BOOK III.

FROM THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR THEODOSIUS I TO THE PONTIFICATE OF GREGORY THE GREAT.A.D. 395-590.

CHAPTER VI.

MONOPHYSITISM.—JUSTINIAN.—THE THREE ARTICLES. A.D. 451-566.

 

The council of Chalcedon was represented as Nestorian by its opponents, and the strife which it was meant to allay continued to distract the church. The name of Eutychians was soon superseded by that of Monophysites, i.e. maintainers of one nature only; for Eutyches himself fell into discredit, and those who rejected the late council were generally willing to anathematize him, on account of a sort of docetism which was imputed to him—an opinion that the body of our Lord was not truly human, but had descended from heaven.

The monophysites, on the contrary, maintained that the Saviour was “consubstantial with us, as touching his flesh”; while as to his soul they rejected the idea of an absorption of the manhood into the Godhead, and reverted to the formula “one incarnate nature”, acknowledging, moreover, that this one nature was twofold. In addition to the elder authorities on which they had hitherto relied, the monophysites were reinforced towards She end of the century by a forgery executed in Egypt —the mystical works ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite. These writings, although originally brought forward by a heterodox party, and although their essence is said to be not Christian, but neo-Platonic, were, with hardly a question, universally received as genuine, and retained their credit for a thousand years.

Juvenal of Jerusalem, on returning from Chalcedon, found that the see for which he had just achieved the patriarchal dignity was occupied by a turbulent monk named Theodosius, who was countenanced by Eudocia, widow of the emperor Theodosius II. For two years this intruder held possession of Palestine, being supported by monks and by a force of ruffians, who exercised a general system of terror, burning houses and monasteries, expelling bishops and clergy, and committing murders without restraint. At length, however, through the conciliatory policy of Marcian and Pulcheria, his chief supporters were drawn away from him. Juvenal resumed his bishopric, and after a time Eudocia, partly influenced by the persuasions of Symeon the Stylite, and partly by the calamities which had befallen her daughter and grand­children in the Vandal expedition against Rome, was induced to rejoin the catholic communion.

At Alexandria Proterius was elected in the room of Dioscorus (A.D. 452), but found himself fiercely opposed by a powerful faction, which could only be kept down by a military force at the expense of much bloodshed. On the death of the emperor Marcian (457) , the malcontents thought that their opportunity had at length arrived. Timothy named Elurus (the Cat), who, with Peter Mongus (the hoarse), had separated from the communion of Proterius, and had been excommunicated by him, raised a mob, and was consecrated by two deposed bishops. On Thursday before Easter Proterius was murdered in the baptistery of his cathedral; his body, after having been hung up in mockery, was dragged about the streets and cut in pieces; some of the multitude tasted his entrails; the remains were then burnt, and the ashes were scattered to the winds. The catholic clergy were expelled, and the other adherents of Proterius were persecuted.

The accession of Marcian’s successor, Leo, was rendered remarkable by his receiving the crown from the hands of the patriarch Anatolius,—the first instance of a solemnity which has become usual in Christian states. The new emperor, who before his elevation had been a military officer, began by publishing a confirmation of all that his predecessor had done in the matter of religion. The Alexandrian differences were soon brought under his notice by some envoys of each party; whereupon he issued a requisition to the bishops of every province, and to the most eminent monks, desiring them to give their opinions on the council of Chalcedon and on the pretensions of Elurus. By this expedient Leo probably hoped to obtain a judgment equivalent to that of a general council, without risking the inconveniences connected with such assemblies. The result was an unanimous sentence against Elurus and in favour of the council; although some bishops of Pamphylia, while they admitted the correctness of the decisions of Chalcedon, and their utility for the defence of the faith, questioned the fitness of imposing them as terms of communion. Elurus was banished to Cherson; and another Timothy, an ecclesiastic of the catholic party (who is distinguished by the names of Salophaciolus and the White), was chosen in his stead, and for fifteen years governed the Alexandrian church with wisdom and moderation.

Leo was succeeded in 474 by his grandson of the same name, the son of his daughter Ariadne by Zeno; but the child died within a year, and Zeno remained in possession of the throne. The private character of this emperor was stained by gross and shameless debauchery. His reign was disquieted by many rebellions, one which compelled him for nearly two years to give way to Basiliscus, the brother-in-law of Leo,—the same whose misconduct in the expedition against the Vandals of Africa has already been mentioned. Basiliscus, who was supported by the monophysite party, recalled Timothy Elurus from banishment, and restored him to the see of Alexandria; he also restored to Antioch Peter “the Fuller”, a monophysite, who had been twice expelled from the see in the reign of Leo; and he took it upon himself to issue an encyclic or circular letter, condemning the council of Chalcedon, and laying down definitions as to faith—the first document of the kind which had been put forth by any emperor. Timothy of Alexandria, Peter of Antioch, and, it is said, about five hundred other bishops, subscribed the edict. But Acacius, who in 471 had become patriarch of Constantinople, displayed on this occasion a vehemence which contrasts strongly with the courtly and equivocating policy of his ordinary conduct as to matters of religion. Perhaps, as has been suggested, Acacius may have been animated in his opposition to Basiliscus, not only by zeal for the faith of Chalcedon, but by a regard for the privileges which the council had bestowed on his see, and by attachment to the emperor to whom he had owed his elevation. He arrayed his person and his church in mourning, and by his preaching excited the monks and people of the capital against the usurper. Both Basiliscus and the patriarch sent envoys to Daniel the stylite, who had succeeded Symeon as the most revered oracle of the time. Warned by a vision, Daniel descended from his pillar, and appeared in Constantinople; he confirmed the orthodoxy of the council of Chalcedon by performing a number of miracles, denounced against Basiliscus the judgments of this world and of the next, and did not leave the city until the usurper, alarmed at the report that Zeno was approaching, and was supported by the whole catholic party, published a second edict, revoking his circular, anathematizing Eutyches as well as Nestorius, and approving the council of Chalcedon. It is said that Basiliscus fled for safety to a church, and that the patriarch, disregarding the example of his great predecessor Chrysostom, gave up the unhappy man to the relentless vengeance of Zeno.

