against
+the Popes in this struggle. While the East was thus in hostile hands, under
+emperors who were either secretly or avowedly heretical, the West was under
+Arian domination. Italy was ruled from 493 to 526 by a man of great
+ability. Few rulers have surpassed Theodorick either in success as a
+warrior or in political skill. He had, further, enlaced the contemporary
+rulers in the various countries of the West in ties of relationship with
+himself. He had married Andefleda, sister of Clovis; he gave Theudigotha,
+one of his own daughters by a concubine, to Alaric of Toulouse, king of the
+Visigoths, and another, Ostrogotha, to Sigismund, king of the Burgundians,
+at Lyons. Even before he had conquered Odoacer, in 493, he was in strict
+alliance with the king of the Vandals in Africa, to whom he gave his sister
+Amalafrieda to wife, and her daughter Amalaberga to the king of the
+Thuringians. He solicited the royal title in 496 by an embassy to
+Anastasius, and the result of that embassy was that the chief man in it,
+Faustus, patrician and senator, when he returned to Rome, contrived to
+raise a schism in the clergy itself against Pope Symmachus. This schism was
+the greatest difficulty which the Pope in all this period encountered.
+Theodorick in political talent and warlike genius reminds historians of
+Charlemagne: but instead of having that monarch's faith, he was an Arian.
+His equal treatment of Arian and Catholic was a carefully thought-out
+policy; nor did he scruple at the very end of his career to sacrifice even
+the very life of the Pope to his political schemes. He favoured the senate
+of Rome in its corporate capacity; he favoured individual senators, but
+always as instruments of his own absolute rule, the key to which was to
+unite the use of the Roman mind in administration with the Gothic arm in
+action. When the end of the schism came, he had married his only child
+Amalasunta, the heiress of his kingdom, to Eutharic, who in the first year
+of the emperor Justin was consul of Rome with that prince, and nominated by
+him.
+
+On what, then, did the Pope rely? On one thing only--that in the inmost
+conscience of the Church, in East and West, he was recognised as St.
+Peter's successor; that upon everyone who sat in the Apostolic See had
+descended the mighty inheritance, the charge which no man could execute
+except he were empowered by divine command and sustained by divine support.
+For as it required God to utter the words, "Upon this rock I will build My
+Church"; "If thou lovest Me, feed My sheep"; "Confirm thy brethren "; so
+it no less required God to enable any man to fulfil that charge. But how
+when it comes to a succession of men? How many families can show a
+continuous succession of three temporal rulers equally great? Can any
+family show four such? Can anyone calculate the power which maintains such
+a succession through centuries?
+
+Here, after four full centuries, in that one belief the seven next
+successors of St. Leo--Hilarus, Simplicius, Felix, Gelasius, Anastasius,
+Symmachus, and Hormisdas--stood as one man. Their counsels did not vary.
+Their resolve was one. Their course was straight. In Leo's time the earth
+reeled beneath the tread of Attila, the city groaned beneath Genseric's
+hoof. And now three heretics--despots, and ignoble despots, if ever such
+there were--filled the sole imperial throne. Arians, closely connected by
+family ties and identical interests, divided the West among them. The seven
+Popes sat on at the Lateran in the palace which Constantine had given them,
+and said Mass in the church which he had built for them. Three of his
+degenerate successors tried every art against them and failed. During
+twenty years of this time, from 476 to 496, no ruler small or great
+acknowledged the Catholic faith. The East was Eutychean, the West Arian. At
+length St. Remigius baptised the Frankish chief as first-born of the Teuton
+race in the Catholic faith of the Holy Trinity, and the Pope at Rome gave
+utterance as a father to his joy. The end was that the schism was
+terminated on the part of the bishop, the heir of the seat and the
+ambition of Acacius, by the prince, by his nobles, among them the
+legislator who was to be Justinian, and by 2500 bishops throughout the
+East, acknowledging in distinct terms that one unique authority on which
+the Popes had rested throughout the contest. They declared solemnly, in
+celebrating the holiest mystery of the Christian faith, that the word of
+the Lord cannot be passed over, saying, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock
+I will build My Church". They added that the course of five hundred years
+had exemplified the fact "that the solidity of the Christian religion rests
+entire and perfect in the Apostolic See". The rebellion of Acacius in 483
+drew forth this confession from his successor, John II., in 519.
+
+The seven successors of St. Leo stood as one man. No variation in their
+language or their conduct can be found. Not so the seven successors of
+Anatolius at Constantinople. That bishop, who had seen himself foiled by
+the vigour and sagacity of St. Leo at the Council of Chalcedon, lived
+afterwards on good terms with him, and died in 458, in his lifetime. He was
+succeeded by Gennadius, who, during the thirteen years of his episcopate,
+was faithful both to the creed which St. Leo had preserved and to the
+dignity of the Apostolic See. He was followed by Acacius, who occupied the
+see from 471 to 489. There was some quality in Acacius which gained the
+favour of princes. He had charmed at once the old emperor Leo I.; but Zeno,
+whose influence first made him bishop, afterwards followed all his
+teaching. He had also gained a renown for orthodoxy by refusing the
+attempt of Basiliscus to make the imperial will a rule of Church doctrine.
+It was when his stronger mind had mastered Zeno that he began the desperate
+attempt against the doctrine and discipline of the Apostolic See which has
+been our chief subject. But when he died in 489, his successor Fravita at
+once renounced the position which he had taken up by asking the recognition
+of Pope Felix and restoring his name in the diptychs. It is true that in
+his conduct he was double-dealing, and, while he sought for the Pope's
+recognition, parleyed with the heretical patriarch of Alexandria. But he
+died in three months, and was succeeded by Euphemius, who likewise
+repudiated the act of Acacius, and earnestly sought reconciliation with the
+Pope, while he was unwilling to fulfil the condition of it--that he should
+erase the name of Acacius from the diptychs. The six years' episcopate of
+Euphemius was one long contest with the treachery and persecution of the
+emperor Anastasius, who at last, by help of the resident council, was able
+to depose him. He placed Macedonius in his stead, who again sought to be
+reconciled with the Pope, but only would not pay the price of renouncing
+the person, as he fully renounced the conduct, of Acacius. During fifteen
+years, from 496 to 511, as Euphemius had resisted the covert heresy of
+Anastasius, so did Macedonius, and, like him, he fell at last before the
+enmity of the emperor. Upon the deposition of Macedonius, the emperor
+obtained the election of Timotheus, who during seven years was his docile
+instrument. When he died in 518, the bishop John was elected, whose great
+desire was the restoration of unity, with the maintenance of the faith of
+Chalcedon. By side of the seven Popes succeeding St. Leo put the seven
+bishops of the emperor's city. We find two--the first and the
+last--Gennadius and John, blameless. The second, Acacius, author of all the
+evil in a schism of thirty-five years. The third, the fourth, and the fifth
+shrink from the deed of Acacius; and two of them are deposed by the
+emperor, while his people respect and cherish their memory. The sixth is a
+mere tool of the emperor.
+
+Four eastern emperors occupy the sixty years from Marcian to Justin. Three
+of them are of the very worst which even Byzantium can show. Their reply to
+the appeal of the Pope to "the Christian prince and Roman emperor" was to
+betray the faith and sacrifice Rome to Arian occupation.
+
+But when we turn from the bishops and emperors of the eastern capital to
+the seats of the ancient patriarchs, to the Alexandria of Athanasius and
+Cyril, to the Antioch of Ignatius, Chrysostom, and Eustathius, no words can
+express the division, the scandals, the excesses, which the Eutychean
+spirit, striving to overthrow the Council of Chalcedon, showed during those
+sixty years. With this spirit Acacius played to stir up the eastern
+jealousy against the Apostolic See of the West, and he found a most willing
+coadjutor in the eastern emperor, the more so because that See was no
+longer locally situated in his domain. The chance of Acacius lay
+throughout in the pride of that monarch who was become the sole inheritor
+of the Roman name, as Pope Felix reminded him, and who would fain see Nova
+Roma the centre of ecclesiastical rule, as it was become the head of the
+diminished empire. Anastasius, after Zeno, was still more swayed by these
+motives than his predecessor.
+
+But here we touch the completeness of the success which followed the trust
+placed in their apostolate by the seven immediate successors of St. Leo. In
+proportion as Rome became in the temporal order a mere municipal city, the
+sacerdotal authority of its bishop came out into clearer light. Three times
+in the fifth century Rome was mercilessly sacked--in 410, in 455, in 472.
+Its senators were carried into slavery, its population diminished. The
+finishing stroke of its ignominy may be said to be the deposition, by a
+barbarian _condottiere_, of the poor boy whose name, repeating in
+connection the founder of the city with the founder of the empire, seemed
+to mock the mortal throes of the great mother. But this lessening of the
+secular city, so far from lessening the authority of the spiritual power,
+reveals to all men, believers or unbelievers, that the pontificate, whose
+seat is locally in the city, has a life not derived from the city. Rome's
+temporal fall exhibits in full the intangible spiritual character of the
+pontificate. If St. Peter had to any seemed to rule because he was seated
+on the pedestal of the Cæsarean empire, when that empire fell the Apostle
+alone remained to whom Christ gave the charge, whom He invested with the
+"great mantle".[111] The bishop of the city in which an Arian Ostrogoth
+ruled supreme as to temporal things was acknowledged by the head of the
+empire, from whom the Ostrogoth derived his title, as the person in whom
+our Lord's word--the creative word which founds an empire as it makes a
+world--was accomplished, had been during five hundred years accomplished,
+would be for ever accomplished.[112]
+
+The malice of Acacius largely led to this result. His attack was the
+prelude to the sifting of the Pope's prerogative during thirty-five years:
+its sifting by a rival at Constantinople, by the eastern bishops, by the
+eastern emperor, who had now also become the sole Roman emperor; and the
+sifting was followed by a full acknowledgment. Nothing but this hostile
+conduct would have afforded so indubitable a proof of the thing impugned.
+While the ancient patriarchates which had formed the substructure of the
+triple dais on which the Apostolic See rested were falling into
+irretrievable confusion, while the new State-made patriarch at
+Constantinople was trying to nominate and, if he could, to consecrate his
+elders and superiors at Alexandria and Antioch, who descended from Peter,
+the essential prerogative of the Apostolic See itself came forth into full
+light. The bishops at Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and
+every other city in the world would be great or small in influence
+according to the greatness or smallness of their city. If the city fell
+altogether, the see would fall. Its life was tied to the city. But it was
+not so with that pontificate on which the Church was built. There and there
+only the living power was given by Christ to a man: not local, nor limited,
+nor transitory. This was the great truth which the Acacian schism helped to
+establish in the minds of men, and which was proclaimed in that Nova Roma
+where Acacius had refused the judgment of Pope Felix, and had tried to put
+himself on an equality. As a result, in the terms of union which have been
+above recited, the action of Acacius has had the honour to condemn the
+rebellion of Photius three hundred years before it arose, and every other
+rebellion which has imitated that of Photius.
+
+Nor must it be forgotten that it was the constancy of the Popes in these
+sixty years which alone prevented the prevailing of Eutychean doctrine in
+the East. Blent with that doctrine was the attempt of three emperors to
+substitute themselves as judges of doctrine for the Apostolic See and the
+bishops in union with it. At the moment when John Talaia[113] was expelled
+from Alexandria, the Monophysite heresy, espoused by Acacius and imposed by
+Zeno, would have triumphed, save for the Popes Simplicius and Felix. And it
+would have triumphed while the instrument of its triumph, the Henotikon,
+would have inflicted a deadly blow upon the government of the Church by
+taking away the independence of her teaching office. This struggle
+continued during the reign of Zeno; and Anastasius, as soon as he became
+emperor, used all the absolute power which he possessed to enforce the
+reception of the same document. Even Euphemius and Macedonius were obliged
+to sign it, and the sacrifice which they made in suffering deposition does
+not deliver their character of bishops from the stain of this weakness. We
+see in this period the first stadium traversed by the Greek Church in that
+descending course which, in another century, brought it to the ruin wrought
+by Mahomet.
+
+On the other hand, the seven Popes kept the position of St. Leo--rather,
+they more than kept it, because, under outward circumstances so greatly
+altered for the worse, they both maintained his doctrine and justified his
+conduct. They insisted through the darkest times, under pressure of the
+greatest calamities, deprived of all temporal aid, that the person of
+Acacius should be solemnly removed from recognition as a bishop by the
+Church. They insisted, and it was done. The act of Acacius, if allowed to
+pass, would have carried into actual life the assertion of the canon which
+St. Leo had rejected: that the privileges of the Roman See were derived
+from the grant of the Fathers to Rome because it was the capital. The
+expunging of his name from the diptychs, with the solemn asseveration that
+the rank of the Holy See was derived from the gift of Christ, and that the
+Church's solidity as a fabric consisted in it, and equally the maintenance
+of the Catholic religion, established the contradictory of that 28th canon,
+and enforced for ever the subordination of the see which Acacius sought to
+exalt. At the same time it pointed out the distinction between the See of
+Peter and all other sees: the distinction that in the case of every other
+bishop the spiritual life of the bishop, as a ruler, is local and attached
+to his see. But the See of Peter is the generator of the episcopate,
+because of Peter ever living in his successor.
+
+It may also be remarked that it is this overflowing life of Peter which
+invests titular bishops with the names of dead sees. Thus they sit as
+members of a General Council, verifying to the letter St. Cyprian's adage,
+that the episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each without
+division of the whole.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+JUSTINIAN.
+
+
+The submission of the eastern empire and episcopate to Pope Hormisdas, in
+519, is a memorable incident in the history of the Church. A large and
+marked part in it was taken by the man who for thirty-eight years was to
+rule the eastern empire, to expel the Goths from Italy, thus recovering the
+original seat of Roman power, and the Vandals from Africa, and so once more
+attach the great southern provinces, for so many ages the granary of Rome
+and Italy itself, to the existing Byzantine realm. Before, however, this
+was done, when, after the death of Theodorick, the Gothic kingdom still
+subsisted under his grandson Athalarick and his daughter Amalasunta, the
+emperor Justinian addressed to Pope John II., in the year 533, a letter
+from which I quote as follows. I preface that this letter was carried to
+the Pope by two imperial legates, the bishops Hypatius and Demetrius. It
+begins:[115] "Rendering honour to the Apostolic See and to your Holiness,
+whom we ever have revered, and do revere, as is befitting a father, we
+hasten to bring to the knowledge of your Holiness everything which
+concerns the state of the churches. For the existing unity of your
+Apostolic See, and the present undisturbed state of God's holy churches,
+has always been a thing which we have earnestly sought to maintain. And so
+we lost no time in subjecting and uniting all bishops of the whole eastern
+region[116] to the See of your Holiness. We have now, therefore, held it
+necessary that the points mooted, though they are clear and beyond doubt,
+and have been ever firmly maintained and proclaimed by all bishops
+according to the teaching of your Apostolic See, should be brought to the
+knowledge of your Holiness. For we do not allow that anything concerning
+the state of the churches, clear and undoubted though it be, when once
+mooted, should not be made known to your Holiness, who is the head of all
+the holy churches. For, as we said, in all things we hasten to increase the
+honour and authority of your See." He then proceeds to recite a creed which
+carefully condemns the errors of Nestorius on the one side, and Eutyches on
+the other, and acknowledges "the holy and glorious Virgin Mary to be
+properly and truly Mother of God". At the beginning of this creed he
+introduces the words: "All bishops of the holy and apostolic Church, and
+the most reverend archimandrites of the sacred monasteries, following your
+Holiness, and maintaining that state and unity of God's holy churches which
+they have from the Apostolic See of your Holiness, changing no wit of that
+ecclesiastical state which has held and holds now, confess with one
+consent," &c. And he concludes with the words: "All bishops, therefore,
+following the doctrine of your Apostolic See, so believe, confess, and
+preach: for which we have hastened to bring this to the knowledge of your
+Holiness, by the bishops Hypatius and Demetrius; and we beg your fatherly
+affection, that by letters addressed to us, and to the bishop and
+patriarch, your brother, of this imperial city (since he on the same
+occasion wrote to your Holiness, being earnest in all things to follow the
+Apostolic See), you would make known to us that your Holiness receives all
+who make the above true confession. For so the love of all to you and the
+authority of your See will increase, and the unity of the holy churches
+with you will be preserved unbroken, when all bishops learn through you the
+sincere doctrine of your Holiness in what has been reported to you. But we
+beseech your Holiness to pray for us, and obtain for us the guardianship of
+God."
+
+Pope John II. acknowledges this letter to "his most gracious son, Justinian
+Augustus". He highly celebrates the praises of "the most Christian prince,"
+that "in your zeal for faith and charity, instructed in the Church's
+discipline, you preserve reverence to the See of Rome, and subject all
+things to it, and bring them to its unity, to the author of which, the
+first Apostle, the Lord's words were addressed, 'Feed My sheep': which both
+the rules of the Fathers and the statutes of emperors declare to be the
+head of all churches, and the reverential words of your Piety attest". The
+Pope adds: "Your imperial words, brought by the bishops Hypatius and
+Demetrius, which have been agreed to by our brethren and fellow-bishops,
+being agreeable to apostolic doctrine, we by our authority confirm". "This,
+then, is your true faith; this all Fathers of blessed memory and prelates
+of the Roman Church, whom in all things we follow, this the Apostolic See
+has to this time preached and maintained unshaken." "And we beseech our God
+and Saviour Jesus Christ to preserve you long and peacefully in this true
+religion and unity, and veneration of the Apostolic See, whose principate
+you, as most Christian and pious, preserve in all things."
+
+In the same year, 533, in which Justinian addressed to the Pope this
+remarkable recognition of the Roman Primacy, specifying that everything
+which concerns the whole Church should be brought before the Pope, though
+it might be already certain and in accordance with established usage, he
+gave his approval to that collection of laws called in Latin the _Digest_
+and in Greek the _Pandects_, which he had commissioned Tribonian and other
+great lawyers to draw up. Seventeen commissioners, having power given to
+them to alter, omit, and correct, selected by his command, out of nearly
+two thousand volumes, what they considered serviceable in the imperial laws
+and the decisions of great lawyers. It is a vast repertory of judicial
+cases in which Roman lawyers seek to apply the general rules of law and
+natural equity. It was the first attempt since the Twelve Tables to
+construct an independent centre of right as a whole,[117] and it was
+confirmed by the authority of the emperor on the 16th December, 533.
+
+As in the whole course of the fifth century, so no less in the sixth, it is
+necessary to bear in mind the close interweaving of political with
+ecclesiastical facts. The force and bearing of the one only become
+intelligible when the others are weighed. In 519, under Pope Hormisdas, the
+schism of Acacius had collapsed, and the most emphatic acknowledgment of
+all which the Popes had claimed in the contest with him, and with the
+emperors Zeno and Anastasius, who favoured him, had taken place. Pope
+Hormisdas had been succeeded in 523 by Pope John I. Compelled by the king
+Theodorick to undertake an embassy to the emperor Justin, received at
+Byzantium with the highest honour as first Bishop of the Church, being also
+the first Pope who had visited the eastern capital, and crowned with gifts
+for the churches at Rome, he returned only to die in the dungeon of the
+Arian prince at Ravenna, in 526. In three months Theodorick had followed to
+the tomb his three victims--Symmachus, Boethius, and Pope John I. His death
+had well-nigh broken up the league of Teutonic Arian rulers against the
+Catholic faith, of which he had been the soul during the thirty-three years
+of his reign. Justinian had been taken by his uncle Justin as partner of
+his empire in April, 527, and crowned, together with his wife Theodora, on
+Easter Day. Four months later he succeeded his uncle in the sole power. At
+the death of Theodorick, the innate weakness of the Gothic kingdom in
+Italy, which had been veiled by the personal ability of the sovereign, came
+to full light. The utter incompatibility between the savage Goth and the
+cultured Roman showed itself in the rejection of the queen Amalasunta, in
+the depriving her of her son, and his subsequent corruption and premature
+death, its result. It was shown also in the retirement of Cassiodorus from
+the place of counsellor and minister of the Gothic king. Upon the death of
+Pope John I., in 526, Theodorick had exercised his power in urging the
+Romans to select Felix for pope. For this permanent injury had been
+inflicted upon the liberty of the papal election by the foreign occupation
+of Italy. It began under Odoacer in 483, when the temporal ruler, being a
+foreigner and an Arian, for the first time sought to mix himself with the
+election. Twenty years after, under Pope Symmachus, the attempt of Odoacer
+had been condemned. But what the Herule and the Gothic ruler, both Arians,
+had begun, the Byzantine emperor, when he recovered possession of Rome,
+carried on, and the original freedom of election was subjected to the
+control of the eastern emperor for hundreds of years.
+
+Pope Felix sat until 530, and was then succeeded by Bonifacius II., the son
+of a Goth; not, however, without a temporary schism, occasioned by the
+attempt of King Athalarick to exert the arbitrary power used by his
+grandfather Theodorick in the election. Pope John II. followed in 532. In
+this Pope's time Cassiodorus was made Prætorian prefect by King
+Athalarick, and wrote to the Pope as a son to his father: "Be careful to
+remind me what I am to do. I wish to deal rightly, though I am blamed. A
+sheep which desires to hear the voice of his shepherd is not so easily led
+astray; and if he has one who warns continually at his side, can scarcely
+be criminal. I am, indeed, judge in the palace, but shall not therefore
+cease to be your disciple. For we execute this office well when we do not
+in the least depart from your injunctions. Since, then, I wish to be guided
+by your counsels and supported by your prayers, you must show your hand
+when there is anything in me otherwise than would be desired. That chair
+which is the wonder of the whole world should carefully protect its own,
+since, though it is given to the whole world, yet it admits in you a
+special local love."[118]
+
+The Pope, to whom the Prætorian prefect of Athalarick, the temporal
+sovereign, addressed this language, is John II., to whom Justinian, from
+Byzantium, spoke as a son, and whose primacy he acknowledged in terms so
+ample, before he became, by the conquest of Belisarius, the temporal lord
+of Rome; the year, also, before he reconquered Northern Africa by the sword
+of the same great general.
+
+Justinian, with not less precision than former emperors, acknowledged all
+his life long the primacy of the Roman See. We need not exclude political
+motives from this acknowledgment, but we must allow to him the fullest
+conviction as to its legitimate authority. If now and then, under the
+impulse of passion or despotic humour, he seemed to disregard its rights,
+he soon strove again to obtain the Pope's assent to his measures. In his
+edict to his own patriarch Epiphanius, he declared expressly that he held
+himself bound accurately to inform the Pope, as head of all bishops,
+concerning the circumstances of his realm, especially since the Roman
+Church by its decisions in faith had overthrown the heresies which arose in
+the East.[119] The imperial theologian was very unwilling to give up the
+initiative in the determination of ecclesiastical questions; nevertheless,
+he acknowledged in the Bishop of Old Rome the superior judge without whose
+confirmation his own steps remained devoid of force and effect.[120]
+
+The man who was born an Illyrian peasant, who was the leading spirit during
+the nine years' reign of another Illyrian peasant, his uncle, who succeeded
+him in 527, and ruled the greatest kingdom of the earth during thirty-eight
+years; to whom the bitter Vandal in Africa and the nobler Goth in Italy
+yielded up their equally ill-gotten prey; who became the great legislator
+of the Roman world, by the commission given to his chief lawyers to select
+and, after correction, tabulate the laws of the emperors his predecessors;
+to whom, in consequence, the actual nations of Europe owe what was to them
+the fountain of universal right, demands a somewhat detailed account of his
+character, his purposes, and his actions. When the prince of the poets of
+Christendom, the only poet who has spoken in the name and with the voice of
+Christendom, meets his spirit under the guidance of Beatrice, the emperor
+utters words the truth of which all must feel:
+
+    "Cæsar I was and am Justinian,
+    Moved by the will of that Prime Love I feel
+    I clear'd the encumbered laws from vain excess".[121]
+
+It is in this character that Justinian lives for all history, and his name
+stands out among all Byzantine sovereigns with a lustre of its own. I have
+therefore first quoted the most definite words of the great legislator,
+spontaneously acknowledging the right of St. Peter's successor to know and
+to judge of all that concerns the Church's doctrine and practice. The
+acknowledgment of this right is the more to be marked because, when it was
+made by the eastern emperor, that successor was not his own subject. That
+he was the head of all the churches of the world, that he was so by descent
+from Peter, that in virtue of this headship and descent he had a right of
+supervision over everything which belonged to the Church in all the
+world--this is what Justinian avows, and this, moreover, is equally what
+the Pope claimed then as he claims now.
+
+Justinian ascended the eastern throne in August, 527, at about the age of
+forty-five. He would therefore have been born in 482. He was of somewhat
+more than middle height, of regular features, dark colour, of ample chest,
+serene and agreeable aspect. Through the care of his uncle he had had a
+good education, and had early learned to read and write. He was skilled in
+jurisprudence, architecture, music, and, moreover, in theology. His
+personal piety was remarkable. When he became emperor he bestowed all his
+private goods on churches, and ruled his house like a monastery. In Lent,
+his life approached that of a hermit in severity. He ate no bread; drank
+only water; for his nourishment he contented himself every other day with a
+portion of wild herbs, seasoned with salt and vinegar. We have sure
+testimony respecting his fasts and mortifications, since he has taken pains
+in his last laws, the _Novels_, to inform the world of them.[122]
+
+His uncle Justin had died at the age of seventy-seven, after reigning nine
+years. His accession had marked a sort of resurrection in eastern affairs.
+Instead of three emperors, Basiliscus, Zeno, and Anastasius, alike
+ignominious in their government, unsound in their faith, infamous in their
+life, and remorselessly tyrannical in their treatment both of Church and
+State, Justin had crowned an honourable life as a general in the imperial
+service with a creditable reign, in which his fidelity to the Catholic
+faith was remarkable. The moment of Justinian's succession was coeval with
+great changes in the West. By the death of Theodorick, who in his last
+year had begun the work of active Arian persecution, the great kingdom
+which he had maintained for a generation seemed on the point of
+dissolution, through the intrinsic inaptitude for government which his
+Gothic subjects at once betrayed when let loose from the master's powerful
+hand. In Africa, moreover, a succession of cruel Vandal persecutors, almost
+equal to their original, Genseric, had shaken their tenure of the country.
+At the same time, the Frankish kingdom, strengthened greatly by the
+conversion of Clovis, was growing in power and extent--a growth not
+interrupted by his early death in 511, at the age of forty-five.[123]
+
+Such was the state of things when Justinian directed the great power which
+the revenues of the eastern empire enabled him to wield, towards the
+restoration of that empire, first in Africa, and then in Italy. Later in
+the same year, 533, in which he addressed to John II. the explicit
+acknowledgment of his supreme authority with which I began, he despatched
+his great general Belisarius with 16,000 chosen troops, 6000 of them
+cavalry, to Carthage. The Vandal ruler Gelimer offered but a feeble and
+utterly ineffectual resistance. He surrendered himself at Carthage to
+Belisarius, by the end of the year, and was brought to Constantinople.
+There Justinian received Belisarius in what was like one of Rome's hundred
+triumphs, except that the conqueror marched on foot. The booty of the
+Vandal kings was borne before him, in which were conspicuous the precious
+things which Genseric had carried away from Rome--the vessels of the temple
+of Jerusalem. When the captive king was brought into the circus, and saw
+before him the emperor and countless rows of spectators, he is said to have
+shed no tears, but to have uttered the words of the preacher: "Vanity of
+vanities, all is vanity". But his head did not fall under the axe of the
+lictors, as in the ancient Roman triumphs. He received in Dalmatia a great
+property, and lived there in abundance with his family. The other captives
+were enrolled in the Roman army, and Justinian and Theodora heaped presents
+upon the daughters of Hilderich, and all the descendants of that princess
+Eudocia, great-granddaughter of the great Theodosius, who had been obliged
+to espouse the son of Genseric in her captivity at Carthage.
+
+Then Justinian divided North Africa into seven provinces--Tingitana,
+Mauritanea, Numidia, Carthage, Byzacene, Tripolis, and Sardinia, which
+last, having belonged to the Vandals, was put into the prefecture of
+Africa. This received a Prætorian prefect and proconsular governors, who
+were charged to maintain the land, and show to the inhabitants the
+difference between civilised Roman government and Vandal cruelty. Justinian
+restored many cities, and erected many great buildings, especially
+churches, of which five in Leptis alone.[124]
+
+An early result of Justinian's reconquest of Africa was that the bishops
+met in plenary council, under the presidency of the primate of Carthage,
+Reparatus, successor of Boniface. After a hundred years of Vandal
+oppression, 217 bishops assembled in the Basilica of Faustus, at Carthage,
+named Justiniana in honour of the emperor--the church which Hunnerich had
+taken from the Catholics, in which many bodies of martyrs were buried. To
+their intercession the council ascribed their deliverance from persecution.
+After reading the Nicene decrees, they discussed the question whether Arian
+priests who had become Catholics should be received in their dignity or
+only to lay communion. All the members of the council inclined to the
+latter judgment. They, however, would come to no decision, but with one
+voice determined to consult Pope John II. They addressed a letter to him by
+the hands of two bishops and a deacon, in which they say: "We considered it
+agreeable to charity that no one should disclose our judgment until first
+the custom or determination of the Roman Church should be made known to us:
+honouring herein with due obedience the authority of your Blessedness,
+being such a Pontiff as the holy See of Peter deserved to have, worthy of
+veneration, full of affection, speaking the truth without falsehood, doing
+nothing with arrogance. Therefore the free charity of the whole brotherhood
+thought that your counsel should be asked. And we beg that your mind, the
+organ of the Holy Spirit,[125] may answer us kindly and truly."[126]
+
+When the African deputies reached Rome, Pope John II. was already dead.
+But his successor Agapetus answered the questions of the council, attaching
+also the ancient canons which decided thereupon, to the effect that at
+whatever age a person had been infected by the Arian pestilence, if he
+became afterwards a Catholic he should not retain any rank, but that
+converted Arian priests might receive support from the Church fund. Pope
+Agapetus wrote expressing his intense joy at the recovery of their country:
+"For, since the Church is everywhere one body, your sorrow was our
+affliction. And we acknowledge your most sincere charity in that, as became
+wise and learned men, you did not forget the Apostolic Principate; but, in
+order to resolve that question, sought approach to that See to which the
+power of the keys is given".[127]
+
+This council also sent an embassy to Justinian, beseeching him to restore
+the possessions and rights of the Church in Africa which the Vandals had
+taken away--a request which the emperor granted in an edict to his
+Prætorian prefect Salomo. And Agapetus expressly restored to the primate of
+Carthage any rights as metropolitan which the enemy had taken away.[128]
+
+Thus the terrible persecution inaugurated by Genseric when the Vandal host
+lay around the deathbed of St. Augustine at Hippo in 430 came to an end. In
+the interval, the African church had suffered every extremity of barbarian
+cruelty from the Arian invaders. At the end, the primate of Carthage, at
+the head of all the bishops of the several provinces, is found referring to
+the Pope, a subject of the Arian Theodatus, for guidance in the treatment
+of Arian priests and bishops who submitted to the Church. The Pope, on his
+side, acknowledges all the rights of the primate of Carthage which existed
+before the invasion. As to civil rights of property, the Byzantine
+conqueror restores the possessions of the Church which had been taken away
+by the Vandals.
+
+By the restoration of the African province to the Roman empire and the
+Catholic faith Justinian won great renown. His accession had been welcomed
+with joy by the Catholic people. Full of great designs, he aimed at the
+extension of his realm, and endeavoured to advance the Christian cause by
+missions to countries as yet without the faith. Greatness and majesty are
+shown in all his creations.[129] In the year following the African
+reconquest Pope Agapetus wrote to him, praising his solicitude in
+maintaining the unity of the Church, and identifying the advance of his
+empire with the increase of religion.[130] The Pope adds that the emperor
+desired the profession of faith which he had sent to his predecessor Pope
+John II., and which had been confirmed by him, to be confirmed also by
+himself, for which "we praise you: we assent, not because we admit in
+laymen an authority to preach, but because, since the zeal of your faith is
+in accordance with the rules of our fathers, we confirm and give it force".
+
+It is to be remembered that Pope Agapetus, elected in 535, was the subject
+of the Gothic king Theodatus, and as such was sent by him, under threats of
+death, in the winter of this year, on an embassy to Justinian. The purpose
+of Theodatus was to support his tottering throne by the intercession of the
+Pope. He had murdered at the lake of Bolsena the daughter and heiress of
+Theodorick, Amalasunta, who had made him king upon the untimely death of
+her son Athalarick in 534. He was secretly proposing to cede the Gothic
+kingdom of Italy to Justinian for a pension of 1200 pounds of gold. Thus
+Agapetus was sent to Constantinople in the winter of 535, as Pope John I.
+had been sent by Theodorick ten years before. He entered that city on the
+20th February, 536; he died on the 22nd April following. In these two
+months the Pope, the subject of Theodatus, did great things. A certain
+Anthimus, a secret friend of the Monophysite heresy, had been brought, by
+the favour of the like-minded empress Theodora, from the see of Trebisond
+and put into that of Constantinople, having been able to impose himself
+upon the emperor as orthodox. Agapetus was received with the greatest
+honour, being only the second Pope who had visited Byzantium. He could not
+negotiate a peace for Theodatus; but archimandrites, priests, and monks
+besought him to proceed against Anthimus as an interloper and teacher of
+error. Agapetus refused his communion to the new patriarch, required of him
+a written confession of faith, and return to his bishopric, which he had
+deserted contrary to the canons. The emperor, believing in the orthodoxy of
+his patriarch, took part at first against the Pope, and strove to overcome
+him both with threats and with presents. But Justinian, undeceived as to
+the orthodoxy of Anthimus, gave him up, and Pope Agapetus pronounced
+judgment of deposition upon him, and on the 13th March, 536, consecrated
+Mennas, who had been duly elected, to be bishop of Constantinople. He first
+required of him a written confession "to carry to Rome, to St. Peter".[131]
+
+Soon after this the Pope died suddenly. The whole population at
+Constantinople attended his funeral. Never, it was said, had the mourning
+for a bishop or an emperor drawn together such a concourse of people. His
+body was carried back to Rome in triumph and buried in St. Peter's.
+
+Pope Agapetus was succeeded in 536 by Pope Silverius, chosen under the
+influence of the Gothic king Theodatus. He was the last Pope so chosen; and
+the moment of his election is coincident with events destined to change
+permanently the material condition both of Rome and Italy.
+
+Justinian had accomplished, with singular ease and rapidity, the first half
+of his design. This was the reunion of North Africa to his empire, and the
+restoration in it of the Catholic faith. The second part of his design was
+to accomplish the same double result for Rome and for Italy. He sent
+Belisarius, after the victory at Carthage, into Sicily, where Syracuse and
+Palermo were taken; and in the summer of 536 the great commander entered
+Italy, captured Naples, and advanced towards Rome on the Appian Road. So
+the Gothic war began. Theodatus was in Rome. The Gothic army in the Pontine
+marshes became aware of his incompetence and his secret treating with
+Justinian, deposed him, and elected Vitiges to be their king in his stead,
+by whose orders the fugitive was slain in his flight on the Flaminian Road.
+But Vitiges hastened to Ravenna, where he espoused the unwilling Matasunta,
+daughter of Amalasuntha, granddaughter of Theodorick. Four thousand Goths
+alone remained to cover Rome. Belisarius appeared before it. A deputation,
+supported by Pope Silverius, brought him the keys of the city. The garrison
+was too weak to defend it, and on the 9th December, 536, Belisarius took
+possession of Rome, at the head of the imperial troops, who had nothing
+Roman in them except the name. It was sixty years since Odoacer had caused
+the senate to declare a western emperor needless, and Rome, as to temporal
+rule, had fallen, first under the Herule, then under the Goth. The Romans
+welcomed Belisarius as a deliverer from the double yoke of the northern
+intruder and the Arian heretic.
+
+For however Theodorick recognised, after the fury of the conflict with his
+brother-Teuton, the Herule Odoacer, was over, the necessity of ruling with
+justice over Goth and Italian, however prosperous as to the maintenance of
+peace and internal order the great kingdom stretching from Illyricum to
+Southern Gaul had been, whatever support he had given to the maintenance of
+Roman law, custom, and institutions, there was not a Roman, from Symmachus
+and Boethius in the senate to the meanest inhabitant of Trastevere, who
+would not loathe the occupation of Rome and Italy by the Gothic invasion.
+The Goths were a people of remarkable courage and extraordinary force of
+body. But the feeling with which Italians and, above all, Romans would
+regard them as masters of their country and confiscators of its soil, can
+only be expressed by what the English would feel if a swarm of Zulus were
+to take possession of England. So, when Belisarius entered Rome, the Romans
+looked for their being replaced under the direct and lawful government of
+one who should be in deed and in truth a Roman prince, as Pope Felix had
+called the recreant Zeno, that is, the head of law, the supreme judge, the
+defender of the Church. This was what they looked for. I am about to
+mention what they found.
+
+The empress Theodora had tried with all her wiles to set a Monophysite
+prelate on the Byzantine See.[132] Pope Agapetus had frustrated her plans
+by deposing Anthimus and consecrating Mennas in his place. But Theodora had
+not given up her intrigues, and she strove to involve in her net the Roman
+See itself. In the train of Agapetus at Constantinople was the ambitious
+deacon Vigilius. She sought to win him by promising him the Roman See. She
+offered him a great sum of money, and all her powerful support in attaining
+the papal dignity, if he would bind himself thereupon to abrogate the
+Council of Chalcedon, to enter into communion with Anthimus and Severus,
+and help them to recover the sees of Constantinople and Antioch. Vigilius
+agreed, and Theodora worked for the interests of her favourite by means of
+Antonina, wife of Belisarius. In the meantime, Silverius, as we have seen,
+had been chosen Pope in Rome, and Theodatus had exercised in his favour the
+influence which the Teuton rulers, whether styled Patricius or King, had
+claimed in the papal election since Odoacer. The empress invited the new
+Pope to come to Constantinople, or at least to restore her dear Anthimus.
+Silverius refused decidedly, though he was in the most dangerous position
+between the Greeks and the Ostrogoths, and even his personal liberty was in
+danger from Belisarius.
+
+Pope Silverius continued to refuse submission to the wishes of the empress.
+The great commander sat in the Pincian palace in March, 537, scarcely three
+months after he had taken possession of Rome.[133] There he abased himself
+to carry out the commands of two shameless women, Theodora and Antonina. He
+caused Pope Silverius to be brought before him on a charge of writing
+treasonable letters to Vitiges. The Pope had taken refuge at Santa Sabina
+on the Aventine. When brought before Belisarius, he found him sitting at
+the feet of Antonina, who reclined on a couch. The attending clergy had
+been left behind the first and second curtains. The Pope and the deacon
+Vigilius entered alone. "Lord Pope Silverius," said Antonina, "what have we
+done to thee and the Romans that thou wouldst deliver us into the hands of
+the Goths?" While she was heaping reproaches upon him, John, a sub-deacon
+of the first region, entered, took the pallium from his shoulders, and led
+him into another room, where he was stript of his episcopal vestments, the
+dress of a monk was put upon him, and his deposition was announced to the
+clergy. He was then banished to Patara in Lycia. All these intrigues had
+been unknown to Justinian. Afterwards, the bishop[134] of Patara went to
+him, and invoked before the emperor the judgment of God, saying there were
+many kings in this world, but not one set over the Church of the whole
+world, as was that bishop who had been expelled from his see. Justinian,
+hearing this, ordered Silverius to be taken back to Rome, and a true
+judgment of his case to be made. But then the Pope fell entirely into the
+hands of his rival Vigilius, who in the meantime had, by the help of
+Belisarius, got possession of the pontificate. Vigilius caused him to be
+deported to the island of Palmaria. There it is only known that he died in
+great misery, but with the crown of martyrdom.
+
+This was the first act of that dominion, lasting more than two hundred
+years, in which the Byzantine sovereigns were lords of Rome, as part of a
+reconquered province, and claimed to confirm the Papal elections, a claim
+set up by the Herule Odoacer, continued by Theodorick, inherited by
+Justinian.
+
+When Belisarius occupied Rome he had only 5000 soldiers at his command.
+Vitiges, the new Gothic king, had gone to Ravenna, and made peace with the
+Franks by surrendering to them the southern provinces of France, held by
+Theodorick. He then levied the whole fighting force of the Goths, and, in
+March, 537, advanced from Umbria upon Rome at the head of 150,000 men.
+Belisarius, in the three months, had done his best to repair the walls, the
+towers, and the gates of the city. He had also laid up provisions. He dug
+trenches round the least defended spots, and had constructed great machines
+which shot bolts strong enough to nail an armoured man to a tree. Vitiges
+approached from the Anio, and made a desperate attempt to storm the city at
+once. Having failed in this, through the great courage and skill of
+Belisarius, and being unable, even with his vast host, to surround the
+city, he set up six fortified camps from the Flaminian Gate to that of
+Proeneste, and a seventh in the Neronian fields on the other side of the
+river, the plain which stretches from the Vatican to the Milvian bridge.
+The Goth cut off the fourteen aqueducts which supplied Rome with water.
+Those greatest monuments of imperial magnificence from that time have
+stretched their broken arches across the Campagna, the admiration and
+sorrow of every beholder in so many generations. What five hundred years
+of empire had done, the Goth, in his fury to recover the land which he had
+usurped, was able to ruin. The besiegers went on wasting the Campagna, and
+preventing the entrance of provisions into the city. Amid the increasing
+want, and the fear of worse, Vitiges in vain tried to seduce the Romans to
+revolt. Finding that Belisarius would not capitulate, he constructed great
+wooden towers, loftier than the walls, upon wheels, from which fifty men to
+each should direct battering-rams. Belisarius opposed him with like
+weapons. On the nineteenth day, the Goths poured out from their seven camps
+for a general storm. In a tremendous conflict, Belisarius beat back the
+invaders by counter sallies at the gates assailed. But at one point they
+all but succeeded. The Mausoleum of Hadrian formed part of the defence.
+Procopius, the eye-witness of this famous siege, and its narrator, says of
+it: "The tomb of the Roman emperor Hadrian lies outside the Aurelian Gate,
+a stone's-throw from the walls--a work of marvellous splendour. For it
+consists of huge blocks of Parian marble, fastened to each other without
+jointing from inside. It has four equal sides, each of them in length a
+stone's-cast. Its height exceeds that of the city walls. Upon it stand
+wonderful statues of men and horses." This is all that Procopius says. Up
+to this moment, full four centuries after the death of Hadrian, all the
+glories of Grecian art, which that imperial traveller over the world, from
+Newcastle to the cataracts of the Nile, could collect, had shone through
+the Roman sky on the monument, splendid as a palace and strong as a castle.
+On this fatal day of Rome's direst need they were hurled down upon the
+advancing Goth, whom the narrow streets had enabled to approach with
+scaling ladders. Statues of emperors, gods, and heroes hailed upon the
+northern giants; the works of Polycletus and Praxiteles were used for
+common stones upon invaders who despised art as well as letters; and a
+thousand years afterwards, when the building was finally formed into a
+castle, in digging the trenches the fragments of the Sleeping Faun were
+found, which had crushed some inglorious barbarian and saved Rome from
+capture.
+
+But the storming, repulsed at every gate, cost Vitiges the flower of his
+host. Thirty thousand are said to have fallen, that being the number which
+Procopius records as derived from Gothic officers themselves; and greater,
+he says, was the number of wounded, when the deadly bolts from the machines
+of Belisarius mowed down their encumbered masses in flight.
+
+The result of this great conflict was to weaken the Goths, to encourage the
+Romans, to make Belisarius confident of success. The siege lasted after
+this nearly a year. The extremity of hunger and misery was endured in the
+city. The supply of water was reduced to the cisterns and springs and the
+river. Vitiges at length occupied Porto, and cut off Rome from the sea. But
+the Goths also suffered terribly both from famine and from summer heat. The
+end of all was that, after a siege of a year and nine days, in which the
+Goths had fought 69 battles, Vitiges, in March, 538, drew off his
+diminished troops. One morning, Belisarius, from his Pincian palace, saw
+one-half of the remaining Goths on the other side of the Milvian bridge,
+and he forthwith ordered a sally upon their rear-guard. Vitiges left
+perhaps the half of his great host mouldering in the wasted, pestilent,
+deserted Campagna. He left also a city impoverished in numbers, full of
+sickness and misery. He had destroyed all the villas and dwellings of the
+Campagna; the churches of the Martyrs lay in heaps of ruins: from the Porta
+Salara to the Porta Nomentana hardly one stone upon another seems to have
+remained. Also Vitiges had ordered the senators whom he had left at Ravenna
+to be put to death. Only, during this siege, the basilicas of Rome's patron
+saints, which lay outside the walls, received no damage and were respected
+by the Goths.[135]
+
+After this the storm of war drew off to the North. It continued with
+changing fortune in the provinces of Tuscany, Æmilia, the plain of the Po,
+the coasts of the Hadriatic. On the one side Franks and Burgundians took
+part; on the other side the soldiers of Belisarius were made up of all
+races from the East: not without skill in fight, but without discipline,
+under rival and quarrelling commanders. They pressed grievously on the land
+which they were sent to deliver. But the Goths grew weaker: they never
+recovered their losses before Rome. At last Belisarius got hold of
+Ravenna--not by capture, but after long negotiations, on both sides
+deceptive. Belisarius made the Goths believe that he would set himself at
+their head, and construct a new western empire. Vitiges, whether he trusted
+him or not, came to terms with him. Belisarius proclaimed Justinian
+emperor. The German realm seemed broken to pieces: only Verona, Pavia, and
+a portion of Liguria held out. A small part only of the army still carried
+the national banner. Then the conqueror, in 539, was recalled to Byzantium,
+to conduct the war against Persia. He left Italy almost subdued, and
+carried with him the captive king of the Goths, Vitiges, as in former years
+he had carried Gelimer, the captive king of the Vandals. This was in 539,
+thirteen years after Theodorick's death.
+
+The first act of that fearful drama, the Gothic war, was over. But as soon
+as Belisarius disappeared, the Goths began to recover themselves. The
+generals of Justinian lived on plunder. In Totila arose a new Gothic
+leader, the bravest of the brave. At the end of the year 541 he marched out
+of Verona with only five thousand men, defeated the incapable and disunited
+Grecian captains, took city after city, passed the Apennines, passed near
+Rome, without assailing it. In this career of victory the Gothic king once
+approached that Campanian hill on which the great benefactor of the West,
+St. Benedict, was laying the foundations of the coenobitic life. In the
+first instance, Totila tried to deceive the Saint. He dressed up a high
+officer as king, and sent him, with three of his chief counts in
+attendance, to personate himself. When Benedict saw the Gothic train
+approaching he was seated, and as soon as they were within earshot, he
+cried out to the warrior pretending to be king: "Son, lay aside that dress
+which is not thine". The Goth fell to the ground in dismay, and returned to
+report his discomfiture to Totila, who then came himself. But when he saw
+Benedict seated at a distance he prostrated himself, and though Benedict
+thrice bade him arise, he continued prostrate. The Saint then came to him,
+raised him up, upbraided him with the acts which he had committed, and
+revealed to him the future concerning himself: "Many evils thou doest; many
+hast thou done. Put a curb at length on thine iniquity. Rome, indeed, thou
+shalt enter; the sea thou shalt pass. Nine years thou shalt reign; in the
+tenth thou shalt die."[136] The king was awe-struck. The savage in him
+was quelled by the speaker's sanctity. From this time forth he altered
+his conduct, and became more humane. In the capture of Naples shortly
+afterwards he showed by his merciful treatment the effect which the
+presence of St. Benedict had produced on him, as well as in the following
+years of his life. This interview took place in the year 542.
+
+But Totila[137] so advanced in power that, in spite of Byzantine intrigue
+and jealousy, Belisarius, having happily concluded the Persian war, was
+sent back to the supreme command in Italy. He landed in Ravenna, but
+without army, war-material, or money. In the summer of 545, Totila, having
+subdued the land all about Rome, laid siege to Rome itself. Belisarius
+occupied Porto, and Totila set up his camp eight miles from Rome,
+commanding the Tiber, and turning the siege into the closest blockade. In
+vain Belisarius attempted to burst the Gothic bar of the river and
+introduce provisions to Rome. In vain embassies were sent to Constantinople
+for help. The most frightful distress ensued at Rome. At length, after
+about eighteen months, certain Isaurian soldiers of the Greek garrison gave
+up the Porta Asinaria, and on the night of the 17th December, 546, Totila
+took the ill-defended city. When he entered, it was almost without
+inhabitants. Those whom the sword, famine, and pestilence had not yet taken
+were in flight or hiding. Patricians crept about in the garb of slaves. The
+number of victims at this capture was small. The desolation and misery seem
+to have worked not only on Totila, but also on his army. The plunder, which
+a captured city could not escape, was generally bloodless; but many houses
+were burnt in the Trasteverine quarter. As Theodorick had offered his
+prayers at the tomb of the Apostles, so Totila went from the Lateran to St.
+Peter's. What a change had the forty-six years brought about. To the
+miserable remnant of the senate Totila upbraided the ingratitude which had
+been shown for Gothic benefits under Theodorick. He accepted, however, the
+intercession of the deacon Pelagius, and protected not only the female sex
+in general, but especially the noble Rusticiana, widow of Boethius and
+daughter of Symmachus. Amalasunta had restored their property to her sons,
+the younger Boethius and Symmachus; but the war seems to have consumed
+everything. She was now a beggar, and the wild host of Totila wished to put
+her to death for having, as she was charged, maimed statues of Theodorick.
+But the king rescued her from their fury.
+
+In the first impulse of wrath Totila had threatened to level Rome with the
+ground. Belisarius, lying sick at Porto, had addressed to him a letter,
+entreating him to spare the greatest and noblest of cities. He did,
+however, throw down a considerable part of the walls, and when he marched
+to Lucania against the Greeks, took with him the chief citizens, and made
+the rest of the inhabitants migrate to Campania. He left a desert behind
+him. If we could trust the exaggerated reports of Greek historians, Rome
+remained forty days without inhabitants, tenanted only by beasts.
+
+So ended the second act of the Gothic tragedy.
+
+But as Vitiges had quitted Rome, so Totila deserted it, and in the spring
+of 547 it was entered again by Belisarius. In less than a month he restored
+as well as he could the part of the walls demolished, called back the
+inhabitants lingering in the neighbourhood, and prepared for a new attack.
+It was not long in coming. Scarcely had the gaps in the walls been filled
+up by stones piled in disorder and the trenches cleared, when the Gothic
+king reappeared. Thrice was his assault repulsed; then he gave up the
+attempt, broke down the bridges over the Anio behind him, and went to
+Tibur, which he took by treachery of the inhabitants, who were at strife
+with the Isaurian garrison. Totila massacred the citizens, the bishop, and
+the clergy; got possession of the upper course of the Tiber, and cut off
+the Romans from Tuscany. But then Belisarius was enabled to give greater
+care to repairing the city's defences. The state in which several gates
+remain to this day still show his hand. He restored Trajan's aqueduct,
+which fed the mills on the right bank. But in the winter of 547 the great
+captain was drawn away from Rome to carry on a miserable petty war with
+insufficient force in the south of Italy, and was finally recalled to
+Constantinople. So ended the third act of Rome's fall.
+
+But Totila hastened from place to place, from victory to victory. After
+scouring the South and then Umbria at the beginning of 549, he stood the
+third time before Rome. A strong Byzantine garrison in the city had
+provided magazines, and the wide spaces within the walls had been sown with
+wheat. His first attack failed; but treachery opened to him the Ostian
+gate, and its famished defenders soon surrendered the mausoleum of Hadrian.
+The conqueror, in this fourth capture of the city, acted mildly. He called
+back the yet absent inhabitants, amongst them many of the senators who had
+been sent into Campania. How had the nobles of Rome melted away! Vitiges
+had ordered those kept in Ravenna as hostages to be slain. Some had then
+escaped to Liguria. The distrust of the Greeks as well as of the Goths
+threatened them. Cethegus, chief of the senate, had been compelled to
+leave before the first siege of Totila. Now Totila did not succeed in
+coming to terms with Justinian. The Greek army received a new commander in
+the eunuch Narses, who had served before under Belisarius. In him skill,
+energy, court favour, and the command of considerable forces were united.
+Before the end of 549, Totila left Rome. Almost all Italy save Ravenna was
+in his hands. He dealt generously with the people, whilst the Byzantine
+officials, exhausting the land with their exactions, added to the
+sufferings of war.
+
+And now we reach the fifth act of the drama in which Rome was humbled to
+the very dust. Totila, for more than two years and a half, carried on an
+unceasing struggle over land and sea--Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, which he
+subdued, and beyond the Hadriatic, to the opposite coasts. Though generally
+victorious, he was more like the leader in an old Gothic raid than a king
+who ruled and defended a great realm. At last, in the spring of 552, Narses
+advanced from Ravenna with a great force to a decisive battle for Rome.
+Totila advanced from Rome into Tuscany to meet him. At Taginas, on the
+longest day, the conflict which decided the fate of the Gothic kingdom took
+place. All that summer day the battle lasted. The Gothic king, a true
+knight in royal armour, on a splendid steed, marshalled and led his host.
+When night had come his cavalry was overthrown, his footmen broken. The
+spear of a Gepid had wounded him mortally. He was taken from the field,
+died in the night, was hastily buried. But his grave was disclosed to the
+Greeks. They left him where he lay; only his blood-stained mantle and
+diadem set with precious stones were carried to Constantinople. Six
+thousand of his bravest warriors lay on the field of battle. Yet when the
+remains of the host collected themselves in Upper Italy they elected Teia
+in Pavia for head of the yet unconquered race.
+
+But Narses, having captured the strong places in Middle Italy, advanced
+upon Rome. The Gothic garrison was too weak to defend the wide circuits of
+the walls. Parts were soon taken. Presently Hadrian's tomb, which Totila
+had surrounded with fresh walls, alone held out. But it soon fell, and
+hapless Rome was captured for the fifth time in the reign of Justinian. It
+was a day of doom for the still remaining noble families. Goths and Greeks
+alike turned against them. In Campania and in Sicily many distinguished
+Romans had waited for better times. Now not only the flying Goths cut down
+all who fell into their hands, but the barbarian troops in the army of
+Narses, at their entrance into Rome, followed the example. Then, again,
+three hundred youths of the noblest families, who had been kept as hostages
+at Pavia, were all executed by Teia. The western consulate ended in 534,
+Flavius Theodorus Paulinus being the last. It continued seven years longer
+in the East, where to Flavius Basilius, consul in 541, no successor was
+given. When Justinian abolished this dignity it had lasted 1050 years, with
+few interruptions. Though for more than half this time it had been a mere
+title of honour, yet the consuls gave their name to the year, and served
+still, it may be, to mark to the world the unity of the Roman empire.
+
+From Rome the conqueror Narses turned his steps southwards to Cumæ, that he
+might seize the treasure of the Goths, which was guarded by the new king
+Teia's brother Aligern. This brought Teia himself by a rapid march down the
+Hadriatic coast, and crossing Italy obliquely, he appeared at the foot of
+Vesuvius. There, in the spring of 553, Teia fought a last and desperate
+battle over the grave of sunken cities, in view of the Gulf of Naples. At
+the head of a small host, he fought from early morn to noon. It was like a
+battle of Homeric warriors. Then he could no longer support the weight of
+twelve lances in his shield, and, calling to his armour-bearer for a fresh
+shield, he fell transfixed by a lance. The next day the remnant of the
+army, save a thousand who fought their way through and reached Pavia,
+accepted terms from Narses, to leave Italy and fight no more against the
+emperor.
+
+But Italy was far yet from tranquillity. Teia had incited the Alemans and
+the Franks to break into Italy. The two brothers, Leuthar and Bucelin, led
+a raid of 70,000 men, who ravaged Central and Southern Italy down to the
+Straits of Sicily. One of these barbarians carried back his spoil-laden
+troops to the Po, where pestilence consumed him and his horde. The host of
+the other brother, Bucelin, when it had reached Capua, was overthrown on
+the Vulturnus by Narses, with a slaughter as utter as that which Marius
+inflicted on the Cimbri. Scarcely five are said to have escaped. So, in
+the spring of 555, after twenty years of destruction, ended the Gothic
+war.[138]
+
+The reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals cost Justinian a few months
+of uninterrupted victory. The reconquest of Italy from the Goths cost
+twenty years of suffering to both sides, leaving, indeed, Justinian master
+but of a ruined Italy, master also of Rome, but after five successive
+captures; its senate reduced to a shadow, its patricians all but destroyed,
+its population shrunk, it is supposed, when Narses took possession of it in
+552, to between thirty and forty thousand impoverished inhabitants. But the
+greatest change remains to be recorded. The Pope had indeed been delivered
+from Arian sovereigns, who held the country under military occupation, but
+exercised their civil rule with leniency and consideration, bearing, no
+doubt, in mind that they were, at least in theory, vice-gerents of an
+over-lord who ruled at Constantinople what was still the greatest empire of
+the world. What Pope Gelasius truly called "hostile domination" had been
+tempered during three-and-thirty years by the personal qualities of one who
+was at once powerful in arms and wise in statesmanship. Rome, in the time
+of Theodorick and Athalarick, had been maintained, its senate respected,
+the Pope treated with deference. A stranger entering Rome in 535, at the
+beginning of the Gothic war, would still have seen the greatest and
+grandest city of the world, standing in general with its buildings
+unimpaired. In 552, the Pope, instead of a distant over-lord, to whom he
+could appeal as Roman prince, had received an immediate master, who ruled
+Rome by a governor with a permanent garrison, and who understood his rule
+at Rome to be the same as his rule at Byzantium. The same as to its
+absolute power; but with this difference, that while Byzantium was the seat
+of his imperial dignity, in which every interest touched his personal
+credit, and its bishop was to be supported as the chief officer of his
+court and the chief councillor of his administration, the Rome he took from
+the Goths was simply a provincial town of a recovered province, once indeed
+illustrious, but now ruined and very troublesome. A provincial town because
+the seat of Byzantine power in Italy was henceforth not at Rome but at
+Ravenna, while the sovereign of Italy no longer held his court within
+Italy, at Ravenna or at Verona, as Theodorick and Athalarick, but at
+Constantinople. Mature reflection upon the civil condition made for the
+Pope by the result of the Gothic war will, I think, show that no severer
+test of the foundation of his spiritual authority could be applied than
+what this great event brought in its train. Nor must we omit to note that
+this test was brought about not only by the operation of political causes,
+but by actors who had not the intention of producing such a result. The
+suffering of Rome, in particular, during this war at the hands of Vitiges,
+Belisarius, Totila, Teia, Narses, is indescribable. It is hard to say
+whether defender or assailant did it most injury; but it is true to say
+that the one and the other were equally merciless in their purpose to
+retain it as a prey or to recover it as a conquest. Vitiges, besides
+pressing the people cooped up in its walls with a terrible famine during
+his siege of a year, broke down its aqueducts and ruined every building on
+that part of the Campagna which he scoured. Totila, in like manner, after
+famishing the inhabitants, when he took Rome, broke down a good part of its
+walls, and at his second capture, in 546, the city is described as having
+been absolutely deserted. In the last struggle, Teia slew without pity the
+three hundred hostages of Rome's noblest blood who had been sent to Pavia,
+thereby almost destroying its patricians. These were the parting tokens of
+Gothic affection for Italy. Then Belisarius, attempting to relieve Rome
+with inadequate forces, which was all that the penury of Justinian allowed
+him, was the means of prolonging the famine, while he did not save the city
+from capture. Lastly, Narses, sent to finish the war, enrolled in Dalmatia
+an army of adventurers. Huns, Lombards, Herules, Gepids, Greeks, and even
+Persians, in figure, language, arms, and customs utterly dissimilar, fought
+for him under the imperial standard, greedy for the treasures of Italy.
+Narses took Rome in 552, and governed it as imperial prefect for fifteen
+years at the head of a Greek garrison, until he was recalled in 567. That
+occupation of Narses in 552 is the date of Rome's extinction as the old
+secular imperial city. The year after his recal came the worst plague of
+all, and the most enduring. The Lombards did but repeat for the subjection
+of Italy to a fresh northern invasion what Narses had done to deliver it
+from Theodorick's older one in the preceding century.
+
+Now let us see the nature of the test which this course of events, the work
+of Goth and Greek alike--inflicting great misery and danger on the clergy
+and the Pope, as upon their people--applied to the papal authority itself.
+
+A more emphatic attestation of that authority than the confession given in
+519 to Pope Hormisdas by the whole Greek episcopate, and by the emperor at
+the head of his court, could hardly be drawn up. It settled for ever the
+question of right, and estopped Byzantium, whether in the person of Cæsar
+or of patriarch, from denial of the Pope's universal pastorship, as derived
+from St. Peter. We have seen that not only did Justinian, when the leading
+spirit in his uncle's freshly-acquired succession to the eastern empire, do
+his utmost to bring about this confession, but that in the first years of
+his reign his letter to Pope John II. reaffirmed it; and his treatment of
+Pope Agapetus when he appeared at Constantinople, not only as Pope, but in
+the character of ambassador from the Gothic king Theodatus, exhibited that
+belief in action. But now a state of things quite unknown before had
+ensued. Hitherto Rome had been the capital, of which even Constantine's
+Nova Roma was but the pale imitation. But the five times captured,
+desolate, impoverished Rome which came back under Narses to Justinian's
+sway, came back not as a capital, but as a captive governed by an exarch.
+Was the bishop of a city with its senate extinct, its patriciate destroyed,
+and with forty thousand returned refugees for its inhabitants, still the
+bearer of Peter's keys--still the Rock on which the City of God rested? Had
+there been one particle of truth in that 28th canon which a certain party
+attempted to pass at the Council of Chalcedon, and which St. Leo
+peremptorily annulled, a negative answer to this must now have followed.
+That canon asserted "that the Fathers justly gave its prerogatives to the
+see of the elder Rome because that was the imperial city". Rome had ceased
+to be the imperial city. Did the loss of its bishop's prerogatives follow?
+Did they pass to Byzantium because it was become the imperial city, because
+the sole emperor dwelt there? Thus, about a hundred years after the repulse
+of the ambitious exaltation sought by Anatolius, its rejection by the
+provident wisdom and resolute courage of St. Leo was more than justified by
+the course of events. St. Leo's action was based upon the constitution of
+the Church, and therefore did not need to be justified by events. But the
+Divine Providence superadded this justification, and that under
+circumstances which had had no parallel in the preceding five hundred
+years.
+
+For when Belisarius, submitting himself to carry out the orders of an
+imperious mistress, deposed, as we have seen, the legitimate Pope Silverius
+by force in March, 537, Vigilius, in virtue of the same force, was
+consecrated a few days after to succeed him. The exact time of the death
+which Pope Silverius suffered in Palmaria is not known. But Vigilius is not
+recognised as lawful Pope until after his death, probably in 540. He then
+ascended St. Peter's seat with a blot upon him such as no pontiff had
+suffered before. And this pontificate lasted about fifteen years, and was
+full of such humiliation as St. Peter had never suffered before in his
+successors.
+
+We are not acquainted with the detail of events at Rome in those terrible
+years, but we learn that, as Pope John I. was sent to Constantinople as a
+subject by Theodorick, and Pope Agapetus again as a subject by Theodatus,
+so Vigilius was urged by Justinian to go thither, and that after many
+delays he obeyed the emperor very unwillingly.
+
+But it is requisite here to give a short summary of what Justinian had been
+doing in the affairs of the eastern Church from the time that Pope
+Agapetus, having consecrated Mennas to be bishop of Constantinople, died
+there in 536. After the Pope's death, Mennas proceeded to hold in May and
+June of that year a synod in which he declared Anthimus to be entirely
+deposed from the episcopal dignity, and condemned Severus and other leaders
+of the Monophysites. In this synod Mennas presided, and the two Roman
+deacons, Vigilius and Pelagius, who had been the legates of Pope Agapetus,
+but whose powers had expired at his death, sat next to him, but only as
+Italian bishops. How little the patriarch Mennas could there represent the
+Church's independence is shown by his words to the bishops in the fourth
+session: "Your charity knows that nothing of what is mooted in the Church
+should take place contrary to the decision and order of our emperor,
+zealous for the faith," while of their relation to the Pope he said: "You
+know that we follow and obey the Apostolic See; those who are in communion
+with it we hold in communion; those whom it condemns we also condemn".[139]
+Justinian, irritated by the boldness of the Monophysites, added the
+sanction of law to the decrees of this council, which deposed men who had
+occupied patriarchal sees. He used these words: "In the present law we are
+doing an act not unusual to the empire. For as often as an episcopal decree
+has deposed from their sacerdotal seats those unworthy of the priesthood,
+such as Nestorius, Eutyches, Arius, Macedonius, and Eunomius, and others in
+wickedness not inferior to them, so often the empire has agreed with the
+authority of the bishops. Thus the divine and the human concurred in one
+righteous judgment, as we know was done in the case of Anthimus of late,
+who was deposed from the see of this imperial city by Agapetus, of holy and
+renowned memory, bishop of Old Rome."[140]
+
+In the intrigue of Theodora with Vigilius, Mennas took no part. He took
+counsel with the emperor how to maintain the Catholic faith in Alexandria
+against the heretical patriarch Theodosius. By the emperor's direction,
+ordering him to expel Theodosius, Mennas, in 537 or 538, consecrated Paul,
+a monk of Tabenna, to be patriarch of Alexandria. The act would appear to
+have been done in the presence of Pelagius, then nuncio in Constantinople,
+without reclamation on his part, or of the nuncios who represented Antioch
+and Jerusalem. Mennas in this repeated the conduct of Anatolius and Acacius
+in former times, who were censured, the one by St. Leo, the other by Pope
+Simplicius. By this event the four eastern patriarchs seemed to agree to
+accept the first four councils, and the unity of the Church to be quite
+restored, from which Alexandria had until then stood aloof; but the
+patriarch Paul came afterwards in suspicion of heresy and had to give way
+to Zoilus. Mennas was on the best terms with the emperor; he might easily
+have used the deposition of Silverius and the unlawful exaltation of
+Vigilius in 537 for increase of his own influence, had not a feeling of
+duty or love of peace held him back. But Vigilius also, when he came to be
+acknowledged, had come to realise his position and its responsibility. He
+was far from fulfilling the unlawful promises made to Theodora, and from
+favouring the Monophysites. The empress found that she had thrown away her
+money and failed in her intrigue. In letters[141] to the emperor and to
+Mennas, in 540, Vigilius declared his close adherence to the acts of his
+predecessors, St. Leo in particular, and to the decrees in faith of the
+four General Councils, while he confirmed the acts of the council held by
+Mennas against Severus and the other Monophysite leaders.
+
+In the meantime new dissensions threatened to agitate the whole eastern
+realm.[142] The partisans of Origen in Palestine and the neighbouring
+countries rose. At their head stood Theodore Askidas, archbishop of Cæsarea
+in Cappadocia, and Domitian, metropolitan of Ancyra, who had obtained, by
+favour of Justinian, these important sees. Ephrem, patriarch of Antioch
+about 540, condemned Origenism in a synod. Pelagius, being papal nuncio at
+Constantinople, had, together with Ephrem, patriarch of Antioch, condemned
+the patriarch Paul of Alexandria at Gaza. Deputies from Peter, patriarch of
+Jerusalem, and the orthodox monks journeyed with Pelagius to
+Constantinople, to present to the emperor an accusation against the
+Origenists. Pelagius had much influence with Justinian, and he and Mennas
+procured for the petitioners access to the emperor. They asked him to issue
+a solemn condemnation of Origen's errors. The emperor listened willingly,
+and issued in the form of a treatise to Mennas a still extant censure of
+Origen and his writings. He called upon the patriarchs to hold synods upon
+them. Mennas, in 543, held one in the capital, which issued fifteen
+anathemas against Origen.[143] Theodore Askidas and Domitian, by submitting
+to the imperial edict and the condemnation of Origen, kept their places and
+secured afresh their influence, which the monks of Palestine, who were not
+Origenistic, felt severely. They even managed, in the interest of their
+party, to turn the attention of the dogmatising emperor to another
+question, and moved him to issue, in 544, the edict upon the Three
+Chapters. He thought he was bringing back the Monophysites to orthodoxy. He
+was really casting a new ferment into the existing agitation.
+
+At first the patriarch Mennas was very displeased with this edict censuring
+in the so-called Three Chapters Theodoret, Ibas, and Theodore of Mopsuestia
+as Nestorians. He considered the credit of the Council of Chalcedon to be
+therein impeached, and declared that he would only subscribe to it after
+the Pope had subscribed. Afterwards, being more strongly pressed, he
+subscribed unwillingly, but with the reservation, confirmed to him even
+upon oath, that if the Bishop of Rome refused his assent his signature
+should be returned to him, and his subscription be regarded as withdrawn.
+The other eastern patriarchs also at first resisted, but finished by
+complying with the imperial threats, as particularly Ephrem of Antioch.
+Most of the bishops, accustomed to slavish subjection to their patriarchs,
+followed their example, and Mennas had to urge the bishops under him by
+every means to comply. However, many bishops complained of this pressure to
+the papal legate Stephen, who pronounced against the edict, which seemed
+indirectly to impeach the authority of the Fourth Council. He even refused
+communion with Mennas because he had broken his first promise and given his
+assent before the Pope had decided upon it. Through the whole West the
+writings of Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas were little known, but the
+decrees of Chalcedon were zealously maintained. The edict was refused,
+especially in Northern Africa. It was censured by the bishop Portian in a
+writing addressed to the emperor, and by the learned deacon Ferrandus.
+
+Means had been taken by fraud and force to win the whole East to consent to
+the edict.[144] Mennas, patriarch of Constantinople; Ephrem, patriarch of
+Antioch; Peter, patriarch of Jerusalem, crouched before the tyranny of
+Justinian; and so also Zoilus of Alexandria, though he promised Vigilius
+that he would not sign the edict, afterwards subscribed it.[145] At this
+point Justinian sought before everything to get the assent of the Pope, and
+he sent for Vigilius to Constantinople. He claimed the presence of Vigilius
+as his subject in virtue of the conquest of Belisarius: he meant to use
+this authority of Vigilius as Pope for his own purpose. Vigilius foresaw
+the difficulties into which he would fall. At length he left Rome in 544,
+before Totila began the second siege. He lingered in Sicily a year, in 546;
+he then travelled through Greece and Illyricum. At last he entered
+Byzantium on the 25th January, 547, and was welcomed with the most
+brilliant reception. Justinian humbly besought his blessing, and embraced
+him with tears. But this good understanding did not last long. Vigilius
+approved the conduct of his legates and refused his communion to Mennas,
+who, in signing the formula of Hormisdas, had bound himself to follow the
+Roman See, and had broken his special promise. Vigilius withdrew it also
+from the bishops who had subscribed the imperial edict. He and the bishops
+attending him saw in this edict a scheme to help the Acephali, upon whom
+Vigilius repeated his anathema. But Mennas feared the emperor much more
+than he feared the Pope, whose name he now removed from commemoration at
+the Mass. Vigilius, like the westerns in general, considered the edict to
+be useless and dangerous, as giving a pretext for seeming to abrogate the
+Council of Chalcedon, and also as a claim on the part of the emperor to the
+highest authority in Church matters. Justinian tried repeatedly his
+personal influence with the Pope, that also of bishops and officers of
+State. He even had him watched for a length of time and cut off from all
+approach, so that the Pope exclaimed, "If you have made me a prisoner, you
+cannot imprison the holy Apostle Peter". Yet the intercourse of Vigilius
+with eastern bishops soon convinced him that they were generally agreed
+with the emperor; that a prolonged resistance on his part would produce a
+new division between Greeks and Latins; that considerable grounds existed
+for the condemnation of the Three Chapters, with which, hitherto, he had
+not been well acquainted. So he allowed the subject to be further
+considered, held out a prospect of agreeing with the emperor, and
+readmitted Mennas to his communion, who restored the Pope's name in the
+liturgy. This reconciliation took place on the feast of the Princes of the
+Apostles, 29th June, 547.
+
+The Pope, after further conferences with bishops present at
+Constantinople, seventy of whom had not signed the imperial edict, issued,
+on the 11th April, 548, his _Judgment_, directed to Mennas, of which all
+but fragments are lost. In it he most strongly maintained the authority of
+the four General Councils, especially of the fourth; put under anathema the
+godless writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and also his person; the letter
+said to be written by Ibas to Maris, which Justinian had marked as
+supposititious, and the writings of Theodoret, which impugned orthodoxy and
+the twelve anathemas of Cyril. It was his purpose to quiet excitement,
+satisfying the Greeks by a specific condemnation of the Three Chapters, and
+the Latins by maintaining the rank of the Council of Chalcedon. And he
+required that therewith the strife should cease. But neither side accepted
+the condition. The westerns, especially Dacius, archbishop of Milan, and
+Facundus, bishop of Hermiane, vehemently attacked his _Judgment_. So did
+many African monks. Even two Roman deacons, the Pope's own nephew Rusticus,
+and Sebastianus, though they began by supporting the _Judgment_, became
+very violent against the Pope, spread the most injurious reports against
+him, and disregarded his warnings. He deposed and excommunicated them.
+False reports were spread that, against the Council of Chalcedon, the Pope
+had condemned the persons of Theodoret and Ibas, and had gone against the
+decrees of his predecessors. The Pope, after the death of the empress
+Theodora, on the 28th June, 548, had continued by the emperor's wish at
+Constantinople, especially since Totila had retaken Rome in 549. He had
+gone to Thessalonica and returned; he tried in several letters to the
+bishops of Scythia and Gaul to correct their misconceptions. These,
+however, prevailed with the bishops of Illyria, Dalmatia, and Africa, who
+in 549 and 550 separated themselves from the communion of Vigilius. A thing
+not heard of before now occurred. The Roman Bishop stood with the Greek
+bishops on one side, the Latin bishops on the other, and the bewilderment
+increased from day to day.
+
+In the summer of 550 the Pope and the emperor came to an agreement that a
+General Council should be held at which the western bishops should be
+present, until which all dispute about the Three Chapters, and any fresh
+step on the subject, should be forbidden, and in the meantime the Pope's
+_Judgment_ should be returned to him. That took place at once, and
+preparations were made for the council. In June a council held at
+Mopsuestia by direction of the emperor declared that from the time of human
+memory the name of its former bishop, Theodore, had been erased from
+commemoration, and the name of St. Cyril put in. But the western bishops
+avoided answering the invitation to the council. The Illyrian did not come
+at all; the African sent as deputies Reparatus, the primate of Carthage,
+Firmus of Numidia, and two Byzacene bishops. These were besieged both with
+threats and presents; two were induced to sign the imperial edict; the
+other two were banished, Reparatus under charge of a political crime. While
+the western bishops showed still less inclination to appear, the court
+broke its agreement with Vigilius. A new writing against the Three Chapters
+was read in the palace before several bishops, and subscribed by them.
+Theodore Askidas, the chief contriver, and his companions, excused
+themselves to the Pope, who called them to account, and begged pardon, but
+spread the writing still more, set the emperor against Vigilius, and
+induced him to publish, in 551, a further edict under the name of a
+confession of faith. It contained, together with a detailed exposition of
+doctrine upon the Trinity and Incarnation, thirteen anathemas, with the
+refutation of different objections made by the defenders of the Three
+Chapters; for instance, that the letter of Ibas had been approved at
+Chalcedon, the condemnation of dead men forbidden, and Theodore of
+Mopsuestia been praised by orthodox Fathers.
+
+The restoration of peace was thus made much more difficult, and the promise
+given to the Pope broken. The Pope protected himself against this violation
+of the agreement, by which nothing was to be done in the matter before the
+intended council, and considered himself released from his engagements. He
+saw herein the arbitrary interference of a despotic ruler anticipating the
+council's decision, which put in question the Church's whole right of
+authority, and much increased the danger of a schism. In an assembly of
+Greek and Latin bishops held in the Placidia palace, where he resided, he
+desired them to request the emperor to withdraw the proposed edict, and to
+wait for a general consideration of the subject, and especially for the
+sentence of the Latin bishops. If this was not granted, to refuse their
+subscription to the edict. Moreover, the See of Peter would excommunicate
+them. Dacius, also, archbishop of Milan, spoke in this sense. But the
+protest was disregarded, and Theodore Askidas, who had formed part of the
+assembly, went with the bishops of his party to the Church in which the
+edict was posted up, held solemn service there, struck out of the diptychs
+the patriarch Zoilus of Alexandria, who declined to condemn the Three
+Chapters, and proclaimed at once Apollinaris for his successor, with the
+consent of the weak Mennas, and in contempt of the Pope's authority. Not
+only now were the Three Chapters in question, but the whole right and
+independence of the Church's authority. Vigilius, having long warned the
+vain court-bishop Theodore Askidas, always a non-resident in his diocese,
+and having now been witness of a violence so unprecedented, put him under
+excommunication.
+
+At this resistance Justinian was greatly embittered, and was inclined to
+imprison the Pope and his attendants. The Pope took refuge in the Church of
+St. Peter, by the palace of Hormisdas. He repeated with greater force his
+former declaration, entirely deprived Theodore Askidas, and put Mennas and
+his companions under ban, until they made satisfaction, on the 14th August,
+551. At least the sentence was kept ready for publication. He was attended
+by eleven Italian and two African bishops. The emperor sent the prætor
+with soldiers to remove him by force. Vigilius clung to the altar, so that
+it was nearly pulled down with him. His imprisonment was prevented by the
+crowd which burst in, indignant at the ill-treatment offered to the
+Church's first bishop, and by the disgust of the soldiers at the gaol-work
+put upon them. The emperor, seeming to repent his hastiness, sent high
+officers of State to assure the Pope of personal security, at first with
+the threat to have him removed by force if he was not content with this;
+then he empowered the officers to swear that no ill should befal him. The
+Pope thereon returned to the palace of Placidia. But there, in spite of
+oaths, he was watched, deprived of his true servants, surrounded with paid
+spies, attacked with every sort of intrigue, even his handwriting forged.
+Then, seeing his palace entirely surrounded by suspicious persons, he
+risked, on the 23rd December, 551, a flight across the Bosphorus to the
+Church of St. Euphemia in Chalcedon, in which the Fourth Council had been
+held. Here, in January, 552, he published his decree against Theodore and
+Mennas, and was for a long time sick. When the emperor, with the offer of
+another oath, sent high officials to invite him to return to the capital,
+he replied that he needed no fresh oaths if the emperor had only the will
+to restore to the Church the peace which she enjoyed under his uncle
+Justin. He desired the emperor to avoid communion with those who lay under
+his ban. In his Encyclical of the 5th February, 552, he made known to all
+the Church what had passed, and expressed his belief and his wishes. Even
+in his humiliation the successor of Peter inspired a great veneration.
+They tried to approach him. He soon received a writing from Theodore
+Askidas, Mennas, Andrew, archbishop of Ephesus, and other bishops, in which
+they declared their adherence to the decrees of the four General Councils
+which had been made in agreement with the legates of the Apostolic See, as
+well as to the papal letters. They consented also to the withdrawal of all
+that had been written on the Three Chapters, and besought the Pope to
+pardon as well their intercourse with those who lay under his ban as the
+offences committed against him, in which also they claimed to have had no
+part. So things were brought to the condition in which they were before the
+appearance of the last imperial edict. Vigilius now returned from Chalcedon
+to Constantinople.
+
+Mennas, who died in August, 552, was succeeded by Eutychius. He addressed
+himself to the Pope on the 6th January, 553, whose name had been restored
+by Mennas to the first place in the diptychs. Eutychius presented his
+confession of faith. He also proposed that a decision, in respect of the
+Three Chapters in accordance with the four General Councils, should be made
+in a meeting of bishops under the Pope's presidency. Apollinaris of
+Alexandria, Domnus of Antioch, Elias of Thessalonica, and other bishops
+subscribed this request. The Pope, in his reply of the 8th January, praised
+their zeal, and accepted the proposition of a council which he had before
+approved. Negotiations then began about its management. Here the emperor
+resisted the Pope's proposals in many points. He would not have the council
+held in Italy or Sicily, as the Pope desired, nor carry out his own
+proposal to summon such western bishops as the Pope named. He proposed
+further that an equal number of bishops should be consulted on both sides;
+hinting, moreover, that an equal number should be drawn from each
+patriarchate, while Vigilius meant an equal number from the East and the
+West, which he thought necessary to bring about a successful result. At
+last the emperor caused the council actually to meet on the 5th May, 553,
+under the presidency of Eutychius, with 151 bishops, among whom only six
+from Africa represented the West, against the Pope's will, in the
+secretarium of the chief church of Constantinople. First was read an
+imperial writing of much detail, which entered into the previous
+negotiations with Vigilius; then the correspondence between Eutychius and
+the Pope. It was resolved to invite him again. Vigilius refused to take
+part in the council, first on account of the excessive number of eastern
+bishops and the absence of most western; then of the disregard shown to his
+wishes. Further, he sought to preserve himself from compulsion, and
+maintain his decision in freedom. He had reason to fear the infringement of
+his dignity. Moreover, no one of his predecessors had taken personally a
+part in eastern councils, and Pope Celestine had forbidden his legates to
+enter into discussion with bishops, and appear as a party. The Pope
+maintained his refusal not only to the high officers of the emperor, but to
+an embassy from the council, at the head of which stood three eastern
+patriarchs. This he did, being the emperor's subject; being also in the
+power of an emperor who was able to appear to the eastern bishops almost
+the head of the Church, and to sway them as he pleased. The Pope would only
+declare himself ready to give his judgment apart. An account of this
+unsuccessful invitation was given in the council's second session of the
+8th May. The western bishops still in the capital were invited to attend,
+but several declined, because the Pope took no part. At the third session,
+of the 9th May, after reading the former protocols, a confession of faith
+entirely agreeing with the imperial document communicated four days before
+was drawn up, and a special treatment of the Three Chapters ordered for
+another day. At the fourth session, seventy-one heretical or offensive
+propositions of Theodore of Mopsuestia were read and condemned. In the
+fifth, the opposition made to him by St. Cyril and others was considered,
+as well as the question whether it is allowable to anathematise after their
+death men who have died in the Church's communion. This was affirmed
+according to previous examples, and testimony from Augustine, Cyril, and
+others. Theodoret's writings against Cyril were also anathematised. In the
+sixth session, the same was done with the letter of Ibas. In the seventh
+session, several documents sent by the emperor were read, specially letters
+of Pope Vigilius up to 550, and a letter from the emperor Justin to his
+prefect Hypatius, in 520, forbidding that a feast to Theodore or to
+Theodoret should any longer be kept in the city of Cyrus. The imperial
+commissioner informed the council, likewise, that the Pope had sent by the
+sub-deacon Servusdei a letter to the emperor, which the emperor had not
+received, and therefore not communicated to the council. The longer Latin
+text of the acts also says that the emperor had commanded the Pope's name
+to be erased from the diptychs, without prejudice, however, to communion
+with the Apostolic See, which the council accepted. It held its last
+sitting on the 2nd June, 553, and issued fourteen anathemas in accordance
+with the thirteen of Justinian. There were then present 165 bishops.
+
+The document brought to the emperor by the sub-deacon in the Pope's name,
+but rejected, must be what has come down to us as the Constitution of the
+14th May. It had the subscription of Vigilius, of sixteen bishops--nine
+Italian, three Asiatic, two Illyrian, and two African--with three Roman
+clergy. It decidedly rejected sixty propositions drawn from the writings of
+Theodore; anathematised five errors as to the Person of Christ; forbade the
+condemnation of Theodore's person, and of the two other Chapters. If this
+document was really drawn up by Vigilius, who had persisted during almost
+six years, as the emperor admitted, in condemning the Three Chapters, it
+must be explained by the Pope finding his especial difficulty in the manner
+of terminating the matter, so that the western bishops should be entirely
+satisfied that the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon remained inviolate;
+that he purposed only to condemn errors, but spare persons; that he wished
+to set his refusal against the pressure of the changeable emperor and the
+blind submission of the Grecian bishops, without surrendering any point of
+faith. Many irregularities appeared in what preceded the council and took
+place in it. Justinian's conduct was dishonouring to the Church, and he
+used force to get the decrees of the Council accepted. At last Vigilius,
+who seems with other bishops to have been banished, gave way to the
+pressure, and issued a decided condemnation of the Three Chapters, in a
+writing to Eutychius of 8th December, 553; and in a Constitution dated 23rd
+February, 554, he made no mention of the council, but gave his own decision
+in accordance with it, and independent of it, as he had before intended.
+Only by degrees the council held by Eutychius obtained the name of the
+Fifth General Council.
+
+In August, 554, the Pope was again on good terms with the emperor, who
+issued at his request the Pragmatic Sanction for Italy. Then Vigilius set
+out to return to Rome, but died on his way at Syracuse in the beginning of
+555. He had spent seven years in the Greek capital, in a position more
+difficult than had ever before occurred; ignorant himself of the language;
+struggling to his utmost to meet the dangers which assaulted the Church
+from every side. Now one and now another seemed to threaten the greater
+evil. He never wavered in the question of faith itself, but often as to
+what it was opportune to do: as whether it was advisable or necessary to
+condemn persons and writings which the Council of Chalcedon had spared:
+whether to issue a judgment which would be looked upon by the Monophysites
+as a triumph of their cause: which for the same reason would be utterly
+detested by most westerns, as a supposed surrender of the Council of
+Chalcedon; which, instead of closing the old divisions, might create new.
+Subsequent times showed the correctness of his solicitude.[146]
+
+The patriarch Eutychius who presided at this council by the emperor's
+order, without the Pope, was held in great consideration by Justinian, and
+was consulted in his most important affairs. When Justinian had restored
+with the greatest splendour the still existing Church of Santa Sophia,
+Eutychius consecrated it in his presence on the 24th December, 563.
+Justinian then allotted to the service of the cathedral 60 priests, 100
+deacons, 90 sub-deacons, 110 lectors, 120 singers, 100 ostiarii, and 40
+deaconesses, a number which much increased between Justinian and Heraclius.
+
+Justinian in his last years was minded to sanction by a formal decree a
+special doctrine which, after long resisting the Eutycheans, he had taken
+from them. It was that the Body of Christ was from the beginning
+incorruptible, and incapable of any change. He willed that all his bishops
+should set their hands to this decree. Eutychius was one of the first to
+resist. On the 22nd January, 565, he was taken by force from his cathedral
+to a monastery; he refused to appear before a resident council called by
+the emperor, which deposed him, and appointed a successor. He was banished
+to Amasea, where he died, twelve years afterwards, in the monastery which
+he had formerly governed.[147]
+
+But Justinian had become again, by the conquest of Narses, lord of Rome and
+Italy, and as such, in the year 554, issued at the request of Vigilius his
+Pragmatic Sanction. In Italy the struggle was at an end; the land was a
+desert. Flourishing cities had become heaps of smoking ruins. Milan had
+been destroyed. Three hundred thousand are said to have perished there.
+Before the recal of Belisarius, fifty thousand had died of hunger in the
+march of Ancona. Such facts give a notion of Rome's condition. In 554,
+Narses returned, and his victorious host entered, laden with booty, crowned
+with laurels. It was his task to maintain a regular government, which he
+did with the title of Patricius and Commander.[148] The Pragmatic Sanction
+was intended to establish a new political order of things in Italy, which
+was reunited to the empire. The two supreme officials of the Italian
+province were the Exarch and the Prefect. The title of Exarch then came up,
+and continued to the end of the Greek dominion in Italy. He united in
+himself the military and civil authority; but for the exercise of the
+latter the Prefect stood at his side as the first civil officer. Obedience
+to the whole body of legislation, as codified by Justinian's order, was
+enacted. For the rest the provisions of Constantine were followed. The
+administration of justice was in the hands of provincial judges, whom the
+bishops and the nobility chose from the ranks of the latter. It was then
+the bishops began to take part in the courts of justice of their own
+cities, as well in the choice and nomination of the officers as in their
+supervision.[149] The words Roman commonwealth, Roman emperor, Roman army,
+were heard again. But no word was said of restoring a western emperor. Rome
+retained only an ideal precedence; Constantinople was the seat of empire.
+Rome received a permanent garrison, and had to share with Ravenna, where
+the heads of the Italian government soon permanently resided. Justinian's
+constitution found existing the mere shadow of a senate. The prefect of the
+city governed at Rome. There is mention made of a salary given to
+professors of Grammar and Rhetoric,[150] to physicians and lawyers; but it
+is doubtful whether this ever came into effect. The Gothic war[151] seems
+to have destroyed the great public libraries of Rome, the Palatine and
+Ulpian, as well as the private libraries of princely palaces, such as
+Boethius and Symmachus possessed. And in all Italy the war of extermination
+between Goths and Greeks swallowed up the costly treasures of ancient
+literature, save such remnant as the Benedictine monasteries were able to
+collect and preserve.[152] No building of Justinian's in Rome is known.
+All his work of this kind was given to Ravenna. From this time forth every
+new building in Rome is due to the Popes.
+
+Small reason had the Popes to rejoice that the rule of an orthodox emperor
+had followed at Rome that of an Arian king. Three months after the death of
+Vigilius at Syracuse Justinian caused the deacon Pelagius to be elected: he
+had difficulty in obtaining his recognition until he had cleared himself by
+oath in St. Peter's of an accusation that he had hastened his predecessor's
+death. The confirmation of the Pope's election remained with the emperor.
+This permanent fetter came upon the Popes from the interference of Odoacer
+the Herule in 484. After Justinian's death, the Romans sent an embassy to
+his successor complaining that their lot had been more endurable under the
+dominion of barbarians than under the Greeks.
+
+When Narses,[153] re-entering Rome, celebrated a triple triumph over the
+expulsion of barbarians from Italy, the reunion of the empire, and the
+Church's victory over the Arians, a contemporary historian writes that the
+mind of man had not power enough to conceive so many reverses of fortune,
+such destruction of cities, such a flight of men, such a murdering of
+peoples, much less to describe them in words. Italy was strewn with ruins
+and dead bodies from the Alps to Tarentum. Famine and pestilence, following
+on the steps of war, had reduced whole districts to desolation. Procopius
+compares the reckoning of losses to that of reckoning the sands of the
+sea. A sober estimate computes that one-third of the population perished,
+and the ancient form of life in Rome and in all Italy was extinct for ever.
+
+But before we make an estimate of Justinian's whole action and character
+and their result, a subject on which we have scarcely touched has to be
+carefully weighed.
+
+What was the relation between the Two Powers conceived in the mind of
+Justinian, expressed in his legislation, carried out in his conduct,
+whether to the Roman Primate or the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch,
+Jerusalem, and Constantinople in his own eastern empire, or to the whole
+Church when assembled in council, as at Constantinople in 553? Was he
+merely carrying on as emperor a relation which he had inherited from so
+many predecessors, beginning with Constantine, or did he by his own laws
+and conduct alter an equilibrium before existing, and impair a definite and
+lawful union by transgressing the boundaries which made it the co-operation
+of Two Powers.
+
+If we look back just a hundred years before his _Digest_ appeared, we find,
+in the great deed[154] in which the emperors Theodosius II. and Valentinian
+III. convoked the Council of Ephesus, the charge which they considered to
+be laid upon the imperial power to maintain that union of the natural and
+the spiritual government on which, as on a joint foundation, the Roman
+State, in the judgment of its rulers, was itself built. Some of the words
+they use are: "We are the ministers of Providence for the advancement of
+the commonwealth, while, inasmuch as we represent the whole body of our
+subjects, we protect them at once in a right belief and in a civil polity
+corresponding with it".
+
+This first and all-embracing principle of protecting all and every power
+which existed in the commonwealth, and maintaining it in due position, was
+most firmly held by Justinian. As to his own imperial authority and the
+basis on which it rested, he says: "Ever bearing in mind whatever regards
+the advantage and the honour of the commonwealth which God has entrusted to
+our hands, we seek to bring it to effect".[155] As to the Two Powers
+themselves, he recognises them thus: "The greatest gifts of God to men
+bestowed by the divine mercy are the priesthood and the empire; the former
+ministering in divine things, the latter presiding over human things, and
+exerting its diligence therein. Both, proceeding from one and the same
+principle, are the ornament of human life. Therefore nothing will be so
+great a care to emperors as the upright conduct of bishops, for, indeed,
+bishops are ever supplicating God for emperors. But if what concerns them
+be entirely blameless and full of confidence in God, and if the imperial
+power rightly and duly adorn the commonwealth entrusted to it, an admirable
+agreement will ensue, conferring on the human race all that is for its
+good. We then bear the greatest solicitude for the genuine divine doctrine,
+and for the upright conduct of bishops, which we trust, when that doctrine
+is maintained, because through it we shall obtain the greatest gifts from
+God,[156] shall be secure in the possession of those which we have, and
+shall acquire those which have not yet come. But all will be done well and
+fittingly if the beginning from which it springs be becoming and dear to
+God. And this we are confident will be, provided the observance of the holy
+canons be maintained, such as the Apostles, so justly praised and
+worshipped, those eye-witnesses and ministers of God the Word, have
+delivered down to us, and the holy Fathers have maintained and carried
+out."[157] And he proceeds to give the force of civil law to the canons
+concerning the election of bishops and other matters.
+
+In another law he says, "Be it therefore enacted[158] that the force of law
+be given to the holy canons of the Church which have been set forth or
+confirmed by the four holy Councils; that is, by the 318 holy Fathers in
+the Nicene, by the 150 in that of Constantinople, by the first of Ephesus,
+in which Nestorius was condemned, and by Chalcedon, when Eutyches, together
+with Nestorius, was put under anathema. For we accept the decrees of these
+four synods as the Holy Scriptures, and observe their canons as laws.
+
+"And, therefore, be it enacted according to their definitions that the most
+holy Pope of Old Rome is the first of all bishops, and that the most
+blessed archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, holds the second place
+after the holy Apostolic See of Old Rome, but takes precedence of all other
+bishops."
+
+In the laws just quoted we see three of the most important principles which
+run through the acts of Justinian. The first is, that the emperor, having
+the whole commonwealth committed to him by God, is the guardian both of
+human and divine things in it, which together make up the whole
+commonwealth; the second is, that there are Two Powers, the human and the
+divine, both derived from God. The third is, that while the emperor is the
+direct head of all human things, he guards divine things by accepting the
+decrees of General Councils as the Holy Scriptures, and by giving to the
+canons of the Church as descending from the Apostles, "the eye-witnesses
+and ministers of God the Word," the force of law.
+
+If in these laws we find Church and State greet each other as friends, and
+offer each other a mutual support, because both aim at one object, and what
+the holiness of the Church required, advanced no less the peace, the
+security, and the welfare of the State, so a complete concurrence between
+them might be shown in all other respects.[159] The State recognised and
+honoured the whole constitution of the Church as it had been drawn in its
+first lineaments by the author of the Christian religion, as in perfect
+sequence it had formed itself out of the Church's inmost life, and that in
+force and purity, because it had been free from the pressure of external
+laws. The proper position of the Roman bishop as supreme head of the whole
+Church, the relation of the patriarchs to each other, their privileges over
+the metropolitans, the close connection of these with their several
+bishops, were never for a moment unrecognised, because so clear a
+consciousness of these showed itself in the whole Catholic world, that no
+change was possible without a general scandal. Thus the laws of Church and
+State kept pace with each other, when it could not but happen that the ties
+between patriarch and metropolitan, between metropolitan and bishop, became
+more stringent, as external increase was followed by decline in inward life
+and the fervour of faith. Thus the regular course was that the metropolitan
+examined the election of the bishop by the clergy and people, consecrated
+him, introduced him to the direction of his charge, and by the _litteræ
+formatæ_ gave him his place in the fabric of the Church. So the
+metropolitan was consecrated by his patriarch, in whose own election all
+the bishops of the province, but especially the metropolitans, took part.
+The metropolitan summoned his bishops, the patriarchs their metropolitans,
+to the yearly synods. The bishops did not vote without their metropolitan;
+they took counsel with him, sometimes intrusted him with their votes.[160]
+General laws of the Church, and also imperial edicts, were transmitted
+first to the patriarchs, and from them to the metropolitans, and from these
+to the bishops. Bishops might not leave their diocese without permission of
+the metropolitan, nor the metropolitan without that of the patriarch.[161]
+
+In like manner, we find in Justinian's laws the relation of the bishop to
+his diocese, and especially to his clergy, recognised as we find it
+presented by the Church from the beginning, and as the lapse of time had
+more and more drawn it out. The law's recognition secured it from all
+attack. The idea that without the bishop there is neither altar, sacrifice,
+nor sacrament had become, through the spirit of unity which rules the
+Church, a fact visible to all. The more heresies and divisions exerted
+their destroying and dissolving power, while the Church went on expanding
+in bulk, every divine service in private houses was forbidden. Since such
+assemblies attacked as well the peace and security of the State as the
+unity of belief, the governors of provinces, as well as the bishops, had
+most carefully to guard against such acts. Neither in city nor country
+could a church, a monastery, or an oratory be raised without the bishop's
+permission. This was made known to all by his consecrating the appointed
+place in solemn procession, with prayer and singing, by elevation of the
+cross. Without this such building was considered a place where errors
+lurked and deserters took refuge.[162] In this concurrent action of the
+laws of Church and State respecting the relation of the bishop to the whole
+Church and to his own clergy, we never miss the perfect union between the
+two even as to the smallest particulars. The conclusion is plain that the
+secular power did not intend to act here on the ground of its own
+supremacy, or as an exercise of its own majesty. Not only did it issue no
+new regulations whereby any fresh order should be in the smallest degree
+introduced: it raised to the condition of its own laws the canons which had
+long obtained force in the Church, whose binding power was accepted by
+everyone who respected the Church, as lying in themselves and in the
+authority from which they proceeded. These it took simply and without
+addition, and by so taking recognised in them the double character. So, if
+they were transgressed, a double penalty ensued. The Church's punitive
+power is contained in its legislative, the recognition of which is an
+acknowledgment of the former. This the State, not only tacitly but
+expressly, recognised. And by taking the Church's laws, it not only did not
+obliterate the character and dignity of that authority, from which they had
+issued, but it did not change the penalty, nor consider it from another
+point of view. It remained what it had always been, and from its nature
+must be, an ecclesiastical punishment. The State only lent its arm, when
+that was necessary, for its execution. With this, however, it was not
+content. The Church's life entered too deeply into the secular life. Those
+who were to carry on the one and sanctify the other stood in the closest
+connection with the whole State. So it made the canons its own proper laws,
+and thus attached temporal penalties to their transgression. So we find
+everywhere the addition that each violation would carry with it not only
+the divine judgment and arm the Church's hand to punish, but likewise draw
+down upon it the prescribed penalties from the imperial majesty.
+
+But so far the empire was maintaining by its secular authority the proper
+laws and institutions of the Church. Justinian went far beyond this.[163]
+His legislation associated the bishop with the count in the government of
+cities and provinces. It gave up to him exclusively the superintendence of
+morality and the protection of moral interests, the control of public works
+and of prisons. It bestowed on him a large jurisdiction--even more, put
+under his supervision the conduct of public functionaries in their
+administration, and conferred on him a preponderating influence on their
+election. In a word, it by degrees displaced the centre of gravity in
+political life by investing the episcopate with a large portion of temporal
+attributions.
+
+To give in detail what is here summed up would involve too large a space. A
+few specimens must suffice. The bishop in his own spiritual office would
+have a great regard for widows and orphans.[164] Parents when dying felt
+secure in recommending children to their protection against the avarice of
+secular judges. Hence the custom had arisen that bishops had to watch over
+the execution of wills, especially such as were made for benevolent
+purposes. They could in case of need call in the assistance of the
+governor. Their higher intelligence and disinterested character were in
+such general credit that they had no little influence in the drawing up of
+wills. But the State under Justinian was so far from regarding: this with
+jealousy, that he ordered, if a traveller should die without a will in an
+inn, the bishop of the place should take possession of the property, either
+to hand it over to the rightful heirs, or to employ it for pious purposes.
+If the innkeeper were found guilty of embezzlement, he was to pay thrice
+the sum to the bishop, who could apply it as he wished. No custom,
+privilege, or statute was allowed to have force against this. Those who
+opposed it were made incapable of testing. Down to the sixth century[165]
+we find no law of the Church touching the testamentary dispositions of
+Christians. Justinian is the first of whom we know that he entrusted the
+execution of wills specially to the supervision of bishops. That he did
+this shows the great trust which he placed in their uprightness.
+
+It was to be expected that bishops should have a special care for the city
+which was their see.[166] Various laws of Justinian gave them here
+privileges in which we cannot fail to see the foundation of the later
+extension of episcopal authority and influence over the whole sphere of
+secular life. With their clergy and with the chief persons in the city,
+they took special part in the election of _defensors_ and of the other city
+officers; so also in the appointment of provincial administrators. It was
+their duty to protect subjects against oppressions from soldiers and
+exaction of provision, as well as against all excessive claim of taxes and
+unlawful gifts to imperial officers. A governor on assuming the province
+was bound to assemble the bishop, the clergy, and the chief people of the
+capital, that he might lay before them the imperial nomination, and the
+extent of the duties which he was to fulfil. Thus they were enabled to
+judge on each occasion whether the representative of the emperor was
+fulfilling his charge. Magistrates, before entering on office, had to take
+the prescribed oath before the metropolitan and the chief citizens. The
+oath itself was an act made before God, and as such under cognisance of the
+bishop. But special regulations enjoined him to watch over the whole
+conduct and each particular act of the governor. If general complaints were
+made of injustice, he was to inform the emperor. If only an individual had
+suffered wrongs, the bishop was judge between both parties. If sentence was
+given against the accused, and he refused to make satisfaction, the matter
+came before the emperor in the last resort. The emperor, if the bishop had
+decided according to right, condemned his governor to death, because he who
+should have been the protector of others against wrong had himself
+committed wrong. If a governor was deposed for maladministration, he was
+not to quit the province before fifty days, and he could be accused before
+the bishop for every unjust transaction. Even if he was removed or
+transferred to another charge, and had left behind him a lawful substitute,
+the same proceeding took place before the bishop. On this account civil
+orders also were sent to the bishops to be publicly considered by them, and
+kept among the church documents, their fulfilment supervised, and
+violations reported to the emperor. But, to complete this picture, it must
+be remarked that this supervision was not one-sided. The emperor sent even
+his ecclesiastical regulations not only through the patriarch of
+Constantinople to the metropolitans, but through the Prætorian prefect to
+the governors of provinces. He directed them to support the bishops in
+their execution, but he likewise enjoined them to report neglect of them to
+the emperor. Especially they were to watch the execution of imperial
+decrees upon Church discipline, and monasteries in particular. The rules,
+so often repeated because so frequently broken, respecting the
+inalienability of Church property, were to be specially watched, and also
+the celebration, as prescribed, of yearly synods. But the civil magistrates
+were only recommended to keep a supervision, which did not extend to the
+right of official exhortation; far less that they were allowed in any
+ecclesiastical matter, in which the bishop might be at all in fault, to act
+upon their own authority, or receive an accusation against him from
+whomsoever and for whatsoever it might be. But the bishop could act in his
+quality of judge between a party and the governor himself, if the party
+had called upon him. Especially, Justinian allowed bishops a decisive
+influence upon legal proceedings in certain branches. The inspection of
+forbidden games, public buildings, roads, and bridges, the distribution of
+corn, was under them. They were to examine the competence of a security.
+The curators of insane persons took oath before them to fulfil their duty.
+If a father had named none, the bishop took part in the choice of them; the
+act was deposited among the church documents. If the children of an insane
+father wished to marry, the bishop had to determine the dowry and the
+nuptial donation. In the absence of the proper judge, the bishop of the
+city could receive complaints from those who had to make a legal demand on
+another, or to protect themselves from a pledge falling overdue. The proofs
+of a wrong account could, in the accountant's absence, be made before the
+bishop, and had legal force. If the ground-lord would not receive the
+ground-rent, the feoffee should consign it at Constantinople to the
+Prætorian prefect or the patriarch, in the provinces to the governor, or in
+his absence to the bishop of the city where the ground-lord who refused to
+receive it had his domicile. Whoever found no hearing, either in a civil or
+criminal matter, before the judge of the province, was directed to go to
+the bishop, who could either call the judge to him, or go in person to the
+judge, to invite him to do justice to the complainant according to the
+strict law, in order that the bishop might not be obliged to carry the
+refusal of justice by appeal to the imperial court.[167] If the judge was
+not moved by this, the bishop gave the complainant a statement of the whole
+case for the emperor, and the delinquent had to fear severe penalties, not
+alone because he had been untrue to his office, but because he did not
+allow himself, even at the demand of the bishop, to do what, without it,
+lay in the circle of his duties. But this referring to the bishop was not
+arbitrary--that is, not one which it lay in the will of the complainant to
+use or not, but necessary, so that anyone who appealed to the imperial
+court without this endeavour incurred, whether his complaint was founded or
+not, the same punishment as the judge who refused to give a decision at the
+bishop's request. Even if the complainant only suspected the judge, he was
+bound to apply to the bishop to join the judge in examining the matter, and
+to bring it to a strict legal issue. In the face of such honourable
+confidence which was placed in the bishops, and which was also justified in
+general by a happy result, we ought not to be surprised if either the
+emperor himself or inferior magistrates committed to them the termination
+of entangled processes, in which they exercised just such a jurisdiction as
+may either in general be exercised by delegates, or was committed to them
+for the special occasion.
+
+The emperor[168] in his legislation left no part of the Church's
+discipline unregarded. His purpose was in all respects to make the State
+Christian; and he considered no part of divine and human things, whether it
+were dogma or conduct,--which, together, made up the Church's
+life,--withdrawn from his care and guardianship. Observances which had
+begun in custom, and gradually been drawn out definitely and enacted in
+canons, he took into his _Digest_, not with the intention of giving them
+greater inward force or stronger grounds as duties, but to show the unity
+of his own effort with that of the Church. He willingly put the imperial
+stamp on her salutary regulations. He showed his readiness to help her with
+external force wherever the inviolable sanctity of her laws seemed to be
+threatened by the opposition of individuals. In this he recognised the
+unchangeable order which is so deeply rooted in the nature both of Church
+and State, that order which is the greatest security for the wellbeing and
+prosperity of both. And the Church in the course of her long life had
+hitherto almost universally maintained this order; always, at least, in
+principle. If it was anywhere transgressed, it was either because the
+secular power was acting under special commission and approval of the
+Church, or, if that power acted without such approval, it met with open
+contradiction whereby not only the illegality of the particular action was
+marked, but the principle of the Church's freedom and independence was
+preserved.
+
+There is a passage in the address of the eastern bishops to Tarasius,
+patriarch of Constantinople, quoted in the Second Nicene Council of
+789,[169] the Seventh General, which cites the words of Justinian given
+above in one of his laws. The bishops say in their own character--and they
+are bishops who describe themselves "as sitting in darkness and the shadow
+of death, that is, of the Arabian impiety"--"It is the priesthood which
+sanctifies the empire and forms its basis; it is the empire which
+strengthens and supports the priesthood. Concerning these, a wise king,
+most blessed among holy princes, said: The greatest gift of God to men is
+the priestly and the imperial power, the one ordering and administering
+divine things, the other ruling human things by upright laws."
+
+If we considered the principles of Justinian alone as exhibited in his
+legislation, without regard to his conduct, we might, like the eastern
+bishops, take these words as the motto of his reign and the key to his acts
+as legislator. Indeed, it may be said that this legislation cannot be
+understood except by presupposing throughout the cordiality of the alliance
+between the Two Powers. In the election and the lives of bishops, in the
+discipline of religious houses, in the strict observance of the celibate
+life which has been assumed with full consent of the will by clergy and by
+monks, the emperor is as strict in his laws as the Church in her canons.
+The ruler of the State, who makes laws with a single word of his own mouth,
+who commands all the armies of the State, who bestows all its offices, who
+is, in truth, the autocrat, the impersonated commonwealth, shows not a
+particle of jealousy towards the Church as Church. He enjoins the strict
+observance of her canons in the fullest conviction that the end which she
+aims at as Church is the end which he also desires as emperor; that the
+good life of her bishops and priests is essential for the good of society
+in general; that the perfect orthodoxy of her creed is the dearest
+possession, the pillar and safeguard, of his own government. Heresy and
+schism are, in his sight, the greatest crimes against the State, as they
+are the greatest sins against the Church and against God. In the course of
+the two hundred years from Constantine to Justinian the Roman State, as
+understood by the Illyrian peasant who ruled it for thirty-eight years, had
+intertwined itself as closely with the Catholic Church as ever it had with
+Cicero's "immortal gods" in the time of Augustus, or Trajan, or Decius. It
+was the special pride and glory of Justinian to maintain intact this
+alliance as the palladium of the empire. And, therefore, his legislation
+touched every part of the ecclesiastical government, every dogma of the
+Church's creed, and only on account of this alliance did the Church
+acquiesce in such a legislation. I suppose that no greater contradiction
+can ever be conceived than that which exists between the mind of Justinian
+and the mind which now, and for a long time, has directed the nations of
+Europe, so far as their governments are concerned in their attitude towards
+the Church of God. In Europe are nations which are nurtured upon heresy and
+schism, whether as the basis of the original rebellion which severed them
+from the communion of the Church or as the outcome of "Free-thought" in
+their subsequent evolution through centuries of speculation unbridled by
+spiritual authority; nations, again, bisected by pure infidelity, or
+struggling with the joint forces of heresy and infidelity which strive to
+overthrow constitutions originally Catholic in all their structure. In one
+empire alone the attitude of Constantine and Justinian towards the Church
+is still maintained. It is that wherein the emperor rules with an amplitude
+of authority such as Constantine and Justinian held, whose successor he
+claims to be; where, also, an imperial aide-de-camp, booted and spurred,
+sits at the council board of a synod called holy, and is by far the most
+important member of it, for nothing can pass without his sanction--a synod
+which rules the bishops, being itself nothing but a ministry of the State,
+drawing, like the council of the empire, its jurisdiction from the emperor.
+
+Justinian was a true successor of the great Theodosius in so far as he
+upheld orthodoxy, and endeavoured to unite all his subjects in one belief
+and one centre of unity. The greatest of the Roman emperors had for their
+first and chief motive, in upholding this first principle of imperial
+policy, the conviction that thus only they could hope to maintain the peace
+and security of the empire. Schism in the Church betokened rebellion in the
+State. In the fourth century heresy had driven the empire to the very brink
+of destruction. Besides this, all the populations converted from heathendom
+were accustomed to see a complete harmony between religion and the State,
+which appeared almost blent into one. Again, we must not forget that at
+this time the Christian religion had been lately accepted distinctly as a
+divine institution, and that it embraced the whole man with a plenitude of
+power which the indifference and division of our own times hardly allow us
+to conceive. Those who would realise this grasp of the Christian faith,
+transforming and exalting the whole being, may reach a faint perception of
+it by reading the great Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries--St.
+Basil, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Leo.
+They were not in danger of taking the moral corruption of an effete
+civilisation for the Christian faith. Again, the emperors, living in the
+midst of this immense intellectual and moral power--for instance, Justinian
+himself practising in a court the austerities of a monastery--recognised
+the confession of the same faith as the strongest band which united
+subjects with their prince. They thought that those who were not united
+with them in belief could not serve them with perfect love and fidelity.
+And, lastly, they hoped that their own zeal in maintaining the Church's
+unity unimpaired would make them worthier of the divine favour, and give
+success to all their undertakings. Let us take the words of Theodosius, one
+of the greatest and best among them, to his colleague the younger
+Valentinian, who up to the time of his mother Justina's death had been
+unjust to the Catholic cause and favoured the Arian heresy: "The imperial
+dignity is supported, not by arms, but by the justice of the cause.
+Emperors who feared God have won victories without armies, have subdued
+enemies and made them tributary, and have escaped all dangers. So
+Constantine the Great overcame the tyrant Licinius in a sea-fight. So thy
+father (the first Valentinian) succeeded in protecting his realm from its
+enemies, won mighty victories, and destroyed many barbarians. On the
+contrary, thy uncle Valens polluted churches by the murder of saints and
+the banishing of priests. Hence by guidance of Divine Providence he was
+besieged by the Goths, and found his death in the flames. It is true that
+he who has not unjustly expelled thee does not worship Christ aright. But
+thy perverse belief has given this opportunity to Maximus. If we do not
+return to Christ, how can we call upon His aid in the struggle?" The
+following emperors were of the same judgment: so that they attached to each
+decree which concerned ecclesiastical matters the motive of meriting
+thereby God's approval, since they not only took pains to please Him, but
+also led their subjects to do so. We employ, says Justinian, every care
+upon the holy churches, because we believe that our empire will be
+maintained, and the commonwealth protected by the favour of God, but
+likewise to save our own souls and the souls of all our subjects.
+
+Justinian likewise would have a keen remembrance of the degradation from
+which his uncle had restored the empire. None knew better than he how the
+ignoble reigns of the usurper Basiliscus, of Zeno, and of Anastasius, by
+perpetual tampering with heresy and ruthless persecution of the orthodox,
+had well-nigh broken that empire to pieces. Had he not thrown all his
+energy, as the leading spirit of his uncle's realm, into that great
+submission to Pope Hormisdas which rendered its beginning illustrious?
+
+Nevertheless a dark blot lies upon the name and memory of Justinian. He was
+not only successor of the great Theodosius in his ardent zeal for the
+Church's doctrine and unity, but likewise of Constantine, when he sullied
+his greatness and risked all the success of his former life by falling into
+the hands of the Nicomedian Eusebius.
+
+The vast event by which the Christian Church had become a ruling power in
+the commonwealth had affected from that time forth the whole being of
+Church and State. Christian emperors had come to see in bishops the Fathers
+and Princes of such a Church, consecrated by God to that office, not
+appointed by men.[170] As such they had honoured them, committed to their
+wisdom and guidance the salvation of their own souls, and the weal itself
+of the commonwealth; not hindered them in the performance of their duties,
+not hampered them by restrictive laws. Rather they had protected them by
+external force from hindrance when invited thus to show their protection as
+heads of the State. Circumstances led them on to a more immediate entrance
+into the Church's special domain, and the things which happened in that
+domain led to this their entrance. It kept even pace with the developments
+and disturbances caused by heresy therein.
+
+Christ had committed to the whole episcopate, under the guidance of the
+Holy Spirit, the task of spreading the seed of Christian doctrine over the
+earth, of watching its growth, of eradicating the false seed sown in
+night-time by the enemy. In proportion as the empire's head took part in
+this work, his influence on the episcopate could not but increase. If his
+participation was confined within its due limits, if the temporal ruler
+hedged the Church round from irruption of external power, if he rooted the
+tares out of her field only to clear her enclosure, his relation to the
+bishops remained merely external. But if he went on himself to lay down the
+limit of the Church's domain, or even if he only took an active part in
+such limitation; if he made himself the judge what was wheat and what was
+tares, in so doing he had won an influence on the bishops which did not
+belong to him. Then Church and State ran a danger of seeing their
+respective limits confused. Thus the relation of the bishops to the ruler
+of the State became then, and remains always, an unfailing standard of the
+Church's freedom and independence.
+
+Now, striking and peremptory as the eastern submission to Pope Hormisdas
+was, in which Justinian, then a man of thirty-six, had taken large part;
+clear and unambiguous as in his legislation appears the recognition of the
+Two Powers, sacerdotal and imperial, which make together the joint
+foundation of the State, and are a necessity of its wellbeing; distinct,
+likewise, as is the imperial proclamation of the Pope as the first of all
+bishops in his laws, his letters, confirmed by his reception of the Popes
+Agapetus and Vigilius in his own capital city; frank and unembarrassed as
+his acknowledgment of St. Peter's successors, yet, when he had reached the
+mature age of seventy, and was lord by conquest of Rome reduced to absolute
+impotence, and of Italy as a subject province, his treatment of the first
+bishop, in the person of Vigilius, was a contradiction of his own laws as
+to the two domains of divine and human things. He passed beyond the limits
+which marked the boundaries of the two powers. He made himself the supreme
+judge of doctrine. He convoked a General Council without the Pope's assent;
+he terminated it without his sanction; he treated the Pope as a prisoner
+for resisting such action. It is true that St. Peter's successor--and this
+with a stain upon him which no successor of St. Peter had worn before
+him--escaped with St. Peter's life in him unimpaired; but so far as the
+action of Justinian went it was unfilial, inconsistent with his own laws,
+perilous in the extreme to the Church, dishonouring to the whole
+episcopate. The divine protection guarded Vigilius--that Vigilius whom an
+imperious woman had put upon the seat of a lawful living Pope--from
+sacrifice of the authority to which, on the martyrdom of his predecessor,
+he succeeded. He died at Syracuse, and St. Peter lived after him
+undiminished in the great St. Gregory. The names mean the same, the one in
+Latin, the other in Greek; but no successor ever took on himself the
+blighted name of Vigilius, while many of the greatest among the Popes have
+chosen for themselves the name of Gregory, and one at least of the sixteen
+has equalled the glory of the first.
+
+In judging the conduct of Justinian, both in treatment of persons and in
+dealing with doctrine, we cannot fail to see that the imperial duty of
+protection passed into the imperial lust for mastery. If his treatment of
+Vigilius, whom he acknowledged in the clearest terms as Pope, was
+scandalous and cruel, still worse, if possible, was the assumption of a
+right to interpret and to define the Church's doctrine for the Church. The
+usurper Basiliscus had been the first to issue an imperial decree on
+doctrine. This was in favour of heresy. He was followed in this by the
+legitimate emperors Zeno and Anastasius, also in favour of heresy. On the
+contrary,[171] the edicts of Justinian were generally in conformity with
+the decisions of the Church: generally occasioned by bishops, often drawn
+up by them. But in the council called by him at Constantinople in 553, he
+issued decrees on doctrines which only the Church could decide. In doing
+this he infringed her liberty as grossly as the three whose unlawful act he
+was imitating. The whole effect of his reign was that State despotism in
+Church matters lowered the dignity of the spiritual power. The dependence
+of his bishops on the court became greater and greater. The emperor's will
+became law in the things of the Church. He persecuted Vigilius: he deposed
+his own patriarch Eutychius. His example, as that of the most distinguished
+Byzantine monarch, told with great force upon his successors, for the
+persecution of future Popes and the deposition of future patriarchs.
+
+The Italy which he had won at the cost of its ruin as to temporal wellbeing
+was, after his death in 565, speedily lost as to its greater portion, and
+the Romans[172] of the East did little more for it. The Rome which he had
+reduced almost to a solitude, and ruled through a prefect with absolute
+power, escaped in the end from the most cruel and heartless despotism
+inflicted by a distant master on a province at once plundered and
+neglected. His own eastern provinces suffered terribly from barbarian
+inroads, and the end of the thirty-seven years' domination, which had
+seemed a resurrection at the beginning, showed the mighty eastern empire
+from day to day declining, the western bishops under the action of the Pope
+more and more exerting an independence which the East could not prevent,
+the patriarch of Constantinople more and more advancing as the agent of the
+imperial will in dealing with eastern bishops. What the See of St. Peter
+was at the end of the sixth century it remains to see in the pontificate of
+the first Gregory, who shares with the first Leo the double title of Great
+and Saint.
+
+NOTES:
+
+[115] Mansi, viii. 795-99.
+
+[116] This refers to the reunion of a great portion of the eastern Church,
+which had fallen a prey to the most manifold errors since the Council of
+Chalcedon.--Riffel, p. 543.
+
+[117] Savigny, _Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter_, 1834, i.
+36. Quoted by Rump, ix. 72.
+
+[118] _Ep._ xi. 2: Sedes illa toto orbe mirabilis licet generalis mundo sit
+prædita.
+
+[119] _Nov._ cxxxi. c. 2: thespizomen ton hagiôtaton tês presbyteras Rhômês
+papan prôton einai pantôn tôn hiereôn.... tê gnômê kai orthê krisei tou
+ekeinou sebasmiou thronou katêrgêthêsan. _Nov._ ix. init.: Pontificatus
+apicem apud eam (Romam anteriorem) esse nemo est qui dubitet.--Photius, p.
+156.
+
+[120] Translated from Photius, p. 156.
+
+[121] "Cesare fui e son Giustiniano,
+      Che, per voler del primo amor ch'io sento,
+      Dentro alle leggi trassi il troppo e il vano."
+                              --_Paradiso_, vi. 10.
+
+[122] This paragraph translated from Rump, ix. 70.
+
+[123] Rump, viii. 487.
+
+[124] Account from Rump, ix. 172-4, compressed.
+
+[125] Respondeat mens illa Sancto Spiritui serviens.
+
+[126] Mansi, viii. 808.
+
+[127] Mansi, viii. 849.
+
+[128] See Baronius, A.D. 535, sec. 40; Hefele, ii. 736-8; Rump, ix. 174-6;
+_Novell._ xxxix. _De Africana Ecclesia._
+
+[129] Photius, i. 153-4: words of Hergenröther, who quotes eastern
+historians, who call him megaloprepesteros anaktôn tôn proterôn ...
+megalourgos kratôr.
+
+[130] Mansi, viii. 846.
+
+[131] Photius, i. 160-2; Rump, ix. 181.
+
+[132] Photius, i. 163. The words which concern the conduct of Vigilius are
+taken from Cardinal Hergenröther. Baronius, A.D. 538, sec. 5, gives from
+Anastasius the words of the empress, and the Pope's answer, and the
+following narrative.
+
+[133] Gregorovius, i. 372. See Liberatus, _Breviarium_, ch. xxii.
+
+[134] Liberatus, _Breviarium_.
+
+[135] Reumont, ii. 49.
+
+[136] St. Gregory, _Dialogues_, ii. 14, 18.
+
+[137] The following drawn from Reumont's narrative, ii. 50-6.
+
+[138] The narrative drawn from Reumont, ii. 56-7; Gregorovius, i. 448-9.
+
+[139] Mansi, viii. 969; Photius, i. 163.
+
+[140] Mansi, viii. 1149.
+
+[141] Mansi, ix. 35-40.
+
+[142] Narrative drawn from Photius, i. 165-6, down to "Ferrandus," p. 232,
+below.
+
+[143] Mansi, ix. 487-537.
+
+[144] Hefele, ii. 790.
+
+[145] Hergenröther, _K.G._, i. 344-5; Photius, i. 166.
+
+[146] Translated from Hergenröther's _K.G._, i., pp. 345-351, from p. 232,
+above, "at this point Justinian sought," &c., with reference also to the
+life of Photius.
+
+[147] Hergenröther, Photius, i. 174; Rump, _K.G._, ix. 283.
+
+[148] See Reumont, ii. 58-62; Gregorovius, i. 453-9.
+
+[149] Reumont, 60.
+
+[150] Gregorovius, 455.
+
+[151] _Ibid._, 456.
+
+[152] Reumont, 61.
+
+[153] Gregorovius, 450-2.
+
+[154] See vol. v. 281.
+
+[155] _Constitutio_, lxxxii. 667.
+
+[156] Honestatem quam illis obtenentibus credimus.
+
+[157] _Constitutio_, vi. 48.
+
+[158] 119. _De ecclesiasticis titulis_, p. 940. _Sancimus_. This word in
+Roman law in the time of Justinian is equivalent to the English formula,
+"Be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the
+advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in
+Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same". There lies in
+these two formulæ, expressing the supreme legislative authority, a
+comparison between the constitution of the lower Roman empire and the
+medieval constitutions established everywhere by the influence of the
+Church under guidance of the Popes.
+
+[159] Riffel, 611-12, translated.
+
+[160] See Justinian, _Gloss._ v., directed to the patriarch of
+Constantinople, Epiphanius. _Epilogus_, p 48: Hæc igitur omnia sanctissimi
+patriarchæ sub se constitutis Deo amabilibus metropolitis manifesta
+faciant, at illi subjectis sibi Deo amabilibus episcopis declarent, et illi
+monasteriis Dei sub sua ordinatione constitutis cognita faciant, quatenus
+per omnia Domini cultura maneat undique in eos incorrupta.
+
+[161] Riffel, p. 615, translated.
+
+[162] Riffel, p. 617.
+
+[163] Kurth, ii. 35.
+
+[164] See Riffel, p. 624.
+
+[165] Riffel, p. 625.
+
+[166] _Ibid._, pp. 629-35.
+
+[167] See St. Gregory, _Epis._, x. 51 (vol. ii. 1080), where he writes to
+the ex-consul Leontius, in Sicily, who had beaten with rods the ex-prefect
+Libertinus: "Si mihi constare potuisset quia justas causas de suis
+rationibus haberent, et prius per epistolas vos pulsare habui; et si
+auditus minime fuissem, serenissimo Domino Imperatori suggererem".
+
+[168] Riffel, p. 635.
+
+[169] Mansi, xii. 1130.
+
+[170] Riffel, 562.
+
+[171] Photius, p. 155.
+
+[172] Photius, 173.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ST. GREGORY THE GREAT.
+
+    "The banner of the Church is ever flying!
+    Less than a storm avails not to unfold
+    The Cross emblazoned there in massive gold:
+    Away with doubts and sadness, tears and sighing!
+    It is by faith, by patience, and by dying
+    That we must conquer, as our sires of old."
+
+    --AUBREY DE VERE, "St. Peter's Chains".
+
+
+The historian,[173] who has carefully followed the fortunes of Rome as a
+city during a thousand years, describes it as beginning a new life from the
+time when Narses, in the year 552, came to reside there as imperial prefect
+and representative of the absent eastern lord Justinian. Narses so ruled
+for fifteen years, but when he was recalled there ensued a long time of
+terrible distress and anxiety--a time of temporal servitude, but one also
+of spiritual expansion. The complete ruin of Rome as a secular city, the
+overthrow of all that ancient world of which Rome was the centre and
+capital, had been effected in the struggle ended by the extinction of the
+Gothic kingdom. By degrees the laws, the monuments, the very recollections
+of what had been, passed away. The heathen temples ceased to be preserved
+as public monuments. The Capitol, on its desolate hill, lifted into the
+still air its fairy world of pillars in a grave-like silence, startled
+only by the owl's night cry. The huge palace of the Cæsars still occupied
+the Palatine in unbroken greatness, a labyrinth of empty halls yet
+resplendent with the finest marbles, here and there still covered with
+gold-embroidered tapestry. But it was falling to pieces like a fortress
+deserted by its occupants. In some small corner of its vast spaces there
+might still be seen a Byzantine prefect, an eunuch from the court of the
+eastern despot, or a semi-Asiatic general, with secretaries, servants, and
+guards. The splendid forums built by Cæsar after Cæsar, each a homage paid
+by the ruler of the day to the Roman people, whom he fed and feared, became
+pale with age. Their history clung round them like a fable. The massive
+blocks of Pompey's theatre showed need of repairs, which were not given.
+The circus maximus, where the last and dearest of Roman pleasures--the
+chariot races--were no longer celebrated, stretched its long lines beneath
+the imperial palace covered with dust and overgrown with grass. The
+colossal amphitheatre of Titus still reared its circle perfect, but
+stripped of its decorations. The gigantic baths, fed by no aqueduct since
+the ruin wrought by Vitiges the Goth, rose like fallen cities in a
+wilderness. Ivy began to creep over them. The costly marble mantle of their
+walls dropped away in pieces or was plundered for use. The Mosaic pavements
+split. There were still in those beautiful chambers seats of bright or dark
+marble, baths of porphyry or Oriental alabaster. But these found their way
+by degrees to churches. They served for episcopal chairs, or to receive
+the bones of a saint, or to become baptismal fonts. Yet not a few remained
+in their desolation till the walls dropped down upon them, or the dust
+covered them for centuries. In course of time the rain perforated the
+uncared-for vaultings of these shady galleries. Having served for refuge to
+the thief, the coiner, or the assassin, they became like dripping grottoes.
+
+Thus stood the temples, triumphal arches, pillars, and statues before the
+eyes of a young Roman noble, one out of the few patrician families still
+surviving. These were the sights with which St. Gregory, who claimed
+kindred with the Anician race, was familiar from his boyhood, so that the
+desolation of Jerusalem rose before his mind as the state of his own Rome
+pressed on his eyes and seared his heart.
+
+This skeleton of a city was scarcely inhabited by the remnant of a people,
+decimated by hunger and pestilence, and in perpetual fear to see its
+ill-defended gates broken into by Lombard savages. The walls of Aurelian,
+half demolished by Totila and hurriedly repaired by Belisarius, alone saved
+it year after year from the horrors which fell upon captured cities; and
+would not have saved it but for the indomitable spirit, the perpetual
+wisdom, foresight, and courage of a son who had been exalted to the Chair
+of Peter.
+
+While Old Rome lay thus, the shadow of its former self, bereft of all
+political power, looking to the imperial exarch at Ravenna for its temporal
+rule, in danger moreover of inundation from its own Tiber, whose banks were
+no longer maintained with unremitting care, New Rome beside the Bosporus
+rioted in all the pomp and circumstance of a court still the head of a vast
+empire. The tributes of all the East, of numberless cities in Asia Minor,
+in Syria, in Egypt, were still borne unceasingly within its walls, which
+rose as an impregnable fortress between Europe and Asia. Its emperor still
+thought himself the lord of the world; its bishop assumed the title of
+Ecumenical Patriarch. Both emperor and bishop cast but a disdainful glance
+on the widowed rival which threatened to sink into the grave of waters
+brought down by her own river. Constantinople could raise and pay armies
+from all the races of the North and East. A single imperial regiment was
+quartered at Rome, which, being ill-paid, became disaffected and neglectful
+of its charge, and could not be counted upon by the Pope for vigorous
+defence against the ever-pressing danger of a Lombard inroad.
+
+So began the Church's Rome.[174] Enslaved politically to Byzantium, wherein
+the so-called Roman State, with Greek subtlety, carried on the principles
+of the old heathen government and practised a remorseless despotism, the
+city of the ancient Cæsars and the people they fed on "bread and games"
+ceased to exist, and was changed into the holy city, whose life was the
+Chair of Peter. From the time of Narses, during all the two hundred years
+of Lombard assault and Byzantine neglect and exaction, the Pope alone,
+watchful and unceasingly active, carried out the fabric of the Roman
+hierarchy.[175] Its gradual increase, its springing up out of the dust of
+the old Roman State under the most difficult circumstances, will ever
+claim the astonishment of the after-world as the greatest transformation to
+be found in history.
+
+Let us approach the secret of this transformation in the person of the man
+who best represents it.
+
+Gregory was born about the year 540, and so was witness from his childhood
+of the intense misery and special degradation of Rome produced by the
+Gothic war. He was himself the son of Gordian, a man of senatorial rank,
+from whom he inherited great landed property. Through him he was the great
+grandson of that illustrious Pope Felix III., whom we have seen resist with
+success the insolence of Acacius and the despotism of Zeno. Gregory had
+therefore a doubly noble inheritance--that of a true Roman noble's spirit,
+and that of the Church's championship. His paternal house stood on that
+well-known slope of the Coelian hill, opposite the imperial palace on the
+Palatine, from which in after-time he sent forth St. Augustine with the
+monks his brethren to be the Apostle of paganised England. He founded six
+monasteries in Sicily upon his property, and changed his father's palace
+into a seventh, in which he followed the Benedictine Rule. In early manhood
+he had been prætor or prefect of the city, being probably the most eminent
+of all its citizens in wealth and rank. But his mother St. Silvia, a woman
+of fervent piety, had educated him with great care. He turned from the
+secular to the religious life, following perhaps her example, since on the
+death of his father she became a nun. He was a monk on the Coelian hill
+when Pope Benedict in the year 577 named him seventh deacon of the Roman
+Church. Pope Pelagius II. sent him as nuncio to Constantinople, an office
+equally difficult and honourable. The emperor Tiberius was then reigning,
+with whom he became intimate, and with his successor Mauritius. Gregory
+dwelt in the imperial palace, with some monks of his own monastery whom he
+had brought with him, pursuing the Rule in all pious observances, winning
+also the esteem and friendship of many distinguished men, and making
+himself fully acquainted with the mechanism of the eastern court. He also
+delivered the patriarch Eutychius from a false Origenistic notion, that the
+bodies of the blessed after the resurrection were not glorified, but lost
+their quality as bodies.[176] There also he became warmly attached to St.
+Leander, who afterwards, as archbishop of Seville, greatly helped him in
+recovering Spain from Arianism to the Catholic faith. The charge of Pope
+Pelagius to his nuncio Gregory throws a vivid light upon the condition of
+Rome at the time. His instructions ran: "Lay before our lord the emperor
+that no words can express the calamities brought upon us by the perfidy of
+the Lombards, breaking their own engagements. Our brother Sebastian, whom
+we send to you, has promised to describe to him the necessities and dangers
+of all Italy. Join him in that entreaty to succour us, for the commonwealth
+is in such distress, that unless God inspire him to show us his servants
+the mercy of his natural disposition, and move him to give us a single
+_Magister militum_ and a single _Dux_, we are utterly destitute, for Rome
+and its neighbourhood are specially defenceless. The exarch writes that he
+can give us no help, for he has not force enough to guard Ravenna.
+Therefore, may God command the emperor quickly to succour us, before the
+army of that most wicked nation take the places still remaining to
+us."[177]
+
+Gregory returned from Constantinople in 585, and lived as one of the seven
+deacons on the Coelian hill, when, on 8th February, 590, Pope Pelagius
+died of the pestilence, and Gregory was unanimously chosen to succeed him.
+
+It was a moment of the greatest depression. The Tiber had in the winter
+overflowed a large portion of the city. The destruction wrought had been
+followed by a terrible plague. Gregory strove to escape the charge put upon
+him, and besought the emperor not to confirm his election. In the meantime,
+the clergy and people urged upon him the provisional exercise of the
+episcopal charge. As such he ordered a sevenfold procession to entreat the
+cessation of the plague. The clergy of Rome, the abbots, the abbesses with
+their nuns, the children, the laymen, the widows, and the married women,
+each company separately arranged, were to start from seven different
+churches, and to close their pilgrimage together at the basilica of St.
+Maria Maggiore.
+
+During the procession itself eighty victims to the plague fell dead. But as
+Gregory was passing over the bridge of St. Peter's, a heavenly vision
+consoled them in the midst of their litanies. The archangel Michael was
+seen over the tomb of Hadrian, sheathing his flaming sword in token that
+the pestilence was to cease. Gregory heard the angelic antiphon from
+heavenly voices--_Regina Coeli, lætare_, and added himself the concluding
+verse--_Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia_.
+
+The assent of the emperor Mauritius arriving from Constantinople about six
+months after his election compelled Gregory to become Pope. At first,
+indeed, he disguised himself and took to flight, and hid himself in the
+woods.[178] The people fasted and prayed three days for his discovery. He
+was found, and then permitted himself to be taken back to Rome, where he
+was received with great rejoicing. He was led, according to custom, to the
+"Confession" of St. Peter, where he made his profession of faith. He was
+then consecrated, the 3rd September, 590. Nor can any words but his own
+adequately express his feelings, together with the character of the time in
+which he lived. With heavy heart he approached the burden laid upon him.
+Neither then nor ever after did he deceive himself as to the gravity of the
+situation. "Since," are his words, "I submitted the shoulders of my spirit
+to this burden of the episcopal office, I can no longer collect my soul,
+distracted as it is on so many sides. At one time I have to consider the
+affairs of churches and monasteries, often taking into account the lives
+and actions of individuals. At another time I have to represent my
+fellow-citizens in their affairs. Again, I have to groan over the swords
+of barbarians advancing to storm us, and to dread the wolves which lie in
+wait for a flock huddled together in fear. Then, again, I must charge
+myself with the care of public affairs, to provide means even for those to
+whom the maintenance of order is entrusted, or I must patiently endure
+certain depredators, or take precautions against them, that tranquillity be
+not disturbed." In another place he says: "Daily I feel what fulness of
+peace I have lost, to what fulness of cares I have been exalted. If you
+love me, weep for me, since so many temporal businesses press on me that I
+seem as if this dignity had almost excluded me from the love of God. Not of
+the Romans only am I bishop, but bishop of the Lombards, whose right is the
+right of the sword, whose favour is punishment. The billows of the world so
+surge upon me, that I despair of steering into harbour the frail vessel
+entrusted to me by God, while my hand holds the helm amid a thousand
+storms." Again, in his synodical letter[179] announcing his accession to
+the patriarchs, he says: "Especially, whoever bears the title of Pastor in
+this place is grievously occupied by external cares, so that he is often in
+doubt whether he is executing the work of a Pastor or that of an earthly
+lord". Thus thirteen hundred years ago spoke the Pope. Does his language in
+the nineteenth century differ much from his language in the sixth? Shortly
+after his accession, preaching to his people in St. Peter's, he said:[180]
+"Where, I pray you, is any delight to be found in this world? Mourning
+meets us everywhere; groans surround us. Ruined cities, fortresses
+overthrown, lands laid waste, the earth reduced to a desert. The fields
+have none to till them. There is scarcely a dweller in the cities. Yet even
+these poor remnants of the human race are smitten daily and without
+ceasing. The scourge of heaven's justice strikes without end, because even
+under its strokes our bad actions are not corrected. We see men led into
+captivity, beheaded, slain before our eyes. What pleasure, then, does life
+retain, my brethren? If yet we are fond of such a world, it is not joys but
+wounds which we love. We see the condition of that Rome which anon seemed
+to be mistress of the world: worn down by sorrows which have no measure,
+desolate of inhabitants, assaulted by enemies, filled with ruins. We see in
+it fulfilled what long ago our prophet said against Samaria: 'Set on a
+vessel; set it on, I say, and put water into it. Heap together into it the
+pieces thereof.' And then: 'The seething of it is boiling hot; and the
+bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst thereof.' And further:
+'Heap together the bones, which I will burn with fire: the flesh shall be
+consumed, and the whole composition shall be sodden, and the bones shall be
+consumed. Then set it empty upon burning coals, that it may be hot, and the
+brass thereof may be melted.' Now the vessel was set on when our city was
+founded. The water was put into it and the pieces heaped together, when
+there was a confluence of peoples to it from all sides. Like boiling water
+they bubbled up with the world's actions; like bits of flesh they were
+boiled in their own heat. He says well, 'The seething of it is boiling hot,
+and the bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst thereof'. For
+great, indeed, in it at first was the heat of secular glory; but presently
+the glory itself and those who followed it burnt out. Bones mean the
+powerful of the world; flesh its various peoples: as bones support flesh,
+so the powerful of the world rule the weakness of the masses. But now,
+behold, all the powerful of this world have been taken from it. The bones,
+then, are thoroughly sodden. The peoples are gone; the flesh, then, is
+boiled up. There follows then: 'Heap together the bones, which I will burn
+with fire; the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole composition shall be
+sodden; and the bones shall waste away'. For where is the senate? where any
+longer a people? The bones are wasted, the flesh consumed; all pride of
+secular dignities is perished out of it. The whole composition is sodden.
+Yet every day the sword, every day innumerable sorrows press upon us, the
+poor remaining remnant. So, then, this also applies: 'Set it empty upon
+burning coals'. For since there is no senate, since the people has died
+out, and yet sorrow and suffering are multiplied day by day on the few that
+remain, Rome is empty, and yet it burns. We apply this to men, but we see
+the very structures destroyed by the multiplication of ruins. So that he
+adds, upon the empty city, 'Burn it and melt its brass'. For it is come to
+the vessel itself being destroyed, in which before both flesh and bones
+were consumed. For when the dwellers have fallen away even the walls fall.
+But where are those who once rejoiced in its glory? Where is their pomp and
+pride, and those ecstasies of frequent transport?
+
+"In Rome are fulfilled the prophet's words against Niniveh: 'Where is the
+dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions?'[181] Were
+not its commanders and its princes lions who overran the whole world, and
+ravened, and slaughtered the prey? Here the young lions found their
+feeding-place, because the boyhood, the youth, the flower of manhood, from
+generation to generation, flocked hither, when they sought to get on in the
+world. Now Rome is desolate, worn down, full of sorrows. No one comes to it
+to get on in the world; no man of power or violence remains to raven on the
+prey. Then may we say, 'Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the
+feeding-place of the young lions?' Upon it has fallen the lot of Judea,
+foretold by the prophet: 'Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle'.[182] For man
+is wont to be bald upon the head alone; but the eagle's baldness is over
+all his body. When very old, his plumes and feathers fall from his whole
+body. The city which has lost its inhabitants, in losing its feathers, has
+enlarged its baldness as the eagle. Shrunk also are its wings, with which
+it used to fly to the prey, for all its men of might, by whom it ravened,
+are extinguished."
+
+We may here contrast the language concerning the Rome which lay before
+their eyes of the two Popes St. Leo and St. Gregory. They spoke with an
+interval between them of 140 years. The first spoke still of the actual
+queen of the world, of the secular empire subdued and inherited by the
+spiritual. The feathers of Leo's eagle shone to him with celestial light;
+the talons of the royal bird traversed the earth not to raven, but to feed
+a conquered world with Christian doctrine. St. Gregory speaks of the eagle
+as bald; but we shall see that he who day by day guarded the gates of
+defenceless Rome against the Lombard spoiler, barbarian also and heretic,
+fed no less the ends of the earth with Christian doctrine. It was he who
+brought the _Ultima Thule_, and its inhabitants the _penitus toto divisos
+orbe Britannos_ again under the yoke of Christ, and taught the sea-kings
+humanity.
+
+A little later St. Gregory closed his exposition of the prophet Ezechiel in
+St. Peter's with these sorrowful words: "So far, dear brethren, by the gift
+of God, we have searched out hidden meanings for you. Let no man blame me
+if I close them here, because, as you all witness, our sufferings have
+grown enormous. On every side we are encircled with swords: on every side
+we are in imminent peril of death. Some return to us maimed of their hands;
+of others we hear that they are captured; of others, again, that they are
+slain. My tongue can no longer expound, when my spirit is weary of my life.
+Let no one ask me to unfold the Scriptures; for my harp is turned to
+mourning, and my voice to the cry of the weeper. The eye of my heart no
+longer keeps its watch in the discussion of mysteries; my soul droops for
+weariness. Study has lost its charm for me. I have forgotten to eat my
+bread for the voice of my groaning. How can one who is not allowed to live
+take pleasure in the mystical sense of Scripture? How can one whose daily
+chalice is bitterness present sweets for others to drink? What remains for
+us but while we weep to give thanks for the strokes of the scourge which we
+suffer for our iniquities. Our Creator is become our Father by the Spirit
+of adoption whom He has given to us: sometimes He feeds His sons with
+bread; sometimes He corrects them with the scourge; because He schools us
+by sorrows and by gifts for the unending inheritance."[183]
+
+This was the Rome in which Gregory ruled as Pope for fourteen years, since
+he saw the archangel's sword sheathed over the castle of St. Angelo, into
+which name the pagan mausoleum was baptised. Pestilence in the city, where
+the remnant of a people wandered disconsolate by the mighty halls and vast
+spaces of the old emperors--swords of pagan or Arian barbarians all round
+the patched-up walls of Aurelian. City after city through the hapless Italy
+reported as plundered or ruined by the Lombard devastation. Presently the
+trials of a sick-bed and frequent attacks of gout were added to his daily
+tale of sorrows. In the last years of Gregory it came to pass that the
+universal Church was governed from the sick-bed of one worn down, not by
+years--for he died at sixty-four--but by sufferings of body and mind. The
+prisoner of the Lombards had to struggle perpetually with the spirit of
+Byzantine despotism and the aggressive arrogance of a prelate whom
+successive eastern sovereigns had nursed from a suffragan of Heraclea to be
+the claimant of an ecumenical patriarchate. Yet the eyes of Gregory were
+bent likewise on the northern conquerors who had seized the provinces of
+the West. Before he was Pope he had observed in the slave-market of Rome
+the fair-haired Angles whom he would fain make angels; when Pope he sent
+forth from his father's house, which he had given to the great Father
+Benedict, those who were to carry the banner of that father into the isle
+lost to Christ. In that island he appointed the primate of Canterbury, and
+designed the primate of York. Through St. Leander and St. Isidore, and the
+martyr St. Hermenegild, he recovered Spain from the Arian blight; through
+the queen Theodelinda he made some impression upon Lombard cruelty and
+misbelief; through the Frankish monarchy he won back France from
+dissolution and heresy. As he saw the palaces around him deserted, and the
+broken aqueducts mourn over their intercepted streams in a wasted Campagna,
+and the glory of Trajan's forum become paler day by day, he thought that
+the end of the world was coming--and so thinking and so saying, he founded
+Christendom. In Rome itself, the almsgivers whom he had organised traversed
+the streets daily, carrying food to the hungry, medicine and medical aid to
+the sick. Every month he allotted portions of corn, wine, oil, cheese,
+fish, vegetables. The Church seemed to be the general provider. Every day
+he fed at his table twelve poor pilgrims, and served them himself. The nuns
+who took refuge in Rome, from the destruction of their monasteries by the
+Lombards, amounted to three thousand, whom Gregory supported, especially
+during the severe winter of 597. He wrote to the sister of the emperor
+Mauritius: "To their prayers and tears and fasts Rome owes its delivery
+from the sword of the Lombards".[184] Other cities also he saved, and so he
+distributed the vast patrimony of the Roman Church in Southern Italy,
+Sicily, Africa, France, Illyricum, with such wisdom and so beneficent a
+mercy, that historians trace to him the beginning of that temporal
+sovereignty which two hundred years after him the Popes were to take in
+change for the cruel abandonment, paired with incessant exaction, of
+Byzantine despotism; and the most loyal of subjects were called to be the
+most beneficent of sovereigns; and the people who had found them fathers
+from age to age rejoiced to see the fathership united with kingship.
+
+What had happened to the Italy recovered by the arms of Belisarius and
+Narses, to the unity of the Roman empire, which caused the calamitous state
+described by Gregory?
+
+Both Belisarius and Narses had enrolled a multifarious host of adventurers
+under the banner which professed to deliver Rome and Italy from the Gothic
+occupation. Narses especially had awakened the greed of the Lombards by the
+sight of Italy's fair lands. Scarcely had he ceased to govern Rome, in
+567, when the effect of this became visible. What Alaric, what Odoacer,
+what Theodorick, had done, Alboin did with yet more terrible results; and
+the fourth captivity which Nova Roma had prepared for her mother, become in
+her mind a hated rival, was the hardest, the longest, the most destructive
+of all. It is doubtful whether the retort of the eunuch Narses to the
+empress Sophia, when she recalled him from his government to ply, as she
+said, the spindle, that he would spin for her such a thread as in her life
+she would not disentangle, is authentic, but it undoubtedly presents
+historic truth. Whether or not Narses called the Lombards into Italy, their
+king Alboin came from Pannonia over the Carnian Alps into the plain which
+has ever since borne their name; and this was in the next year--568--to the
+recal of Narses. The Goth and the Herules had worked much woe and wrought
+great destruction; but the Goths compared to the Lombards were as knights
+compared to villains. The Lombards, inferior to them by far in strength
+both of body and of mind, this rudest of Teuton races seemed incapable of
+receiving culture. It had, moreover, fewer elements in it capable of being
+worked into the stable order of a state. In belief it was partly Arian and
+partly pagan. It had also a mixture of Sarmatian blood. When they broke
+into Italy, the cities of that land, however wasted and depopulated through
+Attila and the Gothic wars, yet retained their Roman form, yet were full of
+ancient monuments, splendid still in desolation. Now, one after another
+fell under the sword of those barbarians. Milan surrendered to Alboin in
+the autumn of 569, and after three years' siege he entered as conqueror
+into Theodorick's palace in Pavia. Only Rome, Ravenna, and the cities of
+the coast still carried the imperial flag. The Romans themselves regarded
+as a marvel the maintenance of their scarcely defended city. Alboin aimed
+at making the palace of the Cæsars his royal residence. His warriors
+advanced with terrible devastation from Spoleto to the very walls of Rome
+in the time of Pope John III., who died, after nearly thirteen years'
+government, the 13th July, 573.
+
+Rome was then so severely pressed that the See of Peter remained more than
+a year unfilled; for the Lombards were encamped before Rome, and hindered
+communication with Byzantium, whence Benedict I., the newly-elected Pope,
+had to wait for the imperial confirmation. The _Book of the Popes_ recites
+that during his four years' government the Lombards overran all Italy, and
+that pestilence and hunger consumed her people. Rome, also, was visited by
+both. The emperor Tiberius tried to succour it by sending corn from Egypt
+to the harbour Porto.
+
+Alboin had been murdered, and Kleph had succeeded him, on whose death, in
+575, the Lombards fell into anarchy, and were divided into thirty-six
+dukes, and Faroald, the first duke of Spoleto, held Rome besieged when
+Benedict I. died, in 578; and so his successor, Pelagius II., a Roman of
+Gothic descent, was consecrated without the emperor's confirmation. The
+beleaguered Pope sent a cry of distress by an embassy to the eastern
+emperor, together with a gift of 3000 pounds' weight of gold from the
+impoverished city. But the emperor, engaged in a Persian war, could only
+send insufficient troops to Ravenna, more precious to him than Rome,
+declined the Roman gold, and advised to corrupt with it the Lombard
+commanders. Zoto, the Lombard duke of Beneventum, returning from Rome,
+which had ransomed itself, destroyed St. Benedict's monastery of Monte
+Cassino, in 580. The monks escaped to Rome, carrying with them the Saint's
+autograph of his Rule. Pope Pelagius II. received them in the Lateran
+basilica. There they founded the first Benedictine monastery in Rome. They
+named it after St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, and so
+Constantine's basilica, or the Church of the Saviour, became in after-times
+St. John Lateran. Monte Cassino lay in ruins 140 years, during which time
+the great Order had its chief seat in Rome.
+
+Thus did Rome and Italy learn what they had gained by reunion with the
+eastern empire under Justinian. The pitiless financial exaction of that
+empire was exerted wherever it had power. War and pestilence ravaged town
+and country. It cost the Church a labour of 200 years to turn the Lombards
+from Arians and savages into Catholics who should one day be capable of
+resisting a Barbarossa and generating a Dante.
+
+What, during these 200 years, an imperial exarch at Ravenna was like
+Gregory tells us in a letter to his friend Sebastian, bishop of Sirmium:
+"Words cannot express what I suffer from your friend, the lord Romanus. I
+may say that his malice against us is worse than the swords of the
+Lombards. The enemies who slay us seem to us kinder than the magistrates of
+the commonwealth, who wear our hearts out with their malignity, their
+plundering, and their deceit. At one and the same time to superintend
+bishops and clergy, monasteries also and the people, carefully to watch
+against insidious attacks of our enemies, and be perpetually on guard
+against the treachery and ill-treatment of our rulers, you, my brother, can
+the better judge what labour and sorrow is here in proportion to the purity
+of your affection for me who suffer it."[185]
+
+This glimpse will be enough of the generation which preceded the accession
+of St. Gregory to the Chair of Peter. The whole fifty years of his life up
+to that time were for his country like the prophet's scroll, inscribed with
+lamentation and mourning and woe. And in his words to the bishop of Sirmium
+he gives a faithful picture of the position which his successors held until
+the time when at length they invoked the king of the Franks to come to the
+succour of St. Peter.
+
+The calamities which fell upon Italy, and especially upon Rome, in the five
+captures of the Gothic war, in the subsequent descent of the Lombards, in
+the subjection of the old capital to a distant and despotic lord, were so
+great that eye-witnesses declare no language could express them. That they
+were to the Popes themselves unspeakably distressing, that the Popes did
+all in their power to avert them, the letters of the Popes remain to
+testify. I must now dwell for a time on the singular result which they had
+upon the Roman Primacy. When temporal calamities less than these fell upon
+the cities of Alexandria and Antioch, the seats of the other two original
+Petrine patriarchates, the authority of their prelates sunk almost to
+nothing. Before these calamities they had yielded up a large portion of
+their dignity and autonomy to the overreaching see of the eastern capital,
+the rank of which, above that of a simple bishopric, rested on nothing but
+the emperor's will to concentrate spiritual power in his own hands, by
+making its seat for the whole eastern empire the city of the Bosporus. But
+when Rome was ruined in the Gothic war nothing of the kind took place. St.
+Gregory inherited his place as successor of St. Peter without the least
+impairment of the authority which his see had held from the beginning. One
+wound, indeed, had been inflicted upon it by the Herule Odoacer, when in
+occupation of the sovereign power which he held over Italy, in name, by
+delegation of the emperor Zeno, in fact, as head of the foreign
+mercenaries, he had claimed a right to confirm the election of the Pope
+when chosen. Theodorick and Theodatus had continued to exert that
+right--and from the Goths Justinian had taken it--and Gregory himself, as
+we have seen, had applied to the imperial power at Constantinople to
+frustrate his own election by clergy and people. But the Pope, when once
+recognised, entered upon his full and undiminished authority. All that St.
+Leo had been St. Gregory was, though Rome had been almost destroyed, and
+was in the temporal rule subject to the emperor's officer, the exarch at
+Ravenna. I do not know any fact of history which brings out more distinctly
+the character of the Pope as inheriting the charge over the whole Church
+committed by our Lord to St. Peter. That was not a charge depending on the
+city in which it might be exercised. It was a charge committed to the chief
+of the Apostles. As our Lord promised to be with the apostolic body to the
+consummation of the world, as all their spiritual powers depended on His
+being with them, so, above all, most of all, the spiritual power of their
+head. Rome might be absolutely destitute of inhabitants after Totila's
+victory, but the Pope was not touched. Rome might cease to be capital even
+of a province, but the Pope was not touched. And it was a series of the
+most terrible disasters which revealed this prerogative of the Pope as head
+of the Christian hierarchy. The Pope might be a captive at Constantinople,
+scorned, deceived, torn away even from the refuge of the altar, surrounded
+with spies, betrayed by subservient bishops and patriarchs, and, worst of
+all, be labouring under the stigma of an election originally enforced by
+arbitrary violence; a despotic emperor might do his worst, but the Pope's
+successors carried on his prerogatives unimpaired. The walls of Aurelian
+preserved Rome from the Lombard, but the Pontiff who kept guard over them
+was not contained in them. His rule was intangible by material attack as
+it was beyond the reach of material despotism. Italy might be ruined, and a
+new Rome made out of its ruins, but the Pope would be the maker of it. And
+the most terrible calamity was chosen to reveal this singular prerogative.
+The death of _Senatus populusque Romanus_ discovered even to the outside
+world the life which proceeded from St. Peter's body, as each archbishop
+received from St. Peter's successor the pallium which had been laid upon
+it. Thus was conveyed to the mind by the senses that participation of the
+Primacy, in which consisted all the authority which he exercised over other
+bishops. The violence of the Teuton, the misbelief of the Arian, the
+despotism of the Byzantine, were unconsciously co-operating to this result.
+
+For it must be added that the Rome which survived after the conquest by
+Justinian only lived by the Primacy of which it was the seat. Two
+historians[186] of the city, writing from quite opposite points of view,
+one a Catholic Christian, the other a rationalistic unbeliever, unite in
+witnessing that from the time of Narses the spiritual power of the Primacy
+was the spring of all action. Not only such new buildings as arose were
+churches and the work of the Popes; St. Gregory also fed the city from the
+patrimonium of the church which he administered. Rome had been made by her
+empire, which the political wisdom and valour of her citizens had formed
+through so many centuries. When at length the wandering of the nations had
+broken up that empire, and the northern soldiers whom the emperors,
+specially from Constantine onwards, had enrolled in her armies and taken
+for their ministers and generals, followed the example of Alaric and
+Ataulph, and assumed the rule for themselves, the situation of Rome offered
+it no protection. The emperor who, at the beginning of the fifth century,
+took refuge from Alaric in Ravenna was followed a century later by the
+Gothic king, whose body, still reposing in his splendid tomb at Ravenna,
+was a memorial that this fortress had been the centre of his power.
+Theodorick was succeeded by the exarch, the permanent representative of an
+absent lord. We are following the fortunes of Rome in the 300 years from
+Genseric to Astolphus. In the second and third of these three centuries
+Rome would have ceased to exist, but for the imperishable life which did
+not come from her but was stored up in her. That life was the _form_ of her
+new body; otherwise it would have been a carcase lying prostrate in the
+dust of mouldering theatres and desolated baths. Their patriarchs saved
+neither Antioch nor Alexandria; but the Papacy not only saved Rome, but
+created her anew.
+
+Out of such a Rome St. Gregory poured forth his sorrows to the empress
+Constantine, wife of Mauritius: "It is now seven-and-twenty years since we
+have been living in this city among the swords of the Lombards".[187] He
+was writing in the year 595, and he reckons from the descent of Alboin in
+568. "What the sums called for from the Church in these years day by day
+to live at all have been I cannot express. I may say in a word that as your
+Majesties have, with the first army of Italy at Ravenna, a chancellor of
+the exchequer who supplies daily wants, so in this city for the like
+purpose I am such a person. And yet this same church which at one and the
+same time is at such endless expense for the clergy, the monasteries, the
+poor, the people, and moreover for the Lombards, is pressed also by the
+affliction of all the churches, which groan over the pride of this one man,
+yet do not venture to utter a word."
+
+And Gregory, referring just before to the pride of this one man, who had
+the audacity to put in a letter to the Pope himself, a superscription in
+which, according to the Pope's judgment, he claimed to be sole bishop in
+the Church, used words which will serve to indicate what Gregory conceived
+his own authority to be, as well as the source on which it rested: "I
+beseech you, by Almighty God, not to permit your Majesty's time to be
+polluted by one man's arrogance. Do not in any way give your consent to so
+perverse an appellation. By no means let your Majesty in such a cause
+despise me the individual, for the sins of Gregory are indeed so great as
+to deserve such treatment, but there are no sins of the Apostle Peter that
+he should deserve in your time such treatment. Wherefore, I again and again
+entreat you, by Almighty God, that as former princes, your progenitors,
+have sought the favour of the holy Apostle Peter, so you also would seek
+it and preserve it for yourselves. Nor let his honour be in your mind the
+least diminished by our sins, his unworthy servant: that he may be now your
+helper in all things, and hereafter be able to pardon your sins."
+
+I quote the following passage from a letter[188] to the emperor Mauritius
+himself, not only because Gregory alleges as the root of his own authority
+the three great words spoken by our Lord to Peter, but for the description
+of the times in which he lived, and the vast importance of union between
+the two great powers. This, he says, if faithfully maintained on both
+sides, would have protected them from such calamities.
+
+"Your Majesty, who is appointed by God, watches, among the other cares of
+your empire, with the uprightness of a spiritual zeal over the preservation
+of sacerdotal charity. For, with piety as well as truth, you think that no
+one can rule well the things of this world unless he knows how to treat
+divine things, and that the peace of the human commonwealth depends on the
+peace of the universal Church. For, most gracious emperor, what power of
+man, what masterful arm of flesh, would presume to lay unholy hands upon
+the dignity of your most Christian empire, if the bishops were with one
+accord of mind to beseech their Redeemer for you by their words, and, if
+need be, by their deservings? Is there any nation so ferocious as to use
+its sword so cruelly for the destruction of the faithful, unless our life,
+who are called but are not bishops, had upon it the stain of the worst
+actions? While, deserting what belongs to us, and aiming at what is beyond
+us, we add our own sins to the brute strength of barbarians. Our guilt
+sharpens the swords of our enemies, and weighs down the strength of the
+State. What excuse can we make who press down the people of God, over which
+we unworthily preside, with the burden of our sins? Who preach with our
+tongues and kill by our examples? Whose works teach iniquity, while their
+words make a show of justice? We wear down the body with fasts, while the
+mind swells with arrogance. This puts on poor apparel; that has more than
+imperial pride. We lie in ashes, and despise dignities. We teach the
+humble, and lead the proud, and hide the wolf's teeth in the sheep's face.
+What result has all this but that, while we impose on men, we are made
+known to God? Thus it is with the greatest wisdom that your Majesty seeks
+the peace of the Church as the means of stilling the tumults of war, and
+would make the hearts of bishops rest once more in its solid structure.
+That is my wish: in that to the utmost of my power I obey you.
+
+"But since it is not my cause but God's, and since not I only but the whole
+Church is thrown into confusion; since sacred laws, since venerable
+councils, since the very commands even of our Lord Jesus Christ are
+disturbed by the invention of this haughty and pompous language, let the
+most pious emperor lance the wound and overcome the sick man's resistance
+by the force of the imperial authority. If you bind up that wound, you
+raise up the State; and by cutting off such abuses, contribute to the
+length of your reign.
+
+"For to all who know the Gospel it is notorious that the charge of the
+whole Church was entrusted by the voice of the Lord to the holy Apostle
+Peter, chief of all the Apostles." And he then cites, as so many of his
+predecessors cited, the three great words. He concludes: "Peter received
+the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing, the
+charge of the whole Church, the Principate over it; yet he is not called
+the universal Apostle, and John, my colleague as bishop, endeavours to be
+called universal bishop.
+
+"All things in Europe are delivered over to the power of barbarians. Our
+cities are destroyed, our fortresses overthrown, our provinces depopulated.
+The ground remains untilled. Day by day idolaters exercise their rage upon
+the faithful, who are cruelly slaughtered; and bishops who should lie in
+dust and ashes seek for themselves vanitous names: glory in new and profane
+titles.
+
+"Am I in this defending a cause proper to myself? Am I resisting my own
+special injury? Nay, it is the cause of Almighty God: the cause of the
+universal Church. Who is he who, in spite of the commands of the Gospel, in
+spite of the decrees of councils, presumes to usurp a new title for
+himself? I would that he who has agreed to be called universal may be
+himself one, without the diminution of others.
+
+"And we know, indeed, that many bishops of Constantinople have fallen into
+the gulf of heresy; have become not heretics only but heresiarchs. Thence
+came Nestorius, who, deeming Jesus Christ, the Mediator of God and man, to
+be two persons, because he did not believe that God could become man, went
+even to the extent of Jewish unbelief. Thence came Macedonius, who denied
+the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, consubstantial with the Father and the Son.
+If, then, anyone seizes upon that name for himself, as in the judgment of
+all good men he has done, the whole Church--which God forbid--falls from
+its state when he who is called universal falls. But far from the hearts of
+Christians be that blasphemous name in which the honour due to all bishops
+is taken away, while one madly arrogates it to himself.
+
+"I know that in honour of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, that title was
+offered to the Roman Pontiff during the venerable Council of Chalcedon. But
+no one of them ever consented to use this name of singularity; lest while
+something peculiar was given to one, all bishops should be deprived of the
+honour due to them. Do we, then, not seek the glory of this name, even when
+offered to us, and does another catch at it for himself, when it is not
+offered?
+
+"Your Majesty, then, must bend that neck which refuses obedience to the
+canons. He must be restrained, who does an injury to the whole Church; who
+is proud in heart; who has a greed after a name given to none other; who by
+such a singular name throws a slur upon your empire also in putting himself
+over it.
+
+"We are all scandalised at this: let the author of the scandal return to
+right, and all contest between bishops will cease. For I am the servant of
+all bishops so long as they live like bishops. But whoever, through
+vainglory and contrary to the statutes of the Fathers, lifts his neck
+against Almighty God, I trust in Almighty God that he will not bend me even
+with the sword."
+
+As Gregory quotes the three words said to Peter, with application of them
+to his own see, it seems needless to repeat other passages in which he says
+the same thing. But there is a letter to Eulogius,[189] patriarch of
+Alexandria, which begins by saying that this patriarch had written to him
+much concerning the See of Peter, and that he sat in it in his successors
+down to Gregory's own time. Whereupon Gregory, before himself citing the
+three words, says: "Who does not know that holy Church is founded on the
+solidity of the chief Apostle, whose name expressed his firmness, being
+called Peter from Petra". Then he calls the attention of Eulogius to the
+fact that all the three patriarchal sees were sees of Peter, with this
+remarkable inference, that "though there were many Apostles, only the see
+of the prince of the Apostles, which is the see of one in three places,
+received supreme authority _in virtue of its very principate_".[190]
+
+Let us attempt to gather the meaning of the various statements quoted from
+St. Gregory, and see whether they do not form a coherent whole.
+
+He claims, like all his predecessors, the three great texts concerning
+Peter, as conveying the charge of the whole Church, the Principate, to
+Peter and his heirs, that is, the Popes preceding him.
+
+He contrasts in the most pointed manner this charge with the name of
+Ecumenical, which he translates universal, patriarch, as assumed by the
+bishop of Constantinople, and he contrasts not the name only, but the thing
+which he conceives to be meant by the name and carried in it.
+
+He contrasts likewise the moderation of his predecessors, who, though
+inheriting Peter's charge over the whole Church, declined to accept a name
+which seemed to exclude other bishops from their proper honour.
+
+Peter's charge over the whole Church, then, in the judgment of Gregory, had
+descended to himself, as he wrote to the empress, "though the sins of
+Gregory, who is Peter's unworthy servant, are great, the sins of the
+Apostle are none," to justify the treatment he has met with in this
+assumption by another of the title Ecumenical. In a word, the _charge_ is a
+command of the Gospel, the _assumption_ is "a name of blasphemy and
+diabolical pride, and a forerunner of Antichrist".
+
+I conceive that we may interpret St. Gregory's mind in this way. When he so
+wrote he had behind him rather more than five full centuries since St.
+Peter and St. Paul had given up their lives in Rome for the Christian
+faith, and become its patron saints. In all that time Gregory had seen the
+hierarchy founded by the bearer of the keys fill the earth. Peter, as a
+token of his Principate, had put his name in the three chief sees, sitting
+himself as bishop in Antioch for seven years; sitting also himself in Rome,
+as bishop, and dying there; sending also his disciple Mark from Rome to
+Alexandria. Our Lord's gift and charge to Peter was the source of unity in
+His Church. He Himself being mediator between God and man united His Church
+with the Divine Trinity in unity. Then He gave the keys of His kingdom to
+Peter, in whom unity was secured through the three patriarchs and the other
+bishops. Such was the constitution which stood without a break before St.
+Gregory from the Apostles to the Nicene Council. From St. Sylvester to his
+own time the Popes had been maintaining that constitution. But now the
+claim of the bishops of Constantinople was directly against this
+constitution. Pope Gelasius, his predecessor, had told that bishop in his
+day that he had no rank above that of a simple bishop.[191] For all their
+adventitious rank they rested, not upon God, not upon Jesus Christ, not
+upon St. Peter, but upon the residence of the emperors in their city. That
+was the ground upon which they called themselves ecumenical, a title which
+Gregory interpreted universal. Their first step in moving beyond the
+position of simple bishop was when the 150 bishops at Constantinople in 381
+attempted to give them the second place in rank. And this they did not upon
+any ground of apostolic descent, but because Constantinople was Nova Roma.
+As to their act in doing this Gregory writes to Eulogius: "The Roman Church
+up to this time does not possess, nor has received, the canons or the acts
+of that council; it has received that council so far as it condemned
+Macedonius".[192] Their next step was at the Council of Chalcedon to
+attempt passing a canon, to the effect that the Fathers had given its rank
+to Rome because it was the capital, that the 150 Fathers had therefore
+given the second rank to Constantinople, because it was the _new_ capital;
+and that, therefore, the Pontic, the Arian, and the Thracian exarchs of
+Cæsarea, Ephesus, and Heraclea should be subjected to it. This canon St.
+Leo had absolutely rejected, and the emperor Marcian had accepted his
+rejection. In the 130 years from St. Leo to himself, St. Gregory had seen
+the assumptions of the bishops of Constantinople continually increasing.
+They rested upon the imperial favour. And now in the case of John the
+Faster they had gone so far that he prefixed his assumed title of
+ecumenical patriarch to the very documents which he sent to the Pope for
+revision. And this though the cause had been settled by himself, and had
+now come before the Pope, whose power therefore to revise the sentence of
+one who called himself ecumenical patriarch he did not dispute.
+
+Nor, indeed, did it appear over what domain he claimed to be universal. It
+might be over the eastern bishops; it might be over the two patriarchs of
+Alexandria and Antioch, with the later patriarch of Jerusalem; it might be
+over the actual Roman empire; it might be, finally, over the whole Church.
+But whichever it might be, the claim would equally be, in Gregory's
+judgment, unlawful, based simply and solely upon imperial power; resting
+also in its origin upon a direct untruth, which assaulted the whole
+foundation whereon the charge of the whole Church, the Principate of
+Gregory, rested; couched, moreover, in language which would enable future
+generations of Greeks to draw the conclusion that, since the Primacy of
+Rome proceeded from its being the capital, when Rome ceased to be the
+capital, and Constantine's city became the capital, the Primacy also passed
+to it.
+
+Thus, in the whole assumption of the bishops of Constantinople, it was
+presupposed that the spiritual power and the hierarchy of the Church
+descended not from Jesus Christ, but from the emperors.[193] So it is clear
+that this empty title, which seemed to the emperor Mauritius a meaningless
+word, a mere nothing, contained in itself the whole system of Antichrist.
+The Pope saw it, and his words are the more significant when we remember
+that at the time he uttered them the man had already reached full manhood
+who was to cut the empire of Justinian in half, to deprive of their liberty
+three of the eastern patriarchs, destroy a multitude of the Christian
+people, and be parent of the religion which through the course of 1200
+years has shown itself to be specially anti-Christian. There in his Arab
+tent, as yet the faithful husband of an old wife, was the future Khalif,
+in whom the spiritual and the temporal power would be joined together; who
+would set up in a false theocracy that usurpation which Constantine's
+eastern successors were striving to carry out in the Christian Church.
+Mahommed would consecrate that very false principle which was at the root
+of the ecumenical patriarch's arrogance. Thus the strongest word used by
+Gregory of John the Faster's assumption, that it was "a name of blasphemy,
+of diabolical pride, and a forerunner of Antichrist," received its exact
+verification within a generation after Gregory had spoken it.
+
+But Gregory's charge and Principate were of divine creation, and did not
+exclude the proper power and jurisdiction either of every bishop or of the
+whole episcopate, at the head of which it stood, and through which it
+worked, carefully maintaining what had been from the beginning, preserving
+the rank and place of each, consolidating all in the one structure.[194]
+The intruder set up by the imperial power deposed Alexandria and Antioch to
+make them subject to himself; the lawful shepherd maintained Alexandria and
+Antioch because they grew upon the tree of which he was the trunk. His
+charge did not exclude, but did indeed include them. The reasoning of St.
+Gregory in his letter to the emperor of the day, and his very words in his
+letter to the patriarch Eulogius, have become a matter of faith by their
+enrolment in the decree of the Vatican Council. That decree defines the
+Principate to be an episcopal power of jurisdiction, which is immediate,
+over the whole Church. By it the whole Church becomes one flock, under one
+shepherd. And it further defines that, "It is so far from being true that
+this power of the Supreme Pontiff is injurious to the ordinary and
+immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by which bishops placed by the
+Holy Spirit have succeeded the Apostles, and as true pastors feed and rule
+the flocks severally assigned to them, each his own, that this jurisdiction
+is asserted, strengthened, and maintained by the supreme and universal
+pastor, according to St. Gregory's words: 'My honour is the honour of the
+universal Church; my honour is the solid strength of my brethren; then am I
+truly honoured when his due rank is given to each'."[195]
+
+It may be observed that Gregory's position against the assumption of John
+the Faster is the same as St. Leo's position against Anatolius. In both
+cases the Popes discerned the hostile power located in the see of Nova Roma
+which was at work against the original order of the Church, and the Pope
+who was at the head of it. The only difference lies in the great advance
+which the hostile power had made on one hand, and on the other hand the
+excessively difficult temporal position in which St. Gregory had to fight
+the battle for the cause, as he said, of the universal Church. Yet the
+speech of the Pope beleaguered by the Lombards in a decimated and subject
+Rome is as strong as the speech of the Pope who had the imperial
+grandchildren of Theodosius for friends and supporters, and, when they
+failed, saved Rome by her two Apostles from the destruction menaced by
+Attila and Genseric.
+
+But there was no one in the eastern Church--neither the emperor Mauritius,
+nor the patriarch John the Faster, nor the patriarch Eulogius--who failed
+to acknowledge the Pope's charge over the whole Church, grounded on the
+three texts to Peter. Gregory himself reprehends the patriarch Eulogius for
+giving him in the superscription of his letter the title "universal Pope".
+He chose for himself, in opposition to the bishop John's arrogated title of
+ecumenical patriarch, that of "servant of the servants of God". The title
+chosen indicated the temper in which St. Gregory exercised the vast charge
+which he had inherited. For if there is any one principle which seems to
+serve as the favourite maxim of his whole pontificate, it is that expressed
+in a letter to the bishop of Syracuse. That bishop had been speaking of an
+African primate who had professed that he was subject to the Apostolic See.
+St. Gregory's comment is: "If a bishop is in any fault, I know not any
+bishop who is not subject to it. But when no fault requires it, all are
+equal according to the estimation of humility."[196] Natalis, archbishop
+of Salona, in Dalmatia, had given the Pope much trouble. The Pope deals
+with him tenderly in more than one letter. But he says: "After the letters
+of my predecessor (Pelagius) and my own, in the matter of Honoratus the
+archdeacon, were sent to your Holiness, in despite of the sentence of us
+both, the above-mentioned Honoratus was deprived of his rank. Had either of
+the four patriarchs done this, so great an act of contumacy could not have
+been passed over without the most grievous scandal. However, as your
+brotherhood has since returned to your duty, I take notice neither of the
+injury done to me, nor of that to my predecessor."[197]
+
+Of the immense energy shown by St. Gregory in the exercise of his
+Principate, of the immense influence wielded by him both in the East and in
+the West, of the acknowledgment of his Principate by the answers which
+emperor and patriarch made to his demands and rebukes, we possess an
+imperishable record in the fourteen books of his letters which have been
+preserved to us. They are somewhat more than 850 in number. They range over
+every subject, and are addressed to every sort of person. If he rebukes the
+ambition of a patriarch, and complains of an emperor's unjust law, he cares
+also that the tenants on the vast estates of the Church which his officers
+superintend at a distance should not be in any way harshly treated. He
+writes to his _defensor_ in Sicily: "I am informed that if anyone has a
+charge against any clerks, you throw a slight upon the bishops by causing
+these clerks to appear in your own court. If this be so, we expressly order
+you to presume to do so no more, because beyond doubt it is very unseemly.
+If anyone charges a clerk, let him go to his bishop, for the bishop himself
+to hear the case, or depute judges. If it come to arbitration, let the
+so-deputed judges cause the parties to select a judge. If a clerk or a
+layman have anything against a bishop, you should act between them either
+by hearing the cause yourself, or by inducing the parties to choose judges.
+For if his own jurisdiction is not preserved to each bishop, what else
+results but that the order of the Church is thrown into confusion by us,
+the very persons who are charged with its maintenance.
+
+"We have also been informed that certain clerks, put into penance for
+faults they had committed by our most reverend brother the bishop John,
+have been dismissed by your authority without his knowledge. If this is
+true, know that you have committed an altogether improper act, worthy of
+great censure. Restore, therefore, at once those clerks to their own
+bishop, nor ever do this again, or you will incur from us severe
+punishment."[198]
+
+I have quoted already his letters on eastern affairs. They might be
+enlarged upon to any extent. As to those who held the highest rank, he has
+warm sympathy with a deposed patriarch of Antioch, sending him a copy of
+the letter which announced his accession, as well as to the sitting
+patriarchs. After twenty years' deposition Anastasius was restored. He has
+also close friendship with Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, to whom he
+writes gracefully: "Besides our mutual affection, there is a peculiar bond
+uniting us to the Alexandrian Church. All know that the Evangelist Mark was
+sent by his master Peter; thus we are clasped together by the unity of the
+master and the disciple. I seem to sit in the disciple's see for the
+master's sake, and you in the master's see for the sake of the disciple. To
+this we must add your personal merits; for we know how you follow the
+institutions of him from whom you spring. Thus we are touched with
+compassion for what you suffer; but we shrink from telling you what we
+endure ourselves by the daily plundering, killing, and maiming of our
+people by the Lombards."[199]
+
+Let us here take a short view of Gregory's incessant activity among the
+western nations in process of formation. In his struggle to tame the
+ferocity, lawlessness, and unbelief of the Lombards, he betakes himself to
+the illustrious Catholic queen Theodelinda. He strives to use her influence
+with her husband Agilulf, on behalf of Rome, ever the object of oppression.
