CRISTO RAUL. READING HALL THE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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THE HISTORY OF THE POPES |
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THE POPES OF THE SIXTH CENTURY
SAINT SYMMACHUS A.D. 498-515
SAINT SYMMACHUS, son of
Fortunatus, was born in the village of Simagia, in
the diocese of Cristagno, in Sardinia, and created
cardinal-deacon by Saint Felix III. He was elected pontiff on the 22d. of
November, 498. On the same day, Festus, a Roman senator, corrupted by money,
caused the election of the antipope Laurentius, archdeacon of Saint Praxedes. The intruder promised Festus that he would
support the Henotic of the Emperor Zeno. This double
election gave rise to violent quarrels; assaults and murders were deplorably
numerous; blood flowed, the clergy and senate of Rome took part with one or
other of the rivals, and at length the question was referred to the arbitration
of Theodoric, King of Italy, who resided at Ravenna. He, although an Arian,
decided in favor of Symmachus, on the double ground that he was first elected,
and chosen by the greatest number. Symmachus, having obtained quiet possession
of his authority, endeavored to render his reign illustrious by the holy laws
which he promulgated in six councils, all assembled at Rome. He ordered that on
every Sunday and holy day the Gloria in Excelsis should be
said in the Mass, which Saint Telesphorus, the eighth pope, had only ordered to
be done on Christmas day. Perhaps under the latter pope only the angelic words
were said; and then Symmachus may have ordered the rest of the hymn to be chanted.
He was not the author of it, as some writers have pretended, for, before him,
Saint Athanasius had made mention of it, in prescribing that prayer to a
virgin.
The decree of Symmachus
extended to all priests; Saint Gregory the Great limited it to the bishops
alone, permitting the priests to say it only at Easter. Symmachus forbade
laymen, even kings, to take any part in the election of pontiffs.
The Emperor Anastasius
continued to favor the Arians. Symmachus debarred them from the communion, and
redoubled his efforts for the expulsion of some Manichaeans, who, in secret,
still practised their false doctrines. The alms of
the Catholics being at this time very abundant, Symmachus showed himself a
vigilant administrator, and distributed his aid to the basilicas and the
churches. It is known that he thus dispensed fourteen hundred and sixty-nine
pounds of silver, besides precious stones, gold, and rare marbles.
In the year 500 the schism of
Laurentius acquired new strength. The true pope assembled a council to consult
means for restoring peace to the Church. In that assembly it was thought
fitting, in order to satisfy the antipope, to name him Bishop of Nocera, on
condition that he would submit to his legitimate chief. After some hypocrisy,
Laurentius again revolted, and endeavored to usurp the pontifical authority, in
spite of the decree of the synod, and the repeated orders of Theodoric, who
showed himself favorable to Symmachus. The schismatics ere long resorted to
means unworthy any virtuous man. They accused Symmachus of the gravest crimes.
They suborned false witnesses; Festus and another evil man supported those
accusations. Theodoric, astonished at seeing so much perfidy employed for the
purpose of ruining a man of austere morality and eminent virtue, sent to Rome
Peter, Bishop of Altino, in the Venetian state, to deal with such great
scandals. Peter joined with the schismatics, troubling more than ever the affairs
of the Church, and endeavoring to prejudice the king against Symmachus. Then,
with the consent of this pope, a council was convoked. It was attended by one
hundred and twenty-five bishops. There the innocence of the pontiff was loudly
recognized. He had voluntarily promised to submit to the judgment of that
council, though the Fathers had declared that the bishop of the Holy See should
not be subject to examination before inferior bishops. Subsequently the
antipope Laurentius was exiled as a calumniator and heretic. The decree of the
council having become known in Gaul, the bishops of France deputed Saint
Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, to write to Rome, in the name of all of them, to
complain of the bishops having presumed to sit in judgment on the pope.
"It is hard to understand", wrote Avitus, "how a superior, and,
above all, the head of the Church, can be judged by his inferiors".
Nevertheless, he praised the Fathers for having borne testimony to the
innocence of the pope. Saint Avitus was right; as the Fathers had pronounced
judgment and declared him innocent, it might happen that they would believe
themselves authorized to pronounce a condemnation.
Towards the end of the reign
of Symmachus his authority ceased to be attacked. Even in the East, the Emperor
Anastasius, by the reception which he gave to Saint Sebasius,
exarch or superior-general of all the monasteries of anchorites near Jerusalem,
showed a desire to protect the Catholics; but some courtiers endeavored to
elude the benevolent orders of the emperor, and Saint Sebasius,
the light of Palestine, was pursued and violently threatened. Other griefs
afflicted the Church of the East, and in a long letter she implored the aid of
Pope Symmachus. Some bishops had been repulsed from the Roman communion. Here
Fleury gives us some important details:
"The Orientals asked to
be reestablished in communion with the pope, without being punished for the
fault of Acacius, because they had no part in it, and had received the letter
of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon. Do not reject us, they say, on account of
our communicating with your adversaries; for those of us who do so, do it not
in mere attachment to their life, but from fear of leaving their flocks a prey
to the heretics; and all, both those who apparently communicate with them, and
those who abstain from doing so, hope, under God, for your succor, and that you
will restore to the East that light which you originally received from it. The
evil is so great that we can not even go in search of the remedy ; it is
necessary that you come to us".
Finally, to show that they are
Catholics, they end by giving an exposition of their doctrine, in which they
plainly condemn Nestorius and Eutychius, and recognize in Jesus Christ two
natures, the divine nature and the human nature in one person
We have a letter from Pope
Symmachus to the Eastern Catholics, which seems to be in reply to the above,
although the latter is not actually mentioned. The pope consoles them, and
exhorts them to remain firm in what has once been decided against Eutychius,
and to suffer, if need be, exile and all sorts of persecutions.
In four ordinations, in the
months of December and February, this pope created one hundred and seventeen
bishops, ninety-two priests, and sixteen deacons. He governed the Church
fifteen years and nearly eight months. His charity was equal to the firmness of
his soul. He one day redeemed all the slaves that were in Liguria, Milan, and
in other provinces. He magnificently assisted the African bishops who were sent
into Sardinia by Trasamond, king of the Vandals, and
who were in that island in great numbers. By most touching letters he consoled
them in their affliction. We shall hereafter see this beautiful example
followed by Pius VI, that noble and charitable benefactor of the French clergy.
Symmachus died on the 19th of
July, 514, and was interred in the porch of Saint Peter's.
The Holy See remained vacant
six days.
SAINT
HORMISDAS A.D. 514-523
THIS saint, who is also named
Celius, was born at Frosinone, a town of Latium, and not at Capua, as stated by
Muratori. He was raised to the pontificate on the 26th of July, 514, as Saint Cesarius of Arles had foretold of him that he would be.
This pope named as his primate
or vicar in Spain the Bishop of Tarragona, and confirmed the Bishop of Seville,
whom Pope Simplicius had named primate in Andalusia and in Portugal, giving to
him the same solely personal prerogative, which consisted in the faculty of
exercising the functions of the pope, but without encroaching upon the
privileges of the metropolitans for the observance of the canons, the
preservation of the integrity of the Catholic faith, the settlement of causes
and differences, and the preservation of harmony among priests. As regarded
most difficult and important affairs, they were to be referred to Rome. By a
decretal letter directed to all the bishops of Spain, Hormisdas commanded that
priests should be ordained conformably to the canons, not per saltum, but with
the prescribed intervals. Public penitents could not be ordained; long and
careful inquiry should be made as to the probity and the knowledge of those
seeking holy orders. A bishopric was not to be obtained by gift or sought by flattery.