Things were now again changed. Most of the bishops who had signed the circular of Basiliscus eagerly went over to the opposite party. Peter the Fuller was ejected from Antioch, and Elurus would have been ejected from Alexandria but that his advanced age promised a speedy vacancy in the see. On his death, which took place before the end of the year 477, Peter Mongus was irregularly consecrated as patriarch by two deprived bishops, if not by a single bishop. The emperor deposed, but did not banish him, and Timothy Salophaciolus was reinstated. This patriarch administered his office with a mildness which drew from the emperor admonitions to be more rigid in suppressing the meetings of the monophysites; while with these he was so popular that, on meeting him in the streets, they used to express their regard for him, and their regret at being obliged to stand aloof from his communion. On his death, in 482, John Talaia, steward of the church, was elected to the patriarchate; but the emperor objected to him on account of his connexion with Illus, an officer who had lately revolted. Talaia was expelled, and took refuge at Rome; and Peter Mongus renewed his pretensions to the see of Alexandria.

The doctrines of the monophysites had by degrees been so greatly improved from the original Eutychianism that the idea of reconciling the party with the Catholics might now appear not unreasonable or hopeless. By the advice of Acacius, Zeno put forth a document bearing the title of Henoticon (or Form of Union), which was originally addressed to the Egyptian patriarchate, but was afterwards made a standard for other churches also. In this, the emperor, after alluding to the discords, the bloodshed, the destitution of the means of grace, and other unhappy consequences which had resulted from the late controversies, declares the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople to be the only baptismal creed, anathematizes Nestorius and Eutyches, and approves of Cyril’s twelve anathemas. He states that Christ is “consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and with us as touching his manhood”; that “the miracles and the sufferings were of one and the same Person”. He reprobates those who “divide, confuse, or introduce the notion of a phantasy”; he anathematizes “any one who thought or thinks anything to the contrary, either now or at document was composed in the belief that the doctrine of Chalcedon would of itself be received without objection in quarters where the name of the council was obnoxious”; and, while it avoided the expression “in two natures” and the confirmation of the council, it set forth those points of doctrine as to which both parties were agreed. But the care which was taken to consult the prejudices of the monophysites naturally rendered it objectionable to the Catholics; and the mention of Chalcedon, although only in a hypothetical form, appeared to go somewhat beyond a neutrality, as if a slight to the council were intended. At Rome, especially, no approbation was to be expected, inasmuch as the bishop had not been consulted on the occasion, and as there was no mention of Leo’s letter to Flavian.

It was intimated to Peter Mongus, that, on condition of subscribing the Henoticon and of admitting the Proterians to communion, he might be allowed to hold the bishopric of Alexandria. To these terms he consented and the great body of the Catholics submitted to him, while the extreme Eutychians formed a separate sect, which, as being without a head, received the name of Acephali. Peter endeavoured to gain these by anathematizing the council of Chalcedon and the letter to Flavian; it is even said that with the same view he disinterred the body of Salophaciolus. In answer to a remonstrance from Acacius, he said that he had accepted the council of Chalcedon as containing no innovation on the faith, but he did not deny that he had acted with a tortuous policy. While Peter laboured by such means, but with very little success, to conciliate the Acephali, he exercised great severity towards such of the Catholics as refused to communicate with him.

Peter was received into communion by Acacius, and by Martyrius of Jerusalem; and the patriarch of Constantinople wrote in his behalf to Rome. But the interest of Rome had been already gained by the expelled bishop of Alexandria, John Talaia. Two successive popes, Simplicius and Felix, addressed letters in favour of him both to the emperor and to Acacius; but the patriarch in reply assured Felix that Peter was a rightly chosen and orthodox bishop, and Zeno threw out charges of perjury against John. Acacius won over two legates of Felix, and persuaded them to be present at a service in which the name of Peter was recited in the diptychs—an act by which they seemed to give the sanction of Rome to his tenure of the Alexandrian patriarchate. For this compliance the legates, on their return home, were tried before an Italian synod, which deposed and excommunicated them; and the synod proceeded to condemn Acacius, whom Felix had previously cited to appear at Rome and give an account of his communicating with Peter Mongus. The sentence was intimated to Acacius in a letter from Felix and other bishops, declaring him to be deposed, degraded, and separated from the number of the faithful, as having been condemned by the judgment of the Holy Spirit and by apostolical authority, so that he should never be unloosed from the anathema pronounced against him. The Roman bishop would probably not have ventured on this unexampled proceeding, but that the reign of Odoacer in Italy had encouraged him to disregard the emperor of the east. The Greeks complained of the irregularity with which it was conducted as well as of the assumption which it involved. Acacius took no other notice of it than by removing the name of Felix from the diptychs of Constantinople.

The deposition of Acacius was announced by Felix to the clergy and people of Constantinople, and it was declared that all who should not separate from the patriarch were cut off from the communion of Rome. A great number of monks, including the Acoemetae, a society of extraordinary repute for sanctity, preferred the connexion of Rome to that of their own bishop; so that division was thus introduced into the church of the eastern capital itself. The schism which ensued lasted five-and-thirty years, and the precipitancy with which the excommunication was pronounced was equalled by the rigour with which it was carried out—the bishops of Rome treating the whole east as heretical for refusing to break with Acacius, although he himself had not been charged with heresy, but only with the secondary offence of communicating with alleged heretics. Tillemont remarks on this occasion that later popes have been glad to invoke the intercession of saints whom, when alive, their predecessors rejected from communion.