+Knowing her to be a good Christian, he sent her his _Dialogues_. He also
+set before her the supremacy of his see, because she had been misled into
+withdrawing from the communion of the new archbishop of Milan, Constantius.
+The Pope assures her that the archbishop, as well as himself, venerates the
+doctrinal decisions of the Four Councils. He adds: "Since, then, by my own
+public profession you know the entireness of our belief, it is fitting that
+you have no further scruple concerning the Church of St. Peter, prince of
+the Apostles. But persist in the true faith, and ground your life on the
+rock of the Church, that is, in his confession: lest your many tears and
+your good works avail nothing, if they be separated from the true faith.
+For as branches wither without a root, so works, however good they seem,
+are nothing if separated from the solidity of the faith."[200]
+
+Ten of his letters are addressed to Brunechild, the terrible queen of the
+Franks. But his letter to all the Gallic bishops in the kingdom of
+Childebert will best set forth his authority. That king then reigned over
+nearly all France. The Pope began by saying that the universe itself was
+ruled by graduated orders of spirits. If there was such distinction of
+ranks even in the sinless, what man should hesitate to obey a disposition
+to which angels are subject? "Since, then, each individual office is
+happily fulfilled when there is a superior to whom application can be made,
+we have thought it good, following ancient custom, to make our brother
+Virgilius, bishop of Arles, our representative in the churches which are in
+the kingdom of our most illustrious son king Childebert. We do this in
+order that the integrity of the Catholic faith, that is, of the Four holy
+Councils, may by God's protection be carefully preserved; and that, if any
+contention should arise between our brethren and fellow-bishops, he may, by
+virtue of his authority, as holding the place of the Apostolic See, reduce
+it by discreet moderation. We have also enjoined him, that if any contest
+should arise requiring the presence of others, he should collect a
+sufficient number of our brethren and fellow-bishops, discuss the matter
+equitably, and determine it in conformity with the canons. But if, which
+the divine power avert, contest should arise on a matter of faith, or some
+business emerge about which there is great hesitation, and which for its
+magnitude requires the judgment of the Apostolic See, after diligent
+examination of the facts, he is to make report to us, that we may terminate
+all doubt thereon by a fitting sentence."[201]
+
+In this letter we are at a hundred years after the conversion of Clovis.
+The Catholic kingdom has swallowed up its Arian competitors whether at
+Toulouse or at Lyons, and over it stands the protecting vigour of Gregory,
+as a hundred and fifty years before that of Leo strove to support the
+falling empire. Arles receives the pallium for the Frankish kingdom, as it
+held it for the Theodocian empire, from Rome. Leo saw the imperial line
+expire at Rome; from Rome Gregory places the bishops "of his most
+illustrious son Childebert" under the old primacy of Arles. This is the
+"solidity" of the rock of Peter in which Gregory recommends the queens
+Theodelinda and Brunechild to place themselves.
+
+We know how Gregory, while yet a Roman deacon and monk, walking one day
+from the palace which he had made a monastery, scarcely more than a
+stone's-throw to the forum in which a slave-market was held, was moved to
+pity at the sight of the fair-haired Angles; how he was minded to leave
+Rome himself on a mission to convert them; how he was kept back by the
+affection of the Romans; how Pope Pelagius suddenly died of the plague, and
+Gregory, in spite of all his efforts, was made to succeed him; how from the
+See of Peter he sent out Augustine and his forty monks to the lost island
+in the Atlantic, where, since Stilicho withdrew the Roman armies, every
+cruelty had revelled, and every pagan abomination had been practised by the
+Saxon invaders. To many, no doubt, the subsequent success of Gregory's
+venture to convert the Anglo-Saxon England has served to disguise its
+danger and difficulty at the time. When Augustine reached the shores of
+Kent, the successive invasions of the Saxon pirates had set up eight petty
+kingdoms upon the ruin of the Roman civilisation and the Christian Church.
+The miseries which are covered under those five generations of unrecorded
+strife are supposed to have exceeded the misery endured in France, Spain,
+Italy, and the Illyrian provinces during the same time. The old inhabitants
+were reduced to slavery, or exterminated, or driven to the three corners of
+Cornwall, Wales, and Strathclyde. So bitter was the British feeling under
+the destruction of their country and the wrongs they had endured, that it
+overcame all Christian principle in them, and the Welsh refused all aid to
+the Roman missionary in the attempt to convert a race so cruel. It required
+all St. Gregory's firmness to induce his own monks to persist. In all the
+annals of Christian enterprise during eighteen centuries, there is
+probably not one which presented less hope of success than St. Gregory's
+resolution to add the spiritual beauty of the Christian to the physical
+beauty which he admired in the captives of the Roman forum.
+
+Among those to whom he applied to assist and further his purpose was the
+great queen of the Franks. To Brunechild he directed a letter saluting her,
+he says, with the charity of a father: "We hear that, by the help of God,
+the English people is willing to become Christian; and we recommend the
+bearer of these, the servant of God, Augustine, to your Excellency, to help
+him in all things, and to protect his work".[202]
+
+It was also to Virgilius, bishop of Arles, and primate of all the Gallic
+bishops, as we have seen, by Gregory's own appointment, that he sent
+Augustine, after his first success with Ethelbert, to receive episcopal
+consecration.
+
+From Gregory's own hand, and in virtue of his apostolic power, England in
+its second spring received its division into two provinces, one to be
+seated at Canterbury, the other at York. His letters to St. Augustine still
+exist to show how he entered into all the difficulties of the missionary,
+all the needs of a land in conversion from paganism. From him date the
+great prerogatives of the see of Canterbury, extending over the whole
+island, inasmuch as it was the matrix of the Church in England. If sons may
+deny their father, Englishmen may deny Gregory, and add to schism the guilt
+of parricide.
+
+But Gregory was hardly less active in restoring Spain from the Arian blight
+than in giving birth to a new Christian England. He writes, in 594: "We
+have heard from many who have come from Spain how lately Hermenegild, son
+of Leovigild, king of the Visigoths, has been converted from the Arian
+heresy to the Catholic faith by the preaching of Leander, bishop of
+Seville, long united to me in intimate friendship. His Arian father, by
+bribes and threats alike, tried to bring him back. Not succeeding, he
+deprived him of his rank and all his possessions. When this also failed, he
+put him in close imprisonment, fettering both neck and hands. So
+Hermenegild learnt to despise the earthly kingdom, and to yearn after the
+heavenly, while he lay in bonds and sackcloth. When Easter came, his father
+sent him in the middle of the night an Arian bishop that he might receive
+communion sacrilegiously consecrated, and so recover his favours.
+Hermenegild repulsed the bishop with strong reproaches. The father, hearing
+his report, burst into fury and sent officers to destroy him. They split
+open his skull with an axe, and so destroyed the life of the body which he
+had disregarded. Miracles followed. Psalms were heard about the body of the
+royal martyr--royal, indeed, because he was a martyr."[203]
+
+Writing to St. Leander, archbishop of Seville, Gregory says: "I am so
+tossed by this world's waves that I cannot steer to harbour this old
+weather-beaten bark which the secret dispensation of God has committed to
+my care. Shipwreck creaks in its worn-out planks. Dearest brother, if you
+love me, stretch out the hand of your prayers to me in this tempest. Your
+reward for helping me will be greater success in your own labours.
+
+"No words of mine can express the joy which I feel at hearing the perfect
+conversion of our common son, king Rechared, to the Catholic faith."[204]
+
+On another occasion Gregory writes to Leander, sending him the pallium,
+"blessed by Peter, prince of the Apostles," only to be used at Mass: "I see
+by your letter that burning charity which kindles others. He who is not
+himself on fire cannot inflame others. I always call to mind your life with
+great veneration. But as for me I am not what I was: 'Call me not Noemi,
+which is fair; call me Mara, for I am full of bitterness'. Following the
+way of my Head, I had resolved to be the scorn of men, the outcast of the
+people. But the burden of this honour weighs me down; innumerable cares
+pierce me like swords. There is no rest of the heart. I was tranquil in my
+monastery. The tempest arose; I am in its waves, suffering with the loss of
+quiet a shipwreck of mind. The gout oppresses you; I also am terribly
+pained by it. It will be well if, under these strokes of the scourge, we
+perceive them to be gifts, by which the sense of the flesh may atone for
+sins which delights of the flesh may have led us to commit.
+
+"The shortness of my letter will show how weak and how occupied I am, who
+say so little to one whom I love so much."[205]
+
+St. Gregory tells us that king Rechared, after the martyrdom of his brother
+St. Hermenegild, was converted from the Arian heresy, and brought the whole
+Visigothic nation to the Catholic faith. "The brother of a martyr fitly
+became a preacher of the faith. If Hermenegild had not died a martyr, this
+he would not have been able to do; for 'except the grain of wheat falling
+into the ground dieth, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth
+forth much fruit'. This we see to be doing in the members which we know to
+have been done in the Head. In the nation of the Visigoths one died that
+many might live."[206]
+
+A letter of St. Gregory to this king Rechared is extant, which one of the
+greatest French bishops, Hincmar of Reims, nearly three hundred years after
+it was written, thought worthy to be sent as a present to the emperor
+Charles the Bald. I quote portions of it:[207]
+
+"Most excellent son, words cannot tell the delight which I receive from
+your work and from your life. When I hear the power of that new miracle
+wrought in our days, that by means of your Excellency the whole nation of
+the Goths has been brought over from the error of the Arian heresy to the
+solidity of the right faith, I exclaim with the prophet, 'This is the
+change of the hand of the Most High'. Is there a heart of stone which would
+not be softened on hearing of so great a work into praises of Almighty God
+and affection for your Excellency? Often, when my sons meet, it is my
+pleasure to tell them of the deeds wrought by you, and to join my
+admiration with theirs. I get angry with myself that I am lazy, useless,
+and inert, while kings are labouring for the gain of the heavenly country
+by the ingathering of souls. What, then, shall I allege to the Judge at
+that tremendous tribunal, if I come before Him then with empty hands, while
+your Excellency leads a long train of the faithful whom you have drawn into
+the grace of the true faith by zealous and continuous preaching? But by
+God's gift this is my great consolation, to love in you that holy work
+which I have not in myself. When your acts move me to a great exultation, I
+make mine by charity what is yours by labour. Thus, in your work and our
+exultation over it, we may cry out with the angels over the conversion of
+the Goths, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good
+will'. But how joyfully St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, has received
+your offerings is borne witness to all men by your life.
+
+"You tell me that the abbots, who were carrying your offering to St. Peter,
+were driven back by a bad sea passage into Spain. Your gifts, which
+afterwards arrived, were not refused, but the courage of their bearers was
+tried. The adversity which good intentions encounter is a trial of virtue,
+not a judgment of reprobation. When St. Paul came to preach in Italy, how
+great was the blessing he brought; yet he was shipwrecked in coming, but
+the ship of his heart was not broken by the waves of the sea.
+
+"Also, I am told that your Excellency issued a certain decree against the
+misbelief of the Jews, which they strove by a bribe to have modified. This
+bribe you despised, and in the desire to please God preferred innocence to
+gold. This brought to my mind king David's act. He longed for a draught
+from the fountain of Bethlehem, which the enemy's host encompassed. His
+soldiers risked their lives to bring it. But he refused, saying: 'God
+forbid that I should drink the blood of these men. So he offered it to the
+Lord.'[208] If an armed king made a sacrifice to God of the water which he
+refused, think what a sacrifice to Almighty God that king presented who for
+His love refused to receive, not water, but gold. Therefore, most excellent
+son, I say confidently that the gold which you refused to receive against
+God you offered to Him. These are great deeds, the glory of which is due to
+God....
+
+"Government of subjects should be tempered with great moderation, lest
+power steal away the judgment. A kingdom is ruled well when the glory of
+ruling does not overmaster the spirit. Provide also against fits of anger,
+lest unlimited power be used hurriedly. Anger in punishing even delinquents
+should not anticipate judgment like a mistress, but follow reason as a
+servant, coming when she is called. If it once is in possession of the
+mind, it puts down to justice even a cruel deed. Therefore it is written:
+'The wrath of man worketh not the justice of God'; and again: 'Let
+everyone be swift to hear but slow to speak'. I do not doubt but that by
+God's help you practise all this. But as opportunity offers, I creep behind
+your good works, that when an adviser adds himself to what you do without
+advice, you may not be alone in your doing. May Almighty God stretch forth
+His heavenly hand to protect you in all your acts, granting you prosperity
+in the present life, and, after long years, eternal joy.
+
+"I enclose a small key from the most sacred body of the Apostle St. Peter,
+with his blessing. It contains an iron filing from his chains, that what
+bound his neck for martyrdom may deliver yours from all sin. I have also
+given the bearer of these a cross for you: it contains some of the wood of
+the Lord's cross, and hair of St. John Baptist; by which you may always be
+consoled by our Saviour through the intercession of His precursor. To our
+most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Leander we have sent the pallium
+from the See of the Apostle St. Peter, in accordance with ancient custom,
+with your life, with his own goodness and dignity."
+
+This letter of St. Gregory had been drawn forth by one from king Rechared
+to him, in which the king said he had been minded to inform of his
+conversion one who was superior to all other bishops, that he had sent a
+golden jewelled chalice which he hoped might be found worthy of the Apostle
+who was first in honour. "I beseech your Highness, when you have an
+opportunity, to find me out with your golden letters. For how truly I love
+you is not, I think, unknown to one whose breast the Lord inspires, and
+those who behold you not in the body, yet hear your good report; I commend
+to your Holiness with the utmost veneration Leander, bishop of Seville, who
+has been the means of making known to us your good will. I am delighted to
+hear of your health, and beg of your Christian prudence that you would
+frequently commend to our common Lord in your prayers the people who, under
+God, are ruled by us, and have been added to Christ in your times, that
+true charity towards God may be strengthened by the very distance which
+divides us."[209]
+
+The fact commemorated in these letters was indeed one for which the Pope
+might well use the angelical hymn of praise. "The bishops of Spain,"[210]
+says Gibbon, "respected themselves and were respected by the public;
+their indissoluble union confirmed their authority; and the regular
+discipline of the Church introduced peace, order, and stability into the
+government of the State. From the reign of Rechared, the first Catholic
+king, to that of Witiza, the immediate predecessor of the unfortunate
+Roderic, sixteen national councils were successively convened. The six
+metropolitans--Toledo, Seville, Merida, Braga, Tarragona, and
+Narbonne--presided according to their respective seniority; the assembly
+was composed of their suffragan bishops, who appeared in person or by
+their proxies; and a place was assigned to the most holy or opulent of
+the Spanish abbots. During the first three days of the convocation, as
+long as they agitated the ecclesiastical questions of doctrine and
+discipline, the profane laity was excluded from their debates, which were
+conducted, however, with decent solemnity. But on the morning of the
+fourth day the doors were thrown open for the entrance of the great
+officers of the palace, the dukes and counts of the provinces, the judges
+of the cities, and the Gothic nobles; and the decrees of heaven were
+ratified by the consent of the people. The same rules were observed in
+the provincial assemblies, the annual synods which were empowered to hear
+complaints and to redress grievances; and a legal government was
+supported by the prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy.... The
+national councils of Toledo, in which the free spirit of the barbarians
+was tempered and guided by episcopal policy, have established some
+prudent laws for the common benefit of the king and people. The vacancy
+of the throne was supplied by the choice of the bishops and palatines;
+and after the failure of the line of Alaric, the regal dignity was still
+limited to the pure and noble blood of the Goths. The clergy who anointed
+their lawful prince always recommended the duty of allegiance; and the
+spiritual censures were denounced on the heads of the impious subjects
+who should resist his authority, conspire against his life, or violate by
+an indecent union the chastity even of his widow. But the monarch
+himself, when he ascended the throne, was bound by a reciprocal oath to
+God and his people that he would faithfully execute his important trust.
+The real or imaginary faults of his administration were subject to the
+control of a powerful aristocracy; and the bishops and palatines were
+guarded by a fundamental privilege that they should not be degraded,
+imprisoned, tortured, nor punished with death, exile, or confiscation,
+unless by the free and public judgment of their peers."
+
+We have here the historian, who is one of the bitterest enemies of the
+Christian Church and Faith, avowing that the barbarian Visigoths received
+from the hands of that Church and Faith, at the end of the sixth century,
+the great institutions of a limited Christian monarchy, consecrated by the
+Church, in which the king at his accession solemnly avowed his
+responsibility for his exercise of the immense functions entrusted to him;
+also of parliaments, in which clergy and laity sat together in common
+deliberation upon the affairs of the State, grievances were redressed, and
+laws for the benefit of king and people passed; in fact, a reign of legal
+government, based upon law and justice, and confirmed by religious
+sanction.
+
+And in all this the hand of the Pope was seen, sending to the chief bishop
+of Spain the pallium direct from the body of St. Peter, on which it had
+been laid, as the visible symbol of apostolic power dwelling in the
+Apostle's See, and radiating from it.
+
+This is the first instance, and not the least striking, of a fact which
+lies at the foundation of modern Europe; for so the Teuton war leaders
+became Christian kings, and so the northern barbarians were changed into
+Christian nations. For that which Gibbon here describes took place in all
+the Teuton peoples who accepted the Catholic faith. He has elsewhere said:
+"The progress of Christianity has been marked by two glorious and decisive
+victories: over the learned and luxurious citizens of the Roman empire, and
+over the warlike barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who subverted the
+empire and embraced the religion of the Romans".[211]
+
+Of this latter victory we can celebrate the accomplishment, as St. Gregory
+did, in the words of the angelic hymn, but the details have not been
+preserved for us, even in the scanty proportion which we possess concerning
+the former. Fighting for thirty years with the Lombards for the very
+existence of Rome, Gregory was the contemporary and witness of this second
+victory. Not until the Arian heresy was subdued by the Catholic faith could
+it be said to be accomplished. The pontificate of his ancestor in the third
+degree, Pope Felix III., might be called heroic, in that, while under the
+domination of the Arian Herule, Odoacer, he resisted the meddling with the
+received doctrine of the Church by the emperor Zeno, guided by the larger
+mind and treacherous fraud of Acacius, the bishop of Constantinople, who
+ruled its emperor. Then the Arian Vandals bitterly persecuted the Church in
+Africa, and the Visigoth Arians had possession of France from the Loire
+southwards, and of Spain. Nowhere in the whole world was there a Catholic
+prince. The north and east of France and Belgium was held by the still
+pagan Franks. By the time of Gregory, Clovis and his sons had extinguished
+the Arian Visigoth kingdom and the Arian kingdom of Burgundy, and ruled one
+Catholic kingdom of all France. Under Rechared, the Arian Visigoth kingdom
+in Spain became Catholic. Gregory also announced to his friend, the
+patriarch Eulogius, that the pagan Saxons in England were receiving the
+Catholic faith by thousands from his missionary. The taint which the
+wickedness of the eastern emperor Valens had been so mysteriously allowed
+to communicate to the nascent faith of the Teuton tribes, through the
+noblest of their family, the Goths, was, during the century which passed
+between Pope Felix and Pope Gregory, purged away. It was decided beyond
+recal that the new nations of the West should be Catholic. Five times had
+Rome been taken and wasted: at one moment, it is said, all its inhabitants
+had deserted it and fled. The ancient city was extinct: in and out of it
+rose the Rome of the Popes, which Gregory was feeding and guarding. The
+eastern emperor, who called himself the Roman prince, in recovering her had
+destroyed her; but the life that was in her Pontiff was indestructible. The
+ecumenical patriarch was foiled by the Servant of the servants of God: in
+proportion as the eastern bishops submitted their original hierarchy, of
+apostolic institution, and the graduated autonomy which each enjoyed under
+it, to an imperial minister, termed a patriarch, in Constantinople, all the
+bishops of the West, placed as they were under distinct kingdoms, found
+their common centre, adviser, champion, and ruler in the Chair of Peter,
+fixed in a ruined Rome. If Gregory, in his daily distress, thought that the
+end of the world was coming, all subsequent ages have felt that in him the
+world of the future was already founded. In the two centuries since the
+death of the great Theodosius, the countries which form modern Europe had
+passed through indescribable disturbance, a misery without
+end--dislodgement of the old proprietors, a settlement of new inhabitants
+and rulers. The Christian religion itself had receded for a time far within
+the limits which it had once reached, as in the north of France, in
+Germany, and in Britain. The rulers of broad western lands, with the
+conquering host which they led, had become the victims first, and then the
+propagators, of the same fatal heresy. The conquered population alone
+remained Catholic. The conversion of Clovis was the first light which arose
+in this darkness. And now, a hundred years after that conversion, Paris and
+Bordeaux, and Toulouse and Lyons, Toledo and Seville, were Catholic once
+more, and Gregory, a provincial captive in a collapsing Rome, was owned by
+all these cities as the standard and arbiter of their faith, and the king
+of the Visigoths thankfully received a few filings from the chains of the
+Apostle Peter as a present which worthily celebrated his conversion.
+
+It is to be observed that this absolute defeat of the Arian heresy in
+several countries is accomplished in spite of the power which, in all of
+them, was wielded by Arian rulers. In vain had Genseric, Hunnerich,
+Guntamund, and Thrasimund oppressed and tortured the Catholics of Africa,
+banished their bishops, and set up nominees of their own as Arian bishops
+in their places for a hundred years. No sooner did Belisarius land on their
+soil than the fabric reared with every possible deceit and cruelty fell to
+the ground. The Arian Vandal king was carried away in triumph, as the spoil
+of a single battle, to Constantinople, and the Catholic bishops, while they
+hailed Justinian as their deliverer, met in plenary council, acknowledging
+the Primacy of Peter, as in the days of St. Augustine. In vain had the
+powerful Visigoth monarchy, seated during three generations at Toulouse,
+persecuted with fraud and cruelty its Catholic people. A single blow from
+the arm of Clovis delivered from their rule the whole country from the
+Loire to the Pyrenees. In vain had Gondebald and his family in Burgundy
+wavered between the heresy which he professed and the Catholic faith which
+he admired. The children of Clovis absorbed that kingdom also. But the
+strongest example of all remains. In vain, too, had Theodorick, after the
+murder of his rival Odoacer when an invited guest in the banquet of
+Ravenna, covered over the savage, and governed with wisdom and moderation a
+Catholic people, whom he soothed by choosing their noblest--Cassiodorus,
+Symmachus, and Boethius--for his ministers. He had formed into a family
+compact by marriages the Arian rulers in Africa, Spain, and Gaul. His
+moderation gave way when he saw the eastern emperor resume the policy of a
+Catholic sovereign. He put on the savage again, and he ended with the
+murder not only of his own long-trusted ministers, but of the Pope, who
+refused to be his instrument in procuring immunity for heresy from a
+Catholic emperor.
+
+At his death, overclouded with the pangs of remorse, the Arian rule which
+he had fostered with so much skill showed itself to have no hold upon an
+Italy to which he had given a great temporal prosperity. The Goths, whom he
+had seemed to tame, were found incapable of self-government, and every
+Roman heart welcomed Belisarius and Narses as the restorers of a power
+which had not ceased to claim their allegiance, even through the turpitudes
+and betrayals of Zeno and Anastasius.
+
+The best solution which I know for this wonderful result, brought about in
+so many countries, is contained in a few words of Gibbon: "Under the Roman
+empire the wealth and jurisdiction of the bishops, their sacred character
+and perpetual office, their numerous dependents, popular eloquence and
+provincial assemblies, had rendered them always respectable and sometimes
+dangerous. Their influence was augmented by the progress of superstition"
+(by which he means the Catholic faith), "and the establishment of the
+French monarchy may in some degree be ascribed to the firm alliance of a
+hundred prelates who reigned in the discontented or independent cities of
+Gaul."[212] But how were these prelates bound together in a firm alliance?
+Because each one of them felt what a chief among them, St. Avitus, under
+an Arian prince, expressed to the Roman senate in the matter of Pope
+Symmachus by the direction of his brother bishops, that in the person of
+the Bishop of Rome the principate of the whole Church was touched; that "in
+the case of other bishops, if there be any lapse, it may be restored; but
+if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not one bishop but the episcopate itself
+will seem to be shaken".[213] If the bishops had been all that is above
+described with the exception of this one thing, the common bond which held
+them to Rome, how would the ruin of their country, the subversion of
+existing interests, the confiscation of the land, the imposition of foreign
+invaders for masters, have acted upon them? It would have split them up
+into various parties, rivals for favour and the power derived from favour.
+The bishops of each country would have had national interests controlling
+their actions. The Teuton invaders were without power of cohesion, without
+fraternal affection for each other; their ephemeral territories were in a
+state of perpetual fluctuation. The bishops locally situated in these
+changing districts would have been themselves divided. In fact, the Arian
+bishops had no common centre. They were the nominees and partisans of their
+several sovereigns. They presented no one front, for their negation was no
+one faith. We cannot be wrong in extending the action assigned by Gibbon to
+the hundred bishops of Gaul, to the Catholic bishops throughout all the
+countries in which a poorer Catholic population was governed by Arian
+rulers. The divine bond of the Primacy, resting upon the faith which it
+represented, secured in one alliance all the bishops of the West. Nor must
+we forget that the Throne of Peter acknowledged by those bishops as the
+source of their common faith, the crown of the episcopate, was likewise
+regarded by the Arian rulers themselves as the great throne of justice,
+above the sway of local jealousies and subordinate jurisdictions. It
+represented to their eyes the fabric of Roman law, the wonderful creation
+of centuries, which the northern conquerors were utterly unable to emulate,
+and made them feel how inferior brute force was to civil wisdom and equity.
+
+In the constitution of the Visigothic kingdom of Spain from the time of
+Rechared, when it became Catholic, we see the first fruits of the Church's
+beneficent action on the northern invaders. The barbarian monarchy from its
+original condition of a military command in time of war, directing a raid
+of the tribe or people upon its enemies, becomes a settled rule, at the
+head of estates which meet in annual synod, and in which bishops and barons
+sit side by side. Government reposes on the peaceable union of the Two
+Powers. In process of time this sort of political order was established
+everywhere throughout the West, by the same action and influence of the
+Church. In the Roman empire the supreme power had been in its origin a
+mandate conferred by the citizens of a free state on one of their number
+for the preservation of the commonwealth. The notion of dynastic descent
+was wanting to it from the beginning. But the power which Augustus had
+received in successive periods of ten years passed to his successors for
+their life. Still they were rather life-presidents with royal power than
+kings. And it may be noticed that in that long line no blessing seemed to
+rest on the succession of a son to his father; much, on the contrary, on
+the adoption of a stranger of tried capacity guided by the choice of the
+actual ruler. But in the lapse of centuries the imperial power had become
+absolute. Especially in the successors of Constantine, and in the city to
+which he had given his name and chosen for the home of his empire, not a
+shadow of the old Roman freedom remained. One after another the successful
+general or the adventurer in some court intrigue supplanted or murdered a
+predecessor, and ascended the throne, but with undiminished prerogatives.
+Great was the contrast in all the new kingdoms at whose birth the influence
+of the Church presided. There the kings all sat by family descent, in
+which, however, was involved a free acceptance on the part of their people.
+The bishops who had had so large a part in the foundation of the several
+kingdoms had a recognised part in their future government. Holding one
+faith, and educated in the law of the Romans, and joined on to the
+preceding ages by their mental culture as well as their belief, they
+contributed to these kingdoms a stability and cohesion which were wanting
+to the Teuton invaders in themselves. They incessantly preached peace as a
+religious necessity to those tribes which had been as ready to consume
+each other as to divide the spoils of their Roman subjects. This united
+phalanx of bishops in Gaul conquered in the end even the excessive
+degeneracy, self-indulgence, and cruelty of the Merovingian race. Thanks to
+their perpetual efforts, while the policy of a Clovis made a France, the
+wickedness of his descendants did not destroy it, but only themselves, and
+caused a new family to be chosen wherein the same tempered government might
+be carried on.
+
+It is remarkable that while the Byzantine emperors, from the extinction of
+the western empire, were using their absolute power to meddle with the
+doctrine of the Church which Constantine acknowledged to be divine, and to
+fetter its liberty which he acknowledged to be unquestionable, the Popes
+from that very time were through the bishops, to whom they were the sole
+centre in so many changes and upheavals, constructing the new order of
+things. Through them the Church maintained her own liberty, and allied with
+it a civil liberty which the East had more and more surrendered.
+
+In the East, the Church in time was younger than the empire; in the West,
+she preceded in time these newly formed monarchies. Amid the universal
+overthrow which the invaders had wrought she alone stood unmoved. The
+heresy which had so threatened her disappeared. On Goths, and Franks, and
+Saxons, and Alemans, she was free to exercise her divine power.[214] It is
+in that sixth century of tremendous revolutions that she laid the
+foundation of the future European society. Byzantium was descending to
+Mahomet while Rome was forecasting the Christian commonwealth of Charles
+the Great. In the Rome of Constantine, while the old civilisation had
+accepted her name, the old pagan principles had continually impeded her
+action. The civil rulers especially had harked back after the power of the
+heathen Pontifex Maximus; but in these new peoples who were not yet
+peoples, but only the unformed matter (_materia prima_) out of which
+peoples might be made, the Church was free to put her own ideal as a _form_
+within them. They had the rudiments of institutions, which they trusted her
+to organise. They placed her bishops in their courts of justice, in their
+halls of legislation. The greatest of their conquerors in the hour of his
+supreme exaltation, which also was received from the Pope, was proud to be
+vested by her in the dalmatic of a deacon.
+
+Of this new world St. Gregory, in his desolated Rome, stood at the head.
+
+There is yet another aspect of this wonderful man which we have to
+consider. We possess about 850 of his letters. If we did but possess the
+letters of his sixty predecessors in the same relative proportion as his,
+the history of the Church for the five centuries preceding him, instead of
+being often a blank, would present to us the full lineaments of truth. The
+range of his letters is so great, their detail so minute, that they
+illuminate his time and enable us to form a mental picture, and follow
+faithfully that pontificate of fourteen years, incessantly interrupted by
+cares and anxieties for the preservation of his city, yet watching the
+beginnings and strengthening the polity of the western nations, and
+counterworking the advances of the eastern despotism. The divine order of
+greatness is, we know, to do and to teach. Few, indeed, have carried it out
+on so great a scale as St. Gregory. The mass of his writing preserved to us
+exceeds the mass preserved to us from all his predecessors together, even
+including St. Leo, who with him shares the name of Great, and whose sphere
+of action the mind compares with his. If he became to all succeeding times
+an image of the great sacerdotal life in his own person, so all ages
+studied in his words the pastoral care, joining him with St. Gregory of
+Nazianzum and St. Chrysostom. The man who closed his life at sixty-four,
+worn out not with age, but with labour and bodily pains, stands, beside the
+learning of St. Jerome, the perfect episcopal life and statesmanship of St.
+Ambrose, the overpowering genius of St. Augustine, as the fourth doctor of
+the western Church, while he surpasses them all in that his doctorship was
+seated on St. Peter's throne. If he closes the line of Fathers, he begins
+the period when the Church, failing to preserve a rotten empire in
+political existence, creates new nations; nay, his own hand has laid for
+them their foundation-stones, and their nascent polity bears his manual
+inscription, as the great campanile of St. Mark wears on its brow the
+words, _Et Verbum caro factum est_. These were the words which St. Gregory
+wrote as the bond of their internal cohesion, as the source of their
+greatness, permanence, and liberty upon the future monarchies of Europe.
+
+What mortal could venture to decide which of the two great victories
+allowed by Gibbon to the Church is the greater? But we at least are the
+children of the second. It was wrought in secrecy and unconsciousness, as
+the greatest works of nature and of grace are wrought, but we know just so
+much as this, that St. Gregory was one of its greatest artificers. The
+Anglo-Saxon race in particular, for more than a thousand years, has
+celebrated the Mass of St. Gregory as that of the Apostle of England. Down
+to the disruption of the sixteenth century, the double line of its bishops
+in Canterbury and York, with their suffragans, regarded him as their
+founder, as much as the royal line deemed itself to descend from William
+the Conqueror. If Canterbury was Primate of all England and York Primate of
+England, it was by the appointment of Gregory. And the very civil
+constitution of England, like the original constitutions of the western
+kingdoms in general, is the work in no small part of that Church which St.
+Augustine carried to Ethelbert, and whose similar work in Spain Gibbon has
+acknowledged. Under the Norman oppression it was to the laws of St. Edward
+that the people looked back. The laws of St. Edward were made by the
+bishops of St. Gregory.
+
+How deeply St. Gregory was impressed with the conviction of his own
+vocation to be the head of the whole Church we have seen in his own
+repeatedly quoted words.[215] What can a Pope claim more than the
+attribution to himself as Pope of the three great words of Christ spoken to
+Peter? Accordingly, all his conduct was directed to maintain every
+particular church in its due subordination to the Roman Church, to
+reconcile schismatics to it, to overcome the error and the obstinacy of
+heretics. Again, since all nations have been called to salvation in Christ,
+St. Gregory pursued the conversion of the heathen with the utmost zeal.
+When only monk and cardinal deacon, he had obtained the permission of Pope
+Pelagius to set out in person as missionary to paganised Britain. He was
+brought back to Rome after three days by the affection of the people, who
+would not allow him to leave them. When the death of Pope Pelagius placed
+him on the papal throne, he did not forget the country the sight of whose
+enslaved children had made them his people of predilection.
+
+With regard to the churches belonging to his own patriarchate, a bishop in
+each province, usually the metropolitan, represented as delegate the Roman
+See. To these, as the symbol of their delegated authority as his _vicarii_,
+Gregory sent the pallium. All the bishops of the province yielded them
+obedience, acknowledged their summons to provincial councils. A hundred
+years before Pope Symmachus had begun the practice of sending the pallium
+to them, but Gregory declined to take the gifts which it had become usual
+to take on receiving it. St. Leo, fifty years before Symmachus, had
+empowered a bishop to represent him at the court of the eastern emperor,
+and had drawn out the office and functions of the nuncio. Like his great
+predecessor, St. Gregory carefully watched over the rights of the Primacy.
+Upon the death of a metropolitan, he entrusted during the vacancy the
+visitation of the churches to another bishop, and enjoined the clergy and
+people of the vacant see to make a new choice under the superintendence of
+the Roman official. The election being made, he carefully examined the
+acts, and, if it was needed, reversed them. As he required from the
+metropolitans strict obedience to his commands, so he maintained on the one
+hand the dependence of the bishops on their metropolitans, while on the
+other he protected them against all irregular decisions of the
+metropolitan. He carefully examined the complaints which bishops made
+against their metropolitan; and when bishops disagreed with each other, and
+their disagreement could not be adjusted by the metropolitan, he drew the
+decision to himself.
+
+Gregory also held many councils in Rome which passed decisions upon
+doctrine and discipline. We may take as a specimen that which he held in
+the Lateran Church on the 5th April, 601,[216] with twenty-four bishops and
+many priests and deacons. It is headed: "Gregory, bishop, servant of the
+servants of God, to all bishops". The Pope says that his own government of
+a monastery had shown him how necessary it was to provide for their
+perpetual security: "Since we have come to the knowledge that in very many
+monasteries the monks have suffered much to their prejudice and grievance
+from bishops ... we therefore, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by
+the authority of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, in whose place
+we preside over this Church, forbid that henceforth any bishop or layman,
+in respect of the revenues, goods, or charters of monasteries, the cells or
+buildings belonging to them, do in any manner or upon any occasion diminish
+them, or use deceit or interference". If there be a contest whether any
+property belong to the church of a bishop or to a monastery, arbitrators
+shall decide. If an abbot dies, no stranger, but one of the same community,
+must be chosen by the brethren, freely and concordantly, for his successor.
+If no fitting person is found in the monastery itself, the monks are to
+provide that one be chosen from another monastery. In the abbot's lifetime
+no other superior may be set over the monastery, except the abbot have
+committed transgressions punishable by the canons. Against the will of the
+abbot no monk may be chosen to be set over another monastery or receive
+holy orders. The bishop may not make an inventory of the goods of the
+monastery, nor mix himself, even after the abbot's death, in the concerns
+of the monastery; he may hold no public mass in the monastery, that there
+be no meeting of people, or women, there; he may set up no pulpit there,
+and without the consent of the abbot make no regulation, and employ no
+monk for any church service.
+
+All the bishops answered: "We rejoice in the liberties of the monks, and
+confirm what your Holiness has set forth as to this".
+
+As metropolitan of the particular Roman province, Gregory was equally
+active. The political circumstances of Italy had exerted the most
+prejudicial effect on the Church. Ecclesiastical life was impaired. The
+discipline both of monks and clergy was weakened. Bishops had become
+negligent in their duties; many churches orphaned or destroyed. But at the
+end of his pontificate things had so improved that he might well be termed
+the reformer of Church discipline. He watched with great care over the
+conduct and administration of the bishops. In this the officers called
+_defensors_, that is, who administered the patrimony of the Church in
+the different provinces, helped him greatly in carrying out his commands.
+In the war with the Lombards, many episcopal sees had been wasted, and many
+of their bishops expelled. Gregory provided for them, either in naming them
+visitors of his own, or in calling in other bishops to their support. He
+rebuilt many churches which had been destroyed. He carefully maintained the
+property of churches: he would not allow it to be alienated, except to
+ransom captives or convert heathens. The Roman Church had then large
+estates in Africa, Gaul, Sicily, Corsica, Dalmatia, and especially in the
+various provinces of Italy. These were called the Patrimony of Peter. They
+consisted in lands, villages, and flocks. In the management of these
+Gregory's care did not disdain the minutest supervision. His strong sense
+of justice did not prevent his being a merciful landlord, and especially he
+cared for the peasantry and cultivators of the soil.
+
+The monastic life which in his own person he had so zealously practised, as
+Pope he so carefully watched over that he has been called the father of the
+monks. He encouraged the establishment of monasteries. Many he built and
+provided for himself out of the Roman Church's property. Many which wanted
+for maintenance he succoured. He issued a quantity of orders supporting the
+religious and moral life of monks and nuns. He invited bishops to keep
+guard over the discipline of monasteries, and blamed them when
+transgressions of it came to light. But he also protected monasteries from
+hard treatment of bishops, and, according to the custom of earlier Popes,
+exempted some of them from episcopal authority.
+
+In restoring schismatics to unity he was in general successful. He wrought
+such a union among the bishops of Africa that Donatism lost influence more
+and more, and finally disappeared. He dealt with the obstinate Milanese
+schism which had arisen out of the treatment of the Three Chapters. He won
+back a great part of the Istrians. He had more trouble with the two
+archbishops of Constantinople, John the Faster and Cyriacus; and his former
+friend the emperor Mauritius turned against him, so that he welcomed the
+accession of Phocas, as a deliverance of the Church from unjust domination.
+The unquestioning loyalty with which, as a civil subject, he welcomed this
+accession has been unfairly used against him. As first of all the civil
+dignitaries of the empire he could only accept what had been done at
+Constantinople. But in all his fourteen years neither the difficulty of
+circumstances nor the consideration of persons withheld him from carrying
+out his resolutions with a patience and a firmness only equalled by
+gentleness of manner. From beginning to end he considered himself, and
+acted, as set by God to watch over the maintenance of the canons, the
+discipline enacted by them, and so doing to perfect by his wisdom as well
+as to temper by his moderation the vast fabric of the Primacy as it had
+grown itself, and nurtured in its growth the original constitution of the
+Church during nearly six hundred years.
+
+We may now say a few words upon the Primacy itself as exerted by St. Leo at
+the Council of Chalcedon, and the Primacy as exerted by St. Gregory in the
+fourteen years from 590 to 604; also on the interval between them, and the
+relative position of the bishop of Constantinople to Leo in the person of
+Anatolius, and to Gregory in the person of John the Faster. We see at once
+that the intention which Leo discerned in Anatolius, which he sternly
+reprehended and summarily overthrew, has been fully carried out by John the
+Faster, who, in documents sent to the Pope himself for revision, as
+superior, terms himself ecumenical patriarch. Who had made him first a
+patriarch and then ecumenical? The emperor alone. He is so called in the
+laws of Justinian. The 140 years from Leo to Gregory are filled with the
+continued rise of the Bishop of Nova Roma under the absolute power of the
+emperor. He has succeeded not only in taking precedence of the legitimate
+patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch; he has more than once stripped of
+their rights the metropolitans and bishops subject to the great see of the
+East, and himself consecrated at Constantinople a patriarch of Antioch by
+order of the emperor of the day. This Acacius did, humbly begging the
+Pope's pardon for such a transgression of the due order and hierarchy, and
+repeating the offence against the Nicene order and constitution on the
+first opportunity. In the same way he has interfered with the elections at
+Alexandria. We learn from the instruction given by Pope Hormisdas to his
+legates that all the eastern bishops when they came to Constantinople
+obtained an audience of the emperor only through the bishop of
+Constantinople. The Pope carefully warns his legates against submitting to
+this pretension. Pope Gelasius told the bishop in his day that his see had
+no ecclesiastical rank above that of a simple bishop. We laugh, he said, at
+the pretension to erect an apostolical throne upon an imperial residence.
+But, in the meantime, Constantinople has become the head of all civil
+power. The emperor of the West has ceased to be. The Roman senate, at the
+bidding of a Herule commander of mercenaries, has sent back even the
+symbols of imperial rank to the eastern emperor; and in return Zeno has
+graciously made Odoacer patricius of Rome, with the power of king, until
+Theodorick was ready to be rewarded with the possession of Italy for
+services rendered to the eastern monarch, with the purpose likewise of
+diverting his attention from Nova Roma. Therefore, in spite of the
+submission rendered by all the East, the bishops, the court, the emperor,
+and by Justinian himself; in spite, also, of two bishops successively
+degraded by an emperor, the bishop of Constantinople ever advances. The law
+of Justinian, which acknowledges the Pope as first of all bishops in the
+world, and gives him legal rank as such, makes the bishop of the new
+capital the second. Presently Justinian becomes by conquest immediate
+sovereign of Rome. The ancient queen and maker of the empire is humbled in
+the dust by five captures; is even reduced to a desert for a time; and when
+a portion of her fugitive citizens comes back to the abandoned city, a
+Byzantine prefect rules it with absolute power. A Greek garrison, the badge
+of Rome's degradation, supports his delegated rule. Presently the seat of
+that rule is for security transferred to Ravenna, and Rome is left, not
+merely discrowned, but defenceless. All the while the bishop of
+Constantinople is seated in the pomp of power at the emperor's court;
+within the walls of the eastern capital his household rivals that of the
+emperor; in certain respects the public worship gives him a homage greater
+than that accorded to the absolute lord of the East. He reflects with
+satisfaction that the one person in the West who can call his ministration
+to account is exposed to the daily attacks of barbarians: is surrounded
+with palaces whose masters are ruined, and which are daily dropping into
+decay. The Pope, behind the crumbling walls of Aurelian, shudders at the
+cruelties practised on his people: the bishop of Constantinople, by terming
+himself ecumenical, announces ostentatiously that he claims to rule all his
+brethren in the East--that he is supreme judge over his brother patriarchs.
+One only thing he does not do: he claims no power over the Pope himself; he
+does not attempt to revise his administration in the West. He acknowledges
+his primacy, seated as it is in a provincial city, pauperised, and
+decimated with hunger and desertion.
+
+In this interval the Pope has seen seven emperors pass like shadows on the
+western throne, and their place taken first by an Arian Herule and then by
+an Arian Goth. Herule and Goth disappear, the last at the cost of a war
+which desolates Italy during twenty years, and casts out, indeed, the
+Gothic invader and confiscator of Italy, but only to supply his place by
+the grinding exactions of an absent master, followed immediately by the
+inroad of fresh savages, far worse than the Goth, under whose devastation
+Italy is utterly ruined. Whatever portion of dignity the old capital of the
+world lent to Leo is utterly lost to Gregory. It has been one tale of
+unceasing misery, of terrible downfal to Rome, from Genseric to Agilulf. It
+may seem to have been suspended during the thirty-three years of
+Theodorick, but it was the iron force of hostile domination wielded by the
+gloved hand. When the Goth was summoned to depart, he destroyed ruthlessly.
+The rage of Vitiges casts back a light upon the mildness of Theodorick; the
+slaughters ordered by Teia are a witness to Gothic humanity. No words but
+those of Gregory himself, in applying the Hebrew prophet, can do justice to
+the temporal misery of Rome. The Pope felt himself silenced by sorrow in
+the Church of St. Peter, but he ruled without contradiction the Church in
+East and West. Not a voice is heard at the time, or has come down to
+posterity, which accuses Gregory of passing the limits of power conceded to
+him by all, or of exercising it otherwise than with the extremest
+moderation.
+
+Disaster in the temporal order, continued through five generations, from
+Leo to Gregory, has clearly brought to light the purely spiritual
+foundation of the papal power. If the attribution to the Pope of the three
+great words spoken by our Lord to St. Peter, made to Pope Hormisdas by the
+eastern bishops and emperor, does not prove that they belong to the Pope
+and were inherited by him from St. Peter, what proof remains to be offered?
+If the attribution is so proved, what is there in the papal power which is
+not divinely conferred and guaranteed? Neither the first Leo, nor the first
+Gregory, nor the seventh Gregory, nor the thirteenth Leo, ask for more; nor
+can they take less.
+
+If St. Gregory exercised this authority in a ruined city, over barbarous
+populations which had taken possession of the western provinces, over
+eastern bishops who crouched at the feet of an absolute monarch, over a
+rival who, with all the imperial power to back him, did not attempt to deny
+it, how could a greater proof of its divine origin be given?
+
+In this respect boundless disaster offers a proof which the greatest
+prosperity would have failed to give. Not even a Greek could be found who
+could attribute St. Gregory's authority in Rome to his being bishop of the
+royal city. The barbarian inundation had swept away the invention of
+Anatolius.
+
+But this very time was also that in which the heresy whose leading doctrine
+was denial of the Godhead of the Church's founder came from a threatening
+of supremacy to an end. In Theodorick Arianism seemed to be enthroned for
+predominance in all the West. His civil virtues and powerful government,
+his family league of all the western rulers,--for he himself had married
+Andefleda, sister of Clovis, and had given one daughter for wife to the
+king of the Vandals in Africa, and another to the king of the Visigoths in
+France,--was a gage of security. In Gregory's time the great enemy has laid
+down his arms. He is dispossessed from the Teuton race in its Gallic,
+Spanish, Burgundian, African settlements. Gregory, at the head of the
+western bishops who in every country have risked life for the faith of
+Rome, has gained the final victory. One only Arian tribe survives for a
+time, ever struggling to possess Rome, advancing to its gates, ruining its
+Campagna, torturing its captured inhabitants, but never gaining possession
+of those battered walls, which Totila in part threw down and Belisarius in
+piecemeal restored. And Gregory, too, is chosen to stop the Anglo-Saxon
+revel of cruelty and destruction, which has turned Britain from a civilised
+land into a wilderness, and from a province of the Catholic Church to
+paganism, from the very time of St. Leo. Two tribes were the most savage of
+the Teuton family, the Saxon and the Frank. The Frank became Catholic, and
+Gregory besought the rulers of the converted nation to help his
+missionaries in their perilous adventure to convert the ultramarine
+neighbours, still savage and pagan. He also ordered their chief bishop to
+consecrate the chief missionary to be archbishop of the Angles. As there
+was a Burgundian Clotilda by the side of Clovis, there was a Frankish
+Bertha by the side of Ethelbert; and these two women have a glorious place
+in that second great victory of the Church. The Visigoth and Ostrogoth with
+their great natural gifts could not found a kingdom. Their heresy deprived
+the Father of the Son, and they were themselves sterile. Those who denied a
+Divine Redeemer were not likely to convert a world.
+
+But all through Gregory's life the Byzantine spirit of encroachment was one
+of his chief enemies. The claim of its bishop to be ecumenical patriarch
+stopped short of the Primacy. But one after another the bishops of that see
+sought by imperial laws to detach the bishops of Eastern Illyria from their
+subjection to the western patriarchate. Their nearness to Constantinople,
+their being subjects of the eastern emperor, helped this encroachment.
+
+It would appear also that in Gregory's time--a hundred years after Pope
+Gelasius had put the bishop of the imperial city in remembrance that he had
+been a suffragan to Heraclea--the legislation of Justinian had succeeded in
+inducing the Roman See to acknowledge that bishop as a patriarch. His
+actual power had gone far beyond. There can be no doubt that, while the
+Pope had become legally the subject of the eastern emperor, the bishop of
+Constantinople had become in fact the emperor's ecclesiastical minister in
+subjugating the eastern episcopate. The Nicene episcopal hierarchy
+subsisted indeed in name. To the Alexandrian and Antiochene patriarchs two
+had been added--one at Jerusalem, the other at Constantinople. But the last
+was so predominant--as the interpreter of the emperor's will--that he stood
+at the head of the bishops in all the realm ruled from Constantinople over
+against the Pope as the head of the western bishops in many various lands.
+
+The bishops were in Justinian's legislation everywhere great imperial
+officers, holding a large civil jurisdiction, especially charged with an
+inspection of the manner in which civil governors performed their own
+proper functions; most of all, the patriarchs and the Pope.
+
+But that episcopal autonomy--if we may so call it--under the presidence of
+the three Petrine patriarchs, which was in full life and vigour at the
+Nicene Council, which St. Gregory still recognised in his letter to
+Eulogius, was greatly impaired. While barbaric inundation had swept over
+the West, the struggles of the Nestorian and Eutychean heresies, especially
+in the two great cities of Alexandria and Antioch, had disturbed the
+hierarchy and divided the people which the master at Constantinople could
+hardly control. That state of the East which St. Basil deplored in burning
+words--which almost defied every effort of the great Theodosius to restore
+it to order--had gone on for more than two hundred years. The Greek
+subtlety was not pervaded by the charity of Christ, and they carried on
+their disputes over that adorable mystery of His Person in which the secret
+of redeeming power is seated, with a spirit of party and savage persecution
+which portended the rise of one who would deny that mystery altogether, and
+reduce to a terrible servitude those who had so abused their liberty as
+Christians and offered such a scandal to the religion of unity which they
+professed.
+
+From St. Sylvester to St. Leo, and, again, from St. Leo to St. Gregory, the
+effort of the Popes was to maintain in its original force the Nicene
+constitution of the Church. Well might they struggle for the maintenance of
+that which was a derivation from their own fountainhead--"the
+administration of Peter"[217]--during the three centuries of heathen
+persecution by the empire. It was not they who tightened the exercise of
+their supreme authority. The altered condition of the times, the tyranny of
+Constantius and Valens, the dislocation of the eastern hierarchy, the rise
+of a new bishop in a new capital made use of by an absolute sovereign to
+control that hierarchy, a resident council at Constantinople which became
+an "instrument of servitude" in the emperor's hands to degrade any bishop
+at his pleasure and his own patriarch when he was not sufficiently pliant
+to the master,--these were among the causes which tended to bring out a
+further exercise of the power which Christ had deposited in the hands of
+His Vicar to be used according to the needs of the Church. No one has
+expressed with greater moderation than St. Gregory the proper power of his
+see, in the words I have quoted above:[218] "I know not what bishop is not
+subject to the Apostolical See, if any fault be found in bishops. But when
+no fault requires it, all are equal according to the estimation of
+humility." In Rome there is no growth by aid of the civil power from a
+suffragan bishop to an universal Papacy. The Papacy shows itself already in
+St. Clement, a disciple of St. Peter's, "whose name is written in the book
+of life,"[219] and who, involving the Blessed Trinity, affirms that the
+orders emanating from his see are the words of God Himself.[220] This is
+the ground of St. Gregory's moderation; and whatever extension may
+hereafter be found in the exercise of the same power by his successors is
+drawn forth by the condition of the times, a condition often opposed to the
+inmost wishes of the Pope. Those are evil times which require "a thousand
+bishops rolled into one" to oppose the civil tyranny of a Hohenstaufen, the
+violence of barbarism in a Rufus, or the corruption of wealth in a
+Plantagenet.
+
+Between St. Peter and St. Gregory, in 523 years, there succeeded full sixty
+Popes. If we take any period of like duration in the history of the world's
+kingdoms, we shall find in their rulers a remarkable contrast of varying
+policy and temper. Few governments, indeed, last so long. But in the few
+which have so lasted we find one sovereign bent on war, another on peace,
+another on accumulating treasure, another on spending it; one given up to
+selfish pleasures, here and there a ruler who reigns only for the good of
+others. But in Gregory's more than sixty predecessors there is but one
+idea: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the
+gates of hell shall not prevail against it," is the compendious expression
+of their lives and rule. For this St. Clement, who had heard the words of
+his master, suffered exile and martyrdom in the Crimea. For this five
+Popes, in the decade between 250 and 260, laid down their lives. The letter
+of St. Julius to the Eusebian prelates is full of it. St. Leo saw the
+empire of Rome falling around him, but he is so possessed with that idea
+that he does not allude to the ruin of temporal kingdoms. St. Gregory
+trembles for the lives of his beleaguered people, but he does not know the
+see which is not subject to the Apostolic See. In weakness and in power, in
+ages of an ever varying but always persistent adversity, in times of
+imperial patronage, and, again, under heretical domination, the mind of
+every Pope is full of this idea. The strength or the weakness of individual
+character leaves it untouched. In one, and only one, of all these figures
+his dignity is veiled in sadness. Pope Vigilius at Constantinople, in the
+grasp of a despot, and with the stain of an irregular election never
+effaced from his brow, is still conscious of it, still has courage to say,
+"You may bind me, but you will not bind the Apostle St. Peter". Six hundred
+years after St. Gregory, when accordingly the succession of Popes had been
+rather more than doubled, I find the biographer of Innocent III. thus
+commenting on his election in 1198: "The Church in these times ever had an
+essential preponderance over worldly kingdoms. Resting on a spiritual
+foundation, she had in herself the vigour of immaterial power, and
+maintained in her application of it the superiority over merely material
+forces. She alone was animated by a clearly recognised idea, which never at
+any time died out of her. For its maintenance and actuation were not
+limited to the person of a Pope, who could only be the representative, the
+bearer, the enactor, for the world of this idea in its fullest meaning. If
+here and there a particular personality seemed unequal to the carrying out
+such a charge, the force of the idea did not suffer any defect through him.
+Most papal governments were very short in their duration. This itself was a
+challenge to those whose life was absorbed in that of the Church to place
+at its head a man whose ability, enlightened and guided by strength of
+will, afforded a secure assurance for the exercise of an universal charge.
+From the clear self-consciousness of the Church in this respect proceeded
+that firm pursuance of a great purpose distinctly perceived. It met with no
+persistent or wisely conducted resistance on the part of the temporal
+power. On one side all rays had their focus in one point. In temporal
+princes the rays were parted. Few of these showed in their lives a purpose
+to which all their acts were made consistently subordinate. As
+circumstances swayed them, as the desire of the moment led them away, they
+threw themselves, according to their personal inclinations, with impetuous
+storm and violence upon the attainment of their wishes. They had to yield
+in the end to the power of the Church, slower, indeed, but continuous,
+pursued with superiority of spirit, moreover with the firm conviction of
+guidance from above, and of the special protection from this inseparable,
+and so attaining its mark. One only royal race ventured on a contest with
+the Church for supremacy; for one only, the Hohenstaufen, were conscious of
+a fixed purpose. They encountered a direct struggle with the Church; but
+the conflict issued to the honour of the Church. The Popes who led it came
+out of it with a renown in the world's history, which without that conflict
+they would never have so gloriously attained. If we look from these events
+before and afterwards upon the ages, and see how the institution of the
+Papacy outlasts all other institutions in Europe, how it has seen all
+States come and go, how in the endless change of human things it alone
+remains unchanged, ever with the same spirit, can we then wonder if many
+look up to it as the Rock unmoved amid the roaring billows of centuries?"
+And he adds in a note, "This is not a polemical statement, but the verdict
+of history".[221]
+
+The time of St. Gregory in history bore the witness of six centuries; the
+time of Innocent III. of twelve; the time of Leo XIII. bears that of more
+than eighteen centuries to the consideration of this contrast between the
+natural fickleness of men and of lives of men, shown from age to age, and
+the persistence, on the other hand, of one idea in one line of men. The
+eighteen centuries already past are yet only a part of an unknown future.
+But to construct such a Rock amid the sea and the waves roaring in the
+history of the nations reveals an abiding divine power. It leaves the
+self-will of man untouched, yet sets up a rampart against it. The
+explanation attempted three hundred and fifty years ago of an imposture or
+an usurpation is incompatible with the clearness of an idea which is
+carried out persistently through so many generations. Usurpations fall
+rapidly. But in this one case the divine words themselves contain the idea
+more clearly expressed than any exposition can express it. The King
+delineates His kingdom as none but God can; it must also be added that He
+maintains it as none but God can maintain.
+
+We may return to St. Gregory's own time, and note the unbroken continuity
+of the Primacy from St. Peter himself. It is a period of nearly six hundred
+years from the day of Pentecost. Just in the middle comes the conversion
+of Constantine. Before it Rome is mainly a heathen city, the government of
+which bears above all things an everlasting enmity against any violation of
+the supreme pontificate annexed by the provident Augustus to the imperial
+power, and jealously maintained by every succeeding emperor. To suffer an
+infringement of that pontificate would be to lose the grasp over the
+hundred varieties of worship allowed by the State. Yet when Constantine
+acknowledged the Christian faith, the names of St. Peter and St. Paul were
+in full possession of the city, so far as it was Christian. They were its
+patron-saints. Every Christian memory rested on the tradition of St.
+Peter's pontifical acts, his chair, his baptismal font, his dwelling-place,
+his martyrdom. The impossibility of such a series of facts taking
+possession of a heathen city during the period antecedent to Constantine's
+victory over Maxentius, save as arising from St. Peter's personal action at
+Rome, is apparent.
+
+In the second half of this period, from Constantine to St. Gregory, the
+civil pre-eminence of Rome is perpetually declining. The consecration of
+New Rome as the capital of the empire, in 330, by itself alone strikes at
+it a fatal blow. Presently the very man who had reunited the empire divided
+it among his sons, and after their death the division became permanent.
+Valentinian I., in 364, whether he would or not, was obliged to make two
+empires. From the death of Theodosius, in 395, the condition of the western
+empire is one long agony. The power of Constantinople continually
+increases. At the death of Honorius, in 423, the eastern emperor becomes
+the over-lord of the western. During fifty years Rome lived only by the arm
+of two semi-barbarian generals, Stilicho and Aetius. Both were assassinated
+for the service; and in the boy Romulus Augustulus a western emperor ceased
+to be, and the senate declared that one emperor alone was needed. After
+fifty years of Arian occupation, the Gothic war ruined the city of Rome. In
+Gregory's time it had ceased to be even the capital of a province. Its lord
+dwelt at Constantinople; Rome was subject to his exarch at Ravenna.
+
+Yet from Constantine and the Nicene Council the advance of Rome's Primacy
+is perpetual. In Leo I. it is universally acknowledged. At the fall of the
+western empire Acacius attempts his schism. He is supported while living by
+the emperor Zeno, and his memory after his death by the succeeding emperor
+Anastasius, who reigned for twenty-seven years, longer than any emperor
+since Augustus had reigned over the whole empire. All the acts of these two
+princes show that they would have liked to attach the Primacy to their
+bishop at Constantinople. Anastasius twice enjoyed the luxury of deposing
+him through the resident council. But Anastasius died, and the result of
+the Acacian schism was a stronger confession of the Roman Primacy made to
+Pope Hormisdas, the subject of the Arian Theodorick, by the whole Greek
+episcopate, than had ever been given before. The sixth century and the
+reign of Justinian completed the destruction of the civil state of Rome;
+and the Primacy of its bishop, St. Gregory, was more than ever
+acknowledged.
+
+Not a shadow of usurpation or of claim to undue power rested upon that
+unquestioned Primacy which St. Gregory exercised. While he thought the end
+of the world was at hand, while he watched Rome perishing street by street,
+he planted unconsciously a western Christendom in what he supposed all the
+time to be a perishing world. Civil Rome was not even a provincial capital;
+spiritual Rome was the acknowledged head of the world-wide Church.
+
+I know not where to find so remarkable a contrast and connection of events
+as here. Temporal losses, secular ambitions, episcopal usurpations, violent
+party spirit, schism and heresy in the great eastern patriarchates, and
+amid it all the descent of the Teutons on the fairest lands of the western
+empire, the establishment of new sovereignties in Spain, Gaul, and Italy,
+under barbarians who at the time of their descent were Arian heretics, and
+afterwards became Catholic, with the result that Gregory has to keep watch
+within the walls of Rome for a whole generation against the Lombard, still
+in unmitigated savagery and unabated heresy, and that the world-wide Church
+acknowledges him for her ruler without a dissenting voice. The "Servant of
+the servants of God" chides and corrects the would-be "ecumenical
+patriarch," who has risen since Constantine from the suffragan of a
+Thracian city to be bishop of Nova Roma and right hand of the emperor; who
+has deposed Alexandria from the second place and Antioch from the third,
+but cannot take the first place from the See of Peter. The perpetual
+ambition of the bishops of Nova Roma, the perpetual fostering of that
+ambition for his own purpose by the emperor, only illustrates more vividly
+the inaccessible dignity which both would fain have transferred to the city
+of Constantine, but were obliged to leave with the city of Peter. As the
+forum of Trajan sinks down stone by stone, the kings of the West are
+preparing to flock in pilgrimage to the shrine of Peter. This was the
+answer which the captives in the forum made to the deliverer of their race.
+
+There is nothing like this elsewhere in history.
+
+Constantine, Valens, Theodosius, Justinian, and, no less, Alaric and
+Ataulph, Attila and Genseric, Theodorick and Clovis, Arius, Nestorius,
+Eutyches, as well as St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St.
+Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Cyril, and, again, Dioscorus, Acacius, and a
+multitude of the most opposing minds and beliefs which these represent,
+contribute, in their time and degree, for the most part unconsciously, and
+many against their settled purpose, to acknowledge this Primacy as the Rock
+of the Church, the source of spiritual jurisdiction, the centre of a divine
+unity in a warring world. In St. Gregory we see the power which has had
+antecedents so strange and concomitants so repulsive deposited in the hands
+of a feeble old man who is constantly mourning over the cares in which that
+universal government involves him, while the world for evermore shall
+regard him as the type and standard of the true spiritual ruler, who calls
+himself, not Ecumenical Bishop, but Servant of the servants of God. It is a
+title which his successors will take from his hand and keep for ever as the
+badge of the Primacy which it illustrates, while it serves as the seal of
+its acts of power. He calls himself servant just when he is supreme.
+
+In St. Gregory the Great, the whole ancient world, the Church's first
+discipline and original government, run to their ultimate issue. In him the
+patriarchal system, as it met the shock of absolute power in the civil
+sovereign, and the subversion of the western empire by barbarous
+incursions, accompanied by the establishment of new sovereignties and the
+foundation of a new Rome, the rival and then the tyrant of the old Rome,
+receives its consummation. The medieval world has not yet begun. The
+spurious Mahometan theocracy is waiting to arise. In the midst of a world
+in confusion, of a dethroned city falling into ruins, the successor of St.
+Peter sits on an undisputed spiritual throne upon which a new world will be
+based in the West, against which the Khalifs of a false religion will exert
+all their rage in the East and South, and strengthen the rule which they
+parody. A new power, which utterly denies the Christian faith, which
+destroys hundreds of its episcopal sees and severs whole countries from its
+sway, will dash with all its violence against the Rock of Peter, and
+finally will have the effect of making the bishop who is there enthroned
+more than ever the symbol, the seat, and the champion of the Kingdom of the
+Cross.
+
+NOTES:
+
+[173] See Gregorovius, ii. 3, 4.
+
+[174] Gregorovius, ii. 6.
+
+[175] _Ibid._, ii. 5, literal.
+
+[176] Nirschl, iii. 534.
+
+[177] Third letter of Pelagius II.; Mansi ix., p. 889: Nefandissima gens.
+
+[178] Attested by St. Gregory of Tours, who heard it from a deacon of his
+church then at Rome.
+
+[179] _Ep._ i. 25, p. 514.
+
+[180] _Homily_ xviii. _on Ezechiel_, tom. i. 1374.
+
+[181] Nahum ii, 11.
+
+[182] Micheas i. 16.
+
+[183] End of the _Homilies on Ezechiel_, tom. i. 1430.
+
+[184] Quoted by Reumont, ii. 90.
+
+[185] _Ep._ v. 42, p. 769.
+
+[186] Reumont and Gregorovius.
+
+[187] _Ep._ v. 21, p. 751.
+
+[188] _Ep._ v. 20, tom. ii. 747.
+
+[189] _Ep._ vii. 40, p. 887.
+
+[190] I have drawn attention to this fact, and the idea which it represents
+as attested by Popes earlier than St. Gregory, in vol. v., pp. 53-60, of
+the _Formation of Christendom_, "The Throne," &c.
+
+[191] Rump, ix. 501-2; see his words quoted above, p. 107.
+
+[192] _Ep._ vii. 34, p. 882.
+
+[193] Rump, ix. 502.
+
+[194] Providentissime piissimus Dominus ad compescendos bellicos motus
+pacem quærit ecclesiæ _atque ad hujus compagem sacerdotum dignatur corda
+reducere_.-_Ep._ v. 20, p. 747.
+
+[195] De vi et ratione Primatus Romani Pontificis--c. iii., quoting the
+letter of St. Gregory to Eulogius, viii. 30.
+
+[196] _Ep._ ix. 59, p. 976.
+
+[197] _Ep._ ii. 52, p. 618.
+
+[198] _Ep._ xi. 37, p. 1120.
+
+[199] _Ep._ vi. 60, p. 836.
+
+[200] _Ep._ iv. 38, p. 718.
+
+[201] _Ep._ v. 54, p. 784.
+
+[202] _Ep._ vi. 59, p. 835.
+
+[203] _Dialog._, iii. 31, p. 345, A.D. 594.
+
+[204] _Ep._ i. 43, p. 531.
+
+[205] _Ep._ ix. 121, pp. 1026-8, shortened.
+
+[206] _Dialog._, iii. 31, p. 348.
+
+[207] _Ep._ ix. 122, p. 1028.
+
+[208] Paralipom. i. 11, 18.
+
+[209] _Ep._ ix. 61, p. 977.
+
+[210] Gibbon, ch. xxxviii.: a sneer or two have been omitted.
+
+[211] Gibbon, ch. xxxix.
+
+[212] Ch. xxxviii.
+
+[213] See above, p. 141.
+
+[214] See Kurth, ii. 25-6.
+
+[215] See in the _Kirchen-lexicon_ of Card. Hergenröther the article on
+Gregory I., vol. v., p. 1079.
+
+[216] See Hefele, _Conciliengeschichte_, iii., p. 56; St. Gregory, ii., p.
+1294; Mansi, x., p. 486.
+
+[217] S. Siricius, _Ep._
+
+[218] P. 308.
+
+[219] Philippians iv. 3.
+
+[220] See St. Clement's epistle, sec. 59. "Receive our counsel and you
+shall not repent of it. For, as God liveth, and as the Lord Jesus Christ
+liveth, and the Holy Spirit, and the faith and the hope of the elect, he
+who performs in humility, with assiduous goodness, and without swerving,
+_the commands and injunctions of God_, he shall be enrolled and esteemed in
+the number of those saved through Jesus Christ, through whom be glory to
+Him for ever and ever. Amen. But if any disobey _what has been ordered by
+Him through us_, let them know that they will involve themselves in a fall,
+and no slight danger, but we shall be innocent of this sin."
+
+[221] Hurter's _Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten_, i. 85-7.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+  _Acacius_, bishop of Constantinople, 471-489, 65;
+    his conduct to the year 482, 66;
+    induces Zeno to publish a formulary of doctrine, 70;
+    deposed by Pope Felix, 75;
+    rejects the Pope's sentence, 83;
+    attempts superiority over the eastern patriarchates, 84-86;
+    position taken up by him against the Pope, 84-91;
+    dies after five years of excommunication in 489, defying the
+      Pope, 83;
+    his name erased from the diptychs, 168;
+    summary of his conduct and aims, 174-6
+
+  _Agapetus_, Pope, his accession, 202;
+    confirms all his old rights to the Primate of Carthage, 203;
+    confirms Justinian's profession of faith, at the emperor's
+      request, 204;
+    goes to Constantinople, deposes Anthimus and consecrates Mennas
+      patriarch, 205
+
+  _Agnostics_, generated by schismatics, 5
+
+  _Alexandria and Antioch_, fearful state of their
+      patriarchates, 184;
+    the vast difference between their patriarchs and the Primacy, 185
+
+  _Anastasius II._, Pope, 496-8, 120;
+    his letter to the emperor asserts that as the imperial secular
+      dignity is pre-eminent in the whole world, so the Principate
+      of St. Peter's See in the whole Church, 120;
+    both are divine delegations, 121;
+    writes to Clovis upon his conversion, 122;
+    anticipates the great results to follow from it, 123
+
+  _Anastasius_, eastern emperor in 491, made emperor when a
+      _Silentiarius_ in the court, 518, 83;
+    summary of his reign in the "libellus synodicus," 100-1;
+    four Popes--Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus, and Hormisdas--have
+      to deal with him, 102;
+    tries to prevent the election of Pope Symmachus, 129;
+    he is obliged to allow the Roman See not to be judged, 143;
+    he deposes Euphemius, and puts Macedonius in his stead at
+      Constantinople, 143;
+    exalts Timotheus to the see of Constantinople, 148;
+    fills the eastern patriarchal sees with heretics, 149;
+    being pressed by Vitalian, betakes himself to Pope Hormisdas, 150;
+    receives his conditions, except those concerning Acacius, 159;
+    his treachery and cruelty, 160;
+    his sudden death, 162
+
+  _Anatolius_, bishop of Constantinople, crowns the emperor Leo I.,
+      dies in 458, 64;
+    his ambition seen and checked by St. Leo, 60;
+    is to Leo what John the Faster is to Gregory, 307
+
+  _Anicius Olybrius_, Roman emperor, 20
+
+  _Anthemius_, Roman emperor, 18
+
+  _Arianism_, propagated among the Goths by the emperor Valens, 49;
+    communicated by them to the Teuton tribes, 29;
+    prevalent throughout the West, 50;
+    fails in the Vandal, Visigothic, Burgundian, and Ostrogothic
+     kingdoms, 327-9
+
+  _Aspar_, Arian Goth, makes Leo I. emperor, and is slain by him, 62
+
+  _Ataulph_, marries Galla Placidia, his judgment upon the Goths and
+      Romans, 43
+
+  _Avitus, St._, bishop of Vienne, in Gaul, his character of
+      Acacius, 93;
+    his letter to Clovis on his conversion, 124;
+    urges his duty to propagate the faith in the peoples around him,
+      126;
+    writes to the Roman senate that the cause of the Bishop of Rome is
+      not one bishop but that of the Episcopate itself, 140
+
+  _Avitus_, Roman emperor, 13
+
+  _Augustine, St._, the great victory of the Church which he did
+      not foresee, 57
+
+
+  _Baronius_, quoted, 76, 79, 202, 207
+
+  _Basiliscus_, usurper, first of the theologising emperors, 46
+
+  _Belisarius_, reconquers Northern Africa, 199;
+    begins the Gothic war, and enters Rome, 205;
+    deposes Pope Silverius, 207;
+    defends Rome against Vitiges, 210;
+    captures Rome the third time, 207
+
+  _Benedict, St._, his monastery at Monte Cassino destroyed by the
+      Lombards, 290;
+    his Order has its chief seat for 140 years at St. John Lateran, 290;
+    rebukes and subdues Totila, 215
+
+  _Byzantium_, the over-lordship of its emperor acknowledged,
+      18, 23;
+    the succession to its throne, 61;
+    its constitution under Justinian contrasted with the medieval
+      constitution of England, 250
+
+
+  _Cassiodorus_, his letter as Prætorian prefect to Pope John II., 195
+
+  _Church, Catholic_, its two great victories, 5, 25;
+    attested and described by Gibbon, 325
+
+  _Civiltà Cattolica_, quoted, 103, 104, 128
+
+  _Constantinople_, its seven bishops who follow Anatolius, 180;
+    submission of its bishop, clergy, emperor, and nobles to Pope
+      Hormisdas, 187;
+    service of its cathedral under Justinian, 244;
+    growth of its bishop from St. Leo to St. Gregory, 342;
+    all the work of the imperial power, 344;
+    perpetual encroachment of its bishops, 348, 359
+
+  _Cyprian, St._, quoted, "De Unitate Ecclesiæ," 3
+
+
+  _Dante_, quoted, 184; on Justinian, 197
+
+  _Diptychs_, their meaning and force, 83
+
+
+  _Ennodius, St._, bishop of Pavia, asserts that God has reserved to
+      Himself all judgment upon the successors of St. Peter, 142;
+    his character of Acacius, 93
+
+  _Euphemius_, in 490 succeeds Fravita at Constantinople, 96;
+    opposes the emperor Anastasius, but signs his Henotikon, 97;
+    begs for reconciliation with Pope Felix, but will not give up
+      Acacius, 97;
+    recognises the authority of Pope Gelasius, 103-5;
+    deposed by the emperor through the Resident Council in 496, 114
+
+  _Eutychius_, patriarch of Constantinople, 239;
+    presides over the Fifth Council, 240;
+    consecrates Santa Sophia in 563, 244;
+    is deposed by Justinian in 565, 245
+
+
+  _Felix III._, Pope, 483-492, 71;
+    his letter to the emperor Zeno, stating his succession from
+      St. Peter, 72;
+    his letter to Acacius, 73;
+    holds a council in 484 and deposes Acacius, 75;
+    his sentence, recounting the misdeeds of Acacius, 76-8;
+    the synodal sentence signed by the Pope alone, which is justified by
+      the Roman synod, 79;
+    denounces Acacius to the emperor Zeno, 80;
+    his utter helplessness as to secular support when he thus
+      writes, 82, 88;
+    writes afresh to the emperor Zeno that the Apostle Peter speaks in
+      him as his Vicar, 94;
+    delays to grant communion to Fravita, successor of Acacius, 94;
+    dies after nine years of pontificate, 97.
+
+  _Filicaja_, quoted, 91
+
+  _Franks_, made great by the Catholic faith, 44, 348;
+    so found a kingdom, while Ostrogoths and Visigoths lose it, 348
+
+  _Fravita_, succeeds Acacius at Constantinople, and begs for the
+      Pope's recognition, 93;
+    dies after three months, 96
+
+
+  _Gelasius_, Pope, 492, 98;
+    condition of the Empire and Church at his accession, 98-9;
+    writes to Euphemius, who will cede everything except the person of
+      Acacius, 103-5;
+    the bishops of Eastern Illyricum profess their obedience to the
+      Apostolic See, 105-6;
+    to whom the Pope declares that the see of Constantinople has no
+      precedence over other bishops, 107;
+    that the Holy See, in virtue of its Principate, confirms every
+      council, 109;
+    his great letter to the emperor Anastasius defines the domain of
+      the Two Powers, 110;
+    the Primacy instituted by Christ, acknowledged by the Church, 111;
+    in the Roman synod of 496, declares the divine Primacy of the Roman
+      See, the second rank of Alexandria, and the third of Antioch, as
+      sees of Peter, 113;
+    the three Councils of Nicæa, Ephesus in 431, and Chalcedon, to be
+      general, 116;
+    omits the Council of Constantinople in 381, 116;
+    death of Gelasius, and character of the time of his sitting, 118;
+    calls Odoacer "barbarian and heretic," 68
+
+  _Gennadius_ bishop of Constantinople, 458-71, 64
+
+  _Gibbon_, acknowledges the two great victories of the Church, 325;
+    and the work of the Church in the Spanish monarchy, 322;
+    and the influence of bishops in establishing the French
+      monarchy, 329
+
+  _Glycerius_, Roman emperor, 21
+
+  _Gregorovius_, "Geschichte der Stadt Rom.," quoted, 9, 11, 13, 14,
+      23, 42, 208, 222, 245, 247, 272-3, 275
+
+  _Gregory, St., the Great_, his ancestry, 276;
+    state of Rome described by his predecessor Pope Pelagius, 277;
+    elected Pope, 590--tries for six months to escape, 278;
+    describes the work he was undertaking, 279;
+    and the misery of Rome in the words of Ezechiel, 281;
+    the Rome of St. Leo and the Rome of St. Gregory, 284;
+    his works done out of this Rome, 285-7;
+    the Lombard descent on Italy, 288;
+    alludes to a strange occurrence in St. Agatha dei Goti, 21;
+    refers to his great-grandfather, Pope Felix III., 81;
+    describes St. Benedict rebuking Totila, 215;
+    his right of reporting injustice to the emperor, 260;
+    his Primacy untouched by Rome's calamities, 292;
+    describes his Primacy to the empress Constantina, 295;
+    identifies to her his authority with that of St. Peter, 296;
+    also to the emperor Mauritius, 299;
+    and to the Lombard queen Theodelinda, 312;
+    and to the king of the Franks, 312;
+    and to Rechared, Gothic king of Spain, 319;
+    and in the appointment of the English hierarchy, 315;
+    his inference from the original patriarchal sees being all sees
+      of Peter, 301;
+    exposes the contrast between the assumed title of the patriarch
+      of Constantinople and his own Principate, 302-7;
+    his title, "Servant of the servants of God," expresses his
+      administration, 308;
+    as fourth Doctor of the western Church, 334;
+    as chief artificer in the Church's second victory, 335;
+    England indebted to him, both for hierarchy and civil constitution,
+      336;
+    his action as bishop, metropolitan, patriarch, and Pope, 337;
+    councils held by him at Rome, 338;
+    defends the liberties of monasteries against bishops, 339;
+    and as metropolitan succours distressed bishoprics, 340;
+    called the father of the monks, 341;
+    compared with St. Leo in the exercise of the Primacy, 342;
+    continues the struggle of the Popes from St. Sylvester to maintain
+      the Nicene constitution, 350
+
+  _Gregory of Tours, St._, notes the prospering of the Catholic,
+      and the decline of the Arian kingdoms, 123;
+    attests St. Gregory's flight from the papacy, 279
+
+  _Guizot_, his witness to the action of the hierarchy, 54
+
+
+  _Hefele_, "Conciliengeschichte," quoted, 93, 100, 114, 116, 128,
+      136, 137, 139, 142, 202, 232
+
+  _Hergenröther_, Card., quoted, "Kirchengeschichte," 26, 114, 185,
+      232, 244;
+    "Photius, sein Leben," 46, 47, 68, 75, 78, 83, 92, 93, 104, 128,
+      129, 143, 159, 165, 170, 187, 196, 203, 205, 207, 228, 230, 232,
+      245, 270, 271
+
+  _Hilarus_, Pope, 16
+
+  _Hormisdas_, deacon, elected Pope in 514, 149;
+    sends a legation to the emperor Anastasius, who had applied to his
+      fatherly affection, 150;
+    instruction given to his legates, 151-8;
+    orders them not to be introduced by the bishop of Constantinople,
+      157;
+    conditions of reunion proposed by him to the emperor, 158;
+    is deceived by the emperor, and denounces the treachery of Greek
+      diplomacy, 160;
+    is appealed to by the Syrian Archimandrites, 161;
+    resolves how to terminate the Acacian schism, 164;
+    his formulary of union accepted by the East, 167;
+    dies in 523, 193
+
+  _Hurter's_ "Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten," the papal idea
+      carried out through generations, 353-5
+
+
+  _Ignatius, St._, of Antioch, quoted, 12
+
+
+  _Jerome, St._, the result which he did not foresee, 57
+
+  _John_, patriarch of Constantinople, accepts the formulary of Pope
+      Hormisdas, 166
+
+  _John I._, Pope, martyred by Theodorick, 193
+
+  _John II._, Pope, praises Justinian for acknowledging the Primacy,
+      and confirms his confession of faith, 191
+
+  _John Talaia_, elected patriarch of Alexandria, 68;
+    offends Acacius, 69;
+    flies for refuge to Pope Simplicius, 71;
+    is supported by Pope Felix, 75;
+    made bishop of Nola by Pope Felix, 92
+
+  _John The Faster_, patriarch of Constantinople, assumes a
+      scandalous title, 299;
+    holds to Gregory the position of Anatolius to Leo, 307
+
+  _Justin I._, made emperor, 162;
+    writes to Pope Hormisdas, 163;
+    announces to him the condemnation of Acacius, 169;
+    his reign of nine years, 198
+
+  _Justinian_, his origin, 162;
+    entreats Pope Hormisdas to restore unity, 164;
+    acknowledges to Pope John II. his Primacy, 189;
+    enacts the _Pandects_, 192;
+    acknowledged the Pope's Primacy all his life, 195;
+    his character as legislator, 197;
+    recovers North Africa, 199;
+    begins the Gothic war, 206;
+    domineers over the eastern Church, 227-32;
+    acknowledges the dignity of Pope Vigilius, 232;
+    persecutes him, 232-40;
+    issues dogmatic decrees, 236, 242;
+    issues Pragmatic Sanction for Italy, 243;
+    deposes his patriarch Eutychius, 244;
+    is conception of Church and State, 248-56;
+    makes bishops and governors exercise mutual supervision, 257;
+    completeness and cordiality of his alliance with the Church, 261;
+    his spirit the opposite to that of modern governments, 262;
+    how far he maintains, how far goes beyond, the imperial idea, 264-9;
+    result spiritual and temporal of his reign, 270
+
+
+  _Kurth_, quoted "Les Origines de la Civilisation modern," 41;
+    on the policy of Justinian, 255;
+    the Church's power over the new nations, 333
+
+
+  _Leander, St._, archbishop of Seville, becomes an intimate friend of
+      St. Gregory during his nunciature at Constantinople, 277;
+    receives the pallium from St Gregory, 317, 321
+
+  _Leo I., St._, his universal Pastorship acknowledged by the Church
+      in General Council, 1-3;
+    and the succession of the Popes during 400 years, from St. Peter, 3;
+    rescues Rome from Attila, and from Genseric, 7-8;
+    his character, acts, and times, 15;
+    stands between the two great victories of the Church, and represents
+      both, 25-6;
+    the result which St. Leo did not foresee, 57;
+    his prescience of usurpation from the Byzantine bishop, 60;
+    his prescience of what the bishops of Constantinople aimed at, 307;
+    draws out the office and functions of the nuncio, 338
+
+  _Leo I._, emperor, 467, 62;
+    dies in 474, 63
+
+  _Leo II._, an infant, succeeds for a few months, 63
+
+  _Liberatus_, "Breviarium," quoted, 208, 209
+
+  _Libius Severus_, Roman emperor, 16
+
+  _Lombards_, their descent on Italy and uncivilised savagery, 287-91;
+    for ever strive to possess Rome, but never succeed, 347
+
+
+  _Macedonius_, bishop of Constantinople, feels his unlawful
+      appointment, 143;
+    persecuted during fifteen years, and finally deposed by the emperor
+      Anastasius, 144-8;
+    refuses to give up the Council of Chalcedon, but will not surrender
+      the memory of Acacius, and never enjoys communion with the Pope,
+      144-8
+
+  _Majorian_, Roman emperor, 14
+
+  _Martyrdom_, Papal, of 300 years, 10, 54
+
+  _Mausoleum of Hadrian_, stripped of its statues, 211;
+    an apparition of St. Michael changes its name, 278
+
+  _Mennas_, patriarch of Constantinople, 228-239
+
+
+  _Nepos_, Roman emperor, 21
+
+
+  _Odoacer_, extinguishes the western emperor, 22;
+    named Patricius of the Romans by the emperor Zeno, 35;
+    slain by Theodorick, 38;
+    his exaltation foretold by St. Severinus, 22
+
+  _Olybrius_, Roman emperor, 20
+
+  _Orosius_, an important anecdote preserved by him, 43
+
+
+  _Pallium_, sent by the Pope to the chief bishop in each province, 337;
+    the duties and powers which it carried with it, 337
+
+  _Papal election_, the freedom of, assailed by Odoacer, 194, 292;
+    by Theodorick and Justinian, 210, 292
+
+  _Pelagius II._, Pope, 578-590, describes the state of Rome, 277
+
+  _Petra Apostolica_, in the sixty Popes preceding Gregory, 352;
+    in the Popes from St. Gregory to Innocent III., 353;
+    in the Popes from Innocent III. to Leo XIII., 355;
+    sustained by opposing forces, 359
+
+  _Philips_, "Kirchenrecht," his judgment of Theodorick, 41;
+    on Byzantine succession, 61
+
+  _Primacy, the Roman_, its denial suicidal in all who believe one holy
+      Catholic Church, 3-4;
+    the creator of Christendom, 5, 6, 10, 57-8;
+    tested by the division of the empire, 51;
+    still more by the extinction of the western emperor, 53;
+    witness to it by Guizot, 55;
+    saves, in the seven successors of St. Leo, the eastern Church from
+      becoming Eutychean, 179-86;
+    developed by the sufferings of sixty years, 188;
+    acknowledged by the Council of Africa after the expulsion of the
+      Vandals, 201;
+    defined by the Vatican Council, as held by St. Gregory I., 307;
+    saves the western bishops from absorption in their several countries,
+      330;
+    preserver of civil liberties, 333;
+    resister of Byzantine despotism, 333;
+    its development from St. Leo I. to St. Gregory I., 342;
+    confirmed and illustrated by civil disasters, 346;
+    as Rome, the secular city, diminishes, the Primacy advances, 357
+
+
+  _Rechared_, king of the Spanish Visigoths, converted, 318;
+   his letter to St. Gregory informing him of his conversion, 321
+
+  _Reumont_, "Geschichte der Stadt Rom.," quoted, over-lordship of
+      Byzantium, 19;
+    Odoacer, Patricius at Rome, 35;
+    picture of Theodorick, 36;
+    of his government, 38;
+    sparing of St. Peter's and St. Paul's, 213;
+    Totila's deeds, 215;
+    Narses made Patricius of Rome, 245;
+    the Pragmatic Sanction, 246
+
+  _Riffel_, "Kirche und Staat," quoted, 190, 251, 253, 254, 255, 256, 267
+
+  _Röhrbacher_, the German edition of the history, quoted, 128, 142, 162,
+      192, 198, 199, 200, 202, 205, 245, 303, 305
+
+  _Rome_, its fall as a city coeval with the universal recognition
+      of the Papal Primacy, 6-10;
+    this fall and this recognition traced from Constantine to St.
+      Gregory, 356-8;
+    imperial, its death agony of twenty-one years, 23;
+    its sufferings in the Gothic war, 210-23;
+    the new city, from Narses, lives only by the Primacy, 294;
+    its extreme misery in the days of St. Gregory, 281, 284
+
+  _Romulus Augustulus_, Roman emperor, 21
+
+
+  _Saxons_, rudest of Teuton tribes, humanised by St. Gregory, 348
+
+  _Sidonius Apollinaris_, picture of the Roman senate, 17;
+    description of Rome in 467, 18;
+    makes Rome acknowledge the over-lordship of the East, 19;
+    describes the Roman baths, 19
+
+  _Silverius, St._, Pope, elected in 536, 205;
+    deposed by Belisarius, at the instigation of Theodora, 208;
+    martyred in the island of Palmaria, 209
+
+  _Simplicius_, Pope, his outlook from Rome, 45;
+    his letter to the emperor Zeno, 66
+
+  _Symmachus_, elected Pope in 498, 128;
+    his letter to the eastern emperor, 129;
+    compares the imperial and the papal power, 131;
+    they are the two heads of human society, 133;
+    Catholic princes acknowledge Popes on their accession, 134;
+    inferences to be deduced from this letter, 136;
+    the Synodus Palmaris refuses to judge the Pope, 136;
+    addressed by eastern bishops in their misery as a father by his
+      children, 149;
+    dies in 514, 149
+
+
+  _Theodora_, empress, her promises to Vigilius, 208;
+   her violent deposition of Pope Silverius, 209
+
+  _Theodorick_, the Ostrogoth, how nurtured, 36;
+    marches on Italy, 37;
+    which he conquers, and slays Odoacer, 38;
+    character of his reign, 39;
+    slays Pope John I., and his own ministers, Boethius and Symmachus,
+      41, 329;
+    judgment of him by St. Gregory, 41;
+    contrast with Clovis, 42;
+    his kingdom came to nothing, 43;
+    asks the title of king from the emperor Anastasius, 128;
+    determines the election of Pope Symmachus against Laurentius, 129;
+    induced to send a bishop as visitor of the Roman Church, 137;
+    said by the emperor to have the charge of governing the Romans
+      committed to him, 159;
+    his ability and family connections, 177;
+    final failure of his state, his family, and people, 328-9;
+    his attempt to maintain Arianism in the West foiled, 347
+
+  _Thierry_, "Derniers temps de l'Empire d'Occident," 20
+
+  _Tillemont_, quoted, 64
+
+  _Totila_, elected Gothic king, 214;
+    is warned by St. Benedict, 215;
+    takes Rome, 216;
+    takes Rome, its fourth capture, 218;
+    killed at Taginas, 219
+
+
+  _Valens_, emperor, poisons the western empire with Arianism, 50, 92
+
+  _Valentinian III._, his edict in 447 terms the Pope, Leo I.,
+      _principem episcopalis coronæ_, 56;
+    murdered by Maximus, 13
+
+  _Vere, A. de_, quoted, "Legends and Records," 1, 12;
+    "Chains of St. Peter," 272
+
+  _Vigilius_, made Pope by Belisarius, 209;
+    summoned to Constantinople by Justinian, 226;
+    his persecution there, 232-243;
+    his dignity as Pope left unimpaired, 293
+
+  _Vitiges_, besieges Rome, and ruins the aqueducts and Campagna, 210-13;
+    carried a captive to Constantinople, 214
+
+
+  _Wandering of the nations_, 26-35
+
+
+  _Zeno_, eastern emperor, 63;
+    second of the theologising emperors, 47;
+    his conduct and character, 63;
+    matched with the emperor Valens, 92;
+    his death, 91, 99
+
+
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+  The True Story of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by
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+     the title declares, a study not only of the life, but also of the
+     writings of Sir Thomas. Father Bridgett has considered him from
+     every point of view, and the result is, it seems to us, a more
+     complete and finished portrait of the man, mentally and
+     physically, than has been hitherto presented."--_Athenæum._
+
+  The Wisdom and Wit of Blessed Thomas More.               0  6 0
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+  BRIDGETT, REV. T. E. (C.SS.R.). EDITED BY.
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+    in 1565, now edited in modern spelling by the
+    Rev. T. E. Bridgett                                    0  6 0
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+
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+  FRANCIS DE SALES, ST.: THE WORKS OF.
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+  GILLOW, JOSEPH.
+
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+     dismal times."--_Tablet._
+
+  GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD.
+
+  Meditations for every Day in the Year, exclusive of
+    those for Festivals, Days of Retreat, &c. Adapted
+    from the original of Abbé de Brandt, by Sister Mary
+    Fidelis. A new and Improved Edition, in 3 Vols.
+    Sold only in sets. Price per set,                     £1  2 6
+
+     "The praise, though high, bestowed on these excellent meditations
+     by the Bishop of Salford is well deserved. The language, like
+     good spectacles, spreads treasures before our vision without
+     attracting attention to itself."--_Dublin Review._
+
+  HEDLEY, BISHOP.
+
+  Our Divine Saviour, and other Discourses.  Crown
+    8vo.                                                   0  6 0
+
+     "A distinct and noteworthy feature of these sermons is, we
+     certainly think, their freshness--freshness of thought,
+     treatment, and style; nowhere do we meet pulpit commonplace or
+     hackneyed phrase--everywhere, on the contrary, it is the heart of
+     the preacher pouring out to his flock his own deep convictions,
+     enforcing them from the 'Treasures, old and new,' of a cultivated
+     mind."--_Dublin Review._
+
+  HUMPHREY, REV. W. (S.J.)
+
+  Suarez on the Religious State: A Digest of the Doctrine
+    contained in his Treatise, "De Statû Religionis."
+    3 vols., pp. 1200. Cloth, roy. 8vo.                    1 10 0
+
+     "This laborious and skilfully executed work is a distinct
+     addition to English theological literature. Father Humphrey's
+     style is quiet, methodical, precise, and as clear as the subject
+     admits. Every one will be struck with the air of legal exposition
+     which pervades the book. He takes a grip of his author, under
+     which the text yields up every atom of its meaning and
+     force."--_Dublin Review._
+
+  The One Mediator; or, Sacrifice and Sacraments.
+    Crown 8vo, cloth                                       0  5 0
+
+     "An exceedingly accurate theological exposition of doctrines
+     which are the life of Christianity and which make up the soul of
+     the Christian religion.... A profound work, but so far from being
+     dark, obscure, and of metaphysical difficulty, the meaning of
+     each paragraph shines with a crystalline clearness."--_Tablet._
+
+  KING, FRANCIS.
+
+  The Church of my Baptism, and why I returned to
+    it. Crown 8vo, cloth                                   0  2 6
+
+     "A book of the higher controversial criticism. Its literary style
+     is good, its controversial manner excellent, and its writer's
+     emphasis does not escape in italics and notes of exclamation, but
+     is all reserved for lucid and cogent reasoning. Altogether a book
+     of an excellent spirit, written with freshness and
+     distinction."--_Weekly Register._
+
+  LEDOUX, REV. S. M.
+
+  History of the Seven Holy Founders of the Order of
+    the Servants of Mary. Crown 8vo, cloth                 0  4 6
+
+     "Throws a full light upon the Seven Saints recently canonized,
+     whom we see as they really were. All that was marvellous in their
+     call, their works, and their death is given with the charm of a
+     picturesque and speaking style."--_Messenger of the Sacred
+     Heart._
+
+  LEE, REV. F. G., D.D. (OF ALL SAINTS, LAMBETH.)
+
+  Edward the Sixth: Supreme Head, Second edition.
+    Crown 8vo                                             £0  6 0
+
+     "In vivid interest and in literary power, no less than in solid
+     historical value, Dr. Lee's present work comes fully up to the
+     standard of its predecessors; and to say that is to bestow high
+     praise. The book evinces Dr. Lee's customary diligence of
+     research in amassing facts, and his rare artistic power in
+     welding them into a harmonious and effective whole."--_John
+     Bull._
+
+  LIGUORI, ST. ALPHONSUS.
+
+  New and Improved Translation of the Complete Works
+    of St. Alphonsus, edited by the late Bishop Coffin:--
+
+  Vol. I. The Christian Virtues, and the Means for Obtaining
+    them. Cloth                                            0  3 0
+
+  Or separately:--
+
+  1. The Love of our Lord Jesus Christ                     0  1 0
+
+  2. Treatise on Prayer. (_In the ordinary editions a
+       great part of this work is omitted_)                0  1 0
+
+  3. A Christian's rule of Life                            0  1 0
+
+  Vol. II. The Mysteries of the Faith--The Incarnation;
+    containing Meditations and Devotions on the Birth
+    and Infancy of Jesus Christ, &c., suited for Advent
+    and Christmas                                          0  2 6
+
+  Vol. III. The Mysteries of the Faith--The Blessed
+    Sacrament                                              0  2 6
+
+  Vol. IV. Eternal Truths--Preparation for Death           0  2 6
+
+  Vol. V. The Redemption--Meditations on the Passion       0  2 6
+
+  Vol. VI. Glories of Mary. New edition                    0  3 6
+
+  LIVIUS, REV. T. (M.A., C.SS.R.)
+
+  St. Peter, Bishop of Rome; or, the Roman Episcopate
+    of the Prince of the Apostles, proved from the
+    Fathers, History and Chronology, and illustrated by
+    arguments from other sources. Dedicated to his
+    Eminence Cardinal Newman. Demy 8vo, cloth              0 12 0
+
+     "A book which deserves careful attention. In respect of literary
+     qualities, such as effective arrangement, and correct and lucid
+     diction, this essay, by an English Catholic scholar, is not
+     unworthy of Cardinal Newman, to whom it is dedicated."--_The
+     Sun._
+
+  Explanation of the Psalms and Canticles in the Divine
+    Office. By ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI. Translated
+    from the Italian by THOMAS LIVIUS, C.SS.R.
+    With a Preface by his Eminence Cardinal MANNING.
+    Crown 8vo, cloth                                       0  7 6
+
+     "To nuns and others who know little or no Latin, the book will be
+     of immense importance."--_Dublin Review._
+
+     "Father Livius has in our opinion even improved on the original,
+     so far as the arrangement of the book goes. New priests will find
+     it especially useful."--_Month._
+
+  Mary in the Epistles; or, The Implicit Teaching of
+    the Apostles concerning the Blessed Virgin, set
+    forth in devout comments on their writings.
+    Illustrated from Fathers and other Authors, and
+    prefaced by introductory Chapters. Crown 8vo.
+    Cloth                                                  0  5 0
+
+  MANNING, CARDINAL.
+
+  England and Christendom                                 £0 10 6
+
+  Four Great Evils of the Day. 5th edition. Wrapper        0  2 6
+    Cloth                                                  0  3 6
+
+  Fourfold Sovereignty of God. 3rd edition. Wrapper        0  2 6
+    Cloth                                                  0  3 6
+
+  Glories of the Sacred Heart. 5th edition                 0  6 0
+
+  Grounds of Faith. Cloth. 9th edition.  Wrapper           0  1 0
+    Cloth                                                  0  1 6
+
+  Independence of the Holy See. 2nd edition                0  5 0
+
+  Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost. 5th edition          0  8 6
+
+  Miscellanies. 3 vols.                         the set    0 18 0
+
+  National Education. Wrapper                              0  2 0
+    Cloth                                                  0  2 6
+
+  Petri Privilegium                                        0 10 6
+
+  Religio Viatoris. 4th edition, cloth                     0  2 0
+    Wrapper                                                0  1 0
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+  Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects. Vols. I., II.,
+  and III.                                         each    0  6 0
+
+  Sin and its Consequences. 7th edition                    0  6 0
+
+  Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost. 4th edition          0  8 6
+
+  Temporal Power of the Pope. 3rd edition                  0  5 0
+
+  True Story of the Vatican Council. 2nd edition           0  5 0
+
+  The Eternal Priesthood. 9th edition                      0  2 6
+
+  The Office of the Church in the Higher Catholic
+    Education. A Pastoral Letter                           0  0 6
+
+  Workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England.
+    Reprint of a letter addressed to Dr. Pusey in 1864
+      Wrapper                                              0  1 0
+      Cloth                                                0  1 6
+
+  Lost Sheep Found. A Sermon                               0  0 6
+
+  On Education                                             0  0 3
+
+  Rights and Dignity of Labour                             0  0 1
+
+  THE WESTMINSTER SERIES
+
+    In handy pocket size.
+
+  The Blessed Sacrament, the Centre of Immutable
+    Truth, Wrapper                                         0  0 6
+
+  Confidence in God. Wrapper                               0  1 0
+
+  Or the two bound together. Cloth                         0  2 0
+
+  Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ according
+    to St. John. Cloth                                     0  1 0
+
+  Holy Ghost the Sanctifier. Cloth                         0  2 0
+
+  Love of Jesus to Penitents. Wrapper                      0  1 0
+    Cloth                                                  0  1 6
+
+  Office of the Holy Ghost under the Gospel. Cloth         0  1 0
+
+  MANNING, CARDINAL, EDITED BY.
+
+  Life of the Curé of Ars.  Popular edition                0  2 6
+
+  MEDAILLE, REV. P.
+
+  Meditations on the Gospels for Every Day in the
+    Year. Translated into English from the new Edition,
+    enlarged by the Besançon Missionaries, under
+    the direction of the Rev. W. H. Eyre, S.J. Cloth      £0  6 0
+    (This work has already been translated into Latin,
+    Italian, Spanish, German, and Dutch.)
+
+     "We have carefully examined these Meditations, and are fain to
+     confess that we admire them very much. They are short, succinct,
+     pithy, always to the point, and wonderfully
+     suggestive."--_Tablet._
+
+  MIVART, PROF. ST. GEORGE (M.D., F.R.S.)
+
+  Nature and Thought. Second edition                       0  4 0
+
+     "The complete command of the subject, the wide grasp, the
+     subtlety, the readiness of illustration, the grace of style,
+     contrive to render this one of the most admirable books of its
+     class."--_British Quarterly Review._
+
+  A Philosophical Catechism,  Fifth edition                0  1 0
+
+     "It should become the _vade mecum_ of Catholic
+     students."--_Tablet._
+
+  MONTGOMERY, HON. MRS.
+
+  _Approved by the Most Rev. G. Porter, Achbp. of Bombay._
+
+  The Eternal Years. With an Introduction by the
+    Most Rev. G. Porter, Achbp. of Bombay, Cloth           0  3 6
+
+  The Divine Ideal. Cloth                                  0  3 6
+
+     "A work of original thought carefully developed and expressed in
+     lucid and richly imaged style."--_Tablet._
+
+     "The writing of a pious, thoughtful, earnest woman."--_Church
+     Review._
+
+     "Full of truth, and sound reason, and confidence."--_American
+     Catholic Book News._
+
+  MORRIS, REV. JOHN (S.J.)
+
+  Letter Books of Sir Amias Poulet, keeper of Mary
+    Queen of Scots.  Demy 8vo                              0 10 6
+
+  Two Missionaries under Elizabeth                         0 14 0
+
+  The Catholics under Elizabeth                            0 14 0
+
+  The Life of Father John Gerard, S.J. Third edition,
+    rewritten and enlarged                                 0 14 0
+
+  The Life and Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket. Second
+    and enlarged edition. In one volume, large post 8vo,
+    cloth, pp. xxxvi., 632,                                0 12 6
+    or bound in two parts, cloth                           0 13 0
+
+  MORRIS, REV. W. B. (OF THE ORATORY.)
+
+  The Life of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland. Fourth
+    edition. Crown 8vo, cloth                              0  5 0
+
+     "The secret of Father Morris's success is, that he has got the
+     proper key to the extraordinary, the mysterious life and
+     character of St. Patrick. He has taken the Saint's own authentic
+     writings as the foundation whereon to build."--_Irish
+     Ecclesiastical Record._
+
+     "Promises to become the standard biography of Ireland's Apostle.
+     For clear statement of facts, and calm judicious discussion of
+     controverted points, it surpasses any work we know of in the
+     literature of the subject."--_American Catholic Quarterly._
+
+  Ireland and St. Patrick.  A study of the Saint's
+    character and of the results of his apostolate.
+    Crown 8vo. Cloth                                       0  5 0
+
+  NEWMAN, CARDINAL.
+
+  Church of the Fathers                                   £0  4 0
+
+     Prices of other works by Cardinal Newman on application.
+
+  PAGANI, VERY REV. JOHN BAPTIST,
+
+  The Science of the Saints in Practice. By John Baptist
+    Pagani, Second General of the Institute of
+    Charity.  Complete in three volumes. Vol. 1,
+    January to April. Vol. 2, May to August. Vol. 3,
+    September to December                          each    0  5 0
+
+     "'The Science of the Saints' is a practical treatise on the
+     principal Christian virtues, abundantly illustrated with
+     interesting examples from Holy Scripture as well as from the
+     Lives of the Saints. Written chiefly for devout souls such as are
+     trying to live an interior and supernatural life by following in
+     the footsteps of our Lord and His saints, this work is eminently
+     adapted for the use of ecclesiastics and of religious
+     communities."--_Irish Ecclesiastical Record._
+
+  PAYNE, JOHN ORLEBAR, (M.A.)
+
+  Records of the English Catholics of 1715. Demy 8vo.
+    Half-bound, gilt top                                   0 15 0
+
+     "A book of the kind Mr. Payne has given us would have astonished
+     Bishop Milner or Dr. Lingard. They would have treasured it, for
+     both of them knew the value of minute fragments of historical
+     information. The Editor has derived nearly the whole of the
+     information which he has given, from unprinted sources, and we
+     must congratulate him on having found a few incidents here and
+     there which may bring the old times back before us in a most
+     touching manner."--_Tablet._
+
+  English Catholic Non-Jurors of 1715. Being a Summary
+    of the Register of their Estates, with Genealogical
+    and other Notes, and an Appendix of
+    Unpublished Documents in the Public Record
+    Office. In one Volume. Demy 8vo.                       1  1 0
+
+     "Most carefully and creditably brought out.... From first to
+     last, full of social interest and biographical details, for which
+     we may search in vain elsewhere."--_Antiquarian Magazine._
+
+  Old English Catholic Missions. Demy 8vo, half-bound.     0  7 6
+
+     "A book to hunt about in for curious odds and ends."--_Saturday
+     Review._
+
+     "These registers tell us in their too brief records, teeming with
+     interest for all their scantiness, many a tale of patient
+     heroism."--_Tablet._
+
+  PORTER, ARCHBISHOP.
+
+  The Letters of the late Father George Porter, S.J.,
+    Archbishop of Bombay. Demy 8vo. Cloth                  0  7 6
+
+     "Brimful of good things.... In them the priest will find a
+     storehouse of hints on matters spiritual; from them the layman
+     will reap crisp and clear information on many ecclesiastical
+     points; the critic can listen to frank opinions of literature of
+     every shade; and the general reader can enjoy the choice bits of
+     description and morsels of humour scattered lavishly through the
+     book."--_Tablet._
+
+  QUARTERLY SERIES Edited by the Rev. John
+    Morris, S.J. 80 volumes published to date.
+
+    _Selection._
+
+  The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier. By the
+    Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J. 2 vols.                    £0 10 6
+
+  The History of the Sacred Passion. By Father Luis
+    de la Palma, of the Society of Jesus. Translated
+    from the Spanish.                                      0  5 0
+
+  The Life of Dona Louisa de Carvajal. By Lady
+    Georgiana Fullerton. Small edition                     0  3 6
+
+  The Life and Letters of St. Teresa. 3 vols. By Rev.
+    H. J. Coleridge, S.J.                          each    0  7 6
+
+  The Life of Mary Ward. By Mary Catherine Elizabeth
+    Chalmers, of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin.
+    Edited by the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J. 2 vols.       0 15 0
+
+  The Return of the King. Discourses on the Latter
+    Days. By the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J.                0  7 6
+
+  Pious Affections towards God and the Saints.
+    Meditations for every Day in the Year, and for
+    the Principal Festivals. From the Latin of the Ven.
+    Nicolas Lancicius, S.J.                                0  7 6
+
+  The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ in Meditations
+    for Every Day in the Year. By Fr. Nicolas
+    Avancino, S.J. Two vols.                               0 10 6
+
+  The Baptism of the King: Considerations on the Sacred
+    Passion. By the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J.             0  7 6
+
+  The Mother of the King. Mary during the Life of
+    Our Lord                                               0  7 6
+
+  The Hours of the Passion. Taken from the _Life of
+    Christ_ by Ludolph the Saxon                           0  7 6
+
+  The Mother of the Church. Mary during the first
+    Apostolic Age                                          0  6 0
+
+  The Life of St. Bridget of Sweden. By the late F. J.
+    M. A. Partridge                                        0  6 0
+
+  The Teachings and Counsels of St. Francis Xavier.
+    From his Letters                                       0  5 0
+
+  Garcia Moreno, President of Ecuador. 1821-1875.
+    From the French of the Rev. P. A. Berthe, C.SS.R.
+    By Lady Herbert                                        0  7 6
+
+  The Life of St. Alonso Rodriguez. By Francis
+    Goldie, of the Society of Jesus                        0  7 6
+
+  Letters of St. Augustine. Selected and arranged by
+    Mary H. Allies                                         0  6 6
+
+  A Martyr from the Quarter-Deck--Alexis Clerc, S.J.
+    By Lady Herbert                                        0  5 0
+
+  Acts of the English Martyrs, hitherto unpublished.
+    By the Rev. John H. Pollen, S.J., with a Preface
+    by the Rev. John Morris, S.J.                          0  7 6
+
+  Life of St. Francis di Geronimo, S.J. By A. M. Clarke.   0  7 6
+
+  Aquinas Ethicus; or the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas.
+    By the Rev. Joseph Rickaby, S.J. 2 vols.               0 12 0
+
+  VOLUMES ON THE LIFE OF OUR LORD.
+
+    _The Holy Infancy._
+
+  The Preparation of the Incarnation                      £0  7 6
+
+  The Nine Months. The Life of our Lord in the Womb        0  7 6
+
+  The Thirty Years. Our Lord's Infancy and Early Life      0  7 6
+
+    _The Public Life of Our Lord._
+
+  The Ministry of St. John Baptist                         0  6 6
+
+  The Preaching of the Beatitudes                          0  6 6
+
+  The Sermon on the Mount. Continued. 2 Parts, each        0  6 6
+
+  The Training of the Apostles. Parts I., II., III., IV.
+  each                                                     0  6 6
+
+  The Preaching of the Cross. Part I.                      0  6 6
+
+  The Preaching of the Cross. Parts II., III.   each       0  6 0
+
+  Passiontide. Parts I. II. and III., each                 0  6 6
+
+  Chapters on the Parables of Our Lord                     0  7 6
+
+    _Introductory Volumes._
+
+  The Life of our Life. Harmony of the Life of Our
+    Lord, with Introductory Chapters and Indices.
+    Second edition. Two vols.                              0 15 0
+
+  The Passage of our Lord to the Father. Conclusion
+    of The Life of our Life                                0  7 6
+
+  The Works and Words of our Saviour, gathered from
+    the Four Gospels                                       0  7 6
+
+  The Story of the Gospels. Harmonised for Meditation      0  7 6
+
+  ROSE, STEWART.
+
+  St. Ignatius Loyola and The Early Jesuits, with more
+    than 100 Illustrations by H. W. and H. C. Brewer
+    and L. Wain. The whole produced under the
+    immediate superintendence of the Rev. W. H. Eyre,
+    S.J. Super Royal 8vo. Handsomely bound in
+    Cloth, extra gilt. (net.)                              0 15 0
+
+     "This magnificent volume is one of which Catholics have justly
+     reason to be proud. Its historical as well as its literary value
+     is very great, and the illustrations from the pencils of Mr.
+     Louis Wain and Messrs. H. W. and H. C. Brewer are models of what
+     the illustrations of such a book should be. We hope that this
+     book will be found in every Catholic drawing-room, as a proof
+     that 'we Catholics' are in no way behind those around us in the
+     beauty of the illustrated books that issue from our hands, or in
+     the interest which is added to the subject by a skilful pen and
+     finished style."--_Month._
+
+  RYDER, REV. H. I. D. (OF THE ORATORY.)
+
+  Catholic Controversy: A Reply to Dr. Littledale's
+    "Plain Reasons." Seventh edition                       0  2 6
+
+     "Father Ryder of the Birmingham Oratory, has now furnished in a
+     small volume a masterly reply to this assailant from without. The
+     lighter charms of a brilliant and graceful style are added to the
+     solid merits of this handbook of contemporary
+     controversy."--_Irish Monthly._
+
+  SOULIER, REV. P.
+
+  Life of St. Philip Benizi, of the Order of the Servants
+    of Mary, Crown 8vo                                     0  8 0
+
+     "A clear and interesting account of the life and labours of this
+     eminent Servant of Mary."--_American Catholic Quarterly._
+
+     "Very scholar-like, devout and complete."--_Dublin Review._
+
+  STANTON, REV. R. (OF THE ORATORY.)
+
+  A Menology of England and Wales; or, Brief Memorials
+    of the British and English Saints, arranged
+    according to the Calendar. Together with the Martyrs
+    of the 16th and 17th centuries. Compiled by
+    order of the Cardinal Archbishop and the Bishops
+    of the Province of Westminster.  Demy 8vo. cloth      £0 14 0
+
+  THOMPSON, EDWARD HEALY, (M.A.)
+
+  The Life of Jean-Jacques Olier, Founder of the
+    Seminary of St. Sulpice. New and Enlarged Edition.
+    Post 8vo, cloth, pp. xxxvi. 628                        0 15 0
+
+     "It provides us with just what we most need, a model to look up
+     to and imitate; one whose circumstances and surroundings were
+     sufficiently like our own to admit of an easy and direct
+     application to our own personal duties and daily
+     occupations."--_Dublin Review._
+
+  The Life and Glories of St. Joseph, Husband of
+    Mary, Foster-Father of Jesus, and Patron of the
+    Universal Church. Grounded on the Dissertations of
+    Canon Antonio Vitalis, Father José Moreno, and other
+    writers. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth              0  6 0
+
+  ULLATHORNE ARCHBISHOP.
+
+  Autobiography of, _see_ Drane, A. T.
+
+  Endowments of Man, &c. Popular edition.                  0  7 0
+  Groundwork of the Christian Virtues: do.                 0  7 0
+  Christian Patience,      do. do.                         0  7 0
+  Ecclesiastical Discourses                                0  6 0
+  Memoir of Bishop Willson.                                0  2 6
+
+  VAUGHAN, ARCHBISHOP, (O.S.B.)
+
+  The Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquin.
+    Abridged and edited by Dom Jerome Vaughan,
+    O.S.B. Second Edition. (Vol. I., Benedictine
+    Library.) Crown 8vo. Attractively bound                0  6 6
+
+     "Popularly written, in the best sense of the word, skilfully
+     avoids all wearisome detail, whilst omitting nothing that is of
+     importance in the incidents of the Saint's existence, or for a
+     clear understanding of the nature and the purpose of those
+     sublime theological works on which so many Pontiffs, and notably
+     Leo XIII., have pronounced such remarkable and repented
+     commendations."--_Freeman's Journal._
+
+  WARD, WILFRID.
+
+  The Clothes of Religion. A reply to popular Positivism.  0  3 6
+
+     "Very witty and interesting."--_Spectator._
+
+     "Really models of what such essays should be."--_Ch. Quart.
+     Review._
+
+  WATERWORTH, REV. J.
+
+  The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and OEcumenical
+    Council of Trent, celebrated under the Sovereign
+    Pontiffs, Paul III., Julius III., and Pius IV., translated
+    by the Rev. J. WATERWORTH. To which are prefixed Essays
+    on the External and Internal History of the Council.
+    A new edition. Demy 8vo, cloth                         0 10 6
+
+  WISEMAN, CARDINAL.
+
+  Fabiola. A Tale of the Catacombs.     3s. 6d. and        0  4 0
+    Also a new and splendid edition printed on large
+    quarto paper, embellished with thirty-one full-page
+    illustrations, and a coloured portrait of St. Agnes.
+    Handsomely bound.                                      1  1 0
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+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI, by
+Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI</p>
+<p>       The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I</p>
+<p>Author: Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 28, 2009  [eBook #29268]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM, VOLUME VI***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by Paul Dring, Steven Giacomelli,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/c/">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from digital material generously made available by<br />
+    Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/toronto">http://www.archive.org/details/toronto</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
+      <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/theholysee06alliuoft">
+      http://www.archive.org/details/theholysee06alliuoft</a>
+	</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pg" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="front">
+<h1 class="h1sp">THE HOLY SEE</h1>
+
+<p class="pad2"><small>AND</small></p>
+
+<h2>THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS</h2>
+
+<p class="pad3"><i>FROM ST. LEO I. TO ST. GREGORY I</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><small>BY</small></p>
+
+<h3>THOMAS W. ALLIES, K.C.S.G.</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><small>AUTHOR OF THE "FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM"; "CHURCH AND STATE AS SEEN<br />
+IN THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM"; "THE THRONE OF THE FISHERMAN";<br />
+"A LIFE'S DECISION"; AND "PER CRUCEM AD LUCEM"</small></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><br /><br />
+LONDON: BURNS &amp; OATES, <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br />
+NEW YORK: CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO.<br />
+1888</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb">THE LETTERS OF THE POPES AS SOURCES OF HISTORY.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal Mai</span> has left recorded his judgment that, "in matter of fact, the
+whole administration of the Church is learnt in the letters of the
+Popes".<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>I draw from this judgment the inference that of all sources for the truths
+of history none are so precious, instructive, and authoritative as these
+authentic letters contemporaneous with the persons to whom they are
+addressed. The first which has been preserved to us is that of Pope St.
+Clement, the contemporary of St. Peter and St. Paul. It is directed to the
+Church of Corinth for the purpose of extinguishing a schism which had there
+broken out. In issuing his decision the Pope appeals to the Three Divine
+Persons to bear witness that the things which he has written "are written
+by us through the Holy Spirit," and claims obedience to them from those to
+whom he sends them as words "spoken by God through
+us".<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>If the decisions of the succeeding Popes in the interval of nearly two
+hundred and fifty years between
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span>
+this letter of St. Clement, about the year
+95, and the great letter of St. Julius to the Eusebianising bishops at
+Antioch in 342, had been preserved entire, the constitution of the Church
+in that interval would have shone before us in clear light. In fact, we
+only possess a few fragments of some of these decisions, for there was a
+great destruction of such documents in the persecution which occupied the
+first decade of the fourth century. But from the time of Pope Siricius, in
+the reign of the great Theodosius, a continuous, though not a perfect,
+series of these letters stretches through the succeeding ages. There is no
+other such series of documents existing in the world. They throw light upon
+all matters and persons of which they treat. This is a light proceeding
+from one who lives in the midst of what he describes, who is at the centre
+of the greatest system of doctrine and discipline, and legislation grounded
+upon both, which the world has ever seen. One, also, who speaks not only
+with a great knowledge, but with an unequalled authority, which, in every
+case, is like that of no one else, but can even be <i>supreme</i>, when it is
+directed with such a purpose to the whole Church. Every Pope <i>can</i> speak,
+as St. Clement, the first of this series, speaks above, claiming obedience
+to his words as "words spoken by God through us".</p>
+
+<p>In a former volume I made large use of the letters of Popes from Siricius
+to St. Leo. I have continued that use for the very important period from
+St. Leo to St. Gregory. Especially in treating of the Acacian schism I have
+gone to the letters of the Popes who had to deal<span class='pagenum'>
+<a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> with it&mdash;Simplicius,
+Felix III., Gelasius, Anastasius II., Symmachus, and Hormisdas. I have done
+the same for the important reign of Justinian; most of all for the grand
+pontificate of St. Gregory, which crowns the whole patristic period and
+sums up its discipline.</p>
+
+<p>I am, therefore, indebted in this volume, first and chiefly, to the letters
+of the Popes and the letters addressed to them by emperors and bishops,
+stored up in Mansi's vast collection of Councils (1759, 31 volumes). I am
+also much indebted to Cardinal Hergenröther's work <i>Photius, sein Leben,
+und das griechische Schisma</i>, and to his <i>Handbuch der allgemeinen
+Kirchengeschichte</i>, as the number of quotations from him will show. Again,
+I may mention the two histories of the city of Rome, by Reumont and
+Gregorovius, as most valuable. I acknowledge many obligations to Riffel's
+<i>Geschichtliche Darstellung des Verhältnisses zwischen Kirche und Staat</i>,
+with regard to the legislation of Justinian. The edition of Justinian
+referred to by me is Heimbach's <i>Authenticum</i>, Leipsic, 1851. I have
+consulted Hefele's <i>Conciliengeschichte</i> where need was. I have found
+Kurth's <i>Origines de la Civilisation moderne</i> instructive. I have used the
+carefully emended and supplemented German edition of Röhrbacher's history,
+by various writers&mdash;Rump and others. St. Gregory is quoted from the
+Benedictine edition.</p>
+
+<p>As these works are indicated in the notes as they occur with the single
+name of the author, I have given here their full titles.</p>
+
+<p>The present volume is the sixth of the <i>Formation of Christendom</i>,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>though
+it has a special title indicating the particular part of that general
+subject which it treats. I have, therefore, added to the numbering of the
+chapters in the Table of Contents the number which they hold in the whole
+work.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>September 11, 1888.</i></span><br /></p>
+
+<p class="notes">NOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>
+<i>Nova Patrum bibliotheca</i>, p. vi.: In Pontificum reapse
+epistolis tota ecclesiæ administratio cognoscitur.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a>
+<a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>
+See p. <a href="#Page_351">351</a> below; also <i>Church and State</i>, pp. 198-200, for
+the full statement of this passage.</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb">TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<div class="centered table">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" class="width75" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER I. (XLIII.).</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations.</span></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td><td class="rn"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Introduction. Connection with Volume V. St. Leo's action,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Denial of the Primacy as acknowledged at Chalcedon
+suicidal on the part of those who believe in the Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Subject of this volume as compared with the fifth,</td>
+   <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The second wonder in human history,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The acknowledgment of the Primacy and the political
+powerlessness of the city of Rome coeval,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The three hundred years from Genseric to Astolphus,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Leo in Rome after Genseric,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Political condition of Rome. Avitus emperor, 455-6,</td>
+   <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Majorian emperor, 457-461,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Death of Pope Leo; changes seen by him in his life,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Hilarus Pope and Libius Severus emperor, 461-465,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The over-lordship of Byzantium admitted in the choice of
+the Greek Anthemius as emperor, 467,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Sidonius Apollinaris an eye-witness of Rome's splendour,
+subjection to Byzantium, and unchanged habits in 467,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Anthemius murdered and Rome plundered by Ricimer, 472,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Olybrius emperor, 472; Ricimer and Olybrius die of the plague,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Glycerius emperor, 473; Nepos, 474; Romulus Augustulus, 475,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The senate declares to the eastern emperor that an emperor
+of the West is needless,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The twenty-one years' death-agony of imperial Rome,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>State of the western provinces since the death of Theodosius I.,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The first and the second victory of the Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The effect produced by the wandering of the nations,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Visigoth and Ostrogoth migrations,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Gaul overrun by Teuton invaders,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Arianism propagated by the Goths among the other tribes,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Burgundian kingdom of Lyons. Spain overrun,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Vandals in North Africa and their persecution of Catholics,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Hunnish inroads,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>All the western provinces under Teuton governments,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Odoacer and Theodorick,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Odoacer succeeded by Theodorick after the capture of Ravenna,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The character of Theodorick's reign,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His fairness towards the Roman Church and Pontiff,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The contrast between Theodorick and Clovis,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The dictum of Ataulph on the Roman empire,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Ataulph and Theodorick represent the better judgments of the invaders,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The outlook of Pope Simplicius at Rome over the western provinces,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>And over the eastern empire,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Basiliscus and Zeno the first theologising emperors,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How the races descending on the empire had become Arian,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The point of time when the Church was in danger of losing
+all which she had gained,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How the division of the empire called out the Primacy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How the extinction of the western empire does so yet more,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How the Pope was the sole fixed point in a transitional world,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Guizot's testimony,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>What St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Leo did not foresee, which we behold,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER II. (XLIV.).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Cæsar fell down.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Great changes in the Roman State following the time of St. Leo,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Nature of the succession in the Cæsarean throne, and then
+in the Byzantine,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Personal changes in the Popes and eastern emperors,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Gennadius succeeds Anatolius, and Acacius succeeds Gennadius
+in the see of Constantinople,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Acacius resists the Encyclikon of Basiliscus,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Letter of Pope Simplicius to the emperor Zeno,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Advancement of Acacius by Zeno,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Acacius induces Zeno to publish a formulary of doctrine,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>John Talaia, elected patriarch of Alexandria, appeals for
+support to Pope Simplicius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Pope Felix sends an embassy to the emperor,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His letter to Zeno,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His letter to Acacius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His legates arrested, imprisoned, robbed, and seduced,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Pope Felix synodically deposes Acacius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Enumerates his misdeeds in the sentence,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Synodal decrees in Italy signed by the Pope alone,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Letter of Pope Felix to Zeno setting forth the condemnation of Acacius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The condition of the Pope when he thus wrote,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How Acacius received the Pope's condemnation,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The position which Acacius thereupon took up,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The greatness of the bishop of Constantinople identified
+with the greatness of his city,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The humiliations of Rome witnessed by Acacius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How the Pope, under these humiliations, spoke to Acacius
+and to the emperor,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Pope on the one side, Acacius on the other, represent
+an absolute contradiction,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Eudoxius and Valens matched by Acacius and Zeno,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Death of Acacius, and estimate of him by three contemporaries,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Fravita, succeeding Acacius, seeks the Pope's recognition,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Letters of the emperor and Fravita to the Pope, and his answers,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The position taken by Acacius not maintained by Zeno and Fravita,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Nor by Euphemius, who succeeds Fravita,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Euphemius suspects and resists the new emperor Anastasius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Condition of the Empire and the Church at the accession of
+Pope Gelasius in 492,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The "libellus synodicus" on the emperor Anastasius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>With whom the four Popes&mdash;Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus,
+and Hormisdas&mdash;have to deal,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Euphemius, writing to the Pope, acknowledges him to be
+successor of St. Peter,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Gelasius replies to Euphemius, insisting on the repudiation of Acacius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Absolute obedience of the Illyrian bishops professed to the Apostolic See,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Gelasius shows that the canons make the First See supreme judge of all,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Says that the bishop of Constantinople holds no rank among bishops,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Praises bishops who have resisted the wrongdoings of temporal rulers,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Holy See, in virtue of its Principate, confirms every Council,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Gelasius in 494 defines to the emperor the domain of the Two Powers,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>And the subordination of the temporal ruler in spiritual things,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The words of Gelasius have become the law of the Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The emperor Anastasius deposes Euphemius by the Resident Council,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Pope Gelasius, in a council of seventy bishops at Rome,
+sets forth the divine institution of the Primacy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>And the order of the three Patriarchal Sees,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>And three General Councils&mdash;the Nicene, Ephesine, and Chalcedonic,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Denies to the see of Constantinople any rank beyond that
+of an ordinary bishop, and omits the Council of 381,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Death of Pope Gelasius and character of his pontificate,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His own description of the time in which he lived,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER III. (XLV.).</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Peter stood up.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Pope Anastasius: his letter to the emperor Anastasius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He makes the Pope's position in the Church parallel with
+that of the emperor in the world,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He writes to Clovis on his conversion,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory of Tours notes the prosperity of Catholic kingdoms
+and the decline of Arian in the West,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Letter of St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to Clovis on his baptism,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He recognises the vast importance of the professing the
+Catholic faith by Clovis,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>And the duty of Clovis to propagate the faith in peoples around,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How the words of St. Avitus to Clovis were fulfilled in history,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The election of Pope Symmachus traversed by the emperor's agent,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His letter termed "Apologetica" to the eastern emperor,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The imperial and papal power compared,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The papal and the sovereign power the double permanent
+head of human society,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Emperors wont to acknowledge Popes on their accession,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Inferences to be deduced from this letter,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The answer of the emperor Anastasius is to stir up a fresh
+schism at Rome,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Synodus Palmaris, without judging the Pope, declares
+him free from all charge,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Letter of the bishop of Vienne to the Roman senate upon
+this Council,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The cause of the Bishop of Rome is not that of one bishop,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>
+but of the Episcopate itself,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Words of Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, embodied in the act
+of the Roman Council of 503,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Result of the attack of the emperor on the Pope is the recording
+in black and white that the First See is judged by no man,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The eastern Church under the emperor Anastasius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He deposes Macedonius as well as Euphemius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Both these bishops of Byzantium failed to resist his despotism,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Eastern bishops address Pope Symmachus to succour them,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Pope Hormisdas succeeds Symmachus in 514,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His instruction to the legates sent to Constantinople,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The bishop of Constantinople presents all bishops to the emperor,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The conditions for reunion made by Pope Hormisdas,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The treacherous conduct of the emperor,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Hormisdas describes Greek diplomacy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Syrian Archimandrites supplicate the Pope for help,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Sudden death of the emperor Anastasius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The emperor Justin's election and antecedents,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He notifies his accession to the Pope,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Pope holds a council and sends an embassy to Constantinople,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The bishop, clergy, and emperor accept the terms of the Pope,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The formulary of union signed by them,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The report of the legates to the Pope,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The emperor Justin's letter to the Pope,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Character of the period 455-519,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Political state of the East and West most perilous to the Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Popes under Odoacer and Theodorick,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How Acacius took advantage of the political situation,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The meaning and range of his attempt,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Pope from 476 onwards rests solely upon his Apostolate,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The seven Popes who succeed St. Leo,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The seven bishops who succeed Anatolius at Constantinople,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The eastern emperors in this time,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The state of the eastern patriarchates, Alexandria and Antioch,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The waning of secular Rome reveals the power of the Pontificate,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Popes alone preserved the East from the Eutychean heresy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The position of St. Leo maintained by the seven following Popes,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_186">186</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The submission to Hormisdas an act of the "undivided" Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The adverse circumstances which developed the Pope's Principate,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV. (XLVI.).</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">Justinian.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Sequel in Justinian of the submission to Pope Hormisdas,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His acknowledgment of the Primacy to Pope John II. in 533,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Reply of Pope John II. confirming the confession sent to
+him by Justinian,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The <i>Pandects</i> of Justinian issued in the same year,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Close interweaving of ecclesiastical and temporal interests,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Interference with the freedom of the papal election by the
+temporal ruler,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Letter of Cassiodorus as Prætorian prefect to Pope John II.,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Justinian all his reign acknowledged the Primacy of the Pope,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His character, purposes, and actions,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Succeeds his uncle the emperor Justin I.,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Great political changes coeval with his succession,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He reconquers Northern Africa by Belisarius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Catholic bishops of Africa meet again in General Council,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>They send an embassy to consult Pope John II.,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Pope Agapetus notes their reference to the Apostolic Principate,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Great renown of Justinian at the reconquest of Africa,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Pope Agapetus at Constantinople deposes its bishop,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Justinian begins the Gothic War. Belisarius enters Rome,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He is welcomed as restorer of the empire,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The empress Theodora deposes Pope Silverius by Belisarius,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>First siege of Rome by Vitiges,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The mausoleum of Hadrian stripped of its statues,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Vitiges, having lost half his army, raises the siege,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Belisarius, having reconquered Italy, is recalled for the war with Persia,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Totila, elected Gothic king, renews the war,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Visits St. Benedict at Monte Cassino, and is warned by him,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Second siege of Rome by Totila,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Rome taken by Totila in 546,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Third capture of Rome by Belisarius, in 547,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Fourth capture of Rome by Totila, in 549,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Totila defeated and killed by Narses at Taginas,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Fifth capture of Rome by Narses, in 552,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>End of the Gothic war, in 555,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_221">221</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Its effect on the civil condition of the Pope, Italy, and Rome,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The sufferings of Rome from assailants and defenders,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The new test of papal authority applied by these events,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Vigilius, having become legitimate Pope, is sent for by Justinian,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Church proceedings at Constantinople after the death of Pope Agapetus,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The patriarch Mennas, in conjunction with the emperor,
+consecrates at Constantinople a patriarch of Alexandria,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_227">228</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Origenistic struggle in the eastern empire,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_227">229</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Justinian theologising,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The whole East urged to consent to his edict on doctrine,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Pope Vigilius, summoned by Justinian, enters Constantinople,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>After long conferences with emperor and bishops he issues a Judgment,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Pope and emperor agree upon holding a General Council,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The emperor's despotism, and the bishops crouching before it,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Pope takes sanctuary, and is torn away from the altar,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Flies to the church at Chalcedon,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The bishops relent, and the Pope returns to Constantinople,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Eutychius, succeeding Mennas, proposes a council under
+presidency of the Pope,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The emperor causes it to meet under Eutychius without the Pope,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Proceedings of the Council. The Pope declines their invitation,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Close of the Council, without the Pope's presence,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Pope issues a Constitution apart from the Council,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Also a condemnation of the Three Chapters without mention
+of the Council,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Pope on his way back to Rome dies at Syracuse,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The patriarch Eutychius, refusing to sign a doctrinal decree
+of Justinian, is deposed by the Resident Council,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Justinian issues his Pragmatic Sanction for government of Italy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>State of things following in Italy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_246">246</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Justinian's conception of the relation between Church and State,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He gives to the decrees of Councils and to the canons the force of law,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Three leading principles in these enactments,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The State completely recognises the Church's whole constitution,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The episcopal idea thoroughly realised,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Concurrent action of the laws of Church and State herein,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Justinian further associated bishops with the civil government,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The part given to them in civil administration,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>A system of mutual supervision in bishops and governors,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The branches of civil matters specially put under bishops,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The completeness and the cordiality of the alliance with the Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Which differentiates Justinian's attitude from that of modern governments,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>In what Justinian was a true maintainer of the imperial idea,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The dark blot which lies upon Justinian,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>How he passed from the line of defence to that of interference and mastery,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The result, spiritual and temporal, of Justinian's reign,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="center" colspan="2">CHAPTER V. (XLVII.).</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td class="center" colspan="2"><span class="smcap">St. Gregory the Great.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The state of Rome as a city after the prefecture of Narses,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Contrast of Nova Roma,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Rome of the Church a new city,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory's antecedents as prefect, monk, nuncio, and
+deacon of the Roman Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Elected Pope against his will. His description of his work,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>And of the time's calamity,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The utter misery of Rome expressed in the words of Ezechiel,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Contrast between the language used of Rome by St. Leo and St. Gregory,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory closes his preaching in St. Peter's, overcome with sorrow,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The works of St. Gregory out of this Rome,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Lombard descent on Italy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Rome ransomed from the Lombards, and Monte Cassino destroyed,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Primacy untouched by the temporal calamities of Rome,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_292">292</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Its unique prerogative brought out by unequalled sufferings,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The new city of Rome lived only by the Primacy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_294">294</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory's account of the Primacy to the empress Constantina,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He identifies his own authority with that of St. Peter,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_296">296</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Writes to the emperor Mauritius that the union of the Two
+Powers would secure the empire against barbarians,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Claims to the emperor St. Peter's charge over the whole Church,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>John the Foster's assumed title on injury to the whole Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>What St. Gregory infers from the three patriarchal sees being all sees of Peter,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Contrast drawn by St. Gregory between the Pope's
+Principate and John the Faster's assumed title,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The fatal falsehood which this title presupposed,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The opposing truth in the Principate made <i>de Fide</i> by the Vatican Council,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_306">306</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Leo against Anatolius, and St. Gregory against John the
+Faster, occupy like positions,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_307">307</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory's title, "Servant of the servants of God," expresses
+the maxim of his government,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The fourteen books of St. Gregory's letters range over every
+subject in the whole Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_309">309</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The special relation between the sees of St. Peter and St. Mark,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Asserts his supremacy to the Lombard queen Theodelinda,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory appoints the bishop of Arles to be over the
+metropolitans of Gaul,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The venture of St. Gregory in attempting the conversion of England,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Augustine commended to queen Brunechild and consecrated
+by the bishop of Arles, and the English Church made by Gregory,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Work of St. Gregory in the Spanish Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_316">316</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>He relates the martyrdom of St. Hermenegild,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_316">316</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His letters to St. Leander of Seville,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_317">317</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Conversion of king Rechared,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_318">318</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory's letter of congratulation to him,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_318">318</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Letter of king Rechared informing the Pope of his conversion,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Gibbon's account of the government which was the result
+of Rechared's conversion,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_322">322</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The important principles thus consecrated by the Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Overthrow of the Arian kingdoms in Africa, Spain, Gaul and
+Italy, between Pope Felix III. and Pope Gregory I.,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span></td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_325">325</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The equal failure of Genseric, Euric, Gondebald, and Theodorick,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_327">327</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The part in this which the Catholic bishops had,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Spanish monarchy first of many formed by the Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Superiority of this government to the Byzantine absolutism,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_332">332</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory as fourth doctor of the western Church,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>St. Gregory as a chief artificer in the Church's second victory,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Summary of St. Gregory's action as metropolitan patriarch and Pope,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_337">337</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Councils held by him in Rome: protection of monks,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_338">338</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His management of the Patrimonium Petri,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_340">340</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>His success with schismatics and heretics,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Primacy from St. Leo to St. Gregory,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_342">342</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The continued rise of the bishop of Constantinople,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_343">343-5</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The political degradation and danger of Rome,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_345">345</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Long disaster reveals still more the purely spiritual foundation
+of the Primacy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Testimony given by the disappearance of the Arian governments
+and the conversion of Franks and Saxons,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_347">347</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The patriarchate of Constantinople imposed by civil law,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_348">348</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Nicene constitution in the East impaired by despotism
+and heresy,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_349">349</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The persistent defence of this constitution by the Popes,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_350">350</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The Petra Apostolica in the sixty Popes preceding Gregory,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>As discerned by Hurter in the time of Pope Innocent III.,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_353">353</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>As in the time from Pope Innocent III. to Leo XIII.,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The continuous Primacy from St. Peter to St. Gregory,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_355">355</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>As Rome diminishes the Primacy advances,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_356">356</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The times in which it was exercised by St. Gregory,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_358">358</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>The opposing forces which unite to sustain the Petra Apostolica,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Index</span>,</td>
+  <td class="rn"><a href="#INDEX">361</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb">THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.</h2>
+
+<h2 class="h2pt">CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" class="width65" cellspacing="2" summary="POEM">
+<tr><td>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Rome's ending seemed the ending of a world.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">If this our earth had in the vast sea sunk,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Save one black ridge whereon I sat alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Such wreck had seemed not greater. It was gone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That empire last, sole heir of all the empires,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Their arms, their arts, their letters, and their laws.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The fountains of the nether deep are burst,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The second deluge comes. And let it come!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The God who sits above the waterspouts<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Remains unshaken."</span>
+<span class="i0">&mdash;<span class="smcap">A. de Vere</span>,
+<i>Legends and Records</i>&mdash;"Death of St. Jerome".</span>
+</div></div>
+</td></tr></table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I ended</span> the last chapter by drawing out that series of events in the
+Church's internal constitution and of changes in the external world of
+action outside and independent of the Church which combined in one result
+the exhibition to all and the public acknowledgment by the Church of the
+Primacy given by our Lord to St. Peter, and continued to his successors in
+the See of Rome. I showed St. Leo as exercising this Primacy by annulling
+the acts of an Ecumenical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> Council, the second of Ephesus, legitimately
+called and attended by his own legates, because it had denied a tenet of
+what St. Leo declared in a letter sent to the bishops and accepted by them
+to be the Christian faith upon the Incarnation itself. I showed him
+supported by the Church in that annulment, by the eastern episcopate, which
+attended the Council of Chalcedon, and by the eastern emperor, Marcian.
+Again, I showed him confirming the doctrinal decrees of the Ecumenical
+Council of Chalcedon, which followed the Council annulled by him, while he
+reversed and disallowed certain canons which had been irregularly passed.
+This he did because they were injurious to that constitution of the Church
+which had come down from the Apostles to his own time. And this act of his,
+also, I showed to be accepted by the bishop of Constantinople, who was
+specially affected, and by the eastern emperor, and by the episcopate: and
+also that the confirmation of doctrine on the one hand, and the rejection
+of canons on the other, were equally accepted. I also showed this great
+Council in its Synodical Letter to the Pope acknowledging spontaneously
+that very position of the Pope which the Popes had always set forth as the
+ground of all the authority which they claimed. The Council of Chalcedon
+addressed St. Leo "as entrusted by the Saviour with the guardianship of the
+Vine". But the Vine in the universal language of the Fathers betokened the
+whole Church of God. And the Council refers the confirmation of its acts to
+the Pope in the same document in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> which it asserts that the guardianship of
+the Vine was given to him by the Saviour Himself. This expression, "by the
+Saviour Himself," means that it was not given to him by the decree of any
+Council representing the Church. It is a full acknowledgment that the
+promises made to Peter, and the Pastorship conferred upon him, descended to
+his successor in the See of Rome. It is a full acknowledgment; for how else
+was St. Leo entrusted by the Saviour with the guardianship of the Vine?
+Those who so addressed him were equally bishops with himself; they equally
+enjoyed the one indivisible episcopate, "of which a part is held by each
+without division of the whole".<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> But this one, beside and beyond that,
+was charged with the whole&mdash;the Vine itself. This one point is that in
+which St. Peter went beyond his brethren, by the special gift and
+appointment of the Saviour Himself. The words, then, of the Council contain
+a special acknowledgment that the line of Popes after a succession of four
+hundred years sat in the person of Leo on the seat of St. Peter, with St.
+Peter's one sovereign prerogative.</p>
+
+<p>It is requisite, I think, distinctly to point out that Christians, whoever
+they are, provided only that they admit, as confessing belief in any one of
+the three creeds, the Apostolic, the Nicene, or the Athanasian, they do
+admit, that there is one holy Catholic Church, commit a suicidal act in
+denying the Primacy as acknowledged by the Church at the Council of
+Chal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>cedon. For such a denial destroys the authority of the Church herself
+both in doctrine and discipline for all subsequent time. If the Church, in
+declaring St. Leo to be entrusted by our Lord with the guardianship of the
+Vine, erred; if she asserted a falsehood, or if she favoured an usurpation,
+how can she be trusted for any maintenance of doctrine, for any
+administration of sacraments, for any exercise of authority? This
+consideration does not touch those who believe in no Church at all. They
+are in the position of that individual whom the great Constantine
+recommended to take a ladder and mount to heaven by himself. But it touches
+all who profess to believe in an episcopate, in councils, in sacraments, in
+an organised Church, in authority deposited in that Church, and, finally,
+in history and in historical Christianity. To all such it may surely be
+said, as the simplest enunciation of reasoning, that they cannot profess
+belief in the Church which the Creed proclaims while they accept or reject
+its authority as they please. Or to localise a general expression: A man
+does not follow the doctrine of St. Augustine if he accepts his
+condemnation of Pelagius, but denies that unity of the Church in
+maintaining which St. Augustine spent his forty years of teaching. The
+action of all such persons in the eyes of the world without amounts to
+this, that by denying the Primacy they disprove the existence of the
+Church. Their negation goes to the profit of total unbelief. Asserters of
+the Church's division are pioneers of infidelity, for who can believe in
+what has fallen? or is the kingdom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> of our Lord Jesus Christ a kingdom
+divided against itself? They who maintain schism generate agnostics.</p>
+
+<p>But I was prevented on a former occasion by want of space from dwelling
+with due force upon some circumstances of St. Leo's life. These are such as
+to make his time an era. I was occupied during a whole volume with the
+attempt to set forth in some sort the action of St. Peter's See upon the
+Greek and Roman world from the day of Pentecost to the complete recognition
+of the Universal Pastorship of Peter as inherited by the Roman Pontiff in
+the person of St. Leo.</p>
+
+<p>I approach now a further development of this subject. I go forward to treat
+of the Papacy, deprived of all temporal support from the fall of the
+western empire, taking up the secular capital into a new spiritual Rome,
+and creating a Christendom out of the northern tribes who had subverted the
+Roman empire.</p>
+
+<p>There is, I think, no greater wonder in human history than the creation of
+a hierarchy out of the principle of headship and subordination contained in
+our Lord's charge to Peter. It has been pointed out that the constitution
+of the Nicene Council itself manifested this principle, and was the proof
+of its spontaneous action in the preceding centuries, while its overt
+recognition, as seated in the Roman Pontiff, is seen in the pontificate of
+St. Leo.</p>
+
+<p>There is a second wonder in human history, on which it is the purpose of
+this volume to dwell. The Roman empire, in which the Pax Romana had
+provided a mould of widespread civilisation for the Church's growth, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+at length broken up in the western half of it, by Teuton invaders occupying
+its provinces. These were all, at the time of their settlement, either
+pagan or Arian. There followed, in a certain lapse of time, the creation of
+a body of States whose centre of union and belief was the See of Peter.
+That is the creation of Christendom proper. The wonder seen is that the
+northern tribes, impinging on the empire, and settling on its various
+provinces like vultures, became the matter into which the Holy See, guiding
+and unifying the episcopate, maintaining the original principle of
+celibacy, and planting it in the institute of the religious life through
+various countries depopulated or barbarous, infused into the whole mass one
+spirit, so that Arians became Catholics, Teuton raiders issued into
+Christian kings, savage tribes thrown upon captive provincials coalesced
+into nations, while all were raised together into, not a restored empire of
+Augustus, but an empire holy as well as Roman, whose chief was the Church's
+defender (<i>advocatus ecclesiæ</i>), whose creator was the Roman Peter.</p>
+
+<p>It is not a little remarkable that this signal recognition by the Fourth
+General Council of the Roman Pontiff's authority coincided in time with the
+utter powerlessness to which Rome as a city was reduced. That city, on
+whose glory as queen of nations and civiliser of the earth her own bishop
+had dwelt with all the fondness of a Roman, when, year by year, on the
+least of St. Peter and St. Paul, he addressed the assembled episcopate of
+Italy, ran twice, in his own time, the most imminent danger of ceasing to
+exist.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> Italy was absolutely without an army to give her strongest cities a
+chance of resisting the desolation of Attila. Rome was without a force
+raised to save it from the pitiless robbery of Genseric. Without escort,
+and defended only by his spiritual character, Leo went forth to appeal
+before Attila for mercy to a heathen Mongol. There is no record of what
+passed at that interview. Only the result is known. The conqueror, who had
+swept with remorseless cruelty the whole country from the Euxine to the
+Adriatic Sea, who was now bent upon the seizure of Italy itself, and in his
+course had just destroyed Aquileia, was at Mantua marching upon Rome. His
+intention was proclaimed to crown all his acts of destruction with that of
+Rome. This was the dowry which he proposed to take for the hand of the last
+great emperor's granddaughter, proffered to him by the hapless Honoria
+herself. At the word of Leo the Scourge of God gave up his prey: he turned
+back from Italy, and relinquished Rome, and Leo returned to his seat. In
+the course of the next three years he confirmed, at the eastern emperor's
+repeated request, the doctrinal decrees of the great Council; but he
+humbled likewise the arrogance of Anatolius, and not all the loyalty of
+Marcian, not all the devotion of the empress and saint Pulcheria, could
+induce him to exalt the bishop of the eastern capital at the expense of the
+Petrine hierarchy. But during those same three years he saw, in Rome
+itself, Honoria's brother, the grandson of Theodosius, destroy his own
+throne, and thereupon the murderer of an emperor compel his widow to
+accept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> him in her husband's place, in the first days of her sorrow. He
+saw, further, that daughter of Theodosius and Eudoxia, when she learnt that
+the usurper of her husband's throne was likewise his murderer, call in the
+Vandal from Carthage to avenge her double dishonour. This was the Rome
+which awaited, trembling and undefended, the most profligate of armies, led
+by the most cruel of persecutors. Once more St. Leo, stripped of all human
+aid, went forth with his clergy on the road to the port by which Genseric
+was advancing, to plead before an Arian pirate for the preservation of the
+capital of the Catholic faith. He saved his people from massacre and his
+city from burning, but not the houses from plunder. For fourteen days Rome
+was subject to every spoliation which African avarice could inflict. Again,
+no record of that misery has been kept; but the hand of Genseric was
+heavier than that of Alaric, in proportion as the Vandal was cruel where
+the Ostrogoth was generous. Alaric would have fought for Rome as Stilicho
+fought, had he continued to be commanded by that Theodosius who made him a
+Roman general; but Genseric was the vilest in soul of all the Teuton
+invaders, and for fifty years, during the utter prostration of Roman power,
+he infested all the shores of the Mediterranean with the savagery
+afterwards shown by Saracen and Algerine.</p>
+
+<p>This second plundering of Rome was no isolated event. It was only the sign
+of that utter impotence into which Roman power in the West had fallen. The
+city of Rome was the trophy of Cæsarean government<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> during five hundred
+years&mdash;from Julius, the most royal, to Valentinian, the most abject of
+emperors. And now its temporal greatness was lost for ever. It ceased to be
+the imperial city, but by the same stroke became from the secular a
+spiritual capital. The Pope, freed from the western Cæsar,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> gave to the
+Cæsarean city its second and greater life: a life of another kind
+generating also an empire of another sort. The raid of Genseric in the year
+455 is the first of three hundred years of warfare carried on from the time
+of the Vandal through the time of the Lombard, under the neglect and
+oppression of the Byzantine, until, in the year 755, Astolphus, the last,
+and perhaps the worst, of an evil brood, laid waste the campagna, and
+besieged the city. St. Leo, in his double embassy to Attila and Genseric,
+was an unconscious prophet of the time to come, a visible picture of three
+hundred years as singular in their conflict and their issue as those other
+three hundred which had their close in the Nicene Council. During all those
+ages the Pope is never secure in his own city. He sees the trophy of
+Cæsarean empire slowly perish away. The capital of the world ceases to be
+even the capital of a province. The eastern emperor, who still called
+himself emperor of the Romans, omitted for many generations even to visit
+the city which he had subjected to an impotent but malignant official,
+termed an Exarch, who guarded himself by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> the marshes of Ravenna, but left
+Rome to the inroads of the Lombards. The last emperor who deigned to visit
+the old capital of his empire came to it only to tear from it the last
+relic of imperial magnificence. But then Jerusalem had fallen into the
+hands of the infidel, and Christian pilgrims, since they could no longer
+visit the sepulchre of Christ, flocked to the sepulchre of his Vicar the
+Fisherman. And thus Rome was become the place of pilgrimage for all the
+West. Saxon kings and queens laid down their crowns before St. Peter's
+threshold, invested themselves with the cowl, and died, healed and happy,
+under the shadow of the chief Apostle. When the three hundred years were
+ended, the arm of Pepin made the Pope a sovereign in his own newly-created
+Rome. During these three centuries, running from St. Leo meeting Genseric,
+the pilot of St. Peter's ship has been tossed without intermission on the
+waves of a heaving ocean, but he has saved his vessel and the freight which
+it bears&mdash;the Christian faith. And in doing this he has made the
+new-created city, which had become the place of pilgrimage, to be also the
+centre of a new world.</p>
+
+<p>As Leo came back from the gate leading to the harbour and re-entered his
+Lateran palace, undefended Rome was taken possession of by the Vandal. Leo
+for fourteen days was condemned to hear the cries of his people, and the
+tale of unnumbered insults and iniquities committed in the palaces and
+houses of Rome. When the stipulated days were over, the plunderer bore away
+the captive empress and her daughters from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> the palace of the Cæsars, which
+he had so completely sacked that even the copper vessels were carried off.
+Genseric also assaulted the yet untouched temple of Jupiter on the Capitol,
+and not only carried away the still remaining statues in his fleet which
+occupied the Tiber, but stripped off half the roof of the temple and its
+tiles of gilded bronze. He took away also the spoils of the temple at
+Jerusalem, which Vespasian had deposited in his temple of peace. Belisarius
+found them at Carthage eighty years later, and sent them as prizes to
+Constantinople.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>Many thousand Romans of every age and condition Genseric carried as slaves
+to Carthage, together with Eudocia and her daughters, the eldest of whom
+Genseric compelled to marry his son Hunnerich. After sixteen years of
+unwilling marriage Eudocia at last escaped, and through great perils
+reached Jerusalem, where she died and was buried beside her grandmother,
+that other Eudocia, the beautiful Athenais whom St. Pulcheria gave to her
+brother for bride, and whose romantic exaltation to the throne of the East
+ended in banishment at Jerusalem. But one of the great churches at Rome is
+connected with her memory: since the first Eudocia sent to the empress her
+daughter at Rome half of the chains which had bound St. Peter at his
+imprisonment by Agrippa. When Pope Leo held the relics, which had come from
+Jerusalem, to those other relics belonging to the Apostle's captivity at
+Rome on his martyrdom, they grew together and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> became one chain of
+thirty-eight links. Upon this the empress in the days of her happiness
+built the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula to receive so touching a memorial
+of the Apostle who escaped martyrdom at Jerusalem to find it at Rome. Upon
+his delivery by the angel "from all the expectation of the people of the
+Jews," he "went to another place". There, to use the words of his own
+personal friend and second successor at Antioch, he founded "the church
+presiding over charity in the place of the country of the Romans,"<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> and
+there he was to find his own resting-place. The church was built to guard
+the emblems of the two captivities. The heathen festival of Augustus, which
+used to be kept on the 1st August at the spot where the church was founded,
+became for all Christendom the feast of St. Peter's Chains.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the life of St. Leo by Anastasius, we read that after the Vandal ruin he
+supplied the parish churches of Rome with silver plate from the six silver
+vessels, weighing each a hundred pounds, which Constantine had given to the
+basilicas of the Lateran, of St. Peter, and of St. Paul, two to each. These
+churches were spared the plundering to which every other building<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> was
+subjected. But the buildings of Rome were not burnt, though even senatorian
+families were reduced to beggary, and the population was diminished through
+misery and flight, besides those who were carried off to slavery.</p>
+
+<p>At this point of time the grandeur of Trajan's city<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> began to pass into
+the silence and desolation which St. Gregory in after years mourned over in
+the words of Jeremias on ruined Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>Let us go back with Leo to his patriarchal palace, and realise if we can
+the condition of things in which he dwelt at home, as well as the condition
+throughout all the West of the Church which his courage had saved from
+heresy.</p>
+
+<p>The male line of Theodosius had ended with the murder of Valentinian in the
+Campus Martius, March 16, 455. Maximus seized his throne and his widow, and
+was murdered in the streets of Rome in June, 455, at the end of
+seventy-seven days. When Genseric had carried off his spoil, the throne of
+the western empire, no longer claimed by anyone of the imperial race,
+became a prey to ambitious generals. The first tenant of that throne was
+Avitus, a nobleman from Gaul, named by the influence of the Visigothic
+king, Theodorich of Toulouse. He assumed the purple at Arles, on the 10th
+July, 455. The Roman senate, which clung to its hereditary right to name
+the princes, accepted him, not being able to help itself, on the 1st
+January, 456; his son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, delivered the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+customary panegyric, and was rewarded with a bronze statue in the forum of
+Trajan, which we thus know to have escaped injury from the raid of
+Genseric. But at the bidding of Ricimer, who had become the most powerful
+general, the senate deposed Avitus; he fled to his country Auvergne, and
+was killed on the way in September, 456.</p>
+
+<p>All power now lay in the hands of Ricimer. He was by his father a Sueve; by
+his mother, grandson of Wallia, the Visigothic king at Toulouse. With him
+began that domination of foreign soldiery which in twenty years destroyed
+the western empire. Through his favour the senator Majorian was named
+emperor in the spring of 457. The senate, the people, the army, and the
+eastern emperor, Leo I., were united in hailing his election. He is
+described as recalling by his many virtues the best Roman emperors. In his
+letter to the senate, which he drew up after his election in Ravenna, men
+thought they heard the voice of Trajan. An emperor who proposed to rule
+according to the laws and tradition of the old time filled Rome with joy.
+All his edicts compelled the people to admire his wisdom and goodness. One
+of these most strictly forbade the employment of the materials from older
+buildings, an unhappy custom which had already begun, for, says the special
+historian of the city, the time had already come when Rome, destroying
+itself, was made use of as a great chalk-pit and marble quarry;<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> and for
+such it served the Romans themselves for more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> than a thousand years. They
+were the true barbarians who destroyed their city.</p>
+
+<p>But Majorian was unable to prevent the ruin either of city or of state. He
+had made great exertions to punish Genseric by reconquering Africa. They
+were not successful; Ricimer compelled him to resign on the 2nd of August,
+461, and five days afterwards he died by a death of which is only known
+that it was violent. A man, says Procopius, upright to his subjects,
+terrible to his enemies, who surpassed in every virtue all those who before
+him had reigned over the Romans.</p>
+
+<p>Three months after Majorian, died Pope St. Leo. First of his line to bear
+the name of Great, who twice saved his city, and once, by the express
+avowal of a successor, the Church herself, Leo carried his crown of thorns
+one-and-twenty years, and has left no plaint to posterity of the calamities
+witnessed by him in that long pontificate. Majorian was the fourth
+sovereign whom in six years and a half he had seen to perish by violence. A
+man with so keen an intellectual vision, so wise a measure of men and
+things, must have fathomed to its full extent the depth of moral corruption
+in the midst of which the Church he presided over fought for existence.
+This among his own people. But who likewise can have felt, as he did, the
+overmastering flood of northern tribes&mdash;<i>vis consili expers</i>&mdash;which had
+descended on the empire in his own lifetime. As a boy he must have known
+the great Theodosius ruling by force of mind that warlike but savage host
+of Teuton mercenaries. In his one life, Visigoth and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> Ostrogoth, Vandal and
+Herule, Frank and Aleman, Burgundian and Sueve, instead of serving Rome as
+soldiers in the hand of one greater than themselves, had become masters of
+a perishing world's mistress; and the successor of Peter was no longer safe
+in the Roman palace which the first of Christian emperors had bestowed upon
+the Church's chief bishop. Instead of Constantine and Theodosius, Leo had
+witnessed Arcadius and Honorius; instead of emperors the ablest men of
+their day, who could be twelve hours in the saddle at need, emperors who
+fed chickens or listened to the counsel of eunuchs in their palace. Even
+this was not enough. He had seen Stilicho and Aetius in turn support their
+feeble sovereigns, and in turn assassinated for that support; and the depth
+of all ignominy in a Valentinian closing the twelve hundred years of Rome
+with the crime of a dastard, followed by Genseric, who was again to be
+overtopped by Ricimer, while world and Church barely escape from Attila's
+uncouth savagery. But Leo in his letters written in the midst of such
+calamities, in his sermons spoken from St. Peter's chair, speaks as if he
+were addressing a prostrate world with the inward vision of a seer to whom
+the triumph of the heavenly Jerusalem is clearly revealed, while he
+proclaims the work of the City of God on earth with equal assurance.</p>
+
+<p>Hilarus in that same November, 461, succeeded to the apostolic chair.
+Hilarus was that undaunted Roman deacon and legate who with difficulty
+saved his life at the Robber-Council of Ephesus, where St.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> Flavian, bishop
+of Constantinople, was beaten to death by the party of Dioscorus, and who
+carried to St. Leo a faithful report of that Council's acts. At the same
+time the Lucanian Libius Severus succeeded to the throne. All that is known
+of him is that he was an inglorious creature of Ricimer, and prolonged a
+government without record until the autumn of 465, when his maker got tired
+of him. He disappeared, and Ricimer ruled alone for nearly two years. Yet
+he did not venture to end the empire with a stroke of violence, or change
+the title of Patricius, bestowed upon him by the eastern emperor, for that
+of king. In this death-struggle of the realm the senate showed courage. The
+Roman fathers in their corporate capacity served as a last bond of the
+State as it was falling to pieces; and Sidonius Apollinaris said of them
+that they might rank as princes with the bearer of the purple, only, he
+adds significantly, if we put out of question the armed force.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> The
+protection of the eastern emperor, Leo I., helped them in this resistance
+to Ricimer. The national party in Rome itself called on the Greek emperor
+for support. The utter dissolution of the western empire, when German
+tribes, Burgundians, Franks, Visigoths, and Vandals, had taken permanent
+possession of its provinces outside of Italy, while the violated dignity of
+Rome sank daily into greater impotence, now made Byzantium come forth as
+the true head of the empire. The better among the eastern Cæsars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+acknowledged the duty of maintaining it one and indivisible. They treated
+sinking Italy as one of their provinces, and prevented the Germans from
+asserting lordship over it.</p>
+
+<p>At length, after more than a year's vacancy of the throne, Ricimer was
+obliged not only to let the senate treat with the Eastern emperor, Leo I.,
+but to accept from Leo the choice of a Greek. Anthemius, one of the chief
+senators at Byzantium, who had married the late emperor Marcian's daughter,
+was sent with solemn pomp to Rome, and on the 12th April, 467, he accepted
+the imperial dignity in the presence of senate, people, and army, three
+miles outside the gates. Ricimer also condescended to accept his daughter
+as his bride, and we have an account of the wedding from that same Sidonius
+Apollinaris who a few years before had delivered the panegyric upon the
+accession of his own father-in-law, Avitus, afterwards deposed and killed
+by Ricimer; moreover, he had in the same way welcomed the accession of the
+noble Majorian, destroyed by the same Ricimer. Now on this third occasion
+Sidonius describes the whole city as swimming in a sea of joy. Bridal songs
+with fescennine licence resounded in the theatres, market-places, courts,
+and gymnasia. All business was suspended. Even then Rome impressed the
+Gallic courtier-poet with the appearance of the world's capital. What is
+important is that we find this testimony of an eye-witness, given
+incidentally in his correspondence, that Rome in her buildings was still in
+all her splendour. And again in his long panegyric he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> makes Rome address
+the eastern emperor, beseeching him, in requital for all those eastern
+provinces which she has given to Byzantium&mdash;"Only grant me Anthemius;<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>
+reign long, O Leo, in your own parts, but grant me my desire to govern
+mine." Thus Sidonius shows in his verses what is but too apparent in the
+history of the elevation of Anthemius, that Nova Roma on the borders of
+Europe and Asia was the real sovereign.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> And we also learn that the
+whole internal order of government, the structure of Roman law, and the
+daily habit of life had remained unaltered by barbarian occupation. This is
+the last time that Rome appears in garments of joy. The last reflection of
+her hundred triumphs still shines upon her palaces, baths, and temples. The
+Roman people, diminished in number, but unaltered in character, still
+frequented the baths of Nero, of Agrippa, of Diocletian; and Sidonius
+recommends instead baths less splendid, but less seductive to the
+senses.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>But Anthemius lasted no longer than the noble Majorian or the ignoble
+Severus. East and West had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> united their strength in a great expedition to
+put down the incessant Vandal piracies, which made all the coasts of the
+Mediterranean insecure.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> It failed through the treachery of the eastern
+commander Basiliscus, to whose evil deeds we shall have hereafter to recur.
+This disaster shook the credit of Anthemius, and Ricimer also tired of his
+father-in-law. He went to Milan, and Rome was terrified with the report
+that he had made a compact with barbarians beyond the Alps. Ricimer marched
+upon Rome, to which he laid siege in 472. Here he was joined by Anicius
+Olybrius, who had married Placidia, the younger daughter of Valentinian and
+Eudoxia, through whom he claimed the throne, as representative of the
+Theodosian line. Ricimer, after a fierce contest with Anthemius, burst into
+the Aurelian gate at the head of troops all of German blood and Arian
+belief, massacring and plundering all but two of the fourteen regions. But
+the city escaped burning.</p>
+
+<p>Then Anicius Olybrius entered Rome, consumed at once by famine, pestilence,
+and the sword. With the consent of Leo, and at the request of Genseric, he
+had been already named emperor. He took possession of the imperial palace,
+and made the senate acknowledge him. Anthemius had been cut in pieces, but
+forty days after his death Ricimer died of the plague, and thus had not
+been able to put to death more than four Roman emperors, of whom his
+father-in-law, Anthemius, was the last. The Arian Condottiere, who had
+inflicted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> on Rome a third plundering, said to be worse than that of
+Genseric, was buried in the Church of St. Agatha in Suburra,<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> which had
+been ceded to the Arians, and which he had adorned.</p>
+
+<p>Olybrius made the Burgundian prince Gundebald commander of the forces, but
+died himself in October of that same year, 472, and left the throne to be
+the gift of barbarian adventurers. Three more shadows of emperors passed.
+Gundebald gave that dignity at Ravenna, in March, 473, to Glycerius, a man
+of unknown antecedents. In 474, Glycerius was deposed by Nepos, a
+Dalmatian, whom the empress Verina, widow of Leo I., had sent with an army
+from Byzantium to Ravenna. Nepos compelled his predecessor to abdicate, and
+to become bishop of Salona. He himself was proclaimed emperor at Rome on
+the 24th June, 474, after which he returned to Ravenna. While he was here
+treating with Euric, the Visigoth king, at Toulouse, Orestes, whom he had
+made Patricius and commander of the barbaric troops for Gaul, rose against
+him. Nepos fled by sea from Ravenna in August, 475, and betook himself to
+Salona, whither he had banished Glycerius.</p>
+
+<p>Orestes was a Pannonian; had been Attila's secretary; then commander of
+German troops in service of the emperors. Thus he came to lead the troops
+which had been under Ricimer. This heap of Germans and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> Sarmatians without
+a country were in wild excitement, demanding a cession of Italian lands,
+instead of a march into Gaul. They offered their general the crown of
+Italy. Orestes thought it better to invest therewith his young son, and so,
+on the 31st October, 475, the boy Romulus Augustus, by the supremest
+mockery of what is called fortune, sat for a moment on the seat of the
+first king and the first emperor of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Italy could no longer produce an army, and the foreign soldiery who had
+served under various leaders naturally desired the partition of its lands.
+Odoacer was now their leader, who, when a penniless youth, had visited St.
+Severinus in Noricum, and received from him the prophecy: "Go into Italy,
+clad now in poor skins: thou wilt speedily be able to clothe many richly".
+Odoacer, after an adventurous life of heroic courage, made the homeless
+warriors whom he now commanded understand that it was better to settle on
+the fair lands of Italy than wander about in the service of phantom
+emperors. They acclaimed him as their king, and after beheading Orestes and
+getting possession of Romulus Augustus, he compelled him to abdicate before
+the senate, and the senate to declare that the western empire was extinct.
+This happened in the third year of the emperor Zeno the Isaurian, the ninth
+of Pope Simplicius, <small>A.D.</small> 476. The senate sent deputies to Zeno at Byzantium
+to declare that Rome no longer required an independent emperor; that one
+emperor was sufficient for East and for West; that they had chosen for the
+protector of Italy Odoacer, a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> skilled in the arts of peace as well as
+war, and besought Zeno to entrust him with the dignity of Patricius and the
+government of Italy. The deposed Nepos also sent a petition to Zeno to
+restore him. Zeno replied to the senate that of the two emperors whom he
+had sent to them, they had deposed Nepos and killed Anthemius. But he
+received the diadem and the imperial jewels of the western empire, and kept
+them in his palace. He endured the usurper who had taken possession of
+Italy until he was able to put him down, and so, in his letters to Odoacer,
+invested him with the title of "Patricius of the Romans," leaving the
+government of Italy to a German commander under his imperial authority. So
+the division into East and West was cancelled: Italy as a province belonged
+still to the one emperor, who was seated at Byzantium. In theory, the unity
+of Constantine's time was restored; in fact, Rome and the West were
+surrendered to Teuton invaders.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> This was the last stroke: the mighty
+members of the great mother&mdash;Gaul, and Spain, and Britain, and Africa, and
+Illyricum&mdash;had been severed from her. Now, the head, discrowned and
+impotent, submitted to the rule of Odoacer the Herule. The Byzantine
+supremacy remained in keeping for future use. It had been acknowledged from
+the death of Honorius in 423, when Galla Placidia had become empress and
+her son emperor by the gift and the army of Theodosius II.</p>
+
+<p>The agony of imperial Rome lasted twenty-one years. Valentinian III. was
+reigning in 455: in the March of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> that year he was murdered, and succeeded
+by Maximus, who was murdered in June; then by Avitus in July, who was
+murdered in October, 456. Majorianus followed in 457, and reigned till
+August, 461: he was followed by Libius Severus in November, who lasted four
+years, till November, 465. After an interregnum of eighteen months, in
+which Ricimer practically ruled, Anthemius was brought from Byzantium in
+April, 467, and continued till July, 472; but Anicius Olybrius again was
+brought from Byzantium, reigned for a few months in 472, and died of the
+plague in October. In 473, Glycerius was put up for emperor; in 474, he
+gave place to Nepos, the third brought from Byzantium. In 475, Romulus
+Augustus appears, to disappear in 476, and end his life in retirement at
+the Villa of Lucullus by Naples, once the seat of Rome's most luxurious
+senator.</p>
+
+<p>Eighty years had now passed since the death of Theodosius. In the course of
+these years the realm which he had saved from dissolution after the defeat
+and death of Valens near Adrianople, and had preserved during fifteen years
+by wisdom in council and valour in war, and still more by his piety, when
+once his protecting hand and ruling mind were withdrawn, fell to pieces in
+the West, and was scarcely saved in the East. Let us take the last five
+years of St. Leo, which follow on the raid of Genseric, in order to
+complete the sketch just given of Rome's political state, by showing the
+condition of the great provinces which belonged to Leo's special
+patriarchate. I have before noticed how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> it was in the interval between the
+retirement of Attila from Rome at the prayer of St. Leo and the seizure of
+Rome by Genseric at the solicitation of the miserable empress Eudoxia, when
+St. Leo could save only the lives of his people, that he confirmed the
+Fourth Ecumenical Council. Not only was he entreated to do this by the
+emperor Marcian: the Council itself solicited the confirmation of its acts,
+which for that purpose were laid before him, while it made the most
+specific confession of his authority as the one person on earth entrusted
+by the Lord with His vineyard. From the particular time and the
+circumstances under which these events took place, one may infer a special
+intention of the Divine Providence. This was that the whole Roman empire,
+while it still subsisted, the two emperors, one of whom was on the point of
+disappearing, and the whole episcopate, in the most solemn form, should
+attest the Roman bishop's universal pastorship. For a great period was
+ending, the period of the Græco-Roman civilisation, from which, after three
+centuries of persecution, the Church had obtained recognition. And a great
+period was beginning, when the wandering of the nations had prepared for
+the Church another task. The first had been to obtain the conversion of
+nations linked by the bond of one temporal rule, enjoying the highest
+degree of culture and knowledge then existing, but deeply tainted by the
+corruption of effete refinement. The second was to exalt rough, sturdy,
+barbarian natures, whose bride was the sword and human life their prey,
+first to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> the virtues of the civil state, and next to the higher life of
+Christian charity, and thus to link them, who had known only violent
+repulsion and perpetual warfare among themselves, in not a temporal but a
+spiritual bond. The majestic figure of St. Leo expressed the completion of
+the first task. It also symbolises the beneficent power which in the course
+of ages will accomplish the second.</p>
+
+<p>The wandering of the nations, says a great historian, was of decisive
+effect for the Church, and he quotes another historian's summary
+description of it: "It was not the migration of individual nomad hordes, or
+masses of adventurous warriors in continuous motion, which produced changes
+so mighty. But great, long-settled peoples, with wives and children, with
+goods and chattels, deserted their old seats, and sought for themselves in
+the far distance a new home. By this the position of individuals, of
+communities, of whole peoples, was of necessity completely altered. The old
+conditions of possession were dissolved. The existing bonds of society
+loosened. The old frontiers of states and lands passed away. As a whole
+city is turned into a ruinous heap by an earthquake, so the whole political
+system of previous times was overthrown by this massive transmigration. A
+new order of things had to be formed corresponding to the wholly altered
+circumstances of the nation."<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>I draw from the same historian<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> an outline of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> movement, running
+through several centuries, which had this final result. Great troops of
+Celts had, before the time of Christ, sought to settle themselves in
+Rh&oelig;tia and Upper Italy, even as far as Rome. Cimbrians and Teutons, with
+as little success, had betaken themselves southwards, while under the
+empire the pressure of peoples had more and more increased, and Trajan
+could hardly maintain the northern frontier on the Danube. In the third
+century, Alemans and Sueves advanced to the Upper Rhine, and the Goths,
+from dwelling between the Don and Theiss, came to the Danube and the Black
+Sea. Decius fell in battle with them. Aurelian gave them up the province of
+Dacia. Constantine the Great conquered them, and had Gothic troops in his
+army. Often they broke into the Roman territory, and carried off prisoners
+with them. Some of these were Christians and introduced the Goths to the
+knowledge of Christianity. Theophilus, a Gothic bishop, was at the Nicene
+Council in 325. They had clergy, monks, and nuns, with numerous believers.
+Under Athanarich, king of the Visigoths, Christians already suffered, with
+credit, a bloody persecution. On the occasion of the Huns, a Scythian
+people, compelling the Alans on the Don to join them, then conquering the
+Ostrogoths and oppressing the Visigoths, the latter prevailed on the
+emperor Valens to admit them into the empire. Valens gave them dwellings in
+Thrace on the condition that they should serve in his army and accept Arian
+Christianity. So the larger number of Visigoths under Fridiger in 375<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+became Arians. They soon, however, broke into conflict with the empire
+through their ill-treatment by the imperial commanders. In 378, Valens was
+defeated near Adrianople; his army was utterly crushed; he met himself with
+a miserable death. After this the Visigoths in general continued to be
+Arians, though many, especially through the exertions of St. Chrysostom,
+were converted to Catholicism. Most of them, however, seem to have been
+only half Arians, like their famous bishop Ulphilas. He was by birth a
+Goth&mdash;some say a Cappadocian&mdash;was consecrated between 341 and 348, in
+Constantinople. He gave the Goths an alphabet of their own, formed after
+the Greek, and made for them a translation of the Bible, of great value as
+a record of ancient German. He died in Constantinople before 388&mdash;probably
+in 381.</p>
+
+<p>Under Theodosius I., about 382, the Visigoths accepted the Roman supremacy,
+and the engagement to supply 40,000 men for the service of the empire, upon
+the terms of occupying, as allies free of tribute, the provinces assigned
+to them of Dacia, Lower M&oelig;sia, and Thrace. After this, discontented at
+the holding back their pay, and irritated by Rufinus, who was then at the
+head of the government of the emperor Arcadius, they laid waste the
+Illyrian provinces down to the Peloponnesus, and made repeated irruptions
+into Italy, in 400 and 402, under their valiant leader Alarich. In 408 he
+besieged Rome, and exacted considerable sums from it. He renewed the siege
+in 409, and made the wretched prefect Attalus emperor, whom he afterwards
+deposed, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> recognised Honorius again. At last he took Rome by storm on
+the 24th August, 410. The city was completely plundered, but the lives of
+the people spared. He withdrew to Lower Italy and soon died. His
+brother-in-law and successor, Ataulf, was first minded entirely to destroy
+the Roman empire, but afterwards to restore it by Gothic aid. In the end he
+went to Gaul, conquered Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and afterwards
+Barcelona. His half-brother Wallia, after reducing the Alans and driving
+back the Sueves and Vandals, planted his seat in Toulouse, which became, in
+415, the capital of his Aquitanean kingdom, Gothia or Septimania. Gaul, in
+which several Roman commanders assumed the imperial title, was overrun in
+the years from 406 to 416 by various peoples, whom the two opposing sides
+called in: by Burgundians, Franks, Alemans, Vandals, Quades, Alans, Gepids,
+Herules. The Alans, Sueves, Vandals, and Visigoths, at the same time, went
+to Spain. Their leaders endeavoured to set up kingdoms of their own all
+over Gaul and Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Arianism came from the Visigoths not only to the Ostrogoths but also to the
+Gepids, Sueves, Alans, Burgundians, and Vandals. But these peoples, with
+the exception of the Vandals and of some Visigoth kings, treated the
+Catholic religion, which was that of their Roman subjects, with
+consideration and esteem. Only here and there Catholics were compelled to
+embrace Arianism. Their chief enemy in Gaul was the Visigoth king Eurich.
