Otho the Great, who has been mentioned as emperor, turned out a young pope, John XII., who was charged with all sorts of bad conduct (A.D. 963); and that emperor's grandson, Otho III., put in two popes, one after another (A.D. 996, 999). The second of these popes was a very learned and clever Frenchman, named Gerbert, who as pope took the name of Sylvester II. He had studied under the Arabs in Spain (for in some kinds of learning the Arabs were then far beyond the Christians); and it was he who first taught Christians to use the Arabic figures (such as 1, 2, and 3) instead of the Roman letters or figures (such as I., II., and III.). He also made a famous clock; and on account of his skill in such things people supposed him to be a sorcerer, and told strange stories about him. Thus it is said that he made a brazen head, which answered "Yes" and "No" to questions. Gerbert asked his head where he should die, and supposed from the answer that it was to be in the city of Jerusalem. But one day as he was at service in one of the Roman churches which is called "Holy Cross in Jerusalem," he was taken very ill; and then he understood that that church was the Jerusalem in which he was to die. We need not believe such stories; but yet it is well to know about them, because they show what people were disposed to believe in the time when the stories were made.
The troubles of the papacy continued, and at one time there were no fewer than three popes, each of whom had one of the three chief churches of Rome, and gave himself out for the only true pope. But this state of things was such a scandal that the emperor, Henry III., was invited from Germany to put an end to it, and for this purpose he held a council at Sutri, not far from Rome, in 1046. Two of the popes were set aside, and the third, Gregory VI., who was the best of the three, was drawn to confess that he had given money to get his office, because he wished to use the power of the papacy to bring about some kind of reform. But on this he was told that he had been guilty of simony—a sin which takes its name from Simon the sorcerer, in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. viii.), and which means the buying of spiritual things with money. This had never struck Gregory before; but when told of it by the council he had no choice but to lay aside his papal robes, and the emperor put one of his own German bishops into the papacy.
CHAPTER VII.
MISSIONS OF THE NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES.
It will be pleasanter to tell you something about the missions of those times; for a great deal of missionary work was then carried on.
(1.) The Bulgarians, who had come from Asia in the end of the seventh century, and had settled in the country which still takes its name from them, were converted by missionaries of the Greek Church. It is said that, when some beginning of the work had been made, and the king himself had been baptized by the patriarch of Constantinople (A.D. 861), the king asked the Greek emperor to send him a painter to adorn the walls of his palace; and that a monk named Methodius was sent accordingly, for in those times monks were the only persons who practised such arts as painting. The king desired him to paint a hall in the palace with subjects of a terrible kind, by which he meant that the pictures should be taken from the perils of hunting. But, instead of such subjects, Methodius painted the last judgment, as being the most terrible of all things; and the king, on seeing the picture of hell with its torments, and being told that such would be the future place of the heathen, was so terrified that he gave up the idols which he had kept until then, and that many of his subjects were also moved to seek admission into the Church.
Although the conversion of Bulgaria had been the work of Greek missionaries, the popes afterwards sent some of their clergy into the country, and claimed it as belonging to them; and this was one of the chief causes why the Greek and the Latin churches separated from each other, so that they have never since been really reconciled.
(2.) It is not certain whether the painter Methodius was the same with a monk of that name, who, with his brother, named Cyril, brought about the conversion of Moravia (A.D. 863). These missionaries went about their work in a different way from what was common; for it had been usual for the Greek clergy to use the Greek language, and for the Western clergy to use the Latin, in their church-service and in other things relating to religion; but instead of this, Cyril and Methodius learnt the language of the country, and translated the church-services, with parts of the holy Scriptures, into it, so that all might be understood by the natives. In Moravia, too, there was a quarrel between the Greek and the Latin clergy; but, although the popes usually insisted that the services of the Church should be either in Latin or in Greek (because these were two of the languages which were written over the Saviour's cross), they were so much pleased with the success of Cyril and Methodius, that they allowed the service of the Moravian Church to be still in the language of the country.
(3.) Soon after the conversion of the Moravians, the duke of Bohemia paid a visit to their king, Swatopluk, who received him with great honour, but at dinner set him and his followers to sit on the floor, as being heathens. Methodius, who was at the king's table, spoke to the duke, and said that he was sorry to see so great a prince obliged to feed as if he were a swineherd. "What should I gain by becoming a Christian?" he replied; and when Methodius told him that the change would raise him above all kings and princes, he and his thirty followers were baptized.