Within a few years, the chief persons who had been concerned in the monophysite troubles were removed from the scene. The last days of John Talaia were spent in an Italian bishopric, which had been bestowed on him by Felix. Peter the Fuller—who in 485 had been established in the see of Antioch on signing the Henoticon, and had been acknowledged by his namesake of Alexandria, although Acacius evaded a recognition of him—died in 488; and Acacius in the following year. Fravitta, the successor of Acacius, held the o patriarchate for only four months, and was succeeded by Euphemius, an orthodox bishop who renounced the communion of Peter Mongus, and was preparing for a contest with him, when the patriarch of Alexandria died. At the death of Zeno, in 491, the church, instead of having been united by his Henoticon, was divided into three great parties :—Antioch, under Palladius, and Alexandria, under Athanasius, were monophysite; Jerusalem was with Constantinople; while Rome and the west stood aloof.

Anastasius, on whom the daughter of Leo and widow of Zeno bestowed her hand and the empire, had already attained the age of sixty, and reigned twenty-seven years. Before his elevation he bore a high character for piety; and his general reputation is attested by the cry with which he was greeted— “Reign as you have lived!”. He was, however, suspected by the patriarch Euphemius, who refused to consent to his promotion, except on receiving a written assurance that no innovation should be attempted in the matter of religion, and that the council of Chalcedon should be maintained. It is said that some of the emperor’s relations were Arians and Manicheans; and by many writers he is charged with the errors of those sects, as well as with that of the monophysites, whose interests were favoured by the result, if not by the intention, of his policy. Yet his orthodoxy has been warmly defended; and his principle of action has been characterized as impartiality rather than indifference. Anastasius professed to aim at peace, and to abhor the idea that any who believed in Christ, and bore the name of Romans, should be vexed on account of their opinions. Evagrius tells us that under him the council of Chalcedon was neither openly preached nor wholly rejected; that the bishops took different courses with respect to it; and that the emperor, in his desire to check all innovation, ejected those who introduced into their dioceses a change in either direction. Throughout the reign the eastern patriarchates continued to be unquiet, and the Henoticon was the test generally prescribed—a test to which all but the extreme members of the opposite parties were willing to submit, but which had the disadvantage of being insufficient to insure harmony among those who subscribed it. The dissensions of the clergy among themselves compelled Anastasius to depart so far in practice from his principle of peace or indifference, that to the Catholics he appeared a persecutor, and his name is marked with especial detestation by the orthodox historians. Tales of impiety, which savour strongly of fiction, are related of him; miracles and portents are said to have declared the wrath of heaven against him; and his end is described with fabulous circumstances of horror.

Euphemius of Constantinople was deposed and banished in 496; his successor, Macedonius, in 511 or 512. Although the ejection of Euphemius was ostensibly grounded on political charges, it is probable that in both cases the patriarchs had offended by refusing to enter into the policy of the court as to religion. Alexandria was held by a succession of bishops who rejected the council of Chalcedon, but were yet unable to reduce the Acephali to their communion. In the patriarchate of Antioch, the religious agitations of the time occasioned much tumult and bloodshed. Flavian, one of its bishops, was banished in 512, although, in order to clear himself from the charge of Nestorianism, he had gradually yielded to anthematize, not only Nestorius, but Diodore, Theodore, Theodoret, Ibas, and finally the council of Chalcedon. Elias of Jerusalem, who in like manner had made large concessions, was nevertheless deposed in the following year. Throughout the reign of Anastasius, Rome remained in separation from the east. The overtures from Euphemius and the emperor were met with unbending haughtiness by Gelasius, who filled the see from 492 to 496. The next bishop, Anastasius II, opened communications with Constantinople in a tone of conciliation; it is said that he was willing, for the sake of peace, even to admit that the name of Acacius should remain in the diptychs. But his death put a stop to the negotiation, and his successor, Symmachus, exchanged with the eastern emperor accusations of heresy and messages of defiance.

Severus, a monk who afterwards became patriarch of Antioch on the deprivation of Flavian, introduced at Constantinople an addition which Peter the Fuller had made to the trisagion—the words, “Who was crucified for us”. In consequence of this a serious collision took place between the Catholics and the monophysites of the capital, during the episcopate of Macedonius; but after his deposition one of still more alarming character arose. By order of the emperor, two prefects entered a church, ascended the pulpit or screen, and began to chant the trisagion with the Antiochene addition; whereupon a tumult ensued, many persons were killed, and a number of Catholics were committed to prison. On the following day a fresh conflict took place; and the disturbance came to its height on the occasion of a solemn procession, which took place on the third day. Timothy, the monophysite successor of Macedonius, had given orders that the new clause should be used. Those who obeyed him were met by bands of the catholic monks, chanting the trisagion in its old form; the parties fell to blows; the populace of the city mixed in the fray, and many lives were lost. Among the slain were a female recluse, and a monk who was suspected of having suggested the performance of the prefects to the emperor; the monk’s head was cut off, stuck on a pole, and carried in procession as that of an enemy to the Divine Trinity. Houses were sacked and burnt; the emperor’s pictures and statues were defaced and thrown down, and there were cries for a new emperor. Anastasius, then more than eighty years of age, withdrew from the city; but after three days he presented himself in the circus without the ensigns of sovereignty, when the multitude, by way of insult, received him by shouting the orthodox trisagion. He addressed them by the mouth of a herald, professing himself willing to abdicate, but reminding them that they could not all reign, and that they must make choice of one for their emperor. The people were moved by his words, and by the sight of his humiliation; and, after having promised to gratify them with the blood of the obnoxious prefects, he was allowed to resume the government.