+Wallia, dying in 419, had been succeeded by Theodorich I. and Theodorich
+II., both of whom had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> extended the kingdom, which Eurich still more
+increased. He died in 483. Under him many Catholic churches were laid
+waste, and the Catholics suffered a bloody persecution. He was rather the
+head of a sect than the ruler of subjects. This, however, led to the
+dissolution of his kingdom, which, from 507, was more and more merged in
+that of the Franks.</p>
+
+<p>The Burgundians, who had pressed onwards from the Oder and the Vistula to
+the Rhine, were in 417 already Christian. They afterwards founded a
+kingdom, with Lyons for capital, between the Rhone and the Saone. Their
+king Gundobald was Arian. But Arianism was not universal; and Patiens,
+bishop of Lyons, who died in 491, maintained the Catholic doctrine. A
+conference between Catholics and Arians in 499 converted few. But Avitus,
+bishop of Vienne, gained influence with Gundobald, so that he inclined to
+the Catholic Church, which his son Sigismund, in 517, openly professed. The
+Burgundian kingdom was united with the Frankish from 534.</p>
+
+<p>The Sueves had founded a kingdom in Spain under their king Rechila, still a
+heathen. He died in 448. His successor, Rechiar, was Catholic. When king
+Rimismund married the daughter of the Visigoth king Theodorich, an Arian,
+he tried to introduce Arianism, and persecuted the Catholics, who had many
+martyrs&mdash;Pancratian of Braga, Patanius, and others. It was only between 550
+and 560 that the Gallician kingdom of the Sueves, under king Charrarich,
+became Catholic, when his son Ariamir or Theodemir was healed by the
+intercession of St. Martin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> of Tours, and converted by Martin, bishop of
+Duma. In 563 a synod was held by the metropolitan of Braga, which
+established the Catholic faith. But in 585, Leovigild, the Arian king of
+the larger Visigoth kingdom, incorporated with his territory the smaller
+kingdom of the Sueves. Catholicism was still more threatened when Leovigild
+executed his own son Hermenegild, who had married the Frankish princess
+Jugundis, for becoming a Catholic. But the martyr's brother, Rechared, was
+converted by St. Leander, archbishop of Seville, and in 589 publicly
+professed himself a Catholic. This faith now prevailed through all Spain.</p>
+
+<p>The Vandals, rudest of all the German peoples, had been invited by Count
+Boniface, in 429, to pass over from Spain under their king Genseric to the
+Roman province of North Africa. They quickly conquered it entirely.
+Genseric, a fanatical Arian, persecuted the Catholics in every way, took
+from them their churches, banished their bishops, tortured and put to death
+many. Some bishops he made slaves. He exposed Quodvultdeus, bishop of
+Carthage, with a number of clergy, to the mercy of the waves on a wretched
+raft. Yet they reached Naples. The Arian clergy encouraged the king in all
+his cruelties. It was only in private houses or in suburbs that the
+Catholics could celebrate their worship. The violence of his tyranny, which
+led many to doubt even the providence of God, brought the Catholic Church
+in North Africa into the deepest distress. Genseric's son and successor,
+Hunnerich, who reigned from 477 to 484, was at first milder. He had married
+Eudoxia,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> elder daughter of Valentinian III. The emperor Zeno had specially
+recommended to him the African Catholics. He allowed them to meet again,
+and, after the see of Carthage had been vacant twenty-four years, to have a
+new bishop. So the brave confessor Eugenius was chosen in 479. But this
+favour was followed by a much severer persecution. Eugenius, accused by the
+bitter Arian bishop Cyrila, was severely ill-treated, shut up with 4976 of
+the faithful, banished into the barest desert, wherein many died of
+exhaustion. Hunnerich stripped the Catholics of their goods, and banished
+them chiefly to Sardinia and Corsica. Consecrated virgins were tortured to
+extort from them admission that their own clergy had committed sin with
+them. A conference held at Carthage in 484 between Catholic and Arian
+bishops was made a pretext for fresh acts of violence, which the emperor
+Zeno, moved by Pope Felix III. to intercede, was unable to prevent. 348
+bishops were banished. Many died of ill usage. Arian baptism was forced
+upon not a few, and very many lost limbs. This persecution produced
+countless martyrs. The greatest wonders of divine grace were shown in it.
+Christians at Tipasa, whose tongues had been cut out at the root, kept the
+free use of their speech, and sang songs of praise to Christ, whose godhead
+was mocked by the Arians. Many of these came to Constantinople, where the
+imperial court was witness of the miracle. The successor of this tyrant
+Hunnerich, king Guntamund, who reigned from 485 to 496, treated the
+Catholics more fairly, and, though the persecution did not entirely
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> cease,
+allowed, in 494, the banished bishops to return. A Roman Council, in 487 or
+488, made the requisite regulations with regard to those who had suffered
+iteration of baptism, and those who had lapsed. King Trasamund, from 496 to
+523, wished again to make Arianism dominant, and tried to gain individual
+Catholics by distinctions. When that did not succeed, he went on to
+oppression and banishment, took away the churches, and forbade the
+consecration of new bishops. As still they did not diminish, he banished
+120 to Sardinia, among them a great defender of the Catholic faith, St.
+Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe. King Hilderich, who reigned from 523 to 530, a
+gentle prince and friend of the emperor Justinian, stopped the persecution
+and recalled the banished. Fulgentius was received back with great joy, and
+in February, 525, Archbishop Bonifacius held at Carthage a Council once
+more, at which sixty bishops were present. Africa had still able
+theologians. Hilderich was murdered by his cousin Gelimer: a new
+persecution was preparing. But the Vandal kingdom in Africa was overthrown
+in 533 by the eastern general Belisarius, and northern Africa united with
+Justinian's empire. However, the African Church never flourished again with
+its former lustre.</p>
+
+<p>But Gaul and Italy had been in the greatest danger of suffering a
+desolation in comparison with which even the Vandal persecution in Africa
+would have been light. St. Leo was nearly all his life contemporaneous with
+the terrible irruptions of the Huns. These warriors, depicted as the
+ugliest and most hateful of the human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> race, in the years from 434 to 441,
+having already advanced, under Attila, from the depths of Asia to the
+Wolga, the Don, and the Danube, pressing the Teuton tribes before them,
+made incursions as far as Scandinavia. In the last years of the emperor
+Theodosius II. they filled with horrible misery the whole range of country
+from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. In the spring of 451 Attila broke out
+from Pannonia with 700,000 men, absorbed the Alemans and other peoples in
+his host, wasted and plundered populous cities such as Treves, Mainz,
+Worms, Spires, Strasburg, and Metz. The skill of Aetius succeeded in
+opposing him on the plains by Chalons with the Roman army, the Visigoths,
+and their allies. The issue of this battle of the nations was that Attila,
+after suffering and inflicting fearful slaughter, retired to Pannonia. The
+next year he came down upon Italy, destroyed Aquileia, and the fright of
+his coming caused Venice to be founded on uninhabited islands, which the
+Scythian had no vessels to reach. He advanced over Vicenza, Padua, Verona,
+Milan. Rome was before him, where the successor of St. Peter stopped him.
+He withdrew from Italy, made one more expedition against the Visigoths in
+Gaul, but died shortly after. With his death his kingdom collapsed. His
+sons fought over its division, the Huns disappeared, and what was
+afterwards to be Europe became possible.</p>
+
+<p>The invasions of the Hun shook to its centre the western empire. Aetius,
+who had saved it at Chalons in 451, received in 454 his death-blow as a
+reward from the hand of Valentinian III., and so we are brought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> the
+nine phantom emperors who follow the race of the great Theodosius, when it
+had been terminated by the vice of its worst descendant.</p>
+
+<p>One Teuton race, the most celebrated of all, I have reserved for future
+mention. The Franks in St. Leo's time, and for thirty-five years after his
+death, were still pagan. The Salian branch occupied the north of Gaul, and
+the Ripuarians were spread along the Rhine, about Cologne. Their paganism
+had prevented them from being touched by the infection of the Arian heresy,
+common to all the other tribes, so that the Arian religion was the mark of
+the Teutonic settler throughout the West, and the Catholic that of the
+Roman provincials.</p>
+
+<p>Thus when, in the year 476, the Roman senate, at Odoacer's bidding,
+exercised for the last time its still legal prerogative of naming the
+emperor, by declaring that no emperor of the West was needed, and by
+sending back the insignia of empire to the eastern emperor Zeno, all the
+provinces of the West had fallen, as to government, into the hands of the
+Teuton invaders, and all of these, with the single exception of the Franks,
+were Arians. They alone were still pagans. Odoacer, also an Arian, became
+the ruler of Rome and Italy, nominally by commission from the emperor Zeno,
+really in virtue of the armed force, consisting of adventurers belonging to
+various northern tribes which he commanded. To the Romans he was
+Patricius,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> a title of honour lasting for life, which from Constantine's
+time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> without being connected with any particular office, surpassed all
+other dignities. To his own people he was king of the Ruges, Herules, and
+Turcilings, or king of the nations. He ruled Italy, and Sicily, except a
+small strip of coast, and Dalmatia, and these lands he was able to protect
+from outward attack and inward disturbance. He made Ravenna his seat of
+government. He did not assume the title of king at Rome. He maintained the
+old order of the State in appearance. The senate held its usual sittings.
+The Roman aristocracy occupied high posts. The consuls from the year 482
+were again annually named. The Arian ruler left theological matters alone.
+But the eyes of Rome were turned towards Byzantium. The Roman empire
+continued legally to exist, and especially in the eye of the Church. The
+Pope maintained relations with the imperial power.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, Theodorich the Ostrogoth, son of Theodemir, chief of the
+Amal family, had been sent as a hostage for the maintenance of the treaty
+made by the emperor Leo I. with his father, and had spent ten years, from
+his seventh to his seventeenth year, at Constantinople. Though he scorned
+to receive an education in Greek or Roman literature, he studied during
+these years, with unusual acuteness, the political and military
+circumstances of the empire. Of strong but slender figure, his beautiful
+features, blue eyes with dark brows, and abundant locks of long, fair hair,
+added to the nobility of his race, pointed him out for a future ruler.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In 475, Theodorich succeeded his father as king of the Ostrogoths in their
+provinces of Pannonia and M&oelig;sia, which had been ceded by the empire. He
+it was who was destined to lead his people to glory and greatness, but also
+to their fall, in Italy. Zeno had striven to make him a personal
+friend&mdash;had made him general, given him pay and rank. Theodorich had not a
+little helped Zeno in his struggle for the empire. The Ostrogoth, in 484,
+became Roman consul; but he also appeared suddenly in a time of peace
+before the gates of Constantinople, in 487, to impress his demands upon
+Zeno. Theodorich and his people occupied towards Zeno the same position
+which Alaric and his Visigoths had held towards Honorius. Their provinces
+were exhausted, and they wanted expansion. Whether it was that Zeno deemed
+the Ostrogothic king might be an instrument to terminate the actual
+independence of Italy from his empire, or that the neighbourhood of the
+Goths, under so powerful a ruler, seemed to him dangerous, or that
+Theodorich himself had cast longing eyes upon Italy, Zeno gave a hesitating
+approval to the advance of the last great Gothic host to the southwest. The
+first had taken this direction under Alaric eighty-eight years before. Now
+a sovereign sanction from the senate of Constantinople, called a Pragmatic
+sanction, assigned Italy to the Gothic king and his people.</p>
+
+<p>From Novæ, Theodorich's capital on the Danube, not far from the present
+Bulgarian Nikopolis, this world of wanderers, numbered by a contemporary as
+at least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> 350,000, streamed forth with its endless train of waggons. At the
+Isonzo, Italy's frontier, Odoacer, on the 28th August, 489, encountered the
+flood, and was worsted, as again at the Adige. Then he took refuge in
+Ravenna. The end of a three years' conflict, in which the Gothic host was
+encamped in the pine-forest of Ravenna, and where the "Battle of the
+Ravens" is commemorated in the old German hero-saga, was that, in the
+winter of 493, the last refuge of Odoacer opened its gates. Odoacer was
+promised his life, but the compact was broken soon. His people proclaimed
+Theodorich their king. Theodorich had sent a Roman senator to Zeno to ask
+his confirmation of what he had done. Zeno had been succeeded by Anastasius
+in 491. How much Anastasius granted cannot be told. Rome, during this
+conflict, had remained in a sort of neutrality. At first Theodorich
+deprived of their freedom as Roman citizens all Italians who had stood in
+arms against him. Afterwards, he set himself to that work of equal
+government for Italians and Goths which has given a lustre to his reign,
+though the fair hopes which it raised foundered at last in an opposition
+which admitted of no reconcilement.</p>
+
+<p>Theodorich<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> reigned from 493 to 526. He extended by successful wars the
+frontiers of the Gothic kingdom beyond the mainland of Italy and its
+islands. Narbonensian Gaul, Southern Austria, Bosnia, and Servia belonged
+to it at its greatest extension. The Theiss and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> the Danube, the Garonne
+and the Rhone, flowed beside his realm. The forms of the new government, as
+well as the laws, remained the same substantially as in Constantine's time.
+The Roman realm continued, only there stood at its head a foreign military
+chief, surrounded by his own people in the form of an army. Romandom lived
+on in manner of life, in customs, in dress. The Romans were judged
+according to their own laws. Gothic judges determined matters which
+concerned the Goths; in cases common to both they sat intermixed with Roman
+judges. Theodorich's principle was with firm and impartial hand to deal
+evenly between the two. But the military service was reserved to the Goths
+alone. Natives were forbidden even to carry knives. The Goths were to
+maintain public security: the Romans to multiply in the arts of peace. But
+even Theodorich could not fuse these nations together. The Goths remained
+foreigners in Italy, and possessed as <i>hospites</i> the lands assigned to
+them, which would seem to have been a third. This noblest of barbarian
+princes, and most generous of Arians, had to play two parts. In Ravenna and
+Verona he headed the advance of his own people, and was king of the Goths:
+in Rome the Patricius sought to protect and maintain. When, in 500, he
+visited Rome, he was received before its gates by the senate, the clergy,
+the people, and welcomed like an emperor of the olden time. Arian as he
+was, he prayed in St. Peter's, like the orthodox emperors of the line of
+Theodosius, at the Apostle's tomb. Before the senate-house, in the forum,
+Boethius greeted him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> with a speech. The German king admired the forum of
+Trajan, as the son of Constantine, 143 years before, had admired it.
+Statues in the interval had not ceased to adorn it. Romans and Franks,
+heathens and Christians, alike were there: Merobaudes, the Gallic general;
+Claudian, the poet from Egypt, the worshipper of Stilicho, in verses almost
+worthy of Virgil; Sidonius Apollinaris, the future bishop of Clermont, who
+panegyrised three emperors successively deposed and murdered. The theatre
+of Pompey and the amphitheatre of Titus still rose in their beauty; and as
+the Gothic king inhabited the vast and deserted halls of the Cæsarean
+palace, he looked down upon the games of the Circus Maximus, where the
+diminished but unchanged populace of Rome still justified St. Leo's
+complaint, that the heathen games drew more people than the shrines of the
+martyrs whose intercession had saved Rome from Attila. In fine, St.
+Fulgentius could still say, If earthly Rome was so stately, what must the
+heavenly Jerusalem be!</p>
+
+<p>The bearing of the Arian king to the Catholic Church and the Roman
+Pontificate was just and fair almost to the end of his reign. He protected
+Pope Symmachus at a difficult juncture. His minister Cassiodorus supported
+and helped the election of Pope Hormisdas. The letters of Cassiodorus, as
+his private secretary, counsellor, and intimate friend, remain to attest,
+with the force of an eye-witness, a noble Roman and a devoted Christian,
+who was also Patricius and Prætorian Prefect&mdash;the nature of the government,
+as well as the state of Italian society at that time. We hardly possess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+such another source of knowledge for this century. But under Pope John I.
+this happy state of things broke down. A dark shadow has been thrown upon
+the last years of an otherwise glorious government. The noble Boethius,
+after being leader of the Roman senate and highly-prized minister of the
+Gothic king, died under hideous torture, inflicted at the command of a
+suspicious and irritated master. Again, he had forced upon Pope John I. an
+embassy to Constantinople, and required of him to obtain from the eastern
+emperor churches for Arians in his dominions. The Pope returned, after
+being honoured at the eastern court as the first bishop of the world, laden
+with gifts for the churches at Rome, but without the required consent of
+the emperor to give churches to the Arians. He perished in prison at
+Ravenna by the same despotic command. This was in May, 526, and in August
+the king himself died almost suddenly, fancying, it was said, that he saw
+on a fish which was brought to his table the head of a third victim, the
+illustrious Symmachus. What Catholics thought of his end is shown by St.
+Gregory seventy years afterwards, who records in his Dialogues a vision
+seen at Lipari on the day of the king's death, in which the Pope and
+Symmachus were carrying him between them with his hands tied, to plunge him
+in the crater of the volcano.</p>
+
+<p>Several writers<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> have termed Theodorich a premature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> Charlemagne. It
+seems to me that, as Genseric was the worst and most ignoble of the
+Teutonic Arian princes, Theodorich was the best. The one showed how cruel
+and remorseless an Arian persecutor was, the other how fair a ruler and
+generous a protector the nature of things would allow an Arian monarch to
+be. But in his case the end showed that the Gothic dominion in Italy rested
+only on the personal ability of the king, and, further, that no stable
+union could take place until these German-Arian races had been incorporated
+by the Catholic Church into her own body.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>This truth is yet more illustrated by a double contrast between Theodorich
+and Clovis. In personal character the former was far superior to the
+latter. Clovis was converted at the age of thirty, and died at forty-five.
+Yet the effect of the fifteen years of his reign after he became a Catholic
+was permanent. From that moment the Franks became a power. In that short
+time Clovis obtained possession of a very great part of France, and that
+possession went on and was confirmed to his line and people. The
+thirty-three years of Theodorich secured to Italy a time of peace, even of
+glory, which did not fall to its lot for ages afterwards. Yet the effect of
+his government passed with him; his daughter and heiress, the noble
+princess Amalasuntha, in whose praise Cassiodorus exhausts himself, was
+murdered; his kingdom was broken up, and Cassiodorus himself, retiring from
+public life, confessed in his monastic life, continued for a generation,
+how vain had been the attempt of the Arian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> king to overcome the
+antagonistic forces of race and religion by justice, valour, and
+forbearance.</p>
+
+<p>It was fitting that the attempt should be made by the noblest of Teutonic
+races, under the noblest chief it ever produced. Nor is it unfitting here
+to recur to the opinion of another great Goth, not indeed the equal of
+Theodorich, yet of the same race and the nearest approach to him, one of
+those conquerors who showed a high consideration for the Roman empire.
+Orosius records "that he heard a Gallic officer, high in rank under the
+great Theodosius, tell St. Jerome at Bethlehem how he had been in the
+confidence of Ataulph, who succeeded Alaric, and married Galla Placidia.
+How he had heard Ataulph declare that, in the vigour and inexperience of
+youth, he had ardently desired to obliterate the Roman name, and put the
+Gothic in its stead&mdash;that instead of Romania the empire should be Gothia,
+and Ataulph be what Augustus had been. But a long experience had taught him
+two things&mdash;the one, that the Goths were too barbarous to obey laws; the
+other, that those laws could not be abolished, without which the
+commonwealth would cease to be a commonwealth. And so he came to content
+himself with the glory of restoring the Roman name by Gothic power, that
+posterity might regard him as the saviour of what he could not change for
+the better."<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p>It seems that the observation of Ataulph at the beginning of the fifth
+century was justified by the experience of Theodorich at the beginning of
+the sixth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> And, further, we may take the conduct of these two great men as
+expressing on the whole the result of the Teutonic migration in the western
+provinces. After unspeakable misery produced in the cities and countries of
+the West at the time of their first descent, we may note three things. The
+imperial lands, rights, and prerogatives fell to the invading rulers. The
+lands in general partly remained to the provincials (the former
+proprietors), partly were distributed to the conquerors. But for the rest,
+the fabric of Roman law, customs, and institutions remained standing, at
+least for the natives, while the invaders were ruled severally according to
+their inherited customs. Even Genseric was only a pirate, not a Mongol, and
+after a hundred years the Vandal reign was overthrown and North Africa
+reunited to the empire. In the other cases it may be said that the children
+of the North, when they succeeded, after the struggle of three hundred
+years, in making good their descent on the South, seized indeed the
+conqueror's portion of houses and land, but they were not so savage as to
+disregard, in Ataulph's words, those laws of the commonwealth, without
+which a commonwealth cannot exist. The Franks, in their original condition
+one of the most savage northern tribes, in the end most completely accepted
+Roman law, the offspring of a wisdom and equity far beyond their power to
+equal or to imitate. And because they saw this, and acted on it most
+thoroughly, they became a great nation. The Catholic faith made them. Thus,
+when the boy Romulus Augustus was deposed at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Rome, and power fell into the
+hands of the Herule Odoacer, Pope Simplicius, directing his gaze over
+Africa, Spain, France, Illyricum, and Britain, would see a number of
+new-born governments, ruled by northern invaders, who from the beginning of
+the century had been in constant collision with each other, perpetually
+changing their frontiers. Wherever the invaders settled a fresh partition
+of the land had to be made, by which the old proprietors would be in part
+reduced to poverty, and all the native population which in any way depended
+on them would suffer greatly. It may be doubted whether any civilised
+countries have passed through greater calamities than fell upon Gaul,
+Spain, Eastern and Western Illyricum, Africa, and Britain in the first half
+of the fifth century. Moreover, while one of these governments was pagan,
+all the rest, save Eastern Illyricum, were Arian. That of the Vandals,
+which had occupied, since 429, Rome's most flourishing province, also her
+granary, had been consistently and bitterly hostile to its Catholic
+inhabitants. That of Toulouse, under Euric, was then persecuting them.
+Britain had been severed from the empire, and seemed no less lost to the
+Church, under the occupation of Saxon invaders at least as savage as the
+Frank or the Vandal. In these broad lands, which Rome had humanised during
+four hundred years, and of which the Church had been in full possession,
+Pope Simplicius could now find only the old provincial nobility and the
+common people still Catholic. The bishops in these several provinces were
+exposed everywhere to an Arian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> succession of antagonists, who used against
+them all the influence of an Arian government.</p>
+
+<p>When he looked to the eastern emperor, now become in the eyes of the Church
+the legitimate sovereign of Rome, by whose commission Odoacer professed to
+rule, instead of a Marcian, the not unworthy husband of St. Pulcheria,
+instead of Leo I., who was at least orthodox, and had been succeeded by his
+grandson the young child Leo II., he found upon the now sole imperial
+throne that child's father Zeno. He was husband of the princess Ariadne,
+daughter of Leo I.,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> a man of whom the Byzantine historians give us a
+most frightful picture. Without tact and understanding, vicious, moreover,
+and tyrannical, he oppressed during the two years from 474 to 476 his
+people, sorely tried by the incursions of barbarous hordes. He also
+favoured, all but openly, the Monophysites, specially Peter Fullo, the
+heretical patriarch of Antioch. After two years a revolution deprived him
+of the throne, and exalted to it the equally vicious Basiliscus&mdash;the man
+whose treachery as an eastern general had ruined the success of the great
+expedition against Genseric, in which East and West had joined under
+Anthemius. Basiliscus still more openly favoured heresy. He lasted,
+however, but a short time; Zeno was able to return, and occupied the throne
+again during fourteen years, from 477 to 491. These two men, Zeno and
+Basiliscus, criminal in their private lives, in their public lives
+adventurers, who gained the throne by the worst Byzantine arts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> opened the
+line of the theologising emperors. Basiliscus, during the short time he
+occupied the eastern throne, issued, at the prompting of a heretic whom he
+had pushed into the see of St. Athanasius&mdash;and it is the first example
+known in history&mdash;a formal decree upon faith, the so-called Encyclikon, in
+which only the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, and Ephesine Councils were
+accepted, but the fourth, that of Chalcedon, condemned. So low was the
+eastern Church already fallen that not the Eutycheans only, but five
+hundred Catholic bishops subscribed this Encyclikon, and a Council at
+Ephesus praised it as divine and apostolical.</p>
+
+<p>Basiliscus, termed by Pope Gelasius the tyrant and heretic, was swept away.
+But his example was followed in 482 by Zeno, who issued his Henotikon,
+drawn up it was supposed by Acacius of Constantinople,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> addressed to the
+clergy and people of Alexandria. Many of the eastern bishops, through fear
+of Zeno and his bishop Acacius, submitted to this imperial decree; many
+contended for the truth even to death against it. These two deeds, the
+Encyclikon of Basiliscus and the Henotikon of Zeno, are to be marked for
+ever as the first instances of the temporal sovereign infringing the
+independence of the Church in spiritual matters, which to that time even
+the emperors in Constantine's city had respected.</p>
+
+<p>Simplicius sat in the Roman chair fifteen years, from 468 to 483; and such
+was the outlook presented to him in the East and West&mdash;an outlook of ruin,
+calamity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> and suffering in those vast provinces which make our present
+Europe&mdash;an outlook of anxiety with a prospect of ever-increasing evil in
+the yet surviving eastern empire. There was not then a single ruler holding
+the Catholic faith. Basiliscus and Zeno were not only heretical themselves,
+but they were assuming in their own persons the right of the secular power
+to dictate to the Church her own belief. And the Pope had become their
+subject while he was locally subject to the dominion of a northern
+commander of mercenaries, himself a Herule and an Arian. In his own Rome
+the Pope lived and breathed on sufferance. Under Zeno he saw the East torn
+to pieces with dissension; prelates put into the sees of Alexandria and
+Antioch by the arm of power; that arm itself directed by the ambitious
+spirit of a Byzantine bishop, who not only named the holders of the second
+and third seats of the Church, but reduced them to do his bidding, and wait
+upon his upstart throne. Gaul was in the hand of princes, mostly Arian, one
+pagan. Spain was dominated by Sueves and Visigoths, both Arian. In Africa
+Simplicius during forty years had been witness of the piracies of Genseric,
+making the Mediterranean insecure, and the cities on every coast liable to
+be sacked and burnt by his flying freebooters, while the great church of
+Africa, from the death of St. Augustine, had been suffering a persecution
+so severe that no heathen emperor had reached the standard of Arian
+cruelty. In Britain, civilisation and faith had been alike trampled out by
+the northern pirates Hengist and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> Horsa, and successive broods of their
+like. The Franks, still pagan, had advanced from the north of Gaul to its
+centre, destroyers as yet of the faith which they were afterwards to
+embrace. What did the Pope still possess in these populations? The common
+people, a portion of the local proprietors, and the Catholic bishops who
+had in him their common centre, as he in them men regarded with veneration
+by the still remaining Catholic population.</p>
+
+<p>In all this there is one fact so remarkable as to claim special mention.
+How had it happened that the Catholic faith was considered throughout the
+West the mark of the Roman subject; and the Arian misbelief the mark of the
+Teuton invader and governor? Theodosius had put an end to the official
+Arianism of the East, which had so troubled the empire, and so attacked the
+Primacy in the period between Constantine and himself. During all that time
+the Arian heresy had no root in the West. But the emperor Valens, when
+chosen as a colleague by his brother Valentinian I., in 364, was counted a
+Catholic. A few years later he fell under the influence of Eudoxius, who
+had got by his favour the see of Byzantium. This man, one of the worst
+leaders of the Arians, taught and baptised Valens, and filled him with his
+own spirit; and Valens, when he settled the Goths in the northern provinces
+by the Danube, stipulated that they should receive the Arian doctrine.
+Their bishop and great instructor Ulphilas had been deceived, it is said,
+into believing that it was the doctrine of the Church. This fatal gift<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> of
+a spurious doctrine the Goth received in all the energy of an uninstructed
+but vigorous will. As the leader of the northern races he communicated it
+to them. A Byzantine bishop had poisoned the wells of the Christian faith
+from which the great new race of the future was to drink, and when
+Byzantium succeeded in throwing Alaric upon the West, all the races which
+followed his lead brought with them the doctrine which Ulphilas had been
+deceived into propagating as the faith of Christ. So it happened that if
+the terrible overthrow of Valens in 378 by the nation which he had deceived
+brought his persecution with his reign to an end in the East, yet through
+his act Arianism came into possession, a century later, of all but one of
+the newly set up thrones in the West.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, at the time the western empire fell the Catholic Church was
+threatened with the loss of everything which, down to the time of St. Leo,
+she had gained. For the triumph which Constantine's conversion had
+announced, for the unity of faith which her own Councils had maintained
+from Nicæa to Chalcedon, she seemed to have before her subjection to a
+terrible despotism in the East, extinction by one dominant heresy in the
+West. For here it was not a crowd of heresies which surrounded her, but the
+secular power at Rome, at Carthage, at Toulouse and Bordeaux, at Seville
+and Barcelona, spoke Arian. Who was to recover the Goth, the Vandal, the
+Burgundian, the Sueve, the Aleman, the Ruge, from that fatal error?
+Moreover, her bounds had receded. Saxon and Frank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> had largely swept away
+the Christian faith in their respective conquests. Who was to restore it to
+them? The Rome which had planted her colonies through these vast lands as
+so many fortresses, first of culture and afterwards of faith, was now
+reduced to a mere <i>municipium</i> herself. The very senate, with whose name
+empire had been connected for five hundred years, at the bidding of a
+barbarous leader of mercenaries serving for plunder, sent back the symbols
+of sovereignty to the adventurer, whoever he might be, who sat by
+corruption or intrigue on the seat of Constantine in Nova Roma.</p>
+
+<p>This thought leads me to endeavour more accurately to point out the light
+thrown upon the Papal power by the various relations in which it stood at
+different times to the temporal governments with which it had to deal.</p>
+
+<p>The practical division of the Roman empire in the fourth century, ensuing
+upon the act of Constantine in forming a new capital of that empire in the
+East, made the Church no longer subject to one temporal government. The
+same act tested the spiritual Primacy of the Church. It called it forth to
+a larger and more complicated action. I have in a former volume followed at
+considerable length the series of events the issue of which was, after
+Arian heretics had played upon eastern jealousy and tyrannical emperors
+during fifty years, to strengthen the action of the Primacy. But assuredly
+had that Primacy been artificial, or made by man, the division of interests
+ensuing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> upon the political disjunction of the East and West would have
+destroyed it. Julius and Liberius and Damasus would not have stood against
+Constantius and Valens if the heart of the Church had not throbbed in the
+Roman Primacy. Still more apparent does this become in the next fifty
+years, wherein the overthrow of the western empire begins. Then the sons of
+Theodosius, instead of joining hand with hand and heart with heart against
+the forces of barbarism, which their father had controlled and wielded,
+were seduced by their ministers into antagonism with each other. Byzantium
+worked woe to the elder sister of whom she was jealous. Under the infamous
+treasons of Rufinus and Eutropius, the words might have been uttered with
+even fuller truth than in their original application&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">"Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit".</p>
+
+<p>Thus Alaric first took Rome. But he did not take the Primacy. Pope Innocent
+lost no particle of his dignity or influence by the violation of Rome's
+secular dignity. It was only seven years after that event when St.
+Augustine and the two great African Councils acknowledged his Principate in
+the amplest terms. The heresy of Pelagius and the schism of Donatus were
+stronger than the sword of Alaric. And only a few years later, when a most
+fearful heresy, broached by the Byzantine bishop, led to the assembly in
+which then for the first time the Church met in general Council since
+Nicæa, the most emphatic acknowledgment of the Primacy as seated in the
+Roman bishop by descent from Peter was given by bishops, the subjects of an
+emperor very jealous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> of the West, to a Pope who could not live securely in
+Rome itself.</p>
+
+<p>In all these hundred years it is seen how the division of the empire
+enlarged and strengthened the action of the Primacy. But this it did
+because the Primacy was divine. The events just referred to, but described
+elsewhere at length, would have destroyed it had it not been divine.</p>
+
+<p>But this course of things, which is seen in action from the Nicene to the
+Chalcedonic Council, comes out with yet stronger force from the moment when
+Rome loses all temporal independence. We may place this moment at the date
+of its capture by Genseric. But it continues from that time. The events
+which took place at Rome in the twenty-one following years, the nine
+sovereigns put up and deposed, the subjection to barbarous leaders of
+hireling free-lances, the worse plundering of Ricimer seventeen years after
+that of Genseric&mdash;these were events grieving to the heart St. Leo and his
+successors; but yet not events at Rome alone&mdash;the whole condition of things
+in East and West which Pope Simplicius had to look upon outside of his own
+city, despotic emperors in the East, with bishops bending to their will,
+allowing the apostolic hierarchy to be displaced, and the apostolic
+doctrine determined by secular masters; Teuton settlements in the West
+ruled by the heresy most inimical to the Church; the Catholic population
+reduced in numbers and lowered in social position; whole countries seized
+by pagans, and forced at once into barbarism and infidelity&mdash;in the midst
+of all these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> the Pope stood: his generals were the several bishops of
+captured cities, whose places were assaulted by heretical rivals, supported
+by their kings. Gaul, Spain, Britain, Africa, Illyricum, Italy itself, no
+longer parts of one government, but ruled by enemies, any or all of these
+would have rejected the Roman Primacy if it had not come to them with the
+strongest warrant both of the Church's past history and her present
+consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the new world in which the Pope stood from the year 455; and he
+stood in it for three hundred years. The testimony which such times bear is
+a proof superadded to the words of Fathers and the decrees of Councils.</p>
+
+<p>But there is one other point in the political situation on which a word
+must be said.</p>
+
+<p>From the time named, the Roman Primacy is the one sole fixed point in the
+West. All else is fluctuating and transitional. To the Pope the bishops,
+subject in each city to barbarian insolence, cling as their one unfailing
+support. Without him they would be Gothic, or Vandal, or Burgundian, or
+Sueve, or Aleman, or Turciling,&mdash;with him and in him they are Catholic. Let
+me express, in the words of another, what is contained in this fact. The
+Church, says Guizot, "at the commencement of the fifth century, had its
+government, a body of clergy, a hierarchy, which apportioned the different
+functions of the clergy, revenues, independent means of action, rallying
+points which suit a great society, councils provincial, national, general,
+the habit of arranging in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> common the society's affairs. In a word, at this
+epoch Christianity was not only a religion but a Church. If it had not been
+a Church, I do not know what would have become of it in the midst of the
+Roman empire's fall. I confine myself to purely human considerations: I put
+aside every element foreign to the natural consequences of natural facts.
+If Christianity had only been a belief, a feeling, an individual
+conviction, we may suppose that it would have broken down at the
+dissolution of the empire and the barbarian invasion. It did break down
+later in Asia and in all north Africa beneath an invasion of the same
+kind&mdash;that of barbarous Mussulmans. It broke down then though it was an
+institution, a constituted Church. Much more might the same fact have
+happened at the moment of the Roman empire's fall. There were then none of
+those means by which in the present day moral influences are established or
+support themselves independent of institutions: no means by which a naked
+truth, a naked idea, acquires a great power over minds, rules actions, and
+determines events. Nothing of the kind existed in the fourth century to
+invest ideas and personal feelings with such an authority. It is clear that
+a strongly organised, a strongly governed, society was needed to struggle
+against so great a disaster, to overcome such a hurricane. I think I do not
+go too far in affirming that, at the end of the fourth and the beginning of
+the fifth century, it is the Christian Church which saved Christianity. It
+is the Church, with its institutions, its magistrates, and its power, which
+offered a vigorous defence to the internal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> dissolution of the empire, to
+barbarism; which conquered the barbarians; which became the bond, the
+means, the principle of civilisation to the Roman and the barbarian
+world."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p>In this passage, Guizot speaks of the Church as a government, as a unity.
+At the very moment of which he speaks, St. Augustine was addressing the
+Pope as the fountainhead of that unity; and in the midst of the dissolution
+an emperor was recommending him to the Gallic bishops "as the chief of the
+episcopal coronet"<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> encircling the earth. The whole structure which
+lasted through this earthquake of nations had its cohesion in him&mdash;a fact
+seen even more clearly in the time of the third Valentinian than in that of
+the conquering Constantine.</p>
+
+<p>But looking to that East, which dates from the Encyclikon of a Basiliscus
+and the Henotikon of a Zeno, here the Pope appears as the sole check to a
+despotic power. He alone could speak to the emperor on an equal and even a
+superior footing. Would such a power not have repudiated his interference,
+had it not been convinced of an authority beyond its reach to deny? The
+first generation following the utter impotence of Rome as reduced to a
+<i>municipium</i> under Arian rulers will answer this question, as we shall see
+hereafter, with fullest effect.</p>
+
+<p>I have adduced above three political situations. The first is when the
+Primacy passes from dealing with one government to deal with more than one;
+the second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> when the Primacy has to deal with an unsettled world of many
+governments; the third when it is the sole fixed point in the face of a
+hurricane on one side and a despotism on the other. I observe that the
+testimony of all three concurs to bring out its action and establish its
+divine character. As an epilogue to all that has been said, I will suppose
+a case.</p>
+
+<p>Three men, great with the natural greatness of intellect, greater still in
+the acquired greatness of character, greatest of all in the supernatural
+grace of saintliness, witnessed this fifth century from its beginning: one
+of them, during two decades of years; the second, during three; the last,
+during six decades. They saw in their own persons, or they heard in
+authentic narratives, all its doings&mdash;the cities plundered and overthrown;
+the countries wasted; all natural ties disregarded; neither age, nor sex,
+nor dignity, respected by hordes of savages, incapable themselves of
+learning, strangers to science, without perception of art; the sum being
+that the richest civilisation which the world had borne was crushed down by
+brute force. They saw, and mourned, and bore with unfailing personal
+courage their portion of sorrow, mayhap turning themselves in their inmost
+mind from a world perishing before their eyes, to contemplate the joy
+promised in a world which should not perish. But neither to St. Jerome, nor
+to St. Augustine, nor to St. Leo, did the thought occur that this barbarian
+mass could be controlled into producing a civilisation richer than that
+which its own incursion destroyed. That, instead of perpetual strife<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> and
+mutual repulsion, it could receive the one law of Christ; be moulded into a
+senate of nations, with like institutions and identical principles; that,
+instead of one empire taking an external impress of the Christian faith,
+but rebelling against it with a deep-seated corruption and an unyielding
+paganism, and so perishing in the midst of abundance, it should grow into
+peoples, the corner-stone of whose government and the parent of their
+political constitution should be the one faith of Christ, and their
+acknowledged judge the Roman Pastor; and that the Rome which all the three
+saw once plundered, and the third twice subjected to that penalty, should
+lose all its power as a secular capital, while it became the shrine whence
+a divine law went forth; and that these hordes, who laid it waste before
+their eyes, should become its children and its most valiant defenders.</p>
+
+<p>Had such a vision been vouchsafed to either of these great saints, with
+what words of thankfulness would he have described it. This is the subject
+which this narrative opens; and we, the long-descended offspring of these
+hordes, have seen this sight and witnessed this exertion of power carried
+on through centuries; and degenerate and ungrateful children as we are, we
+are living still upon the deeds which God wrought in that conversion of the
+nations by the pastoral staff of St. Peter, leading them into a land
+flowing with oil and wine.</p>
+
+<p class="notes">NOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> "Episcopatus unus est cujus a singulis in solidum pars
+tenetur."&mdash;S. Cyprian, <i>De Unitate Ecclesiæ</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Gregorovius, i. 286. "Das Papstthum, vom Kaiser des
+Abendlandes befreit, erstand, und die Kirche Roms wuchs unter Trümmern
+mächtig empor. Sie trat an die Stelle des Reichs."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Gregorovius, i. 200.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> St. Ignatius, <i>Epistle to the Romans</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"That Roman, that Judean bond<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">United then dispart no more&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pierce through the veil; the rind beyond<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lies hid the legend's deeper lore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Therein the mystery lies expressed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of power transferred, yet ever one;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Rome&mdash;the Salem of the West&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of Sion, built o'er Babylon."</span>
+<span class="i6">A. de Vere, <i>Legends and Records</i>, p. 204.</span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Gregorovius, i. 208.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Gregorovius, i. 215.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Sidonius Apollinaris, <i>Epist.</i>, i. 9. "Hi in amplissimo
+ordine, seposita prærogativa partis armatæ, facile post purpuratum
+principem principes erant."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sed si forte placet veteres sopire querelas<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Anthemium concede mihi; sit partibus istis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Augustus longumque Leo; mea jura gubernet<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quem petii."&mdash;<i>Carmen</i>, ii.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Reumont, i. 700.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> He says at the end of 500 hendecasyllabics (jam te veniam
+loquacitati Quingenti hendecasyllabi precantur):
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hinc ad balnea non Neroniana,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nec quæ Agrippa dedit, vel ille cujus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bustum Dalmaticæ vident Salonæ,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ad thermas tamen ire sed libebat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Privato bene præbitas pudori".<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> For a well-told account of this expedition and its failure,
+see Thierry, <i>Derniers Temps de l'Empire d'Occident</i>, pp. 77-101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> There is a strange occurrence recorded by St. Gregory in his
+<i>Dialogues</i> as having taken place in this church, which would seem to point
+at Ricimer's burial in it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> This account has been shortened from that of Gregorovius, i.
+231-5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Giesebrecht, quoted by Hergenröther, <i>K.G.</i>, i. 449.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Hergenröther, i. 449-453.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Reumont, ii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Reumont, ii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Reumont (ii. 29-42) gives an admirable sketch of the
+government of Theodorich, by which I have profited in what follows.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Montalembert, Gregorovius, Kurth. Philips (vol. iii., p. 51,
+sec. 119), remarks: "Wäre Theodorich der Grosse nicht Arianer gewesen, so
+würde, wenn er es sonst gewollt, ihm wohl nichts weiter im Wege gestanden
+haben, als sich zum Römischen kaiser im Abendlande ausrufen lassen".</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Gregorovius, i. 312, 315.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Orosius, <i>Hist.</i>, vii. 43.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Photius, i. 111.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Photius, i. 120.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Guizot, <i>Sur la Civilisation en Europe</i>, deuxième leçon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Edict of Valentinian III., in 447.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb">CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">CÆSAR FELL DOWN.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> St. Leo refused his assent to the Canons in favour of the see of
+Constantinople, which, at the end of the Council of Chalcedon, the Court,
+the clergy, and above all Anatolius, the bishop of the imperial city,
+desired to be passed, and with that intent overbore the resistance of the
+Papal legates, the race of Theodosius was still reigning both at Old and at
+New Rome. The eastern sovereigns, Marcian and Pulcheria, by becoming whose
+husband Marcian had ascended the throne, had acted with conspicuous loyalty
+towards the Pope. The mistakes of Theodosius II. were repaired, and the
+cabals of his courtiers ceased to affect the stronger minds and faithful
+hearts of his successors. In the West, Galla Placidia, during all the
+reign, since the death, in 423, of her brother Honorius, with which her
+nephew Theodosius II. had invested her, was also faithful to St. Peter's
+See; the same spirit directed her son Valentinian, and his empress-cousin,
+the daughter of the eastern emperor. The letters of all exist, in which
+they strove to set right their father, or nephew, Theodosius II., in the
+matter of Eutyches. All had supported St. Leo in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> the annulling that
+unhappy Council which compromised the faith of the Church so long as it was
+allowed to count as a Council. But not for any merit on the part of
+Pulcheria and Marcian would St. Leo allow the mere grandeur of a royal
+city, because it was the seat of empire, to dethrone from their original
+rank, held since the beginning of the Christian hierarchy, the two other
+Sees of St. Peter&mdash;the one of his disciple St. Mark, sent from his side at
+Rome; the other, in which he had first sat himself. St. Leo could not the
+least foresee that the course of things in less than a generation would
+justify by the plainest evidence of facts his maintenance of tradition and
+his prescience of future dangers. He had charged Anatolius with seeking
+unduly to exalt himself at the expense of his brethren. The exaltation
+consisted in making himself the second bishop of the Church. His see, a
+hundred and twenty years before, had, if it existed at all&mdash;for it is all
+but lost in insignificance&mdash;been merely a suffragan of the archbishop of
+Heraclea. Leo saw that Anatolius, under cover of the emperor's permanent
+residence in Nova Roma, sought to make its bishop the lever by which the
+whole episcopate of the East should be moved. We are now to witness the
+attempt to carry into effect all which St. Leo feared by a bishop who was
+next successor but one to Anatolius in his see.</p>
+
+<p>The changes, indeed, wrought in a few years were immense. St. Leo himself
+outlived both Pulcheria and Marcian; and on the death of the latter saw the
+imperial succession, which had been in some sense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> hereditary since the
+election of Valentinian I., in 364, pass to a new man. As this is the first
+occasion on which the succession to the Byzantine throne comes into our
+review, it may be well to consider what sort of thing it was. I suppose the
+Cæsarean succession even from the first is a hard thing to bring under any
+definition. Since Claudius was discovered quaking for fear behind a
+curtain, and dragged out to sit upon the throne which his nephew Caius had
+hastily vacated, after having been welcomed to it four years before with
+universal acclamation, it would be difficult to say what made a man emperor
+of the Romans. So much I seem to see in that terrible line, that the
+descent from father to son was hardly ever blessed, and that those who were
+adopted by an emperor no way related to them succeeded the best. The
+children of the very greatest emperors&mdash;of a Marcus Aurelius, a
+Constantine, a Theodosius&mdash;have only brought shame on their parents and
+ruin on their empire. Again, if the youth of a Nero or a Caracalla ended in
+utter ignominy, the youth of an Alexander Severus produced the fairest of
+reigns, while it ended in his murder by an usurper. But strange and
+anomalous as the Cæsarean succession appears, that of the Byzantine
+sovereigns, from the disappearance of the Theodosian race to the last
+Constantine who dies on the ramparts of the city made by the first, shows a
+great deterioration.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> There was no acknowledged principle of succession.
+Arbitrary force determined it. One robber followed another upon the throne;
+so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> the eastern despot seemed to imitate that ghastly rule, in the
+wood by Nemi, "of the priest who slew the slayer and shall himself be
+slain". If the army named one man to the throne, the fleet named another.
+If intrigue and shameless deceit gained it in one case, murder succeeded in
+another. Relationship or connection by marriage with the last possessor
+helped but rarely. This frequent and irregular change, and the personal
+badness of most sovereigns, caused endless confusion to the realm. This is
+the staple of the thousand years in which the election of the emperor Leo
+I., in 457, stands at the head. On the death of Marcian, following that of
+Pulcheria, in whose person a woman first became empress regnant, Leo was a
+Thracian officer, a colonel of the service, and director of the general
+Aspar's household. Aspar was an Arian Goth, commander of the troops, who
+had influence enough to make another man emperor, but not to cancel the
+double blot of barbarian and heretic in his own person. He made Leo, with
+the intention to be his master. And Leo ruled for seventeen years with some
+credit; and presently put Aspar and his son to death, in a treacherous
+manner, but not without reason. He bore a good personal character, was
+Catholic in his faith, and St. Leo lived on good terms with him during the
+four years following his election. St. Leo, dying in 461, was succeeded by
+Pope Hilarus, the deacon and legate who brought back a faithful report to
+Rome of the violent Council at Ephesus, in 449, from which he had escaped.
+Pope Hilarus was succeeded in 468 by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> Simplicius, and in 474 the emperor
+Leo died, leaving the throne to an infant grandson of the same name, the
+son of his daughter Ariadne, by an Isaurian officer Zeno, who reigned at
+first as the guardian of his son, and a few months afterwards came by that
+son's death to sole power as emperor. The worst character is given to Zeno
+by the national historians. His conduct was so vile, and his government so
+discredited by irruptions of the Huns on the Danube, and of Saracens in
+Mesopotamia, that his wife's stepmother Verina, the widow of Leo I.,
+conspired against him, and was able to set her brother Basiliscus on the
+throne. Zeno took flight; Basiliscus was proclaimed emperor. He declared
+himself openly against the Catholic faith in favour of the Eutycheans. But
+Basiliscus was, if possible, viler than Zeno, and after twenty months Zeno
+was brought back. The usurper's short rule lasted from October, 475, to
+June, 477; exactly, therefore, at the time when Odoacer put an end to the
+western empire. It was upon Zeno's recovery of the throne that he received
+back from the Roman senate the sovereign insignia, and conferred the title
+of Roman Patricius on Odoacer. In the following years Zeno had much to do
+with Theodorich. He gave up to him part of Dacia and M&oelig;sia, and finally
+he made, in 484, the king of the Ostrogoths Roman consul, as a reward for
+the services to the Roman emperor. But, afterwards, Theodorich ravaged
+Zeno's empire up to the walls of Constantinople, and was bought off by a
+commission to march into Italy and to dethrone Odoacer. Zeno continued an
+inglorious and unhappy reign, full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> murders, deceits, and crimes of
+every sort, for fourteen years after his restoration, and died in 491.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now pass to the ecclesiastical policy of Zeno's reign.</p>
+
+<p>The succession to the see of Constantinople requires to be considered in
+apposition with that of the see of Rome. The attempt of Anatolius had been
+broken by St. Leo, who also outlived him by three years, for Anatolius died
+in 458, a year after the emperor Leo had succeeded Marcian; and his
+crowning of Leo is recorded as the first instance of that ceremony being
+exercised. At his death Gennadius was appointed, who sat to the year 471.
+He is commended by all writers for his admirable conduct. St. Leo<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> had
+sent bishops to Constantinople to ask the emperor that he would bring to
+punishment Timotheus the Cat, who, being schismatical, excommunicated, and
+Eutychean, had nevertheless got possession of the see of Alexandria. He was
+endeavouring, after the death of the legitimate bishop, Proterius, who had
+succeeded the deposed Dioscorus, to ruin the Catholic faith throughout
+Egypt. All the bishops of the East, whom the emperor consulted, pronounced
+against this Timotheus. But he was supported by Aspar, who had given Leo
+the empire. Nevertheless, Gennadius joined his efforts with those of the
+Pope, and Timotheus Ailouros was banished from Alexandria to Gangra.
+Another Timotheus Solofaciolus, approved by Pope Leo, was made bishop of
+Alexandria.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the end of 471, Acacius succeeded Gennadius in the see of the capital.
+At the time he was well known, having been for many years superior of the
+orphans' hospital, where he had gained the affection of everyone. He is
+said to have been made bishop by the influence of Zeno, who was then the
+emperor's son-in-law. He immediately rose high in the opinion of Leo, who
+consulted him on private and public affairs before anyone else. He placed
+him in the senate, the first time that the bishop had sat there. Acacius is
+said to have used his influence with Leo to soften a severe temper, to
+restore many persons to his favour, to obtain the recal of many from
+banishment. He took special care of the churches, and of the clergy serving
+them, and they in return put his portrait everywhere. Acacius was
+considered an excellent bishop when Basiliscus rose against Zeno.</p>
+
+<p>In all this contest Acacius took part against the attempt which Basiliscus
+made to overthrow the faith of the Church. He had issued a document termed
+the Encyclikon or Circular, in which for the first time in the history of
+the Church an emperor had assumed the right, as emperor, to lay down the
+terms of the faith. In this act there is not so much to be considered the
+mixture of truth and falsehood in the document issued as the authority
+which he claimed to set up a standard of doctrine. But he could not induce
+Acacius to put his signature to it. Five hundred Greek bishops, it is true,
+were found to do so, but Acacius was not one of them. Basiliscus fell, Zeno
+was restored, and Acacius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> came out of the struggles between them with
+increased renown.</p>
+
+<p>Zeno's restoration was considered at the time a victory of the Catholic
+cause. Basiliscus in his short dominion of twenty months had formally
+recalled from exile the notorious heretic Timotheus Ailouros, and put him
+in the patriarchal see of Alexandria, as likewise Peter the Fuller in the
+see of Antioch. This Timotheus had moved Basiliscus to the strong act of
+despotically overriding the faith by issuing an edict upon doctrine.
+Basiliscus had been obliged, by the opposition of the monks at
+Constantinople, and that of Acacius, and the fear of the returning Zeno, to
+withdraw this document. The usurper had to fly for refuge to sanctuary, but
+Acacius did not shield him as St. Chrysostom had shielded Eutropius. He
+came forth under solemn promise from Zeno that his blood should not be
+shed, and was carried with wife and children to Cappadocia, where all were
+starved to death.</p>
+
+<p>In all this matter Acacius had gained great credit as defender of the
+Council of Chalcedon. He had himself referred for help to Simplicius in the
+Apostolic See. Zeno upon his return to power had entered into closer
+connection with the Roman chair. He had sent the Pope a blameless
+confession of faith, promising to maintain the Council of Chalcedon.
+Simplicius, on the 8th October, 477, had congratulated him on his return.
+In this letter he reminds Zeno of the acts of his predecessors, Marcian and
+Leo: that he owed gratitude to God for bringing him back. "He has restored
+their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> empire to you: do you show Him their service. And as the words which
+I lately addressed, under the instruction of the blessed Apostle Peter,
+were rejected by those who were about to fall (<i>i.e.</i>, Basiliscus), I pray
+that by God's favour they may profit those who shall stand (<i>i.e.</i>, Zeno).
+I receive the letters sent by your clemency, as an immense pledge of your
+devotion. I breathe again joyously, and do not doubt that you will do even
+more in religion than I desire. But mindful of my office, I dwell the more
+on this matter, because out of regard alike for your empire and your
+salvation I ardently wish that you should abide in that cause on which
+alone depends the stability of present government and the gaining future
+glory. I beg above all things that you should deliver the Church of
+Alexandria from the heretical intruder, and restore it to the Catholic and
+legitimate bishop, and also restore the several ejected bishops to their
+sees, that as you have delivered your commonwealth from the domination of a
+tyrant, so you may save the Church of God everywhere from the robbery and
+contamination of heretics. Do not allow that to prevail which the iniquity
+of the times and a spirit as rebellious against God as against your empire
+has stirred up, but rather what so many great pontiffs, and with them the
+consent of the universal Church, has decreed. Give full legal vigour to the
+decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, or those which my predecessor Leo, of
+blessed memory, has with apostolic learning laid down. That is, as you have
+found it, the Catholic faith, which has put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> down the mighty from their
+seat, and exalted the humble."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>To appreciate this letter, it must be borne in mind that it was written by
+Pope Simplicius a year after the western empire was extinguished; that the
+writer had seen nine western emperors deposed, and most of them murdered,
+in twenty-one years; that it was addressed to the eastern and now only
+Roman emperor; and that the writer was living under the absolute rule of
+the <i>condottiere</i> chief who had succeeded Ricimer, and is called by Pope
+Gelasius a few years afterwards "Odoacer, barbarian and heretic".<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p>
+
+<p>The whole East was disturbed at this time by the condition of the great
+patriarchal sees of Alexandria and Antioch. The Eutychean party was
+perpetually trying for the mastery. At Alexandria, Proterius, who succeeded
+Dioscorus when he was deposed at the Council of Chalcedon, had been
+murdered in 458. The utmost efforts of Pope Leo and the emperor Leo were
+needed to maintain his legitimate successor Timotheus Solofaciolus, against
+whom a rival of the same name, Timotheus Ailouros, had been set up by the
+Eutychean party, which was far the most numerous. It was on the death of
+this patriarch, Timotheus Solofaciolus, in 482, that the clergy and many
+bishops had chosen John Talaia as his successor. John Talaia had announced
+his election to the Pope in order to be acknowledged by him; also, as was
+customary, to the patriarch of Antioch; but had sent his synodal letter by
+some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> indirect manner to Acacius, who thus received the notice by public
+report, rather than in the official way. But in the four years which had
+elapsed since the restoration of Zeno, Acacius had acquired great influence
+over him. Zeno had published a decree in which, "out of regard to our royal
+city," he assured to that "Church, the mother of our piety and the see of
+all orthodox Christians, the privileges and honours over the consecration
+of bishops which, before our government, or during it, it is recognised to
+possess," in which he named Acacius, "the most blessed patriarch, father of
+our piety". Acacius had made his maintenance of the Council of Chalcedon go
+step by step with his claim to exercise patriarchal rights over the great
+see of Ephesus. This had led to fresh reclamations from the Pope. Acacius
+had gone ever forwards, and seemed, by the favour of Zeno, to be reaching
+complete subjection of the eastern patriarchates to the see of
+Constantinople. Incensed at what he considered the slight offered to him by
+John Talaia, he took up, with the utmost keenness against him, the cause of
+a rival, Peter the Stammerer, who had been elected by the Eutychean party.
+He worked upon the emperor's mind in favour of the Monophysite pretender.
+Peter the Stammerer himself came to Constantinople, and urged to Zeno that
+the utmost confusion and disorder might be feared in Egypt if the powerful
+and numerous opponents of the Council of Chalcedon had an unacceptable
+patriarch put upon them. At the same time, he proposed a compromise which
+would unite all parties and prevent the breaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> up of the eastern Church.
+Acacius, a few years before, had denounced to Pope Simplicius himself this
+Peter the Stammerer as an adulterer, robber, and son of darkness. He now
+entirely embraced this plan, and not only won the emperor to Peter's side
+for the patriarchate, but induced Zeno to publish a doctrinal decree. This
+was to express what was common to all confessions of faith down to the
+Council of Chalcedon, to avoid the expressions used in controversy, and
+entirely to set aside the Council of Chalcedon. In 482 appeared this
+Formulary of Union, or Henotikon, drawn up, it was supposed, by Acacius
+himself, addressed to the clergy and people of Alexandria. It was first
+subscribed by Acacius, as patriarch of Constantinople, then by Peter the
+Stammerer, acknowledged for this purpose as patriarch of Alexandria; then
+by Peter the Fuller, as patriarch of Antioch; by Martyrius of Jerusalem,
+and by other bishops, but by no means all. Zeno used the imperial power to
+expel those who would not sign it.</p>
+
+<p>As Peter the Stammerer had gone to the emperor to get his election approved
+and supported by Zeno and Acacius, so John Talaia had solicited Pope
+Simplicius to confirm his election. This the Pope had been on the point of
+confirming, when he received a letter from the emperor accusing John
+Talaia, and urging the appointment of Peter the Stammerer. Acacius had not
+hesitated to absolve him, and admit him to his communion, and strove by
+every effort of deceit and force to induce the eastern bishops to accept
+him. The last letter we have of the Pope, dated November 6, 482,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> strongly
+censures Acacius for communicating nothing to him concerning the Church of
+Alexandria, and for not instructing the emperor in such a way that peace
+might be restored by him.</p>
+
+<p>On March 2, 483, Pope Simplicius died, and was succeeded by Pope Felix.
+John Talaia had come in person to Rome to lay his accusation against
+Acacius. Also the orthodox monks at Constantinople, and eastern bishops
+expelled for not signing the Henotikon, begged for the Pope's assistance,
+and denounced Acacius as the author of all the trouble. Amongst these
+expelled bishops who appealed to Rome were bishops of Chalcedon, Samosata,
+Mopsuestia, Constantina, Hemeria, Theodosiopolis.</p>
+
+<p>The Pope called a council, in which he considered the complaint now brought
+before him by John Talaia, as a hundred and forty years before St.
+Athanasius had carried his complaint to Pope Julius. It was resolved to
+support the ejected bishops, to maintain the Council of Chalcedon, and to
+request from the emperor the expulsion of Peter the Stammerer, who was
+usurping the see of Alexandria. For this purpose the Pope commissioned two
+bishops, Vitalis and Misenus, to go as his legates to the emperor. They
+were to invite Acacius to attend a council at Rome, and to answer therein
+the complaint brought against him by the elected patriarch of Alexandria.</p>
+
+<p>The legates carried a letter<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> from Pope Felix to the emperor, in which,
+according to custom, the Pope informed him of his election. He observed
+that, for a long time, the see of the blessed Apostle had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> expecting
+an answer to the letters sent by his predecessor of blessed memory,
+"especially inasmuch as it had bound your majesty, with tremendous vows,
+not to allow the see of the evangelist St. Mark to be separated from the
+teaching or the communion of his master.... Again, therefore, the reverend
+confession of the Apostle Peter, with a mother's voice, renews its
+instance. It ceases not with confidence to call upon you as its son. It
+cries: O Christian prince, why do you allow me to be interrupted in that
+course of charity which binds together the universal Church? Why, in my
+person, do you break up the consent of the whole world? I beseech you, my
+son, suffer not that tunic of the Lord woven from the top throughout, by
+which is signified, as the Holy Spirit rules the whole body, that the
+Church of Christ should be one and individual&mdash;suffer it not to be broken.
+They who crucified our Saviour left it untouched. Do not let it be rent in
+your times. My faith it is which the Lord Himself declared should alone be
+one, never to be conquered by any assault: He who promised that the gates
+of hell should never prevail over the Church founded on my confession. This
+Church it was which restored you to the imperial dignity, deprived its
+impugners of their power, and opened to you the path of victory in
+defending it.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Look at me, his successor, however humble, as if the Apostle were present.
+Look deeper into those ways which concern the reverence due to God and the
+condition of man; and be not ungrateful to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> Author of your present
+prosperity. In you alone survives the name of emperor. Do not grudge us the
+saving you. Do not diminish our confidence in praying for you. Look back on
+your august predecessors Marcian and Leo, and the faith of so many princes,
+you, who are their lawful heir. Once more, look back on your own
+engagements, and the words which, on your return to power, you addressed to
+my predecessor. The defence of the Council of Chalcedon is expressed in the
+whole series." And he ends: "What I could not put in my letter I have
+entrusted my brethren and legates to explain. I beseech you to listen, as
+well for the preservation of Catholic truth as for the safety of your own
+empire."</p>
+
+<p>To Acacius also the legates carried a letter of the Pope, which he opened
+by announcing that he had succeeded to the office of Pope Simplicius, and
+was forthwith involved in those many cares which the voice of the Supreme
+Pastor had imposed upon St. Peter, and which kept him watchfully occupied
+with a rule which extended over all the peoples of the earth. At that
+moment his greatest anxiety, as it had been that of his predecessor, was
+for the city of Alexandria, and for the faith of the whole East. And he
+went on to reproach Acacius for not duly informing him of what was passing,
+for not defending the Council of Chalcedon, and not using his influence
+with the emperor in its defence: "Brother, do not let us despair that the
+word of our Saviour will be true; He promised that He would never be
+wanting to His Church to the end of the world; that it should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> never be
+overcome by the gates of hell; that all which was bound on earth by
+sentence of apostolic doctrine should not be loosed in heaven. Nor let us
+think that either the judgment of Peter or the authority of the universal
+Church, by whatever dangers it be surrounded, will ever lose the weight of
+its force. The more it dreads being weakened by worldly prosperity, the
+more, divinely instructed, it grows under adversity. To let the perverse go
+on in their way, when you can stop them, is indeed to encourage them. He
+who, evidently, ceases to obstruct a wicked deed, does not escape the
+suspicion of complicity. If, when you see hostility arising against the
+Council of Chalcedon, you do nothing, believe me, I know not how you can
+maintain that you belong to the whole Church."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the two legates arrived at the Dardanelles, they were arrested,
+by order of Zeno and Acacius, put in prison, their papers and letters taken
+from them. They were menaced with death if they did not accept the
+communion of Acacius and of Peter the Stammerer. Then they were seduced
+with presents, and deceived with false promises that Acacius would submit
+the whole affair to the Pope. They resisted at first, but yielded in the
+end, and, passing beyond their commission, gave judgment in favour of Peter
+the Stammerer. They had broken all the instructions of the Pope, and
+carried back letters from Zeno and Acacius to him, full of extravagant
+praises of Peter the Stammerer. His former deposition and condemnation were
+entirely put aside. On the other hand, the character of John Talaia was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+bitterly impugned. The emperor asserted that he had treated Church matters
+with the utmost moderation, and guided himself entirely by the advice of
+the patriarch Acacius.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, Acacius was the spiritual superior of the whole eastern empire,
+and appeared not to trouble himself any more about the Roman See. He made
+no pretence to give any satisfaction for what he had done. Before he had
+been the champion of orthodoxy, now he had become in league with heretics.
+But he lost all remaining confidence among Catholics. The zealous monks of
+his own city withdrew from his communion, and sent one of themselves,
+Symeon, to Rome to inform the Pope of all that had happened, and disclose
+the faithless behaviour of his legates.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
+
+<p>In another letter the Pope had cited Acacius to appear at Rome to meet the
+accusation brought against him by John Talaia, the patriarch of Alexandria.
+Acacius took no notice of this citation, nor of the complaint brought
+against him.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon, the Pope, in a council of seventy-seven bishops, held at Rome
+the 28th July, 484, made inquiry into all this transaction. He annulled the
+judgment on Peter the Stammerer, passed without his authority by his
+legates, deprived them of their offices, and of communion. He renewed the
+condemnation of Peter the Stammerer, he had in the interval admonished
+Acacius again, without result. He now issued the decree of deposition upon
+him. It runs in the following words:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> guilty of many transgressions; have often treated with insult
+the venerable Nicene Council; have unrightfully claimed jurisdiction over
+provinces not belonging to you. In the case of intruding heretics, ordained
+likewise by heretics, whom you had yourself condemned, and whose
+condemnation you had urged upon the Apostolic See, you not only received
+them to your communion, but even set them over other Churches, which was
+not, even in the case of Catholics, allowable; or have even given them
+higher rank undeservedly. John is an instance of this. When he was not
+accepted by the Catholics at Apamea, and had been driven away from Antioch,
+you set him over the Tyrians. Humerius also, having been degraded from the
+diaconite and deprived of the Christian name, you advanced to the
+priesthood. And as if these seemed to you minor offences, in the boldness
+of your pride you assaulted the truth itself of apostolic doctrine. That
+Peter, whose condemnation by my predecessor of holy memory you had yourself
+recorded, as the subjoined proofs show, you suffered by your connivance
+again to invade the see of the blessed evangelist Mark, to drive out
+orthodox bishops and clergy, and ordain, no doubt, such as himself, to
+expel one who was there regularly established, and hold the Church captive.
+Nay, his person was so agreeable to you, and his ministers so acceptable,
+that you have been found to persecute a large number of orthodox bishops
+and clergy, who now come to Constantinople, and to encourage his legates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+You put upon Misenus and Vitalis to find excuse for one who was
+anathematising the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, and violating the
+tomb of Timotheus of holy memory, as sure information has been given us.
+You have not ceased to praise and exalt him so as to boast that the very
+condemnation you had yourself recorded was untrue. You went even further in
+the defence of a perverse man. They who were late bishops, but are now
+deprived of their rank and of communion, Vitalis and Misenus, men whom we
+had specially sent for his expulsion, you suffered to be deprived of their
+papers and imprisoned; you dragged them out thence to a procession which
+you were having with heretics, as they confessed; in contempt of their
+legatine quality, which even the law of nations would protect, you drew
+them on to the communion of heretics, and yourself; you corrupted them with
+bribes; and, with injury to the blessed Apostle Peter, from whose see they
+went forth, you caused them not only to return with labour lost, but with
+the overthrow of all their instructions. In deceiving them, your wickedness
+was shown. As to the memorial of my brother and fellow-bishop John
+(Talaia), who brought the heaviest charges against you, by not venturing to
+give an answer in the Apostolic See, according to the canons, you have
+established his allegations. Likewise, you considered unworthy of your
+sight our most faithful defender Felix, whom a necessity caused to come
+afterwards. You also showed by your letters that known heretics were
+communicating with you. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> what else are they who, after the death of
+Timotheus of holy memory, go back to his church under Peter the Stammerer,
+or, having been Catholics, have given themselves up to this Peter, but such
+as Peter himself was judged to be by the whole Church, and by yourself?
+Therefore, by this present sentence have with those whom you willingly
+embrace your portion, which we send to you by the defender of your own
+church, being deprived of sacerdotal honour and Catholic communion, and
+severed from the number of the faithful. Know that the name and office of
+the sacerdotal ministry is taken from you. You are condemned by the
+judgment of the Holy Ghost<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> and apostolic authority, and never to be
+released from the bonds of anathema.</p>
+
+<p>"Cælius Felix, bishop of the holy Catholic Church of the city of Rome. On
+the 28th July, in the consulship of the most honourable Venantius."</p>
+
+<p>This was a synodal letter,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> signed by sixty-seven bishops, as well as
+the Pope. But the copy of the decree against Acacius sent to Constantinople
+was signed by the Pope alone, partly according to ancient custom, partly in
+order with greater security to transmit it to the eastern capital. Had this
+copy been signed by the bishops also, ruling practice would have required
+it to be carried over by at least two bishops, which then appeared very
+dangerous. A Roman synod of forty-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>three<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> bishops, in the following
+year, 485, wrote to the clergy of Constantinople: "If snares had not been
+set for the orthodox by land and sea, many of us might have come with the
+sentence of Acacius. But now, being assembled on the cause of the church of
+Antioch at St. Peter's, we make a point of declaring to you the custom
+which has always prevailed among us. As often as bishops<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> meet in Italy
+on ecclesiastical matters, especially when they touch the faith, the custom
+is maintained that the successor of those who preside in the Apostolic See,
+as representing all the bishops of the whole of Italy, according to the
+care of all churches which lies upon him, appoints all things, being the
+head of all, as the Lord said to Peter, 'Thou art Peter,' &amp;c. The three
+hundred and eighteen holy fathers assembled at Nicæa acted in obedience to
+this word, and left the confirmation and authority of what they treated to
+the holy Roman Church; both of which things all successions to our own time
+by the grace of Christ maintain. What, therefore, the holy council
+assembled at St. Peter's decreed, and the most blessed Felix, our Head,
+Pope, and Archbishop, ratified, that is sent to you by Tutus, defensor of
+the Church."</p>
+
+<p>Three days after the sentence on Acacius, Pope Felix wrote to the emperor
+Zeno.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> He reminded him that, in violation of reverence to God, an
+embassy to the Holy See had been taken captive, its papers taken away; it
+had been dragged out of prison to communicate with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> the officers of the
+very heretic against whom it had been sent. "Since even barbarous nations,
+who knew not God, allowed to embassies for the transaction of human affairs
+a sacred liberty, how much more should that liberty be preserved sacred,
+especially in divine things, by a Roman emperor and Christian prince?
+Putting aside the embassy, which even in the case of the Apostle Peter was
+disregarded, be assured at least by these letters that the see of the
+Apostle Peter has never granted communion, and will never grant it, to that
+Alexandrian Peter long ago justly condemned, and again by synodal decree
+suppressed. But as you have not regarded the words of exhortation I
+addressed to you, I leave it to your choice to select which you will have,
+the communion of the blessed Apostle Peter or that of the Alexandrian
+Peter. You will know by the letters of this man's abettor, Acacius, to my
+predecessor of holy memory, copies of which I enclose, how even in your own
+judgment he was condemned. But this Acacius, who has committed many
+atrocities against the ancient rules, and has come to praise one whom he
+affirmed to be condemned, and whose condemnation he obtained from the
+Apostolic See, has been severed from apostolic communion. But I believe
+that your piety, which prefers to comply even with its own laws rather than
+to resist them, and which knows that the supreme rule of things human is
+given to you on condition of admitting that things divine are allotted to
+dispensers divinely assigned, I believe that it will be undoubtedly of
+service to you if you permit the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> Catholic Church in the time of your
+principate to use its own laws, nor allow anyone to stand in the way of its
+liberty, which has restored to you the imperial power. For it is certain
+that this will bring safety to your affairs, if in God's cause, and
+according to His appointment, you study to subdue the royal will and not to
+prefer it to the bishops of Christ, and rather to learn holy things by them
+than to teach them; to follow the form traced out by the Church, not after
+human fashion to impose rules on it, nor wish to dominate the commands of
+that power to whom it is God's will that your clemency should devoutly
+submit, lest, if the measure of the divine disposition be overpast, it may
+end in the disgrace of the disponent. And from this time I absolve my
+conscience as to all these things, who have to plead my cause before
+Christ's tribunal. It will be well for you more and more to reflect that
+both in the present state of things we are under the divine examination,
+and that after this life's course we shall according to it come before the
+divine judgment."</p>
+
+<p>St. Gregory the Great, writing his <i>Dialogues</i><a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> about one hundred and
+ten years after this letter, informs us that the writer of it was his
+great-grandfather, and speaks of his appearing in a vision to his aunt
+Tarsilla and showing her the habitation of everlasting light. At the time
+of writing it, Pope Felix was living under the domination of the Arian
+Herule Odoacer. The great Church of Africa was suffering the most terrible
+of persecutions under the Arian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> Vandal Hunneric, the son of his father
+Genseric. Arian Visigoth rulers were in possession of Spain and France, of
+whom Euric, as we have seen, was described rather as the chief of a sect
+than the sovereign of a people. In all the West not a yard of territory was
+under rule of a Catholic sovereign. And he whom the Pope addressed, with
+the dignity of the Apostolic See in its reverence for the power which is a
+delegation of God, as Roman emperor and Christian prince, was in his
+private life scandalous, in all his public rule shifty and tyrannical, and
+in belief, if he had any, an Eutychean heretic. It may be added, as a fact
+of history, that the emperor went before the divine judgment sooner than
+the Pope; that during the seven years which intervened between the letter
+and his death he utterly disregarded all that the Pope had done and said.
+He suffered, or rather made the bishop of Constantinople to be the ruler of
+the eastern Church; he maintained heretics in the sees of Alexandria and
+Antioch. After this he died in 491, and the last fact recorded of him is
+that the empress Ariadne, the daughter of Leo I., who had brought him the
+empire with her hand, when he fell into an epileptic fit and was supposed
+to be dead, had him buried at once, and placed guards around his tomb, who
+were forbidden to allow any approach to it. When the imperial vault was
+afterwards entered, Zeno was found to have torn his arm with his teeth. The
+empress widow, forty days after the death of Zeno, conferred her hand, and
+with it the empire a second time, upon Anastasius, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> had been up to that
+time a sort of gentleman usher<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> in the imperial service. Anastasius
+ruled the eastern empire twenty-seven years, from 491 to 518.</p>
+
+<p>The Pope further sought by a letter<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> to the clergy and people of
+Constantinople to remove the scandal caused by the weakness of his legates,
+and to explain the grounds upon which he had deposed Acacius. "Though we
+know the zeal of your faith, yet we warn all who desire to share in the
+Catholic faith to abstain from communion with him, lest, which God forbid,
+they fall into like penalty."</p>
+
+<p>Acacius did not receive the papal judgment against him, but sought to
+suppress it. A monk ventured to attach to his mantle as he went to Mass the
+sentence of excommunication. It cost him his life, and brought heavy
+persecutions on his brethren. Acacius met the Pope with open defiance, and
+removed his name from the diptychs.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> He rested on the emperor Zeno's
+support, who did everything at his bidding. Every arm of deceit and of
+violence he used equally. The monks, called, from their never intermitted
+worship, the Sleepless, in close connection with Rome, suffered severely.
+So Acacius passed the remaining five years of his life, dying in the autumn
+of 489.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His excommunication by the Pope caused a schism between the East and West
+which lasted thirty-five years, from 484 to 519. He met that supreme act of
+authority by the counter act of removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.
+This invites us to consider the position which he assumed.</p>
+
+<p>From the year 482 (that is, four years after Zeno had recovered the
+empire), Acacius appears in possession of full influence over the emperor.
+The position of the bishop at Constantinople was, in itself, one of immense
+dignity. He was undoubtedly the second person in the imperial city,
+surrounded with a pomp and deference only yielding to that accorded to the
+emperor, but in some respects superior to it. He was regarded as
+sacrosanct: all the respect which the Church received in the minds of the
+good was centred in his person. And as he had risen to all this dignity in
+virtue of Constantinople being the capital, there was a special connection
+between the capital and its bishop, which led it to sympathise with every
+accession of power which he received. There can be no doubt that the right
+acquired by that bishop over the great sees of Ephesus, Cæsarea in Pontus,
+and Heraclea in Thrace was extremely popular at Constantinople; and that
+when he proceeded further to show his hand over the patriarchate of
+Antioch&mdash;as, for instance, in nominating one of its archbishops at Tyre, as
+the Pope reproached him&mdash;the capital was still better pleased. Most of all
+when, breaking through all the regulations which the Nicene Council had
+consecrated by its approval,&mdash;which,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> however, it had not created, but
+found in immemorial subsistence,&mdash;he ventured to ordain at Constantinople a
+patriarch of Antioch. Thus Stephen II., patriarch of Antioch, had been
+murdered in 479 by the fanatical Monophysites, in the baptistry of the
+Barlaam Church, and his mangled body thrown into the Orontes. The incensed
+emperor punished the criminals, and charged his patriarch Acacius to
+consecrate a new bishop for Antioch. Acacius seized the favourable
+opportunity, after the example of Anatolius, to advance himself, and
+appointed Stephen III. Emperor and patriarch both applied to Pope
+Simplicius to excuse this violation of the rights of the Syrian bishops,
+alleging the pressure of circumstances, and promising that the example
+should not occur again. Simplicius, so entreated, excused the fault,
+recognised the patriarch of Antioch&mdash;though he had been consecrated in
+Constantinople by its bishop&mdash;but insisted that such a violation of the
+canons should not be repeated. Presently Stephen III. died, upon which
+Acacius committed the same fault anew, and in 482 consecrated Calendion
+patriarch of Antioch. Calendion brought back from Macedonia the relics of
+his great and persecuted predecessor, St. Eustathius; but presently Zeno
+and Acacius displaced Calendion. Acacius was using the power which he
+possessed over the emperor to advance his own credit in the appointment of
+patriarchs, and to establish two notorious heretics&mdash;Peter the Fuller at
+Antioch, and Peter the Stammerer at Alexandria. All this meant that the
+bishop of Constantinople's hand was to be over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> the East, as the bishop of
+Rome's hand was over the West. Then, ever since the Council of Chalcedon,
+the two great eastern patriarchates had been torn to pieces by the
+conflicts of parties. The Eutychean heresy fought a desperate battle for
+mastery. As to Antioch, from the time that Eusebius of Nicomedia had
+brought about the deposition of St. Eustathius, preparatory to that of
+Athanasius in 330, the great patriarchate of the East had been declining
+from the unrivalled position which it had held. As to Alexandria, from the
+time that the 150 fathers at Constantinople, in 381, had attempted to make
+Constantinople the second see, because it was Nova Roma, the see of St.
+Mark bore a grudge against the upstart which sought to degrade it. In spite
+of the unequalled renown of its two great patriarchs, St. Athanasius and
+St. Cyril, it was sinking. And now heresy, schism, and imperial favour
+seemed to have joined together to exhibit Acacius as not only the first
+patriarch of the East, but as exercising jurisdiction even within their
+bounds, and as nominating those who succeeded to their thrones. All which
+would only tend to increase the power and popularity of the bishop of
+Constantinople in his own see.</p>
+
+<p>Acacius had now been eleven years bishop. He had gained at once the emperor
+Leo; he had appeared to defend the Council of Chalcedon when Basiliscus
+attacked it; he had further gained mastery over Zeno; but, more than all
+this, he had seen Rome sink into what to eastern eyes must have seemed an
+abyss. St. Leo had compelled Anatolius to give up the canons he so much
+prized;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> since then northern barbarians had twice sacked Rome, and
+Ricimer's most cruel host of adventurers had reaped whatever the Vandal
+Genseric had left. If there was a degradation yet to be endured it would be
+that a Herule soldier of fortune should compel a Roman senate to send back
+the robes of empire to Constantinople, and be content to live under a
+Patricius, sprung from one of the innumerable Teuton hordes, and sanctioned
+by the emperor of the East; and Acacius would not forget that in the
+councils of that emperor he was himself chief.</p>
+
+<p>If New Rome held the second rank because the Fathers gave the first rank to
+Old Rome, in that it was the capital, what was the position of New Rome and
+its bishop when Old Rome had ceased in fact to be a capital at all? At that
+moment&mdash;thirty years after St. Leo had confirmed the greatest of eastern
+councils and been greeted by it as the head of the Christian faith&mdash;the
+Rome in which he sat had been reduced to a mere municipal rank, and its
+bishop, with all its people, lived under what was simply a military
+government commanded by a foreign adventurer. Odoacer at Ravenna was master
+of the lives and liberties of the Romans, including the Pope.</p>
+
+<p>Acacius had had this spectacle for some years before him, when Pope Felix,
+succeeding Pope Simplicius, called him to account for entirely reversing
+the conduct which he had pursued at the time when Basiliscus had usurped
+the empire. Then he defended the Council of Chalcedon and its doctrine;
+then he denounced to the Pope Peter the Stammerer as a heretic and a man of
+bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> life, and had called for his condemnation and obtained it. He had now
+taken upon himself not even to ask from the Pope this man's absolution, but
+to absolve himself the very heretic he had caused to be condemned, and to
+put him into the see of Alexandria, with the rejection of the bishop
+legitimately elected, and approved at Rome, and to compose for the emperor
+a doctrinal decree, which he subscribed himself first as the first of the
+patriarchs, and was compelling all other bishops to sign under pain of
+deprivation; when, behold, St. Leo's third successor called him to account
+in exactly the same terms as St. Leo would have used, and required him to
+meet at Rome the accusation brought against him by John Talaia, a duly
+elected patriarch of Alexandria, just as St. Julius, a hundred and forty
+years before, had invited the accusing bishops at Antioch to meet St.
+Athanasius before his tribunal. He who resided in a state only second to
+the emperor in the real capital of the empire to go to a city living in
+durance under the northern barbarians, and submit to the judgment of one
+whose own tribunal was in captivity to such masters!</p>
+
+<p>But, on the other hand, Pope Felix spoke to the emperor as none but popes
+have ever spoken. He called him his son, but he required from him filial
+obedience. Above all he spoke in one character, and in one alone&mdash;as the
+heir of that St. Peter whom the voice of the Lord had set over His Church;
+he spoke from Rome, not because it was or had been capital of the empire,
+but because it was St. Peter's See, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> precisely because he succeeded St.
+Peter in his apostolate.</p>
+
+<p>The respective action, therefore, of Pope Felix on one side, and of Acacius
+on the other, brought to an issue the most absolute of contradictions. The
+Pope claimed obedience, as a superior, from Acacius. When that obedience
+was refused, he exerted his authority as superior, and degraded Acacius
+both from his rank as bishop, and from Christian communion. And a special
+token of that sentence was to order his name to be removed from the
+diptychs, and to enjoin the people of his own diocese to hold no communion
+with him, on pain of incurring a like penalty with him. Acacius answered by
+practically denying the Pope's authority to do any such act. He asserted
+himself to be his equal by removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.
+There could be no more striking denial of any such authority as the claim
+to inherit Peter's universal pastorship, than to treat the Pope himself as,
+in virtue of that pastorship, he had treated Acacius.</p>
+
+<p>Even apart from this, the conduct of Acacius carried with it a double
+denial of the Pope's authority: a denial that he was the supreme judge of
+faith; and a denial that he was the supreme maintainer of discipline in its
+highest manifestation, the order of the hierarchy itself.</p>
+
+<p>He denied that the Pope was the supreme judge of faith, by drawing up a
+formulary of doctrine, which he induced the emperor to promulgate by
+imperial decree; and this independently of what doctrine that formulary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+might contain. Further, he did this by supporting two persons judged to be
+heretical by the Holy See&mdash;Peter the Fuller at Antioch, Peter the Stammerer
+at Alexandria. He denied that the Pope was the supreme maintainer of
+discipline, by making the two great sees of the East and South subordinate
+to himself. As the Pope expressed it in his sentence, he had done
+"nefarious things against the whole Nicene constitution," of which the Pope
+was special guardian. In fact, his conduct was an imitation of that pursued
+in the preceding century by Eusebius of Nicomedia, by Eudoxius, and all
+their party. It was even carried out to its full completion. The emperor
+was made the head of the Church, on condition of his leading it through the
+bishop of Constantinople. Acacius put together the canon of the Council of
+381, which said that the bishop of New Rome should hold the second rank in
+the episcopate, because his city is New Rome, with the canon attempted to
+be passed at Chalcedon, and cashiered by St. Leo, that the fathers gave its
+privileges to Old Rome because it was the imperial city. Uniting the two,
+he constructed the conclusion, that as Old Rome had ceased to be the
+imperial city, which New Rome had actually become, the privileges of Old
+Rome had passed to the bishop of New Rome.</p>
+
+<p>This he expressed by removing the name of the Pope from the diptychs in
+answer to his sentence of degradation and excommunication. As the Pope
+could not suffer the conduct of Acacius, without ceasing to hold the
+universal pastorship of St. Peter, so Acacius could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> not submit to it
+without admitting that pastorship. He denied it in both its heads of faith
+and government by his conduct. He embodied that denial unmistakably in
+removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.</p>
+
+<p>To lay down a parity between the ecclesiastical privileges of the two sees,
+Rome and Constantinople, because their cities were both capitals, is
+implicitly to deny altogether the divine origin of ecclesiastical
+jurisdiction. That is, to deny that the Church is a divine polity at all.
+The conduct of Acacius was to bring that matter to an issue. The end of it
+will show whether he was right or wrong.</p>
+
+<p>He lived for five years, from 484 to 489, strong in the emperor's support,
+who did everything which he suggested. And he had his part as a counsellor,
+as well as a bishop, in one most important transaction, which took place in
+this interval. The reign of Zeno was disturbed by perpetual insurrections
+and perils. In these Theodorick the Goth had been of great service to him,
+so that in this year, 484, Zeno had made him consul at Rome. But Theodorick
+afterwards thought that Zeno had treated him very ill. He marched upon
+Constantinople: Zeno trembled on his throne. Something had to be done. What
+was done was to turn Theodorick's longing eyes upon the land possessing
+"the hapless dower of beauty".<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> Zeno commissioned him to turn Odoacer
+out, and to take his place. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> 489, Theodorick led the great mass of his
+people into Italy, at the suggestion, and with the warrant of, the man whom
+Pope Felix had appealed to as his son, the Roman emperor and Christian
+prince. And so, as an emperor and a bishop of Constantinople, a hundred
+years before, had led the Gothic nation into the Arian heresy, under the
+belief that it was the Christian faith, another emperor of Constantinople
+and another bishop turned that Gothic nation upon the Roman mother and the
+See of Peter, regardless that they would thereby become temporal subjects
+of those who were possessed by the "Arian perfidy". Beside Eudoxius and
+Valens in history stand Acacius and Zeno; and beside Alaric, let loose with
+his warlike host by the younger sister on the elder in 410, stands
+Theodorick, commissioned, in 489, with all his people, to occupy
+permanently the birthplace of Roman empire.</p>
+
+<p>The eastern bishops<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> crouched before the emperor's power and his
+patriarch's intrigues, who deposed those who were not in his favour, and
+tyrannised over the greater number, so that many fled to the West. John
+Talaia himself, the expelled patriarch of Alexandria, received the
+bishopric of Nola from the Pope, to whom he had appealed. This continued to
+be the state of things during five years, from 484 to 489, when Acacius
+died, still under sentence of excommunication. One of the greatest bishops
+of his time, St. Avitus of Vienna, characterises him with the words,
+"Rather a timid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> lover than a public asserter of the opinion broached by
+Eutyches: he praised, indeed, what he had taken from him, but did not
+venture to preach it to a people still devout, and therefore unpolluted by
+it". Another equally great bishop, Ennodius of Ticinum&mdash;that is,
+Pavia&mdash;says: "He utterly surrendered the glory which he had gained, in
+combating Basiliscus, of maintaining the truth"; while the next Pope
+Gelasius charges him with intense pride; the effect of which was to leave
+to the Church "cause for the peaceful to mourn and the humble to weep".</p>
+
+<p>But all this evil had been wrought by Acacius, and upon his death it
+remained to be seen how his successor would act. He was succeeded by
+Fravita,<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> who, so far from maintaining the conduct of Acacius in
+excluding the name of Pope Felix from the diptychs, wished above all things
+to obtain the Pope's recognition. He would not even assume the government
+of his see without first receiving it. It was usual for patriarchs and
+exarchs to enter on their office immediately after election and
+consecration, before the recognition of the other patriarchs which they
+afterwards asked for by sending an embassy with their synodal letter. It
+seems Fravita would make no use of this right, but besought the Pope's
+confirmation in a very flattering letter. It would seem also that, by the
+death of Acacius, the emperor Zeno had been delivered from thraldom, and
+returned to some sentiment of justice. For he supported the letter of the
+new patriarch by one himself to the Pope, and it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> from the Pope's extant
+answers<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> to these two writings that we learn some of their contents. To
+the emperor, the Pope replies that he knows not how to return sufficient
+thanks to the divine mercy for having inspired him with so great a care for
+religion as to prefer it to all public affairs, and to consider that the
+safety of the commonwealth is involved in it. That, desiring to confirm the
+unity of the Catholic faith and the peace of the churches, he should be
+anxious for the choice of a bishop who should be remarkable for personal
+uprightness and, above all things, for affection to the orthodox truth.
+That the Church has received in him such a son, and that the pontiff, in
+whose accession he rejoices, has already given an indication of his rule in
+referring the beginning of his dignity to the See of the Apostle Peter. For
+the newly-elected pontiff acknowledges in his letter that Peter is the
+chief of the Apostles and the Rock of the Faith: that the keys of the
+heavenly mysteries have been entrusted to him, and therefore seeks
+agreement with the Pope. Then, after enlarging upon the misdeeds of
+Acacius, and his rejection of the Council of Chalcedon, and his absolution
+of notorious heretics, the Pope beseeches the emperor to establish peace by
+giving up the defence of Acacius. "I do not extort this from you&mdash;as being,
+however unworthy, the Vicar of Peter&mdash;by the authority of apostolic power;
+but, as an anxious father earnestly desiring the prosperity of a son, I
+implore you. In me, his Vicar, how unworthy soever, the Apostle Peter
+speaks; and in him Christ, who suffers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> not the division of His own Church,
+beseeches you. Take from between us him who disturbs us: so may Christ, for
+the preservation of His Church's laws, multiply to you temporal things and
+bestow eternal."</p>
+
+<p>In his answer to Fravita, Pope Felix expresses the pleasure which his
+election gives, and the hope that it will bring about the peace of the
+Church. He takes his synodal letter as addressed to the Apostolic See,
+"through which, by the gift of Christ, the dignity of all bishops is made
+of one mass,"<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> as a token of good-will, inasmuch as his own letter
+confesses the Apostle Peter to be the head of the Apostles, the Rock of the
+Faith, and the dispenser of the heavenly mystery by the keys entrusted to
+him. He is the more encouraged because the orthodox monks formed part of
+the embassy. But when the Pope required a pledge from them that Fravita
+should renounce reciting the names of Peter the Stammerer and Acacius in
+the church, they replied that they had no instructions on that head. For
+this reason the Pope delayed to grant communion to Fravita, and he exhorts
+him, in the rest of the letter, not to let the misdeeds of Acacius stand in
+the way of the Church's peace. "Inform us then, as soon as possible, on
+this, that God may conclude what He has begun, and that, fully reconciled,
+we may agree together in the structure<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> of the body of Christ."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p><p>Fravita died before he received the answer of the Pope, having occupied
+the see of Constantinople only three months, and out of communion with the
+Pope.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem that the first successor of Acacius as well as the emperor
+receded both from his act and the position which it involved. They
+acknowledged in their letters, as we learn from the Pope's recitation of
+their words, the dignity of the Apostolic See. What they were not willing
+to do was to give up the person of Acacius. What the subsequent patriarchs,
+Euphemius and Macedonius, alleged, was that he was so rooted in the minds
+of the people that they could not venture to condemn him by removing his
+name from commemoration in the diptychs.</p>
+
+<p>In 490, Euphemius followed in the see of Constantinople. He was devoted to
+the Council of Chalcedon, and ever honoured in the East as orthodox. He
+replaced the Pope's name in the diptychs, and renounced communion with
+Peter the Stammerer, who had again openly anathematised the Council of
+Chalcedon; only he refused to remove from the diptychs the names of his two
+predecessors. Pope Felix had written, on the 1st May, 490, to the
+archimandrite Thalassio,<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> not to enter into communion with the bishop
+who should succeed Fravita, even if he satisfied these demands respecting
+Acacius and Peter the Stammerer, unless with the express permission of the
+Roman See. This condition he maintained, acknowledging Euphemius as
+orthodox, but not as bishop, because he would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> remove from the diptychs
+the names of two predecessors who had died outside of communion with the
+Roman See.</p>
+
+<p>Euphemius had himself subscribed the Henotikon of Zeno, without which the
+emperor would never have assented to his election; but he confirmed in a
+synod the Council of Chalcedon. When, in April, 491, Zeno died, and through
+the favour of his widow, the empress Ariadne, Anastasius obtained the
+throne in a very disturbed empire, the patriarch long refused to set the
+crown on his head, because he suspected him to favour the Eutychean heresy.
+The empress and the senate besought him in vain. He only consented when
+Anastasius gave him a written promise to accept the decrees of Chalcedon as
+the rule of faith, and to permit no innovation in Church matters. On this
+condition he was crowned: but emperor and patriarch continued at variance.
+The emperor tried to escape from his promise in order to maintain Zeno's
+Henotikon, which he thought the best policy among the many factions of the
+East. Euphemius was in the most unhappy position with the monks, who would
+not acknowledge him because he was out of communion with the Pope on
+account of Acacius.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Felix, having all but completed nine years of a pontificate, in which
+he showed the greatest fortitude in the midst of the severest temporal
+abandonment, died in February, 492. Italy then had been torn to pieces for
+three years by the conflict between Odoacer and Theodorick. Gondebald, king
+of the Burgundians,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> had cruelly ravaged Liguria. Then it was that bishops
+began to build fortresses for the defence of their peoples. The Church of
+Africa was in the utmost straits under the cruelty of Hunneric. Pope
+Gelasius succeeded on the 1st March, 492. His pontificate lasted four years
+and eight months; during the whole course of which his extant letters show
+that he was no less exposed to temporal abandonment than Felix, and no less
+courageous in maintaining the pastorship of Peter.</p>
+
+<p>But the death of the emperor Zeno in 491, and the death of Pope Felix III.
+ten months afterwards, in 492, require us to make a short retrospect of the
+temporal condition of empire and Church at this time. Zeno, receiving the
+empire at the death of his young son by Ariadne, Leo II., in 474, had
+reigned seventeen years, if we comprise therein the twenty months during
+which the throne was occupied by the insurgent Basiliscus from 475 to 477,
+precisely at the moment when Odoacer terminated the western empire. Zeno,
+recovering the throne in 477, had acted as a Catholic during about four
+years. Pope Simplicius had warmly congratulated him on the recovery of the
+empire on the 8th October of that year. In 478, the Pope had thanked
+Acacius for informing him that the right patriarch, Timotheus Solofaciolus,
+had been restored at Alexandria. But from 482 all is altered. The chronicle
+of Zeno's reign becomes a catalogue of misfortunes. The publication of his
+Formulary of Union is a gross attack upon the spiritual independence of the
+Church. He imposes it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> upon the eastern bishops on pain of expulsion. He
+puts open heretics into the sees of Alexandria and Antioch. All this is
+done under the advice and instigation of Acacius, who is the real author of
+the Henotikon, and who completes his acts by open defiance of Pope Felix.
+When Zeno died he left the empire a prey to every misery. In Italy, Herules
+and Ostrogoths were desperately contending for the possession of the
+country. Barbarians beyond the Danube incessantly threatened the
+north-eastern frontiers. There was no truce with them but at the cost of
+incessant payments and every sort of degradation. Egypt and Syria were torn
+to pieces by the Eutychean heresy. The infamous surrender of Italy to
+Theodorick in 488 has been touched upon. By that the support which the
+Ostrogothic king had given to keep Zeno on a tottering throne, followed by
+the terror which his discontent had caused at Constantinople, purchased
+from the Roman emperor himself the sacrifice of Rome and all the land from
+the Alps to the sea. Such was the man with whom the Popes Simplicius and
+Felix had to deal. To him it was that, from a Rome which drew its breath
+under an Arian Herule, the commander of adventurers who sold their swords
+for hire, these Popes wrote those letters full of Christian charity and
+apostolic liberty which have been quoted.</p>
+
+<p>When Zeno died in 491, he was attended to the grave by the contempt of his
+own wife and the malediction of the people, whom his cruelty, debauchery,
+and perfidy had alienated. I take from an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> ancient Greek document<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> a
+note of what followed. "When Zeno died, Anastasius succeeded to his wife
+and the empire; and he assembled an heretical council in Constantinople on
+account of the holy Council of Chalcedon, in which, by subjecting Euphemius
+to numberless calumnies, he banished him beyond Armenia, and put in the see
+the most blessed Macedonius. Macedonius called an upright council, and
+expressly ratified the decrees of faith passed at Chalcedon; but through
+fear of Anastasius he passed over in silence the Henotikon of Zeno." "When
+now Peter the Fuller was cast out of Antioch, Palladius succeeded to the
+see. And when he died Flavian accepted the Henotikon of Zeno; and he
+expressly confirmed the three holy Ecumenical Councils, but to please the
+emperor he passed over in silence that of Chalcedon. Now the emperor
+Anastasius sent order by the tribune Eutropius to Flavian and Elias of
+Jerusalem to hold a council in Sidon, and to anathematise the holy Council
+of Chalcedon. But Elias dismissed this without effect; for which the
+emperor was very indignant with the patriarchs. But when Flavian returned
+to Antioch, certain apostate monks, vehement partisans of the folly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> of
+Eutyches, assembled a robber council, ejected and banished Flavian, and put
+Severus in his stead. He, called the Independent,<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> set out with two
+hundred apostate monks from Eleutheropolis for Constantinople, muttering
+threats against Macedonius. Now this man without conscience had sworn to
+Anastasius never to move against the holy Council of Chalcedon: he broke
+the oath, and anathematised it with an infamous council. So the emperor
+Anastasius had involved Macedonius of Constantinople in many accusations
+and expelled him from his see, and banished him to Gangra. Not long after,
+having sent away both him and his predecessor Euphemius, under pretence
+that the patriarchs had arranged with each other to take refuge with the
+Goths, he slew them with the sword. But the heretic Timotheus, surnamed
+Kolon and Litroboulos,<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> he gave to the Church as being of one mind with
+himself and obedient to his counsels. This man called a most impious synod,
+and lifted up his heel against the holy Council of Chalcedon. In agreement
+with Severus, they sent their synodical letters together to Jerusalem.
+These not being received kindled Anastasius to anger. So he banished Elias
+from the holy city to Evila and put John in his see, and sent thither the
+synodical acts of Severus and Timotheus."</p>
+
+<p>The emperor Anastasius, whose dealings with the eastern patriarchs in his
+empire are thus described, reigned for 27 years, from 491 to 518. It is to
+him that, in the long contest which we are following, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> four Popes,
+Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus, and Hormisdas, have to direct their
+letters, their exhortations, and their admonitions. During the whole of
+this time, from 493, when the conflict between Odoacer and Theodorick is
+terminated, they will have exchanged the local rule of the Arian Herule for
+that of the Arian Ostrogoth. All write under what a pope of our own day has
+called "hostile domination". They write from the Lateran Patriarcheium,
+not, as St. Leo I., under the guardianship of one branch of the Theodosian
+house at Rome to another branch at Constantinople, but to eastern emperors,
+the first of their line who openly assume the right to dictate to Catholics
+what they are to believe. Zeno, Basiliscus, and Anastasius found
+patriarchs, who could sanction by their subscription much greater
+violations of all Christian right than St. Athanasius had denounced in
+Constantius, and St. Basil in Valens. They found, also, five Popes in
+succession, living themselves "under hostile domination," who resisted
+their tyranny, and saved both the doctrine and the discipline of the
+Church. Without these Popes it is plain that the Council of Chalcedon would
+have been given up in the East, and the Eutychean heresy made the doctrine
+of the eastern Church.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen the courageous act of the patriarch Euphemius in refusing
+absolutely to crown Anastasius, whom he suspected to be an Eutychean, until
+he had received a written declaration from him that he would maintain the
+Council of Chalcedon. In the first three years of his reign, Anastasius
+gained popularity by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> enacting wise laws, and by removing a severe and
+detested tax, so that, in the words of the ancient biographer of St.
+Theodore, "what was to become a field of destruction appeared a paradise of
+pleasure".<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
+
+<p>As soon as Gelasius became Pope, Euphemius sent him, according to custom,
+synodal letters. He assured the Pope of his true faith. He recognised in
+him the divinely appointed head of the Church. We have the answer of the
+Pope to his letter, and as this recognition on the part of the bishop
+immediately following Acacius is all-important, it will be well to quote
+the very words which show it.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> "You have read," writes Pope Gelasius to
+Euphemius, "the sentence, 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word
+of God'; that word, for instance, by which He promised that the gates of
+hell should never prevail over the confession of the blessed Apostle Peter.
+And, therefore, you thought, with reason, because God is faithful in His
+words, unless He had promised to institute some such thing, He would not
+bring about a true fulfilment of His promise. Then you say that we, by the
+grace of the Divine Providence, as He (<i>i.e.</i>, Christ) pointed out, do not
+fail in charity to the holy churches because Christ has placed me in the
+pontifical seat, not needing, as he says, to be taught, but understanding
+all things necessary for the unity of the Church's body. I, indeed,
+personally, am the least of all men, most unworthy for the office of such a
+see, except that supernal grace ever works great things out of small. For
+what should I think of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> myself, when the Teacher of the nations declares
+himself the last, and not worthy to be called an apostle. But to return to
+your words; if you have with truth ascertained that these gifts have been
+conferred on me by God, which, whatever goods they are, are gifts of God,
+follow then the exhortation of one who needs not to be taught, of one who,
+by supernal disposition, keeps watch over all things which touch the unity
+of the churches, and, as you assert, offers a bold resistance to the devil,
+the disturber of true peace and the structure which contains it. If, then,
+you pronounce that I am in possession of such privileges, you must either
+follow what you assert to be Christ's appointment, or, which God forbid,
+show yourself openly to resist the ordinances of Christ, or you throw out
+such things about me for the pleasure of making a show."<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p>
+
+<p>Euphemius<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> complained that the election of the new Pope had not been
+communicated to him, as was usual. He besought indulgence in respect of the
+conditions imposed on him, since the people of Constantinople would not
+endure the expulsion of Acacius from the diptychs. The Pope should rather
+forgive the dead, and himself write to the people. To this the Pope
+replied: "Truly that was an old Church rule with our fathers, by whom the
+one Catholic and apostolic communion was preserved free from every
+pollution by those who desired it. But now, when you prefer strange
+companionship before the return to a pure and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> blameless union with St.
+Peter, how should we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? How should we
+offer the old bond of the apostolic ordinance to men who belong to another
+communion, and prefer to it, according to your own testimony, condemned
+heretics." Euphemius, then, is inconsistent: he must either admit to his
+own communion all who are in communion with heretics, or remove all. The
+excuse of necessity and fear of the people will not stand, and is unworthy
+of a bishop, who has to lead his people, not to be led by them; who has to
+account to God for his flock, while his flock have not to account for him.
+If Euphemius is afraid of men, the Pope is more afraid, but it is of the
+judgment of God.</p>
+
+<p>But while, immediately after the death of Acacius, his successors, Fravita
+and Euphemius, were renouncing his pretensions, at the same time that they
+would not surrender his person, it is well to see how the bishops of
+eastern Illyricum, subjects of the emperor Anastasius, addressed the Pope
+upon his accession.</p>
+
+<p>"Holy apostolic Lord and most blessed Father of fathers, we have received
+with becoming reverence the wholesome precepts of your apostolate, and
+return the greatest thanks to Almighty God and your Blessedness that you
+have deigned to visit us with pastoral admonition and evangelic teaching.
+For it is our desire and prayer to obey your injunctions in all things,
+and, as we have received from our fathers, to maintain without stain the
+precepts of the Apostolic See, which your life and merits have inherited,
+and to keep the ortho<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>dox religion, which you preach, with faithful and
+blameless devotion, so far as our rude perception allows. For, even before
+your injunction, we had avoided the communion of Peter, Acacius, and all
+his followers, as pestilent contagion; and much more now, after the
+admonition of the Holy See, must we abstain from that pollution. And if
+there be any others, who have followed, or shall follow, the sect of
+Eutyches or Peter and Acacius, or have anything to do with their
+accomplices and associates, they are to be entirely avoided by us, who seek
+a blameless obedience to the Apostolic See according to the divine commands
+and the statutes of the fathers. And if there be any, which we neither
+suppose nor desire, who, with bad intention, think it their duty to
+separate from the Apostolic See, we abjure their company, for, as we said,
+guarding in all things the precepts of the fathers, and following the
+inviolable rules of the holy canons, we strive with a common faith and
+devotion to obey that of your apostolic and singular see ... and we beg
+your apostolate to send us some one from your angelical see, that in his
+presence arrangements may be made, according to the orthodox faith, and the
+fulfilling of your command."<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>
+
+<p>Several letters of Gelasius show that the privileges claimed by the
+Byzantine archbishop came frequently into discussion in the contest
+respecting the retention of the name of Acacius in the diptychs. Thus he
+finds it monstrous that they allege canons against which they are shown to
+have always acted by their illicit ambition.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> "They<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> object canons to
+us, not knowing what they say, for these they break by the very fact that
+they decline to obey the first see when it gives sound and good advice. It
+is the canons themselves which order appeals of the whole Church to be
+brought to the examination of this see. But they have never sanctioned
+appeal from it. Thus it is to judge of the whole Church, but itself to go
+before no judgment. Never have they enjoined judgment to be passed on its
+judgment; but have made its sentence indissoluble, as its decrees are to be
+followed.... Should the bishop of Constantinople, who according to the
+canons holds no rank among bishops, not be deposed when he falls into
+communion with false believers?" No place among bishops, because the canon
+of 381 and the canons of 451 had not been received. Thus, in his great
+letter<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> to all the Illyrian bishops, he asks: "Of what see was he
+bishop? Of what metropolitan church was he the prelate? Was it not of a
+church the suffragan of Heraclea? We laugh at the claim of a prerogative
+for Acacius because he was bishop of the imperial city. Did not the emperor
+often hold his court at Ravenna, at Milan, at Sirmium, at Treves? Did the
+bishops of these cities ever claim to themselves a dignity beyond the
+measure of that which had descended to them from ancient times? Can Acacius
+show that he acted by any council in excluding from Alexandria John, a
+Catholic consecrated by Catholics; in putting in Peter, a detected and
+condemned heretic,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> without consulting the Apostolic See? In boldly
+assuming the power to expel Calendion from Antioch, and, without knowledge
+of the Apostolic See, put in again the heretic Peter, who had been
+condemned by himself? Certainly if the rank of cities is considered, that
+of the bishops of the second and third see is greater than that of the see
+which not only holds no rank among bishops, but has not even the rights of
+a metropolitan. The power of the secular kingdom is one thing, the
+distribution of ecclesiastical dignities is another. The smallness of a
+city does not diminish the rank of a king residing in it; nor does the
+imperial presence change the measure of religious rank. Let that city be
+renowned for the power of the actual empire; but the strength, the liberty,
+the advance of religion under it consists in religion holding its own
+undisturbed measure in the presence of that power." Then he refers to the
+fact how, forty years before, the emperor Marcian himself interceded with
+Pope Leo to increase the dignity of that see, but could obtain nothing
+against the rules; and then gave the highest praise to St. Leo, because
+nothing would induce him to violate the canons, and to the other fact that
+Anatolius, himself bishop of Constantinople, confessed that it was rather
+his clergy than himself who made this attempt, and that all lay in the
+power of the Apostolic See. And, thirdly, did not St. Leo, who confirmed
+the Council of Chalcedon, annul in it whatever was done beyond the Nicene
+canons? If it was said that, in the case of the bishops of Alexandria and
+of Antioch, it was rather the emperor who had acted than Acacius, should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+not a bishop suggest to a Christian prince, whose favour he enjoyed to the
+utmost, that he should suffer the Church to keep her own rules, and
+judgment on bishops should be given by bishops in council. If a bishop was
+the greater for being bishop of the imperial city, should he not be the
+more courageous in suggesting the right course? Then he quotes Nathan
+before David, and St. Ambrose before Theodosius, and St. Leo reproving the
+second Theodosius for excess of power in the case of the Latrocinium of
+Ephesus; and Pope Hilarus reproving the emperor Anthemius, and Pope
+Simplicius and Pope Felix resisting not only the tyrant Basiliscus, but the
+emperor Zeno, and they would have succeeded if he had not been urged on by
+the bishop of Constantinople. "And we also," adds the Pope, "when Odoacer,
+the barbarian and heretic, held the kingdom of Italy, when he commanded us
+to do wrong things, by the help of God, as is well known, did not obey
+him."</p>
+
+<p>In this same letter the Pope uses the following words: "We are confident
+that no one truly a Christian is ignorant that the first see, above all
+others, is bound to execute the decree of every council which the assent of
+the universal Church has approved; for it confirms every council by its
+authority, and maintains it by its continued rule, in virtue of its own
+principate which the blessed Apostle Peter received by the voice of the
+Lord, but continues to hold and retain by the Church subsequently following
+it".</p>
+
+<p>Pope Gelasius had in vain striven to gain the emperor Anastasius. After the
+return of his legates,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Faustus and Irenæus, who had gone in the embassy of
+Theodorick to Constantinople, he wrote to the emperor, in the year 494, a
+famous letter,<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> warning him to defend the Catholic faith, which
+Anastasius had not yet openly deserted, nor professed himself an Eutychean.
+In it he says: "Glorious son, as a Roman born, I love, I reverence, I
+receive you as Roman emperor: as holder, however unworthy, of the Apostolic
+See, I endeavour as best I can to supply by opportune suggestions whatever
+I find wanting to the complete Catholic faith. For a dispensation of the
+divine word has been laid upon me; woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!
+Since the blessed Apostle Paul, the vessel of election, in his fear thus
+cries out, how much more have I in my smallness to fear if I shrink from
+the ministry of preaching inspired by God, and transmitted to me by the
+devotion of the fathers? I entreat your piety not to take for arrogance the
+execution of a divine duty.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> Let not a Roman prince esteem the
+intimation of truth in its proper sense an injury. Two, then, O emperor,
+there are by whom this world is ruled in chief&mdash;the sacred authority of
+pontiffs and the royal power. Of these that of priests weighs the heavier,
+insomuch as they will have in the divine judgment to render an account for
+kings themselves. For you know, most gracious son, that pre-eminent as you
+are in dignity over the human race, you nevertheless bow the neck
+submissively to those who preside over things divine. From them you seek
+the terms of salvation;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> and you recognise that it is your duty in the
+order of religion to submit rather than to command in what concerns the
+reception and the distribution of heavenly sacraments. As to these matters,
+then, you know that you depend on their judgment, and do not wish them to
+be controlled by your will. For if, in what regards the order of public
+discipline, the ministers of religion, recognising that empire has been
+conferred on you by a disposition from above, obey your laws, lest they
+should appear to oppose a sentence issued merely in worldly matters, with
+what affection ought you to obey those who are appointed for the
+distribution of venerable mysteries? Moreover, as no slight responsibility
+lies upon pontiffs, if in the worship of God they are silent as to what is
+fitting, so for rulers it is no slight danger if, when bound to obey, they
+show contempt. And if the hearts of the faithful should submit as a general
+rule to all bishops when rightly treating divine things, how much more is
+consent to be given to the prelate of that see whom the will of God Himself
+has made pre-eminent over all bishops, and the piety of the whole Church
+continuously following it out has acknowledged?<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Herein you evidently
+perceive that no one by mere human counsel can ever raise himself to the
+privilege or confession of him whom the voice of Christ set over all, whom
+the Church we venerate has always confessed and devotedly holds to be her
+Primate. Human presumption may attack the appointments of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> divine judgment;
+but no power can succeed in overthrowing them. Do not, I entreat, be angry
+with me if I love you so well as to wish you to possess for ever the
+kingdom which has been given to you in time, and that, having empire in the
+world, you should reign with Christ. You do not allow anything to perish in
+your own laws, nor loss to be inflicted on the Roman name. With what face
+will you ask of Him rewards <i>there</i> whose losses <i>here</i> you do not prevent?
+One is my dove, my perfect is one; one is the Christian, which is the
+Catholic faith. There is no cause why one should allow any contagion to
+creep in; for 'he who offends in one is guilty of all,' and 'he who
+despises small things perishes by little and little'. This is that against
+which the Apostolic See provides with the utmost care. For since the
+Apostle's glorious confession is the root of the world, it must not be
+touched by any rift of pravity, nor suffer the least spot. For if&mdash;may God
+avert a thing which we are sure is impossible&mdash;any such thing were to
+happen, how could we resist any error?&mdash;how could we correct those who err?
+If you declare that the people of one city cannot be composed to peace,
+what should we make of the whole world's universe were it deceived by our
+prevarication? The series of canons coming down from our fathers, and a
+multifold tradition, establish that the authority of the Apostolic See is
+set for all Christian ages over the whole Church. O emperor, if anyone made
+any attempt against the public laws, you could not endure it; do you think
+it is of no concern to your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> conscience that the people subject to you may
+purely and sincerely worship God? Lastly, if it is thought that the feeling
+of the people of one city should not be offended by the due correction of
+divine things, how much more neither may we, nor can we, by offence of
+divine things injure the faith of all who bear the Catholic name?"</p>
+
+<p>How distinctly, and with what unfaltering conviction, the Pope of 494, then
+locally a subject of Theodorick the Arian, set forth to the emperor at
+Constantinople the universal authority of the Holy See, grounded on what he
+calls the Apostle's glorious confession, on which followed the Divine Word
+creating his office, is apparent through the whole of this magnificent
+letter. Moreover, the distinction of the Two Powers and the character of
+their relation to each other, and the divine character of each as a
+delegation from God, solemnly uttered by the Pope Gelasius in 494 to the
+Roman emperor so unworthy of the rank which the Pope recognised in him,
+have passed into the law and practice of the Church during the 1400 years
+which have since run out, and will form part of it for ever. Anastasius
+disregarded all that the Pope said. He persecuted to the utmost his bishop
+Euphemius, because, though not admitted to communion by the Pope, inasmuch
+as he refused to erase from the diptychs the name of Acacius, he yet
+vigorously maintained the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon. At length
+the emperor, having ended his Isaurian wars and sufficiently strengthened
+the Monophysite party, succeeded in deposing him in 496.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> His instruments
+in this were the cowardly court bishops,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> ready to be moved to anything,
+who had also on this occasion to confirm the Henotikon of Zeno. Euphemius
+was banished to Paphlagonia. The people rioted in the circus and demanded
+his restoration, but in vain. However, they always venerated him as a
+saint. While the emperor Anastasius was deposing at Constantinople the
+bishop who withstood and reproved his conduct in supporting the Eutychean
+heresy, while also he was compelling the resident council not only to
+depose the bishop, but to confirm the document, originally drawn up by
+Acacius, forced upon the bishops of his empire by Zeno, and now again
+forced upon them by Anastasius, Gelasius was holding a council of seventy
+bishops at Rome. What he enacted there synodically is a proof of the
+entirely different spirit which prevailed in the independent West. Here
+Pope and bishops alike were living under hostile domination, that of Arian
+governments, but they were not crouching before the throne of a despot. The
+Pope and the bishops passed at the synod of 496 the following decrees:</p>
+
+<p>"After the writings of the Prophets, the gospels, and the Apostles, on
+which by the grace of God the Catholic Church is founded, this also we have
+judged fit to be expressed: Although all the Catholic churches spread
+throughout the world are the one bridal-chamber of Christ, nevertheless the
+holy Roman Church has been set over all other churches, by no constitution
+of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> council, but obtained the Primacy by the voice of our Lord in the
+Gospel: 'Thou art Peter,' &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>"To whom was also given the companionship of the most blessed Apostle Paul,
+the vessel of election, who, not at another time, as heretics battle, but
+on one and the same day with Peter combating in the city of Rome under the
+emperor Nero, was crowned. And they consecrated this holy Roman Church to
+Christ the Lord, and by their presence and worshipful triumph set it over
+all the churches in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"First, therefore, is the Roman Church, the see of the Apostle Peter,
+having neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Second is the see consecrated at Alexandria in the name of blessed Peter
+by Mark, his disciple, the Evangelist. And he, sent by the Apostle Peter to
+Egypt, preached the word of truth, and consummated a glorious martyrdom.</p>
+
+<p>"Third is the see of the same most blessed Apostle Peter held in honour at
+Antioch, because there he dwelt before he came to Rome, and there first the
+name of Christian was given to the new people.</p>
+
+<p>"And though no other foundation can be laid, save that which is laid, Jesus
+Christ, yet the said Roman Church, after those writings of the Old or New
+Testament, which we receive according to rule, does also not prohibit the
+following: that is, the holy Nicene Council, of three hundred and eighteen
+fathers, held under the emperor Constantine; the holy Council of Ephesus,
+in which Nestorius was condemned, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> consent of Pope C&oelig;lestine,
+under Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, and Arcadius, sent from Italy; the holy
+Council of Chalcedon, held under the emperor Marcian and Anatolius, bishop
+of Constantinople, in which the Nestorian and Eutychean heresies were
+condemned, with Dioscorus and his accomplices."<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thus, twelve years after the attempt of Acacius to set himself up
+independent of Rome, and while his next two successors were soliciting the
+recognition of Rome, but at the same time were refusing to surrender his
+person to condemnation, a Council at Rome pulled down the whole scaffolding
+on which the pretension of Acacius had been built.</p>
+
+<p>For while this council omitted from the list of councils acknowledged to be
+general that held at Constantinople in 381, it likewise proclaimed the
+falsity of the ground alleged in the canon passed in that council, which
+gave to Constantinople the second rank in the episcopate because it was New
+Rome, which canon again was enlarged by the attempt at the Council of
+Chalcedon to put upon the world the positive falsehood asserted in the
+rejected 28th canon, that the fathers had given its privileges to the Roman
+See because it was the imperial city.</p>
+
+<p>The significance of this decree at such a time cannot be exaggerated. While
+the emperor's own Church and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> bishop are separated by a schism from the
+Pope, while the Pope recognises the emperor as the sole "Roman prince," and
+in that capacity speaks of him as "pre-eminent in dignity over the human
+race," he states at the head of a council, in the most peremptory terms,
+that the Principate of Rome is of divine institution, <i>not</i> the
+constitution of any council. The decree thus passed is a formal
+contradiction of the 28th canon which St. Leo had, forty years before,
+rejected.</p>
+
+<p>When we come to the termination of the schism this fact is to be borne in
+mind as being accepted voluntarily by those whom it specially concerned,
+and whose actions during a hundred years immediately preceding it
+condemned. For the decree, besides, does not acknowledge the see of
+Constantinople as patriarchal. Acacius had been appointing those who were
+really patriarchs: here his own pretended patriarchate is shown to be an
+infringement on the ancient order of the Church. Here the Pope in synod, as
+before in his letter to the Illyrian bishops, declares of the see of
+Constantinople that "it holds no rank among bishops".</p>
+
+<p>And, again, the Roman Council, in all its wording, censures the bishops who
+had been so weak as to accept a decree upon the faith of the Church from
+the hand of emperors, first the usurper Basiliscus, then Zeno, and at the
+time itself Anastasius. And under this censure lay not only Acacius, but
+the three following bishops of Constantinople&mdash;Fravita, Euphemius, and
+Macedonius. For though the last two were firm enough to suffer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> deposition,
+and afterwards death, for the faith of Chalcedon, they were not firm enough
+to refuse the emperor's imposition of an imperial standard in doctrine, the
+acceptance of which would have destroyed the essential liberty of the
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>Two months after the violent deposition of Euphemius at Constantinople,
+Pope Gelasius closed a pontificate of less than five years, in which he
+resisted the wickedness and tyranny of Anastasius, as Pope Felix had
+resisted the like in Zeno. Space has allowed me to quote but a few passages
+of the noble letters which he has left to the treasury of the Church. It
+may be noted that with his pontificate closes the period of about twenty
+years, from 476 to 496, in which no single ruler of East or West, great or
+small, professed the Catholic faith. The eastern emperors were Eutychean;
+the new western rulers Arian, save when they were pagan. The next year the
+conversion of Clovis, with his Franks, opens a new series of events. We may
+allow Gelasius,<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> in his letter to Rusticus, bishop of Lyons, to express
+the character of his time. "Your charity, most loving brother, has brought
+us great consolation in the midst of that whirlwind of calamities and
+temptations under which we are almost sunk. We will not weary you by
+writing how straitened we have been. Our brother Epiphanius (bishop of
+Ticinum or Pavia) will inform you how great is the persecution we bear on
+account of the most impious Acacius. But we do not faint. Under such
+pressure neither courage fails nor zeal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> Distressed and straitened as we
+are, we trust in Him who with the trial will find an issue, and if He
+allows us for a time to be oppressed, will not allow us to be overwhelmed.
+Dearest brother, see that your affection, and that of yours, to us, or
+rather to the Apostolic See, fail not, for they who are fixed into the Rock
+with the Rock shall be exalted."<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p>
+
+<p class="notes">NOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> See Philips, <i>Kirchenrecht</i>, vol. iii., sec. 119.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Tillemont, xvi. 68.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Simplicii, <i>Ep.</i> viii.; Photius, i. 115.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Pope Gelasius, 13th letter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Mansi, vii. 1032-6; Jaffé, 359.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Mansi, vii. 1028; Jaffé, 360.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Photius, i. 123, translated.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Mansi, vii. 1065; Baronius (anno 484), 17; Jaffé, 364.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> It is to be observed that the Pope calls his judgment the
+Judgment of the Holy Ghost, just as Pope Clement I. did in the first
+recorded judgment. See his letter, secs. 58, 59, 63, quoted in <i>Church and
+State</i>, 198-199.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Photius, i. 124.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Mansi, vii. 1139; Baronius (anno 484), 26, 27.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Domini sacerdotes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Jaffé, 365; Mansi, vii. 1065.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> iv. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Silentiarius, in the Greek court, officers who kept silence
+in the emperor's presence.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> x.; Mansi, vii. 1067.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> "The recital of a name in the diptychs was a formal
+declaration of Church fellowship, or even a sort of canonisation and
+invocation. It was contrary to all Church principles to permit in them the
+name of anyone condemned by the Church."&mdash;<i>Life of Photius</i>, i. 133, by
+Card. Hergenröther.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">"Cui feo la dote<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dono infelice di bellezza, ond' hai<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Funesta dote d'infinite guai."<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">&mdash;<i>Filicaja.</i></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Photius, i. 128, who quotes Avitus, 3rd letter, and Ennodius,
+and Gelasius, <i>Ep.</i> xiii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Photius, i. 126; Hefele, <i>C.G.</i>, ii. 596.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Jaffé, 371, 372; Mansi, vii. 1097; vii. 1100.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Dum scilicet ad Apostolicam Sedem regulariter destinatur, per
+quam <i>largiente Christo omnium solidatur dignitas sacerdotum</i>. Quod ipsæ
+dilectionis tuæ literæ Apostolorum summum petramque fidei et cælestis
+dispensatorem mysterii creditis sibi clavibus beatum Petrum Apostolum
+confitentur.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> In compage corporis Christi consentire.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Jaffé, 374; Mansi, vii. 1103.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> The "libellus synodicus," says Hefele, <i>C.G.</i>, i. 70, "auch
+synodicon genannt, enthält kurze Nachrichten über 158 Concilien der 9
+ersten Jahrhunderte, und reicht bis zum 8ten allgemeinen Concil incl. Er
+wurde im 16ten Jahrhundert von Andreas Darmarius aus Morea gebracht, von
+Pappus, einem Strasburger Theologen, gekauft, und von ihm im I. 1601 mit
+lateinischer Uebersetzung zuerst edirt. Später ging er auch in die
+Conciliensammlungen ueber; namentlich liess ihn Harduin im 5ten Bande
+seiner Collect. Concil. p. 1491 abdrücken, während Mansi ihn in seine
+einzelnen Theile zerlegte, und jeden derselben an der zutreffenden Stelle
+(bei jeder einzelnen Synode) mittheilte."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span>
+</a><span class="grk">&#x1F00;&kappa;&#x1F73;&phi;&alpha;&lambda;&omicron;&sigmaf;.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Words of infamous meaning.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Civiltà, vol. iii., 1855, p. 429. Acta SS. Jan. XI.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 5. <i>Ep.</i> i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Ad veniam luxuriæ de me cognosceris ista jactare.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> See Photius, i. 129-130. Civiltà Cattolica, vol. iii., 1855,
+pp. 524-5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 13. Rescriptum episcoporum Dardaniæ ad Gelasium
+Papam.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> iv. <i>ad Faustum</i>; Mansi, viii. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> xiii. <i>Valde mirati sumus</i>; Mansi, viii. 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 30-5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Ne arrogantiam judices divinæ rationis officium.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Quem cunctis sacerdotibus et Divinitas summa voluit
+præeminere, et subsequens Ecclesiæ generalis jugiter pietas celebravit.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Photius, 134; Hefele, <i>C.G.</i>, ii. 597.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Hefele, <i>C.G.</i>, ii. 597-605, has most carefully considered
+the text and the date of the Council of 496. I have followed him in his
+choice of the text of the best manuscripts, and inasmuch as the biblical
+canon&mdash;the same as that held in the African Church about 393&mdash;seems to have
+been confirmed by Pope Hormisdas somewhat later, I have not made use of it
+in this place.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> <i>Epist.</i> xviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Qui enim in petra solidabuntur cum petra exaltabuntur.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb">CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">PETER STOOD UP.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Seven</span> days after the death of Gelasius, Anastasius, a Roman, ascended the
+apostolic throne, which he held from November, 496, to November, 498. We
+have two letters from him extant, both important. In that addressed upon
+his own accession, which he sent to the emperor Anastasius by the hands of
+Germanus, bishop of Capua, and Cresconius, bishop of Trent, on occasion of
+Theodorick's embassy for the purpose of obtaining the title of king, he
+strove to preserve the "Roman prince" from the Eutychean heresy.</p>
+
+<p>"I announce to you the beginning of my pontificate, and consider it a token
+of the divine favour that I bear the same as your own august name. This is
+an assurance that, like as your own name is pre-eminent among all the
+nations in the world, so by my humble ministry the See of St. Peter, as
+always, may hold the Principate assigned to it by the Lord God in the whole
+Church. We therefore discharge a delegated office in the name of
+Christ."<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> After beseeching the emperor that the name of Acacius should
+be effaced, in which he is carrying out the judgment of his predecessor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+Pope Felix, he mentions the full instructions given to his legates, in
+order that the emperor might plainly see how, in that matter, the sentence
+of the Apostolic See had not proceeded from pride, but rather had been
+extorted by zeal for God as the result of certain crimes. "This we declare
+to you, in virtue of our apostolic office, through special love for your
+empire, that, as is fitting, and the Holy Spirit orders, obedience be
+yielded to our warning, that every blessing may follow your government. Let
+not your piety despise my frequent suggestion, having before your eyes the
+words of our Lord, 'He who hears you, hears Me: and he who despises you,
+despises Me: and he who despises Me, despises Him who sent Me'. In which
+the Apostle agrees with our Saviour, saying, 'He who despises these things,
+despises not man but God, who has given us His Holy Spirit'. Your breast is
+the sanctuary of public happiness, that through your excellency, whom God
+has ordered to rule on earth as His Vicar, not the resistance of hard pride
+be offered to the evangelic and apostolic commands, but an obedience which
+carries safety with it."</p>
+
+<p>The Pope, then, standing alone in the world, and locally the subject of
+Theodorick the Goth, makes the position of the Roman emperor in the world,
+and the Pope in the Church, parallel to each other. Both are divine
+legations. The Pope, speaking on divine things, claims obedience as
+uttering the will of the Holy Spirit, which Pope Anastasius asserts, just
+as Pope Clement I., five hundred years before, had asserted it, in the
+first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> pastoral letter which we possess. He, living on sufferance in Rome,
+asserts it to the despotic ruler of an immense empire, throned at
+Constantinople, in reference to a bishop of Constantinople, whose name he
+requires the emperor to erase from the sacred records of the Church as a
+condition of communion with the Apostolic See.</p>
+
+<p>This letter was directed to the East, the other belongs to the West, and
+records an event which was to affect the whole temporal order of things in
+that vast mass of territories already occupied by the northern tribes. On
+Christmas day of the year 496, that is, one month after the accession of
+Pope Anastasius, the haughty Sicambrian bent his head to receive the holy
+oil from St. Remigius, to worship that which he had burnt, and to burn that
+which he had worshipped. Clovis, chief of the Franks, and a number of his
+warriors with him, were baptised in the name of the most holy Trinity,
+never having been subject to the Arian heresy. Upon that event, the Holy
+See no longer stood alone, and the ring of Arian heresy surrounding it was
+broken for ever. The words of the Pope are these:</p>
+
+<p>"Glorious son, we rejoice that your beginning in the Christian faith
+coincides with ours in the pontificate. For the See of Peter, on such an
+occasion, cannot but rejoice when it beholds the fulness of the nations
+come together to it with rapid pace, and time after time the net be filled,
+which the same Fisherman of men and blessed Doorkeeper of the heavenly
+Jeru<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>salem was bidden to cast into the deep. This we have wished to signify
+to your serenity by the priest Eumerius, that, when you hear of the joy of
+the father in your good works, you may fulfil our rejoicing, and be our
+crown, and mother Church may exult at the proficiency of so great a king,
+whom she has just borne to God. Therefore, O glorious and illustrious son,
+rejoice your mother, and be to her as a pillar of iron. For the charity of
+many waxes cold, and by the craftiness of evil men our bark is tossed in
+furious waves, and lashed by their foaming waters. But we hope in hope
+against hope, and praise the Lord, who has delivered thee from the power of
+darkness, and made provision for the Church in so great a prince, who may
+be her defender, and put on the helmet of salvation against all the efforts
+of the infected. Go on, therefore, beloved and glorious son, that Almighty
+God may follow with heavenly protection your serenity and your realm, and
+command His angels to guard you in all your ways and to give you victory
+over your enemies round about you."<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the sixth century, the Gallic bishop, St. Gregory of
+Tours, notes how wonderfully prosperity followed the kingdom which became
+Catholic, and contrasts it with the rapid decline and perishing away of the
+Arian kingdoms. And, indeed, this letter of the Pope may be termed a divine
+charter, commemorating the birthday of the great nation, which led the way,
+through all the nations of the West, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> their restoration to the Catholic
+faith, and the expulsion of the Arian poison. No one has recorded, and no
+one knows, the details of that conversion, by which the Church, in the
+course of the sixth century, recovered the terrible disasters which she had
+suffered in the fifth; a conversion by which the sturdy sons of the North,
+from heretics, became faithful children, and by which she added the Teuton
+race, in all its new-born vigour and devotion, to those sons of the South,
+whose conversion Constantine crowned with his own. St. Gregory of Tours
+calls Clovis the new Constantine, and in very deed his conversion was the
+herald of a second triumph to the Church of God, which equals, some may
+think surpasses even, the grandeur of the first.</p>
+
+<p>It was fitting that the See of Peter should sound the note, which was its
+prelude, by the mouth of Anastasius, as the pastoral staff of St. Gregory
+was extended over its conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely less remarkable than the words of Pope Anastasius were those
+addressed to the new convert by a bishop, the temporal subject of the
+Burgundian prince, Gundobald, an Arian, that is, by St. Avitus of Vienna,
+grandson of the emperor of that name. Before the baptismal waters were dry
+on the forehead of the Frankish king, he wrote to him in these words:<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p>
+
+<p>"The followers of all sorts of schisms, different in their opinions,
+various in their multitude, sought, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> pretending to the Christian name,
+to blunt the keenness of your choice. But, while we entrust our several
+conditions to eternity, and reserve for the future examination what each
+conceives to be right in his own case, a bright flash of the truth has
+descended on the present. For a divine provision has supplied a judge for
+our own time. In making choice for yourself, you have given a decision for
+all. Your faith is our victory. In this case most men, in their search for
+the true religion, when they consult priests, or are moved by the
+suggestion of companions, are wont to allege the custom of their family,
+and the rite which has descended to them from their fathers. Thus making a
+show of modesty, which is injurious to salvation, they keep a useless
+reverence for parents in maintaining unbelief, but confess themselves
+ignorant what to choose. Away with the excuse of such hurtful modesty,
+after the miracle of such a deed as yours. Content only with the nobility
+of your ancient race, you have resolved that all which could crown with
+glory such a rank should spring from your personal merit. If they did great
+things, you willed to do greater. Your answer to that nobility of your
+ancestors was to show your temporal kingdom; you set before your posterity
+a kingdom in heaven. Let Greece exult in having a prince of our law; not
+that it any longer deserves to enjoy alone so great a gift, since the rest
+of the world has its own lustre. For now in the western parts shines in a
+new king a sunbeam which is not new. The birthday of our Redeemer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> fitly
+marked its bright rising. You were regenerated to salvation from the water
+on the same day on which the world received for its redemption the birth of
+the Lord of heaven. Let the Lord's birthday be yours also: you were born to
+Christ when Christ was born to the world. Then you consecrated your soul to
+God, your life to those around you, your fame to those coming after you.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I say of that most glorious solemnity of your regeneration? I
+was not able to be present in body: I did not fail to share in your joy.
+For the divine goodness added to these regions the pleasure that the
+message of your sublime humility reached us before your baptism. Thus that
+sacred night found us in security about you. Together we contemplated that
+scene, when the assembled prelates, in the eagerness of their holy service,
+steeped the royal limbs in the waters of life; when the head, before which
+nations tremble, bowed itself to the servants of God; when the helmet of
+sacred unction clothed the flowing locks which had grown under the helmet
+of war; when, putting aside the breastplate for a time, spotless limbs
+shone in the white robe. O most highly favoured of kings, that consecrated
+robe will add strength hereafter to your arms, and sanctity will confirm
+what good fortune has hitherto bestowed. Did I think that anything could
+escape your knowledge or observation, I would add to my praises a word of
+exhortation. Can I preach to one now complete in faith, that faith which he
+recognised before his completion? Or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> humility to one who has long shown us
+devotion, which now his profession claims as a debt? Or mercy to one whom a
+captive people, just set free by you, proclaims by its rejoicing to the
+world, and by its tears to God. In one thing I should wish an advance. This
+is, since through you God will make your nation all His own, that you
+would, from the good treasure of your heart, provide the seeds of faith to
+the nations beyond you, lying still in their natural ignorance, uncorrupted
+by the germs of false doctrine. Have no shame, no reluctance, to take the
+side of God, who has so exalted your side, even by embassies directed to
+that purpose.... You are, as it were, the common sun, in whose rays all
+delight; the nearest the most, but somewhat also those further off.... Your
+happiness touches us also; when you fight, we conquer."</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to look back on the course of a thousand years, and see how
+marvellously these words, uttered by St. Avitus at the moment Clovis was
+baptised, were fulfilled in his people. "Your happiness touches us also;
+when you fight, we conquer." So spoke a Catholic bishop at the side, and
+from the court, of an Arian king, and thus he expressed the work of the
+Catholic bishops throughout Gaul in the sixth century then beginning. An
+apostate from the Catholic faith has said of them that they built up France
+as bees build a hive; but he omitted to say that they were able and willing
+to do this because they had a queen-bee at Rome, who, scattered as they
+were in various transitory kingdoms under heretical sovereigns, gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> unity
+to all their efforts, and planted in their hearts the assurance of one
+undying kingdom. We shall have presently to quote other words of St.
+Avitus, speaking, as he says, in the name of all his brethren to the
+senators of Rome: "If the Pope of the city is called into question, not one
+bishop, but the episcopate, will seem to be shaken". But that, which he
+here foresaw, explains in truth a process, of which we do not possess a
+detailed history, but which resulted, by the time of St. Gregory, in the
+triumph of the Catholic faith over that most fearful heresy which had
+contaminated the whole Teuton race of conquerors at the time of their
+conquest. The glory of this triumph is divided between St. Peter's See and
+the Catholic bishops in the several countries, working each in union with
+it. So was formed the hive, not only of France, but of Christ; the hive
+which nurtured all the nations of the future Europe.</p>
+
+<p>When Faustus,<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> the ambassador sent by Theodorick to Anastasius to obtain
+for him the royal title, returned to Rome in 498, he found Pope Anastasius
+dead. The deacon Symmachus was chosen for his successor, and his
+pontificate lasted more than fifteen years. But Faustus had hoped to gain
+the approval of Pope Anastasius to the Henotikon set up by the emperor Zeno
+at the instance of Acacius, and forced by the emperor Anastasius on his
+eastern bishops, and specially on three successive bishops of
+Constantinople<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>&mdash;Fravita, Euphemius, and Macedonius&mdash;who took the place of
+the second, when he had been expelled by the emperor. Faustus, who was
+chief of the senate, with a view to gain to the emperor's side the Pope to
+be elected in succession to Anastasius, brought from the East the old
+Byzantine hand; that is to say, he bore gifts for those who could be
+corrupted, threats for those who could be frightened, and deceit for all.
+So freighted he managed to bring about a schism in the papal election, and
+the candidate whom he favoured, Laurentius, was set up by a smaller but
+powerful party against the election of Symmachus. Thus disunion was
+introduced among the Roman clergy, which brought about, during the five
+succeeding years, many councils at Rome, and embarrassed the action of the
+Pope more than the Arian government of Theodorick.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> The difficulty of
+the times was such that, instead of holding a synod of bishops at Rome to
+determine which election was valid, the two candidates, Symmachus and
+Laurentius, went to Ravenna, and submitted that point to the decision of
+the king Theodorick, Arian as he was. That decision was that he who was
+first ordained, or who had the majority for him, should be recognised as
+Pope; Symmachus fulfilled both conditions, and his election was
+acknowledged.</p>
+
+<p>Symmachus, in the first year of his pontificate, 499,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> addressed to the
+Roman emperor, in his Grecian capital, a renowned letter, termed "his
+defence" against imperial calumnies. This letter alone would be sufficient
+to exhibit the whole position of the Pope in regard to the eastern emperor
+at the close of the fifth century. Space allows me to quote only a part of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>The emperor of Constantinople was very wroth at the frustration of his plan
+to get influence over the Pope by the appointment of Laurentius, and
+reproached Pope Symmachus with moving the Roman senate against him. The
+Pope replied:<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p>
+
+<p>"If, O emperor, I had to speak before outside kings, ignorant altogether of
+God, in defence of the Catholic faith, I would, even with the threat of
+death before me, dwell upon its truth and its accord with reason. Woe to me
+if I did not preach the gospel. It is better to incur loss of the present
+life than to be punished with eternal damnation. But if you are the Roman
+emperor, you are bound kindly to receive the embassies of even barbarian
+peoples. If you are a Christian prince, you are bound to hear patiently the
+voice of the apostolic prelate, whatever his personal desert.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> I must
+confess that I cannot pass over, either on your account or on my own, the
+point whether you issue with a religious mind against me the insults which
+you utter in presence of the divine judgment. Not on my own account, when I
+remember the Lord's promise, 'When they persecute you, and say all manner
+of evil against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> you, for justice' sake, rejoice'. Not on your account,
+because I wish not a result to my own glory, which would weigh heavily upon
+you. And being trained in the doctrine of the Lord and the Apostles, I am
+anxious to meet your maledictions with blessing, your insults with honour,
+your hatred with charity. But I would beg you to reflect whether He who
+says, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' will not exact the more from you
+for my forbearance.... I wish, then, that the insults, which you think
+proper to bestow on my person, while they are glorious to me, may not press
+upon you. To my Lord it was said by some: 'Thou hast a devil; a man that is
+a glutton, born of fornication'. Am I to grieve over such things? Divine
+and human laws present the condition to him who utters them: 'In the mouth
+of two or three witnesses every word shall stand'. O emperor, what will you
+do in the divine judgment? Because you are emperor, do you think there is
+no judgment of God? I pass over that it becomes not an emperor to be an
+accuser. Again, both by divine and human laws, no one can be at once
+accuser and judge. Will you plead before another judge? Will you stand by
+him as accuser? You say I am a Manichean. Am I an Eutychean, or do I defend
+Eutycheans, whose madness is the chief support<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> to the Manichean error?
+Rome is my witness, and our records bear testimony, whether I have in any
+way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> deviated from the Catholic faith, which, coming out of paganism, I
+received in the See of the Apostle St. Peter.... Is it because I will offer
+no acceptance to Eutycheans? Such reproaches do not wound me, but they are
+a plain proof that you wished to prevent my advancement, which St. Peter by
+his intervention has imposed. Or, because you are emperor, do you struggle
+against the power of Peter? And you, who accept the Alexandrian Peter, do
+you strive to tread under foot St. Peter the Apostle in the person of his
+successor, whoever he may be? Should I be well elected if I favoured the
+Eutycheans? if I held communion with the party of Acacius? Your motive in
+putting forward such things is obvious. Now, let us compare the rank of the
+emperor with that of the pontiff. Between them the difference is as great
+as the charge of human and divine things. You, emperor, receive baptism
+from the pontiff, accept sacraments, request prayers, hope for blessing,
+beg for penitence. In a word, you administer things human, he dispenses to
+you things divine. If, then, I do not put his rank superior, it is at least
+equal. And do not think that in mundane pomp you are before him, for 'the
+weakness of God is stronger than men'. Consider, then, what becomes you.
+But when you assume the accuser's part, by divine and human law you stand
+on the same level with me; in which, if I lose the highest rank, as you
+desire, if I be convicted by your accusation, you will equally lose your
+rank if you fail to convict me. Let the world judge between us, in the
+sight of God and His angels; let us be a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> spectacle for every age, in which
+either the priest shall exhibit a good life, or the emperor a religious
+modesty. For the human race is ruled in chief by these two offices, so that
+in neither of them should there be anything to offend God, especially
+because each of these ranks would appear to be perpetual, and the human
+race has a common interest in both.</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me, emperor, to say, Remember that you are a man in order to use a
+power granted you by God. For though these things pass first under the
+judgment of man, they must go on to the divine examination. You may say, It
+is written, 'Let every soul be subject to higher powers'. We accept human
+powers in their proper place until they set up their wills against God. But
+if all power be from God, more then that which is given to things divine.
+Acknowledge God in us and we will acknowledge God in thee. But if you do
+not acknowledge God, you cannot use a privilege derived from Him whose
+rights you despise. You say that conspiring with the senate I have
+excommunicated you. In that I have my part; but I am following fearlessly
+what my predecessors have done reasonably. You say the Roman senate has
+ill-treated you. If we treat you ill in persuading you to quit heretics, do
+you treat us well who would throw us into their communion? What, you say,
+is the conduct of Acacius to me? Nothing if you leave him. If you do not
+leave him it touches you. Let us both leave the dead. This is what we beg,
+that you have nothing to do with what Acacius did. Making your own what
+Acacius did, you accuse us of objections.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> We avoid what Acacius did; do
+you avoid it also. Then we shall both be clear of him. Thus relinquishing
+his actions you may be joined with our cause, and be associated with our
+communion without Acacius. It has always been the custom of Catholic
+princes<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> to be the first to address the apostolic prelates upon their
+accession, and they have sought, as good sons, with the due affection of
+piety, that chief confession and faith to which you know that the care of
+the whole Church has been committed by the voice of the Saviour Himself.
+But since public circumstances may have caused you to omit this, I have not
+delayed to address you first, lest I should be thought to consider more my
+own private honour than solicitude for the whole flock of the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that we have divulged your compelling by force those who had long
+kept themselves apart from the contagion of heresy to yield to its
+detestable communion. In this, O chief<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> of human powers, I, as
+successor, however unmerited, in the Apostolic See, cease not to remind you
+that whatever may be your material power in the world, you are but a man.
+Review all those who, from the beginning of the Christian belief, have
+attempted with various purpose to persecute or afflict the Catholic faith.
+See how those who used such violence have failed, and the orthodox truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+prevailed through the very means by which it was thought to be overthrown.
+And as it grew under its oppressors, so it is found to have crushed them. I
+wonder if even human sense, especially in one who claims to be called
+Christian, fails to see that among these oppressors must be counted those
+who assault Christian confession and communion with various superstitions.
+What matters it whether it be a heathen or a so-called Christian who
+attempts to infringe the genuine tradition of the apostolic rule? Who is so
+blind that in countries where every heresy has free licence to exhibit its
+opinions he should deem the liberty of Catholic communion alone should be
+subverted by those who think themselves religious?"</p>
+
+<p>"All Catholic princes," the Pope repeats, "either at their own accession,
+or on knowing the accession of a new prelate to the Apostolic See,
+immediately addressed their letters to it, to show that they were in union
+with it. Those who have not done so declare themselves aliens from it. Your
+own writings would justify us in so considering you if we did not from your
+assault and hostility avoid you, whether as enemy or judge ... but the
+accomplice of error must persecute him who is its enemy."</p>
+
+<p>Let this letter from beginning to end be considered as written by a Pope
+just after his election, the validity of which had been disputed by another
+candidate whom the emperor had favoured&mdash;by a Pope living actually under
+the unlimited power of an Arian sovereign, who was in possession of Italy,
+and who ruled in right of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> conqueror, though he used his power generally
+with moderation and equity; further, that it was addressed to one who had
+become the sole Roman emperor, the over-lord of the king, who had just
+besought of him the royal title; that it required him to cast aside his
+patronage of Eutychean heretics; to rescind from the public records of the
+Church the name of that bishop who had composed the document called the
+Henotikon, the very document which the emperor was compelling his eastern
+bishops to accept and promulgate as the confession of the Christian faith.
+And let the frankness with which the Pope appeals to the universally
+admitted authority of St. Peter's See be at the same time considered, with
+the official statement that the emperors were wont immediately to
+acknowledge the accession of a Pope<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> and attest their communion with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>What was the answer which the eastern emperor made to this letter? He did
+not answer by denying anything which the Pope claimed as belonging to his
+see, but by rekindling the internal schism which had been laid to sleep by
+the recognition of Pope Symmachus. Before sending this letter, the Pope had
+held a council of seventy-two bishops in St. Peter's on March 1, 499, which
+made important regulations to prevent cabal and disturbance at papal
+elections such as had just taken place. This council had been subscribed by
+Laurentius himself,<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> and the Pope in compassion<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> given him the
+bishopric of Nocera. Now the emperor Anastasius, reproved for his misdeeds
+and misbelief by Pope Symmachus in the letter above quoted, caused his
+agents, the patrician Faustus and the senator Probinus, to bring grievous
+accusations against Symmachus and to set up once more Laurentius as
+anti-pope.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> In their passionate enmity they did not scruple to bring
+their charge against Pope Symmachus before the heretical king Theodorick.
+The result of this attempt was that Rome, during several years at least,
+from 502 to 506, was filled with confusion and the most embittered party
+contentions. Theodorick was induced to send a bishop as visitor of the
+Roman Church, and again to summon a council of bishops from the various
+provinces of Italy to consider the charges brought against the Pope. During
+the year 501 four such councils were held in Rome, of which it may be
+sufficient to quote the last, the Synodus Palmaris.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> Its acts say that
+they were by command of king Theodorick to pass judgment on certain charges
+made against Pope Symmachus. That the bishops of the Ligurian, Æmilian, and
+Venetian provinces, visiting the king at Ravenna on their way, told him
+that the Pope himself ought to summon the council, "knowing that in the
+first place the merit or principate of the Apostle Peter, and then the
+authority of venerable councils following out the commandment of the Lord,
+had delivered to his see a singular power in the churches, and no instance
+could be produced in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> which the bishop of that see in a similar case had
+been subjected to the judgment of his inferiors". To which king Theodorick
+replied that the Pope himself had by letter signified his wish to convene
+the council. Then the Synodus Palmaris, passing over a narration of what
+had taken place in the preceding councils, came to this conclusion:
+"Calling God to witness, we decree that Pope Symmachus, bishop of the
+Apostolic See, who has been charged with such and such offences, is, as
+regards all human judgment, clear and free (because for the reasons above
+alleged all has been left to the divine judgment); that in all the churches
+belonging to his see he should give the divine mysteries to the Christian
+people, inasmuch as we recognise that for the above-named causes he cannot
+be bound by the charges of those who attack him. Wherefore, in virtue of
+the royal command, which gives us this power, we restore all that belongs
+to ecclesiastical right within the sacred city of Rome, or without it, and
+reserving the whole cause to the judgment of God, we exhort all to receive
+from him the holy communion. If anyone, which we do not suppose, either
+does not accept this, or thinks that it can be reconsidered, he will render
+an account of his contempt to the divine judgment. Concerning his clergy,
+who, contrary to rule, left their bishop and made a schism, we decree that
+upon their making satisfaction to their bishop, they may be pardoned and be
+glad to be restored to their offices. But if any of the clergy, after this
+our order, presume to celebrate mass in any holy place in the Roman Church
+without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> leave of Pope Symmachus, let him be punished as schismatic."<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p>
+
+<p>This was signed by seventy-six bishops, of whom Laurentius of Milan and
+Peter of Ravenna stood at the head; and the two metropolitans accompany
+their subscription with the words, "in which we have committed the whole
+cause to the judgment of God".<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p>
+
+<p>When this document reached Gaul, the bishops there, being unable to hold a
+council through the division of the country under different princes,
+commissioned St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to write in his name and their
+own, and we have from him the following letter addressed to Faustus and
+Symmachus, senators of Rome:<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p>
+
+<p>"It would have been desirable that we should, in person, visit the city
+which the whole world venerates, for the consideration of duties which
+affect us both as men and as Christians. But as the state of things has
+long made that impossible, we could wish at least to have had the security
+that your great body should learn from a report of the assembled bishops of
+Gaul the entreaties called forth by a common cause. But since the
+separation of our country into different governments deprives us also of
+that our desire, I must first entreat that your most illustrious Order may
+not take offence at what I write as coming from one person. For, urged not
+only by letters, but charges from all my Gallic brethren, I have undertaken
+to be the organ of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> communicating to you what we all ask of you. Whilst we
+were all in a state of great anxiety and fear in the cause of the Roman
+Church, feeling that our own state was imperilled when our head was
+attacked, inasmuch as a single incrimination would have struck us all down
+without the odium which attaches to the oppression of a multitude, if it
+had overturned the condition of our chief, a copy of the episcopal decree
+was brought to us in our anxiety from Italy, which the bishops of Italy,
+assembled at Rome, had issued in the case of Pope Symmachus. This
+constitution is made respectable by the assent of a large and reverend
+council: yet our mind is, that the holy Pope Symmachus, if accused to the
+world, had a claim rather to the support than to the judgment of his
+brethren the bishops. For as our Ruler in heaven bids us be subject to
+earthly powers, foretelling that we shall stand before kings and princes in
+every accusation, so is it difficult to understand with what reason, or by
+what law, the superior is to be judged by his inferiors. The Apostle's
+command is well known, that an accusation against an elder should not be
+received. How, then, is it lawful to incriminate the Principate of the
+whole Church? The venerable council itself providing against this in its
+laudable constitution, has reserved to the divine judgment a cause which, I
+may be permitted to say, it had somewhat rashly taken up; mentioning,
+however, that the charges objected to the Pope had in no respect been
+proved, either to itself or to king Theodorick. In face of all which, I,
+myself a Roman senator, and a Christian bishop, adjure you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> (so may the God
+you worship grant prosperity to your times, and your own dignity maintain
+the honour of the Roman name to the universe in this collapsing world),
+that the state of the Church be not less in your eyes than that of the
+commonwealth; that the power which God has given to you may be also for our
+good; and that you have not less love in your Church for the See of Peter,
+than in your city for the crown of the world. If, in your wisdom, you
+consider the matter to its bottom, you will see that not only the cause
+carried on at Rome is concerned. In the case of other bishops, if there be
+any lapse, it may be restored; but if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not
+one bishop but the episcopate itself will seem to be shaken. You well know
+how we are steering the bark of faith amid storms of heresies, whose winds
+roar around us. If with us you fear such dangers, you must needs protect
+your pilot by sharing his labour. If the sailors turn against their
+captain, how will they escape? The shepherd of the Lord's sheepcot will
+give an account of his pastorship; it is not for the flock to alarm its own
+pastor, but for the judge. Restore, then, to us if it be not already
+restored, concord in our chief."</p>
+
+<p>Even after this synod at Rome, the opponents of Symmachus did not cease
+their attempts. Clergy and senators sent in a new memorial to the king
+Theodorick, in favour of the anti-pope Laurentius, who returned to Rome in
+502; and it was four years, during which several councils were held, before
+the schism was finally composed. Theodorick then commanded that all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+churches in Rome should be given up to Pope Symmachus,<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> and he alone be
+recognised as its bishop.</p>
+
+<p>Against the attacks made upon the fourth synod, which had dismissed the
+consideration of the charges against the Pope as beyond its competence,
+Ennodius, at that time a deacon, afterwards bishop of Pavia, wrote a long
+defence. This writing was read at the sixth synod at Rome, held in 503,
+approved, and inserted in the synodal acts. We may, therefore, quote one
+passage from it, as the doctrine which it was the result of all this schism
+to establish.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> "God has willed the causes of other men to be terminated
+by men; He has reserved the bishop of that one see without question to His
+own judgment. It was His will that the successors of the Apostle St. Peter
+should owe their innocence to heaven alone, and show a spotless conscience
+to that most absolute scrutiny. Do not suppose that those souls whom God
+has reserved to His own examination have no fear of their judges. The
+guilty has with Him no one to suggest excuse, when the witness of the deeds
+is the same as the Judge. If you say, Such will be the condition of all
+souls in that trial; I shall reply,<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> To one only was it said, Thou art
+Peter, &amp;c. And further, that the dignity of that see has been made
+venerable to the whole world by the voice of holy pontiffs, when all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> the
+faithful in every part are made subject to it, and it is marked out as the
+head of the whole body."</p>
+
+<p>From the whole of this history we deduce the fact, that the enmity of the
+eastern emperor was able by bribing a party at Rome to stir up a schism
+against the lawful Pope, which had for its result to call forth the witness
+of the Italian and the Gallic bishops respecting the singular prerogatives
+of the Holy See. They spoke in the person of Ennodius and Avitus. We have,
+in consequence, recorded for us in black and white the axiom which had been
+acted upon from the beginning, "the First See is judged by no one".</p>
+
+<p>Let us see on the contrary what the same emperor was not only willing but
+able to do in the city which had succeeded to Rome as the capital of the
+empire, in which Anastasius reigned alone.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 496, Anastasius had found himself able, as we have seen, to
+depose, by help of the resident council, Euphemius of Constantinople. As
+his successor was chosen Macedonius, sister's son of the former bishop,
+Gennadius, and like him of gentle spirit, "a holy man,<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> the champion of
+the orthodox".<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> However much the opinion was then spread in the East
+that a successor might rightfully be appointed to a bishop forcibly
+expelled from his see, if otherwise the Church would be deprived of its
+pastor&mdash;an opinion which Pope Gelasius very decidedly censured&mdash;Macedonius
+II. felt very keenly the unlawfulness of his appointment. When the deposed
+Euphemius asked of him a safe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> conduct for his journey into banishment, and
+Macedonius received authority to grant it, he went into the baptistry to
+give it, but caused his archdeacon first to remove his omophorion, and
+appeared in the garb of a simple priest to give his predecessor a sum of
+money collected for him. He was much praised for this. Yet Macedonius had
+to subscribe the Henotikon. Hence he experienced a strong opposition from
+the monks, who, in their resolute maintenance of the Council of Chalcedon,
+declined communion with him; so the nuns also. Macedonius sought to gain
+them by holding a council in 497 or 498, which condemned the Eutycheans and
+expressed assent to the Council of Chalcedon.</p>
+
+<p>Macedonius was by no means inclined to give up the lately won privileges of
+his see as to the ordination of the Exarch of Cappadocian Cæsarea, but he
+would willingly have restored peace with Rome, and have accepted the
+invitation from Rome to celebrate with special splendour the feast day of
+St. Peter and St. Paul. The emperor would not let him send a synodical
+letter to Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Macedonius could not be induced by threat or promise of the emperor to give
+up to him the paper in which at his coronation by Euphemius he had promised
+to maintain the Council of Chalcedon. The emperor, after concluding peace
+with the Persians, more and more favoured the Eutycheans, and seemed
+resolved either to bend or to break Macedonius. The people were so
+embittered against Anastasius that he did not venture to appear without his
+life-guards even at a religious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> solemnity, and this became from that time
+a rule which marks the sinking moral influence of the emperors. The
+suspicion of the people against Anastasius was increased because his mother
+was a Manichean, his uncle, Clearchus, devoted to the Arians, and he kept
+in his palace Manichean pictures by a Syropersian artist. The Monophysite
+party had at the time two very skilful leaders, the monk Severus from
+Pisidia and the Persian Xenaias. Xenaias had been made bishop of Hierapolis
+by Peter the Fuller, was in fierce conflict with Flavian, patriarch of
+Antioch, and raised almost all Syria against him. He carried the flame of
+discord even to Constantinople. There a certain fanatic, Ascholius, tried
+to murder Macedonius, who pardoned him and bestowed on him a monthly
+pension. Presently large troops of monks came under Severus to
+Constantinople, bent upon ruining Macedonius. The state of parties became
+still more threatening. Macedonius showed still greater energy; he declared
+that he would only hold communion with the patriarch of Alexandria and the
+party of Severus if they would recognise the Council of Chalcedon as mother
+and teacher. But Anastasius, bribed by the Alexandrian patriarch John II.
+with two thousand pounds of gold, required that he should anathematise this
+council. To this Macedonius answered that this could not be done except in
+an ecumenical council presided over by the bishop of Rome. The emperor in
+his wrath violated the right of sanctuary in the Catholic churches and
+bestowed it on heretical churches. The Eutycheans supplied with money broke
+out against the Catholics.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> They had sung their addition to the Trisagion
+on a Sunday in the Church of St. Michael within the palace. They tried to
+do it the next Sunday in the cathedral, upon which a fierce tumult broke
+out, and they were mishandled and driven out by the people. Now the party
+of Severus, favoured by the emperor and many officials, broke out into loud
+abuse of Macedonius. Thereupon the faithful part of his flock rose for
+their bishop, and the streets rung with the cry, "It is the time of
+martyrdom; let no man forsake his father". Anastasius was declared a
+Manichean and unfit to rule. The emperor was frightened; he shut the doors
+of his palace and prepared for flight. He had sworn never again to admit
+the patriarch to his presence, but in his perplexity sent for him. On his
+way Macedonius was received with loud acclaim, "Our father is with us," in
+which the life-guards joined. He boldly reproved the emperor as enemy of
+the Church; but the emperor's hypocritical excuses pacified the patriarch.
+When the danger was passed by Anastasius pursued fresh intrigues. He
+required Macedonius to subscribe a formula in which the Council of
+Chalcedon was passed over. Macedonius would seem to have been deceived, but
+afterwards insisted publicly before the monks on his adherence to its
+decrees. Then Anastasius tried again to depose him. All possible calumnies
+were spread against him&mdash;immorality, Nestorianism, falsification of the
+Bible; all failed. Then the emperor demanded the delivering up of the
+original acts of Chalcedon, which the patriarch steadily refused.
+Macedonius had sealed them up and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> placed them on the altar under God's
+protection; but the emperor had them taken away by the eunuch Kalapodius,
+economus of the cathedral, and then burnt. After this he imprisoned and
+banished a number of the patriarch's friends and relations; then he had the
+patriarch seized in the night, deported from the capital to Chalcedon, and
+thence to Euchaites in Paphlagonia, to which place he had also banished
+Euphemius. Macedonius lived some years after his exile. He died at Gangra
+about 516, and was immediately counted among the saints of the eastern
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>It cost Anastasius fifteen years to depose Macedonius, that is, from 496 to
+511, and this was the way he accomplished it. Thus he succeeded in
+overthrowing two bishops of his capital&mdash;Euphemius and Macedonius&mdash;neither
+of whom lived or died in communion with Rome, because, though virtuous and
+orthodox in the main, they would not surrender the memory of Acacius. They
+had, moreover, one grievous blot on their conduct as bishops. They
+submitted themselves to subscribe an imperial statement of doctrine and to
+permit its imposition on others. This was a use of despotism in the eastern
+Church introduced by the insurgent Basiliscus, carried out first by Zeno
+and then by Anastasius, tending to the ruin both of doctrine and
+discipline. During the whole reign of Anastasius the patriarchal sees of
+Alexandria and Antioch, which had built up the eastern Church in the first
+three centuries, which Rome acknowledged as truly patriarchal under Pope
+Gelasius in 496, and the new sees which claimed to be patriarchal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+Constantinople and Jerusalem, were in a state of the greatest confusion, a
+prey to heresy, party spirit, violence of every kind. Anastasius was able
+to disturb Pope Symmachus during the first half of his pontificate by
+fostering a schism among his clergy, with the result that he brought out
+the recognition of the Pope's privilege not to be judged by his inferiors.
+But he was enabled to depose two bishops of the imperial see, his own
+patriarchs, blameless in their personal life, orthodox in their doctrine,
+longing for reunion with Rome, yet stained by their fatal surrender of
+their spiritual independence, subscription to the emperor's imposition of
+doctrine. They were not acknowledged by St. Peter's See, and they fell
+before the emperor.</p>
+
+<p>In the last years of this emperor, the churches of the eastern empire were
+involved in the greatest disorders and sufferings. He had thrown aside
+altogether the mask of Catholic: he filled the patriarchal sees with the
+fiercest heretics. Flavian was driven from Antioch, Elias from Jerusalem.
+Timotheus, a man of bad character, had been put by him into the see of
+Constantinople. In this extremity of misery and confusion, the eastern
+Church addressed Pope Symmachus in 512.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p>
+
+<p>"We venture to address you, not for the loss of one sheep or one drachma,
+but for the salvation of three parts of the world, redeemed not by
+corruptible silver or gold, but by the precious blood of the Lamb of God,
+as the blessed prince of the glorious Apostles taught, whose chair the Good
+Shepherd, Christ, has entrusted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> to your beatitude. Therefore, as an
+affectionate father for his children, seeing with spiritual eyes how we are
+perishing in the prevarication of our father Acacius, delay not, sleep not,
+but hasten to deliver us, since not in binding only but in loosing those
+long bound the power has been given to thee; for you know the mind of
+Christ who are daily taught by your sacred teacher Peter to feed Christ's
+sheep entrusted to you through the whole habitable world, collected not by
+force, but by choice, and with the great doctor Paul cry to us your
+subjects 'not because we exercise dominion over your faith, but we are
+helpers in your joy'. 'Hasten then to help that east from which the Saviour
+sent to you the two great lights of day, Peter and Paul, to illuminate the
+whole world.'" They call upon him as the true physician; they disclose to
+him the ulcerous sores with which the whole body of the eastern Church is
+covered; and they finish by directing to him a confession of faith,
+rejecting the two opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches. They remind
+him of the holy Pope Leo, now among the saints, and conjure him to save
+them now in their souls as Leo saved bodies from Attila.</p>
+
+<p>But yet it was not given to Pope Symmachus to put an end to this confusion.
+He sat during fifteen years and eight months, dying on the 9th July, 514.
+The schism raised by the Greek emperor was at an end; and seven days after
+his decease the deacon Hormisdas was elected with the full consent of all.
+In the meantime the state of the East had gone on from bad to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> worse.
+Anastasius, by writing and by oath, had pledged himself at his coronation
+to maintain the Catholic faith and the Council of Chalcedon. Instead he had
+persecuted Catholics, banished their bishops, by his falsehood and tyranny
+sown discord everywhere. At last one of his own generals, Vitalian, rose
+against him. After a long silence he once more betook himself to the Pope.
+In January, 518, he wrote to the new Pope, Hormisdas, "that the opinion
+spread abroad of his goodness led him to apply to his fatherly affection to
+ask of him the offices which our God and Saviour taught the holy Apostles
+by mouth, and especially St. Peter, whom He made the strength<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> of His
+Church". He asked, therefore, "his apostolate by holding a council to
+become a mediator by whom unity might be restored to the churches," and
+proposed that a general council should be held at Heraclea, the old
+metropolis of Thrace.</p>
+
+<p>Hormisdas, after maturely considering the whole state of things, sent a
+legation of five persons to the emperor at Constantinople&mdash;the bishops
+Ennodius of Pavia, Fortunatus of Catania, the priest Venantius, the deacon
+Vitalis, and the notary Hilarius&mdash;with the most detailed instructions how
+to act. The intent was to test the emperor's sincerity&mdash;a foresight which
+after events completely justified. This instruction is said to be the
+earliest of the kind which has come down to us. Since nothing can so
+vividly represent the position of the Holy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> See as the words used by it on
+a great occasion at the very moment when it took place, I give a
+translation of it. In reading this it should be remembered that these are
+the words of a Pope living in captivity under an Arian and barbaric
+sovereign, who had taken possession of Italy about twenty years before, and
+had sought for and accepted the royal title from this very emperor.
+Further, that with the exception of the Frankish kingdom, in which Clovis
+had died four years before, all the West was in possession of Arian rulers,
+who were also of barbaric descent. The Pope speaks in the naked power of
+his "apostolate". The commission which he gave to his legates was this:<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p>
+
+<p>"When, by God's help and the prayers of the Apostles, you come into the
+country of the Greeks, if bishops choose to meet you receive them with all
+due respect. If they propose a night-lodging for you do not refuse, that
+laymen may not suppose you will hold no union with them. But if they invite
+you to eat with them, courteously excuse yourselves, saying, Pray that we
+may first be joined at the Mystical Table, and then this will be more
+agreeable to us. Do not, however receive provision or things of that kind,
+except carriage, if need be, but excuse yourselves, saying that you have
+everything, and that you hope that they will give you their hearts, in
+which abide all gifts, charity and unity, which make up the joy of
+religion.</p>
+
+<p>"So, when you reach Constantinople, go wherever the emperor appoints; and
+before you see him, let no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> one approach you, save such as are sent by him.
+But when you have seen the emperor, if any orthodox persons of our own
+communion, or with a zeal for unity, desire to see you, admit them with all
+caution. Perhaps you may learn from them the state of things.</p>
+
+<p>"When you have an audience of the emperor, present your letters with these
+words: 'Your Father greets you, daily intreating God, and commending your
+kingdom to the intercession of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, that God
+who has given you such a desire that you should send a mission in the cause
+of the Church and consult his holiness, may bring your wish to full
+completion'.</p>
+
+<p>"Should the emperor wish, before he receives your papers, to learn the
+scope of your mission, use these words: 'Be pleased to receive our papers'.
+If he answer, 'What do they contain?' reply, 'They contain greeting to your
+piety, and thanks to God for learning your anxiety for the Church's unity.
+Read and you will see this.' And enter absolutely into nothing before the
+letters have been received and read. When they have been received and read,
+add: 'He has also written to your servant Vitalian, who wrote that he had
+received permission from your piety to send a deputation of his own to the
+holy Pope, your Father. But as it was just to direct these first to your
+majesty, he has done so; that by your command and order, if God please, we
+may bear to him the letters which we have brought.'</p>
+
+<p>"If the emperor ask for our letters to Vitalian,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> answer thus: 'The holy
+Pope, your Father, has not so enjoined on us; and without his command we
+can do nothing. But that you may know the straightforwardness of the
+letters, that they have nothing but entreaties to your piety, to give your
+mind to the unity of the Church, assign to us some one in whose presence
+these letters may be read to Vitalian.' But if the emperor require to read
+them himself, you will answer that you have already intimated not such to
+be the command of the holy Pope. If he say, 'They may have also other
+charges,' reply, 'Our conscience forbids. That is not our custom. We come
+in God's cause. Should we sin against Him? The holy Pope's mission is
+straightforward; his request and his prayers known to all: that the
+constitutions of the fathers may not be broken; that heretics be removed
+from the churches. Beyond that our mission contains nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>"If he say, 'For this purpose I have invited the Pope to a council, that if
+there be any doubt, it may be removed,' answer, 'We thank God, and your
+piety, that you are so minded, that all may receive what was ordered by the
+fathers. For then may there be a true and holy unity among the churches of
+Christ, if, by God's help, you choose to preserve what your predecessors
+Marcian and Leo maintained.' If he say, 'What mean you by that?' answer,
+'That the Council of Chalcedon, and the letters of Pope St. Leo, written
+against the heretics Nestorius, and Eutyches, and Dioscorus, may be
+entirely kept'. If he say, 'We received and we hold the Council of
+Chalcedon, and the letters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> of Pope Leo,' do you then return thanks, kiss
+his breast, and say, 'Now we know that God is gracious to you, when you
+hasten to do this, for that is the Catholic faith which the Apostles
+preached, without which no one can be orthodox. All bishops must hold to
+this and preach it.'</p>
+
+<p>"If he say, 'The bishops are orthodox; they do not depart from the
+constitutions of the fathers,' answer, 'If the constitutions of the fathers
+are kept, and what was decreed in the Council of Chalcedon is in no respect
+broken, how is there such discord in the churches of your land? Why do not
+the bishops of the East agree?' If he say, 'The bishops were quiet; there
+was no disunion among them. The holy Pope's predecessor stirred up their
+minds with his letters, and made this confusion;' answer, 'The letters of
+Symmachus, of holy memory, are in our hands. If, besides, what your piety
+says, that is, "I follow the Council of Chalcedon, I receive the letters of
+Pope Leo," they contain nothing except the exhortation to maintain this,
+how is it true that confusion has been produced by them? But if that is
+contained in the letters which both your Father hopes and your piety agrees
+to, what has he done? What is there in him blameworthy?' add your prayers
+and tears, entreat him, 'Let your imperial majesty consider God; put before
+your eyes his future judgment. The holy fathers who made these rules
+followed the faith of the blessed Apostle, on which the Church of Christ is
+built.'</p>
+
+<p>"If the emperor say, 'I receive the Council of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> Chalcedon, and I embrace
+the letters of Pope Leo, enter then into communion with me,' answer, 'In
+what order is that to take place? We do not avoid your piety, so declaring,
+since we know that you fear God, and rejoice that you are pleased to keep
+the constitutions of the fathers. We therefore confidently entreat you that
+the Church may return through you to unity. Let all the bishops learn your
+will, and that you keep the Council of Chalcedon, and the letters of Pope
+Leo, and the apostolical constitutions.' If he say, 'In what order is that
+to take place?' recur again, humbly, to entreaties, saying, 'Your Father
+has written to all the bishops. Join, herewith, your mandates to the effect
+that you maintain what the Apostolic See proclaims, and then let the
+orthodox not be separated from the unity of the Apostolic See, and the
+opponents will be made known. After that, your Father is even prepared, if
+need be, to be present himself, and, preserving the constitutions of the
+fathers, to deny nothing which is expedient for the Church's integrity.'</p>
+
+<p>"If the emperor say, 'Well, in the meantime accept the bishop of my city,'
+again beseech humbly, 'Imperial majesty, we have come with God's help in
+the hope of support on your part to make peace and restore tranquillity in
+your city. There is question here about two persons. The matter runs its
+proper course. First, let all the bishops be so ordered as to form one
+Catholic communion; next, the cause of those persons, or of any others who
+may be at a distance from their churches, can be specially considered.' If
+the emperor say, 'You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> are speaking of Macedonius; I see your subtlety. He
+is a heretic; he cannot possibly be recalled,' answer, 'Imperial majesty,
+we name no one personally; we speak rather in favour of your mind and
+opinion, that inquiry may be made, and, if he is heretical, a juridical
+sentence passed, that he may not be said to be unjustly deposed, being
+reputed orthodox'.</p>
+
+<p>"If the emperor should say, 'The bishop of this city consents to the
+Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope Leo,' answer, 'If he do so it
+will help him the more when his cause is examined; and since you have
+allowed your servant Vitalian to treat with the Pope, if he hoped for a
+good result on these matters, so let it be'. If the emperor say, 'Should my
+city remain without a bishop, is it your desire that where I am there
+should be no bishop?' reply, 'We said before there was a question about two
+persons in this city. As to the canons, we have already suggested that to
+break the canons is to sin against religion. There are many remedies by
+which your piety may not remain without communion, and the full judicial
+form may be preserved.' If he say, 'What are those forms?' reply, 'Not
+newly invented by us. The question as to other bishops may be suspended,
+and meanwhile a person who agrees with the confession of your piety and
+with the constitutions of the Apostolic See until the issue of the trial
+may hold the place of the bishop of Constantinople, if by God's help the
+bishops are willing to be in accordance with the Apostolic See. You have in
+the records of the Church the terms of the profession which they have to
+make.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But if petitions be presented to you against other Catholic bishops,
+especially against those who shamelessly anathematise the Council of
+Chalcedon, and do not receive the letters of Pope St. Leo, take those
+petitions, but reserve the cause to the judgment of the Apostolic See, that
+you may give them a hope of being heard, and yet reserve the authority due
+to us. If, however, the emperor promise to do everything if we will grant
+our presence, urge in every way that his mandate first be sent to the
+bishops through the provinces, which one of you shall accompany, so that
+all may know that he keeps the Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope
+St. Leo. Then write to us that we prepare to come.</p>
+
+<p>"It is, moreover, the custom to present all bishops to the emperor through
+the bishop of Constantinople. If their skilful management so devise in
+recognising your legation that you see the emperor in the company of
+Timotheus, who appears now to govern the church of Constantinople, if you
+learn before your presentation that this is so contrived, say, 'The Father
+of your piety has so commanded and enjoined us that we should see your
+majesty without any bishop'. So remain until this custom be altered.</p>
+
+<p>"If an absolute refusal be given, or if it is so contrived that before you
+have an audience you are suddenly put with Timotheus, say, 'Let your piety
+grant us a private audience to set forth the causes for which we have been
+sent'. If he say, 'Speak before him,' answer, 'We do no offence, but our
+legation also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> contains his person, and he cannot be present at our
+communications'. And on no account enter into anything in his presence; but
+when he has gone out produce the text of your mission."</p>
+
+<p>The exact conditions which the legates carried to the emperor were these:
+"The Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope St. Leo to be kept. The
+emperor, in token of his agreement, to send an imperial letter to all the
+bishops signifying that he so believes and will so maintain. The bishops
+also to express their agreement in Church in presence of the Christian
+people that they embrace the holy faith of Chalcedon and the letters of
+Pope St. Leo, which he wrote against the heretics, Nestorius, Eutyches, and
+Dioscorus, also against their followers, Timotheus Ailouros, Peter, or
+those similarly guilty, likewise anathematising Acacius, formerly bishop of
+Constantinople, and also Peter of Antioch, with their associates. Writing
+thus with their own hand in presence of chosen men of repute, they will
+follow the formulary which we have issued by our notary.</p>
+
+<p>"Those who have been banished in the Church's cause are to be recalled for
+the hearing of the Apostolic See, that a trial and true examination may be
+held. Their cause to be reserved entire.</p>
+
+<p>"If any holding communion with the sacred Apostolic See, preaching and
+following the Catholic faith, have been driven away, or kept in banishment,
+these, it is just, to be first of all recalled.</p>
+
+<p>"Moreover, the injunction we have laid upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> legates, that if memorials
+be presented to them against bishops who have persecuted Catholics, their
+judgment be reserved to the Apostolic See, that in their case the
+constitutions of the fathers be maintained, by which all may be edified."</p>
+
+<p>Anastasius<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> tried again the old arts. He made a bid of everything to
+gain the legates. He seemed ready to accept everything save the demand
+regarding Acacius, which he was bound to reject on account of the Byzantine
+people. Both to the legates on their return to Rome, and to two officers of
+his court whom he sent to Rome, he gave honourable letters for the Pope,
+whom he invited to be present at the projected council, and endeavoured to
+satisfy fully by an orthodox profession of faith wherein he expressly
+recognised the Council of Chalcedon. One only point, he said, whatever
+might be his personal feeling, he could not concede, that regarding
+Acacius, since otherwise the living would be driven out of the Church for
+the dead, and great disturbances and blood-shedding would be inevitable. He
+left it to the Pope's consideration. He also wrote to the Roman senate to
+use its influence for the restoration of peace to the Church, as well with
+the Pope as with king Theodorick, "to whom," said the emperor, "the power
+and charge of governing you have been committed". It may be added that
+Theodorick favoured, as far as he could, the restoration of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Hormisdas, in his answer, praised the zeal made show of by the
+emperor, and wished that his deeds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> would correspond to his words. He could
+not contain his astonishment that the promised embassy was so long in
+coming, and that the emperor instead of sending bishops to him, sent two
+laymen of his court, in whom he soon recognised Monophysites, who tried to
+gain him in their favour. In a letter to St. Avitus and the bishops of his
+province, he discloses the judgment which he had formed. "As to the Greeks,
+they speak peace with their mouth, but carry it not in their hearts; their
+words are just, not their actions; they pretend to wish what their deeds
+deny; what they professed, they neglect; and pursue the conduct which they
+condemned."<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> Still he resolved to send a new embassy to Constantinople
+in 517, at the head of which he put the bishops Ennodius and Peregrinus. He
+gave them letters to the emperor, the patriarch Timotheus, the clergy and
+people of Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>Anastasius had endeavoured to delay the whole thing, and to deceive the
+orthodox until he found himself strong again, and was no longer in danger
+from Vitalian. To bribe the people, he gave the church of Constantinople
+seventy pounds' weight of gold for masses for the dead. With regard to the
+treatment of Acacius, he had the majority on his side, who were not easily
+brought to condemn him. Here, also, he had a pretext to break off impending
+agreements. When his wife Ariadne died, he showed himself still less
+inclined to peace. She had been devoted to Macedonius, and often interceded
+for the orthodox. As soon as he thought himself quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> secure, he not only
+altered his behaviour and language to the Roman See, but, in the words of
+the Greek historian, about 200 bishops who had come to Heraclea from
+various parts had to separate without doing anything, "having been deluded
+by the lawless emperor and Timotheus, bishop of Constantinople".<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> The
+Pope's legates he tried to corrupt; when that did not succeed, he dismissed
+them in disgrace, and sent the Pope an insolent letter, in which he said he
+desisted from any requests to him, as reason forbade to throw away prayers
+on those who would listen to nothing, and while he might submit to
+injuries, he would not endure commands. Thereupon broke out a great
+persecution against Catholics, which the Archimandrites of the second Syria
+report to Hormisdas.</p>
+
+<p>In a supplication signed by more than two hundred, they address him:<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a>
+"Most blessed Father, we beseech you, arise; have compassion on the mangled
+body, for you are the head of all. Come to save us. Imitate our Lord, who
+came from heaven on earth to seek out the strayed sheep. Remember Peter,
+prince of the Apostles, whose See you adorn, and Paul, the vessel of
+election, for they went about enlightening the earth. The flock goes out to
+meet you, the true shepherd and teacher, to whom the care of all the sheep
+is committed, as the Lord says, 'My sheep hear My voice'. Most holy,
+despise us not, who are daily wounded by wild beasts." All that the Roman
+See had gained was that the orthodox bishops and many conspicuous easterns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+attached themselves to it, and the formulary binding them to obedience to
+the decisions of the Roman See found very many subscribers. The empire was
+in the greatest confusion when Anastasius died suddenly in the year 518,
+hated by the majority of his people, as perjured, heretical, and rapacious.