Finally, the provincial synods were to be held twice in every year, or at the
least once, as being a very efficacious means of preserving discipline.
Hormisdas desired to send his
legates to the Emperor Justin, to demand the union of the Greek and Latin
churches, which had been divided for thirty-five years by the schism of
Acacius. The Holy Father was sanguine of effecting this union; but as he joined
to his many religious virtues a rare and profound political foresight, he
feared that the departure of the legation might offend Theodoric, king of the
Goths. The latter, after having completed the conquest of almost all Italy, had
fixed his royal residence at Ravenna. Hormisdas repaired thither in 518, and
obtained the consent of the king, who, although an Arian, showed himself kind
towards the Catholic faith.
It is known that this pope
received ambassadors from Clovis, king of the Franks, who recognized him as the
true Vicar of Jesus Christ. The king sent to the pope a crown of gold, and
promised him that he, the king, would preserve pure and unspotted the Catholic
faith, which he had received under the reign of Saint Anastasius II. Saint
Hormisdas reprobated, as being liable to erroneous and mischievous
interpretation by heretics, the proposition of some monks of European Scythia :
"One person of the Trinity suffered in the flesh". That controversy
lasted twenty-five years, and was carried on with great vigor.
It was under this pontiff,
about the year 520, that the order of Benedictines was instituted by Saint
Benedict. A great number of monks joined with him, and they established various
monasteries. The holy patriarch retired to Monte Cassino, where he formed his
rule, which served as the model of the monastic orders of the West. France
received the rule from the hands of Saint Maur, a disciple of the founder. Pope
John XXII, created in 1316, after having ordered exact researches in the
pontifical registers containing the number of canonized saints, ascertained
that the order of Benedictines had produced twenty-five holy pontiffs; nearly
forty thousand saints and beatified, five thousand five hundred of whom were
from Monte Cassino; nearly two hundred cardinals, seven thousand archbishops,
five thousand bishops, fifteen thousand abbots, whose confirmation depended on
the Holy See; and more than two hundred and twenty-four sons of kings and
emperors. We will remark on this subject that opinions differ as to the number
of Benedictine pontiffs. Pope Gregory XV declares that, during a long
succession of ages, the Church received her pontiffs from the Benedictine
family. Mabillon says that in the eleventh century
there were so many Benedictine popes that it seemed that the pontifical
authority had become hereditary in that order. Spondanus,
in the Annals of the Church, year 1334, gives different figures; but not as
relates to the twenty-five holy pontiffs, about whom there is no dispute.
Hormisdas was a model of
modesty, of patience, and of charity; he watched over all the churches with an unwearying attention; he recommended to the clergy the
virtues befitting their state, and gave them instructions in psalmody. The
Collection of the Councils contains eighty-one letters of this pope. In one of
those letters, written to Sallust of Seville, his vicar in Spain, we perceive
how potent was the authority which the popes exerted over the Church long prior
to the pretended Isidore Mercator.
In various ordinations
Hormisdas created fifty-five bishops, twenty-one Under this pope flourished
Saint Fulgentius. He wrote courageously to Trasamond,
king of the Vandals, who consulted him upon some points of religion. "It
is rare", wrote he, "to see a barbarian king, so constantly occupied
with the care of his kingdom, inspired with so ardent a desire to obtain
wisdom. In general, it is only men of leisure and Romans who so strongly apply
themselves to wisdom". Neither the Vandals nor any of the other conquerors
considered the name of barbarian an affront, but called themselves barbarians
in contradistinction to the Romans. It may be added that there were two kinds
of Romans the Romans of Rome, and the inhabitants of Constantinople, who also
called themselves Romans.
SAINT JOHN
I A.D.
523-526
JOHN I, son of Constantius, of
Sienna, in Tuscany, was cardinal-priest of Saints John and Paul, in Pammachio,
and was created pontiff on the 1sth of August, 523. Some time after his
election he was called to Ravenna by King Theodoric. That Arian prince determined
that John should go to Constantinople to demand three things from the Emperor
Justin :
(1) That the Arians,
previously compelled by Caesar to receive the Catholic religion, should be
permitted to return to their sect; (2) that the churches taken from the Arians
in the East should be restored to them; and (3) that for the future no one should
be ordered to abjure the sect of the Arians. On the first demand the pope was
pretty fully resolved to say nothing to the emperor; it is said that as to the
two others he obtained some mitigation. The pope knew, moreover, that, in a
spirit of vengeance, the king would inflict torments upon the Catholics, whom
he had it in his power to persecute in Rome and throughout Italy.
On reaching Corinth, Pope John
was received as in triumph. At Constantinople he was received with still more
magnificence. The whole population met him, carrying lighted tapers in their
hands. The emperor promptly appeared and knelt, thus rendering to him the
homage which he would have rendered to Saint Peter. On the 30th of March, 525,
the Mass was celebrated in the cathedral, in the Latin language and with the
Roman ritual. John crowned Justin, and was the first pontiff who had decorated
an emperor with the imperial insignia; for the other emperors had only been
crowned by the bishops after verbally and in writing professing the Catholic
faith. Justin, in his turn, clothed the pope in the Augustal vestments, at the same time granting the use of them to him and his successors.
Justin gave the pope a paten
of gold, weighing twenty pounds and enriched with jewels, five vessels of
silver, and fifteen palls of gold tissue.
John immediately sent those
presents to the churches of Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Mary, and Saint
Laurence. That noble example has invariably been followed by the popes who have
succeeded John. They have always transferred to the churches or the public
establishments the gifts sent to them by princes. "But", says Caesarotti, "John, who found homage in the East, was
to find a prison in the West". Scarcely had he returned to Ravenna, where
it was soon known that he had not wished for the entire success of his
difficult mission, than he was thrown into prison, and Theodoric gave orders
that he should be rigorously treated. This conduct has drawn down warm censure
on the prince who till then had shown himself great, generous, and clement.
John was weakened by his long
journey, and he sank beneath his fatigues on the 2yth of May, A.D. 526. Four
years afterwards his body was transferred to Rome, and interred in the Basilica
of Saint Peter.
The Holy See remained vacant
one month and twenty-seven days.
SAINT FELIX
IV A.D. 526-530
FELIX IV belonged to the Fimbri family of Benevento, and was cardinal-priest of
Saints Sylvester and Martin a' i Monti. He was
elected pope on the 24th of July, 526. The secret reasons which had led
Theodoric to imprison Saint John I began to be known. That prince was bent upon
exercising great power over the election of the popes. It was Theodoric who
indicated the choice that ought to be made on this occasion. The Roman clergy
wisely respected the will of the Gothic king, whose will in truth they had no power
to resist with success. In this will the clergy avoided a schism which might
have led to fatal consequences. It was not, however, entirely without
opposition that the clergy submitted to the will of the king. Calm spirits
represented that Felix was distinguished alike for science and for piety. The
Roman senate had also shown some resistance, not to the elected, but to the
manner of the election, which had been conducted contrary to ecclesiastical
law. That question was not well settled till it was agreed that the clergy by
their vote, and the Roman people by its consent, should, according to ancient
custom, elect the Roman pontiff. That mode of election necessarily continued in
force as long as Gothic kings remained in Italy. In default of those kings, the
emperors of the East usurped that privilege. "From that imperial
usurpation", says Baronius, "it followed that the clergy studied to
choose pontiffs who would be agreeable to the emperors; as were Vigilius, in
538; Gregory the Great, in 590; Sabinianus, in 604; Boniface III, in 607; and
Pascal I, in 817". Previous to becoming pontiffs they had resided at the
imperial court as political agents. Muratori adds that from that circumstance
the electing clergy could not doubt that residence at Constantinople
necessarily gave the apocrisiarii, or political agents, a profound knowledge of
public business.