The last years of the reign were disquieted by the insurrection of Vitalian, a Scythian or Gothic chief, who took arms for the catholic faith, devastated Thrace, and threatened Constantinople. He required that the banished orthodox bishops should be restored; that the council of Chalcedon should be acknowledged; that communion with Rome should be resumed, and that a new general council should be called, at which the pope should assist. To these terms the emperor at length submitted; but the exorbitant demands of Hormisdas, the successor of Symmachus, prevented any accommodation between the east and the west during the lifetime of Anastasius. The emperor died in 518, and was succeeded by Justin, an aged soldier of Slavonic race, in whose name the government was really administered by his nephew Justinian. Vitalian after having been promoted to the highest offices by the new sovereign, was in the seventh month of his consulship treacherously assassinated at the imperial table; and Justinian is suspected of having contrived his murder.

Timothy, patriarch of Constantinople, had died a short time before the emperor Anastasius. When his successor, John, appeared in the cathedral on the first Sunday after the accession of Justin, he was greeted with loud outcries, that, since the Manichaean Anastasius no longer reigned, the council of Chalcedon should be confirmed, Severus of Antioch, with the rest of the “Manicheans”, should be expelled, and a reconciliation should be established with Rome. The new government was disposed to comply with the popular desire; Severus and other monophysites were deprived, and for the most part took refuge at Alexandria, where their party was so strong that the emperor did not venture to excite the unruly population by any attempt against it. But the concourse of monophysite teachers had the effect of producing or bringing to light differences among themselves; and many of them branched off into minor sects—such as Agnoetes, Aphthartodocetes, and Niobites—whose tenets and history need not be here detailed.

Fresh overtures were now made from Constantinople to Hormisdas of Rome, and all his demands were granted' The names of Acacius and of his four successors who had died during the schism, with those of the emperors Anastasius and Zeno, were removed from the diptychs. The orthodox confessors Euphemius and Macedonius were not distinguished from the heretical Fravitta and Timothy; but Acacius was more especially reprobated by an anathema. It was found, however, that many churches of the east were not so ready as that of Constantinople to abandon the memory of their late bishops; and, as Hormisdas required the sacrifice of all who had communicated with Acacius, the demand occasioned disturbances so serious that both the imperial government and the patriarch repeatedly entreated the pope to abate the rigour of his terms. Hormisdas at length agreed to empower the patriarch Epiphanius, the successor of John, to act for him in receiving the churches into communion. The matter was accommodated by the retention of certain names on the diptychs; and eventually Euphemius and Macedonius, with Flavian of Antioch, Elias of Jerusalem, and some others who had died during the separation, were acknowledged by Rome as saints. The Henoticon, without being formally repealed, from this time disappeared; and everywhere, except in Egypt, the council of Chalcedon was received.

About the same time that Anastasius ascended the throne of Constantinople, the sovereignty of Italy was transferred from the Herulians to the Ostrogoths. Theodoric, prince of the Amali, after having endangered the empire of Zeno, had received his permission to undertake the conquest of that country. He defeated Odoacer in three great battles, and, after having besieged him for three years in Ravenna, admitted him to a treaty on equal terms. But the Herulian king, on a pretended charge of conspiracy, was stabbed at a banquet—perhaps even by the hand of his colleague and rival—and the Goths became sole masters of Italy.

After the death of Odoacer, Theodoric reigned thirty- three years with vigour and in prosperity. His dominions extended as far as the Danube, and he put a bar to the extension of the Frankish conquests under Clovis. His wisdom and justice were exerted for the establishment of equality between the victorious and the conquered races, and, while he adhered to the Arian creed of his nation, he did not attempt to enforce it on others. “We cannot impose religion by command”, he said, “since no one can be made to believe against his will”. He employed Catholics as his ministers, and entrusted catholic bishops with the most important embassies; he acknowledged the orthodox clergy in their position, bestowed munificent gifts on their churches, and, although unwilling to interfere in the internal concerns of the church, he exercised over the bishops of Rome a control which the later emperors of the west had through weakness allowed to escape from their hands. His toleration (as we have seen) did not extend to the allowance of pagan rites although he exerted a watchful care to preserve the monuments of Roman greatness; but it included the Jews, whom he steadily protected against the outrages of their Christian neighbours.

So long as Rome and Constantinople were separated by schism, Theodoric had no reason to distrust the loyalty of his catholic subjects. But the reconciliation of the churches, in the beginning of Justin’s reign, suggested to him that the Romans might be tempted to look towards the east for deliverance from the sway of a barbarian conqueror; and in no long time his anger and alarm were excited by the measures which Justin took for the purpose of establishing unity of religion. In 523 the emperor issued edicts by which it was ordered that Manicheans should be capitally punished; that other heretics should not be allowed to celebrate their worship; and that, with Jews, Pagans, and Samaritans, they should be excluded from civil or military employment. The Gothic soldiery of the empire were, indeed, exempted from this law; but Theodoric was bent on securing, not only for his own nation but for the oriental members of his sect, the same freedom of religion which he allowed to his catholic subjects. He earnestly remonstrated with Justin by letter; and, as the reply was unsatisfactory, he despatched to Constantinople an embassy consisting of John, bishop of Rome, five other bishops, and four senators. It was the first time that a pope had visited the eastern capital. John was received with unbounded reverence; almost the whole population of the city poured forth to greet his arrival, bearing torches and crosses in their hands, and the emperor cast himself at his feet The patriarch of Constantinople yielded him precedence, and Justin submitted to a new coronation by the hands of the successor of St. Peter. But on his return to Italy, John was cast into prison, where he soon after died. The reasons of his imprisonment are matter of uncertainty and dispute; the most probable opinion appears to be, that the bishop, although he successfully performed the other parts of the commission, had refused to ask that Arians who had professed Catholicism might be allowed to return to their heresy; and that the jealousy of Theodoric was also offended by the excessive honours which had been paid to him by the eastern court. The dread of conspiracy against his rule had exasperated the aged king to gloomy and relentless suspicion of his Italian subjects, which had already been fatal to two of the most distinguished among them,—Boethius and Symmachus. Boethius had filled the highest offices of the state; while his genius and the learning in which he was believed to surpass all his contemporaries had been displayed in works embracing an extraordinary variety of subjects and modes of composition—history, poetry, theology, philosophy, music, mathematics, astronomy, and other branches of physical science. He had long enjoyed the favour of Theodoric; but his character as a patriot, and perhaps also as a catholic, rendered his position hazardous, and the zeal with which he asserted the innocence of his friend Albinus, who was accused of a treasonable correspondence with the east, exposed him to a share in the accusation. A, signature, which he declared to be forged, was produced as evidence against him; he was denied the opportunity of defending himself, and, a short time before the mission of John to Constantinople, was committed to a tower at or near Pavia, where he solaced himself by the composition of his famous books On the Consolation of Philosophy. After having been cruelly tortured, Boethius was beaten to death with clubs, and his father-in-law, the venerable chief of the senate, Symmachus, on an apprehension that the desire of vengeance might tempt him to treason, was soon after summoned to Ravenna and beheaded.