+Just before him died the heretical patriarchs, John II. of Alexandria and
+Timotheus of Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly,<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> as in the third century the Illyrian emperors saved the
+dissolving empire, another peasant, who in long and honourable service had
+risen to the rank of general, and was respected by all men as a virtuous
+man and a good Catholic, was called to take up that eastern crown of
+Constantine, which Zeno and Anastasius had soiled with the iniquities and
+perfidies of forty years.</p>
+
+<p>At Bederiana, on the borders of Thrace and Illyria, there had lived three
+young men, Zimarchus, Ditybiotus, and Justin. Under pressure of misfortune
+they deserted the plough, and sought a livelihood elsewhere. They started
+on foot, their clothes packed on their backs, no money in their purses,
+with a loaf in their knapsacks. They came to Byzantium and enlisted. Twenty
+years of age and well grown, they attracted the notice of the emperor Leo
+I.: he enrolled them among his life-guards. Justin served as captain in the
+Isaurian war. For some unknown fault he was condemned to death by his
+general, and the next day was to be executed. The general, says Procopius,
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> changed by a vision which he saw that night. Under Anastasius, Justin
+rose to the rank of senator, patrician, and commander of the imperial
+guard. On the death of Anastasius, the eunuch Amantius, who was lord
+chamberlain, and had been up to that time all powerful, sent for Justin,
+and gave him great sums of money to get the voice of the soldiers and the
+people, for a creature of his own, named Theocritus, in whose name he
+intended to rule. Justin distributed the money in his own name, and on the
+9th July was proclaimed emperor by army and people. He was sixty-eight
+years old, and, if Procopius may be believed, could not even write his own
+name, at least in Latin. But he was of long experience, and admirable in
+the management of affairs. His wife was named Lupicina, of barbarian birth.
+Justin, in the first year of his service, had bought her as a slave, and
+married her. When he became emperor he crowned her as empress, and with the
+applause of the people gave her the name of Euphemia. He had a nephew born
+at Tauresium, a village of Dardania, near Bederiana. He was called Uprauda
+in his own land; his father was Istock, his mother Vigleniza. The Romans
+changed these Teuton names to Justinian, Sabbatius, and Vigilantia.
+Uprauda, the Upright, was the future emperor Justinian.</p>
+
+<p>The accession of Justin was received with universal joy; and the new
+emperor at once sent a high officer, Gratus, count of the sacred
+consistory, to announce it to Pope Hormisdas, with a letter in which he
+said that "John, who had succeeded as bishop of Constantinople,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> and the
+other bishops assembled there from various regions, having written to your
+Holiness for the unity of the churches, have earnestly besought us also to
+address our imperial letters to your Beatitude. We entreat you, then, to
+assist the desires of these most reverend prelates, and by your prayers to
+render favourable the divine majesty to us and the commonwealth, the
+government of which has been entrusted to us by God."<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p>
+
+<p>The count Justinian also wrote to Pope Hormisdas that "the divine mercy,
+regarding the sorrows of the human race, had at length brought about this
+time of desire. Thus I am free to write to your apostolate, our Lord, the
+emperor, desiring to restore the churches to unity. A great part has been
+already done. It only requires to obtain the consent of your Beatitude
+respecting the name of Acacius. For this reason his majesty has sent to you
+my most particular friend Gratus, a man of the highest rank, that you might
+condescend to come to Constantinople for the restoration of concord, or at
+least hasten to send bishops hither, for the whole world in our parts is
+impatient for the restoration of unity."<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p>
+
+<p>The result was that Pope Hormisdas held a council at Rome in 518, at which
+all that had been done by his predecessors, the Popes Simplicius, Felix,
+Gelasius, and Symmachus, was carefully reviewed, and all present decreed
+that the eastern Church should be received into communion with the
+Apostolic See, if they condemned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> the schismatic Acacius, entirely effacing
+his name, and also expunged from the diptychs Euphemius and Macedonius, as
+involved in the same guilt of schism. And a pontifical legation was then
+named to carry out the desire of the council, and they bore with them an
+instruction, from which they might not depart by a hair's-breadth.<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Pope wrote letters to the emperor, to the empress, to the count
+Justinian, especially to the bishop of Constantinople, recommending his
+legates, and exhorting the bishop to complete the work which was begun by
+condemning Acacius and his followers; also to the archdeacon Theodosius and
+the clergy of Constantinople.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> He points out especially that he wants
+nothing new, or unusual, or improper, for Christian antiquity had ever
+avoided those who had associated with persons condemned; whoever teaches
+what Rome teaches, must also condemn what Rome condemns; whoever honours
+what the Pope honours, must likewise detest what he detests. A perfect
+peace admits of no division. The worship of one and the same God can only
+hold its truth in the unity of confession which embodies the belief.</p>
+
+<p>The papal legates were received honourably on their journey, and found the
+bishops in general disposed to sign the formulary issued by the Pope. In
+March, 519, they came to Constantinople, where they found the greatest
+readiness. The patriarch John took the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> formulary, and gave it the form of
+a letter, which seemed to him more honourable than a formulary such as
+those who had fallen would sign. He prefixed to the document which the Pope
+required to be subscribed the following preface:</p>
+
+<p>"Brother most dear in Christ, when I received the letters of your Holiness,
+by the noble count Gratus, and now by the bishops Germanus and John, the
+deacons Felix and Dioscorus, the priest Blandus, I rejoiced at the
+spiritual charity of your Holiness, in bringing back the unity of God's
+most sacred churches, according to the ancient tradition of the fathers,
+and in hastening to reject those who tear to pieces Christ's reasonable
+flock. Be then assured that, as I have written to you, I am in all things
+one with you in the truth. All those rejected by you as heretics I also
+reject for the love of peace. For I accept as one the most holy churches of
+God, yours of elder, and this of new Rome; yours the See of the Apostle
+Peter, and this of the imperial city, I define to be one. I assent to all
+the acts of the four holy councils&mdash;that is, of Nicæa, Constantinople,
+Ephesus, and Chalcedon&mdash;done for the confirmation of the faith and the
+state of the Church, and suffer nothing of their good judgments to be
+shaken; but I know that those who have endeavoured to disturb a single iota
+of their decrees have fallen from the holy, universal, and apostolical
+Church; and using plainly your own right words, I declare by this present
+writing,"<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>This is the preface given to his letter by the patriarch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> John; he then
+adds the formulary issued by the Pope from his council in Rome as the terms
+of restored communion between the East and West.</p>
+
+<p>"The first condition of salvation is to maintain the rule of a right faith,
+and to deviate no whit from the tradition of the fathers; because the
+decree of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be passed over, in which He says,
+'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church '. These words
+are proved by their effect in deed, because the Catholic religion is ever
+kept inviolate in the Apostolic See. Desiring, therefore, not to fall from
+this faith, and following in all thing the constitutions of the fathers, we
+anathematise all heresies, but especially the heretic Nestorius, formerly
+bishop of Constantinople, condemned in the Council of Ephesus by
+C&oelig;lestine, Pope of Rome, and the venerable Cyril, bishop of Alexandria;
+and together with him we anathematise Eutyches and Dioscorus, bishop of
+Alexandria, condemned in the holy Council of Chalcedon, which we follow and
+embrace with veneration, which followed the holy Nicene Council, and set
+forth the apostolic faith. To these we join Timotheus the parricide,
+surnamed Ailouros, and anathematise him, condemning in like manner Peter of
+Alexandria, his disciple and follower in all things; so also we
+anathematise Acacius, formerly bishop of Constantinople, who became their
+accomplice and follower, and those who persevere in communion and
+participation with them; for whoever embraces the communion of condemned
+persons shares their judgment. In like manner we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> condemn and anathematise
+Peter of Antioch, with all his followers. Hence we approve and embrace all
+the letters of St. Leo, Pope of Rome, which he wrote in the right faith.
+Therefore, as aforesaid, following in all things the Apostolic See, we
+preach all which it has decreed; and therefore I trust to be with you in
+that one communion which the Apostolic See proclaims, in which the solidity
+of the Christian religion rests entire and perfect,<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> promising that
+these who in future are severed from the communion of the Catholic Church,
+that is, who do not in all things agree with the Apostolic See, shall not
+have their names recited in the sacred mysteries. But if I attempt in aught
+to vary from this my profession, I declare that by my own condemnation I
+partake with those whom I have condemned. I have subscribed with my own
+hand to this profession, and directed it in writing to thee, Hormisdas, my
+holy and most blessed brother, and Pope of Great Rome, by the above-named
+venerable bishops, Germanus and John, the deacons Felix and Dioscorus, the
+priest Blandus."</p>
+
+<p>The names of Acacius, Fravita, Euphemius, and Timotheus, four bishops of
+Constantinople, also of the emperors Zeno and Anastasius, who reigned from
+474 to 518 (if we include a few months of Basiliscus), were erased from the
+diptychs in the presence of the legates. After that, at the instance of the
+emperor, the other bishops, the abbots, and the senate had signed the
+formulary, a solemn service was celebrated, to the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> joy of the
+people, in the Cathedral on Easter eve, the 24th March, to mark the act of
+reconciliation, and not the least disturbance took place. The official
+narration<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> of the five legates to Pope Hormisdas records the enthusiasm
+with which they were received at Constantinople. "From the palace we went
+to the church with the vast crowd. No one can believe the exultation of the
+people, nor doubt that the Divine Hand was there, bestowing such unity on
+the world. We signify to you that in our presence the name of the
+anathematised prevaricator, Acacius, was struck out of the diptychs, as
+likewise that of the other bishops who followed him in communion. So also
+the names of Anastasius and Zeno. By your prayers peace was restored to the
+minds of Christians: there is one soul, one joy, in the whole Church; only
+the enemy of the human race, crushed by the power of your prayer, is in
+mourning."</p>
+
+<p>The emperor Justin wrote to Pope Hormisdas:</p>
+
+<p>"Most religious Father, know that what we have so long earnestly sought to
+effect is done. John, the bishop of New Rome, together with his clergy,
+agrees with you. The formulary which you ordered, which is in agreement
+with the council of the most holy Fathers, has been subscribed by him. In
+accordance with that formulary, the mention at the divine mysteries of the
+prevaricator Acacius, formerly bishop of this city, has been forbidden for
+the future, as well as of the other bishops who either first came against
+the apostolic con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>stitutions, or became successors of their error, and
+remained unrepentant to death. And since all our realm is to be admonished
+to imitate the example of the imperial city, we have directed everywhere
+our princely commands, so great is our desire to restore the peace of the
+Catholic faith to our commonwealth, to gain for my subjects the divine
+protection. For those whom the same realm contains, the same worship
+enlightens, what greater blessing can they have than to venerate with one
+mind laws of no human origin, but proceeding from the Divine Spirit? Let
+your Holiness pray that the divine gift of unity, so long laboured for by
+us, may be perpetually preserved."<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thus history tells us that, in the year 484, Acacius, bishop of
+Constantinople, being condemned by Pope Felix, answered by striking the
+name of Pope Felix out of the diptychs, and that, in the year 519, the name
+of Acacius was erased from the diptychs in his own church; that his own
+successor not only gave up his memory, but, together with 2500
+bishops,<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> signed a formulary which attributes to the Roman See the
+words of our Lord to St. Peter, which declares "that the Catholic religion
+is ever kept inviolate in the Apostolic See," "in which the solidity of the
+Christian religion rests entire and perfect," and which lays down the rule
+that whoever does not live and die in the communion of the Roman See has no
+claim to commemoration in the Church.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Let us now shortly review the facts which have passed under our notice
+since St. Leo returned from his interview with the pirate Genseric in the
+year 455.</p>
+
+<p>In that fatal year the Theodosian house became extinct in the West so far
+as government was concerned. Valentinian's miserable widow, daughter of the
+eastern, wife of the western, emperor, during a short two months the prey
+of her husband's murderer, became with her daughters the captive of the
+Vandal freebooter, and saw the elder compelled to marry his son Hunnerich,
+the future persecutor of the Church. Twenty years succeed in which emperors
+are enthroned and pass like shadows, until the Herule general Odoacer,
+commanding for the time the Teuton mercenaries, deposes the last imperial
+phantom, Romulus Augustulus, and rules Rome and Italy with the title of
+Patricius. The western emperor is suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>In 457, the Theodosian house becomes extinct in the East by the death of
+the emperor Marcian, before whom the heiress of the empire, St. Pulcheria,
+granddaughter of the great Thedosius, had died in 453. He was succeeded by
+Leo, a soldier of fortune, but an orthodox emperor, who supported St. Leo.
+The emperor Leo reigned until 474, and after a few months, in which his
+child grandson, Leo II., nominally reigned, the eastern crown was taken by
+Zeno and held till 491, with the exception of twenty months in which
+Basiliscus, a successful insurgent, was in possession. As Zeno had reigned
+in virtue of being husband of the princess Ariadne, daughter of Leo I., so
+Anastasius, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> 491, in the words of the Greek chronicle, "succeeded to his
+wife and the empire," and he reigned twenty-seven years, to 518.</p>
+
+<p>During this whole period, from the death of the emperor Leo I. in 474 to
+that of the emperor Anastasius in 518, the political state of the East and
+West was most perilous to the Church. In the East, the three sovereigns,
+Zeno, Basiliscus, and Anastasius, were unsound in their belief, treacherous
+in their action, scandalous in their life. The Popes addressed with honour,
+as the vice-gerents of divine power, men whom, as to their personal
+character, they must have loathed. Their government, moreover, was
+disastrous to their subjects&mdash;a tissue of insurrections, barbaric invasion,
+and devastation; at home, civil corruption of every kind.</p>
+
+<p>In the West, Teuton conquerors had taken possession of the Roman empire.
+The Herule Odoacer had been put to death in 493 by the Ostrogoth
+Theodorick, who, like Odoacer before him, reigned with cognisance and
+approbation of the eastern emperor for thirty-three years. Both Odoacer and
+Theodorick were Arians; so also Genseric and his son Hunnerich, who ruled
+the former Roman provinces in Africa; so the Visigoths in southern France
+and Spain; so the Burgundians at Lyons. One conquering race only, that of
+the Franks, was not Arian, but pagan, until the conversion of Clovis, in
+496, gave to the West one sovereign, Catholic and friendly to the Pope. We
+have seen in what terms Pope Anastasius welcomed his baptism. The
+popula<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>tion in the old Roman provinces which remained faithful to the
+Catholic religion was a portion of the old proprietors, such as had not
+been dispossessed by the successive confiscations and redistributions of
+land under the victorious northern invaders, and the poor, whether dwelling
+in cities or cultivating the soil. And these looked up everywhere to their
+several bishops for support and encouragement under every sort of trial.
+All men were sorted under two divisions in the vast regions for which
+Stilicho had fought and conquered in vain: the one division was Arian and
+Teuton, the other Catholic and Roman. And as the several Catholic people
+looked to their bishops, so all these bishops looked to the Pope; and St.
+Avitus expressed every bishop's strongest conviction when he said, writing
+in the name of them all, "In the case of other bishops, if there be any
+lapse it may be restored; but if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not one
+bishop, but the episcopate itself will seem to be shaken".</p>
+
+<p>When the western emperor was suppressed the Pope became locally subject for
+about fourteen years to the Arian Odoacer, and then for a full generation
+to the Arian Theodorick. The latter soon found, by a calculation of
+interest, that the only way to rule Italy and the adjoining territories
+which his conquering arms had attached to Italy was by maintaining civil
+justice and equality among all his subjects. He took two of the noblest
+Romans, Boethius and Cassiodorus, for his friends and counsellors, and in
+the letters of the latter, from about the year 500 to the end of
+Theodorick's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> reign, we possess most valuable information as to the way in
+which Theodorick governed. Odoacer would seem likewise, during the years of
+his government until he was shut up in Ravenna, to have followed a like
+policy. But that the position of the Pope under Odoacer and Theodorick was
+one of great difficulty and delicacy no one can doubt. Gelasius speaks of
+his having had to resist Odoacer "by God's help, when he enjoined things
+not to be done".<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> And in 526 Pope John I. paid with his life, in the
+dungeon of Ravenna, the penalty for not having satisfied the Arian
+exactions of Theodorick in the eastern embassy imposed upon him.</p>
+
+<p>I mention these things very summarily, having already given them with more
+or less detail, but I must needs recur to them because, in weighing the
+transactions which the schism of Acacius brought about, it is essential to
+bear in mind throughout the embarrassed and subject political situation in
+which all the Popes concerned with that schism found themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Within seven years after the western emperor had been suppressed, and the
+overlordship of the East been acknowledged by the Roman senate as well as
+the Teuton conqueror, what happened?</p>
+
+<p>A bishop of Constantinople, as able and popular as he was unscrupulous, had
+established a mental domination over the eastern emperor Zeno. He reigned
+in the utmost sacerdotal pomp at Constantinople; he beheld Old Rome sunk
+legally to the mere rank of a municipal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> city, and the See of St. Peter in
+it subject to an Arian of barbaric blood. He thought the time was come for
+the bishop of the imperial city to emancipate himself from the control of
+the Lateran Patriarcheium. Having gained great renown by his defence of the
+Council of Chalcedon against the usurper Basiliscus, having denounced at
+Rome the misdeeds and the heresy of the Eutychean who was elected by that
+party at Alexandria, and having so been high in the trust of Pope
+Simplicius, he turned against both Pope and Council. He set up two heretics
+as patriarchs&mdash;Peter the Stammerer, the very man he had denounced, at
+Alexandria, and Peter the Fuller at Antioch. He composed a doctrinal
+statement, called the "Form of Union," which, by the emperor's edict, was
+imposed on the eastern bishops. It was a scarcely-veiled Eutychean
+document. He called to his aid all the jealousy which Nova Roma felt for
+her elder sister, all the pride which she felt for the exaltation of her
+own bishop. If he succeeded in maintaining his own nominees in the two
+original patriarchates of the East, he succeeded at the same time in
+subjecting them to his own see. He crowned that series of encroachments
+which had advanced step by step since the 150 bishops of the purely eastern
+council held at Constantinople just a hundred years before set the
+exaltation of the imperial city on a false foundation. In fact, if this his
+enterprise succeeded, he obtained the realisation of the 28th canon, which
+Anatolius attempted to pass at Chalcedon, and which Pope Leo had
+overthrown. But most of all, both in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> the government of the Church and in
+the supreme magisterium, the determination of the Church's true doctrine,
+he deposed the successor of St. Peter, and but one single step remained, to
+which all his conduct implied the intention to proceed. For the logical
+basis of that conduct was the assertion that, as the bishop of Rome had
+been supreme when, and because, Rome was the capital of the empire, so when
+Constantinople had succeeded Rome as capital, her bishop also succeeded to
+the spiritual rights of the Primacy.</p>
+
+<p>We may sum up the attempt of Acacius in a single word: the denial that the
+Pope had succeeded to the universal Pastorship of St. Peter.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was the point at issue, and when the western emperor was
+suppressed, and the overlordship of the eastern emperor acknowledged, the
+Pope was deprived of all temporal support, and left to meet the attack of
+Acacius in the naked power of his apostolate. From the year 483, when the
+deeds of Acacius led to his excommunication, followed by the schism, to its
+termination in 519, the Popes, being subjects of Arian sovereigns, who were
+likewise of barbaric descent, braved the whole civil power of the eastern
+emperors, as well as the whole ecclesiastical influence of the bishops of
+Constantinople. Not only were Zeno and Anastasius unorthodox, but likewise
+they were bent on increasing the influence of that bishop whom they
+nominated and controlled. The sovereigns of the East had been able, even by
+a simple practice of Byzantine etiquette, to put their own bishop in a
+position of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> determining influence over the whole eastern episcopate. For
+we learn from the instruction of Pope Hormisdas to his legates that it was
+the custom for every bishop to be presented to the emperor by the bishop of
+Constantinople. The Pope most strictly enjoins his legates not to submit to
+this. The effect of such a rule upon the eastern bishops who frequented the
+court of an absolute sovereign exhibits another cause of that perpetual
+growth which accrues to the bishop of the imperial city.</p>
+
+<p>Every human power, every conjunction of circumstances, seemed to be against
+the Popes in this struggle. While the East was thus in hostile hands, under
+emperors who were either secretly or avowedly heretical, the West was under
+Arian domination. Italy was ruled from 493 to 526 by a man of great
+ability. Few rulers have surpassed Theodorick either in success as a
+warrior or in political skill. He had, further, enlaced the contemporary
+rulers in the various countries of the West in ties of relationship with
+himself. He had married Andefleda, sister of Clovis; he gave Theudigotha,
+one of his own daughters by a concubine, to Alaric of Toulouse, king of the
+Visigoths, and another, Ostrogotha, to Sigismund, king of the Burgundians,
+at Lyons. Even before he had conquered Odoacer, in 493, he was in strict
+alliance with the king of the Vandals in Africa, to whom he gave his sister
+Amalafrieda to wife, and her daughter Amalaberga to the king of the
+Thuringians. He solicited the royal title in 496 by an embassy to
+Anastasius, and the result of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> that embassy was that the chief man in it,
+Faustus, patrician and senator, when he returned to Rome, contrived to
+raise a schism in the clergy itself against Pope Symmachus. This schism was
+the greatest difficulty which the Pope in all this period encountered.
+Theodorick in political talent and warlike genius reminds historians of
+Charlemagne: but instead of having that monarch's faith, he was an Arian.
+His equal treatment of Arian and Catholic was a carefully thought-out
+policy; nor did he scruple at the very end of his career to sacrifice even
+the very life of the Pope to his political schemes. He favoured the senate
+of Rome in its corporate capacity; he favoured individual senators, but
+always as instruments of his own absolute rule, the key to which was to
+unite the use of the Roman mind in administration with the Gothic arm in
+action. When the end of the schism came, he had married his only child
+Amalasunta, the heiress of his kingdom, to Eutharic, who in the first year
+of the emperor Justin was consul of Rome with that prince, and nominated by
+him.</p>
+
+<p>On what, then, did the Pope rely? On one thing only&mdash;that in the inmost
+conscience of the Church, in East and West, he was recognised as St.
+Peter's successor; that upon everyone who sat in the Apostolic See had
+descended the mighty inheritance, the charge which no man could execute
+except he were empowered by divine command and sustained by divine support.
+For as it required God to utter the words, "Upon this rock I will build My
+Church"; "If thou lovest Me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> feed My sheep"; "Confirm thy brethren "; so
+it no less required God to enable any man to fulfil that charge. But how
+when it comes to a succession of men? How many families can show a
+continuous succession of three temporal rulers equally great? Can any
+family show four such? Can anyone calculate the power which maintains such
+a succession through centuries?</p>
+
+<p>Here, after four full centuries, in that one belief the seven next
+successors of St. Leo&mdash;Hilarus, Simplicius, Felix, Gelasius, Anastasius,
+Symmachus, and Hormisdas&mdash;stood as one man. Their counsels did not vary.
+Their resolve was one. Their course was straight. In Leo's time the earth
+reeled beneath the tread of Attila, the city groaned beneath Genseric's
+hoof. And now three heretics&mdash;despots, and ignoble despots, if ever such
+there were&mdash;filled the sole imperial throne. Arians, closely connected by
+family ties and identical interests, divided the West among them. The seven
+Popes sat on at the Lateran in the palace which Constantine had given them,
+and said Mass in the church which he had built for them. Three of his
+degenerate successors tried every art against them and failed. During
+twenty years of this time, from 476 to 496, no ruler small or great
+acknowledged the Catholic faith. The East was Eutychean, the West Arian. At
+length St. Remigius baptised the Frankish chief as first-born of the Teuton
+race in the Catholic faith of the Holy Trinity, and the Pope at Rome gave
+utterance as a father to his joy. The end was that the schism was
+terminated on the part of the bishop, the heir of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> seat and the
+ambition of Acacius, by the prince, by his nobles, among them the
+legislator who was to be Justinian, and by 2500 bishops throughout the
+East, acknowledging in distinct terms that one unique authority on which
+the Popes had rested throughout the contest. They declared solemnly, in
+celebrating the holiest mystery of the Christian faith, that the word of
+the Lord cannot be passed over, saying, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock
+I will build My Church". They added that the course of five hundred years
+had exemplified the fact "that the solidity of the Christian religion rests
+entire and perfect in the Apostolic See". The rebellion of Acacius in 483
+drew forth this confession from his successor, John II., in 519.</p>
+
+<p>The seven successors of St. Leo stood as one man. No variation in their
+language or their conduct can be found. Not so the seven successors of
+Anatolius at Constantinople. That bishop, who had seen himself foiled by
+the vigour and sagacity of St. Leo at the Council of Chalcedon, lived
+afterwards on good terms with him, and died in 458, in his lifetime. He was
+succeeded by Gennadius, who, during the thirteen years of his episcopate,
+was faithful both to the creed which St. Leo had preserved and to the
+dignity of the Apostolic See. He was followed by Acacius, who occupied the
+see from 471 to 489. There was some quality in Acacius which gained the
+favour of princes. He had charmed at once the old emperor Leo I.; but Zeno,
+whose influence first made him bishop, afterwards followed all his
+teaching. He had also gained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> a renown for orthodoxy by refusing the
+attempt of Basiliscus to make the imperial will a rule of Church doctrine.
+It was when his stronger mind had mastered Zeno that he began the desperate
+attempt against the doctrine and discipline of the Apostolic See which has
+been our chief subject. But when he died in 489, his successor Fravita at
+once renounced the position which he had taken up by asking the recognition
+of Pope Felix and restoring his name in the diptychs. It is true that in
+his conduct he was double-dealing, and, while he sought for the Pope's
+recognition, parleyed with the heretical patriarch of Alexandria. But he
+died in three months, and was succeeded by Euphemius, who likewise
+repudiated the act of Acacius, and earnestly sought reconciliation with the
+Pope, while he was unwilling to fulfil the condition of it&mdash;that he should
+erase the name of Acacius from the diptychs. The six years' episcopate of
+Euphemius was one long contest with the treachery and persecution of the
+emperor Anastasius, who at last, by help of the resident council, was able
+to depose him. He placed Macedonius in his stead, who again sought to be
+reconciled with the Pope, but only would not pay the price of renouncing
+the person, as he fully renounced the conduct, of Acacius. During fifteen
+years, from 496 to 511, as Euphemius had resisted the covert heresy of
+Anastasius, so did Macedonius, and, like him, he fell at last before the
+enmity of the emperor. Upon the deposition of Macedonius, the emperor
+obtained the election of Timotheus, who during seven years was his docile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+instrument. When he died in 518, the bishop John was elected, whose great
+desire was the restoration of unity, with the maintenance of the faith of
+Chalcedon. By side of the seven Popes succeeding St. Leo put the seven
+bishops of the emperor's city. We find two&mdash;the first and the
+last&mdash;Gennadius and John, blameless. The second, Acacius, author of all the
+evil in a schism of thirty-five years. The third, the fourth, and the fifth
+shrink from the deed of Acacius; and two of them are deposed by the
+emperor, while his people respect and cherish their memory. The sixth is a
+mere tool of the emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Four eastern emperors occupy the sixty years from Marcian to Justin. Three
+of them are of the very worst which even Byzantium can show. Their reply to
+the appeal of the Pope to "the Christian prince and Roman emperor" was to
+betray the faith and sacrifice Rome to Arian occupation.</p>
+
+<p>But when we turn from the bishops and emperors of the eastern capital to
+the seats of the ancient patriarchs, to the Alexandria of Athanasius and
+Cyril, to the Antioch of Ignatius, Chrysostom, and Eustathius, no words can
+express the division, the scandals, the excesses, which the Eutychean
+spirit, striving to overthrow the Council of Chalcedon, showed during those
+sixty years. With this spirit Acacius played to stir up the eastern
+jealousy against the Apostolic See of the West, and he found a most willing
+coadjutor in the eastern emperor, the more so because that See was no
+longer locally situated in his domain. The chance of Acacius lay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+throughout in the pride of that monarch who was become the sole inheritor
+of the Roman name, as Pope Felix reminded him, and who would fain see Nova
+Roma the centre of ecclesiastical rule, as it was become the head of the
+diminished empire. Anastasius, after Zeno, was still more swayed by these
+motives than his predecessor.</p>
+
+<p>But here we touch the completeness of the success which followed the trust
+placed in their apostolate by the seven immediate successors of St. Leo. In
+proportion as Rome became in the temporal order a mere municipal city, the
+sacerdotal authority of its bishop came out into clearer light. Three times
+in the fifth century Rome was mercilessly sacked&mdash;in 410, in 455, in 472.
+Its senators were carried into slavery, its population diminished. The
+finishing stroke of its ignominy may be said to be the deposition, by a
+barbarian <i>condottiere</i>, of the poor boy whose name, repeating in
+connection the founder of the city with the founder of the empire, seemed
+to mock the mortal throes of the great mother. But this lessening of the
+secular city, so far from lessening the authority of the spiritual power,
+reveals to all men, believers or unbelievers, that the pontificate, whose
+seat is locally in the city, has a life not derived from the city. Rome's
+temporal fall exhibits in full the intangible spiritual character of the
+pontificate. If St. Peter had to any seemed to rule because he was seated
+on the pedestal of the Cæsarean empire, when that empire fell the Apostle
+alone remained to whom Christ gave the charge, whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> He invested with the
+"great mantle".<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> The bishop of the city in which an Arian Ostrogoth
+ruled supreme as to temporal things was acknowledged by the head of the
+empire, from whom the Ostrogoth derived his title, as the person in whom
+our Lord's word&mdash;the creative word which founds an empire as it makes a
+world&mdash;was accomplished, had been during five hundred years accomplished,
+would be for ever accomplished.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p>
+
+<p>The malice of Acacius largely led to this result. His attack was the
+prelude to the sifting of the Pope's prerogative during thirty-five years:
+its sifting by a rival at Constantinople, by the eastern bishops, by the
+eastern emperor, who had now also become the sole Roman emperor; and the
+sifting was followed by a full acknowledgment. Nothing but this hostile
+conduct would have afforded so indubitable a proof of the thing impugned.
+While the ancient patriarchates which had formed the substructure of the
+triple dais on which the Apostolic See rested were falling into
+irretrievable confusion, while the new State-made patriarch at
+Constantinople was trying to nominate and, if he could, to consecrate his
+elders and superiors at Alexandria and Antioch, who descended from Peter,
+the essential prerogative of the Apostolic See itself came forth into full
+light. The bishops at Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and
+every other city in the world would be great or small in influence
+according to the greatness or smallness of their city.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> If the city fell
+altogether, the see would fall. Its life was tied to the city. But it was
+not so with that pontificate on which the Church was built. There and there
+only the living power was given by Christ to a man: not local, nor limited,
+nor transitory. This was the great truth which the Acacian schism helped to
+establish in the minds of men, and which was proclaimed in that Nova Roma
+where Acacius had refused the judgment of Pope Felix, and had tried to put
+himself on an equality. As a result, in the terms of union which have been
+above recited, the action of Acacius has had the honour to condemn the
+rebellion of Photius three hundred years before it arose, and every other
+rebellion which has imitated that of Photius.</p>
+
+<p>Nor must it be forgotten that it was the constancy of the Popes in these
+sixty years which alone prevented the prevailing of Eutychean doctrine in
+the East. Blent with that doctrine was the attempt of three emperors to
+substitute themselves as judges of doctrine for the Apostolic See and the
+bishops in union with it. At the moment when John Talaia<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> was expelled
+from Alexandria, the Monophysite heresy, espoused by Acacius and imposed by
+Zeno, would have triumphed, save for the Popes Simplicius and Felix. And it
+would have triumphed while the instrument of its triumph, the Henotikon,
+would have inflicted a deadly blow upon the government of the Church by
+taking away the independence of her teaching office. This struggle
+continued during the reign of Zeno; and Anastasius, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> soon as he became
+emperor, used all the absolute power which he possessed to enforce the
+reception of the same document. Even Euphemius and Macedonius were obliged
+to sign it, and the sacrifice which they made in suffering deposition does
+not deliver their character of bishops from the stain of this weakness. We
+see in this period the first stadium traversed by the Greek Church in that
+descending course which, in another century, brought it to the ruin wrought
+by Mahomet.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the seven Popes kept the position of St. Leo&mdash;rather,
+they more than kept it, because, under outward circumstances so greatly
+altered for the worse, they both maintained his doctrine and justified his
+conduct. They insisted through the darkest times, under pressure of the
+greatest calamities, deprived of all temporal aid, that the person of
+Acacius should be solemnly removed from recognition as a bishop by the
+Church. They insisted, and it was done. The act of Acacius, if allowed to
+pass, would have carried into actual life the assertion of the canon which
+St. Leo had rejected: that the privileges of the Roman See were derived
+from the grant of the Fathers to Rome because it was the capital. The
+expunging of his name from the diptychs, with the solemn asseveration that
+the rank of the Holy See was derived from the gift of Christ, and that the
+Church's solidity as a fabric consisted in it, and equally the maintenance
+of the Catholic religion, established the contradictory of that 28th canon,
+and enforced for ever the subordination of the see which Acacius sought to
+exalt. At the same time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> it pointed out the distinction between the See of
+Peter and all other sees: the distinction that in the case of every other
+bishop the spiritual life of the bishop, as a ruler, is local and attached
+to his see. But the See of Peter is the generator of the episcopate,
+because of Peter ever living in his successor.</p>
+
+<p>It may also be remarked that it is this overflowing life of Peter which
+invests titular bishops with the names of dead sees. Thus they sit as
+members of a General Council, verifying to the letter St. Cyprian's adage,
+that the episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each without
+division of the whole.</p>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> 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?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p class="notes">NOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> <i>Epist.</i> i.; Labbé, v. 406.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 193.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Epistola Aviti episcopi Viennensis ad Clodoveum regem
+Francorum.&mdash;Mansi, viii. 175.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> See for this narrative the German Röhrbacher, viii. 486;
+Civiltà, 1855, art. 9, pp. 152-3; Hefele, ii. 607; Photius, i. 136.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> vi.; Mansi, viii. 213-217.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Qualiscunque præsulis apostolici debes vocem patienter
+audire.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> <i>I.e.</i>, 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Ubi te, rerum humanarum princeps, qualiscunque Sedis
+Apostolicæ vicarius contestari mea voce non desino.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Ad eam sua protinus scripta miserunt ut <i>se docerent ejus
+esse consortes</i>.&mdash;Mansi, viii. 217.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> See Hefele, ii. 607 and 209.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> "Intuitu misericordiæ," says Anastasius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> Hefele, ii. 216.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 247-252; Hefele, ii. 623-5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> <i>Acts of the Synodus Palmaris.</i>&mdash;Mansi, viii. 247-251.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Hefele, ii. 624.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 293-5. <i>Ep.</i> xxxi. Migne, vol. lix, 248.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Hefele, ii. 625-30; Röhrbacher, viii. 463.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 284, <i>The libellus apologeticus</i>, pp. 274-290.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Replicabo, uni dictum, Tu es Petrus, &amp;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.&mdash;Mansi, viii. 284.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> The narrative from Photius, i. 134.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Ephrem, v. 9759.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Ecclesia orientalis ad Symmachum episcopum Romanum.&mdash;Mansi,
+viii. 221-6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> In qua fortitudinem Ecclesiæ suæ constituit. Epistola
+Anastasii ad Hormesdam pontificem.&mdash;Mansi, viii. 384.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 389-393.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Photius, i. 143-5, translated.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> x. <i>ad Avitum Viennensem.</i> Mansi, viii. 410.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> Theophanes, p. 248.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 425.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> German Röhrbacher, viii. 532, book 43, 81, mostly followed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 435.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 438.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 441. Indiculus quem acceperunt legati
+Apostolicæ Sedis. It much resembles the former one, given to the legates
+sent to Anastasius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Photius, i. 148.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 451.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> In qua est integra Christianæ religionis et perfecta
+soliditas.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Suggestio Germani et Joannis episcoporum, Felicis et
+Dioscori diaconorum, et Blandi presbyteri.&mdash;Mansi, viii. 453.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Sacra imperatoris Justini ad Hormisdam.&mdash;Mansi, viii. 456.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Photius, i. 149, who refers to the Deacon Rusticus,
+<i>Disputatio contra Acephalos</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Il granto manto, Dante.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Quia in sede Apostolia inviolabilis <i>semper</i> Catholica
+custoditur religio.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Hergenröther, <i>K.G.</i>, i. 333.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> See Photius, i. 149.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">JUSTINIAN.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> submission of the eastern empire and episcopate to Pope Hormisdas, in
+519, is a memorable incident in the history of the Church. A large and
+marked part in it was taken by the man who for thirty-eight years was to
+rule the eastern empire, to expel the Goths from Italy, thus recovering the
+original seat of Roman power, and the Vandals from Africa, and so once more
+attach the great southern provinces, for so many ages the granary of Rome
+and Italy itself, to the existing Byzantine realm. Before, however, this
+was done, when, after the death of Theodorick, the Gothic kingdom still
+subsisted under his grandson Athalarick and his daughter Amalasunta, the
+emperor Justinian addressed to Pope John II., in the year 533, a letter
+from which I quote as follows. I preface that this letter was carried to
+the Pope by two imperial legates, the bishops Hypatius and Demetrius. It
+begins:<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> "Rendering honour to the Apostolic See and to your Holiness,
+whom we ever have revered, and do revere, as is befitting a father, we
+hasten to bring to the knowledge of your Holiness everything<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> which
+concerns the state of the churches. For the existing unity of your
+Apostolic See, and the present undisturbed state of God's holy churches,
+has always been a thing which we have earnestly sought to maintain. And so
+we lost no time in subjecting and uniting all bishops of the whole eastern
+region<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> to the See of your Holiness. We have now, therefore, held it
+necessary that the points mooted, though they are clear and beyond doubt,
+and have been ever firmly maintained and proclaimed by all bishops
+according to the teaching of your Apostolic See, should be brought to the
+knowledge of your Holiness. For we do not allow that anything concerning
+the state of the churches, clear and undoubted though it be, when once
+mooted, should not be made known to your Holiness, who is the head of all
+the holy churches. For, as we said, in all things we hasten to increase the
+honour and authority of your See." He then proceeds to recite a creed which
+carefully condemns the errors of Nestorius on the one side, and Eutyches on
+the other, and acknowledges "the holy and glorious Virgin Mary to be
+properly and truly Mother of God". At the beginning of this creed he
+introduces the words: "All bishops of the holy and apostolic Church, and
+the most reverend archimandrites of the sacred monasteries, following your
+Holiness, and maintaining that state and unity of God's holy churches which
+they have from the Apostolic See of your Holiness, changing no wit of that
+ecclesiastical state which has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> held and holds now, confess with one
+consent," &amp;c. And he concludes with the words: "All bishops, therefore,
+following the doctrine of your Apostolic See, so believe, confess, and
+preach: for which we have hastened to bring this to the knowledge of your
+Holiness, by the bishops Hypatius and Demetrius; and we beg your fatherly
+affection, that by letters addressed to us, and to the bishop and
+patriarch, your brother, of this imperial city (since he on the same
+occasion wrote to your Holiness, being earnest in all things to follow the
+Apostolic See), you would make known to us that your Holiness receives all
+who make the above true confession. For so the love of all to you and the
+authority of your See will increase, and the unity of the holy churches
+with you will be preserved unbroken, when all bishops learn through you the
+sincere doctrine of your Holiness in what has been reported to you. But we
+beseech your Holiness to pray for us, and obtain for us the guardianship of
+God."</p>
+
+<p>Pope John II. acknowledges this letter to "his most gracious son, Justinian
+Augustus". He highly celebrates the praises of "the most Christian prince,"
+that "in your zeal for faith and charity, instructed in the Church's
+discipline, you preserve reverence to the See of Rome, and subject all
+things to it, and bring them to its unity, to the author of which, the
+first Apostle, the Lord's words were addressed, 'Feed My sheep': which both
+the rules of the Fathers and the statutes of emperors declare to be the
+head of all churches, and the reverential words of your Piety attest". The
+Pope adds:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> "Your imperial words, brought by the bishops Hypatius and
+Demetrius, which have been agreed to by our brethren and fellow-bishops,
+being agreeable to apostolic doctrine, we by our authority confirm". "This,
+then, is your true faith; this all Fathers of blessed memory and prelates
+of the Roman Church, whom in all things we follow, this the Apostolic See
+has to this time preached and maintained unshaken." "And we beseech our God
+and Saviour Jesus Christ to preserve you long and peacefully in this true
+religion and unity, and veneration of the Apostolic See, whose principate
+you, as most Christian and pious, preserve in all things."</p>
+
+<p>In the same year, 533, in which Justinian addressed to the Pope this
+remarkable recognition of the Roman Primacy, specifying that everything
+which concerns the whole Church should be brought before the Pope, though
+it might be already certain and in accordance with established usage, he
+gave his approval to that collection of laws called in Latin the <i>Digest</i>
+and in Greek the <i>Pandects</i>, which he had commissioned Tribonian and other
+great lawyers to draw up. Seventeen commissioners, having power given to
+them to alter, omit, and correct, selected by his command, out of nearly
+two thousand volumes, what they considered serviceable in the imperial laws
+and the decisions of great lawyers. It is a vast repertory of judicial
+cases in which Roman lawyers seek to apply the general rules of law and
+natural equity. It was the first attempt since the Twelve Tables to
+construct an independent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> centre of right as a whole,<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> and it was
+confirmed by the authority of the emperor on the 16th December, 533.</p>
+
+<p>As in the whole course of the fifth century, so no less in the sixth, it is
+necessary to bear in mind the close interweaving of political with
+ecclesiastical facts. The force and bearing of the one only become
+intelligible when the others are weighed. In 519, under Pope Hormisdas, the
+schism of Acacius had collapsed, and the most emphatic acknowledgment of
+all which the Popes had claimed in the contest with him, and with the
+emperors Zeno and Anastasius, who favoured him, had taken place. Pope
+Hormisdas had been succeeded in 523 by Pope John I. Compelled by the king
+Theodorick to undertake an embassy to the emperor Justin, received at
+Byzantium with the highest honour as first Bishop of the Church, being also
+the first Pope who had visited the eastern capital, and crowned with gifts
+for the churches at Rome, he returned only to die in the dungeon of the
+Arian prince at Ravenna, in 526. In three months Theodorick had followed to
+the tomb his three victims&mdash;Symmachus, Boethius, and Pope John I. His death
+had well-nigh broken up the league of Teutonic Arian rulers against the
+Catholic faith, of which he had been the soul during the thirty-three years
+of his reign. Justinian had been taken by his uncle Justin as partner of
+his empire in April, 527, and crowned, together with his wife Theodora, on
+Easter Day. Four months later he succeeded his uncle in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> sole power. At
+the death of Theodorick, the innate weakness of the Gothic kingdom in
+Italy, which had been veiled by the personal ability of the sovereign, came
+to full light. The utter incompatibility between the savage Goth and the
+cultured Roman showed itself in the rejection of the queen Amalasunta, in
+the depriving her of her son, and his subsequent corruption and premature
+death, its result. It was shown also in the retirement of Cassiodorus from
+the place of counsellor and minister of the Gothic king. Upon the death of
+Pope John I., in 526, Theodorick had exercised his power in urging the
+Romans to select Felix for pope. For this permanent injury had been
+inflicted upon the liberty of the papal election by the foreign occupation
+of Italy. It began under Odoacer in 483, when the temporal ruler, being a
+foreigner and an Arian, for the first time sought to mix himself with the
+election. Twenty years after, under Pope Symmachus, the attempt of Odoacer
+had been condemned. But what the Herule and the Gothic ruler, both Arians,
+had begun, the Byzantine emperor, when he recovered possession of Rome,
+carried on, and the original freedom of election was subjected to the
+control of the eastern emperor for hundreds of years.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Felix sat until 530, and was then succeeded by Bonifacius II., the son
+of a Goth; not, however, without a temporary schism, occasioned by the
+attempt of King Athalarick to exert the arbitrary power used by his
+grandfather Theodorick in the election. Pope John II. followed in 532. In
+this Pope's time Cassiodorus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> was made Prætorian prefect by King
+Athalarick, and wrote to the Pope as a son to his father: "Be careful to
+remind me what I am to do. I wish to deal rightly, though I am blamed. A
+sheep which desires to hear the voice of his shepherd is not so easily led
+astray; and if he has one who warns continually at his side, can scarcely
+be criminal. I am, indeed, judge in the palace, but shall not therefore
+cease to be your disciple. For we execute this office well when we do not
+in the least depart from your injunctions. Since, then, I wish to be guided
+by your counsels and supported by your prayers, you must show your hand
+when there is anything in me otherwise than would be desired. That chair
+which is the wonder of the whole world should carefully protect its own,
+since, though it is given to the whole world, yet it admits in you a
+special local love."<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Pope, to whom the Prætorian prefect of Athalarick, the temporal
+sovereign, addressed this language, is John II., to whom Justinian, from
+Byzantium, spoke as a son, and whose primacy he acknowledged in terms so
+ample, before he became, by the conquest of Belisarius, the temporal lord
+of Rome; the year, also, before he reconquered Northern Africa by the sword
+of the same great general.</p>
+
+<p>Justinian, with not less precision than former emperors, acknowledged all
+his life long the primacy of the Roman See. We need not exclude political
+motives from this acknowledgment, but we must allow to him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> the fullest
+conviction as to its legitimate authority. If now and then, under the
+impulse of passion or despotic humour, he seemed to disregard its rights,
+he soon strove again to obtain the Pope's assent to his measures. In his
+edict to his own patriarch Epiphanius, he declared expressly that he held
+himself bound accurately to inform the Pope, as head of all bishops,
+concerning the circumstances of his realm, especially since the Roman
+Church by its decisions in faith had overthrown the heresies which arose in
+the East.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> The imperial theologian was very unwilling to give up the
+initiative in the determination of ecclesiastical questions; nevertheless,
+he acknowledged in the Bishop of Old Rome the superior judge without whose
+confirmation his own steps remained devoid of force and effect.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p>
+
+<p>The man who was born an Illyrian peasant, who was the leading spirit during
+the nine years' reign of another Illyrian peasant, his uncle, who succeeded
+him in 527, and ruled the greatest kingdom of the earth during thirty-eight
+years; to whom the bitter Vandal in Africa and the nobler Goth in Italy
+yielded up their equally ill-gotten prey; who became the great legislator
+of the Roman world, by the commission given to his chief lawyers to select
+and, after correction, tabulate the laws of the emperors his predecessors;
+to whom, in con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>sequence, the actual nations of Europe owe what was to them
+the fountain of universal right, demands a somewhat detailed account of his
+character, his purposes, and his actions. When the prince of the poets of
+Christendom, the only poet who has spoken in the name and with the voice of
+Christendom, meets his spirit under the guidance of Beatrice, the emperor
+utters words the truth of which all must feel:</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" class="width65" cellspacing="2" summary="POEM">
+<tr><td>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Cæsar I was and am Justinian,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Moved by the will of that Prime Love I feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I clear'd the encumbered laws from vain excess".<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It is in this character that Justinian lives for all history, and his name
+stands out among all Byzantine sovereigns with a lustre of its own. I have
+therefore first quoted the most definite words of the great legislator,
+spontaneously acknowledging the right of St. Peter's successor to know and
+to judge of all that concerns the Church's doctrine and practice. The
+acknowledgment of this right is the more to be marked because, when it was
+made by the eastern emperor, that successor was not his own subject. That
+he was the head of all the churches of the world, that he was so by descent
+from Peter, that in virtue of this headship and descent he had a right of
+supervision over everything which belonged to the Church in all the
+world&mdash;this is what Justinian avows, and this, moreover, is equally what
+the Pope claimed then as he claims now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Justinian ascended the eastern throne in August, 527, at about the age of
+forty-five. He would therefore have been born in 482. He was of somewhat
+more than middle height, of regular features, dark colour, of ample chest,
+serene and agreeable aspect. Through the care of his uncle he had had a
+good education, and had early learned to read and write. He was skilled in
+jurisprudence, architecture, music, and, moreover, in theology. His
+personal piety was remarkable. When he became emperor he bestowed all his
+private goods on churches, and ruled his house like a monastery. In Lent,
+his life approached that of a hermit in severity. He ate no bread; drank
+only water; for his nourishment he contented himself every other day with a
+portion of wild herbs, seasoned with salt and vinegar. We have sure
+testimony respecting his fasts and mortifications, since he has taken pains
+in his last laws, the <i>Novels</i>, to inform the world of them.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p>
+
+<p>His uncle Justin had died at the age of seventy-seven, after reigning nine
+years. His accession had marked a sort of resurrection in eastern affairs.
+Instead of three emperors, Basiliscus, Zeno, and Anastasius, alike
+ignominious in their government, unsound in their faith, infamous in their
+life, and remorselessly tyrannical in their treatment both of Church and
+State, Justin had crowned an honourable life as a general in the imperial
+service with a creditable reign, in which his fidelity to the Catholic
+faith was remarkable. The moment of Justinian's succession was coeval with
+great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> changes in the West. By the death of Theodorick, who in his last
+year had begun the work of active Arian persecution, the great kingdom
+which he had maintained for a generation seemed on the point of
+dissolution, through the intrinsic inaptitude for government which his
+Gothic subjects at once betrayed when let loose from the master's powerful
+hand. In Africa, moreover, a succession of cruel Vandal persecutors, almost
+equal to their original, Genseric, had shaken their tenure of the country.
+At the same time, the Frankish kingdom, strengthened greatly by the
+conversion of Clovis, was growing in power and extent&mdash;a growth not
+interrupted by his early death in 511, at the age of forty-five.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of things when Justinian directed the great power which
+the revenues of the eastern empire enabled him to wield, towards the
+restoration of that empire, first in Africa, and then in Italy. Later in
+the same year, 533, in which he addressed to John II. the explicit
+acknowledgment of his supreme authority with which I began, he despatched
+his great general Belisarius with 16,000 chosen troops, 6000 of them
+cavalry, to Carthage. The Vandal ruler Gelimer offered but a feeble and
+utterly ineffectual resistance. He surrendered himself at Carthage to
+Belisarius, by the end of the year, and was brought to Constantinople.
+There Justinian received Belisarius in what was like one of Rome's hundred
+triumphs, except that the conqueror marched on foot. The booty of the
+Vandal kings was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> borne before him, in which were conspicuous the precious
+things which Genseric had carried away from Rome&mdash;the vessels of the temple
+of Jerusalem. When the captive king was brought into the circus, and saw
+before him the emperor and countless rows of spectators, he is said to have
+shed no tears, but to have uttered the words of the preacher: "Vanity of
+vanities, all is vanity". But his head did not fall under the axe of the
+lictors, as in the ancient Roman triumphs. He received in Dalmatia a great
+property, and lived there in abundance with his family. The other captives
+were enrolled in the Roman army, and Justinian and Theodora heaped presents
+upon the daughters of Hilderich, and all the descendants of that princess
+Eudocia, great-granddaughter of the great Theodosius, who had been obliged
+to espouse the son of Genseric in her captivity at Carthage.</p>
+
+<p>Then Justinian divided North Africa into seven provinces&mdash;Tingitana,
+Mauritanea, Numidia, Carthage, Byzacene, Tripolis, and Sardinia, which
+last, having belonged to the Vandals, was put into the prefecture of
+Africa. This received a Prætorian prefect and proconsular governors, who
+were charged to maintain the land, and show to the inhabitants the
+difference between civilised Roman government and Vandal cruelty. Justinian
+restored many cities, and erected many great buildings, especially
+churches, of which five in Leptis alone.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p>
+
+<p>An early result of Justinian's reconquest of Africa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> was that the bishops
+met in plenary council, under the presidency of the primate of Carthage,
+Reparatus, successor of Boniface. After a hundred years of Vandal
+oppression, 217 bishops assembled in the Basilica of Faustus, at Carthage,
+named Justiniana in honour of the emperor&mdash;the church which Hunnerich had
+taken from the Catholics, in which many bodies of martyrs were buried. To
+their intercession the council ascribed their deliverance from persecution.
+After reading the Nicene decrees, they discussed the question whether Arian
+priests who had become Catholics should be received in their dignity or
+only to lay communion. All the members of the council inclined to the
+latter judgment. They, however, would come to no decision, but with one
+voice determined to consult Pope John II. They addressed a letter to him by
+the hands of two bishops and a deacon, in which they say: "We considered it
+agreeable to charity that no one should disclose our judgment until first
+the custom or determination of the Roman Church should be made known to us:
+honouring herein with due obedience the authority of your Blessedness,
+being such a Pontiff as the holy See of Peter deserved to have, worthy of
+veneration, full of affection, speaking the truth without falsehood, doing
+nothing with arrogance. Therefore the free charity of the whole brotherhood
+thought that your counsel should be asked. And we beg that your mind, the
+organ of the Holy Spirit,<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> may answer us kindly and truly."<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p><p>When the African deputies reached Rome, Pope John II. was already dead.
+But his successor Agapetus answered the questions of the council, attaching
+also the ancient canons which decided thereupon, to the effect that at
+whatever age a person had been infected by the Arian pestilence, if he
+became afterwards a Catholic he should not retain any rank, but that
+converted Arian priests might receive support from the Church fund. Pope
+Agapetus wrote expressing his intense joy at the recovery of their country:
+"For, since the Church is everywhere one body, your sorrow was our
+affliction. And we acknowledge your most sincere charity in that, as became
+wise and learned men, you did not forget the Apostolic Principate; but, in
+order to resolve that question, sought approach to that See to which the
+power of the keys is given".<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p>
+
+<p>This council also sent an embassy to Justinian, beseeching him to restore
+the possessions and rights of the Church in Africa which the Vandals had
+taken away&mdash;a request which the emperor granted in an edict to his
+Prætorian prefect Salomo. And Agapetus expressly restored to the primate of
+Carthage any rights as metropolitan which the enemy had taken away.<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thus the terrible persecution inaugurated by Genseric when the Vandal host
+lay around the deathbed of St. Augustine at Hippo in 430 came to an end. In
+the interval, the African church had suffered every ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>tremity of barbarian
+cruelty from the Arian invaders. At the end, the primate of Carthage, at
+the head of all the bishops of the several provinces, is found referring to
+the Pope, a subject of the Arian Theodatus, for guidance in the treatment
+of Arian priests and bishops who submitted to the Church. The Pope, on his
+side, acknowledges all the rights of the primate of Carthage which existed
+before the invasion. As to civil rights of property, the Byzantine
+conqueror restores the possessions of the Church which had been taken away
+by the Vandals.</p>
+
+<p>By the restoration of the African province to the Roman empire and the
+Catholic faith Justinian won great renown. His accession had been welcomed
+with joy by the Catholic people. Full of great designs, he aimed at the
+extension of his realm, and endeavoured to advance the Christian cause by
+missions to countries as yet without the faith. Greatness and majesty are
+shown in all his creations.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> In the year following the African
+reconquest Pope Agapetus wrote to him, praising his solicitude in
+maintaining the unity of the Church, and identifying the advance of his
+empire with the increase of religion.<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> The Pope adds that the emperor
+desired the profession of faith which he had sent to his predecessor Pope
+John II., and which had been confirmed by him, to be confirmed also by
+himself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> for which "we praise you: we assent, not because we admit in
+laymen an authority to preach, but because, since the zeal of your faith is
+in accordance with the rules of our fathers, we confirm and give it force".</p>
+
+<p>It is to be remembered that Pope Agapetus, elected in 535, was the subject
+of the Gothic king Theodatus, and as such was sent by him, under threats of
+death, in the winter of this year, on an embassy to Justinian. The purpose
+of Theodatus was to support his tottering throne by the intercession of the
+Pope. He had murdered at the lake of Bolsena the daughter and heiress of
+Theodorick, Amalasunta, who had made him king upon the untimely death of
+her son Athalarick in 534. He was secretly proposing to cede the Gothic
+kingdom of Italy to Justinian for a pension of 1200 pounds of gold. Thus
+Agapetus was sent to Constantinople in the winter of 535, as Pope John I.
+had been sent by Theodorick ten years before. He entered that city on the
+20th February, 536; he died on the 22nd April following. In these two
+months the Pope, the subject of Theodatus, did great things. A certain
+Anthimus, a secret friend of the Monophysite heresy, had been brought, by
+the favour of the like-minded empress Theodora, from the see of Trebisond
+and put into that of Constantinople, having been able to impose himself
+upon the emperor as orthodox. Agapetus was received with the greatest
+honour, being only the second Pope who had visited Byzantium. He could not
+negotiate a peace for Theodatus; but archimandrites, priests, and monks
+besought him to proceed against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> Anthimus as an interloper and teacher of
+error. Agapetus refused his communion to the new patriarch, required of him
+a written confession of faith, and return to his bishopric, which he had
+deserted contrary to the canons. The emperor, believing in the orthodoxy of
+his patriarch, took part at first against the Pope, and strove to overcome
+him both with threats and with presents. But Justinian, undeceived as to
+the orthodoxy of Anthimus, gave him up, and Pope Agapetus pronounced
+judgment of deposition upon him, and on the 13th March, 536, consecrated
+Mennas, who had been duly elected, to be bishop of Constantinople. He first
+required of him a written confession "to carry to Rome, to St. Peter".<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p>
+
+<p>Soon after this the Pope died suddenly. The whole population at
+Constantinople attended his funeral. Never, it was said, had the mourning
+for a bishop or an emperor drawn together such a concourse of people. His
+body was carried back to Rome in triumph and buried in St. Peter's.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Agapetus was succeeded in 536 by Pope Silverius, chosen under the
+influence of the Gothic king Theodatus. He was the last Pope so chosen; and
+the moment of his election is coincident with events destined to change
+permanently the material condition both of Rome and Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Justinian had accomplished, with singular ease and rapidity, the first half
+of his design. This was the reunion of North Africa to his empire, and the
+restora<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>tion in it of the Catholic faith. The second part of his design was
+to accomplish the same double result for Rome and for Italy. He sent
+Belisarius, after the victory at Carthage, into Sicily, where Syracuse and
+Palermo were taken; and in the summer of 536 the great commander entered
+Italy, captured Naples, and advanced towards Rome on the Appian Road. So
+the Gothic war began. Theodatus was in Rome. The Gothic army in the Pontine
+marshes became aware of his incompetence and his secret treating with
+Justinian, deposed him, and elected Vitiges to be their king in his stead,
+by whose orders the fugitive was slain in his flight on the Flaminian Road.
+But Vitiges hastened to Ravenna, where he espoused the unwilling Matasunta,
+daughter of Amalasuntha, granddaughter of Theodorick. Four thousand Goths
+alone remained to cover Rome. Belisarius appeared before it. A deputation,
+supported by Pope Silverius, brought him the keys of the city. The garrison
+was too weak to defend it, and on the 9th December, 536, Belisarius took
+possession of Rome, at the head of the imperial troops, who had nothing
+Roman in them except the name. It was sixty years since Odoacer had caused
+the senate to declare a western emperor needless, and Rome, as to temporal
+rule, had fallen, first under the Herule, then under the Goth. The Romans
+welcomed Belisarius as a deliverer from the double yoke of the northern
+intruder and the Arian heretic.</p>
+
+<p>For however Theodorick recognised, after the fury of the conflict with his
+brother-Teuton, the Herule<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> Odoacer, was over, the necessity of ruling with
+justice over Goth and Italian, however prosperous as to the maintenance of
+peace and internal order the great kingdom stretching from Illyricum to
+Southern Gaul had been, whatever support he had given to the maintenance of
+Roman law, custom, and institutions, there was not a Roman, from Symmachus
+and Boethius in the senate to the meanest inhabitant of Trastevere, who
+would not loathe the occupation of Rome and Italy by the Gothic invasion.
+The Goths were a people of remarkable courage and extraordinary force of
+body. But the feeling with which Italians and, above all, Romans would
+regard them as masters of their country and confiscators of its soil, can
+only be expressed by what the English would feel if a swarm of Zulus were
+to take possession of England. So, when Belisarius entered Rome, the Romans
+looked for their being replaced under the direct and lawful government of
+one who should be in deed and in truth a Roman prince, as Pope Felix had
+called the recreant Zeno, that is, the head of law, the supreme judge, the
+defender of the Church. This was what they looked for. I am about to
+mention what they found.</p>
+
+<p>The empress Theodora had tried with all her wiles to set a Monophysite
+prelate on the Byzantine See.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> Pope Agapetus had frustrated her plans
+by deposing Anthimus and consecrating Mennas in his place. But Theodora had
+not given up her intrigues, and she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> strove to involve in her net the Roman
+See itself. In the train of Agapetus at Constantinople was the ambitious
+deacon Vigilius. She sought to win him by promising him the Roman See. She
+offered him a great sum of money, and all her powerful support in attaining
+the papal dignity, if he would bind himself thereupon to abrogate the
+Council of Chalcedon, to enter into communion with Anthimus and Severus,
+and help them to recover the sees of Constantinople and Antioch. Vigilius
+agreed, and Theodora worked for the interests of her favourite by means of
+Antonina, wife of Belisarius. In the meantime, Silverius, as we have seen,
+had been chosen Pope in Rome, and Theodatus had exercised in his favour the
+influence which the Teuton rulers, whether styled Patricius or King, had
+claimed in the papal election since Odoacer. The empress invited the new
+Pope to come to Constantinople, or at least to restore her dear Anthimus.
+Silverius refused decidedly, though he was in the most dangerous position
+between the Greeks and the Ostrogoths, and even his personal liberty was in
+danger from Belisarius.</p>
+
+<p>Pope Silverius continued to refuse submission to the wishes of the empress.
+The great commander sat in the Pincian palace in March, 537, scarcely three
+months after he had taken possession of Rome.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> There he abased himself
+to carry out the commands of two shameless women, Theodora and Antonina. He
+caused Pope Silverius to be brought before him on a charge of writing
+treasonable letters to Vitiges. The Pope had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> taken refuge at Santa Sabina
+on the Aventine. When brought before Belisarius, he found him sitting at
+the feet of Antonina, who reclined on a couch. The attending clergy had
+been left behind the first and second curtains. The Pope and the deacon
+Vigilius entered alone. "Lord Pope Silverius," said Antonina, "what have we
+done to thee and the Romans that thou wouldst deliver us into the hands of
+the Goths?" While she was heaping reproaches upon him, John, a sub-deacon
+of the first region, entered, took the pallium from his shoulders, and led
+him into another room, where he was stript of his episcopal vestments, the
+dress of a monk was put upon him, and his deposition was announced to the
+clergy. He was then banished to Patara in Lycia. All these intrigues had
+been unknown to Justinian. Afterwards, the bishop<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> of Patara went to
+him, and invoked before the emperor the judgment of God, saying there were
+many kings in this world, but not one set over the Church of the whole
+world, as was that bishop who had been expelled from his see. Justinian,
+hearing this, ordered Silverius to be taken back to Rome, and a true
+judgment of his case to be made. But then the Pope fell entirely into the
+hands of his rival Vigilius, who in the meantime had, by the help of
+Belisarius, got possession of the pontificate. Vigilius caused him to be
+deported to the island of Palmaria. There it is only known that he died in
+great misery, but with the crown of martyrdom.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first act of that dominion, lasting more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> than two hundred
+years, in which the Byzantine sovereigns were lords of Rome, as part of a
+reconquered province, and claimed to confirm the Papal elections, a claim
+set up by the Herule Odoacer, continued by Theodorick, inherited by
+Justinian.</p>
+
+<p>When Belisarius occupied Rome he had only 5000 soldiers at his command.
+Vitiges, the new Gothic king, had gone to Ravenna, and made peace with the
+Franks by surrendering to them the southern provinces of France, held by
+Theodorick. He then levied the whole fighting force of the Goths, and, in
+March, 537, advanced from Umbria upon Rome at the head of 150,000 men.
+Belisarius, in the three months, had done his best to repair the walls, the
+towers, and the gates of the city. He had also laid up provisions. He dug
+trenches round the least defended spots, and had constructed great machines
+which shot bolts strong enough to nail an armoured man to a tree. Vitiges
+approached from the Anio, and made a desperate attempt to storm the city at
+once. Having failed in this, through the great courage and skill of
+Belisarius, and being unable, even with his vast host, to surround the
+city, he set up six fortified camps from the Flaminian Gate to that of
+Pr&oelig;neste, and a seventh in the Neronian fields on the other side of the
+river, the plain which stretches from the Vatican to the Milvian bridge.
+The Goth cut off the fourteen aqueducts which supplied Rome with water.
+Those greatest monuments of imperial magnificence from that time have
+stretched their broken arches across the Campagna, the admiration and
+sorrow of every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> beholder in so many generations. What five hundred years
+of empire had done, the Goth, in his fury to recover the land which he had
+usurped, was able to ruin. The besiegers went on wasting the Campagna, and
+preventing the entrance of provisions into the city. Amid the increasing
+want, and the fear of worse, Vitiges in vain tried to seduce the Romans to
+revolt. Finding that Belisarius would not capitulate, he constructed great
+wooden towers, loftier than the walls, upon wheels, from which fifty men to
+each should direct battering-rams. Belisarius opposed him with like
+weapons. On the nineteenth day, the Goths poured out from their seven camps
+for a general storm. In a tremendous conflict, Belisarius beat back the
+invaders by counter sallies at the gates assailed. But at one point they
+all but succeeded. The Mausoleum of Hadrian formed part of the defence.
+Procopius, the eye-witness of this famous siege, and its narrator, says of
+it: "The tomb of the Roman emperor Hadrian lies outside the Aurelian Gate,
+a stone's-throw from the walls&mdash;a work of marvellous splendour. For it
+consists of huge blocks of Parian marble, fastened to each other without
+jointing from inside. It has four equal sides, each of them in length a
+stone's-cast. Its height exceeds that of the city walls. Upon it stand
+wonderful statues of men and horses." This is all that Procopius says. Up
+to this moment, full four centuries after the death of Hadrian, all the
+glories of Grecian art, which that imperial traveller over the world, from
+Newcastle to the cataracts of the Nile,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> could collect, had shone through
+the Roman sky on the monument, splendid as a palace and strong as a castle.
+On this fatal day of Rome's direst need they were hurled down upon the
+advancing Goth, whom the narrow streets had enabled to approach with
+scaling ladders. Statues of emperors, gods, and heroes hailed upon the
+northern giants; the works of Polycletus and Praxiteles were used for
+common stones upon invaders who despised art as well as letters; and a
+thousand years afterwards, when the building was finally formed into a
+castle, in digging the trenches the fragments of the Sleeping Faun were
+found, which had crushed some inglorious barbarian and saved Rome from
+capture.</p>
+
+<p>But the storming, repulsed at every gate, cost Vitiges the flower of his
+host. Thirty thousand are said to have fallen, that being the number which
+Procopius records as derived from Gothic officers themselves; and greater,
+he says, was the number of wounded, when the deadly bolts from the machines
+of Belisarius mowed down their encumbered masses in flight.</p>
+
+<p>The result of this great conflict was to weaken the Goths, to encourage the
+Romans, to make Belisarius confident of success. The siege lasted after
+this nearly a year. The extremity of hunger and misery was endured in the
+city. The supply of water was reduced to the cisterns and springs and the
+river. Vitiges at length occupied Porto, and cut off Rome from the sea. But
+the Goths also suffered terribly both from famine and from summer heat. The
+end of all was that, after a siege of a year and nine days, in which the
+Goths had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> fought 69 battles, Vitiges, in March, 538, drew off his
+diminished troops. One morning, Belisarius, from his Pincian palace, saw
+one-half of the remaining Goths on the other side of the Milvian bridge,
+and he forthwith ordered a sally upon their rear-guard. Vitiges left
+perhaps the half of his great host mouldering in the wasted, pestilent,
+deserted Campagna. He left also a city impoverished in numbers, full of
+sickness and misery. He had destroyed all the villas and dwellings of the
+Campagna; the churches of the Martyrs lay in heaps of ruins: from the Porta
+Salara to the Porta Nomentana hardly one stone upon another seems to have
+remained. Also Vitiges had ordered the senators whom he had left at Ravenna
+to be put to death. Only, during this siege, the basilicas of Rome's patron
+saints, which lay outside the walls, received no damage and were respected
+by the Goths.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a></p>
+
+<p>After this the storm of war drew off to the North. It continued with
+changing fortune in the provinces of Tuscany, Æmilia, the plain of the Po,
+the coasts of the Hadriatic. On the one side Franks and Burgundians took
+part; on the other side the soldiers of Belisarius were made up of all
+races from the East: not without skill in fight, but without discipline,
+under rival and quarrelling commanders. They pressed grievously on the land
+which they were sent to deliver. But the Goths grew weaker: they never
+recovered their losses before Rome. At last Belisarius got hold of
+Ravenna&mdash;not by capture, but after long negotiations, on both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> sides
+deceptive. Belisarius made the Goths believe that he would set himself at
+their head, and construct a new western empire. Vitiges, whether he trusted
+him or not, came to terms with him. Belisarius proclaimed Justinian
+emperor. The German realm seemed broken to pieces: only Verona, Pavia, and
+a portion of Liguria held out. A small part only of the army still carried
+the national banner. Then the conqueror, in 539, was recalled to Byzantium,
+to conduct the war against Persia. He left Italy almost subdued, and
+carried with him the captive king of the Goths, Vitiges, as in former years
+he had carried Gelimer, the captive king of the Vandals. This was in 539,
+thirteen years after Theodorick's death.</p>
+
+<p>The first act of that fearful drama, the Gothic war, was over. But as soon
+as Belisarius disappeared, the Goths began to recover themselves. The
+generals of Justinian lived on plunder. In Totila arose a new Gothic
+leader, the bravest of the brave. At the end of the year 541 he marched out
+of Verona with only five thousand men, defeated the incapable and disunited
+Grecian captains, took city after city, passed the Apennines, passed near
+Rome, without assailing it. In this career of victory the Gothic king once
+approached that Campanian hill on which the great benefactor of the West,
+St. Benedict, was laying the foundations of the c&oelig;nobitic life. In the
+first instance, Totila tried to deceive the Saint. He dressed up a high
+officer as king, and sent him, with three of his chief counts in
+attendance, to personate himself. When<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> Benedict saw the Gothic train
+approaching he was seated, and as soon as they were within earshot, he
+cried out to the warrior pretending to be king: "Son, lay aside that dress
+which is not thine". The Goth fell to the ground in dismay, and returned to
+report his discomfiture to Totila, who then came himself. But when he saw
+Benedict seated at a distance he prostrated himself, and though Benedict
+thrice bade him arise, he continued prostrate. The Saint then came to him,
+raised him up, upbraided him with the acts which he had committed, and
+revealed to him the future concerning himself: "Many evils thou doest; many
+hast thou done. Put a curb at length on thine iniquity. Rome, indeed, thou
+shalt enter; the sea thou shalt pass. Nine years thou shalt reign; in the
+tenth thou shalt die."<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> The king was awe-struck. The savage in him was
+quelled by the speaker's sanctity. From this time forth he altered his
+conduct, and became more humane. In the capture of Naples shortly
+afterwards he showed by his merciful treatment the effect which the
+presence of St. Benedict had produced on him, as well as in the following
+years of his life. This interview took place in the year 542.</p>
+
+<p>But Totila<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> so advanced in power that, in spite of Byzantine intrigue
+and jealousy, Belisarius, having happily concluded the Persian war, was
+sent back to the supreme command in Italy. He landed in Ravenna, but
+without army, war-material, or money. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> summer of 545, Totila, having
+subdued the land all about Rome, laid siege to Rome itself. Belisarius
+occupied Porto, and Totila set up his camp eight miles from Rome,
+commanding the Tiber, and turning the siege into the closest blockade. In
+vain Belisarius attempted to burst the Gothic bar of the river and
+introduce provisions to Rome. In vain embassies were sent to Constantinople
+for help. The most frightful distress ensued at Rome. At length, after
+about eighteen months, certain Isaurian soldiers of the Greek garrison gave
+up the Porta Asinaria, and on the night of the 17th December, 546, Totila
+took the ill-defended city. When he entered, it was almost without
+inhabitants. Those whom the sword, famine, and pestilence had not yet taken
+were in flight or hiding. Patricians crept about in the garb of slaves. The
+number of victims at this capture was small. The desolation and misery seem
+to have worked not only on Totila, but also on his army. The plunder, which
+a captured city could not escape, was generally bloodless; but many houses
+were burnt in the Trasteverine quarter. As Theodorick had offered his
+prayers at the tomb of the Apostles, so Totila went from the Lateran to St.
+Peter's. What a change had the forty-six years brought about. To the
+miserable remnant of the senate Totila upbraided the ingratitude which had
+been shown for Gothic benefits under Theodorick. He accepted, however, the
+intercession of the deacon Pelagius, and protected not only the female sex
+in general, but especially the noble Rusticiana, widow of Boethius and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+daughter of Symmachus. Amalasunta had restored their property to her sons,
+the younger Boethius and Symmachus; but the war seems to have consumed
+everything. She was now a beggar, and the wild host of Totila wished to put
+her to death for having, as she was charged, maimed statues of Theodorick.
+But the king rescued her from their fury.</p>
+
+<p>In the first impulse of wrath Totila had threatened to level Rome with the
+ground. Belisarius, lying sick at Porto, had addressed to him a letter,
+entreating him to spare the greatest and noblest of cities. He did,
+however, throw down a considerable part of the walls, and when he marched
+to Lucania against the Greeks, took with him the chief citizens, and made
+the rest of the inhabitants migrate to Campania. He left a desert behind
+him. If we could trust the exaggerated reports of Greek historians, Rome
+remained forty days without inhabitants, tenanted only by beasts.</p>
+
+<p>So ended the second act of the Gothic tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>But as Vitiges had quitted Rome, so Totila deserted it, and in the spring
+of 547 it was entered again by Belisarius. In less than a month he restored
+as well as he could the part of the walls demolished, called back the
+inhabitants lingering in the neighbourhood, and prepared for a new attack.
+It was not long in coming. Scarcely had the gaps in the walls been filled
+up by stones piled in disorder and the trenches cleared, when the Gothic
+king reappeared. Thrice was his assault repulsed; then he gave up the
+attempt, broke down the bridges over the Anio behind him, and went to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+Tibur, which he took by treachery of the inhabitants, who were at strife
+with the Isaurian garrison. Totila massacred the citizens, the bishop, and
+the clergy; got possession of the upper course of the Tiber, and cut off
+the Romans from Tuscany. But then Belisarius was enabled to give greater
+care to repairing the city's defences. The state in which several gates
+remain to this day still show his hand. He restored Trajan's aqueduct,
+which fed the mills on the right bank. But in the winter of 547 the great
+captain was drawn away from Rome to carry on a miserable petty war with
+insufficient force in the south of Italy, and was finally recalled to
+Constantinople. So ended the third act of Rome's fall.</p>
+
+<p>But Totila hastened from place to place, from victory to victory. After
+scouring the South and then Umbria at the beginning of 549, he stood the
+third time before Rome. A strong Byzantine garrison in the city had
+provided magazines, and the wide spaces within the walls had been sown with
+wheat. His first attack failed; but treachery opened to him the Ostian
+gate, and its famished defenders soon surrendered the mausoleum of Hadrian.
+The conqueror, in this fourth capture of the city, acted mildly. He called
+back the yet absent inhabitants, amongst them many of the senators who had
+been sent into Campania. How had the nobles of Rome melted away! Vitiges
+had ordered those kept in Ravenna as hostages to be slain. Some had then
+escaped to Liguria. The distrust of the Greeks as well as of the Goths
+threatened them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> Cethegus, chief of the senate, had been compelled to
+leave before the first siege of Totila. Now Totila did not succeed in
+coming to terms with Justinian. The Greek army received a new commander in
+the eunuch Narses, who had served before under Belisarius. In him skill,
+energy, court favour, and the command of considerable forces were united.
+Before the end of 549, Totila left Rome. Almost all Italy save Ravenna was
+in his hands. He dealt generously with the people, whilst the Byzantine
+officials, exhausting the land with their exactions, added to the
+sufferings of war.</p>
+
+<p>And now we reach the fifth act of the drama in which Rome was humbled to
+the very dust. Totila, for more than two years and a half, carried on an
+unceasing struggle over land and sea&mdash;Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, which he
+subdued, and beyond the Hadriatic, to the opposite coasts. Though generally
+victorious, he was more like the leader in an old Gothic raid than a king
+who ruled and defended a great realm. At last, in the spring of 552, Narses
+advanced from Ravenna with a great force to a decisive battle for Rome.
+Totila advanced from Rome into Tuscany to meet him. At Taginas, on the
+longest day, the conflict which decided the fate of the Gothic kingdom took
+place. All that summer day the battle lasted. The Gothic king, a true
+knight in royal armour, on a splendid steed, marshalled and led his host.
+When night had come his cavalry was overthrown, his footmen broken. The
+spear of a Gepid had wounded him mortally. He was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> taken from the field,
+died in the night, was hastily buried. But his grave was disclosed to the
+Greeks. They left him where he lay; only his blood-stained mantle and
+diadem set with precious stones were carried to Constantinople. Six
+thousand of his bravest warriors lay on the field of battle. Yet when the
+remains of the host collected themselves in Upper Italy they elected Teia
+in Pavia for head of the yet unconquered race.</p>
+
+<p>But Narses, having captured the strong places in Middle Italy, advanced
+upon Rome. The Gothic garrison was too weak to defend the wide circuits of
+the walls. Parts were soon taken. Presently Hadrian's tomb, which Totila
+had surrounded with fresh walls, alone held out. But it soon fell, and
+hapless Rome was captured for the fifth time in the reign of Justinian. It
+was a day of doom for the still remaining noble families. Goths and Greeks
+alike turned against them. In Campania and in Sicily many distinguished
+Romans had waited for better times. Now not only the flying Goths cut down
+all who fell into their hands, but the barbarian troops in the army of
+Narses, at their entrance into Rome, followed the example. Then, again,
+three hundred youths of the noblest families, who had been kept as hostages
+at Pavia, were all executed by Teia. The western consulate ended in 534,
+Flavius Theodorus Paulinus being the last. It continued seven years longer
+in the East, where to Flavius Basilius, consul in 541, no successor was
+given. When Justinian abolished this dignity it had lasted 1050 years, with
+few interruptions. Though for more than half this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> time it had been a mere
+title of honour, yet the consuls gave their name to the year, and served
+still, it may be, to mark to the world the unity of the Roman empire.</p>
+
+<p>From Rome the conqueror Narses turned his steps southwards to Cumæ, that he
+might seize the treasure of the Goths, which was guarded by the new king
+Teia's brother Aligern. This brought Teia himself by a rapid march down the
+Hadriatic coast, and crossing Italy obliquely, he appeared at the foot of
+Vesuvius. There, in the spring of 553, Teia fought a last and desperate
+battle over the grave of sunken cities, in view of the Gulf of Naples. At
+the head of a small host, he fought from early morn to noon. It was like a
+battle of Homeric warriors. Then he could no longer support the weight of
+twelve lances in his shield, and, calling to his armour-bearer for a fresh
+shield, he fell transfixed by a lance. The next day the remnant of the
+army, save a thousand who fought their way through and reached Pavia,
+accepted terms from Narses, to leave Italy and fight no more against the
+emperor.</p>
+
+<p>But Italy was far yet from tranquillity. Teia had incited the Alemans and
+the Franks to break into Italy. The two brothers, Leuthar and Bucelin, led
+a raid of 70,000 men, who ravaged Central and Southern Italy down to the
+Straits of Sicily. One of these barbarians carried back his spoil-laden
+troops to the Po, where pestilence consumed him and his horde. The host of
+the other brother, Bucelin, when it had reached Capua, was overthrown on
+the Vulturnus by Narses, with a slaughter as utter as that which Marius
+inflicted on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> Cimbri. Scarcely five are said to have escaped. So, in
+the spring of 555, after twenty years of destruction, ended the Gothic
+war.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p>
+
+<p>The reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals cost Justinian a few months
+of uninterrupted victory. The reconquest of Italy from the Goths cost
+twenty years of suffering to both sides, leaving, indeed, Justinian master
+but of a ruined Italy, master also of Rome, but after five successive
+captures; its senate reduced to a shadow, its patricians all but destroyed,
+its population shrunk, it is supposed, when Narses took possession of it in
+552, to between thirty and forty thousand impoverished inhabitants. But the
+greatest change remains to be recorded. The Pope had indeed been delivered
+from Arian sovereigns, who held the country under military occupation, but
+exercised their civil rule with leniency and consideration, bearing, no
+doubt, in mind that they were, at least in theory, vice-gerents of an
+over-lord who ruled at Constantinople what was still the greatest empire of
+the world. What Pope Gelasius truly called "hostile domination" had been
+tempered during three-and-thirty years by the personal qualities of one who
+was at once powerful in arms and wise in statesmanship. Rome, in the time
+of Theodorick and Athalarick, had been maintained, its senate respected,
+the Pope treated with deference. A stranger entering Rome in 535, at the
+beginning of the Gothic war, would still have seen the greatest and
+grandest city of the world, standing in general with its buildings
+unimpaired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> In 552, the Pope, instead of a distant over-lord, to whom he
+could appeal as Roman prince, had received an immediate master, who ruled
+Rome by a governor with a permanent garrison, and who understood his rule
+at Rome to be the same as his rule at Byzantium. The same as to its
+absolute power; but with this difference, that while Byzantium was the seat
+of his imperial dignity, in which every interest touched his personal
+credit, and its bishop was to be supported as the chief officer of his
+court and the chief councillor of his administration, the Rome he took from
+the Goths was simply a provincial town of a recovered province, once indeed
+illustrious, but now ruined and very troublesome. A provincial town because
+the seat of Byzantine power in Italy was henceforth not at Rome but at
+Ravenna, while the sovereign of Italy no longer held his court within
+Italy, at Ravenna or at Verona, as Theodorick and Athalarick, but at
+Constantinople. Mature reflection upon the civil condition made for the
+Pope by the result of the Gothic war will, I think, show that no severer
+test of the foundation of his spiritual authority could be applied than
+what this great event brought in its train. Nor must we omit to note that
+this test was brought about not only by the operation of political causes,
+but by actors who had not the intention of producing such a result. The
+suffering of Rome, in particular, during this war at the hands of Vitiges,
+Belisarius, Totila, Teia, Narses, is indescribable. It is hard to say
+whether defender or assailant did it most injury; but it is true to say
+that the one and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> other were equally merciless in their purpose to
+retain it as a prey or to recover it as a conquest. Vitiges, besides
+pressing the people cooped up in its walls with a terrible famine during
+his siege of a year, broke down its aqueducts and ruined every building on
+that part of the Campagna which he scoured. Totila, in like manner, after
+famishing the inhabitants, when he took Rome, broke down a good part of its
+walls, and at his second capture, in 546, the city is described as having
+been absolutely deserted. In the last struggle, Teia slew without pity the
+three hundred hostages of Rome's noblest blood who had been sent to Pavia,
+thereby almost destroying its patricians. These were the parting tokens of
+Gothic affection for Italy. Then Belisarius, attempting to relieve Rome
+with inadequate forces, which was all that the penury of Justinian allowed
+him, was the means of prolonging the famine, while he did not save the city
+from capture. Lastly, Narses, sent to finish the war, enrolled in Dalmatia
+an army of adventurers. Huns, Lombards, Herules, Gepids, Greeks, and even
+Persians, in figure, language, arms, and customs utterly dissimilar, fought
+for him under the imperial standard, greedy for the treasures of Italy.
+Narses took Rome in 552, and governed it as imperial prefect for fifteen
+years at the head of a Greek garrison, until he was recalled in 567. That
+occupation of Narses in 552 is the date of Rome's extinction as the old
+secular imperial city. The year after his recal came the worst plague of
+all, and the most enduring. The Lombards did but repeat for the subjection
+of Italy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> to a fresh northern invasion what Narses had done to deliver it
+from Theodorick's older one in the preceding century.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us see the nature of the test which this course of events, the work
+of Goth and Greek alike&mdash;inflicting great misery and danger on the clergy
+and the Pope, as upon their people&mdash;applied to the papal authority itself.</p>
+
+<p>A more emphatic attestation of that authority than the confession given in
+519 to Pope Hormisdas by the whole Greek episcopate, and by the emperor at
+the head of his court, could hardly be drawn up. It settled for ever the
+question of right, and estopped Byzantium, whether in the person of Cæsar
+or of patriarch, from denial of the Pope's universal pastorship, as derived
+from St. Peter. We have seen that not only did Justinian, when the leading
+spirit in his uncle's freshly-acquired succession to the eastern empire, do
+his utmost to bring about this confession, but that in the first years of
+his reign his letter to Pope John II. reaffirmed it; and his treatment of
+Pope Agapetus when he appeared at Constantinople, not only as Pope, but in
+the character of ambassador from the Gothic king Theodatus, exhibited that
+belief in action. But now a state of things quite unknown before had
+ensued. Hitherto Rome had been the capital, of which even Constantine's
+Nova Roma was but the pale imitation. But the five times captured,
+desolate, impoverished Rome which came back under Narses to Justinian's
+sway, came back not as a capital, but as a captive governed by an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> exarch.
+Was the bishop of a city with its senate extinct, its patriciate destroyed,
+and with forty thousand returned refugees for its inhabitants, still the
+bearer of Peter's keys&mdash;still the Rock on which the City of God rested? Had
+there been one particle of truth in that 28th canon which a certain party
+attempted to pass at the Council of Chalcedon, and which St. Leo
+peremptorily annulled, a negative answer to this must now have followed.
+That canon asserted "that the Fathers justly gave its prerogatives to the
+see of the elder Rome because that was the imperial city". Rome had ceased
+to be the imperial city. Did the loss of its bishop's prerogatives follow?
+Did they pass to Byzantium because it was become the imperial city, because
+the sole emperor dwelt there? Thus, about a hundred years after the repulse
+of the ambitious exaltation sought by Anatolius, its rejection by the
+provident wisdom and resolute courage of St. Leo was more than justified by
+the course of events. St. Leo's action was based upon the constitution of
+the Church, and therefore did not need to be justified by events. But the
+Divine Providence superadded this justification, and that under
+circumstances which had had no parallel in the preceding five hundred
+years.</p>
+
+<p>For when Belisarius, submitting himself to carry out the orders of an
+imperious mistress, deposed, as we have seen, the legitimate Pope Silverius
+by force in March, 537, Vigilius, in virtue of the same force, was
+consecrated a few days after to succeed him. The exact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> time of the death
+which Pope Silverius suffered in Palmaria is not known. But Vigilius is not
+recognised as lawful Pope until after his death, probably in 540. He then
+ascended St. Peter's seat with a blot upon him such as no pontiff had
+suffered before. And this pontificate lasted about fifteen years, and was
+full of such humiliation as St. Peter had never suffered before in his
+successors.</p>
+
+<p>We are not acquainted with the detail of events at Rome in those terrible
+years, but we learn that, as Pope John I. was sent to Constantinople as a
+subject by Theodorick, and Pope Agapetus again as a subject by Theodatus,
+so Vigilius was urged by Justinian to go thither, and that after many
+delays he obeyed the emperor very unwillingly.</p>
+
+<p>But it is requisite here to give a short summary of what Justinian had been
+doing in the affairs of the eastern Church from the time that Pope
+Agapetus, having consecrated Mennas to be bishop of Constantinople, died
+there in 536. After the Pope's death, Mennas proceeded to hold in May and
+June of that year a synod in which he declared Anthimus to be entirely
+deposed from the episcopal dignity, and condemned Severus and other leaders
+of the Monophysites. In this synod Mennas presided, and the two Roman
+deacons, Vigilius and Pelagius, who had been the legates of Pope Agapetus,
+but whose powers had expired at his death, sat next to him, but only as
+Italian bishops. How little the patriarch Mennas could there represent the
+Church's independence is shown by his words to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> the bishops in the fourth
+session: "Your charity knows that nothing of what is mooted in the Church
+should take place contrary to the decision and order of our emperor,
+zealous for the faith," while of their relation to the Pope he said: "You
+know that we follow and obey the Apostolic See; those who are in communion
+with it we hold in communion; those whom it condemns we also condemn".<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>
+Justinian, irritated by the boldness of the Monophysites, added the
+sanction of law to the decrees of this council, which deposed men who had
+occupied patriarchal sees. He used these words: "In the present law we are
+doing an act not unusual to the empire. For as often as an episcopal decree
+has deposed from their sacerdotal seats those unworthy of the priesthood,
+such as Nestorius, Eutyches, Arius, Macedonius, and Eunomius, and others in
+wickedness not inferior to them, so often the empire has agreed with the
+authority of the bishops. Thus the divine and the human concurred in one
+righteous judgment, as we know was done in the case of Anthimus of late,
+who was deposed from the see of this imperial city by Agapetus, of holy and
+renowned memory, bishop of Old Rome."<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the intrigue of Theodora with Vigilius, Mennas took no part. He took
+counsel with the emperor how to maintain the Catholic faith in Alexandria
+against the heretical patriarch Theodosius. By the emperor's direction,
+ordering him to expel Theodosius, Mennas, in 537 or 538, consecrated Paul,
+a monk of Tabenna, to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> patriarch of Alexandria. The act would appear to
+have been done in the presence of Pelagius, then nuncio in Constantinople,
+without reclamation on his part, or of the nuncios who represented Antioch
+and Jerusalem. Mennas in this repeated the conduct of Anatolius and Acacius
+in former times, who were censured, the one by St. Leo, the other by Pope
+Simplicius. By this event the four eastern patriarchs seemed to agree to
+accept the first four councils, and the unity of the Church to be quite
+restored, from which Alexandria had until then stood aloof; but the
+patriarch Paul came afterwards in suspicion of heresy and had to give way
+to Zoilus. Mennas was on the best terms with the emperor; he might easily
+have used the deposition of Silverius and the unlawful exaltation of
+Vigilius in 537 for increase of his own influence, had not a feeling of
+duty or love of peace held him back. But Vigilius also, when he came to be
+acknowledged, had come to realise his position and its responsibility. He
+was far from fulfilling the unlawful promises made to Theodora, and from
+favouring the Monophysites. The empress found that she had thrown away her
+money and failed in her intrigue. In letters<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> to the emperor and to
+Mennas, in 540, Vigilius declared his close adherence to the acts of his
+predecessors, St. Leo in particular, and to the decrees in faith of the
+four General Councils, while he confirmed the acts of the council held by
+Mennas against Severus and the other Monophysite leaders.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime new dissensions threatened to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> agitate the whole eastern
+realm.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> The partisans of Origen in Palestine and the neighbouring
+countries rose. At their head stood Theodore Askidas, archbishop of Cæsarea
+in Cappadocia, and Domitian, metropolitan of Ancyra, who had obtained, by
+favour of Justinian, these important sees. Ephrem, patriarch of Antioch
+about 540, condemned Origenism in a synod. Pelagius, being papal nuncio at
+Constantinople, had, together with Ephrem, patriarch of Antioch, condemned
+the patriarch Paul of Alexandria at Gaza. Deputies from Peter, patriarch of
+Jerusalem, and the orthodox monks journeyed with Pelagius to
+Constantinople, to present to the emperor an accusation against the
+Origenists. Pelagius had much influence with Justinian, and he and Mennas
+procured for the petitioners access to the emperor. They asked him to issue
+a solemn condemnation of Origen's errors. The emperor listened willingly,
+and issued in the form of a treatise to Mennas a still extant censure of
+Origen and his writings. He called upon the patriarchs to hold synods upon
+them. Mennas, in 543, held one in the capital, which issued fifteen
+anathemas against Origen.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> Theodore Askidas and Domitian, by submitting
+to the imperial edict and the condemnation of Origen, kept their places and
+secured afresh their influence, which the monks of Palestine, who were not
+Origenistic, felt severely. They even managed, in the interest of their
+party, to turn the attention of the dogmatising emperor to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> another
+question, and moved him to issue, in 544, the edict upon the Three
+Chapters. He thought he was bringing back the Monophysites to orthodoxy. He
+was really casting a new ferment into the existing agitation.</p>
+
+<p>At first the patriarch Mennas was very displeased with this edict censuring
+in the so-called Three Chapters Theodoret, Ibas, and Theodore of Mopsuestia
+as Nestorians. He considered the credit of the Council of Chalcedon to be
+therein impeached, and declared that he would only subscribe to it after
+the Pope had subscribed. Afterwards, being more strongly pressed, he
+subscribed unwillingly, but with the reservation, confirmed to him even
+upon oath, that if the Bishop of Rome refused his assent his signature
+should be returned to him, and his subscription be regarded as withdrawn.
+The other eastern patriarchs also at first resisted, but finished by
+complying with the imperial threats, as particularly Ephrem of Antioch.
+Most of the bishops, accustomed to slavish subjection to their patriarchs,
+followed their example, and Mennas had to urge the bishops under him by
+every means to comply. However, many bishops complained of this pressure to
+the papal legate Stephen, who pronounced against the edict, which seemed
+indirectly to impeach the authority of the Fourth Council. He even refused
+communion with Mennas because he had broken his first promise and given his
+assent before the Pope had decided upon it. Through the whole West the
+writings of Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas were little known, but the
+decrees of Chalcedon were zealously maintained. The edict<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> was refused,
+especially in Northern Africa. It was censured by the bishop Portian in a
+writing addressed to the emperor, and by the learned deacon Ferrandus.</p>
+
+<p>Means had been taken by fraud and force to win the whole East to consent to
+the edict.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> Mennas, patriarch of Constantinople; Ephrem, patriarch of
+Antioch; Peter, patriarch of Jerusalem, crouched before the tyranny of
+Justinian; and so also Zoilus of Alexandria, though he promised Vigilius
+that he would not sign the edict, afterwards subscribed it.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> At this
+point Justinian sought before everything to get the assent of the Pope, and
+he sent for Vigilius to Constantinople. He claimed the presence of Vigilius
+as his subject in virtue of the conquest of Belisarius: he meant to use
+this authority of Vigilius as Pope for his own purpose. Vigilius foresaw
+the difficulties into which he would fall. At length he left Rome in 544,
+before Totila began the second siege. He lingered in Sicily a year, in 546;
+he then travelled through Greece and Illyricum. At last he entered
+Byzantium on the 25th January, 547, and was welcomed with the most
+brilliant reception. Justinian humbly besought his blessing, and embraced
+him with tears. But this good understanding did not last long. Vigilius
+approved the conduct of his legates and refused his communion to Mennas,
+who, in signing the formula of Hormisdas, had bound himself to follow the
+Roman See, and had broken his special promise. Vigilius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> withdrew it also
+from the bishops who had subscribed the imperial edict. He and the bishops
+attending him saw in this edict a scheme to help the Acephali, upon whom
+Vigilius repeated his anathema. But Mennas feared the emperor much more
+than he feared the Pope, whose name he now removed from commemoration at
+the Mass. Vigilius, like the westerns in general, considered the edict to
+be useless and dangerous, as giving a pretext for seeming to abrogate the
+Council of Chalcedon, and also as a claim on the part of the emperor to the
+highest authority in Church matters. Justinian tried repeatedly his
+personal influence with the Pope, that also of bishops and officers of
+State. He even had him watched for a length of time and cut off from all
+approach, so that the Pope exclaimed, "If you have made me a prisoner, you
+cannot imprison the holy Apostle Peter". Yet the intercourse of Vigilius
+with eastern bishops soon convinced him that they were generally agreed
+with the emperor; that a prolonged resistance on his part would produce a
+new division between Greeks and Latins; that considerable grounds existed
+for the condemnation of the Three Chapters, with which, hitherto, he had
+not been well acquainted. So he allowed the subject to be further
+considered, held out a prospect of agreeing with the emperor, and
+readmitted Mennas to his communion, who restored the Pope's name in the
+liturgy. This reconciliation took place on the feast of the Princes of the
+Apostles, 29th June, 547.</p>
+
+<p>The Pope, after further conferences with bishops<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> present at
+Constantinople, seventy of whom had not signed the imperial edict, issued,
+on the 11th April, 548, his <i>Judgment</i>, directed to Mennas, of which all
+but fragments are lost. In it he most strongly maintained the authority of
+the four General Councils, especially of the fourth; put under anathema the
+godless writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and also his person; the letter
+said to be written by Ibas to Maris, which Justinian had marked as
+supposititious, and the writings of Theodoret, which impugned orthodoxy and
+the twelve anathemas of Cyril. It was his purpose to quiet excitement,
+satisfying the Greeks by a specific condemnation of the Three Chapters, and
+the Latins by maintaining the rank of the Council of Chalcedon. And he
+required that therewith the strife should cease. But neither side accepted
+the condition. The westerns, especially Dacius, archbishop of Milan, and
+Facundus, bishop of Hermiane, vehemently attacked his <i>Judgment</i>. So did
+many African monks. Even two Roman deacons, the Pope's own nephew Rusticus,
+and Sebastianus, though they began by supporting the <i>Judgment</i>, became
+very violent against the Pope, spread the most injurious reports against
+him, and disregarded his warnings. He deposed and excommunicated them.
+False reports were spread that, against the Council of Chalcedon, the Pope
+had condemned the persons of Theodoret and Ibas, and had gone against the
+decrees of his predecessors. The Pope, after the death of the empress
+Theodora, on the 28th June, 548, had continued by the emperor's wish at
+Constantinople, especi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>ally since Totila had retaken Rome in 549. He had
+gone to Thessalonica and returned; he tried in several letters to the
+bishops of Scythia and Gaul to correct their misconceptions. These,
+however, prevailed with the bishops of Illyria, Dalmatia, and Africa, who
+in 549 and 550 separated themselves from the communion of Vigilius. A thing
+not heard of before now occurred. The Roman Bishop stood with the Greek
+bishops on one side, the Latin bishops on the other, and the bewilderment
+increased from day to day.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 550 the Pope and the emperor came to an agreement that a
+General Council should be held at which the western bishops should be
+present, until which all dispute about the Three Chapters, and any fresh
+step on the subject, should be forbidden, and in the meantime the Pope's
+<i>Judgment</i> should be returned to him. That took place at once, and
+preparations were made for the council. In June a council held at
+Mopsuestia by direction of the emperor declared that from the time of human
+memory the name of its former bishop, Theodore, had been erased from
+commemoration, and the name of St. Cyril put in. But the western bishops
+avoided answering the invitation to the council. The Illyrian did not come
+at all; the African sent as deputies Reparatus, the primate of Carthage,
+Firmus of Numidia, and two Byzacene bishops. These were besieged both with
+threats and presents; two were induced to sign the imperial edict; the
+other two were banished, Reparatus under charge of a political crime. While
+the western bishops showed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> still less inclination to appear, the court
+broke its agreement with Vigilius. A new writing against the Three Chapters
+was read in the palace before several bishops, and subscribed by them.
+Theodore Askidas, the chief contriver, and his companions, excused
+themselves to the Pope, who called them to account, and begged pardon, but
+spread the writing still more, set the emperor against Vigilius, and
+induced him to publish, in 551, a further edict under the name of a
+confession of faith. It contained, together with a detailed exposition of
+doctrine upon the Trinity and Incarnation, thirteen anathemas, with the
+refutation of different objections made by the defenders of the Three
+Chapters; for instance, that the letter of Ibas had been approved at
+Chalcedon, the condemnation of dead men forbidden, and Theodore of
+Mopsuestia been praised by orthodox Fathers.</p>
+
+<p>The restoration of peace was thus made much more difficult, and the promise
+given to the Pope broken. The Pope protected himself against this violation
+of the agreement, by which nothing was to be done in the matter before the
+intended council, and considered himself released from his engagements. He
+saw herein the arbitrary interference of a despotic ruler anticipating the
+council's decision, which put in question the Church's whole right of
+authority, and much increased the danger of a schism. In an assembly of
+Greek and Latin bishops held in the Placidia palace, where he resided, he
+desired them to request the emperor to withdraw the proposed edict, and to
+wait for a general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> consideration of the subject, and especially for the
+sentence of the Latin bishops. If this was not granted, to refuse their
+subscription to the edict. Moreover, the See of Peter would excommunicate
+them. Dacius, also, archbishop of Milan, spoke in this sense. But the
+protest was disregarded, and Theodore Askidas, who had formed part of the
+assembly, went with the bishops of his party to the Church in which the
+edict was posted up, held solemn service there, struck out of the diptychs
+the patriarch Zoilus of Alexandria, who declined to condemn the Three
+Chapters, and proclaimed at once Apollinaris for his successor, with the
+consent of the weak Mennas, and in contempt of the Pope's authority. Not
+only now were the Three Chapters in question, but the whole right and
+independence of the Church's authority. Vigilius, having long warned the
+vain court-bishop Theodore Askidas, always a non-resident in his diocese,
+and having now been witness of a violence so unprecedented, put him under
+excommunication.</p>
+
+<p>At this resistance Justinian was greatly embittered, and was inclined to
+imprison the Pope and his attendants. The Pope took refuge in the Church of
+St. Peter, by the palace of Hormisdas. He repeated with greater force his
+former declaration, entirely deprived Theodore Askidas, and put Mennas and
+his companions under ban, until they made satisfaction, on the 14th August,
+551. At least the sentence was kept ready for publication. He was attended
+by eleven Italian and two African bishops. The emperor sent the prætor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+with soldiers to remove him by force. Vigilius clung to the altar, so that
+it was nearly pulled down with him. His imprisonment was prevented by the
+crowd which burst in, indignant at the ill-treatment offered to the
+Church's first bishop, and by the disgust of the soldiers at the gaol-work
+put upon them. The emperor, seeming to repent his hastiness, sent high
+officers of State to assure the Pope of personal security, at first with
+the threat to have him removed by force if he was not content with this;
+then he empowered the officers to swear that no ill should befal him. The
+Pope thereon returned to the palace of Placidia. But there, in spite of
+oaths, he was watched, deprived of his true servants, surrounded with paid
+spies, attacked with every sort of intrigue, even his handwriting forged.
+Then, seeing his palace entirely surrounded by suspicious persons, he
+risked, on the 23rd December, 551, a flight across the Bosphorus to the
+Church of St. Euphemia in Chalcedon, in which the Fourth Council had been
+held. Here, in January, 552, he published his decree against Theodore and
+Mennas, and was for a long time sick. When the emperor, with the offer of
+another oath, sent high officials to invite him to return to the capital,
+he replied that he needed no fresh oaths if the emperor had only the will
+to restore to the Church the peace which she enjoyed under his uncle
+Justin. He desired the emperor to avoid communion with those who lay under
+his ban. In his Encyclical of the 5th February, 552, he made known to all
+the Church what had passed, and expressed his belief and his wishes. Even
+in his humilia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>tion the successor of Peter inspired a great veneration.
+They tried to approach him. He soon received a writing from Theodore
+Askidas, Mennas, Andrew, archbishop of Ephesus, and other bishops, in which
+they declared their adherence to the decrees of the four General Councils
+which had been made in agreement with the legates of the Apostolic See, as
+well as to the papal letters. They consented also to the withdrawal of all
+that had been written on the Three Chapters, and besought the Pope to
+pardon as well their intercourse with those who lay under his ban as the
+offences committed against him, in which also they claimed to have had no
+part. So things were brought to the condition in which they were before the
+appearance of the last imperial edict. Vigilius now returned from Chalcedon
+to Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>Mennas, who died in August, 552, was succeeded by Eutychius. He addressed
+himself to the Pope on the 6th January, 553, whose name had been restored
+by Mennas to the first place in the diptychs. Eutychius presented his
+confession of faith. He also proposed that a decision, in respect of the
+Three Chapters in accordance with the four General Councils, should be made
+in a meeting of bishops under the Pope's presidency. Apollinaris of
+Alexandria, Domnus of Antioch, Elias of Thessalonica, and other bishops
+subscribed this request. The Pope, in his reply of the 8th January, praised
+their zeal, and accepted the proposition of a council which he had before
+approved. Negotiations then began about its management. Here the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> emperor
+resisted the Pope's proposals in many points. He would not have the council
+held in Italy or Sicily, as the Pope desired, nor carry out his own
+proposal to summon such western bishops as the Pope named. He proposed
+further that an equal number of bishops should be consulted on both sides;
+hinting, moreover, that an equal number should be drawn from each
+patriarchate, while Vigilius meant an equal number from the East and the
+West, which he thought necessary to bring about a successful result. At
+last the emperor caused the council actually to meet on the 5th May, 553,
+under the presidency of Eutychius, with 151 bishops, among whom only six
+from Africa represented the West, against the Pope's will, in the
+secretarium of the chief church of Constantinople. First was read an
+imperial writing of much detail, which entered into the previous
+negotiations with Vigilius; then the correspondence between Eutychius and
+the Pope. It was resolved to invite him again. Vigilius refused to take
+part in the council, first on account of the excessive number of eastern
+bishops and the absence of most western; then of the disregard shown to his
+wishes. Further, he sought to preserve himself from compulsion, and
+maintain his decision in freedom. He had reason to fear the infringement of
+his dignity. Moreover, no one of his predecessors had taken personally a
+part in eastern councils, and Pope Celestine had forbidden his legates to
+enter into discussion with bishops, and appear as a party. The Pope
+maintained his refusal not only to the high officers of the emperor, but to
+an embassy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> from the council, at the head of which stood three eastern
+patriarchs. This he did, being the emperor's subject; being also in the
+power of an emperor who was able to appear to the eastern bishops almost
+the head of the Church, and to sway them as he pleased. The Pope would only
+declare himself ready to give his judgment apart. An account of this
+unsuccessful invitation was given in the council's second session of the
+8th May. The western bishops still in the capital were invited to attend,
+but several declined, because the Pope took no part. At the third session,
+of the 9th May, after reading the former protocols, a confession of faith
+entirely agreeing with the imperial document communicated four days before
+was drawn up, and a special treatment of the Three Chapters ordered for
+another day. At the fourth session, seventy-one heretical or offensive
+propositions of Theodore of Mopsuestia were read and condemned. In the
+fifth, the opposition made to him by St. Cyril and others was considered,
+as well as the question whether it is allowable to anathematise after their
+death men who have died in the Church's communion. This was affirmed
+according to previous examples, and testimony from Augustine, Cyril, and
+others. Theodoret's writings against Cyril were also anathematised. In the
+sixth session, the same was done with the letter of Ibas. In the seventh
+session, several documents sent by the emperor were read, specially letters
+of Pope Vigilius up to 550, and a letter from the emperor Justin to his
+prefect Hypatius, in 520, forbidding that a feast to Theodore or to
+Theo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>doret should any longer be kept in the city of Cyrus. The imperial
+commissioner informed the council, likewise, that the Pope had sent by the
+sub-deacon Servusdei a letter to the emperor, which the emperor had not
+received, and therefore not communicated to the council. The longer Latin
+text of the acts also says that the emperor had commanded the Pope's name
+to be erased from the diptychs, without prejudice, however, to communion
+with the Apostolic See, which the council accepted. It held its last
+sitting on the 2nd June, 553, and issued fourteen anathemas in accordance
+with the thirteen of Justinian. There were then present 165 bishops.</p>
+
+<p>The document brought to the emperor by the sub-deacon in the Pope's name,
+but rejected, must be what has come down to us as the Constitution of the
+14th May. It had the subscription of Vigilius, of sixteen bishops&mdash;nine
+Italian, three Asiatic, two Illyrian, and two African&mdash;with three Roman
+clergy. It decidedly rejected sixty propositions drawn from the writings of
+Theodore; anathematised five errors as to the Person of Christ; forbade the
+condemnation of Theodore's person, and of the two other Chapters. If this
+document was really drawn up by Vigilius, who had persisted during almost
+six years, as the emperor admitted, in condemning the Three Chapters, it
+must be explained by the Pope finding his especial difficulty in the manner
+of terminating the matter, so that the western bishops should be entirely
+satisfied that the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon remained inviolate;
+that he pur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>posed only to condemn errors, but spare persons; that he wished
+to set his refusal against the pressure of the changeable emperor and the
+blind submission of the Grecian bishops, without surrendering any point of
+faith. Many irregularities appeared in what preceded the council and took
+place in it. Justinian's conduct was dishonouring to the Church, and he
+used force to get the decrees of the Council accepted. At last Vigilius,
+who seems with other bishops to have been banished, gave way to the
+pressure, and issued a decided condemnation of the Three Chapters, in a
+writing to Eutychius of 8th December, 553; and in a Constitution dated 23rd
+February, 554, he made no mention of the council, but gave his own decision
+in accordance with it, and independent of it, as he had before intended.
+Only by degrees the council held by Eutychius obtained the name of the
+Fifth General Council.</p>
+
+<p>In August, 554, the Pope was again on good terms with the emperor, who
+issued at his request the Pragmatic Sanction for Italy. Then Vigilius set
+out to return to Rome, but died on his way at Syracuse in the beginning of
+555. He had spent seven years in the Greek capital, in a position more
+difficult than had ever before occurred; ignorant himself of the language;
+struggling to his utmost to meet the dangers which assaulted the Church
+from every side. Now one and now another seemed to threaten the greater
+evil. He never wavered in the question of faith itself, but often as to
+what it was opportune to do: as whether it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> advisable or necessary to
+condemn persons and writings which the Council of Chalcedon had spared:
+whether to issue a judgment which would be looked upon by the Monophysites
+as a triumph of their cause: which for the same reason would be utterly
+detested by most westerns, as a supposed surrender of the Council of
+Chalcedon; which, instead of closing the old divisions, might create new.
+Subsequent times showed the correctness of his solicitude.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a></p>
+
+<p>The patriarch Eutychius who presided at this council by the emperor's
+order, without the Pope, was held in great consideration by Justinian, and
+was consulted in his most important affairs. When Justinian had restored
+with the greatest splendour the still existing Church of Santa Sophia,
+Eutychius consecrated it in his presence on the 24th December, 563.
+Justinian then allotted to the service of the cathedral 60 priests, 100
+deacons, 90 sub-deacons, 110 lectors, 120 singers, 100 ostiarii, and 40
+deaconesses, a number which much increased between Justinian and Heraclius.</p>
+
+<p>Justinian in his last years was minded to sanction by a formal decree a
+special doctrine which, after long resisting the Eutycheans, he had taken
+from them. It was that the Body of Christ was from the beginning
+incorruptible, and incapable of any change. He willed that all his bishops
+should set their hands to this decree. Eutychius was one of the first to
+resist. On the 22nd January, 565, he was taken by force from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> his cathedral
+to a monastery; he refused to appear before a resident council called by
+the emperor, which deposed him, and appointed a successor. He was banished
+to Amasea, where he died, twelve years afterwards, in the monastery which
+he had formerly governed.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a></p>
+
+<p>But Justinian had become again, by the conquest of Narses, lord of Rome and
+Italy, and as such, in the year 554, issued at the request of Vigilius his
+Pragmatic Sanction. In Italy the struggle was at an end; the land was a
+desert. Flourishing cities had become heaps of smoking ruins. Milan had
+been destroyed. Three hundred thousand are said to have perished there.
+Before the recal of Belisarius, fifty thousand had died of hunger in the
+march of Ancona. Such facts give a notion of Rome's condition. In 554,
+Narses returned, and his victorious host entered, laden with booty, crowned
+with laurels. It was his task to maintain a regular government, which he
+did with the title of Patricius and Commander.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> The Pragmatic Sanction
+was intended to establish a new political order of things in Italy, which
+was reunited to the empire. The two supreme officials of the Italian
+province were the Exarch and the Prefect. The title of Exarch then came up,
+and continued to the end of the Greek dominion in Italy. He united in
+himself the military and civil authority; but for the exercise of the
+latter the Prefect stood at his side as the first civil officer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> Obedience
+to the whole body of legislation, as codified by Justinian's order, was
+enacted. For the rest the provisions of Constantine were followed. The
+administration of justice was in the hands of provincial judges, whom the
+bishops and the nobility chose from the ranks of the latter. It was then
+the bishops began to take part in the courts of justice of their own
+cities, as well in the choice and nomination of the officers as in their
+supervision.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> The words Roman commonwealth, Roman emperor, Roman army,
+were heard again. But no word was said of restoring a western emperor. Rome
+retained only an ideal precedence; Constantinople was the seat of empire.
+Rome received a permanent garrison, and had to share with Ravenna, where
+the heads of the Italian government soon permanently resided. Justinian's
+constitution found existing the mere shadow of a senate. The prefect of the
+city governed at Rome. There is mention made of a salary given to
+professors of Grammar and Rhetoric,<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> to physicians and lawyers; but it
+is doubtful whether this ever came into effect. The Gothic war<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> seems
+to have destroyed the great public libraries of Rome, the Palatine and
+Ulpian, as well as the private libraries of princely palaces, such as
+Boethius and Symmachus possessed. And in all Italy the war of extermination
+between Goths and Greeks swallowed up the costly treasures of ancient
+literature, save such remnant as the Benedictine monasteries were able to
+collect and preserve.<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> No building of Justinian's in Rome is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> known.
+All his work of this kind was given to Ravenna. From this time forth every
+new building in Rome is due to the Popes.</p>
+
+<p>Small reason had the Popes to rejoice that the rule of an orthodox emperor
+had followed at Rome that of an Arian king. Three months after the death of
+Vigilius at Syracuse Justinian caused the deacon Pelagius to be elected: he
+had difficulty in obtaining his recognition until he had cleared himself by
+oath in St. Peter's of an accusation that he had hastened his predecessor's
+death. The confirmation of the Pope's election remained with the emperor.
+This permanent fetter came upon the Popes from the interference of Odoacer
+the Herule in 484. After Justinian's death, the Romans sent an embassy to
+his successor complaining that their lot had been more endurable under the
+dominion of barbarians than under the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>When Narses,<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> re-entering Rome, celebrated a triple triumph over the
+expulsion of barbarians from Italy, the reunion of the empire, and the
+Church's victory over the Arians, a contemporary historian writes that the
+mind of man had not power enough to conceive so many reverses of fortune,
+such destruction of cities, such a flight of men, such a murdering of
+peoples, much less to describe them in words. Italy was strewn with ruins
+and dead bodies from the Alps to Tarentum. Famine and pestilence, following
+on the steps of war, had reduced whole districts to desolation. Procopius
+compares the reckoning of losses to that of reckoning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> the sands of the
+sea. A sober estimate computes that one-third of the population perished,
+and the ancient form of life in Rome and in all Italy was extinct for ever.</p>
+
+<p>But before we make an estimate of Justinian's whole action and character
+and their result, a subject on which we have scarcely touched has to be
+carefully weighed.</p>
+
+<p>What was the relation between the Two Powers conceived in the mind of
+Justinian, expressed in his legislation, carried out in his conduct,
+whether to the Roman Primate or the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch,
+Jerusalem, and Constantinople in his own eastern empire, or to the whole
+Church when assembled in council, as at Constantinople in 553? Was he
+merely carrying on as emperor a relation which he had inherited from so
+many predecessors, beginning with Constantine, or did he by his own laws
+and conduct alter an equilibrium before existing, and impair a definite and
+lawful union by transgressing the boundaries which made it the co-operation
+of Two Powers.</p>
+
+<p>If we look back just a hundred years before his <i>Digest</i> appeared, we find,
+in the great deed<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> in which the emperors Theodosius II. and Valentinian
+III. convoked the Council of Ephesus, the charge which they considered to
+be laid upon the imperial power to maintain that union of the natural and
+the spiritual government on which, as on a joint foundation, the Roman
+State, in the judgment of its rulers, was itself built. Some of the words
+they use are: "We are the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> ministers of Providence for the advancement of
+the commonwealth, while, inasmuch as we represent the whole body of our
+subjects, we protect them at once in a right belief and in a civil polity
+corresponding with it".</p>
+
+<p>This first and all-embracing principle of protecting all and every power
+which existed in the commonwealth, and maintaining it in due position, was
+most firmly held by Justinian. As to his own imperial authority and the
+basis on which it rested, he says: "Ever bearing in mind whatever regards
+the advantage and the honour of the commonwealth which God has entrusted to
+our hands, we seek to bring it to effect".<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> As to the Two Powers
+themselves, he recognises them thus: "The greatest gifts of God to men
+bestowed by the divine mercy are the priesthood and the empire; the former
+ministering in divine things, the latter presiding over human things, and
+exerting its diligence therein. Both, proceeding from one and the same
+principle, are the ornament of human life. Therefore nothing will be so
+great a care to emperors as the upright conduct of bishops, for, indeed,
+bishops are ever supplicating God for emperors. But if what concerns them
+be entirely blameless and full of confidence in God, and if the imperial
+power rightly and duly adorn the commonwealth entrusted to it, an admirable
+agreement will ensue, conferring on the human race all that is for its
+good. We then bear the greatest solicitude for the genuine divine doctrine,
+and for the upright conduct of bishops, which we trust, when that doctrine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+is maintained, because through it we shall obtain the greatest gifts from
+God,<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> shall be secure in the possession of those which we have, and
+shall acquire those which have not yet come. But all will be done well and
+fittingly if the beginning from which it springs be becoming and dear to
+God. And this we are confident will be, provided the observance of the holy
+canons be maintained, such as the Apostles, so justly praised and
+worshipped, those eye-witnesses and ministers of God the Word, have
+delivered down to us, and the holy Fathers have maintained and carried
+out."<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> And he proceeds to give the force of civil law to the canons
+concerning the election of bishops and other matters.</p>
+
+<p>In another law he says, "Be it therefore enacted<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> that the force of law
+be given to the holy canons of the Church which have been set forth or
+confirmed by the four holy Councils; that is, by the 318 holy Fathers in
+the Nicene, by the 150 in that of Constantinople, by the first of Ephesus,
+in which Nestorius was condemned, and by Chalcedon, when Eutyches, together
+with Nestorius, was put under anathema. For we accept the decrees of these
+four synods as the Holy Scriptures, and observe their canons as laws.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And, therefore, be it enacted according to their definitions that the most
+holy Pope of Old Rome is the first of all bishops, and that the most
+blessed archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, holds the second place
+after the holy Apostolic See of Old Rome, but takes precedence of all other
+bishops."</p>
+
+<p>In the laws just quoted we see three of the most important principles which
+run through the acts of Justinian. The first is, that the emperor, having
+the whole commonwealth committed to him by God, is the guardian both of
+human and divine things in it, which together make up the whole
+commonwealth; the second is, that there are Two Powers, the human and the
+divine, both derived from God. The third is, that while the emperor is the
+direct head of all human things, he guards divine things by accepting the
+decrees of General Councils as the Holy Scriptures, and by giving to the
+canons of the Church as descending from the Apostles, "the eye-witnesses
+and ministers of God the Word," the force of law.</p>
+
+<p>If in these laws we find Church and State greet each other as friends, and
+offer each other a mutual support, because both aim at one object, and what
+the holiness of the Church required, advanced no less the peace, the
+security, and the welfare of the State, so a complete concurrence between
+them might be shown in all other respects.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> The State recognised and
+honoured the whole constitution of the Church as it had been drawn in its
+first lineaments by the author of the Christian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> religion, as in perfect
+sequence it had formed itself out of the Church's inmost life, and that in
+force and purity, because it had been free from the pressure of external
+laws. The proper position of the Roman bishop as supreme head of the whole
+Church, the relation of the patriarchs to each other, their privileges over
+the metropolitans, the close connection of these with their several
+bishops, were never for a moment unrecognised, because so clear a
+consciousness of these showed itself in the whole Catholic world, that no
+change was possible without a general scandal. Thus the laws of Church and
+State kept pace with each other, when it could not but happen that the ties
+between patriarch and metropolitan, between metropolitan and bishop, became
+more stringent, as external increase was followed by decline in inward life
+and the fervour of faith. Thus the regular course was that the metropolitan
+examined the election of the bishop by the clergy and people, consecrated
+him, introduced him to the direction of his charge, and by the <i>litteræ
+formatæ</i> gave him his place in the fabric of the Church. So the
+metropolitan was consecrated by his patriarch, in whose own election all
+the bishops of the province, but especially the metropolitans, took part.
+The metropolitan summoned his bishops, the patriarchs their metropolitans,
+to the yearly synods. The bishops did not vote without their metropolitan;
+they took counsel with him, sometimes intrusted him with their votes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a>
+General laws of the Church, and also imperial edicts, were transmitted
+first to the patriarchs, and from them to the metropolitans, and from these
+to the bishops. Bishops might not leave their diocese without permission of
+the metropolitan, nor the metropolitan without that of the patriarch.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p>
+
+<p>In like manner, we find in Justinian's laws the relation of the bishop to
+his diocese, and especially to his clergy, recognised as we find it
+presented by the Church from the beginning, and as the lapse of time had
+more and more drawn it out. The law's recognition secured it from all
+attack. The idea that without the bishop there is neither altar, sacrifice,
+nor sacrament had become, through the spirit of unity which rules the
+Church, a fact visible to all. The more heresies and divisions exerted
+their destroying and dissolving power, while the Church went on expanding
+in bulk, every divine service in private houses was forbidden. Since such
+assemblies attacked as well the peace and security of the State as the
+unity of belief, the governors of provinces, as well as the bishops, had
+most carefully to guard against such acts. Neither in city nor country
+could a church, a monastery, or an oratory be raised without the bishop's
+permission. This was made known to all by his consecrating the appointed
+place in solemn procession, with prayer and singing, by elevation of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+cross. Without this such building was considered a place where errors
+lurked and deserters took refuge.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> In this concurrent action of the
+laws of Church and State respecting the relation of the bishop to the whole
+Church and to his own clergy, we never miss the perfect union between the
+two even as to the smallest particulars. The conclusion is plain that the
+secular power did not intend to act here on the ground of its own
+supremacy, or as an exercise of its own majesty. Not only did it issue no
+new regulations whereby any fresh order should be in the smallest degree
+introduced: it raised to the condition of its own laws the canons which had
+long obtained force in the Church, whose binding power was accepted by
+everyone who respected the Church, as lying in themselves and in the
+authority from which they proceeded. These it took simply and without
+addition, and by so taking recognised in them the double character. So, if
+they were transgressed, a double penalty ensued. The Church's punitive
+power is contained in its legislative, the recognition of which is an
+acknowledgment of the former. This the State, not only tacitly but
+expressly, recognised. And by taking the Church's laws, it not only did not
+obliterate the character and dignity of that authority, from which they had
+issued, but it did not change the penalty, nor consider it from another
+point of view. It remained what it had always been, and from its nature
+must be, an ecclesiastical punishment. The State only lent its arm, when
+that was necessary, for its execution. With<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> this, however, it was not
+content. The Church's life entered too deeply into the secular life. Those
+who were to carry on the one and sanctify the other stood in the closest
+connection with the whole State. So it made the canons its own proper laws,
+and thus attached temporal penalties to their transgression. So we find
+everywhere the addition that each violation would carry with it not only
+the divine judgment and arm the Church's hand to punish, but likewise draw
+down upon it the prescribed penalties from the imperial majesty.</p>
+
+<p>But so far the empire was maintaining by its secular authority the proper
+laws and institutions of the Church. Justinian went far beyond this.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a>
+His legislation associated the bishop with the count in the government of
+cities and provinces. It gave up to him exclusively the superintendence of
+morality and the protection of moral interests, the control of public works
+and of prisons. It bestowed on him a large jurisdiction&mdash;even more, put
+under his supervision the conduct of public functionaries in their
+administration, and conferred on him a preponderating influence on their
+election. In a word, it by degrees displaced the centre of gravity in
+political life by investing the episcopate with a large portion of temporal
+attributions.</p>
+
+<p>To give in detail what is here summed up would involve too large a space. A
+few specimens must suffice. The bishop in his own spiritual office would
+have a great regard for widows and orphans.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> Parents when dying felt
+secure in recommending children to their protection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> against the avarice of
+secular judges. Hence the custom had arisen that bishops had to watch over
+the execution of wills, especially such as were made for benevolent
+purposes. They could in case of need call in the assistance of the
+governor. Their higher intelligence and disinterested character were in
+such general credit that they had no little influence in the drawing up of
+wills. But the State under Justinian was so far from regarding: this with
+jealousy, that he ordered, if a traveller should die without a will in an
+inn, the bishop of the place should take possession of the property, either
+to hand it over to the rightful heirs, or to employ it for pious purposes.
+If the innkeeper were found guilty of embezzlement, he was to pay thrice
+the sum to the bishop, who could apply it as he wished. No custom,
+privilege, or statute was allowed to have force against this. Those who
+opposed it were made incapable of testing. Down to the sixth century<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a>
+we find no law of the Church touching the testamentary dispositions of
+Christians. Justinian is the first of whom we know that he entrusted the
+execution of wills specially to the supervision of bishops. That he did
+this shows the great trust which he placed in their uprightness.</p>
+
+<p>It was to be expected that bishops should have a special care for the city
+which was their see.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> Various laws of Justinian gave them here
+privileges in which we cannot fail to see the foundation of the later
+extension of episcopal authority and influence over the whole sphere of
+secular life. With their clergy and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> with the chief persons in the city,
+they took special part in the election of <i>defensors</i> and of the other city
+officers; so also in the appointment of provincial administrators. It was
+their duty to protect subjects against oppressions from soldiers and
+exaction of provision, as well as against all excessive claim of taxes and
+unlawful gifts to imperial officers. A governor on assuming the province
+was bound to assemble the bishop, the clergy, and the chief people of the
+capital, that he might lay before them the imperial nomination, and the
+extent of the duties which he was to fulfil. Thus they were enabled to
+judge on each occasion whether the representative of the emperor was
+fulfilling his charge. Magistrates, before entering on office, had to take
+the prescribed oath before the metropolitan and the chief citizens. The
+oath itself was an act made before God, and as such under cognisance of the
+bishop. But special regulations enjoined him to watch over the whole
+conduct and each particular act of the governor. If general complaints were
+made of injustice, he was to inform the emperor. If only an individual had
+suffered wrongs, the bishop was judge between both parties. If sentence was
+given against the accused, and he refused to make satisfaction, the matter
+came before the emperor in the last resort. The emperor, if the bishop had
+decided according to right, condemned his governor to death, because he who
+should have been the protector of others against wrong had himself
+committed wrong. If a governor was deposed for maladministration, he was
+not to quit the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> province before fifty days, and he could be accused before
+the bishop for every unjust transaction. Even if he was removed or
+transferred to another charge, and had left behind him a lawful substitute,
+the same proceeding took place before the bishop. On this account civil
+orders also were sent to the bishops to be publicly considered by them, and
+kept among the church documents, their fulfilment supervised, and
+violations reported to the emperor. But, to complete this picture, it must
+be remarked that this supervision was not one-sided. The emperor sent even
+his ecclesiastical regulations not only through the patriarch of
+Constantinople to the metropolitans, but through the Prætorian prefect to
+the governors of provinces. He directed them to support the bishops in
+their execution, but he likewise enjoined them to report neglect of them to
+the emperor. Especially they were to watch the execution of imperial
+decrees upon Church discipline, and monasteries in particular. The rules,
+so often repeated because so frequently broken, respecting the
+inalienability of Church property, were to be specially watched, and also
+the celebration, as prescribed, of yearly synods. But the civil magistrates
+were only recommended to keep a supervision, which did not extend to the
+right of official exhortation; far less that they were allowed in any
+ecclesiastical matter, in which the bishop might be at all in fault, to act
+upon their own authority, or receive an accusation against him from
+whomsoever and for whatsoever it might be. But the bishop could act in his
+quality of judge between a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> party and the governor himself, if the party
+had called upon him. Especially, Justinian allowed bishops a decisive
+influence upon legal proceedings in certain branches. The inspection of
+forbidden games, public buildings, roads, and bridges, the distribution of
+corn, was under them. They were to examine the competence of a security.
+The curators of insane persons took oath before them to fulfil their duty.
+If a father had named none, the bishop took part in the choice of them; the
+act was deposited among the church documents. If the children of an insane
+father wished to marry, the bishop had to determine the dowry and the
+nuptial donation. In the absence of the proper judge, the bishop of the
+city could receive complaints from those who had to make a legal demand on
+another, or to protect themselves from a pledge falling overdue. The proofs
+of a wrong account could, in the accountant's absence, be made before the
+bishop, and had legal force. If the ground-lord would not receive the
+ground-rent, the feoffee should consign it at Constantinople to the
+Prætorian prefect or the patriarch, in the provinces to the governor, or in
+his absence to the bishop of the city where the ground-lord who refused to
+receive it had his domicile. Whoever found no hearing, either in a civil or
+criminal matter, before the judge of the province, was directed to go to
+the bishop, who could either call the judge to him, or go in person to the
+judge, to invite him to do justice to the complainant according to the
+strict law, in order that the bishop might not be obliged to carry the
+refusal of justice by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> appeal to the imperial court.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> If the judge was
+not moved by this, the bishop gave the complainant a statement of the whole
+case for the emperor, and the delinquent had to fear severe penalties, not
+alone because he had been untrue to his office, but because he did not
+allow himself, even at the demand of the bishop, to do what, without it,
+lay in the circle of his duties. But this referring to the bishop was not
+arbitrary&mdash;that is, not one which it lay in the will of the complainant to
+use or not, but necessary, so that anyone who appealed to the imperial
+court without this endeavour incurred, whether his complaint was founded or
+not, the same punishment as the judge who refused to give a decision at the
+bishop's request. Even if the complainant only suspected the judge, he was
+bound to apply to the bishop to join the judge in examining the matter, and
+to bring it to a strict legal issue. In the face of such honourable
+confidence which was placed in the bishops, and which was also justified in
+general by a happy result, we ought not to be surprised if either the
+emperor himself or inferior magistrates committed to them the termination
+of entangled processes, in which they exercised just such a jurisdiction as
+may either in general be exercised by delegates, or was committed to them
+for the special occasion.</p>
+
+<p>The emperor<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> in his legislation left no part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> Church's
+discipline unregarded. His purpose was in all respects to make the State
+Christian; and he considered no part of divine and human things, whether it
+were dogma or conduct,&mdash;which, together, made up the Church's
+life,&mdash;withdrawn from his care and guardianship. Observances which had
+begun in custom, and gradually been drawn out definitely and enacted in
+canons, he took into his <i>Digest</i>, not with the intention of giving them
+greater inward force or stronger grounds as duties, but to show the unity
+of his own effort with that of the Church. He willingly put the imperial
+stamp on her salutary regulations. He showed his readiness to help her with
+external force wherever the inviolable sanctity of her laws seemed to be
+threatened by the opposition of individuals. In this he recognised the
+unchangeable order which is so deeply rooted in the nature both of Church
+and State, that order which is the greatest security for the wellbeing and
+prosperity of both. And the Church in the course of her long life had
+hitherto almost universally maintained this order; always, at least, in
+principle. If it was anywhere transgressed, it was either because the
+secular power was acting under special commission and approval of the
+Church, or, if that power acted without such approval, it met with open
+contradiction whereby not only the illegality of the particular action was
+marked, but the principle of the Church's freedom and independence was
+preserved.</p>
+
+<p>There is a passage in the address of the eastern bishops to Tarasius,
+patriarch of Constantinople, quoted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> in the Second Nicene Council of
+789,<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> the Seventh General, which cites the words of Justinian given
+above in one of his laws. The bishops say in their own character&mdash;and they
+are bishops who describe themselves "as sitting in darkness and the shadow
+of death, that is, of the Arabian impiety"&mdash;"It is the priesthood which
+sanctifies the empire and forms its basis; it is the empire which
+strengthens and supports the priesthood. Concerning these, a wise king,
+most blessed among holy princes, said: The greatest gift of God to men is
+the priestly and the imperial power, the one ordering and administering
+divine things, the other ruling human things by upright laws."</p>
+
+<p>If we considered the principles of Justinian alone as exhibited in his
+legislation, without regard to his conduct, we might, like the eastern
+bishops, take these words as the motto of his reign and the key to his acts
+as legislator. Indeed, it may be said that this legislation cannot be
+understood except by presupposing throughout the cordiality of the alliance
+between the Two Powers. In the election and the lives of bishops, in the
+discipline of religious houses, in the strict observance of the celibate
+life which has been assumed with full consent of the will by clergy and by
+monks, the emperor is as strict in his laws as the Church in her canons.
+The ruler of the State, who makes laws with a single word of his own mouth,
+who commands all the armies of the State, who bestows all its offices, who
+is, in truth, the autocrat, the impersonated commonwealth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> shows not a
+particle of jealousy towards the Church as Church. He enjoins the strict
+observance of her canons in the fullest conviction that the end which she
+aims at as Church is the end which he also desires as emperor; that the
+good life of her bishops and priests is essential for the good of society
+in general; that the perfect orthodoxy of her creed is the dearest
+possession, the pillar and safeguard, of his own government. Heresy and
+schism are, in his sight, the greatest crimes against the State, as they
+are the greatest sins against the Church and against God. In the course of
+the two hundred years from Constantine to Justinian the Roman State, as
+understood by the Illyrian peasant who ruled it for thirty-eight years, had
+intertwined itself as closely with the Catholic Church as ever it had with
+Cicero's "immortal gods" in the time of Augustus, or Trajan, or Decius. It
+was the special pride and glory of Justinian to maintain intact this
+alliance as the palladium of the empire. And, therefore, his legislation
+touched every part of the ecclesiastical government, every dogma of the
+Church's creed, and only on account of this alliance did the Church
+acquiesce in such a legislation. I suppose that no greater contradiction
+can ever be conceived than that which exists between the mind of Justinian
+and the mind which now, and for a long time, has directed the nations of
+Europe, so far as their governments are concerned in their attitude towards
+the Church of God. In Europe are nations which are nurtured upon heresy and
+schism, whether as the basis of the original rebellion which severed them
+from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> communion of the Church or as the outcome of "Free-thought" in
+their subsequent evolution through centuries of speculation unbridled by
+spiritual authority; nations, again, bisected by pure infidelity, or
+struggling with the joint forces of heresy and infidelity which strive to
+overthrow constitutions originally Catholic in all their structure. In one
+empire alone the attitude of Constantine and Justinian towards the Church
+is still maintained. It is that wherein the emperor rules with an amplitude
+of authority such as Constantine and Justinian held, whose successor he
+claims to be; where, also, an imperial aide-de-camp, booted and spurred,
+sits at the council board of a synod called holy, and is by far the most
+important member of it, for nothing can pass without his sanction&mdash;a synod
+which rules the bishops, being itself nothing but a ministry of the State,
+drawing, like the council of the empire, its jurisdiction from the emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Justinian was a true successor of the great Theodosius in so far as he
+upheld orthodoxy, and endeavoured to unite all his subjects in one belief
+and one centre of unity. The greatest of the Roman emperors had for their
+first and chief motive, in upholding this first principle of imperial
+policy, the conviction that thus only they could hope to maintain the peace
+and security of the empire. Schism in the Church betokened rebellion in the
+State. In the fourth century heresy had driven the empire to the very brink
+of destruction. Besides this, all the populations converted from heathendom
+were accustomed to see a complete<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> harmony between religion and the State,
+which appeared almost blent into one. Again, we must not forget that at
+this time the Christian religion had been lately accepted distinctly as a
+divine institution, and that it embraced the whole man with a plenitude of
+power which the indifference and division of our own times hardly allow us
+to conceive. Those who would realise this grasp of the Christian faith,
+transforming and exalting the whole being, may reach a faint perception of
+it by reading the great Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries&mdash;St.
+Basil, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Leo.
+They were not in danger of taking the moral corruption of an effete
+civilisation for the Christian faith. Again, the emperors, living in the
+midst of this immense intellectual and moral power&mdash;for instance, Justinian
+himself practising in a court the austerities of a monastery&mdash;recognised
+the confession of the same faith as the strongest band which united
+subjects with their prince. They thought that those who were not united
+with them in belief could not serve them with perfect love and fidelity.
+And, lastly, they hoped that their own zeal in maintaining the Church's
+unity unimpaired would make them worthier of the divine favour, and give
+success to all their undertakings. Let us take the words of Theodosius, one
+of the greatest and best among them, to his colleague the younger
+Valentinian, who up to the time of his mother Justina's death had been
+unjust to the Catholic cause and favoured the Arian heresy: "The imperial
+dignity is supported, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> by arms, but by the justice of the cause.
+Emperors who feared God have won victories without armies, have subdued
+enemies and made them tributary, and have escaped all dangers. So
+Constantine the Great overcame the tyrant Licinius in a sea-fight. So thy
+father (the first Valentinian) succeeded in protecting his realm from its
+enemies, won mighty victories, and destroyed many barbarians. On the
+contrary, thy uncle Valens polluted churches by the murder of saints and
+the banishing of priests. Hence by guidance of Divine Providence he was
+besieged by the Goths, and found his death in the flames. It is true that
+he who has not unjustly expelled thee does not worship Christ aright. But
+thy perverse belief has given this opportunity to Maximus. If we do not
+return to Christ, how can we call upon His aid in the struggle?" The
+following emperors were of the same judgment: so that they attached to each
+decree which concerned ecclesiastical matters the motive of meriting
+thereby God's approval, since they not only took pains to please Him, but
+also led their subjects to do so. We employ, says Justinian, every care
+upon the holy churches, because we believe that our empire will be
+maintained, and the commonwealth protected by the favour of God, but
+likewise to save our own souls and the souls of all our subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Justinian likewise would have a keen remembrance of the degradation from
+which his uncle had restored the empire. None knew better than he how the
+ignoble reigns of the usurper Basiliscus, of Zeno, and of Anas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>tasius, by
+perpetual tampering with heresy and ruthless persecution of the orthodox,
+had well-nigh broken that empire to pieces. Had he not thrown all his
+energy, as the leading spirit of his uncle's realm, into that great
+submission to Pope Hormisdas which rendered its beginning illustrious?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless a dark blot lies upon the name and memory of Justinian. He was
+not only successor of the great Theodosius in his ardent zeal for the
+Church's doctrine and unity, but likewise of Constantine, when he sullied
+his greatness and risked all the success of his former life by falling into
+the hands of the Nicomedian Eusebius.</p>
+
+<p>The vast event by which the Christian Church had become a ruling power in
+the commonwealth had affected from that time forth the whole being of
+Church and State. Christian emperors had come to see in bishops the Fathers
+and Princes of such a Church, consecrated by God to that office, not
+appointed by men.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> As such they had honoured them, committed to their
+wisdom and guidance the salvation of their own souls, and the weal itself
+of the commonwealth; not hindered them in the performance of their duties,
+not hampered them by restrictive laws. Rather they had protected them by
+external force from hindrance when invited thus to show their protection as
+heads of the State. Circumstances led them on to a more immediate entrance
+into the Church's special domain, and the things which happened in that
+domain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> led to this their entrance. It kept even pace with the developments
+and disturbances caused by heresy therein.</p>
+
+<p>Christ had committed to the whole episcopate, under the guidance of the
+Holy Spirit, the task of spreading the seed of Christian doctrine over the
+earth, of watching its growth, of eradicating the false seed sown in
+night-time by the enemy. In proportion as the empire's head took part in
+this work, his influence on the episcopate could not but increase. If his
+participation was confined within its due limits, if the temporal ruler
+hedged the Church round from irruption of external power, if he rooted the
+tares out of her field only to clear her enclosure, his relation to the
+bishops remained merely external. But if he went on himself to lay down the
+limit of the Church's domain, or even if he only took an active part in
+such limitation; if he made himself the judge what was wheat and what was
+tares, in so doing he had won an influence on the bishops which did not
+belong to him. Then Church and State ran a danger of seeing their
+respective limits confused. Thus the relation of the bishops to the ruler
+of the State became then, and remains always, an unfailing standard of the
+Church's freedom and independence.</p>
+
+<p>Now, striking and peremptory as the eastern submission to Pope Hormisdas
+was, in which Justinian, then a man of thirty-six, had taken large part;
+clear and unambiguous as in his legislation appears the recognition of the
+Two Powers, sacerdotal and imperial,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> which make together the joint
+foundation of the State, and are a necessity of its wellbeing; distinct,
+likewise, as is the imperial proclamation of the Pope as the first of all
+bishops in his laws, his letters, confirmed by his reception of the Popes
+Agapetus and Vigilius in his own capital city; frank and unembarrassed as
+his acknowledgment of St. Peter's successors, yet, when he had reached the
+mature age of seventy, and was lord by conquest of Rome reduced to absolute
+impotence, and of Italy as a subject province, his treatment of the first
+bishop, in the person of Vigilius, was a contradiction of his own laws as
+to the two domains of divine and human things. He passed beyond the limits
+which marked the boundaries of the two powers. He made himself the supreme
+judge of doctrine. He convoked a General Council without the Pope's assent;
+he terminated it without his sanction; he treated the Pope as a prisoner
+for resisting such action. It is true that St. Peter's successor&mdash;and this
+with a stain upon him which no successor of St. Peter had worn before
+him&mdash;escaped with St. Peter's life in him unimpaired; but so far as the
+action of Justinian went it was unfilial, inconsistent with his own laws,
+perilous in the extreme to the Church, dishonouring to the whole
+episcopate. The divine protection guarded Vigilius&mdash;that Vigilius whom an
+imperious woman had put upon the seat of a lawful living Pope&mdash;from
+sacrifice of the authority to which, on the martyrdom of his predecessor,
+he succeeded. He died at Syracuse, and St. Peter lived after him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+undiminished in the great St. Gregory. The names mean the same, the one in
+Latin, the other in Greek; but no successor ever took on himself the
+blighted name of Vigilius, while many of the greatest among the Popes have
+chosen for themselves the name of Gregory, and one at least of the sixteen
+has equalled the glory of the first.</p>
+
+<p>In judging the conduct of Justinian, both in treatment of persons and in
+dealing with doctrine, we cannot fail to see that the imperial duty of
+protection passed into the imperial lust for mastery. If his treatment of
+Vigilius, whom he acknowledged in the clearest terms as Pope, was
+scandalous and cruel, still worse, if possible, was the assumption of a
+right to interpret and to define the Church's doctrine for the Church. The
+usurper Basiliscus had been the first to issue an imperial decree on
+doctrine. This was in favour of heresy. He was followed in this by the
+legitimate emperors Zeno and Anastasius, also in favour of heresy. On the
+contrary,<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> the edicts of Justinian were generally in conformity with
+the decisions of the Church: generally occasioned by bishops, often drawn
+up by them. But in the council called by him at Constantinople in 553, he
+issued decrees on doctrines which only the Church could decide. In doing
+this he infringed her liberty as grossly as the three whose unlawful act he
+was imitating. The whole effect of his reign was that State despotism in
+Church matters lowered the dignity of the spiritual power. The dependence
+of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> bishops on the court became greater and greater. The emperor's will
+became law in the things of the Church. He persecuted Vigilius: he deposed
+his own patriarch Eutychius. His example, as that of the most distinguished
+Byzantine monarch, told with great force upon his successors, for the
+persecution of future Popes and the deposition of future patriarchs.</p>
+
+<p>The Italy which he had won at the cost of its ruin as to temporal wellbeing
+was, after his death in 565, speedily lost as to its greater portion, and
+the Romans<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> of the East did little more for it. The Rome which he had
+reduced almost to a solitude, and ruled through a prefect with absolute
+power, escaped in the end from the most cruel and heartless despotism
+inflicted by a distant master on a province at once plundered and
+neglected. His own eastern provinces suffered terribly from barbarian
+inroads, and the end of the thirty-seven years' domination, which had
+seemed a resurrection at the beginning, showed the mighty eastern empire
+from day to day declining, the western bishops under the action of the Pope
+more and more exerting an independence which the East could not prevent,
+the patriarch of Constantinople more and more advancing as the agent of the
+imperial will in dealing with eastern bishops. What the See of St. Peter
+was at the end of the sixth century it remains to see in the pontificate of
+the first Gregory, who shares with the first Leo the double title of Great
+and Saint.</p>
+
+<p class="notes">NOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 795-99.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> This refers to the reunion of a great portion of the eastern
+Church, which had fallen a prey to the most manifold errors since the
+Council of Chalcedon.&mdash;Riffel, p. 543.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> Savigny, <i>Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter</i>,
+1834, i. 36. Quoted by Rump, ix. 72.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> xi. 2: Sedes illa toto orbe mirabilis licet generalis
+mundo sit prædita.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> <i>Nov.</i> cxxxi. c. 2:
+<span class="grk">&theta;&epsilon;&sigma;&pi;&#x1F77;&zeta;&omicron;&mu;&epsilon;&nu; &tau;&#x1F78;&nu; &#x1F01;&gamma;&iota;&#x1F7D;&tau;&alpha;&tau;&omicron;&nu; &tau;&#x1FC6;&sigmaf;
+&pi;&rho;&epsilon;&sigma;&beta;&upsilon;&tau;&#x1F73;&rho;&alpha;&sigmaf;
+&Rho;&#x1F7D;&mu;&eta;&sigmaf; &pi;&#x1F71;&pi;&alpha;&nu; &pi;&rho;&#x1FF6;&tau;&omicron;&nu; &epsilon;&#x1F36;&nu;&alpha;&iota; &pi;&#x1F71;&nu;&tau;&omega;&nu;
+&tau;&#x1FF6;&nu; &#x1F31;&epsilon;&rho;&#x1F73;&omega;&nu;&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+&tau;&#x1Fc7; &gamma;&nu;&#x1F7D;&mu;&#x1FC3; &kappa;&alpha;&#x1F76;
+&#x1F40;&rho;&theta;&#x1FC7; &kappa;&rho;&#x1F77;&sigma;&epsilon;&iota; &tau;&omicron;&#x1FE6;
+&#x1F10;&kappa;&epsilon;&#x1F77;&nu;&omicron;&upsilon;
+&sigma;&epsilon;&beta;&alpha;&sigma;&mu;&#x1F77;&omicron;&upsilon; &theta;&rho;&#x1F79;&nu;&omicron;&upsilon;
+&kappa;&alpha;&tau;&eta;&rho;&gamma;&#x1F75;&theta;&eta;&sigma;&alpha;&nu;</span>.
+<i>Nov.</i> ix.
+init.: Pontificatus apicem apud eam (Romam anteriorem) esse nemo est qui
+dubitet.&mdash;Photius, p. 156.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Translated from Photius, p. 156.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Cesare fui e son Giustiniano,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Che, per voler del primo amor ch'io sento,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dentro alle leggi trassi il troppo e il vano."<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">&mdash;<i>Paradiso</i>, vi. 10.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> This paragraph translated from Rump, ix. 70.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> Rump, viii. 487.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Account from Rump, ix. 172-4, compressed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Respondeat mens illa Sancto Spiritui serviens.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 808.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> See Baronius, <small>A.D.</small> 535, sec. 40; Hefele, ii. 736-8; Rump,
+ix. 174-6; <i>Novell.</i> xxxix. <i>De Africana Ecclesia.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> Photius, i. 153-4: words of Hergenröther, who quotes eastern
+historians, who call him
+&mu;&epsilon;&gamma;&alpha;&lambda;&omicron;&pi;&rho;&epsilon;&pi;&#x1F73;&sigma;&tau;&epsilon;&rho;&omicron;&sigmaf;
+&#x1F00;&nu;&#x1F71;&kappa;&tau;&omega;&nu; &tau;&#x1FF6;&nu;
+&pi;&rho;&omicron;&tau;&#x1F73;&rho;&omega;&nu;&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+&mu;&epsilon;&gamma;&alpha;&lambda;&omicron;&upsilon;&rho;&gamma;&#x1F78;&sigmaf;
+&kappa;&rho;&#x1F71;&tau;&omega;&rho;.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 846.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Photius, i. 160-2; Rump, ix. 181.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Photius, i. 163. The words which concern the conduct of
+Vigilius are taken from Cardinal Hergenröther. Baronius, <small>A.D.</small> 538, sec. 5,
+gives from Anastasius the words of the empress, and the Pope's answer, and
+the following narrative.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Gregorovius, i. 372. See Liberatus, <i>Breviarium</i>, ch. xxii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Liberatus, <i>Breviarium</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Reumont, ii. 49.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> St. Gregory, <i>Dialogues</i>, ii. 14, 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> The following drawn from Reumont's narrative, ii. 50-6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> The narrative drawn from Reumont, ii. 56-7; Gregorovius, i.
+448-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 969; Photius, i. 163.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> Mansi, viii. 1149.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Mansi, ix. 35-40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> Narrative drawn from Photius, i. 165-6, down to "Ferrandus,"
+p. 232, below.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> Mansi, ix. 487-537.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> Hefele, ii. 790.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> Hergenröther, <i>K.G.</i>, i. 344-5; Photius, i. 166.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Translated from Hergenröther's <i>K.G.</i>, i., pp. 345-351, from
+p. 232, above, "at this point Justinian sought," &amp;c., with reference also
+to the life of Photius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> Hergenröther, Photius, i. 174; Rump, <i>K.G.</i>, ix. 283.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> See Reumont, ii. 58-62; Gregorovius, i. 453-9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Reumont, 60.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Gregorovius, 455.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, 456.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Reumont, 61.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Gregorovius, 450-2.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> See vol. v. 281.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> <i>Constitutio</i>, lxxxii. 667.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Honestatem quam illis obtenentibus credimus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> <i>Constitutio</i>, vi. 48.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> 119. <i>De ecclesiasticis titulis</i>, p. 940. <i>Sancimus</i>. This
+word in Roman law in the time of Justinian is equivalent to the English
+formula, "Be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with
+the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons
+in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same". There lies in
+these two formulæ, expressing the supreme legislative authority, a
+comparison between the constitution of the lower Roman empire and the
+medieval constitutions established everywhere by the influence of the
+Church under guidance of the Popes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Riffel, 611-12, translated.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> See Justinian, <i>Gloss.</i> v., directed to the patriarch of
+Constantinople, Epiphanius. <i>Epilogus</i>, p 48: Hæc igitur omnia sanctissimi
+patriarchæ sub se constitutis Deo amabilibus metropolitis manifesta
+faciant, at illi subjectis sibi Deo amabilibus episcopis declarent, et illi
+monasteriis Dei sub sua ordinatione constitutis cognita faciant, quatenus
+per omnia Domini cultura maneat undique in eos incorrupta.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> Riffel, p. 615, translated.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> Riffel, p. 617.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> Kurth, ii. 35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> See Riffel, p. 624.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Riffel, p. 625.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, pp. 629-35.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> See St. Gregory, <i>Epis.</i>, x. 51 (vol. ii. 1080), where he
+writes to the ex-consul Leontius, in Sicily, who had beaten with rods the
+ex-prefect Libertinus: "Si mihi constare potuisset quia justas causas de
+suis rationibus haberent, et prius per epistolas vos pulsare habui; et si
+auditus minime fuissem, serenissimo Domino Imperatori suggererem".</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Riffel, p. 635.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Mansi, xii. 1130.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> Riffel, 562.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> Photius, p. 155.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Photius, 173.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb">CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">ST. GREGORY THE GREAT.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" class="width65" cellspacing="2" summary="POEM">
+<tr><td>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"The banner of the Church is ever flying!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Less than a storm avails not to unfold<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The Cross emblazoned there in massive gold:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Away with doubts and sadness, tears and sighing!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">It is by faith, by patience, and by dying<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">That we must conquer, as our sires of old."<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">&mdash;<span class="smcap">Aubrey de Vere</span>, "St. Peter's Chains".<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> historian,<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> who has carefully followed the fortunes of Rome as a
+city during a thousand years, describes it as beginning a new life from the
+time when Narses, in the year 552, came to reside there as imperial prefect
+and representative of the absent eastern lord Justinian. Narses so ruled
+for fifteen years, but when he was recalled there ensued a long time of
+terrible distress and anxiety&mdash;a time of temporal servitude, but one also
+of spiritual expansion. The complete ruin of Rome as a secular city, the
+overthrow of all that ancient world of which Rome was the centre and
+capital, had been effected in the struggle ended by the extinction of the
+Gothic kingdom. By degrees the laws, the monuments, the very recollections
+of what had been, passed away. The heathen temples ceased to be preserved
+as public monuments. The Capitol, on its desolate hill, lifted into the
+still air its fairy world of pillars in a grave-like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> silence, startled
+only by the owl's night cry. The huge palace of the Cæsars still occupied
+the Palatine in unbroken greatness, a labyrinth of empty halls yet
+resplendent with the finest marbles, here and there still covered with
+gold-embroidered tapestry. But it was falling to pieces like a fortress
+deserted by its occupants. In some small corner of its vast spaces there
+might still be seen a Byzantine prefect, an eunuch from the court of the
+eastern despot, or a semi-Asiatic general, with secretaries, servants, and
+guards. The splendid forums built by Cæsar after Cæsar, each a homage paid
+by the ruler of the day to the Roman people, whom he fed and feared, became
+pale with age. Their history clung round them like a fable. The massive
+blocks of Pompey's theatre showed need of repairs, which were not given.
+The circus maximus, where the last and dearest of Roman pleasures&mdash;the
+chariot races&mdash;were no longer celebrated, stretched its long lines beneath
+the imperial palace covered with dust and overgrown with grass. The
+colossal amphitheatre of Titus still reared its circle perfect, but
+stripped of its decorations. The gigantic baths, fed by no aqueduct since
+the ruin wrought by Vitiges the Goth, rose like fallen cities in a
+wilderness. Ivy began to creep over them. The costly marble mantle of their
+walls dropped away in pieces or was plundered for use. The Mosaic pavements
+split. There were still in those beautiful chambers seats of bright or dark
+marble, baths of porphyry or Oriental alabaster. But these found their way
+by degrees to churches. They served for episcopal chairs, or to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> receive
+the bones of a saint, or to become baptismal fonts. Yet not a few remained
+in their desolation till the walls dropped down upon them, or the dust
+covered them for centuries. In course of time the rain perforated the
+uncared-for vaultings of these shady galleries. Having served for refuge to
+the thief, the coiner, or the assassin, they became like dripping grottoes.</p>
+
+<p>Thus stood the temples, triumphal arches, pillars, and statues before the
+eyes of a young Roman noble, one out of the few patrician families still
+surviving. These were the sights with which St. Gregory, who claimed
+kindred with the Anician race, was familiar from his boyhood, so that the
+desolation of Jerusalem rose before his mind as the state of his own Rome
+pressed on his eyes and seared his heart.</p>
+
+<p>This skeleton of a city was scarcely inhabited by the remnant of a people,
+decimated by hunger and pestilence, and in perpetual fear to see its
+ill-defended gates broken into by Lombard savages. The walls of Aurelian,
+half demolished by Totila and hurriedly repaired by Belisarius, alone saved
+it year after year from the horrors which fell upon captured cities; and
+would not have saved it but for the indomitable spirit, the perpetual
+wisdom, foresight, and courage of a son who had been exalted to the Chair
+of Peter.</p>
+
+<p>While Old Rome lay thus, the shadow of its former self, bereft of all
+political power, looking to the imperial exarch at Ravenna for its temporal
+rule, in danger moreover of inundation from its own Tiber, whose banks were
+no longer maintained with unremitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> care, New Rome beside the Bosporus
+rioted in all the pomp and circumstance of a court still the head of a vast
+empire. The tributes of all the East, of numberless cities in Asia Minor,
+in Syria, in Egypt, were still borne unceasingly within its walls, which
+rose as an impregnable fortress between Europe and Asia. Its emperor still
+thought himself the lord of the world; its bishop assumed the title of
+Ecumenical Patriarch. Both emperor and bishop cast but a disdainful glance
+on the widowed rival which threatened to sink into the grave of waters
+brought down by her own river. Constantinople could raise and pay armies
+from all the races of the North and East. A single imperial regiment was
+quartered at Rome, which, being ill-paid, became disaffected and neglectful
+of its charge, and could not be counted upon by the Pope for vigorous
+defence against the ever-pressing danger of a Lombard inroad.</p>
+
+<p>So began the Church's Rome.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> Enslaved politically to Byzantium, wherein
+the so-called Roman State, with Greek subtlety, carried on the principles
+of the old heathen government and practised a remorseless despotism, the
+city of the ancient Cæsars and the people they fed on "bread and games"
+ceased to exist, and was changed into the holy city, whose life was the
+Chair of Peter. From the time of Narses, during all the two hundred years
+of Lombard assault and Byzantine neglect and exaction, the Pope alone,
+watchful and unceasingly active, carried out the fabric of the Roman
+hierarchy.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> Its gradual increase, its springing up out of the dust of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> old Roman State under the most difficult circumstances, will ever
+claim the astonishment of the after-world as the greatest transformation to
+be found in history.</p>
+
+<p>Let us approach the secret of this transformation in the person of the man
+who best represents it.</p>
+
+<p>Gregory was born about the year 540, and so was witness from his childhood
+of the intense misery and special degradation of Rome produced by the
+Gothic war. He was himself the son of Gordian, a man of senatorial rank,
+from whom he inherited great landed property. Through him he was the great
+grandson of that illustrious Pope Felix III., whom we have seen resist with
+success the insolence of Acacius and the despotism of Zeno. Gregory had
+therefore a doubly noble inheritance&mdash;that of a true Roman noble's spirit,
+and that of the Church's championship. His paternal house stood on that
+well-known slope of the C&oelig;lian hill, opposite the imperial palace on the
+Palatine, from which in after-time he sent forth St. Augustine with the
+monks his brethren to be the Apostle of paganised England. He founded six
+monasteries in Sicily upon his property, and changed his father's palace
+into a seventh, in which he followed the Benedictine Rule. In early manhood
+he had been prætor or prefect of the city, being probably the most eminent
+of all its citizens in wealth and rank. But his mother St. Silvia, a woman
+of fervent piety, had educated him with great care. He turned from the
+secular to the religious life, following perhaps her example, since on the
+death of his father she became a nun. He was a monk on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> C&oelig;lian hill
+when Pope Benedict in the year 577 named him seventh deacon of the Roman
+Church. Pope Pelagius II. sent him as nuncio to Constantinople, an office
+equally difficult and honourable. The emperor Tiberius was then reigning,
+with whom he became intimate, and with his successor Mauritius. Gregory
+dwelt in the imperial palace, with some monks of his own monastery whom he
+had brought with him, pursuing the Rule in all pious observances, winning
+also the esteem and friendship of many distinguished men, and making
+himself fully acquainted with the mechanism of the eastern court. He also
+delivered the patriarch Eutychius from a false Origenistic notion, that the
+bodies of the blessed after the resurrection were not glorified, but lost
+their quality as bodies.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> There also he became warmly attached to St.
+Leander, who afterwards, as archbishop of Seville, greatly helped him in
+recovering Spain from Arianism to the Catholic faith. The charge of Pope
+Pelagius to his nuncio Gregory throws a vivid light upon the condition of
+Rome at the time. His instructions ran: "Lay before our lord the emperor
+that no words can express the calamities brought upon us by the perfidy of
+the Lombards, breaking their own engagements. Our brother Sebastian, whom
+we send to you, has promised to describe to him the necessities and dangers
+of all Italy. Join him in that entreaty to succour us, for the commonwealth
+is in such distress, that unless God inspire him to show us his servants
+the mercy of his natural disposition, and move<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> him to give us a single
+<i>Magister militum</i> and a single <i>Dux</i>, we are utterly destitute, for Rome
+and its neighbourhood are specially defenceless. The exarch writes that he
+can give us no help, for he has not force enough to guard Ravenna.
+Therefore, may God command the emperor quickly to succour us, before the
+army of that most wicked nation take the places still remaining to
+us."<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a></p>
+
+<p>Gregory returned from Constantinople in 585, and lived as one of the seven
+deacons on the C&oelig;lian hill, when, on 8th February, 590, Pope Pelagius
+died of the pestilence, and Gregory was unanimously chosen to succeed him.</p>
+
+<p>It was a moment of the greatest depression. The Tiber had in the winter
+overflowed a large portion of the city. The destruction wrought had been
+followed by a terrible plague. Gregory strove to escape the charge put upon
+him, and besought the emperor not to confirm his election. In the meantime,
+the clergy and people urged upon him the provisional exercise of the
+episcopal charge. As such he ordered a sevenfold procession to entreat the
+cessation of the plague. The clergy of Rome, the abbots, the abbesses with
+their nuns, the children, the laymen, the widows, and the married women,
+each company separately arranged, were to start from seven different
+churches, and to close their pilgrimage together at the basilica of St.
+Maria Maggiore.</p>
+
+<p>During the procession itself eighty victims to the plague fell dead. But as
+Gregory was passing over the bridge of St. Peter's, a heavenly vision
+consoled them in the midst of their litanies. The archangel Michael<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> was
+seen over the tomb of Hadrian, sheathing his flaming sword in token that
+the pestilence was to cease. Gregory heard the angelic antiphon from
+heavenly voices&mdash;<i>Regina C&oelig;li, lætare</i>, and added himself the concluding
+verse&mdash;<i>Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The assent of the emperor Mauritius arriving from Constantinople about six
+months after his election compelled Gregory to become Pope. At first,
+indeed, he disguised himself and took to flight, and hid himself in the
+woods.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> The people fasted and prayed three days for his discovery. He
+was found, and then permitted himself to be taken back to Rome, where he
+was received with great rejoicing. He was led, according to custom, to the
+"Confession" of St. Peter, where he made his profession of faith. He was
+then consecrated, the 3rd September, 590. Nor can any words but his own
+adequately express his feelings, together with the character of the time in
+which he lived. With heavy heart he approached the burden laid upon him.
+Neither then nor ever after did he deceive himself as to the gravity of the
+situation. "Since," are his words, "I submitted the shoulders of my spirit
+to this burden of the episcopal office, I can no longer collect my soul,
+distracted as it is on so many sides. At one time I have to consider the
+affairs of churches and monasteries, often taking into account the lives
+and actions of individuals. At another time I have to represent my
+fellow-citizens in their affairs. Again, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> have to groan over the swords
+of barbarians advancing to storm us, and to dread the wolves which lie in
+wait for a flock huddled together in fear. Then, again, I must charge
+myself with the care of public affairs, to provide means even for those to
+whom the maintenance of order is entrusted, or I must patiently endure
+certain depredators, or take precautions against them, that tranquillity be
+not disturbed." In another place he says: "Daily I feel what fulness of
+peace I have lost, to what fulness of cares I have been exalted. If you
+love me, weep for me, since so many temporal businesses press on me that I
+seem as if this dignity had almost excluded me from the love of God. Not of
+the Romans only am I bishop, but bishop of the Lombards, whose right is the
+right of the sword, whose favour is punishment. The billows of the world so
+surge upon me, that I despair of steering into harbour the frail vessel
+entrusted to me by God, while my hand holds the helm amid a thousand
+storms." Again, in his synodical letter<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> announcing his accession to
+the patriarchs, he says: "Especially, whoever bears the title of Pastor in
+this place is grievously occupied by external cares, so that he is often in
+doubt whether he is executing the work of a Pastor or that of an earthly
+lord". Thus thirteen hundred years ago spoke the Pope. Does his language in
+the nineteenth century differ much from his language in the sixth? Shortly
+after his accession, preaching to his people in St. Peter's, he said:<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a>
+"Where, I pray you, is any delight to be found in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> this world? Mourning
+meets us everywhere; groans surround us. Ruined cities, fortresses
+overthrown, lands laid waste, the earth reduced to a desert. The fields
+have none to till them. There is scarcely a dweller in the cities. Yet even
+these poor remnants of the human race are smitten daily and without
+ceasing. The scourge of heaven's justice strikes without end, because even
+under its strokes our bad actions are not corrected. We see men led into
+captivity, beheaded, slain before our eyes. What pleasure, then, does life
+retain, my brethren? If yet we are fond of such a world, it is not joys but
+wounds which we love. We see the condition of that Rome which anon seemed
+to be mistress of the world: worn down by sorrows which have no measure,
+desolate of inhabitants, assaulted by enemies, filled with ruins. We see in
+it fulfilled what long ago our prophet said against Samaria: 'Set on a
+vessel; set it on, I say, and put water into it. Heap together into it the
+pieces thereof.' And then: 'The seething of it is boiling hot; and the
+bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst thereof.' And further:
+'Heap together the bones, which I will burn with fire: the flesh shall be
+consumed, and the whole composition shall be sodden, and the bones shall be
+consumed. Then set it empty upon burning coals, that it may be hot, and the
+brass thereof may be melted.' Now the vessel was set on when our city was
+founded. The water was put into it and the pieces heaped together, when
+there was a confluence of peoples to it from all sides. Like boiling water
+they bubbled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> up with the world's actions; like bits of flesh they were
+boiled in their own heat. He says well, 'The seething of it is boiling hot,
+and the bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst thereof'. For
+great, indeed, in it at first was the heat of secular glory; but presently
+the glory itself and those who followed it burnt out. Bones mean the
+powerful of the world; flesh its various peoples: as bones support flesh,
+so the powerful of the world rule the weakness of the masses. But now,
+behold, all the powerful of this world have been taken from it. The bones,
+then, are thoroughly sodden. The peoples are gone; the flesh, then, is
+boiled up. There follows then: 'Heap together the bones, which I will burn
+with fire; the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole composition shall be
+sodden; and the bones shall waste away'. For where is the senate? where any
+longer a people? The bones are wasted, the flesh consumed; all pride of
+secular dignities is perished out of it. The whole composition is sodden.
+Yet every day the sword, every day innumerable sorrows press upon us, the
+poor remaining remnant. So, then, this also applies: 'Set it empty upon
+burning coals'. For since there is no senate, since the people has died
+out, and yet sorrow and suffering are multiplied day by day on the few that
+remain, Rome is empty, and yet it burns. We apply this to men, but we see
+the very structures destroyed by the multiplication of ruins. So that he
+adds, upon the empty city, 'Burn it and melt its brass'. For it is come to
+the vessel itself being destroyed, in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> before both flesh and bones
+were consumed. For when the dwellers have fallen away even the walls fall.
+But where are those who once rejoiced in its glory? Where is their pomp and
+pride, and those ecstasies of frequent transport?</p>
+
+<p>"In Rome are fulfilled the prophet's words against Niniveh: 'Where is the
+dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions?'<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> Were
+not its commanders and its princes lions who overran the whole world, and
+ravened, and slaughtered the prey? Here the young lions found their
+feeding-place, because the boyhood, the youth, the flower of manhood, from
+generation to generation, flocked hither, when they sought to get on in the
+world. Now Rome is desolate, worn down, full of sorrows. No one comes to it
+to get on in the world; no man of power or violence remains to raven on the
+prey. Then may we say, 'Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the
+feeding-place of the young lions?' Upon it has fallen the lot of Judea,
+foretold by the prophet: 'Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle'.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> For man
+is wont to be bald upon the head alone; but the eagle's baldness is over
+all his body. When very old, his plumes and feathers fall from his whole
+body. The city which has lost its inhabitants, in losing its feathers, has
+enlarged its baldness as the eagle. Shrunk also are its wings, with which
+it used to fly to the prey, for all its men of might, by whom it ravened,
+are extinguished."</p>
+
+<p>We may here contrast the language concerning the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> Rome which lay before
+their eyes of the two Popes St. Leo and St. Gregory. They spoke with an
+interval between them of 140 years. The first spoke still of the actual
+queen of the world, of the secular empire subdued and inherited by the
+spiritual. The feathers of Leo's eagle shone to him with celestial light;
+the talons of the royal bird traversed the earth not to raven, but to feed
+a conquered world with Christian doctrine. St. Gregory speaks of the eagle
+as bald; but we shall see that he who day by day guarded the gates of
+defenceless Rome against the Lombard spoiler, barbarian also and heretic,
+fed no less the ends of the earth with Christian doctrine. It was he who
+brought the <i>Ultima Thule</i>, and its inhabitants the <i>penitus toto divisos
+orbe Britannos</i> again under the yoke of Christ, and taught the sea-kings
+humanity.</p>
+
+<p>A little later St. Gregory closed his exposition of the prophet Ezechiel in
+St. Peter's with these sorrowful words: "So far, dear brethren, by the gift
+of God, we have searched out hidden meanings for you. Let no man blame me
+if I close them here, because, as you all witness, our sufferings have
+grown enormous. On every side we are encircled with swords: on every side
+we are in imminent peril of death. Some return to us maimed of their hands;
+of others we hear that they are captured; of others, again, that they are
+slain. My tongue can no longer expound, when my spirit is weary of my life.
+Let no one ask me to unfold the Scriptures; for my harp is turned to
+mourning, and my voice to the cry of the weeper. The eye of my heart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> no
+longer keeps its watch in the discussion of mysteries; my soul droops for
+weariness. Study has lost its charm for me. I have forgotten to eat my
+bread for the voice of my groaning. How can one who is not allowed to live
+take pleasure in the mystical sense of Scripture? How can one whose daily
+chalice is bitterness present sweets for others to drink? What remains for
+us but while we weep to give thanks for the strokes of the scourge which we
+suffer for our iniquities. Our Creator is become our Father by the Spirit
+of adoption whom He has given to us: sometimes He feeds His sons with
+bread; sometimes He corrects them with the scourge; because He schools us
+by sorrows and by gifts for the unending inheritance."<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p>
+
+<p>This was the Rome in which Gregory ruled as Pope for fourteen years, since
+he saw the archangel's sword sheathed over the castle of St. Angelo, into
+which name the pagan mausoleum was baptised. Pestilence in the city, where
+the remnant of a people wandered disconsolate by the mighty halls and vast
+spaces of the old emperors&mdash;swords of pagan or Arian barbarians all round
+the patched-up walls of Aurelian. City after city through the hapless Italy
+reported as plundered or ruined by the Lombard devastation. Presently the
+trials of a sick-bed and frequent attacks of gout were added to his daily
+tale of sorrows. In the last years of Gregory it came to pass that the
+universal Church was governed from the sick-bed of one worn down, not by
+years&mdash;for he died at sixty-four&mdash;but by sufferings of body and mind. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+prisoner of the Lombards had to struggle perpetually with the spirit of
+Byzantine despotism and the aggressive arrogance of a prelate whom
+successive eastern sovereigns had nursed from a suffragan of Heraclea to be
+the claimant of an ecumenical patriarchate. Yet the eyes of Gregory were
+bent likewise on the northern conquerors who had seized the provinces of
+the West. Before he was Pope he had observed in the slave-market of Rome
+the fair-haired Angles whom he would fain make angels; when Pope he sent
+forth from his father's house, which he had given to the great Father
+Benedict, those who were to carry the banner of that father into the isle
+lost to Christ. In that island he appointed the primate of Canterbury, and
+designed the primate of York. Through St. Leander and St. Isidore, and the
+martyr St. Hermenegild, he recovered Spain from the Arian blight; through
+the queen Theodelinda he made some impression upon Lombard cruelty and
+misbelief; through the Frankish monarchy he won back France from
+dissolution and heresy. As he saw the palaces around him deserted, and the
+broken aqueducts mourn over their intercepted streams in a wasted Campagna,
+and the glory of Trajan's forum become paler day by day, he thought that
+the end of the world was coming&mdash;and so thinking and so saying, he founded
+Christendom. In Rome itself, the almsgivers whom he had organised traversed
+the streets daily, carrying food to the hungry, medicine and medical aid to
+the sick. Every month he allotted portions of corn, wine, oil, cheese,
+fish, vegetables. The Church seemed to be the general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> provider. Every day
+he fed at his table twelve poor pilgrims, and served them himself. The nuns
+who took refuge in Rome, from the destruction of their monasteries by the
+Lombards, amounted to three thousand, whom Gregory supported, especially
+during the severe winter of 597. He wrote to the sister of the emperor
+Mauritius: "To their prayers and tears and fasts Rome owes its delivery
+from the sword of the Lombards".<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> Other cities also he saved, and so he
+distributed the vast patrimony of the Roman Church in Southern Italy,
+Sicily, Africa, France, Illyricum, with such wisdom and so beneficent a
+mercy, that historians trace to him the beginning of that temporal
+sovereignty which two hundred years after him the Popes were to take in
+change for the cruel abandonment, paired with incessant exaction, of
+Byzantine despotism; and the most loyal of subjects were called to be the
+most beneficent of sovereigns; and the people who had found them fathers
+from age to age rejoiced to see the fathership united with kingship.</p>
+
+<p>What had happened to the Italy recovered by the arms of Belisarius and
+Narses, to the unity of the Roman empire, which caused the calamitous state
+described by Gregory?</p>
+
+<p>Both Belisarius and Narses had enrolled a multifarious host of adventurers
+under the banner which professed to deliver Rome and Italy from the Gothic
+occupation. Narses especially had awakened the greed of the Lombards by the
+sight of Italy's fair lands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> Scarcely had he ceased to govern Rome, in
+567, when the effect of this became visible. What Alaric, what Odoacer,
+what Theodorick, had done, Alboin did with yet more terrible results; and
+the fourth captivity which Nova Roma had prepared for her mother, become in
+her mind a hated rival, was the hardest, the longest, the most destructive
+of all. It is doubtful whether the retort of the eunuch Narses to the
+empress Sophia, when she recalled him from his government to ply, as she
+said, the spindle, that he would spin for her such a thread as in her life
+she would not disentangle, is authentic, but it undoubtedly presents
+historic truth. Whether or not Narses called the Lombards into Italy, their
+king Alboin came from Pannonia over the Carnian Alps into the plain which
+has ever since borne their name; and this was in the next year&mdash;568&mdash;to the
+recal of Narses. The Goth and the Herules had worked much woe and wrought
+great destruction; but the Goths compared to the Lombards were as knights
+compared to villains. The Lombards, inferior to them by far in strength
+both of body and of mind, this rudest of Teuton races seemed incapable of
+receiving culture. It had, moreover, fewer elements in it capable of being
+worked into the stable order of a state. In belief it was partly Arian and
+partly pagan. It had also a mixture of Sarmatian blood. When they broke
+into Italy, the cities of that land, however wasted and depopulated through
+Attila and the Gothic wars, yet retained their Roman form, yet were full of
+ancient monuments, splendid still in desolation. Now, one after another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+fell under the sword of those barbarians. Milan surrendered to Alboin in
+the autumn of 569, and after three years' siege he entered as conqueror
+into Theodorick's palace in Pavia. Only Rome, Ravenna, and the cities of
+the coast still carried the imperial flag. The Romans themselves regarded
+as a marvel the maintenance of their scarcely defended city. Alboin aimed
+at making the palace of the Cæsars his royal residence. His warriors
+advanced with terrible devastation from Spoleto to the very walls of Rome
+in the time of Pope John III., who died, after nearly thirteen years'
+government, the 13th July, 573.</p>
+
+<p>Rome was then so severely pressed that the See of Peter remained more than
+a year unfilled; for the Lombards were encamped before Rome, and hindered
+communication with Byzantium, whence Benedict I., the newly-elected Pope,
+had to wait for the imperial confirmation. The <i>Book of the Popes</i> recites
+that during his four years' government the Lombards overran all Italy, and
+that pestilence and hunger consumed her people. Rome, also, was visited by
+both. The emperor Tiberius tried to succour it by sending corn from Egypt
+to the harbour Porto.</p>
+
+<p>Alboin had been murdered, and Kleph had succeeded him, on whose death, in
+575, the Lombards fell into anarchy, and were divided into thirty-six
+dukes, and Faroald, the first duke of Spoleto, held Rome besieged when
+Benedict I. died, in 578; and so his successor, Pelagius II., a Roman of
+Gothic descent, was consecrated without the emperor's confirmation. The
+be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>leaguered Pope sent a cry of distress by an embassy to the eastern
+emperor, together with a gift of 3000 pounds' weight of gold from the
+impoverished city. But the emperor, engaged in a Persian war, could only
+send insufficient troops to Ravenna, more precious to him than Rome,
+declined the Roman gold, and advised to corrupt with it the Lombard
+commanders. Zoto, the Lombard duke of Beneventum, returning from Rome,
+which had ransomed itself, destroyed St. Benedict's monastery of Monte
+Cassino, in 580. The monks escaped to Rome, carrying with them the Saint's
+autograph of his Rule. Pope Pelagius II. received them in the Lateran
+basilica. There they founded the first Benedictine monastery in Rome. They
+named it after St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, and so
+Constantine's basilica, or the Church of the Saviour, became in after-times
+St. John Lateran. Monte Cassino lay in ruins 140 years, during which time
+the great Order had its chief seat in Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Thus did Rome and Italy learn what they had gained by reunion with the
+eastern empire under Justinian. The pitiless financial exaction of that
+empire was exerted wherever it had power. War and pestilence ravaged town
+and country. It cost the Church a labour of 200 years to turn the Lombards
+from Arians and savages into Catholics who should one day be capable of
+resisting a Barbarossa and generating a Dante.</p>
+
+<p>What, during these 200 years, an imperial exarch at Ravenna was like
+Gregory tells us in a letter to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> friend Sebastian, bishop of Sirmium:
+"Words cannot express what I suffer from your friend, the lord Romanus. I
+may say that his malice against us is worse than the swords of the
+Lombards. The enemies who slay us seem to us kinder than the magistrates of
+the commonwealth, who wear our hearts out with their malignity, their
+plundering, and their deceit. At one and the same time to superintend
+bishops and clergy, monasteries also and the people, carefully to watch
+against insidious attacks of our enemies, and be perpetually on guard
+against the treachery and ill-treatment of our rulers, you, my brother, can
+the better judge what labour and sorrow is here in proportion to the purity
+of your affection for me who suffer it."<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a></p>
+
+<p>This glimpse will be enough of the generation which preceded the accession
+of St. Gregory to the Chair of Peter. The whole fifty years of his life up
+to that time were for his country like the prophet's scroll, inscribed with
+lamentation and mourning and woe. And in his words to the bishop of Sirmium
+he gives a faithful picture of the position which his successors held until
+the time when at length they invoked the king of the Franks to come to the
+succour of St. Peter.</p>
+
+<p>The calamities which fell upon Italy, and especially upon Rome, in the five
+captures of the Gothic war, in the subsequent descent of the Lombards, in
+the subjection of the old capital to a distant and despotic lord, were so
+great that eye-witnesses declare no language could express them. That they
+were to the Popes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> themselves unspeakably distressing, that the Popes did
+all in their power to avert them, the letters of the Popes remain to
+testify. I must now dwell for a time on the singular result which they had
+upon the Roman Primacy. When temporal calamities less than these fell upon
+the cities of Alexandria and Antioch, the seats of the other two original
+Petrine patriarchates, the authority of their prelates sunk almost to
+nothing. Before these calamities they had yielded up a large portion of
+their dignity and autonomy to the overreaching see of the eastern capital,
+the rank of which, above that of a simple bishopric, rested on nothing but
+the emperor's will to concentrate spiritual power in his own hands, by
+making its seat for the whole eastern empire the city of the Bosporus. But
+when Rome was ruined in the Gothic war nothing of the kind took place. St.