Saint Felix IV dedicated to
Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian the temple which had been built in honor of Remus
and Romulus in the Roman Forum. He decreed that laymen should not be ordained
priests excepting upon authentic certificates of good life and irreproachable
morals. In two ordinations, in February and March, the Holy Father created
twenty-nine bishops, fifty-five priests, and four deacons. He governed the
Church four years, two months, and eighteen days. Felix was beloved for his
simplicity, his spirit of benevolence, and his unalterable charity to the poor.
He died on the 12th of October, 530, and was interred in the Basilica of Saint
Peter. The Holy See remained vacant three days. We may mention, in proof of
this pontiff's humility, that the error of the Semi-Pelagians having taken root
in Gaul, Saint Cesarius, Bishop of Arles, applied to
Felix for advice and directions. Felix could think of nothing more appropriate
to the occasion, or better calculated to preserve the faithful from seduction,
than to extract from the works of Saint Augustine the most luminous passages on
Grace and Free Will, which he transmitted to Cesarius,
as containing precise and unequivocal the traditional doctrine of the Church.
BONIFACE II
A.D.
530-532
BONIFACE II, Roman born, but
son of Sigibald, a Goth, was cardinal-priest of Saint
Cecilia, and was created pontiff on the 16th of October, 530. On the day of his
election a fraction of malcontents named, as pope, Dioscorus, a former legate
from Hormisdas to the Orientals; but that false pope died seventeen days after
that intrusion, and even after his death he was excommunicated, because he had
been guilty of the crime of simony. Boniface, being thus left in peaceable
possession of the Holy See, in order to provide a remedy against the intrigues
and especially against the pretensions of the Gothic kings, assembled a council
in 531, and named Vigilius as his successor. Boniface, repenting of having
violated the holy laws and the canons, principally those of Nice, and of having
offended the liberty of the holy comitia, called the council together again,
and annulled the decree that he had issued as to the election of his successor.
By the approbation which he bestowed upon the acts of the second Council of Orange,
celebrated by Saint Cesarius, the illustrious Bishop
of Arles, the pope might fairly claim that he helped to extinguish that heresy
of the Semi-Pelagians which during so many years had afflicted France. On that
occasion he gave to Saint Augustine the same praises which had already been
given to him by Saint Felix IV.
Boniface II governed the
Church a little more than two years. He died on the 16th of October, 532, and
was interred in the Basilica of Saint Peter. The Holy See remained vacant two
months and fifteen days.
SAINT JOHN
II
A.D.
532-535
JOHN II, surnamed Mercury, on
account of his eloquence, was a Roman, the son of Projectus,
and is reckoned among the pontiffs of the Conti family. Made cardinal-priest by
Saint Clement, he was created pontiff in the Church of Saint Peter in Vincula,
on the 31st of December, 532. Simony ravaged nearly all the diaconates.
Unfaithful agents pledged even the sacred vessels in support of their
candidates for the benefices. Simony did not respect even the election of the
bishops and that of the pontiffs. John II obtained from Athalaric that
simonists should be severely punished by the civil law, as the ecclesiastical
law could not sufficiently reach that fatal crime.
An edict of the king
interposed in this important matter, and the prince even had that law, graven
in marble, placed in the porch of Saint Peter's. By the same constitution,
Athalaric established the amount of the sum which the pope and the bishops were
to pay for confirmation in their benefices. The product of that tax was devoted
to the relief of the poor. Thus, a sovereign pontiff was to pay three thousand
pieces of gold, the metropolitans two thousand, and the bishops five hundred,
for their consecration. It was a tyrannical edict.
The Holy Father approved, as
Catholic, the proposition of the Scythian monks, when thus amended : "One
person of the Trinity suffered in the flesh". The monks had ardently
defended that proposition, which Pope Hormisdas had treated as a novelty and
had suspected of being intended to lend aid to some fallacious pretension of
the Eutychians. Hormisdas had not pronounced that proposition positively
heretical in itself. John signified to the monks that if they did not cease to
condemn that proposition as heretical, the authority of the Holy See would
separate them from the Church.
The apparent opposition of
views between Hormisdas and John will perhaps surprise some readers; but the
following statement will speedily satisfy them. The contradiction is only
apparent: Hormisdas questioned; John decided. The first considered the proposition
with relation to prudence; the second analyzed it with reference to the dogma.
It displeased the first, because he suspected it to be a device of the
Eutychians; but he did not condemn it as absolutely heretical in itself.
In an ordination, in December,
the Holy Father created twenty-one bishops and fifteen priests. He governed the
Church two years, four months, and twenty-six days. He died the 27th of May,
535, and was interred in the Basilica of Saint Peter.
The Holy See remained vacant
six days.
SAINT
AGAPETUS I
A.D.
535-536
SAINT AGAPETUS I, Roman,
archdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, the son of Gerdian,
was created pontiff on the 3d of June, 535. The Emperor Justinian immediately
sent his profession of faith to the pontiff. It was all that could be desired;
and Agapetus, in his reply, congratulated the emperor upon the victories of
Belisarius. He censured the acts, already revoked by the council, by which
Boniface had chosen his successor. He also revoked, for reason unknown, the
excommunication which the same Boniface had launched against the antipope
Dioscorus. In the following year the Holy Father was obliged, by Theodatus,
king of the Goths, to set out for Constantinople, to demand that the army sent
to Sicily with orders to pass into Italy, under the command of Belisarius,
should be recalled to Byzantium. But, on account of the great expense attendant
upon raising so many soldiers, the emperor could not comply with the entreaties
of the Holy Father. Agapetus, giving his attention to other matters, sought for
the means of re-establishing peaceful relations among the Eastern priests. He
deposed Anthymus, Bishop of Trebizond, whom he perceived to be a dissembling
Eutychian heretic, who, under the patronage of Theodora, wife of Justinian, had
usurped the see of Constantinople. Agapetus appointed Mevas to that see and
consecrated him with great pomp. He was a man illustrious alike for virtue and
for doctrine, and was the first Eastern bishop who was consecrated by a pope.
Justinian, listening to bad advice, resolved to reinstate Anthymus, and
threatened the pope with exile. The pope, full of courage and constancy,
replied to that threat : "We believed that we had a Catholic emperor, but
it appears that we have to do with a Diocletian; but Diocletian must learn that
his threats do not alarm us".
Subsequently the pope proposed
to the emperor that Anthymus should be subjected to an examination as to his
sentiments. Anthymus, when questioned as to the two natures of Jesus Christ,
refused to confess them. Then Justinian perceived the fraud of the heretical
bishop; and the emperor threw himself on his knees before the pope, who so
firmly upheld the Catholic Church and faith, approved the deposition of
Anthymus, and, on the 16th of March, transmitted to Agapetus his own imperial
confession of faith, signed with his own hand.
The Holy Father accredited, as
his nuncio to the emperor, Pelagius, the pope s archdeacon, who afterwards was
himself pope, and the Holy Father then prepared to return to Italy. Previous to
setting out, he held an ordination, at which he created eleven bishops and four
deacons. But soon after he fell dangerously ill, and died before he could leave
Constantinople.
His death occurred on the 22d
of April, 536. He was very learned in ecclesiastical laws and regulations.
