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 a.s.sault 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 ma.s.sacred 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 s.p.a.ces 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 n.o.bles 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 Na.r.s.es, 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, Na.r.s.es 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 Na.r.s.es, 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 n.o.ble 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 Na.r.s.es, at their entrance into Rome, followed the example. Then, again, three hundred youths of the n.o.blest 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 t.i.tle 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 Na.r.s.es turned his steps southwards to c.u.mae, 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 Na.r.s.es, 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 Na.r.s.es, 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 Na.r.s.es 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 ill.u.s.trious, 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, Na.r.s.es, is indescribable. It is hard to say whether defender or a.s.sailant 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 n.o.blest 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, Na.r.s.es, 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.
Na.r.s.es 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 Na.r.s.es 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 Na.r.s.es 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 amba.s.sador 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 Na.r.s.es 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 G.o.d rested? Had there been one particle of truth in that 28th canon which a certain party attempted to pa.s.s at the Council of Chalcedon, and which St. Leo peremptorily annulled, a negative answer to this must now have followed.
That canon a.s.serted "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 pa.s.s 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 const.i.tution of the Church, and therefore did not need to be justified by events. But the Divine Providence superadded this justification, and that under circ.u.mstances 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 pet.i.tioners 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 a.s.sent 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sent 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 Illyric.u.m. 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 Ma.s.s. 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 G.o.dless writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and also his person; the letter said to be written by Ibas to Maris, which Justinian had marked as supposit.i.tious, 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 Sebastia.n.u.s, 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 antic.i.p.ating 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.sed, 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 emba.s.sy 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 doc.u.ment 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ment 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 Const.i.tution 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 doc.u.ment 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 Const.i.tution 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 a.s.saulted 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 Na.r.s.es, 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, Na.r.s.es 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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 n.o.bility 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 const.i.tution 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 emba.s.sy to his successor complaining that their lot had been more endurable under the dominion of barbarians than under the Greeks.
When Na.r.s.es,[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 a.s.sembled 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d for emperors. But if what concerns them be entirely blameless and full of confidence in G.o.d, 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 G.o.d,[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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.semblies 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.