+Gregory inherited his place as successor of St. Peter without the least
+impairment of the authority which his see had held from the beginning. One
+wound, indeed, had been inflicted upon it by the Herule Odoacer, when in
+occupation of the sovereign power which he held over Italy, in name, by
+delegation of the emperor Zeno, in fact, as head of the foreign
+mercenaries, he had claimed a right to confirm the election of the Pope
+when chosen. Theodorick and Theodatus had continued to exert that
+right&mdash;and from the Goths Justinian had taken it&mdash;and Gregory himself, as
+we have seen, had applied to the imperial power at Constantinople to
+frustrate his own election by clergy and people. But the Pope, when once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+recognised, entered upon his full and undiminished authority. All that St.
+Leo had been St. Gregory was, though Rome had been almost destroyed, and
+was in the temporal rule subject to the emperor's officer, the exarch at
+Ravenna. I do not know any fact of history which brings out more distinctly
+the character of the Pope as inheriting the charge over the whole Church
+committed by our Lord to St. Peter. That was not a charge depending on the
+city in which it might be exercised. It was a charge committed to the chief
+of the Apostles. As our Lord promised to be with the apostolic body to the
+consummation of the world, as all their spiritual powers depended on His
+being with them, so, above all, most of all, the spiritual power of their
+head. Rome might be absolutely destitute of inhabitants after Totila's
+victory, but the Pope was not touched. Rome might cease to be capital even
+of a province, but the Pope was not touched. And it was a series of the
+most terrible disasters which revealed this prerogative of the Pope as head
+of the Christian hierarchy. The Pope might be a captive at Constantinople,
+scorned, deceived, torn away even from the refuge of the altar, surrounded
+with spies, betrayed by subservient bishops and patriarchs, and, worst of
+all, be labouring under the stigma of an election originally enforced by
+arbitrary violence; a despotic emperor might do his worst, but the Pope's
+successors carried on his prerogatives unimpaired. The walls of Aurelian
+preserved Rome from the Lombard, but the Pontiff who kept guard over them
+was not contained in them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> His rule was intangible by material attack as
+it was beyond the reach of material despotism. Italy might be ruined, and a
+new Rome made out of its ruins, but the Pope would be the maker of it. And
+the most terrible calamity was chosen to reveal this singular prerogative.
+The death of <i>Senatus populusque Romanus</i> discovered even to the outside
+world the life which proceeded from St. Peter's body, as each archbishop
+received from St. Peter's successor the pallium which had been laid upon
+it. Thus was conveyed to the mind by the senses that participation of the
+Primacy, in which consisted all the authority which he exercised over other
+bishops. The violence of the Teuton, the misbelief of the Arian, the
+despotism of the Byzantine, were unconsciously co-operating to this result.</p>
+
+<p>For it must be added that the Rome which survived after the conquest by
+Justinian only lived by the Primacy of which it was the seat. Two
+historians<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> of the city, writing from quite opposite points of view,
+one a Catholic Christian, the other a rationalistic unbeliever, unite in
+witnessing that from the time of Narses the spiritual power of the Primacy
+was the spring of all action. Not only such new buildings as arose were
+churches and the work of the Popes; St. Gregory also fed the city from the
+patrimonium of the church which he administered. Rome had been made by her
+empire, which the political wisdom and valour of her citizens had formed
+through so many centuries. When at length the wandering of the nations had
+broken up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> that empire, and the northern soldiers whom the emperors,
+specially from Constantine onwards, had enrolled in her armies and taken
+for their ministers and generals, followed the example of Alaric and
+Ataulph, and assumed the rule for themselves, the situation of Rome offered
+it no protection. The emperor who, at the beginning of the fifth century,
+took refuge from Alaric in Ravenna was followed a century later by the
+Gothic king, whose body, still reposing in his splendid tomb at Ravenna,
+was a memorial that this fortress had been the centre of his power.
+Theodorick was succeeded by the exarch, the permanent representative of an
+absent lord. We are following the fortunes of Rome in the 300 years from
+Genseric to Astolphus. In the second and third of these three centuries
+Rome would have ceased to exist, but for the imperishable life which did
+not come from her but was stored up in her. That life was the <i>form</i> of her
+new body; otherwise it would have been a carcase lying prostrate in the
+dust of mouldering theatres and desolated baths. Their patriarchs saved
+neither Antioch nor Alexandria; but the Papacy not only saved Rome, but
+created her anew.</p>
+
+<p>Out of such a Rome St. Gregory poured forth his sorrows to the empress
+Constantine, wife of Mauritius: "It is now seven-and-twenty years since we
+have been living in this city among the swords of the Lombards".<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> He
+was writing in the year 595, and he reckons from the descent of Alboin in
+568. "What the sums called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> for from the Church in these years day by day
+to live at all have been I cannot express. I may say in a word that as your
+Majesties have, with the first army of Italy at Ravenna, a chancellor of
+the exchequer who supplies daily wants, so in this city for the like
+purpose I am such a person. And yet this same church which at one and the
+same time is at such endless expense for the clergy, the monasteries, the
+poor, the people, and moreover for the Lombards, is pressed also by the
+affliction of all the churches, which groan over the pride of this one man,
+yet do not venture to utter a word."</p>
+
+<p>And Gregory, referring just before to the pride of this one man, who had
+the audacity to put in a letter to the Pope himself, a superscription in
+which, according to the Pope's judgment, he claimed to be sole bishop in
+the Church, used words which will serve to indicate what Gregory conceived
+his own authority to be, as well as the source on which it rested: "I
+beseech you, by Almighty God, not to permit your Majesty's time to be
+polluted by one man's arrogance. Do not in any way give your consent to so
+perverse an appellation. By no means let your Majesty in such a cause
+despise me the individual, for the sins of Gregory are indeed so great as
+to deserve such treatment, but there are no sins of the Apostle Peter that
+he should deserve in your time such treatment. Wherefore, I again and again
+entreat you, by Almighty God, that as former princes, your progenitors,
+have sought the favour of the holy Apostle Peter, so you also would seek
+it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> and preserve it for yourselves. Nor let his honour be in your mind the
+least diminished by our sins, his unworthy servant: that he may be now your
+helper in all things, and hereafter be able to pardon your sins."</p>
+
+<p>I quote the following passage from a letter<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> to the emperor Mauritius
+himself, not only because Gregory alleges as the root of his own authority
+the three great words spoken by our Lord to Peter, but for the description
+of the times in which he lived, and the vast importance of union between
+the two great powers. This, he says, if faithfully maintained on both
+sides, would have protected them from such calamities.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Majesty, who is appointed by God, watches, among the other cares of
+your empire, with the uprightness of a spiritual zeal over the preservation
+of sacerdotal charity. For, with piety as well as truth, you think that no
+one can rule well the things of this world unless he knows how to treat
+divine things, and that the peace of the human commonwealth depends on the
+peace of the universal Church. For, most gracious emperor, what power of
+man, what masterful arm of flesh, would presume to lay unholy hands upon
+the dignity of your most Christian empire, if the bishops were with one
+accord of mind to beseech their Redeemer for you by their words, and, if
+need be, by their deservings? Is there any nation so ferocious as to use
+its sword so cruelly for the destruction of the faithful, unless our life,
+who are called but are not bishops, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> upon it the stain of the worst
+actions? While, deserting what belongs to us, and aiming at what is beyond
+us, we add our own sins to the brute strength of barbarians. Our guilt
+sharpens the swords of our enemies, and weighs down the strength of the
+State. What excuse can we make who press down the people of God, over which
+we unworthily preside, with the burden of our sins? Who preach with our
+tongues and kill by our examples? Whose works teach iniquity, while their
+words make a show of justice? We wear down the body with fasts, while the
+mind swells with arrogance. This puts on poor apparel; that has more than
+imperial pride. We lie in ashes, and despise dignities. We teach the
+humble, and lead the proud, and hide the wolf's teeth in the sheep's face.
+What result has all this but that, while we impose on men, we are made
+known to God? Thus it is with the greatest wisdom that your Majesty seeks
+the peace of the Church as the means of stilling the tumults of war, and
+would make the hearts of bishops rest once more in its solid structure.
+That is my wish: in that to the utmost of my power I obey you.</p>
+
+<p>"But since it is not my cause but God's, and since not I only but the whole
+Church is thrown into confusion; since sacred laws, since venerable
+councils, since the very commands even of our Lord Jesus Christ are
+disturbed by the invention of this haughty and pompous language, let the
+most pious emperor lance the wound and overcome the sick man's resistance
+by the force of the imperial authority. If you bind up that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> wound, you
+raise up the State; and by cutting off such abuses, contribute to the
+length of your reign.</p>
+
+<p>"For to all who know the Gospel it is notorious that the charge of the
+whole Church was entrusted by the voice of the Lord to the holy Apostle
+Peter, chief of all the Apostles." And he then cites, as so many of his
+predecessors cited, the three great words. He concludes: "Peter received
+the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing, the
+charge of the whole Church, the Principate over it; yet he is not called
+the universal Apostle, and John, my colleague as bishop, endeavours to be
+called universal bishop.</p>
+
+<p>"All things in Europe are delivered over to the power of barbarians. Our
+cities are destroyed, our fortresses overthrown, our provinces depopulated.
+The ground remains untilled. Day by day idolaters exercise their rage upon
+the faithful, who are cruelly slaughtered; and bishops who should lie in
+dust and ashes seek for themselves vanitous names: glory in new and profane
+titles.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I in this defending a cause proper to myself? Am I resisting my own
+special injury? Nay, it is the cause of Almighty God: the cause of the
+universal Church. Who is he who, in spite of the commands of the Gospel, in
+spite of the decrees of councils, presumes to usurp a new title for
+himself? I would that he who has agreed to be called universal may be
+himself one, without the diminution of others.</p>
+
+<p>"And we know, indeed, that many bishops of Constantinople have fallen into
+the gulf of heresy; have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> become not heretics only but heresiarchs. Thence
+came Nestorius, who, deeming Jesus Christ, the Mediator of God and man, to
+be two persons, because he did not believe that God could become man, went
+even to the extent of Jewish unbelief. Thence came Macedonius, who denied
+the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, consubstantial with the Father and the Son.
+If, then, anyone seizes upon that name for himself, as in the judgment of
+all good men he has done, the whole Church&mdash;which God forbid&mdash;falls from
+its state when he who is called universal falls. But far from the hearts of
+Christians be that blasphemous name in which the honour due to all bishops
+is taken away, while one madly arrogates it to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that in honour of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, that title was
+offered to the Roman Pontiff during the venerable Council of Chalcedon. But
+no one of them ever consented to use this name of singularity; lest while
+something peculiar was given to one, all bishops should be deprived of the
+honour due to them. Do we, then, not seek the glory of this name, even when
+offered to us, and does another catch at it for himself, when it is not
+offered?</p>
+
+<p>"Your Majesty, then, must bend that neck which refuses obedience to the
+canons. He must be restrained, who does an injury to the whole Church; who
+is proud in heart; who has a greed after a name given to none other; who by
+such a singular name throws a slur upon your empire also in putting himself
+over it.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all scandalised at this: let the author of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> the scandal return to
+right, and all contest between bishops will cease. For I am the servant of
+all bishops so long as they live like bishops. But whoever, through
+vainglory and contrary to the statutes of the Fathers, lifts his neck
+against Almighty God, I trust in Almighty God that he will not bend me even
+with the sword."</p>
+
+<p>As Gregory quotes the three words said to Peter, with application of them
+to his own see, it seems needless to repeat other passages in which he says
+the same thing. But there is a letter to Eulogius,<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> patriarch of
+Alexandria, which begins by saying that this patriarch had written to him
+much concerning the See of Peter, and that he sat in it in his successors
+down to Gregory's own time. Whereupon Gregory, before himself citing the
+three words, says: "Who does not know that holy Church is founded on the
+solidity of the chief Apostle, whose name expressed his firmness, being
+called Peter from Petra". Then he calls the attention of Eulogius to the
+fact that all the three patriarchal sees were sees of Peter, with this
+remarkable inference, that "though there were many Apostles, only the see
+of the prince of the Apostles, which is the see of one in three places,
+received supreme authority <i>in virtue of its very principate</i>".<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a></p>
+
+<p>Let us attempt to gather the meaning of the various statements quoted from
+St. Gregory, and see whether they do not form a coherent whole.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He claims, like all his predecessors, the three great texts concerning
+Peter, as conveying the charge of the whole Church, the Principate, to
+Peter and his heirs, that is, the Popes preceding him.</p>
+
+<p>He contrasts in the most pointed manner this charge with the name of
+Ecumenical, which he translates universal, patriarch, as assumed by the
+bishop of Constantinople, and he contrasts not the name only, but the thing
+which he conceives to be meant by the name and carried in it.</p>
+
+<p>He contrasts likewise the moderation of his predecessors, who, though
+inheriting Peter's charge over the whole Church, declined to accept a name
+which seemed to exclude other bishops from their proper honour.</p>
+
+<p>Peter's charge over the whole Church, then, in the judgment of Gregory, had
+descended to himself, as he wrote to the empress, "though the sins of
+Gregory, who is Peter's unworthy servant, are great, the sins of the
+Apostle are none," to justify the treatment he has met with in this
+assumption by another of the title Ecumenical. In a word, the <i>charge</i> is a
+command of the Gospel, the <i>assumption</i> is "a name of blasphemy and
+diabolical pride, and a forerunner of Antichrist".</p>
+
+<p>I conceive that we may interpret St. Gregory's mind in this way. When he so
+wrote he had behind him rather more than five full centuries since St.
+Peter and St. Paul had given up their lives in Rome for the Christian
+faith, and become its patron saints. In all that time Gregory had seen the
+hierarchy founded by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> the bearer of the keys fill the earth. Peter, as a
+token of his Principate, had put his name in the three chief sees, sitting
+himself as bishop in Antioch for seven years; sitting also himself in Rome,
+as bishop, and dying there; sending also his disciple Mark from Rome to
+Alexandria. Our Lord's gift and charge to Peter was the source of unity in
+His Church. He Himself being mediator between God and man united His Church
+with the Divine Trinity in unity. Then He gave the keys of His kingdom to
+Peter, in whom unity was secured through the three patriarchs and the other
+bishops. Such was the constitution which stood without a break before St.
+Gregory from the Apostles to the Nicene Council. From St. Sylvester to his
+own time the Popes had been maintaining that constitution. But now the
+claim of the bishops of Constantinople was directly against this
+constitution. Pope Gelasius, his predecessor, had told that bishop in his
+day that he had no rank above that of a simple bishop.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> For all their
+adventitious rank they rested, not upon God, not upon Jesus Christ, not
+upon St. Peter, but upon the residence of the emperors in their city. That
+was the ground upon which they called themselves ecumenical, a title which
+Gregory interpreted universal. Their first step in moving beyond the
+position of simple bishop was when the 150 bishops at Constantinople in 381
+attempted to give them the second place in rank. And this they did not upon
+any ground of apostolic descent, but because Constantinople<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> was Nova Roma.
+As to their act in doing this Gregory writes to Eulogius: "The Roman Church
+up to this time does not possess, nor has received, the canons or the acts
+of that council; it has received that council so far as it condemned
+Macedonius".<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> Their next step was at the Council of Chalcedon to
+attempt passing a canon, to the effect that the Fathers had given its rank
+to Rome because it was the capital, that the 150 Fathers had therefore
+given the second rank to Constantinople, because it was the <i>new</i> capital;
+and that, therefore, the Pontic, the Arian, and the Thracian exarchs of
+Cæsarea, Ephesus, and Heraclea should be subjected to it. This canon St.
+Leo had absolutely rejected, and the emperor Marcian had accepted his
+rejection. In the 130 years from St. Leo to himself, St. Gregory had seen
+the assumptions of the bishops of Constantinople continually increasing.
+They rested upon the imperial favour. And now in the case of John the
+Faster they had gone so far that he prefixed his assumed title of
+ecumenical patriarch to the very documents which he sent to the Pope for
+revision. And this though the cause had been settled by himself, and had
+now come before the Pope, whose power therefore to revise the sentence of
+one who called himself ecumenical patriarch he did not dispute.</p>
+
+<p>Nor, indeed, did it appear over what domain he claimed to be universal. It
+might be over the eastern bishops; it might be over the two patriarchs of
+Alexandria and Antioch, with the later patriarch of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> Jerusalem; it might be
+over the actual Roman empire; it might be, finally, over the whole Church.
+But whichever it might be, the claim would equally be, in Gregory's
+judgment, unlawful, based simply and solely upon imperial power; resting
+also in its origin upon a direct untruth, which assaulted the whole
+foundation whereon the charge of the whole Church, the Principate of
+Gregory, rested; couched, moreover, in language which would enable future
+generations of Greeks to draw the conclusion that, since the Primacy of
+Rome proceeded from its being the capital, when Rome ceased to be the
+capital, and Constantine's city became the capital, the Primacy also passed
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in the whole assumption of the bishops of Constantinople, it was
+presupposed that the spiritual power and the hierarchy of the Church
+descended not from Jesus Christ, but from the emperors.<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> So it is clear
+that this empty title, which seemed to the emperor Mauritius a meaningless
+word, a mere nothing, contained in itself the whole system of Antichrist.
+The Pope saw it, and his words are the more significant when we remember
+that at the time he uttered them the man had already reached full manhood
+who was to cut the empire of Justinian in half, to deprive of their liberty
+three of the eastern patriarchs, destroy a multitude of the Christian
+people, and be parent of the religion which through the course of 1200
+years has shown itself to be specially anti-Christian. There in his Arab
+tent, as yet the faithful husband of an old wife,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> was the future Khalif,
+in whom the spiritual and the temporal power would be joined together; who
+would set up in a false theocracy that usurpation which Constantine's
+eastern successors were striving to carry out in the Christian Church.
+Mahommed would consecrate that very false principle which was at the root
+of the ecumenical patriarch's arrogance. Thus the strongest word used by
+Gregory of John the Faster's assumption, that it was "a name of blasphemy,
+of diabolical pride, and a forerunner of Antichrist," received its exact
+verification within a generation after Gregory had spoken it.</p>
+
+<p>But Gregory's charge and Principate were of divine creation, and did not
+exclude the proper power and jurisdiction either of every bishop or of the
+whole episcopate, at the head of which it stood, and through which it
+worked, carefully maintaining what had been from the beginning, preserving
+the rank and place of each, consolidating all in the one structure.<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a>
+The intruder set up by the imperial power deposed Alexandria and Antioch to
+make them subject to himself; the lawful shepherd maintained Alexandria and
+Antioch because they grew upon the tree of which he was the trunk. His
+charge did not exclude, but did indeed include them. The reasoning of St.
+Gregory in his letter to the emperor of the day, and his very words in his
+letter to the patriarch Eulogius, have become a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> matter of faith by their
+enrolment in the decree of the Vatican Council. That decree defines the
+Principate to be an episcopal power of jurisdiction, which is immediate,
+over the whole Church. By it the whole Church becomes one flock, under one
+shepherd. And it further defines that, "It is so far from being true that
+this power of the Supreme Pontiff is injurious to the ordinary and
+immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by which bishops placed by the
+Holy Spirit have succeeded the Apostles, and as true pastors feed and rule
+the flocks severally assigned to them, each his own, that this jurisdiction
+is asserted, strengthened, and maintained by the supreme and universal
+pastor, according to St. Gregory's words: 'My honour is the honour of the
+universal Church; my honour is the solid strength of my brethren; then am I
+truly honoured when his due rank is given to each'."<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a></p>
+
+<p>It may be observed that Gregory's position against the assumption of John
+the Faster is the same as St. Leo's position against Anatolius. In both
+cases the Popes discerned the hostile power located in the see of Nova Roma
+which was at work against the original order of the Church, and the Pope
+who was at the head of it. The only difference lies in the great advance
+which the hostile power had made on one hand, and on the other hand the
+excessively difficult temporal position in which St. Gregory had to fight
+the battle for the cause, as he said, of the universal Church. Yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> the
+speech of the Pope beleaguered by the Lombards in a decimated and subject
+Rome is as strong as the speech of the Pope who had the imperial
+grandchildren of Theodosius for friends and supporters, and, when they
+failed, saved Rome by her two Apostles from the destruction menaced by
+Attila and Genseric.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no one in the eastern Church&mdash;neither the emperor Mauritius,
+nor the patriarch John the Faster, nor the patriarch Eulogius&mdash;who failed
+to acknowledge the Pope's charge over the whole Church, grounded on the
+three texts to Peter. Gregory himself reprehends the patriarch Eulogius for
+giving him in the superscription of his letter the title "universal Pope".
+He chose for himself, in opposition to the bishop John's arrogated title of
+ecumenical patriarch, that of "servant of the servants of God". The title
+chosen indicated the temper in which St. Gregory exercised the vast charge
+which he had inherited. For if there is any one principle which seems to
+serve as the favourite maxim of his whole pontificate, it is that expressed
+in a letter to the bishop of Syracuse. That bishop had been speaking of an
+African primate who had professed that he was subject to the Apostolic See.
+St. Gregory's comment is: "If a bishop is in any fault, I know not any
+bishop who is not subject to it. But when no fault requires it, all are
+equal according to the estimation of humility."<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> Natalis, archbishop of
+Salona, in Dalmatia, had given the Pope much trouble. The Pope deals with
+him tenderly in more than one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> letter. But he says: "After the letters of
+my predecessor (Pelagius) and my own, in the matter of Honoratus the
+archdeacon, were sent to your Holiness, in despite of the sentence of us
+both, the above-mentioned Honoratus was deprived of his rank. Had either of
+the four patriarchs done this, so great an act of contumacy could not have
+been passed over without the most grievous scandal. However, as your
+brotherhood has since returned to your duty, I take notice neither of the
+injury done to me, nor of that to my predecessor."<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of the immense energy shown by St. Gregory in the exercise of his
+Principate, of the immense influence wielded by him both in the East and in
+the West, of the acknowledgment of his Principate by the answers which
+emperor and patriarch made to his demands and rebukes, we possess an
+imperishable record in the fourteen books of his letters which have been
+preserved to us. They are somewhat more than 850 in number. They range over
+every subject, and are addressed to every sort of person. If he rebukes the
+ambition of a patriarch, and complains of an emperor's unjust law, he cares
+also that the tenants on the vast estates of the Church which his officers
+superintend at a distance should not be in any way harshly treated. He
+writes to his <i>defensor</i> in Sicily: "I am informed that if anyone has a
+charge against any clerks, you throw a slight upon the bishops by causing
+these clerks to appear in your own court. If this be so, we expressly order
+you to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> presume to do so no more, because beyond doubt it is very unseemly.
+If anyone charges a clerk, let him go to his bishop, for the bishop himself
+to hear the case, or depute judges. If it come to arbitration, let the
+so-deputed judges cause the parties to select a judge. If a clerk or a
+layman have anything against a bishop, you should act between them either
+by hearing the cause yourself, or by inducing the parties to choose judges.
+For if his own jurisdiction is not preserved to each bishop, what else
+results but that the order of the Church is thrown into confusion by us,
+the very persons who are charged with its maintenance.</p>
+
+<p>"We have also been informed that certain clerks, put into penance for
+faults they had committed by our most reverend brother the bishop John,
+have been dismissed by your authority without his knowledge. If this is
+true, know that you have committed an altogether improper act, worthy of
+great censure. Restore, therefore, at once those clerks to their own
+bishop, nor ever do this again, or you will incur from us severe
+punishment."<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></p>
+
+<p>I have quoted already his letters on eastern affairs. They might be
+enlarged upon to any extent. As to those who held the highest rank, he has
+warm sympathy with a deposed patriarch of Antioch, sending him a copy of
+the letter which announced his accession, as well as to the sitting
+patriarchs. After twenty years' deposition Anastasius was restored. He has
+also close friendship with Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> whom he
+writes gracefully: "Besides our mutual affection, there is a peculiar bond
+uniting us to the Alexandrian Church. All know that the Evangelist Mark was
+sent by his master Peter; thus we are clasped together by the unity of the
+master and the disciple. I seem to sit in the disciple's see for the
+master's sake, and you in the master's see for the sake of the disciple. To
+this we must add your personal merits; for we know how you follow the
+institutions of him from whom you spring. Thus we are touched with
+compassion for what you suffer; but we shrink from telling you what we
+endure ourselves by the daily plundering, killing, and maiming of our
+people by the Lombards."<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a></p>
+
+<p>Let us here take a short view of Gregory's incessant activity among the
+western nations in process of formation. In his struggle to tame the
+ferocity, lawlessness, and unbelief of the Lombards, he betakes himself to
+the illustrious Catholic queen Theodelinda. He strives to use her influence
+with her husband Agilulf, on behalf of Rome, ever the object of oppression.
+Knowing her to be a good Christian, he sent her his <i>Dialogues</i>. He also
+set before her the supremacy of his see, because she had been misled into
+withdrawing from the communion of the new archbishop of Milan, Constantius.
+The Pope assures her that the archbishop, as well as himself, venerates the
+doctrinal decisions of the Four Councils. He adds: "Since, then, by my own
+public profession you know the entireness of our belief, it is fitting that
+you have no further scruple concerning the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> Church of St. Peter, prince of
+the Apostles. But persist in the true faith, and ground your life on the
+rock of the Church, that is, in his confession: lest your many tears and
+your good works avail nothing, if they be separated from the true faith.
+For as branches wither without a root, so works, however good they seem,
+are nothing if separated from the solidity of the faith."<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p>
+
+<p>Ten of his letters are addressed to Brunechild, the terrible queen of the
+Franks. But his letter to all the Gallic bishops in the kingdom of
+Childebert will best set forth his authority. That king then reigned over
+nearly all France. The Pope began by saying that the universe itself was
+ruled by graduated orders of spirits. If there was such distinction of
+ranks even in the sinless, what man should hesitate to obey a disposition
+to which angels are subject? "Since, then, each individual office is
+happily fulfilled when there is a superior to whom application can be made,
+we have thought it good, following ancient custom, to make our brother
+Virgilius, bishop of Arles, our representative in the churches which are in
+the kingdom of our most illustrious son king Childebert. We do this in
+order that the integrity of the Catholic faith, that is, of the Four holy
+Councils, may by God's protection be carefully preserved; and that, if any
+contention should arise between our brethren and fellow-bishops, he may, by
+virtue of his authority, as holding the place of the Apostolic See, reduce
+it by discreet moderation. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> have also enjoined him, that if any contest
+should arise requiring the presence of others, he should collect a
+sufficient number of our brethren and fellow-bishops, discuss the matter
+equitably, and determine it in conformity with the canons. But if, which
+the divine power avert, contest should arise on a matter of faith, or some
+business emerge about which there is great hesitation, and which for its
+magnitude requires the judgment of the Apostolic See, after diligent
+examination of the facts, he is to make report to us, that we may terminate
+all doubt thereon by a fitting sentence."<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></p>
+
+<p>In this letter we are at a hundred years after the conversion of Clovis.
+The Catholic kingdom has swallowed up its Arian competitors whether at
+Toulouse or at Lyons, and over it stands the protecting vigour of Gregory,
+as a hundred and fifty years before that of Leo strove to support the
+falling empire. Arles receives the pallium for the Frankish kingdom, as it
+held it for the Theodocian empire, from Rome. Leo saw the imperial line
+expire at Rome; from Rome Gregory places the bishops "of his most
+illustrious son Childebert" under the old primacy of Arles. This is the
+"solidity" of the rock of Peter in which Gregory recommends the queens
+Theodelinda and Brunechild to place themselves.</p>
+
+<p>We know how Gregory, while yet a Roman deacon and monk, walking one day
+from the palace which he had made a monastery, scarcely more than a
+stone's-throw to the forum in which a slave-market was held,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> was moved to
+pity at the sight of the fair-haired Angles; how he was minded to leave
+Rome himself on a mission to convert them; how he was kept back by the
+affection of the Romans; how Pope Pelagius suddenly died of the plague, and
+Gregory, in spite of all his efforts, was made to succeed him; how from the
+See of Peter he sent out Augustine and his forty monks to the lost island
+in the Atlantic, where, since Stilicho withdrew the Roman armies, every
+cruelty had revelled, and every pagan abomination had been practised by the
+Saxon invaders. To many, no doubt, the subsequent success of Gregory's
+venture to convert the Anglo-Saxon England has served to disguise its
+danger and difficulty at the time. When Augustine reached the shores of
+Kent, the successive invasions of the Saxon pirates had set up eight petty
+kingdoms upon the ruin of the Roman civilisation and the Christian Church.
+The miseries which are covered under those five generations of unrecorded
+strife are supposed to have exceeded the misery endured in France, Spain,
+Italy, and the Illyrian provinces during the same time. The old inhabitants
+were reduced to slavery, or exterminated, or driven to the three corners of
+Cornwall, Wales, and Strathclyde. So bitter was the British feeling under
+the destruction of their country and the wrongs they had endured, that it
+overcame all Christian principle in them, and the Welsh refused all aid to
+the Roman missionary in the attempt to convert a race so cruel. It required
+all St. Gregory's firmness to induce his own monks to persist. In all the
+annals of Chris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>tian enterprise during eighteen centuries, there is
+probably not one which presented less hope of success than St. Gregory's
+resolution to add the spiritual beauty of the Christian to the physical
+beauty which he admired in the captives of the Roman forum.</p>
+
+<p>Among those to whom he applied to assist and further his purpose was the
+great queen of the Franks. To Brunechild he directed a letter saluting her,
+he says, with the charity of a father: "We hear that, by the help of God,
+the English people is willing to become Christian; and we recommend the
+bearer of these, the servant of God, Augustine, to your Excellency, to help
+him in all things, and to protect his work".<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a></p>
+
+<p>It was also to Virgilius, bishop of Arles, and primate of all the Gallic
+bishops, as we have seen, by Gregory's own appointment, that he sent
+Augustine, after his first success with Ethelbert, to receive episcopal
+consecration.</p>
+
+<p>From Gregory's own hand, and in virtue of his apostolic power, England in
+its second spring received its division into two provinces, one to be
+seated at Canterbury, the other at York. His letters to St. Augustine still
+exist to show how he entered into all the difficulties of the missionary,
+all the needs of a land in conversion from paganism. From him date the
+great prerogatives of the see of Canterbury, extending over the whole
+island, inasmuch as it was the matrix of the Church in England. If sons may
+deny their father, Englishmen may deny Gregory, and add to schism the guilt
+of parricide.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Gregory was hardly less active in restoring Spain from the Arian blight
+than in giving birth to a new Christian England. He writes, in 594: "We
+have heard from many who have come from Spain how lately Hermenegild, son
+of Leovigild, king of the Visigoths, has been converted from the Arian
+heresy to the Catholic faith by the preaching of Leander, bishop of
+Seville, long united to me in intimate friendship. His Arian father, by
+bribes and threats alike, tried to bring him back. Not succeeding, he
+deprived him of his rank and all his possessions. When this also failed, he
+put him in close imprisonment, fettering both neck and hands. So
+Hermenegild learnt to despise the earthly kingdom, and to yearn after the
+heavenly, while he lay in bonds and sackcloth. When Easter came, his father
+sent him in the middle of the night an Arian bishop that he might receive
+communion sacrilegiously consecrated, and so recover his favours.
+Hermenegild repulsed the bishop with strong reproaches. The father, hearing
+his report, burst into fury and sent officers to destroy him. They split
+open his skull with an axe, and so destroyed the life of the body which he
+had disregarded. Miracles followed. Psalms were heard about the body of the
+royal martyr&mdash;royal, indeed, because he was a martyr."<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a></p>
+
+<p>Writing to St. Leander, archbishop of Seville, Gregory says: "I am so
+tossed by this world's waves that I cannot steer to harbour this old
+weather-beaten bark which the secret dispensation of God has com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>mitted to
+my care. Shipwreck creaks in its worn-out planks. Dearest brother, if you
+love me, stretch out the hand of your prayers to me in this tempest. Your
+reward for helping me will be greater success in your own labours.</p>
+
+<p>"No words of mine can express the joy which I feel at hearing the perfect
+conversion of our common son, king Rechared, to the Catholic faith."<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a></p>
+
+<p>On another occasion Gregory writes to Leander, sending him the pallium,
+"blessed by Peter, prince of the Apostles," only to be used at Mass: "I see
+by your letter that burning charity which kindles others. He who is not
+himself on fire cannot inflame others. I always call to mind your life with
+great veneration. But as for me I am not what I was: 'Call me not Noemi,
+which is fair; call me Mara, for I am full of bitterness'. Following the
+way of my Head, I had resolved to be the scorn of men, the outcast of the
+people. But the burden of this honour weighs me down; innumerable cares
+pierce me like swords. There is no rest of the heart. I was tranquil in my
+monastery. The tempest arose; I am in its waves, suffering with the loss of
+quiet a shipwreck of mind. The gout oppresses you; I also am terribly
+pained by it. It will be well if, under these strokes of the scourge, we
+perceive them to be gifts, by which the sense of the flesh may atone for
+sins which delights of the flesh may have led us to commit.</p>
+
+<p>"The shortness of my letter will show how weak and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> how occupied I am, who
+say so little to one whom I love so much."<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p>
+
+<p>St. Gregory tells us that king Rechared, after the martyrdom of his brother
+St. Hermenegild, was converted from the Arian heresy, and brought the whole
+Visigothic nation to the Catholic faith. "The brother of a martyr fitly
+became a preacher of the faith. If Hermenegild had not died a martyr, this
+he would not have been able to do; for 'except the grain of wheat falling
+into the ground dieth, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth
+forth much fruit'. This we see to be doing in the members which we know to
+have been done in the Head. In the nation of the Visigoths one died that
+many might live."<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a></p>
+
+<p>A letter of St. Gregory to this king Rechared is extant, which one of the
+greatest French bishops, Hincmar of Reims, nearly three hundred years after
+it was written, thought worthy to be sent as a present to the emperor
+Charles the Bald. I quote portions of it:<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Most excellent son, words cannot tell the delight which I receive from
+your work and from your life. When I hear the power of that new miracle
+wrought in our days, that by means of your Excellency the whole nation of
+the Goths has been brought over from the error of the Arian heresy to the
+solidity of the right faith, I exclaim with the prophet, 'This is the
+change of the hand of the Most High'. Is there a heart of stone which would
+not be softened on hearing of so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> great a work into praises of Almighty God
+and affection for your Excellency? Often, when my sons meet, it is my
+pleasure to tell them of the deeds wrought by you, and to join my
+admiration with theirs. I get angry with myself that I am lazy, useless,
+and inert, while kings are labouring for the gain of the heavenly country
+by the ingathering of souls. What, then, shall I allege to the Judge at
+that tremendous tribunal, if I come before Him then with empty hands, while
+your Excellency leads a long train of the faithful whom you have drawn into
+the grace of the true faith by zealous and continuous preaching? But by
+God's gift this is my great consolation, to love in you that holy work
+which I have not in myself. When your acts move me to a great exultation, I
+make mine by charity what is yours by labour. Thus, in your work and our
+exultation over it, we may cry out with the angels over the conversion of
+the Goths, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good
+will'. But how joyfully St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, has received
+your offerings is borne witness to all men by your life.</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me that the abbots, who were carrying your offering to St. Peter,
+were driven back by a bad sea passage into Spain. Your gifts, which
+afterwards arrived, were not refused, but the courage of their bearers was
+tried. The adversity which good intentions encounter is a trial of virtue,
+not a judgment of reprobation. When St. Paul came to preach in Italy, how
+great was the blessing he brought; yet he was ship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>wrecked in coming, but
+the ship of his heart was not broken by the waves of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Also, I am told that your Excellency issued a certain decree against the
+misbelief of the Jews, which they strove by a bribe to have modified. This
+bribe you despised, and in the desire to please God preferred innocence to
+gold. This brought to my mind king David's act. He longed for a draught
+from the fountain of Bethlehem, which the enemy's host encompassed. His
+soldiers risked their lives to bring it. But he refused, saying: 'God
+forbid that I should drink the blood of these men. So he offered it to the
+Lord.'<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> If an armed king made a sacrifice to God of the water which he
+refused, think what a sacrifice to Almighty God that king presented who for
+His love refused to receive, not water, but gold. Therefore, most excellent
+son, I say confidently that the gold which you refused to receive against
+God you offered to Him. These are great deeds, the glory of which is due to
+God....</p>
+
+<p>"Government of subjects should be tempered with great moderation, lest
+power steal away the judgment. A kingdom is ruled well when the glory of
+ruling does not overmaster the spirit. Provide also against fits of anger,
+lest unlimited power be used hurriedly. Anger in punishing even delinquents
+should not anticipate judgment like a mistress, but follow reason as a
+servant, coming when she is called. If it once is in possession of the
+mind, it puts down to justice even a cruel deed. Therefore it is written:
+'The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> wrath of man worketh not the justice of God'; and again: 'Let
+everyone be swift to hear but slow to speak'. I do not doubt but that by
+God's help you practise all this. But as opportunity offers, I creep behind
+your good works, that when an adviser adds himself to what you do without
+advice, you may not be alone in your doing. May Almighty God stretch forth
+His heavenly hand to protect you in all your acts, granting you prosperity
+in the present life, and, after long years, eternal joy.</p>
+
+<p>"I enclose a small key from the most sacred body of the Apostle St. Peter,
+with his blessing. It contains an iron filing from his chains, that what
+bound his neck for martyrdom may deliver yours from all sin. I have also
+given the bearer of these a cross for you: it contains some of the wood of
+the Lord's cross, and hair of St. John Baptist; by which you may always be
+consoled by our Saviour through the intercession of His precursor. To our
+most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Leander we have sent the pallium
+from the See of the Apostle St. Peter, in accordance with ancient custom,
+with your life, with his own goodness and dignity."</p>
+
+<p>This letter of St. Gregory had been drawn forth by one from king Rechared
+to him, in which the king said he had been minded to inform of his
+conversion one who was superior to all other bishops, that he had sent a
+golden jewelled chalice which he hoped might be found worthy of the Apostle
+who was first in honour. "I beseech your Highness, when you have an
+opportunity, to find me out with your golden letters. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> how truly I love
+you is not, I think, unknown to one whose breast the Lord inspires, and
+those who behold you not in the body, yet hear your good report; I commend
+to your Holiness with the utmost veneration Leander, bishop of Seville, who
+has been the means of making known to us your good will. I am delighted to
+hear of your health, and beg of your Christian prudence that you would
+frequently commend to our common Lord in your prayers the people who, under
+God, are ruled by us, and have been added to Christ in your times, that
+true charity towards God may be strengthened by the very distance which
+divides us."<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p>
+
+<p>The fact commemorated in these letters was indeed one for which the Pope
+might well use the angelical hymn of praise. "The bishops of Spain,"<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a>
+says Gibbon, "respected themselves and were respected by the public; their
+indissoluble union confirmed their authority; and the regular discipline of
+the Church introduced peace, order, and stability into the government of
+the State. From the reign of Rechared, the first Catholic king, to that of
+Witiza, the immediate predecessor of the unfortunate Roderic, sixteen
+national councils were successively convened. The six
+metropolitans&mdash;Toledo, Seville, Merida, Braga, Tarragona, and
+Narbonne&mdash;presided according to their respective seniority; the assembly
+was composed of their suffragan bishops, who appeared in person or by their
+proxies; and a place was assigned to the most holy or opulent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> of the
+Spanish abbots. During the first three days of the convocation, as long as
+they agitated the ecclesiastical questions of doctrine and discipline, the
+profane laity was excluded from their debates, which were conducted,
+however, with decent solemnity. But on the morning of the fourth day the
+doors were thrown open for the entrance of the great officers of the
+palace, the dukes and counts of the provinces, the judges of the cities,
+and the Gothic nobles; and the decrees of heaven were ratified by the
+consent of the people. The same rules were observed in the provincial
+assemblies, the annual synods which were empowered to hear complaints and
+to redress grievances; and a legal government was supported by the
+prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy.... The national councils of
+Toledo, in which the free spirit of the barbarians was tempered and guided
+by episcopal policy, have established some prudent laws for the common
+benefit of the king and people. The vacancy of the throne was supplied by
+the choice of the bishops and palatines; and after the failure of the line
+of Alaric, the regal dignity was still limited to the pure and noble blood
+of the Goths. The clergy who anointed their lawful prince always
+recommended the duty of allegiance; and the spiritual censures were
+denounced on the heads of the impious subjects who should resist his
+authority, conspire against his life, or violate by an indecent union the
+chastity even of his widow. But the monarch himself, when he ascended the
+throne, was bound by a reciprocal oath to God and his people that he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+faithfully execute his important trust. The real or imaginary faults of his
+administration were subject to the control of a powerful aristocracy; and
+the bishops and palatines were guarded by a fundamental privilege that they
+should not be degraded, imprisoned, tortured, nor punished with death,
+exile, or confiscation, unless by the free and public judgment of their
+peers."</p>
+
+<p>We have here the historian, who is one of the bitterest enemies of the
+Christian Church and Faith, avowing that the barbarian Visigoths received
+from the hands of that Church and Faith, at the end of the sixth century,
+the great institutions of a limited Christian monarchy, consecrated by the
+Church, in which the king at his accession solemnly avowed his
+responsibility for his exercise of the immense functions entrusted to him;
+also of parliaments, in which clergy and laity sat together in common
+deliberation upon the affairs of the State, grievances were redressed, and
+laws for the benefit of king and people passed; in fact, a reign of legal
+government, based upon law and justice, and confirmed by religious
+sanction.</p>
+
+<p>And in all this the hand of the Pope was seen, sending to the chief bishop
+of Spain the pallium direct from the body of St. Peter, on which it had
+been laid, as the visible symbol of apostolic power dwelling in the
+Apostle's See, and radiating from it.</p>
+
+<p>This is the first instance, and not the least striking, of a fact which
+lies at the foundation of modern Europe; for so the Teuton war leaders
+became Christian kings, and so the northern barbarians were changed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> into
+Christian nations. For that which Gibbon here describes took place in all
+the Teuton peoples who accepted the Catholic faith. He has elsewhere said:
+"The progress of Christianity has been marked by two glorious and decisive
+victories: over the learned and luxurious citizens of the Roman empire, and
+over the warlike barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who subverted the
+empire and embraced the religion of the Romans".<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p>
+
+<p>Of this latter victory we can celebrate the accomplishment, as St. Gregory
+did, in the words of the angelic hymn, but the details have not been
+preserved for us, even in the scanty proportion which we possess concerning
+the former. Fighting for thirty years with the Lombards for the very
+existence of Rome, Gregory was the contemporary and witness of this second
+victory. Not until the Arian heresy was subdued by the Catholic faith could
+it be said to be accomplished. The pontificate of his ancestor in the third
+degree, Pope Felix III., might be called heroic, in that, while under the
+domination of the Arian Herule, Odoacer, he resisted the meddling with the
+received doctrine of the Church by the emperor Zeno, guided by the larger
+mind and treacherous fraud of Acacius, the bishop of Constantinople, who
+ruled its emperor. Then the Arian Vandals bitterly persecuted the Church in
+Africa, and the Visigoth Arians had possession of France from the Loire
+southwards, and of Spain. Nowhere in the whole world was there a Catholic
+prince. The north<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> and east of France and Belgium was held by the still
+pagan Franks. By the time of Gregory, Clovis and his sons had extinguished
+the Arian Visigoth kingdom and the Arian kingdom of Burgundy, and ruled one
+Catholic kingdom of all France. Under Rechared, the Arian Visigoth kingdom
+in Spain became Catholic. Gregory also announced to his friend, the
+patriarch Eulogius, that the pagan Saxons in England were receiving the
+Catholic faith by thousands from his missionary. The taint which the
+wickedness of the eastern emperor Valens had been so mysteriously allowed
+to communicate to the nascent faith of the Teuton tribes, through the
+noblest of their family, the Goths, was, during the century which passed
+between Pope Felix and Pope Gregory, purged away. It was decided beyond
+recal that the new nations of the West should be Catholic. Five times had
+Rome been taken and wasted: at one moment, it is said, all its inhabitants
+had deserted it and fled. The ancient city was extinct: in and out of it
+rose the Rome of the Popes, which Gregory was feeding and guarding. The
+eastern emperor, who called himself the Roman prince, in recovering her had
+destroyed her; but the life that was in her Pontiff was indestructible. The
+ecumenical patriarch was foiled by the Servant of the servants of God: in
+proportion as the eastern bishops submitted their original hierarchy, of
+apostolic institution, and the graduated autonomy which each enjoyed under
+it, to an imperial minister, termed a patriarch, in Constantinople, all the
+bishops of the West, placed as they were under distinct king<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>doms, found
+their common centre, adviser, champion, and ruler in the Chair of Peter,
+fixed in a ruined Rome. If Gregory, in his daily distress, thought that the
+end of the world was coming, all subsequent ages have felt that in him the
+world of the future was already founded. In the two centuries since the
+death of the great Theodosius, the countries which form modern Europe had
+passed through indescribable disturbance, a misery without
+end&mdash;dislodgement of the old proprietors, a settlement of new inhabitants
+and rulers. The Christian religion itself had receded for a time far within
+the limits which it had once reached, as in the north of France, in
+Germany, and in Britain. The rulers of broad western lands, with the
+conquering host which they led, had become the victims first, and then the
+propagators, of the same fatal heresy. The conquered population alone
+remained Catholic. The conversion of Clovis was the first light which arose
+in this darkness. And now, a hundred years after that conversion, Paris and
+Bordeaux, and Toulouse and Lyons, Toledo and Seville, were Catholic once
+more, and Gregory, a provincial captive in a collapsing Rome, was owned by
+all these cities as the standard and arbiter of their faith, and the king
+of the Visigoths thankfully received a few filings from the chains of the
+Apostle Peter as a present which worthily celebrated his conversion.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be observed that this absolute defeat of the Arian heresy in
+several countries is accomplished in spite of the power which, in all of
+them, was wielded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> by Arian rulers. In vain had Genseric, Hunnerich,
+Guntamund, and Thrasimund oppressed and tortured the Catholics of Africa,
+banished their bishops, and set up nominees of their own as Arian bishops
+in their places for a hundred years. No sooner did Belisarius land on their
+soil than the fabric reared with every possible deceit and cruelty fell to
+the ground. The Arian Vandal king was carried away in triumph, as the spoil
+of a single battle, to Constantinople, and the Catholic bishops, while they
+hailed Justinian as their deliverer, met in plenary council, acknowledging
+the Primacy of Peter, as in the days of St. Augustine. In vain had the
+powerful Visigoth monarchy, seated during three generations at Toulouse,
+persecuted with fraud and cruelty its Catholic people. A single blow from
+the arm of Clovis delivered from their rule the whole country from the
+Loire to the Pyrenees. In vain had Gondebald and his family in Burgundy
+wavered between the heresy which he professed and the Catholic faith which
+he admired. The children of Clovis absorbed that kingdom also. But the
+strongest example of all remains. In vain, too, had Theodorick, after the
+murder of his rival Odoacer when an invited guest in the banquet of
+Ravenna, covered over the savage, and governed with wisdom and moderation a
+Catholic people, whom he soothed by choosing their noblest&mdash;Cassiodorus,
+Symmachus, and Boethius&mdash;for his ministers. He had formed into a family
+compact by marriages the Arian rulers in Africa, Spain, and Gaul. His
+moderation gave way when he saw the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> eastern emperor resume the policy of a
+Catholic sovereign. He put on the savage again, and he ended with the
+murder not only of his own long-trusted ministers, but of the Pope, who
+refused to be his instrument in procuring immunity for heresy from a
+Catholic emperor.</p>
+
+<p>At his death, overclouded with the pangs of remorse, the Arian rule which
+he had fostered with so much skill showed itself to have no hold upon an
+Italy to which he had given a great temporal prosperity. The Goths, whom he
+had seemed to tame, were found incapable of self-government, and every
+Roman heart welcomed Belisarius and Narses as the restorers of a power
+which had not ceased to claim their allegiance, even through the turpitudes
+and betrayals of Zeno and Anastasius.</p>
+
+<p>The best solution which I know for this wonderful result, brought about in
+so many countries, is contained in a few words of Gibbon: "Under the Roman
+empire the wealth and jurisdiction of the bishops, their sacred character
+and perpetual office, their numerous dependents, popular eloquence and
+provincial assemblies, had rendered them always respectable and sometimes
+dangerous. Their influence was augmented by the progress of superstition"
+(by which he means the Catholic faith), "and the establishment of the
+French monarchy may in some degree be ascribed to the firm alliance of a
+hundred prelates who reigned in the discontented or independent cities of
+Gaul."<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> But how were these prelates bound together in a firm alliance?
+Because each one of them felt what a chief among them, St.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> Avitus, under
+an Arian prince, expressed to the Roman senate in the matter of Pope
+Symmachus by the direction of his brother bishops, that in the person of
+the Bishop of Rome the principate of the whole Church was touched; that "in
+the case of other bishops, if there be any lapse, it may be restored; but
+if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not one bishop but the episcopate itself
+will seem to be shaken".<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> If the bishops had been all that is above
+described with the exception of this one thing, the common bond which held
+them to Rome, how would the ruin of their country, the subversion of
+existing interests, the confiscation of the land, the imposition of foreign
+invaders for masters, have acted upon them? It would have split them up
+into various parties, rivals for favour and the power derived from favour.
+The bishops of each country would have had national interests controlling
+their actions. The Teuton invaders were without power of cohesion, without
+fraternal affection for each other; their ephemeral territories were in a
+state of perpetual fluctuation. The bishops locally situated in these
+changing districts would have been themselves divided. In fact, the Arian
+bishops had no common centre. They were the nominees and partisans of their
+several sovereigns. They presented no one front, for their negation was no
+one faith. We cannot be wrong in extending the action assigned by Gibbon to
+the hundred bishops of Gaul, to the Catholic bishops throughout all the
+countries in which a poorer Catholic population was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> governed by Arian
+rulers. The divine bond of the Primacy, resting upon the faith which it
+represented, secured in one alliance all the bishops of the West. Nor must
+we forget that the Throne of Peter acknowledged by those bishops as the
+source of their common faith, the crown of the episcopate, was likewise
+regarded by the Arian rulers themselves as the great throne of justice,
+above the sway of local jealousies and subordinate jurisdictions. It
+represented to their eyes the fabric of Roman law, the wonderful creation
+of centuries, which the northern conquerors were utterly unable to emulate,
+and made them feel how inferior brute force was to civil wisdom and equity.</p>
+
+<p>In the constitution of the Visigothic kingdom of Spain from the time of
+Rechared, when it became Catholic, we see the first fruits of the Church's
+beneficent action on the northern invaders. The barbarian monarchy from its
+original condition of a military command in time of war, directing a raid
+of the tribe or people upon its enemies, becomes a settled rule, at the
+head of estates which meet in annual synod, and in which bishops and barons
+sit side by side. Government reposes on the peaceable union of the Two
+Powers. In process of time this sort of political order was established
+everywhere throughout the West, by the same action and influence of the
+Church. In the Roman empire the supreme power had been in its origin a
+mandate conferred by the citizens of a free state on one of their number
+for the preservation of the commonwealth. The notion of dynastic descent
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> wanting to it from the beginning. But the power which Augustus had
+received in successive periods of ten years passed to his successors for
+their life. Still they were rather life-presidents with royal power than
+kings. And it may be noticed that in that long line no blessing seemed to
+rest on the succession of a son to his father; much, on the contrary, on
+the adoption of a stranger of tried capacity guided by the choice of the
+actual ruler. But in the lapse of centuries the imperial power had become
+absolute. Especially in the successors of Constantine, and in the city to
+which he had given his name and chosen for the home of his empire, not a
+shadow of the old Roman freedom remained. One after another the successful
+general or the adventurer in some court intrigue supplanted or murdered a
+predecessor, and ascended the throne, but with undiminished prerogatives.
+Great was the contrast in all the new kingdoms at whose birth the influence
+of the Church presided. There the kings all sat by family descent, in
+which, however, was involved a free acceptance on the part of their people.
+The bishops who had had so large a part in the foundation of the several
+kingdoms had a recognised part in their future government. Holding one
+faith, and educated in the law of the Romans, and joined on to the
+preceding ages by their mental culture as well as their belief, they
+contributed to these kingdoms a stability and cohesion which were wanting
+to the Teuton invaders in themselves. They incessantly preached peace as a
+religious necessity to those tribes which had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> been as ready to consume
+each other as to divide the spoils of their Roman subjects. This united
+phalanx of bishops in Gaul conquered in the end even the excessive
+degeneracy, self-indulgence, and cruelty of the Merovingian race. Thanks to
+their perpetual efforts, while the policy of a Clovis made a France, the
+wickedness of his descendants did not destroy it, but only themselves, and
+caused a new family to be chosen wherein the same tempered government might
+be carried on.</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable that while the Byzantine emperors, from the extinction of
+the western empire, were using their absolute power to meddle with the
+doctrine of the Church which Constantine acknowledged to be divine, and to
+fetter its liberty which he acknowledged to be unquestionable, the Popes
+from that very time were through the bishops, to whom they were the sole
+centre in so many changes and upheavals, constructing the new order of
+things. Through them the Church maintained her own liberty, and allied with
+it a civil liberty which the East had more and more surrendered.</p>
+
+<p>In the East, the Church in time was younger than the empire; in the West,
+she preceded in time these newly formed monarchies. Amid the universal
+overthrow which the invaders had wrought she alone stood unmoved. The
+heresy which had so threatened her disappeared. On Goths, and Franks, and
+Saxons, and Alemans, she was free to exercise her divine power.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> It is
+in that sixth century of tremendous revolutions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> that she laid the
+foundation of the future European society. Byzantium was descending to
+Mahomet while Rome was forecasting the Christian commonwealth of Charles
+the Great. In the Rome of Constantine, while the old civilisation had
+accepted her name, the old pagan principles had continually impeded her
+action. The civil rulers especially had harked back after the power of the
+heathen Pontifex Maximus; but in these new peoples who were not yet
+peoples, but only the unformed matter (<i>materia prima</i>) out of which
+peoples might be made, the Church was free to put her own ideal as a <i>form</i>
+within them. They had the rudiments of institutions, which they trusted her
+to organise. They placed her bishops in their courts of justice, in their
+halls of legislation. The greatest of their conquerors in the hour of his
+supreme exaltation, which also was received from the Pope, was proud to be
+vested by her in the dalmatic of a deacon.</p>
+
+<p>Of this new world St. Gregory, in his desolated Rome, stood at the head.</p>
+
+<p>There is yet another aspect of this wonderful man which we have to
+consider. We possess about 850 of his letters. If we did but possess the
+letters of his sixty predecessors in the same relative proportion as his,
+the history of the Church for the five centuries preceding him, instead of
+being often a blank, would present to us the full lineaments of truth. The
+range of his letters is so great, their detail so minute, that they
+illuminate his time and enable us to form a mental picture, and follow
+faithfully that pontificate of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> fourteen years, incessantly interrupted by
+cares and anxieties for the preservation of his city, yet watching the
+beginnings and strengthening the polity of the western nations, and
+counterworking the advances of the eastern despotism. The divine order of
+greatness is, we know, to do and to teach. Few, indeed, have carried it out
+on so great a scale as St. Gregory. The mass of his writing preserved to us
+exceeds the mass preserved to us from all his predecessors together, even
+including St. Leo, who with him shares the name of Great, and whose sphere
+of action the mind compares with his. If he became to all succeeding times
+an image of the great sacerdotal life in his own person, so all ages
+studied in his words the pastoral care, joining him with St. Gregory of
+Nazianzum and St. Chrysostom. The man who closed his life at sixty-four,
+worn out not with age, but with labour and bodily pains, stands, beside the
+learning of St. Jerome, the perfect episcopal life and statesmanship of St.
+Ambrose, the overpowering genius of St. Augustine, as the fourth doctor of
+the western Church, while he surpasses them all in that his doctorship was
+seated on St. Peter's throne. If he closes the line of Fathers, he begins
+the period when the Church, failing to preserve a rotten empire in
+political existence, creates new nations; nay, his own hand has laid for
+them their foundation-stones, and their nascent polity bears his manual
+inscription, as the great campanile of St. Mark wears on its brow the
+words, <i>Et Verbum caro factum est</i>. These were the words which St. Gregory
+wrote as the bond of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> internal cohesion, as the source of their
+greatness, permanence, and liberty upon the future monarchies of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>What mortal could venture to decide which of the two great victories
+allowed by Gibbon to the Church is the greater? But we at least are the
+children of the second. It was wrought in secrecy and unconsciousness, as
+the greatest works of nature and of grace are wrought, but we know just so
+much as this, that St. Gregory was one of its greatest artificers. The
+Anglo-Saxon race in particular, for more than a thousand years, has
+celebrated the Mass of St. Gregory as that of the Apostle of England. Down
+to the disruption of the sixteenth century, the double line of its bishops
+in Canterbury and York, with their suffragans, regarded him as their
+founder, as much as the royal line deemed itself to descend from William
+the Conqueror. If Canterbury was Primate of all England and York Primate of
+England, it was by the appointment of Gregory. And the very civil
+constitution of England, like the original constitutions of the western
+kingdoms in general, is the work in no small part of that Church which St.
+Augustine carried to Ethelbert, and whose similar work in Spain Gibbon has
+acknowledged. Under the Norman oppression it was to the laws of St. Edward
+that the people looked back. The laws of St. Edward were made by the
+bishops of St. Gregory.</p>
+
+<p>How deeply St. Gregory was impressed with the conviction of his own
+vocation to be the head of the whole Church we have seen in his own
+repeatedly quoted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> words.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> What can a Pope claim more than the
+attribution to himself as Pope of the three great words of Christ spoken to
+Peter? Accordingly, all his conduct was directed to maintain every
+particular church in its due subordination to the Roman Church, to
+reconcile schismatics to it, to overcome the error and the obstinacy of
+heretics. Again, since all nations have been called to salvation in Christ,
+St. Gregory pursued the conversion of the heathen with the utmost zeal.
+When only monk and cardinal deacon, he had obtained the permission of Pope
+Pelagius to set out in person as missionary to paganised Britain. He was
+brought back to Rome after three days by the affection of the people, who
+would not allow him to leave them. When the death of Pope Pelagius placed
+him on the papal throne, he did not forget the country the sight of whose
+enslaved children had made them his people of predilection.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the churches belonging to his own patriarchate, a bishop in
+each province, usually the metropolitan, represented as delegate the Roman
+See. To these, as the symbol of their delegated authority as his <i>vicarii</i>,
+Gregory sent the pallium. All the bishops of the province yielded them
+obedience, acknowledged their summons to provincial councils. A hundred
+years before Pope Symmachus had begun the practice of sending the pallium
+to them, but Gregory declined to take the gifts which it had become usual
+to take on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> receiving it. St. Leo, fifty years before Symmachus, had
+empowered a bishop to represent him at the court of the eastern emperor,
+and had drawn out the office and functions of the nuncio. Like his great
+predecessor, St. Gregory carefully watched over the rights of the Primacy.
+Upon the death of a metropolitan, he entrusted during the vacancy the
+visitation of the churches to another bishop, and enjoined the clergy and
+people of the vacant see to make a new choice under the superintendence of
+the Roman official. The election being made, he carefully examined the
+acts, and, if it was needed, reversed them. As he required from the
+metropolitans strict obedience to his commands, so he maintained on the one
+hand the dependence of the bishops on their metropolitans, while on the
+other he protected them against all irregular decisions of the
+metropolitan. He carefully examined the complaints which bishops made
+against their metropolitan; and when bishops disagreed with each other, and
+their disagreement could not be adjusted by the metropolitan, he drew the
+decision to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Gregory also held many councils in Rome which passed decisions upon
+doctrine and discipline. We may take as a specimen that which he held in
+the Lateran Church on the 5th April, 601,<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> with twenty-four bishops and
+many priests and deacons. It is headed: "Gregory, bishop, servant of the
+servants of God, to all bishops". The Pope says that his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> government of
+a monastery had shown him how necessary it was to provide for their
+perpetual security: "Since we have come to the knowledge that in very many
+monasteries the monks have suffered much to their prejudice and grievance
+from bishops ... we therefore, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by
+the authority of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, in whose place
+we preside over this Church, forbid that henceforth any bishop or layman,
+in respect of the revenues, goods, or charters of monasteries, the cells or
+buildings belonging to them, do in any manner or upon any occasion diminish
+them, or use deceit or interference". If there be a contest whether any
+property belong to the church of a bishop or to a monastery, arbitrators
+shall decide. If an abbot dies, no stranger, but one of the same community,
+must be chosen by the brethren, freely and concordantly, for his successor.
+If no fitting person is found in the monastery itself, the monks are to
+provide that one be chosen from another monastery. In the abbot's lifetime
+no other superior may be set over the monastery, except the abbot have
+committed transgressions punishable by the canons. Against the will of the
+abbot no monk may be chosen to be set over another monastery or receive
+holy orders. The bishop may not make an inventory of the goods of the
+monastery, nor mix himself, even after the abbot's death, in the concerns
+of the monastery; he may hold no public mass in the monastery, that there
+be no meeting of people, or women, there; he may set up no pulpit there,
+and without the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> consent of the abbot make no regulation, and employ no
+monk for any church service.</p>
+
+<p>All the bishops answered: "We rejoice in the liberties of the monks, and
+confirm what your Holiness has set forth as to this".</p>
+
+<p>As metropolitan of the particular Roman province, Gregory was equally
+active. The political circumstances of Italy had exerted the most
+prejudicial effect on the Church. Ecclesiastical life was impaired. The
+discipline both of monks and clergy was weakened. Bishops had become
+negligent in their duties; many churches orphaned or destroyed. But at the
+end of his pontificate things had so improved that he might well be termed
+the reformer of Church discipline. He watched with great care over the
+conduct and administration of the bishops. In this the officers called
+<i>defensors</i>, that is, who administered the patrimony of the Church in the
+different provinces, helped him greatly in carrying out his commands. In
+the war with the Lombards, many episcopal sees had been wasted, and many of
+their bishops expelled. Gregory provided for them, either in naming them
+visitors of his own, or in calling in other bishops to their support. He
+rebuilt many churches which had been destroyed. He carefully maintained the
+property of churches: he would not allow it to be alienated, except to
+ransom captives or convert heathens. The Roman Church had then large
+estates in Africa, Gaul, Sicily, Corsica, Dalmatia, and especially in the
+various provinces of Italy. These were called the Patrimony of Peter. They
+con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>sisted in lands, villages, and flocks. In the management of these
+Gregory's care did not disdain the minutest supervision. His strong sense
+of justice did not prevent his being a merciful landlord, and especially he
+cared for the peasantry and cultivators of the soil.</p>
+
+<p>The monastic life which in his own person he had so zealously practised, as
+Pope he so carefully watched over that he has been called the father of the
+monks. He encouraged the establishment of monasteries. Many he built and
+provided for himself out of the Roman Church's property. Many which wanted
+for maintenance he succoured. He issued a quantity of orders supporting the
+religious and moral life of monks and nuns. He invited bishops to keep
+guard over the discipline of monasteries, and blamed them when
+transgressions of it came to light. But he also protected monasteries from
+hard treatment of bishops, and, according to the custom of earlier Popes,
+exempted some of them from episcopal authority.</p>
+
+<p>In restoring schismatics to unity he was in general successful. He wrought
+such a union among the bishops of Africa that Donatism lost influence more
+and more, and finally disappeared. He dealt with the obstinate Milanese
+schism which had arisen out of the treatment of the Three Chapters. He won
+back a great part of the Istrians. He had more trouble with the two
+archbishops of Constantinople, John the Faster and Cyriacus; and his former
+friend the emperor Mauritius turned against him, so that he welcomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> the
+accession of Phocas, as a deliverance of the Church from unjust domination.
+The unquestioning loyalty with which, as a civil subject, he welcomed this
+accession has been unfairly used against him. As first of all the civil
+dignitaries of the empire he could only accept what had been done at
+Constantinople. But in all his fourteen years neither the difficulty of
+circumstances nor the consideration of persons withheld him from carrying
+out his resolutions with a patience and a firmness only equalled by
+gentleness of manner. From beginning to end he considered himself, and
+acted, as set by God to watch over the maintenance of the canons, the
+discipline enacted by them, and so doing to perfect by his wisdom as well
+as to temper by his moderation the vast fabric of the Primacy as it had
+grown itself, and nurtured in its growth the original constitution of the
+Church during nearly six hundred years.</p>
+
+<p>We may now say a few words upon the Primacy itself as exerted by St. Leo at
+the Council of Chalcedon, and the Primacy as exerted by St. Gregory in the
+fourteen years from 590 to 604; also on the interval between them, and the
+relative position of the bishop of Constantinople to Leo in the person of
+Anatolius, and to Gregory in the person of John the Faster. We see at once
+that the intention which Leo discerned in Anatolius, which he sternly
+reprehended and summarily overthrew, has been fully carried out by John the
+Faster, who, in documents sent to the Pope himself for revision, as
+superior, terms himself ecumenical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> patriarch. Who had made him first a
+patriarch and then ecumenical? The emperor alone. He is so called in the
+laws of Justinian. The 140 years from Leo to Gregory are filled with the
+continued rise of the Bishop of Nova Roma under the absolute power of the
+emperor. He has succeeded not only in taking precedence of the legitimate
+patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch; he has more than once stripped of
+their rights the metropolitans and bishops subject to the great see of the
+East, and himself consecrated at Constantinople a patriarch of Antioch by
+order of the emperor of the day. This Acacius did, humbly begging the
+Pope's pardon for such a transgression of the due order and hierarchy, and
+repeating the offence against the Nicene order and constitution on the
+first opportunity. In the same way he has interfered with the elections at
+Alexandria. We learn from the instruction given by Pope Hormisdas to his
+legates that all the eastern bishops when they came to Constantinople
+obtained an audience of the emperor only through the bishop of
+Constantinople. The Pope carefully warns his legates against submitting to
+this pretension. Pope Gelasius told the bishop in his day that his see had
+no ecclesiastical rank above that of a simple bishop. We laugh, he said, at
+the pretension to erect an apostolical throne upon an imperial residence.
+But, in the meantime, Constantinople has become the head of all civil
+power. The emperor of the West has ceased to be. The Roman senate, at the
+bidding of a Herule commander of mercenaries, has sent back even the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>
+symbols of imperial rank to the eastern emperor; and in return Zeno has
+graciously made Odoacer patricius of Rome, with the power of king, until
+Theodorick was ready to be rewarded with the possession of Italy for
+services rendered to the eastern monarch, with the purpose likewise of
+diverting his attention from Nova Roma. Therefore, in spite of the
+submission rendered by all the East, the bishops, the court, the emperor,
+and by Justinian himself; in spite, also, of two bishops successively
+degraded by an emperor, the bishop of Constantinople ever advances. The law
+of Justinian, which acknowledges the Pope as first of all bishops in the
+world, and gives him legal rank as such, makes the bishop of the new
+capital the second. Presently Justinian becomes by conquest immediate
+sovereign of Rome. The ancient queen and maker of the empire is humbled in
+the dust by five captures; is even reduced to a desert for a time; and when
+a portion of her fugitive citizens comes back to the abandoned city, a
+Byzantine prefect rules it with absolute power. A Greek garrison, the badge
+of Rome's degradation, supports his delegated rule. Presently the seat of
+that rule is for security transferred to Ravenna, and Rome is left, not
+merely discrowned, but defenceless. All the while the bishop of
+Constantinople is seated in the pomp of power at the emperor's court;
+within the walls of the eastern capital his household rivals that of the
+emperor; in certain respects the public worship gives him a homage greater
+than that accorded to the absolute lord of the East. He reflects with
+satisfaction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> that the one person in the West who can call his ministration
+to account is exposed to the daily attacks of barbarians: is surrounded
+with palaces whose masters are ruined, and which are daily dropping into
+decay. The Pope, behind the crumbling walls of Aurelian, shudders at the
+cruelties practised on his people: the bishop of Constantinople, by terming
+himself ecumenical, announces ostentatiously that he claims to rule all his
+brethren in the East&mdash;that he is supreme judge over his brother patriarchs.
+One only thing he does not do: he claims no power over the Pope himself; he
+does not attempt to revise his administration in the West. He acknowledges
+his primacy, seated as it is in a provincial city, pauperised, and
+decimated with hunger and desertion.</p>
+
+<p>In this interval the Pope has seen seven emperors pass like shadows on the
+western throne, and their place taken first by an Arian Herule and then by
+an Arian Goth. Herule and Goth disappear, the last at the cost of a war
+which desolates Italy during twenty years, and casts out, indeed, the
+Gothic invader and confiscator of Italy, but only to supply his place by
+the grinding exactions of an absent master, followed immediately by the
+inroad of fresh savages, far worse than the Goth, under whose devastation
+Italy is utterly ruined. Whatever portion of dignity the old capital of the
+world lent to Leo is utterly lost to Gregory. It has been one tale of
+unceasing misery, of terrible downfal to Rome, from Genseric to Agilulf. It
+may seem to have been suspended during the thirty-three years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> of
+Theodorick, but it was the iron force of hostile domination wielded by the
+gloved hand. When the Goth was summoned to depart, he destroyed ruthlessly.
+The rage of Vitiges casts back a light upon the mildness of Theodorick; the
+slaughters ordered by Teia are a witness to Gothic humanity. No words but
+those of Gregory himself, in applying the Hebrew prophet, can do justice to
+the temporal misery of Rome. The Pope felt himself silenced by sorrow in
+the Church of St. Peter, but he ruled without contradiction the Church in
+East and West. Not a voice is heard at the time, or has come down to
+posterity, which accuses Gregory of passing the limits of power conceded to
+him by all, or of exercising it otherwise than with the extremest
+moderation.</p>
+
+<p>Disaster in the temporal order, continued through five generations, from
+Leo to Gregory, has clearly brought to light the purely spiritual
+foundation of the papal power. If the attribution to the Pope of the three
+great words spoken by our Lord to St. Peter, made to Pope Hormisdas by the
+eastern bishops and emperor, does not prove that they belong to the Pope
+and were inherited by him from St. Peter, what proof remains to be offered?
+If the attribution is so proved, what is there in the papal power which is
+not divinely conferred and guaranteed? Neither the first Leo, nor the first
+Gregory, nor the seventh Gregory, nor the thirteenth Leo, ask for more; nor
+can they take less.</p>
+
+<p>If St. Gregory exercised this authority in a ruined city, over barbarous
+populations which had taken possession of the western provinces, over
+eastern bishops<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> who crouched at the feet of an absolute monarch, over a
+rival who, with all the imperial power to back him, did not attempt to deny
+it, how could a greater proof of its divine origin be given?</p>
+
+<p>In this respect boundless disaster offers a proof which the greatest
+prosperity would have failed to give. Not even a Greek could be found who
+could attribute St. Gregory's authority in Rome to his being bishop of the
+royal city. The barbarian inundation had swept away the invention of
+Anatolius.</p>
+
+<p>But this very time was also that in which the heresy whose leading doctrine
+was denial of the Godhead of the Church's founder came from a threatening
+of supremacy to an end. In Theodorick Arianism seemed to be enthroned for
+predominance in all the West. His civil virtues and powerful government,
+his family league of all the western rulers,&mdash;for he himself had married
+Andefleda, sister of Clovis, and had given one daughter for wife to the
+king of the Vandals in Africa, and another to the king of the Visigoths in
+France,&mdash;was a gage of security. In Gregory's time the great enemy has laid
+down his arms. He is dispossessed from the Teuton race in its Gallic,
+Spanish, Burgundian, African settlements. Gregory, at the head of the
+western bishops who in every country have risked life for the faith of
+Rome, has gained the final victory. One only Arian tribe survives for a
+time, ever struggling to possess Rome, advancing to its gates, ruining its
+Campagna, torturing its captured inhabitants, but never gaining possession
+of those battered walls, which Totila in part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> threw down and Belisarius in
+piecemeal restored. And Gregory, too, is chosen to stop the Anglo-Saxon
+revel of cruelty and destruction, which has turned Britain from a civilised
+land into a wilderness, and from a province of the Catholic Church to
+paganism, from the very time of St. Leo. Two tribes were the most savage of
+the Teuton family, the Saxon and the Frank. The Frank became Catholic, and
+Gregory besought the rulers of the converted nation to help his
+missionaries in their perilous adventure to convert the ultramarine
+neighbours, still savage and pagan. He also ordered their chief bishop to
+consecrate the chief missionary to be archbishop of the Angles. As there
+was a Burgundian Clotilda by the side of Clovis, there was a Frankish
+Bertha by the side of Ethelbert; and these two women have a glorious place
+in that second great victory of the Church. The Visigoth and Ostrogoth with
+their great natural gifts could not found a kingdom. Their heresy deprived
+the Father of the Son, and they were themselves sterile. Those who denied a
+Divine Redeemer were not likely to convert a world.</p>
+
+<p>But all through Gregory's life the Byzantine spirit of encroachment was one
+of his chief enemies. The claim of its bishop to be ecumenical patriarch
+stopped short of the Primacy. But one after another the bishops of that see
+sought by imperial laws to detach the bishops of Eastern Illyria from their
+subjection to the western patriarchate. Their nearness to Constantinople,
+their being subjects of the eastern emperor, helped this encroachment.</p>
+
+<p>It would appear also that in Gregory's time&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> hundred years after Pope
+Gelasius had put the bishop of the imperial city in remembrance that he had
+been a suffragan to Heraclea&mdash;the legislation of Justinian had succeeded in
+inducing the Roman See to acknowledge that bishop as a patriarch. His
+actual power had gone far beyond. There can be no doubt that, while the
+Pope had become legally the subject of the eastern emperor, the bishop of
+Constantinople had become in fact the emperor's ecclesiastical minister in
+subjugating the eastern episcopate. The Nicene episcopal hierarchy
+subsisted indeed in name. To the Alexandrian and Antiochene patriarchs two
+had been added&mdash;one at Jerusalem, the other at Constantinople. But the last
+was so predominant&mdash;as the interpreter of the emperor's will&mdash;that he stood
+at the head of the bishops in all the realm ruled from Constantinople over
+against the Pope as the head of the western bishops in many various lands.</p>
+
+<p>The bishops were in Justinian's legislation everywhere great imperial
+officers, holding a large civil jurisdiction, especially charged with an
+inspection of the manner in which civil governors performed their own
+proper functions; most of all, the patriarchs and the Pope.</p>
+
+<p>But that episcopal autonomy&mdash;if we may so call it&mdash;under the presidence of
+the three Petrine patriarchs, which was in full life and vigour at the
+Nicene Council, which St. Gregory still recognised in his letter to
+Eulogius, was greatly impaired. While barbaric inundation had swept over
+the West, the struggles of the Nestorian and Eutychean heresies, especially
+in the two great cities of Alexandria and Antioch, had disturbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> the
+hierarchy and divided the people which the master at Constantinople could
+hardly control. That state of the East which St. Basil deplored in burning
+words&mdash;which almost defied every effort of the great Theodosius to restore
+it to order&mdash;had gone on for more than two hundred years. The Greek
+subtlety was not pervaded by the charity of Christ, and they carried on
+their disputes over that adorable mystery of His Person in which the secret
+of redeeming power is seated, with a spirit of party and savage persecution
+which portended the rise of one who would deny that mystery altogether, and
+reduce to a terrible servitude those who had so abused their liberty as
+Christians and offered such a scandal to the religion of unity which they
+professed.</p>
+
+<p>From St. Sylvester to St. Leo, and, again, from St. Leo to St. Gregory, the
+effort of the Popes was to maintain in its original force the Nicene
+constitution of the Church. Well might they struggle for the maintenance of
+that which was a derivation from their own fountainhead&mdash;"the
+administration of Peter"<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a>&mdash;during the three centuries of heathen
+persecution by the empire. It was not they who tightened the exercise of
+their supreme authority. The altered condition of the times, the tyranny of
+Constantius and Valens, the dislocation of the eastern hierarchy, the rise
+of a new bishop in a new capital made use of by an absolute sovereign to
+control that hierarchy, a resident council at Constantinople which became
+an "instrument of servitude" in the emperor's hands to degrade any bishop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
+at his pleasure and his own patriarch when he was not sufficiently pliant
+to the master,&mdash;these were among the causes which tended to bring out a
+further exercise of the power which Christ had deposited in the hands of
+His Vicar to be used according to the needs of the Church. No one has
+expressed with greater moderation than St. Gregory the proper power of his
+see, in the words I have quoted above:<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> "I know not what bishop is not
+subject to the Apostolical See, if any fault be found in bishops. But when
+no fault requires it, all are equal according to the estimation of
+humility." In Rome there is no growth by aid of the civil power from a
+suffragan bishop to an universal Papacy. The Papacy shows itself already in
+St. Clement, a disciple of St. Peter's, "whose name is written in the book
+of life,"<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> and who, involving the Blessed Trinity, affirms that the
+orders emanating from his see are the words of God Himself.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> This is
+the ground of St. Gregory's moderation; and whatever extension may
+hereafter be found in the exercise of the same power by his successors is
+drawn forth by the condition of the times, a condition often opposed to the
+inmost wishes of the Pope. Those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> are evil times which require "a thousand
+bishops rolled into one" to oppose the civil tyranny of a Hohenstaufen, the
+violence of barbarism in a Rufus, or the corruption of wealth in a
+Plantagenet.</p>
+
+<p>Between St. Peter and St. Gregory, in 523 years, there succeeded full sixty
+Popes. If we take any period of like duration in the history of the world's
+kingdoms, we shall find in their rulers a remarkable contrast of varying
+policy and temper. Few governments, indeed, last so long. But in the few
+which have so lasted we find one sovereign bent on war, another on peace,
+another on accumulating treasure, another on spending it; one given up to
+selfish pleasures, here and there a ruler who reigns only for the good of
+others. But in Gregory's more than sixty predecessors there is but one
+idea: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the
+gates of hell shall not prevail against it," is the compendious expression
+of their lives and rule. For this St. Clement, who had heard the words of
+his master, suffered exile and martyrdom in the Crimea. For this five
+Popes, in the decade between 250 and 260, laid down their lives. The letter
+of St. Julius to the Eusebian prelates is full of it. St. Leo saw the
+empire of Rome falling around him, but he is so possessed with that idea
+that he does not allude to the ruin of temporal kingdoms. St. Gregory
+trembles for the lives of his beleaguered people, but he does not know the
+see which is not subject to the Apostolic See. In weakness and in power, in
+ages of an ever varying but always persistent adversity, in times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> of
+imperial patronage, and, again, under heretical domination, the mind of
+every Pope is full of this idea. The strength or the weakness of individual
+character leaves it untouched. In one, and only one, of all these figures
+his dignity is veiled in sadness. Pope Vigilius at Constantinople, in the
+grasp of a despot, and with the stain of an irregular election never
+effaced from his brow, is still conscious of it, still has courage to say,
+"You may bind me, but you will not bind the Apostle St. Peter". Six hundred
+years after St. Gregory, when accordingly the succession of Popes had been
+rather more than doubled, I find the biographer of Innocent III. thus
+commenting on his election in 1198: "The Church in these times ever had an
+essential preponderance over worldly kingdoms. Resting on a spiritual
+foundation, she had in herself the vigour of immaterial power, and
+maintained in her application of it the superiority over merely material
+forces. She alone was animated by a clearly recognised idea, which never at
+any time died out of her. For its maintenance and actuation were not
+limited to the person of a Pope, who could only be the representative, the
+bearer, the enactor, for the world of this idea in its fullest meaning. If
+here and there a particular personality seemed unequal to the carrying out
+such a charge, the force of the idea did not suffer any defect through him.
+Most papal governments were very short in their duration. This itself was a
+challenge to those whose life was absorbed in that of the Church to place
+at its head a man whose ability, enlightened and guided by strength of
+will, afforded a secure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> assurance for the exercise of an universal charge.
+From the clear self-consciousness of the Church in this respect proceeded
+that firm pursuance of a great purpose distinctly perceived. It met with no
+persistent or wisely conducted resistance on the part of the temporal
+power. On one side all rays had their focus in one point. In temporal
+princes the rays were parted. Few of these showed in their lives a purpose
+to which all their acts were made consistently subordinate. As
+circumstances swayed them, as the desire of the moment led them away, they
+threw themselves, according to their personal inclinations, with impetuous
+storm and violence upon the attainment of their wishes. They had to yield
+in the end to the power of the Church, slower, indeed, but continuous,
+pursued with superiority of spirit, moreover with the firm conviction of
+guidance from above, and of the special protection from this inseparable,
+and so attaining its mark. One only royal race ventured on a contest with
+the Church for supremacy; for one only, the Hohenstaufen, were conscious of
+a fixed purpose. They encountered a direct struggle with the Church; but
+the conflict issued to the honour of the Church. The Popes who led it came
+out of it with a renown in the world's history, which without that conflict
+they would never have so gloriously attained. If we look from these events
+before and afterwards upon the ages, and see how the institution of the
+Papacy outlasts all other institutions in Europe, how it has seen all
+States come and go, how in the endless change of human things it alone
+remains unchanged,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> ever with the same spirit, can we then wonder if many
+look up to it as the Rock unmoved amid the roaring billows of centuries?"
+And he adds in a note, "This is not a polemical statement, but the verdict
+of history".<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a></p>
+
+<p>The time of St. Gregory in history bore the witness of six centuries; the
+time of Innocent III. of twelve; the time of Leo XIII. bears that of more
+than eighteen centuries to the consideration of this contrast between the
+natural fickleness of men and of lives of men, shown from age to age, and
+the persistence, on the other hand, of one idea in one line of men. The
+eighteen centuries already past are yet only a part of an unknown future.
+But to construct such a Rock amid the sea and the waves roaring in the
+history of the nations reveals an abiding divine power. It leaves the
+self-will of man untouched, yet sets up a rampart against it. The
+explanation attempted three hundred and fifty years ago of an imposture or
+an usurpation is incompatible with the clearness of an idea which is
+carried out persistently through so many generations. Usurpations fall
+rapidly. But in this one case the divine words themselves contain the idea
+more clearly expressed than any exposition can express it. The King
+delineates His kingdom as none but God can; it must also be added that He
+maintains it as none but God can maintain.</p>
+
+<p>We may return to St. Gregory's own time, and note the unbroken continuity
+of the Primacy from St. Peter himself. It is a period of nearly six hundred
+years from the day of Pentecost. Just in the middle comes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> the conversion
+of Constantine. Before it Rome is mainly a heathen city, the government of
+which bears above all things an everlasting enmity against any violation of
+the supreme pontificate annexed by the provident Augustus to the imperial
+power, and jealously maintained by every succeeding emperor. To suffer an
+infringement of that pontificate would be to lose the grasp over the
+hundred varieties of worship allowed by the State. Yet when Constantine
+acknowledged the Christian faith, the names of St. Peter and St. Paul were
+in full possession of the city, so far as it was Christian. They were its
+patron-saints. Every Christian memory rested on the tradition of St.
+Peter's pontifical acts, his chair, his baptismal font, his dwelling-place,
+his martyrdom. The impossibility of such a series of facts taking
+possession of a heathen city during the period antecedent to Constantine's
+victory over Maxentius, save as arising from St. Peter's personal action at
+Rome, is apparent.</p>
+
+<p>In the second half of this period, from Constantine to St. Gregory, the
+civil pre-eminence of Rome is perpetually declining. The consecration of
+New Rome as the capital of the empire, in 330, by itself alone strikes at
+it a fatal blow. Presently the very man who had reunited the empire divided
+it among his sons, and after their death the division became permanent.
+Valentinian I., in 364, whether he would or not, was obliged to make two
+empires. From the death of Theodosius, in 395, the condition of the western
+empire is one long agony. The power of Constantinople continually
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>creases. At the death of Honorius, in 423, the eastern emperor becomes
+the over-lord of the western. During fifty years Rome lived only by the arm
+of two semi-barbarian generals, Stilicho and Aetius. Both were assassinated
+for the service; and in the boy Romulus Augustulus a western emperor ceased
+to be, and the senate declared that one emperor alone was needed. After
+fifty years of Arian occupation, the Gothic war ruined the city of Rome. In
+Gregory's time it had ceased to be even the capital of a province. Its lord
+dwelt at Constantinople; Rome was subject to his exarch at Ravenna.</p>
+
+<p>Yet from Constantine and the Nicene Council the advance of Rome's Primacy
+is perpetual. In Leo I. it is universally acknowledged. At the fall of the
+western empire Acacius attempts his schism. He is supported while living by
+the emperor Zeno, and his memory after his death by the succeeding emperor
+Anastasius, who reigned for twenty-seven years, longer than any emperor
+since Augustus had reigned over the whole empire. All the acts of these two
+princes show that they would have liked to attach the Primacy to their
+bishop at Constantinople. Anastasius twice enjoyed the luxury of deposing
+him through the resident council. But Anastasius died, and the result of
+the Acacian schism was a stronger confession of the Roman Primacy made to
+Pope Hormisdas, the subject of the Arian Theodorick, by the whole Greek
+episcopate, than had ever been given before. The sixth century and the
+reign of Justinian completed the destruction of the civil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> state of Rome;
+and the Primacy of its bishop, St. Gregory, was more than ever
+acknowledged.</p>
+
+<p>Not a shadow of usurpation or of claim to undue power rested upon that
+unquestioned Primacy which St. Gregory exercised. While he thought the end
+of the world was at hand, while he watched Rome perishing street by street,
+he planted unconsciously a western Christendom in what he supposed all the
+time to be a perishing world. Civil Rome was not even a provincial capital;
+spiritual Rome was the acknowledged head of the world-wide Church.</p>
+
+<p>I know not where to find so remarkable a contrast and connection of events
+as here. Temporal losses, secular ambitions, episcopal usurpations, violent
+party spirit, schism and heresy in the great eastern patriarchates, and
+amid it all the descent of the Teutons on the fairest lands of the western
+empire, the establishment of new sovereignties in Spain, Gaul, and Italy,
+under barbarians who at the time of their descent were Arian heretics, and
+afterwards became Catholic, with the result that Gregory has to keep watch
+within the walls of Rome for a whole generation against the Lombard, still
+in unmitigated savagery and unabated heresy, and that the world-wide Church
+acknowledges him for her ruler without a dissenting voice. The "Servant of
+the servants of God" chides and corrects the would-be "ecumenical
+patriarch," who has risen since Constantine from the suffragan of a
+Thracian city to be bishop of Nova Roma and right hand of the emperor; who
+has deposed Alexandria from the second<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> place and Antioch from the third,
+but cannot take the first place from the See of Peter. The perpetual
+ambition of the bishops of Nova Roma, the perpetual fostering of that
+ambition for his own purpose by the emperor, only illustrates more vividly
+the inaccessible dignity which both would fain have transferred to the city
+of Constantine, but were obliged to leave with the city of Peter. As the
+forum of Trajan sinks down stone by stone, the kings of the West are
+preparing to flock in pilgrimage to the shrine of Peter. This was the
+answer which the captives in the forum made to the deliverer of their race.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing like this elsewhere in history.</p>
+
+<p>Constantine, Valens, Theodosius, Justinian, and, no less, Alaric and
+Ataulph, Attila and Genseric, Theodorick and Clovis, Arius, Nestorius,
+Eutyches, as well as St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St.
+Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Cyril, and, again, Dioscorus, Acacius, and a
+multitude of the most opposing minds and beliefs which these represent,
+contribute, in their time and degree, for the most part unconsciously, and
+many against their settled purpose, to acknowledge this Primacy as the Rock
+of the Church, the source of spiritual jurisdiction, the centre of a divine
+unity in a warring world. In St. Gregory we see the power which has had
+antecedents so strange and concomitants so repulsive deposited in the hands
+of a feeble old man who is constantly mourning over the cares in which that
+universal government involves him, while the world for evermore shall
+regard him as the type and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> standard of the true spiritual ruler, who calls
+himself, not Ecumenical Bishop, but Servant of the servants of God. It is a
+title which his successors will take from his hand and keep for ever as the
+badge of the Primacy which it illustrates, while it serves as the seal of
+its acts of power. He calls himself servant just when he is supreme.</p>
+
+<p>In St. Gregory the Great, the whole ancient world, the Church's first
+discipline and original government, run to their ultimate issue. In him the
+patriarchal system, as it met the shock of absolute power in the civil
+sovereign, and the subversion of the western empire by barbarous
+incursions, accompanied by the establishment of new sovereignties and the
+foundation of a new Rome, the rival and then the tyrant of the old Rome,
+receives its consummation. The medieval world has not yet begun. The
+spurious Mahometan theocracy is waiting to arise. In the midst of a world
+in confusion, of a dethroned city falling into ruins, the successor of St.
+Peter sits on an undisputed spiritual throne upon which a new world will be
+based in the West, against which the Khalifs of a false religion will exert
+all their rage in the East and South, and strengthen the rule which they
+parody. A new power, which utterly denies the Christian faith, which
+destroys hundreds of its episcopal sees and severs whole countries from its
+sway, will dash with all its violence against the Rock of Peter, and
+finally will have the effect of making the bishop who is there enthroned
+more than ever the symbol, the seat, and the champion of the Kingdom of the
+Cross.</p>
+
+<p class="notes">NOTES:</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> See Gregorovius, ii. 3, 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> Gregorovius, ii. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, ii. 5, literal.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> Nirschl, iii. 534.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> Third letter of Pelagius II.; Mansi ix., p. 889:
+Nefandissima gens.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Attested by St. Gregory of Tours, who heard it from a deacon
+of his church then at Rome.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> i. 25, p. 514.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> <i>Homily</i> xviii. <i>on Ezechiel</i>, tom. i. 1374.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> Nahum ii, 11.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Micheas i. 16.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> End of the <i>Homilies on Ezechiel</i>, tom. i. 1430.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Quoted by Reumont, ii. 90.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> v. 42, p. 769.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> Reumont and Gregorovius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> v. 21, p. 751.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> v. 20, tom. ii. 747.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> vii. 40, p. 887.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> I have drawn attention to this fact, and the idea which it
+represents as attested by Popes earlier than St. Gregory, in vol. v., pp.
+53-60, of the <i>Formation of Christendom</i>, "The Throne," &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> Rump, ix. 501-2; see his words quoted above, p. 107.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> vii. 34, p. 882.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Rump, ix. 502.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> Providentissime piissimus Dominus ad compescendos bellicos
+motus pacem quærit ecclesiæ <i>atque ad hujus compagem sacerdotum dignatur
+corda reducere</i>.-<i>Ep.</i> v. 20, p. 747.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> De vi et ratione Primatus Romani Pontificis&mdash;c. iii.,
+quoting the letter of St. Gregory to Eulogius, viii. 30.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> ix. 59, p. 976.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> ii. 52, p. 618.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> xi. 37, p. 1120.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> vi. 60, p. 836.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> iv. 38, p. 718.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> v. 54, p. 784.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> vi. 59, p. 835.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> <i>Dialog.</i>, iii. 31, p. 345, <small>A.D.</small> 594.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> i. 43, p. 531.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> ix. 121, pp. 1026-8, shortened.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> <i>Dialog.</i>, iii. 31, p. 348.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> ix. 122, p. 1028.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> Paralipom. i. 11, 18.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> <i>Ep.</i> ix. 61, p. 977.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> Gibbon, ch. xxxviii.: a sneer or two have been omitted.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> Gibbon, ch. xxxix.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> Ch. xxxviii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> See above, p. <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> See Kurth, ii. 25-6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> See in the <i>Kirchen-lexicon</i> of Card. Hergenröther the
+article on Gregory I., vol. v., p. 1079.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> See Hefele, <i>Conciliengeschichte</i>, iii., p. 56; St. Gregory,
+ii., p. 1294; Mansi, x., p. 486.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> S. Siricius, <i>Ep.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> P. <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> Philippians iv. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> See St. Clement's epistle, sec. 59. "Receive our counsel and
+you shall not repent of it. For, as God liveth, and as the Lord Jesus
+Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit, and the faith and the hope of the
+elect, he who performs in humility, with assiduous goodness, and without
+swerving, <i>the commands and injunctions of God</i>, he shall be enrolled and
+esteemed in the number of those saved through Jesus Christ, through whom be
+glory to Him for ever and ever. Amen. But if any disobey <i>what has been
+ordered by Him through us</i>, let them know that they will involve themselves
+in a fall, and no slight danger, but we shall be innocent of this sin."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> Hurter's <i>Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten</i>, i. 85-7.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb"><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX.</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Acacius</i>, bishop of Constantinople, 471-489, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his conduct to the year 482, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">induces Zeno to publish a formulary of doctrine, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">deposed by Pope Felix, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rejects the Pope's sentence, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attempts superiority over the eastern patriarchates, <a href="#Page_84">84-86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">position taken up by him against the Pope, <a href="#Page_84">84-91</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dies after five years of excommunication in 489, defying the Pope, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his name erased from the diptychs, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">summary of his conduct and aims, <a href="#Page_174">174-6</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Agapetus</i>, Pope, his accession, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">confirms all his old rights to the Primate of Carthage, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">confirms Justinian's profession of faith, at the emperor's request, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">goes to Constantinople, deposes Anthimus and consecrates Mennas patriarch, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Agnostics</i>, generated by schismatics, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Alexandria and Antioch</i>, fearful state of their patriarchates, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the vast difference between their patriarchs and the Primacy, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Anastasius II.</i>, Pope, 496-8, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his letter to the emperor asserts that as the imperial secular</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">dignity is pre-eminent in the whole world, so the Principate</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">of St. Peter's See in the whole Church, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">both are divine delegations, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">writes to Clovis upon his conversion, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">anticipates the great results to follow from it, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Anastasius</i>, eastern emperor in 491, made emperor when a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>Silentiarius</i> in the court, 518, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">summary of his reign in the "libellus synodicus," <a href="#Page_100">100-1</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">four Popes&mdash;Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus, and Hormisdas&mdash;have</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">to deal with him, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">tries to prevent the election of Pope Symmachus, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">he is obliged to allow the Roman See not to be judged, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">he deposes Euphemius, and puts Macedonius in his stead at</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Constantinople, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">exalts Timotheus to the see of Constantinople, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">fills the eastern patriarchal sees with heretics, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">being pressed by Vitalian, betakes himself to Pope Hormisdas, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">receives his conditions, except those concerning Acacius, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his treachery and cruelty, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his sudden death, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Anatolius</i>, bishop of Constantinople, crowns the emperor Leo I.,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">dies in 458, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his ambition seen and checked by St. Leo, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">is to Leo what John the Faster is to Gregory, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Anicius Olybrius</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Anthemius</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Arianism</i>, propagated among the Goths by the emperor Valens, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">communicated by them to the Teuton tribes, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">prevalent throughout the West, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">fails in the Vandal, Visigothic, Burgundian, and Ostrogothic</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">kingdoms, <a href="#Page_327">327-9</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Aspar</i>, Arian Goth, makes Leo I. emperor, and is slain by him, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Ataulph</i>, marries Galla Placidia, his judgment upon the Goths and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Romans, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Avitus, St.</i>, bishop of Vienne, in Gaul, his character of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Acacius, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his letter to Clovis on his conversion, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">urges his duty to propagate the faith in the peoples around him, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">writes to the Roman senate that the cause of the Bishop of Rome is</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">not one bishop but that of the Episcopate itself, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Avitus</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Augustine, St.</i>, the great victory of the Church which he did</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">not foresee, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Baronius</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Basiliscus</i>, usurper, first of the theologising emperors, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Belisarius</i>, reconquers Northern Africa, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">begins the Gothic war, and enters Rome, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">deposes Pope Silverius, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defends Rome against Vitiges, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">captures Rome the third time, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Benedict, St.</i>, his monastery at Monte Cassino destroyed by the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Lombards, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his Order has its chief seat for 140 years at St. John Lateran, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rebukes and subdues Totila, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Byzantium</i>, the over-lordship of its emperor acknowledged, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the succession to its throne, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">its constitution under Justinian contrasted with the medieval</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">constitution of England, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Cassiodorus</i>, his letter as Prætorian prefect to Pope John II., <a href="#Page_195">195</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Church, Catholic</i>, its two great victories, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attested and described by Gibbon, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Civiltà Cattolica</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Constantinople</i>, its seven bishops who follow Anatolius, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">submission of its bishop, clergy, emperor, and nobles to Pope</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hormisdas, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">service of its cathedral under Justinian, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">growth of its bishop from St. Leo to St. Gregory, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">all the work of the imperial power, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">perpetual encroachment of its bishops, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Cyprian, St.</i>, quoted, "De Unitate Ecclesiæ," <a href="#Page_3">3</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Dante</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on Justinian, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Diptychs</i>, their meaning and force, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Ennodius, St.</i>, bishop of Pavia, asserts that God has reserved to</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Himself all judgment upon the successors of St. Peter, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his character of Acacius, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Euphemius</i>, in 490 succeeds Fravita at Constantinople, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes the emperor Anastasius, but signs his Henotikon, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">begs for reconciliation with Pope Felix, but will not give up</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Acacius, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">recognises the authority of Pope Gelasius, <a href="#Page_103">103-5</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">deposed by the emperor through the Resident Council in 496, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Eutychius</i>, patriarch of Constantinople, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">presides over the Fifth Council, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">consecrates Santa Sophia in 563, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">is deposed by Justinian in 565, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Felix III.</i>, Pope, 483-492, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his letter to the emperor Zeno, stating his succession from</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">St. Peter, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his letter to Acacius, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">holds a council in 484 and deposes Acacius, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his sentence, recounting the misdeeds of Acacius, <a href="#Page_76">76-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the synodal sentence signed by the Pope alone, which is justified by</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">the Roman synod, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">denounces Acacius to the emperor Zeno, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his utter helplessness as to secular support when he thus</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">writes, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">writes afresh to the emperor Zeno that the Apostle Peter speaks in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">him as his Vicar, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">delays to grant communion to Fravita, successor of Acacius, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dies after nine years of pontificate, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Filicaja</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Franks</i>, made great by the Catholic faith, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">so found a kingdom, while Ostrogoths and Visigoths lose it, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Fravita</i>, succeeds Acacius at Constantinople, and begs for the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Pope's recognition, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dies after three months, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Gelasius</i>, Pope, 492, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">condition of the Empire and Church at his accession, <a href="#Page_98">98-9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">writes to Euphemius, who will cede everything except the person of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Acacius, <a href="#Page_103">103-5</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the bishops of Eastern Illyricum profess their obedience to the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Apostolic See, <a href="#Page_105">105-6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">to whom the Pope declares that the see of Constantinople has no</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">precedence over other bishops, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">that the Holy See, in virtue of its Principate, confirms every</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">council, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his great letter to the emperor Anastasius defines the domain of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">the Two Powers, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the Primacy instituted by Christ, acknowledged by the Church, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in the Roman synod of 496, declares the divine Primacy of the Roman</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">See, the second rank of Alexandria, and the third of Antioch, as</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 3em;">sees of Peter, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the three Councils of Nicæa, Ephesus in 431, and Chalcedon, to be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">general, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">omits the Council of Constantinople in 381, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death of Gelasius, and character of the time of his sitting, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">calls Odoacer "barbarian and heretic," <a href="#Page_68">68</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Gennadius</i> bishop of Constantinople, 458-71, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Gibbon</i>, acknowledges the two great victories of the Church, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and the work of the Church in the Spanish monarchy, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and the influence of bishops in establishing the French</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">monarchy, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Glycerius</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Gregorovius</i>, "Geschichte der Stadt Rom.," quoted, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272-3</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Gregory, St., the Great</i>, his ancestry, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">state of Rome described by his predecessor Pope Pelagius, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">elected Pope, 590&mdash;tries for six months to escape, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">describes the work he was undertaking, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and the misery of Rome in the words of Ezechiel, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the Rome of St. Leo and the Rome of St. Gregory, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his works done out of this Rome, <a href="#Page_285">285-7</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the Lombard descent on Italy, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">alludes to a strange occurrence in St. Agatha dei Goti, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refers to his great-grandfather, Pope Felix III., <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">describes St. Benedict rebuking Totila, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his right of reporting injustice to the emperor, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his Primacy untouched by Rome's calamities, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">describes his Primacy to the empress Constantina, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">identifies to her his authority with that of St. Peter, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">also to the emperor Mauritius, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and to the Lombard queen Theodelinda, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and to the king of the Franks, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and to Rechared, Gothic king of Spain, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and in the appointment of the English hierarchy, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his inference from the original patriarchal sees being all sees</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">of Peter, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">exposes the contrast between the assumed title of the patriarch</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">of Constantinople and his own Principate, <a href="#Page_302">302-7</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his title, "Servant of the servants of God," expresses his</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">administration, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as fourth Doctor of the western Church, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as chief artificer in the Church's second victory, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">England indebted to him, both for hierarchy and civil constitution, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his action as bishop, metropolitan, patriarch, and Pope, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">councils held by him at Rome, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defends the liberties of monasteries against bishops, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and as metropolitan succours distressed bishoprics, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">called the father of the monks, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">compared with St. Leo in the exercise of the Primacy, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">continues the struggle of the Popes from St. Sylvester to maintain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">the Nicene constitution, <a href="#Page_350">350</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Gregory of Tours, St.</i>, notes the prospering of the Catholic,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">and the decline of the Arian kingdoms, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attests St. Gregory's flight from the papacy, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Guizot</i>, his witness to the action of the hierarchy, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Hefele</i>, "Conciliengeschichte," quoted, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Hergenröther</i>, Card., quoted, "Kirchengeschichte," <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Photius, sein Leben," <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Hilarus</i>, Pope, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Hormisdas</i>, deacon, elected Pope in 514, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sends a legation to the emperor Anastasius, who had applied to his</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">fatherly affection, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">instruction given to his legates, <a href="#Page_151">151-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">orders them not to be introduced by the bishop of Constantinople, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">conditions of reunion proposed by him to the emperor, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">is deceived by the emperor, and denounces the treachery of Greek</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">diplomacy, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">is appealed to by the Syrian Archimandrites, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">resolves how to terminate the Acacian schism, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his formulary of union accepted by the East, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dies in 523, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Hurter's</i> "Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten," the papal idea</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">carried out through generations, <a href="#Page_353">353-5</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Ignatius, St.</i>, of Antioch, quoted, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Jerome, St.</i>, the result which he did not foresee, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>John</i>,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>
+patriarch of Constantinople, accepts the formulary of Pope</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hormisdas, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>John I.</i>, Pope, martyred by Theodorick, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>John II.</i>, Pope, praises Justinian for acknowledging the Primacy,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">and confirms his confession of faith, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>John Talaia</i>, elected patriarch of Alexandria, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">offends Acacius, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">flies for refuge to Pope Simplicius, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">is supported by Pope Felix, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">made bishop of Nola by Pope Felix, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>John The Faster</i>, patriarch of Constantinople, assumes a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">scandalous title, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">holds to Gregory the position of Anatolius to Leo, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Justin I.</i>, made emperor, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">writes to Pope Hormisdas, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">announces to him the condemnation of Acacius, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his reign of nine years, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Justinian</i>, his origin, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">entreats Pope Hormisdas to restore unity, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">acknowledges to Pope John II. his Primacy, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">enacts the <i>Pandects</i>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">acknowledged the Pope's Primacy all his life, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his character as legislator, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">recovers North Africa, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">begins the Gothic war, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">domineers over the eastern Church, <a href="#Page_227">227-32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">acknowledges the dignity of Pope Vigilius, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">persecutes him, <a href="#Page_232">232-40</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">issues dogmatic decrees, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">issues Pragmatic Sanction for Italy, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">deposes his patriarch Eutychius, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">is conception of Church and State, <a href="#Page_248">248-56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">makes bishops and governors exercise mutual supervision, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">completeness and cordiality of his alliance with the Church, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his spirit the opposite to that of modern governments, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">how far he maintains, how far goes beyond, the imperial idea, <a href="#Page_264">264-9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">result spiritual and temporal of his reign, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Kurth</i>, quoted "Les Origines de la Civilisation modern," <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on the policy of Justinian, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the Church's power over the new nations, <a href="#Page_333">333</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Leander, St.</i>, archbishop of Seville, becomes an intimate friend of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">St. Gregory during his nunciature at Constantinople, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">receives the pallium from St Gregory, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Leo I., St.</i>, his universal Pastorship acknowledged by the Church</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">in General Council, <a href="#Page_1">1-3</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and the succession of the Popes during 400 years, from St. Peter, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rescues Rome from Attila, and from Genseric, <a href="#Page_7">7-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his character, acts, and times, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">stands between the two great victories of the Church, and represents</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">both, <a href="#Page_25">25-6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the result which St. Leo did not foresee, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his prescience of usurpation from the Byzantine bishop, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his prescience of what the bishops of Constantinople aimed at, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">draws out the office and functions of the nuncio, <a href="#Page_338">338</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Leo I.</i>, emperor, 467, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dies in 474, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Leo II.</i>, an infant, succeeds for a few months, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Liberatus</i>, "Breviarium," quoted, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Libius Severus</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Lombards</i>, their descent on Italy and uncivilised savagery, <a href="#Page_287">287-91</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">for ever strive to possess Rome, but never succeed, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Macedonius</i>, bishop of Constantinople, feels his unlawful</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">appointment, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">persecuted during fifteen years, and finally deposed by the emperor</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Anastasius, <a href="#Page_144">144-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">refuses to give up the Council of Chalcedon, but will not surrender</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">the memory of Acacius, and never enjoys communion with the Pope,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a href="#Page_144">144-8</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Majorian</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Martyrdom</i>, Papal, of 300 years, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Mausoleum of Hadrian</i>, stripped of its statues, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">an apparition of St. Michael changes its name, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Mennas</i>, patriarch of Constantinople, <a href="#Page_228">228-239</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Nepos</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Odoacer</i>, extinguishes the western emperor, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">named Patricius of the Romans by the emperor Zeno, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slain by Theodorick, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his exaltation foretold by St. Severinus, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Olybrius</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Orosius</i>, an important anecdote preserved by him, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Pallium</i>, sent by the Pope to the chief bishop in each province, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the duties and powers which it carried with it, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Papal election</i>, the freedom of,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+assailed by Odoacer, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">by Theodorick and Justinian, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Pelagius II.</i>, Pope, 578-590, describes the state of Rome, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Petra Apostolica</i>, in the sixty Popes preceding Gregory, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in the Popes from St. Gregory to Innocent III., <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in the Popes from Innocent III. to Leo XIII., <a href="#Page_355">355</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sustained by opposing forces, <a href="#Page_359">359</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Philips</i>, "Kirchenrecht," his judgment of Theodorick, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">on Byzantine succession, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Primacy, the Roman</i>, its denial suicidal in all who believe one holy</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Catholic Church, <a href="#Page_3">3-4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the creator of Christendom, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">tested by the division of the empire, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">still more by the extinction of the western emperor, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">witness to it by Guizot, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">saves, in the seven successors of St. Leo, the eastern Church from</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">becoming Eutychean, <a href="#Page_179">179-86</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">developed by the sufferings of sixty years, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">acknowledged by the Council of Africa after the expulsion of the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Vandals, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defined by the Vatican Council, as held by St. Gregory I., <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">saves the western bishops from absorption in their several countries, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">preserver of civil liberties, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">resister of Byzantine despotism, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">its development from St. Leo I. to St. Gregory I., <a href="#Page_342">342</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">confirmed and illustrated by civil disasters, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as Rome, the secular city, diminishes, the Primacy advances, <a href="#Page_357">357</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Rechared</i>, king of the Spanish Visigoths, converted, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his letter to St. Gregory informing him of his conversion, <a href="#Page_321">321</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Reumont</i>, "Geschichte der Stadt Rom.," quoted, over-lordship of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Byzantium, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Odoacer, Patricius at Rome, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">picture of Theodorick, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">of his government, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">sparing of St. Peter's and St. Paul's, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Totila's deeds, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Narses made Patricius of Rome, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the Pragmatic Sanction, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Riffel</i>, "Kirche und Staat," quoted, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Röhrbacher</i>, the German edition of the history, quoted, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Rome</i>, its fall as a city coeval with the universal recognition</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">of the Papal Primacy, <a href="#Page_6">6-10</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">this fall and this recognition traced from Constantine to St.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Gregory, <a href="#Page_356">356-8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">imperial, its death agony of twenty-one years, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">its sufferings in the Gothic war, <a href="#Page_210">210-23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the new city, from Narses, lives only by the Primacy, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">its extreme misery in the days of St. Gregory, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Romulus Augustulus</i>, Roman emperor, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Saxons</i>, rudest of Teuton tribes, humanised by St. Gregory, <a href="#Page_348">348</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Sidonius Apollinaris</i>, picture of the Roman senate, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">description of Rome in 467, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">makes Rome acknowledge the over-lordship of the East, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">describes the Roman baths, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Silverius, St.</i>, Pope, elected in 536, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">deposed by Belisarius, at the instigation of Theodora, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">martyred in the island of Palmaria, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Simplicius</i>, Pope, his outlook from Rome, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his letter to the emperor Zeno, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Symmachus</i>, elected Pope in 498, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his letter to the eastern emperor, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">compares the imperial and the papal power, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">they are the two heads of human society, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Catholic princes acknowledge Popes on their accession, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">inferences to be deduced from this letter, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the Synodus Palmaris refuses to judge the Pope, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">addressed by eastern bishops in their misery as a father by his</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">children, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dies in 514, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Theodora</i>, empress, her promises to Vigilius, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">her violent deposition of Pope Silverius, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Theodorick</i>, the Ostrogoth, how nurtured, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">marches on Italy, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">which he conquers, and slays Odoacer, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">character of his reign, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">slays Pope John I., and his own ministers, Boethius and Symmachus,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">judgment of him by St. Gregory, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">contrast with Clovis, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his kingdom came to nothing, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">asks the title of king from the emperor Anastasius, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">determines the election of Pope Symmachus against Laurentius, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">induced to send a bishop as visitor of the Roman Church, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">said by the emperor to have the charge of governing the Romans</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">committed to him, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his ability and family connections, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">final failure of his state, his family, and people, <a href="#Page_328">328-9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his attempt to maintain Arianism in the West foiled, <a href="#Page_347">347</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Thierry</i>, "Derniers temps de l'Empire d'Occident," <a href="#Page_20">20</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Tillemont</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Totila</i>, elected Gothic king, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">is warned by St. Benedict, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">takes Rome, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">takes Rome, its fourth capture, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">killed at Taginas, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Valens</i>, emperor, poisons the western empire with Arianism, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Valentinian III.</i>, his edict in 447 terms the Pope, Leo I.,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>principem episcopalis coronæ</i>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">murdered by Maximus, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Vere, A. de</i>, quoted, "Legends and Records," <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Chains of St. Peter," <a href="#Page_272">272</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Vigilius</i>, made Pope by Belisarius, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">summoned to Constantinople by Justinian, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his persecution there, <a href="#Page_232">232-243</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his dignity as Pope left unimpaired, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Vitiges</i>, besieges Rome, and ruins the aqueducts and Campagna, <a href="#Page_210">210-13</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">carried a captive to Constantinople, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Wandering of the nations</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26-35</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Zeno</i>, eastern emperor, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">second of the theologising emperors, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his conduct and character, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">matched with the emperor Valens, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his death, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></span><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2 class="h2pb" style="padding-top: 6em;"><i>SELECTION</i></h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+<small>FROM</small>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<h2>BURNS &amp; OATES'</h2>
+
+<p class="center">CATALOGUE
+<br />
+<br />
+<small>OF</small>
+<br />
+<br />
+PUBLICATIONS.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/logo1.png" width="100" height="166" alt="Publishers logo" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">LONDON: BURNS AND OATES, <span class="smcap">Ltd</span>.<br />
+<small>28 ORCHARD ST., W., &amp; 63 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.<br />
+NEW YORK: 12 EAST 17th STREET</small><br /><br />
+<span class="nbrk">1892.</span>
+<br />
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class='centered table'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" class="width70" cellspacing="0" summary="ADS">
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="center" colspan="2">NEW BOOKS&mdash;<i>JUST OUT.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">Lectures on Slavery and Serfdom in Europe.</span> By the Very
+  Rev. Canon <span class="smcap">Brownlow</span>, Vicar-General of Plymouth. Crown
+  8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.</td>
+  <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">The Catholic Church in England and Wales during the last
+  two centuries.</span> With Map. By <span class="smcap">Thomas Murphy</span>. With a
+  Preface by <span class="smcap">Lord Braye</span>. (The Prize Essay of the XV. Club.)
+  Demy 8vo, cloth 2s. 6d.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">Aquinas Ethicus;</span> or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas. A
+  translation of the principal portions of the second part of the
+  <i>Summa Theologica</i>, with Notes. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">Joseph Rickaby,</span> S.J.
+  In two volumes. Price 12s.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">The Wisdom and Wit of Blessed Thomas More.</span> Edited,
+  with Introduction, by the Rev. <span class="smcap">T. E. Bridgett</span>, C.SS.R., author
+  of "Life of Blessed Thomas More," "Life of Blessed John
+  Fisher," &amp;c. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2" style="font-size: .9em">"Prepared with the good taste and scholarship which were so
+  manifest in the biography.... It is remarkable to find how well
+  the wit and wisdom of the author of 'Utopia' abides the test of
+  time."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></div></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">Succat;</span> or, Sixty Years of the Life of St. Patrick. By the Very
+  Rev. Mgr. <span class="smcap">Robert Gradwell</span>. Crown 8vo., cloth 5s.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2" style="font-size: .9em">Monsignor Gradwell in this work has treated his subject from a
+  novel point of view. In the first place, he has chosen a portion only
+  of the life of St. Patrick, and that, the one which has for the most
+  part been treated with scant notice, namely, the years
+  that preceded his second arrival in Ireland. Again, he has
+  attempted to exhibit him in the light in which he was seen by his
+  contemporaries, and has surrounded him with the actual
+  circumstances of time and place. The style is eminently readable,
+  the descriptions are vivid, and the narrative of events is clear
+  and accurate.</div></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">The Hail Mary;</span> or, Popular Instructions and Considerations on the
+  Angelical Salutation. By J. P. <span class="smcap">Val D'eremao</span>, D.D., author
+  of "The Serpent of Eden," "Keys of Peter," &amp;c. Crown 8vo,
+  cloth, 3s. 6d. (Approved by the Archbishop of New York.)</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="center" colspan="2"><i>Immediately.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">The Letters of the Late Archbishop Ullathorne.</span> Edited by
+  <span class="smcap">Augusta Theodosia Drane</span>. (Sequel to the <i>Autobiography</i>.)</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">The Spirit of St. Ignatius,</span> Founder of the Society of Jesus.
+  Translated from the French of the Rev. Fr. <span class="smcap">Xavier De Franciosi</span>,
+  of the same Society.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">History of the Church of England</span> from the beginning of the
+  Christian Era to the accession of Henry VIII. By <span class="smcap">Mary H.</span>
+  <span class="smcap">Allies,</span> authoress of "Leaves from St. John Chrysostom," &amp;c.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">Menology of England and Wales.</span> Compiled by the Rev. R.
+  <span class="smcap">Stanton</span>, of the Oratory. A Supplement, containing Notes and
+  other additions, together with enlarged Appendices, and a new
+  Index, will shortly be issued.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">ALLIES, T. W. (K.C.S.G.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Formation of Christendom. Vols. I., II., and III.,<br />
+  <span style="margin-left: 2em;">(all out of print.)</span></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Church and State as seen in the Formation of Christendom,<br />
+  <span style="margin-left: 2em;">8vo, pp. 472, cloth</span>
+  <span style="margin-left: 4em;">(out of print.)</span></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Throne of the Fisherman, built by the Carpenter's
+  Son, the Root, the Bond, and the Crown of Christendom.<br />
+  <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Demy 8vo</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations.<br />
+  <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Demy 8vo</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood. <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Demy 8vo.</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"It would be quite superfluous at this hour of the day
+  to recommend Mr. Allies' writings to English Catholics.
+  Those of our readers who remember the article on his
+  writings in the <i>Katholik</i>, know that he is esteemed in
+  Germany as one of our foremost writers."&mdash;<i>Dublin Review.</i></div></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="big">ALLIES, MARY.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Leaves from St. John Chrysostom. With introduction
+  by T. W. Allies, K.C.S.G. Crown 8vo, cloth.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Miss Allies' 'Leaves' are delightful reading; the English is
+  remarkably pure and graceful; page after page reads as if it
+  were original. No commentator, Catholic or Protestant, has
+  ever surpassed St. John Chrysostom in the knowledge of Holy
+  Scripture, and his learning was of a kind which is of service
+  now as it was at the time when the inhabitants of a great
+  city hung on his words."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="big">ALLNATT, C. F. B.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>Cathedra Petri. <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Third and Enlarged Edition.</span>
+  <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cloth</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Invaluable to the controversialist and the theologian, and most
+  useful for educated men inquiring after truth or anxious to know
+  the positive testimony of Christian antiquity in favour of Papal
+  claims."&mdash;<i>Month.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Which is the True Church? Fifth Edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;4</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Church and the Sects.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ditto,</span>
+  <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ditto.</span>
+  <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Second Series</span></td>
+<td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="big">ANNUS SANCTUS:</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Hymns of the Church for the Ecclesiastical Year.
+  Translated from the Sacred Offices by various Authors, with
+  Modern, Original, and other Hymns, and an Appendix of Earlier
+  Versions. Selected and Arranged by <span class="smcap">Orby Shipley</span>, M.A.<br />
+  <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Plain Cloth, lettered</span></td>
+<td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Edition de luxe</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;10&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">ANSWERS TO ATHEISTS: OR NOTES ON</span>
+  <span class='pagenum'>[4]</span><br />
+  Ingersoll. By the Rev. A. Lambert, (over 100,000 copies
+  sold in America). Tenth edition. Paper.</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cloth</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">B. N.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Jesuits: their Foundation and History. 2 vols.
+  crown 8vo, cloth, red edge</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;15&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"The book is just what it professes to be&mdash;<i>a popular history</i>,
+  drawn from well-known sources," &amp;c.&mdash;<i>Month.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">BAKER, VEN. FATHER AUGUSTIN.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Holy Wisdom; or, Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation,
+  &amp;c. Extracted from Treatises written by the Ven. Father F.
+  Augustin Baker, O.S.B., and edited by Abbot Sweeney, D.D.
+  Beautifully bound in half leather</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"We earnestly recommend this most beautiful work to all our
+   readers. We are sure that every community will use it as a
+   constant manual. If any persons have friends in convents, we
+   cannot conceive a better present they can make them, or a better
+   claim they can have on their prayers, than by providing them with
+   a copy."&mdash;<i>Weekly Register.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">BORROMEO, LIFE OF ST. CHARLES.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>From the Italian of Peter Guissano. 2 vols.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;15&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A standard work, which has stood the test of succeeding ages: it
+  is certainly the finest work on St. Charles in an English
+  dress."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">BOWDEN, REV. H. S. (Of The Oratory) Edited By.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Dante's Divina Commedia: Its scope and value.
+  From the German of <span class="smcap">Francis Hettinger</span>, D.D.
+  With an engraving of Dante. Crown 8vo</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"All that Venturi attempted to do has been now approached with
+  far greater power and learning by Dr. Hettinger, who, as the
+  author of the 'Apologie des Christenthums,' and as a great
+  Catholic theologian, is eminently well qualified for the task he
+  has undertaken."&mdash;<i>The Saturday Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Natural Religion. Being Vol. I. of Dr. Hettinger's
+  Evidences of Christianity. With an Introduction
+  on Certainty. Second edition. Crown 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">BRIDGETT, REV. T. E. (C.SS.R.).</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Discipline of Drink</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"The historical information with which the book abounds gives
+   evidence of deep research and patient study, and imparts a
+   permanent interest to the volume, which will elevate it to a
+   position of authority and importance enjoyed by few of its
+   compeers."&mdash;<i>The Arrow.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Our Lady's Dowry; how England Won that Title.
+  New and Enlarged Edition.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+   <td><div class="blockquot2">"This book is the ablest vindication of Catholic devotion to Our
+   Lady, drawn from tradition, that we know of in the English
+   language."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Ritual of the New Testament. An essay on the principles
+  and origin of Catholic Ritual in reference to
+  the New Testament. Third edition<span class="pagenum">[5]</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of the Blessed John Fisher. With a reproduction
+  of the famous portrait of Blessed <span class="smcap">John Fisher</span>
+  by <span class="smcap">Holbein</span>, and other Illustrations. 2nd Ed.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+   <td><div class="blockquot2">"The Life of Blessed John Fisher could hardly fail to be
+   interesting and instructive. Sketched by Father Bridgett's
+   practised pen, the portrait of this holy martyr is no less
+   vividly displayed in the printed pages of the book than in the
+   wonderful picture of Holbein, which forms the
+   frontispiece."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The True Story of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by
+  Queen Elizabeth, with fuller Memoirs of its Last
+  Two Survivors. By the Rev. T. E. <span class="smcap">Bridgett</span>,
+  C.SS.R., and the late Rev. T. F. <span class="smcap">Knox</span>, D.D., of
+  the London Oratory. Crown 8vo, cloth,</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"We gladly acknowledge the value of this work on a subject which
+  has been obscured by prejudice and carelessness."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life and Writings of Blessed Thomas More, Lord
+  Chancellor of England and Martyr under Henry
+  VIII. With Portrait of the Martyr taken from the
+  Crayon Sketch made by Holbein in 1527</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Father Bridgett has followed up his valuable Life of Bishop
+  Fisher with a still more valuable Life of Thomas More. It is, as
+  the title declares, a study not only of the life, but also of the
+  writings of Sir Thomas. Father Bridgett has considered him from
+  every point of view, and the result is, it seems to us, a more
+  complete and finished portrait of the man, mentally and
+  physically, than has been hitherto presented."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Wisdom and Wit of Blessed Thomas More.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">BRIDGETT, REV. T. E. (C.SS.R.). Edited by.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Souls Departed. By <span class="smcap">Cardinal Allen</span>. First published
+in 1565, now edited in modern spelling by the Rev. T. E. Bridgett</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">BROWNE, REV. R. D.:</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Plain Sermons. Sixty-eight Plain Sermons On the
+Fundamental Truths of the Catholic Church.
+Crown 8vo</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"These are good sermons.... The great merit of which is that they
+  might be read <i>verbatim</i> to any congregation, and they would be
+  understood and appreciated by the uneducated almost as fully as
+  by the cultured. They have been carefully put together; their
+  language is simple and their matter is solid."&mdash;<i>Catholic News.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">BUCKLER, REV. H. REGINALD (O.P.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Perfection of Man by Charity: a Spiritual
+  Treatise. Crown 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"We have read this unpretending, but solid and edifying work,
+  with much pleasure, and heartily commend it to our readers....
+  Its scope is sufficiently explained by the title."&mdash;<i>The Month.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">CASWALL, FATHER.</span></td><td>&nbsp;<span class="pagenum">[6]</span></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Catholic Latin Instructor in the Principal Church
+  Offices and Devotions, for the Use of Choirs, Convents,
+  and Mission Schools, and for Self-Teaching. 1 vol., complete</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Or Part I., containing Benediction, Mass, Serving at
+  Mass, and various Latin Prayers in ordinary use</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>May Pageant: A Tale of Tintern. (A Poem) Second edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Poems</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Lyra Catholica, containing all the Breviary and Missal
+Hymns, with others from various sources. 32mo, cloth, red edges</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">CATHOLIC BELIEF: OR, A SHORT AND</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Simple Exposition of Catholic Doctrine. By the
+  Very Rev. Joseph Faà di Bruno, D.D. Tenth
+  edition <span style="margin-left: 3em">Price 6d.; post free,</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;8&frac12;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 2em">Cloth, lettered</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;0&nbsp;10</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Also an edition on better paper and bound in cloth, with
+  gilt lettering and steel frontispiece</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">CHALLONER, BISHOP.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Meditations for every day in the year. New edition.
+  Revised and edited by the Right Rev. John Virtue,
+  D.D., Bishop of Portsmouth. 8vo. 6th edition<br />
+  <span style="margin-left: 2em">And in other bindings.</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">COLERIDGE, REV. H. J. (S.J.)</span> (<i>See Quarterly Series.</i>)</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">DEVAS, C. S.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Studies of Family Life: a contribution to Social
+  Science. Crown 8vo</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"We recommend these pages and the remarkable evidence brought
+   together in them to the careful attention of all who are
+   interested in the well-being of our common
+   humanity."&mdash;<i>Guardian.</i><br />
+  "Both thoughtful and stimulating."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">DRANE, AUGUSTA THEODOSIA. Edited by.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Autobiography of Archbishop Ullathorne. Demy 8vo., cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Admirably edited and excellently produced."&mdash;<i>Weekly Register.</i><br />
+"Told in manly, vigorous English, and filled with bits of
+   descriptions of sea-life that are quite as good as anything Dana
+   ever wrote, and characterized by a certain quaint humour that has
+   frequently reminded us of the writings of Charles Waterton, the
+   naturalist; this autobiography is certainly the most entertaining
+   book that has been added to Catholic literature for many a long
+   year."&mdash;<i>Caxton Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">EYRE MOST REV. CHARLES, (Abp. Of Glasgow).</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The History of St. Cuthbert: or, An Account of his
+  Life, Decease, and Miracles. Third edition. Illustrated
+  with maps, charts, &amp;c., and handsomely
+  bound in cloth.       Royal 8vo</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;14&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A handsome, well appointed volume, in every way worthy of its
+   illustrious subject.... The chief impression of the whole is the
+   picture of a great and good man drawn by a sympathetic
+   hand."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">FABER, REV. FREDERICK WILLIAM, (D.D.)</span></td>
+<td><span class="pagenum">[7]</span>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>All for Jesus</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Bethlehem</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Blessed Sacrament</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Creator and Creature</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Ethel's Book of the Angels</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Foot of the Cross</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Growth in Holiness</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Hymns</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects, 2 vols. each</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Poems (a new edition in preparation)</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Precious Blood</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Sir Lancelot</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Spiritual Conferences</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Life and Letters of Frederick William Faber, D.D.,
+  Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. By John
+  Edward Bowden of the same Congregation</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">FOLEY, REV. HENRY, (S.J.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Records of the English Province of the Society of
+  Jesus. Vol. I., Series I. net</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. II., Series II., III., IV. net</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. III., Series V., VI., VII., VIII. net</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;10&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. IV. Series IX., X., XI. net</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. V., Series XII., with nine Photographs of Martyrs net</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;10&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. VI., Diary and Pilgrim-Book of the English College,
+  Rome. The Diary from 1579 to 1773, with
+  Biographical and Historical Notes. The Pilgrim-Book
+  of the Ancient English Hospice attached to
+  the College from 1580 to 1656, with Historical
+  Notes net</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. VII. Part the First: General Statistics of the Province;
+  and Collectanea, giving Biographical Notices
+  of its Members and of many Irish and Scotch Jesuits.
+  With 20 Photographs net</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol VII. Part the Second: Collectanea, Completed;
+  With Appendices. Catalogues of Assumed and Real Names;
+  Annual Letters; Biographies and Miscellanea net</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"As a biographical dictionary of English Jesuits, it deserves a
+   place in every well-selected library, and, as a collection of
+   marvellous occurrences, persecutions, martyrdoms, and evidences
+   of the results of faith, amongst the books of all who belong to
+   the Catholic Church."&mdash;<i>Genealogist.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">FORMBY, REV. HENRY.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Monotheism: in the main derived from the Hebrew
+  nation and the Law of Moses. The Primitive Religion
+  of the City of Rome. An historical Investigation,
+  Demy 8vo.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">FRANCIS DE SALES, ST.: THE WORKS OF.</span>
+  <span class="pagenum">[8]</span><br />
+  Translated into the English Language by the Very Rev.
+  Canon Mackey, O.S.B., under the direction of the
+  Right Rev. Bishop Hedley, O.S.B.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol I. Letters to Persons in the World. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"The letters must be read in order to comprehend the charm and
+  sweetness of their style."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. II.&mdash;The Treatise on the Love of God. Father
+  Carr's translation of 1630 has been taken as a basis,
+  but it has been modernized and thoroughly revised
+  and corrected.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;9&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"To those who are seeking perfection by the path of contemplation
+  this volume will be an armoury of help."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. III. The Catholic Controversy</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"No one who has not read it can conceive how clear, how
+  convincing, and how well adapted to our present needs are these
+  controversial 'leaves.'"&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. IV. Letters to Persons in Religion, with introduction
+  by Bishop Hedley on "St. Francis de Sales
+  and the Religious State."</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"The sincere piety and goodness, the grave wisdom, the knowledge
+  of human nature, the tenderness for its weakness, and the desire
+  for its perfection that pervade the letters, make them pregnant
+   of instruction for all serious persons. The translation and
+   editing have been admirably done."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="ast">&#8258;</span>
+  Other vols. in preparation.</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">GALLWEY, REV. PETER, (S.J.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Precious Pearl of Hope in the Mercy of God, The.
+  Translated from the Italian. With Preface by the
+  Rev. Father Gallwey. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Lectures on Ritualism and on the Anglican Orders.
+  2 vols.  (Or may be had separately.)</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;8&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Salvage from the Wreck. A few Memories of the
+  Dead, preserved in Funeral Discourses. With
+  Portraits. Crown 8vo.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">GIBSON, REV. H.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Catechism Made Easy.  Being an Explanation of the
+  Christian Doctrine. Eighth edition.  2 vols., cloth.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"This work must be of priceless worth to any who are engaged in
+  any form of catechetical instruction. It is the best book of the
+  kind that we have seen in English."&mdash;<i>Irish Monthly.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">GILLOW, JOSEPH.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Literary and Biographical History, or, Bibliographical
+  Dictionary of the English Catholics. From the
+  Breach with Rome, in 1534, to the Present Time.
+  <i>Vols. I., II. and III. cloth, demy 8vo  <span style="margin-left: 2em">each.</span></i></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;15&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="ast">&#8258;</span>
+  Other vols. in preparation.</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"The patient research of Mr. Gillow, his conscientious record of
+  minute particulars, and especially his exhaustive bibliographical
+  information in connection with each name, are beyond
+  praise."&mdash;<i>British Quarterly Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Haydock Papers. Illustrated. Demy 8vo.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"We commend this collection to the attention of every one that is
+  interested in the records of the sufferings and struggles of our
+  ancestors to hand down the faith to their children. It is in the
+   perusal of such details that we bring home to ourselves the truly
+   heroic sacrifices that our forefathers endured in those dark and
+   dismal times."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD.</span></td>
+  <td><span class="pagenum">[9]</span>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Meditations for every Day in the Year, exclusive of
+  those for Festivals, Days of Retreat, &amp;c. Adapted
+  from the original of Abbé de Brandt, by Sister Mary
+  Fidelis. A new and Improved Edition, in 3 Vols.
+  Sold only in sets. Price per set,</td>
+  <td class="addy">£1&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"The praise, though high, bestowed on these excellent meditations
+  by the Bishop of Salford is well deserved. The language, like
+  good spectacles, spreads treasures before our vision without
+  attracting attention to itself."&mdash;<i>Dublin Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">HEDLEY, BISHOP.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Our Divine Saviour, and other Discourses.  Crown 8vo.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A distinct and noteworthy feature of these sermons is, we
+  certainly think, their freshness&mdash;freshness of thought,
+  treatment, and style; nowhere do we meet pulpit commonplace or
+  hackneyed phrase&mdash;everywhere, on the contrary, it is the heart of
+  the preacher pouring out to his flock his own deep convictions,
+  enforcing them from the 'Treasures, old and new,' of a cultivated
+  mind."&mdash;<i>Dublin Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">HUMPHREY, REV. W. (S.J.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Suarez on the Religious State: A Digest of the Doctrine
+  contained in his Treatise, "De Statû Religionis."
+  3 vols., pp. 1200. Cloth, roy. 8vo.</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;10&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"This laborious and skilfully executed work is a distinct
+  addition to English theological literature. Father Humphrey's
+  style is quiet, methodical, precise, and as clear as the subject
+  admits. Every one will be struck with the air of legal exposition
+  which pervades the book. He takes a grip of his author, under
+  which the text yields up every atom of its meaning and
+  force."&mdash;<i>Dublin Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The One Mediator; or, Sacrifice and Sacraments.
+  Crown 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"An exceedingly accurate theological exposition of doctrines
+  which are the life of Christianity and which make up the soul of
+  the Christian religion.... A profound work, but so far from being
+  dark, obscure, and of metaphysical difficulty, the meaning of
+  each paragraph shines with a crystalline clearness."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">KING, FRANCIS.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Church of my Baptism, and why I returned to
+  it. Crown 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A book of the higher controversial criticism. Its literary style
+  is good, its controversial manner excellent, and its writer's
+  emphasis does not escape in italics and notes of exclamation, but
+  is all reserved for lucid and cogent reasoning. Altogether a book
+  of an excellent spirit, written with freshness and
+  distinction."&mdash;<i>Weekly Register.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">LEDOUX, REV. S. M.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>History of the Seven Holy Founders of the Order of
+  the Servants of Mary. Crown 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Throws a full light upon the Seven Saints recently canonized,
+  whom we see as they really were. All that was marvellous in their
+  call, their works, and their death is given with the charm of a
+  picturesque and speaking style."&mdash;<i>Messenger of the Sacred
+  Heart.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">LEE, REV. F. G., D.D. (of All Saints, Lambeth.)</span></td>
+  <td><span class="pagenum">[10]</span>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Edward the Sixth: Supreme Head, Second edition. Crown 8vo</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"In vivid interest and in literary power, no less than in solid
+  historical value, Dr. Lee's present work comes fully up to the
+  standard of its predecessors; and to say that is to bestow high
+  praise. The book evinces Dr. Lee's customary diligence of
+  research in amassing facts, and his rare artistic power in
+  welding them into a harmonious and effective whole."&mdash;<i>John
+  Bull.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">LIGUORI, ST. ALPHONSUS.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>New and Improved Translation of the Complete Works
+  of St. Alphonsus, edited by the late Bishop Coffin:&mdash;<br />
+  Vol. I. The Christian Virtues, and the Means for Obtaining
+  them. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Or separately:&mdash;<br />
+1. The Love of our Lord Jesus Christ</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>2. Treatise on Prayer. (<i>In the ordinary editions a
+     great part of this work is omitted</i>)</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>3. A Christian's rule of Life</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. II. The Mysteries of the Faith&mdash;The Incarnation;
+  containing Meditations and Devotions on the Birth
+  and Infancy of Jesus Christ, &amp;c., suited for Advent
+  and Christmas</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. III. The Mysteries of the Faith&mdash;The Blessed Sacrament</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. IV. Eternal Truths&mdash;Preparation for Death</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. V. The Redemption&mdash;Meditations on the Passion</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Vol. VI. Glories of Mary. New edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">LIVIUS, REV. T. (M.A., C.SS.R.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>St. Peter, Bishop of Rome; or, the Roman Episcopate
+  of the Prince of the Apostles, proved from the
+  Fathers, History and Chronology, and illustrated by
+  arguments from other sources. Dedicated to his
+  Eminence Cardinal Newman. Demy 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;12&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A book which deserves careful attention. In respect of literary
+  qualities, such as effective arrangement, and correct and lucid
+  diction, this essay, by an English Catholic scholar, is not
+  unworthy of Cardinal Newman, to whom it is dedicated."&mdash;<i>The
+  Sun.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Explanation of the Psalms and Canticles in the Divine
+  Office. By <span class="smcap">St. Alphonsus Liguori</span>. Translated
+  from the Italian by <span class="smcap">Thomas Livius</span>, C.SS.R.
+  With a Preface by his Eminence Cardinal <span class="smcap">Manning</span>.
+  Crown 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"To nuns and others who know little or no Latin, the book will be
+  of immense importance."&mdash;<i>Dublin Review.</i><br />
+"Father Livius has in our opinion even improved on the original,
+  so far as the arrangement of the book goes. New priests will find
+  it especially useful."&mdash;<i>Month.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Mary in the Epistles; or, The Implicit Teaching of
+  the Apostles concerning the Blessed Virgin, set
+  forth in devout comments on their writings.
+  Illustrated from Fathers and other Authors, and
+  prefaced by introductory Chapters. Crown 8vo. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">MANNING, CARDINAL.</span></td>
+<td><span class="pagenum">[11]</span>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>England and Christendom</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;10&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Four Great Evils of the Day. 5th edition. Wrapper</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 1em">Cloth</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Fourfold Sovereignty of God. 3rd edition. Wrapper</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 1em">Cloth</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Glories of the Sacred Heart. 5th edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Grounds of Faith. Cloth. 9th edition.  Wrapper</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 1em">Cloth</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Independence of the Holy See. 2nd edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost. 5th edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;8&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Miscellanies. 3 vols. <span style="margin-left: 2em">the set</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;18&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>National Education. Wrapper</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 1em">Cloth</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Petri Privilegium</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;10&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Religio Viatoris. 4th edition, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 1em">Wrapper</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects. Vols. I., II.,
+and III. each</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Sin and its Consequences. 7th edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost. 4th edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;8&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Temporal Power of the Pope. 3rd edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>True Story of the Vatican Council. 2nd edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Eternal Priesthood. 9th edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Office of the Church in the Higher Catholic
+  Education. A Pastoral Letter</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England.
+  Reprint of a letter addressed to Dr. Pusey in 1864
+    Wrapper</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 1em">Cloth</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Lost Sheep Found. A Sermon</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>On Education</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;3</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Rights and Dignity of Labour</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;1</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">The Westminster Series</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2"> <span style="margin-left: 10em;">In handy pocket size.</span></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Blessed Sacrament, the Centre of Immutable
+  Truth, Wrapper</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;0&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Confidence in God. Wrapper</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Or the two bound together. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. John. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Holy Ghost the Sanctifier. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Love of Jesus to Penitents. Wrapper</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span style="margin-left: 1em">Cloth</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Office of the Holy Ghost under the Gospel. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">MANNING, CARDINAL, Edited by.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Life of the Curé of Ars.  Popular edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">MEDAILLE, REV. P.</span></td>
+  <td><span class="pagenum">[12]</span>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Meditations on the Gospels for Every Day in the
+  Year. Translated into English from the new Edition,
+  enlarged by the Besançon Missionaries, under
+  the direction of the Rev. W. H. Eyre, S.J. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>(This work has already been translated into Latin,
+  Italian, Spanish, German, and Dutch.)<br />
+<div class="blockquot2">"We have carefully examined these Meditations, and are fain to
+  confess that we admire them very much. They are short, succinct,
+  pithy, always to the point, and wonderfully
+  suggestive."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">MIVART, PROF. ST. GEORGE (M.D., F.R.S.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Nature and Thought. Second edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"The complete command of the subject, the wide grasp, the
+  subtlety, the readiness of illustration, the grace of style,
+  contrive to render this one of the most admirable books of its
+  class."&mdash;<i>British Quarterly Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>A Philosophical Catechism,  Fifth edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"It should become the <i>vade mecum</i> of Catholic
+  students."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">MONTGOMERY, HON. MRS.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><i>Approved by the Most Rev. G. Porter, Achbp. of Bombay.</i><br />
+The Eternal Years. With an Introduction by the
+  Most Rev. G. Porter, Achbp. of Bombay, Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Divine Ideal. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A work of original thought carefully developed and expressed in
+  lucid and richly imaged style."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i><br />
+"The writing of a pious, thoughtful, earnest woman."&mdash;<i>Church
+  Review.</i><br />
+"Full of truth, and sound reason, and confidence."&mdash;<i>American
+  Catholic Book News.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">MORRIS, REV. JOHN (S.J.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Letter Books of Sir Amias Poulet, keeper of Mary
+  Queen of Scots.  Demy 8vo</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;10&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Two Missionaries under Elizabeth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;14&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Catholics under Elizabeth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;14&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of Father John Gerard, S.J. Third edition,
+  rewritten and enlarged</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;14&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life and Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket. Second
+  and enlarged edition. In one volume, large post 8vo,
+  cloth, pp. xxxvi., 632,</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;12&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>or bound in two parts, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;13&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">MORRIS, REV. W. B. (of the Oratory.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland. Fourth
+  edition. Crown 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"The secret of Father Morris's success is, that he has got the
+  proper key to the extraordinary, the mysterious life and
+  character of St. Patrick. He has taken the Saint's own authentic
+  writings as the foundation whereon to build."&mdash;<i>Irish
+  Ecclesiastical Record.</i><br />
+"Promises to become the standard biography of Ireland's Apostle.
+  For clear statement of facts, and calm judicious discussion of
+  controverted points, it surpasses any work we know of in the
+  literature of the subject."&mdash;<i>American Catholic Quarterly.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Ireland and St. Patrick.  A study of the Saint's
+  character and of the results of his apostolate.
+  Crown 8vo. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">NEWMAN, CARDINAL.</span></td>
+  <td><span class="pagenum">[13]</span>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Church of the Fathers</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2" style="font-size: 0.9em;">Prices of other works
+   by Cardinal Newman on application.</div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">PAGANI, VERY REV. JOHN BAPTIST,</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Science of the Saints in Practice. By John Baptist
+  Pagani, Second General of the Institute of
+  Charity.  Complete in three volumes. Vol. 1,
+  January to April. Vol. 2, May to August. Vol. 3,
+  September to December <span style="margin-left: 2em;">each</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"'The Science of the Saints' is a practical treatise on the
+  principal Christian virtues, abundantly illustrated with
+  interesting examples from Holy Scripture as well as from the
+  Lives of the Saints. Written chiefly for devout souls such as are
+  trying to live an interior and supernatural life by following in
+  the footsteps of our Lord and His saints, this work is eminently
+  adapted for the use of ecclesiastics and of religious
+  communities."&mdash;<i>Irish Ecclesiastical Record.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">PAYNE, JOHN ORLEBAR, (M.A.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Records of the English Catholics of 1715. Demy 8vo.
+  Half-bound, gilt top</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;15&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A book of the kind Mr. Payne has given us would have astonished
+  Bishop Milner or Dr. Lingard. They would have treasured it, for
+  both of them knew the value of minute fragments of historical
+  information. The Editor has derived nearly the whole of the
+  information which he has given, from unprinted sources, and we
+  must congratulate him on having found a few incidents here and
+  there which may bring the old times back before us in a most
+  touching manner."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>English Catholic Non-Jurors of 1715. Being a Summary
+  of the Register of their Estates, with Genealogical
+  and other Notes, and an Appendix of
+  Unpublished Documents in the Public Record
+  Office. In one Volume. Demy 8vo.</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Most carefully and creditably brought out.... From first to
+  last, full of social interest and biographical details, for which
+  we may search in vain elsewhere."&mdash;<i>Antiquarian Magazine.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Old English Catholic Missions. Demy 8vo, half-bound.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A book to hunt about in for curious odds and ends."&mdash;<i>Saturday
+  Review.</i><br />
+"These registers tell us in their too brief records, teeming with
+  interest for all their scantiness, many a tale of patient
+  heroism."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">PORTER, ARCHBISHOP.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Letters of the late Father George Porter, S.J.,
+  Archbishop of Bombay. Demy 8vo. Cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Brimful of good things.... In them the priest will find a
+  storehouse of hints on matters spiritual; from them the layman
+  will reap crisp and clear information on many ecclesiastical
+  points; the critic can listen to frank opinions of literature of
+  every shade; and the general reader can enjoy the choice bits of
+  description and morsels of humour scattered lavishly through the
+  book."&mdash;<i>Tablet.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">QUARTERLY SERIES</span><span style="margin-left: 1em">Edited by the Rev. John
+  Morris, S.J. 80 volumes published to date.</span></td>
+  <td><span class="pagenum">[14]</span>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" style="text-align: center"><i>Selection.</i></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier. By the
+  Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J. 2 vols.</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;10&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The History of the Sacred Passion. By Father Luis
+  de la Palma, of the Society of Jesus. Translated
+  from the Spanish.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of Dona Louisa de Carvajal. By Lady
+  Georgiana Fullerton. Small edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life and Letters of St. Teresa. 3 vols. By Rev.
+  H. J. Coleridge, S.J.  each</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of Mary Ward. By Mary Catherine Elizabeth
+  Chalmers, of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin.
+  Edited by the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J. 2 vols.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;15&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Return of the King. Discourses on the Latter
+  Days. By the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Pious Affections towards God and the Saints.
+  Meditations for every Day in the Year, and for
+  the Principal Festivals. From the Latin of the Ven.
+  Nicolas Lancicius, S.J.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ in Meditations
+  for Every Day in the Year. By Fr. Nicolas
+  Avancino, S.J. Two vols.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;10&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Baptism of the King: Considerations on the Sacred
+  Passion. By the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Mother of the King. Mary during the Life of Our Lord</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Hours of the Passion. Taken from the <i>Life of
+  Christ</i> by Ludolph the Saxon</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Mother of the Church. Mary during the first Apostolic Age</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of St. Bridget of Sweden. By the late F. J. M. A. Partridge</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Teachings and Counsels of St. Francis Xavier. From his Letters</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Garcia Moreno, President of Ecuador. 1821-1875.
+  From the French of the Rev. P. A. Berthe, C.SS.R.
+  By Lady Herbert</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of St. Alonso Rodriguez. By Francis
+  Goldie, of the Society of Jesus</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Letters of St. Augustine. Selected and arranged by
+  Mary H. Allies</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>A Martyr from the Quarter-Deck&mdash;Alexis Clerc, S.J.
+  By Lady Herbert</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;5&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Acts of the English Martyrs, hitherto unpublished.
+  By the Rev. John H. Pollen, S.J., with a Preface
+  by the Rev. John Morris, S.J.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Life of St. Francis di Geronimo, S.J. By A. M. Clarke.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Aquinas Ethicus; or the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas.
+  By the Rev. Joseph Rickaby, S.J. 2 vols.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;12&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Volumes On The Life Of Our Lord.</span>
+  <span class="pagenum">[15]</span></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" style="text-align: center"><i>The Holy Infancy.</i></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Preparation of the Incarnation</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Nine Months. <span style="margin-left: .5em">The Life of our Lord in the Womb</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Thirty Years. <span style="margin-left: .5em">Our Lord's Infancy and Early Life</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" style="text-align: center"><i>The Public Life of Our Lord.</i></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Ministry of St. John Baptist</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Preaching of the Beatitudes</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Sermon on the Mount. Continued. 2 Parts, each</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Training of the Apostles. <span style="margin-left: .5em">Parts I., II., III.,
+  IV. each</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Preaching of the Cross. <span style="margin-left: .5em">Part I.</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Preaching of the Cross. <span style="margin-left: .5em">Parts II., III. each</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Passiontide. <span style="margin-left: .5em">Parts I. II. and III., each</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Chapters on the Parables of Our Lord</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td colspan="2" style="text-align: center"><i>Introductory Volumes.</i></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of our Life. Harmony of the Life of Our
+  Lord, with Introductory Chapters and Indices.
+  Second edition. Two vols.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;15&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Passage of our Lord to the Father. Conclusion
+  of The Life of our Life</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Works and Words of our Saviour, gathered from
+  the Four Gospels</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Story of the Gospels. Harmonised for Meditation</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">ROSE, STEWART.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>St. Ignatius Loyola and The Early Jesuits, with more
+  than 100 Illustrations by H. W. and H. C. Brewer
+  and L. Wain. The whole produced under the
+  immediate superintendence of the Rev. W. H. Eyre,
+  S.J. Super Royal 8vo. Handsomely bound in
+  Cloth, extra gilt. (net.)</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;15&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"This magnificent volume is one of which Catholics have justly
+  reason to be proud. Its historical as well as its literary value
+  is very great, and the illustrations from the pencils of Mr.
+  Louis Wain and Messrs. H. W. and H. C. Brewer are models of what
+  the illustrations of such a book should be. We hope that this
+  book will be found in every Catholic drawing-room, as a proof
+  that 'we Catholics' are in no way behind those around us in the
+  beauty of the illustrated books that issue from our hands, or in
+  the interest which is added to the subject by a skilful pen and
+  finished style."&mdash;<i>Month.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">RYDER, REV. H. I. D. (of the Oratory.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Catholic Controversy: A Reply to Dr. Littledale's
+  "Plain Reasons." Seventh edition</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Father Ryder of the Birmingham Oratory, has now furnished in a
+  small volume a masterly reply to this assailant from without. The
+  lighter charms of a brilliant and graceful style are added to the
+  solid merits of this handbook of contemporary
+  controversy."&mdash;<i>Irish Monthly.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">SOULIER, REV. P.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Life of St. Philip Benizi, of the Order of the Servants
+  of Mary, Crown 8vo</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;8&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"A clear and interesting account of the life and labours of this
+  eminent Servant of Mary."&mdash;<i>American Catholic Quarterly.</i><br />
+"Very scholar-like, devout and complete."&mdash;<i>Dublin Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">STANTON, REV. R. (of the Oratory.)</span></td>
+<td><span class="pagenum">[16]</span>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>A Menology of England and Wales; or, Brief Memorials
+  of the British and English Saints, arranged
+  according to the Calendar. Together with the Martyrs
+  of the 16th and 17th centuries. Compiled by
+  order of the Cardinal Archbishop and the Bishops
+  of the Province of Westminster.  Demy 8vo. cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">£0&nbsp;14&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">THOMPSON, EDWARD HEALY, (M.A.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life of Jean-Jacques Olier, Founder of the
+  Seminary of St. Sulpice. New and Enlarged Edition.
+  Post 8vo, cloth, pp. xxxvi. 628</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;15&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"It provides us with just what we most need, a model to look up
+  to and imitate; one whose circumstances and surroundings were
+  sufficiently like our own to admit of an easy and direct
+  application to our own personal duties and daily
+  occupations."&mdash;<i>Dublin Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life and Glories of St. Joseph, Husband of
+  Mary, Foster-Father of Jesus, and Patron of the
+  Universal Church. Grounded on the Dissertations of
+  Canon Antonio Vitalis, Father José Moreno, and other
+  writers. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">ULLATHORNE ARCHBISHOP.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Autobiography of, <i>see</i> Drane, A. T.</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Endowments of Man, &amp;c. Popular edition.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Groundwork of the Christian Virtues: do.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Christian Patience, do. do.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;7&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Ecclesiastical Discourses</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Memoir of Bishop Willson.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;2&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">VAUGHAN, ARCHBISHOP, (O.S.B.)</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquin.
+  Abridged and edited by Dom Jerome Vaughan,
+  O.S.B. Second Edition. (Vol. I., Benedictine
+  Library.) Crown 8vo. Attractively bound</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;6&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Popularly written, in the best sense of the word, skilfully
+  avoids all wearisome detail, whilst omitting nothing that is of
+  importance in the incidents of the Saint's existence, or for a
+  clear understanding of the nature and the purpose of those
+  sublime theological works on which so many Pontiffs, and notably
+  Leo XIII., have pronounced such remarkable and repented
+  commendations."&mdash;<i>Freeman's Journal.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">WARD, WILFRID.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Clothes of Religion. A reply to popular Positivism.</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;3&nbsp;&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><div class="blockquot2">"Very witty and interesting."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i><br />
+"Really models of what such essays should be."&mdash;<i>Ch. Quart. Review.</i></div></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">WATERWORTH, REV. J.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and OEcumenical
+  Council of Trent, celebrated under the Sovereign
+  Pontiffs, Paul III., Julius III., and Pius IV., translated
+  by the Rev. J. <span class="smcap">Waterworth</span>. To which are prefixed Essays
+  on the External and Internal History of the Council.
+  A new edition. Demy 8vo, cloth</td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;10&nbsp;6</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="big">WISEMAN, CARDINAL.</span></td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Fabiola. A Tale of the Catacombs. 3s. 6d. <span style="margin-left: .5em">and</span></td>
+  <td class="addy">0&nbsp;&nbsp;4&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Also a new and splendid edition printed on large
+ quarto paper, embellished with thirty-one full-page
+ illustrations, and a coloured portrait of St. Agnes.
+ Handsomely bound.</td>
+  <td class="addy">1&nbsp;&nbsp;1&nbsp;&nbsp;0</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="pg" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM, VOLUME VI***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI, by
+Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI
+       The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I
+
+
+Author: Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 28, 2009  [eBook #29268]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM,
+VOLUME VI***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Paul Dring, Steven Giacomelli, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from
+digital material generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian
+Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/theholysee06alliuoft
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS
+
+FROM ST. LEO I. TO ST. GREGORY I.
+
+by
+
+THOMAS W. ALLIES, K.C.S.G.
+
+Author of the "Formation Of Christendom"; "Church and State As Seen
+in the Formation of Christendom"; "The Throne of the Fisherman";
+"A Life's Decision"; and "Per Crucem Ad Lucem"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London: Burns & Oates, Limited
+New York: Catholic Publication Society Co.
+1888
+
+
+
+
+THE LETTERS OF THE POPES AS SOURCES OF HISTORY.
+
+
+Cardinal Mai has left recorded his judgment that, "in matter of fact, the
+whole administration of the Church is learnt in the letters of the
+Popes".[1]
+
+I draw from this judgment the inference that of all sources for the truths
+of history none are so precious, instructive, and authoritative as these
+authentic letters contemporaneous with the persons to whom they are
+addressed. The first which has been preserved to us is that of Pope St.
+Clement, the contemporary of St. Peter and St. Paul. It is directed to the
+Church of Corinth for the purpose of extinguishing a schism which had there
+broken out. In issuing his decision the Pope appeals to the Three Divine
+Persons to bear witness that the things which he has written "are written
+by us through the Holy Spirit," and claims obedience to them from those to
+whom he sends them as words "spoken by God through us".[2]
+
+If the decisions of the succeeding Popes in the interval of nearly two
+hundred and fifty years between this letter of St. Clement, about the year
+95, and the great letter of St. Julius to the Eusebianising bishops at
+Antioch in 342, had been preserved entire, the constitution of the Church
+in that interval would have shone before us in clear light. In fact, we
+only possess a few fragments of some of these decisions, for there was a
+great destruction of such documents in the persecution which occupied the
+first decade of the fourth century. But from the time of Pope Siricius, in
+the reign of the great Theodosius, a continuous, though not a perfect,
+series of these letters stretches through the succeeding ages. There is no
+other such series of documents existing in the world. They throw light upon
+all matters and persons of which they treat. This is a light proceeding
+from one who lives in the midst of what he describes, who is at the centre
+of the greatest system of doctrine and discipline, and legislation grounded
+upon both, which the world has ever seen. One, also, who speaks not only
+with a great knowledge, but with an unequalled authority, which, in every
+case, is like that of no one else, but can even be _supreme_, when it is
+directed with such a purpose to the whole Church. Every Pope _can_ speak,
+as St. Clement, the first of this series, speaks above, claiming obedience
+to his words as "words spoken by God through us".
+
+In a former volume I made large use of the letters of Popes from Siricius
+to St. Leo. I have continued that use for the very important period from
+St. Leo to St. Gregory. Especially in treating of the Acacian schism I have
+gone to the letters of the Popes who had to deal with it--Simplicius,
+Felix III., Gelasius, Anastasius II., Symmachus, and Hormisdas. I have done
+the same for the important reign of Justinian; most of all for the grand
+pontificate of St. Gregory, which crowns the whole patristic period and
+sums up its discipline.
+
+I am, therefore, indebted in this volume, first and chiefly, to the letters
+of the Popes and the letters addressed to them by emperors and bishops,
+stored up in Mansi's vast collection of Councils (1759, 31 volumes). I am
+also much indebted to Cardinal Hergenroether's work _Photius, sein Leben,
+und das griechische Schisma_, and to his _Handbuch der allgemeinen
+Kirchengeschichte_, as the number of quotations from him will show. Again,
+I may mention the two histories of the city of Rome, by Reumont and
+Gregorovius, as most valuable. I acknowledge many obligations to Riffel's
+_Geschichtliche Darstellung des Verhaeltnisses zwischen Kirche und Staat_,
+with regard to the legislation of Justinian. The edition of Justinian
+referred to by me is Heimbach's _Authenticum_, Leipsic, 1851. I have
+consulted Hefele's _Conciliengeschichte_ where need was. I have found
+Kurth's _Origines de la Civilisation moderne_ instructive. I have used the
+carefully emended and supplemented German edition of Roehrbacher's history,
+by various writers--Rump and others. St. Gregory is quoted from the
+Benedictine edition.
+
+As these works are indicated in the notes as they occur with the single
+name of the author, I have given here their full titles.
+
+The present volume is the sixth of the _Formation of Christendom_, though
+it has a special title indicating the particular part of that general
+subject which it treats. I have, therefore, added to the numbering of the
+chapters in the Table of Contents the number which they hold in the whole
+work.
+
+  _September 11, 1888._
+
+NOTES:
+
+[1] _Nova Patrum bibliotheca_, p. vi.: In Pontificum reapse epistolis tota
+ecclesiae administratio cognoscitur.
+
+[2] See p. 351 below; also _Church and State_, pp. 198-200, for the full
+statement of this passage.
+
+
+
+
+  TABLE OF CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I. (XLIII.).
+
+  THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  Introduction. Connection with Volume V. St. Leo's action,           1
+
+  Denial of the Primacy as acknowledged at Chalcedon
+  suicidal on the part of those who believe in the Church,            3
+
+  Subject of this volume as compared with the fifth,                  5
+
+  The second wonder in human history,                                 6
+
+  The acknowledgment of the Primacy and the political
+  powerlessness of the city of Rome coeval,                           6
+
+  The three hundred years from Genseric to Astolphus,                 9
+
+  St. Leo in Rome after Genseric,                                    10
+
+  Political condition of Rome. Avitus emperor, 455-6,                13
+
+  Majorian emperor, 457-461,                                         14
+
+  Death of Pope Leo; changes seen by him in his life,                15
+
+  Hilarus Pope and Libius Severus emperor, 461-465,                  16
+
+  The over-lordship of Byzantium admitted in the choice of
+  the Greek Anthemius as emperor, 467,                               18
+
+  Sidonius Apollinaris an eye-witness of Rome's splendour,
+  subjection to Byzantium, and unchanged habits in 467,              19
+
+  Anthemius murdered and Rome plundered by Ricimer, 472,             20
+
+  Olybrius emperor, 472; Ricimer and Olybrius die of the
+  plague,                                                            20
+
+  Glycerius emperor, 473; Nepos, 474; Romulus Augustulus, 475,       21
+
+  The senate declares to the eastern emperor that an emperor
+  of the West is needless,                                           22
+
+  The twenty-one years' death-agony of imperial Rome,                23
+
+  State of the western provinces since the death of Theodosius I.,   24
+
+  The first and the second victory of the Church,                    25
+
+  The effect produced by the wandering of the nations,               26
+
+  The Visigoth and Ostrogoth migrations,                             27
+
+  Gaul overrun by Teuton invaders,                                   28
+
+  Arianism propagated by the Goths among the other tribes,           29
+
+  Burgundian kingdom of Lyons. Spain overrun,                        30
+
+  The Vandals in North Africa and their persecution of Catholics,    31
+
+  The Hunnish inroads,                                               33
+
+  All the western provinces under Teuton governments,                35
+
+  Odoacer and Theodorick,                                            36
+
+  Odoacer succeeded by Theodorick after the capture of Ravenna,      38
+
+  The character of Theodorick's reign,                               39
+
+  His fairness towards the Roman Church and Pontiff,                 40
+
+  The contrast between Theodorick and Clovis,                        42
+
+  The dictum of Ataulph on the Roman empire,                         43
+
+  Ataulph and Theodorick represent the better judgments of
+  the invaders,                                                      44
+
+  The outlook of Pope Simplicius at Rome over the western provinces, 45
+
+  And over the eastern empire,                                       46
+
+  Basiliscus and Zeno the first theologising emperors,               47
+
+  How the races descending on the empire had become Arian,           49
+
+  The point of time when the Church was in danger of losing
+  all which she had gained,                                          50
+
+  How the division of the empire called out the Primacy,             51
+
+  How the extinction of the western empire does so yet more,         53
+
+  How the Pope was the sole fixed point in a transitional world,     54
+
+  Guizot's testimony,                                                55
+
+  What St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Leo did not foresee,
+  which we behold,                                                   57
+
+
+  CHAPTER II. (XLIV.).
+
+  CAESAR FELL DOWN.
+
+  Great changes in the Roman State following the time of St. Leo,    59
+
+  Nature of the succession in the Caesarean throne, and then
+  in the Byzantine,                                                  61
+
+  Personal changes in the Popes and eastern emperors,                62
+
+  Gennadius succeeds Anatolius, and Acacius succeeds Gennadius
+  in the see of Constantinople,                                      64
+
+  Acacius resists the Encyclikon of Basiliscus,                      65
+
+  Letter of Pope Simplicius to the emperor Zeno,                     66
+
+  Advancement of Acacius by Zeno,                                    69
+
+  Acacius induces Zeno to publish a formulary of doctrine,           70
+
+  John Talaia, elected patriarch of Alexandria, appeals for
+  support to Pope Simplicius,                                        70
+
+  Pope Felix sends an embassy to the emperor,                        71
+
+  His letter to Zeno,                                                72
+
+  His letter to Acacius,                                             73
+
+  His legates arrested, imprisoned, robbed, and seduced,             74
+
+  Pope Felix synodically deposes Acacius,                            75
+
+  Enumerates his misdeeds in the sentence,                           76
+
+  Synodal decrees in Italy signed by the Pope alone,                 78
+
+  Letter of Pope Felix to Zeno setting forth the condemnation
+  of Acacius,                                                        79
+
+  The condition of the Pope when he thus wrote,                      81
+
+  How Acacius received the Pope's condemnation,                      83
+
+  The position which Acacius thereupon took up,                      84
+
+  The greatness of the bishop of Constantinople identified
+  with the greatness of his city,                                    84
+
+  The humiliations of Rome witnessed by Acacius,                     86
+
+  How the Pope, under these humiliations, spoke to Acacius
+  and to the emperor,                                                88
+
+  The Pope on the one side, Acacius on the other, represent
+  an absolute contradiction,                                         89
+
+  Eudoxius and Valens matched by Acacius and Zeno,                   92
+
+  Death of Acacius, and estimate of him by three contemporaries,     93
+
+  Fravita, succeeding Acacius, seeks the Pope's recognition,         93
+
+  Letters of the emperor and Fravita to the Pope, and his
+  answers,                                                           94
+
+  The position taken by Acacius not maintained by Zeno and
+  Fravita,                                                           96
+
+  Nor by Euphemius, who succeeds Fravita,                            96
+
+  Euphemius suspects and resists the new emperor Anastasius,         97
+
+  Condition of the Empire and the Church at the accession of
+  Pope Gelasius in 492,                                              98
+
+  The "libellus synodicus" on the emperor Anastasius,               100
+
+  With whom the four Popes--Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus,
+  and Hormisdas--have to deal,                                      101
+
+  Euphemius, writing to the Pope, acknowledges him to be
+  successor of St. Peter,                                           103
+
+  Gelasius replies to Euphemius, insisting on the repudiation
+  of Acacius,                                                       104
+
+  Absolute obedience of the Illyrian bishops professed to the
+  Apostolic See,                                                    105
+
+  Gelasius shows that the canons make the First See supreme
+  judge of all,                                                     106
+
+  Says that the bishop of Constantinople holds no rank among
+  bishops,                                                          107
+
+  Praises bishops who have resisted the wrongdoings of temporal
+  rulers,                                                           108
+
+  The Holy See, in virtue of its Principate, confirms every
+  Council,                                                          109
+
+  Gelasius in 494 defines to the emperor the domain of the
+  Two Powers,                                                       110
+
+  And the subordination of the temporal ruler in spiritual things,  111
+
+  The words of Gelasius have become the law of the Church,          113
+
+  The emperor Anastasius deposes Euphemius by the Resident
+  Council,                                                          114
+
+  Pope Gelasius, in a council of seventy bishops at Rome,
+  sets forth the divine institution of the Primacy,                 115
+
+  And the order of the three Patriarchal Sees,                      115
+
+  And three General Councils--the Nicene, Ephesine, and
+  Chalcedonic,                                                      115
+
+  Denies to the see of Constantinople any rank beyond that
+  of an ordinary bishop, and omits the Council of 381,              116
+
+  Death of Pope Gelasius and character of his pontificate,          118
+
+  His own description of the time in which he lived,                118
+
+
+  CHAPTER III. (XLV.).
+
+  PETER STOOD UP.
+
+  Pope Anastasius: his letter to the emperor Anastasius,            120
+
+  He makes the Pope's position in the Church parallel with
+  that of the emperor in the world,                                 121
+
+  He writes to Clovis on his conversion,                            122
+
+  St. Gregory of Tours notes the prosperity of Catholic kingdoms
+  and the decline of Arian in the West,                             123
+
+  Letter of St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to Clovis on his
+  baptism,                                                          124
+
+  He recognises the vast importance of the professing the
+  Catholic faith by Clovis,                                         125
+
+  And the duty of Clovis to propagate the faith in peoples around,  126
+
+  How the words of St. Avitus to Clovis were fulfilled in history,  127
+
+  The election of Pope Symmachus traversed by the emperor's agent,  128
+
+  His letter termed "Apologetica" to the eastern emperor,           129
+
+  The imperial and papal power compared,                            131
+
+  The papal and the sovereign power the double permanent
+  head of human society,                                            133
+
+  Emperors wont to acknowledge Popes on their accession,            134
+
+  Inferences to be deduced from this letter,                        135
+
+  The answer of the emperor Anastasius is to stir up a fresh
+  schism at Rome,                                                   136
+
+  The Synodus Palmaris, without judging the Pope, declares
+  him free from all charge,                                         137
+
+  Letter of the bishop of Vienne to the Roman senate upon
+  this Council,                                                     139
+
+  The cause of the Bishop of Rome is not that of one bishop,
+  but of the Episcopate itself,                                     140
+
+  Words of Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, embodied in the act
+  of the Roman Council of 503,                                      142
+
+  Result of the attack of the emperor on the Pope is the recording
+  in black and white that the First See is judged by no man,        143
+
+  The eastern Church under the emperor Anastasius,                  143
+
+  He deposes Macedonius as well as Euphemius,                       144
+
+  Both these bishops of Byzantium failed to resist his despotism,   147
+
+  Eastern bishops address Pope Symmachus to succour them,           148
+
+  Pope Hormisdas succeeds Symmachus in 514,                         149
+
+  His instruction to the legates sent to Constantinople,            150
+
+  The bishop of Constantinople presents all bishops to the
+  emperor,                                                          157
+
+  The conditions for reunion made by Pope Hormisdas,                158
+
+  The treacherous conduct of the emperor,                           159
+
+  Hormisdas describes Greek diplomacy,                              160
+
+  The Syrian Archimandrites supplicate the Pope for help,           161
+
+  Sudden death of the emperor Anastasius,                           162
+
+  The emperor Justin's election and antecedents,                    162
+
+  He notifies his accession to the Pope,                            163
+
+  The Pope holds a council and sends an embassy to Constantinople,  164
+
+  The bishop, clergy, and emperor accept the terms of the Pope,     165
+
+  The formulary of union signed by them,                            167
+
+  The report of the legates to the Pope,                            169
+
+  The emperor Justin's letter to the Pope,                          170
+
+  Character of the period 455-519,                                  171
+
+  Political state of the East and West most perilous to the
+  Church,                                                           172
+
+  The Popes under Odoacer and Theodorick,                           173
+
+  How Acacius took advantage of the political situation,            174
+
+  The meaning and range of his attempt,                             175
+
+  The Pope from 476 onwards rests solely upon his Apostolate,       176
+
+  The seven Popes who succeed St. Leo,                              179
+
+  The seven bishops who succeed Anatolius at Constantinople,        180
+
+  The eastern emperors in this time,                                182
+
+  The state of the eastern patriarchates, Alexandria and Antioch,   184
+
+  The waning of secular Rome reveals the power of the Pontificate,  185
+
+  The Popes alone preserved the East from the Eutychean heresy,     185
+
+  The position of St. Leo maintained by the seven following Popes,  186
+
+  The submission to Hormisdas an act of the "undivided" Church,     187
+
+  The adverse circumstances which developed the Pope's Principate,  188
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV. (XLVI.).
+
+  JUSTINIAN.