Gregory the Great called him "Apostolic Vessel, Trumpet of the Gospel, and
Herald of Justice". There has been no pope who in so short a time (ten
months and nineteen days) has done such great things and borne so much fatigue.
His labors procured him the admiration of both East and West. His body was
transported to Rome, and interred with great solemnity in the Church of Saint
Peter, in the month of September.
According to Novaes, the Holy
See, at the death of this pontiff, remained vacant fifteen days. But there must
be some error, for in those days it took a courier more than fifteen days to go
from Constantinople to Rome by land, and a still longer time by sea. Before he
went to the East, this indefatigable pontiff formed a design of establishing
public schools for the instruction of persons intended for the sacred ministry.
Cassiodorus agreed with the pope, but his death prevented, for the time, the
founding of establishments so useful.
During the pontificate of
Agapetus an event occurred strikingly illustrative of the vanity of conquests.
It relates to the sacred vessels of Jerusalem, taken from the Jews by Titus, at
the time of the taking of the Holy City, and which were taken from Rome by
Genseric, king of the Vandals. Fleury speaks of this matter as follows :
"Belisarius triumphed at Constantinople, and among the wealth that was
displayed to the populace during the procession of the triumph, the most
remarkable objects were the sacred vessels of Jerusalem, which the Emperor
Titus (or rather Titus before he was emperor, for at the taking of Jerusalem he
commanded under his father, Vespasian, who was then emperor) had brought to
Rome, and which Genseric, on pillaging Rome, carried to Carthage. A Jew, having
seen them, said to a man known to the emperor: "It is not right to put
those vessels in the treasury of Constantinople; their only proper place is
where Solomon put them. It is in punishment of that offence that Genseric took
the Roman capital, and that the Romans have taken that of the Vandals".
This calls to mind the
celebrated Greek horses, the fate of which seems to be connected with that of
empires. They adorned, in succession, Constantinople, Venice, and Paris; thence
they returned to Venice. It has been asserted that these horses, taken by the
Venetians from the Hippodrome of Constantinople, belonged to Corinth and had
first been taken to Rome. All this is imaginary; their style especially proves
that they are of the time of the decline of art.
SAINT
SYLVERIUS
A.D.
536-538
THE martyr, Saint Sylverius, of Frosinone, was the son of Pope Hormisdas, who
had contracted a legitimate marriage before he received holy orders. According
to some, this pope was cardinal-priest; according to others, a regionary deacon
at Rome. He was created pope the 22d of June, 536; so that the vacancy lasted
one month and seventeen days. Anastasius the Librarian writes that Sylverius was named in obedience to the expressed desire of
Theodatus, king of the Goths; but authors of that time make mention of no
violence against the Roman clergy
It is known that Vigilius had
been accredited to Constantinople as apocrisiarius, or political agent. He is
the same Vigilius whom Boniface II named as his successor. The Empress Theodora
endeavored by her promises to induce Vigilius to allow himself to be placed in
the Holy See. The testimony of Novaes seems to be less reliable than that of
Feller, who says: "Belisarius had taken Rome. Theodora determined to avail
herself of that opportunity to extend the sect of the Acephali, a branch of Eutychianism. The Acephali set up altars and baptisteries
in the private houses of towns and suburbs, and despised everybody, on account
of the protection they had from the palace". (The word Acephali signifies the headless). She endeavored to attach Saint Sylverius to her views, but, failing to do so, she resolved to have him deposed. He was
unjustly accused of having improper understanding with the Goths. A letter was
produced which he was said to have addressed to the hostile kings; but it was
proved to have been forged by an advocate named Marcus; yet this did not
prevent Sylverius from being sent into exile to
Patara in Lycia, and Vigilius was ordained in his place on the 22d of November,
537. The Bishop of Patara, whose name, unfortunately, has not come down to us,
boldly defended Sylverius, went to the Emperor
Justinian at Constantinople, and said to him : "There are many kings in
the world, but there is only one pope in the universe". Justinian,
learning the real state of affairs, ordered that Sylverius should be reinstated in his see. As he returned to Italy he was again arrested
by Belisarius, at the solicitation of that general's wife, Antonina, who wished
to propitiate the Empress Theodora. The pope, deserted by all, was sent back to
the isle of Palmeria, opposite to Terracina, where,
according to Liberatus, he died of hunger in the month of June, 538. Feller
believes that Vigilius committed no offence either before or after that event.
Novaes has indulged in some
severity towards that pope, and believes culpable promises to have seduced him.
Novaes founds that belief on the former circumstance of Vigilius consenting to
receive from Boniface II the succession to the tiara.
Previous to his exile Saint Sylverius had created, in one ordination in December,
nineteen bishops, thirteen priests, and five deacons. He governed the Church
two years and a few days, and was interred on the isle on which he died.The Holy See remained vacant six days.
Justinian, under the reign of
Saint Agapetus I, published a second and more regular edition of his Code. He
had already endeavored to reduce into one body all the most useful works of the
ancient jurisconsults. The extracts were arranged under certain titles, and
bore the name of Digests, or Pandects; subsequently he composed his Institutes,
to serve as an introduction to these books. Trebonius had a large share in
those important works. Justinian also promulgated laws enforcing respect to
Catholicity. They are all comprised in his Novella, as being newer than the
publication of his Code. He recommends the observance of the canons, and
forbids the alienation of the property of any of the churches. VIGILIUS
A.D.
538-555
WE have no doubt that Vigilius
ardently desired the tiara, for, after being named, probably with his own
consent, as successor to the papacy without any election, he afterwards figured
as antipope, under Sylverius. But those facts do not
justify prejudices, still less do they justify false accusations against him.
Let us examine the actual pontifical career of this pope, who on more than one
occasion will show himself a courageous soldier of Christ.
He was Roman, the son of John,
of a consular family. Boniface II named him apocrisiarius, or political agent,
at Constantinople. On the death of Sylverius,
Vigilius was legitimately elected. Belicarius, his
patron, commanded at Rome, and the clergy desired peace in the Church. More
over, the Holy See was occupied by a man distinguished for his talents and for
a profound knowledge of public affairs. Suddenly an unexpected change appeared
in the inclinations of Vigilius. Had he promised Theodora to admit the communion
of the heretics? We shall learn that later. It is of the life, the actions, and
the writings of Vigilius that we have now to speak. He will make Theodora aware
that he has no intention of acceding to the wishes of the enemies of
Catholicity; it will be seen that if he imprudently entered into engagements he
will not ratify any such promises, but will confirm the excommunication of
Anthymus and his sectaries.
With relation to Anastasius,
Vigilius wrote to the empress: "We have spoken wrongly, senselessly; now
we will by no means consent to what you require of us. We will not recall an
anathematized heretic". Peremptorily ordered to repair to Constantinople,
he did not hesitate to order the necessary preparations for the journey, but he
did not show extreme haste. It was he who, in 545, named as his primate the
Bishop of Arles, a city of the States of Childebert, in France, and sent to him
powers similar to those that some of his predecessors had given to the primacy
in Spain.
In 546 the Emperor Justinian
published an edict in which he ordered the bishops to condemn the three
chapters. The first concerned the writings and the person of Theodorus, Bishop
of Mopsuestia, accused of Nestorianism; the second
formed part of the writings of Theodoret, Bishop of Civo,
against the twelve chapters of Saint Cyril; the third consisted of a letter
written by Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, to a Persian
heretic named Marin. The Holy Father, Vigilius, disapproved of this
condemnation by the emperor, and his example was followed by some bishops. They
naturally rejected errors opposed to the faith; but they would not condemn the
persons to whom those errors were attributed, fearing lest they should in some
sort offend against the canons of the Council of Chalcedon. The emperor,
influenced by the representations of Theodora, that actress who had become
empress and arbitress of the destinies of the empire, demanded also that
Anthymus should be reinstated in the see of Constantinople, and repeated his
order to Vigilius to repair to that city.
