Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
commissioned by them to make an apology for their procedure, laid down the proposition that the pope who himself is judge over all, cannot be judged of any man. Bloody street fights between the two parties, however, still continued by day and night. Symmachus’ successor Hormisdas, A.D. 514 to A.D. 523, had the satisfaction of seeing the Byzantine court, in order to prepare the way for the winning back of Italy, seeking for reconciliation with the Western church, and in A.D. 519 submitting to the humbling conditions of restoration to church fellowship offered by the pope. A sharp edict of the West Roman emperor Justin II. against the Arians of his empire caused Theodoric to send an embassy in their favour to Constantinople, at the head of which stood John I., A.D. 523 to A.D. 526, with a threat of reprisals. The pope, however, seems rather to have utilized his journey for intrigues against the Italian government of the Goths, for after his return Theodoric caused him to be cast into prison, in which he died. He was succeeded by Felix IV. A.D. 526 to A.D. 530, after whose death the election was again disputed by two rivals. This schism, however, was only of short duration, since Dioscurus, the choice of the majority, died during the next month. His rival Boniface II., A.D. 530 to A.D. 532, a Goth by birth and favoured by the Ostrogoth government, applied himself with extreme severity to put down the opposing party.
§ 46.9. From John II. to Pelagius II., A.D. 532 to A.D. 590.—Meanwhile Justinian I. had been raised to the Byzantine throne, and his long reign from A.D. 527 to A.D. 565, was in many ways a momentous one for the fortunes of the Roman bishopric. The reconquest of Italy, from A.D. 536 to A.D. 553, by his generals Belisarius and Narses, and the subsequent founding of the Exarchate at Ravenna in A.D. 567, at the head of which a representative of the emperor, a so-called Roman patrician stood, freed the pope indeed from the control of the Arian Ostrogoths which since the restoration of ecclesiastical fellowship with the East had become oppressive, but it brought them into a new and much more serious dependence. For Justinian and his successors demanded from the Roman bishops as well as from the patriarchs of Constantinople unconditional obedience.—Agapetus I., A.D. 535 to A.D. 536, sent as peacemaker by the Goths to Constantinople, escaped the fate of John I. perhaps just because he suddenly died there. Under his successor Silverius, A.D. 536 to A.D. 537, Belisarius, in December, A.D. 536, made his entry into Rome, and in the March following he deposed the pope and sentenced him to banishment. This he did at the instigation of the Empress Theodora whose machinations in favour of Monophysitism had been already felt by Agapetus. Theodora had already designated the wretched Vigilius, A.D. 537 to A.D. 555, as his successor. He had purchased her favour by the promise of two hundred pounds of gold and acquiescence in the condemnation of the so-called three chapters (§ 52, 6) so eagerly desired by her. Owing to his cowardliness and want of character Africa, North Italy and Illyria shook off their allegiance to the Roman see and maintained their independence for more than half a century. Terrified by this disaster he partly retracted his earlier agreement with the empress, and Justinian sent him into exile. He submitted unconditionally and was forgiven, but died before reaching Rome. Pelagius I., A.D. 555 to A.D. 560, also a creature of Theodora, subscribed the agreement and so confirmed the Western schism which Gregory the Great first succeeded in overcoming.—The fantastic attempt of Justinian to raise his obscure birthplace Tauresium, the modern Bulgarian Achrida, to the rank of a metropolis as Justinianopolis or Prima Justiniana, and its bishop to the rank of patriarch with Eastern Illyria as his patriarchate, proved, notwithstanding the consent of Vigilius, a still-born child.