Theodoric himself did not long survive. It is said that, in indignation at the result of the mission to Constantinople, he went so far as to dictate an edict for the suppression of the catholic worship in Italy; although, if this statement be true, it is certain that the law was not carried into effect. But the feelings which the once just and tolerant king had aroused by the severities of his last days, are apparent from the stories connected with his death. Procopius tells us that he was haunted by a frightful vision, in which remorse called up before his eyes the form of the murdered Symmachus; and a legend, to which the name of Pope Gregory the Great gave currency and credit, relates that a hermit on the island of Lipari saw the Arian persecutor cast by Symmachus and Pope John into the crater of the volcano, which was believed to be the entrance of hell.

In April 527, Justinian was formally associated with his uncle as a colleague, and in August of the same year he became sole emperor, at the age of forty-five. Among the secular events of his long reign, the wars in Italy and in Africa had an important bearing on the history of religion.

Among the Vandals of Africa, the possession of the means of luxury had speedily proved fatal to that purity of manners which Salvian at an earlier time had indignantly contrasted with the depravity of his brethren who professed a sounder faiths The valour of the barbarians was undermined by the temptations of sensual enjoyment; the usurper Gelimer was dethroned by the arms of the imperial general, Belisarius; and some years later, on a rebellion of the Vandals and Moors, the country was completely subjugated. After the first conquest the catholic church was restored to its ascendency, although the bishops were reduced to one-half or one-third of their ancient number. It is reckoned that during the reign of Justinian Africa lost five millions of inhabitants; thus Arianism was extinguished in that region, not by an enforcement of conformity, but by the extermination of the race which had introduced and professed it.

The Ostrogoths of Italy, after the death of Theodoric, were distracted by factions and crimes. The military achievements of Belisarius and Narses in the peninsula threw a last and deceptive splendour over the power of the eastern empire. By these generals the Gothic kings, Vitiges (537-9), Totila (546-52), and Teias (553), were successively defeated, the invasions of the Franks and the Alemanni were repelled; and from the year 554, Narses, with the title of exarch, administered the government of Italy as a deputy of the emperor. The sufferings of the country during the revolutions of this period were greater than those which it has endured in any other of its calamities, whether earlier or later; the number of its inhabitants who perished by war, by famine, or in other ways, is supposed to have exceeded the whole of its modern population. With the Gothic monarchy, Arianism for a time disappeared from Italy.

Justinian lived strictly and spent much of his time in theological studies. He was fond of mixing in controversy and of acting as a regulator in religion, so that his subjects derided him for devoting himself to such matters, while he left the great political and military affairs of the empire to the management of his ministers and generals. He was munificent in his gifts for building churches and hospitals; but it is said that the means of this liberality were too commonly obtained by extortion, corrupt administration of justice, false accusations, and wrongful confiscation. The greatest architectural monument of his reign was the patriarchal church of the eternal Wisdom (St. Sophia). This church had been originally built by Constantine; it had been destroyed by fire at the time of Chrysostom's banishment, and, after having been then restored, was again burnt down in the tumult known by the name of Nika (532) . Justinian rebuilt it at a vast expense and as he cast his eyes around the magnificent structure on the day of the dedication, after expressing his thankfulness to God who had permitted him to accomplish so great a work, (544), he exclaimed, “O Solomon, I have surpassed thee!”. The dome of the dome church was afterwards shattered by an earthquake (557); but Justinian restored it with increased height and splendour, and performed a second dedication in the thirty-sixth year of his reign. The establishment of the cathedral was fixed by one of his laws at the number of 60 priests, 100 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 90 subdeacons, no readers, 25 singers, and 100 ostiaries and, ample as this provision may seem, the law was set forth as a check on the practice of bishops, who had been in the habit of ordaining clergy without any limit, and without considering whether the church had the means of supporting them.

To the reign of Justinian is referred the extinction of philosophical heathenism. The Neoplatonists had until then continued to teach at Athens. They were obliged outwardly to respect the religion of the state; but their esoteric doctrines were pagan, and their system, in its mysticism and in its pretension to intercourse with higher powers, bore a curious resemblance to the superstitions which were at the same time growing on the church. With a view to depriving paganism of its last support, Justinian in 529 ordered that the schools of Athens should be closed; whereupon Simplicius and six other philosophers, who were bereft of their occupation by the edict, feeling themselves insecure within the imperial territories, resolved to emigrate to Persia and seek the patronage of King Chosroes, of whose enlightenment they had heard exaggerated celebrations, and whose subjects had been described to them as faultless models of every social virtue. But although they were well received by the king, they found their expectations grievously disappointed, and sighed for their native country, to which they eagerly desired to return, even at the risk of encountering persecution. In a treaty with Justinian, Chosroes stipulated that they should be exempted from the penal laws against their religion; they lived unmolested during the remainder of their days, and left no disciples or successors.

