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BOOK II.
CHAPTER V.
GREGORY PATRIARCH OF THE WEST.
HIS RELATIONS WITH OTHER WESTERN CHURCHES
BESIDES his regular jurisdiction
within the suburbicarian provinces, the Pope at this time exercised a somewhat
irregular authority over a much wider area, including Northern Italy, Gaul,
Africa, Illyricum, and Spain. As early as 343 the Council of Sardica had
entrusted the Bishop of Rome with a certain limited power of receiving appeals,
decreeing (if, indeed, the canons are genuine) that a bishop, condemned by a
provincial synod, might appeal for a new trial to the Pope, who should have
power to delegate the hearing of the appeal to the bishops of the next adjacent
province, and should, if he wished, send legates of his own to assist in the
proceedings. The germ of what may be styled a supreme appellate jurisdiction
thus created at Sardica, was developed by a law of Gratian, which enacted that
all Western metropolitans, when accused, should be tried at Rome, or by judges
appointed by the Pope, and that all Western bishops might, if they chose,
appeal to Rome, or else to a synod of fifteen neighboring prelates. The
celebrated rescript of Valentinian the Third went still further. It gave the
Pope an absolute authority over Western bishops, and decreed that his decisions
should be enforced as law on contumacious bishops by the secular magistrates.
This jurisdiction received by the Popes from the Emperors had no proper
canonical basis, and from the ecclesiastical point of view was null and void.
Nevertheless, it was a power to be reckoned with, at any rate in those
countries where Imperial law remained in force.
In the sixth century, the whole of Gaul and the
greater part of Spain had ceased to form part of the Empire. Hence, in these
regions, we observe that the authority of the Pope, no longer supported by the
secular arm, was considerably weakened; although the prestige of the see of the
Prince of the Apostles was such that even the most independent bishops were
unwilling to come to any open breach. In the other Western countries which
still belonged to the Empire, the bishops found it, on the whole, expedient to
defer to the Pope's authority, although we meet with cases of contumacy on the
part of some who could reckon on the support of the Imperial officials. In what
manner Gregory endeavored to strengthen and extend the Papal power in the West,
and what measure of success attended his endeavours,
will appear from the following detailed account of his relations with the
principal Churches.
(a)
The Church
in Spain.
Of all the provinces in the West which had formerly
belonged to the Roman Empire, Spain, in the time of Gregory's pontificate, was,
perhaps, the most settled and tranquil. The period of the invasions was happily
over, and the Visigoths had established themselves securely in the land which
they had conquered. It is true that for some time after the Visigothic invasion
the country had continued unquiet. In the north the Suevi, Basques, and
Cantabrians, encouraged by the Franks, were in constant revolt. In the south,
the Byzantines, who had their head-quarters at Cordova, were ever intriguing
against the Visigothic conquerors. The Catholic provincials throughout the
country were discontented with the Arian Government; and the Gothic nobility,
often masters of strong and important cities, were continually at war with one
another and with their king. “The Goths”, says Gregory of Tours, “have learned
the detestable habit of killing their king whenever he displeases them, and
putting another, whom they prefer, in his place”. The accession of Leovigild,
however, in 568, entirely changed the aspect of affairs. This ambitious and
exceedingly able monarch, by a series of energetic measures, built up the
Gothic state on the basis of a strong and vigorous monarchy. In the first
place, he crushed the external enemies of the kingdom. The Byzantines were
driven back to the coast districts. Then Cantabria was subdued, and finally,
says John of Biclaro, “he possessed himself of the
nation of Suevi, their treasures, and their country, and converted them into a
province of the Goths”. At the same time, he kept down with a strong hand the
turbulent and savage nobles—those “tyrants”, as John calls them—who troubled
the peace of his kingdom from within. “Leovigild”, says Gregory of Tours,
“killed all those who had made a habit of killing their kings, without leaving
a male among them”. He established his capital at Toledo, where, in imitation
doubtless of the Byzantine Emperors, he held his court with considerable pomp
and splendor. “He was the first king of the Goths” —so Isidore tells us —“who
wore a regal robe and sat upon a throne. For, up to his time, the dress worn by
the kings, and the seats upon which they sat, were of the same kind as those
used by the rest of their countrymen”.
Leovigild’s schemes of consolidation, however, were
opposed by one obstacle. This was the Catholicism of the provincial population.
The Visigoths were Arians; the subject population was Catholic. Hence the
latter tended to sympathize with the Byzantines in the south and the orthodox
Suevi in the north, and accordingly constituted a perpetual menace to the
safety of the Gothic state. This danger Leovigild determined to remove; but his
measures were precipitated by the conversion and rebellion of his eldest son
Hermenigild.