Arriving in Constantinople in
January, 547, he was received with great honors. Theodora being dead, the
emperor, of his own accord, begged Vigilius to condemn the three chapters, and
obstinately pressed the subject upon him.
Vigilius, having assembled
seventy bishops, was told by them that, without prejudice to the Council of
Chalcedon, the three chapters might be condemned. Then he condemned them, and
sent to Mennas, Bishop of Constantinople, a decree in
which he distinctly noted that he did not by that condemnation intend any
prejudice to the acts of the Council of Chalcedon.
The pope supposed that he had
satisfied both parties : the Greeks, by his condemnation of the three chapters;
and the Latins, by accompanying the condemnation with the necessary reservation
in favor of the acts of the Council of Chalcedon. But he found that he was
mistaken. The East burst out against him as a violator of that council, and
some of the African bishops went so far as to cut off the pontiff from their
communion. To appease the tumult, the Holy Father revoked the said
constitution, and threatened to excommunicate the Greek bishops who should
consent to anything concerning the three chapters without the consent of a
general council. Justinian, on the request of Theodorus of Caesarea, published
another decree against the three chapters. The Holy Father convoked the Greek
and Latin bishops in the Placidian palace, and
forbade, on pain of excommunication, obedience to the imperial decree.
Justinian, irritated, ordered the imprisonment of Vigilius. All appeared to
become orderly; but the peace was of no long endurance. Theodorus, Bishop of
Caesarea, and even Mennas, Bishop of Constantinople,
were excommunicated. At this crisis the conduct of Vigilius was sublime.
Compelled to take refuge in a church, he was followed by the praetor and armed
soldiers. The pope embraced the pillars that supported the altar; the people
compelled the praetor to retire. It was in the midst of this violence that the
intrepid pope exclaimed : "We declare to you that, though you hold us
captive, you do not hold Saint Peter". Justinian, conquered by so much
constancy and so lofty a virtue, revoked his edict; and Vigilius, who had fled
towards the city of Chalcedon, returned to Constantinople. It was agreed that,
in order to terminate the controversy, it should be referred to a general
council consisting of Greek and Latin bishops in equal numbers. But the emperor
broke his word, and Vigilius found himself obliged to convene the council on
the 5th of May, 553, without waiting for the arrival of the Latin bishops. In
the conduct of the emperor there was neither justice, nor dignity, nor respect
for the Church. Vigilius would not be present in the council. He published a
new Constitutum, in which he protested that
such a council, having only one arm, could not condemn the three chapters.
Nevertheless, they were condemned by that council, which is called the fifth
general council, at which there were present one hundred and sixty-five bishops,
among whom were three patriarchs. Vigilius, not wishing to confirm this decree,
was sent into exile, nor was he recalled until he had confirmed with his
authority the condemnation of the council.
We may add here that it was
also confirmed by this pope's successors, Pelagius I, John III, Benedict I,
Pelagius II, and Saint Gregory the Great. The confirmation by this last
mentioned pontiff explains why Vigilius perceived the necessity of conduct which,
far from being contradictory, proved the extreme attention with which the pope
watched events, their influence, and their inevitable requirements, and always
finished with a skilful act, after having exhausted
all the phases of determination backed by the loftiest courage. Novaes, in
commenting on this subject, says: "Thus the pontiff changed his views
without prejudice to apostolic truth". Novaes adds that in this
controversy the question was not of faith but of persons, and that his change of
views should not be attributed to inconstancy but to prudence. The emperor
allowed Vigilius to depart; but he had scarcely arrived in Sicily when he was
attacked by a painful disease, of which he died at Syracuse in 555, after a
reign of sixteen years and about six months.
In two ordinations, in the
month of December, he ordained eighty-one bishops, sixteen priests (some say
forty six), and sixteen deacons.
The body was transferred to
Rome, and interred in the Church of Saint Marcellus, on the Salarian Way. The Holy See remained vacant about three months. A law of Justinian,
published under this pontificate, provides that the four general councils of
Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon shall always have the force of
law, and that the pope is the first of all the bishops. To this law it was
added that the general council held at Constantinople in 553 should also be
recognized as holy. That fifth council is also known as the second of
Constantinople.
Under this pontificate Totila
took the city of Rome, plundered it, and threw down the walls, but Belisarius
soon appeared and restored them.
PELAGIUS I
A.D.
555-560
PELAGIUS I, Roman, son of John Vicarianus, named cardinal-priest by Saint Agapetus,
and nuncio to Justinian, as Liberius and Vigilius had been, was created pontiff
on the 11th of April, 555. Like Vigilius, he had condemned the three chapters;
he was therefore held in some suspicion of being false to the Council of
Chalcedon. The populace, in violent tumults, disowned allegiance to Pelagius.
Unhappily, religious men and noble citizens both shared and showed the same
feeling to such an extent that, though two bishops were prepared to consecrate
him, the third one, who was necessary to the canonical fulfilment of the
ceremony, could not be found. At length Pelagius was consecrated by the bishops
of Perugia and Ferentino, and by Andrew, archpriest
of Ostia. Father Berti demonstrates that that consecration was valid, though
not in conformity to what usually took place.
When the Romans, besieged by
Totila, were suffering from famine, Pelagius had rendered them great service by
passing in provisions to them. That bygone benevolence was now remembered, and
a desire was shown to establish with the new pope relations of respectful
submission. It was also mentioned that once, when he was accused of
entertaining factious feelings against Vigilius, he rushed to the preacher's
pulpit in Saint Peter's Church, placed the Gospels on his head, and protested
his innocence of the crime.
Pelagius confirmed the fifth
general council, approved by his predecessor; and to appease the differences
which had sprung up among the Western bishops on the subject of the three
chapters condemned in the council, he endeavored to get them condemned anew by
the African, the Illyrian, and even the Italian bishops. "To that end he
employed", says Fleury, "the authority of Narses, and he was pious
and fearful of offending against religion. Pelagius, in one of his letters,
exhorts him thus: Pay no attention to the vain speeches of people who charge
the Church with exciting persecution when she represses crime and labors for
the salvation of souls. To persecute is to compel one to do evil; otherwise all
the laws, divine and human, which order the punishment of crime, would be
deserving of abolition. Now the Scripture and the canons teach us that schism
is an evil and that it ought to be suppressed, even by the secular power; and
all who separate themselves from the Apostolic See sin, and undoubtedly are
schismatics".
During the reign of Pelagius
the famous Cassiodorus died in extreme old age. He belonged to the most famous
Roman nobility, and was born at Squillacia, in
Calabria, about the year 470. He was the principal minister of King Theodoric.
After he had retired from public life, he composed, in a monastery that he had
founded, Commentaries on the Psalms, and The Institution of the Scriptures. At
the age of ninety-two years he wrote several other works, and a treatise on
orthography, extracted from twelve authors, the twelfth being Priscian.
Cassiodorus always showed a respectful attachment to Pelagius.
The French having declared
Pelagius suspected of heresy, he defended himself before them in a profession
of faith, which he sent to King Childebert and signed with his own hand the
declaration that he condemned and excommunicated those who strayed from the
doctrine of the letter of Saint Leo and the acts of the Council of Chalcedon.