In the same year with his order for closing the Athenian schools, the emperor enacted that all pagans and heretics should be excluded from civil or military office. They were allowed three months to choose between conformity and banishment; or, if permitted to remain without abjuring their errors, they were to be deprived of all civil privileges. A great mass of pretended conversions was the result; while the edict produced a serious insurrection among the Samaritans, and many sectaries, who abhorred the hypocrisy of changing their religion at the emperor's command, were driven by desperation to suicide. The most noted act of this kind was performed by some Montanists in Phrygia, who shut themselves up in their meeting-houses, set fire to them, and perished in the flames.

Although Justinian was a “synodite”, or partisan of the council of Chalcedon, his wife Theodora, whom he raised to the position of a colleague in the empire, was a zealous monophysite. As her influence over her husband was unbounded in all other respects, it has been suggested that this division of theological interests may have been a matter of politic arrangement between the imperial pair. Theodora gathered round her a party of monophysites : she prevailed on Justinian to invite Severus, the expelled patriarch of Antioch, to the capital, and even promoted Anthimus, a secret enemy of the council of Chalcedon, to the patriarchate of Constantinople. In the year after this appointment, Agapetus, bishop of Rome, was obliged by the Gothic king Theodahat to undertake a mission to Constantinople, for the purpose of averting a threatened attack of Justinian. The mission failed of its political object; but at the request of the catholic party, Agapetus exposed to the emperor the heterodoxy of Anthimus, and obtained his deposition on the ground that he had been uncanonically translated from another see. Mennas, who was raised to the vacant chair, was consecrated by the pope, and soon after held a council, at which Anthimus, after an examination of his opinions, was found guilty of heresy and was excommunicated.

Agapetus died at Constantinople before the meeting of this council, and Vigilius, his archdeacon, who had accompanied him, was urged by Theodora to become a candidate for the papacy. The emperor promised to support him with influence and with money, if he would condemn the council of Chalcedon, and would communicate with Anthimus and other monophysites; but before he could reach Rome, a subdeacon named Sylverius, son of Pope Hormisdas, was elected. In the following year, while Belisarius was besieged in Rome by the Goths, Sylverius was summoned to appear before him. The general's wife, Antonina, who was reclining on a couch, while Belisarius occupied a place at her feet, reproached the pope for having entered into a treasonable correspondence with the enemy. His attempts at denial were overpowered by the production of written evidence; he was immediately stripped of the ensigns of his dignity, and was sent off by sea to the east, while Vigilius was elected in his room, and paid for the interest of Belisarius two hundred pounds of gold. Sylverius, after having been banished to Patara, in Lycia, was sent back to Italy by Justinian, in order to a fresh investigation of his case; but through the contrivance of the intruder he was seized and carried off to the island of Palmaria (Palmarola), where he died of hunger. Although, however, Vigilius had thus delivered himself from his rival, his position was one of much difficulty and danger; for he had made a secret compact with Theodora to labour against the council of Chalcedon, while his public engagements bound him to an opposite line of conduct.

From about the year 520, the monasteries of Palestine had been agitated by disturbances on the subject of Origen’s opinions, which were especially maintained by the members of the “New Laura” (a society founded by St. Sabbas, in the beginning of the century), while the other monks were for the most part violent anti-Origenists. There had been censures, expulsions, frequent affrays, and considerable bloodshed. The patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem were unable to allay the differences, and Justinian was well pleased to receive an appeal in the matter. He published a letter to the patriarch Mennas, censuring certain doctrines extracted or inferred from Origen’s writings; he declared that these doctrines were borrowed from Plato and the Manicheans (apparently forgetting that Manes was later than Origen); and he desired the patriarch to bring the question before the home synod. By this body the opinions of Origen were again censured, and fifteen anathemas were pronounced against them. The imperial manifesto was subscribed by Vigilius and by the four patriarchs of the east; but the course of ecclesiastical politics now took a curious and unexpected turn.

Theodore Ascidas, a monk of Origenistic opinions, who had been appointed to the bishopric of Caesarea in Cappadocia, but usually resided at Constantinople, had acquired great influence over Justinian. By some process of casuistry, he prevailed on himself to sign the anathemas against Origen; but he felt the necessity of diverting the emperor’s mind from the dangerous direction which it had taken. Knowing Justinian’s anxiety to reduce the Acephali to conformity, Theodore told him that their opposition to the council of Chalcedon did not arise from repugnance to its doctrines, but from its acknowledgment of persons suspected of Nestorianism—such as Theodoret and Ibas; he therefore suggested that, by a condemnation of these bishops, with the reputed father of Nestorianism, Theodore of Mopsuestia, the prejudices of the party might be overcome, and they might be won to a reconciliation with the church. As for the objection to condemning persons who had died in the catholic communion, it was (he said) removed by the late precedent of the anathemas against Origen. By this suggestion Ascidas may have hoped not only to secure the important object of engaging the emperor in a new question, but doubly to gratify himself—as an Origenist, by proscribing the great master of literal interpretation, and as a monophysite, by striking a blow at the authority of the fourth general council.