§ 46.10. From Gregory I. to Boniface V., A.D. 590 to A.D. 625.—After the papal chair had been held by three insignificant popes in succession Gregory the Great, A.D. 590 to A.D. 604 (comp. § 47, 22), was raised to the Apostolic see, the greatest, most capable, noblest, most pious and most superstitious in the whole long series of popes. He took the helm of the church at a time when Italy was reduced to the most terrible destitution by the savage and ruthless devastations of the Arian Longobards lasting over twenty years (§ 76, 8), and neither the emperor nor his exarch at Ravenna had the means of affording help. Gregory could not allow Italy and the church to perish utterly under these desperate circumstances, and so was compelled to assume the functions of civil authority. When the Longobards in A.D. 593 oppressed Rome to the uttermost there remained nothing for him but to purchase their withdrawal with the treasures of the church, and the peace finally concluded with them in A.D. 599 was his and not the exarch’s work. The exceedingly rich possessions of lands and goods, the so-called Patrimonium Petri, extending throughout all Italy and the islands, brought him the authority of a powerful secular prince far beyond the bounds of the Roman duchy, in comparison with which the rank of the exarch himself was insignificant. The Longobards too treated with him as an independent political power. Gregory, therefore, may rightly be regarded as the first founder of the temporal power of the Papacy on Italian soil. But all this as we can easily understand provoked no small dislike of the pope at Constantinople. The pope, on the other hand, was angry with the Emperor Maurice because he gave no consideration to his demand that the patriarch, Johannes Jejunator, should be prohibited from assuming the title Ἐπίσκοπος οἰκουμενικός. Gregory’s own position in regard to the primacy appears from his Epistles. He writes to the bishop of Syracuse: Si qua culpa in episcopis invenitur, nescio, quis Sedi apostolicæ subjectus non sit; cum vero culpa non existit, omnes secundum rationem humilitatis æquales sunt. And with this reservation it was certainly meant when he, in a letter to the patriarch of Alexandria, who had addressed him as “Universalis Papa,” most distinctly refused this title and readily conceded to the Alexandrian as well as to the Antiochean see, as of Petrine origin (the Antiochean directly, § 16, 1; the Alexandrian indirectly through Mark, § 16, 4), equal rank and dignity with that of Rome; and when he denounced as an anti-Christ every bishop who would raise himself above his fellow bishops. Thus he compared Johannes Jejunator to Lucifer who wished to exalt himself above all the angels. Gregory, on the other hand, in proud humility styled himself, as all subsequent popes have done, Servus servorum Dei. When he extolled the Frankish Jezebel Brunhilda [Brunehilda] (§ 77, 7), who had besought him to send her relics and at another time a pallium for a bishop, as an exemplary pious Christian woman and a wise ruler, he may, owing to the defective communication between Rome and Gaul, have had no authentic information about her doings and disposition. The memory of the otherwise noble-minded pope is more seriously affected by his conduct in reference to the emperor Phocas, A.D. 602 to A.D. 610, the murderer of the noble and just emperor Maurice, whom he congratulates upon his elevation to the throne, and makes all the angelic choirs of heaven and all tongues on earth break forth in jubilees and hymns of thanksgiving; but even here again, when he thus wrote, the news of his iniquities—not only the slaughter of the emperor, but also of his queen, his five sons and three daughters, etc., by which this demon in human form cut his way to the throne—may not have been known to him in their full extent.—Phocas, however, showed himself duly thankful, for at the request of pope Boniface III., A.D. 606 to A.D. 607, he refused to allow the patriarch of Constantinople to assume the title of Universal bishop, while at the same time he formally acknowledged the chair of Peter at Rome as Caput omnium ecclesiarum. To the next pope Boniface IV., A.D. 608 to A.D. 615, he presented the beautiful Pantheon at Rome, which from being a temple dedicated to Cybele, the mother of the gods, and to all the gods, he turned into a church of the mother of God and of all the martyrs.132
§ 46.11. From Honorius I. to Gregory III., A.D. 625 to A.D. 741.—For almost fifty years, from A.D. 633 under Honorius I., A.D. 625 to A.D. 638, the third successor of Boniface IV., the Monothelite controversy (§ 52, 8) continued its disastrous course. Honorius, a pious and peace-loving man, had seen nothing objectionable in this attempt of the Emperor Heraclius (A.D. 611 to A.D. 641) to win the numerous Monophysites back to the unity of the church by the concession of one will in the two natures of Christ, and was prepared to co-operate in the work. But the conviction grew more and more strong that the doctrine proposed in the interests of peace was itself heretical. All subsequent bishops of Rome therefore unanimously condemned as an accursed heresy (§ 52, 9), what their predecessor Honorius had agreed to and confessed. This explains how the exarch of Ravenna delayed for more than a year the confirmation of the election of the next pope, Severinus, A.D. 638 to A.D. 640, and granted it only in A.D. 640