The Bishops of Tuscany refused
to adhere to the fifth council, and withdrew from the communion of Pelagius. He
wrote to them in these remarkable terms: "How can you doubt that you are
separated from all Christian communion, when you do not pronounce our name,
according to custom, in the holy mysteries, since, however unworthy we person
ally may be, it is in us that at present subsists the solidity of the Apostolic
See, with the succession of the episcopacy?"
In two ordinations, in the
month of December, Pelagius created forty-eight or forty-nine bishops,
twenty-five or twenty-six priests, and nine deacons. He died the 28th of
February, 560, after governing the Church four years, ten months, and eighteen
days.
The Holy See was vacant four
months and sixteen days, because at that time it was necessary to await the
imperial consent from Constantinople to the pontifical election, although the
election had not previously been so long deferred. The right claimed by
Justinian to interfere in the election of the popes, which right was
subsequently maintained by the successors of that emperor, occasioned vacancies
in the see of Rome of much longer duration than before. Nevertheless, from the
days of Odoacer the sovereigns of Italy pretended to direct or rather to
disturb that election. Shortly before his death Pope Pelagius had begun to
build the Church of the Holy Twelve Apostles.
JOHN III
A.D.
560-574
JOHN III, called Catelinus,
son of Anastasius, a noble Roman, was created pontiff on the 18th of July, 560.
He allowed the appeal of Sagittarius, Bishop of Embrun, and of Salonius, Bishop of Gap, deposed from their bishoprics by
the second Council of Lyons, and restored them to their dignity.
John confirmed the fifth
general council, of which he showed himself the zealous defender. It is said
that, on an occasion of his notice being directed to some crying usurpations
upon the legitimate possessors of ecclesiastical property, he determined to put
an end to those spoliations, and that he ordered that every usurper of such
property should be mulcted in four times the value.
He finished the Basilica of
the Twelve Apostles, which his predecessor, Pelagius I, had commenced as stated
above and he consecrated it on the feast of Saint Philip and Saint James,
erecting it into a cardinalate, or parochial district. In that church he had
several historical subjects represented, partly in colors and partly in mosaic.
Pope John enlarged and
repaired the cemeteries of the martyrs, and ordered that, for the sacrifice of
the Mass celebrated in the catacombs, the Church of Saint John of Lateran
should furnish the bread, the wine, and the lights.
In two ordinations, in the
month of December, John created sixty-one bishops, thirty priests, and thirteen
deacons. He governed the Church twelve years, eleven months, and twenty-six
days. He died on the 13th of July, 573, after having seen, in the ninth year of
his pontificate (A.D. 568), the commencement of the reign of the Lombards in
Italy.
These Lombards, or Longobards, were thus called on account of their long
beards, which they never shaved, and were a people of the Scandinavian
peninsula, whom Narses, Justinian's general in Italy, having become a traitor
to his sovereign, called in to sustain his revolt.
The first king of the
Lombards, Alboin, established his capital at Pavia. Then the emperors of the
East were compelled to govern what remained to them in the peninsula by
captains, and to confide Ravenna to officers called exarchs. That state of
things continued a hundred and eighty-four years.
John was buried at the
Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant ten months and twenty days, for the
reason already mentioned, and in consequence of the troubles which the Lombards
instigated throughout Italy. BENEDICT I
A.D.
574-578
BENEDICT, or Bonosus, was a Roman, the son of Boniface; he was
recognized as pope on the 3d of June, 574, and consoled Rome, afflicted by
those two great scourges, famine and the Lombards. It was he who discovered
Gregory (known as Gregory the Great) in a monastery, and made him a
cardinal-deacon. After the example of his predecessors, Benedict confirmed the
fifth general council. In one ordination, in the month of December, he created
twenty bishops, fifteen priests, and three deacons. He governed the Church four
years, one month, and twenty-eight days; died on the 3oth of July, 578, and was
interred at the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant four months.
PELAGIUS II
A.D.
578-590
PELAGIUS II, Roman, a
Benedictine monk, the son of Vinigild, a Goth, was
created pontiff on the 30th of November, 578. This time the consent of the
emperor was not awaited, as Rome was closely besieged by the Lombards.
This misfortune secured the
right which otherwise might have been withheld. Besieged Rome was not defended
by the exarch, the imperial lieutenant in Italy, who could scarcely defend
himself in Ravenna. The loss of a pontiff, too, would have been insupportable
to Rome. However, amid the vicissitudes of war, Pelagius was consecrated, a man
distinguished for wisdom, moderation, and virtue. The Lombards had pillaged the
abbey of Monte Cassino, and the monks were obliged to take refuge in Rome. To
arrest the incursions of the barbarians, the pope gave plenary powers to
Gregory, his apocrisiarius, or political agent, at Constantinople, who was then
at the commencement of his clerical career and who afterwards became renowned
as Saint Gregory the Great.
Pelagius, learning that France
was in a sufficiently peaceful condition, wrote to the Bishop of Auxerre a
letter in which, in the name of the Holy See, he deplored the ill treatment
inflicted upon so many sufferers by the Lombards. This communication was
joyously received by an eminently Catholic people, and it subsequently made a
powerful impression upon Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne. Pelagius II,
in that letter, recalled the fact that the French monarchs were bound to defend
with all their might the religion which had procured them so many triumphs.
The metropolis of Aquileia was
disturbed by the enemies of the Roman faith. Pelagius permitted the
archbishop-elect to transfer the metropolis to Grado. Unfortunately, in a
council of the year 587, held by that same archbishop elect, and at which there
were present eighteen bishops, his suffragans, those prelates, having become
schismatic, swore never to admit the fifth general council. They acted thus
under pretence of not causing prejudice to the
Council of Chalcedon.
Pelagius, hoping to soften
their obstinacy, announced by his legates, and by his letters, that the three
chapters were justly condemned, and that the Council of Chalcedon had not been
offended by that condemnation. But the zeal of the pontiff was useless; and the
exarch, residing at Ravenna, was then called upon to labor to bring back those
erring bishops to their duty.
In his time there appeared an
extraordinary plague, as sudden as it was violent. The patient frequently died
while in the act of sneezing or yawning. Pelagius himself died of it on the 8th
of February, A.D. 590. This pope was the first who, in the diplomas of his
chancery, marked the time by the indictions that
Constantine the Great had instituted on the 24th of September, A.D. 312. They
form, as is well known, a course of fifteen years; when those years are ended,
the indiction recommences.
In two ordinations, in
December, Pelagius created forty-eight bishops, twenty-two priests, and eight
deacons. He governed the Church twelve years, two months, and ten days. Very
liberal towards the poor, and especially towards the aged, he assembled so many
of them in his palaces that they resembled hospitals. Pelagius was interred in
the Vatican. The Holy See remained vacant six months and twenty-five days.
SAINT GREGORY I
A.D. 590-604
GREGORY I, surnamed the Great,
doctor of the Church, was born about the year 540, and was the son of Gordian,
a Roman senator, afterwards regionary cardinal-deacon, and of Sylvia, a very
pious lady. He was grandnephew of Pope Saint Felix III, of the Anicia, now the
Conti, family. In the year 572 he was praetor, not, as some writers have
stated, prefect of Rome. That fact is proven by a letter written by Gregory
himself to Constantius, Archbishop of Milan.