+
+  Sequel in Justinian of the submission to Pope Hormisdas,          189
+
+  His acknowledgment of the Primacy to Pope John II. in 533,        190
+
+  Reply of Pope John II. confirming the confession sent to
+  him by Justinian,                                                 191
+
+  The _Pandects_ of Justinian issued in the same year,              192
+
+  Close interweaving of ecclesiastical and temporal interests,      193
+
+  Interference with the freedom of the papal election by the
+  temporal ruler,                                                   194
+
+  Letter of Cassiodorus as Praetorian prefect to Pope John II.,      195
+
+  Justinian all his reign acknowledged the Primacy of the Pope,     196
+
+  His character, purposes, and actions,                             196
+
+  Succeeds his uncle the emperor Justin I.,                         198
+
+  Great political changes coeval with his succession,               199
+
+  He reconquers Northern Africa by Belisarius,                      199
+
+  The Catholic bishops of Africa meet again in General Council,     200
+
+  They send an embassy to consult Pope John II.,                    201
+
+  Pope Agapetus notes their reference to the Apostolic Principate,  202
+
+  Great renown of Justinian at the reconquest of Africa,            203
+
+  Pope Agapetus at Constantinople deposes its bishop,               204
+
+  Justinian begins the Gothic War. Belisarius enters Rome,          205
+
+  He is welcomed as restorer of the empire,                         206
+
+  The empress Theodora deposes Pope Silverius by Belisarius,        207
+
+  First siege of Rome by Vitiges,                                   210
+
+  The mausoleum of Hadrian stripped of its statues,                 211
+
+  Vitiges, having lost half his army, raises the siege,             213
+
+  Belisarius, having reconquered Italy, is recalled for the war
+  with Persia,                                                      214
+
+  Totila, elected Gothic king, renews the war,                      214
+
+  Visits St. Benedict at Monte Cassino, and is warned by him,       215
+
+  Second siege of Rome by Totila,                                   216
+
+  Rome taken by Totila in 546,                                      216
+
+  Third capture of Rome by Belisarius, in 547,                      217
+
+  Fourth capture of Rome by Totila, in 549,                         218
+
+  Totila defeated and killed by Narses at Taginas,                  219
+
+  Fifth capture of Rome by Narses, in 552,                          220
+
+  End of the Gothic war, in 555,                                    221
+
+  Its effect on the civil condition of the Pope, Italy, and Rome,   222
+
+  The sufferings of Rome from assailants and defenders,             223
+
+  The new test of papal authority applied by these events,          225
+
+  Vigilius, having become legitimate Pope, is sent for by
+  Justinian,                                                        226
+
+  Church proceedings at Constantinople after the death of
+  Pope Agapetus,                                                    227
+
+  The patriarch Mennas, in conjunction with the emperor,
+  consecrates at Constantinople a patriarch of Alexandria,          228
+
+  The Origenistic struggle in the eastern empire,                   229
+
+  Justinian theologising,                                           230
+
+  The whole East urged to consent to his edict on doctrine,         231
+
+  Pope Vigilius, summoned by Justinian, enters Constantinople,      232
+
+  After long conferences with emperor and bishops he issues
+  a Judgment,                                                       234
+
+  The Pope and emperor agree upon holding a General Council,        235
+
+  The emperor's despotism, and the bishops crouching before it,     236
+
+  The Pope takes sanctuary, and is torn away from the altar,        237
+
+  Flies to the church at Chalcedon,                                 238
+
+  The bishops relent, and the Pope returns to Constantinople,       239
+
+  Eutychius, succeeding Mennas, proposes a council under
+  presidency of the Pope,                                           239
+
+  The emperor causes it to meet under Eutychius without the Pope,   240
+
+  Proceedings of the Council. The Pope declines their invitation,   241
+
+  Close of the Council, without the Pope's presence,                242
+
+  The Pope issues a Constitution apart from the Council,            242
+
+  Also a condemnation of the Three Chapters without mention
+  of the Council,                                                   243
+
+  The Pope on his way back to Rome dies at Syracuse,                244
+
+  The patriarch Eutychius, refusing to sign a doctrinal decree
+  of Justinian, is deposed by the Resident Council,                 244
+
+  Justinian issues his Pragmatic Sanction for government of Italy,  245
+
+  State of things following in Italy,                               246
+
+  Justinian's conception of the relation between Church and State,  248
+
+  He gives to the decrees of Councils and to the canons the
+  force of law,                                                     250
+
+  Three leading principles in these enactments,                     251
+
+  The State completely recognises the Church's whole constitution,  251
+
+  The episcopal idea thoroughly realised,                           253
+
+  Concurrent action of the laws of Church and State herein,         254
+
+  Justinian further associated bishops with the civil government,   255
+
+  The part given to them in civil administration,                   256
+
+  A system of mutual supervision in bishops and governors,          257
+
+  The branches of civil matters specially put under bishops,        259
+
+  The completeness and the cordiality of the alliance with
+  the Church,                                                       261
+
+  Which differentiates Justinian's attitude from that of
+  modern governments,                                               262
+
+  In what Justinian was a true maintainer of the imperial idea,     264
+
+  The dark blot which lies upon Justinian,                          267
+
+  How he passed from the line of defence to that of interference
+  and mastery,                                                      269
+
+  The result, spiritual and temporal, of Justinian's reign,         270
+
+
+  CHAPTER V. (XLVII.).
+
+  ST. GREGORY THE GREAT.
+
+  The state of Rome as a city after the prefecture of Narses,       272
+
+  Contrast of Nova Roma,                                            274
+
+  The Rome of the Church a new city,                                275
+
+  St. Gregory's antecedents as prefect, monk, nuncio, and
+  deacon of the Roman Church,                                       276
+
+  Elected Pope against his will. His description of his work,       278
+
+  And of the time's calamity,                                       279
+
+  The utter misery of Rome expressed in the words of Ezechiel,      281
+
+  Contrast between the language used of Rome by St. Leo
+  and St. Gregory,                                                  283
+
+  St. Gregory closes his preaching in St. Peter's, overcome
+  with sorrow,                                                      284
+
+  The works of St. Gregory out of this Rome,                        285
+
+  The Lombard descent on Italy,                                     287
+
+  Rome ransomed from the Lombards, and Monte Cassino destroyed,     290
+
+  The Primacy untouched by the temporal calamities of Rome,         292
+
+  Its unique prerogative brought out by unequalled sufferings,      293
+
+  The new city of Rome lived only by the Primacy,                   294
+
+  St. Gregory's account of the Primacy to the empress Constantina,  295
+
+  He identifies his own authority with that of St. Peter,           296
+
+  Writes to the emperor Mauritius that the union of the Two
+  Powers would secure the empire against barbarians,                297
+
+  Claims to the emperor St. Peter's charge over the whole Church,   298
+
+  John the Foster's assumed title on injury to the whole Church,    299
+
+  What St. Gregory infers from the three patriarchal sees
+  being all sees of Peter,                                          301
+
+  Contrast drawn by St. Gregory between the Pope's
+  Principate and John the Faster's assumed title,                   302
+
+  The fatal falsehood which this title presupposed,                 303
+
+  The opposing truth in the Principate made _de Fide_ by the
+  Vatican Council,                                                  306
+
+  St. Leo against Anatolius, and St. Gregory against John the
+  Faster, occupy like positions,                                    307
+
+  St. Gregory's title, "Servant of the servants of God," expresses
+  the maxim of his government,                                      308
+
+  The fourteen books of St. Gregory's letters range over every
+  subject in the whole Church,                                      309
+
+  The special relation between the sees of St. Peter and St. Mark,  311
+
+  Asserts his supremacy to the Lombard queen Theodelinda,           311
+
+  St. Gregory appoints the bishop of Arles to be over the
+  metropolitans of Gaul,                                            312
+
+  The venture of St. Gregory in attempting the conversion of
+  England,                                                          313
+
+  St. Augustine commended to queen Brunechild and consecrated
+  by the bishop of Arles, and the English Church made by Gregory,   315
+
+  Work of St. Gregory in the Spanish Church,                        316
+
+  He relates the martyrdom of St. Hermenegild,                      316
+
+  His letters to St. Leander of Seville,                            317
+
+  Conversion of king Rechared,                                      318
+
+  St. Gregory's letter of congratulation to him,                    318
+
+  Letter of king Rechared informing the Pope of his conversion,     321
+
+  Gibbon's account of the government which was the result
+  of Rechared's conversion,                                         322
+
+  The important principles thus consecrated by the Church,          324
+
+  Overthrow of the Arian kingdoms in Africa, Spain, Gaul and
+  Italy, between Pope Felix III. and Pope Gregory I.,               325
+
+  The equal failure of Genseric, Euric, Gondebald, and Theodorick,  327
+
+  The part in this which the Catholic bishops had,                  329
+
+  The Spanish monarchy first of many formed by the Church,          331
+
+  Superiority of this government to the Byzantine absolutism,       332
+
+  St. Gregory as fourth doctor of the western Church,               334
+
+  St. Gregory as a chief artificer in the Church's second victory,  335
+
+  Summary of St. Gregory's action as metropolitan patriarch
+  and Pope,                                                         337
+
+  Councils held by him in Rome: protection of monks,                338
+
+  His management of the Patrimonium Petri,                          340
+
+  His success with schismatics and heretics,                        341
+
+  The Primacy from St. Leo to St. Gregory,                          342
+
+  The continued rise of the bishop of Constantinople,             343-5
+
+  The political degradation and danger of Rome,                     345
+
+  Long disaster reveals still more the purely spiritual foundation
+  of the Primacy,                                                   346
+
+  Testimony given by the disappearance of the Arian governments
+  and the conversion of Franks and Saxons,                          347
+
+  The patriarchate of Constantinople imposed by civil law,          348
+
+  The Nicene constitution in the East impaired by despotism
+  and heresy,                                                       349
+
+  The persistent defence of this constitution by the Popes,         350
+
+  The Petra Apostolica in the sixty Popes preceding Gregory,        352
+
+  As discerned by Hurter in the time of Pope Innocent III.,         353
+
+  As in the time from Pope Innocent III. to Leo XIII.,              355
+
+  The continuous Primacy from St. Peter to St. Gregory,             355
+
+  As Rome diminishes the Primacy advances,                          356
+
+  The times in which it was exercised by St. Gregory,               358
+
+  The opposing forces which unite to sustain the Petra Apostolica,  359
+
+  INDEX,                                                            361
+
+
+
+
+THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE HOLY SEE AND THE WANDERING OF THE NATIONS.
+
+    "Rome's ending seemed the ending of a world.
+    If this our earth had in the vast sea sunk,
+    Save one black ridge whereon I sat alone,
+    Such wreck had seemed not greater. It was gone,
+    That empire last, sole heir of all the empires,
+    Their arms, their arts, their letters, and their laws.
+    The fountains of the nether deep are burst,
+    The second deluge comes. And let it come!
+    The God who sits above the waterspouts
+    Remains unshaken."
+
+    --A. DE VERE, _Legends and Records_--"Death of St. Jerome".
+
+
+I ended the last chapter by drawing out that series of events in the
+Church's internal constitution and of changes in the external world of
+action outside and independent of the Church which combined in one result
+the exhibition to all and the public acknowledgment by the Church of the
+Primacy given by our Lord to St. Peter, and continued to his successors in
+the See of Rome. I showed St. Leo as exercising this Primacy by annulling
+the acts of an Ecumenical Council, the second of Ephesus, legitimately
+called and attended by his own legates, because it had denied a tenet of
+what St. Leo declared in a letter sent to the bishops and accepted by them
+to be the Christian faith upon the Incarnation itself. I showed him
+supported by the Church in that annulment, by the eastern episcopate, which
+attended the Council of Chalcedon, and by the eastern emperor, Marcian.
+Again, I showed him confirming the doctrinal decrees of the Ecumenical
+Council of Chalcedon, which followed the Council annulled by him, while he
+reversed and disallowed certain canons which had been irregularly passed.
+This he did because they were injurious to that constitution of the Church
+which had come down from the Apostles to his own time. And this act of his,
+also, I showed to be accepted by the bishop of Constantinople, who was
+specially affected, and by the eastern emperor, and by the episcopate: and
+also that the confirmation of doctrine on the one hand, and the rejection
+of canons on the other, were equally accepted. I also showed this great
+Council in its Synodical Letter to the Pope acknowledging spontaneously
+that very position of the Pope which the Popes had always set forth as the
+ground of all the authority which they claimed. The Council of Chalcedon
+addressed St. Leo "as entrusted by the Saviour with the guardianship of the
+Vine". But the Vine in the universal language of the Fathers betokened the
+whole Church of God. And the Council refers the confirmation of its acts to
+the Pope in the same document in which it asserts that the guardianship of
+the Vine was given to him by the Saviour Himself. This expression, "by the
+Saviour Himself," means that it was not given to him by the decree of any
+Council representing the Church. It is a full acknowledgment that the
+promises made to Peter, and the Pastorship conferred upon him, descended to
+his successor in the See of Rome. It is a full acknowledgment; for how else
+was St. Leo entrusted by the Saviour with the guardianship of the Vine?
+Those who so addressed him were equally bishops with himself; they equally
+enjoyed the one indivisible episcopate, "of which a part is held by each
+without division of the whole".[3] But this one, beside and beyond that,
+was charged with the whole--the Vine itself. This one point is that in
+which St. Peter went beyond his brethren, by the special gift and
+appointment of the Saviour Himself. The words, then, of the Council contain
+a special acknowledgment that the line of Popes after a succession of four
+hundred years sat in the person of Leo on the seat of St. Peter, with St.
+Peter's one sovereign prerogative.
+
+It is requisite, I think, distinctly to point out that Christians, whoever
+they are, provided only that they admit, as confessing belief in any one of
+the three creeds, the Apostolic, the Nicene, or the Athanasian, they do
+admit, that there is one holy Catholic Church, commit a suicidal act in
+denying the Primacy as acknowledged by the Church at the Council of
+Chalcedon. For such a denial destroys the authority of the Church herself
+both in doctrine and discipline for all subsequent time. If the Church, in
+declaring St. Leo to be entrusted by our Lord with the guardianship of the
+Vine, erred; if she asserted a falsehood, or if she favoured an usurpation,
+how can she be trusted for any maintenance of doctrine, for any
+administration of sacraments, for any exercise of authority? This
+consideration does not touch those who believe in no Church at all. They
+are in the position of that individual whom the great Constantine
+recommended to take a ladder and mount to heaven by himself. But it touches
+all who profess to believe in an episcopate, in councils, in sacraments, in
+an organised Church, in authority deposited in that Church, and, finally,
+in history and in historical Christianity. To all such it may surely be
+said, as the simplest enunciation of reasoning, that they cannot profess
+belief in the Church which the Creed proclaims while they accept or reject
+its authority as they please. Or to localise a general expression: A man
+does not follow the doctrine of St. Augustine if he accepts his
+condemnation of Pelagius, but denies that unity of the Church in
+maintaining which St. Augustine spent his forty years of teaching. The
+action of all such persons in the eyes of the world without amounts to
+this, that by denying the Primacy they disprove the existence of the
+Church. Their negation goes to the profit of total unbelief. Asserters of
+the Church's division are pioneers of infidelity, for who can believe in
+what has fallen? or is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ a kingdom
+divided against itself? They who maintain schism generate agnostics.
+
+But I was prevented on a former occasion by want of space from dwelling
+with due force upon some circumstances of St. Leo's life. These are such as
+to make his time an era. I was occupied during a whole volume with the
+attempt to set forth in some sort the action of St. Peter's See upon the
+Greek and Roman world from the day of Pentecost to the complete recognition
+of the Universal Pastorship of Peter as inherited by the Roman Pontiff in
+the person of St. Leo.
+
+I approach now a further development of this subject. I go forward to treat
+of the Papacy, deprived of all temporal support from the fall of the
+western empire, taking up the secular capital into a new spiritual Rome,
+and creating a Christendom out of the northern tribes who had subverted the
+Roman empire.
+
+There is, I think, no greater wonder in human history than the creation of
+a hierarchy out of the principle of headship and subordination contained in
+our Lord's charge to Peter. It has been pointed out that the constitution
+of the Nicene Council itself manifested this principle, and was the proof
+of its spontaneous action in the preceding centuries, while its overt
+recognition, as seated in the Roman Pontiff, is seen in the pontificate of
+St. Leo.
+
+There is a second wonder in human history, on which it is the purpose of
+this volume to dwell. The Roman empire, in which the Pax Romana had
+provided a mould of widespread civilisation for the Church's growth, was
+at length broken up in the western half of it, by Teuton invaders occupying
+its provinces. These were all, at the time of their settlement, either
+pagan or Arian. There followed, in a certain lapse of time, the creation of
+a body of States whose centre of union and belief was the See of Peter.
+That is the creation of Christendom proper. The wonder seen is that the
+northern tribes, impinging on the empire, and settling on its various
+provinces like vultures, became the matter into which the Holy See, guiding
+and unifying the episcopate, maintaining the original principle of
+celibacy, and planting it in the institute of the religious life through
+various countries depopulated or barbarous, infused into the whole mass one
+spirit, so that Arians became Catholics, Teuton raiders issued into
+Christian kings, savage tribes thrown upon captive provincials coalesced
+into nations, while all were raised together into, not a restored empire of
+Augustus, but an empire holy as well as Roman, whose chief was the Church's
+defender (_advocatus ecclesiae_), whose creator was the Roman Peter.
+
+It is not a little remarkable that this signal recognition by the Fourth
+General Council of the Roman Pontiff's authority coincided in time with the
+utter powerlessness to which Rome as a city was reduced. That city, on
+whose glory as queen of nations and civiliser of the earth her own bishop
+had dwelt with all the fondness of a Roman, when, year by year, on the
+least of St. Peter and St. Paul, he addressed the assembled episcopate of
+Italy, ran twice, in his own time, the most imminent danger of ceasing to
+exist. Italy was absolutely without an army to give her strongest cities a
+chance of resisting the desolation of Attila. Rome was without a force
+raised to save it from the pitiless robbery of Genseric. Without escort,
+and defended only by his spiritual character, Leo went forth to appeal
+before Attila for mercy to a heathen Mongol. There is no record of what
+passed at that interview. Only the result is known. The conqueror, who had
+swept with remorseless cruelty the whole country from the Euxine to the
+Adriatic Sea, who was now bent upon the seizure of Italy itself, and in his
+course had just destroyed Aquileia, was at Mantua marching upon Rome. His
+intention was proclaimed to crown all his acts of destruction with that of
+Rome. This was the dowry which he proposed to take for the hand of the last
+great emperor's granddaughter, proffered to him by the hapless Honoria
+herself. At the word of Leo the Scourge of God gave up his prey: he turned
+back from Italy, and relinquished Rome, and Leo returned to his seat. In
+the course of the next three years he confirmed, at the eastern emperor's
+repeated request, the doctrinal decrees of the great Council; but he
+humbled likewise the arrogance of Anatolius, and not all the loyalty of
+Marcian, not all the devotion of the empress and saint Pulcheria, could
+induce him to exalt the bishop of the eastern capital at the expense of the
+Petrine hierarchy. But during those same three years he saw, in Rome
+itself, Honoria's brother, the grandson of Theodosius, destroy his own
+throne, and thereupon the murderer of an emperor compel his widow to
+accept him in her husband's place, in the first days of her sorrow. He
+saw, further, that daughter of Theodosius and Eudoxia, when she learnt that
+the usurper of her husband's throne was likewise his murderer, call in the
+Vandal from Carthage to avenge her double dishonour. This was the Rome
+which awaited, trembling and undefended, the most profligate of armies, led
+by the most cruel of persecutors. Once more St. Leo, stripped of all human
+aid, went forth with his clergy on the road to the port by which Genseric
+was advancing, to plead before an Arian pirate for the preservation of the
+capital of the Catholic faith. He saved his people from massacre and his
+city from burning, but not the houses from plunder. For fourteen days Rome
+was subject to every spoliation which African avarice could inflict. Again,
+no record of that misery has been kept; but the hand of Genseric was
+heavier than that of Alaric, in proportion as the Vandal was cruel where
+the Ostrogoth was generous. Alaric would have fought for Rome as Stilicho
+fought, had he continued to be commanded by that Theodosius who made him a
+Roman general; but Genseric was the vilest in soul of all the Teuton
+invaders, and for fifty years, during the utter prostration of Roman power,
+he infested all the shores of the Mediterranean with the savagery
+afterwards shown by Saracen and Algerine.
+
+This second plundering of Rome was no isolated event. It was only the sign
+of that utter impotence into which Roman power in the West had fallen. The
+city of Rome was the trophy of Caesarean government during five hundred
+years--from Julius, the most royal, to Valentinian, the most abject of
+emperors. And now its temporal greatness was lost for ever. It ceased to be
+the imperial city, but by the same stroke became from the secular a
+spiritual capital. The Pope, freed from the western Caesar,[4] gave to the
+Caesarean city its second and greater life: a life of another kind
+generating also an empire of another sort. The raid of Genseric in the year
+455 is the first of three hundred years of warfare carried on from the time
+of the Vandal through the time of the Lombard, under the neglect and
+oppression of the Byzantine, until, in the year 755, Astolphus, the last,
+and perhaps the worst, of an evil brood, laid waste the campagna, and
+besieged the city. St. Leo, in his double embassy to Attila and Genseric,
+was an unconscious prophet of the time to come, a visible picture of three
+hundred years as singular in their conflict and their issue as those other
+three hundred which had their close in the Nicene Council. During all those
+ages the Pope is never secure in his own city. He sees the trophy of
+Caesarean empire slowly perish away. The capital of the world ceases to be
+even the capital of a province. The eastern emperor, who still called
+himself emperor of the Romans, omitted for many generations even to visit
+the city which he had subjected to an impotent but malignant official,
+termed an Exarch, who guarded himself by the marshes of Ravenna, but left
+Rome to the inroads of the Lombards. The last emperor who deigned to visit
+the old capital of his empire came to it only to tear from it the last
+relic of imperial magnificence. But then Jerusalem had fallen into the
+hands of the infidel, and Christian pilgrims, since they could no longer
+visit the sepulchre of Christ, flocked to the sepulchre of his Vicar the
+Fisherman. And thus Rome was become the place of pilgrimage for all the
+West. Saxon kings and queens laid down their crowns before St. Peter's
+threshold, invested themselves with the cowl, and died, healed and happy,
+under the shadow of the chief Apostle. When the three hundred years were
+ended, the arm of Pepin made the Pope a sovereign in his own newly-created
+Rome. During these three centuries, running from St. Leo meeting Genseric,
+the pilot of St. Peter's ship has been tossed without intermission on the
+waves of a heaving ocean, but he has saved his vessel and the freight which
+it bears--the Christian faith. And in doing this he has made the
+new-created city, which had become the place of pilgrimage, to be also the
+centre of a new world.
+
+As Leo came back from the gate leading to the harbour and re-entered his
+Lateran palace, undefended Rome was taken possession of by the Vandal. Leo
+for fourteen days was condemned to hear the cries of his people, and the
+tale of unnumbered insults and iniquities committed in the palaces and
+houses of Rome. When the stipulated days were over, the plunderer bore away
+the captive empress and her daughters from the palace of the Caesars, which
+he had so completely sacked that even the copper vessels were carried off.
+Genseric also assaulted the yet untouched temple of Jupiter on the Capitol,
+and not only carried away the still remaining statues in his fleet which
+occupied the Tiber, but stripped off half the roof of the temple and its
+tiles of gilded bronze. He took away also the spoils of the temple at
+Jerusalem, which Vespasian had deposited in his temple of peace. Belisarius
+found them at Carthage eighty years later, and sent them as prizes to
+Constantinople.[5]
+
+Many thousand Romans of every age and condition Genseric carried as slaves
+to Carthage, together with Eudocia and her daughters, the eldest of whom
+Genseric compelled to marry his son Hunnerich. After sixteen years of
+unwilling marriage Eudocia at last escaped, and through great perils
+reached Jerusalem, where she died and was buried beside her grandmother,
+that other Eudocia, the beautiful Athenais whom St. Pulcheria gave to her
+brother for bride, and whose romantic exaltation to the throne of the East
+ended in banishment at Jerusalem. But one of the great churches at Rome is
+connected with her memory: since the first Eudocia sent to the empress her
+daughter at Rome half of the chains which had bound St. Peter at his
+imprisonment by Agrippa. When Pope Leo held the relics, which had come from
+Jerusalem, to those other relics belonging to the Apostle's captivity at
+Rome on his martyrdom, they grew together and became one chain of
+thirty-eight links. Upon this the empress in the days of her happiness
+built the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula to receive so touching a memorial
+of the Apostle who escaped martyrdom at Jerusalem to find it at Rome. Upon
+his delivery by the angel "from all the expectation of the people of the
+Jews," he "went to another place". There, to use the words of his own
+personal friend and second successor at Antioch, he founded "the church
+presiding over charity in the place of the country of the Romans,"[6] and
+there he was to find his own resting-place. The church was built to guard
+the emblems of the two captivities. The heathen festival of Augustus, which
+used to be kept on the 1st August at the spot where the church was founded,
+became for all Christendom the feast of St. Peter's Chains.[7]
+
+In the life of St. Leo by Anastasius, we read that after the Vandal ruin he
+supplied the parish churches of Rome with silver plate from the six silver
+vessels, weighing each a hundred pounds, which Constantine had given to the
+basilicas of the Lateran, of St. Peter, and of St. Paul, two to each. These
+churches were spared the plundering to which every other building was
+subjected. But the buildings of Rome were not burnt, though even senatorian
+families were reduced to beggary, and the population was diminished through
+misery and flight, besides those who were carried off to slavery.
+
+At this point of time the grandeur of Trajan's city[8] began to pass into
+the silence and desolation which St. Gregory in after years mourned over in
+the words of Jeremias on ruined Jerusalem.
+
+Let us go back with Leo to his patriarchal palace, and realise if we can
+the condition of things in which he dwelt at home, as well as the condition
+throughout all the West of the Church which his courage had saved from
+heresy.
+
+The male line of Theodosius had ended with the murder of Valentinian in the
+Campus Martius, March 16, 455. Maximus seized his throne and his widow, and
+was murdered in the streets of Rome in June, 455, at the end of
+seventy-seven days. When Genseric had carried off his spoil, the throne of
+the western empire, no longer claimed by anyone of the imperial race,
+became a prey to ambitious generals. The first tenant of that throne was
+Avitus, a nobleman from Gaul, named by the influence of the Visigothic
+king, Theodorich of Toulouse. He assumed the purple at Arles, on the 10th
+July, 455. The Roman senate, which clung to its hereditary right to name
+the princes, accepted him, not being able to help itself, on the 1st
+January, 456; his son-in-law, Sidonius Apollinaris, delivered the
+customary panegyric, and was rewarded with a bronze statue in the forum of
+Trajan, which we thus know to have escaped injury from the raid of
+Genseric. But at the bidding of Ricimer, who had become the most powerful
+general, the senate deposed Avitus; he fled to his country Auvergne, and
+was killed on the way in September, 456.
+
+All power now lay in the hands of Ricimer. He was by his father a Sueve; by
+his mother, grandson of Wallia, the Visigothic king at Toulouse. With him
+began that domination of foreign soldiery which in twenty years destroyed
+the western empire. Through his favour the senator Majorian was named
+emperor in the spring of 457. The senate, the people, the army, and the
+eastern emperor, Leo I., were united in hailing his election. He is
+described as recalling by his many virtues the best Roman emperors. In his
+letter to the senate, which he drew up after his election in Ravenna, men
+thought they heard the voice of Trajan. An emperor who proposed to rule
+according to the laws and tradition of the old time filled Rome with joy.
+All his edicts compelled the people to admire his wisdom and goodness. One
+of these most strictly forbade the employment of the materials from older
+buildings, an unhappy custom which had already begun, for, says the special
+historian of the city, the time had already come when Rome, destroying
+itself, was made use of as a great chalk-pit and marble quarry;[9] and for
+such it served the Romans themselves for more than a thousand years. They
+were the true barbarians who destroyed their city.
+
+But Majorian was unable to prevent the ruin either of city or of state. He
+had made great exertions to punish Genseric by reconquering Africa. They
+were not successful; Ricimer compelled him to resign on the 2nd of August,
+461, and five days afterwards he died by a death of which is only known
+that it was violent. A man, says Procopius, upright to his subjects,
+terrible to his enemies, who surpassed in every virtue all those who before
+him had reigned over the Romans.
+
+Three months after Majorian, died Pope St. Leo. First of his line to bear
+the name of Great, who twice saved his city, and once, by the express
+avowal of a successor, the Church herself, Leo carried his crown of thorns
+one-and-twenty years, and has left no plaint to posterity of the calamities
+witnessed by him in that long pontificate. Majorian was the fourth
+sovereign whom in six years and a half he had seen to perish by violence. A
+man with so keen an intellectual vision, so wise a measure of men and
+things, must have fathomed to its full extent the depth of moral corruption
+in the midst of which the Church he presided over fought for existence.
+This among his own people. But who likewise can have felt, as he did, the
+overmastering flood of northern tribes--_vis consili expers_--which had
+descended on the empire in his own lifetime. As a boy he must have known
+the great Theodosius ruling by force of mind that warlike but savage host
+of Teuton mercenaries. In his one life, Visigoth and Ostrogoth, Vandal and
+Herule, Frank and Aleman, Burgundian and Sueve, instead of serving Rome as
+soldiers in the hand of one greater than themselves, had become masters of
+a perishing world's mistress; and the successor of Peter was no longer safe
+in the Roman palace which the first of Christian emperors had bestowed upon
+the Church's chief bishop. Instead of Constantine and Theodosius, Leo had
+witnessed Arcadius and Honorius; instead of emperors the ablest men of
+their day, who could be twelve hours in the saddle at need, emperors who
+fed chickens or listened to the counsel of eunuchs in their palace. Even
+this was not enough. He had seen Stilicho and Aetius in turn support their
+feeble sovereigns, and in turn assassinated for that support; and the depth
+of all ignominy in a Valentinian closing the twelve hundred years of Rome
+with the crime of a dastard, followed by Genseric, who was again to be
+overtopped by Ricimer, while world and Church barely escape from Attila's
+uncouth savagery. But Leo in his letters written in the midst of such
+calamities, in his sermons spoken from St. Peter's chair, speaks as if he
+were addressing a prostrate world with the inward vision of a seer to whom
+the triumph of the heavenly Jerusalem is clearly revealed, while he
+proclaims the work of the City of God on earth with equal assurance.
+
+Hilarus in that same November, 461, succeeded to the apostolic chair.
+Hilarus was that undaunted Roman deacon and legate who with difficulty
+saved his life at the Robber-Council of Ephesus, where St. Flavian, bishop
+of Constantinople, was beaten to death by the party of Dioscorus, and who
+carried to St. Leo a faithful report of that Council's acts. At the same
+time the Lucanian Libius Severus succeeded to the throne. All that is known
+of him is that he was an inglorious creature of Ricimer, and prolonged a
+government without record until the autumn of 465, when his maker got tired
+of him. He disappeared, and Ricimer ruled alone for nearly two years. Yet
+he did not venture to end the empire with a stroke of violence, or change
+the title of Patricius, bestowed upon him by the eastern emperor, for that
+of king. In this death-struggle of the realm the senate showed courage. The
+Roman fathers in their corporate capacity served as a last bond of the
+State as it was falling to pieces; and Sidonius Apollinaris said of them
+that they might rank as princes with the bearer of the purple, only, he
+adds significantly, if we put out of question the armed force.[10] The
+protection of the eastern emperor, Leo I., helped them in this resistance
+to Ricimer. The national party in Rome itself called on the Greek emperor
+for support. The utter dissolution of the western empire, when German
+tribes, Burgundians, Franks, Visigoths, and Vandals, had taken permanent
+possession of its provinces outside of Italy, while the violated dignity of
+Rome sank daily into greater impotence, now made Byzantium come forth as
+the true head of the empire. The better among the eastern Caesars
+acknowledged the duty of maintaining it one and indivisible. They treated
+sinking Italy as one of their provinces, and prevented the Germans from
+asserting lordship over it.
+
+At length, after more than a year's vacancy of the throne, Ricimer was
+obliged not only to let the senate treat with the Eastern emperor, Leo I.,
+but to accept from Leo the choice of a Greek. Anthemius, one of the chief
+senators at Byzantium, who had married the late emperor Marcian's daughter,
+was sent with solemn pomp to Rome, and on the 12th April, 467, he accepted
+the imperial dignity in the presence of senate, people, and army, three
+miles outside the gates. Ricimer also condescended to accept his daughter
+as his bride, and we have an account of the wedding from that same Sidonius
+Apollinaris who a few years before had delivered the panegyric upon the
+accession of his own father-in-law, Avitus, afterwards deposed and killed
+by Ricimer; moreover, he had in the same way welcomed the accession of the
+noble Majorian, destroyed by the same Ricimer. Now on this third occasion
+Sidonius describes the whole city as swimming in a sea of joy. Bridal songs
+with fescennine licence resounded in the theatres, market-places, courts,
+and gymnasia. All business was suspended. Even then Rome impressed the
+Gallic courtier-poet with the appearance of the world's capital. What is
+important is that we find this testimony of an eye-witness, given
+incidentally in his correspondence, that Rome in her buildings was still in
+all her splendour. And again in his long panegyric he makes Rome address
+the eastern emperor, beseeching him, in requital for all those eastern
+provinces which she has given to Byzantium--"Only grant me Anthemius;[11]
+reign long, O Leo, in your own parts, but grant me my desire to govern
+mine." Thus Sidonius shows in his verses what is but too apparent in the
+history of the elevation of Anthemius, that Nova Roma on the borders of
+Europe and Asia was the real sovereign.[12] And we also learn that the
+whole internal order of government, the structure of Roman law, and the
+daily habit of life had remained unaltered by barbarian occupation. This is
+the last time that Rome appears in garments of joy. The last reflection of
+her hundred triumphs still shines upon her palaces, baths, and temples. The
+Roman people, diminished in number, but unaltered in character, still
+frequented the baths of Nero, of Agrippa, of Diocletian; and Sidonius
+recommends instead baths less splendid, but less seductive to the
+senses.[13]
+
+But Anthemius lasted no longer than the noble Majorian or the ignoble
+Severus. East and West had united their strength in a great expedition to
+put down the incessant Vandal piracies, which made all the coasts of the
+Mediterranean insecure.[14] It failed through the treachery of the eastern
+commander Basiliscus, to whose evil deeds we shall have hereafter to recur.
+This disaster shook the credit of Anthemius, and Ricimer also tired of his
+father-in-law. He went to Milan, and Rome was terrified with the report
+that he had made a compact with barbarians beyond the Alps. Ricimer marched
+upon Rome, to which he laid siege in 472. Here he was joined by Anicius
+Olybrius, who had married Placidia, the younger daughter of Valentinian and
+Eudoxia, through whom he claimed the throne, as representative of the
+Theodosian line. Ricimer, after a fierce contest with Anthemius, burst into
+the Aurelian gate at the head of troops all of German blood and Arian
+belief, massacring and plundering all but two of the fourteen regions. But
+the city escaped burning.
+
+Then Anicius Olybrius entered Rome, consumed at once by famine, pestilence,
+and the sword. With the consent of Leo, and at the request of Genseric, he
+had been already named emperor. He took possession of the imperial palace,
+and made the senate acknowledge him. Anthemius had been cut in pieces, but
+forty days after his death Ricimer died of the plague, and thus had not
+been able to put to death more than four Roman emperors, of whom his
+father-in-law, Anthemius, was the last. The Arian Condottiere, who had
+inflicted on Rome a third plundering, said to be worse than that of
+Genseric, was buried in the Church of St. Agatha in Suburra,[15] which had
+been ceded to the Arians, and which he had adorned.
+
+Olybrius made the Burgundian prince Gundebald commander of the forces, but
+died himself in October of that same year, 472, and left the throne to be
+the gift of barbarian adventurers. Three more shadows of emperors passed.
+Gundebald gave that dignity at Ravenna, in March, 473, to Glycerius, a man
+of unknown antecedents. In 474, Glycerius was deposed by Nepos, a
+Dalmatian, whom the empress Verina, widow of Leo I., had sent with an army
+from Byzantium to Ravenna. Nepos compelled his predecessor to abdicate, and
+to become bishop of Salona. He himself was proclaimed emperor at Rome on
+the 24th June, 474, after which he returned to Ravenna. While he was here
+treating with Euric, the Visigoth king, at Toulouse, Orestes, whom he had
+made Patricius and commander of the barbaric troops for Gaul, rose against
+him. Nepos fled by sea from Ravenna in August, 475, and betook himself to
+Salona, whither he had banished Glycerius.
+
+Orestes was a Pannonian; had been Attila's secretary; then commander of
+German troops in service of the emperors. Thus he came to lead the troops
+which had been under Ricimer. This heap of Germans and Sarmatians without
+a country were in wild excitement, demanding a cession of Italian lands,
+instead of a march into Gaul. They offered their general the crown of
+Italy. Orestes thought it better to invest therewith his young son, and so,
+on the 31st October, 475, the boy Romulus Augustus, by the supremest
+mockery of what is called fortune, sat for a moment on the seat of the
+first king and the first emperor of Rome.
+
+Italy could no longer produce an army, and the foreign soldiery who had
+served under various leaders naturally desired the partition of its lands.
+Odoacer was now their leader, who, when a penniless youth, had visited St.
+Severinus in Noricum, and received from him the prophecy: "Go into Italy,
+clad now in poor skins: thou wilt speedily be able to clothe many richly".
+Odoacer, after an adventurous life of heroic courage, made the homeless
+warriors whom he now commanded understand that it was better to settle on
+the fair lands of Italy than wander about in the service of phantom
+emperors. They acclaimed him as their king, and after beheading Orestes and
+getting possession of Romulus Augustus, he compelled him to abdicate before
+the senate, and the senate to declare that the western empire was extinct.
+This happened in the third year of the emperor Zeno the Isaurian, the ninth
+of Pope Simplicius, A.D. 476. The senate sent deputies to Zeno at Byzantium
+to declare that Rome no longer required an independent emperor; that one
+emperor was sufficient for East and for West; that they had chosen for the
+protector of Italy Odoacer, a man skilled in the arts of peace as well as
+war, and besought Zeno to entrust him with the dignity of Patricius and the
+government of Italy. The deposed Nepos also sent a petition to Zeno to
+restore him. Zeno replied to the senate that of the two emperors whom he
+had sent to them, they had deposed Nepos and killed Anthemius. But he
+received the diadem and the imperial jewels of the western empire, and kept
+them in his palace. He endured the usurper who had taken possession of
+Italy until he was able to put him down, and so, in his letters to Odoacer,
+invested him with the title of "Patricius of the Romans," leaving the
+government of Italy to a German commander under his imperial authority. So
+the division into East and West was cancelled: Italy as a province belonged
+still to the one emperor, who was seated at Byzantium. In theory, the unity
+of Constantine's time was restored; in fact, Rome and the West were
+surrendered to Teuton invaders.[16] This was the last stroke: the mighty
+members of the great mother--Gaul, and Spain, and Britain, and Africa, and
+Illyricum--had been severed from her. Now, the head, discrowned and
+impotent, submitted to the rule of Odoacer the Herule. The Byzantine
+supremacy remained in keeping for future use. It had been acknowledged from
+the death of Honorius in 423, when Galla Placidia had become empress and
+her son emperor by the gift and the army of Theodosius II.
+
+The agony of imperial Rome lasted twenty-one years. Valentinian III. was
+reigning in 455: in the March of that year he was murdered, and succeeded
+by Maximus, who was murdered in June; then by Avitus in July, who was
+murdered in October, 456. Majorianus followed in 457, and reigned till
+August, 461: he was followed by Libius Severus in November, who lasted four
+years, till November, 465. After an interregnum of eighteen months, in
+which Ricimer practically ruled, Anthemius was brought from Byzantium in
+April, 467, and continued till July, 472; but Anicius Olybrius again was
+brought from Byzantium, reigned for a few months in 472, and died of the
+plague in October. In 473, Glycerius was put up for emperor; in 474, he
+gave place to Nepos, the third brought from Byzantium. In 475, Romulus
+Augustus appears, to disappear in 476, and end his life in retirement at
+the Villa of Lucullus by Naples, once the seat of Rome's most luxurious
+senator.
+
+Eighty years had now passed since the death of Theodosius. In the course of
+these years the realm which he had saved from dissolution after the defeat
+and death of Valens near Adrianople, and had preserved during fifteen years
+by wisdom in council and valour in war, and still more by his piety, when
+once his protecting hand and ruling mind were withdrawn, fell to pieces in
+the West, and was scarcely saved in the East. Let us take the last five
+years of St. Leo, which follow on the raid of Genseric, in order to
+complete the sketch just given of Rome's political state, by showing the
+condition of the great provinces which belonged to Leo's special
+patriarchate. I have before noticed how it was in the interval between the
+retirement of Attila from Rome at the prayer of St. Leo and the seizure of
+Rome by Genseric at the solicitation of the miserable empress Eudoxia, when
+St. Leo could save only the lives of his people, that he confirmed the
+Fourth Ecumenical Council. Not only was he entreated to do this by the
+emperor Marcian: the Council itself solicited the confirmation of its acts,
+which for that purpose were laid before him, while it made the most
+specific confession of his authority as the one person on earth entrusted
+by the Lord with His vineyard. From the particular time and the
+circumstances under which these events took place, one may infer a special
+intention of the Divine Providence. This was that the whole Roman empire,
+while it still subsisted, the two emperors, one of whom was on the point of
+disappearing, and the whole episcopate, in the most solemn form, should
+attest the Roman bishop's universal pastorship. For a great period was
+ending, the period of the Graeco-Roman civilisation, from which, after
+three centuries of persecution, the Church had obtained recognition. And a
+great period was beginning, when the wandering of the nations had prepared
+for the Church another task. The first had been to obtain the conversion
+of nations linked by the bond of one temporal rule, enjoying the highest
+degree of culture and knowledge then existing, but deeply tainted by the
+corruption of effete refinement. The second was to exalt rough, sturdy,
+barbarian natures, whose bride was the sword and human life their prey,
+first to the virtues of the civil state, and next to the higher life of
+Christian charity, and thus to link them, who had known only violent
+repulsion and perpetual warfare among themselves, in not a temporal but a
+spiritual bond. The majestic figure of St. Leo expressed the completion of
+the first task. It also symbolises the beneficent power which in the course
+of ages will accomplish the second.
+
+The wandering of the nations, says a great historian, was of decisive
+effect for the Church, and he quotes another historian's summary
+description of it: "It was not the migration of individual nomad hordes, or
+masses of adventurous warriors in continuous motion, which produced changes
+so mighty. But great, long-settled peoples, with wives and children, with
+goods and chattels, deserted their old seats, and sought for themselves in
+the far distance a new home. By this the position of individuals, of
+communities, of whole peoples, was of necessity completely altered. The old
+conditions of possession were dissolved. The existing bonds of society
+loosened. The old frontiers of states and lands passed away. As a whole
+city is turned into a ruinous heap by an earthquake, so the whole political
+system of previous times was overthrown by this massive transmigration. A
+new order of things had to be formed corresponding to the wholly altered
+circumstances of the nation."[17]
+
+I draw from the same historian[18] an outline of the movement, running
+through several centuries, which had this final result. Great troops of
+Celts had, before the time of Christ, sought to settle themselves in
+Rhoetia and Upper Italy, even as far as Rome. Cimbrians and Teutons, with
+as little success, had betaken themselves southwards, while under the
+empire the pressure of peoples had more and more increased, and Trajan
+could hardly maintain the northern frontier on the Danube. In the third
+century, Alemans and Sueves advanced to the Upper Rhine, and the Goths,
+from dwelling between the Don and Theiss, came to the Danube and the Black
+Sea. Decius fell in battle with them. Aurelian gave them up the province of
+Dacia. Constantine the Great conquered them, and had Gothic troops in his
+army. Often they broke into the Roman territory, and carried off prisoners
+with them. Some of these were Christians and introduced the Goths to the
+knowledge of Christianity. Theophilus, a Gothic bishop, was at the Nicene
+Council in 325. They had clergy, monks, and nuns, with numerous believers.
+Under Athanarich, king of the Visigoths, Christians already suffered, with
+credit, a bloody persecution. On the occasion of the Huns, a Scythian
+people, compelling the Alans on the Don to join them, then conquering the
+Ostrogoths and oppressing the Visigoths, the latter prevailed on the
+emperor Valens to admit them into the empire. Valens gave them dwellings in
+Thrace on the condition that they should serve in his army and accept Arian
+Christianity. So the larger number of Visigoths under Fridiger in 375
+became Arians. They soon, however, broke into conflict with the empire
+through their ill-treatment by the imperial commanders. In 378, Valens was
+defeated near Adrianople; his army was utterly crushed; he met himself with
+a miserable death. After this the Visigoths in general continued to be
+Arians, though many, especially through the exertions of St. Chrysostom,
+were converted to Catholicism. Most of them, however, seem to have been
+only half Arians, like their famous bishop Ulphilas. He was by birth a
+Goth--some say a Cappadocian--was consecrated between 341 and 348, in
+Constantinople. He gave the Goths an alphabet of their own, formed after
+the Greek, and made for them a translation of the Bible, of great value as
+a record of ancient German. He died in Constantinople before 388--probably
+in 381.
+
+Under Theodosius I., about 382, the Visigoths accepted the Roman supremacy,
+and the engagement to supply 40,000 men for the service of the empire, upon
+the terms of occupying, as allies free of tribute, the provinces assigned
+to them of Dacia, Lower Moesia, and Thrace. After this, discontented at
+the holding back their pay, and irritated by Rufinus, who was then at the
+head of the government of the emperor Arcadius, they laid waste the
+Illyrian provinces down to the Peloponnesus, and made repeated irruptions
+into Italy, in 400 and 402, under their valiant leader Alarich. In 408 he
+besieged Rome, and exacted considerable sums from it. He renewed the siege
+in 409, and made the wretched prefect Attalus emperor, whom he afterwards
+deposed, and recognised Honorius again. At last he took Rome by storm on
+the 24th August, 410. The city was completely plundered, but the lives of
+the people spared. He withdrew to Lower Italy and soon died. His
+brother-in-law and successor, Ataulf, was first minded entirely to destroy
+the Roman empire, but afterwards to restore it by Gothic aid. In the end he
+went to Gaul, conquered Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and afterwards
+Barcelona. His half-brother Wallia, after reducing the Alans and driving
+back the Sueves and Vandals, planted his seat in Toulouse, which became, in
+415, the capital of his Aquitanean kingdom, Gothia or Septimania. Gaul, in
+which several Roman commanders assumed the imperial title, was overrun in
+the years from 406 to 416 by various peoples, whom the two opposing sides
+called in: by Burgundians, Franks, Alemans, Vandals, Quades, Alans, Gepids,
+Herules. The Alans, Sueves, Vandals, and Visigoths, at the same time, went
+to Spain. Their leaders endeavoured to set up kingdoms of their own all
+over Gaul and Spain.
+
+Arianism came from the Visigoths not only to the Ostrogoths but also to the
+Gepids, Sueves, Alans, Burgundians, and Vandals. But these peoples, with
+the exception of the Vandals and of some Visigoth kings, treated the
+Catholic religion, which was that of their Roman subjects, with
+consideration and esteem. Only here and there Catholics were compelled to
+embrace Arianism. Their chief enemy in Gaul was the Visigoth king Eurich.
+Wallia, dying in 419, had been succeeded by Theodorich I. and Theodorich
+II., both of whom had extended the kingdom, which Eurich still more
+increased. He died in 483. Under him many Catholic churches were laid
+waste, and the Catholics suffered a bloody persecution. He was rather the
+head of a sect than the ruler of subjects. This, however, led to the
+dissolution of his kingdom, which, from 507, was more and more merged in
+that of the Franks.
+
+The Burgundians, who had pressed onwards from the Oder and the Vistula to
+the Rhine, were in 417 already Christian. They afterwards founded a
+kingdom, with Lyons for capital, between the Rhone and the Saone. Their
+king Gundobald was Arian. But Arianism was not universal; and Patiens,
+bishop of Lyons, who died in 491, maintained the Catholic doctrine. A
+conference between Catholics and Arians in 499 converted few. But Avitus,
+bishop of Vienne, gained influence with Gundobald, so that he inclined to
+the Catholic Church, which his son Sigismund, in 517, openly professed. The
+Burgundian kingdom was united with the Frankish from 534.
+
+The Sueves had founded a kingdom in Spain under their king Rechila, still a
+heathen. He died in 448. His successor, Rechiar, was Catholic. When king
+Rimismund married the daughter of the Visigoth king Theodorich, an Arian,
+he tried to introduce Arianism, and persecuted the Catholics, who had many
+martyrs--Pancratian of Braga, Patanius, and others. It was only between 550
+and 560 that the Gallician kingdom of the Sueves, under king Charrarich,
+became Catholic, when his son Ariamir or Theodemir was healed by the
+intercession of St. Martin of Tours, and converted by Martin, bishop of
+Duma. In 563 a synod was held by the metropolitan of Braga, which
+established the Catholic faith. But in 585, Leovigild, the Arian king of
+the larger Visigoth kingdom, incorporated with his territory the smaller
+kingdom of the Sueves. Catholicism was still more threatened when Leovigild
+executed his own son Hermenegild, who had married the Frankish princess
+Jugundis, for becoming a Catholic. But the martyr's brother, Rechared, was
+converted by St. Leander, archbishop of Seville, and in 589 publicly
+professed himself a Catholic. This faith now prevailed through all Spain.
+
+The Vandals, rudest of all the German peoples, had been invited by Count
+Boniface, in 429, to pass over from Spain under their king Genseric to the
+Roman province of North Africa. They quickly conquered it entirely.
+Genseric, a fanatical Arian, persecuted the Catholics in every way, took
+from them their churches, banished their bishops, tortured and put to death
+many. Some bishops he made slaves. He exposed Quodvultdeus, bishop of
+Carthage, with a number of clergy, to the mercy of the waves on a wretched
+raft. Yet they reached Naples. The Arian clergy encouraged the king in all
+his cruelties. It was only in private houses or in suburbs that the
+Catholics could celebrate their worship. The violence of his tyranny, which
+led many to doubt even the providence of God, brought the Catholic Church
+in North Africa into the deepest distress. Genseric's son and successor,
+Hunnerich, who reigned from 477 to 484, was at first milder. He had married
+Eudoxia, elder daughter of Valentinian III. The emperor Zeno had specially
+recommended to him the African Catholics. He allowed them to meet again,
+and, after the see of Carthage had been vacant twenty-four years, to have a
+new bishop. So the brave confessor Eugenius was chosen in 479. But this
+favour was followed by a much severer persecution. Eugenius, accused by the
+bitter Arian bishop Cyrila, was severely ill-treated, shut up with 4976 of
+the faithful, banished into the barest desert, wherein many died of
+exhaustion. Hunnerich stripped the Catholics of their goods, and banished
+them chiefly to Sardinia and Corsica. Consecrated virgins were tortured to
+extort from them admission that their own clergy had committed sin with
+them. A conference held at Carthage in 484 between Catholic and Arian
+bishops was made a pretext for fresh acts of violence, which the emperor
+Zeno, moved by Pope Felix III. to intercede, was unable to prevent. 348
+bishops were banished. Many died of ill usage. Arian baptism was forced
+upon not a few, and very many lost limbs. This persecution produced
+countless martyrs. The greatest wonders of divine grace were shown in it.
+Christians at Tipasa, whose tongues had been cut out at the root, kept the
+free use of their speech, and sang songs of praise to Christ, whose godhead
+was mocked by the Arians. Many of these came to Constantinople, where the
+imperial court was witness of the miracle. The successor of this tyrant
+Hunnerich, king Guntamund, who reigned from 485 to 496, treated the
+Catholics more fairly, and, though the persecution did not entirely cease,
+allowed, in 494, the banished bishops to return. A Roman Council, in 487 or
+488, made the requisite regulations with regard to those who had suffered
+iteration of baptism, and those who had lapsed. King Trasamund, from 496 to
+523, wished again to make Arianism dominant, and tried to gain individual
+Catholics by distinctions. When that did not succeed, he went on to
+oppression and banishment, took away the churches, and forbade the
+consecration of new bishops. As still they did not diminish, he banished
+120 to Sardinia, among them a great defender of the Catholic faith, St.
+Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe. King Hilderich, who reigned from 523 to 530, a
+gentle prince and friend of the emperor Justinian, stopped the persecution
+and recalled the banished. Fulgentius was received back with great joy, and
+in February, 525, Archbishop Bonifacius held at Carthage a Council once
+more, at which sixty bishops were present. Africa had still able
+theologians. Hilderich was murdered by his cousin Gelimer: a new
+persecution was preparing. But the Vandal kingdom in Africa was overthrown
+in 533 by the eastern general Belisarius, and northern Africa united with
+Justinian's empire. However, the African Church never flourished again with
+its former lustre.
+
+But Gaul and Italy had been in the greatest danger of suffering a
+desolation in comparison with which even the Vandal persecution in Africa
+would have been light. St. Leo was nearly all his life contemporaneous with
+the terrible irruptions of the Huns. These warriors, depicted as the
+ugliest and most hateful of the human race, in the years from 434 to 441,
+having already advanced, under Attila, from the depths of Asia to the
+Wolga, the Don, and the Danube, pressing the Teuton tribes before them,
+made incursions as far as Scandinavia. In the last years of the emperor
+Theodosius II. they filled with horrible misery the whole range of country
+from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. In the spring of 451 Attila broke out
+from Pannonia with 700,000 men, absorbed the Alemans and other peoples in
+his host, wasted and plundered populous cities such as Treves, Mainz,
+Worms, Spires, Strasburg, and Metz. The skill of Aetius succeeded in
+opposing him on the plains by Chalons with the Roman army, the Visigoths,
+and their allies. The issue of this battle of the nations was that Attila,
+after suffering and inflicting fearful slaughter, retired to Pannonia. The
+next year he came down upon Italy, destroyed Aquileia, and the fright of
+his coming caused Venice to be founded on uninhabited islands, which the
+Scythian had no vessels to reach. He advanced over Vicenza, Padua, Verona,
+Milan. Rome was before him, where the successor of St. Peter stopped him.
+He withdrew from Italy, made one more expedition against the Visigoths in
+Gaul, but died shortly after. With his death his kingdom collapsed. His
+sons fought over its division, the Huns disappeared, and what was
+afterwards to be Europe became possible.
+
+The invasions of the Hun shook to its centre the western empire. Aetius,
+who had saved it at Chalons in 451, received in 454 his death-blow as a
+reward from the hand of Valentinian III., and so we are brought to the
+nine phantom emperors who follow the race of the great Theodosius, when it
+had been terminated by the vice of its worst descendant.
+
+One Teuton race, the most celebrated of all, I have reserved for future
+mention. The Franks in St. Leo's time, and for thirty-five years after his
+death, were still pagan. The Salian branch occupied the north of Gaul, and
+the Ripuarians were spread along the Rhine, about Cologne. Their paganism
+had prevented them from being touched by the infection of the Arian heresy,
+common to all the other tribes, so that the Arian religion was the mark of
+the Teutonic settler throughout the West, and the Catholic that of the
+Roman provincials.
+
+Thus when, in the year 476, the Roman senate, at Odoacer's bidding,
+exercised for the last time its still legal prerogative of naming the
+emperor, by declaring that no emperor of the West was needed, and by
+sending back the insignia of empire to the eastern emperor Zeno, all the
+provinces of the West had fallen, as to government, into the hands of the
+Teuton invaders, and all of these, with the single exception of the Franks,
+were Arians. They alone were still pagans. Odoacer, also an Arian, became
+the ruler of Rome and Italy, nominally by commission from the emperor Zeno,
+really in virtue of the armed force, consisting of adventurers belonging to
+various northern tribes which he commanded. To the Romans he was
+Patricius,[19] a title of honour lasting for life, which from Constantine's
+time, without being connected with any particular office, surpassed all
+other dignities. To his own people he was king of the Ruges, Herules, and
+Turcilings, or king of the nations. He ruled Italy, and Sicily, except a
+small strip of coast, and Dalmatia, and these lands he was able to protect
+from outward attack and inward disturbance. He made Ravenna his seat of
+government. He did not assume the title of king at Rome. He maintained the
+old order of the State in appearance. The senate held its usual sittings.
+The Roman aristocracy occupied high posts. The consuls from the year 482
+were again annually named. The Arian ruler left theological matters alone.
+But the eyes of Rome were turned towards Byzantium. The Roman empire
+continued legally to exist, and especially in the eye of the Church. The
+Pope maintained relations with the imperial power.
+
+In the meantime, Theodorich the Ostrogoth, son of Theodemir, chief of the
+Amal family, had been sent as a hostage for the maintenance of the treaty
+made by the emperor Leo I. with his father, and had spent ten years, from
+his seventh to his seventeenth year, at Constantinople. Though he scorned
+to receive an education in Greek or Roman literature, he studied during
+these years, with unusual acuteness, the political and military
+circumstances of the empire. Of strong but slender figure, his beautiful
+features, blue eyes with dark brows, and abundant locks of long, fair hair,
+added to the nobility of his race, pointed him out for a future ruler.[20]
+
+In 475, Theodorich succeeded his father as king of the Ostrogoths in their
+provinces of Pannonia and Moesia, which had been ceded by the empire. He
+it was who was destined to lead his people to glory and greatness, but also
+to their fall, in Italy. Zeno had striven to make him a personal
+friend--had made him general, given him pay and rank. Theodorich had not a
+little helped Zeno in his struggle for the empire. The Ostrogoth, in 484,
+became Roman consul; but he also appeared suddenly in a time of peace
+before the gates of Constantinople, in 487, to impress his demands upon
+Zeno. Theodorich and his people occupied towards Zeno the same position
+which Alaric and his Visigoths had held towards Honorius. Their provinces
+were exhausted, and they wanted expansion. Whether it was that Zeno deemed
+the Ostrogothic king might be an instrument to terminate the actual
+independence of Italy from his empire, or that the neighbourhood of the
+Goths, under so powerful a ruler, seemed to him dangerous, or that
+Theodorich himself had cast longing eyes upon Italy, Zeno gave a hesitating
+approval to the advance of the last great Gothic host to the southwest. The
+first had taken this direction under Alaric eighty-eight years before. Now
+a sovereign sanction from the senate of Constantinople, called a Pragmatic
+sanction, assigned Italy to the Gothic king and his people.
+
+From Novae, Theodorich's capital on the Danube, not far from the present
+Bulgarian Nikopolis, this world of wanderers, numbered by a contemporary as
+at least 350,000, streamed forth with its endless train of waggons. At the
+Isonzo, Italy's frontier, Odoacer, on the 28th August, 489, encountered the
+flood, and was worsted, as again at the Adige. Then he took refuge in
+Ravenna. The end of a three years' conflict, in which the Gothic host was
+encamped in the pine-forest of Ravenna, and where the "Battle of the
+Ravens" is commemorated in the old German hero-saga, was that, in the
+winter of 493, the last refuge of Odoacer opened its gates. Odoacer was
+promised his life, but the compact was broken soon. His people proclaimed
+Theodorich their king. Theodorich had sent a Roman senator to Zeno to ask
+his confirmation of what he had done. Zeno had been succeeded by Anastasius
+in 491. How much Anastasius granted cannot be told. Rome, during this
+conflict, had remained in a sort of neutrality. At first Theodorich
+deprived of their freedom as Roman citizens all Italians who had stood in
+arms against him. Afterwards, he set himself to that work of equal
+government for Italians and Goths which has given a lustre to his reign,
+though the fair hopes which it raised foundered at last in an opposition
+which admitted of no reconcilement.
+
+Theodorich[21] reigned from 493 to 526. He extended by successful wars the
+frontiers of the Gothic kingdom beyond the mainland of Italy and its
+islands. Narbonensian Gaul, Southern Austria, Bosnia, and Servia belonged
+to it at its greatest extension. The Theiss and the Danube, the Garonne
+and the Rhone, flowed beside his realm. The forms of the new government, as
+well as the laws, remained the same substantially as in Constantine's time.
+The Roman realm continued, only there stood at its head a foreign military
+chief, surrounded by his own people in the form of an army. Romandom lived
+on in manner of life, in customs, in dress. The Romans were judged
+according to their own laws. Gothic judges determined matters which
+concerned the Goths; in cases common to both they sat intermixed with Roman
+judges. Theodorich's principle was with firm and impartial hand to deal
+evenly between the two. But the military service was reserved to the Goths
+alone. Natives were forbidden even to carry knives. The Goths were to
+maintain public security: the Romans to multiply in the arts of peace. But
+even Theodorich could not fuse these nations together. The Goths remained
+foreigners in Italy, and possessed as _hospites_ the lands assigned to
+them, which would seem to have been a third. This noblest of barbarian
+princes, and most generous of Arians, had to play two parts. In Ravenna and
+Verona he headed the advance of his own people, and was king of the Goths:
+in Rome the Patricius sought to protect and maintain. When, in 500, he
+visited Rome, he was received before its gates by the senate, the clergy,
+the people, and welcomed like an emperor of the olden time. Arian as he
+was, he prayed in St. Peter's, like the orthodox emperors of the line of
+Theodosius, at the Apostle's tomb. Before the senate-house, in the forum,
+Boethius greeted him with a speech. The German king admired the forum of
+Trajan, as the son of Constantine, 143 years before, had admired it.
+Statues in the interval had not ceased to adorn it. Romans and Franks,
+heathens and Christians, alike were there: Merobaudes, the Gallic general;
+Claudian, the poet from Egypt, the worshipper of Stilicho, in verses almost
+worthy of Virgil; Sidonius Apollinaris, the future bishop of Clermont, who
+panegyrised three emperors successively deposed and murdered. The theatre
+of Pompey and the amphitheatre of Titus still rose in their beauty; and as
+the Gothic king inhabited the vast and deserted halls of the Caesarean
+palace, he looked down upon the games of the Circus Maximus, where the
+diminished but unchanged populace of Rome still justified St. Leo's
+complaint, that the heathen games drew more people than the shrines of the
+martyrs whose intercession had saved Rome from Attila. In fine, St.
+Fulgentius could still say, If earthly Rome was so stately, what must the
+heavenly Jerusalem be!
+
+The bearing of the Arian king to the Catholic Church and the Roman
+Pontificate was just and fair almost to the end of his reign. He protected
+Pope Symmachus at a difficult juncture. His minister Cassiodorus supported
+and helped the election of Pope Hormisdas. The letters of Cassiodorus, as
+his private secretary, counsellor, and intimate friend, remain to attest,
+with the force of an eye-witness, a noble Roman and a devoted Christian,
+who was also Patricius and Praetorian Prefect--the nature of the
+government, as well as the state of Italian society at that time. We hardly
+possess such another source of knowledge for this century. But under Pope
+John I. this happy state of things broke down. A dark shadow has been
+thrown upon the last years of an otherwise glorious government. The noble
+Boethius, after being leader of the Roman senate and highly-prized minister
+of the Gothic king, died under hideous torture, inflicted at the command of
+a suspicious and irritated master. Again, he had forced upon Pope John I.
+an embassy to Constantinople, and required of him to obtain from the
+eastern emperor churches for Arians in his dominions. The Pope returned,
+after being honoured at the eastern court as the first bishop of the world,
+laden with gifts for the churches at Rome, but without the required consent
+of the emperor to give churches to the Arians. He perished in prison at
+Ravenna by the same despotic command. This was in May, 526, and in August
+the king himself died almost suddenly, fancying, it was said, that he saw
+on a fish which was brought to his table the head of a third victim, the
+illustrious Symmachus. What Catholics thought of his end is shown by St.
+Gregory seventy years afterwards, who records in his Dialogues a vision
+seen at Lipari on the day of the king's death, in which the Pope and
+Symmachus were carrying him between them with his hands tied, to plunge him
+in the crater of the volcano.
+
+Several writers[22] have termed Theodorich a premature Charlemagne. It
+seems to me that, as Genseric was the worst and most ignoble of the
+Teutonic Arian princes, Theodorich was the best. The one showed how cruel
+and remorseless an Arian persecutor was, the other how fair a ruler and
+generous a protector the nature of things would allow an Arian monarch to
+be. But in his case the end showed that the Gothic dominion in Italy rested
+only on the personal ability of the king, and, further, that no stable
+union could take place until these German-Arian races had been incorporated
+by the Catholic Church into her own body.[23]
+
+This truth is yet more illustrated by a double contrast between Theodorich
+and Clovis. In personal character the former was far superior to the
+latter. Clovis was converted at the age of thirty, and died at forty-five.
+Yet the effect of the fifteen years of his reign after he became a Catholic
+was permanent. From that moment the Franks became a power. In that short
+time Clovis obtained possession of a very great part of France, and that
+possession went on and was confirmed to his line and people. The
+thirty-three years of Theodorich secured to Italy a time of peace, even of
+glory, which did not fall to its lot for ages afterwards. Yet the effect of
+his government passed with him; his daughter and heiress, the noble
+princess Amalasuntha, in whose praise Cassiodorus exhausts himself, was
+murdered; his kingdom was broken up, and Cassiodorus himself, retiring from
+public life, confessed in his monastic life, continued for a generation,
+how vain had been the attempt of the Arian king to overcome the
+antagonistic forces of race and religion by justice, valour, and
+forbearance.
+
+It was fitting that the attempt should be made by the noblest of Teutonic
+races, under the noblest chief it ever produced. Nor is it unfitting here
+to recur to the opinion of another great Goth, not indeed the equal of
+Theodorich, yet of the same race and the nearest approach to him, one of
+those conquerors who showed a high consideration for the Roman empire.
+Orosius records "that he heard a Gallic officer, high in rank under the
+great Theodosius, tell St. Jerome at Bethlehem how he had been in the
+confidence of Ataulph, who succeeded Alaric, and married Galla Placidia.
+How he had heard Ataulph declare that, in the vigour and inexperience of
+youth, he had ardently desired to obliterate the Roman name, and put the
+Gothic in its stead--that instead of Romania the empire should be Gothia,
+and Ataulph be what Augustus had been. But a long experience had taught him
+two things--the one, that the Goths were too barbarous to obey laws; the
+other, that those laws could not be abolished, without which the
+commonwealth would cease to be a commonwealth. And so he came to content
+himself with the glory of restoring the Roman name by Gothic power, that
+posterity might regard him as the saviour of what he could not change for
+the better."[24]
+
+It seems that the observation of Ataulph at the beginning of the fifth
+century was justified by the experience of Theodorich at the beginning of
+the sixth. And, further, we may take the conduct of these two great men as
+expressing on the whole the result of the Teutonic migration in the western
+provinces. After unspeakable misery produced in the cities and countries of
+the West at the time of their first descent, we may note three things. The
+imperial lands, rights, and prerogatives fell to the invading rulers. The
+lands in general partly remained to the provincials (the former
+proprietors), partly were distributed to the conquerors. But for the rest,
+the fabric of Roman law, customs, and institutions remained standing, at
+least for the natives, while the invaders were ruled severally according to
+their inherited customs. Even Genseric was only a pirate, not a Mongol, and
+after a hundred years the Vandal reign was overthrown and North Africa
+reunited to the empire. In the other cases it may be said that the children
+of the North, when they succeeded, after the struggle of three hundred
+years, in making good their descent on the South, seized indeed the
+conqueror's portion of houses and land, but they were not so savage as to
+disregard, in Ataulph's words, those laws of the commonwealth, without
+which a commonwealth cannot exist. The Franks, in their original condition
+one of the most savage northern tribes, in the end most completely accepted
+Roman law, the offspring of a wisdom and equity far beyond their power to
+equal or to imitate. And because they saw this, and acted on it most
+thoroughly, they became a great nation. The Catholic faith made them. Thus,
+when the boy Romulus Augustus was deposed at Rome, and power fell into the
+hands of the Herule Odoacer, Pope Simplicius, directing his gaze over
+Africa, Spain, France, Illyricum, and Britain, would see a number of
+new-born governments, ruled by northern invaders, who from the beginning of
+the century had been in constant collision with each other, perpetually
+changing their frontiers. Wherever the invaders settled a fresh partition
+of the land had to be made, by which the old proprietors would be in part
+reduced to poverty, and all the native population which in any way depended
+on them would suffer greatly. It may be doubted whether any civilised
+countries have passed through greater calamities than fell upon Gaul,
+Spain, Eastern and Western Illyricum, Africa, and Britain in the first half
+of the fifth century. Moreover, while one of these governments was pagan,
+all the rest, save Eastern Illyricum, were Arian. That of the Vandals,
+which had occupied, since 429, Rome's most flourishing province, also her
+granary, had been consistently and bitterly hostile to its Catholic
+inhabitants. That of Toulouse, under Euric, was then persecuting them.
+Britain had been severed from the empire, and seemed no less lost to the
+Church, under the occupation of Saxon invaders at least as savage as the
+Frank or the Vandal. In these broad lands, which Rome had humanised during
+four hundred years, and of which the Church had been in full possession,
+Pope Simplicius could now find only the old provincial nobility and the
+common people still Catholic. The bishops in these several provinces were
+exposed everywhere to an Arian succession of antagonists, who used against
+them all the influence of an Arian government.
+
+When he looked to the eastern emperor, now become in the eyes of the Church
+the legitimate sovereign of Rome, by whose commission Odoacer professed to
+rule, instead of a Marcian, the not unworthy husband of St. Pulcheria,
+instead of Leo I., who was at least orthodox, and had been succeeded by his
+grandson the young child Leo II., he found upon the now sole imperial
+throne that child's father Zeno. He was husband of the princess Ariadne,
+daughter of Leo I.,[25] a man of whom the Byzantine historians give us a
+most frightful picture. Without tact and understanding, vicious, moreover,
+and tyrannical, he oppressed during the two years from 474 to 476 his
+people, sorely tried by the incursions of barbarous hordes. He also
+favoured, all but openly, the Monophysites, specially Peter Fullo, the
+heretical patriarch of Antioch. After two years a revolution deprived him
+of the throne, and exalted to it the equally vicious Basiliscus--the man
+whose treachery as an eastern general had ruined the success of the great
+expedition against Genseric, in which East and West had joined under
+Anthemius. Basiliscus still more openly favoured heresy. He lasted,
+however, but a short time; Zeno was able to return, and occupied the throne
+again during fourteen years, from 477 to 491. These two men, Zeno and
+Basiliscus, criminal in their private lives, in their public lives
+adventurers, who gained the throne by the worst Byzantine arts, opened the
+line of the theologising emperors. Basiliscus, during the short time he
+occupied the eastern throne, issued, at the prompting of a heretic whom he
+had pushed into the see of St. Athanasius--and it is the first example
+known in history--a formal decree upon faith, the so-called Encyclikon, in
+which only the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, and Ephesine Councils were
+accepted, but the fourth, that of Chalcedon, condemned. So low was the
+eastern Church already fallen that not the Eutycheans only, but five
+hundred Catholic bishops subscribed this Encyclikon, and a Council at
+Ephesus praised it as divine and apostolical.
+
+Basiliscus, termed by Pope Gelasius the tyrant and heretic, was swept away.
+But his example was followed in 482 by Zeno, who issued his Henotikon,
+drawn up it was supposed by Acacius of Constantinople,[26] addressed to the
+clergy and people of Alexandria. Many of the eastern bishops, through fear
+of Zeno and his bishop Acacius, submitted to this imperial decree; many
+contended for the truth even to death against it. These two deeds, the
+Encyclikon of Basiliscus and the Henotikon of Zeno, are to be marked for
+ever as the first instances of the temporal sovereign infringing the
+independence of the Church in spiritual matters, which to that time even
+the emperors in Constantine's city had respected.
+
+Simplicius sat in the Roman chair fifteen years, from 468 to 483; and such
+was the outlook presented to him in the East and West--an outlook of ruin,
+calamity, and suffering in those vast provinces which make our present
+Europe--an outlook of anxiety with a prospect of ever-increasing evil in
+the yet surviving eastern empire. There was not then a single ruler holding
+the Catholic faith. Basiliscus and Zeno were not only heretical themselves,
+but they were assuming in their own persons the right of the secular power
+to dictate to the Church her own belief. And the Pope had become their
+subject while he was locally subject to the dominion of a northern
+commander of mercenaries, himself a Herule and an Arian. In his own Rome
+the Pope lived and breathed on sufferance. Under Zeno he saw the East torn
+to pieces with dissension; prelates put into the sees of Alexandria and
+Antioch by the arm of power; that arm itself directed by the ambitious
+spirit of a Byzantine bishop, who not only named the holders of the second
+and third seats of the Church, but reduced them to do his bidding, and wait
+upon his upstart throne. Gaul was in the hand of princes, mostly Arian, one
+pagan. Spain was dominated by Sueves and Visigoths, both Arian. In Africa
+Simplicius during forty years had been witness of the piracies of Genseric,
+making the Mediterranean insecure, and the cities on every coast liable to
+be sacked and burnt by his flying freebooters, while the great church of
+Africa, from the death of St. Augustine, had been suffering a persecution
+so severe that no heathen emperor had reached the standard of Arian
+cruelty. In Britain, civilisation and faith had been alike trampled out by
+the northern pirates Hengist and Horsa, and successive broods of their
+like. The Franks, still pagan, had advanced from the north of Gaul to its
+centre, destroyers as yet of the faith which they were afterwards to
+embrace. What did the Pope still possess in these populations? The common
+people, a portion of the local proprietors, and the Catholic bishops who
+had in him their common centre, as he in them men regarded with veneration
+by the still remaining Catholic population.
+
+In all this there is one fact so remarkable as to claim special mention.
+How had it happened that the Catholic faith was considered throughout the
+West the mark of the Roman subject; and the Arian misbelief the mark of the
+Teuton invader and governor? Theodosius had put an end to the official
+Arianism of the East, which had so troubled the empire, and so attacked the
+Primacy in the period between Constantine and himself. During all that time
+the Arian heresy had no root in the West. But the emperor Valens, when
+chosen as a colleague by his brother Valentinian I., in 364, was counted a
+Catholic. A few years later he fell under the influence of Eudoxius, who
+had got by his favour the see of Byzantium. This man, one of the worst
+leaders of the Arians, taught and baptised Valens, and filled him with his
+own spirit; and Valens, when he settled the Goths in the northern provinces
+by the Danube, stipulated that they should receive the Arian doctrine.
+Their bishop and great instructor Ulphilas had been deceived, it is said,
+into believing that it was the doctrine of the Church. This fatal gift of
+a spurious doctrine the Goth received in all the energy of an uninstructed
+but vigorous will. As the leader of the northern races he communicated it
+to them. A Byzantine bishop had poisoned the wells of the Christian faith
+from which the great new race of the future was to drink, and when
+Byzantium succeeded in throwing Alaric upon the West, all the races which
+followed his lead brought with them the doctrine which Ulphilas had been
+deceived into propagating as the faith of Christ. So it happened that if
+the terrible overthrow of Valens in 378 by the nation which he had deceived
+brought his persecution with his reign to an end in the East, yet through
+his act Arianism came into possession, a century later, of all but one of
+the newly set up thrones in the West.
+
+In truth, at the time the western empire fell the Catholic Church was
+threatened with the loss of everything which, down to the time of St. Leo,
+she had gained. For the triumph which Constantine's conversion had
+announced, for the unity of faith which her own Councils had maintained
+from Nicaea to Chalcedon, she seemed to have before her subjection to a
+terrible despotism in the East, extinction by one dominant heresy in the
+West. For here it was not a crowd of heresies which surrounded her, but the
+secular power at Rome, at Carthage, at Toulouse and Bordeaux, at Seville
+and Barcelona, spoke Arian. Who was to recover the Goth, the Vandal, the
+Burgundian, the Sueve, the Aleman, the Ruge, from that fatal error?
+Moreover, her bounds had receded. Saxon and Frank had largely swept away
+the Christian faith in their respective conquests. Who was to restore it to
+them? The Rome which had planted her colonies through these vast lands as
+so many fortresses, first of culture and afterwards of faith, was now
+reduced to a mere _municipium_ herself. The very senate, with whose name
+empire had been connected for five hundred years, at the bidding of a
+barbarous leader of mercenaries serving for plunder, sent back the symbols
+of sovereignty to the adventurer, whoever he might be, who sat by
+corruption or intrigue on the seat of Constantine in Nova Roma.
+
+This thought leads me to endeavour more accurately to point out the light
+thrown upon the Papal power by the various relations in which it stood at
+different times to the temporal governments with which it had to deal.
+
+The practical division of the Roman empire in the fourth century, ensuing
+upon the act of Constantine in forming a new capital of that empire in the
+East, made the Church no longer subject to one temporal government. The
+same act tested the spiritual Primacy of the Church. It called it forth to
+a larger and more complicated action. I have in a former volume followed at
+considerable length the series of events the issue of which was, after
+Arian heretics had played upon eastern jealousy and tyrannical emperors
+during fifty years, to strengthen the action of the Primacy. But assuredly
+had that Primacy been artificial, or made by man, the division of interests
+ensuing upon the political disjunction of the East and West would have
+destroyed it. Julius and Liberius and Damasus would not have stood against
+Constantius and Valens if the heart of the Church had not throbbed in the
+Roman Primacy. Still more apparent does this become in the next fifty
+years, wherein the overthrow of the western empire begins. Then the sons of
+Theodosius, instead of joining hand with hand and heart with heart against
+the forces of barbarism, which their father had controlled and wielded,
+were seduced by their ministers into antagonism with each other. Byzantium
+worked woe to the elder sister of whom she was jealous. Under the infamous
+treasons of Rufinus and Eutropius, the words might have been uttered with
+even fuller truth than in their original application--
+
+     "Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit".
+
+Thus Alaric first took Rome. But he did not take the Primacy. Pope Innocent
+lost no particle of his dignity or influence by the violation of Rome's
+secular dignity. It was only seven years after that event when St.
+Augustine and the two great African Councils acknowledged his Principate in
+the amplest terms. The heresy of Pelagius and the schism of Donatus were
+stronger than the sword of Alaric. And only a few years later, when a most
+fearful heresy, broached by the Byzantine bishop, led to the assembly in
+which then for the first time the Church met in general Council since
+Nicaea, the most emphatic acknowledgment of the Primacy as seated in the
+Roman bishop by descent from Peter was given by bishops, the subjects of an
+emperor very jealous of the West, to a Pope who could not live securely in
+Rome itself.
+
+In all these hundred years it is seen how the division of the empire
+enlarged and strengthened the action of the Primacy. But this it did
+because the Primacy was divine. The events just referred to, but described
+elsewhere at length, would have destroyed it had it not been divine.
+
+But this course of things, which is seen in action from the Nicene to the
+Chalcedonic Council, comes out with yet stronger force from the moment when
+Rome loses all temporal independence. We may place this moment at the date
+of its capture by Genseric. But it continues from that time. The events
+which took place at Rome in the twenty-one following years, the nine
+sovereigns put up and deposed, the subjection to barbarous leaders of
+hireling free-lances, the worse plundering of Ricimer seventeen years after
+that of Genseric--these were events grieving to the heart St. Leo and his
+successors; but yet not events at Rome alone--the whole condition of things
+in East and West which Pope Simplicius had to look upon outside of his own
+city, despotic emperors in the East, with bishops bending to their will,
+allowing the apostolic hierarchy to be displaced, and the apostolic
+doctrine determined by secular masters; Teuton settlements in the West
+ruled by the heresy most inimical to the Church; the Catholic population
+reduced in numbers and lowered in social position; whole countries seized
+by pagans, and forced at once into barbarism and infidelity--in the midst
+of all these the Pope stood: his generals were the several bishops of
+captured cities, whose places were assaulted by heretical rivals, supported
+by their kings. Gaul, Spain, Britain, Africa, Illyricum, Italy itself, no
+longer parts of one government, but ruled by enemies, any or all of these
+would have rejected the Roman Primacy if it had not come to them with the
+strongest warrant both of the Church's past history and her present
+consciousness.
+
+Such was the new world in which the Pope stood from the year 455; and he
+stood in it for three hundred years. The testimony which such times bear is
+a proof superadded to the words of Fathers and the decrees of Councils.
+
+But there is one other point in the political situation on which a word
+must be said.
+
+From the time named, the Roman Primacy is the one sole fixed point in the
+West. All else is fluctuating and transitional. To the Pope the bishops,
+subject in each city to barbarian insolence, cling as their one unfailing
+support. Without him they would be Gothic, or Vandal, or Burgundian, or
+Sueve, or Aleman, or Turciling,--with him and in him they are Catholic. Let
+me express, in the words of another, what is contained in this fact. The
+Church, says Guizot, "at the commencement of the fifth century, had its
+government, a body of clergy, a hierarchy, which apportioned the different
+functions of the clergy, revenues, independent means of action, rallying
+points which suit a great society, councils provincial, national, general,
+the habit of arranging in common the society's affairs. In a word, at this
+epoch Christianity was not only a religion but a Church. If it had not been
+a Church, I do not know what would have become of it in the midst of the
+Roman empire's fall. I confine myself to purely human considerations: I put
+aside every element foreign to the natural consequences of natural facts.
+If Christianity had only been a belief, a feeling, an individual
+conviction, we may suppose that it would have broken down at the
+dissolution of the empire and the barbarian invasion. It did break down
+later in Asia and in all north Africa beneath an invasion of the same
+kind--that of barbarous Mussulmans. It broke down then though it was an
+institution, a constituted Church. Much more might the same fact have
+happened at the moment of the Roman empire's fall. There were then none of
+those means by which in the present day moral influences are established or
+support themselves independent of institutions: no means by which a naked
+truth, a naked idea, acquires a great power over minds, rules actions, and
+determines events. Nothing of the kind existed in the fourth century to
+invest ideas and personal feelings with such an authority. It is clear that
+a strongly organised, a strongly governed, society was needed to struggle
+against so great a disaster, to overcome such a hurricane. I think I do not
+go too far in affirming that, at the end of the fourth and the beginning of
+the fifth century, it is the Christian Church which saved Christianity. It
+is the Church, with its institutions, its magistrates, and its power, which
+offered a vigorous defence to the internal dissolution of the empire, to
+barbarism; which conquered the barbarians; which became the bond, the
+means, the principle of civilisation to the Roman and the barbarian
+world."[27]
+
+In this passage, Guizot speaks of the Church as a government, as a unity.
+At the very moment of which he speaks, St. Augustine was addressing the
+Pope as the fountainhead of that unity; and in the midst of the dissolution
+an emperor was recommending him to the Gallic bishops "as the chief of the
+episcopal coronet"[28] encircling the earth. The whole structure which
+lasted through this earthquake of nations had its cohesion in him--a fact
+seen even more clearly in the time of the third Valentinian than in that of
+the conquering Constantine.
+
+But looking to that East, which dates from the Encyclikon of a Basiliscus
+and the Henotikon of a Zeno, here the Pope appears as the sole check to a
+despotic power. He alone could speak to the emperor on an equal and even a
+superior footing. Would such a power not have repudiated his interference,
+had it not been convinced of an authority beyond its reach to deny? The
+first generation following the utter impotence of Rome as reduced to a
+_municipium_ under Arian rulers will answer this question, as we shall see
+hereafter, with fullest effect.
+
+I have adduced above three political situations. The first is when the
+Primacy passes from dealing with one government to deal with more than one;
+the second when the Primacy has to deal with an unsettled world of many
+governments; the third when it is the sole fixed point in the face of a
+hurricane on one side and a despotism on the other. I observe that the
+testimony of all three concurs to bring out its action and establish its
+divine character. As an epilogue to all that has been said, I will suppose
+a case.
+
+Three men, great with the natural greatness of intellect, greater still in
+the acquired greatness of character, greatest of all in the supernatural
+grace of saintliness, witnessed this fifth century from its beginning: one
+of them, during two decades of years; the second, during three; the last,
+during six decades. They saw in their own persons, or they heard in
+authentic narratives, all its doings--the cities plundered and overthrown;
+the countries wasted; all natural ties disregarded; neither age, nor sex,
+nor dignity, respected by hordes of savages, incapable themselves of
+learning, strangers to science, without perception of art; the sum being
+that the richest civilisation which the world had borne was crushed down by
+brute force. They saw, and mourned, and bore with unfailing personal
+courage their portion of sorrow, mayhap turning themselves in their inmost
+mind from a world perishing before their eyes, to contemplate the joy
+promised in a world which should not perish. But neither to St. Jerome, nor
+to St. Augustine, nor to St. Leo, did the thought occur that this barbarian
+mass could be controlled into producing a civilisation richer than that
+which its own incursion destroyed. That, instead of perpetual strife and
+mutual repulsion, it could receive the one law of Christ; be moulded into a
+senate of nations, with like institutions and identical principles; that,
+instead of one empire taking an external impress of the Christian faith,
+but rebelling against it with a deep-seated corruption and an unyielding
+paganism, and so perishing in the midst of abundance, it should grow into
+peoples, the corner-stone of whose government and the parent of their
+political constitution should be the one faith of Christ, and their
+acknowledged judge the Roman Pastor; and that the Rome which all the three
+saw once plundered, and the third twice subjected to that penalty, should
+lose all its power as a secular capital, while it became the shrine whence
+a divine law went forth; and that these hordes, who laid it waste before
+their eyes, should become its children and its most valiant defenders.
+
+Had such a vision been vouchsafed to either of these great saints, with
+what words of thankfulness would he have described it. This is the subject
+which this narrative opens; and we, the long-descended offspring of these
+hordes, have seen this sight and witnessed this exertion of power carried
+on through centuries; and degenerate and ungrateful children as we are, we
+are living still upon the deeds which God wrought in that conversion of the
+nations by the pastoral staff of St. Peter, leading them into a land
+flowing with oil and wine.
+
+NOTES:
+
+[3] "Episcopatus unus est cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur."--S.
+Cyprian, _De Unitate Ecclesiae_.
+
+[4] Gregorovius, i. 286. "Das Papstthum, vom Kaiser des Abendlandes
+befreit, erstand, und die Kirche Roms wuchs unter Truemmern maechtig empor.
+Sie trat an die Stelle des Reichs."
+
+[5] Gregorovius, i. 200.
+
+[6] St. Ignatius, _Epistle to the Romans_.
+
+[7] "That Roman, that Judean bond
+      United then dispart no more--
+    Pierce through the veil; the rind beyond
+      Lies hid the legend's deeper lore.
+    Therein the mystery lies expressed
+      Of power transferred, yet ever one;
+    Of Rome--the Salem of the West--
+      Of Sion, built o'er Babylon."
+
+    A. de Vere, _Legends and Records_, p. 204.
+
+[8] Gregorovius, i. 208.
+
+[9] Gregorovius, i. 215.
+
+[10] Sidonius Apollinaris, _Epist._, i. 9. "Hi in amplissimo ordine,
+seposita praerogativa partis armatae, facile post purpuratum principem
+principes erant."
+
+[11] "Sed si forte placet veteres sopire querelas
+     Anthemium concede mihi; sit partibus istis
+     Augustus longumque Leo; mea jura gubernet
+     Quem petii."--_Carmen_, ii.
+
+[12] Reumont, i. 700.
+
+[13] He says at the end of 500 hendecasyllabics (jam te veniam loquacitati
+Quingenti hendecasyllabi precantur):
+
+    "Hinc ad balnea non Neroniana,
+    Nec quae Agrippa dedit, vel ille cujus
+    Bustum Dalmaticae vident Salonae,
+    Ad thermas tamen ire sed libebat,
+    Privato bene praebitas pudori".
+
+[14] For a well-told account of this expedition and its failure, see
+Thierry, _Derniers Temps de l'Empire d'Occident_, pp. 77-101.
+
+[15] There is a strange occurrence recorded by St. Gregory in his
+_Dialogues_ as having taken place in this church, which would seem to point
+at Ricimer's burial in it.
+
+[16] This account has been shortened from that of Gregorovius, i. 231-5.
+
+[17] Giesebrecht, quoted by Hergenroether, _K.G._, i. 449.
+
+[18] Hergenroether, i. 449-453.
+
+[19] Reumont, ii. 6.
+
+[20] Reumont, ii. 9.
+
+[21] Reumont (ii. 29-42) gives an admirable sketch of the government of
+Theodorich, by which I have profited in what follows.
+
+[22] Montalembert, Gregorovius, Kurth. Philips (vol. iii., p. 51, sec.
+119), remarks: "Waere Theodorich der Grosse nicht Arianer gewesen, so
+wuerde, wenn er es sonst gewollt, ihm wohl nichts weiter im Wege gestanden
+haben, als sich zum Roemischen kaiser im Abendlande ausrufen lassen".
+
+[23] Gregorovius, i. 312, 315.
+
+[24] Orosius, _Hist._, vii. 43.
+
+[25] Photius, i. 111.
+
+[26] Photius, i. 120.
+
+[27] Guizot, _Sur la Civilisation en Europe_, deuxieme lecon.
+
+[28] Edict of Valentinian III., in 447.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CAESAR FELL DOWN.
+
+
+When St. Leo refused his assent to the Canons in favour of the see of
+Constantinople, which, at the end of the Council of Chalcedon, the Court,
+the clergy, and above all Anatolius, the bishop of the imperial city,
+desired to be passed, and with that intent overbore the resistance of the
+Papal legates, the race of Theodosius was still reigning both at Old and at
+New Rome. The eastern sovereigns, Marcian and Pulcheria, by becoming whose
+husband Marcian had ascended the throne, had acted with conspicuous loyalty
+towards the Pope. The mistakes of Theodosius II. were repaired, and the
+cabals of his courtiers ceased to affect the stronger minds and faithful
+hearts of his successors. In the West, Galla Placidia, during all the
+reign, since the death, in 423, of her brother Honorius, with which her
+nephew Theodosius II. had invested her, was also faithful to St. Peter's
+See; the same spirit directed her son Valentinian, and his empress-cousin,
+the daughter of the eastern emperor. The letters of all exist, in which
+they strove to set right their father, or nephew, Theodosius II., in the
+matter of Eutyches. All had supported St. Leo in the annulling that
+unhappy Council which compromised the faith of the Church so long as it was
+allowed to count as a Council. But not for any merit on the part of
+Pulcheria and Marcian would St. Leo allow the mere grandeur of a royal
+city, because it was the seat of empire, to dethrone from their original
+rank, held since the beginning of the Christian hierarchy, the two other
+Sees of St. Peter--the one of his disciple St. Mark, sent from his side at
+Rome; the other, in which he had first sat himself. St. Leo could not the
+least foresee that the course of things in less than a generation would
+justify by the plainest evidence of facts his maintenance of tradition and
+his prescience of future dangers. He had charged Anatolius with seeking
+unduly to exalt himself at the expense of his brethren. The exaltation
+consisted in making himself the second bishop of the Church. His see, a
+hundred and twenty years before, had, if it existed at all--for it is all
+but lost in insignificance--been merely a suffragan of the archbishop of
+Heraclea. Leo saw that Anatolius, under cover of the emperor's permanent
+residence in Nova Roma, sought to make its bishop the lever by which the
+whole episcopate of the East should be moved. We are now to witness the
+attempt to carry into effect all which St. Leo feared by a bishop who was
+next successor but one to Anatolius in his see.
+
+The changes, indeed, wrought in a few years were immense. St. Leo himself
+outlived both Pulcheria and Marcian; and on the death of the latter saw the
+imperial succession, which had been in some sense hereditary since the
+election of Valentinian I., in 364, pass to a new man. As this is the first
+occasion on which the succession to the Byzantine throne comes into our
+review, it may be well to consider what sort of thing it was. I suppose the
+Caesarean succession even from the first is a hard thing to bring under any
+definition. Since Claudius was discovered quaking for fear behind a
+curtain, and dragged out to sit upon the throne which his nephew Caius had
+hastily vacated, after having been welcomed to it four years before with
+universal acclamation, it would be difficult to say what made a man emperor
+of the Romans. So much I seem to see in that terrible line, that the
+descent from father to son was hardly ever blessed, and that those who were
+adopted by an emperor no way related to them succeeded the best. The
+children of the very greatest emperors--of a Marcus Aurelius, a
+Constantine, a Theodosius--have only brought shame on their parents and
+ruin on their empire. Again, if the youth of a Nero or a Caracalla ended in
+utter ignominy, the youth of an Alexander Severus produced the fairest of
+reigns, while it ended in his murder by an usurper. But strange and
+anomalous as the Caesarean succession appears, that of the Byzantine
+sovereigns, from the disappearance of the Theodosian race to the last
+Constantine who dies on the ramparts of the city made by the first, shows a
+great deterioration.[29] There was no acknowledged principle of succession.
+Arbitrary force determined it. One robber followed another upon the throne;
+so that the eastern despot seemed to imitate that ghastly rule, in the
+wood by Nemi, "of the priest who slew the slayer and shall himself be
+slain". If the army named one man to the throne, the fleet named another.
+If intrigue and shameless deceit gained it in one case, murder succeeded in
+another. Relationship or connection by marriage with the last possessor
+helped but rarely. This frequent and irregular change, and the personal
+badness of most sovereigns, caused endless confusion to the realm. This is
+the staple of the thousand years in which the election of the emperor Leo
+I., in 457, stands at the head. On the death of Marcian, following that of
+Pulcheria, in whose person a woman first became empress regnant, Leo was a
+Thracian officer, a colonel of the service, and director of the general
+Aspar's household. Aspar was an Arian Goth, commander of the troops, who
+had influence enough to make another man emperor, but not to cancel the
+double blot of barbarian and heretic in his own person. He made Leo, with
+the intention to be his master. And Leo ruled for seventeen years with some
+credit; and presently put Aspar and his son to death, in a treacherous
+manner, but not without reason. He bore a good personal character, was
+Catholic in his faith, and St. Leo lived on good terms with him during the
+four years following his election. St. Leo, dying in 461, was succeeded by
+Pope Hilarus, the deacon and legate who brought back a faithful report to
+Rome of the violent Council at Ephesus, in 449, from which he had escaped.
+Pope Hilarus was succeeded in 468 by Simplicius, and in 474 the emperor
+Leo died, leaving the throne to an infant grandson of the same name, the
+son of his daughter Ariadne, by an Isaurian officer Zeno, who reigned at
+first as the guardian of his son, and a few months afterwards came by that
+son's death to sole power as emperor. The worst character is given to Zeno
+by the national historians. His conduct was so vile, and his government so
+discredited by irruptions of the Huns on the Danube, and of Saracens in
+Mesopotamia, that his wife's stepmother Verina, the widow of Leo I.,
+conspired against him, and was able to set her brother Basiliscus on the
+throne. Zeno took flight; Basiliscus was proclaimed emperor. He declared
+himself openly against the Catholic faith in favour of the Eutycheans. But
+Basiliscus was, if possible, viler than Zeno, and after twenty months Zeno
+was brought back. The usurper's short rule lasted from October, 475, to
+June, 477; exactly, therefore, at the time when Odoacer put an end to the
+western empire. It was upon Zeno's recovery of the throne that he received
+back from the Roman senate the sovereign insignia, and conferred the title
+of Roman Patricius on Odoacer. In the following years Zeno had much to do
+with Theodorich. He gave up to him part of Dacia and Moesia, and finally
+he made, in 484, the king of the Ostrogoths Roman consul, as a reward for
+the services to the Roman emperor. But, afterwards, Theodorich ravaged
+Zeno's empire up to the walls of Constantinople, and was bought off by a
+commission to march into Italy and to dethrone Odoacer. Zeno continued an
+inglorious and unhappy reign, full of murders, deceits, and crimes of
+every sort, for fourteen years after his restoration, and died in 491.
+
+Let us now pass to the ecclesiastical policy of Zeno's reign.
+
+The succession to the see of Constantinople requires to be considered in
+apposition with that of the see of Rome. The attempt of Anatolius had been
+broken by St. Leo, who also outlived him by three years, for Anatolius died
+in 458, a year after the emperor Leo had succeeded Marcian; and his
+crowning of Leo is recorded as the first instance of that ceremony being
+exercised. At his death Gennadius was appointed, who sat to the year 471.
+He is commended by all writers for his admirable conduct. St. Leo[30] had
+sent bishops to Constantinople to ask the emperor that he would bring to
+punishment Timotheus the Cat, who, being schismatical, excommunicated, and
+Eutychean, had nevertheless got possession of the see of Alexandria. He was
+endeavouring, after the death of the legitimate bishop, Proterius, who had
+succeeded the deposed Dioscorus, to ruin the Catholic faith throughout
+Egypt. All the bishops of the East, whom the emperor consulted, pronounced
+against this Timotheus. But he was supported by Aspar, who had given Leo
+the empire. Nevertheless, Gennadius joined his efforts with those of the
+Pope, and Timotheus Ailouros was banished from Alexandria to Gangra.
+Another Timotheus Solofaciolus, approved by Pope Leo, was made bishop of
+Alexandria.
+
+At the end of 471, Acacius succeeded Gennadius in the see of the capital.
+At the time he was well known, having been for many years superior of the
+orphans' hospital, where he had gained the affection of everyone. He is
+said to have been made bishop by the influence of Zeno, who was then the
+emperor's son-in-law. He immediately rose high in the opinion of Leo, who
+consulted him on private and public affairs before anyone else. He placed
+him in the senate, the first time that the bishop had sat there. Acacius is
+said to have used his influence with Leo to soften a severe temper, to
+restore many persons to his favour, to obtain the recal of many from
+banishment. He took special care of the churches, and of the clergy serving
+them, and they in return put his portrait everywhere. Acacius was
+considered an excellent bishop when Basiliscus rose against Zeno.
+
+In all this contest Acacius took part against the attempt which Basiliscus
+made to overthrow the faith of the Church. He had issued a document termed
+the Encyclikon or Circular, in which for the first time in the history of
+the Church an emperor had assumed the right, as emperor, to lay down the
+terms of the faith. In this act there is not so much to be considered the
+mixture of truth and falsehood in the document issued as the authority
+which he claimed to set up a standard of doctrine. But he could not induce
+Acacius to put his signature to it. Five hundred Greek bishops, it is true,
+were found to do so, but Acacius was not one of them. Basiliscus fell, Zeno
+was restored, and Acacius came out of the struggles between them with
+increased renown.
+
+Zeno's restoration was considered at the time a victory of the Catholic
+cause. Basiliscus in his short dominion of twenty months had formally
+recalled from exile the notorious heretic Timotheus Ailouros, and put him
+in the patriarchal see of Alexandria, as likewise Peter the Fuller in the
+see of Antioch. This Timotheus had moved Basiliscus to the strong act of
+despotically overriding the faith by issuing an edict upon doctrine.
+Basiliscus had been obliged, by the opposition of the monks at
+Constantinople, and that of Acacius, and the fear of the returning Zeno, to
+withdraw this document. The usurper had to fly for refuge to sanctuary, but
+Acacius did not shield him as St. Chrysostom had shielded Eutropius. He
+came forth under solemn promise from Zeno that his blood should not be
+shed, and was carried with wife and children to Cappadocia, where all were
+starved to death.
+
+In all this matter Acacius had gained great credit as defender of the
+Council of Chalcedon. He had himself referred for help to Simplicius in the
+Apostolic See. Zeno upon his return to power had entered into closer
+connection with the Roman chair. He had sent the Pope a blameless
+confession of faith, promising to maintain the Council of Chalcedon.
+Simplicius, on the 8th October, 477, had congratulated him on his return.
+In this letter he reminds Zeno of the acts of his predecessors, Marcian and
+Leo: that he owed gratitude to God for bringing him back. "He has restored
+their empire to you: do you show Him their service. And as the words which
+I lately addressed, under the instruction of the blessed Apostle Peter,
+were rejected by those who were about to fall (_i.e._, Basiliscus), I pray
+that by God's favour they may profit those who shall stand (_i.e._, Zeno).
+I receive the letters sent by your clemency, as an immense pledge of your
+devotion. I breathe again joyously, and do not doubt that you will do even
+more in religion than I desire. But mindful of my office, I dwell the more
+on this matter, because out of regard alike for your empire and your
+salvation I ardently wish that you should abide in that cause on which
+alone depends the stability of present government and the gaining future
+glory. I beg above all things that you should deliver the Church of
+Alexandria from the heretical intruder, and restore it to the Catholic and
+legitimate bishop, and also restore the several ejected bishops to their
+sees, that as you have delivered your commonwealth from the domination of a
+tyrant, so you may save the Church of God everywhere from the robbery and
+contamination of heretics. Do not allow that to prevail which the iniquity
+of the times and a spirit as rebellious against God as against your empire
+has stirred up, but rather what so many great pontiffs, and with them the
+consent of the universal Church, has decreed. Give full legal vigour to the
+decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, or those which my predecessor Leo, of
+blessed memory, has with apostolic learning laid down. That is, as you have
+found it, the Catholic faith, which has put down the mighty from their
+seat, and exalted the humble."[31]
+
+To appreciate this letter, it must be borne in mind that it was written by
+Pope Simplicius a year after the western empire was extinguished; that the
+writer had seen nine western emperors deposed, and most of them murdered,
+in twenty-one years; that it was addressed to the eastern and now only
+Roman emperor; and that the writer was living under the absolute rule of
+the _condottiere_ chief who had succeeded Ricimer, and is called by Pope
+Gelasius a few years afterwards "Odoacer, barbarian and heretic".[32]
+
+The whole East was disturbed at this time by the condition of the great
+patriarchal sees of Alexandria and Antioch. The Eutychean party was
+perpetually trying for the mastery. At Alexandria, Proterius, who succeeded
+Dioscorus when he was deposed at the Council of Chalcedon, had been
+murdered in 458. The utmost efforts of Pope Leo and the emperor Leo were
+needed to maintain his legitimate successor Timotheus Solofaciolus, against
+whom a rival of the same name, Timotheus Ailouros, had been set up by the
+Eutychean party, which was far the most numerous. It was on the death of
+this patriarch, Timotheus Solofaciolus, in 482, that the clergy and many
+bishops had chosen John Talaia as his successor. John Talaia had announced
+his election to the Pope in order to be acknowledged by him; also, as was
+customary, to the patriarch of Antioch; but had sent his synodal letter by
+some indirect manner to Acacius, who thus received the notice by public
+report, rather than in the official way. But in the four years which had
+elapsed since the restoration of Zeno, Acacius had acquired great influence
+over him. Zeno had published a decree in which, "out of regard to our royal
+city," he assured to that "Church, the mother of our piety and the see of
+all orthodox Christians, the privileges and honours over the consecration
+of bishops which, before our government, or during it, it is recognised to
+possess," in which he named Acacius, "the most blessed patriarch, father of
+our piety". Acacius had made his maintenance of the Council of Chalcedon go
+step by step with his claim to exercise patriarchal rights over the great
+see of Ephesus. This had led to fresh reclamations from the Pope. Acacius
+had gone ever forwards, and seemed, by the favour of Zeno, to be reaching
+complete subjection of the eastern patriarchates to the see of
+Constantinople. Incensed at what he considered the slight offered to him by
+John Talaia, he took up, with the utmost keenness against him, the cause of
+a rival, Peter the Stammerer, who had been elected by the Eutychean party.
+He worked upon the emperor's mind in favour of the Monophysite pretender.
+Peter the Stammerer himself came to Constantinople, and urged to Zeno that
+the utmost confusion and disorder might be feared in Egypt if the powerful
+and numerous opponents of the Council of Chalcedon had an unacceptable
+patriarch put upon them. At the same time, he proposed a compromise which
+would unite all parties and prevent the breaking up of the eastern Church.
+Acacius, a few years before, had denounced to Pope Simplicius himself this
+Peter the Stammerer as an adulterer, robber, and son of darkness. He now
+entirely embraced this plan, and not only won the emperor to Peter's side
+for the patriarchate, but induced Zeno to publish a doctrinal decree. This
+was to express what was common to all confessions of faith down to the
+Council of Chalcedon, to avoid the expressions used in controversy, and
+entirely to set aside the Council of Chalcedon. In 482 appeared this
+Formulary of Union, or Henotikon, drawn up, it was supposed, by Acacius
+himself, addressed to the clergy and people of Alexandria. It was first
+subscribed by Acacius, as patriarch of Constantinople, then by Peter the
+Stammerer, acknowledged for this purpose as patriarch of Alexandria; then
+by Peter the Fuller, as patriarch of Antioch; by Martyrius of Jerusalem,
+and by other bishops, but by no means all. Zeno used the imperial power to
+expel those who would not sign it.
+
+As Peter the Stammerer had gone to the emperor to get his election approved
+and supported by Zeno and Acacius, so John Talaia had solicited Pope
+Simplicius to confirm his election. This the Pope had been on the point of
+confirming, when he received a letter from the emperor accusing John
+Talaia, and urging the appointment of Peter the Stammerer. Acacius had not
+hesitated to absolve him, and admit him to his communion, and strove by
+every effort of deceit and force to induce the eastern bishops to accept
+him. The last letter we have of the Pope, dated November 6, 482, strongly
+censures Acacius for communicating nothing to him concerning the Church of
+Alexandria, and for not instructing the emperor in such a way that peace
+might be restored by him.
+
+On March 2, 483, Pope Simplicius died, and was succeeded by Pope Felix.
+John Talaia had come in person to Rome to lay his accusation against
+Acacius. Also the orthodox monks at Constantinople, and eastern bishops
+expelled for not signing the Henotikon, begged for the Pope's assistance,
+and denounced Acacius as the author of all the trouble. Amongst these
+expelled bishops who appealed to Rome were bishops of Chalcedon, Samosata,
+Mopsuestia, Constantina, Hemeria, Theodosiopolis.
+
+The Pope called a council, in which he considered the complaint now brought
+before him by John Talaia, as a hundred and forty years before St.
+Athanasius had carried his complaint to Pope Julius. It was resolved to
+support the ejected bishops, to maintain the Council of Chalcedon, and to
+request from the emperor the expulsion of Peter the Stammerer, who was
+usurping the see of Alexandria. For this purpose the Pope commissioned two
+bishops, Vitalis and Misenus, to go as his legates to the emperor. They
+were to invite Acacius to attend a council at Rome, and to answer therein
+the complaint brought against him by the elected patriarch of Alexandria.
+
+The legates carried a letter[33] from Pope Felix to the emperor, in which,
+according to custom, the Pope informed him of his election. He observed
+that, for a long time, the see of the blessed Apostle had been expecting
+an answer to the letters sent by his predecessor of blessed memory,
+"especially inasmuch as it had bound your majesty, with tremendous vows,
+not to allow the see of the evangelist St. Mark to be separated from the
+teaching or the communion of his master.... Again, therefore, the reverend
+confession of the Apostle Peter, with a mother's voice, renews its
+instance. It ceases not with confidence to call upon you as its son. It
+cries: O Christian prince, why do you allow me to be interrupted in that
+course of charity which binds together the universal Church? Why, in my
+person, do you break up the consent of the whole world? I beseech you, my
+son, suffer not that tunic of the Lord woven from the top throughout, by
+which is signified, as the Holy Spirit rules the whole body, that the
+Church of Christ should be one and individual--suffer it not to be broken.
+They who crucified our Saviour left it untouched. Do not let it be rent in
+your times. My faith it is which the Lord Himself declared should alone be
+one, never to be conquered by any assault: He who promised that the gates
+of hell should never prevail over the Church founded on my confession. This
+Church it was which restored you to the imperial dignity, deprived its
+impugners of their power, and opened to you the path of victory in
+defending it.[34]
+
+"Look at me, his successor, however humble, as if the Apostle were present.
+Look deeper into those ways which concern the reverence due to God and the
+condition of man; and be not ungrateful to the Author of your present
+prosperity. In you alone survives the name of emperor. Do not grudge us the
+saving you. Do not diminish our confidence in praying for you. Look back on
+your august predecessors Marcian and Leo, and the faith of so many princes,
+you, who are their lawful heir. Once more, look back on your own
+engagements, and the words which, on your return to power, you addressed to
+my predecessor. The defence of the Council of Chalcedon is expressed in the
+whole series." And he ends: "What I could not put in my letter I have
+entrusted my brethren and legates to explain. I beseech you to listen, as
+well for the preservation of Catholic truth as for the safety of your own
+empire."
+
+To Acacius also the legates carried a letter of the Pope, which he opened
+by announcing that he had succeeded to the office of Pope Simplicius, and
+was forthwith involved in those many cares which the voice of the Supreme
+Pastor had imposed upon St. Peter, and which kept him watchfully occupied
+with a rule which extended over all the peoples of the earth. At that
+moment his greatest anxiety, as it had been that of his predecessor, was
+for the city of Alexandria, and for the faith of the whole East. And he
+went on to reproach Acacius for not duly informing him of what was passing,
+for not defending the Council of Chalcedon, and not using his influence
+with the emperor in its defence: "Brother, do not let us despair that the
+word of our Saviour will be true; He promised that He would never be
+wanting to His Church to the end of the world; that it should never be
+overcome by the gates of hell; that all which was bound on earth by
+sentence of apostolic doctrine should not be loosed in heaven. Nor let us
+think that either the judgment of Peter or the authority of the universal
+Church, by whatever dangers it be surrounded, will ever lose the weight of
+its force. The more it dreads being weakened by worldly prosperity, the
+more, divinely instructed, it grows under adversity. To let the perverse go
+on in their way, when you can stop them, is indeed to encourage them. He
+who, evidently, ceases to obstruct a wicked deed, does not escape the
+suspicion of complicity. If, when you see hostility arising against the
+Council of Chalcedon, you do nothing, believe me, I know not how you can
+maintain that you belong to the whole Church."
+
+As soon as the two legates arrived at the Dardanelles, they were arrested,
+by order of Zeno and Acacius, put in prison, their papers and letters taken
+from them. They were menaced with death if they did not accept the
+communion of Acacius and of Peter the Stammerer. Then they were seduced
+with presents, and deceived with false promises that Acacius would submit
+the whole affair to the Pope. They resisted at first, but yielded in the
+end, and, passing beyond their commission, gave judgment in favour of Peter
+the Stammerer. They had broken all the instructions of the Pope, and
+carried back letters from Zeno and Acacius to him, full of extravagant
+praises of Peter the Stammerer. His former deposition and condemnation were
+entirely put aside. On the other hand, the character of John Talaia was
+bitterly impugned. The emperor asserted that he had treated Church matters
+with the utmost moderation, and guided himself entirely by the advice of
+the patriarch Acacius.
+
+In fact, Acacius was the spiritual superior of the whole eastern empire,
+and appeared not to trouble himself any more about the Roman See. He made
+no pretence to give any satisfaction for what he had done. Before he had
+been the champion of orthodoxy, now he had become in league with heretics.
+But he lost all remaining confidence among Catholics. The zealous monks of
+his own city withdrew from his communion, and sent one of themselves,
+Symeon, to Rome to inform the Pope of all that had happened, and disclose
+the faithless behaviour of his legates.[35]
+
+In another letter the Pope had cited Acacius to appear at Rome to meet the
+accusation brought against him by John Talaia, the patriarch of Alexandria.
+Acacius took no notice of this citation, nor of the complaint brought
+against him.
+
+Thereupon, the Pope, in a council of seventy-seven bishops, held at Rome
+the 28th July, 484, made inquiry into all this transaction. He annulled the
+judgment on Peter the Stammerer, passed without his authority by his
+legates, deprived them of their offices, and of communion. He renewed the
+condemnation of Peter the Stammerer, he had in the interval admonished
+Acacius again, without result. He now issued the decree of deposition upon
+him. It runs in the following words:
+
+"You are[36] guilty of many transgressions; have often treated with insult
+the venerable Nicene Council; have unrightfully claimed jurisdiction over
+provinces not belonging to you. In the case of intruding heretics, ordained
+likewise by heretics, whom you had yourself condemned, and whose
+condemnation you had urged upon the Apostolic See, you not only received
+them to your communion, but even set them over other Churches, which was
+not, even in the case of Catholics, allowable; or have even given them
+higher rank undeservedly. John is an instance of this. When he was not
+accepted by the Catholics at Apamea, and had been driven away from Antioch,
+you set him over the Tyrians. Humerius also, having been degraded from the
+diaconite and deprived of the Christian name, you advanced to the
+priesthood. And as if these seemed to you minor offences, in the boldness
+of your pride you assaulted the truth itself of apostolic doctrine. That
+Peter, whose condemnation by my predecessor of holy memory you had yourself
+recorded, as the subjoined proofs show, you suffered by your connivance
+again to invade the see of the blessed evangelist Mark, to drive out
+orthodox bishops and clergy, and ordain, no doubt, such as himself, to
+expel one who was there regularly established, and hold the Church captive.
+Nay, his person was so agreeable to you, and his ministers so acceptable,
+that you have been found to persecute a large number of orthodox bishops
+and clergy, who now come to Constantinople, and to encourage his legates.
+You put upon Misenus and Vitalis to find excuse for one who was
+anathematising the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, and violating the
+tomb of Timotheus of holy memory, as sure information has been given us.
+You have not ceased to praise and exalt him so as to boast that the very
+condemnation you had yourself recorded was untrue. You went even further in
+the defence of a perverse man. They who were late bishops, but are now
+deprived of their rank and of communion, Vitalis and Misenus, men whom we
+had specially sent for his expulsion, you suffered to be deprived of their
+papers and imprisoned; you dragged them out thence to a procession which
+you were having with heretics, as they confessed; in contempt of their
+legatine quality, which even the law of nations would protect, you drew
+them on to the communion of heretics, and yourself; you corrupted them with
+bribes; and, with injury to the blessed Apostle Peter, from whose see they
+went forth, you caused them not only to return with labour lost, but with
+the overthrow of all their instructions. In deceiving them, your wickedness
+was shown. As to the memorial of my brother and fellow-bishop John
+(Talaia), who brought the heaviest charges against you, by not venturing to
+give an answer in the Apostolic See, according to the canons, you have
+established his allegations. Likewise, you considered unworthy of your
+sight our most faithful defender Felix, whom a necessity caused to come
+afterwards. You also showed by your letters that known heretics were
+communicating with you. For what else are they who, after the death of
+Timotheus of holy memory, go back to his church under Peter the Stammerer,
+or, having been Catholics, have given themselves up to this Peter, but such
+as Peter himself was judged to be by the whole Church, and by yourself?
+Therefore, by this present sentence have with those whom you willingly
+embrace your portion, which we send to you by the defender of your own
+church, being deprived of sacerdotal honour and Catholic communion, and
+severed from the number of the faithful. Know that the name and office of
+the sacerdotal ministry is taken from you. You are condemned by the
+judgment of the Holy Ghost[37] and apostolic authority, and never to be
+released from the bonds of anathema.
+
+"Caelius Felix, bishop of the holy Catholic Church of the city of Rome. On
+the 28th July, in the consulship of the most honourable Venantius."
+
+This was a synodal letter,[38] signed by sixty-seven bishops, as well as
+the Pope. But the copy of the decree against Acacius sent to Constantinople
+was signed by the Pope alone, partly according to ancient custom, partly in
+order with greater security to transmit it to the eastern capital. Had this
+copy been signed by the bishops also, ruling practice would have required
+it to be carried over by at least two bishops, which then appeared very
+dangerous. A Roman synod of forty-three[39] bishops, in the following
+year, 485, wrote to the clergy of Constantinople: "If snares had not been
+set for the orthodox by land and sea, many of us might have come with the
+sentence of Acacius. But now, being assembled on the cause of the church of
+Antioch at St. Peter's, we make a point of declaring to you the custom
+which has always prevailed among us. As often as bishops[40] meet in Italy
+on ecclesiastical matters, especially when they touch the faith, the custom
+is maintained that the successor of those who preside in the Apostolic See,
+as representing all the bishops of the whole of Italy, according to the
+care of all churches which lies upon him, appoints all things, being the
+head of all, as the Lord said to Peter, 'Thou art Peter,' &c. The three
+hundred and eighteen holy fathers assembled at Nicaea acted in obedience to
+this word, and left the confirmation and authority of what they treated to
+the holy Roman Church; both of which things all successions to our own time
+by the grace of Christ maintain. What, therefore, the holy council
+assembled at St. Peter's decreed, and the most blessed Felix, our Head,
+Pope, and Archbishop, ratified, that is sent to you by Tutus, defensor of
+the Church."
+
+Three days after the sentence on Acacius, Pope Felix wrote to the emperor
+Zeno.[41] He reminded him that, in violation of reverence to God, an
+embassy to the Holy See had been taken captive, its papers taken away; it
+had been dragged out of prison to communicate with the officers of the
+very heretic against whom it had been sent. "Since even barbarous nations,
+who knew not God, allowed to embassies for the transaction of human affairs
+a sacred liberty, how much more should that liberty be preserved sacred,
+especially in divine things, by a Roman emperor and Christian prince?
+Putting aside the embassy, which even in the case of the Apostle Peter was
+disregarded, be assured at least by these letters that the see of the
+Apostle Peter has never granted communion, and will never grant it, to that
+Alexandrian Peter long ago justly condemned, and again by synodal decree
+suppressed. But as you have not regarded the words of exhortation I
+addressed to you, I leave it to your choice to select which you will have,
+the communion of the blessed Apostle Peter or that of the Alexandrian
+Peter. You will know by the letters of this man's abettor, Acacius, to my
+predecessor of holy memory, copies of which I enclose, how even in your own
+judgment he was condemned. But this Acacius, who has committed many
+atrocities against the ancient rules, and has come to praise one whom he
+affirmed to be condemned, and whose condemnation he obtained from the
+Apostolic See, has been severed from apostolic communion. But I believe
+that your piety, which prefers to comply even with its own laws rather than
+to resist them, and which knows that the supreme rule of things human is
+given to you on condition of admitting that things divine are allotted to
+dispensers divinely assigned, I believe that it will be undoubtedly of
+service to you if you permit the Catholic Church in the time of your
+principate to use its own laws, nor allow anyone to stand in the way of its
+liberty, which has restored to you the imperial power. For it is certain
+that this will bring safety to your affairs, if in God's cause, and
+according to His appointment, you study to subdue the royal will and not to
+prefer it to the bishops of Christ, and rather to learn holy things by them
+than to teach them; to follow the form traced out by the Church, not after
+human fashion to impose rules on it, nor wish to dominate the commands of
+that power to whom it is God's will that your clemency should devoutly
+submit, lest, if the measure of the divine disposition be overpast, it may
+end in the disgrace of the disponent. And from this time I absolve my
+conscience as to all these things, who have to plead my cause before
+Christ's tribunal. It will be well for you more and more to reflect that
+both in the present state of things we are under the divine examination,
+and that after this life's course we shall according to it come before the
+divine judgment."
+
+St. Gregory the Great, writing his _Dialogues_[42] about one hundred and
+ten years after this letter, informs us that the writer of it was his
+great-grandfather, and speaks of his appearing in a vision to his aunt
+Tarsilla and showing her the habitation of everlasting light. At the time
+of writing it, Pope Felix was living under the domination of the Arian
+Herule Odoacer. The great Church of Africa was suffering the most terrible
+of persecutions under the Arian Vandal Hunneric, the son of his father
+Genseric. Arian Visigoth rulers were in possession of Spain and France, of
+whom Euric, as we have seen, was described rather as the chief of a sect
+than the sovereign of a people. In all the West not a yard of territory was
+under rule of a Catholic sovereign. And he whom the Pope addressed, with
+the dignity of the Apostolic See in its reverence for the power which is a
+delegation of God, as Roman emperor and Christian prince, was in his
+private life scandalous, in all his public rule shifty and tyrannical, and
+in belief, if he had any, an Eutychean heretic. It may be added, as a fact
+of history, that the emperor went before the divine judgment sooner than
+the Pope; that during the seven years which intervened between the letter
+and his death he utterly disregarded all that the Pope had done and said.
+He suffered, or rather made the bishop of Constantinople to be the ruler of
+the eastern Church; he maintained heretics in the sees of Alexandria and
+Antioch. After this he died in 491, and the last fact recorded of him is
+that the empress Ariadne, the daughter of Leo I., who had brought him the
+empire with her hand, when he fell into an epileptic fit and was supposed
+to be dead, had him buried at once, and placed guards around his tomb, who
+were forbidden to allow any approach to it. When the imperial vault was
+afterwards entered, Zeno was found to have torn his arm with his teeth. The
+empress widow, forty days after the death of Zeno, conferred her hand, and
+with it the empire a second time, upon Anastasius, who had been up to that
+time a sort of gentleman usher[43] in the imperial service. Anastasius
+ruled the eastern empire twenty-seven years, from 491 to 518.
+
+The Pope further sought by a letter[44] to the clergy and people of
+Constantinople to remove the scandal caused by the weakness of his legates,
+and to explain the grounds upon which he had deposed Acacius. "Though we
+know the zeal of your faith, yet we warn all who desire to share in the
+Catholic faith to abstain from communion with him, lest, which God forbid,
+they fall into like penalty."
+
+Acacius did not receive the papal judgment against him, but sought to
+suppress it. A monk ventured to attach to his mantle as he went to Mass the
+sentence of excommunication. It cost him his life, and brought heavy
+persecutions on his brethren. Acacius met the Pope with open defiance, and
+removed his name from the diptychs.[45] He rested on the emperor Zeno's
+support, who did everything at his bidding. Every arm of deceit and of
+violence he used equally. The monks, called, from their never intermitted
+worship, the Sleepless, in close connection with Rome, suffered severely.
+So Acacius passed the remaining five years of his life, dying in the autumn
+of 489.
+
+His excommunication by the Pope caused a schism between the East and West
+which lasted thirty-five years, from 484 to 519. He met that supreme act of
+authority by the counter act of removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.
+This invites us to consider the position which he assumed.
+
+From the year 482 (that is, four years after Zeno had recovered the
+empire), Acacius appears in possession of full influence over the emperor.
+The position of the bishop at Constantinople was, in itself, one of immense
+dignity. He was undoubtedly the second person in the imperial city,
+surrounded with a pomp and deference only yielding to that accorded to the
+emperor, but in some respects superior to it. He was regarded as
+sacrosanct: all the respect which the Church received in the minds of the
+good was centred in his person. And as he had risen to all this dignity in
+virtue of Constantinople being the capital, there was a special connection
+between the capital and its bishop, which led it to sympathise with every
+accession of power which he received. There can be no doubt that the right
+acquired by that bishop over the great sees of Ephesus, Caesarea in Pontus,
+and Heraclea in Thrace was extremely popular at Constantinople; and that
+when he proceeded further to show his hand over the patriarchate of
+Antioch--as, for instance, in nominating one of its archbishops at Tyre, as
+the Pope reproached him--the capital was still better pleased. Most of all
+when, breaking through all the regulations which the Nicene Council had
+consecrated by its approval,--which, however, it had not created, but
+found in immemorial subsistence,--he ventured to ordain at Constantinople a
+patriarch of Antioch. Thus Stephen II., patriarch of Antioch, had been
+murdered in 479 by the fanatical Monophysites, in the baptistry of the
+Barlaam Church, and his mangled body thrown into the Orontes. The incensed
+emperor punished the criminals, and charged his patriarch Acacius to
+consecrate a new bishop for Antioch. Acacius seized the favourable
+opportunity, after the example of Anatolius, to advance himself, and
+appointed Stephen III. Emperor and patriarch both applied to Pope
+Simplicius to excuse this violation of the rights of the Syrian bishops,
+alleging the pressure of circumstances, and promising that the example
+should not occur again. Simplicius, so entreated, excused the fault,
+recognised the patriarch of Antioch--though he had been consecrated in
+Constantinople by its bishop--but insisted that such a violation of the
+canons should not be repeated. Presently Stephen III. died, upon which
+Acacius committed the same fault anew, and in 482 consecrated Calendion
+patriarch of Antioch. Calendion brought back from Macedonia the relics of
+his great and persecuted predecessor, St. Eustathius; but presently Zeno
+and Acacius displaced Calendion. Acacius was using the power which he
+possessed over the emperor to advance his own credit in the appointment of
+patriarchs, and to establish two notorious heretics--Peter the Fuller at
+Antioch, and Peter the Stammerer at Alexandria. All this meant that the
+bishop of Constantinople's hand was to be over the East, as the bishop of
+Rome's hand was over the West. Then, ever since the Council of Chalcedon,
+the two great eastern patriarchates had been torn to pieces by the
+conflicts of parties. The Eutychean heresy fought a desperate battle for
+mastery. As to Antioch, from the time that Eusebius of Nicomedia had
+brought about the deposition of St. Eustathius, preparatory to that of
+Athanasius in 330, the great patriarchate of the East had been declining
+from the unrivalled position which it had held. As to Alexandria, from the
+time that the 150 fathers at Constantinople, in 381, had attempted to make
+Constantinople the second see, because it was Nova Roma, the see of St.
+Mark bore a grudge against the upstart which sought to degrade it. In spite
+of the unequalled renown of its two great patriarchs, St. Athanasius and
+St. Cyril, it was sinking. And now heresy, schism, and imperial favour
+seemed to have joined together to exhibit Acacius as not only the first
+patriarch of the East, but as exercising jurisdiction even within their
+bounds, and as nominating those who succeeded to their thrones. All which
+would only tend to increase the power and popularity of the bishop of
+Constantinople in his own see.
+
+Acacius had now been eleven years bishop. He had gained at once the emperor
+Leo; he had appeared to defend the Council of Chalcedon when Basiliscus
+attacked it; he had further gained mastery over Zeno; but, more than all
+this, he had seen Rome sink into what to eastern eyes must have seemed an
+abyss. St. Leo had compelled Anatolius to give up the canons he so much
+prized; since then northern barbarians had twice sacked Rome, and
+Ricimer's most cruel host of adventurers had reaped whatever the Vandal
+Genseric had left. If there was a degradation yet to be endured it would be
+that a Herule soldier of fortune should compel a Roman senate to send back
+the robes of empire to Constantinople, and be content to live under a
+Patricius, sprung from one of the innumerable Teuton hordes, and sanctioned
+by the emperor of the East; and Acacius would not forget that in the
+councils of that emperor he was himself chief.
+
+If New Rome held the second rank because the Fathers gave the first rank to
+Old Rome, in that it was the capital, what was the position of New Rome and
+its bishop when Old Rome had ceased in fact to be a capital at all? At that
+moment--thirty years after St. Leo had confirmed the greatest of eastern
+councils and been greeted by it as the head of the Christian faith--the
+Rome in which he sat had been reduced to a mere municipal rank, and its
+bishop, with all its people, lived under what was simply a military
+government commanded by a foreign adventurer. Odoacer at Ravenna was master
+of the lives and liberties of the Romans, including the Pope.
+
+Acacius had had this spectacle for some years before him, when Pope Felix,
+succeeding Pope Simplicius, called him to account for entirely reversing
+the conduct which he had pursued at the time when Basiliscus had usurped
+the empire. Then he defended the Council of Chalcedon and its doctrine;
+then he denounced to the Pope Peter the Stammerer as a heretic and a man of
+bad life, and had called for his condemnation and obtained it. He had now
+taken upon himself not even to ask from the Pope this man's absolution, but
+to absolve himself the very heretic he had caused to be condemned, and to
+put him into the see of Alexandria, with the rejection of the bishop
+legitimately elected, and approved at Rome, and to compose for the emperor
+a doctrinal decree, which he subscribed himself first as the first of the
+patriarchs, and was compelling all other bishops to sign under pain of
+deprivation; when, behold, St. Leo's third successor called him to account
+in exactly the same terms as St. Leo would have used, and required him to
+meet at Rome the accusation brought against him by John Talaia, a duly
+elected patriarch of Alexandria, just as St. Julius, a hundred and forty
+years before, had invited the accusing bishops at Antioch to meet St.
+Athanasius before his tribunal. He who resided in a state only second to
+the emperor in the real capital of the empire to go to a city living in
+durance under the northern barbarians, and submit to the judgment of one
+whose own tribunal was in captivity to such masters!
+
+But, on the other hand, Pope Felix spoke to the emperor as none but popes
+have ever spoken. He called him his son, but he required from him filial
+obedience. Above all he spoke in one character, and in one alone--as the
+heir of that St. Peter whom the voice of the Lord had set over His Church;
+he spoke from Rome, not because it was or had been capital of the empire,
+but because it was St. Peter's See, and precisely because he succeeded St.
+Peter in his apostolate.
+
+The respective action, therefore, of Pope Felix on one side, and of Acacius
+on the other, brought to an issue the most absolute of contradictions. The
+Pope claimed obedience, as a superior, from Acacius. When that obedience
+was refused, he exerted his authority as superior, and degraded Acacius
+both from his rank as bishop, and from Christian communion. And a special
+token of that sentence was to order his name to be removed from the
+diptychs, and to enjoin the people of his own diocese to hold no communion
+with him, on pain of incurring a like penalty with him. Acacius answered by
+practically denying the Pope's authority to do any such act. He asserted
+himself to be his equal by removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.
+There could be no more striking denial of any such authority as the claim
+to inherit Peter's universal pastorship, than to treat the Pope himself as,
+in virtue of that pastorship, he had treated Acacius.
+
+Even apart from this, the conduct of Acacius carried with it a double
+denial of the Pope's authority: a denial that he was the supreme judge of
+faith; and a denial that he was the supreme maintainer of discipline in its
+highest manifestation, the order of the hierarchy itself.
+
+He denied that the Pope was the supreme judge of faith, by drawing up a
+formulary of doctrine, which he induced the emperor to promulgate by
+imperial decree; and this independently of what doctrine that formulary
+might contain. Further, he did this by supporting two persons judged to be
+heretical by the Holy See--Peter the Fuller at Antioch, Peter the Stammerer
+at Alexandria. He denied that the Pope was the supreme maintainer of
+discipline, by making the two great sees of the East and South subordinate
+to himself. As the Pope expressed it in his sentence, he had done
+"nefarious things against the whole Nicene constitution," of which the Pope
+was special guardian. In fact, his conduct was an imitation of that pursued
+in the preceding century by Eusebius of Nicomedia, by Eudoxius, and all
+their party. It was even carried out to its full completion. The emperor
+was made the head of the Church, on condition of his leading it through the
+bishop of Constantinople. Acacius put together the canon of the Council of
+381, which said that the bishop of New Rome should hold the second rank in
+the episcopate, because his city is New Rome, with the canon attempted to
+be passed at Chalcedon, and cashiered by St. Leo, that the fathers gave its
+privileges to Old Rome because it was the imperial city. Uniting the two,
+he constructed the conclusion, that as Old Rome had ceased to be the
+imperial city, which New Rome had actually become, the privileges of Old
+Rome had passed to the bishop of New Rome.
+
+This he expressed by removing the name of the Pope from the diptychs in
+answer to his sentence of degradation and excommunication. As the Pope
+could not suffer the conduct of Acacius, without ceasing to hold the
+universal pastorship of St. Peter, so Acacius could not submit to it
+without admitting that pastorship. He denied it in both its heads of faith
+and government by his conduct. He embodied that denial unmistakably in
+removing the Pope's name from the diptychs.
+
+To lay down a parity between the ecclesiastical privileges of the two sees,
+Rome and Constantinople, because their cities were both capitals, is
+implicitly to deny altogether the divine origin of ecclesiastical
+jurisdiction. That is, to deny that the Church is a divine polity at all.
+The conduct of Acacius was to bring that matter to an issue. The end of it
+will show whether he was right or wrong.
+
+He lived for five years, from 484 to 489, strong in the emperor's support,
+who did everything which he suggested. And he had his part as a counsellor,
+as well as a bishop, in one most important transaction, which took place in
+this interval. The reign of Zeno was disturbed by perpetual insurrections
+and perils. In these Theodorick the Goth had been of great service to him,
+so that in this year, 484, Zeno had made him consul at Rome. But Theodorick
+afterwards thought that Zeno had treated him very ill. He marched upon
+Constantinople: Zeno trembled on his throne. Something had to be done. What
+was done was to turn Theodorick's longing eyes upon the land possessing
+"the hapless dower of beauty".[46] Zeno commissioned him to turn Odoacer
+out, and to take his place. In 489, Theodorick led the great mass of his
+people into Italy, at the suggestion, and with the warrant of, the man whom
+Pope Felix had appealed to as his son, the Roman emperor and Christian
+prince. And so, as an emperor and a bishop of Constantinople, a hundred
+years before, had led the Gothic nation into the Arian heresy, under the
+belief that it was the Christian faith, another emperor of Constantinople
+and another bishop turned that Gothic nation upon the Roman mother and the
+See of Peter, regardless that they would thereby become temporal subjects
+of those who were possessed by the "Arian perfidy". Beside Eudoxius and
+Valens in history stand Acacius and Zeno; and beside Alaric, let loose with
+his warlike host by the younger sister on the elder in 410, stands
+Theodorick, commissioned, in 489, with all his people, to occupy
+permanently the birthplace of Roman empire.
+
+The eastern bishops[47] crouched before the emperor's power and his
+patriarch's intrigues, who deposed those who were not in his favour, and
+tyrannised over the greater number, so that many fled to the West. John
+Talaia himself, the expelled patriarch of Alexandria, received the
+bishopric of Nola from the Pope, to whom he had appealed. This continued to
+be the state of things during five years, from 484 to 489, when Acacius
+died, still under sentence of excommunication. One of the greatest bishops
+of his time, St. Avitus of Vienna, characterises him with the words,
+"Rather a timid lover than a public asserter of the opinion broached by
+Eutyches: he praised, indeed, what he had taken from him, but did not
+venture to preach it to a people still devout, and therefore unpolluted by
+it". Another equally great bishop, Ennodius of Ticinum--that is,
+Pavia--says: "He utterly surrendered the glory which he had gained, in
+combating Basiliscus, of maintaining the truth"; while the next Pope
+Gelasius charges him with intense pride; the effect of which was to leave
+to the Church "cause for the peaceful to mourn and the humble to weep".
+
+But all this evil had been wrought by Acacius, and upon his death it
+remained to be seen how his successor would act. He was succeeded by
+Fravita,[48] who, so far from maintaining the conduct of Acacius in
+excluding the name of Pope Felix from the diptychs, wished above all things
+to obtain the Pope's recognition. He would not even assume the government
+of his see without first receiving it. It was usual for patriarchs and
+exarchs to enter on their office immediately after election and
+consecration, before the recognition of the other patriarchs which they
+afterwards asked for by sending an embassy with their synodal letter. It
+seems Fravita would make no use of this right, but besought the Pope's
+confirmation in a very flattering letter. It would seem also that, by the
+death of Acacius, the emperor Zeno had been delivered from thraldom, and
+returned to some sentiment of justice. For he supported the letter of the
+new patriarch by one himself to the Pope, and it is from the Pope's extant
+answers[49] to these two writings that we learn some of their contents. To
+the emperor, the Pope replies that he knows not how to return sufficient
+thanks to the divine mercy for having inspired him with so great a care for
+religion as to prefer it to all public affairs, and to consider that the
+safety of the commonwealth is involved in it. That, desiring to confirm the
+unity of the Catholic faith and the peace of the churches, he should be
+anxious for the choice of a bishop who should be remarkable for personal
+uprightness and, above all things, for affection to the orthodox truth.
+That the Church has received in him such a son, and that the pontiff, in
+whose accession he rejoices, has already given an indication of his rule in
+referring the beginning of his dignity to the See of the Apostle Peter. For
+the newly-elected pontiff acknowledges in his letter that Peter is the
+chief of the Apostles and the Rock of the Faith: that the keys of the
+heavenly mysteries have been entrusted to him, and therefore seeks
+agreement with the Pope. Then, after enlarging upon the misdeeds of
+Acacius, and his rejection of the Council of Chalcedon, and his absolution
+of notorious heretics, the Pope beseeches the emperor to establish peace by
+giving up the defence of Acacius. "I do not extort this from you--as being,
+however unworthy, the Vicar of Peter--by the authority of apostolic power;
+but, as an anxious father earnestly desiring the prosperity of a son, I
+implore you. In me, his Vicar, how unworthy soever, the Apostle Peter
+speaks; and in him Christ, who suffers not the division of His own Church,
+beseeches you. Take from between us him who disturbs us: so may Christ, for
+the preservation of His Church's laws, multiply to you temporal things and
+bestow eternal."
+
+In his answer to Fravita, Pope Felix expresses the pleasure which his
+election gives, and the hope that it will bring about the peace of the
+Church. He takes his synodal letter as addressed to the Apostolic See,
+"through which, by the gift of Christ, the dignity of all bishops is made
+of one mass,"[50] as a token of good-will, inasmuch as his own letter
+confesses the Apostle Peter to be the head of the Apostles, the Rock of the
+Faith, and the dispenser of the heavenly mystery by the keys entrusted to
+him. He is the more encouraged because the orthodox monks formed part of
+the embassy. But when the Pope required a pledge from them that Fravita
+should renounce reciting the names of Peter the Stammerer and Acacius in
+the church, they replied that they had no instructions on that head. For
+this reason the Pope delayed to grant communion to Fravita, and he exhorts
+him, in the rest of the letter, not to let the misdeeds of Acacius stand in
+the way of the Church's peace. "Inform us then, as soon as possible, on
+this, that God may conclude what He has begun, and that, fully reconciled,
+we may agree together in the structure[51] of the body of Christ."
+
+Fravita died before he received the answer of the Pope, having occupied
+the see of Constantinople only three months, and out of communion with the
+Pope.
+
+It would seem that the first successor of Acacius as well as the emperor
+receded both from his act and the position which it involved. They
+acknowledged in their letters, as we learn from the Pope's recitation of
+their words, the dignity of the Apostolic See. What they were not willing
+to do was to give up the person of Acacius. What the subsequent patriarchs,
+Euphemius and Macedonius, alleged, was that he was so rooted in the minds
+of the people that they could not venture to condemn him by removing his
+name from commemoration in the diptychs.
+
+In 490, Euphemius followed in the see of Constantinople. He was devoted to
+the Council of Chalcedon, and ever honoured in the East as orthodox. He
+replaced the Pope's name in the diptychs, and renounced communion with
+Peter the Stammerer, who had again openly anathematised the Council of
+Chalcedon; only he refused to remove from the diptychs the names of his two
+predecessors. Pope Felix had written, on the 1st May, 490, to the
+archimandrite Thalassio,[52] not to enter into communion with the bishop
+who should succeed Fravita, even if he satisfied these demands respecting
+Acacius and Peter the Stammerer, unless with the express permission of the
+Roman See. This condition he maintained, acknowledging Euphemius as
+orthodox, but not as bishop, because he would not remove from the diptychs
+the names of two predecessors who had died outside of communion with the
+Roman See.
+
+Euphemius had himself subscribed the Henotikon of Zeno, without which the
+emperor would never have assented to his election; but he confirmed in a
+synod the Council of Chalcedon. When, in April, 491, Zeno died, and through
+the favour of his widow, the empress Ariadne, Anastasius obtained the
+throne in a very disturbed empire, the patriarch long refused to set the
+crown on his head, because he suspected him to favour the Eutychean heresy.
+The empress and the senate besought him in vain. He only consented when
+Anastasius gave him a written promise to accept the decrees of Chalcedon as
+the rule of faith, and to permit no innovation in Church matters. On this
+condition he was crowned: but emperor and patriarch continued at variance.
+The emperor tried to escape from his promise in order to maintain Zeno's
+Henotikon, which he thought the best policy among the many factions of the
+East. Euphemius was in the most unhappy position with the monks, who would
+not acknowledge him because he was out of communion with the Pope on
+account of Acacius.
+
+Pope Felix, having all but completed nine years of a pontificate, in which
+he showed the greatest fortitude in the midst of the severest temporal
+abandonment, died in February, 492. Italy then had been torn to pieces for
+three years by the conflict between Odoacer and Theodorick. Gondebald, king
+of the Burgundians, had cruelly ravaged Liguria. Then it was that bishops
+began to build fortresses for the defence of their peoples. The Church of
+Africa was in the utmost straits under the cruelty of Hunneric. Pope
+Gelasius succeeded on the 1st March, 492. His pontificate lasted four years
+and eight months; during the whole course of which his extant letters show
+that he was no less exposed to temporal abandonment than Felix, and no less
+courageous in maintaining the pastorship of Peter.
+
+But the death of the emperor Zeno in 491, and the death of Pope Felix III.
+ten months afterwards, in 492, require us to make a short retrospect of the
+temporal condition of empire and Church at this time. Zeno, receiving the
+empire at the death of his young son by Ariadne, Leo II., in 474, had
+reigned seventeen years, if we comprise therein the twenty months during
+which the throne was occupied by the insurgent Basiliscus from 475 to 477,
+precisely at the moment when Odoacer terminated the western empire. Zeno,
+recovering the throne in 477, had acted as a Catholic during about four
+years. Pope Simplicius had warmly congratulated him on the recovery of the
+empire on the 8th October of that year. In 478, the Pope had thanked
+Acacius for informing him that the right patriarch, Timotheus Solofaciolus,
+had been restored at Alexandria. But from 482 all is altered. The chronicle
+of Zeno's reign becomes a catalogue of misfortunes. The publication of his
+Formulary of Union is a gross attack upon the spiritual independence of the
+Church. He imposes it upon the eastern bishops on pain of expulsion. He
+puts open heretics into the sees of Alexandria and Antioch. All this is
+done under the advice and instigation of Acacius, who is the real author of
+the Henotikon, and who completes his acts by open defiance of Pope Felix.
+When Zeno died he left the empire a prey to every misery. In Italy, Herules
+and Ostrogoths were desperately contending for the possession of the
+country. Barbarians beyond the Danube incessantly threatened the
+north-eastern frontiers. There was no truce with them but at the cost of
+incessant payments and every sort of degradation. Egypt and Syria were torn
+to pieces by the Eutychean heresy. The infamous surrender of Italy to
+Theodorick in 488 has been touched upon. By that the support which the
+Ostrogothic king had given to keep Zeno on a tottering throne, followed by
+the terror which his discontent had caused at Constantinople, purchased
+from the Roman emperor himself the sacrifice of Rome and all the land from
+the Alps to the sea. Such was the man with whom the Popes Simplicius and
+Felix had to deal. To him it was that, from a Rome which drew its breath
+under an Arian Herule, the commander of adventurers who sold their swords
+for hire, these Popes wrote those letters full of Christian charity and
+apostolic liberty which have been quoted.
+
+When Zeno died in 491, he was attended to the grave by the contempt of his
+own wife and the malediction of the people, whom his cruelty, debauchery,
+and perfidy had alienated. I take from an ancient Greek document[53] a
+note of what followed. "When Zeno died, Anastasius succeeded to his wife
+and the empire; and he assembled an heretical council in Constantinople on
+account of the holy Council of Chalcedon, in which, by subjecting Euphemius
+to numberless calumnies, he banished him beyond Armenia, and put in the see
+the most blessed Macedonius. Macedonius called an upright council, and
+expressly ratified the decrees of faith passed at Chalcedon; but through
+fear of Anastasius he passed over in silence the Henotikon of Zeno." "When
+now Peter the Fuller was cast out of Antioch, Palladius succeeded to the
+see. And when he died Flavian accepted the Henotikon of Zeno; and he
+expressly confirmed the three holy Ecumenical Councils, but to please the
+emperor he passed over in silence that of Chalcedon. Now the emperor
+Anastasius sent order by the tribune Eutropius to Flavian and Elias of
+Jerusalem to hold a council in Sidon, and to anathematise the holy Council
+of Chalcedon. But Elias dismissed this without effect; for which the
+emperor was very indignant with the patriarchs. But when Flavian returned
+to Antioch, certain apostate monks, vehement partisans of the folly of
+Eutyches, assembled a robber council, ejected and banished Flavian, and put
+Severus in his stead. He, called the Independent,[54] set out with two
+hundred apostate monks from Eleutheropolis for Constantinople, muttering
+threats against Macedonius. Now this man without conscience had sworn to
+Anastasius never to move against the holy Council of Chalcedon: he broke
+the oath, and anathematised it with an infamous council. So the emperor
+Anastasius had involved Macedonius of Constantinople in many accusations
+and expelled him from his see, and banished him to Gangra. Not long after,
+having sent away both him and his predecessor Euphemius, under pretence
+that the patriarchs had arranged with each other to take refuge with the
+Goths, he slew them with the sword. But the heretic Timotheus, surnamed
+Kolon and Litroboulos,[55] he gave to the Church as being of one mind with
+himself and obedient to his counsels. This man called a most impious synod,
+and lifted up his heel against the holy Council of Chalcedon. In agreement
+with Severus, they sent their synodical letters together to Jerusalem.
+These not being received kindled Anastasius to anger. So he banished Elias
+from the holy city to Evila and put John in his see, and sent thither the
+synodical acts of Severus and Timotheus."
+
+The emperor Anastasius, whose dealings with the eastern patriarchs in his
+empire are thus described, reigned for 27 years, from 491 to 518. It is to
+him that, in the long contest which we are following, the four Popes,
+Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus, and Hormisdas, have to direct their
+letters, their exhortations, and their admonitions. During the whole of
+this time, from 493, when the conflict between Odoacer and Theodorick is
+terminated, they will have exchanged the local rule of the Arian Herule for
+that of the Arian Ostrogoth. All write under what a pope of our own day has
+called "hostile domination". They write from the Lateran Patriarcheium,
+not, as St. Leo I., under the guardianship of one branch of the Theodosian
+house at Rome to another branch at Constantinople, but to eastern emperors,
+the first of their line who openly assume the right to dictate to Catholics
+what they are to believe. Zeno, Basiliscus, and Anastasius found
+patriarchs, who could sanction by their subscription much greater
+violations of all Christian right than St. Athanasius had denounced in
+Constantius, and St. Basil in Valens. They found, also, five Popes in
+succession, living themselves "under hostile domination," who resisted
+their tyranny, and saved both the doctrine and the discipline of the
+Church. Without these Popes it is plain that the Council of Chalcedon would
+have been given up in the East, and the Eutychean heresy made the doctrine
+of the eastern Church.
+
+We have seen the courageous act of the patriarch Euphemius in refusing
+absolutely to crown Anastasius, whom he suspected to be an Eutychean, until
+he had received a written declaration from him that he would maintain the
+Council of Chalcedon. In the first three years of his reign, Anastasius
+gained popularity by enacting wise laws, and by removing a severe and
+detested tax, so that, in the words of the ancient biographer of St.
+Theodore, "what was to become a field of destruction appeared a paradise of
+pleasure".[56]
+
+As soon as Gelasius became Pope, Euphemius sent him, according to custom,
+synodal letters. He assured the Pope of his true faith. He recognised in
+him the divinely appointed head of the Church. We have the answer of the
+Pope to his letter, and as this recognition on the part of the bishop
+immediately following Acacius is all-important, it will be well to quote
+the very words which show it.[57] "You have read," writes Pope Gelasius to
+Euphemius, "the sentence, 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word
+of God'; that word, for instance, by which He promised that the gates of
+hell should never prevail over the confession of the blessed Apostle Peter.
+And, therefore, you thought, with reason, because God is faithful in His
+words, unless He had promised to institute some such thing, He would not
+bring about a true fulfilment of His promise. Then you say that we, by the
+grace of the Divine Providence, as He (_i.e._, Christ) pointed out, do not
+fail in charity to the holy churches because Christ has placed me in the
+pontifical seat, not needing, as he says, to be taught, but understanding
+all things necessary for the unity of the Church's body. I, indeed,
+personally, am the least of all men, most unworthy for the office of such a
+see, except that supernal grace ever works great things out of small. For
+what should I think of myself, when the Teacher of the nations declares
+himself the last, and not worthy to be called an apostle. But to return to
+your words; if you have with truth ascertained that these gifts have been
+conferred on me by God, which, whatever goods they are, are gifts of God,
+follow then the exhortation of one who needs not to be taught, of one who,
+by supernal disposition, keeps watch over all things which touch the unity
+of the churches, and, as you assert, offers a bold resistance to the devil,
+the disturber of true peace and the structure which contains it. If, then,
+you pronounce that I am in possession of such privileges, you must either
+follow what you assert to be Christ's appointment, or, which God forbid,
+show yourself openly to resist the ordinances of Christ, or you throw out
+such things about me for the pleasure of making a show."[58]
+
+Euphemius[59] complained that the election of the new Pope had not been
+communicated to him, as was usual. He besought indulgence in respect of the
+conditions imposed on him, since the people of Constantinople would not
+endure the expulsion of Acacius from the diptychs. The Pope should rather
+forgive the dead, and himself write to the people. To this the Pope
+replied: "Truly that was an old Church rule with our fathers, by whom the
+one Catholic and apostolic communion was preserved free from every
+pollution by those who desired it. But now, when you prefer strange
+companionship before the return to a pure and blameless union with St.
+Peter, how should we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? How should we
+offer the old bond of the apostolic ordinance to men who belong to another
+communion, and prefer to it, according to your own testimony, condemned
+heretics." Euphemius, then, is inconsistent: he must either admit to his
+own communion all who are in communion with heretics, or remove all. The
+excuse of necessity and fear of the people will not stand, and is unworthy
+of a bishop, who has to lead his people, not to be led by them; who has to
+account to God for his flock, while his flock have not to account for him.
+If Euphemius is afraid of men, the Pope is more afraid, but it is of the
+judgment of God.
+
+But while, immediately after the death of Acacius, his successors, Fravita
+and Euphemius, were renouncing his pretensions, at the same time that they
+would not surrender his person, it is well to see how the bishops of
+eastern Illyricum, subjects of the emperor Anastasius, addressed the Pope
+upon his accession.
+
+"Holy apostolic Lord and most blessed Father of fathers, we have received
+with becoming reverence the wholesome precepts of your apostolate, and
+return the greatest thanks to Almighty God and your Blessedness that you
+have deigned to visit us with pastoral admonition and evangelic teaching.
+For it is our desire and prayer to obey your injunctions in all things,
+and, as we have received from our fathers, to maintain without stain the
+precepts of the Apostolic See, which your life and merits have inherited,
+and to keep the orthodox religion, which you preach, with faithful and
+blameless devotion, so far as our rude perception allows. For, even before
+your injunction, we had avoided the communion of Peter, Acacius, and all
+his followers, as pestilent contagion; and much more now, after the
+admonition of the Holy See, must we abstain from that pollution. And if
+there be any others, who have followed, or shall follow, the sect of
+Eutyches or Peter and Acacius, or have anything to do with their
+accomplices and associates, they are to be entirely avoided by us, who seek
+a blameless obedience to the Apostolic See according to the divine commands
+and the statutes of the fathers. And if there be any, which we neither
+suppose nor desire, who, with bad intention, think it their duty to
+separate from the Apostolic See, we abjure their company, for, as we said,
+guarding in all things the precepts of the fathers, and following the
+inviolable rules of the holy canons, we strive with a common faith and
+devotion to obey that of your apostolic and singular see ... and we beg
+your apostolate to send us some one from your angelical see, that in his
+presence arrangements may be made, according to the orthodox faith, and the
+fulfilling of your command."[60]
+
+Several letters of Gelasius show that the privileges claimed by the
+Byzantine archbishop came frequently into discussion in the contest
+respecting the retention of the name of Acacius in the diptychs. Thus he
+finds it monstrous that they allege canons against which they are shown to
+have always acted by their illicit ambition. "They[61] object canons to
+us, not knowing what they say, for these they break by the very fact that
+they decline to obey the first see when it gives sound and good advice. It
+is the canons themselves which order appeals of the whole Church to be
+brought to the examination of this see. But they have never sanctioned
+appeal from it. Thus it is to judge of the whole Church, but itself to go
+before no judgment. Never have they enjoined judgment to be passed on its
+judgment; but have made its sentence indissoluble, as its decrees are to be
+followed.... Should the bishop of Constantinople, who according to the
+canons holds no rank among bishops, not be deposed when he falls into
+communion with false believers?" No place among bishops, because the canon
+of 381 and the canons of 451 had not been received. Thus, in his great
+letter[62] to all the Illyrian bishops, he asks: "Of what see was he
+bishop? Of what metropolitan church was he the prelate? Was it not of a
+church the suffragan of Heraclea? We laugh at the claim of a prerogative
+for Acacius because he was bishop of the imperial city. Did not the emperor
+often hold his court at Ravenna, at Milan, at Sirmium, at Treves? Did the
+bishops of these cities ever claim to themselves a dignity beyond the
+measure of that which had descended to them from ancient times? Can Acacius
+show that he acted by any council in excluding from Alexandria John, a
+Catholic consecrated by Catholics; in putting in Peter, a detected and
+condemned heretic, without consulting the Apostolic See? In boldly
+assuming the power to expel Calendion from Antioch, and, without knowledge
+of the Apostolic See, put in again the heretic Peter, who had been
+condemned by himself? Certainly if the rank of cities is considered, that
+of the bishops of the second and third see is greater than that of the see
+which not only holds no rank among bishops, but has not even the rights of
+a metropolitan. The power of the secular kingdom is one thing, the
+distribution of ecclesiastical dignities is another. The smallness of a
+city does not diminish the rank of a king residing in it; nor does the
+imperial presence change the measure of religious rank. Let that city be
+renowned for the power of the actual empire; but the strength, the liberty,
+the advance of religion under it consists in religion holding its own
+undisturbed measure in the presence of that power." Then he refers to the
+fact how, forty years before, the emperor Marcian himself interceded with
+Pope Leo to increase the dignity of that see, but could obtain nothing
+against the rules; and then gave the highest praise to St. Leo, because
+nothing would induce him to violate the canons, and to the other fact that
+Anatolius, himself bishop of Constantinople, confessed that it was rather
+his clergy than himself who made this attempt, and that all lay in the
+power of the Apostolic See. And, thirdly, did not St. Leo, who confirmed
+the Council of Chalcedon, annul in it whatever was done beyond the Nicene
+canons? If it was said that, in the case of the bishops of Alexandria and
+of Antioch, it was rather the emperor who had acted than Acacius, should
+not a bishop suggest to a Christian prince, whose favour he enjoyed to the
+utmost, that he should suffer the Church to keep her own rules, and
+judgment on bishops should be given by bishops in council. If a bishop was
+the greater for being bishop of the imperial city, should he not be the
+more courageous in suggesting the right course? Then he quotes Nathan
+before David, and St. Ambrose before Theodosius, and St. Leo reproving the
+second Theodosius for excess of power in the case of the Latrocinium of
+Ephesus; and Pope Hilarus reproving the emperor Anthemius, and Pope
+Simplicius and Pope Felix resisting not only the tyrant Basiliscus, but the
+emperor Zeno, and they would have succeeded if he had not been urged on by
+the bishop of Constantinople. "And we also," adds the Pope, "when Odoacer,
+the barbarian and heretic, held the kingdom of Italy, when he commanded us
+to do wrong things, by the help of God, as is well known, did not obey
+him."
+
+In this same letter the Pope uses the following words: "We are confident
+that no one truly a Christian is ignorant that the first see, above all
+others, is bound to execute the decree of every council which the assent of
+the universal Church has approved; for it confirms every council by its
+authority, and maintains it by its continued rule, in virtue of its own
+principate which the blessed Apostle Peter received by the voice of the
+Lord, but continues to hold and retain by the Church subsequently following
+it".
+
+Pope Gelasius had in vain striven to gain the emperor Anastasius. After the
+return of his legates, Faustus and Irenaeus, who had gone in the embassy of
+Theodorick to Constantinople, he wrote to the emperor, in the year 494, a
+famous letter,[63] warning him to defend the Catholic faith, which
+Anastasius had not yet openly deserted, nor professed himself an Eutychean.
+In it he says: "Glorious son, as a Roman born, I love, I reverence, I
+receive you as Roman emperor: as holder, however unworthy, of the Apostolic
+See, I endeavour as best I can to supply by opportune suggestions whatever
+I find wanting to the complete Catholic faith. For a dispensation of the
+divine word has been laid upon me; woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!
+Since the blessed Apostle Paul, the vessel of election, in his fear thus
+cries out, how much more have I in my smallness to fear if I shrink from
+the ministry of preaching inspired by God, and transmitted to me by the
+devotion of the fathers? I entreat your piety not to take for arrogance the
+execution of a divine duty.[64] Let not a Roman prince esteem the
+intimation of truth in its proper sense an injury. Two, then, O emperor,
+there are by whom this world is ruled in chief--the sacred authority of
+pontiffs and the royal power. Of these that of priests weighs the heavier,
+insomuch as they will have in the divine judgment to render an account for
+kings themselves. For you know, most gracious son, that pre-eminent as you
+are in dignity over the human race, you nevertheless bow the neck
+submissively to those who preside over things divine. From them you seek
+the terms of salvation; and you recognise that it is your duty in the
+order of religion to submit rather than to command in what concerns the
+reception and the distribution of heavenly sacraments. As to these matters,
+then, you know that you depend on their judgment, and do not wish them to
+be controlled by your will. For if, in what regards the order of public
+discipline, the ministers of religion, recognising that empire has been
+conferred on you by a disposition from above, obey your laws, lest they
+should appear to oppose a sentence issued merely in worldly matters, with
+what affection ought you to obey those who are appointed for the
+distribution of venerable mysteries? Moreover, as no slight responsibility
+lies upon pontiffs, if in the worship of God they are silent as to what is
+fitting, so for rulers it is no slight danger if, when bound to obey, they
+show contempt. And if the hearts of the faithful should submit as a general
+rule to all bishops when rightly treating divine things, how much more is
+consent to be given to the prelate of that see whom the will of God Himself
+has made pre-eminent over all bishops, and the piety of the whole Church
+continuously following it out has acknowledged?[65] Herein you evidently
+perceive that no one by mere human counsel can ever raise himself to the
+privilege or confession of him whom the voice of Christ set over all, whom
+the Church we venerate has always confessed and devotedly holds to be her
+Primate. Human presumption may attack the appointments of divine judgment;
+but no power can succeed in overthrowing them. Do not, I entreat, be angry
+with me if I love you so well as to wish you to possess for ever the
+kingdom which has been given to you in time, and that, having empire in the
+world, you should reign with Christ. You do not allow anything to perish in
+your own laws, nor loss to be inflicted on the Roman name. With what face
+will you ask of Him rewards _there_ whose losses _here_ you do not prevent?
+One is my dove, my perfect is one; one is the Christian, which is the
+Catholic faith. There is no cause why one should allow any contagion to
+creep in; for 'he who offends in one is guilty of all,' and 'he who
+despises small things perishes by little and little'. This is that against
+which the Apostolic See provides with the utmost care. For since the
+Apostle's glorious confession is the root of the world, it must not be
+touched by any rift of pravity, nor suffer the least spot. For if--may God
+avert a thing which we are sure is impossible--any such thing were to
+happen, how could we resist any error?--how could we correct those who err?
+If you declare that the people of one city cannot be composed to peace,
+what should we make of the whole world's universe were it deceived by our
+prevarication? The series of canons coming down from our fathers, and a
+multifold tradition, establish that the authority of the Apostolic See is
+set for all Christian ages over the whole Church. O emperor, if anyone made
+any attempt against the public laws, you could not endure it; do you think
+it is of no concern to your conscience that the people subject to you may
+purely and sincerely worship God? Lastly, if it is thought that the feeling
+of the people of one city should not be offended by the due correction of
+divine things, how much more neither may we, nor can we, by offence of
+divine things injure the faith of all who bear the Catholic name?"
+
+How distinctly, and with what unfaltering conviction, the Pope of 494, then
+locally a subject of Theodorick the Arian, set forth to the emperor at
+Constantinople the universal authority of the Holy See, grounded on what he
+calls the Apostle's glorious confession, on which followed the Divine Word
+creating his office, is apparent through the whole of this magnificent
+letter. Moreover, the distinction of the Two Powers and the character of
+their relation to each other, and the divine character of each as a
+delegation from God, solemnly uttered by the Pope Gelasius in 494 to the
+Roman emperor so unworthy of the rank which the Pope recognised in him,
+have passed into the law and practice of the Church during the 1400 years
+which have since run out, and will form part of it for ever. Anastasius
+disregarded all that the Pope said. He persecuted to the utmost his bishop
+Euphemius, because, though not admitted to communion by the Pope, inasmuch
+as he refused to erase from the diptychs the name of Acacius, he yet
+vigorously maintained the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon. At length
+the emperor, having ended his Isaurian wars and sufficiently strengthened
+the Monophysite party, succeeded in deposing him in 496. His instruments
+in this were the cowardly court bishops,[66] ready to be moved to anything,
+who had also on this occasion to confirm the Henotikon of Zeno. Euphemius
+was banished to Paphlagonia. The people rioted in the circus and demanded
+his restoration, but in vain. However, they always venerated him as a
+saint. While the emperor Anastasius was deposing at Constantinople the
+bishop who withstood and reproved his conduct in supporting the Eutychean
+heresy, while also he was compelling the resident council not only to
+depose the bishop, but to confirm the document, originally drawn up by
+Acacius, forced upon the bishops of his empire by Zeno, and now again
+forced upon them by Anastasius, Gelasius was holding a council of seventy
+bishops at Rome. What he enacted there synodically is a proof of the
+entirely different spirit which prevailed in the independent West. Here
+Pope and bishops alike were living under hostile domination, that of Arian
+governments, but they were not crouching before the throne of a despot. The
+Pope and the bishops passed at the synod of 496 the following decrees:
+
+"After the writings of the Prophets, the gospels, and the Apostles, on
+which by the grace of God the Catholic Church is founded, this also we have
+judged fit to be expressed: Although all the Catholic churches spread
+throughout the world are the one bridal-chamber of Christ, nevertheless the
+holy Roman Church has been set over all other churches, by no constitution
+of a council, but obtained the Primacy by the voice of our Lord in the
+Gospel: 'Thou art Peter,' &c.
+
+"To whom was also given the companionship of the most blessed Apostle Paul,
+the vessel of election, who, not at another time, as heretics battle, but
+on one and the same day with Peter combating in the city of Rome under the
+emperor Nero, was crowned. And they consecrated this holy Roman Church to
+Christ the Lord, and by their presence and worshipful triumph set it over
+all the churches in the world.
+
+"First, therefore, is the Roman Church, the see of the Apostle Peter,
+having neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing.
+
+"Second is the see consecrated at Alexandria in the name of blessed Peter
+by Mark, his disciple, the Evangelist. And he, sent by the Apostle Peter to
+Egypt, preached the word of truth, and consummated a glorious martyrdom.
+
+"Third is the see of the same most blessed Apostle Peter held in honour at
+Antioch, because there he dwelt before he came to Rome, and there first the
+name of Christian was given to the new people.
+
+"And though no other foundation can be laid, save that which is laid, Jesus
+Christ, yet the said Roman Church, after those writings of the Old or New
+Testament, which we receive according to rule, does also not prohibit the
+following: that is, the holy Nicene Council, of three hundred and eighteen
+fathers, held under the emperor Constantine; the holy Council of Ephesus,
+in which Nestorius was condemned, with the consent of Pope Coelestine,
+under Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, and Arcadius, sent from Italy; the holy
+Council of Chalcedon, held under the emperor Marcian and Anatolius, bishop
+of Constantinople, in which the Nestorian and Eutychean heresies were
+condemned, with Dioscorus and his accomplices."[67]
+
+Thus, twelve years after the attempt of Acacius to set himself up
+independent of Rome, and while his next two successors were soliciting the
+recognition of Rome, but at the same time were refusing to surrender his
+person to condemnation, a Council at Rome pulled down the whole scaffolding
+on which the pretension of Acacius had been built.
+
+For while this council omitted from the list of councils acknowledged to be
+general that held at Constantinople in 381, it likewise proclaimed the
+falsity of the ground alleged in the canon passed in that council, which
+gave to Constantinople the second rank in the episcopate because it was New
+Rome, which canon again was enlarged by the attempt at the Council of
+Chalcedon to put upon the world the positive falsehood asserted in the
+rejected 28th canon, that the fathers had given its privileges to the Roman
+See because it was the imperial city.
+
+The significance of this decree at such a time cannot be exaggerated. While
+the emperor's own Church and bishop are separated by a schism from the
+Pope, while the Pope recognises the emperor as the sole "Roman prince," and
+in that capacity speaks of him as "pre-eminent in dignity over the human
+race," he states at the head of a council, in the most peremptory terms,
+that the Principate of Rome is of divine institution, _not_ the
+constitution of any council. The decree thus passed is a formal
+contradiction of the 28th canon which St. Leo had, forty years before,
+rejected.
+
+When we come to the termination of the schism this fact is to be borne in
+mind as being accepted voluntarily by those whom it specially concerned,
+and whose actions during a hundred years immediately preceding it
+condemned. For the decree, besides, does not acknowledge the see of
+Constantinople as patriarchal. Acacius had been appointing those who were
+really patriarchs: here his own pretended patriarchate is shown to be an
+infringement on the ancient order of the Church. Here the Pope in synod, as
+before in his letter to the Illyrian bishops, declares of the see of
+Constantinople that "it holds no rank among bishops".
+
+And, again, the Roman Council, in all its wording, censures the bishops who
+had been so weak as to accept a decree upon the faith of the Church from
+the hand of emperors, first the usurper Basiliscus, then Zeno, and at the
+time itself Anastasius. And under this censure lay not only Acacius, but
+the three following bishops of Constantinople--Fravita, Euphemius, and
+Macedonius. For though the last two were firm enough to suffer deposition,
+and afterwards death, for the faith of Chalcedon, they were not firm enough
+to refuse the emperor's imposition of an imperial standard in doctrine, the
+acceptance of which would have destroyed the essential liberty of the
+Church.
+
+Two months after the violent deposition of Euphemius at Constantinople,
+Pope Gelasius closed a pontificate of less than five years, in which he
+resisted the wickedness and tyranny of Anastasius, as Pope Felix had
+resisted the like in Zeno. Space has allowed me to quote but a few passages
+of the noble letters which he has left to the treasury of the Church. It
+may be noted that with his pontificate closes the period of about twenty
+years, from 476 to 496, in which no single ruler of East or West, great or
+small, professed the Catholic faith. The eastern emperors were Eutychean;
+the new western rulers Arian, save when they were pagan. The next year the
+conversion of Clovis, with his Franks, opens a new series of events. We may
+allow Gelasius,[68] in his letter to Rusticus, bishop of Lyons, to express
+the character of his time. "Your charity, most loving brother, has brought
+us great consolation in the midst of that whirlwind of calamities and
+temptations under which we are almost sunk. We will not weary you by
+writing how straitened we have been. Our brother Epiphanius (bishop of
+Ticinum or Pavia) will inform you how great is the persecution we bear on
+account of the most impious Acacius. But we do not faint. Under such
+pressure neither courage fails nor zeal. Distressed and straitened as we
+are, we trust in Him who with the trial will find an issue, and if He
+allows us for a time to be oppressed, will not allow us to be overwhelmed.
+Dearest brother, see that your affection, and that of yours, to us, or
+rather to the Apostolic See, fail not, for they who are fixed into the Rock
+with the Rock shall be exalted."[69]
+
+NOTES:
+
+[29] See Philips, _Kirchenrecht_, vol. iii., sec. 119.
+
+[30] Tillemont, xvi. 68.
+
+[31] Simplicii, _Ep._ viii.; Photius, i. 115.
+
+[32] Pope Gelasius, 13th letter.
+
+[33] Mansi, vii. 1032-6; Jaffe, 359.
+
+[34] Mansi, vii. 1028; Jaffe, 360.
+
+[35] Photius, i. 123, translated.
+
+[36] Mansi, vii. 1065; Baronius (anno 484), 17; Jaffe, 364.
+
+[37] It is to be observed that the Pope calls his judgment the Judgment of
+the Holy Ghost, just as Pope Clement I. did in the first recorded judgment.
+See his letter, secs. 58, 59, 63, quoted in _Church and State_, 198-199.
+
+[38] Photius, i. 124.
+
+[39] Mansi, vii. 1139; Baronius (anno 484), 26, 27.
+
+[40] Domini sacerdotes.
+
+[41] Jaffe, 365; Mansi, vii. 1065.
+
+[42] iv. 16.
+
+[43] Silentiarius, in the Greek court, officers who kept silence in the
+emperor's presence.
+
+[44] _Ep._ x.; Mansi, vii. 1067.
+
+[45] "The recital of a name in the diptychs was a formal declaration of
+Church fellowship, or even a sort of canonisation and invocation. It was
+contrary to all Church principles to permit in them the name of anyone
+condemned by the Church."--_Life of Photius_, i. 133, by Card.
+Hergenroether.
+
+[46]                   "Cui feo la dote
+    Dono infelice di bellezza, ond' hai
+    Funesta dote d'infinite guai."
+                          --_Filicaja._
+
+[47] Photius, i. 128, who quotes Avitus, 3rd letter, and Ennodius, and
+Gelasius, _Ep._ xiii.
+
+[48] Photius, i. 126; Hefele, _C.G._, ii. 596.
+
+[49] Jaffe, 371, 372; Mansi, vii. 1097; vii. 1100.
+
+[50] Dum scilicet ad Apostolicam Sedem regulariter destinatur, per quam
+_largiente Christo omnium solidatur dignitas sacerdotum_. Quod ipsae
+dilectionis tuae literae Apostolorum summum petramque fidei et caelestis
+dispensatorem mysterii creditis sibi clavibus beatum Petrum Apostolum
+confitentur.
+
+[51] In compage corporis Christi consentire.
+
+[52] Jaffe, 374; Mansi, vii. 1103.
+
+[53] The "libellus synodicus," says Hefele, _C.G._, i. 70, "auch synodicon
+genannt, enthaelt kurze Nachrichten ueber 158 Concilien der 9 ersten
+Jahrhunderte, und reicht bis zum 8ten allgemeinen Concil incl. Er wurde im
+16ten Jahrhundert von Andreas Darmarius aus Morea gebracht, von Pappus,
+einem Strasburger Theologen, gekauft, und von ihm im I. 1601 mit
+lateinischer Uebersetzung zuerst edirt. Spaeter ging er auch in die
+Conciliensammlungen ueber; namentlich liess ihn Harduin im 5ten Bande
+seiner Collect. Concil. p. 1491 abdruecken, waehrend Mansi ihn in seine
+einzelnen Theile zerlegte, und jeden derselben an der zutreffenden Stelle
+(bei jeder einzelnen Synode) mittheilte."
+
+[54] akephalos.
+
+[55] Words of infamous meaning.
+
+[56] Civilta, vol. iii., 1855, p. 429. Acta SS. Jan. XI.
+
+[57] Mansi, viii. 5. _Ep._ i.
+
+[58] Ad veniam luxuriae de me cognosceris ista jactare.
+
+[59] See Photius, i. 129-130. Civilta Cattolica, vol. iii., 1855, pp.
+524-5.
+
+[60] Mansi, viii. 13. Rescriptum episcoporum Dardaniae ad Gelasium Papam.
+
+[61] _Ep._ iv. _ad Faustum_; Mansi, viii. 17.
+
+[62] _Ep._ xiii. _Valde mirati sumus_; Mansi, viii. 49.
+
+[63] Mansi, viii. 30-5.
+
+[64] Ne arrogantiam judices divinae rationis officium.
+
+[65] Quem cunctis sacerdotibus et Divinitas summa voluit praeeminere, et
+subsequens Ecclesiae generalis jugiter pietas celebravit.
+
+[66] Photius, 134; Hefele, _C.G._, ii. 597.
+
+[67] Hefele, _C.G._, ii. 597-605, has most carefully considered the text
+and the date of the Council of 496. I have followed him in his choice of
+the text of the best manuscripts, and inasmuch as the biblical canon--the
+same as that held in the African Church about 393--seems to have been
+confirmed by Pope Hormisdas somewhat later, I have not made use of it in
+this place.
+
+[68] _Epist._ xviii.
+
+[69] Qui enim in petra solidabuntur cum petra exaltabuntur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+PETER STOOD UP.
+
+
+Seven days after the death of Gelasius, Anastasius, a Roman, ascended the
+apostolic throne, which he held from November, 496, to November, 498. We
+have two letters from him extant, both important. In that addressed upon
+his own accession, which he sent to the emperor Anastasius by the hands of
+Germanus, bishop of Capua, and Cresconius, bishop of Trent, on occasion of
+Theodorick's embassy for the purpose of obtaining the title of king, he
+strove to preserve the "Roman prince" from the Eutychean heresy.
+
+"I announce to you the beginning of my pontificate, and consider it a token
+of the divine favour that I bear the same as your own august name. This is
+an assurance that, like as your own name is pre-eminent among all the
+nations in the world, so by my humble ministry the See of St. Peter, as
+always, may hold the Principate assigned to it by the Lord God in the whole
+Church. We therefore discharge a delegated office in the name of
+Christ."[70] After beseeching the emperor that the name of Acacius should
+be effaced, in which he is carrying out the judgment of his predecessor,
+Pope Felix, he mentions the full instructions given to his legates, in
+order that the emperor might plainly see how, in that matter, the sentence
+of the Apostolic See had not proceeded from pride, but rather had been
+extorted by zeal for God as the result of certain crimes. "This we declare
+to you, in virtue of our apostolic office, through special love for your
+empire, that, as is fitting, and the Holy Spirit orders, obedience be
+yielded to our warning, that every blessing may follow your government. Let
+not your piety despise my frequent suggestion, having before your eyes the
+words of our Lord, 'He who hears you, hears Me: and he who despises you,
+despises Me: and he who despises Me, despises Him who sent Me'. In which
+the Apostle agrees with our Saviour, saying, 'He who despises these things,
+despises not man but God, who has given us His Holy Spirit'. Your breast is
+the sanctuary of public happiness, that through your excellency, whom God
+has ordered to rule on earth as His Vicar, not the resistance of hard pride
+be offered to the evangelic and apostolic commands, but an obedience which
+carries safety with it."
+
+The Pope, then, standing alone in the world, and locally the subject of
+Theodorick the Goth, makes the position of the Roman emperor in the world,
+and the Pope in the Church, parallel to each other. Both are divine
+legations. The Pope, speaking on divine things, claims obedience as
+uttering the will of the Holy Spirit, which Pope Anastasius asserts, just
+as Pope Clement I., five hundred years before, had asserted it, in the
+first pastoral letter which we possess. He, living on sufferance in Rome,
+asserts it to the despotic ruler of an immense empire, throned at
+Constantinople, in reference to a bishop of Constantinople, whose name he
+requires the emperor to erase from the sacred records of the Church as a
+condition of communion with the Apostolic See.
+
+This letter was directed to the East, the other belongs to the West, and
+records an event which was to affect the whole temporal order of things in
+that vast mass of territories already occupied by the northern tribes. On
+Christmas day of the year 496, that is, one month after the accession of
+Pope Anastasius, the haughty Sicambrian bent his head to receive the holy
+oil from St. Remigius, to worship that which he had burnt, and to burn that
+which he had worshipped. Clovis, chief of the Franks, and a number of his
+warriors with him, were baptised in the name of the most holy Trinity,
+never having been subject to the Arian heresy. Upon that event, the Holy
+See no longer stood alone, and the ring of Arian heresy surrounding it was
+broken for ever. The words of the Pope are these:
+
+"Glorious son, we rejoice that your beginning in the Christian faith
+coincides with ours in the pontificate. For the See of Peter, on such an
+occasion, cannot but rejoice when it beholds the fulness of the nations
+come together to it with rapid pace, and time after time the net be filled,
+which the same Fisherman of men and blessed Doorkeeper of the heavenly
+Jerusalem was bidden to cast into the deep. This we have wished to signify
+to your serenity by the priest Eumerius, that, when you hear of the joy of
+the father in your good works, you may fulfil our rejoicing, and be our
+crown, and mother Church may exult at the proficiency of so great a king,
+whom she has just borne to God. Therefore, O glorious and illustrious son,
+rejoice your mother, and be to her as a pillar of iron. For the charity of
+many waxes cold, and by the craftiness of evil men our bark is tossed in
+furious waves, and lashed by their foaming waters. But we hope in hope
+against hope, and praise the Lord, who has delivered thee from the power of
+darkness, and made provision for the Church in so great a prince, who may
+be her defender, and put on the helmet of salvation against all the efforts
+of the infected. Go on, therefore, beloved and glorious son, that Almighty
+God may follow with heavenly protection your serenity and your realm, and
+command His angels to guard you in all your ways and to give you victory
+over your enemies round about you."[71]
+
+Towards the end of the sixth century, the Gallic bishop, St. Gregory of
+Tours, notes how wonderfully prosperity followed the kingdom which became
+Catholic, and contrasts it with the rapid decline and perishing away of the
+Arian kingdoms. And, indeed, this letter of the Pope may be termed a divine
+charter, commemorating the birthday of the great nation, which led the way,
+through all the nations of the West, for their restoration to the Catholic
+faith, and the expulsion of the Arian poison. No one has recorded, and no
+one knows, the details of that conversion, by which the Church, in the
+course of the sixth century, recovered the terrible disasters which she had
+suffered in the fifth; a conversion by which the sturdy sons of the North,
+from heretics, became faithful children, and by which she added the Teuton
+race, in all its new-born vigour and devotion, to those sons of the South,
+whose conversion Constantine crowned with his own. St. Gregory of Tours
+calls Clovis the new Constantine, and in very deed his conversion was the
+herald of a second triumph to the Church of God, which equals, some may
+think surpasses even, the grandeur of the first.
+
+It was fitting that the See of Peter should sound the note, which was its
+prelude, by the mouth of Anastasius, as the pastoral staff of St. Gregory
+was extended over its conclusion.