The device was in so far successful that, instead of controversies as to Origenism and monophysitism, the general attention was soon occupied by a dispute whether certain writings a century old were favourable to Nestorianism. Justinian published an edict in which he condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia and his works, Theodoret’s writings in favour of Nestorius and against Cyril, and a letter from Ibas to a Persian named Maris. This letter, written under great exasperation, severely reflected on Cyril; but its orthodoxy as to doctrine had been expressly acknowledged at Chalcedon. The emperor, however, contrived to reconcile his condemnation of the letter with his profession of respect for the council by the supposition that a forged document had been substituted for that which the fathers of Chalcedon had approved. It was required that the edict should be subscribed by all bishops. Mennas signed it with the stipulation that he should be at liberty to retract his signature if the bishop of Rome should refuse to concur—a reservation of which he did not afterwards avail himself. The eastern bishops in general submitted, although the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, with many others, showed much reluctance to subscribe; the few who refused were banished. But in Africa, where the old independent spirit of the church had been exercised in opposition to the temporal power during the century of Vandal oppression, the proposal met with a lively resistance. The African bishops protested against reopening questions which the council of Chalcedon had settled, or condemning persons who had died in the communion of the church; and a like disposition to resist was displayed in other quarters. The commotions rose to such a height that Ascidas is said to have afterwards owned that he himself, and the Roman deacon Pelagius, who had been concerned in bringing the Origenistic question under the emperor's notice, deserved to be burnt alive as the authors of them.

Vigilius, alarmed by these events and by the temper of his own clergy, refused to sign the edict, and was obliged by the emperor (who probably apprehended a new division between the eastern and western churches) to repair to Constantinople, where he was detained upwards of seven years. His legate Stephen, with other ecclesiastics of the west, who were then at Constantinople, had broken off communion with Mennas, on the ground that the patriarch ought not to have acted in the matter, except, as had been before agreed, in concert with the pope. Vigilius at first refused to communicate with Mennas, but was persuaded to an agreement with him by Theodora, who died in the year after the pope’s arrival; and he bound himself to Justinian by a secret written engagement to condemn the three articles—by which name the points in question as to Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas were generally designated. The pope submitted the matter to a synod of seventy western bishops, which was held at Constantinople in 548; but as the African members steadily refused to lend themselves to his change of policy, it became evident that no favourable decision was to be obtained, and he broke up the assembly. Vigilius then endeavoured to gain the bishops individually, and sent forth a document known by the title of his Judicatum, in which he attempted to satisfy both parties—the Orientals, by condemning the three articles; the Latins, by professing that he did so without prejudice to the council of Chalcedon. But in the latter object he was utterly disappointed. An African synod, under Reparatus of Carthage, excommunicated him. The churches of Illyria and Dalmatia were roused to vehement opposition, and the commotion reached as far as Gaul and Scythia; even some of the pope’s own deacons, who had accompanied him to Constantinople, charged their master with an abandonment of the council of Chalcedon, and returned to agitate the west against him. Facundus, bishop of Hermiane, in Africa, who had distinguished himself in the council of Constantinople, addressed to the emperor in 549 an able and spirited defence of the three articles. He maintained the orthodoxy of Theodore of Mopsuestia; he argued that he, Theodoret, and Ibas, could not be condemned without impugning the council of Chalcedon, and doing away with its authority against Eutychianism; and he plainly desired the emperor to take warning from a comparison between those of his predecessors who had left the decision of theological questions to the bishops, and those who had ventured to arrogate it to themselves.

The only means to which Vigilius could now look for deliverance from the perplexity in which he found himself, between the emperor's wishes on the one hand and the determined opposition of his western brethren on the other, was a general council; he therefore proposed that such an assembly should be summoned, and withdrew his Judicatum until it should meet. Justinian assented; but, apprehending that the pope might perhaps attempt some evasion under shelter of the council, he bound him by fresh obligations, which were confirmed by an oath on the nails of the holy cross and on the Gospels, to exert all his power for the advancement of the imperial designs. When, however, the emperor also put forth a long and detailed profession of faith, which he required the pope and other bishops to sign, Vigilius refused, threatened to excommunicate those who should comply, and with Datius, archbishop of Milan, who was especially strenuous in his refusal, took refuge in a church. A praetor was sent with a guard to seize him. The pope placed himself under the altar, and, while the soldiers attempted to drag him out by his feet, his hair, and his beard, he clung so firmly to the pillars that some of them gave way, and the table would have fallen on him if some clerks had not supported it. On this the spectators of the scandalous scene broke forth into loud outcries, in which even some of the soldiers joined; and the praetor was shamed into desisting from his attempts Vigilius was induced by oaths of safety to leave the church, but, finding himself guarded by imperial soldiers in his lodging, he escaped with Datius and other companions by night to Chalcedon, and fled for sanctuary to the church of St. Euphemia—the same in which the general council had held its sessions exactly a century before. At length, after many overtures from the emperor, he was persuaded to return to Constantinople.

While Vigilius was in retirement at Chalcedon, the patriarch Mennas died, and the see of Constantinople was conferred on Eutychius, who had recommended himself to the emperor by discovering a scriptural precedent for the condemnation of deceased heterodox theologians —namely, the burning of the bones of idolaters by Josiah.

The fifth general council met at Constantinople in May 553. It was attended by a hundred and sixty-five bishops, including all the eastern patriarchs; but from the west there were only five African bishops. As the absence of Vigilius gave reason to apprehend a division in the church, he was repeatedly summoned, and was urgently requested by the other patriarchs to attend; but he obstinately refused—sometimes on the plea of illness, sometimes alleging that faith had not been kept with him in obtaining a fair representation of the western church. He sent to the emperor a paper signed by himself and sixteen other bishops, and designated by the title of Constitutum, in which he endeavoured to take a middle course, by condemning the writings which were in question, but without reflecting on the authors—even on Theodore of Mopsuestia. On this, Justinian caused the secret engagements which Vigilius had made with him to be laid before the council, and desired that the pope might be excluded from the diptychs—professing at the same time a wish to remain in communion with the Roman see; and the council acted accordingly. The three articles were condemned, and an anathema was pronounced against all who should defend them or should pretend that they were countenanced by the synod of Chalcedon. The memory of Theodoret and Ibas was spared; but Theodore was included in the same condemnation with his writings. The four earlier general councils were confirmed. The emperor's edicts relating to matters of religion were approved; but, except by this indirect implication, it does not appear that the opinions of Origen were censured or noticed.