In the year 579 Hermenigild married Ingunthis,
daughter of Sigibert and Brunichildis of Austrasia, and granddaughter of
Goiswintha, Leovigild’s second wife. As Brunichildis, herself a Gothic princess
and educated as an Arian, had made no difficulty about changing her creed on
marrying the Frank king, the Gothic Court expected to find Ingunthis equally
complaisant. The little thirteen-year-old bride, however, held fast to her
orthodox profession, resisting alike the persuasions of the Arian bishops and the
cruel treatment to which her grandmother, Goiswintha, subjected her. At last
Leovigild, to put an end to the family dissensions, assigned to Hermenigild
(who was already made consors regni)
the government of the province of Baetica, with
Seville as a place of residence. And here, within the year, the young
prince—whether owing to the influence of his wife or to the exhortation of the
great Leander of Seville, or from purely political motives—was converted to
Catholicism, and confirmed by Leander, under the name of Joannes. It is a
remarkable thing that neither of the Spanish authorities—John of Biclaro and Isidore of Seville—makes any mention of this
conversion. The evidence of the two Gregorys and of Paul the Deacon, however,
is sufficient to establish the fact.
The conversion of Hermenigild was followed by
rebellion. There can be little doubt that the Catholic and Byzantine parties in
Spain co-operated with one another, and used the prince as a convenient
instrument for striking a blow at the heretical Gothic monarchy; and we may
further conjecture, from the references to the rebellion in the Spanish
historians and in Gregory of Tours, that Hermenigild himself was influenced
less by orthodox zeal than by the culpable ambition of gaining possession of
his father's throne. However this may be, the situation was extremely critical
for Leovigild. Unable at once to attack his son, he laid himself out, by
concessions, to gain over the Catholic party, or such of them as had not yet
been seduced from their allegiance. Heretic though he was, he went to pray in
Catholic churches; and to facilitate conversions to Arianism, he summoned an
Arian synod at Toledo, by which it was decreed that “it is not necessary that
those who come to our Catholic faith from the Roman religion should be
baptized, but they are to be purified merely by imposition of hands and
reception of the Communion, and are to give thanks to the Father through the
Son in the Holy Ghost”. By this concession about rebaptism, as well as by
liberal bribes and promises, a number of the Catholic clergy were won over, and
formally adopted the royal creed.
In 582 Leovigild marched against his son, and his arms
were everywhere victorious. Merida, the capital of Lusitania, was the first to
fall; Seville, in 584, was taken by storm. Hermenigild, meanwhile, had fled to
Cordova, which was in the hands of a Byzantine garrison; and hither the king
followed him. But, before the siege could be commenced, the Prefect Comitiolus betrayed the town for a bribe of thirty thousand
solidi. Hermenigild was seized, stripped of his royal dress, and exiled to
Valencia. And thus the Catholic rebellion came to an end.
It seems as though Hermenigild, in his exile,
continued to intrigue against his father—at any rate, we know that Leander was
at this time residing at Constantinople, and doing his best to win over the
Court to the prince's interest,—and it has been conjectured that he made an
attempt to escape from his exile and flee to the Franks. In any case, however,
it is certain that, in 585, he was put to death at Tarragona, though it is
doubtful whether the execution was by order of his father or not. John of Biclaro says simply, “Hermenigild was slain by Sisbert, in
the city of Tarraco”. Isidore does not mention the
death of the prince. Gregory of Tours refers to it incidentally as the work of
Leovigild. All these writers, it must be remarked, speak with disapproval of
Hermenigild, as a “rebel” and “tyrant”, and none of them hold him up to
admiration as a martyr for the Faith. To do this was left for Gregory the
Great. According to the Pope's story, Hermenigild, on account of his
conversion, was thrown into a miserable dungeon and loaded with fetters. On the
night before Easter Day, an Arian bishop came to give him the Communion, but
the prince refused absolutely to receive it at his hands. Then Leovigild sent
his apparitores, who clove his skull with
an axe, and so killed him. Miracles afterwards attested his sanctity. In the
silence of the night the sound of psalmody was heard around his body, and,
according to another report, lighted lamps were seen; which signs, in Gregory's
opinion, established the prince’s claim to be venerated by the faithful as a
martyr. The Pope adds that Leovigild was afterwards repentant for his deed, and
on his deathbed recommended his second son, Reccared,
to Leander, imploring the bishop to do with him as he had done with
Hermenigild. It was, moreover, "by following his martyred brother's
example" that Reccared succeeded in leading his
people to the orthodox faith. “And it is no wonder that this king became a
preacher of the true faith, seeing that he is the brother of a martyr, whose
merits help him in his task of leading so many souls back to the bosom of
Almighty God. Wherein we have to consider that all this could never have come
to pass, had not King Hermenigild laid down his life for the truth. One
Visigoth died that many might live; one grain was sown in faith that a mighty
crop of faithful souls might therefrom spring up”.