At the death of his father,
Gregory found himself master of an immense fortune. Then he built six
monasteries, among them one, in 575, at his own palace in Rome; he became a
Benedictine monk, and lived in the monastery of Saint Andrew, which he had
himself caused to be built, and which belonged to the Camaldolese Benedictines. Some writers, and among them Father Thomassin, of the Oratory,
maintain that Gregory belonged to no religious order. Be that as it may, he was
named cardinal-deacon by Pelagius, whose secretary he had been. Subsequently
the same pope sent him as nuncio to Constantinople, to the Emperor Maurice.
Gregory, on his return to
Rome, was against his wish created pontiff. The choice of the clergy and of the
Roman people had unanimously fallen upon Gregory, who wrote to the Emperor
Maurice, begging him to oppose the election. Germanus, prefect of Rome, intercepted
the letters, and substituted others in the opposite sense, containing the text
of the decree of election. Gregory then left Rome and concealed himself in a
retired place. The people flocked from all parts in search of Gregory, who was
at length discovered by a dove hovering over his head. He was surrounded, and
entreated to accept the pontificate, and he was conducted to Saint Peter's and
consecrated on the 3d of September in the year 590.
At the commencement of his
pontificate, he wrote to the patriarchs of the East a letter, in which,
according to the custom of those times, he included his profession of faith. At
the same time he confirmed the general councils of Nice, of Constantinople (i.e.,
the first council of that city), of Ephesus, and of Chalcedon. He ordered that
those four councils should be respected as the four Gospels. The same
confirmation was pronounced as to the second Council of Constantinople, called
the fifth ecumenical council. The pope demanded that that council should be
plainly acknowledged by all, in order that the defenders of the three chapters,
which that council had condemned, should desist from their culpable obstinacy.
Three years previously,
Pelagius had ordered that those subdeacons in Sicily who were married should
separate from their wives. Gregory, thinking this decision too stern and
severe, permitted subdeacons to marry, provided that they should not receive
higher orders; and subsequently he forbade the ordination of any subdeacon
before he had made the vow of continence in the proper form before the bishop. He allowed the Spaniards to
baptize by only a single immersion. The authority of Gregory was followed by
the Fathers in the Council of Toledo. That permission, contrary to previous
custom on that subject, was granted, in order that the true Catholics might be
distinguished from the heretics in Spain, who, by a triple immersion, fancied
that they authorized their errors relating to the Trinity.
He forbade that Hebrews should
be compelled to receive the faith of Christ. He ordered that entrance into the
monasteries of nuns should be forbidden to both men and women who were
strangers to what concerned the administration of those monasteries. He ordered
that at the commencement of Lent the blessed ashes should be placed on the
foreheads of the faithful. Up to the time of Celestine III, created pope in
1191, it was the custom to place the holy ashes on the head of the pope, as
they are now placed on the heads of the faithful, and to repeat the well-known
formula : "Remember, man, that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return". But under Urban VI, elected pope in 1378, a different custom was
introduced, which obtains to this day; that, namely, of strewing the ashes upon
the head of the Holy Father without saying a word. Monsignor Antonelli, in a
letter addressed to the Cardinal Gentili, inquires into the reasons for which
the masters of the ceremonies refrain from saying the words. He considers that
the action of strewing the ashes during the repetition of the formula is a
venerable remnant of the rite formerly practised with
the penitents on Ash Wednesday. Ashes were given to them, accompanied by those
words which remind us of our mortality, and, so reminding us, are a wholesome
humiliation. At the same time, the public penance, whence that ceremony came
down to us, being a species of ecclesiastical judgment, to which the Roman
pontiff ought not to be subjected, it was resolved that, as regarded him, the
fact should suffice without the formula; that is to say, that the action of
placing the ashes on the head sufficiently suggests the mortal condition of the
pope, without there being exercised upon him that shadow of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction to which the head of the Church is in no wise subject.
Gregory also ordered that the
Lent fast should be kept uninterruptedly, and not, as formerly, discontinued on
Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Thus, fasting commenced from Septuagesima.
He also ordered that from Septuagesima to Easter the Alleluia should not be
sung. He permitted the priests of Sardinia to administer confirmation in the
absence of the bishops, who ordinarily administer that sacrament, as was
solemnly declared by the Council of Trent. Benedict XIII subsequently granted
the same privilege to the abbot of Saint Paul, outside the walls of Rome, and
to the custodian of the Holy Sepulchre, of the order
of Minor Observantes, of the convent of Aracoeli.
In 592 Pope Saint Gregory
caused the removal to Rome of the tunic of Saint John the Evangelist, and
placed it be neath the altar of Saint John in the Lateran Basilica. The same
year the Emperor Maurice rendered a decree by which he prohibited men of the legal
profession, as well as persons charged with debts to the treasury, from
entering the clerical state, and soldiers from entering the monastic
profession. The Holy Father, in his letter written in 593, praises that part of
the decree which relates to men of the law, but disapproves the two other
parts, which he induced the emperor to revoke.
Saint Gregory also remedied
two abuses: the one consisted in demanding a price for the burial of the dead
in churches, and the other in building churches where the dead had been
interred. The pope was unwilling that there should be any risk of the bones of
the profane being mingled with those of martyrs.
Father Thomassin, already
quoted, maintains that it was not until the reign of Gregory that Christians
began to be buried in the churches; for which reason that pope disapproved of
the custom. But Muratori proves that the custom was long anterior to Saint
Gregory. The Council of Braga, in 563, was the first to forbid burial in the
churches, and subsequently many synods, especially in France, prohibited the
custom, but with exceptions as to certain persons. But the Roman Church has
always maintained the ancient custom of burying in churches, as appears in the
reply of Nicholas I to the Bulgarians, about the year 860. During the French
occupation in 1809, public cemeteries began to be inpopular request, and such cemeteries were afterwards authorized by Pope Pius VII. Only
persons of very high rank are now interred in the churches.
Many persons affirm that Saint
Gregory the Great instituted what is known as the Gregorian Chant. But the
learned Dominic Maria Manni, in his Dissertation upon the Discipline of the
Ancient Ecclesiastical Chant, printed at Florence in 1756, and reprinted in the
collection of Zaccaria in 1794, proves that Gregory did not invent that chant,
but reduced it to a more fitting form, and rendered it more easy to be studied.
And we have it on the authority of Anastasius the Librarian that a chant
similar to the Gregorian was known in the time of Saint Hilary, created pope in
461; and, according to the testimony of Peter, Bishop of Orvieto, there was a
very similar chant in the time of Pope Saint Sylvester, i.e., two hundred and
seventy years before the time of Saint Gregory. However, it is certain that
this pope instituted, at Rome, a school of chanters, for whom he had two houses
built: one near the Basilica of Saint Peter, and the other near the
patriarchate of Saint John Lateran. Into this college of chanters only seven
deacons were admitted, and, in addition, some boys who, when necessary, took
their parts in high tone.
Saint Gelasius having arranged
the recital of the prayers or collects in the Mass, Saint Gregory put them in
better order, and compiled a volume which he entitled the Sacramentary. In the
Sacramentary of Saint Gregory and in the Roman rubrics, we find, in addition to
the ceremonies of the Mass, those of baptism, of ordination, and of the
processions, with the blessing of tapers and ashes, and many others noticed in
the Sacramentary of Saint Gelasius.
Some persons have complained
that Saint Gregory had adopted several practices from Constantinople, but he
showed that he had only re-established old customs; and as it seemed to be
feared that the Greeks would draw some advantage from it, "Who doubts",
said he, "that that church should not be subject to the Holy See, as the
emperor and the Bishop of Constantinople on every occasion show that it is? If
that church or any other has some good practice, I am ready to imitate that
practice of even the lowest of your inferior churches".