+
+Scarcely less remarkable than the words of Pope Anastasius were those
+addressed to the new convert by a bishop, the temporal subject of the
+Burgundian prince, Gundobald, an Arian, that is, by St. Avitus of Vienna,
+grandson of the emperor of that name. Before the baptismal waters were dry
+on the forehead of the Frankish king, he wrote to him in these words:[72]
+
+"The followers of all sorts of schisms, different in their opinions,
+various in their multitude, sought, by pretending to the Christian name,
+to blunt the keenness of your choice. But, while we entrust our several
+conditions to eternity, and reserve for the future examination what each
+conceives to be right in his own case, a bright flash of the truth has
+descended on the present. For a divine provision has supplied a judge for
+our own time. In making choice for yourself, you have given a decision for
+all. Your faith is our victory. In this case most men, in their search for
+the true religion, when they consult priests, or are moved by the
+suggestion of companions, are wont to allege the custom of their family,
+and the rite which has descended to them from their fathers. Thus making a
+show of modesty, which is injurious to salvation, they keep a useless
+reverence for parents in maintaining unbelief, but confess themselves
+ignorant what to choose. Away with the excuse of such hurtful modesty,
+after the miracle of such a deed as yours. Content only with the nobility
+of your ancient race, you have resolved that all which could crown with
+glory such a rank should spring from your personal merit. If they did great
+things, you willed to do greater. Your answer to that nobility of your
+ancestors was to show your temporal kingdom; you set before your posterity
+a kingdom in heaven. Let Greece exult in having a prince of our law; not
+that it any longer deserves to enjoy alone so great a gift, since the rest
+of the world has its own lustre. For now in the western parts shines in a
+new king a sunbeam which is not new. The birthday of our Redeemer fitly
+marked its bright rising. You were regenerated to salvation from the water
+on the same day on which the world received for its redemption the birth of
+the Lord of heaven. Let the Lord's birthday be yours also: you were born to
+Christ when Christ was born to the world. Then you consecrated your soul to
+God, your life to those around you, your fame to those coming after you.
+
+"What shall I say of that most glorious solemnity of your regeneration? I
+was not able to be present in body: I did not fail to share in your joy.
+For the divine goodness added to these regions the pleasure that the
+message of your sublime humility reached us before your baptism. Thus that
+sacred night found us in security about you. Together we contemplated that
+scene, when the assembled prelates, in the eagerness of their holy service,
+steeped the royal limbs in the waters of life; when the head, before which
+nations tremble, bowed itself to the servants of God; when the helmet of
+sacred unction clothed the flowing locks which had grown under the helmet
+of war; when, putting aside the breastplate for a time, spotless limbs
+shone in the white robe. O most highly favoured of kings, that consecrated
+robe will add strength hereafter to your arms, and sanctity will confirm
+what good fortune has hitherto bestowed. Did I think that anything could
+escape your knowledge or observation, I would add to my praises a word of
+exhortation. Can I preach to one now complete in faith, that faith which he
+recognised before his completion? Or humility to one who has long shown us
+devotion, which now his profession claims as a debt? Or mercy to one whom a
+captive people, just set free by you, proclaims by its rejoicing to the
+world, and by its tears to God. In one thing I should wish an advance. This
+is, since through you God will make your nation all His own, that you
+would, from the good treasure of your heart, provide the seeds of faith to
+the nations beyond you, lying still in their natural ignorance, uncorrupted
+by the germs of false doctrine. Have no shame, no reluctance, to take the
+side of God, who has so exalted your side, even by embassies directed to
+that purpose.... You are, as it were, the common sun, in whose rays all
+delight; the nearest the most, but somewhat also those further off.... Your
+happiness touches us also; when you fight, we conquer."
+
+It is easy to look back on the course of a thousand years, and see how
+marvellously these words, uttered by St. Avitus at the moment Clovis was
+baptised, were fulfilled in his people. "Your happiness touches us also;
+when you fight, we conquer." So spoke a Catholic bishop at the side, and
+from the court, of an Arian king, and thus he expressed the work of the
+Catholic bishops throughout Gaul in the sixth century then beginning. An
+apostate from the Catholic faith has said of them that they built up France
+as bees build a hive; but he omitted to say that they were able and willing
+to do this because they had a queen-bee at Rome, who, scattered as they
+were in various transitory kingdoms under heretical sovereigns, gave unity
+to all their efforts, and planted in their hearts the assurance of one
+undying kingdom. We shall have presently to quote other words of St.
+Avitus, speaking, as he says, in the name of all his brethren to the
+senators of Rome: "If the Pope of the city is called into question, not one
+bishop, but the episcopate, will seem to be shaken". But that, which he
+here foresaw, explains in truth a process, of which we do not possess a
+detailed history, but which resulted, by the time of St. Gregory, in the
+triumph of the Catholic faith over that most fearful heresy which had
+contaminated the whole Teuton race of conquerors at the time of their
+conquest. The glory of this triumph is divided between St. Peter's See and
+the Catholic bishops in the several countries, working each in union with
+it. So was formed the hive, not only of France, but of Christ; the hive
+which nurtured all the nations of the future Europe.
+
+When Faustus,[73] the ambassador sent by Theodorick to Anastasius to obtain
+for him the royal title, returned to Rome in 498, he found Pope Anastasius
+dead. The deacon Symmachus was chosen for his successor, and his
+pontificate lasted more than fifteen years. But Faustus had hoped to gain
+the approval of Pope Anastasius to the Henotikon set up by the emperor Zeno
+at the instance of Acacius, and forced by the emperor Anastasius on his
+eastern bishops, and specially on three successive bishops of
+Constantinople--Fravita, Euphemius, and Macedonius--who took the place of
+the second, when he had been expelled by the emperor. Faustus, who was
+chief of the senate, with a view to gain to the emperor's side the Pope to
+be elected in succession to Anastasius, brought from the East the old
+Byzantine hand; that is to say, he bore gifts for those who could be
+corrupted, threats for those who could be frightened, and deceit for all.
+So freighted he managed to bring about a schism in the papal election, and
+the candidate whom he favoured, Laurentius, was set up by a smaller but
+powerful party against the election of Symmachus. Thus disunion was
+introduced among the Roman clergy, which brought about, during the five
+succeeding years, many councils at Rome, and embarrassed the action of the
+Pope more than the Arian government of Theodorick.[74] The difficulty of
+the times was such that, instead of holding a synod of bishops at Rome to
+determine which election was valid, the two candidates, Symmachus and
+Laurentius, went to Ravenna, and submitted that point to the decision of
+the king Theodorick, Arian as he was. That decision was that he who was
+first ordained, or who had the majority for him, should be recognised as
+Pope; Symmachus fulfilled both conditions, and his election was
+acknowledged.
+
+Symmachus, in the first year of his pontificate, 499, addressed to the
+Roman emperor, in his Grecian capital, a renowned letter, termed "his
+defence" against imperial calumnies. This letter alone would be sufficient
+to exhibit the whole position of the Pope in regard to the eastern emperor
+at the close of the fifth century. Space allows me to quote only a part of
+it.
+
+The emperor of Constantinople was very wroth at the frustration of his plan
+to get influence over the Pope by the appointment of Laurentius, and
+reproached Pope Symmachus with moving the Roman senate against him. The
+Pope replied:[75]
+
+"If, O emperor, I had to speak before outside kings, ignorant altogether of
+God, in defence of the Catholic faith, I would, even with the threat of
+death before me, dwell upon its truth and its accord with reason. Woe to me
+if I did not preach the gospel. It is better to incur loss of the present
+life than to be punished with eternal damnation. But if you are the Roman
+emperor, you are bound kindly to receive the embassies of even barbarian
+peoples. If you are a Christian prince, you are bound to hear patiently the
+voice of the apostolic prelate, whatever his personal desert.[76] I must
+confess that I cannot pass over, either on your account or on my own, the
+point whether you issue with a religious mind against me the insults which
+you utter in presence of the divine judgment. Not on my own account, when I
+remember the Lord's promise, 'When they persecute you, and say all manner
+of evil against you, for justice' sake, rejoice'. Not on your account,
+because I wish not a result to my own glory, which would weigh heavily upon
+you. And being trained in the doctrine of the Lord and the Apostles, I am
+anxious to meet your maledictions with blessing, your insults with honour,
+your hatred with charity. But I would beg you to reflect whether He who
+says, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' will not exact the more from you
+for my forbearance.... I wish, then, that the insults, which you think
+proper to bestow on my person, while they are glorious to me, may not press
+upon you. To my Lord it was said by some: 'Thou hast a devil; a man that is
+a glutton, born of fornication'. Am I to grieve over such things? Divine
+and human laws present the condition to him who utters them: 'In the mouth
+of two or three witnesses every word shall stand'. O emperor, what will you
+do in the divine judgment? Because you are emperor, do you think there is
+no judgment of God? I pass over that it becomes not an emperor to be an
+accuser. Again, both by divine and human laws, no one can be at once
+accuser and judge. Will you plead before another judge? Will you stand by
+him as accuser? You say I am a Manichean. Am I an Eutychean, or do I defend
+Eutycheans, whose madness is the chief support[77] to the Manichean error?
+Rome is my witness, and our records bear testimony, whether I have in any
+way deviated from the Catholic faith, which, coming out of paganism, I
+received in the See of the Apostle St. Peter.... Is it because I will offer
+no acceptance to Eutycheans? Such reproaches do not wound me, but they are
+a plain proof that you wished to prevent my advancement, which St. Peter by
+his intervention has imposed. Or, because you are emperor, do you struggle
+against the power of Peter? And you, who accept the Alexandrian Peter, do
+you strive to tread under foot St. Peter the Apostle in the person of his
+successor, whoever he may be? Should I be well elected if I favoured the
+Eutycheans? if I held communion with the party of Acacius? Your motive in
+putting forward such things is obvious. Now, let us compare the rank of the
+emperor with that of the pontiff. Between them the difference is as great
+as the charge of human and divine things. You, emperor, receive baptism
+from the pontiff, accept sacraments, request prayers, hope for blessing,
+beg for penitence. In a word, you administer things human, he dispenses to
+you things divine. If, then, I do not put his rank superior, it is at least
+equal. And do not think that in mundane pomp you are before him, for 'the
+weakness of God is stronger than men'. Consider, then, what becomes you.
+But when you assume the accuser's part, by divine and human law you stand
+on the same level with me; in which, if I lose the highest rank, as you
+desire, if I be convicted by your accusation, you will equally lose your
+rank if you fail to convict me. Let the world judge between us, in the
+sight of God and His angels; let us be a spectacle for every age, in which
+either the priest shall exhibit a good life, or the emperor a religious
+modesty. For the human race is ruled in chief by these two offices, so that
+in neither of them should there be anything to offend God, especially
+because each of these ranks would appear to be perpetual, and the human
+race has a common interest in both.
+
+"Allow me, emperor, to say, Remember that you are a man in order to use a
+power granted you by God. For though these things pass first under the
+judgment of man, they must go on to the divine examination. You may say, It
+is written, 'Let every soul be subject to higher powers'. We accept human
+powers in their proper place until they set up their wills against God. But
+if all power be from God, more then that which is given to things divine.
+Acknowledge God in us and we will acknowledge God in thee. But if you do
+not acknowledge God, you cannot use a privilege derived from Him whose
+rights you despise. You say that conspiring with the senate I have
+excommunicated you. In that I have my part; but I am following fearlessly
+what my predecessors have done reasonably. You say the Roman senate has
+ill-treated you. If we treat you ill in persuading you to quit heretics, do
+you treat us well who would throw us into their communion? What, you say,
+is the conduct of Acacius to me? Nothing if you leave him. If you do not
+leave him it touches you. Let us both leave the dead. This is what we beg,
+that you have nothing to do with what Acacius did. Making your own what
+Acacius did, you accuse us of objections. We avoid what Acacius did; do
+you avoid it also. Then we shall both be clear of him. Thus relinquishing
+his actions you may be joined with our cause, and be associated with our
+communion without Acacius. It has always been the custom of Catholic
+princes[78] to be the first to address the apostolic prelates upon their
+accession, and they have sought, as good sons, with the due affection of
+piety, that chief confession and faith to which you know that the care of
+the whole Church has been committed by the voice of the Saviour Himself.
+But since public circumstances may have caused you to omit this, I have not
+delayed to address you first, lest I should be thought to consider more my
+own private honour than solicitude for the whole flock of the Lord.
+
+"You say that we have divulged your compelling by force those who had long
+kept themselves apart from the contagion of heresy to yield to its
+detestable communion. In this, O chief[79] of human powers, I, as
+successor, however unmerited, in the Apostolic See, cease not to remind you
+that whatever may be your material power in the world, you are but a man.
+Review all those who, from the beginning of the Christian belief, have
+attempted with various purpose to persecute or afflict the Catholic faith.
+See how those who used such violence have failed, and the orthodox truth
+prevailed through the very means by which it was thought to be overthrown.
+And as it grew under its oppressors, so it is found to have crushed them. I
+wonder if even human sense, especially in one who claims to be called
+Christian, fails to see that among these oppressors must be counted those
+who assault Christian confession and communion with various superstitions.
+What matters it whether it be a heathen or a so-called Christian who
+attempts to infringe the genuine tradition of the apostolic rule? Who is so
+blind that in countries where every heresy has free licence to exhibit its
+opinions he should deem the liberty of Catholic communion alone should be
+subverted by those who think themselves religious?"
+
+"All Catholic princes," the Pope repeats, "either at their own accession,
+or on knowing the accession of a new prelate to the Apostolic See,
+immediately addressed their letters to it, to show that they were in union
+with it. Those who have not done so declare themselves aliens from it. Your
+own writings would justify us in so considering you if we did not from your
+assault and hostility avoid you, whether as enemy or judge ... but the
+accomplice of error must persecute him who is its enemy."
+
+Let this letter from beginning to end be considered as written by a Pope
+just after his election, the validity of which had been disputed by another
+candidate whom the emperor had favoured--by a Pope living actually under
+the unlimited power of an Arian sovereign, who was in possession of Italy,
+and who ruled in right of a conqueror, though he used his power generally
+with moderation and equity; further, that it was addressed to one who had
+become the sole Roman emperor, the over-lord of the king, who had just
+besought of him the royal title; that it required him to cast aside his
+patronage of Eutychean heretics; to rescind from the public records of the
+Church the name of that bishop who had composed the document called the
+Henotikon, the very document which the emperor was compelling his eastern
+bishops to accept and promulgate as the confession of the Christian faith.
+And let the frankness with which the Pope appeals to the universally
+admitted authority of St. Peter's See be at the same time considered, with
+the official statement that the emperors were wont immediately to
+acknowledge the accession of a Pope[80] and attest their communion with
+him.
+
+What was the answer which the eastern emperor made to this letter? He did
+not answer by denying anything which the Pope claimed as belonging to his
+see, but by rekindling the internal schism which had been laid to sleep by
+the recognition of Pope Symmachus. Before sending this letter, the Pope had
+held a council of seventy-two bishops in St. Peter's on March 1, 499, which
+made important regulations to prevent cabal and disturbance at papal
+elections such as had just taken place. This council had been subscribed by
+Laurentius himself,[81] and the Pope in compassion[82] had given him the
+bishopric of Nocera. Now the emperor Anastasius, reproved for his misdeeds
+and misbelief by Pope Symmachus in the letter above quoted, caused his
+agents, the patrician Faustus and the senator Probinus, to bring grievous
+accusations against Symmachus and to set up once more Laurentius as
+anti-pope.[83] In their passionate enmity they did not scruple to bring
+their charge against Pope Symmachus before the heretical king Theodorick.
+The result of this attempt was that Rome, during several years at least,
+from 502 to 506, was filled with confusion and the most embittered party
+contentions. Theodorick was induced to send a bishop as visitor of the
+Roman Church, and again to summon a council of bishops from the various
+provinces of Italy to consider the charges brought against the Pope. During
+the year 501 four such councils were held in Rome, of which it may be
+sufficient to quote the last, the Synodus Palmaris.[84] Its acts say that
+they were by command of king Theodorick to pass judgment on certain charges
+made against Pope Symmachus. That the bishops of the Ligurian, Aemilian,
+and Venetian provinces, visiting the king at Ravenna on their way, told him
+that the Pope himself ought to summon the council, "knowing that in the
+first place the merit or principate of the Apostle Peter, and then the
+authority of venerable councils following out the commandment of the Lord,
+had delivered to his see a singular power in the churches, and no instance
+could be produced in which the bishop of that see in a similar case had
+been subjected to the judgment of his inferiors". To which king Theodorick
+replied that the Pope himself had by letter signified his wish to convene
+the council. Then the Synodus Palmaris, passing over a narration of what
+had taken place in the preceding councils, came to this conclusion:
+"Calling God to witness, we decree that Pope Symmachus, bishop of the
+Apostolic See, who has been charged with such and such offences, is, as
+regards all human judgment, clear and free (because for the reasons above
+alleged all has been left to the divine judgment); that in all the churches
+belonging to his see he should give the divine mysteries to the Christian
+people, inasmuch as we recognise that for the above-named causes he cannot
+be bound by the charges of those who attack him. Wherefore, in virtue of
+the royal command, which gives us this power, we restore all that belongs
+to ecclesiastical right within the sacred city of Rome, or without it, and
+reserving the whole cause to the judgment of God, we exhort all to receive
+from him the holy communion. If anyone, which we do not suppose, either
+does not accept this, or thinks that it can be reconsidered, he will render
+an account of his contempt to the divine judgment. Concerning his clergy,
+who, contrary to rule, left their bishop and made a schism, we decree that
+upon their making satisfaction to their bishop, they may be pardoned and be
+glad to be restored to their offices. But if any of the clergy, after this
+our order, presume to celebrate mass in any holy place in the Roman Church
+without leave of Pope Symmachus, let him be punished as schismatic."[85]
+
+This was signed by seventy-six bishops, of whom Laurentius of Milan and
+Peter of Ravenna stood at the head; and the two metropolitans accompany
+their subscription with the words, "in which we have committed the whole
+cause to the judgment of God".[86]
+
+When this document reached Gaul, the bishops there, being unable to hold a
+council through the division of the country under different princes,
+commissioned St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to write in his name and their
+own, and we have from him the following letter addressed to Faustus and
+Symmachus, senators of Rome:[87]
+
+"It would have been desirable that we should, in person, visit the city
+which the whole world venerates, for the consideration of duties which
+affect us both as men and as Christians. But as the state of things has
+long made that impossible, we could wish at least to have had the security
+that your great body should learn from a report of the assembled bishops of
+Gaul the entreaties called forth by a common cause. But since the
+separation of our country into different governments deprives us also of
+that our desire, I must first entreat that your most illustrious Order may
+not take offence at what I write as coming from one person. For, urged not
+only by letters, but charges from all my Gallic brethren, I have undertaken
+to be the organ of communicating to you what we all ask of you. Whilst we
+were all in a state of great anxiety and fear in the cause of the Roman
+Church, feeling that our own state was imperilled when our head was
+attacked, inasmuch as a single incrimination would have struck us all down
+without the odium which attaches to the oppression of a multitude, if it
+had overturned the condition of our chief, a copy of the episcopal decree
+was brought to us in our anxiety from Italy, which the bishops of Italy,
+assembled at Rome, had issued in the case of Pope Symmachus. This
+constitution is made respectable by the assent of a large and reverend
+council: yet our mind is, that the holy Pope Symmachus, if accused to the
+world, had a claim rather to the support than to the judgment of his
+brethren the bishops. For as our Ruler in heaven bids us be subject to
+earthly powers, foretelling that we shall stand before kings and princes in
+every accusation, so is it difficult to understand with what reason, or by
+what law, the superior is to be judged by his inferiors. The Apostle's
+command is well known, that an accusation against an elder should not be
+received. How, then, is it lawful to incriminate the Principate of the
+whole Church? The venerable council itself providing against this in its
+laudable constitution, has reserved to the divine judgment a cause which, I
+may be permitted to say, it had somewhat rashly taken up; mentioning,
+however, that the charges objected to the Pope had in no respect been
+proved, either to itself or to king Theodorick. In face of all which, I,
+myself a Roman senator, and a Christian bishop, adjure you (so may the God
+you worship grant prosperity to your times, and your own dignity maintain
+the honour of the Roman name to the universe in this collapsing world),
+that the state of the Church be not less in your eyes than that of the
+commonwealth; that the power which God has given to you may be also for our
+good; and that you have not less love in your Church for the See of Peter,
+than in your city for the crown of the world. If, in your wisdom, you
+consider the matter to its bottom, you will see that not only the cause
+carried on at Rome is concerned. In the case of other bishops, if there be
+any lapse, it may be restored; but if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not
+one bishop but the episcopate itself will seem to be shaken. You well know
+how we are steering the bark of faith amid storms of heresies, whose winds
+roar around us. If with us you fear such dangers, you must needs protect
+your pilot by sharing his labour. If the sailors turn against their
+captain, how will they escape? The shepherd of the Lord's sheepcot will
+give an account of his pastorship; it is not for the flock to alarm its own
+pastor, but for the judge. Restore, then, to us if it be not already
+restored, concord in our chief."
+
+Even after this synod at Rome, the opponents of Symmachus did not cease
+their attempts. Clergy and senators sent in a new memorial to the king
+Theodorick, in favour of the anti-pope Laurentius, who returned to Rome in
+502; and it was four years, during which several councils were held, before
+the schism was finally composed. Theodorick then commanded that all the
+churches in Rome should be given up to Pope Symmachus,[88] and he alone be
+recognised as its bishop.
+
+Against the attacks made upon the fourth synod, which had dismissed the
+consideration of the charges against the Pope as beyond its competence,
+Ennodius, at that time a deacon, afterwards bishop of Pavia, wrote a long
+defence. This writing was read at the sixth synod at Rome, held in 503,
+approved, and inserted in the synodal acts. We may, therefore, quote one
+passage from it, as the doctrine which it was the result of all this schism
+to establish.[89] "God has willed the causes of other men to be terminated
+by men; He has reserved the bishop of that one see without question to His
+own judgment. It was His will that the successors of the Apostle St. Peter
+should owe their innocence to heaven alone, and show a spotless conscience
+to that most absolute scrutiny. Do not suppose that those souls whom God
+has reserved to His own examination have no fear of their judges. The
+guilty has with Him no one to suggest excuse, when the witness of the deeds
+is the same as the Judge. If you say, Such will be the condition of all
+souls in that trial; I shall reply,[90] To one only was it said, Thou art
+Peter, &c. And further, that the dignity of that see has been made
+venerable to the whole world by the voice of holy pontiffs, when all the
+faithful in every part are made subject to it, and it is marked out as the
+head of the whole body."
+
+From the whole of this history we deduce the fact, that the enmity of the
+eastern emperor was able by bribing a party at Rome to stir up a schism
+against the lawful Pope, which had for its result to call forth the witness
+of the Italian and the Gallic bishops respecting the singular prerogatives
+of the Holy See. They spoke in the person of Ennodius and Avitus. We have,
+in consequence, recorded for us in black and white the axiom which had been
+acted upon from the beginning, "the First See is judged by no one".
+
+Let us see on the contrary what the same emperor was not only willing but
+able to do in the city which had succeeded to Rome as the capital of the
+empire, in which Anastasius reigned alone.
+
+In the year 496, Anastasius had found himself able, as we have seen, to
+depose, by help of the resident council, Euphemius of Constantinople. As
+his successor was chosen Macedonius, sister's son of the former bishop,
+Gennadius, and like him of gentle spirit, "a holy man,[91] the champion of
+the orthodox".[92] However much the opinion was then spread in the East
+that a successor might rightfully be appointed to a bishop forcibly
+expelled from his see, if otherwise the Church would be deprived of its
+pastor--an opinion which Pope Gelasius very decidedly censured--Macedonius
+II. felt very keenly the unlawfulness of his appointment. When the deposed
+Euphemius asked of him a safe conduct for his journey into banishment, and
+Macedonius received authority to grant it, he went into the baptistry to
+give it, but caused his archdeacon first to remove his omophorion, and
+appeared in the garb of a simple priest to give his predecessor a sum of
+money collected for him. He was much praised for this. Yet Macedonius had
+to subscribe the Henotikon. Hence he experienced a strong opposition from
+the monks, who, in their resolute maintenance of the Council of Chalcedon,
+declined communion with him; so the nuns also. Macedonius sought to gain
+them by holding a council in 497 or 498, which condemned the Eutycheans and
+expressed assent to the Council of Chalcedon.
+
+Macedonius was by no means inclined to give up the lately won privileges of
+his see as to the ordination of the Exarch of Cappadocian Caesarea, but he
+would willingly have restored peace with Rome, and have accepted the
+invitation from Rome to celebrate with special splendour the feast day of
+St. Peter and St. Paul. The emperor would not let him send a synodical
+letter to Rome.
+
+Macedonius could not be induced by threat or promise of the emperor to give
+up to him the paper in which at his coronation by Euphemius he had promised
+to maintain the Council of Chalcedon. The emperor, after concluding peace
+with the Persians, more and more favoured the Eutycheans, and seemed
+resolved either to bend or to break Macedonius. The people were so
+embittered against Anastasius that he did not venture to appear without his
+life-guards even at a religious solemnity, and this became from that time
+a rule which marks the sinking moral influence of the emperors. The
+suspicion of the people against Anastasius was increased because his mother
+was a Manichean, his uncle, Clearchus, devoted to the Arians, and he kept
+in his palace Manichean pictures by a Syropersian artist. The Monophysite
+party had at the time two very skilful leaders, the monk Severus from
+Pisidia and the Persian Xenaias. Xenaias had been made bishop of Hierapolis
+by Peter the Fuller, was in fierce conflict with Flavian, patriarch of
+Antioch, and raised almost all Syria against him. He carried the flame of
+discord even to Constantinople. There a certain fanatic, Ascholius, tried
+to murder Macedonius, who pardoned him and bestowed on him a monthly
+pension. Presently large troops of monks came under Severus to
+Constantinople, bent upon ruining Macedonius. The state of parties became
+still more threatening. Macedonius showed still greater energy; he declared
+that he would only hold communion with the patriarch of Alexandria and the
+party of Severus if they would recognise the Council of Chalcedon as mother
+and teacher. But Anastasius, bribed by the Alexandrian patriarch John II.
+with two thousand pounds of gold, required that he should anathematise this
+council. To this Macedonius answered that this could not be done except in
+an ecumenical council presided over by the bishop of Rome. The emperor in
+his wrath violated the right of sanctuary in the Catholic churches and
+bestowed it on heretical churches. The Eutycheans supplied with money broke
+out against the Catholics. They had sung their addition to the Trisagion
+on a Sunday in the Church of St. Michael within the palace. They tried to
+do it the next Sunday in the cathedral, upon which a fierce tumult broke
+out, and they were mishandled and driven out by the people. Now the party
+of Severus, favoured by the emperor and many officials, broke out into loud
+abuse of Macedonius. Thereupon the faithful part of his flock rose for
+their bishop, and the streets rung with the cry, "It is the time of
+martyrdom; let no man forsake his father". Anastasius was declared a
+Manichean and unfit to rule. The emperor was frightened; he shut the doors
+of his palace and prepared for flight. He had sworn never again to admit
+the patriarch to his presence, but in his perplexity sent for him. On his
+way Macedonius was received with loud acclaim, "Our father is with us," in
+which the life-guards joined. He boldly reproved the emperor as enemy of
+the Church; but the emperor's hypocritical excuses pacified the patriarch.
+When the danger was passed by Anastasius pursued fresh intrigues. He
+required Macedonius to subscribe a formula in which the Council of
+Chalcedon was passed over. Macedonius would seem to have been deceived, but
+afterwards insisted publicly before the monks on his adherence to its
+decrees. Then Anastasius tried again to depose him. All possible calumnies
+were spread against him--immorality, Nestorianism, falsification of the
+Bible; all failed. Then the emperor demanded the delivering up of the
+original acts of Chalcedon, which the patriarch steadily refused.
+Macedonius had sealed them up and placed them on the altar under God's
+protection; but the emperor had them taken away by the eunuch Kalapodius,
+economus of the cathedral, and then burnt. After this he imprisoned and
+banished a number of the patriarch's friends and relations; then he had the
+patriarch seized in the night, deported from the capital to Chalcedon, and
+thence to Euchaites in Paphlagonia, to which place he had also banished
+Euphemius. Macedonius lived some years after his exile. He died at Gangra
+about 516, and was immediately counted among the saints of the eastern
+Church.
+
+It cost Anastasius fifteen years to depose Macedonius, that is, from 496 to
+511, and this was the way he accomplished it. Thus he succeeded in
+overthrowing two bishops of his capital--Euphemius and Macedonius--neither
+of whom lived or died in communion with Rome, because, though virtuous and
+orthodox in the main, they would not surrender the memory of Acacius. They
+had, moreover, one grievous blot on their conduct as bishops. They
+submitted themselves to subscribe an imperial statement of doctrine and to
+permit its imposition on others. This was a use of despotism in the eastern
+Church introduced by the insurgent Basiliscus, carried out first by Zeno
+and then by Anastasius, tending to the ruin both of doctrine and
+discipline. During the whole reign of Anastasius the patriarchal sees of
+Alexandria and Antioch, which had built up the eastern Church in the first
+three centuries, which Rome acknowledged as truly patriarchal under Pope
+Gelasius in 496, and the new sees which claimed to be patriarchal,
+Constantinople and Jerusalem, were in a state of the greatest confusion, a
+prey to heresy, party spirit, violence of every kind. Anastasius was able
+to disturb Pope Symmachus during the first half of his pontificate by
+fostering a schism among his clergy, with the result that he brought out
+the recognition of the Pope's privilege not to be judged by his inferiors.
+But he was enabled to depose two bishops of the imperial see, his own
+patriarchs, blameless in their personal life, orthodox in their doctrine,
+longing for reunion with Rome, yet stained by their fatal surrender of
+their spiritual independence, subscription to the emperor's imposition of
+doctrine. They were not acknowledged by St. Peter's See, and they fell
+before the emperor.
+
+In the last years of this emperor, the churches of the eastern empire were
+involved in the greatest disorders and sufferings. He had thrown aside
+altogether the mask of Catholic: he filled the patriarchal sees with the
+fiercest heretics. Flavian was driven from Antioch, Elias from Jerusalem.
+Timotheus, a man of bad character, had been put by him into the see of
+Constantinople. In this extremity of misery and confusion, the eastern
+Church addressed Pope Symmachus in 512.[93]
+
+"We venture to address you, not for the loss of one sheep or one drachma,
+but for the salvation of three parts of the world, redeemed not by
+corruptible silver or gold, but by the precious blood of the Lamb of God,
+as the blessed prince of the glorious Apostles taught, whose chair the Good
+Shepherd, Christ, has entrusted to your beatitude. Therefore, as an
+affectionate father for his children, seeing with spiritual eyes how we are
+perishing in the prevarication of our father Acacius, delay not, sleep not,
+but hasten to deliver us, since not in binding only but in loosing those
+long bound the power has been given to thee; for you know the mind of
+Christ who are daily taught by your sacred teacher Peter to feed Christ's
+sheep entrusted to you through the whole habitable world, collected not by
+force, but by choice, and with the great doctor Paul cry to us your
+subjects 'not because we exercise dominion over your faith, but we are
+helpers in your joy'. 'Hasten then to help that east from which the Saviour
+sent to you the two great lights of day, Peter and Paul, to illuminate the
+whole world.'" They call upon him as the true physician; they disclose to
+him the ulcerous sores with which the whole body of the eastern Church is
+covered; and they finish by directing to him a confession of faith,
+rejecting the two opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches. They remind
+him of the holy Pope Leo, now among the saints, and conjure him to save
+them now in their souls as Leo saved bodies from Attila.
+
+But yet it was not given to Pope Symmachus to put an end to this confusion.
+He sat during fifteen years and eight months, dying on the 9th July, 514.
+The schism raised by the Greek emperor was at an end; and seven days after
+his decease the deacon Hormisdas was elected with the full consent of all.
+In the meantime the state of the East had gone on from bad to worse.
+Anastasius, by writing and by oath, had pledged himself at his coronation
+to maintain the Catholic faith and the Council of Chalcedon. Instead he had
+persecuted Catholics, banished their bishops, by his falsehood and tyranny
+sown discord everywhere. At last one of his own generals, Vitalian, rose
+against him. After a long silence he once more betook himself to the Pope.
+In January, 518, he wrote to the new Pope, Hormisdas, "that the opinion
+spread abroad of his goodness led him to apply to his fatherly affection to
+ask of him the offices which our God and Saviour taught the holy Apostles
+by mouth, and especially St. Peter, whom He made the strength[94] of His
+Church". He asked, therefore, "his apostolate by holding a council to
+become a mediator by whom unity might be restored to the churches," and
+proposed that a general council should be held at Heraclea, the old
+metropolis of Thrace.
+
+Hormisdas, after maturely considering the whole state of things, sent a
+legation of five persons to the emperor at Constantinople--the bishops
+Ennodius of Pavia, Fortunatus of Catania, the priest Venantius, the deacon
+Vitalis, and the notary Hilarius--with the most detailed instructions how
+to act. The intent was to test the emperor's sincerity--a foresight which
+after events completely justified. This instruction is said to be the
+earliest of the kind which has come down to us. Since nothing can so
+vividly represent the position of the Holy See as the words used by it on
+a great occasion at the very moment when it took place, I give a
+translation of it. In reading this it should be remembered that these are
+the words of a Pope living in captivity under an Arian and barbaric
+sovereign, who had taken possession of Italy about twenty years before, and
+had sought for and accepted the royal title from this very emperor.
+Further, that with the exception of the Frankish kingdom, in which Clovis
+had died four years before, all the West was in possession of Arian rulers,
+who were also of barbaric descent. The Pope speaks in the naked power of
+his "apostolate". The commission which he gave to his legates was this:[95]
+
+"When, by God's help and the prayers of the Apostles, you come into the
+country of the Greeks, if bishops choose to meet you receive them with all
+due respect. If they propose a night-lodging for you do not refuse, that
+laymen may not suppose you will hold no union with them. But if they invite
+you to eat with them, courteously excuse yourselves, saying, Pray that we
+may first be joined at the Mystical Table, and then this will be more
+agreeable to us. Do not, however receive provision or things of that kind,
+except carriage, if need be, but excuse yourselves, saying that you have
+everything, and that you hope that they will give you their hearts, in
+which abide all gifts, charity and unity, which make up the joy of
+religion.
+
+"So, when you reach Constantinople, go wherever the emperor appoints; and
+before you see him, let no one approach you, save such as are sent by him.
+But when you have seen the emperor, if any orthodox persons of our own
+communion, or with a zeal for unity, desire to see you, admit them with all
+caution. Perhaps you may learn from them the state of things.
+
+"When you have an audience of the emperor, present your letters with these
+words: 'Your Father greets you, daily intreating God, and commending your
+kingdom to the intercession of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, that God
+who has given you such a desire that you should send a mission in the cause
+of the Church and consult his holiness, may bring your wish to full
+completion'.
+
+"Should the emperor wish, before he receives your papers, to learn the
+scope of your mission, use these words: 'Be pleased to receive our papers'.
+If he answer, 'What do they contain?' reply, 'They contain greeting to your
+piety, and thanks to God for learning your anxiety for the Church's unity.
+Read and you will see this.' And enter absolutely into nothing before the
+letters have been received and read. When they have been received and read,
+add: 'He has also written to your servant Vitalian, who wrote that he had
+received permission from your piety to send a deputation of his own to the
+holy Pope, your Father. But as it was just to direct these first to your
+majesty, he has done so; that by your command and order, if God please, we
+may bear to him the letters which we have brought.'
+
+"If the emperor ask for our letters to Vitalian, answer thus: 'The holy
+Pope, your Father, has not so enjoined on us; and without his command we
+can do nothing. But that you may know the straightforwardness of the
+letters, that they have nothing but entreaties to your piety, to give your
+mind to the unity of the Church, assign to us some one in whose presence
+these letters may be read to Vitalian.' But if the emperor require to read
+them himself, you will answer that you have already intimated not such to
+be the command of the holy Pope. If he say, 'They may have also other
+charges,' reply, 'Our conscience forbids. That is not our custom. We come
+in God's cause. Should we sin against Him? The holy Pope's mission is
+straightforward; his request and his prayers known to all: that the
+constitutions of the fathers may not be broken; that heretics be removed
+from the churches. Beyond that our mission contains nothing.'
+
+"If he say, 'For this purpose I have invited the Pope to a council, that if
+there be any doubt, it may be removed,' answer, 'We thank God, and your
+piety, that you are so minded, that all may receive what was ordered by the
+fathers. For then may there be a true and holy unity among the churches of
+Christ, if, by God's help, you choose to preserve what your predecessors
+Marcian and Leo maintained.' If he say, 'What mean you by that?' answer,
+'That the Council of Chalcedon, and the letters of Pope St. Leo, written
+against the heretics Nestorius, and Eutyches, and Dioscorus, may be
+entirely kept'. If he say, 'We received and we hold the Council of
+Chalcedon, and the letters of Pope Leo,' do you then return thanks, kiss
+his breast, and say, 'Now we know that God is gracious to you, when you
+hasten to do this, for that is the Catholic faith which the Apostles
+preached, without which no one can be orthodox. All bishops must hold to
+this and preach it.'
+
+"If he say, 'The bishops are orthodox; they do not depart from the
+constitutions of the fathers,' answer, 'If the constitutions of the fathers
+are kept, and what was decreed in the Council of Chalcedon is in no respect
+broken, how is there such discord in the churches of your land? Why do not
+the bishops of the East agree?' If he say, 'The bishops were quiet; there
+was no disunion among them. The holy Pope's predecessor stirred up their
+minds with his letters, and made this confusion;' answer, 'The letters of
+Symmachus, of holy memory, are in our hands. If, besides, what your piety
+says, that is, "I follow the Council of Chalcedon, I receive the letters of
+Pope Leo," they contain nothing except the exhortation to maintain this,
+how is it true that confusion has been produced by them? But if that is
+contained in the letters which both your Father hopes and your piety agrees
+to, what has he done? What is there in him blameworthy?' add your prayers
+and tears, entreat him, 'Let your imperial majesty consider God; put before
+your eyes his future judgment. The holy fathers who made these rules
+followed the faith of the blessed Apostle, on which the Church of Christ is
+built.'
+
+"If the emperor say, 'I receive the Council of Chalcedon, and I embrace
+the letters of Pope Leo, enter then into communion with me,' answer, 'In
+what order is that to take place? We do not avoid your piety, so declaring,
+since we know that you fear God, and rejoice that you are pleased to keep
+the constitutions of the fathers. We therefore confidently entreat you that
+the Church may return through you to unity. Let all the bishops learn your
+will, and that you keep the Council of Chalcedon, and the letters of Pope
+Leo, and the apostolical constitutions.' If he say, 'In what order is that
+to take place?' recur again, humbly, to entreaties, saying, 'Your Father
+has written to all the bishops. Join, herewith, your mandates to the effect
+that you maintain what the Apostolic See proclaims, and then let the
+orthodox not be separated from the unity of the Apostolic See, and the
+opponents will be made known. After that, your Father is even prepared, if
+need be, to be present himself, and, preserving the constitutions of the
+fathers, to deny nothing which is expedient for the Church's integrity.'
+
+"If the emperor say, 'Well, in the meantime accept the bishop of my city,'
+again beseech humbly, 'Imperial majesty, we have come with God's help in
+the hope of support on your part to make peace and restore tranquillity in
+your city. There is question here about two persons. The matter runs its
+proper course. First, let all the bishops be so ordered as to form one
+Catholic communion; next, the cause of those persons, or of any others who
+may be at a distance from their churches, can be specially considered.' If
+the emperor say, 'You are speaking of Macedonius; I see your subtlety. He
+is a heretic; he cannot possibly be recalled,' answer, 'Imperial majesty,
+we name no one personally; we speak rather in favour of your mind and
+opinion, that inquiry may be made, and, if he is heretical, a juridical
+sentence passed, that he may not be said to be unjustly deposed, being
+reputed orthodox'.
+
+"If the emperor should say, 'The bishop of this city consents to the
+Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope Leo,' answer, 'If he do so it
+will help him the more when his cause is examined; and since you have
+allowed your servant Vitalian to treat with the Pope, if he hoped for a
+good result on these matters, so let it be'. If the emperor say, 'Should my
+city remain without a bishop, is it your desire that where I am there
+should be no bishop?' reply, 'We said before there was a question about two
+persons in this city. As to the canons, we have already suggested that to
+break the canons is to sin against religion. There are many remedies by
+which your piety may not remain without communion, and the full judicial
+form may be preserved.' If he say, 'What are those forms?' reply, 'Not
+newly invented by us. The question as to other bishops may be suspended,
+and meanwhile a person who agrees with the confession of your piety and
+with the constitutions of the Apostolic See until the issue of the trial
+may hold the place of the bishop of Constantinople, if by God's help the
+bishops are willing to be in accordance with the Apostolic See. You have in
+the records of the Church the terms of the profession which they have to
+make.'
+
+"But if petitions be presented to you against other Catholic bishops,
+especially against those who shamelessly anathematise the Council of
+Chalcedon, and do not receive the letters of Pope St. Leo, take those
+petitions, but reserve the cause to the judgment of the Apostolic See, that
+you may give them a hope of being heard, and yet reserve the authority due
+to us. If, however, the emperor promise to do everything if we will grant
+our presence, urge in every way that his mandate first be sent to the
+bishops through the provinces, which one of you shall accompany, so that
+all may know that he keeps the Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope
+St. Leo. Then write to us that we prepare to come.
+
+"It is, moreover, the custom to present all bishops to the emperor through
+the bishop of Constantinople. If their skilful management so devise in
+recognising your legation that you see the emperor in the company of
+Timotheus, who appears now to govern the church of Constantinople, if you
+learn before your presentation that this is so contrived, say, 'The Father
+of your piety has so commanded and enjoined us that we should see your
+majesty without any bishop'. So remain until this custom be altered.
+
+"If an absolute refusal be given, or if it is so contrived that before you
+have an audience you are suddenly put with Timotheus, say, 'Let your piety
+grant us a private audience to set forth the causes for which we have been
+sent'. If he say, 'Speak before him,' answer, 'We do no offence, but our
+legation also contains his person, and he cannot be present at our
+communications'. And on no account enter into anything in his presence; but
+when he has gone out produce the text of your mission."
+
+The exact conditions which the legates carried to the emperor were these:
+"The Council of Chalcedon and the letters of Pope St. Leo to be kept. The
+emperor, in token of his agreement, to send an imperial letter to all the
+bishops signifying that he so believes and will so maintain. The bishops
+also to express their agreement in Church in presence of the Christian
+people that they embrace the holy faith of Chalcedon and the letters of
+Pope St. Leo, which he wrote against the heretics, Nestorius, Eutyches, and
+Dioscorus, also against their followers, Timotheus Ailouros, Peter, or
+those similarly guilty, likewise anathematising Acacius, formerly bishop of
+Constantinople, and also Peter of Antioch, with their associates. Writing
+thus with their own hand in presence of chosen men of repute, they will
+follow the formulary which we have issued by our notary.
+
+"Those who have been banished in the Church's cause are to be recalled for
+the hearing of the Apostolic See, that a trial and true examination may be
+held. Their cause to be reserved entire.
+
+"If any holding communion with the sacred Apostolic See, preaching and
+following the Catholic faith, have been driven away, or kept in banishment,
+these, it is just, to be first of all recalled.
+
+"Moreover, the injunction we have laid upon the legates, that if memorials
+be presented to them against bishops who have persecuted Catholics, their
+judgment be reserved to the Apostolic See, that in their case the
+constitutions of the fathers be maintained, by which all may be edified."
+
+Anastasius[96] tried again the old arts. He made a bid of everything to
+gain the legates. He seemed ready to accept everything save the demand
+regarding Acacius, which he was bound to reject on account of the Byzantine
+people. Both to the legates on their return to Rome, and to two officers of
+his court whom he sent to Rome, he gave honourable letters for the Pope,
+whom he invited to be present at the projected council, and endeavoured to
+satisfy fully by an orthodox profession of faith wherein he expressly
+recognised the Council of Chalcedon. One only point, he said, whatever
+might be his personal feeling, he could not concede, that regarding
+Acacius, since otherwise the living would be driven out of the Church for
+the dead, and great disturbances and blood-shedding would be inevitable. He
+left it to the Pope's consideration. He also wrote to the Roman senate to
+use its influence for the restoration of peace to the Church, as well with
+the Pope as with king Theodorick, "to whom," said the emperor, "the power
+and charge of governing you have been committed". It may be added that
+Theodorick favoured, as far as he could, the restoration of peace.
+
+Pope Hormisdas, in his answer, praised the zeal made show of by the
+emperor, and wished that his deeds would correspond to his words. He could
+not contain his astonishment that the promised embassy was so long in
+coming, and that the emperor instead of sending bishops to him, sent two
+laymen of his court, in whom he soon recognised Monophysites, who tried to
+gain him in their favour. In a letter to St. Avitus and the bishops of his
+province, he discloses the judgment which he had formed. "As to the Greeks,
+they speak peace with their mouth, but carry it not in their hearts; their
+words are just, not their actions; they pretend to wish what their deeds
+deny; what they professed, they neglect; and pursue the conduct which they
+condemned."[97] Still he resolved to send a new embassy to Constantinople
+in 517, at the head of which he put the bishops Ennodius and Peregrinus. He
+gave them letters to the emperor, the patriarch Timotheus, the clergy and
+people of Constantinople.
+
+Anastasius had endeavoured to delay the whole thing, and to deceive the
+orthodox until he found himself strong again, and was no longer in danger
+from Vitalian. To bribe the people, he gave the church of Constantinople
+seventy pounds' weight of gold for masses for the dead. With regard to the
+treatment of Acacius, he had the majority on his side, who were not easily
+brought to condemn him. Here, also, he had a pretext to break off impending
+agreements. When his wife Ariadne died, he showed himself still less
+inclined to peace. She had been devoted to Macedonius, and often interceded
+for the orthodox. As soon as he thought himself quite secure, he not only
+altered his behaviour and language to the Roman See, but, in the words of
+the Greek historian, about 200 bishops who had come to Heraclea from
+various parts had to separate without doing anything, "having been deluded
+by the lawless emperor and Timotheus, bishop of Constantinople".[98] The
+Pope's legates he tried to corrupt; when that did not succeed, he dismissed
+them in disgrace, and sent the Pope an insolent letter, in which he said he
+desisted from any requests to him, as reason forbade to throw away prayers
+on those who would listen to nothing, and while he might submit to
+injuries, he would not endure commands. Thereupon broke out a great
+persecution against Catholics, which the Archimandrites of the second Syria
+report to Hormisdas.
+
+In a supplication signed by more than two hundred, they address him:[99]
+"Most blessed Father, we beseech you, arise; have compassion on the mangled
+body, for you are the head of all. Come to save us. Imitate our Lord, who
+came from heaven on earth to seek out the strayed sheep. Remember Peter,
+prince of the Apostles, whose See you adorn, and Paul, the vessel of
+election, for they went about enlightening the earth. The flock goes out to
+meet you, the true shepherd and teacher, to whom the care of all the sheep
+is committed, as the Lord says, 'My sheep hear My voice'. Most holy,
+despise us not, who are daily wounded by wild beasts." All that the Roman
+See had gained was that the orthodox bishops and many conspicuous easterns
+attached themselves to it, and the formulary binding them to obedience to
+the decisions of the Roman See found very many subscribers. The empire was
+in the greatest confusion when Anastasius died suddenly in the year 518,
+hated by the majority of his people, as perjured, heretical, and rapacious.
+Just before him died the heretical patriarchs, John II. of Alexandria and
+Timotheus of Constantinople.
+
+Then suddenly,[100] as in the third century the Illyrian emperors saved the
+dissolving empire, another peasant, who in long and honourable service had
+risen to the rank of general, and was respected by all men as a virtuous
+man and a good Catholic, was called to take up that eastern crown of
+Constantine, which Zeno and Anastasius had soiled with the iniquities and
+perfidies of forty years.
+
+At Bederiana, on the borders of Thrace and Illyria, there had lived three
+young men, Zimarchus, Ditybiotus, and Justin. Under pressure of misfortune
+they deserted the plough, and sought a livelihood elsewhere. They started
+on foot, their clothes packed on their backs, no money in their purses,
+with a loaf in their knapsacks. They came to Byzantium and enlisted. Twenty
+years of age and well grown, they attracted the notice of the emperor Leo
+I.: he enrolled them among his life-guards. Justin served as captain in the
+Isaurian war. For some unknown fault he was condemned to death by his
+general, and the next day was to be executed. The general, says Procopius,
+was changed by a vision which he saw that night. Under Anastasius, Justin
+rose to the rank of senator, patrician, and commander of the imperial
+guard. On the death of Anastasius, the eunuch Amantius, who was lord
+chamberlain, and had been up to that time all powerful, sent for Justin,
+and gave him great sums of money to get the voice of the soldiers and the
+people, for a creature of his own, named Theocritus, in whose name he
+intended to rule. Justin distributed the money in his own name, and on the
+9th July was proclaimed emperor by army and people. He was sixty-eight
+years old, and, if Procopius may be believed, could not even write his own
+name, at least in Latin. But he was of long experience, and admirable in
+the management of affairs. His wife was named Lupicina, of barbarian birth.
+Justin, in the first year of his service, had bought her as a slave, and
+married her. When he became emperor he crowned her as empress, and with the
+applause of the people gave her the name of Euphemia. He had a nephew born
+at Tauresium, a village of Dardania, near Bederiana. He was called Uprauda
+in his own land; his father was Istock, his mother Vigleniza. The Romans
+changed these Teuton names to Justinian, Sabbatius, and Vigilantia.
+Uprauda, the Upright, was the future emperor Justinian.
+
+The accession of Justin was received with universal joy; and the new
+emperor at once sent a high officer, Gratus, count of the sacred
+consistory, to announce it to Pope Hormisdas, with a letter in which he
+said that "John, who had succeeded as bishop of Constantinople, and the
+other bishops assembled there from various regions, having written to your
+Holiness for the unity of the churches, have earnestly besought us also to
+address our imperial letters to your Beatitude. We entreat you, then, to
+assist the desires of these most reverend prelates, and by your prayers to
+render favourable the divine majesty to us and the commonwealth, the
+government of which has been entrusted to us by God."[101]
+
+The count Justinian also wrote to Pope Hormisdas that "the divine mercy,
+regarding the sorrows of the human race, had at length brought about this
+time of desire. Thus I am free to write to your apostolate, our Lord, the
+emperor, desiring to restore the churches to unity. A great part has been
+already done. It only requires to obtain the consent of your Beatitude
+respecting the name of Acacius. For this reason his majesty has sent to you
+my most particular friend Gratus, a man of the highest rank, that you might
+condescend to come to Constantinople for the restoration of concord, or at
+least hasten to send bishops hither, for the whole world in our parts is
+impatient for the restoration of unity."[102]
+
+The result was that Pope Hormisdas held a council at Rome in 518, at which
+all that had been done by his predecessors, the Popes Simplicius, Felix,
+Gelasius, and Symmachus, was carefully reviewed, and all present decreed
+that the eastern Church should be received into communion with the
+Apostolic See, if they condemned the schismatic Acacius, entirely effacing
+his name, and also expunged from the diptychs Euphemius and Macedonius, as
+involved in the same guilt of schism. And a pontifical legation was then
+named to carry out the desire of the council, and they bore with them an
+instruction, from which they might not depart by a hair's-breadth.[103]
+
+The Pope wrote letters to the emperor, to the empress, to the count
+Justinian, especially to the bishop of Constantinople, recommending his
+legates, and exhorting the bishop to complete the work which was begun by
+condemning Acacius and his followers; also to the archdeacon Theodosius and
+the clergy of Constantinople.[104] He points out especially that he wants
+nothing new, or unusual, or improper, for Christian antiquity had ever
+avoided those who had associated with persons condemned; whoever teaches
+what Rome teaches, must also condemn what Rome condemns; whoever honours
+what the Pope honours, must likewise detest what he detests. A perfect
+peace admits of no division. The worship of one and the same God can only
+hold its truth in the unity of confession which embodies the belief.
+
+The papal legates were received honourably on their journey, and found the
+bishops in general disposed to sign the formulary issued by the Pope. In
+March, 519, they came to Constantinople, where they found the greatest
+readiness. The patriarch John took the formulary, and gave it the form of
+a letter, which seemed to him more honourable than a formulary such as
+those who had fallen would sign. He prefixed to the document which the Pope
+required to be subscribed the following preface:
+
+"Brother most dear in Christ, when I received the letters of your Holiness,
+by the noble count Gratus, and now by the bishops Germanus and John, the
+deacons Felix and Dioscorus, the priest Blandus, I rejoiced at the
+spiritual charity of your Holiness, in bringing back the unity of God's
+most sacred churches, according to the ancient tradition of the fathers,
+and in hastening to reject those who tear to pieces Christ's reasonable
+flock. Be then assured that, as I have written to you, I am in all things
+one with you in the truth. All those rejected by you as heretics I also
+reject for the love of peace. For I accept as one the most holy churches of
+God, yours of elder, and this of new Rome; yours the See of the Apostle
+Peter, and this of the imperial city, I define to be one. I assent to all
+the acts of the four holy councils--that is, of Nicaea, Constantinople,
+Ephesus, and Chalcedon--done for the confirmation of the faith and the
+state of the Church, and suffer nothing of their good judgments to be
+shaken; but I know that those who have endeavoured to disturb a single iota
+of their decrees have fallen from the holy, universal, and apostolical
+Church; and using plainly your own right words, I declare by this present
+writing,"[105] &c.
+
+This is the preface given to his letter by the patriarch John; he then
+adds the formulary issued by the Pope from his council in Rome as the terms
+of restored communion between the East and West.
+
+"The first condition of salvation is to maintain the rule of a right faith,
+and to deviate no whit from the tradition of the fathers; because the
+decree of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be passed over, in which He says,
+'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church '. These words
+are proved by their effect in deed, because the Catholic religion is ever
+kept inviolate in the Apostolic See. Desiring, therefore, not to fall from
+this faith, and following in all thing the constitutions of the fathers, we
+anathematise all heresies, but especially the heretic Nestorius, formerly
+bishop of Constantinople, condemned in the Council of Ephesus by
+Coelestine, Pope of Rome, and the venerable Cyril, bishop of Alexandria;
+and together with him we anathematise Eutyches and Dioscorus, bishop of
+Alexandria, condemned in the holy Council of Chalcedon, which we follow and
+embrace with veneration, which followed the holy Nicene Council, and set
+forth the apostolic faith. To these we join Timotheus the parricide,
+surnamed Ailouros, and anathematise him, condemning in like manner Peter of
+Alexandria, his disciple and follower in all things; so also we
+anathematise Acacius, formerly bishop of Constantinople, who became their
+accomplice and follower, and those who persevere in communion and
+participation with them; for whoever embraces the communion of condemned
+persons shares their judgment. In like manner we condemn and anathematise
+Peter of Antioch, with all his followers. Hence we approve and embrace all
+the letters of St. Leo, Pope of Rome, which he wrote in the right faith.
+Therefore, as aforesaid, following in all things the Apostolic See, we
+preach all which it has decreed; and therefore I trust to be with you in
+that one communion which the Apostolic See proclaims, in which the solidity
+of the Christian religion rests entire and perfect,[106] promising that
+these who in future are severed from the communion of the Catholic Church,
+that is, who do not in all things agree with the Apostolic See, shall not
+have their names recited in the sacred mysteries. But if I attempt in aught
+to vary from this my profession, I declare that by my own condemnation I
+partake with those whom I have condemned. I have subscribed with my own
+hand to this profession, and directed it in writing to thee, Hormisdas, my
+holy and most blessed brother, and Pope of Great Rome, by the above-named
+venerable bishops, Germanus and John, the deacons Felix and Dioscorus, the
+priest Blandus."
+
+The names of Acacius, Fravita, Euphemius, and Timotheus, four bishops of
+Constantinople, also of the emperors Zeno and Anastasius, who reigned from
+474 to 518 (if we include a few months of Basiliscus), were erased from the
+diptychs in the presence of the legates. After that, at the instance of the
+emperor, the other bishops, the abbots, and the senate had signed the
+formulary, a solemn service was celebrated, to the great joy of the
+people, in the Cathedral on Easter eve, the 24th March, to mark the act of
+reconciliation, and not the least disturbance took place. The official
+narration[107] of the five legates to Pope Hormisdas records the enthusiasm
+with which they were received at Constantinople. "From the palace we went
+to the church with the vast crowd. No one can believe the exultation of the
+people, nor doubt that the Divine Hand was there, bestowing such unity on
+the world. We signify to you that in our presence the name of the
+anathematised prevaricator, Acacius, was struck out of the diptychs, as
+likewise that of the other bishops who followed him in communion. So also
+the names of Anastasius and Zeno. By your prayers peace was restored to the
+minds of Christians: there is one soul, one joy, in the whole Church; only
+the enemy of the human race, crushed by the power of your prayer, is in
+mourning."
+
+The emperor Justin wrote to Pope Hormisdas:
+
+"Most religious Father, know that what we have so long earnestly sought to
+effect is done. John, the bishop of New Rome, together with his clergy,
+agrees with you. The formulary which you ordered, which is in agreement
+with the council of the most holy Fathers, has been subscribed by him. In
+accordance with that formulary, the mention at the divine mysteries of the
+prevaricator Acacius, formerly bishop of this city, has been forbidden for
+the future, as well as of the other bishops who either first came against
+the apostolic constitutions, or became successors of their error, and
+remained unrepentant to death. And since all our realm is to be admonished
+to imitate the example of the imperial city, we have directed everywhere
+our princely commands, so great is our desire to restore the peace of the
+Catholic faith to our commonwealth, to gain for my subjects the divine
+protection. For those whom the same realm contains, the same worship
+enlightens, what greater blessing can they have than to venerate with one
+mind laws of no human origin, but proceeding from the Divine Spirit? Let
+your Holiness pray that the divine gift of unity, so long laboured for by
+us, may be perpetually preserved."[108]
+
+Thus history tells us that, in the year 484, Acacius, bishop of
+Constantinople, being condemned by Pope Felix, answered by striking the
+name of Pope Felix out of the diptychs, and that, in the year 519, the name
+of Acacius was erased from the diptychs in his own church; that his own
+successor not only gave up his memory, but, together with 2500
+bishops,[109] signed a formulary which attributes to the Roman See the
+words of our Lord to St. Peter, which declares "that the Catholic religion
+is ever kept inviolate in the Apostolic See," "in which the solidity of the
+Christian religion rests entire and perfect," and which lays down the rule
+that whoever does not live and die in the communion of the Roman See has no
+claim to commemoration in the Church.
+
+Let us now shortly review the facts which have passed under our notice
+since St. Leo returned from his interview with the pirate Genseric in the
+year 455.
+
+In that fatal year the Theodosian house became extinct in the West so far
+as government was concerned. Valentinian's miserable widow, daughter of the
+eastern, wife of the western, emperor, during a short two months the prey
+of her husband's murderer, became with her daughters the captive of the
+Vandal freebooter, and saw the elder compelled to marry his son Hunnerich,
+the future persecutor of the Church. Twenty years succeed in which emperors
+are enthroned and pass like shadows, until the Herule general Odoacer,
+commanding for the time the Teuton mercenaries, deposes the last imperial
+phantom, Romulus Augustulus, and rules Rome and Italy with the title of
+Patricius. The western emperor is suppressed.
+
+In 457, the Theodosian house becomes extinct in the East by the death of
+the emperor Marcian, before whom the heiress of the empire, St. Pulcheria,
+granddaughter of the great Thedosius, had died in 453. He was succeeded by
+Leo, a soldier of fortune, but an orthodox emperor, who supported St. Leo.
+The emperor Leo reigned until 474, and after a few months, in which his
+child grandson, Leo II., nominally reigned, the eastern crown was taken by
+Zeno and held till 491, with the exception of twenty months in which
+Basiliscus, a successful insurgent, was in possession. As Zeno had reigned
+in virtue of being husband of the princess Ariadne, daughter of Leo I., so
+Anastasius, in 491, in the words of the Greek chronicle, "succeeded to his
+wife and the empire," and he reigned twenty-seven years, to 518.
+
+During this whole period, from the death of the emperor Leo I. in 474 to
+that of the emperor Anastasius in 518, the political state of the East and
+West was most perilous to the Church. In the East, the three sovereigns,
+Zeno, Basiliscus, and Anastasius, were unsound in their belief, treacherous
+in their action, scandalous in their life. The Popes addressed with honour,
+as the vice-gerents of divine power, men whom, as to their personal
+character, they must have loathed. Their government, moreover, was
+disastrous to their subjects--a tissue of insurrections, barbaric invasion,
+and devastation; at home, civil corruption of every kind.
+
+In the West, Teuton conquerors had taken possession of the Roman empire.
+The Herule Odoacer had been put to death in 493 by the Ostrogoth
+Theodorick, who, like Odoacer before him, reigned with cognisance and
+approbation of the eastern emperor for thirty-three years. Both Odoacer and
+Theodorick were Arians; so also Genseric and his son Hunnerich, who ruled
+the former Roman provinces in Africa; so the Visigoths in southern France
+and Spain; so the Burgundians at Lyons. One conquering race only, that of
+the Franks, was not Arian, but pagan, until the conversion of Clovis, in
+496, gave to the West one sovereign, Catholic and friendly to the Pope. We
+have seen in what terms Pope Anastasius welcomed his baptism. The
+population in the old Roman provinces which remained faithful to the
+Catholic religion was a portion of the old proprietors, such as had not
+been dispossessed by the successive confiscations and redistributions of
+land under the victorious northern invaders, and the poor, whether dwelling
+in cities or cultivating the soil. And these looked up everywhere to their
+several bishops for support and encouragement under every sort of trial.
+All men were sorted under two divisions in the vast regions for which
+Stilicho had fought and conquered in vain: the one division was Arian and
+Teuton, the other Catholic and Roman. And as the several Catholic people
+looked to their bishops, so all these bishops looked to the Pope; and St.
+Avitus expressed every bishop's strongest conviction when he said, writing
+in the name of them all, "In the case of other bishops, if there be any
+lapse it may be restored; but if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not one
+bishop, but the episcopate itself will seem to be shaken".
+
+When the western emperor was suppressed the Pope became locally subject for
+about fourteen years to the Arian Odoacer, and then for a full generation
+to the Arian Theodorick. The latter soon found, by a calculation of
+interest, that the only way to rule Italy and the adjoining territories
+which his conquering arms had attached to Italy was by maintaining civil
+justice and equality among all his subjects. He took two of the noblest
+Romans, Boethius and Cassiodorus, for his friends and counsellors, and in
+the letters of the latter, from about the year 500 to the end of
+Theodorick's reign, we possess most valuable information as to the way in
+which Theodorick governed. Odoacer would seem likewise, during the years of
+his government until he was shut up in Ravenna, to have followed a like
+policy. But that the position of the Pope under Odoacer and Theodorick was
+one of great difficulty and delicacy no one can doubt. Gelasius speaks of
+his having had to resist Odoacer "by God's help, when he enjoined things
+not to be done".[110] And in 526 Pope John I. paid with his life, in the
+dungeon of Ravenna, the penalty for not having satisfied the Arian
+exactions of Theodorick in the eastern embassy imposed upon him.
+
+I mention these things very summarily, having already given them with more
+or less detail, but I must needs recur to them because, in weighing the
+transactions which the schism of Acacius brought about, it is essential to
+bear in mind throughout the embarrassed and subject political situation in
+which all the Popes concerned with that schism found themselves.
+
+Within seven years after the western emperor had been suppressed, and the
+overlordship of the East been acknowledged by the Roman senate as well as
+the Teuton conqueror, what happened?
+
+A bishop of Constantinople, as able and popular as he was unscrupulous, had
+established a mental domination over the eastern emperor Zeno. He reigned
+in the utmost sacerdotal pomp at Constantinople; he beheld Old Rome sunk
+legally to the mere rank of a municipal city, and the See of St. Peter in
+it subject to an Arian of barbaric blood. He thought the time was come for
+the bishop of the imperial city to emancipate himself from the control of
+the Lateran Patriarcheium. Having gained great renown by his defence of the
+Council of Chalcedon against the usurper Basiliscus, having denounced at
+Rome the misdeeds and the heresy of the Eutychean who was elected by that
+party at Alexandria, and having so been high in the trust of Pope
+Simplicius, he turned against both Pope and Council. He set up two heretics
+as patriarchs--Peter the Stammerer, the very man he had denounced, at
+Alexandria, and Peter the Fuller at Antioch. He composed a doctrinal
+statement, called the "Form of Union," which, by the emperor's edict, was
+imposed on the eastern bishops. It was a scarcely-veiled Eutychean
+document. He called to his aid all the jealousy which Nova Roma felt for
+her elder sister, all the pride which she felt for the exaltation of her
+own bishop. If he succeeded in maintaining his own nominees in the two
+original patriarchates of the East, he succeeded at the same time in
+subjecting them to his own see. He crowned that series of encroachments
+which had advanced step by step since the 150 bishops of the purely eastern
+council held at Constantinople just a hundred years before set the
+exaltation of the imperial city on a false foundation. In fact, if this his
+enterprise succeeded, he obtained the realisation of the 28th canon, which
+Anatolius attempted to pass at Chalcedon, and which Pope Leo had
+overthrown. But most of all, both in the government of the Church and in
+the supreme magisterium, the determination of the Church's true doctrine,
+he deposed the successor of St. Peter, and but one single step remained, to
+which all his conduct implied the intention to proceed. For the logical
+basis of that conduct was the assertion that, as the bishop of Rome had
+been supreme when, and because, Rome was the capital of the empire, so when
+Constantinople had succeeded Rome as capital, her bishop also succeeded to
+the spiritual rights of the Primacy.
+
+We may sum up the attempt of Acacius in a single word: the denial that the
+Pope had succeeded to the universal Pastorship of St. Peter.
+
+This, then, was the point at issue, and when the western emperor was
+suppressed, and the overlordship of the eastern emperor acknowledged, the
+Pope was deprived of all temporal support, and left to meet the attack of
+Acacius in the naked power of his apostolate. From the year 483, when the
+deeds of Acacius led to his excommunication, followed by the schism, to its
+termination in 519, the Popes, being subjects of Arian sovereigns, who were
+likewise of barbaric descent, braved the whole civil power of the eastern
+emperors, as well as the whole ecclesiastical influence of the bishops of
+Constantinople. Not only were Zeno and Anastasius unorthodox, but likewise
+they were bent on increasing the influence of that bishop whom they
+nominated and controlled. The sovereigns of the East had been able, even by
+a simple practice of Byzantine etiquette, to put their own bishop in a
+position of determining influence over the whole eastern episcopate. For
+we learn from the instruction of Pope Hormisdas to his legates that it was
+the custom for every bishop to be presented to the emperor by the bishop of
+Constantinople. The Pope most strictly enjoins his legates not to submit to
+this. The effect of such a rule upon the eastern bishops who frequented the
+court of an absolute sovereign exhibits another cause of that perpetual
+growth which accrues to the bishop of the imperial city.
+
+Every human power, every conjunction of circumstances, seemed to be against
+the Popes in this struggle. While the East was thus in hostile hands, under
+emperors who were either secretly or avowedly heretical, the West was under
+Arian domination. Italy was ruled from 493 to 526 by a man of great
+ability. Few rulers have surpassed Theodorick either in success as a
+warrior or in political skill. He had, further, enlaced the contemporary
+rulers in the various countries of the West in ties of relationship with
+himself. He had married Andefleda, sister of Clovis; he gave Theudigotha,
+one of his own daughters by a concubine, to Alaric of Toulouse, king of the
+Visigoths, and another, Ostrogotha, to Sigismund, king of the Burgundians,
+at Lyons. Even before he had conquered Odoacer, in 493, he was in strict
+alliance with the king of the Vandals in Africa, to whom he gave his sister
+Amalafrieda to wife, and her daughter Amalaberga to the king of the
+Thuringians. He solicited the royal title in 496 by an embassy to
+Anastasius, and the result of that embassy was that the chief man in it,
+Faustus, patrician and senator, when he returned to Rome, contrived to
+raise a schism in the clergy itself against Pope Symmachus. This schism was
+the greatest difficulty which the Pope in all this period encountered.
+Theodorick in political talent and warlike genius reminds historians of
+Charlemagne: but instead of having that monarch's faith, he was an Arian.
+His equal treatment of Arian and Catholic was a carefully thought-out
+policy; nor did he scruple at the very end of his career to sacrifice even
+the very life of the Pope to his political schemes. He favoured the senate
+of Rome in its corporate capacity; he favoured individual senators, but
+always as instruments of his own absolute rule, the key to which was to
+unite the use of the Roman mind in administration with the Gothic arm in
+action. When the end of the schism came, he had married his only child
+Amalasunta, the heiress of his kingdom, to Eutharic, who in the first year
+of the emperor Justin was consul of Rome with that prince, and nominated by
+him.
+
+On what, then, did the Pope rely? On one thing only--that in the inmost
+conscience of the Church, in East and West, he was recognised as St.
+Peter's successor; that upon everyone who sat in the Apostolic See had
+descended the mighty inheritance, the charge which no man could execute
+except he were empowered by divine command and sustained by divine support.
+For as it required God to utter the words, "Upon this rock I will build My
+Church"; "If thou lovest Me, feed My sheep"; "Confirm thy brethren "; so
+it no less required God to enable any man to fulfil that charge. But how
+when it comes to a succession of men? How many families can show a
+continuous succession of three temporal rulers equally great? Can any
+family show four such? Can anyone calculate the power which maintains such
+a succession through centuries?
+
+Here, after four full centuries, in that one belief the seven next
+successors of St. Leo--Hilarus, Simplicius, Felix, Gelasius, Anastasius,
+Symmachus, and Hormisdas--stood as one man. Their counsels did not vary.
+Their resolve was one. Their course was straight. In Leo's time the earth
+reeled beneath the tread of Attila, the city groaned beneath Genseric's
+hoof. And now three heretics--despots, and ignoble despots, if ever such
+there were--filled the sole imperial throne. Arians, closely connected by
+family ties and identical interests, divided the West among them. The seven
+Popes sat on at the Lateran in the palace which Constantine had given them,
+and said Mass in the church which he had built for them. Three of his
+degenerate successors tried every art against them and failed. During
+twenty years of this time, from 476 to 496, no ruler small or great
+acknowledged the Catholic faith. The East was Eutychean, the West Arian. At
+length St. Remigius baptised the Frankish chief as first-born of the Teuton
+race in the Catholic faith of the Holy Trinity, and the Pope at Rome gave
+utterance as a father to his joy. The end was that the schism was
+terminated on the part of the bishop, the heir of the seat and the
+ambition of Acacius, by the prince, by his nobles, among them the
+legislator who was to be Justinian, and by 2500 bishops throughout the
+East, acknowledging in distinct terms that one unique authority on which
+the Popes had rested throughout the contest. They declared solemnly, in
+celebrating the holiest mystery of the Christian faith, that the word of
+the Lord cannot be passed over, saying, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock
+I will build My Church". They added that the course of five hundred years
+had exemplified the fact "that the solidity of the Christian religion rests
+entire and perfect in the Apostolic See". The rebellion of Acacius in 483
+drew forth this confession from his successor, John II., in 519.
+
+The seven successors of St. Leo stood as one man. No variation in their
+language or their conduct can be found. Not so the seven successors of
+Anatolius at Constantinople. That bishop, who had seen himself foiled by
+the vigour and sagacity of St. Leo at the Council of Chalcedon, lived
+afterwards on good terms with him, and died in 458, in his lifetime. He was
+succeeded by Gennadius, who, during the thirteen years of his episcopate,
+was faithful both to the creed which St. Leo had preserved and to the
+dignity of the Apostolic See. He was followed by Acacius, who occupied the
+see from 471 to 489. There was some quality in Acacius which gained the
+favour of princes. He had charmed at once the old emperor Leo I.; but Zeno,
+whose influence first made him bishop, afterwards followed all his
+teaching. He had also gained a renown for orthodoxy by refusing the
+attempt of Basiliscus to make the imperial will a rule of Church doctrine.
+It was when his stronger mind had mastered Zeno that he began the desperate
+attempt against the doctrine and discipline of the Apostolic See which has
+been our chief subject. But when he died in 489, his successor Fravita at
+once renounced the position which he had taken up by asking the recognition
+of Pope Felix and restoring his name in the diptychs. It is true that in
+his conduct he was double-dealing, and, while he sought for the Pope's
+recognition, parleyed with the heretical patriarch of Alexandria. But he
+died in three months, and was succeeded by Euphemius, who likewise
+repudiated the act of Acacius, and earnestly sought reconciliation with the
+Pope, while he was unwilling to fulfil the condition of it--that he should
+erase the name of Acacius from the diptychs. The six years' episcopate of
+Euphemius was one long contest with the treachery and persecution of the
+emperor Anastasius, who at last, by help of the resident council, was able
+to depose him. He placed Macedonius in his stead, who again sought to be
+reconciled with the Pope, but only would not pay the price of renouncing
+the person, as he fully renounced the conduct, of Acacius. During fifteen
+years, from 496 to 511, as Euphemius had resisted the covert heresy of
+Anastasius, so did Macedonius, and, like him, he fell at last before the
+enmity of the emperor. Upon the deposition of Macedonius, the emperor
+obtained the election of Timotheus, who during seven years was his docile
+instrument. When he died in 518, the bishop John was elected, whose great
+desire was the restoration of unity, with the maintenance of the faith of
+Chalcedon. By side of the seven Popes succeeding St. Leo put the seven
+bishops of the emperor's city. We find two--the first and the
+last--Gennadius and John, blameless. The second, Acacius, author of all the
+evil in a schism of thirty-five years. The third, the fourth, and the fifth
+shrink from the deed of Acacius; and two of them are deposed by the
+emperor, while his people respect and cherish their memory. The sixth is a
+mere tool of the emperor.
+
+Four eastern emperors occupy the sixty years from Marcian to Justin. Three
+of them are of the very worst which even Byzantium can show. Their reply to
+the appeal of the Pope to "the Christian prince and Roman emperor" was to
+betray the faith and sacrifice Rome to Arian occupation.
+
+But when we turn from the bishops and emperors of the eastern capital to
+the seats of the ancient patriarchs, to the Alexandria of Athanasius and
+Cyril, to the Antioch of Ignatius, Chrysostom, and Eustathius, no words can
+express the division, the scandals, the excesses, which the Eutychean
+spirit, striving to overthrow the Council of Chalcedon, showed during those
+sixty years. With this spirit Acacius played to stir up the eastern
+jealousy against the Apostolic See of the West, and he found a most willing
+coadjutor in the eastern emperor, the more so because that See was no
+longer locally situated in his domain. The chance of Acacius lay
+throughout in the pride of that monarch who was become the sole inheritor
+of the Roman name, as Pope Felix reminded him, and who would fain see Nova
+Roma the centre of ecclesiastical rule, as it was become the head of the
+diminished empire. Anastasius, after Zeno, was still more swayed by these
+motives than his predecessor.
+
+But here we touch the completeness of the success which followed the trust
+placed in their apostolate by the seven immediate successors of St. Leo. In
+proportion as Rome became in the temporal order a mere municipal city, the
+sacerdotal authority of its bishop came out into clearer light. Three times
+in the fifth century Rome was mercilessly sacked--in 410, in 455, in 472.
+Its senators were carried into slavery, its population diminished. The
+finishing stroke of its ignominy may be said to be the deposition, by a
+barbarian _condottiere_, of the poor boy whose name, repeating in
+connection the founder of the city with the founder of the empire, seemed
+to mock the mortal throes of the great mother. But this lessening of the
+secular city, so far from lessening the authority of the spiritual power,
+reveals to all men, believers or unbelievers, that the pontificate, whose
+seat is locally in the city, has a life not derived from the city. Rome's
+temporal fall exhibits in full the intangible spiritual character of the
+pontificate. If St. Peter had to any seemed to rule because he was seated
+on the pedestal of the Caesarean empire, when that empire fell the Apostle
+alone remained to whom Christ gave the charge, whom He invested with the
+"great mantle".[111] The bishop of the city in which an Arian Ostrogoth
+ruled supreme as to temporal things was acknowledged by the head of the
+empire, from whom the Ostrogoth derived his title, as the person in whom
+our Lord's word--the creative word which founds an empire as it makes a
+world--was accomplished, had been during five hundred years accomplished,
+would be for ever accomplished.[112]
+
+The malice of Acacius largely led to this result. His attack was the
+prelude to the sifting of the Pope's prerogative during thirty-five years:
+its sifting by a rival at Constantinople, by the eastern bishops, by the
+eastern emperor, who had now also become the sole Roman emperor; and the
+sifting was followed by a full acknowledgment. Nothing but this hostile
+conduct would have afforded so indubitable a proof of the thing impugned.
+While the ancient patriarchates which had formed the substructure of the
+triple dais on which the Apostolic See rested were falling into
+irretrievable confusion, while the new State-made patriarch at
+Constantinople was trying to nominate and, if he could, to consecrate his
+elders and superiors at Alexandria and Antioch, who descended from Peter,
+the essential prerogative of the Apostolic See itself came forth into full
+light. The bishops at Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and
+every other city in the world would be great or small in influence
+according to the greatness or smallness of their city. If the city fell
+altogether, the see would fall. Its life was tied to the city. But it was
+not so with that pontificate on which the Church was built. There and there
+only the living power was given by Christ to a man: not local, nor limited,
+nor transitory. This was the great truth which the Acacian schism helped to
+establish in the minds of men, and which was proclaimed in that Nova Roma
+where Acacius had refused the judgment of Pope Felix, and had tried to put
+himself on an equality. As a result, in the terms of union which have been
+above recited, the action of Acacius has had the honour to condemn the
+rebellion of Photius three hundred years before it arose, and every other
+rebellion which has imitated that of Photius.
+
+Nor must it be forgotten that it was the constancy of the Popes in these
+sixty years which alone prevented the prevailing of Eutychean doctrine in
+the East. Blent with that doctrine was the attempt of three emperors to
+substitute themselves as judges of doctrine for the Apostolic See and the
+bishops in union with it. At the moment when John Talaia[113] was expelled
+from Alexandria, the Monophysite heresy, espoused by Acacius and imposed by
+Zeno, would have triumphed, save for the Popes Simplicius and Felix. And it
+would have triumphed while the instrument of its triumph, the Henotikon,
+would have inflicted a deadly blow upon the government of the Church by
+taking away the independence of her teaching office. This struggle
+continued during the reign of Zeno; and Anastasius, as soon as he became
+emperor, used all the absolute power which he possessed to enforce the
+reception of the same document. Even Euphemius and Macedonius were obliged
+to sign it, and the sacrifice which they made in suffering deposition does
+not deliver their character of bishops from the stain of this weakness. We
+see in this period the first stadium traversed by the Greek Church in that
+descending course which, in another century, brought it to the ruin wrought
+by Mahomet.
+
+On the other hand, the seven Popes kept the position of St. Leo--rather,
+they more than kept it, because, under outward circumstances so greatly
+altered for the worse, they both maintained his doctrine and justified his
+conduct. They insisted through the darkest times, under pressure of the
+greatest calamities, deprived of all temporal aid, that the person of
+Acacius should be solemnly removed from recognition as a bishop by the
+Church. They insisted, and it was done. The act of Acacius, if allowed to
+pass, would have carried into actual life the assertion of the canon which
+St. Leo had rejected: that the privileges of the Roman See were derived
+from the grant of the Fathers to Rome because it was the capital. The
+expunging of his name from the diptychs, with the solemn asseveration that
+the rank of the Holy See was derived from the gift of Christ, and that the
+Church's solidity as a fabric consisted in it, and equally the maintenance
+of the Catholic religion, established the contradictory of that 28th canon,
+and enforced for ever the subordination of the see which Acacius sought to
+exalt. At the same time it pointed out the distinction between the See of
+Peter and all other sees: the distinction that in the case of every other
+bishop the spiritual life of the bishop, as a ruler, is local and attached
+to his see. But the See of Peter is the generator of the episcopate,
+because of Peter ever living in his successor.
+
+It may also be remarked that it is this overflowing life of Peter which
+invests titular bishops with the names of dead sees. Thus they sit as
+members of a General Council, verifying to the letter St. Cyprian's adage,
+that the episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each without
+division of the whole.
+
+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.; Labbe, 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 Roehrbacher, viii. 486; Civilta,
+1855, art. 9, pp. 152-3; Hefele, ii. 607; Photius, i. 136.
+
+[74] Photius, i. 137. Der Einfluss des roemischen Stuhles war doch mehr
+durch die Erneuerung des laurentianischen Schisma als durch die Macht der
+arianischen Ostgothen auf laengere Zeit gelaehmt.
+
+[75] _Ep._ vi.; Mansi, viii. 213-217.
+
+[76] Qualiscunque praesulis 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 praesules institutos
+suis literis praevenerunt, et illam confessionem fidemque praecipuam,
+tanquam boni filii, quaesierunt debitae pietatis affectu, cui noscis ipsius
+Domini Salvatoris ore curam totius Ecclesiae delegatam.
+
+[79] Ubi te, rerum humanarum princeps, qualiscunque Sedis Apostolicae
+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 misericordiae," 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; Roehrbacher, 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 Ecclesiae suae 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 Roehrbacher, viii. 532, book 43, 81, mostly followed.
+
+[101] Mansi, viii. 435.
+
+[102] Mansi, viii. 438.
+
+[103] Mansi, viii. 441. Indiculus quem acceperunt legati Apostolicae 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 Christianae 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] Hergenroether, _K.G._, i. 333.
+
+[114] See Photius, i. 149.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+JUSTINIAN.
+
+
+The submission of the eastern empire and episcopate to Pope Hormisdas, in
+519, is a memorable incident in the history of the Church. A large and
+marked part in it was taken by the man who for thirty-eight years was to
+rule the eastern empire, to expel the Goths from Italy, thus recovering the
+original seat of Roman power, and the Vandals from Africa, and so once more
+attach the great southern provinces, for so many ages the granary of Rome
+and Italy itself, to the existing Byzantine realm. Before, however, this
+was done, when, after the death of Theodorick, the Gothic kingdom still
+subsisted under his grandson Athalarick and his daughter Amalasunta, the
+emperor Justinian addressed to Pope John II., in the year 533, a letter
+from which I quote as follows. I preface that this letter was carried to
+the Pope by two imperial legates, the bishops Hypatius and Demetrius. It
+begins:[115] "Rendering honour to the Apostolic See and to your Holiness,
+whom we ever have revered, and do revere, as is befitting a father, we
+hasten to bring to the knowledge of your Holiness everything which
+concerns the state of the churches. For the existing unity of your
+Apostolic See, and the present undisturbed state of God's holy churches,
+has always been a thing which we have earnestly sought to maintain. And so
+we lost no time in subjecting and uniting all bishops of the whole eastern
+region[116] to the See of your Holiness. We have now, therefore, held it
+necessary that the points mooted, though they are clear and beyond doubt,
+and have been ever firmly maintained and proclaimed by all bishops
+according to the teaching of your Apostolic See, should be brought to the
+knowledge of your Holiness. For we do not allow that anything concerning
+the state of the churches, clear and undoubted though it be, when once
+mooted, should not be made known to your Holiness, who is the head of all
+the holy churches. For, as we said, in all things we hasten to increase the
+honour and authority of your See." He then proceeds to recite a creed which
+carefully condemns the errors of Nestorius on the one side, and Eutyches on
+the other, and acknowledges "the holy and glorious Virgin Mary to be
+properly and truly Mother of God". At the beginning of this creed he
+introduces the words: "All bishops of the holy and apostolic Church, and
+the most reverend archimandrites of the sacred monasteries, following your
+Holiness, and maintaining that state and unity of God's holy churches which
+they have from the Apostolic See of your Holiness, changing no wit of that
+ecclesiastical state which has held and holds now, confess with one
+consent," &c. And he concludes with the words: "All bishops, therefore,
+following the doctrine of your Apostolic See, so believe, confess, and
+preach: for which we have hastened to bring this to the knowledge of your
+Holiness, by the bishops Hypatius and Demetrius; and we beg your fatherly
+affection, that by letters addressed to us, and to the bishop and
+patriarch, your brother, of this imperial city (since he on the same
+occasion wrote to your Holiness, being earnest in all things to follow the
+Apostolic See), you would make known to us that your Holiness receives all
+who make the above true confession. For so the love of all to you and the
+authority of your See will increase, and the unity of the holy churches
+with you will be preserved unbroken, when all bishops learn through you the
+sincere doctrine of your Holiness in what has been reported to you. But we
+beseech your Holiness to pray for us, and obtain for us the guardianship of
+God."
+
+Pope John II. acknowledges this letter to "his most gracious son, Justinian
+Augustus". He highly celebrates the praises of "the most Christian prince,"
+that "in your zeal for faith and charity, instructed in the Church's
+discipline, you preserve reverence to the See of Rome, and subject all
+things to it, and bring them to its unity, to the author of which, the
+first Apostle, the Lord's words were addressed, 'Feed My sheep': which both
+the rules of the Fathers and the statutes of emperors declare to be the
+head of all churches, and the reverential words of your Piety attest". The
+Pope adds: "Your imperial words, brought by the bishops Hypatius and
+Demetrius, which have been agreed to by our brethren and fellow-bishops,
+being agreeable to apostolic doctrine, we by our authority confirm". "This,
+then, is your true faith; this all Fathers of blessed memory and prelates
+of the Roman Church, whom in all things we follow, this the Apostolic See
+has to this time preached and maintained unshaken." "And we beseech our God
+and Saviour Jesus Christ to preserve you long and peacefully in this true
+religion and unity, and veneration of the Apostolic See, whose principate
+you, as most Christian and pious, preserve in all things."
+
+In the same year, 533, in which Justinian addressed to the Pope this
+remarkable recognition of the Roman Primacy, specifying that everything
+which concerns the whole Church should be brought before the Pope, though
+it might be already certain and in accordance with established usage, he
+gave his approval to that collection of laws called in Latin the _Digest_
+and in Greek the _Pandects_, which he had commissioned Tribonian and other
+great lawyers to draw up. Seventeen commissioners, having power given to
+them to alter, omit, and correct, selected by his command, out of nearly
+two thousand volumes, what they considered serviceable in the imperial laws
+and the decisions of great lawyers. It is a vast repertory of judicial
+cases in which Roman lawyers seek to apply the general rules of law and
+natural equity. It was the first attempt since the Twelve Tables to
+construct an independent centre of right as a whole,[117] and it was
+confirmed by the authority of the emperor on the 16th December, 533.
+
+As in the whole course of the fifth century, so no less in the sixth, it is
+necessary to bear in mind the close interweaving of political with
+ecclesiastical facts. The force and bearing of the one only become
+intelligible when the others are weighed. In 519, under Pope Hormisdas, the
+schism of Acacius had collapsed, and the most emphatic acknowledgment of
+all which the Popes had claimed in the contest with him, and with the
+emperors Zeno and Anastasius, who favoured him, had taken place. Pope
+Hormisdas had been succeeded in 523 by Pope John I. Compelled by the king
+Theodorick to undertake an embassy to the emperor Justin, received at
+Byzantium with the highest honour as first Bishop of the Church, being also
+the first Pope who had visited the eastern capital, and crowned with gifts
+for the churches at Rome, he returned only to die in the dungeon of the
+Arian prince at Ravenna, in 526. In three months Theodorick had followed to
+the tomb his three victims--Symmachus, Boethius, and Pope John I. His death
+had well-nigh broken up the league of Teutonic Arian rulers against the
+Catholic faith, of which he had been the soul during the thirty-three years
+of his reign. Justinian had been taken by his uncle Justin as partner of
+his empire in April, 527, and crowned, together with his wife Theodora, on
+Easter Day. Four months later he succeeded his uncle in the sole power. At
+the death of Theodorick, the innate weakness of the Gothic kingdom in
+Italy, which had been veiled by the personal ability of the sovereign, came
+to full light. The utter incompatibility between the savage Goth and the
+cultured Roman showed itself in the rejection of the queen Amalasunta, in
+the depriving her of her son, and his subsequent corruption and premature
+death, its result. It was shown also in the retirement of Cassiodorus from
+the place of counsellor and minister of the Gothic king. Upon the death of
+Pope John I., in 526, Theodorick had exercised his power in urging the
+Romans to select Felix for pope. For this permanent injury had been
+inflicted upon the liberty of the papal election by the foreign occupation
+of Italy. It began under Odoacer in 483, when the temporal ruler, being a
+foreigner and an Arian, for the first time sought to mix himself with the
+election. Twenty years after, under Pope Symmachus, the attempt of Odoacer
+had been condemned. But what the Herule and the Gothic ruler, both Arians,
+had begun, the Byzantine emperor, when he recovered possession of Rome,
+carried on, and the original freedom of election was subjected to the
+control of the eastern emperor for hundreds of years.
+
+Pope Felix sat until 530, and was then succeeded by Bonifacius II., the son
+of a Goth; not, however, without a temporary schism, occasioned by the
+attempt of King Athalarick to exert the arbitrary power used by his
+grandfather Theodorick in the election. Pope John II. followed in 532. In
+this Pope's time Cassiodorus was made Praetorian prefect by King
+Athalarick, and wrote to the Pope as a son to his father: "Be careful to
+remind me what I am to do. I wish to deal rightly, though I am blamed. A
+sheep which desires to hear the voice of his shepherd is not so easily led
+astray; and if he has one who warns continually at his side, can scarcely
+be criminal. I am, indeed, judge in the palace, but shall not therefore
+cease to be your disciple. For we execute this office well when we do not
+in the least depart from your injunctions. Since, then, I wish to be guided
+by your counsels and supported by your prayers, you must show your hand
+when there is anything in me otherwise than would be desired. That chair
+which is the wonder of the whole world should carefully protect its own,
+since, though it is given to the whole world, yet it admits in you a
+special local love."[118]
+
+The Pope, to whom the Praetorian prefect of Athalarick, the temporal
+sovereign, addressed this language, is John II., to whom Justinian, from
+Byzantium, spoke as a son, and whose primacy he acknowledged in terms so
+ample, before he became, by the conquest of Belisarius, the temporal lord
+of Rome; the year, also, before he reconquered Northern Africa by the sword
+of the same great general.
+
+Justinian, with not less precision than former emperors, acknowledged all
+his life long the primacy of the Roman See. We need not exclude political
+motives from this acknowledgment, but we must allow to him the fullest
+conviction as to its legitimate authority. If now and then, under the
+impulse of passion or despotic humour, he seemed to disregard its rights,
+he soon strove again to obtain the Pope's assent to his measures. In his
+edict to his own patriarch Epiphanius, he declared expressly that he held
+himself bound accurately to inform the Pope, as head of all bishops,
+concerning the circumstances of his realm, especially since the Roman
+Church by its decisions in faith had overthrown the heresies which arose in
+the East.[119] The imperial theologian was very unwilling to give up the
+initiative in the determination of ecclesiastical questions; nevertheless,
+he acknowledged in the Bishop of Old Rome the superior judge without whose
+confirmation his own steps remained devoid of force and effect.[120]
+
+The man who was born an Illyrian peasant, who was the leading spirit during
+the nine years' reign of another Illyrian peasant, his uncle, who succeeded
+him in 527, and ruled the greatest kingdom of the earth during thirty-eight
+years; to whom the bitter Vandal in Africa and the nobler Goth in Italy
+yielded up their equally ill-gotten prey; who became the great legislator
+of the Roman world, by the commission given to his chief lawyers to select
+and, after correction, tabulate the laws of the emperors his predecessors;
+to whom, in consequence, the actual nations of Europe owe what was to them
+the fountain of universal right, demands a somewhat detailed account of his
+character, his purposes, and his actions. When the prince of the poets of
+Christendom, the only poet who has spoken in the name and with the voice of
+Christendom, meets his spirit under the guidance of Beatrice, the emperor
+utters words the truth of which all must feel:
+
+    "Caesar I was and am Justinian,
+    Moved by the will of that Prime Love I feel
+    I clear'd the encumbered laws from vain excess".[121]
+
+It is in this character that Justinian lives for all history, and his name
+stands out among all Byzantine sovereigns with a lustre of its own. I have
+therefore first quoted the most definite words of the great legislator,
+spontaneously acknowledging the right of St. Peter's successor to know and
+to judge of all that concerns the Church's doctrine and practice. The
+acknowledgment of this right is the more to be marked because, when it was
+made by the eastern emperor, that successor was not his own subject. That
+he was the head of all the churches of the world, that he was so by descent
+from Peter, that in virtue of this headship and descent he had a right of
+supervision over everything which belonged to the Church in all the
+world--this is what Justinian avows, and this, moreover, is equally what
+the Pope claimed then as he claims now.
+
+Justinian ascended the eastern throne in August, 527, at about the age of
+forty-five. He would therefore have been born in 482. He was of somewhat
+more than middle height, of regular features, dark colour, of ample chest,
+serene and agreeable aspect. Through the care of his uncle he had had a
+good education, and had early learned to read and write. He was skilled in
+jurisprudence, architecture, music, and, moreover, in theology. His
+personal piety was remarkable. When he became emperor he bestowed all his
+private goods on churches, and ruled his house like a monastery. In Lent,
+his life approached that of a hermit in severity. He ate no bread; drank
+only water; for his nourishment he contented himself every other day with a
+portion of wild herbs, seasoned with salt and vinegar. We have sure
+testimony respecting his fasts and mortifications, since he has taken pains
+in his last laws, the _Novels_, to inform the world of them.[122]
+
+His uncle Justin had died at the age of seventy-seven, after reigning nine
+years. His accession had marked a sort of resurrection in eastern affairs.
+Instead of three emperors, Basiliscus, Zeno, and Anastasius, alike
+ignominious in their government, unsound in their faith, infamous in their
+life, and remorselessly tyrannical in their treatment both of Church and
+State, Justin had crowned an honourable life as a general in the imperial
+service with a creditable reign, in which his fidelity to the Catholic
+faith was remarkable. The moment of Justinian's succession was coeval with
+great changes in the West. By the death of Theodorick, who in his last
+year had begun the work of active Arian persecution, the great kingdom
+which he had maintained for a generation seemed on the point of
+dissolution, through the intrinsic inaptitude for government which his
+Gothic subjects at once betrayed when let loose from the master's powerful
+hand. In Africa, moreover, a succession of cruel Vandal persecutors, almost
+equal to their original, Genseric, had shaken their tenure of the country.
+At the same time, the Frankish kingdom, strengthened greatly by the
+conversion of Clovis, was growing in power and extent--a growth not
+interrupted by his early death in 511, at the age of forty-five.[123]
+
+Such was the state of things when Justinian directed the great power which
+the revenues of the eastern empire enabled him to wield, towards the
+restoration of that empire, first in Africa, and then in Italy. Later in
+the same year, 533, in which he addressed to John II. the explicit
+acknowledgment of his supreme authority with which I began, he despatched
+his great general Belisarius with 16,000 chosen troops, 6000 of them
+cavalry, to Carthage. The Vandal ruler Gelimer offered but a feeble and
+utterly ineffectual resistance. He surrendered himself at Carthage to
+Belisarius, by the end of the year, and was brought to Constantinople.
+There Justinian received Belisarius in what was like one of Rome's hundred
+triumphs, except that the conqueror marched on foot. The booty of the
+Vandal kings was borne before him, in which were conspicuous the precious
+things which Genseric had carried away from Rome--the vessels of the temple
+of Jerusalem. When the captive king was brought into the circus, and saw
+before him the emperor and countless rows of spectators, he is said to have
+shed no tears, but to have uttered the words of the preacher: "Vanity of
+vanities, all is vanity". But his head did not fall under the axe of the
+lictors, as in the ancient Roman triumphs. He received in Dalmatia a great
+property, and lived there in abundance with his family. The other captives
+were enrolled in the Roman army, and Justinian and Theodora heaped presents
+upon the daughters of Hilderich, and all the descendants of that princess
+Eudocia, great-granddaughter of the great Theodosius, who had been obliged
+to espouse the son of Genseric in her captivity at Carthage.
+
+Then Justinian divided North Africa into seven provinces--Tingitana,
+Mauritanea, Numidia, Carthage, Byzacene, Tripolis, and Sardinia, which
+last, having belonged to the Vandals, was put into the prefecture of
+Africa. This received a Praetorian prefect and proconsular governors, who
+were charged to maintain the land, and show to the inhabitants the
+difference between civilised Roman government and Vandal cruelty. Justinian
+restored many cities, and erected many great buildings, especially
+churches, of which five in Leptis alone.[124]
+
+An early result of Justinian's reconquest of Africa was that the bishops
+met in plenary council, under the presidency of the primate of Carthage,
+Reparatus, successor of Boniface. After a hundred years of Vandal
+oppression, 217 bishops assembled in the Basilica of Faustus, at Carthage,
+named Justiniana in honour of the emperor--the church which Hunnerich had
+taken from the Catholics, in which many bodies of martyrs were buried. To
+their intercession the council ascribed their deliverance from persecution.
+After reading the Nicene decrees, they discussed the question whether Arian
+priests who had become Catholics should be received in their dignity or
+only to lay communion. All the members of the council inclined to the
+latter judgment. They, however, would come to no decision, but with one
+voice determined to consult Pope John II. They addressed a letter to him by
+the hands of two bishops and a deacon, in which they say: "We considered it
+agreeable to charity that no one should disclose our judgment until first
+the custom or determination of the Roman Church should be made known to us:
+honouring herein with due obedience the authority of your Blessedness,
+being such a Pontiff as the holy See of Peter deserved to have, worthy of
+veneration, full of affection, speaking the truth without falsehood, doing
+nothing with arrogance. Therefore the free charity of the whole brotherhood
+thought that your counsel should be asked. And we beg that your mind, the
+organ of the Holy Spirit,[125] may answer us kindly and truly."[126]
+
+When the African deputies reached Rome, Pope John II. was already dead.
+But his successor Agapetus answered the questions of the council, attaching
+also the ancient canons which decided thereupon, to the effect that at
+whatever age a person had been infected by the Arian pestilence, if he
+became afterwards a Catholic he should not retain any rank, but that
+converted Arian priests might receive support from the Church fund. Pope
+Agapetus wrote expressing his intense joy at the recovery of their country:
+"For, since the Church is everywhere one body, your sorrow was our
+affliction. And we acknowledge your most sincere charity in that, as became
+wise and learned men, you did not forget the Apostolic Principate; but, in
+order to resolve that question, sought approach to that See to which the
+power of the keys is given".[127]
+
+This council also sent an embassy to Justinian, beseeching him to restore
+the possessions and rights of the Church in Africa which the Vandals had
+taken away--a request which the emperor granted in an edict to his
+Praetorian prefect Salomo. And Agapetus expressly restored to the primate
+of Carthage any rights as metropolitan which the enemy had taken away.[128]
+
+Thus the terrible persecution inaugurated by Genseric when the Vandal host
+lay around the deathbed of St. Augustine at Hippo in 430 came to an end. In
+the interval, the African church had suffered every extremity of barbarian
+cruelty from the Arian invaders. At the end, the primate of Carthage, at
+the head of all the bishops of the several provinces, is found referring to
+the Pope, a subject of the Arian Theodatus, for guidance in the treatment
+of Arian priests and bishops who submitted to the Church. The Pope, on his
+side, acknowledges all the rights of the primate of Carthage which existed
+before the invasion. As to civil rights of property, the Byzantine
+conqueror restores the possessions of the Church which had been taken away
+by the Vandals.
+
+By the restoration of the African province to the Roman empire and the
+Catholic faith Justinian won great renown. His accession had been welcomed
+with joy by the Catholic people. Full of great designs, he aimed at the
+extension of his realm, and endeavoured to advance the Christian cause by
+missions to countries as yet without the faith. Greatness and majesty are
+shown in all his creations.[129] In the year following the African
+reconquest Pope Agapetus wrote to him, praising his solicitude in
+maintaining the unity of the Church, and identifying the advance of his
+empire with the increase of religion.[130] The Pope adds that the emperor
+desired the profession of faith which he had sent to his predecessor Pope
+John II., and which had been confirmed by him, to be confirmed also by
+himself, for which "we praise you: we assent, not because we admit in
+laymen an authority to preach, but because, since the zeal of your faith is
+in accordance with the rules of our fathers, we confirm and give it force".
+
+It is to be remembered that Pope Agapetus, elected in 535, was the subject
+of the Gothic king Theodatus, and as such was sent by him, under threats of
+death, in the winter of this year, on an embassy to Justinian. The purpose
+of Theodatus was to support his tottering throne by the intercession of the
+Pope. He had murdered at the lake of Bolsena the daughter and heiress of
+Theodorick, Amalasunta, who had made him king upon the untimely death of
+her son Athalarick in 534. He was secretly proposing to cede the Gothic
+kingdom of Italy to Justinian for a pension of 1200 pounds of gold. Thus
+Agapetus was sent to Constantinople in the winter of 535, as Pope John I.
+had been sent by Theodorick ten years before. He entered that city on the
+20th February, 536; he died on the 22nd April following. In these two
+months the Pope, the subject of Theodatus, did great things. A certain
+Anthimus, a secret friend of the Monophysite heresy, had been brought, by
+the favour of the like-minded empress Theodora, from the see of Trebisond
+and put into that of Constantinople, having been able to impose himself
+upon the emperor as orthodox. Agapetus was received with the greatest
+honour, being only the second Pope who had visited Byzantium. He could not
+negotiate a peace for Theodatus; but archimandrites, priests, and monks
+besought him to proceed against Anthimus as an interloper and teacher of
+error. Agapetus refused his communion to the new patriarch, required of him
+a written confession of faith, and return to his bishopric, which he had
+deserted contrary to the canons. The emperor, believing in the orthodoxy of
+his patriarch, took part at first against the Pope, and strove to overcome
+him both with threats and with presents. But Justinian, undeceived as to
+the orthodoxy of Anthimus, gave him up, and Pope Agapetus pronounced
+judgment of deposition upon him, and on the 13th March, 536, consecrated
+Mennas, who had been duly elected, to be bishop of Constantinople. He first
+required of him a written confession "to carry to Rome, to St. Peter".[131]
+
+Soon after this the Pope died suddenly. The whole population at
+Constantinople attended his funeral. Never, it was said, had the mourning
+for a bishop or an emperor drawn together such a concourse of people. His
+body was carried back to Rome in triumph and buried in St. Peter's.
+
+Pope Agapetus was succeeded in 536 by Pope Silverius, chosen under the
+influence of the Gothic king Theodatus. He was the last Pope so chosen; and
+the moment of his election is coincident with events destined to change
+permanently the material condition both of Rome and Italy.
+
+Justinian had accomplished, with singular ease and rapidity, the first half
+of his design. This was the reunion of North Africa to his empire, and the
+restoration in it of the Catholic faith. The second part of his design was
+to accomplish the same double result for Rome and for Italy. He sent
+Belisarius, after the victory at Carthage, into Sicily, where Syracuse and
+Palermo were taken; and in the summer of 536 the great commander entered
+Italy, captured Naples, and advanced towards Rome on the Appian Road. So
+the Gothic war began. Theodatus was in Rome. The Gothic army in the Pontine
+marshes became aware of his incompetence and his secret treating with
+Justinian, deposed him, and elected Vitiges to be their king in his stead,
+by whose orders the fugitive was slain in his flight on the Flaminian Road.
+But Vitiges hastened to Ravenna, where he espoused the unwilling Matasunta,
+daughter of Amalasuntha, granddaughter of Theodorick. Four thousand Goths
+alone remained to cover Rome. Belisarius appeared before it. A deputation,
+supported by Pope Silverius, brought him the keys of the city. The garrison
+was too weak to defend it, and on the 9th December, 536, Belisarius took
+possession of Rome, at the head of the imperial troops, who had nothing
+Roman in them except the name. It was sixty years since Odoacer had caused
+the senate to declare a western emperor needless, and Rome, as to temporal
+rule, had fallen, first under the Herule, then under the Goth. The Romans
+welcomed Belisarius as a deliverer from the double yoke of the northern
+intruder and the Arian heretic.
+
+For however Theodorick recognised, after the fury of the conflict with his
+brother-Teuton, the Herule Odoacer, was over, the necessity of ruling with
+justice over Goth and Italian, however prosperous as to the maintenance of
+peace and internal order the great kingdom stretching from Illyricum to
+Southern Gaul had been, whatever support he had given to the maintenance of
+Roman law, custom, and institutions, there was not a Roman, from Symmachus
+and Boethius in the senate to the meanest inhabitant of Trastevere, who
+would not loathe the occupation of Rome and Italy by the Gothic invasion.
+The Goths were a people of remarkable courage and extraordinary force of
+body. But the feeling with which Italians and, above all, Romans would
+regard them as masters of their country and confiscators of its soil, can
+only be expressed by what the English would feel if a swarm of Zulus were
+to take possession of England. So, when Belisarius entered Rome, the Romans
+looked for their being replaced under the direct and lawful government of
+one who should be in deed and in truth a Roman prince, as Pope Felix had
+called the recreant Zeno, that is, the head of law, the supreme judge, the
+defender of the Church. This was what they looked for. I am about to
+mention what they found.
+
+The empress Theodora had tried with all her wiles to set a Monophysite
+prelate on the Byzantine See.[132] Pope Agapetus had frustrated her plans
+by deposing Anthimus and consecrating Mennas in his place. But Theodora had
+not given up her intrigues, and she strove to involve in her net the Roman
+See itself. In the train of Agapetus at Constantinople was the ambitious
+deacon Vigilius. She sought to win him by promising him the Roman See. She
+offered him a great sum of money, and all her powerful support in attaining
+the papal dignity, if he would bind himself thereupon to abrogate the
+Council of Chalcedon, to enter into communion with Anthimus and Severus,
+and help them to recover the sees of Constantinople and Antioch. Vigilius
+agreed, and Theodora worked for the interests of her favourite by means of
+Antonina, wife of Belisarius. In the meantime, Silverius, as we have seen,
+had been chosen Pope in Rome, and Theodatus had exercised in his favour the
+influence which the Teuton rulers, whether styled Patricius or King, had
+claimed in the papal election since Odoacer. The empress invited the new
+Pope to come to Constantinople, or at least to restore her dear Anthimus.
+Silverius refused decidedly, though he was in the most dangerous position
+between the Greeks and the Ostrogoths, and even his personal liberty was in
+danger from Belisarius.
+
+Pope Silverius continued to refuse submission to the wishes of the empress.
+The great commander sat in the Pincian palace in March, 537, scarcely three
+months after he had taken possession of Rome.[133] There he abased himself
+to carry out the commands of two shameless women, Theodora and Antonina. He
+caused Pope Silverius to be brought before him on a charge of writing
+treasonable letters to Vitiges. The Pope had taken refuge at Santa Sabina
+on the Aventine. When brought before Belisarius, he found him sitting at
+the feet of Antonina, who reclined on a couch. The attending clergy had
+been left behind the first and second curtains. The Pope and the deacon
+Vigilius entered alone. "Lord Pope Silverius," said Antonina, "what have we
+done to thee and the Romans that thou wouldst deliver us into the hands of
+the Goths?" While she was heaping reproaches upon him, John, a sub-deacon
+of the first region, entered, took the pallium from his shoulders, and led
+him into another room, where he was stript of his episcopal vestments, the
+dress of a monk was put upon him, and his deposition was announced to the
+clergy. He was then banished to Patara in Lycia. All these intrigues had
+been unknown to Justinian. Afterwards, the bishop[134] of Patara went to
+him, and invoked before the emperor the judgment of God, saying there were
+many kings in this world, but not one set over the Church of the whole
+world, as was that bishop who had been expelled from his see. Justinian,
+hearing this, ordered Silverius to be taken back to Rome, and a true
+judgment of his case to be made. But then the Pope fell entirely into the
+hands of his rival Vigilius, who in the meantime had, by the help of
+Belisarius, got possession of the pontificate. Vigilius caused him to be
+deported to the island of Palmaria. There it is only known that he died in
+great misery, but with the crown of martyrdom.
+
+This was the first act of that dominion, lasting more than two hundred
+years, in which the Byzantine sovereigns were lords of Rome, as part of a
+reconquered province, and claimed to confirm the Papal elections, a claim
+set up by the Herule Odoacer, continued by Theodorick, inherited by
+Justinian.
+
+When Belisarius occupied Rome he had only 5000 soldiers at his command.
+Vitiges, the new Gothic king, had gone to Ravenna, and made peace with the
+Franks by surrendering to them the southern provinces of France, held by
+Theodorick. He then levied the whole fighting force of the Goths, and, in
+March, 537, advanced from Umbria upon Rome at the head of 150,000 men.
+Belisarius, in the three months, had done his best to repair the walls, the
+towers, and the gates of the city. He had also laid up provisions. He dug
+trenches round the least defended spots, and had constructed great machines
+which shot bolts strong enough to nail an armoured man to a tree. Vitiges
+approached from the Anio, and made a desperate attempt to storm the city at
+once. Having failed in this, through the great courage and skill of
+Belisarius, and being unable, even with his vast host, to surround the
+city, he set up six fortified camps from the Flaminian Gate to that of
+Proeneste, and a seventh in the Neronian fields on the other side of the
+river, the plain which stretches from the Vatican to the Milvian bridge.
+The Goth cut off the fourteen aqueducts which supplied Rome with water.
+Those greatest monuments of imperial magnificence from that time have
+stretched their broken arches across the Campagna, the admiration and
+sorrow of every beholder in so many generations. What five hundred years
+of empire had done, the Goth, in his fury to recover the land which he had
+usurped, was able to ruin. The besiegers went on wasting the Campagna, and
+preventing the entrance of provisions into the city. Amid the increasing
+want, and the fear of worse, Vitiges in vain tried to seduce the Romans to
+revolt. Finding that Belisarius would not capitulate, he constructed great
+wooden towers, loftier than the walls, upon wheels, from which fifty men to
+each should direct battering-rams. Belisarius opposed him with like
+weapons. On the nineteenth day, the Goths poured out from their seven camps
+for a general storm. In a tremendous conflict, Belisarius beat back the
+invaders by counter sallies at the gates assailed. But at one point they
+all but succeeded. The Mausoleum of Hadrian formed part of the defence.
+Procopius, the eye-witness of this famous siege, and its narrator, says of
+it: "The tomb of the Roman emperor Hadrian lies outside the Aurelian Gate,
+a stone's-throw from the walls--a work of marvellous splendour. For it
+consists of huge blocks of Parian marble, fastened to each other without
+jointing from inside. It has four equal sides, each of them in length a
+stone's-cast. Its height exceeds that of the city walls. Upon it stand
+wonderful statues of men and horses." This is all that Procopius says. Up
+to this moment, full four centuries after the death of Hadrian, all the
+glories of Grecian art, which that imperial traveller over the world, from
+Newcastle to the cataracts of the Nile, could collect, had shone through
+the Roman sky on the monument, splendid as a palace and strong as a castle.
+On this fatal day of Rome's direst need they were hurled down upon the
+advancing Goth, whom the narrow streets had enabled to approach with
+scaling ladders. Statues of emperors, gods, and heroes hailed upon the
+northern giants; the works of Polycletus and Praxiteles were used for
+common stones upon invaders who despised art as well as letters; and a
+thousand years afterwards, when the building was finally formed into a
+castle, in digging the trenches the fragments of the Sleeping Faun were
+found, which had crushed some inglorious barbarian and saved Rome from
+capture.
+
+But the storming, repulsed at every gate, cost Vitiges the flower of his
+host. Thirty thousand are said to have fallen, that being the number which
+Procopius records as derived from Gothic officers themselves; and greater,
+he says, was the number of wounded, when the deadly bolts from the machines
+of Belisarius mowed down their encumbered masses in flight.
+
+The result of this great conflict was to weaken the Goths, to encourage the
+Romans, to make Belisarius confident of success. The siege lasted after
+this nearly a year. The extremity of hunger and misery was endured in the
+city. The supply of water was reduced to the cisterns and springs and the
+river. Vitiges at length occupied Porto, and cut off Rome from the sea. But
+the Goths also suffered terribly both from famine and from summer heat. The
+end of all was that, after a siege of a year and nine days, in which the
+Goths had fought 69 battles, Vitiges, in March, 538, drew off his
+diminished troops. One morning, Belisarius, from his Pincian palace, saw
+one-half of the remaining Goths on the other side of the Milvian bridge,
+and he forthwith ordered a sally upon their rear-guard. Vitiges left
+perhaps the half of his great host mouldering in the wasted, pestilent,
+deserted Campagna. He left also a city impoverished in numbers, full of
+sickness and misery. He had destroyed all the villas and dwellings of the
+Campagna; the churches of the Martyrs lay in heaps of ruins: from the Porta
+Salara to the Porta Nomentana hardly one stone upon another seems to have
+remained. Also Vitiges had ordered the senators whom he had left at Ravenna
+to be put to death. Only, during this siege, the basilicas of Rome's patron
+saints, which lay outside the walls, received no damage and were respected
+by the Goths.[135]
+
+After this the storm of war drew off to the North. It continued with
+changing fortune in the provinces of Tuscany, Aemilia, the plain of the Po,
+the coasts of the Hadriatic. On the one side Franks and Burgundians took
+part; on the other side the soldiers of Belisarius were made up of all
+races from the East: not without skill in fight, but without discipline,
+under rival and quarrelling commanders. They pressed grievously on the land
+which they were sent to deliver. But the Goths grew weaker: they never
+recovered their losses before Rome. At last Belisarius got hold of
+Ravenna--not by capture, but after long negotiations, on both sides
+deceptive. Belisarius made the Goths believe that he would set himself at
+their head, and construct a new western empire. Vitiges, whether he trusted
+him or not, came to terms with him. Belisarius proclaimed Justinian
+emperor. The German realm seemed broken to pieces: only Verona, Pavia, and
+a portion of Liguria held out. A small part only of the army still carried
+the national banner. Then the conqueror, in 539, was recalled to Byzantium,
+to conduct the war against Persia. He left Italy almost subdued, and
+carried with him the captive king of the Goths, Vitiges, as in former years
+he had carried Gelimer, the captive king of the Vandals. This was in 539,
+thirteen years after Theodorick's death.
+
+The first act of that fearful drama, the Gothic war, was over. But as soon
+as Belisarius disappeared, the Goths began to recover themselves. The
+generals of Justinian lived on plunder. In Totila arose a new Gothic
+leader, the bravest of the brave. At the end of the year 541 he marched out
+of Verona with only five thousand men, defeated the incapable and disunited
+Grecian captains, took city after city, passed the Apennines, passed near
+Rome, without assailing it. In this career of victory the Gothic king once
+approached that Campanian hill on which the great benefactor of the West,
+St. Benedict, was laying the foundations of the coenobitic life. In the
+first instance, Totila tried to deceive the Saint. He dressed up a high
+officer as king, and sent him, with three of his chief counts in
+attendance, to personate himself. When Benedict saw the Gothic train
+approaching he was seated, and as soon as they were within earshot, he
+cried out to the warrior pretending to be king: "Son, lay aside that dress
+which is not thine". The Goth fell to the ground in dismay, and returned to
+report his discomfiture to Totila, who then came himself. But when he saw
+Benedict seated at a distance he prostrated himself, and though Benedict
+thrice bade him arise, he continued prostrate. The Saint then came to him,
+raised him up, upbraided him with the acts which he had committed, and
+revealed to him the future concerning himself: "Many evils thou doest; many
+hast thou done. Put a curb at length on thine iniquity. Rome, indeed, thou
+shalt enter; the sea thou shalt pass. Nine years thou shalt reign; in the
+tenth thou shalt die."[136] The king was awe-struck. The savage in him
+was quelled by the speaker's sanctity. From this time forth he altered
+his conduct, and became more humane. In the capture of Naples shortly
+afterwards he showed by his merciful treatment the effect which the
+presence of St. Benedict had produced on him, as well as in the following
+years of his life. This interview took place in the year 542.
+
+But Totila[137] so advanced in power that, in spite of Byzantine intrigue
+and jealousy, Belisarius, having happily concluded the Persian war, was
+sent back to the supreme command in Italy. He landed in Ravenna, but
+without army, war-material, or money. In the summer of 545, Totila, having
+subdued the land all about Rome, laid siege to Rome itself. Belisarius
+occupied Porto, and Totila set up his camp eight miles from Rome,
+commanding the Tiber, and turning the siege into the closest blockade. In
+vain Belisarius attempted to burst the Gothic bar of the river and
+introduce provisions to Rome. In vain embassies were sent to Constantinople
+for help. The most frightful distress ensued at Rome. At length, after
+about eighteen months, certain Isaurian soldiers of the Greek garrison gave
+up the Porta Asinaria, and on the night of the 17th December, 546, Totila
+took the ill-defended city. When he entered, it was almost without
+inhabitants. Those whom the sword, famine, and pestilence had not yet taken
+were in flight or hiding. Patricians crept about in the garb of slaves. The
+number of victims at this capture was small. The desolation and misery seem
+to have worked not only on Totila, but also on his army. The plunder, which
+a captured city could not escape, was generally bloodless; but many houses
+were burnt in the Trasteverine quarter. As Theodorick had offered his
+prayers at the tomb of the Apostles, so Totila went from the Lateran to St.
+Peter's. What a change had the forty-six years brought about. To the
+miserable remnant of the senate Totila upbraided the ingratitude which had
+been shown for Gothic benefits under Theodorick. He accepted, however, the
+intercession of the deacon Pelagius, and protected not only the female sex
+in general, but especially the noble Rusticiana, widow of Boethius and
+daughter of Symmachus. Amalasunta had restored their property to her sons,
+the younger Boethius and Symmachus; but the war seems to have consumed
+everything. She was now a beggar, and the wild host of Totila wished to put
+her to death for having, as she was charged, maimed statues of Theodorick.
+But the king rescued her from their fury.
+
+In the first impulse of wrath Totila had threatened to level Rome with the
+ground. Belisarius, lying sick at Porto, had addressed to him a letter,
+entreating him to spare the greatest and noblest of cities. He did,
+however, throw down a considerable part of the walls, and when he marched
+to Lucania against the Greeks, took with him the chief citizens, and made
+the rest of the inhabitants migrate to Campania. He left a desert behind
+him. If we could trust the exaggerated reports of Greek historians, Rome
+remained forty days without inhabitants, tenanted only by beasts.
+
+So ended the second act of the Gothic tragedy.
+
+But as Vitiges had quitted Rome, so Totila deserted it, and in the spring
+of 547 it was entered again by Belisarius. In less than a month he restored
+as well as he could the part of the walls demolished, called back the
+inhabitants lingering in the neighbourhood, and prepared for a new attack.
+It was not long in coming. Scarcely had the gaps in the walls been filled
+up by stones piled in disorder and the trenches cleared, when the Gothic
+king reappeared. Thrice was his assault repulsed; then he gave up the
+attempt, broke down the bridges over the Anio behind him, and went to
+Tibur, which he took by treachery of the inhabitants, who were at strife
+with the Isaurian garrison. Totila massacred the citizens, the bishop, and
+the clergy; got possession of the upper course of the Tiber, and cut off
+the Romans from Tuscany. But then Belisarius was enabled to give greater
+care to repairing the city's defences. The state in which several gates
+remain to this day still show his hand. He restored Trajan's aqueduct,
+which fed the mills on the right bank. But in the winter of 547 the great
+captain was drawn away from Rome to carry on a miserable petty war with
+insufficient force in the south of Italy, and was finally recalled to
+Constantinople. So ended the third act of Rome's fall.
+
+But Totila hastened from place to place, from victory to victory. After
+scouring the South and then Umbria at the beginning of 549, he stood the
+third time before Rome. A strong Byzantine garrison in the city had
+provided magazines, and the wide spaces within the walls had been sown with
+wheat. His first attack failed; but treachery opened to him the Ostian
+gate, and its famished defenders soon surrendered the mausoleum of Hadrian.
+The conqueror, in this fourth capture of the city, acted mildly. He called
+back the yet absent inhabitants, amongst them many of the senators who had
+been sent into Campania. How had the nobles of Rome melted away! Vitiges
+had ordered those kept in Ravenna as hostages to be slain. Some had then
+escaped to Liguria. The distrust of the Greeks as well as of the Goths
+threatened them. Cethegus, chief of the senate, had been compelled to
+leave before the first siege of Totila. Now Totila did not succeed in
+coming to terms with Justinian. The Greek army received a new commander in
+the eunuch Narses, who had served before under Belisarius. In him skill,
+energy, court favour, and the command of considerable forces were united.
+Before the end of 549, Totila left Rome. Almost all Italy save Ravenna was
+in his hands. He dealt generously with the people, whilst the Byzantine
+officials, exhausting the land with their exactions, added to the
+sufferings of war.
+
+And now we reach the fifth act of the drama in which Rome was humbled to
+the very dust. Totila, for more than two years and a half, carried on an
+unceasing struggle over land and sea--Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, which he
+subdued, and beyond the Hadriatic, to the opposite coasts. Though generally
+victorious, he was more like the leader in an old Gothic raid than a king
+who ruled and defended a great realm. At last, in the spring of 552, Narses
+advanced from Ravenna with a great force to a decisive battle for Rome.
+Totila advanced from Rome into Tuscany to meet him. At Taginas, on the
+longest day, the conflict which decided the fate of the Gothic kingdom took
+place. All that summer day the battle lasted. The Gothic king, a true
+knight in royal armour, on a splendid steed, marshalled and led his host.
+When night had come his cavalry was overthrown, his footmen broken. The
+spear of a Gepid had wounded him mortally. He was taken from the field,
+died in the night, was hastily buried. But his grave was disclosed to the
+Greeks. They left him where he lay; only his blood-stained mantle and
+diadem set with precious stones were carried to Constantinople. Six
+thousand of his bravest warriors lay on the field of battle. Yet when the
+remains of the host collected themselves in Upper Italy they elected Teia
+in Pavia for head of the yet unconquered race.
+
+But Narses, having captured the strong places in Middle Italy, advanced
+upon Rome. The Gothic garrison was too weak to defend the wide circuits of
+the walls. Parts were soon taken. Presently Hadrian's tomb, which Totila
+had surrounded with fresh walls, alone held out. But it soon fell, and
+hapless Rome was captured for the fifth time in the reign of Justinian. It
+was a day of doom for the still remaining noble families. Goths and Greeks
+alike turned against them. In Campania and in Sicily many distinguished
+Romans had waited for better times. Now not only the flying Goths cut down
+all who fell into their hands, but the barbarian troops in the army of
+Narses, at their entrance into Rome, followed the example. Then, again,
+three hundred youths of the noblest families, who had been kept as hostages
+at Pavia, were all executed by Teia. The western consulate ended in 534,
+Flavius Theodorus Paulinus being the last. It continued seven years longer
+in the East, where to Flavius Basilius, consul in 541, no successor was
+given. When Justinian abolished this dignity it had lasted 1050 years, with
+few interruptions. Though for more than half this time it had been a mere
+title of honour, yet the consuls gave their name to the year, and served
+still, it may be, to mark to the world the unity of the Roman empire.
+
+From Rome the conqueror Narses turned his steps southwards to Cumae, that
+he might seize the treasure of the Goths, which was guarded by the new king
+Teia's brother Aligern. This brought Teia himself by a rapid march down the
+Hadriatic coast, and crossing Italy obliquely, he appeared at the foot of
+Vesuvius. There, in the spring of 553, Teia fought a last and desperate
+battle over the grave of sunken cities, in view of the Gulf of Naples. At
+the head of a small host, he fought from early morn to noon. It was like a
+battle of Homeric warriors. Then he could no longer support the weight of
+twelve lances in his shield, and, calling to his armour-bearer for a fresh
+shield, he fell transfixed by a lance. The next day the remnant of the
+army, save a thousand who fought their way through and reached Pavia,
+accepted terms from Narses, to leave Italy and fight no more against the
+emperor.
+
+But Italy was far yet from tranquillity. Teia had incited the Alemans and
+the Franks to break into Italy. The two brothers, Leuthar and Bucelin, led
+a raid of 70,000 men, who ravaged Central and Southern Italy down to the
+Straits of Sicily. One of these barbarians carried back his spoil-laden
+troops to the Po, where pestilence consumed him and his horde. The host of
+the other brother, Bucelin, when it had reached Capua, was overthrown on
+the Vulturnus by Narses, with a slaughter as utter as that which Marius
+inflicted on the Cimbri. Scarcely five are said to have escaped. So, in
+the spring of 555, after twenty years of destruction, ended the Gothic
+war.[138]
+
+The reconquest of North Africa from the Vandals cost Justinian a few months
+of uninterrupted victory. The reconquest of Italy from the Goths cost
+twenty years of suffering to both sides, leaving, indeed, Justinian master
+but of a ruined Italy, master also of Rome, but after five successive
+captures; its senate reduced to a shadow, its patricians all but destroyed,
+its population shrunk, it is supposed, when Narses took possession of it in
+552, to between thirty and forty thousand impoverished inhabitants. But the
+greatest change remains to be recorded. The Pope had indeed been delivered
+from Arian sovereigns, who held the country under military occupation, but
+exercised their civil rule with leniency and consideration, bearing, no
+doubt, in mind that they were, at least in theory, vice-gerents of an
+over-lord who ruled at Constantinople what was still the greatest empire of
+the world. What Pope Gelasius truly called "hostile domination" had been
+tempered during three-and-thirty years by the personal qualities of one who
+was at once powerful in arms and wise in statesmanship. Rome, in the time
+of Theodorick and Athalarick, had been maintained, its senate respected,
+the Pope treated with deference. A stranger entering Rome in 535, at the
+beginning of the Gothic war, would still have seen the greatest and
+grandest city of the world, standing in general with its buildings
+unimpaired. In 552, the Pope, instead of a distant over-lord, to whom he
+could appeal as Roman prince, had received an immediate master, who ruled
+Rome by a governor with a permanent garrison, and who understood his rule
+at Rome to be the same as his rule at Byzantium. The same as to its
+absolute power; but with this difference, that while Byzantium was the seat
+of his imperial dignity, in which every interest touched his personal
+credit, and its bishop was to be supported as the chief officer of his
+court and the chief councillor of his administration, the Rome he took from
+the Goths was simply a provincial town of a recovered province, once indeed
+illustrious, but now ruined and very troublesome. A provincial town because
+the seat of Byzantine power in Italy was henceforth not at Rome but at
+Ravenna, while the sovereign of Italy no longer held his court within
+Italy, at Ravenna or at Verona, as Theodorick and Athalarick, but at
+Constantinople. Mature reflection upon the civil condition made for the
+Pope by the result of the Gothic war will, I think, show that no severer
+test of the foundation of his spiritual authority could be applied than
+what this great event brought in its train. Nor must we omit to note that
+this test was brought about not only by the operation of political causes,
+but by actors who had not the intention of producing such a result. The
+suffering of Rome, in particular, during this war at the hands of Vitiges,
+Belisarius, Totila, Teia, Narses, is indescribable. It is hard to say
+whether defender or assailant did it most injury; but it is true to say
+that the one and the other were equally merciless in their purpose to
+retain it as a prey or to recover it as a conquest. Vitiges, besides
+pressing the people cooped up in its walls with a terrible famine during
+his siege of a year, broke down its aqueducts and ruined every building on
+that part of the Campagna which he scoured. Totila, in like manner, after
+famishing the inhabitants, when he took Rome, broke down a good part of its
+walls, and at his second capture, in 546, the city is described as having
+been absolutely deserted. In the last struggle, Teia slew without pity the
+three hundred hostages of Rome's noblest blood who had been sent to Pavia,
+thereby almost destroying its patricians. These were the parting tokens of
+Gothic affection for Italy. Then Belisarius, attempting to relieve Rome
+with inadequate forces, which was all that the penury of Justinian allowed
+him, was the means of prolonging the famine, while he did not save the city
+from capture. Lastly, Narses, sent to finish the war, enrolled in Dalmatia
+an army of adventurers. Huns, Lombards, Herules, Gepids, Greeks, and even
+Persians, in figure, language, arms, and customs utterly dissimilar, fought
+for him under the imperial standard, greedy for the treasures of Italy.
+Narses took Rome in 552, and governed it as imperial prefect for fifteen
+years at the head of a Greek garrison, until he was recalled in 567. That
+occupation of Narses in 552 is the date of Rome's extinction as the old
+secular imperial city. The year after his recal came the worst plague of
+all, and the most enduring. The Lombards did but repeat for the subjection
+of Italy to a fresh northern invasion what Narses had done to deliver it
+from Theodorick's older one in the preceding century.
+
+Now let us see the nature of the test which this course of events, the work
+of Goth and Greek alike--inflicting great misery and danger on the clergy
+and the Pope, as upon their people--applied to the papal authority itself.
+
+A more emphatic attestation of that authority than the confession given in
+519 to Pope Hormisdas by the whole Greek episcopate, and by the emperor at
+the head of his court, could hardly be drawn up. It settled for ever the
+question of right, and estopped Byzantium, whether in the person of Caesar
+or of patriarch, from denial of the Pope's universal pastorship, as derived
+from St. Peter. We have seen that not only did Justinian, when the leading
+spirit in his uncle's freshly-acquired succession to the eastern empire, do
+his utmost to bring about this confession, but that in the first years of
+his reign his letter to Pope John II. reaffirmed it; and his treatment of
+Pope Agapetus when he appeared at Constantinople, not only as Pope, but in
+the character of ambassador from the Gothic king Theodatus, exhibited that
+belief in action. But now a state of things quite unknown before had
+ensued. Hitherto Rome had been the capital, of which even Constantine's
+Nova Roma was but the pale imitation. But the five times captured,
+desolate, impoverished Rome which came back under Narses to Justinian's
+sway, came back not as a capital, but as a captive governed by an exarch.
+Was the bishop of a city with its senate extinct, its patriciate destroyed,
+and with forty thousand returned refugees for its inhabitants, still the
+bearer of Peter's keys--still the Rock on which the City of God rested? Had
+there been one particle of truth in that 28th canon which a certain party
+attempted to pass at the Council of Chalcedon, and which St. Leo
+peremptorily annulled, a negative answer to this must now have followed.
+That canon asserted "that the Fathers justly gave its prerogatives to the
+see of the elder Rome because that was the imperial city". Rome had ceased
+to be the imperial city. Did the loss of its bishop's prerogatives follow?
+Did they pass to Byzantium because it was become the imperial city, because
+the sole emperor dwelt there? Thus, about a hundred years after the repulse
+of the ambitious exaltation sought by Anatolius, its rejection by the
+provident wisdom and resolute courage of St. Leo was more than justified by
+the course of events. St. Leo's action was based upon the constitution of
+the Church, and therefore did not need to be justified by events. But the
+Divine Providence superadded this justification, and that under
+circumstances which had had no parallel in the preceding five hundred
+years.
+
+For when Belisarius, submitting himself to carry out the orders of an
+imperious mistress, deposed, as we have seen, the legitimate Pope Silverius
+by force in March, 537, Vigilius, in virtue of the same force, was
+consecrated a few days after to succeed him. The exact time of the death
+which Pope Silverius suffered in Palmaria is not known. But Vigilius is not
+recognised as lawful Pope until after his death, probably in 540. He then
+ascended St. Peter's seat with a blot upon him such as no pontiff had
+suffered before. And this pontificate lasted about fifteen years, and was
+full of such humiliation as St. Peter had never suffered before in his
+successors.
+
+We are not acquainted with the detail of events at Rome in those terrible
+years, but we learn that, as Pope John I. was sent to Constantinople as a
+subject by Theodorick, and Pope Agapetus again as a subject by Theodatus,
+so Vigilius was urged by Justinian to go thither, and that after many
+delays he obeyed the emperor very unwillingly.
+
+But it is requisite here to give a short summary of what Justinian had been
+doing in the affairs of the eastern Church from the time that Pope
+Agapetus, having consecrated Mennas to be bishop of Constantinople, died
+there in 536. After the Pope's death, Mennas proceeded to hold in May and
+June of that year a synod in which he declared Anthimus to be entirely
+deposed from the episcopal dignity, and condemned Severus and other leaders
+of the Monophysites. In this synod Mennas presided, and the two Roman
+deacons, Vigilius and Pelagius, who had been the legates of Pope Agapetus,
+but whose powers had expired at his death, sat next to him, but only as
+Italian bishops. How little the patriarch Mennas could there represent the
+Church's independence is shown by his words to the bishops in the fourth
+session: "Your charity knows that nothing of what is mooted in the Church
+should take place contrary to the decision and order of our emperor,
+zealous for the faith," while of their relation to the Pope he said: "You
+know that we follow and obey the Apostolic See; those who are in communion
+with it we hold in communion; those whom it condemns we also condemn".[139]
+Justinian, irritated by the boldness of the Monophysites, added the
+sanction of law to the decrees of this council, which deposed men who had
+occupied patriarchal sees. He used these words: "In the present law we are
+doing an act not unusual to the empire. For as often as an episcopal decree
+has deposed from their sacerdotal seats those unworthy of the priesthood,
+such as Nestorius, Eutyches, Arius, Macedonius, and Eunomius, and others in
+wickedness not inferior to them, so often the empire has agreed with the
+authority of the bishops. Thus the divine and the human concurred in one
+righteous judgment, as we know was done in the case of Anthimus of late,
+who was deposed from the see of this imperial city by Agapetus, of holy and
+renowned memory, bishop of Old Rome."[140]
+
+In the intrigue of Theodora with Vigilius, Mennas took no part. He took
+counsel with the emperor how to maintain the Catholic faith in Alexandria
+against the heretical patriarch Theodosius. By the emperor's direction,
+ordering him to expel Theodosius, Mennas, in 537 or 538, consecrated Paul,
+a monk of Tabenna, to be patriarch of Alexandria. The act would appear to
+have been done in the presence of Pelagius, then nuncio in Constantinople,
+without reclamation on his part, or of the nuncios who represented Antioch
+and Jerusalem. Mennas in this repeated the conduct of Anatolius and Acacius
+in former times, who were censured, the one by St. Leo, the other by Pope
+Simplicius. By this event the four eastern patriarchs seemed to agree to
+accept the first four councils, and the unity of the Church to be quite
+restored, from which Alexandria had until then stood aloof; but the
+patriarch Paul came afterwards in suspicion of heresy and had to give way
+to Zoilus. Mennas was on the best terms with the emperor; he might easily
+have used the deposition of Silverius and the unlawful exaltation of
+Vigilius in 537 for increase of his own influence, had not a feeling of
+duty or love of peace held him back. But Vigilius also, when he came to be
+acknowledged, had come to realise his position and its responsibility. He
+was far from fulfilling the unlawful promises made to Theodora, and from
+favouring the Monophysites. The empress found that she had thrown away her
+money and failed in her intrigue. In letters[141] to the emperor and to
+Mennas, in 540, Vigilius declared his close adherence to the acts of his
+predecessors, St. Leo in particular, and to the decrees in faith of the
+four General Councils, while he confirmed the acts of the council held by
+Mennas against Severus and the other Monophysite leaders.
+
+In the meantime new dissensions threatened to agitate the whole eastern
+realm.[142] The partisans of Origen in Palestine and the neighbouring
+countries rose. At their head stood Theodore Askidas, archbishop of
+Caesarea in Cappadocia, and Domitian, metropolitan of Ancyra, who had
+obtained, by favour of Justinian, these important sees. Ephrem, patriarch
+of Antioch about 540, condemned Origenism in a synod. Pelagius, being papal
+nuncio at Constantinople, had, together with Ephrem, patriarch of Antioch,
+condemned the patriarch Paul of Alexandria at Gaza. Deputies from Peter,
+patriarch of Jerusalem, and the orthodox monks journeyed with Pelagius to
+Constantinople, to present to the emperor an accusation against the
+Origenists. Pelagius had much influence with Justinian, and he and Mennas
+procured for the petitioners access to the emperor. They asked him to issue
+a solemn condemnation of Origen's errors. The emperor listened willingly,
+and issued in the form of a treatise to Mennas a still extant censure of
+Origen and his writings. He called upon the patriarchs to hold synods upon
+them. Mennas, in 543, held one in the capital, which issued fifteen
+anathemas against Origen.[143] Theodore Askidas and Domitian, by submitting
+to the imperial edict and the condemnation of Origen, kept their places and
+secured afresh their influence, which the monks of Palestine, who were not
+Origenistic, felt severely. They even managed, in the interest of their
+party, to turn the attention of the dogmatising emperor to another
+question, and moved him to issue, in 544, the edict upon the Three
+Chapters. He thought he was bringing back the Monophysites to orthodoxy. He
+was really casting a new ferment into the existing agitation.
+
+At first the patriarch Mennas was very displeased with this edict censuring
+in the so-called Three Chapters Theodoret, Ibas, and Theodore of Mopsuestia
+as Nestorians. He considered the credit of the Council of Chalcedon to be
+therein impeached, and declared that he would only subscribe to it after
+the Pope had subscribed. Afterwards, being more strongly pressed, he
+subscribed unwillingly, but with the reservation, confirmed to him even
+upon oath, that if the Bishop of Rome refused his assent his signature
+should be returned to him, and his subscription be regarded as withdrawn.
+The other eastern patriarchs also at first resisted, but finished by
+complying with the imperial threats, as particularly Ephrem of Antioch.
+Most of the bishops, accustomed to slavish subjection to their patriarchs,
+followed their example, and Mennas had to urge the bishops under him by
+every means to comply. However, many bishops complained of this pressure to
+the papal legate Stephen, who pronounced against the edict, which seemed
+indirectly to impeach the authority of the Fourth Council. He even refused
+communion with Mennas because he had broken his first promise and given his
+assent before the Pope had decided upon it. Through the whole West the
+writings of Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas were little known, but the
+decrees of Chalcedon were zealously maintained. The edict was refused,
+especially in Northern Africa. It was censured by the bishop Portian in a
+writing addressed to the emperor, and by the learned deacon Ferrandus.
+
+Means had been taken by fraud and force to win the whole East to consent to
+the edict.[144] Mennas, patriarch of Constantinople; Ephrem, patriarch of
+Antioch; Peter, patriarch of Jerusalem, crouched before the tyranny of
+Justinian; and so also Zoilus of Alexandria, though he promised Vigilius
+that he would not sign the edict, afterwards subscribed it.[145] At this
+point Justinian sought before everything to get the assent of the Pope, and
+he sent for Vigilius to Constantinople. He claimed the presence of Vigilius
+as his subject in virtue of the conquest of Belisarius: he meant to use
+this authority of Vigilius as Pope for his own purpose. Vigilius foresaw
+the difficulties into which he would fall. At length he left Rome in 544,
+before Totila began the second siege. He lingered in Sicily a year, in 546;
+he then travelled through Greece and Illyricum. At last he entered
+Byzantium on the 25th January, 547, and was welcomed with the most
+brilliant reception. Justinian humbly besought his blessing, and embraced
+him with tears. But this good understanding did not last long. Vigilius
+approved the conduct of his legates and refused his communion to Mennas,
+who, in signing the formula of Hormisdas, had bound himself to follow the
+Roman See, and had broken his special promise. Vigilius withdrew it also
+from the bishops who had subscribed the imperial edict. He and the bishops
+attending him saw in this edict a scheme to help the Acephali, upon whom
+Vigilius repeated his anathema. But Mennas feared the emperor much more
+than he feared the Pope, whose name he now removed from commemoration at
+the Mass. Vigilius, like the westerns in general, considered the edict to
+be useless and dangerous, as giving a pretext for seeming to abrogate the
+Council of Chalcedon, and also as a claim on the part of the emperor to the
+highest authority in Church matters. Justinian tried repeatedly his
+personal influence with the Pope, that also of bishops and officers of
+State. He even had him watched for a length of time and cut off from all
+approach, so that the Pope exclaimed, "If you have made me a prisoner, you
+cannot imprison the holy Apostle Peter". Yet the intercourse of Vigilius
+with eastern bishops soon convinced him that they were generally agreed
+with the emperor; that a prolonged resistance on his part would produce a
+new division between Greeks and Latins; that considerable grounds existed
+for the condemnation of the Three Chapters, with which, hitherto, he had
+not been well acquainted. So he allowed the subject to be further
+considered, held out a prospect of agreeing with the emperor, and
+readmitted Mennas to his communion, who restored the Pope's name in the
+liturgy. This reconciliation took place on the feast of the Princes of the
+Apostles, 29th June, 547.
+
+The Pope, after further conferences with bishops present at
+Constantinople, seventy of whom had not signed the imperial edict, issued,
+on the 11th April, 548, his _Judgment_, directed to Mennas, of which all
+but fragments are lost. In it he most strongly maintained the authority of
+the four General Councils, especially of the fourth; put under anathema the
+godless writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and also his person; the letter
+said to be written by Ibas to Maris, which Justinian had marked as
+supposititious, and the writings of Theodoret, which impugned orthodoxy and
+the twelve anathemas of Cyril. It was his purpose to quiet excitement,
+satisfying the Greeks by a specific condemnation of the Three Chapters, and
+the Latins by maintaining the rank of the Council of Chalcedon. And he
+required that therewith the strife should cease. But neither side accepted
+the condition. The westerns, especially Dacius, archbishop of Milan, and
+Facundus, bishop of Hermiane, vehemently attacked his _Judgment_. So did
+many African monks. Even two Roman deacons, the Pope's own nephew Rusticus,
+and Sebastianus, though they began by supporting the _Judgment_, became
+very violent against the Pope, spread the most injurious reports against
+him, and disregarded his warnings. He deposed and excommunicated them.
+False reports were spread that, against the Council of Chalcedon, the Pope
+had condemned the persons of Theodoret and Ibas, and had gone against the
+decrees of his predecessors. The Pope, after the death of the empress
+Theodora, on the 28th June, 548, had continued by the emperor's wish at
+Constantinople, especially since Totila had retaken Rome in 549. He had
+gone to Thessalonica and returned; he tried in several letters to the
+bishops of Scythia and Gaul to correct their misconceptions. These,
+however, prevailed with the bishops of Illyria, Dalmatia, and Africa, who
+in 549 and 550 separated themselves from the communion of Vigilius. A thing
+not heard of before now occurred. The Roman Bishop stood with the Greek
+bishops on one side, the Latin bishops on the other, and the bewilderment
+increased from day to day.
+
+In the summer of 550 the Pope and the emperor came to an agreement that a
+General Council should be held at which the western bishops should be
+present, until which all dispute about the Three Chapters, and any fresh
+step on the subject, should be forbidden, and in the meantime the Pope's
+_Judgment_ should be returned to him. That took place at once, and
+preparations were made for the council. In June a council held at
+Mopsuestia by direction of the emperor declared that from the time of human
+memory the name of its former bishop, Theodore, had been erased from
+commemoration, and the name of St. Cyril put in. But the western bishops
+avoided answering the invitation to the council. The Illyrian did not come
+at all; the African sent as deputies Reparatus, the primate of Carthage,
+Firmus of Numidia, and two Byzacene bishops. These were besieged both with
+threats and presents; two were induced to sign the imperial edict; the
+other two were banished, Reparatus under charge of a political crime. While
+the western bishops showed still less inclination to appear, the court
+broke its agreement with Vigilius. A new writing against the Three Chapters
+was read in the palace before several bishops, and subscribed by them.
+Theodore Askidas, the chief contriver, and his companions, excused
+themselves to the Pope, who called them to account, and begged pardon, but
+spread the writing still more, set the emperor against Vigilius, and
+induced him to publish, in 551, a further edict under the name of a
+confession of faith. It contained, together with a detailed exposition of
+doctrine upon the Trinity and Incarnation, thirteen anathemas, with the
+refutation of different objections made by the defenders of the Three
+Chapters; for instance, that the letter of Ibas had been approved at
+Chalcedon, the condemnation of dead men forbidden, and Theodore of
+Mopsuestia been praised by orthodox Fathers.
+
+The restoration of peace was thus made much more difficult, and the promise
+given to the Pope broken. The Pope protected himself against this violation
+of the agreement, by which nothing was to be done in the matter before the
+intended council, and considered himself released from his engagements. He
+saw herein the arbitrary interference of a despotic ruler anticipating the
+council's decision, which put in question the Church's whole right of
+authority, and much increased the danger of a schism. In an assembly of
+Greek and Latin bishops held in the Placidia palace, where he resided, he
+desired them to request the emperor to withdraw the proposed edict, and to
+wait for a general consideration of the subject, and especially for the
+sentence of the Latin bishops. If this was not granted, to refuse their
+subscription to the edict. Moreover, the See of Peter would excommunicate
+them. Dacius, also, archbishop of Milan, spoke in this sense. But the
+protest was disregarded, and Theodore Askidas, who had formed part of the
+assembly, went with the bishops of his party to the Church in which the
+edict was posted up, held solemn service there, struck out of the diptychs
+the patriarch Zoilus of Alexandria, who declined to condemn the Three
+Chapters, and proclaimed at once Apollinaris for his successor, with the
+consent of the weak Mennas, and in contempt of the Pope's authority. Not
+only now were the Three Chapters in question, but the whole right and
+independence of the Church's authority. Vigilius, having long warned the
+vain court-bishop Theodore Askidas, always a non-resident in his diocese,
+and having now been witness of a violence so unprecedented, put him under
+excommunication.
+
+At this resistance Justinian was greatly embittered, and was inclined to
+imprison the Pope and his attendants. The Pope took refuge in the Church of
+St. Peter, by the palace of Hormisdas. He repeated with greater force his
+former declaration, entirely deprived Theodore Askidas, and put Mennas and
+his companions under ban, until they made satisfaction, on the 14th August,
+551. At least the sentence was kept ready for publication. He was attended
+by eleven Italian and two African bishops. The emperor sent the praetor
+with soldiers to remove him by force. Vigilius clung to the altar, so that
+it was nearly pulled down with him. His imprisonment was prevented by the
+crowd which burst in, indignant at the ill-treatment offered to the
+Church's first bishop, and by the disgust of the soldiers at the gaol-work
+put upon them. The emperor, seeming to repent his hastiness, sent high
+officers of State to assure the Pope of personal security, at first with
+the threat to have him removed by force if he was not content with this;
+then he empowered the officers to swear that no ill should befal him. The
+Pope thereon returned to the palace of Placidia. But there, in spite of
+oaths, he was watched, deprived of his true servants, surrounded with paid
+spies, attacked with every sort of intrigue, even his handwriting forged.
+Then, seeing his palace entirely surrounded by suspicious persons, he
+risked, on the 23rd December, 551, a flight across the Bosphorus to the
+Church of St. Euphemia in Chalcedon, in which the Fourth Council had been
+held. Here, in January, 552, he published his decree against Theodore and
+Mennas, and was for a long time sick. When the emperor, with the offer of
+another oath, sent high officials to invite him to return to the capital,
+he replied that he needed no fresh oaths if the emperor had only the will
+to restore to the Church the peace which she enjoyed under his uncle
+Justin. He desired the emperor to avoid communion with those who lay under
+his ban. In his Encyclical of the 5th February, 552, he made known to all
+the Church what had passed, and expressed his belief and his wishes. Even
+in his humiliation the successor of Peter inspired a great veneration.
+They tried to approach him. He soon received a writing from Theodore
+Askidas, Mennas, Andrew, archbishop of Ephesus, and other bishops, in which
+they declared their adherence to the decrees of the four General Councils
+which had been made in agreement with the legates of the Apostolic See, as
+well as to the papal letters. They consented also to the withdrawal of all
+that had been written on the Three Chapters, and besought the Pope to
+pardon as well their intercourse with those who lay under his ban as the
+offences committed against him, in which also they claimed to have had no
+part. So things were brought to the condition in which they were before the
+appearance of the last imperial edict. Vigilius now returned from Chalcedon
+to Constantinople.
+
+Mennas, who died in August, 552, was succeeded by Eutychius. He addressed
+himself to the Pope on the 6th January, 553, whose name had been restored
+by Mennas to the first place in the diptychs. Eutychius presented his
+confession of faith. He also proposed that a decision, in respect of the
+Three Chapters in accordance with the four General Councils, should be made
+in a meeting of bishops under the Pope's presidency. Apollinaris of
+Alexandria, Domnus of Antioch, Elias of Thessalonica, and other bishops
+subscribed this request. The Pope, in his reply of the 8th January, praised
+their zeal, and accepted the proposition of a council which he had before
+approved. Negotiations then began about its management. Here the emperor
+resisted the Pope's proposals in many points. He would not have the council
+held in Italy or Sicily, as the Pope desired, nor carry out his own
+proposal to summon such western bishops as the Pope named. He proposed
+further that an equal number of bishops should be consulted on both sides;
+hinting, moreover, that an equal number should be drawn from each
+patriarchate, while Vigilius meant an equal number from the East and the
+West, which he thought necessary to bring about a successful result. At
+last the emperor caused the council actually to meet on the 5th May, 553,
+under the presidency of Eutychius, with 151 bishops, among whom only six
+from Africa represented the West, against the Pope's will, in the
+secretarium of the chief church of Constantinople. First was read an
+imperial writing of much detail, which entered into the previous
+negotiations with Vigilius; then the correspondence between Eutychius and
+the Pope. It was resolved to invite him again. Vigilius refused to take
+part in the council, first on account of the excessive number of eastern
+bishops and the absence of most western; then of the disregard shown to his
+wishes. Further, he sought to preserve himself from compulsion, and
+maintain his decision in freedom. He had reason to fear the infringement of
+his dignity. Moreover, no one of his predecessors had taken personally a
+part in eastern councils, and Pope Celestine had forbidden his legates to
+enter into discussion with bishops, and appear as a party. The Pope
+maintained his refusal not only to the high officers of the emperor, but to
+an embassy from the council, at the head of which stood three eastern
+patriarchs. This he did, being the emperor's subject; being also in the
+power of an emperor who was able to appear to the eastern bishops almost
+the head of the Church, and to sway them as he pleased. The Pope would only
+declare himself ready to give his judgment apart. An account of this
+unsuccessful invitation was given in the council's second session of the
+8th May. The western bishops still in the capital were invited to attend,
+but several declined, because the Pope took no part. At the third session,
+of the 9th May, after reading the former protocols, a confession of faith
+entirely agreeing with the imperial document communicated four days before
+was drawn up, and a special treatment of the Three Chapters ordered for
+another day. At the fourth session, seventy-one heretical or offensive
+propositions of Theodore of Mopsuestia were read and condemned. In the
+fifth, the opposition made to him by St. Cyril and others was considered,
+as well as the question whether it is allowable to anathematise after their
+death men who have died in the Church's communion. This was affirmed
+according to previous examples, and testimony from Augustine, Cyril, and
+others. Theodoret's writings against Cyril were also anathematised. In the
+sixth session, the same was done with the letter of Ibas. In the seventh
+session, several documents sent by the emperor were read, specially letters
+of Pope Vigilius up to 550, and a letter from the emperor Justin to his
+prefect Hypatius, in 520, forbidding that a feast to Theodore or to
+Theodoret should any longer be kept in the city of Cyrus. The imperial
+commissioner informed the council, likewise, that the Pope had sent by the
+sub-deacon Servusdei a letter to the emperor, which the emperor had not
+received, and therefore not communicated to the council. The longer Latin
+text of the acts also says that the emperor had commanded the Pope's name
+to be erased from the diptychs, without prejudice, however, to communion
+with the Apostolic See, which the council accepted. It held its last
+sitting on the 2nd June, 553, and issued fourteen anathemas in accordance
+with the thirteen of Justinian. There were then present 165 bishops.
+
+The document brought to the emperor by the sub-deacon in the Pope's name,
+but rejected, must be what has come down to us as the Constitution of the
+14th May. It had the subscription of Vigilius, of sixteen bishops--nine
+Italian, three Asiatic, two Illyrian, and two African--with three Roman
+clergy. It decidedly rejected sixty propositions drawn from the writings of
+Theodore; anathematised five errors as to the Person of Christ; forbade the
+condemnation of Theodore's person, and of the two other Chapters. If this
+document was really drawn up by Vigilius, who had persisted during almost
+six years, as the emperor admitted, in condemning the Three Chapters, it
+must be explained by the Pope finding his especial difficulty in the manner
+of terminating the matter, so that the western bishops should be entirely
+satisfied that the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon remained inviolate;
+that he purposed only to condemn errors, but spare persons; that he wished
+to set his refusal against the pressure of the changeable emperor and the
+blind submission of the Grecian bishops, without surrendering any point of
+faith. Many irregularities appeared in what preceded the council and took
+place in it. Justinian's conduct was dishonouring to the Church, and he
+used force to get the decrees of the Council accepted. At last Vigilius,
+who seems with other bishops to have been banished, gave way to the
+pressure, and issued a decided condemnation of the Three Chapters, in a
+writing to Eutychius of 8th December, 553; and in a Constitution dated 23rd
+February, 554, he made no mention of the council, but gave his own decision
+in accordance with it, and independent of it, as he had before intended.
+Only by degrees the council held by Eutychius obtained the name of the
+Fifth General Council.
+
+In August, 554, the Pope was again on good terms with the emperor, who
+issued at his request the Pragmatic Sanction for Italy. Then Vigilius set
+out to return to Rome, but died on his way at Syracuse in the beginning of
+555. He had spent seven years in the Greek capital, in a position more
+difficult than had ever before occurred; ignorant himself of the language;
+struggling to his utmost to meet the dangers which assaulted the Church
+from every side. Now one and now another seemed to threaten the greater
+evil. He never wavered in the question of faith itself, but often as to
+what it was opportune to do: as whether it was advisable or necessary to
+condemn persons and writings which the Council of Chalcedon had spared:
+whether to issue a judgment which would be looked upon by the Monophysites
+as a triumph of their cause: which for the same reason would be utterly
+detested by most westerns, as a supposed surrender of the Council of
+Chalcedon; which, instead of closing the old divisions, might create new.
+Subsequent times showed the correctness of his solicitude.[146]
+
+The patriarch Eutychius who presided at this council by the emperor's
+order, without the Pope, was held in great consideration by Justinian, and
+was consulted in his most important affairs. When Justinian had restored
+with the greatest splendour the still existing Church of Santa Sophia,
+Eutychius consecrated it in his presence on the 24th December, 563.
+Justinian then allotted to the service of the cathedral 60 priests, 100
+deacons, 90 sub-deacons, 110 lectors, 120 singers, 100 ostiarii, and 40
+deaconesses, a number which much increased between Justinian and Heraclius.
+
+Justinian in his last years was minded to sanction by a formal decree a
+special doctrine which, after long resisting the Eutycheans, he had taken
+from them. It was that the Body of Christ was from the beginning
+incorruptible, and incapable of any change. He willed that all his bishops
+should set their hands to this decree. Eutychius was one of the first to
+resist. On the 22nd January, 565, he was taken by force from his cathedral
+to a monastery; he refused to appear before a resident council called by
+the emperor, which deposed him, and appointed a successor. He was banished
+to Amasea, where he died, twelve years afterwards, in the monastery which
+he had formerly governed.[147]
+
+But Justinian had become again, by the conquest of Narses, lord of Rome and
+Italy, and as such, in the year 554, issued at the request of Vigilius his
+Pragmatic Sanction. In Italy the struggle was at an end; the land was a
+desert. Flourishing cities had become heaps of smoking ruins. Milan had
+been destroyed. Three hundred thousand are said to have perished there.
+Before the recal of Belisarius, fifty thousand had died of hunger in the
+march of Ancona. Such facts give a notion of Rome's condition. In 554,
+Narses returned, and his victorious host entered, laden with booty, crowned
+with laurels. It was his task to maintain a regular government, which he
+did with the title of Patricius and Commander.[148] The Pragmatic Sanction
+was intended to establish a new political order of things in Italy, which
+was reunited to the empire. The two supreme officials of the Italian
+province were the Exarch and the Prefect. The title of Exarch then came up,
+and continued to the end of the Greek dominion in Italy. He united in
+himself the military and civil authority; but for the exercise of the
+latter the Prefect stood at his side as the first civil officer. Obedience
+to the whole body of legislation, as codified by Justinian's order, was
+enacted. For the rest the provisions of Constantine were followed. The
+administration of justice was in the hands of provincial judges, whom the
+bishops and the nobility chose from the ranks of the latter. It was then
+the bishops began to take part in the courts of justice of their own
+cities, as well in the choice and nomination of the officers as in their
+supervision.[149] The words Roman commonwealth, Roman emperor, Roman army,
+were heard again. But no word was said of restoring a western emperor. Rome
+retained only an ideal precedence; Constantinople was the seat of empire.
+Rome received a permanent garrison, and had to share with Ravenna, where
+the heads of the Italian government soon permanently resided. Justinian's
+constitution found existing the mere shadow of a senate. The prefect of the
+city governed at Rome. There is mention made of a salary given to
+professors of Grammar and Rhetoric,[150] to physicians and lawyers; but it
+is doubtful whether this ever came into effect. The Gothic war[151] seems
+to have destroyed the great public libraries of Rome, the Palatine and
+Ulpian, as well as the private libraries of princely palaces, such as
+Boethius and Symmachus possessed. And in all Italy the war of extermination
+between Goths and Greeks swallowed up the costly treasures of ancient
+literature, save such remnant as the Benedictine monasteries were able to
+collect and preserve.[152] No building of Justinian's in Rome is known.
+All his work of this kind was given to Ravenna. From this time forth every
+new building in Rome is due to the Popes.
+
+Small reason had the Popes to rejoice that the rule of an orthodox emperor
+had followed at Rome that of an Arian king. Three months after the death of
+Vigilius at Syracuse Justinian caused the deacon Pelagius to be elected: he
+had difficulty in obtaining his recognition until he had cleared himself by
+oath in St. Peter's of an accusation that he had hastened his predecessor's
+death. The confirmation of the Pope's election remained with the emperor.
+This permanent fetter came upon the Popes from the interference of Odoacer
+the Herule in 484. After Justinian's death, the Romans sent an embassy to
+his successor complaining that their lot had been more endurable under the
+dominion of barbarians than under the Greeks.
+
+When Narses,[153] re-entering Rome, celebrated a triple triumph over the
+expulsion of barbarians from Italy, the reunion of the empire, and the
+Church's victory over the Arians, a contemporary historian writes that the
+mind of man had not power enough to conceive so many reverses of fortune,
+such destruction of cities, such a flight of men, such a murdering of
+peoples, much less to describe them in words. Italy was strewn with ruins
+and dead bodies from the Alps to Tarentum. Famine and pestilence, following
+on the steps of war, had reduced whole districts to desolation. Procopius
+compares the reckoning of losses to that of reckoning the sands of the
+sea. A sober estimate computes that one-third of the population perished,
+and the ancient form of life in Rome and in all Italy was extinct for ever.
+
+But before we make an estimate of Justinian's whole action and character
+and their result, a subject on which we have scarcely touched has to be
+carefully weighed.
+
+What was the relation between the Two Powers conceived in the mind of
+Justinian, expressed in his legislation, carried out in his conduct,
+whether to the Roman Primate or the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch,
+Jerusalem, and Constantinople in his own eastern empire, or to the whole
+Church when assembled in council, as at Constantinople in 553? Was he
+merely carrying on as emperor a relation which he had inherited from so
+many predecessors, beginning with Constantine, or did he by his own laws
+and conduct alter an equilibrium before existing, and impair a definite and
+lawful union by transgressing the boundaries which made it the co-operation
+of Two Powers.
+
+If we look back just a hundred years before his _Digest_ appeared, we find,
+in the great deed[154] in which the emperors Theodosius II. and Valentinian
+III. convoked the Council of Ephesus, the charge which they considered to
+be laid upon the imperial power to maintain that union of the natural and
+the spiritual government on which, as on a joint foundation, the Roman
+State, in the judgment of its rulers, was itself built. Some of the words
+they use are: "We are the ministers of Providence for the advancement of
+the commonwealth, while, inasmuch as we represent the whole body of our
+subjects, we protect them at once in a right belief and in a civil polity
+corresponding with it".
+
+This first and all-embracing principle of protecting all and every power
+which existed in the commonwealth, and maintaining it in due position, was
+most firmly held by Justinian. As to his own imperial authority and the
+basis on which it rested, he says: "Ever bearing in mind whatever regards
+the advantage and the honour of the commonwealth which God has entrusted to
+our hands, we seek to bring it to effect".[155] As to the Two Powers
+themselves, he recognises them thus: "The greatest gifts of God to men
+bestowed by the divine mercy are the priesthood and the empire; the former
+ministering in divine things, the latter presiding over human things, and
+exerting its diligence therein. Both, proceeding from one and the same
+principle, are the ornament of human life. Therefore nothing will be so
+great a care to emperors as the upright conduct of bishops, for, indeed,
+bishops are ever supplicating God for emperors. But if what concerns them
+be entirely blameless and full of confidence in God, and if the imperial
+power rightly and duly adorn the commonwealth entrusted to it, an admirable
+agreement will ensue, conferring on the human race all that is for its
+good. We then bear the greatest solicitude for the genuine divine doctrine,
+and for the upright conduct of bishops, which we trust, when that doctrine
+is maintained, because through it we shall obtain the greatest gifts from
+God,[156] shall be secure in the possession of those which we have, and
+shall acquire those which have not yet come. But all will be done well and
+fittingly if the beginning from which it springs be becoming and dear to
+God. And this we are confident will be, provided the observance of the holy
+canons be maintained, such as the Apostles, so justly praised and
+worshipped, those eye-witnesses and ministers of God the Word, have
+delivered down to us, and the holy Fathers have maintained and carried
+out."[157] And he proceeds to give the force of civil law to the canons
+concerning the election of bishops and other matters.
+
+In another law he says, "Be it therefore enacted[158] that the force of law
+be given to the holy canons of the Church which have been set forth or
+confirmed by the four holy Councils; that is, by the 318 holy Fathers in
+the Nicene, by the 150 in that of Constantinople, by the first of Ephesus,
+in which Nestorius was condemned, and by Chalcedon, when Eutyches, together
+with Nestorius, was put under anathema. For we accept the decrees of these
+four synods as the Holy Scriptures, and observe their canons as laws.
+
+"And, therefore, be it enacted according to their definitions that the most
+holy Pope of Old Rome is the first of all bishops, and that the most
+blessed archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, holds the second place
+after the holy Apostolic See of Old Rome, but takes precedence of all other
+bishops."
+
+In the laws just quoted we see three of the most important principles which
+run through the acts of Justinian. The first is, that the emperor, having
+the whole commonwealth committed to him by God, is the guardian both of
+human and divine things in it, which together make up the whole
+commonwealth; the second is, that there are Two Powers, the human and the
+divine, both derived from God. The third is, that while the emperor is the
+direct head of all human things, he guards divine things by accepting the
+decrees of General Councils as the Holy Scriptures, and by giving to the
+canons of the Church as descending from the Apostles, "the eye-witnesses
+and ministers of God the Word," the force of law.
+
+If in these laws we find Church and State greet each other as friends, and
+offer each other a mutual support, because both aim at one object, and what
+the holiness of the Church required, advanced no less the peace, the
+security, and the welfare of the State, so a complete concurrence between
+them might be shown in all other respects.[159] The State recognised and
+honoured the whole constitution of the Church as it had been drawn in its
+first lineaments by the author of the Christian religion, as in perfect
+sequence it had formed itself out of the Church's inmost life, and that in
+force and purity, because it had been free from the pressure of external
+laws. The proper position of the Roman bishop as supreme head of the whole
+Church, the relation of the patriarchs to each other, their privileges over
+the metropolitans, the close connection of these with their several
+bishops, were never for a moment unrecognised, because so clear a
+consciousness of these showed itself in the whole Catholic world, that no
+change was possible without a general scandal. Thus the laws of Church and
+State kept pace with each other, when it could not but happen that the ties
+between patriarch and metropolitan, between metropolitan and bishop, became
+more stringent, as external increase was followed by decline in inward life
+and the fervour of faith. Thus the regular course was that the metropolitan
+examined the election of the bishop by the clergy and people, consecrated
+him, introduced him to the direction of his charge, and by the _litterae
+formatae_ gave him his place in the fabric of the Church. So the
+metropolitan was consecrated by his patriarch, in whose own election all
+the bishops of the province, but especially the metropolitans, took part.
+The metropolitan summoned his bishops, the patriarchs their metropolitans,
+to the yearly synods. The bishops did not vote without their metropolitan;
+they took counsel with him, sometimes intrusted him with their votes.[160]
+General laws of the Church, and also imperial edicts, were transmitted
+first to the patriarchs, and from them to the metropolitans, and from these
+to the bishops. Bishops might not leave their diocese without permission of
+the metropolitan, nor the metropolitan without that of the patriarch.[161]
+
+In like manner, we find in Justinian's laws the relation of the bishop to
+his diocese, and especially to his clergy, recognised as we find it
+presented by the Church from the beginning, and as the lapse of time had
+more and more drawn it out. The law's recognition secured it from all
+attack. The idea that without the bishop there is neither altar, sacrifice,
+nor sacrament had become, through the spirit of unity which rules the
+Church, a fact visible to all. The more heresies and divisions exerted
+their destroying and dissolving power, while the Church went on expanding
+in bulk, every divine service in private houses was forbidden. Since such
+assemblies attacked as well the peace and security of the State as the
+unity of belief, the governors of provinces, as well as the bishops, had
+most carefully to guard against such acts. Neither in city nor country
+could a church, a monastery, or an oratory be raised without the bishop's
+permission. This was made known to all by his consecrating the appointed
+place in solemn procession, with prayer and singing, by elevation of the
+cross. Without this such building was considered a place where errors
+lurked and deserters took refuge.[162] In this concurrent action of the
+laws of Church and State respecting the relation of the bishop to the whole
+Church and to his own clergy, we never miss the perfect union between the
+two even as to the smallest particulars. The conclusion is plain that the
+secular power did not intend to act here on the ground of its own
+supremacy, or as an exercise of its own majesty. Not only did it issue no
+new regulations whereby any fresh order should be in the smallest degree
+introduced: it raised to the condition of its own laws the canons which had
+long obtained force in the Church, whose binding power was accepted by
+everyone who respected the Church, as lying in themselves and in the
+authority from which they proceeded. These it took simply and without
+addition, and by so taking recognised in them the double character. So, if
+they were transgressed, a double penalty ensued. The Church's punitive
+power is contained in its legislative, the recognition of which is an
+acknowledgment of the former. This the State, not only tacitly but
+expressly, recognised. And by taking the Church's laws, it not only did not
+obliterate the character and dignity of that authority, from which they had
+issued, but it did not change the penalty, nor consider it from another
+point of view. It remained what it had always been, and from its nature
+must be, an ecclesiastical punishment. The State only lent its arm, when
+that was necessary, for its execution. With this, however, it was not
+content. The Church's life entered too deeply into the secular life. Those
+who were to carry on the one and sanctify the other stood in the closest
+connection with the whole State. So it made the canons its own proper laws,
+and thus attached temporal penalties to their transgression. So we find
+everywhere the addition that each violation would carry with it not only
+the divine judgment and arm the Church's hand to punish, but likewise draw
+down upon it the prescribed penalties from the imperial majesty.
+
+But so far the empire was maintaining by its secular authority the proper
+laws and institutions of the Church. Justinian went far beyond this.[163]
+His legislation associated the bishop with the count in the government of
+cities and provinces. It gave up to him exclusively the superintendence of
+morality and the protection of moral interests, the control of public works
+and of prisons. It bestowed on him a large jurisdiction--even more, put
+under his supervision the conduct of public functionaries in their
+administration, and conferred on him a preponderating influence on their
+election. In a word, it by degrees displaced the centre of gravity in
+political life by investing the episcopate with a large portion of temporal
+attributions.
+
+To give in detail what is here summed up would involve too large a space. A
+few specimens must suffice. The bishop in his own spiritual office would
+have a great regard for widows and orphans.[164] Parents when dying felt
+secure in recommending children to their protection against the avarice of
+secular judges. Hence the custom had arisen that bishops had to watch over
+the execution of wills, especially such as were made for benevolent
+purposes. They could in case of need call in the assistance of the
+governor. Their higher intelligence and disinterested character were in
+such general credit that they had no little influence in the drawing up of
+wills. But the State under Justinian was so far from regarding: this with
+jealousy, that he ordered, if a traveller should die without a will in an
+inn, the bishop of the place should take possession of the property, either
+to hand it over to the rightful heirs, or to employ it for pious purposes.
+If the innkeeper were found guilty of embezzlement, he was to pay thrice
+the sum to the bishop, who could apply it as he wished. No custom,
+privilege, or statute was allowed to have force against this. Those who
+opposed it were made incapable of testing. Down to the sixth century[165]
+we find no law of the Church touching the testamentary dispositions of
+Christians. Justinian is the first of whom we know that he entrusted the
+execution of wills specially to the supervision of bishops. That he did
+this shows the great trust which he placed in their uprightness.
+
+It was to be expected that bishops should have a special care for the city
+which was their see.[166] Various laws of Justinian gave them here
+privileges in which we cannot fail to see the foundation of the later
+extension of episcopal authority and influence over the whole sphere of
+secular life. With their clergy and with the chief persons in the city,
+they took special part in the election of _defensors_ and of the other city
+officers; so also in the appointment of provincial administrators. It was
+their duty to protect subjects against oppressions from soldiers and
+exaction of provision, as well as against all excessive claim of taxes and
+unlawful gifts to imperial officers. A governor on assuming the province
+was bound to assemble the bishop, the clergy, and the chief people of the
+capital, that he might lay before them the imperial nomination, and the
+extent of the duties which he was to fulfil. Thus they were enabled to
+judge on each occasion whether the representative of the emperor was
+fulfilling his charge. Magistrates, before entering on office, had to take
+the prescribed oath before the metropolitan and the chief citizens. The
+oath itself was an act made before God, and as such under cognisance of the
+bishop. But special regulations enjoined him to watch over the whole
+conduct and each particular act of the governor. If general complaints were
+made of injustice, he was to inform the emperor. If only an individual had
+suffered wrongs, the bishop was judge between both parties. If sentence was
+given against the accused, and he refused to make satisfaction, the matter
+came before the emperor in the last resort. The emperor, if the bishop had
+decided according to right, condemned his governor to death, because he who
+should have been the protector of others against wrong had himself
+committed wrong. If a governor was deposed for maladministration, he was
+not to quit the province before fifty days, and he could be accused before
+the bishop for every unjust transaction. Even if he was removed or
+transferred to another charge, and had left behind him a lawful substitute,
+the same proceeding took place before the bishop. On this account civil
+orders also were sent to the bishops to be publicly considered by them, and
+kept among the church documents, their fulfilment supervised, and
+violations reported to the emperor. But, to complete this picture, it must
+be remarked that this supervision was not one-sided. The emperor sent even
+his ecclesiastical regulations not only through the patriarch of
+Constantinople to the metropolitans, but through the Praetorian prefect to
+the governors of provinces. He directed them to support the bishops in
+their execution, but he likewise enjoined them to report neglect of them to
+the emperor. Especially they were to watch the execution of imperial
+decrees upon Church discipline, and monasteries in particular. The rules,
+so often repeated because so frequently broken, respecting the
+inalienability of Church property, were to be specially watched, and also
+the celebration, as prescribed, of yearly synods. But the civil magistrates
+were only recommended to keep a supervision, which did not extend to the
+right of official exhortation; far less that they were allowed in any
+ecclesiastical matter, in which the bishop might be at all in fault, to act
+upon their own authority, or receive an accusation against him from
+whomsoever and for whatsoever it might be. But the bishop could act in his
+quality of judge between a party and the governor himself, if the party
+had called upon him. Especially, Justinian allowed bishops a decisive
+influence upon legal proceedings in certain branches. The inspection of
+forbidden games, public buildings, roads, and bridges, the distribution of
+corn, was under them. They were to examine the competence of a security.
+The curators of insane persons took oath before them to fulfil their duty.
+If a father had named none, the bishop took part in the choice of them; the
+act was deposited among the church documents. If the children of an insane
+father wished to marry, the bishop had to determine the dowry and the
+nuptial donation. In the absence of the proper judge, the bishop of the
+city could receive complaints from those who had to make a legal demand on
+another, or to protect themselves from a pledge falling overdue. The proofs
+of a wrong account could, in the accountant's absence, be made before the
+bishop, and had legal force. If the ground-lord would not receive the
+ground-rent, the feoffee should consign it at Constantinople to the
+Praetorian prefect or the patriarch, in the provinces to the governor, or
+in his absence to the bishop of the city where the ground-lord who refused
+to receive it had his domicile. Whoever found no hearing, either in a civil
+or criminal matter, before the judge of the province, was directed to go to
+the bishop, who could either call the judge to him, or go in person to the
+judge, to invite him to do justice to the complainant according to the
+strict law, in order that the bishop might not be obliged to carry the
+refusal of justice by appeal to the imperial court.[167] If the judge was
+not moved by this, the bishop gave the complainant a statement of the whole
+case for the emperor, and the delinquent had to fear severe penalties, not
+alone because he had been untrue to his office, but because he did not
+allow himself, even at the demand of the bishop, to do what, without it,
+lay in the circle of his duties. But this referring to the bishop was not
+arbitrary--that is, not one which it lay in the will of the complainant to
+use or not, but necessary, so that anyone who appealed to the imperial
+court without this endeavour incurred, whether his complaint was founded or
+not, the same punishment as the judge who refused to give a decision at the
+bishop's request. Even if the complainant only suspected the judge, he was
+bound to apply to the bishop to join the judge in examining the matter, and
+to bring it to a strict legal issue. In the face of such honourable
+confidence which was placed in the bishops, and which was also justified in
+general by a happy result, we ought not to be surprised if either the
+emperor himself or inferior magistrates committed to them the termination
+of entangled processes, in which they exercised just such a jurisdiction as
+may either in general be exercised by delegates, or was committed to them
+for the special occasion.
+
+The emperor[168] in his legislation left no part of the Church's
+discipline unregarded. His purpose was in all respects to make the State
+Christian; and he considered no part of divine and human things, whether it
+were dogma or conduct,--which, together, made up the Church's
+life,--withdrawn from his care and guardianship. Observances which had
+begun in custom, and gradually been drawn out definitely and enacted in
+canons, he took into his _Digest_, not with the intention of giving them
+greater inward force or stronger grounds as duties, but to show the unity
+of his own effort with that of the Church. He willingly put the imperial
+stamp on her salutary regulations. He showed his readiness to help her with
+external force wherever the inviolable sanctity of her laws seemed to be
+threatened by the opposition of individuals. In this he recognised the
+unchangeable order which is so deeply rooted in the nature both of Church
+and State, that order which is the greatest security for the wellbeing and
+prosperity of both. And the Church in the course of her long life had
+hitherto almost universally maintained this order; always, at least, in
+principle. If it was anywhere transgressed, it was either because the
+secular power was acting under special commission and approval of the
+Church, or, if that power acted without such approval, it met with open
+contradiction whereby not only the illegality of the particular action was
+marked, but the principle of the Church's freedom and independence was
+preserved.
+
+There is a passage in the address of the eastern bishops to Tarasius,
+patriarch of Constantinople, quoted in the Second Nicene Council of
+789,[169] the Seventh General, which cites the words of Justinian given
+above in one of his laws. The bishops say in their own character--and they
+are bishops who describe themselves "as sitting in darkness and the shadow
+of death, that is, of the Arabian impiety"--"It is the priesthood which
+sanctifies the empire and forms its basis; it is the empire which
+strengthens and supports the priesthood. Concerning these, a wise king,
+most blessed among holy princes, said: The greatest gift of God to men is
+the priestly and the imperial power, the one ordering and administering
+divine things, the other ruling human things by upright laws."
+
+If we considered the principles of Justinian alone as exhibited in his
+legislation, without regard to his conduct, we might, like the eastern
+bishops, take these words as the motto of his reign and the key to his acts
+as legislator. Indeed, it may be said that this legislation cannot be
+understood except by presupposing throughout the cordiality of the alliance
+between the Two Powers. In the election and the lives of bishops, in the
+discipline of religious houses, in the strict observance of the celibate
+life which has been assumed with full consent of the will by clergy and by
+monks, the emperor is as strict in his laws as the Church in her canons.