But Gregory's account of the death of Hermenigild is
entirely misleading. The Pope completely ignores the political circumstances
which led to the execution, is utterly silent on the subject of the rebellion,
and makes the imprisonment and execution follow immediately on the conversion,
which is certainly contrary to fact. His tale of Leovigild’s repentance and of
his committal of Reccared to Leander (who was
probably at Constantinople at the time supposed) may, in consideration of the
silence of the Spanish authorities, be safely dismissed as unhistorical. The
miracles which are said to have followed the execution are obviously legendary.
As a matter of fact, Gregory derived his information from Leander and other
Spanish exiles at Constantinople, who were doubtless themselves imperfectly
acquainted with the circumstances attending Hermenigild's death, and who, for obvious reasons, in speaking of it to Gregory, would keep
politics in the background and lay all the stress on the religious aspect of
the incident. Such being the case, the majority of critics have no longer any
hesitation in rejecting Hermenigild's claim to
veneration as a martyr. “A close examination of all the sources”, writes
Professor F. Garres, “has led me to the conclusion
that the supposed martyrdom of Hermenigild cannot be substantiated”. But the
Roman Church has preferred the Gregorian account to that of the Spanish
historians, who alone were qualified to relate the facts. By a brief of Sixtus
the Fifth in 1585, the cult of St. Hermenigild was instituted in Spain: Urban
the Eighth made it general throughout the Roman Church.
I have dealt at some length with the rebellion of
Hermenigild on account of Gregory's connection with the legend of that prince.
Now I will pass swiftly on to the great religious revolution effected by
Leovigild's successor, King Reccared.
It was probably a political motive that induced Reccared to accept the orthodox creed. He cannot but have
realized the immense advantage of conciliating the Suevi and the Catholic
provincials and of allying himself with great Catholic prelates like Leander of
Seville and Licinianus of Cartagena, who had such extensive influence in the
Byzantine court circles. He saw clearly enough that a unity of faith was the
one thing necessary to consolidate the kingdom, which in other respects
Leovigild had built up so strongly. And he was not prepared to forego so great
a benefit for the sake of a mere religious scruple. Hence, ten months after his
accession, he summoned a synod at Toledo, in which he deliberately abjured his
Arianism, and induced many of the bishops and nobles to follow his example.
Some of the Arians, nevertheless, refused to abandon their faith, and
formidable insurrections took place. These, however, were successfully crushed,
and in the spring of 589, there was summoned by royal command that famous Council,
which was destined to bring about the establishment of orthodoxy in Spain.
In the beginning of May a great assemblage collected
at Toledo. There was King Reccared with his Queen Baddo, there were the principal Visigothic nobles and
courtiers, there were sixty-two bishops, together with a large number of
presbyters and deacons. The general management of the council was entrusted to
Leander of Seville and the Abbat Eutropius, and it is probable that the king's
great speech was written by Leander. After three days spent in prayer and
fasting, Reccared introduced to the assembly, and caused
to be recited by a notary, a "tomus"
containing an orthodox profession of belief. He declared that God had inspired
him to bring back the Gothic nation to the true Faith, and called upon the
bishops to complete the work he had begun. He then anathematized Arius and his
doctrines, declared his acceptance of the Four General Councils and all other
councils that agreed with them, and finally recited the Creeds of Nicaea and
Constantinople and the Definition of Chalcedon. When the reading of the tomus was concluded amid the joyful
acclamations of the council, one of the Catholic bishops called upon the clergy
and nobles converted from Arianism to make a public profession of their
orthodoxy. These accordingly recited twenty-three anathemas directed against
Arianism, and in their turn repeated the Creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople
and the Definition of Chalcedon. When these had been subscribed by eight Arian
bishops with their clergy, and by all the Gothic nobles, Reccared in another speech invited the council to enter upon the consideration of
certain canons, particularly one directing that the Creed should be recited at
the time of the Holy Communion, that all the faithful might be perfectly
acquainted with the articles of their belief. Twenty-three canons were then
drawn up and confirmed by the royal edict. The proceedings concluded with a
sermon by Leander. “The peace of Christ”, he said, “has destroyed the wall of
discord which the devil built up, and the house which division was bringing to
ruin is united on the one Christ as the cornerstone. Let us all say, then,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. It only
remains that we, being made one people in one mind, should pray to God both to
establish this earthly realm and to grant us the felicity of His heavenly
kingdom, that the country and people which have glorified Christ on earth may
themselves be glorified not only on earth but also in heaven”.