Some months later, Vigilius—pressed by the censure of the council, frightened by the punishment of some who opposed it, and influenced also by the success of the arms of Narses, which had secured Italy to the emperor —made a humiliating submission to the decisions of the assembly, in which he ascribed his past difference of opinion to the craft of the devil; and he repeated this in a longer paper, withdrawing all his acts on the other side. The emperor then granted him permission to return to his see, and Vigilius set out for Rome; but on his way to the city, he died at Syracuse, on the 7th of June, 555. His archdeacon, Pelagius, succeeded him, through the influence of Justinian, who on this occasion for the first time assumed for the imperial crown the privilege of confirming the election; but—whether from the odium attached to him as a partaker in the late pope’s policy, or because (according to another account) he was suspected of having contributed to the sufferings and death of Vigilius—Pelagius could not find more than two bishops willing to consecrate him. It is said that, in order to dissipate the suspicions which were entertained against him, he ascended the pulpit of St. Peter’s, and swore on the Gospels and on the cross that he had had no share in causing the misfortunes of his predecessor.

Pelagius adhered to the late council, and, with the aid of Narses, enforced the acceptance of it by deprivation, banishment, and other penalties. But in the west—where the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia were unknown, where the reliance of the Nestorians on his name was not actually seen, and could not beget a prejudice against him, where the condemnation of Theodoret and Ibas was chiefly regarded as endangering the authority of the council of Chalcedon—the decisions of the fifth council were very generally resisted, even by those who were subjects of the empire. The bishops of the Italian diocese separated from Rome on this account; and, although Milan and Ravenna were soon forced by the terror of the Lombard invasion to seek a reconciliation, the metropolitans of Aquileia, with the Istrian bishops, remained in separation for nearly a century and a half.

Among the variety of opinions which had sprung out of the monophysite controversy, was one broached by Julian of Halicarnassus, while a refugee at Alexandria in the reign of Justin. This teacher maintained that the Saviour’s body was incorruptible; that it was exempt from death, even as Adam’s body would have been, if he had retained his innocence that it was the same before as after the resurrection; that His hunger, thirst, weariness, and the like, did not necessarily arise from the constitution of His human nature, but were feelings to which He voluntarily subjected Himself. From their fancy of incorruptibility the followers of Julian were called Aphthartodocetae—a name which they retaliated on their opponents by that of Phthartolatrae (servants or worshippers of the corruptible). Justinian, in his extreme old age, fell into the opinions of Julian —probably through the influence of Theodore Ascidas; and in January 565 he published an edict asserting the aphthartodocetic doctrine, and required all bishops to subscribe it. Eutychius of Constantinople, who refused on the ground that it reduced the whole Incarnation to a mere appearance, was expelled for his contumacy. The eastern bishops for the most part professed that they would follow Anastasius of Antioch, whose character was held in general estimation; and this patriarch strongly maintained, with arguments from Scripture and from the belief of the church, that in all blameless affections the Saviour’s body was like to ours. Anastasius was preparing for deprivation, and had composed a farewell letter to his flock, when the proceedings against the orthodox were brought to an end by the death of the emperor, at the age of eighty.

Monophysitism, when discountenanced by the emperors, continued to exist in countries beyond their dominions, and also among the populations of Syria and Egypt.

The Armenians had been under the Persian yoke since the year 369. After a long resistance to attempts at enforcing the magian religion on them, they had been allowed to preserve their Christianity. But they were still liable to persecution; and whereas a community of religion had formerly obtained for them the alliance of the Romans, they found that a Christianity different from that authorized by the emperors was a recommendation to the favour of their new masters. Interest, therefore, concurred with other motives in leading them to the adoption of a monophysite creed. At the synod of Thwin or Dovin, in 596, the Armenian church condemned the council of Chalcedon, and to this day it holds the aphthartodocetic doctrine as to the body of our Lord.

In Syria, where the monophysite bishops and clergy had been removed by exile, imprisonment, and other means of persecution, a monk named Jacob undertook the enterprise of preserving his party from extinction. With this design, he sought out some monophysite prelates who were imprisoned at Constantinople, and received from them consecration as bishop of Edessa, with a commission of general superintendence over the interests of their cause throughout the east. In the dress of a beggar, from which he derived the name of Al Baradai (the ragged), he travelled indefatigably over Syria and Mesopotamia—secretly reviving the zeal of the monophysites, organizing them into a combined body, and ordaining bishops and clergy for them. At his death, in 578, he left a large and flourishing communion, under a head who laid claim to the patriarchal throne of Antioch; and, although much diminished in importance, the sect still continues to exist. From Jacob al Baradai the monophysites of other countries, as well as of those in which he had laboured, derived the name of Jacobites.

On the death of Timothy, patriarch of Alexandria, in 537, a furious contest for the see arose between the monophysite parties of corruptibilists and incorruptibilists. The government of Justinian supported the corruptibilist Theodosius, but, after having given him the victory over his rival, Gaian, set him aside in favour of an orthodox monk named Paul. Although, however, the catholic patriarch obtained possession of the establishment, the monks in general and the mass of the people were monophysites; and from Egypt the heresy was communicated to the daughter church of Abyssinia. The Catholics of Egypt were styled by their opponents Melchites (or imperialists); and an excited feeling of nationality was enlisted against the council of Chalcedon. In the course of the Alexandrian contests a great part of the city was burnt down, and they were attended by enormous bloodshed. It is said that at the installation of Apollinarius as patriarch, in 551, two hundred thousand persons were slain in one day;—a statement which, although doubtless exaggerated, must have had some frightful truth for its foundation. By these internal discords among the Christian parties of Egypt, the way was paved for the Saracen conquests of the following century.

 

CHAPTER VII.

SEMIPELAGIANISM.—MISSIONS.—DECLINE OF ARIANISM IN THE WEST.