+The ruler of the State, who makes laws with a single word of his own mouth,
+who commands all the armies of the State, who bestows all its offices, who
+is, in truth, the autocrat, the impersonated commonwealth, shows not a
+particle of jealousy towards the Church as Church. He enjoins the strict
+observance of her canons in the fullest conviction that the end which she
+aims at as Church is the end which he also desires as emperor; that the
+good life of her bishops and priests is essential for the good of society
+in general; that the perfect orthodoxy of her creed is the dearest
+possession, the pillar and safeguard, of his own government. Heresy and
+schism are, in his sight, the greatest crimes against the State, as they
+are the greatest sins against the Church and against God. In the course of
+the two hundred years from Constantine to Justinian the Roman State, as
+understood by the Illyrian peasant who ruled it for thirty-eight years, had
+intertwined itself as closely with the Catholic Church as ever it had with
+Cicero's "immortal gods" in the time of Augustus, or Trajan, or Decius. It
+was the special pride and glory of Justinian to maintain intact this
+alliance as the palladium of the empire. And, therefore, his legislation
+touched every part of the ecclesiastical government, every dogma of the
+Church's creed, and only on account of this alliance did the Church
+acquiesce in such a legislation. I suppose that no greater contradiction
+can ever be conceived than that which exists between the mind of Justinian
+and the mind which now, and for a long time, has directed the nations of
+Europe, so far as their governments are concerned in their attitude towards
+the Church of God. In Europe are nations which are nurtured upon heresy and
+schism, whether as the basis of the original rebellion which severed them
+from the communion of the Church or as the outcome of "Free-thought" in
+their subsequent evolution through centuries of speculation unbridled by
+spiritual authority; nations, again, bisected by pure infidelity, or
+struggling with the joint forces of heresy and infidelity which strive to
+overthrow constitutions originally Catholic in all their structure. In one
+empire alone the attitude of Constantine and Justinian towards the Church
+is still maintained. It is that wherein the emperor rules with an amplitude
+of authority such as Constantine and Justinian held, whose successor he
+claims to be; where, also, an imperial aide-de-camp, booted and spurred,
+sits at the council board of a synod called holy, and is by far the most
+important member of it, for nothing can pass without his sanction--a synod
+which rules the bishops, being itself nothing but a ministry of the State,
+drawing, like the council of the empire, its jurisdiction from the emperor.
+
+Justinian was a true successor of the great Theodosius in so far as he
+upheld orthodoxy, and endeavoured to unite all his subjects in one belief
+and one centre of unity. The greatest of the Roman emperors had for their
+first and chief motive, in upholding this first principle of imperial
+policy, the conviction that thus only they could hope to maintain the peace
+and security of the empire. Schism in the Church betokened rebellion in the
+State. In the fourth century heresy had driven the empire to the very brink
+of destruction. Besides this, all the populations converted from heathendom
+were accustomed to see a complete harmony between religion and the State,
+which appeared almost blent into one. Again, we must not forget that at
+this time the Christian religion had been lately accepted distinctly as a
+divine institution, and that it embraced the whole man with a plenitude of
+power which the indifference and division of our own times hardly allow us
+to conceive. Those who would realise this grasp of the Christian faith,
+transforming and exalting the whole being, may reach a faint perception of
+it by reading the great Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries--St.
+Basil, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Leo.
+They were not in danger of taking the moral corruption of an effete
+civilisation for the Christian faith. Again, the emperors, living in the
+midst of this immense intellectual and moral power--for instance, Justinian
+himself practising in a court the austerities of a monastery--recognised
+the confession of the same faith as the strongest band which united
+subjects with their prince. They thought that those who were not united
+with them in belief could not serve them with perfect love and fidelity.
+And, lastly, they hoped that their own zeal in maintaining the Church's
+unity unimpaired would make them worthier of the divine favour, and give
+success to all their undertakings. Let us take the words of Theodosius, one
+of the greatest and best among them, to his colleague the younger
+Valentinian, who up to the time of his mother Justina's death had been
+unjust to the Catholic cause and favoured the Arian heresy: "The imperial
+dignity is supported, not by arms, but by the justice of the cause.
+Emperors who feared God have won victories without armies, have subdued
+enemies and made them tributary, and have escaped all dangers. So
+Constantine the Great overcame the tyrant Licinius in a sea-fight. So thy
+father (the first Valentinian) succeeded in protecting his realm from its
+enemies, won mighty victories, and destroyed many barbarians. On the
+contrary, thy uncle Valens polluted churches by the murder of saints and
+the banishing of priests. Hence by guidance of Divine Providence he was
+besieged by the Goths, and found his death in the flames. It is true that
+he who has not unjustly expelled thee does not worship Christ aright. But
+thy perverse belief has given this opportunity to Maximus. If we do not
+return to Christ, how can we call upon His aid in the struggle?" The
+following emperors were of the same judgment: so that they attached to each
+decree which concerned ecclesiastical matters the motive of meriting
+thereby God's approval, since they not only took pains to please Him, but
+also led their subjects to do so. We employ, says Justinian, every care
+upon the holy churches, because we believe that our empire will be
+maintained, and the commonwealth protected by the favour of God, but
+likewise to save our own souls and the souls of all our subjects.
+
+Justinian likewise would have a keen remembrance of the degradation from
+which his uncle had restored the empire. None knew better than he how the
+ignoble reigns of the usurper Basiliscus, of Zeno, and of Anastasius, by
+perpetual tampering with heresy and ruthless persecution of the orthodox,
+had well-nigh broken that empire to pieces. Had he not thrown all his
+energy, as the leading spirit of his uncle's realm, into that great
+submission to Pope Hormisdas which rendered its beginning illustrious?
+
+Nevertheless a dark blot lies upon the name and memory of Justinian. He was
+not only successor of the great Theodosius in his ardent zeal for the
+Church's doctrine and unity, but likewise of Constantine, when he sullied
+his greatness and risked all the success of his former life by falling into
+the hands of the Nicomedian Eusebius.
+
+The vast event by which the Christian Church had become a ruling power in
+the commonwealth had affected from that time forth the whole being of
+Church and State. Christian emperors had come to see in bishops the Fathers
+and Princes of such a Church, consecrated by God to that office, not
+appointed by men.[170] As such they had honoured them, committed to their
+wisdom and guidance the salvation of their own souls, and the weal itself
+of the commonwealth; not hindered them in the performance of their duties,
+not hampered them by restrictive laws. Rather they had protected them by
+external force from hindrance when invited thus to show their protection as
+heads of the State. Circumstances led them on to a more immediate entrance
+into the Church's special domain, and the things which happened in that
+domain led to this their entrance. It kept even pace with the developments
+and disturbances caused by heresy therein.
+
+Christ had committed to the whole episcopate, under the guidance of the
+Holy Spirit, the task of spreading the seed of Christian doctrine over the
+earth, of watching its growth, of eradicating the false seed sown in
+night-time by the enemy. In proportion as the empire's head took part in
+this work, his influence on the episcopate could not but increase. If his
+participation was confined within its due limits, if the temporal ruler
+hedged the Church round from irruption of external power, if he rooted the
+tares out of her field only to clear her enclosure, his relation to the
+bishops remained merely external. But if he went on himself to lay down the
+limit of the Church's domain, or even if he only took an active part in
+such limitation; if he made himself the judge what was wheat and what was
+tares, in so doing he had won an influence on the bishops which did not
+belong to him. Then Church and State ran a danger of seeing their
+respective limits confused. Thus the relation of the bishops to the ruler
+of the State became then, and remains always, an unfailing standard of the
+Church's freedom and independence.
+
+Now, striking and peremptory as the eastern submission to Pope Hormisdas
+was, in which Justinian, then a man of thirty-six, had taken large part;
+clear and unambiguous as in his legislation appears the recognition of the
+Two Powers, sacerdotal and imperial, which make together the joint
+foundation of the State, and are a necessity of its wellbeing; distinct,
+likewise, as is the imperial proclamation of the Pope as the first of all
+bishops in his laws, his letters, confirmed by his reception of the Popes
+Agapetus and Vigilius in his own capital city; frank and unembarrassed as
+his acknowledgment of St. Peter's successors, yet, when he had reached the
+mature age of seventy, and was lord by conquest of Rome reduced to absolute
+impotence, and of Italy as a subject province, his treatment of the first
+bishop, in the person of Vigilius, was a contradiction of his own laws as
+to the two domains of divine and human things. He passed beyond the limits
+which marked the boundaries of the two powers. He made himself the supreme
+judge of doctrine. He convoked a General Council without the Pope's assent;
+he terminated it without his sanction; he treated the Pope as a prisoner
+for resisting such action. It is true that St. Peter's successor--and this
+with a stain upon him which no successor of St. Peter had worn before
+him--escaped with St. Peter's life in him unimpaired; but so far as the
+action of Justinian went it was unfilial, inconsistent with his own laws,
+perilous in the extreme to the Church, dishonouring to the whole
+episcopate. The divine protection guarded Vigilius--that Vigilius whom an
+imperious woman had put upon the seat of a lawful living Pope--from
+sacrifice of the authority to which, on the martyrdom of his predecessor,
+he succeeded. He died at Syracuse, and St. Peter lived after him
+undiminished in the great St. Gregory. The names mean the same, the one in
+Latin, the other in Greek; but no successor ever took on himself the
+blighted name of Vigilius, while many of the greatest among the Popes have
+chosen for themselves the name of Gregory, and one at least of the sixteen
+has equalled the glory of the first.
+
+In judging the conduct of Justinian, both in treatment of persons and in
+dealing with doctrine, we cannot fail to see that the imperial duty of
+protection passed into the imperial lust for mastery. If his treatment of
+Vigilius, whom he acknowledged in the clearest terms as Pope, was
+scandalous and cruel, still worse, if possible, was the assumption of a
+right to interpret and to define the Church's doctrine for the Church. The
+usurper Basiliscus had been the first to issue an imperial decree on
+doctrine. This was in favour of heresy. He was followed in this by the
+legitimate emperors Zeno and Anastasius, also in favour of heresy. On the
+contrary,[171] the edicts of Justinian were generally in conformity with
+the decisions of the Church: generally occasioned by bishops, often drawn
+up by them. But in the council called by him at Constantinople in 553, he
+issued decrees on doctrines which only the Church could decide. In doing
+this he infringed her liberty as grossly as the three whose unlawful act he
+was imitating. The whole effect of his reign was that State despotism in
+Church matters lowered the dignity of the spiritual power. The dependence
+of his bishops on the court became greater and greater. The emperor's will
+became law in the things of the Church. He persecuted Vigilius: he deposed
+his own patriarch Eutychius. His example, as that of the most distinguished
+Byzantine monarch, told with great force upon his successors, for the
+persecution of future Popes and the deposition of future patriarchs.
+
+The Italy which he had won at the cost of its ruin as to temporal wellbeing
+was, after his death in 565, speedily lost as to its greater portion, and
+the Romans[172] of the East did little more for it. The Rome which he had
+reduced almost to a solitude, and ruled through a prefect with absolute
+power, escaped in the end from the most cruel and heartless despotism
+inflicted by a distant master on a province at once plundered and
+neglected. His own eastern provinces suffered terribly from barbarian
+inroads, and the end of the thirty-seven years' domination, which had
+seemed a resurrection at the beginning, showed the mighty eastern empire
+from day to day declining, the western bishops under the action of the Pope
+more and more exerting an independence which the East could not prevent,
+the patriarch of Constantinople more and more advancing as the agent of the
+imperial will in dealing with eastern bishops. What the See of St. Peter
+was at the end of the sixth century it remains to see in the pontificate of
+the first Gregory, who shares with the first Leo the double title of Great
+and Saint.
+
+NOTES:
+
+[115] Mansi, viii. 795-99.
+
+[116] This refers to the reunion of a great portion of the eastern Church,
+which had fallen a prey to the most manifold errors since the Council of
+Chalcedon.--Riffel, p. 543.
+
+[117] Savigny, _Geschichte des roemischen Rechts im Mittelalter_, 1834, i.
+36. Quoted by Rump, ix. 72.
+
+[118] _Ep._ xi. 2: Sedes illa toto orbe mirabilis licet generalis mundo sit
+praedita.
+
+[119] _Nov._ cxxxi. c. 2: thespizomen ton hagiotaton tes presbyteras Rhomes
+papan proton einai panton ton hiereon.... te gnome kai orthe krisei tou
+ekeinou sebasmiou thronou katergethesan. _Nov._ ix. init.: Pontificatus
+apicem apud eam (Romam anteriorem) esse nemo est qui dubitet.--Photius, p.
+156.
+
+[120] Translated from Photius, p. 156.
+
+[121] "Cesare fui e son Giustiniano,
+      Che, per voler del primo amor ch'io sento,
+      Dentro alle leggi trassi il troppo e il vano."
+                              --_Paradiso_, vi. 10.
+
+[122] This paragraph translated from Rump, ix. 70.
+
+[123] Rump, viii. 487.
+
+[124] Account from Rump, ix. 172-4, compressed.
+
+[125] Respondeat mens illa Sancto Spiritui serviens.
+
+[126] Mansi, viii. 808.
+
+[127] Mansi, viii. 849.
+
+[128] See Baronius, A.D. 535, sec. 40; Hefele, ii. 736-8; Rump, ix. 174-6;
+_Novell._ xxxix. _De Africana Ecclesia._
+
+[129] Photius, i. 153-4: words of Hergenroether, who quotes eastern
+historians, who call him megaloprepesteros anakton ton proteron ...
+megalourgos krator.
+
+[130] Mansi, viii. 846.
+
+[131] Photius, i. 160-2; Rump, ix. 181.
+
+[132] Photius, i. 163. The words which concern the conduct of Vigilius are
+taken from Cardinal Hergenroether. Baronius, A.D. 538, sec. 5, gives from
+Anastasius the words of the empress, and the Pope's answer, and the
+following narrative.
+
+[133] Gregorovius, i. 372. See Liberatus, _Breviarium_, ch. xxii.
+
+[134] Liberatus, _Breviarium_.
+
+[135] Reumont, ii. 49.
+
+[136] St. Gregory, _Dialogues_, ii. 14, 18.
+
+[137] The following drawn from Reumont's narrative, ii. 50-6.
+
+[138] The narrative drawn from Reumont, ii. 56-7; Gregorovius, i. 448-9.
+
+[139] Mansi, viii. 969; Photius, i. 163.
+
+[140] Mansi, viii. 1149.
+
+[141] Mansi, ix. 35-40.
+
+[142] Narrative drawn from Photius, i. 165-6, down to "Ferrandus," p. 232,
+below.
+
+[143] Mansi, ix. 487-537.
+
+[144] Hefele, ii. 790.
+
+[145] Hergenroether, _K.G._, i. 344-5; Photius, i. 166.
+
+[146] Translated from Hergenroether's _K.G._, i., pp. 345-351, from p. 232,
+above, "at this point Justinian sought," &c., with reference also to the
+life of Photius.
+
+[147] Hergenroether, Photius, i. 174; Rump, _K.G._, ix. 283.
+
+[148] See Reumont, ii. 58-62; Gregorovius, i. 453-9.
+
+[149] Reumont, 60.
+
+[150] Gregorovius, 455.
+
+[151] _Ibid._, 456.
+
+[152] Reumont, 61.
+
+[153] Gregorovius, 450-2.
+
+[154] See vol. v. 281.
+
+[155] _Constitutio_, lxxxii. 667.
+
+[156] Honestatem quam illis obtenentibus credimus.
+
+[157] _Constitutio_, vi. 48.
+
+[158] 119. _De ecclesiasticis titulis_, p. 940. _Sancimus_. This word in
+Roman law in the time of Justinian is equivalent to the English formula,
+"Be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the
+advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in
+Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same". There lies in
+these two formulae, expressing the supreme legislative authority, a
+comparison between the constitution of the lower Roman empire and the
+medieval constitutions established everywhere by the influence of the
+Church under guidance of the Popes.
+
+[159] Riffel, 611-12, translated.
+
+[160] See Justinian, _Gloss._ v., directed to the patriarch of
+Constantinople, Epiphanius. _Epilogus_, p 48: Haec igitur omnia sanctissimi
+patriarchae sub se constitutis Deo amabilibus metropolitis manifesta
+faciant, at illi subjectis sibi Deo amabilibus episcopis declarent, et illi
+monasteriis Dei sub sua ordinatione constitutis cognita faciant, quatenus
+per omnia Domini cultura maneat undique in eos incorrupta.
+
+[161] Riffel, p. 615, translated.
+
+[162] Riffel, p. 617.
+
+[163] Kurth, ii. 35.
+
+[164] See Riffel, p. 624.
+
+[165] Riffel, p. 625.
+
+[166] _Ibid._, pp. 629-35.
+
+[167] See St. Gregory, _Epis._, x. 51 (vol. ii. 1080), where he writes to
+the ex-consul Leontius, in Sicily, who had beaten with rods the ex-prefect
+Libertinus: "Si mihi constare potuisset quia justas causas de suis
+rationibus haberent, et prius per epistolas vos pulsare habui; et si
+auditus minime fuissem, serenissimo Domino Imperatori suggererem".
+
+[168] Riffel, p. 635.
+
+[169] Mansi, xii. 1130.
+
+[170] Riffel, 562.
+
+[171] Photius, p. 155.
+
+[172] Photius, 173.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ST. GREGORY THE GREAT.
+
+    "The banner of the Church is ever flying!
+    Less than a storm avails not to unfold
+    The Cross emblazoned there in massive gold:
+    Away with doubts and sadness, tears and sighing!
+    It is by faith, by patience, and by dying
+    That we must conquer, as our sires of old."
+
+    --AUBREY DE VERE, "St. Peter's Chains".
+
+
+The historian,[173] who has carefully followed the fortunes of Rome as a
+city during a thousand years, describes it as beginning a new life from the
+time when Narses, in the year 552, came to reside there as imperial prefect
+and representative of the absent eastern lord Justinian. Narses so ruled
+for fifteen years, but when he was recalled there ensued a long time of
+terrible distress and anxiety--a time of temporal servitude, but one also
+of spiritual expansion. The complete ruin of Rome as a secular city, the
+overthrow of all that ancient world of which Rome was the centre and
+capital, had been effected in the struggle ended by the extinction of the
+Gothic kingdom. By degrees the laws, the monuments, the very recollections
+of what had been, passed away. The heathen temples ceased to be preserved
+as public monuments. The Capitol, on its desolate hill, lifted into the
+still air its fairy world of pillars in a grave-like silence, startled
+only by the owl's night cry. The huge palace of the Caesars still occupied
+the Palatine in unbroken greatness, a labyrinth of empty halls yet
+resplendent with the finest marbles, here and there still covered with
+gold-embroidered tapestry. But it was falling to pieces like a fortress
+deserted by its occupants. In some small corner of its vast spaces there
+might still be seen a Byzantine prefect, an eunuch from the court of the
+eastern despot, or a semi-Asiatic general, with secretaries, servants, and
+guards. The splendid forums built by Caesar after Caesar, each a homage
+paid by the ruler of the day to the Roman people, whom he fed and feared,
+became pale with age. Their history clung round them like a fable. The
+massive blocks of Pompey's theatre showed need of repairs, which were
+not given. The circus maximus, where the last and dearest of Roman
+pleasures--the chariot races--were no longer celebrated, stretched its long
+lines beneath the imperial palace covered with dust and overgrown with
+grass. The colossal amphitheatre of Titus still reared its circle perfect,
+but stripped of its decorations. The gigantic baths, fed by no aqueduct
+since the ruin wrought by Vitiges the Goth, rose like fallen cities in a
+wilderness. Ivy began to creep over them. The costly marble mantle of their
+walls dropped away in pieces or was plundered for use. The Mosaic pavements
+split. There were still in those beautiful chambers seats of bright or dark
+marble, baths of porphyry or Oriental alabaster. But these found their way
+by degrees to churches. They served for episcopal chairs, or to receive
+the bones of a saint, or to become baptismal fonts. Yet not a few remained
+in their desolation till the walls dropped down upon them, or the dust
+covered them for centuries. In course of time the rain perforated the
+uncared-for vaultings of these shady galleries. Having served for refuge to
+the thief, the coiner, or the assassin, they became like dripping grottoes.
+
+Thus stood the temples, triumphal arches, pillars, and statues before the
+eyes of a young Roman noble, one out of the few patrician families still
+surviving. These were the sights with which St. Gregory, who claimed
+kindred with the Anician race, was familiar from his boyhood, so that the
+desolation of Jerusalem rose before his mind as the state of his own Rome
+pressed on his eyes and seared his heart.
+
+This skeleton of a city was scarcely inhabited by the remnant of a people,
+decimated by hunger and pestilence, and in perpetual fear to see its
+ill-defended gates broken into by Lombard savages. The walls of Aurelian,
+half demolished by Totila and hurriedly repaired by Belisarius, alone saved
+it year after year from the horrors which fell upon captured cities; and
+would not have saved it but for the indomitable spirit, the perpetual
+wisdom, foresight, and courage of a son who had been exalted to the Chair
+of Peter.
+
+While Old Rome lay thus, the shadow of its former self, bereft of all
+political power, looking to the imperial exarch at Ravenna for its temporal
+rule, in danger moreover of inundation from its own Tiber, whose banks were
+no longer maintained with unremitting care, New Rome beside the Bosporus
+rioted in all the pomp and circumstance of a court still the head of a vast
+empire. The tributes of all the East, of numberless cities in Asia Minor,
+in Syria, in Egypt, were still borne unceasingly within its walls, which
+rose as an impregnable fortress between Europe and Asia. Its emperor still
+thought himself the lord of the world; its bishop assumed the title of
+Ecumenical Patriarch. Both emperor and bishop cast but a disdainful glance
+on the widowed rival which threatened to sink into the grave of waters
+brought down by her own river. Constantinople could raise and pay armies
+from all the races of the North and East. A single imperial regiment was
+quartered at Rome, which, being ill-paid, became disaffected and neglectful
+of its charge, and could not be counted upon by the Pope for vigorous
+defence against the ever-pressing danger of a Lombard inroad.
+
+So began the Church's Rome.[174] Enslaved politically to Byzantium, wherein
+the so-called Roman State, with Greek subtlety, carried on the principles
+of the old heathen government and practised a remorseless despotism, the
+city of the ancient Caesars and the people they fed on "bread and games"
+ceased to exist, and was changed into the holy city, whose life was the
+Chair of Peter. From the time of Narses, during all the two hundred years
+of Lombard assault and Byzantine neglect and exaction, the Pope alone,
+watchful and unceasingly active, carried out the fabric of the Roman
+hierarchy.[175] Its gradual increase, its springing up out of the dust of
+the old Roman State under the most difficult circumstances, will ever
+claim the astonishment of the after-world as the greatest transformation to
+be found in history.
+
+Let us approach the secret of this transformation in the person of the man
+who best represents it.
+
+Gregory was born about the year 540, and so was witness from his childhood
+of the intense misery and special degradation of Rome produced by the
+Gothic war. He was himself the son of Gordian, a man of senatorial rank,
+from whom he inherited great landed property. Through him he was the great
+grandson of that illustrious Pope Felix III., whom we have seen resist with
+success the insolence of Acacius and the despotism of Zeno. Gregory had
+therefore a doubly noble inheritance--that of a true Roman noble's spirit,
+and that of the Church's championship. His paternal house stood on that
+well-known slope of the Coelian hill, opposite the imperial palace on the
+Palatine, from which in after-time he sent forth St. Augustine with the
+monks his brethren to be the Apostle of paganised England. He founded six
+monasteries in Sicily upon his property, and changed his father's palace
+into a seventh, in which he followed the Benedictine Rule. In early manhood
+he had been praetor or prefect of the city, being probably the most eminent
+of all its citizens in wealth and rank. But his mother St. Silvia, a woman
+of fervent piety, had educated him with great care. He turned from the
+secular to the religious life, following perhaps her example, since on the
+death of his father she became a nun. He was a monk on the Coelian hill
+when Pope Benedict in the year 577 named him seventh deacon of the Roman
+Church. Pope Pelagius II. sent him as nuncio to Constantinople, an office
+equally difficult and honourable. The emperor Tiberius was then reigning,
+with whom he became intimate, and with his successor Mauritius. Gregory
+dwelt in the imperial palace, with some monks of his own monastery whom he
+had brought with him, pursuing the Rule in all pious observances, winning
+also the esteem and friendship of many distinguished men, and making
+himself fully acquainted with the mechanism of the eastern court. He also
+delivered the patriarch Eutychius from a false Origenistic notion, that the
+bodies of the blessed after the resurrection were not glorified, but lost
+their quality as bodies.[176] There also he became warmly attached to St.
+Leander, who afterwards, as archbishop of Seville, greatly helped him in
+recovering Spain from Arianism to the Catholic faith. The charge of Pope
+Pelagius to his nuncio Gregory throws a vivid light upon the condition of
+Rome at the time. His instructions ran: "Lay before our lord the emperor
+that no words can express the calamities brought upon us by the perfidy of
+the Lombards, breaking their own engagements. Our brother Sebastian, whom
+we send to you, has promised to describe to him the necessities and dangers
+of all Italy. Join him in that entreaty to succour us, for the commonwealth
+is in such distress, that unless God inspire him to show us his servants
+the mercy of his natural disposition, and move him to give us a single
+_Magister militum_ and a single _Dux_, we are utterly destitute, for Rome
+and its neighbourhood are specially defenceless. The exarch writes that he
+can give us no help, for he has not force enough to guard Ravenna.
+Therefore, may God command the emperor quickly to succour us, before the
+army of that most wicked nation take the places still remaining to
+us."[177]
+
+Gregory returned from Constantinople in 585, and lived as one of the seven
+deacons on the Coelian hill, when, on 8th February, 590, Pope Pelagius
+died of the pestilence, and Gregory was unanimously chosen to succeed him.
+
+It was a moment of the greatest depression. The Tiber had in the winter
+overflowed a large portion of the city. The destruction wrought had been
+followed by a terrible plague. Gregory strove to escape the charge put upon
+him, and besought the emperor not to confirm his election. In the meantime,
+the clergy and people urged upon him the provisional exercise of the
+episcopal charge. As such he ordered a sevenfold procession to entreat the
+cessation of the plague. The clergy of Rome, the abbots, the abbesses with
+their nuns, the children, the laymen, the widows, and the married women,
+each company separately arranged, were to start from seven different
+churches, and to close their pilgrimage together at the basilica of St.
+Maria Maggiore.
+
+During the procession itself eighty victims to the plague fell dead. But as
+Gregory was passing over the bridge of St. Peter's, a heavenly vision
+consoled them in the midst of their litanies. The archangel Michael was
+seen over the tomb of Hadrian, sheathing his flaming sword in token that
+the pestilence was to cease. Gregory heard the angelic antiphon from
+heavenly voices--_Regina Coeli, laetare_, and added himself the concluding
+verse--_Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia_.
+
+The assent of the emperor Mauritius arriving from Constantinople about six
+months after his election compelled Gregory to become Pope. At first,
+indeed, he disguised himself and took to flight, and hid himself in the
+woods.[178] The people fasted and prayed three days for his discovery. He
+was found, and then permitted himself to be taken back to Rome, where he
+was received with great rejoicing. He was led, according to custom, to the
+"Confession" of St. Peter, where he made his profession of faith. He was
+then consecrated, the 3rd September, 590. Nor can any words but his own
+adequately express his feelings, together with the character of the time in
+which he lived. With heavy heart he approached the burden laid upon him.
+Neither then nor ever after did he deceive himself as to the gravity of the
+situation. "Since," are his words, "I submitted the shoulders of my spirit
+to this burden of the episcopal office, I can no longer collect my soul,
+distracted as it is on so many sides. At one time I have to consider the
+affairs of churches and monasteries, often taking into account the lives
+and actions of individuals. At another time I have to represent my
+fellow-citizens in their affairs. Again, I have to groan over the swords
+of barbarians advancing to storm us, and to dread the wolves which lie in
+wait for a flock huddled together in fear. Then, again, I must charge
+myself with the care of public affairs, to provide means even for those to
+whom the maintenance of order is entrusted, or I must patiently endure
+certain depredators, or take precautions against them, that tranquillity be
+not disturbed." In another place he says: "Daily I feel what fulness of
+peace I have lost, to what fulness of cares I have been exalted. If you
+love me, weep for me, since so many temporal businesses press on me that I
+seem as if this dignity had almost excluded me from the love of God. Not of
+the Romans only am I bishop, but bishop of the Lombards, whose right is the
+right of the sword, whose favour is punishment. The billows of the world so
+surge upon me, that I despair of steering into harbour the frail vessel
+entrusted to me by God, while my hand holds the helm amid a thousand
+storms." Again, in his synodical letter[179] announcing his accession to
+the patriarchs, he says: "Especially, whoever bears the title of Pastor in
+this place is grievously occupied by external cares, so that he is often in
+doubt whether he is executing the work of a Pastor or that of an earthly
+lord". Thus thirteen hundred years ago spoke the Pope. Does his language in
+the nineteenth century differ much from his language in the sixth? Shortly
+after his accession, preaching to his people in St. Peter's, he said:[180]
+"Where, I pray you, is any delight to be found in this world? Mourning
+meets us everywhere; groans surround us. Ruined cities, fortresses
+overthrown, lands laid waste, the earth reduced to a desert. The fields
+have none to till them. There is scarcely a dweller in the cities. Yet even
+these poor remnants of the human race are smitten daily and without
+ceasing. The scourge of heaven's justice strikes without end, because even
+under its strokes our bad actions are not corrected. We see men led into
+captivity, beheaded, slain before our eyes. What pleasure, then, does life
+retain, my brethren? If yet we are fond of such a world, it is not joys but
+wounds which we love. We see the condition of that Rome which anon seemed
+to be mistress of the world: worn down by sorrows which have no measure,
+desolate of inhabitants, assaulted by enemies, filled with ruins. We see in
+it fulfilled what long ago our prophet said against Samaria: 'Set on a
+vessel; set it on, I say, and put water into it. Heap together into it the
+pieces thereof.' And then: 'The seething of it is boiling hot; and the
+bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst thereof.' And further:
+'Heap together the bones, which I will burn with fire: the flesh shall be
+consumed, and the whole composition shall be sodden, and the bones shall be
+consumed. Then set it empty upon burning coals, that it may be hot, and the
+brass thereof may be melted.' Now the vessel was set on when our city was
+founded. The water was put into it and the pieces heaped together, when
+there was a confluence of peoples to it from all sides. Like boiling water
+they bubbled up with the world's actions; like bits of flesh they were
+boiled in their own heat. He says well, 'The seething of it is boiling hot,
+and the bones thereof are thoroughly sodden in the midst thereof'. For
+great, indeed, in it at first was the heat of secular glory; but presently
+the glory itself and those who followed it burnt out. Bones mean the
+powerful of the world; flesh its various peoples: as bones support flesh,
+so the powerful of the world rule the weakness of the masses. But now,
+behold, all the powerful of this world have been taken from it. The bones,
+then, are thoroughly sodden. The peoples are gone; the flesh, then, is
+boiled up. There follows then: 'Heap together the bones, which I will burn
+with fire; the flesh shall be consumed, and the whole composition shall be
+sodden; and the bones shall waste away'. For where is the senate? where any
+longer a people? The bones are wasted, the flesh consumed; all pride of
+secular dignities is perished out of it. The whole composition is sodden.
+Yet every day the sword, every day innumerable sorrows press upon us, the
+poor remaining remnant. So, then, this also applies: 'Set it empty upon
+burning coals'. For since there is no senate, since the people has died
+out, and yet sorrow and suffering are multiplied day by day on the few that
+remain, Rome is empty, and yet it burns. We apply this to men, but we see
+the very structures destroyed by the multiplication of ruins. So that he
+adds, upon the empty city, 'Burn it and melt its brass'. For it is come to
+the vessel itself being destroyed, in which before both flesh and bones
+were consumed. For when the dwellers have fallen away even the walls fall.
+But where are those who once rejoiced in its glory? Where is their pomp and
+pride, and those ecstasies of frequent transport?
+
+"In Rome are fulfilled the prophet's words against Niniveh: 'Where is the
+dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions?'[181] Were
+not its commanders and its princes lions who overran the whole world, and
+ravened, and slaughtered the prey? Here the young lions found their
+feeding-place, because the boyhood, the youth, the flower of manhood, from
+generation to generation, flocked hither, when they sought to get on in the
+world. Now Rome is desolate, worn down, full of sorrows. No one comes to it
+to get on in the world; no man of power or violence remains to raven on the
+prey. Then may we say, 'Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the
+feeding-place of the young lions?' Upon it has fallen the lot of Judea,
+foretold by the prophet: 'Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle'.[182] For man
+is wont to be bald upon the head alone; but the eagle's baldness is over
+all his body. When very old, his plumes and feathers fall from his whole
+body. The city which has lost its inhabitants, in losing its feathers, has
+enlarged its baldness as the eagle. Shrunk also are its wings, with which
+it used to fly to the prey, for all its men of might, by whom it ravened,
+are extinguished."
+
+We may here contrast the language concerning the Rome which lay before
+their eyes of the two Popes St. Leo and St. Gregory. They spoke with an
+interval between them of 140 years. The first spoke still of the actual
+queen of the world, of the secular empire subdued and inherited by the
+spiritual. The feathers of Leo's eagle shone to him with celestial light;
+the talons of the royal bird traversed the earth not to raven, but to feed
+a conquered world with Christian doctrine. St. Gregory speaks of the eagle
+as bald; but we shall see that he who day by day guarded the gates of
+defenceless Rome against the Lombard spoiler, barbarian also and heretic,
+fed no less the ends of the earth with Christian doctrine. It was he who
+brought the _Ultima Thule_, and its inhabitants the _penitus toto divisos
+orbe Britannos_ again under the yoke of Christ, and taught the sea-kings
+humanity.
+
+A little later St. Gregory closed his exposition of the prophet Ezechiel in
+St. Peter's with these sorrowful words: "So far, dear brethren, by the gift
+of God, we have searched out hidden meanings for you. Let no man blame me
+if I close them here, because, as you all witness, our sufferings have
+grown enormous. On every side we are encircled with swords: on every side
+we are in imminent peril of death. Some return to us maimed of their hands;
+of others we hear that they are captured; of others, again, that they are
+slain. My tongue can no longer expound, when my spirit is weary of my life.
+Let no one ask me to unfold the Scriptures; for my harp is turned to
+mourning, and my voice to the cry of the weeper. The eye of my heart no
+longer keeps its watch in the discussion of mysteries; my soul droops for
+weariness. Study has lost its charm for me. I have forgotten to eat my
+bread for the voice of my groaning. How can one who is not allowed to live
+take pleasure in the mystical sense of Scripture? How can one whose daily
+chalice is bitterness present sweets for others to drink? What remains for
+us but while we weep to give thanks for the strokes of the scourge which we
+suffer for our iniquities. Our Creator is become our Father by the Spirit
+of adoption whom He has given to us: sometimes He feeds His sons with
+bread; sometimes He corrects them with the scourge; because He schools us
+by sorrows and by gifts for the unending inheritance."[183]
+
+This was the Rome in which Gregory ruled as Pope for fourteen years, since
+he saw the archangel's sword sheathed over the castle of St. Angelo, into
+which name the pagan mausoleum was baptised. Pestilence in the city, where
+the remnant of a people wandered disconsolate by the mighty halls and vast
+spaces of the old emperors--swords of pagan or Arian barbarians all round
+the patched-up walls of Aurelian. City after city through the hapless Italy
+reported as plundered or ruined by the Lombard devastation. Presently the
+trials of a sick-bed and frequent attacks of gout were added to his daily
+tale of sorrows. In the last years of Gregory it came to pass that the
+universal Church was governed from the sick-bed of one worn down, not by
+years--for he died at sixty-four--but by sufferings of body and mind. The
+prisoner of the Lombards had to struggle perpetually with the spirit of
+Byzantine despotism and the aggressive arrogance of a prelate whom
+successive eastern sovereigns had nursed from a suffragan of Heraclea to be
+the claimant of an ecumenical patriarchate. Yet the eyes of Gregory were
+bent likewise on the northern conquerors who had seized the provinces of
+the West. Before he was Pope he had observed in the slave-market of Rome
+the fair-haired Angles whom he would fain make angels; when Pope he sent
+forth from his father's house, which he had given to the great Father
+Benedict, those who were to carry the banner of that father into the isle
+lost to Christ. In that island he appointed the primate of Canterbury, and
+designed the primate of York. Through St. Leander and St. Isidore, and the
+martyr St. Hermenegild, he recovered Spain from the Arian blight; through
+the queen Theodelinda he made some impression upon Lombard cruelty and
+misbelief; through the Frankish monarchy he won back France from
+dissolution and heresy. As he saw the palaces around him deserted, and the
+broken aqueducts mourn over their intercepted streams in a wasted Campagna,
+and the glory of Trajan's forum become paler day by day, he thought that
+the end of the world was coming--and so thinking and so saying, he founded
+Christendom. In Rome itself, the almsgivers whom he had organised traversed
+the streets daily, carrying food to the hungry, medicine and medical aid to
+the sick. Every month he allotted portions of corn, wine, oil, cheese,
+fish, vegetables. The Church seemed to be the general provider. Every day
+he fed at his table twelve poor pilgrims, and served them himself. The nuns
+who took refuge in Rome, from the destruction of their monasteries by the
+Lombards, amounted to three thousand, whom Gregory supported, especially
+during the severe winter of 597. He wrote to the sister of the emperor
+Mauritius: "To their prayers and tears and fasts Rome owes its delivery
+from the sword of the Lombards".[184] Other cities also he saved, and so he
+distributed the vast patrimony of the Roman Church in Southern Italy,
+Sicily, Africa, France, Illyricum, with such wisdom and so beneficent a
+mercy, that historians trace to him the beginning of that temporal
+sovereignty which two hundred years after him the Popes were to take in
+change for the cruel abandonment, paired with incessant exaction, of
+Byzantine despotism; and the most loyal of subjects were called to be the
+most beneficent of sovereigns; and the people who had found them fathers
+from age to age rejoiced to see the fathership united with kingship.
+
+What had happened to the Italy recovered by the arms of Belisarius and
+Narses, to the unity of the Roman empire, which caused the calamitous state
+described by Gregory?
+
+Both Belisarius and Narses had enrolled a multifarious host of adventurers
+under the banner which professed to deliver Rome and Italy from the Gothic
+occupation. Narses especially had awakened the greed of the Lombards by the
+sight of Italy's fair lands. Scarcely had he ceased to govern Rome, in
+567, when the effect of this became visible. What Alaric, what Odoacer,
+what Theodorick, had done, Alboin did with yet more terrible results; and
+the fourth captivity which Nova Roma had prepared for her mother, become in
+her mind a hated rival, was the hardest, the longest, the most destructive
+of all. It is doubtful whether the retort of the eunuch Narses to the
+empress Sophia, when she recalled him from his government to ply, as she
+said, the spindle, that he would spin for her such a thread as in her life
+she would not disentangle, is authentic, but it undoubtedly presents
+historic truth. Whether or not Narses called the Lombards into Italy, their
+king Alboin came from Pannonia over the Carnian Alps into the plain which
+has ever since borne their name; and this was in the next year--568--to the
+recal of Narses. The Goth and the Herules had worked much woe and wrought
+great destruction; but the Goths compared to the Lombards were as knights
+compared to villains. The Lombards, inferior to them by far in strength
+both of body and of mind, this rudest of Teuton races seemed incapable of
+receiving culture. It had, moreover, fewer elements in it capable of being
+worked into the stable order of a state. In belief it was partly Arian and
+partly pagan. It had also a mixture of Sarmatian blood. When they broke
+into Italy, the cities of that land, however wasted and depopulated through
+Attila and the Gothic wars, yet retained their Roman form, yet were full of
+ancient monuments, splendid still in desolation. Now, one after another
+fell under the sword of those barbarians. Milan surrendered to Alboin in
+the autumn of 569, and after three years' siege he entered as conqueror
+into Theodorick's palace in Pavia. Only Rome, Ravenna, and the cities of
+the coast still carried the imperial flag. The Romans themselves regarded
+as a marvel the maintenance of their scarcely defended city. Alboin aimed
+at making the palace of the Caesars his royal residence. His warriors
+advanced with terrible devastation from Spoleto to the very walls of Rome
+in the time of Pope John III., who died, after nearly thirteen years'
+government, the 13th July, 573.
+
+Rome was then so severely pressed that the See of Peter remained more than
+a year unfilled; for the Lombards were encamped before Rome, and hindered
+communication with Byzantium, whence Benedict I., the newly-elected Pope,
+had to wait for the imperial confirmation. The _Book of the Popes_ recites
+that during his four years' government the Lombards overran all Italy, and
+that pestilence and hunger consumed her people. Rome, also, was visited by
+both. The emperor Tiberius tried to succour it by sending corn from Egypt
+to the harbour Porto.
+
+Alboin had been murdered, and Kleph had succeeded him, on whose death, in
+575, the Lombards fell into anarchy, and were divided into thirty-six
+dukes, and Faroald, the first duke of Spoleto, held Rome besieged when
+Benedict I. died, in 578; and so his successor, Pelagius II., a Roman of
+Gothic descent, was consecrated without the emperor's confirmation. The
+beleaguered Pope sent a cry of distress by an embassy to the eastern
+emperor, together with a gift of 3000 pounds' weight of gold from the
+impoverished city. But the emperor, engaged in a Persian war, could only
+send insufficient troops to Ravenna, more precious to him than Rome,
+declined the Roman gold, and advised to corrupt with it the Lombard
+commanders. Zoto, the Lombard duke of Beneventum, returning from Rome,
+which had ransomed itself, destroyed St. Benedict's monastery of Monte
+Cassino, in 580. The monks escaped to Rome, carrying with them the Saint's
+autograph of his Rule. Pope Pelagius II. received them in the Lateran
+basilica. There they founded the first Benedictine monastery in Rome. They
+named it after St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, and so
+Constantine's basilica, or the Church of the Saviour, became in after-times
+St. John Lateran. Monte Cassino lay in ruins 140 years, during which time
+the great Order had its chief seat in Rome.
+
+Thus did Rome and Italy learn what they had gained by reunion with the
+eastern empire under Justinian. The pitiless financial exaction of that
+empire was exerted wherever it had power. War and pestilence ravaged town
+and country. It cost the Church a labour of 200 years to turn the Lombards
+from Arians and savages into Catholics who should one day be capable of
+resisting a Barbarossa and generating a Dante.
+
+What, during these 200 years, an imperial exarch at Ravenna was like
+Gregory tells us in a letter to his friend Sebastian, bishop of Sirmium:
+"Words cannot express what I suffer from your friend, the lord Romanus. I
+may say that his malice against us is worse than the swords of the
+Lombards. The enemies who slay us seem to us kinder than the magistrates of
+the commonwealth, who wear our hearts out with their malignity, their
+plundering, and their deceit. At one and the same time to superintend
+bishops and clergy, monasteries also and the people, carefully to watch
+against insidious attacks of our enemies, and be perpetually on guard
+against the treachery and ill-treatment of our rulers, you, my brother, can
+the better judge what labour and sorrow is here in proportion to the purity
+of your affection for me who suffer it."[185]
+
+This glimpse will be enough of the generation which preceded the accession
+of St. Gregory to the Chair of Peter. The whole fifty years of his life up
+to that time were for his country like the prophet's scroll, inscribed with
+lamentation and mourning and woe. And in his words to the bishop of Sirmium
+he gives a faithful picture of the position which his successors held until
+the time when at length they invoked the king of the Franks to come to the
+succour of St. Peter.
+
+The calamities which fell upon Italy, and especially upon Rome, in the five
+captures of the Gothic war, in the subsequent descent of the Lombards, in
+the subjection of the old capital to a distant and despotic lord, were so
+great that eye-witnesses declare no language could express them. That they
+were to the Popes themselves unspeakably distressing, that the Popes did
+all in their power to avert them, the letters of the Popes remain to
+testify. I must now dwell for a time on the singular result which they had
+upon the Roman Primacy. When temporal calamities less than these fell upon
+the cities of Alexandria and Antioch, the seats of the other two original
+Petrine patriarchates, the authority of their prelates sunk almost to
+nothing. Before these calamities they had yielded up a large portion of
+their dignity and autonomy to the overreaching see of the eastern capital,
+the rank of which, above that of a simple bishopric, rested on nothing but
+the emperor's will to concentrate spiritual power in his own hands, by
+making its seat for the whole eastern empire the city of the Bosporus. But
+when Rome was ruined in the Gothic war nothing of the kind took place. St.
+Gregory inherited his place as successor of St. Peter without the least
+impairment of the authority which his see had held from the beginning. One
+wound, indeed, had been inflicted upon it by the Herule Odoacer, when in
+occupation of the sovereign power which he held over Italy, in name, by
+delegation of the emperor Zeno, in fact, as head of the foreign
+mercenaries, he had claimed a right to confirm the election of the Pope
+when chosen. Theodorick and Theodatus had continued to exert that
+right--and from the Goths Justinian had taken it--and Gregory himself, as
+we have seen, had applied to the imperial power at Constantinople to
+frustrate his own election by clergy and people. But the Pope, when once
+recognised, entered upon his full and undiminished authority. All that St.
+Leo had been St. Gregory was, though Rome had been almost destroyed, and
+was in the temporal rule subject to the emperor's officer, the exarch at
+Ravenna. I do not know any fact of history which brings out more distinctly
+the character of the Pope as inheriting the charge over the whole Church
+committed by our Lord to St. Peter. That was not a charge depending on the
+city in which it might be exercised. It was a charge committed to the chief
+of the Apostles. As our Lord promised to be with the apostolic body to the
+consummation of the world, as all their spiritual powers depended on His
+being with them, so, above all, most of all, the spiritual power of their
+head. Rome might be absolutely destitute of inhabitants after Totila's
+victory, but the Pope was not touched. Rome might cease to be capital even
+of a province, but the Pope was not touched. And it was a series of the
+most terrible disasters which revealed this prerogative of the Pope as head
+of the Christian hierarchy. The Pope might be a captive at Constantinople,
+scorned, deceived, torn away even from the refuge of the altar, surrounded
+with spies, betrayed by subservient bishops and patriarchs, and, worst of
+all, be labouring under the stigma of an election originally enforced by
+arbitrary violence; a despotic emperor might do his worst, but the Pope's
+successors carried on his prerogatives unimpaired. The walls of Aurelian
+preserved Rome from the Lombard, but the Pontiff who kept guard over them
+was not contained in them. His rule was intangible by material attack as
+it was beyond the reach of material despotism. Italy might be ruined, and a
+new Rome made out of its ruins, but the Pope would be the maker of it. And
+the most terrible calamity was chosen to reveal this singular prerogative.
+The death of _Senatus populusque Romanus_ discovered even to the outside
+world the life which proceeded from St. Peter's body, as each archbishop
+received from St. Peter's successor the pallium which had been laid upon
+it. Thus was conveyed to the mind by the senses that participation of the
+Primacy, in which consisted all the authority which he exercised over other
+bishops. The violence of the Teuton, the misbelief of the Arian, the
+despotism of the Byzantine, were unconsciously co-operating to this result.
+
+For it must be added that the Rome which survived after the conquest by
+Justinian only lived by the Primacy of which it was the seat. Two
+historians[186] of the city, writing from quite opposite points of view,
+one a Catholic Christian, the other a rationalistic unbeliever, unite in
+witnessing that from the time of Narses the spiritual power of the Primacy
+was the spring of all action. Not only such new buildings as arose were
+churches and the work of the Popes; St. Gregory also fed the city from the
+patrimonium of the church which he administered. Rome had been made by her
+empire, which the political wisdom and valour of her citizens had formed
+through so many centuries. When at length the wandering of the nations had
+broken up that empire, and the northern soldiers whom the emperors,
+specially from Constantine onwards, had enrolled in her armies and taken
+for their ministers and generals, followed the example of Alaric and
+Ataulph, and assumed the rule for themselves, the situation of Rome offered
+it no protection. The emperor who, at the beginning of the fifth century,
+took refuge from Alaric in Ravenna was followed a century later by the
+Gothic king, whose body, still reposing in his splendid tomb at Ravenna,
+was a memorial that this fortress had been the centre of his power.
+Theodorick was succeeded by the exarch, the permanent representative of an
+absent lord. We are following the fortunes of Rome in the 300 years from
+Genseric to Astolphus. In the second and third of these three centuries
+Rome would have ceased to exist, but for the imperishable life which did
+not come from her but was stored up in her. That life was the _form_ of her
+new body; otherwise it would have been a carcase lying prostrate in the
+dust of mouldering theatres and desolated baths. Their patriarchs saved
+neither Antioch nor Alexandria; but the Papacy not only saved Rome, but
+created her anew.
+
+Out of such a Rome St. Gregory poured forth his sorrows to the empress
+Constantine, wife of Mauritius: "It is now seven-and-twenty years since we
+have been living in this city among the swords of the Lombards".[187] He
+was writing in the year 595, and he reckons from the descent of Alboin in
+568. "What the sums called for from the Church in these years day by day
+to live at all have been I cannot express. I may say in a word that as your
+Majesties have, with the first army of Italy at Ravenna, a chancellor of
+the exchequer who supplies daily wants, so in this city for the like
+purpose I am such a person. And yet this same church which at one and the
+same time is at such endless expense for the clergy, the monasteries, the
+poor, the people, and moreover for the Lombards, is pressed also by the
+affliction of all the churches, which groan over the pride of this one man,
+yet do not venture to utter a word."
+
+And Gregory, referring just before to the pride of this one man, who had
+the audacity to put in a letter to the Pope himself, a superscription in
+which, according to the Pope's judgment, he claimed to be sole bishop in
+the Church, used words which will serve to indicate what Gregory conceived
+his own authority to be, as well as the source on which it rested: "I
+beseech you, by Almighty God, not to permit your Majesty's time to be
+polluted by one man's arrogance. Do not in any way give your consent to so
+perverse an appellation. By no means let your Majesty in such a cause
+despise me the individual, for the sins of Gregory are indeed so great as
+to deserve such treatment, but there are no sins of the Apostle Peter that
+he should deserve in your time such treatment. Wherefore, I again and again
+entreat you, by Almighty God, that as former princes, your progenitors,
+have sought the favour of the holy Apostle Peter, so you also would seek
+it and preserve it for yourselves. Nor let his honour be in your mind the
+least diminished by our sins, his unworthy servant: that he may be now your
+helper in all things, and hereafter be able to pardon your sins."
+
+I quote the following passage from a letter[188] to the emperor Mauritius
+himself, not only because Gregory alleges as the root of his own authority
+the three great words spoken by our Lord to Peter, but for the description
+of the times in which he lived, and the vast importance of union between
+the two great powers. This, he says, if faithfully maintained on both
+sides, would have protected them from such calamities.
+
+"Your Majesty, who is appointed by God, watches, among the other cares of
+your empire, with the uprightness of a spiritual zeal over the preservation
+of sacerdotal charity. For, with piety as well as truth, you think that no
+one can rule well the things of this world unless he knows how to treat
+divine things, and that the peace of the human commonwealth depends on the
+peace of the universal Church. For, most gracious emperor, what power of
+man, what masterful arm of flesh, would presume to lay unholy hands upon
+the dignity of your most Christian empire, if the bishops were with one
+accord of mind to beseech their Redeemer for you by their words, and, if
+need be, by their deservings? Is there any nation so ferocious as to use
+its sword so cruelly for the destruction of the faithful, unless our life,
+who are called but are not bishops, had upon it the stain of the worst
+actions? While, deserting what belongs to us, and aiming at what is beyond
+us, we add our own sins to the brute strength of barbarians. Our guilt
+sharpens the swords of our enemies, and weighs down the strength of the
+State. What excuse can we make who press down the people of God, over which
+we unworthily preside, with the burden of our sins? Who preach with our
+tongues and kill by our examples? Whose works teach iniquity, while their
+words make a show of justice? We wear down the body with fasts, while the
+mind swells with arrogance. This puts on poor apparel; that has more than
+imperial pride. We lie in ashes, and despise dignities. We teach the
+humble, and lead the proud, and hide the wolf's teeth in the sheep's face.
+What result has all this but that, while we impose on men, we are made
+known to God? Thus it is with the greatest wisdom that your Majesty seeks
+the peace of the Church as the means of stilling the tumults of war, and
+would make the hearts of bishops rest once more in its solid structure.
+That is my wish: in that to the utmost of my power I obey you.
+
+"But since it is not my cause but God's, and since not I only but the whole
+Church is thrown into confusion; since sacred laws, since venerable
+councils, since the very commands even of our Lord Jesus Christ are
+disturbed by the invention of this haughty and pompous language, let the
+most pious emperor lance the wound and overcome the sick man's resistance
+by the force of the imperial authority. If you bind up that wound, you
+raise up the State; and by cutting off such abuses, contribute to the
+length of your reign.
+
+"For to all who know the Gospel it is notorious that the charge of the
+whole Church was entrusted by the voice of the Lord to the holy Apostle
+Peter, chief of all the Apostles." And he then cites, as so many of his
+predecessors cited, the three great words. He concludes: "Peter received
+the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing, the
+charge of the whole Church, the Principate over it; yet he is not called
+the universal Apostle, and John, my colleague as bishop, endeavours to be
+called universal bishop.
+
+"All things in Europe are delivered over to the power of barbarians. Our
+cities are destroyed, our fortresses overthrown, our provinces depopulated.
+The ground remains untilled. Day by day idolaters exercise their rage upon
+the faithful, who are cruelly slaughtered; and bishops who should lie in
+dust and ashes seek for themselves vanitous names: glory in new and profane
+titles.
+
+"Am I in this defending a cause proper to myself? Am I resisting my own
+special injury? Nay, it is the cause of Almighty God: the cause of the
+universal Church. Who is he who, in spite of the commands of the Gospel, in
+spite of the decrees of councils, presumes to usurp a new title for
+himself? I would that he who has agreed to be called universal may be
+himself one, without the diminution of others.
+
+"And we know, indeed, that many bishops of Constantinople have fallen into
+the gulf of heresy; have become not heretics only but heresiarchs. Thence
+came Nestorius, who, deeming Jesus Christ, the Mediator of God and man, to
+be two persons, because he did not believe that God could become man, went
+even to the extent of Jewish unbelief. Thence came Macedonius, who denied
+the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, consubstantial with the Father and the Son.
+If, then, anyone seizes upon that name for himself, as in the judgment of
+all good men he has done, the whole Church--which God forbid--falls from
+its state when he who is called universal falls. But far from the hearts of
+Christians be that blasphemous name in which the honour due to all bishops
+is taken away, while one madly arrogates it to himself.
+
+"I know that in honour of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, that title was
+offered to the Roman Pontiff during the venerable Council of Chalcedon. But
+no one of them ever consented to use this name of singularity; lest while
+something peculiar was given to one, all bishops should be deprived of the
+honour due to them. Do we, then, not seek the glory of this name, even when
+offered to us, and does another catch at it for himself, when it is not
+offered?
+
+"Your Majesty, then, must bend that neck which refuses obedience to the
+canons. He must be restrained, who does an injury to the whole Church; who
+is proud in heart; who has a greed after a name given to none other; who by
+such a singular name throws a slur upon your empire also in putting himself
+over it.
+
+"We are all scandalised at this: let the author of the scandal return to
+right, and all contest between bishops will cease. For I am the servant of
+all bishops so long as they live like bishops. But whoever, through
+vainglory and contrary to the statutes of the Fathers, lifts his neck
+against Almighty God, I trust in Almighty God that he will not bend me even
+with the sword."
+
+As Gregory quotes the three words said to Peter, with application of them
+to his own see, it seems needless to repeat other passages in which he says
+the same thing. But there is a letter to Eulogius,[189] patriarch of
+Alexandria, which begins by saying that this patriarch had written to him
+much concerning the See of Peter, and that he sat in it in his successors
+down to Gregory's own time. Whereupon Gregory, before himself citing the
+three words, says: "Who does not know that holy Church is founded on the
+solidity of the chief Apostle, whose name expressed his firmness, being
+called Peter from Petra". Then he calls the attention of Eulogius to the
+fact that all the three patriarchal sees were sees of Peter, with this
+remarkable inference, that "though there were many Apostles, only the see
+of the prince of the Apostles, which is the see of one in three places,
+received supreme authority _in virtue of its very principate_".[190]
+
+Let us attempt to gather the meaning of the various statements quoted from
+St. Gregory, and see whether they do not form a coherent whole.
+
+He claims, like all his predecessors, the three great texts concerning
+Peter, as conveying the charge of the whole Church, the Principate, to
+Peter and his heirs, that is, the Popes preceding him.
+
+He contrasts in the most pointed manner this charge with the name of
+Ecumenical, which he translates universal, patriarch, as assumed by the
+bishop of Constantinople, and he contrasts not the name only, but the thing
+which he conceives to be meant by the name and carried in it.
+
+He contrasts likewise the moderation of his predecessors, who, though
+inheriting Peter's charge over the whole Church, declined to accept a name
+which seemed to exclude other bishops from their proper honour.
+
+Peter's charge over the whole Church, then, in the judgment of Gregory, had
+descended to himself, as he wrote to the empress, "though the sins of
+Gregory, who is Peter's unworthy servant, are great, the sins of the
+Apostle are none," to justify the treatment he has met with in this
+assumption by another of the title Ecumenical. In a word, the _charge_ is a
+command of the Gospel, the _assumption_ is "a name of blasphemy and
+diabolical pride, and a forerunner of Antichrist".
+
+I conceive that we may interpret St. Gregory's mind in this way. When he so
+wrote he had behind him rather more than five full centuries since St.
+Peter and St. Paul had given up their lives in Rome for the Christian
+faith, and become its patron saints. In all that time Gregory had seen the
+hierarchy founded by the bearer of the keys fill the earth. Peter, as a
+token of his Principate, had put his name in the three chief sees, sitting
+himself as bishop in Antioch for seven years; sitting also himself in Rome,
+as bishop, and dying there; sending also his disciple Mark from Rome to
+Alexandria. Our Lord's gift and charge to Peter was the source of unity in
+His Church. He Himself being mediator between God and man united His Church
+with the Divine Trinity in unity. Then He gave the keys of His kingdom to
+Peter, in whom unity was secured through the three patriarchs and the other
+bishops. Such was the constitution which stood without a break before St.
+Gregory from the Apostles to the Nicene Council. From St. Sylvester to his
+own time the Popes had been maintaining that constitution. But now the
+claim of the bishops of Constantinople was directly against this
+constitution. Pope Gelasius, his predecessor, had told that bishop in his
+day that he had no rank above that of a simple bishop.[191] For all their
+adventitious rank they rested, not upon God, not upon Jesus Christ, not
+upon St. Peter, but upon the residence of the emperors in their city. That
+was the ground upon which they called themselves ecumenical, a title which
+Gregory interpreted universal. Their first step in moving beyond the
+position of simple bishop was when the 150 bishops at Constantinople in 381
+attempted to give them the second place in rank. And this they did not upon
+any ground of apostolic descent, but because Constantinople was Nova Roma.
+As to their act in doing this Gregory writes to Eulogius: "The Roman Church
+up to this time does not possess, nor has received, the canons or the acts
+of that council; it has received that council so far as it condemned
+Macedonius".[192] Their next step was at the Council of Chalcedon to
+attempt passing a canon, to the effect that the Fathers had given its rank
+to Rome because it was the capital, that the 150 Fathers had therefore
+given the second rank to Constantinople, because it was the _new_ capital;
+and that, therefore, the Pontic, the Arian, and the Thracian exarchs of
+Caesarea, Ephesus, and Heraclea should be subjected to it. This canon St.
+Leo had absolutely rejected, and the emperor Marcian had accepted his
+rejection. In the 130 years from St. Leo to himself, St. Gregory had seen
+the assumptions of the bishops of Constantinople continually increasing.
+They rested upon the imperial favour. And now in the case of John the
+Faster they had gone so far that he prefixed his assumed title of
+ecumenical patriarch to the very documents which he sent to the Pope for
+revision. And this though the cause had been settled by himself, and had
+now come before the Pope, whose power therefore to revise the sentence of
+one who called himself ecumenical patriarch he did not dispute.
+
+Nor, indeed, did it appear over what domain he claimed to be universal. It
+might be over the eastern bishops; it might be over the two patriarchs of
+Alexandria and Antioch, with the later patriarch of Jerusalem; it might be
+over the actual Roman empire; it might be, finally, over the whole Church.
+But whichever it might be, the claim would equally be, in Gregory's
+judgment, unlawful, based simply and solely upon imperial power; resting
+also in its origin upon a direct untruth, which assaulted the whole
+foundation whereon the charge of the whole Church, the Principate of
+Gregory, rested; couched, moreover, in language which would enable future
+generations of Greeks to draw the conclusion that, since the Primacy of
+Rome proceeded from its being the capital, when Rome ceased to be the
+capital, and Constantine's city became the capital, the Primacy also passed
+to it.
+
+Thus, in the whole assumption of the bishops of Constantinople, it was
+presupposed that the spiritual power and the hierarchy of the Church
+descended not from Jesus Christ, but from the emperors.[193] So it is clear
+that this empty title, which seemed to the emperor Mauritius a meaningless
+word, a mere nothing, contained in itself the whole system of Antichrist.
+The Pope saw it, and his words are the more significant when we remember
+that at the time he uttered them the man had already reached full manhood
+who was to cut the empire of Justinian in half, to deprive of their liberty
+three of the eastern patriarchs, destroy a multitude of the Christian
+people, and be parent of the religion which through the course of 1200
+years has shown itself to be specially anti-Christian. There in his Arab
+tent, as yet the faithful husband of an old wife, was the future Khalif,
+in whom the spiritual and the temporal power would be joined together; who
+would set up in a false theocracy that usurpation which Constantine's
+eastern successors were striving to carry out in the Christian Church.
+Mahommed would consecrate that very false principle which was at the root
+of the ecumenical patriarch's arrogance. Thus the strongest word used by
+Gregory of John the Faster's assumption, that it was "a name of blasphemy,
+of diabolical pride, and a forerunner of Antichrist," received its exact
+verification within a generation after Gregory had spoken it.
+
+But Gregory's charge and Principate were of divine creation, and did not
+exclude the proper power and jurisdiction either of every bishop or of the
+whole episcopate, at the head of which it stood, and through which it
+worked, carefully maintaining what had been from the beginning, preserving
+the rank and place of each, consolidating all in the one structure.[194]
+The intruder set up by the imperial power deposed Alexandria and Antioch to
+make them subject to himself; the lawful shepherd maintained Alexandria and
+Antioch because they grew upon the tree of which he was the trunk. His
+charge did not exclude, but did indeed include them. The reasoning of St.
+Gregory in his letter to the emperor of the day, and his very words in his
+letter to the patriarch Eulogius, have become a matter of faith by their
+enrolment in the decree of the Vatican Council. That decree defines the
+Principate to be an episcopal power of jurisdiction, which is immediate,
+over the whole Church. By it the whole Church becomes one flock, under one
+shepherd. And it further defines that, "It is so far from being true that
+this power of the Supreme Pontiff is injurious to the ordinary and
+immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by which bishops placed by the
+Holy Spirit have succeeded the Apostles, and as true pastors feed and rule
+the flocks severally assigned to them, each his own, that this jurisdiction
+is asserted, strengthened, and maintained by the supreme and universal
+pastor, according to St. Gregory's words: 'My honour is the honour of the
+universal Church; my honour is the solid strength of my brethren; then am I
+truly honoured when his due rank is given to each'."[195]
+
+It may be observed that Gregory's position against the assumption of John
+the Faster is the same as St. Leo's position against Anatolius. In both
+cases the Popes discerned the hostile power located in the see of Nova Roma
+which was at work against the original order of the Church, and the Pope
+who was at the head of it. The only difference lies in the great advance
+which the hostile power had made on one hand, and on the other hand the
+excessively difficult temporal position in which St. Gregory had to fight
+the battle for the cause, as he said, of the universal Church. Yet the
+speech of the Pope beleaguered by the Lombards in a decimated and subject
+Rome is as strong as the speech of the Pope who had the imperial
+grandchildren of Theodosius for friends and supporters, and, when they
+failed, saved Rome by her two Apostles from the destruction menaced by
+Attila and Genseric.
+
+But there was no one in the eastern Church--neither the emperor Mauritius,
+nor the patriarch John the Faster, nor the patriarch Eulogius--who failed
+to acknowledge the Pope's charge over the whole Church, grounded on the
+three texts to Peter. Gregory himself reprehends the patriarch Eulogius for
+giving him in the superscription of his letter the title "universal Pope".
+He chose for himself, in opposition to the bishop John's arrogated title of
+ecumenical patriarch, that of "servant of the servants of God". The title
+chosen indicated the temper in which St. Gregory exercised the vast charge
+which he had inherited. For if there is any one principle which seems to
+serve as the favourite maxim of his whole pontificate, it is that expressed
+in a letter to the bishop of Syracuse. That bishop had been speaking of an
+African primate who had professed that he was subject to the Apostolic See.
+St. Gregory's comment is: "If a bishop is in any fault, I know not any
+bishop who is not subject to it. But when no fault requires it, all are
+equal according to the estimation of humility."[196] Natalis, archbishop
+of Salona, in Dalmatia, had given the Pope much trouble. The Pope deals
+with him tenderly in more than one letter. But he says: "After the letters
+of my predecessor (Pelagius) and my own, in the matter of Honoratus the
+archdeacon, were sent to your Holiness, in despite of the sentence of us
+both, the above-mentioned Honoratus was deprived of his rank. Had either of
+the four patriarchs done this, so great an act of contumacy could not have
+been passed over without the most grievous scandal. However, as your
+brotherhood has since returned to your duty, I take notice neither of the
+injury done to me, nor of that to my predecessor."[197]
+
+Of the immense energy shown by St. Gregory in the exercise of his
+Principate, of the immense influence wielded by him both in the East and in
+the West, of the acknowledgment of his Principate by the answers which
+emperor and patriarch made to his demands and rebukes, we possess an
+imperishable record in the fourteen books of his letters which have been
+preserved to us. They are somewhat more than 850 in number. They range over
+every subject, and are addressed to every sort of person. If he rebukes the
+ambition of a patriarch, and complains of an emperor's unjust law, he cares
+also that the tenants on the vast estates of the Church which his officers
+superintend at a distance should not be in any way harshly treated. He
+writes to his _defensor_ in Sicily: "I am informed that if anyone has a
+charge against any clerks, you throw a slight upon the bishops by causing
+these clerks to appear in your own court. If this be so, we expressly order
+you to presume to do so no more, because beyond doubt it is very unseemly.
+If anyone charges a clerk, let him go to his bishop, for the bishop himself
+to hear the case, or depute judges. If it come to arbitration, let the
+so-deputed judges cause the parties to select a judge. If a clerk or a
+layman have anything against a bishop, you should act between them either
+by hearing the cause yourself, or by inducing the parties to choose judges.
+For if his own jurisdiction is not preserved to each bishop, what else
+results but that the order of the Church is thrown into confusion by us,
+the very persons who are charged with its maintenance.
+
+"We have also been informed that certain clerks, put into penance for
+faults they had committed by our most reverend brother the bishop John,
+have been dismissed by your authority without his knowledge. If this is
+true, know that you have committed an altogether improper act, worthy of
+great censure. Restore, therefore, at once those clerks to their own
+bishop, nor ever do this again, or you will incur from us severe
+punishment."[198]
+
+I have quoted already his letters on eastern affairs. They might be
+enlarged upon to any extent. As to those who held the highest rank, he has
+warm sympathy with a deposed patriarch of Antioch, sending him a copy of
+the letter which announced his accession, as well as to the sitting
+patriarchs. After twenty years' deposition Anastasius was restored. He has
+also close friendship with Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, to whom he
+writes gracefully: "Besides our mutual affection, there is a peculiar bond
+uniting us to the Alexandrian Church. All know that the Evangelist Mark was
+sent by his master Peter; thus we are clasped together by the unity of the
+master and the disciple. I seem to sit in the disciple's see for the
+master's sake, and you in the master's see for the sake of the disciple. To
+this we must add your personal merits; for we know how you follow the
+institutions of him from whom you spring. Thus we are touched with
+compassion for what you suffer; but we shrink from telling you what we
+endure ourselves by the daily plundering, killing, and maiming of our
+people by the Lombards."[199]
+
+Let us here take a short view of Gregory's incessant activity among the
+western nations in process of formation. In his struggle to tame the
+ferocity, lawlessness, and unbelief of the Lombards, he betakes himself to
+the illustrious Catholic queen Theodelinda. He strives to use her influence
+with her husband Agilulf, on behalf of Rome, ever the object of oppression.
+Knowing her to be a good Christian, he sent her his _Dialogues_. He also
+set before her the supremacy of his see, because she had been misled into
+withdrawing from the communion of the new archbishop of Milan, Constantius.
+The Pope assures her that the archbishop, as well as himself, venerates the
+doctrinal decisions of the Four Councils. He adds: "Since, then, by my own
+public profession you know the entireness of our belief, it is fitting that
+you have no further scruple concerning the Church of St. Peter, prince of
+the Apostles. But persist in the true faith, and ground your life on the
+rock of the Church, that is, in his confession: lest your many tears and
+your good works avail nothing, if they be separated from the true faith.
+For as branches wither without a root, so works, however good they seem,
+are nothing if separated from the solidity of the faith."[200]
+
+Ten of his letters are addressed to Brunechild, the terrible queen of the
+Franks. But his letter to all the Gallic bishops in the kingdom of
+Childebert will best set forth his authority. That king then reigned over
+nearly all France. The Pope began by saying that the universe itself was
+ruled by graduated orders of spirits. If there was such distinction of
+ranks even in the sinless, what man should hesitate to obey a disposition
+to which angels are subject? "Since, then, each individual office is
+happily fulfilled when there is a superior to whom application can be made,
+we have thought it good, following ancient custom, to make our brother
+Virgilius, bishop of Arles, our representative in the churches which are in
+the kingdom of our most illustrious son king Childebert. We do this in
+order that the integrity of the Catholic faith, that is, of the Four holy
+Councils, may by God's protection be carefully preserved; and that, if any
+contention should arise between our brethren and fellow-bishops, he may, by
+virtue of his authority, as holding the place of the Apostolic See, reduce
+it by discreet moderation. We have also enjoined him, that if any contest
+should arise requiring the presence of others, he should collect a
+sufficient number of our brethren and fellow-bishops, discuss the matter
+equitably, and determine it in conformity with the canons. But if, which
+the divine power avert, contest should arise on a matter of faith, or some
+business emerge about which there is great hesitation, and which for its
+magnitude requires the judgment of the Apostolic See, after diligent
+examination of the facts, he is to make report to us, that we may terminate
+all doubt thereon by a fitting sentence."[201]
+
+In this letter we are at a hundred years after the conversion of Clovis.
+The Catholic kingdom has swallowed up its Arian competitors whether at
+Toulouse or at Lyons, and over it stands the protecting vigour of Gregory,
+as a hundred and fifty years before that of Leo strove to support the
+falling empire. Arles receives the pallium for the Frankish kingdom, as it
+held it for the Theodocian empire, from Rome. Leo saw the imperial line
+expire at Rome; from Rome Gregory places the bishops "of his most
+illustrious son Childebert" under the old primacy of Arles. This is the
+"solidity" of the rock of Peter in which Gregory recommends the queens
+Theodelinda and Brunechild to place themselves.
+
+We know how Gregory, while yet a Roman deacon and monk, walking one day
+from the palace which he had made a monastery, scarcely more than a
+stone's-throw to the forum in which a slave-market was held, was moved to
+pity at the sight of the fair-haired Angles; how he was minded to leave
+Rome himself on a mission to convert them; how he was kept back by the
+affection of the Romans; how Pope Pelagius suddenly died of the plague, and
+Gregory, in spite of all his efforts, was made to succeed him; how from the
+See of Peter he sent out Augustine and his forty monks to the lost island
+in the Atlantic, where, since Stilicho withdrew the Roman armies, every
+cruelty had revelled, and every pagan abomination had been practised by the
+Saxon invaders. To many, no doubt, the subsequent success of Gregory's
+venture to convert the Anglo-Saxon England has served to disguise its
+danger and difficulty at the time. When Augustine reached the shores of
+Kent, the successive invasions of the Saxon pirates had set up eight petty
+kingdoms upon the ruin of the Roman civilisation and the Christian Church.
+The miseries which are covered under those five generations of unrecorded
+strife are supposed to have exceeded the misery endured in France, Spain,
+Italy, and the Illyrian provinces during the same time. The old inhabitants
+were reduced to slavery, or exterminated, or driven to the three corners of
+Cornwall, Wales, and Strathclyde. So bitter was the British feeling under
+the destruction of their country and the wrongs they had endured, that it
+overcame all Christian principle in them, and the Welsh refused all aid to
+the Roman missionary in the attempt to convert a race so cruel. It required
+all St. Gregory's firmness to induce his own monks to persist. In all the
+annals of Christian enterprise during eighteen centuries, there is
+probably not one which presented less hope of success than St. Gregory's
+resolution to add the spiritual beauty of the Christian to the physical
+beauty which he admired in the captives of the Roman forum.
+
+Among those to whom he applied to assist and further his purpose was the
+great queen of the Franks. To Brunechild he directed a letter saluting her,
+he says, with the charity of a father: "We hear that, by the help of God,
+the English people is willing to become Christian; and we recommend the
+bearer of these, the servant of God, Augustine, to your Excellency, to help
+him in all things, and to protect his work".[202]
+
+It was also to Virgilius, bishop of Arles, and primate of all the Gallic
+bishops, as we have seen, by Gregory's own appointment, that he sent
+Augustine, after his first success with Ethelbert, to receive episcopal
+consecration.
+
+From Gregory's own hand, and in virtue of his apostolic power, England in
+its second spring received its division into two provinces, one to be
+seated at Canterbury, the other at York. His letters to St. Augustine still
+exist to show how he entered into all the difficulties of the missionary,
+all the needs of a land in conversion from paganism. From him date the
+great prerogatives of the see of Canterbury, extending over the whole
+island, inasmuch as it was the matrix of the Church in England. If sons may
+deny their father, Englishmen may deny Gregory, and add to schism the guilt
+of parricide.
+
+But Gregory was hardly less active in restoring Spain from the Arian blight
+than in giving birth to a new Christian England. He writes, in 594: "We
+have heard from many who have come from Spain how lately Hermenegild, son
+of Leovigild, king of the Visigoths, has been converted from the Arian
+heresy to the Catholic faith by the preaching of Leander, bishop of
+Seville, long united to me in intimate friendship. His Arian father, by
+bribes and threats alike, tried to bring him back. Not succeeding, he
+deprived him of his rank and all his possessions. When this also failed, he
+put him in close imprisonment, fettering both neck and hands. So
+Hermenegild learnt to despise the earthly kingdom, and to yearn after the
+heavenly, while he lay in bonds and sackcloth. When Easter came, his father
+sent him in the middle of the night an Arian bishop that he might receive
+communion sacrilegiously consecrated, and so recover his favours.
+Hermenegild repulsed the bishop with strong reproaches. The father, hearing
+his report, burst into fury and sent officers to destroy him. They split
+open his skull with an axe, and so destroyed the life of the body which he
+had disregarded. Miracles followed. Psalms were heard about the body of the
+royal martyr--royal, indeed, because he was a martyr."[203]
+
+Writing to St. Leander, archbishop of Seville, Gregory says: "I am so
+tossed by this world's waves that I cannot steer to harbour this old
+weather-beaten bark which the secret dispensation of God has committed to
+my care. Shipwreck creaks in its worn-out planks. Dearest brother, if you
+love me, stretch out the hand of your prayers to me in this tempest. Your
+reward for helping me will be greater success in your own labours.
+
+"No words of mine can express the joy which I feel at hearing the perfect
+conversion of our common son, king Rechared, to the Catholic faith."[204]
+
+On another occasion Gregory writes to Leander, sending him the pallium,
+"blessed by Peter, prince of the Apostles," only to be used at Mass: "I see
+by your letter that burning charity which kindles others. He who is not
+himself on fire cannot inflame others. I always call to mind your life with
+great veneration. But as for me I am not what I was: 'Call me not Noemi,
+which is fair; call me Mara, for I am full of bitterness'. Following the
+way of my Head, I had resolved to be the scorn of men, the outcast of the
+people. But the burden of this honour weighs me down; innumerable cares
+pierce me like swords. There is no rest of the heart. I was tranquil in my
+monastery. The tempest arose; I am in its waves, suffering with the loss of
+quiet a shipwreck of mind. The gout oppresses you; I also am terribly
+pained by it. It will be well if, under these strokes of the scourge, we
+perceive them to be gifts, by which the sense of the flesh may atone for
+sins which delights of the flesh may have led us to commit.
+
+"The shortness of my letter will show how weak and how occupied I am, who
+say so little to one whom I love so much."[205]
+
+St. Gregory tells us that king Rechared, after the martyrdom of his brother
+St. Hermenegild, was converted from the Arian heresy, and brought the whole
+Visigothic nation to the Catholic faith. "The brother of a martyr fitly
+became a preacher of the faith. If Hermenegild had not died a martyr, this
+he would not have been able to do; for 'except the grain of wheat falling
+into the ground dieth, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth
+forth much fruit'. This we see to be doing in the members which we know to
+have been done in the Head. In the nation of the Visigoths one died that
+many might live."[206]
+
+A letter of St. Gregory to this king Rechared is extant, which one of the
+greatest French bishops, Hincmar of Reims, nearly three hundred years after
+it was written, thought worthy to be sent as a present to the emperor
+Charles the Bald. I quote portions of it:[207]
+
+"Most excellent son, words cannot tell the delight which I receive from
+your work and from your life. When I hear the power of that new miracle
+wrought in our days, that by means of your Excellency the whole nation of
+the Goths has been brought over from the error of the Arian heresy to the
+solidity of the right faith, I exclaim with the prophet, 'This is the
+change of the hand of the Most High'. Is there a heart of stone which would
+not be softened on hearing of so great a work into praises of Almighty God
+and affection for your Excellency? Often, when my sons meet, it is my
+pleasure to tell them of the deeds wrought by you, and to join my
+admiration with theirs. I get angry with myself that I am lazy, useless,
+and inert, while kings are labouring for the gain of the heavenly country
+by the ingathering of souls. What, then, shall I allege to the Judge at
+that tremendous tribunal, if I come before Him then with empty hands, while
+your Excellency leads a long train of the faithful whom you have drawn into
+the grace of the true faith by zealous and continuous preaching? But by
+God's gift this is my great consolation, to love in you that holy work
+which I have not in myself. When your acts move me to a great exultation, I
+make mine by charity what is yours by labour. Thus, in your work and our
+exultation over it, we may cry out with the angels over the conversion of
+the Goths, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good
+will'. But how joyfully St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, has received
+your offerings is borne witness to all men by your life.
+
+"You tell me that the abbots, who were carrying your offering to St. Peter,
+were driven back by a bad sea passage into Spain. Your gifts, which
+afterwards arrived, were not refused, but the courage of their bearers was
+tried. The adversity which good intentions encounter is a trial of virtue,
+not a judgment of reprobation. When St. Paul came to preach in Italy, how
+great was the blessing he brought; yet he was shipwrecked in coming, but
+the ship of his heart was not broken by the waves of the sea.
+
+"Also, I am told that your Excellency issued a certain decree against the
+misbelief of the Jews, which they strove by a bribe to have modified. This
+bribe you despised, and in the desire to please God preferred innocence to
+gold. This brought to my mind king David's act. He longed for a draught
+from the fountain of Bethlehem, which the enemy's host encompassed. His
+soldiers risked their lives to bring it. But he refused, saying: 'God
+forbid that I should drink the blood of these men. So he offered it to the
+Lord.'[208] If an armed king made a sacrifice to God of the water which he
+refused, think what a sacrifice to Almighty God that king presented who for
+His love refused to receive, not water, but gold. Therefore, most excellent
+son, I say confidently that the gold which you refused to receive against
+God you offered to Him. These are great deeds, the glory of which is due to
+God....
+
+"Government of subjects should be tempered with great moderation, lest
+power steal away the judgment. A kingdom is ruled well when the glory of
+ruling does not overmaster the spirit. Provide also against fits of anger,
+lest unlimited power be used hurriedly. Anger in punishing even delinquents
+should not anticipate judgment like a mistress, but follow reason as a
+servant, coming when she is called. If it once is in possession of the
+mind, it puts down to justice even a cruel deed. Therefore it is written:
+'The wrath of man worketh not the justice of God'; and again: 'Let
+everyone be swift to hear but slow to speak'. I do not doubt but that by
+God's help you practise all this. But as opportunity offers, I creep behind
+your good works, that when an adviser adds himself to what you do without
+advice, you may not be alone in your doing. May Almighty God stretch forth
+His heavenly hand to protect you in all your acts, granting you prosperity
+in the present life, and, after long years, eternal joy.
+
+"I enclose a small key from the most sacred body of the Apostle St. Peter,
+with his blessing. It contains an iron filing from his chains, that what
+bound his neck for martyrdom may deliver yours from all sin. I have also
+given the bearer of these a cross for you: it contains some of the wood of
+the Lord's cross, and hair of St. John Baptist; by which you may always be
+consoled by our Saviour through the intercession of His precursor. To our
+most reverend brother and fellow-bishop Leander we have sent the pallium
+from the See of the Apostle St. Peter, in accordance with ancient custom,
+with your life, with his own goodness and dignity."
+
+This letter of St. Gregory had been drawn forth by one from king Rechared
+to him, in which the king said he had been minded to inform of his
+conversion one who was superior to all other bishops, that he had sent a
+golden jewelled chalice which he hoped might be found worthy of the Apostle
+who was first in honour. "I beseech your Highness, when you have an
+opportunity, to find me out with your golden letters. For how truly I love
+you is not, I think, unknown to one whose breast the Lord inspires, and
+those who behold you not in the body, yet hear your good report; I commend
+to your Holiness with the utmost veneration Leander, bishop of Seville, who
+has been the means of making known to us your good will. I am delighted to
+hear of your health, and beg of your Christian prudence that you would
+frequently commend to our common Lord in your prayers the people who, under
+God, are ruled by us, and have been added to Christ in your times, that
+true charity towards God may be strengthened by the very distance which
+divides us."[209]
+
+The fact commemorated in these letters was indeed one for which the Pope
+might well use the angelical hymn of praise. "The bishops of Spain,"[210]
+says Gibbon, "respected themselves and were respected by the public;
+their indissoluble union confirmed their authority; and the regular
+discipline of the Church introduced peace, order, and stability into the
+government of the State. From the reign of Rechared, the first Catholic
+king, to that of Witiza, the immediate predecessor of the unfortunate
+Roderic, sixteen national councils were successively convened. The six
+metropolitans--Toledo, Seville, Merida, Braga, Tarragona, and
+Narbonne--presided according to their respective seniority; the assembly
+was composed of their suffragan bishops, who appeared in person or by
+their proxies; and a place was assigned to the most holy or opulent of
+the Spanish abbots. During the first three days of the convocation, as
+long as they agitated the ecclesiastical questions of doctrine and
+discipline, the profane laity was excluded from their debates, which were
+conducted, however, with decent solemnity. But on the morning of the
+fourth day the doors were thrown open for the entrance of the great
+officers of the palace, the dukes and counts of the provinces, the judges
+of the cities, and the Gothic nobles; and the decrees of heaven were
+ratified by the consent of the people. The same rules were observed in
+the provincial assemblies, the annual synods which were empowered to hear
+complaints and to redress grievances; and a legal government was
+supported by the prevailing influence of the Spanish clergy.... The
+national councils of Toledo, in which the free spirit of the barbarians
+was tempered and guided by episcopal policy, have established some
+prudent laws for the common benefit of the king and people. The vacancy
+of the throne was supplied by the choice of the bishops and palatines;
+and after the failure of the line of Alaric, the regal dignity was still
+limited to the pure and noble blood of the Goths. The clergy who anointed
+their lawful prince always recommended the duty of allegiance; and the
+spiritual censures were denounced on the heads of the impious subjects
+who should resist his authority, conspire against his life, or violate by
+an indecent union the chastity even of his widow. But the monarch
+himself, when he ascended the throne, was bound by a reciprocal oath to
+God and his people that he would faithfully execute his important trust.
+The real or imaginary faults of his administration were subject to the
+control of a powerful aristocracy; and the bishops and palatines were
+guarded by a fundamental privilege that they should not be degraded,
+imprisoned, tortured, nor punished with death, exile, or confiscation,
+unless by the free and public judgment of their peers."
+
+We have here the historian, who is one of the bitterest enemies of the
+Christian Church and Faith, avowing that the barbarian Visigoths received
+from the hands of that Church and Faith, at the end of the sixth century,
+the great institutions of a limited Christian monarchy, consecrated by the
+Church, in which the king at his accession solemnly avowed his
+responsibility for his exercise of the immense functions entrusted to him;
+also of parliaments, in which clergy and laity sat together in common
+deliberation upon the affairs of the State, grievances were redressed, and
+laws for the benefit of king and people passed; in fact, a reign of legal
+government, based upon law and justice, and confirmed by religious
+sanction.
+
+And in all this the hand of the Pope was seen, sending to the chief bishop
+of Spain the pallium direct from the body of St. Peter, on which it had
+been laid, as the visible symbol of apostolic power dwelling in the
+Apostle's See, and radiating from it.
+
+This is the first instance, and not the least striking, of a fact which
+lies at the foundation of modern Europe; for so the Teuton war leaders
+became Christian kings, and so the northern barbarians were changed into
+Christian nations. For that which Gibbon here describes took place in all
+the Teuton peoples who accepted the Catholic faith. He has elsewhere said:
+"The progress of Christianity has been marked by two glorious and decisive
+victories: over the learned and luxurious citizens of the Roman empire, and
+over the warlike barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who subverted the
+empire and embraced the religion of the Romans".[211]
+
+Of this latter victory we can celebrate the accomplishment, as St. Gregory
+did, in the words of the angelic hymn, but the details have not been
+preserved for us, even in the scanty proportion which we possess concerning
+the former. Fighting for thirty years with the Lombards for the very
+existence of Rome, Gregory was the contemporary and witness of this second
+victory. Not until the Arian heresy was subdued by the Catholic faith could
+it be said to be accomplished. The pontificate of his ancestor in the third
+degree, Pope Felix III., might be called heroic, in that, while under the
+domination of the Arian Herule, Odoacer, he resisted the meddling with the
+received doctrine of the Church by the emperor Zeno, guided by the larger
+mind and treacherous fraud of Acacius, the bishop of Constantinople, who
+ruled its emperor. Then the Arian Vandals bitterly persecuted the Church in
+Africa, and the Visigoth Arians had possession of France from the Loire
+southwards, and of Spain. Nowhere in the whole world was there a Catholic
+prince. The north and east of France and Belgium was held by the still
+pagan Franks. By the time of Gregory, Clovis and his sons had extinguished
+the Arian Visigoth kingdom and the Arian kingdom of Burgundy, and ruled one
+Catholic kingdom of all France. Under Rechared, the Arian Visigoth kingdom
+in Spain became Catholic. Gregory also announced to his friend, the
+patriarch Eulogius, that the pagan Saxons in England were receiving the
+Catholic faith by thousands from his missionary. The taint which the
+wickedness of the eastern emperor Valens had been so mysteriously allowed
+to communicate to the nascent faith of the Teuton tribes, through the
+noblest of their family, the Goths, was, during the century which passed
+between Pope Felix and Pope Gregory, purged away. It was decided beyond
+recal that the new nations of the West should be Catholic. Five times had
+Rome been taken and wasted: at one moment, it is said, all its inhabitants
+had deserted it and fled. The ancient city was extinct: in and out of it
+rose the Rome of the Popes, which Gregory was feeding and guarding. The
+eastern emperor, who called himself the Roman prince, in recovering her had
+destroyed her; but the life that was in her Pontiff was indestructible. The
+ecumenical patriarch was foiled by the Servant of the servants of God: in
+proportion as the eastern bishops submitted their original hierarchy, of
+apostolic institution, and the graduated autonomy which each enjoyed under
+it, to an imperial minister, termed a patriarch, in Constantinople, all the
+bishops of the West, placed as they were under distinct kingdoms, found
+their common centre, adviser, champion, and ruler in the Chair of Peter,
+fixed in a ruined Rome. If Gregory, in his daily distress, thought that the
+end of the world was coming, all subsequent ages have felt that in him the
+world of the future was already founded. In the two centuries since the
+death of the great Theodosius, the countries which form modern Europe had
+passed through indescribable disturbance, a misery without
+end--dislodgement of the old proprietors, a settlement of new inhabitants
+and rulers. The Christian religion itself had receded for a time far within
+the limits which it had once reached, as in the north of France, in
+Germany, and in Britain. The rulers of broad western lands, with the
+conquering host which they led, had become the victims first, and then the
+propagators, of the same fatal heresy. The conquered population alone
+remained Catholic. The conversion of Clovis was the first light which arose
+in this darkness. And now, a hundred years after that conversion, Paris and
+Bordeaux, and Toulouse and Lyons, Toledo and Seville, were Catholic once
+more, and Gregory, a provincial captive in a collapsing Rome, was owned by
+all these cities as the standard and arbiter of their faith, and the king
+of the Visigoths thankfully received a few filings from the chains of the
+Apostle Peter as a present which worthily celebrated his conversion.
+
+It is to be observed that this absolute defeat of the Arian heresy in
+several countries is accomplished in spite of the power which, in all of
+them, was wielded by Arian rulers. In vain had Genseric, Hunnerich,
+Guntamund, and Thrasimund oppressed and tortured the Catholics of Africa,
+banished their bishops, and set up nominees of their own as Arian bishops
+in their places for a hundred years. No sooner did Belisarius land on their
+soil than the fabric reared with every possible deceit and cruelty fell to
+the ground. The Arian Vandal king was carried away in triumph, as the spoil
+of a single battle, to Constantinople, and the Catholic bishops, while they
+hailed Justinian as their deliverer, met in plenary council, acknowledging
+the Primacy of Peter, as in the days of St. Augustine. In vain had the
+powerful Visigoth monarchy, seated during three generations at Toulouse,
+persecuted with fraud and cruelty its Catholic people. A single blow from
+the arm of Clovis delivered from their rule the whole country from the
+Loire to the Pyrenees. In vain had Gondebald and his family in Burgundy
+wavered between the heresy which he professed and the Catholic faith which
+he admired. The children of Clovis absorbed that kingdom also. But the
+strongest example of all remains. In vain, too, had Theodorick, after the
+murder of his rival Odoacer when an invited guest in the banquet of
+Ravenna, covered over the savage, and governed with wisdom and moderation a
+Catholic people, whom he soothed by choosing their noblest--Cassiodorus,
+Symmachus, and Boethius--for his ministers. He had formed into a family
+compact by marriages the Arian rulers in Africa, Spain, and Gaul. His
+moderation gave way when he saw the eastern emperor resume the policy of a
+Catholic sovereign. He put on the savage again, and he ended with the
+murder not only of his own long-trusted ministers, but of the Pope, who
+refused to be his instrument in procuring immunity for heresy from a
+Catholic emperor.
+
+At his death, overclouded with the pangs of remorse, the Arian rule which
+he had fostered with so much skill showed itself to have no hold upon an
+Italy to which he had given a great temporal prosperity. The Goths, whom he
+had seemed to tame, were found incapable of self-government, and every
+Roman heart welcomed Belisarius and Narses as the restorers of a power
+which had not ceased to claim their allegiance, even through the turpitudes
+and betrayals of Zeno and Anastasius.
+
+The best solution which I know for this wonderful result, brought about in
+so many countries, is contained in a few words of Gibbon: "Under the Roman
+empire the wealth and jurisdiction of the bishops, their sacred character
+and perpetual office, their numerous dependents, popular eloquence and
+provincial assemblies, had rendered them always respectable and sometimes
+dangerous. Their influence was augmented by the progress of superstition"
+(by which he means the Catholic faith), "and the establishment of the
+French monarchy may in some degree be ascribed to the firm alliance of a
+hundred prelates who reigned in the discontented or independent cities of
+Gaul."[212] But how were these prelates bound together in a firm alliance?
+Because each one of them felt what a chief among them, St. Avitus, under
+an Arian prince, expressed to the Roman senate in the matter of Pope
+Symmachus by the direction of his brother bishops, that in the person of
+the Bishop of Rome the principate of the whole Church was touched; that "in
+the case of other bishops, if there be any lapse, it may be restored; but
+if the Pope of Rome is endangered, not one bishop but the episcopate itself
+will seem to be shaken".[213] If the bishops had been all that is above
+described with the exception of this one thing, the common bond which held
+them to Rome, how would the ruin of their country, the subversion of
+existing interests, the confiscation of the land, the imposition of foreign
+invaders for masters, have acted upon them? It would have split them up
+into various parties, rivals for favour and the power derived from favour.
+The bishops of each country would have had national interests controlling
+their actions. The Teuton invaders were without power of cohesion, without
+fraternal affection for each other; their ephemeral territories were in a
+state of perpetual fluctuation. The bishops locally situated in these
+changing districts would have been themselves divided. In fact, the Arian
+bishops had no common centre. They were the nominees and partisans of their
+several sovereigns. They presented no one front, for their negation was no
+one faith. We cannot be wrong in extending the action assigned by Gibbon to
+the hundred bishops of Gaul, to the Catholic bishops throughout all the
+countries in which a poorer Catholic population was governed by Arian
+rulers. The divine bond of the Primacy, resting upon the faith which it
+represented, secured in one alliance all the bishops of the West. Nor must
+we forget that the Throne of Peter acknowledged by those bishops as the
+source of their common faith, the crown of the episcopate, was likewise
+regarded by the Arian rulers themselves as the great throne of justice,
+above the sway of local jealousies and subordinate jurisdictions. It
+represented to their eyes the fabric of Roman law, the wonderful creation
+of centuries, which the northern conquerors were utterly unable to emulate,
+and made them feel how inferior brute force was to civil wisdom and equity.
+
+In the constitution of the Visigothic kingdom of Spain from the time of
+Rechared, when it became Catholic, we see the first fruits of the Church's
+beneficent action on the northern invaders. The barbarian monarchy from its
+original condition of a military command in time of war, directing a raid
+of the tribe or people upon its enemies, becomes a settled rule, at the
+head of estates which meet in annual synod, and in which bishops and barons
+sit side by side. Government reposes on the peaceable union of the Two
+Powers. In process of time this sort of political order was established
+everywhere throughout the West, by the same action and influence of the
+Church. In the Roman empire the supreme power had been in its origin a
+mandate conferred by the citizens of a free state on one of their number
+for the preservation of the commonwealth. The notion of dynastic descent
+was wanting to it from the beginning. But the power which Augustus had
+received in successive periods of ten years passed to his successors for
+their life. Still they were rather life-presidents with royal power than
+kings. And it may be noticed that in that long line no blessing seemed to
+rest on the succession of a son to his father; much, on the contrary, on
+the adoption of a stranger of tried capacity guided by the choice of the
+actual ruler. But in the lapse of centuries the imperial power had become
+absolute. Especially in the successors of Constantine, and in the city to
+which he had given his name and chosen for the home of his empire, not a
+shadow of the old Roman freedom remained. One after another the successful
+general or the adventurer in some court intrigue supplanted or murdered a
+predecessor, and ascended the throne, but with undiminished prerogatives.
+Great was the contrast in all the new kingdoms at whose birth the influence
+of the Church presided. There the kings all sat by family descent, in
+which, however, was involved a free acceptance on the part of their people.
+The bishops who had had so large a part in the foundation of the several
+kingdoms had a recognised part in their future government. Holding one
+faith, and educated in the law of the Romans, and joined on to the
+preceding ages by their mental culture as well as their belief, they
+contributed to these kingdoms a stability and cohesion which were wanting
+to the Teuton invaders in themselves. They incessantly preached peace as a
+religious necessity to those tribes which had been as ready to consume
+each other as to divide the spoils of their Roman subjects. This united
+phalanx of bishops in Gaul conquered in the end even the excessive
+degeneracy, self-indulgence, and cruelty of the Merovingian race. Thanks to
+their perpetual efforts, while the policy of a Clovis made a France, the
+wickedness of his descendants did not destroy it, but only themselves, and
+caused a new family to be chosen wherein the same tempered government might
+be carried on.
+
+It is remarkable that while the Byzantine emperors, from the extinction of
+the western empire, were using their absolute power to meddle with the
+doctrine of the Church which Constantine acknowledged to be divine, and to
+fetter its liberty which he acknowledged to be unquestionable, the Popes
+from that very time were through the bishops, to whom they were the sole
+centre in so many changes and upheavals, constructing the new order of
+things. Through them the Church maintained her own liberty, and allied with
+it a civil liberty which the East had more and more surrendered.
+
+In the East, the Church in time was younger than the empire; in the West,
+she preceded in time these newly formed monarchies. Amid the universal
+overthrow which the invaders had wrought she alone stood unmoved. The
+heresy which had so threatened her disappeared. On Goths, and Franks, and
+Saxons, and Alemans, she was free to exercise her divine power.[214] It is
+in that sixth century of tremendous revolutions that she laid the
+foundation of the future European society. Byzantium was descending to
+Mahomet while Rome was forecasting the Christian commonwealth of Charles
+the Great. In the Rome of Constantine, while the old civilisation had
+accepted her name, the old pagan principles had continually impeded her
+action. The civil rulers especially had harked back after the power of the
+heathen Pontifex Maximus; but in these new peoples who were not yet
+peoples, but only the unformed matter (_materia prima_) out of which
+peoples might be made, the Church was free to put her own ideal as a _form_
+within them. They had the rudiments of institutions, which they trusted her
+to organise. They placed her bishops in their courts of justice, in their
+halls of legislation. The greatest of their conquerors in the hour of his
+supreme exaltation, which also was received from the Pope, was proud to be
+vested by her in the dalmatic of a deacon.
+
+Of this new world St. Gregory, in his desolated Rome, stood at the head.
+
+There is yet another aspect of this wonderful man which we have to
+consider. We possess about 850 of his letters. If we did but possess the
+letters of his sixty predecessors in the same relative proportion as his,
+the history of the Church for the five centuries preceding him, instead of
+being often a blank, would present to us the full lineaments of truth. The
+range of his letters is so great, their detail so minute, that they
+illuminate his time and enable us to form a mental picture, and follow
+faithfully that pontificate of fourteen years, incessantly interrupted by
+cares and anxieties for the preservation of his city, yet watching the
+beginnings and strengthening the polity of the western nations, and
+counterworking the advances of the eastern despotism. The divine order of
+greatness is, we know, to do and to teach. Few, indeed, have carried it out
+on so great a scale as St. Gregory. The mass of his writing preserved to us
+exceeds the mass preserved to us from all his predecessors together, even
+including St. Leo, who with him shares the name of Great, and whose sphere
+of action the mind compares with his. If he became to all succeeding times
+an image of the great sacerdotal life in his own person, so all ages
+studied in his words the pastoral care, joining him with St. Gregory of
+Nazianzum and St. Chrysostom. The man who closed his life at sixty-four,
+worn out not with age, but with labour and bodily pains, stands, beside the
+learning of St. Jerome, the perfect episcopal life and statesmanship of St.
+Ambrose, the overpowering genius of St. Augustine, as the fourth doctor of
+the western Church, while he surpasses them all in that his doctorship was
+seated on St. Peter's throne. If he closes the line of Fathers, he begins
+the period when the Church, failing to preserve a rotten empire in
+political existence, creates new nations; nay, his own hand has laid for
+them their foundation-stones, and their nascent polity bears his manual
+inscription, as the great campanile of St. Mark wears on its brow the
+words, _Et Verbum caro factum est_. These were the words which St. Gregory
+wrote as the bond of their internal cohesion, as the source of their
+greatness, permanence, and liberty upon the future monarchies of Europe.
+
+What mortal could venture to decide which of the two great victories
+allowed by Gibbon to the Church is the greater? But we at least are the
+children of the second. It was wrought in secrecy and unconsciousness, as
+the greatest works of nature and of grace are wrought, but we know just so
+much as this, that St. Gregory was one of its greatest artificers. The
+Anglo-Saxon race in particular, for more than a thousand years, has
+celebrated the Mass of St. Gregory as that of the Apostle of England. Down
+to the disruption of the sixteenth century, the double line of its bishops
+in Canterbury and York, with their suffragans, regarded him as their
+founder, as much as the royal line deemed itself to descend from William
+the Conqueror. If Canterbury was Primate of all England and York Primate of
+England, it was by the appointment of Gregory. And the very civil
+constitution of England, like the original constitutions of the western
+kingdoms in general, is the work in no small part of that Church which St.
+Augustine carried to Ethelbert, and whose similar work in Spain Gibbon has
+acknowledged. Under the Norman oppression it was to the laws of St. Edward
+that the people looked back. The laws of St. Edward were made by the
+bishops of St. Gregory.
+
+How deeply St. Gregory was impressed with the conviction of his own
+vocation to be the head of the whole Church we have seen in his own
+repeatedly quoted words.[215] What can a Pope claim more than the
+attribution to himself as Pope of the three great words of Christ spoken to
+Peter? Accordingly, all his conduct was directed to maintain every
+particular church in its due subordination to the Roman Church, to
+reconcile schismatics to it, to overcome the error and the obstinacy of
+heretics. Again, since all nations have been called to salvation in Christ,
+St. Gregory pursued the conversion of the heathen with the utmost zeal.
+When only monk and cardinal deacon, he had obtained the permission of Pope
+Pelagius to set out in person as missionary to paganised Britain. He was
+brought back to Rome after three days by the affection of the people, who
+would not allow him to leave them. When the death of Pope Pelagius placed
+him on the papal throne, he did not forget the country the sight of whose
+enslaved children had made them his people of predilection.
+
+With regard to the churches belonging to his own patriarchate, a bishop in
+each province, usually the metropolitan, represented as delegate the Roman
+See. To these, as the symbol of their delegated authority as his _vicarii_,
+Gregory sent the pallium. All the bishops of the province yielded them
+obedience, acknowledged their summons to provincial councils. A hundred
+years before Pope Symmachus had begun the practice of sending the pallium
+to them, but Gregory declined to take the gifts which it had become usual
+to take on receiving it. St. Leo, fifty years before Symmachus, had
+empowered a bishop to represent him at the court of the eastern emperor,
+and had drawn out the office and functions of the nuncio. Like his great
+predecessor, St. Gregory carefully watched over the rights of the Primacy.
+Upon the death of a metropolitan, he entrusted during the vacancy the
+visitation of the churches to another bishop, and enjoined the clergy and
+people of the vacant see to make a new choice under the superintendence of
+the Roman official. The election being made, he carefully examined the
+acts, and, if it was needed, reversed them. As he required from the
+metropolitans strict obedience to his commands, so he maintained on the one
+hand the dependence of the bishops on their metropolitans, while on the
+other he protected them against all irregular decisions of the
+metropolitan. He carefully examined the complaints which bishops made
+against their metropolitan; and when bishops disagreed with each other, and
+their disagreement could not be adjusted by the metropolitan, he drew the
+decision to himself.
+
+Gregory also held many councils in Rome which passed decisions upon
+doctrine and discipline. We may take as a specimen that which he held in
+the Lateran Church on the 5th April, 601,[216] with twenty-four bishops and
+many priests and deacons. It is headed: "Gregory, bishop, servant of the
+servants of God, to all bishops". The Pope says that his own government of
+a monastery had shown him how necessary it was to provide for their
+perpetual security: "Since we have come to the knowledge that in very many
+monasteries the monks have suffered much to their prejudice and grievance
+from bishops ... we therefore, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by
+the authority of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, in whose place
+we preside over this Church, forbid that henceforth any bishop or layman,
+in respect of the revenues, goods, or charters of monasteries, the cells or
+buildings belonging to them, do in any manner or upon any occasion diminish
+them, or use deceit or interference". If there be a contest whether any
+property belong to the church of a bishop or to a monastery, arbitrators
+shall decide. If an abbot dies, no stranger, but one of the same community,
+must be chosen by the brethren, freely and concordantly, for his successor.
+If no fitting person is found in the monastery itself, the monks are to
+provide that one be chosen from another monastery. In the abbot's lifetime
+no other superior may be set over the monastery, except the abbot have
+committed transgressions punishable by the canons. Against the will of the
+abbot no monk may be chosen to be set over another monastery or receive
+holy orders. The bishop may not make an inventory of the goods of the
+monastery, nor mix himself, even after the abbot's death, in the concerns
+of the monastery; he may hold no public mass in the monastery, that there
+be no meeting of people, or women, there; he may set up no pulpit there,
+and without the consent of the abbot make no regulation, and employ no
+monk for any church service.
+
+All the bishops answered: "We rejoice in the liberties of the monks, and
+confirm what your Holiness has set forth as to this".
+
+As metropolitan of the particular Roman province, Gregory was equally
+active. The political circumstances of Italy had exerted the most
+prejudicial effect on the Church. Ecclesiastical life was impaired. The
+discipline both of monks and clergy was weakened. Bishops had become
+negligent in their duties; many churches orphaned or destroyed. But at the
+end of his pontificate things had so improved that he might well be termed
+the reformer of Church discipline. He watched with great care over the
+conduct and administration of the bishops. In this the officers called
+_defensors_, that is, who administered the patrimony of the Church in
+the different provinces, helped him greatly in carrying out his commands.
+In the war with the Lombards, many episcopal sees had been wasted, and many
+of their bishops expelled. Gregory provided for them, either in naming them
+visitors of his own, or in calling in other bishops to their support. He
+rebuilt many churches which had been destroyed. He carefully maintained the
+property of churches: he would not allow it to be alienated, except to
+ransom captives or convert heathens. The Roman Church had then large
+estates in Africa, Gaul, Sicily, Corsica, Dalmatia, and especially in the
+various provinces of Italy. These were called the Patrimony of Peter. They
+consisted in lands, villages, and flocks. In the management of these
+Gregory's care did not disdain the minutest supervision. His strong sense
+of justice did not prevent his being a merciful landlord, and especially he
+cared for the peasantry and cultivators of the soil.
+
+The monastic life which in his own person he had so zealously practised, as
+Pope he so carefully watched over that he has been called the father of the
+monks. He encouraged the establishment of monasteries. Many he built and
+provided for himself out of the Roman Church's property. Many which wanted
+for maintenance he succoured. He issued a quantity of orders supporting the
+religious and moral life of monks and nuns. He invited bishops to keep
+guard over the discipline of monasteries, and blamed them when
+transgressions of it came to light. But he also protected monasteries from
+hard treatment of bishops, and, according to the custom of earlier Popes,
+exempted some of them from episcopal authority.
+
+In restoring schismatics to unity he was in general successful. He wrought
+such a union among the bishops of Africa that Donatism lost influence more
+and more, and finally disappeared. He dealt with the obstinate Milanese
+schism which had arisen out of the treatment of the Three Chapters. He won
+back a great part of the Istrians. He had more trouble with the two
+archbishops of Constantinople, John the Faster and Cyriacus; and his former
+friend the emperor Mauritius turned against him, so that he welcomed the
+accession of Phocas, as a deliverance of the Church from unjust domination.
+The unquestioning loyalty with which, as a civil subject, he welcomed this
+accession has been unfairly used against him. As first of all the civil
+dignitaries of the empire he could only accept what had been done at
+Constantinople. But in all his fourteen years neither the difficulty of
+circumstances nor the consideration of persons withheld him from carrying
+out his resolutions with a patience and a firmness only equalled by
+gentleness of manner. From beginning to end he considered himself, and
+acted, as set by God to watch over the maintenance of the canons, the
+discipline enacted by them, and so doing to perfect by his wisdom as well
+as to temper by his moderation the vast fabric of the Primacy as it had
+grown itself, and nurtured in its growth the original constitution of the
+Church during nearly six hundred years.
+
+We may now say a few words upon the Primacy itself as exerted by St. Leo at
+the Council of Chalcedon, and the Primacy as exerted by St. Gregory in the
+fourteen years from 590 to 604; also on the interval between them, and the
+relative position of the bishop of Constantinople to Leo in the person of
+Anatolius, and to Gregory in the person of John the Faster. We see at once
+that the intention which Leo discerned in Anatolius, which he sternly
+reprehended and summarily overthrew, has been fully carried out by John the
+Faster, who, in documents sent to the Pope himself for revision, as
+superior, terms himself ecumenical patriarch. Who had made him first a
+patriarch and then ecumenical? The emperor alone. He is so called in the
+laws of Justinian. The 140 years from Leo to Gregory are filled with the
+continued rise of the Bishop of Nova Roma under the absolute power of the
+emperor. He has succeeded not only in taking precedence of the legitimate
+patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch; he has more than once stripped of
+their rights the metropolitans and bishops subject to the great see of the
+East, and himself consecrated at Constantinople a patriarch of Antioch by
+order of the emperor of the day. This Acacius did, humbly begging the
+Pope's pardon for such a transgression of the due order and hierarchy, and
+repeating the offence against the Nicene order and constitution on the
+first opportunity. In the same way he has interfered with the elections at
+Alexandria. We learn from the instruction given by Pope Hormisdas to his
+legates that all the eastern bishops when they came to Constantinople
+obtained an audience of the emperor only through the bishop of
+Constantinople. The Pope carefully warns his legates against submitting to
+this pretension. Pope Gelasius told the bishop in his day that his see had
+no ecclesiastical rank above that of a simple bishop. We laugh, he said, at
+the pretension to erect an apostolical throne upon an imperial residence.
+But, in the meantime, Constantinople has become the head of all civil
+power. The emperor of the West has ceased to be. The Roman senate, at the
+bidding of a Herule commander of mercenaries, has sent back even the
+symbols of imperial rank to the eastern emperor; and in return Zeno has
+graciously made Odoacer patricius of Rome, with the power of king, until
+Theodorick was ready to be rewarded with the possession of Italy for
+services rendered to the eastern monarch, with the purpose likewise of
+diverting his attention from Nova Roma. Therefore, in spite of the
+submission rendered by all the East, the bishops, the court, the emperor,
+and by Justinian himself; in spite, also, of two bishops successively
+degraded by an emperor, the bishop of Constantinople ever advances. The law
+of Justinian, which acknowledges the Pope as first of all bishops in the
+world, and gives him legal rank as such, makes the bishop of the new
+capital the second. Presently Justinian becomes by conquest immediate
+sovereign of Rome. The ancient queen and maker of the empire is humbled in
+the dust by five captures; is even reduced to a desert for a time; and when
+a portion of her fugitive citizens comes back to the abandoned city, a
+Byzantine prefect rules it with absolute power. A Greek garrison, the badge
+of Rome's degradation, supports his delegated rule. Presently the seat of
+that rule is for security transferred to Ravenna, and Rome is left, not
+merely discrowned, but defenceless. All the while the bishop of
+Constantinople is seated in the pomp of power at the emperor's court;
+within the walls of the eastern capital his household rivals that of the
+emperor; in certain respects the public worship gives him a homage greater
+than that accorded to the absolute lord of the East. He reflects with
+satisfaction that the one person in the West who can call his ministration
+to account is exposed to the daily attacks of barbarians: is surrounded
+with palaces whose masters are ruined, and which are daily dropping into
+decay. The Pope, behind the crumbling walls of Aurelian, shudders at the
+cruelties practised on his people: the bishop of Constantinople, by terming
+himself ecumenical, announces ostentatiously that he claims to rule all his
+brethren in the East--that he is supreme judge over his brother patriarchs.
+One only thing he does not do: he claims no power over the Pope himself; he
+does not attempt to revise his administration in the West. He acknowledges
+his primacy, seated as it is in a provincial city, pauperised, and
+decimated with hunger and desertion.
+
+In this interval the Pope has seen seven emperors pass like shadows on the
+western throne, and their place taken first by an Arian Herule and then by
+an Arian Goth. Herule and Goth disappear, the last at the cost of a war
+which desolates Italy during twenty years, and casts out, indeed, the
+Gothic invader and confiscator of Italy, but only to supply his place by
+the grinding exactions of an absent master, followed immediately by the
+inroad of fresh savages, far worse than the Goth, under whose devastation
+Italy is utterly ruined. Whatever portion of dignity the old capital of the
+world lent to Leo is utterly lost to Gregory. It has been one tale of
+unceasing misery, of terrible downfal to Rome, from Genseric to Agilulf. It
+may seem to have been suspended during the thirty-three years of
+Theodorick, but it was the iron force of hostile domination wielded by the
+gloved hand. When the Goth was summoned to depart, he destroyed ruthlessly.
+The rage of Vitiges casts back a light upon the mildness of Theodorick; the
+slaughters ordered by Teia are a witness to Gothic humanity. No words but
+those of Gregory himself, in applying the Hebrew prophet, can do justice to
+the temporal misery of Rome. The Pope felt himself silenced by sorrow in
+the Church of St. Peter, but he ruled without contradiction the Church in
+East and West. Not a voice is heard at the time, or has come down to
+posterity, which accuses Gregory of passing the limits of power conceded to
+him by all, or of exercising it otherwise than with the extremest
+moderation.
+
+Disaster in the temporal order, continued through five generations, from
+Leo to Gregory, has clearly brought to light the purely spiritual
+foundation of the papal power. If the attribution to the Pope of the three
+great words spoken by our Lord to St. Peter, made to Pope Hormisdas by the
+eastern bishops and emperor, does not prove that they belong to the Pope
+and were inherited by him from St. Peter, what proof remains to be offered?
+If the attribution is so proved, what is there in the papal power which is
+not divinely conferred and guaranteed? Neither the first Leo, nor the first
+Gregory, nor the seventh Gregory, nor the thirteenth Leo, ask for more; nor
+can they take less.
+
+If St. Gregory exercised this authority in a ruined city, over barbarous
+populations which had taken possession of the western provinces, over
+eastern bishops who crouched at the feet of an absolute monarch, over a
+rival who, with all the imperial power to back him, did not attempt to deny
+it, how could a greater proof of its divine origin be given?
+
+In this respect boundless disaster offers a proof which the greatest
+prosperity would have failed to give. Not even a Greek could be found who
+could attribute St. Gregory's authority in Rome to his being bishop of the
+royal city. The barbarian inundation had swept away the invention of
+Anatolius.
+
+But this very time was also that in which the heresy whose leading doctrine
+was denial of the Godhead of the Church's founder came from a threatening
+of supremacy to an end. In Theodorick Arianism seemed to be enthroned for
+predominance in all the West. His civil virtues and powerful government,
+his family league of all the western rulers,--for he himself had married
+Andefleda, sister of Clovis, and had given one daughter for wife to the
+king of the Vandals in Africa, and another to the king of the Visigoths in
+France,--was a gage of security. In Gregory's time the great enemy has laid
+down his arms. He is dispossessed from the Teuton race in its Gallic,
+Spanish, Burgundian, African settlements. Gregory, at the head of the
+western bishops who in every country have risked life for the faith of
+Rome, has gained the final victory. One only Arian tribe survives for a
+time, ever struggling to possess Rome, advancing to its gates, ruining its
+Campagna, torturing its captured inhabitants, but never gaining possession
+of those battered walls, which Totila in part threw down and Belisarius in
+piecemeal restored. And Gregory, too, is chosen to stop the Anglo-Saxon
+revel of cruelty and destruction, which has turned Britain from a civilised
+land into a wilderness, and from a province of the Catholic Church to
+paganism, from the very time of St. Leo. Two tribes were the most savage of
+the Teuton family, the Saxon and the Frank. The Frank became Catholic, and
+Gregory besought the rulers of the converted nation to help his
+missionaries in their perilous adventure to convert the ultramarine
+neighbours, still savage and pagan. He also ordered their chief bishop to
+consecrate the chief missionary to be archbishop of the Angles. As there
+was a Burgundian Clotilda by the side of Clovis, there was a Frankish
+Bertha by the side of Ethelbert; and these two women have a glorious place
+in that second great victory of the Church. The Visigoth and Ostrogoth with
+their great natural gifts could not found a kingdom. Their heresy deprived
+the Father of the Son, and they were themselves sterile. Those who denied a
+Divine Redeemer were not likely to convert a world.
+
+But all through Gregory's life the Byzantine spirit of encroachment was one
+of his chief enemies. The claim of its bishop to be ecumenical patriarch
+stopped short of the Primacy. But one after another the bishops of that see
+sought by imperial laws to detach the bishops of Eastern Illyria from their
+subjection to the western patriarchate. Their nearness to Constantinople,
+their being subjects of the eastern emperor, helped this encroachment.
+
+It would appear also that in Gregory's time--a hundred years after Pope
+Gelasius had put the bishop of the imperial city in remembrance that he had
+been a suffragan to Heraclea--the legislation of Justinian had succeeded in
+inducing the Roman See to acknowledge that bishop as a patriarch. His
+actual power had gone far beyond. There can be no doubt that, while the
+Pope had become legally the subject of the eastern emperor, the bishop of
+Constantinople had become in fact the emperor's ecclesiastical minister in
+subjugating the eastern episcopate. The Nicene episcopal hierarchy
+subsisted indeed in name. To the Alexandrian and Antiochene patriarchs two
+had been added--one at Jerusalem, the other at Constantinople. But the last
+was so predominant--as the interpreter of the emperor's will--that he stood
+at the head of the bishops in all the realm ruled from Constantinople over
+against the Pope as the head of the western bishops in many various lands.
+
+The bishops were in Justinian's legislation everywhere great imperial
+officers, holding a large civil jurisdiction, especially charged with an
+inspection of the manner in which civil governors performed their own
+proper functions; most of all, the patriarchs and the Pope.
+
+But that episcopal autonomy--if we may so call it--under the presidence of
+the three Petrine patriarchs, which was in full life and vigour at the
+Nicene Council, which St. Gregory still recognised in his letter to
+Eulogius, was greatly impaired. While barbaric inundation had swept over
+the West, the struggles of the Nestorian and Eutychean heresies, especially
+in the two great cities of Alexandria and Antioch, had disturbed the
+hierarchy and divided the people which the master at Constantinople could
+hardly control. That state of the East which St. Basil deplored in burning
+words--which almost defied every effort of the great Theodosius to restore
+it to order--had gone on for more than two hundred years. The Greek
+subtlety was not pervaded by the charity of Christ, and they carried on
+their disputes over that adorable mystery of His Person in which the secret
+of redeeming power is seated, with a spirit of party and savage persecution
+which portended the rise of one who would deny that mystery altogether, and
+reduce to a terrible servitude those who had so abused their liberty as
+Christians and offered such a scandal to the religion of unity which they
+professed.
+
+From St. Sylvester to St. Leo, and, again, from St. Leo to St. Gregory, the
+effort of the Popes was to maintain in its original force the Nicene
+constitution of the Church. Well might they struggle for the maintenance of
+that which was a derivation from their own fountainhead--"the
+administration of Peter"[217]--during the three centuries of heathen
+persecution by the empire. It was not they who tightened the exercise of
+their supreme authority. The altered condition of the times, the tyranny of
+Constantius and Valens, the dislocation of the eastern hierarchy, the rise
+of a new bishop in a new capital made use of by an absolute sovereign to
+control that hierarchy, a resident council at Constantinople which became
+an "instrument of servitude" in the emperor's hands to degrade any bishop
+at his pleasure and his own patriarch when he was not sufficiently pliant
+to the master,--these were among the causes which tended to bring out a
+further exercise of the power which Christ had deposited in the hands of
+His Vicar to be used according to the needs of the Church. No one has
+expressed with greater moderation than St. Gregory the proper power of his
+see, in the words I have quoted above:[218] "I know not what bishop is not
+subject to the Apostolical See, if any fault be found in bishops. But when
+no fault requires it, all are equal according to the estimation of
+humility." In Rome there is no growth by aid of the civil power from a
+suffragan bishop to an universal Papacy. The Papacy shows itself already in
+St. Clement, a disciple of St. Peter's, "whose name is written in the book
+of life,"[219] and who, involving the Blessed Trinity, affirms that the
+orders emanating from his see are the words of God Himself.[220] This is
+the ground of St. Gregory's moderation; and whatever extension may
+hereafter be found in the exercise of the same power by his successors is
+drawn forth by the condition of the times, a condition often opposed to the
+inmost wishes of the Pope. Those are evil times which require "a thousand
+bishops rolled into one" to oppose the civil tyranny of a Hohenstaufen, the
+violence of barbarism in a Rufus, or the corruption of wealth in a
+Plantagenet.
+
+Between St. Peter and St. Gregory, in 523 years, there succeeded full sixty
+Popes. If we take any period of like duration in the history of the world's
+kingdoms, we shall find in their rulers a remarkable contrast of varying
+policy and temper. Few governments, indeed, last so long. But in the few
+which have so lasted we find one sovereign bent on war, another on peace,
+another on accumulating treasure, another on spending it; one given up to
+selfish pleasures, here and there a ruler who reigns only for the good of
+others. But in Gregory's more than sixty predecessors there is but one
+idea: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the
+gates of hell shall not prevail against it," is the compendious expression
+of their lives and rule. For this St. Clement, who had heard the words of
+his master, suffered exile and martyrdom in the Crimea. For this five
+Popes, in the decade between 250 and 260, laid down their lives. The letter
+of St. Julius to the Eusebian prelates is full of it. St. Leo saw the
+empire of Rome falling around him, but he is so possessed with that idea
+that he does not allude to the ruin of temporal kingdoms. St. Gregory
+trembles for the lives of his beleaguered people, but he does not know the
+see which is not subject to the Apostolic See. In weakness and in power, in
+ages of an ever varying but always persistent adversity, in times of
+imperial patronage, and, again, under heretical domination, the mind of
+every Pope is full of this idea. The strength or the weakness of individual
+character leaves it untouched. In one, and only one, of all these figures
+his dignity is veiled in sadness. Pope Vigilius at Constantinople, in the
+grasp of a despot, and with the stain of an irregular election never
+effaced from his brow, is still conscious of it, still has courage to say,
+"You may bind me, but you will not bind the Apostle St. Peter". Six hundred
+years after St. Gregory, when accordingly the succession of Popes had been
+rather more than doubled, I find the biographer of Innocent III. thus
+commenting on his election in 1198: "The Church in these times ever had an
+essential preponderance over worldly kingdoms. Resting on a spiritual
+foundation, she had in herself the vigour of immaterial power, and
+maintained in her application of it the superiority over merely material
+forces. She alone was animated by a clearly recognised idea, which never at
+any time died out of her. For its maintenance and actuation were not
+limited to the person of a Pope, who could only be the representative, the
+bearer, the enactor, for the world of this idea in its fullest meaning. If
+here and there a particular personality seemed unequal to the carrying out
+such a charge, the force of the idea did not suffer any defect through him.
+Most papal governments were very short in their duration. This itself was a
+challenge to those whose life was absorbed in that of the Church to place
+at its head a man whose ability, enlightened and guided by strength of
+will, afforded a secure assurance for the exercise of an universal charge.
+From the clear self-consciousness of the Church in this respect proceeded
+that firm pursuance of a great purpose distinctly perceived. It met with no
+persistent or wisely conducted resistance on the part of the temporal
+power. On one side all rays had their focus in one point. In temporal
+princes the rays were parted. Few of these showed in their lives a purpose
+to which all their acts were made consistently subordinate. As
+circumstances swayed them, as the desire of the moment led them away, they
+threw themselves, according to their personal inclinations, with impetuous
+storm and violence upon the attainment of their wishes. They had to yield
+in the end to the power of the Church, slower, indeed, but continuous,
+pursued with superiority of spirit, moreover with the firm conviction of
+guidance from above, and of the special protection from this inseparable,
+and so attaining its mark. One only royal race ventured on a contest with
+the Church for supremacy; for one only, the Hohenstaufen, were conscious of
+a fixed purpose. They encountered a direct struggle with the Church; but
+the conflict issued to the honour of the Church. The Popes who led it came
+out of it with a renown in the world's history, which without that conflict
+they would never have so gloriously attained. If we look from these events
+before and afterwards upon the ages, and see how the institution of the
+Papacy outlasts all other institutions in Europe, how it has seen all
+States come and go, how in the endless change of human things it alone
+remains unchanged, ever with the same spirit, can we then wonder if many
+look up to it as the Rock unmoved amid the roaring billows of centuries?"
+And he adds in a note, "This is not a polemical statement, but the verdict
+of history".[221]
+
+The time of St. Gregory in history bore the witness of six centuries; the
+time of Innocent III. of twelve; the time of Leo XIII. bears that of more
+than eighteen centuries to the consideration of this contrast between the
+natural fickleness of men and of lives of men, shown from age to age, and
+the persistence, on the other hand, of one idea in one line of men. The
+eighteen centuries already past are yet only a part of an unknown future.
+But to construct such a Rock amid the sea and the waves roaring in the
+history of the nations reveals an abiding divine power. It leaves the
+self-will of man untouched, yet sets up a rampart against it. The
+explanation attempted three hundred and fifty years ago of an imposture or
+an usurpation is incompatible with the clearness of an idea which is
+carried out persistently through so many generations. Usurpations fall
+rapidly. But in this one case the divine words themselves contain the idea
+more clearly expressed than any exposition can express it. The King
+delineates His kingdom as none but God can; it must also be added that He
+maintains it as none but God can maintain.
+
+We may return to St. Gregory's own time, and note the unbroken continuity
+of the Primacy from St. Peter himself. It is a period of nearly six hundred
+years from the day of Pentecost. Just in the middle comes the conversion
+of Constantine. Before it Rome is mainly a heathen city, the government of
+which bears above all things an everlasting enmity against any violation of
+the supreme pontificate annexed by the provident Augustus to the imperial
+power, and jealously maintained by every succeeding emperor. To suffer an
+infringement of that pontificate would be to lose the grasp over the
+hundred varieties of worship allowed by the State. Yet when Constantine
+acknowledged the Christian faith, the names of St. Peter and St. Paul were
+in full possession of the city, so far as it was Christian. They were its
+patron-saints. Every Christian memory rested on the tradition of St.
+Peter's pontifical acts, his chair, his baptismal font, his dwelling-place,
+his martyrdom. The impossibility of such a series of facts taking
+possession of a heathen city during the period antecedent to Constantine's
+victory over Maxentius, save as arising from St. Peter's personal action at
+Rome, is apparent.
+
+In the second half of this period, from Constantine to St. Gregory, the
+civil pre-eminence of Rome is perpetually declining. The consecration of
+New Rome as the capital of the empire, in 330, by itself alone strikes at
+it a fatal blow. Presently the very man who had reunited the empire divided
+it among his sons, and after their death the division became permanent.
+Valentinian I., in 364, whether he would or not, was obliged to make two
+empires. From the death of Theodosius, in 395, the condition of the western
+empire is one long agony. The power of Constantinople continually
+increases. At the death of Honorius, in 423, the eastern emperor becomes
+the over-lord of the western. During fifty years Rome lived only by the arm
+of two semi-barbarian generals, Stilicho and Aetius. Both were assassinated
+for the service; and in the boy Romulus Augustulus a western emperor ceased
+to be, and the senate declared that one emperor alone was needed. After
+fifty years of Arian occupation, the Gothic war ruined the city of Rome. In
+Gregory's time it had ceased to be even the capital of a province. Its lord
+dwelt at Constantinople; Rome was subject to his exarch at Ravenna.
+
+Yet from Constantine and the Nicene Council the advance of Rome's Primacy
+is perpetual. In Leo I. it is universally acknowledged. At the fall of the
+western empire Acacius attempts his schism. He is supported while living by
+the emperor Zeno, and his memory after his death by the succeeding emperor
+Anastasius, who reigned for twenty-seven years, longer than any emperor
+since Augustus had reigned over the whole empire. All the acts of these two
+princes show that they would have liked to attach the Primacy to their
+bishop at Constantinople. Anastasius twice enjoyed the luxury of deposing
+him through the resident council. But Anastasius died, and the result of
+the Acacian schism was a stronger confession of the Roman Primacy made to
+Pope Hormisdas, the subject of the Arian Theodorick, by the whole Greek
+episcopate, than had ever been given before. The sixth century and the
+reign of Justinian completed the destruction of the civil state of Rome;
+and the Primacy of its bishop, St. Gregory, was more than ever
+acknowledged.
+
+Not a shadow of usurpation or of claim to undue power rested upon that
+unquestioned Primacy which St. Gregory exercised. While he thought the end
+of the world was at hand, while he watched Rome perishing street by street,
+he planted unconsciously a western Christendom in what he supposed all the
+time to be a perishing world. Civil Rome was not even a provincial capital;
+spiritual Rome was the acknowledged head of the world-wide Church.
+
+I know not where to find so remarkable a contrast and connection of events
+as here. Temporal losses, secular ambitions, episcopal usurpations, violent
+party spirit, schism and heresy in the great eastern patriarchates, and
+amid it all the descent of the Teutons on the fairest lands of the western
+empire, the establishment of new sovereignties in Spain, Gaul, and Italy,
+under barbarians who at the time of their descent were Arian heretics, and
+afterwards became Catholic, with the result that Gregory has to keep watch
+within the walls of Rome for a whole generation against the Lombard, still
+in unmitigated savagery and unabated heresy, and that the world-wide Church
+acknowledges him for her ruler without a dissenting voice. The "Servant of
+the servants of God" chides and corrects the would-be "ecumenical
+patriarch," who has risen since Constantine from the suffragan of a
+Thracian city to be bishop of Nova Roma and right hand of the emperor; who
+has deposed Alexandria from the second place and Antioch from the third,
+but cannot take the first place from the See of Peter. The perpetual
+ambition of the bishops of Nova Roma, the perpetual fostering of that
+ambition for his own purpose by the emperor, only illustrates more vividly
+the inaccessible dignity which both would fain have transferred to the city
+of Constantine, but were obliged to leave with the city of Peter. As the
+forum of Trajan sinks down stone by stone, the kings of the West are
+preparing to flock in pilgrimage to the shrine of Peter. This was the
+answer which the captives in the forum made to the deliverer of their race.
+
+There is nothing like this elsewhere in history.
+
+Constantine, Valens, Theodosius, Justinian, and, no less, Alaric and
+Ataulph, Attila and Genseric, Theodorick and Clovis, Arius, Nestorius,
+Eutyches, as well as St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, St.
+Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Cyril, and, again, Dioscorus, Acacius, and a
+multitude of the most opposing minds and beliefs which these represent,
+contribute, in their time and degree, for the most part unconsciously, and
+many against their settled purpose, to acknowledge this Primacy as the Rock
+of the Church, the source of spiritual jurisdiction, the centre of a divine
+unity in a warring world. In St. Gregory we see the power which has had
+antecedents so strange and concomitants so repulsive deposited in the hands
+of a feeble old man who is constantly mourning over the cares in which that
+universal government involves him, while the world for evermore shall
+regard him as the type and standard of the true spiritual ruler, who calls
+himself, not Ecumenical Bishop, but Servant of the servants of God. It is a
+title which his successors will take from his hand and keep for ever as the
+badge of the Primacy which it illustrates, while it serves as the seal of
+its acts of power. He calls himself servant just when he is supreme.
+
+In St. Gregory the Great, the whole ancient world, the Church's first
+discipline and original government, run to their ultimate issue. In him the
+patriarchal system, as it met the shock of absolute power in the civil
+sovereign, and the subversion of the western empire by barbarous
+incursions, accompanied by the establishment of new sovereignties and the
+foundation of a new Rome, the rival and then the tyrant of the old Rome,
+receives its consummation. The medieval world has not yet begun. The
+spurious Mahometan theocracy is waiting to arise. In the midst of a world
+in confusion, of a dethroned city falling into ruins, the successor of St.
+Peter sits on an undisputed spiritual throne upon which a new world will be
+based in the West, against which the Khalifs of a false religion will exert
+all their rage in the East and South, and strengthen the rule which they
+parody. A new power, which utterly denies the Christian faith, which
+destroys hundreds of its episcopal sees and severs whole countries from its
+sway, will dash with all its violence against the Rock of Peter, and
+finally will have the effect of making the bishop who is there enthroned
+more than ever the symbol, the seat, and the champion of the Kingdom of the
+Cross.
+
+NOTES:
+
+[173] See Gregorovius, ii. 3, 4.
+
+[174] Gregorovius, ii. 6.
+
+[175] _Ibid._, ii. 5, literal.
+
+[176] Nirschl, iii. 534.
+
+[177] Third letter of Pelagius II.; Mansi ix., p. 889: Nefandissima gens.
+
+[178] Attested by St. Gregory of Tours, who heard it from a deacon of his
+church then at Rome.
+
+[179] _Ep._ i. 25, p. 514.
+
+[180] _Homily_ xviii. _on Ezechiel_, tom. i. 1374.
+
+[181] Nahum ii, 11.
+
+[182] Micheas i. 16.
+
+[183] End of the _Homilies on Ezechiel_, tom. i. 1430.
+
+[184] Quoted by Reumont, ii. 90.
+
+[185] _Ep._ v. 42, p. 769.
+
+[186] Reumont and Gregorovius.
+
+[187] _Ep._ v. 21, p. 751.
+
+[188] _Ep._ v. 20, tom. ii. 747.
+
+[189] _Ep._ vii. 40, p. 887.
+
+[190] I have drawn attention to this fact, and the idea which it represents
+as attested by Popes earlier than St. Gregory, in vol. v., pp. 53-60, of
+the _Formation of Christendom_, "The Throne," &c.
+
+[191] Rump, ix. 501-2; see his words quoted above, p. 107.
+
+[192] _Ep._ vii. 34, p. 882.
+
+[193] Rump, ix. 502.
+
+[194] Providentissime piissimus Dominus ad compescendos bellicos motus
+pacem quaerit ecclesiae _atque ad hujus compagem sacerdotum dignatur corda
+reducere_.-_Ep._ v. 20, p. 747.
+
+[195] De vi et ratione Primatus Romani Pontificis--c. iii., quoting the
+letter of St. Gregory to Eulogius, viii. 30.
+
+[196] _Ep._ ix. 59, p. 976.
+
+[197] _Ep._ ii. 52, p. 618.
+
+[198] _Ep._ xi. 37, p. 1120.
+
+[199] _Ep._ vi. 60, p. 836.
+
+[200] _Ep._ iv. 38, p. 718.
+
+[201] _Ep._ v. 54, p. 784.
+
+[202] _Ep._ vi. 59, p. 835.
+
+[203] _Dialog._, iii. 31, p. 345, A.D. 594.
+
+[204] _Ep._ i. 43, p. 531.
+
+[205] _Ep._ ix. 121, pp. 1026-8, shortened.
+
+[206] _Dialog._, iii. 31, p. 348.
+
+[207] _Ep._ ix. 122, p. 1028.
+
+[208] Paralipom. i. 11, 18.
+
+[209] _Ep._ ix. 61, p. 977.
+
+[210] Gibbon, ch. xxxviii.: a sneer or two have been omitted.
+
+[211] Gibbon, ch. xxxix.
+
+[212] Ch. xxxviii.
+
+[213] See above, p. 141.
+
+[214] See Kurth, ii. 25-6.
+
+[215] See in the _Kirchen-lexicon_ of Card. Hergenroether the article on
+Gregory I., vol. v., p. 1079.
+
+[216] See Hefele, _Conciliengeschichte_, iii., p. 56; St. Gregory, ii., p.
+1294; Mansi, x., p. 486.
+
+[217] S. Siricius, _Ep._
+
+[218] P. 308.
+
+[219] Philippians iv. 3.
+
+[220] See St. Clement's epistle, sec. 59. "Receive our counsel and you
+shall not repent of it. For, as God liveth, and as the Lord Jesus Christ
+liveth, and the Holy Spirit, and the faith and the hope of the elect, he
+who performs in humility, with assiduous goodness, and without swerving,
+_the commands and injunctions of God_, he shall be enrolled and esteemed in
+the number of those saved through Jesus Christ, through whom be glory to
+Him for ever and ever. Amen. But if any disobey _what has been ordered by
+Him through us_, let them know that they will involve themselves in a fall,
+and no slight danger, but we shall be innocent of this sin."
+
+[221] Hurter's _Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten_, i. 85-7.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+  _Acacius_, bishop of Constantinople, 471-489, 65;
+    his conduct to the year 482, 66;
+    induces Zeno to publish a formulary of doctrine, 70;
+    deposed by Pope Felix, 75;
+    rejects the Pope's sentence, 83;
+    attempts superiority over the eastern patriarchates, 84-86;
+    position taken up by him against the Pope, 84-91;
+    dies after five years of excommunication in 489, defying the
+      Pope, 83;
+    his name erased from the diptychs, 168;
+    summary of his conduct and aims, 174-6
+
+  _Agapetus_, Pope, his accession, 202;
+    confirms all his old rights to the Primate of Carthage, 203;
+    confirms Justinian's profession of faith, at the emperor's
+      request, 204;
+    goes to Constantinople, deposes Anthimus and consecrates Mennas
+      patriarch, 205
+
+  _Agnostics_, generated by schismatics, 5
+
+  _Alexandria and Antioch_, fearful state of their
+      patriarchates, 184;
+    the vast difference between their patriarchs and the Primacy, 185
+
+  _Anastasius II._, Pope, 496-8, 120;
+    his letter to the emperor asserts that as the imperial secular
+      dignity is pre-eminent in the whole world, so the Principate
+      of St. Peter's See in the whole Church, 120;
+    both are divine delegations, 121;
+    writes to Clovis upon his conversion, 122;
+    anticipates the great results to follow from it, 123
+
+  _Anastasius_, eastern emperor in 491, made emperor when a
+      _Silentiarius_ in the court, 518, 83;
+    summary of his reign in the "libellus synodicus," 100-1;
+    four Popes--Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus, and Hormisdas--have
+      to deal with him, 102;
+    tries to prevent the election of Pope Symmachus, 129;
+    he is obliged to allow the Roman See not to be judged, 143;
+    he deposes Euphemius, and puts Macedonius in his stead at
+      Constantinople, 143;
+    exalts Timotheus to the see of Constantinople, 148;
+    fills the eastern patriarchal sees with heretics, 149;
+    being pressed by Vitalian, betakes himself to Pope Hormisdas, 150;
+    receives his conditions, except those concerning Acacius, 159;
+    his treachery and cruelty, 160;
+    his sudden death, 162
+
+  _Anatolius_, bishop of Constantinople, crowns the emperor Leo I.,
+      dies in 458, 64;
+    his ambition seen and checked by St. Leo, 60;
+    is to Leo what John the Faster is to Gregory, 307
+
+  _Anicius Olybrius_, Roman emperor, 20
+
+  _Anthemius_, Roman emperor, 18
+
+  _Arianism_, propagated among the Goths by the emperor Valens, 49;
+    communicated by them to the Teuton tribes, 29;
+    prevalent throughout the West, 50;
+    fails in the Vandal, Visigothic, Burgundian, and Ostrogothic
+     kingdoms, 327-9
+
+  _Aspar_, Arian Goth, makes Leo I. emperor, and is slain by him, 62
+
+  _Ataulph_, marries Galla Placidia, his judgment upon the Goths and
+      Romans, 43
+
+  _Avitus, St._, bishop of Vienne, in Gaul, his character of
+      Acacius, 93;
+    his letter to Clovis on his conversion, 124;
+    urges his duty to propagate the faith in the peoples around him,
+      126;
+    writes to the Roman senate that the cause of the Bishop of Rome is
+      not one bishop but that of the Episcopate itself, 140
+
+  _Avitus_, Roman emperor, 13
+
+  _Augustine, St._, the great victory of the Church which he did
+      not foresee, 57
+
+
+  _Baronius_, quoted, 76, 79, 202, 207
+
+  _Basiliscus_, usurper, first of the theologising emperors, 46
+
+  _Belisarius_, reconquers Northern Africa, 199;
+    begins the Gothic war, and enters Rome, 205;
+    deposes Pope Silverius, 207;
+    defends Rome against Vitiges, 210;
+    captures Rome the third time, 207
+
+  _Benedict, St._, his monastery at Monte Cassino destroyed by the
+      Lombards, 290;
+    his Order has its chief seat for 140 years at St. John Lateran, 290;
+    rebukes and subdues Totila, 215
+
+  _Byzantium_, the over-lordship of its emperor acknowledged,
+      18, 23;
+    the succession to its throne, 61;
+    its constitution under Justinian contrasted with the medieval
+      constitution of England, 250
+
+
+  _Cassiodorus_, his letter as Praetorian prefect to Pope John II., 195
+
+  _Church, Catholic_, its two great victories, 5, 25;
+    attested and described by Gibbon, 325
+
+  _Civilta Cattolica_, quoted, 103, 104, 128
+
+  _Constantinople_, its seven bishops who follow Anatolius, 180;
+    submission of its bishop, clergy, emperor, and nobles to Pope
+      Hormisdas, 187;
+    service of its cathedral under Justinian, 244;
+    growth of its bishop from St. Leo to St. Gregory, 342;
+    all the work of the imperial power, 344;
+    perpetual encroachment of its bishops, 348, 359
+
+  _Cyprian, St._, quoted, "De Unitate Ecclesiae," 3
+
+
+  _Dante_, quoted, 184; on Justinian, 197
+
+  _Diptychs_, their meaning and force, 83
+
+
+  _Ennodius, St._, bishop of Pavia, asserts that God has reserved to
+      Himself all judgment upon the successors of St. Peter, 142;
+    his character of Acacius, 93
+
+  _Euphemius_, in 490 succeeds Fravita at Constantinople, 96;
+    opposes the emperor Anastasius, but signs his Henotikon, 97;
+    begs for reconciliation with Pope Felix, but will not give up
+      Acacius, 97;
+    recognises the authority of Pope Gelasius, 103-5;
+    deposed by the emperor through the Resident Council in 496, 114
+
+  _Eutychius_, patriarch of Constantinople, 239;
+    presides over the Fifth Council, 240;
+    consecrates Santa Sophia in 563, 244;
+    is deposed by Justinian in 565, 245
+
+
+  _Felix III._, Pope, 483-492, 71;
+    his letter to the emperor Zeno, stating his succession from
+      St. Peter, 72;
+    his letter to Acacius, 73;
+    holds a council in 484 and deposes Acacius, 75;
+    his sentence, recounting the misdeeds of Acacius, 76-8;
+    the synodal sentence signed by the Pope alone, which is justified by
+      the Roman synod, 79;
+    denounces Acacius to the emperor Zeno, 80;
+    his utter helplessness as to secular support when he thus
+      writes, 82, 88;
+    writes afresh to the emperor Zeno that the Apostle Peter speaks in
+      him as his Vicar, 94;
+    delays to grant communion to Fravita, successor of Acacius, 94;
+    dies after nine years of pontificate, 97.
+
+  _Filicaja_, quoted, 91
+
+  _Franks_, made great by the Catholic faith, 44, 348;
+    so found a kingdom, while Ostrogoths and Visigoths lose it, 348
+
+  _Fravita_, succeeds Acacius at Constantinople, and begs for the
+      Pope's recognition, 93;
+    dies after three months, 96
+
+
+  _Gelasius_, Pope, 492, 98;
+    condition of the Empire and Church at his accession, 98-9;
+    writes to Euphemius, who will cede everything except the person of
+      Acacius, 103-5;
+    the bishops of Eastern Illyricum profess their obedience to the
+      Apostolic See, 105-6;
+    to whom the Pope declares that the see of Constantinople has no
+      precedence over other bishops, 107;
+    that the Holy See, in virtue of its Principate, confirms every
+      council, 109;
+    his great letter to the emperor Anastasius defines the domain of
+      the Two Powers, 110;
+    the Primacy instituted by Christ, acknowledged by the Church, 111;
+    in the Roman synod of 496, declares the divine Primacy of the Roman
+      See, the second rank of Alexandria, and the third of Antioch, as
+      sees of Peter, 113;
+    the three Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus in 431, and Chalcedon, to be
+      general, 116;
+    omits the Council of Constantinople in 381, 116;
+    death of Gelasius, and character of the time of his sitting, 118;
+    calls Odoacer "barbarian and heretic," 68
+
+  _Gennadius_ bishop of Constantinople, 458-71, 64
+
+  _Gibbon_, acknowledges the two great victories of the Church, 325;
+    and the work of the Church in the Spanish monarchy, 322;
+    and the influence of bishops in establishing the French
+      monarchy, 329
+
+  _Glycerius_, Roman emperor, 21
+
+  _Gregorovius_, "Geschichte der Stadt Rom.," quoted, 9, 11, 13, 14,
+      23, 42, 208, 222, 245, 247, 272-3, 275
+
+  _Gregory, St., the Great_, his ancestry, 276;
+    state of Rome described by his predecessor Pope Pelagius, 277;
+    elected Pope, 590--tries for six months to escape, 278;
+    describes the work he was undertaking, 279;
+    and the misery of Rome in the words of Ezechiel, 281;
+    the Rome of St. Leo and the Rome of St. Gregory, 284;
+    his works done out of this Rome, 285-7;
+    the Lombard descent on Italy, 288;
+    alludes to a strange occurrence in St. Agatha dei Goti, 21;
+    refers to his great-grandfather, Pope Felix III., 81;
+    describes St. Benedict rebuking Totila, 215;
+    his right of reporting injustice to the emperor, 260;
+    his Primacy untouched by Rome's calamities, 292;
+    describes his Primacy to the empress Constantina, 295;
+    identifies to her his authority with that of St. Peter, 296;
+    also to the emperor Mauritius, 299;
+    and to the Lombard queen Theodelinda, 312;
+    and to the king of the Franks, 312;
+    and to Rechared, Gothic king of Spain, 319;
+    and in the appointment of the English hierarchy, 315;
+    his inference from the original patriarchal sees being all sees
+      of Peter, 301;
+    exposes the contrast between the assumed title of the patriarch
+      of Constantinople and his own Principate, 302-7;
+    his title, "Servant of the servants of God," expresses his
+      administration, 308;
+    as fourth Doctor of the western Church, 334;
+    as chief artificer in the Church's second victory, 335;
+    England indebted to him, both for hierarchy and civil constitution,
+      336;
+    his action as bishop, metropolitan, patriarch, and Pope, 337;
+    councils held by him at Rome, 338;
+    defends the liberties of monasteries against bishops, 339;
+    and as metropolitan succours distressed bishoprics, 340;
+    called the father of the monks, 341;
+    compared with St. Leo in the exercise of the Primacy, 342;
+    continues the struggle of the Popes from St. Sylvester to maintain
+      the Nicene constitution, 350
+
+  _Gregory of Tours, St._, notes the prospering of the Catholic,
+      and the decline of the Arian kingdoms, 123;
+    attests St. Gregory's flight from the papacy, 279
+
+  _Guizot_, his witness to the action of the hierarchy, 54
+
+
+  _Hefele_, "Conciliengeschichte," quoted, 93, 100, 114, 116, 128,
+      136, 137, 139, 142, 202, 232
+
+  _Hergenroether_, Card., quoted, "Kirchengeschichte," 26, 114, 185,
+      232, 244;
+    "Photius, sein Leben," 46, 47, 68, 75, 78, 83, 92, 93, 104, 128,
+      129, 143, 159, 165, 170, 187, 196, 203, 205, 207, 228, 230, 232,
+      245, 270, 271
+
+  _Hilarus_, Pope, 16
+
+  _Hormisdas_, deacon, elected Pope in 514, 149;
+    sends a legation to the emperor Anastasius, who had applied to his
+      fatherly affection, 150;
+    instruction given to his legates, 151-8;
+    orders them not to be introduced by the bishop of Constantinople,
+      157;
+    conditions of reunion proposed by him to the emperor, 158;
+    is deceived by the emperor, and denounces the treachery of Greek
+      diplomacy, 160;
+    is appealed to by the Syrian Archimandrites, 161;
+    resolves how to terminate the Acacian schism, 164;
+    his formulary of union accepted by the East, 167;
+    dies in 523, 193
+
+  _Hurter's_ "Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten," the papal idea
+      carried out through generations, 353-5
+
+
+  _Ignatius, St._, of Antioch, quoted, 12
+
+
+  _Jerome, St._, the result which he did not foresee, 57
+
+  _John_, patriarch of Constantinople, accepts the formulary of Pope
+      Hormisdas, 166
+
+  _John I._, Pope, martyred by Theodorick, 193
+
+  _John II._, Pope, praises Justinian for acknowledging the Primacy,
+      and confirms his confession of faith, 191
+
+  _John Talaia_, elected patriarch of Alexandria, 68;
+    offends Acacius, 69;
+    flies for refuge to Pope Simplicius, 71;
+    is supported by Pope Felix, 75;
+    made bishop of Nola by Pope Felix, 92
+
+  _John The Faster_, patriarch of Constantinople, assumes a
+      scandalous title, 299;
+    holds to Gregory the position of Anatolius to Leo, 307
+
+  _Justin I._, made emperor, 162;
+    writes to Pope Hormisdas, 163;
+    announces to him the condemnation of Acacius, 169;
+    his reign of nine years, 198
+
+  _Justinian_, his origin, 162;
+    entreats Pope Hormisdas to restore unity, 164;
+    acknowledges to Pope John II. his Primacy, 189;
+    enacts the _Pandects_, 192;
+    acknowledged the Pope's Primacy all his life, 195;
+    his character as legislator, 197;
+    recovers North Africa, 199;
+    begins the Gothic war, 206;
+    domineers over the eastern Church, 227-32;
+    acknowledges the dignity of Pope Vigilius, 232;
+    persecutes him, 232-40;
+    issues dogmatic decrees, 236, 242;
+    issues Pragmatic Sanction for Italy, 243;
+    deposes his patriarch Eutychius, 244;
+    is conception of Church and State, 248-56;
+    makes bishops and governors exercise mutual supervision, 257;
+    completeness and cordiality of his alliance with the Church, 261;
+    his spirit the opposite to that of modern governments, 262;
+    how far he maintains, how far goes beyond, the imperial idea, 264-9;
+    result spiritual and temporal of his reign, 270
+
+
+  _Kurth_, quoted "Les Origines de la Civilisation modern," 41;
+    on the policy of Justinian, 255;
+    the Church's power over the new nations, 333
+
+
+  _Leander, St._, archbishop of Seville, becomes an intimate friend of
+      St. Gregory during his nunciature at Constantinople, 277;
+    receives the pallium from St Gregory, 317, 321
+
+  _Leo I., St._, his universal Pastorship acknowledged by the Church
+      in General Council, 1-3;
+    and the succession of the Popes during 400 years, from St. Peter, 3;
+    rescues Rome from Attila, and from Genseric, 7-8;
+    his character, acts, and times, 15;
+    stands between the two great victories of the Church, and represents
+      both, 25-6;
+    the result which St. Leo did not foresee, 57;
+    his prescience of usurpation from the Byzantine bishop, 60;
+    his prescience of what the bishops of Constantinople aimed at, 307;
+    draws out the office and functions of the nuncio, 338
+
+  _Leo I._, emperor, 467, 62;
+    dies in 474, 63
+
+  _Leo II._, an infant, succeeds for a few months, 63
+
+  _Liberatus_, "Breviarium," quoted, 208, 209
+
+  _Libius Severus_, Roman emperor, 16
+
+  _Lombards_, their descent on Italy and uncivilised savagery, 287-91;
+    for ever strive to possess Rome, but never succeed, 347
+
+
+  _Macedonius_, bishop of Constantinople, feels his unlawful
+      appointment, 143;
+    persecuted during fifteen years, and finally deposed by the emperor
+      Anastasius, 144-8;
+    refuses to give up the Council of Chalcedon, but will not surrender
+      the memory of Acacius, and never enjoys communion with the Pope,
+      144-8
+
+  _Majorian_, Roman emperor, 14
+
+  _Martyrdom_, Papal, of 300 years, 10, 54
+
+  _Mausoleum of Hadrian_, stripped of its statues, 211;
+    an apparition of St. Michael changes its name, 278
+
+  _Mennas_, patriarch of Constantinople, 228-239
+
+
+  _Nepos_, Roman emperor, 21
+
+
+  _Odoacer_, extinguishes the western emperor, 22;
+    named Patricius of the Romans by the emperor Zeno, 35;
+    slain by Theodorick, 38;
+    his exaltation foretold by St. Severinus, 22
+
+  _Olybrius_, Roman emperor, 20
+
+  _Orosius_, an important anecdote preserved by him, 43
+
+
+  _Pallium_, sent by the Pope to the chief bishop in each province, 337;
+    the duties and powers which it carried with it, 337
+
+  _Papal election_, the freedom of, assailed by Odoacer, 194, 292;
+    by Theodorick and Justinian, 210, 292
+
+  _Pelagius II._, Pope, 578-590, describes the state of Rome, 277
+
+  _Petra Apostolica_, in the sixty Popes preceding Gregory, 352;
+    in the Popes from St. Gregory to Innocent III., 353;
+    in the Popes from Innocent III. to Leo XIII., 355;
+    sustained by opposing forces, 359
+
+  _Philips_, "Kirchenrecht," his judgment of Theodorick, 41;
+    on Byzantine succession, 61
+
+  _Primacy, the Roman_, its denial suicidal in all who believe one holy
+      Catholic Church, 3-4;
+    the creator of Christendom, 5, 6, 10, 57-8;
+    tested by the division of the empire, 51;
+    still more by the extinction of the western emperor, 53;
+    witness to it by Guizot, 55;
+    saves, in the seven successors of St. Leo, the eastern Church from
+      becoming Eutychean, 179-86;
+    developed by the sufferings of sixty years, 188;
+    acknowledged by the Council of Africa after the expulsion of the
+      Vandals, 201;
+    defined by the Vatican Council, as held by St. Gregory I., 307;
+    saves the western bishops from absorption in their several countries,
+      330;
+    preserver of civil liberties, 333;
+    resister of Byzantine despotism, 333;
+    its development from St. Leo I. to St. Gregory I., 342;
+    confirmed and illustrated by civil disasters, 346;
+    as Rome, the secular city, diminishes, the Primacy advances, 357
+
+
+  _Rechared_, king of the Spanish Visigoths, converted, 318;
+   his letter to St. Gregory informing him of his conversion, 321
+
+  _Reumont_, "Geschichte der Stadt Rom.," quoted, over-lordship of
+      Byzantium, 19;
+    Odoacer, Patricius at Rome, 35;
+    picture of Theodorick, 36;
+    of his government, 38;
+    sparing of St. Peter's and St. Paul's, 213;
+    Totila's deeds, 215;
+    Narses made Patricius of Rome, 245;
+    the Pragmatic Sanction, 246
+
+  _Riffel_, "Kirche und Staat," quoted, 190, 251, 253, 254, 255, 256, 267
+
+  _Roehrbacher_, the German edition of the history, quoted, 128, 142, 162,
+      192, 198, 199, 200, 202, 205, 245, 303, 305
+
+  _Rome_, its fall as a city coeval with the universal recognition
+      of the Papal Primacy, 6-10;
+    this fall and this recognition traced from Constantine to St.
+      Gregory, 356-8;
+    imperial, its death agony of twenty-one years, 23;
+    its sufferings in the Gothic war, 210-23;
+    the new city, from Narses, lives only by the Primacy, 294;
+    its extreme misery in the days of St. Gregory, 281, 284
+
+  _Romulus Augustulus_, Roman emperor, 21
+
+
+  _Saxons_, rudest of Teuton tribes, humanised by St. Gregory, 348
+
+  _Sidonius Apollinaris_, picture of the Roman senate, 17;
+    description of Rome in 467, 18;
+    makes Rome acknowledge the over-lordship of the East, 19;
+    describes the Roman baths, 19
+
+  _Silverius, St._, Pope, elected in 536, 205;
+    deposed by Belisarius, at the instigation of Theodora, 208;
+    martyred in the island of Palmaria, 209
+
+  _Simplicius_, Pope, his outlook from Rome, 45;
+    his letter to the emperor Zeno, 66
+
+  _Symmachus_, elected Pope in 498, 128;
+    his letter to the eastern emperor, 129;
+    compares the imperial and the papal power, 131;
+    they are the two heads of human society, 133;
+    Catholic princes acknowledge Popes on their accession, 134;
+    inferences to be deduced from this letter, 136;
+    the Synodus Palmaris refuses to judge the Pope, 136;
+    addressed by eastern bishops in their misery as a father by his
+      children, 149;
+    dies in 514, 149
+
+
+  _Theodora_, empress, her promises to Vigilius, 208;
+   her violent deposition of Pope Silverius, 209
+
+  _Theodorick_, the Ostrogoth, how nurtured, 36;
+    marches on Italy, 37;
+    which he conquers, and slays Odoacer, 38;
+    character of his reign, 39;
+    slays Pope John I., and his own ministers, Boethius and Symmachus,
+      41, 329;
+    judgment of him by St. Gregory, 41;
+    contrast with Clovis, 42;
+    his kingdom came to nothing, 43;
+    asks the title of king from the emperor Anastasius, 128;
+    determines the election of Pope Symmachus against Laurentius, 129;
+    induced to send a bishop as visitor of the Roman Church, 137;
+    said by the emperor to have the charge of governing the Romans
+      committed to him, 159;
+    his ability and family connections, 177;
+    final failure of his state, his family, and people, 328-9;
+    his attempt to maintain Arianism in the West foiled, 347
+
+  _Thierry_, "Derniers temps de l'Empire d'Occident," 20
+
+  _Tillemont_, quoted, 64
+
+  _Totila_, elected Gothic king, 214;
+    is warned by St. Benedict, 215;
+    takes Rome, 216;
+    takes Rome, its fourth capture, 218;
+    killed at Taginas, 219
+
+
+  _Valens_, emperor, poisons the western empire with Arianism, 50, 92
+
+  _Valentinian III._, his edict in 447 terms the Pope, Leo I.,
+      _principem episcopalis coronae_, 56;
+    murdered by Maximus, 13
+
+  _Vere, A. de_, quoted, "Legends and Records," 1, 12;
+    "Chains of St. Peter," 272
+
+  _Vigilius_, made Pope by Belisarius, 209;
+    summoned to Constantinople by Justinian, 226;
+    his persecution there, 232-243;
+    his dignity as Pope left unimpaired, 293
+
+  _Vitiges_, besieges Rome, and ruins the aqueducts and Campagna, 210-13;
+    carried a captive to Constantinople, 214
+
+
+  _Wandering of the nations_, 26-35
+
+
+  _Zeno_, eastern emperor, 63;
+    second of the theologising emperors, 47;
+    his conduct and character, 63;
+    matched with the emperor Valens, 92;
+    his death, 91, 99
+
+
+
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+
+  FORMBY, REV. HENRY.
+
+  Monotheism: in the main derived from the Hebrew
+    nation and the Law of Moses. The Primitive Religion
+    of the City of Rome. An historical Investigation,
+    Demy 8vo.                                              0  5 0
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+  FRANCIS DE SALES, ST.: THE WORKS OF.
+
+  Translated into the English Language by the Very Rev.
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+
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+    and corrected.                                         0  9 0
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+    and the Religious State."                              0  6 0
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+  *** Other vols. in preparation.
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+  GALLWEY, REV. PETER, (S.J.)
+
+  Precious Pearl of Hope in the Mercy of God, The.
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+  GILLOW, JOSEPH.
+
+  Literary and Biographical History, or, Bibliographical
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+    Breach with Rome, in 1534, to the Present Time.
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+     heroic sacrifices that our forefathers endured in those dark and
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+
+  GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF OUR LORD.
+
+  Meditations for every Day in the Year, exclusive of
+    those for Festivals, Days of Retreat, &c. Adapted
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+    Fidelis. A new and Improved Edition, in 3 Vols.
+    Sold only in sets. Price per set,                     L1  2 6
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+  HEDLEY, BISHOP.
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+    8vo.                                                   0  6 0
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+     mind."--_Dublin Review._
+
+  HUMPHREY, REV. W. (S.J.)
+
+  Suarez on the Religious State: A Digest of the Doctrine
+    contained in his Treatise, "De Statu Religionis."
+    3 vols., pp. 1200. Cloth, roy. 8vo.                    1 10 0
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+
+  The One Mediator; or, Sacrifice and Sacraments.
+    Crown 8vo, cloth                                       0  5 0
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+
+  KING, FRANCIS.
+
+  The Church of my Baptism, and why I returned to
+    it. Crown 8vo, cloth                                   0  2 6
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+  LEDOUX, REV. S. M.
+
+  History of the Seven Holy Founders of the Order of
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+
+  Edward the Sixth: Supreme Head, Second edition.
+    Crown 8vo                                             L0  6 0
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+     "In vivid interest and in literary power, no less than in solid
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+     research in amassing facts, and his rare artistic power in
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+     Bull._
+
+  LIGUORI, ST. ALPHONSUS.
+
+  New and Improved Translation of the Complete Works
+    of St. Alphonsus, edited by the late Bishop Coffin:--
+
+  Vol. I. The Christian Virtues, and the Means for Obtaining
+    them. Cloth                                            0  3 0
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+  Or separately:--
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+  1. The Love of our Lord Jesus Christ                     0  1 0
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+  2. Treatise on Prayer. (_In the ordinary editions a
+       great part of this work is omitted_)                0  1 0
+
+  3. A Christian's rule of Life                            0  1 0
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+  Vol. II. The Mysteries of the Faith--The Incarnation;
+    containing Meditations and Devotions on the Birth
+    and Infancy of Jesus Christ, &c., suited for Advent
+    and Christmas                                          0  2 6
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+  Vol. III. The Mysteries of the Faith--The Blessed
+    Sacrament                                              0  2 6
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+  Vol. IV. Eternal Truths--Preparation for Death           0  2 6
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+  Vol. V. The Redemption--Meditations on the Passion       0  2 6
+
+  Vol. VI. Glories of Mary. New edition                    0  3 6
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+  LIVIUS, REV. T. (M.A., C.SS.R.)
+
+  St. Peter, Bishop of Rome; or, the Roman Episcopate
+    of the Prince of the Apostles, proved from the
+    Fathers, History and Chronology, and illustrated by
+    arguments from other sources. Dedicated to his
+    Eminence Cardinal Newman. Demy 8vo, cloth              0 12 0
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+     qualities, such as effective arrangement, and correct and lucid
+     diction, this essay, by an English Catholic scholar, is not
+     unworthy of Cardinal Newman, to whom it is dedicated."--_The
+     Sun._
+
+  Explanation of the Psalms and Canticles in the Divine
+    Office. By ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI. Translated
+    from the Italian by THOMAS LIVIUS, C.SS.R.
+    With a Preface by his Eminence Cardinal MANNING.
+    Crown 8vo, cloth                                       0  7 6
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+     it especially useful."--_Month._
+
+  Mary in the Epistles; or, The Implicit Teaching of
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+    Illustrated from Fathers and other Authors, and
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+    Cloth                                                  0  5 0
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+  MANNING, CARDINAL.
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+  Life of the Cure of Ars.  Popular edition                0  2 6
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+
+  Meditations on the Gospels for Every Day in the
+    Year. Translated into English from the new Edition,
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+    the direction of the Rev. W. H. Eyre, S.J. Cloth      L0  6 0
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+  MIVART, PROF. ST. GEORGE (M.D., F.R.S.)
+
+  Nature and Thought. Second edition                       0  4 0
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+
+  A Philosophical Catechism,  Fifth edition                0  1 0
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+  MONTGOMERY, HON. MRS.
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+
+  The Eternal Years. With an Introduction by the
+    Most Rev. G. Porter, Achbp. of Bombay, Cloth           0  3 6
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+  The Divine Ideal. Cloth                                  0  3 6
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+
+  Letter Books of Sir Amias Poulet, keeper of Mary
+    Queen of Scots.  Demy 8vo                              0 10 6
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+  Two Missionaries under Elizabeth                         0 14 0
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+  The Catholics under Elizabeth                            0 14 0
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+  The Life of Father John Gerard, S.J. Third edition,
+    rewritten and enlarged                                 0 14 0
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+  The Life and Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket. Second
+    and enlarged edition. In one volume, large post 8vo,
+    cloth, pp. xxxvi., 632,                                0 12 6
+    or bound in two parts, cloth                           0 13 0
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+  MORRIS, REV. W. B. (OF THE ORATORY.)
+
+  The Life of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland. Fourth
+    edition. Crown 8vo, cloth                              0  5 0
+
+     "The secret of Father Morris's success is, that he has got the
+     proper key to the extraordinary, the mysterious life and
+     character of St. Patrick. He has taken the Saint's own authentic
+     writings as the foundation whereon to build."--_Irish
+     Ecclesiastical Record._
+
+     "Promises to become the standard biography of Ireland's Apostle.
+     For clear statement of facts, and calm judicious discussion of
+     controverted points, it surpasses any work we know of in the
+     literature of the subject."--_American Catholic Quarterly._
+
+  Ireland and St. Patrick.  A study of the Saint's
+    character and of the results of his apostolate.
+    Crown 8vo. Cloth                                       0  5 0
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+  NEWMAN, CARDINAL.
+
+  Church of the Fathers                                   L0  4 0
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+     Prices of other works by Cardinal Newman on application.
+
+  PAGANI, VERY REV. JOHN BAPTIST,
+
+  The Science of the Saints in Practice. By John Baptist
+    Pagani, Second General of the Institute of
+    Charity.  Complete in three volumes. Vol. 1,
+    January to April. Vol. 2, May to August. Vol. 3,
+    September to December                          each    0  5 0
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+     "'The Science of the Saints' is a practical treatise on the
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+     Lives of the Saints. Written chiefly for devout souls such as are
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+     the footsteps of our Lord and His saints, this work is eminently
+     adapted for the use of ecclesiastics and of religious
+     communities."--_Irish Ecclesiastical Record._
+
+  PAYNE, JOHN ORLEBAR, (M.A.)
+
+  Records of the English Catholics of 1715. Demy 8vo.
+    Half-bound, gilt top                                   0 15 0
+
+     "A book of the kind Mr. Payne has given us would have astonished
+     Bishop Milner or Dr. Lingard. They would have treasured it, for
+     both of them knew the value of minute fragments of historical
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+     information which he has given, from unprinted sources, and we
+     must congratulate him on having found a few incidents here and
+     there which may bring the old times back before us in a most
+     touching manner."--_Tablet._
+
+  English Catholic Non-Jurors of 1715. Being a Summary
+    of the Register of their Estates, with Genealogical
+    and other Notes, and an Appendix of
+    Unpublished Documents in the Public Record
+    Office. In one Volume. Demy 8vo.                       1  1 0
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+
+  PORTER, ARCHBISHOP.
+
+  The Letters of the late Father George Porter, S.J.,
+    Archbishop of Bombay. Demy 8vo. Cloth                  0  7 6
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+     points; the critic can listen to frank opinions of literature of
+     every shade; and the general reader can enjoy the choice bits of
+     description and morsels of humour scattered lavishly through the
+     book."--_Tablet._
+
+  QUARTERLY SERIES Edited by the Rev. John
+    Morris, S.J. 80 volumes published to date.
+
+    _Selection._
+
+  The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier. By the
+    Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J. 2 vols.                    L0 10 6
+
+  The History of the Sacred Passion. By Father Luis
+    de la Palma, of the Society of Jesus. Translated
+    from the Spanish.                                      0  5 0
+
+  The Life of Dona Louisa de Carvajal. By Lady
+    Georgiana Fullerton. Small edition                     0  3 6
+
+  The Life and Letters of St. Teresa. 3 vols. By Rev.
+    H. J. Coleridge, S.J.                          each    0  7 6
+
+  The Life of Mary Ward. By Mary Catherine Elizabeth
+    Chalmers, of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin.
+    Edited by the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J. 2 vols.       0 15 0
+
+  The Return of the King. Discourses on the Latter
+    Days. By the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J.                0  7 6
+
+  Pious Affections towards God and the Saints.
+    Meditations for every Day in the Year, and for
+    the Principal Festivals. From the Latin of the Ven.
+    Nicolas Lancicius, S.J.                                0  7 6
+
+  The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ in Meditations
+    for Every Day in the Year. By Fr. Nicolas
+    Avancino, S.J. Two vols.                               0 10 6
+
+  The Baptism of the King: Considerations on the Sacred
+    Passion. By the Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J.             0  7 6
+
+  The Mother of the King. Mary during the Life of
+    Our Lord                                               0  7 6
+
+  The Hours of the Passion. Taken from the _Life of
+    Christ_ by Ludolph the Saxon                           0  7 6
+
+  The Mother of the Church. Mary during the first
+    Apostolic Age                                          0  6 0
+
+  The Life of St. Bridget of Sweden. By the late F. J.
+    M. A. Partridge                                        0  6 0
+
+  The Teachings and Counsels of St. Francis Xavier.
+    From his Letters                                       0  5 0
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+  Garcia Moreno, President of Ecuador. 1821-1875.
+    From the French of the Rev. P. A. Berthe, C.SS.R.
+    By Lady Herbert                                        0  7 6
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+  The Life of St. Alonso Rodriguez. By Francis
+    Goldie, of the Society of Jesus                        0  7 6
+
+  Letters of St. Augustine. Selected and arranged by
+    Mary H. Allies                                         0  6 6
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+  A Martyr from the Quarter-Deck--Alexis Clerc, S.J.
+    By Lady Herbert                                        0  5 0
+
+  Acts of the English Martyrs, hitherto unpublished.
+    By the Rev. John H. Pollen, S.J., with a Preface
+    by the Rev. John Morris, S.J.                          0  7 6
+
+  Life of St. Francis di Geronimo, S.J. By A. M. Clarke.   0  7 6
+
+  Aquinas Ethicus; or the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas.
+    By the Rev. Joseph Rickaby, S.J. 2 vols.               0 12 0
+
+  VOLUMES ON THE LIFE OF OUR LORD.
+
+    _The Holy Infancy._
+
+  The Preparation of the Incarnation                      L0  7 6
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+  The Nine Months. The Life of our Lord in the Womb        0  7 6
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+  The Thirty Years. Our Lord's Infancy and Early Life      0  7 6
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+
+  The Ministry of St. John Baptist                         0  6 6
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+  The Preaching of the Beatitudes                          0  6 6
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+  The Sermon on the Mount. Continued. 2 Parts, each        0  6 6
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+  The Training of the Apostles. Parts I., II., III., IV.
+  each                                                     0  6 6
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+
+  The Preaching of the Cross. Parts II., III.   each       0  6 0
+
+  Passiontide. Parts I. II. and III., each                 0  6 6
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+  Chapters on the Parables of Our Lord                     0  7 6
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+    _Introductory Volumes._
+
+  The Life of our Life. Harmony of the Life of Our
+    Lord, with Introductory Chapters and Indices.
+    Second edition. Two vols.                              0 15 0
+
+  The Passage of our Lord to the Father. Conclusion
+    of The Life of our Life                                0  7 6
+
+  The Works and Words of our Saviour, gathered from
+    the Four Gospels                                       0  7 6
+
+  The Story of the Gospels. Harmonised for Meditation      0  7 6
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+  ROSE, STEWART.
+
+  St. Ignatius Loyola and The Early Jesuits, with more
+    than 100 Illustrations by H. W. and H. C. Brewer
+    and L. Wain. The whole produced under the
+    immediate superintendence of the Rev. W. H. Eyre,
+    S.J. Super Royal 8vo. Handsomely bound in
+    Cloth, extra gilt. (net.)                              0 15 0
+
+     "This magnificent volume is one of which Catholics have justly
+     reason to be proud. Its historical as well as its literary value
+     is very great, and the illustrations from the pencils of Mr.
+     Louis Wain and Messrs. H. W. and H. C. Brewer are models of what
+     the illustrations of such a book should be. We hope that this
+     book will be found in every Catholic drawing-room, as a proof
+     that 'we Catholics' are in no way behind those around us in the
+     beauty of the illustrated books that issue from our hands, or in
+     the interest which is added to the subject by a skilful pen and
+     finished style."--_Month._
+
+  RYDER, REV. H. I. D. (OF THE ORATORY.)
+
+  Catholic Controversy: A Reply to Dr. Littledale's
+    "Plain Reasons." Seventh edition                       0  2 6
+
+     "Father Ryder of the Birmingham Oratory, has now furnished in a
+     small volume a masterly reply to this assailant from without. The
+     lighter charms of a brilliant and graceful style are added to the
+     solid merits of this handbook of contemporary
+     controversy."--_Irish Monthly._
+
+  SOULIER, REV. P.
+
+  Life of St. Philip Benizi, of the Order of the Servants
+    of Mary, Crown 8vo                                     0  8 0
+
+     "A clear and interesting account of the life and labours of this
+     eminent Servant of Mary."--_American Catholic Quarterly._
+
+     "Very scholar-like, devout and complete."--_Dublin Review._
+
+  STANTON, REV. R. (OF THE ORATORY.)
+
+  A Menology of England and Wales; or, Brief Memorials
+    of the British and English Saints, arranged
+    according to the Calendar. Together with the Martyrs
+    of the 16th and 17th centuries. Compiled by
+    order of the Cardinal Archbishop and the Bishops
+    of the Province of Westminster.  Demy 8vo. cloth      L0 14 0
+
+  THOMPSON, EDWARD HEALY, (M.A.)
+
+  The Life of Jean-Jacques Olier, Founder of the
+    Seminary of St. Sulpice. New and Enlarged Edition.
+    Post 8vo, cloth, pp. xxxvi. 628                        0 15 0
+
+     "It provides us with just what we most need, a model to look up
+     to and imitate; one whose circumstances and surroundings were
+     sufficiently like our own to admit of an easy and direct
+     application to our own personal duties and daily
+     occupations."--_Dublin Review._
+
+  The Life and Glories of St. Joseph, Husband of
+    Mary, Foster-Father of Jesus, and Patron of the
+    Universal Church. Grounded on the Dissertations of
+    Canon Antonio Vitalis, Father Jose Moreno, and other
+    writers. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth              0  6 0
+
+  ULLATHORNE ARCHBISHOP.
+
+  Autobiography of, _see_ Drane, A. T.
+
+  Endowments of Man, &c. Popular edition.                  0  7 0
+  Groundwork of the Christian Virtues: do.                 0  7 0
+  Christian Patience,      do. do.                         0  7 0
+  Ecclesiastical Discourses                                0  6 0
+  Memoir of Bishop Willson.                                0  2 6
+
+  VAUGHAN, ARCHBISHOP, (O.S.B.)
+
+  The Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquin.
+    Abridged and edited by Dom Jerome Vaughan,
+    O.S.B. Second Edition. (Vol. I., Benedictine
+    Library.) Crown 8vo. Attractively bound                0  6 6
+
+     "Popularly written, in the best sense of the word, skilfully
+     avoids all wearisome detail, whilst omitting nothing that is of
+     importance in the incidents of the Saint's existence, or for a
+     clear understanding of the nature and the purpose of those
+     sublime theological works on which so many Pontiffs, and notably
+     Leo XIII., have pronounced such remarkable and repented
+     commendations."--_Freeman's Journal._
+
+  WARD, WILFRID.
+
+  The Clothes of Religion. A reply to popular Positivism.  0  3 6
+
+     "Very witty and interesting."--_Spectator._
+
+     "Really models of what such essays should be."--_Ch. Quart.
+     Review._
+
+  WATERWORTH, REV. J.
+
+  The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and OEcumenical
+    Council of Trent, celebrated under the Sovereign
+    Pontiffs, Paul III., Julius III., and Pius IV., translated
+    by the Rev. J. WATERWORTH. To which are prefixed Essays
+    on the External and Internal History of the Council.
+    A new edition. Demy 8vo, cloth                         0 10 6
+
+  WISEMAN, CARDINAL.
+
+  Fabiola. A Tale of the Catacombs.     3s. 6d. and        0  4 0
+    Also a new and splendid edition printed on large
+    quarto paper, embellished with thirty-one full-page
+    illustrations, and a coloured portrait of St. Agnes.
+    Handsomely bound.                                      1  1 0
+
+
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