After the dissolution of the Council, Leander wrote to
inform the Pope of all that had taken place. To this letter Gregory replied in
591: "I cannot express the joy I felt when I learned that our common son,
the Most Glorious King Reccared, has embraced the
Catholic Faith with most sincere devotion. As you describe his character in
your letters, you have made me love him, although he is a stranger to me. But
since you know the guile of the old enemy, that he wages a fiercer war with
those who have been once victorious, I trust that your Holiness will watch the
more carefully over the king, that he may finish what he has well begun; that
he may not take pride on the good works he has done; that he may preserve, by
the excellency of his life, the faith he has embraced; that he may prove
himself by his actions to be a citizen of the heavenly kingdom and so after
many years he may pass from a throne on earth to a throne in heaven."
Among the collected epistles of Gregory there is found
one written in very crabbed Latin, that purports to come from King Reccared himself. Gams and Mommsen, however, reject it as a
forgery founded on a letter of Gregory to the king. If genuine, Reccared’s letter must have reached Rome sometime between
the years 596 and 599. It is addressed in respectful terms, “to our Lord, the
Holy and Most Blessed Pope Gregory”. The king speaks of the anxiety he had felt
ever since his conversion to enter into communication with one who was
“superior to all other bishops”,—a wish which the cares and occupations of his
government had for a long while prevented him from gratifying. After three
years, indeed, he had selected some abbats from the
monasteries in his kingdom to convey gifts to St. Peter and greetings to the
Pope; but the ship in which the abbats sailed was
caught in a storm near Marseilles, and driven upon the rocks, and the abbats, who had escaped with difficulty, returned to Spain.
Now, however, he had availed himself of the services of a Roman priest who was
returning from Malaga, to send this letter, together with a present of a golden
cup adorned with jewels.
Gregory sent a very complimentary reply: “I cannot
express in words, most excellent son, how greatly I delight in the work you
have done, and in the life you lead. When I hear of this new miracle wrought in
our own time, the conversion of the whole Gothic nation from the Arian heresy
to the unity of the true Faith, I gladly exclaim with the prophet, This
is this change which the right hand of the Most High hath wrought. Whose
heart, however stony, would not, knowing this, be softened with gratitude to
Almighty God and with love for your Excellency? I own I often speak to my
children here of your achievements, and we often wonder at them with delight.
And often are my feelings roused against myself, because I am so sluggish and
useless and sunk in listless idleness, while to gain the heavenly fatherland
kings are working for the gathering-in of souls. What plea at the terrible
judgment shall I offer to the Judge if I come before Him with empty hands,
while your Excellency brings with you the flocks of the faithful whom you have
led to the grace of the true Faith, by your earnest, your continual
proclamation of the truth?”.
After commending Reccared for his refusal to accept a bribe which the Spanish Jews had offered for the
repeal of a law against them, Gregory reminds him of certain virtues, which,
both as a private person and as a monarch, he was especially bound to cultivate.
“But I doubt not”, he concludes, “that by God's grace
you already practice these virtues. Still, as an opportunity of giving you
advice has presented itself, I associate myself by stealth with your good
deeds, so that the work you have hitherto done of your own accord, may no
longer be yours alone, now that you have been admonished by me to do it. May
Almighty God protect you in all your actions by His outstretched arm on high.
May He grant you prosperity here, and after many years the joys which are eternal.
We have sent you a small key from the most sacred body of St. Peter the
Apostle, as a benediction from him. In this key is inserted some iron from his
chains, so that what bound his neck for martyrdom may deliver yours from all
sins. I have also given to the bearer of this letter, as a present for you, a
cross containing wood from our Lord's cross and hairs of John the Baptist, that
you may always have the help of our Saviour through
the intercession of His Forerunner. We have further sent from the See of St.
Peter to our very reverend brother and fellow-bishop Leander, a pallium, which
is due to him in conformity with ancient custom, and also on account of your
good deeds and his own excellence and dignity”.