Saint Gregory instituted the
processions on the day of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, and the
Litany of the Saints on the feast of Saint Mark, on account of the increased
virulence of the plague that had carried off Pelagius. The disease always ended
in a fit of sneezing or of yawning, and the pope ordered that "God bless
you" should be said to those who sneezed, and that the sign of the cross
should be made on the mouths of those who yawned. The plague having ceased, the
antiphon "Regina cceli laetare"
was introduced in the chants of the Church.
It is affirmed by pious
writers that, at the moment when the plague decreased in virulence, there
appeared on the top of the mausoleum of Adrian an angel sheathing his sword.
Thenceforth that mausoleum was called the Castle of Sant Angelo, and an angel in
marble was placed on it, for which Benedict XIV substituted the one in bronze,
which still remains there.
Gregory found it necessary to
repress a claim of John the Faster, a man, however, whom the Greeks represent
as a prelate of such great virtue that he was placed among the number of the
saints, a step to which the approval of the Congregation of the Propaganda was
given afterwards. John assumed the title of the Universal Bishop. The
predecessor of Gregory had censured that title; and Gregory had already
deprived Eulogus, Bishop of Alexandria, of the
similar title of Universal Patriarch. The Holy Father then entitled himself, in
all his letters, with a sentiment of humility and modesty, "servant of the
servants of God". That custom has continued to our own day, and Pius X
uses the same formula. At the close of the tenth century, some bishops wished
to take that title; but it is now confined solely to the Roman pontiff.
Gregory was the first pontiff
who ordered that pontifical diplomas or bulls should be dated from the
Incarnation of our Saviour.
Formerly the Church had the
custom of calculating time from the consular fasti (it is known that they
commenced, dating from the year 244, from the foundation of Rome, or 245,
according to the epoch of Varro, that is to say, five hundred and nine years before
Christ), but under Diocletian appeared Dionysius, called, from his short
stature, Dionysius the Little, who abandoned the eras of the consuls and the
Emperors Augustus and Diocletian, which till then had been followed all over
the world. In 527 Dionysius introduced a paschal cycle for ninety-five years,
and made the years commence on the 25th of March, saying that he dated them
from the Incarnation of the Lord; but he left the three months from the
Circumcision, which commence on the 1st of January. So the year of the
Incarnation, according to Dionysius, commenced three months after the
Circumcision, which dates from the 1st of January; while the year of the
Nativity commenced on the 28th of December, and that of the Indiction on the 24th of September, but for the Roman Curia on the 25th of December.
Saint Gregory was also the
first pontiff who employed the phrase "to speak ex cathedra". He
ratified the baptism given by heretics in the name of the Most Holy Trinity. He
ordered that on the 29th of June the memory of the two princes of the apostles,
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, should be celebrated in the Church of the Vatican,
and that on the following day the feast of Saint Paul should be celebrated
specially.
From the letters of this
pontiff we learn that the Holy See then possessed rich patrimonies in Sicily,
in the city of Syracuse, in Palermo, in Calabria, in Apulia, in the country of
the Samnites, in Campania, in Tuscany, in Sabina, in Norcia, at Carseoli, one
called Appia, at Ravenna, in Dalmatia, Illyria, Sardinia, Corsica, Liguria, in
the Cottian Alps, in Germaniciana, in Syria, and in
Gaul. The last-named patrimony, according to Saint Gregory, produced but little
revenue. Each of those patrimonies was intrusted to a
distinct administrator, who had the title of defender or rector, and was always
one of the first clerks of the Roman Church. It also possessed other
patrimonies in the East, which yielded a net revenue of nearly half a million
francs of the present day.
Finally, Saint Gregory, after
having, through Saint Augustine, a Benedictine monk of the abbey of Saint
Andrew, at Rouen (a monastery known to have been founded by Saint Gregory),
converted the Anglo-Saxons to the true faith, gave him orders to establish two
metropolitans, one at London, and the other in the city of York; and the
metropolitans were then to ordain twelve bishops.
Gregory confounded the Arians
who remained in Spain, and the Lombards who occupied a large portion of Italy.
He illustrated the Church by the prodigious number of works he has left us,
although interrupted by serious difficulties. After meriting the praise of
Saint Ildefonsus, who said of that great pontiff,
"He excelled Anthony in holiness, and Augustine in knowledge", and
after governing the Church thirteen years, six months, and ten days, Gregory
died on the 12th of March, 603, aged sixty-four years.
In two ordinations, one in
Lent, and the other in the month of September, he created sixty-two bishops,
thirty-eight or thirty-nine priests, and five or fifteen deacons. He was
adorned by the most sublime virtues, and his court consisted of subjects worthy
to be near him. He kept laics out of his council, and took for his advisers
only clerks endowed with great prudence, and learned pious monks. He received
them whenever they chose, whether by night or day; nothing was wanting to
religious perfection in the palace, nothing wanting of the pontifical duties in
the Church.
Andres, at the beginning of
his book, On the Origin, Progress, and Present Condition of all Literature,
pronounces the following judgment on Gregory: "He possessed doctrine,
learning, and eloquence superior to those of the time in which he lived; the
arts and sciences found a worthy temple in his palace. He had not a single
servant who had not received a good education, and whose words were not worthy
to be heard around the ancient throne of the Latin language. In the court of
the great Gregory the studies of the fine arts took a new vigor. Nevertheless,
all the advantages of a lettered mind could not protect him from the calumnies
of those who were determined to consider him the sworn enemy of good taste and
of the sciences and fine arts. Tiraboschi courageously came forward in his defence, and the memoir of that holy doctor triumphed over
many unworthy accusations".
The grave cares of the
pontificate did not prevent Gregory from indulging in practices of the most
ardent charity. Every day he invited twelve paupers into his palace, and
personally waited upon them at table; and, according to the legends, that
humility was rewarded by his one day seeing an angel make the thirteenth of the
company at that table. Thence came the custom of daily inviting thirteen poor
persons, generally priests, in the name of the pontiff, who himself served them
at table; they were selected in the hospital of the Most Holy Trinity. In the
monastery of Saint Andrew he had his portrait placed, showing him to have been
of noble stature, his face long, his head bald in front, with tufts of black
hair at the side.
A passage, altered from the
Polycratic of John of Shrewsbury, was made to accuse Gregory of the burning of
the Palatine Library, founded by Augustus that is to say, of all its classic
works. This error is completely refuted in the Art of Verifying Dates. It was
also said that during his reign Gregory ordered the destruction or mutilation
of the statues and monuments which still existed in Rome, so that strangers who
from religious motives might visit Rome should not go to admire the triumphal
arches and other wonders of ancient Rome. Platina exclaims : "Away with
such calumny against so great a Roman pontiff, to whom, after God, his country
was dearer than life".
Platina further observed that
the mutilations were made by the Romans to build new palaces. These barbarians
tore away the ornaments and fixtures in order to get at some pal try bronze
nails, or the vases (ollae) which the ancient
architects had placed in circus walls to render them more sounding; and Platina
adds: "This was done by the Romans themselves, if we may give the name of
Romans to Epirotes, Dalmatians, Pannonians, and the scum and offscouring of the
whole world".
In regard to the statues,
Platina, in his fine Latinity, continues to justify Gregory, especially against
the charge of having caused the statues to be decapitated. "The statues
lie upon the ground, not only overthrown by time, but also because their bases
had been removed by those who were in quest of |