Apart from these letters, Gregory held little
communication with the Church in Visigothic Spain. With his old friend Leander,
indeed, he corresponded at intervals. The first letter, written in 591,
contains an interesting passage respecting the baptismal immersions—a question
on which Leander had asked the Pope's advice. “With regard to the trine
immersion at baptism, no better answer can be given than the opinion which you
have yourself expressed; for so long as there is unity in faith, difference in
customs is not prejudicial to the Holy Church. By our Roman practice of three
immersions we signify the sacramental mystery of the three days' entombment, so
that when the infant is taken from the water the third time, the resurrection
on the third day is symbolized. And if anyone should think that the trine
immersion is in honor of the Holy Trinity, yet even so there is no harm in
dipping the infant only once, since in the Three Persons there is but One
Substance. Hence it is indifferent whether we use a single or threefold
immersion, for the first represents the Unity and the second the Trinity of the
Godhead. Inasmuch, however, as up to the present time the Arians have been
accustomed to immerse the infant thrice, I think you had better use the single
immersion only, lest while they count the immersions they divide the Godhead,
and lest, through the retention of their own usage, they boast of having
triumphed over yours”.
Four years later Gregory sent to Leander his Pastoral
Rule and the first and second parts of his Morals; and in 599 he dispatched to
him the pallium, giving him permission to wear it during mass. Whether by this
present Gregory meant to confer on Leander the vicariate of the Apostolic See
in Spain, is a disputed point. In his letter to Reccared,
Gregory said that he was sending the pallium in conformity with “ancient
custom”; and Gams argues that there is here a reference to the Apostolic
vicariates conferred by Popes Simplicius and Hormisdas respectively on Zeno and
Sallustius, archbishops of Seville. The argument, however, is not conclusive,
and it is possible that the pallium in this case was nothing more than a mark
of honor. Certainly during this period the decoration was not necessarily
associated with the vicariate. We find, for instance, in Sicily that the
pallium was given to the bishops of Syracuse, Messina, and Palermo, while the
vicariate was held by the bishop of Syracuse alone. Here, however, the allusion
to the "ancient custom" makes it not improbable that the vicariate is
meant.
Concerning Gregory's relations with the Church in the
Roman parts of Spain, we have scanty information. One instance of Papal
intervention, and only one instance, is recorded.
In 603 the defensor John
was sent from Rome to try an appeal made by two bishops, Januarius of Malaga
and Stephen whose diocese is unknown, against a sentence of deposition and
exile pronounced by a council of bishops, at the instigation of an Imperial
governor named Comitiolus. In each case—at least
according to Gregory's information—the bishop had been treated with gross
injustice. Januarius had been forcibly removed from the church in which he had
taken refuge; and Stephen, in spite of his protests, had been tried by the
bishops of another province. Gregory directed that if it was found that
Januarius had done nothing worthy of degradation or exile, he was to be
restored to his see without delay, and the bishop who had been intruded into
his place was to be degraded and either sent to Rome or handed over to
Januarius for further punishment. The bishops by whom Januarius was condemned
and his successor consecrated were to be excommunicated for six months, and
during that time were to do penance in a monastery. If, however, they pleaded
that they had acted through fear of the Imperial authorities, the time of their
excommunication was to be shortened and their penance made less severe. In the
case of Stephen, John was to inquire carefully into the manner in which his
trial had been conducted—to see whether the witnesses and the accusers were
different persons, whether the accused was confronted with the witnesses, and
had a fair opportunity of defending himself, whether the witnesses were slaves,
or poor men, or men of bad character, or such as had a grudge against the
bishop. If Stephen was proved innocent, he was to be restored to his diocese,
and the bishops who presided at his trial were to be punished in the same way
as those who presided at the trial of Januarius. In both cases Comitiolus or his heirs were to restore the episcopal
property which had been illegally carried off. The fact that Comitiolus was probably deceased, and that Gregory
contemplated the possibility of Januarius’s successor being also dead, seems to
indicate that some years had passed since the deposition of the bishops.
The directions given to John concerning this matter
are unusually full and detailed. Three documents have been preserved. The first
is a Capitulare, or schedule of instructions
concerning the case to be investigated and the method of investigation; the
second is a collection of Imperial laws, against which, according to the
appealing bishops, their accusers had offended; the third was a formula, according
to which Januarius, if innocent, was to be acquitted. These documents are
suspected of being forgeries; but Hartmann, probably with reason, believes them
to be genuine. If we accept them as such, we must recognize that a very
extensive authority was still claimed by the Bishops of Rome in the Imperial
parts of Spain. How far the Romano-Spanish bishops acquiesced in the Papal
interference, however, it is impossible to say. We have no further information
about this case. Whether John actually went to Spain, whether he pronounced in
favor of the accused prelates, and whether his sentence was ever carried out, we
know not.
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