(a) Liber Pontificalis, Vita Gregorii II. Ed. Duchesne, I, 403.
Disorders in Italy consequent upon Iconoclasm.
The following passage from the Liber Pontificalis gives a vivid and, on the whole, accurate picture of the confusion in Italy during the last years of the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire in the peninsula. It is hardly likely that the Emperor ordered the death of the pontiff as recorded, and more probable that his over-officious representatives regarded it as a means of ingratiating themselves with their master. The passage is strictly contemporaneous, as the Liber Pontificalis, at least in this part, is composed of brief biographies of Popes written immediately after their decease and in some instances during their lives. For a fuller statement of the whole period, see Hefele, §§ 332 ff., who gives an abstract of the following and also of two letters alleged to have been written by Gregory II to the Emperor, which Hefele accepts as genuine. For a criticism of these letters, see Hodgkin, op. cit., VI, 501-505. Hodgkin gives an excellent account of King Liutprand in ch. XII of the same volume, pp. 437-508, and throws much light on the following passage.
For the events immediately preceding this, see Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Langobardorum, VI, 46-48, given above in [§ 106]. Paulus refers [pg 686] to the capture of Narnia in the last sentence of ch. 48. and his next chapter is apparently a condensation of the following sections of the official papal biography.
At that time [circa A. D. 725] Narnia[314] was taken by the Lombards. And Liutprand, the king of the Lombards, advanced upon Ravenna with his entire army, and besieged it for some days. Taking the fortress of Classis, he bore off many captives and immense booty. After some time the duke Basilius, the chartularius Jordanes, and the subdeacon John, surnamed Lurion, conspired to kill the Pope; and Marinus, the imperial spatarius, who at that time held the government of the duchy of Rome, having been sent by the command of the Emperor to the royal city, joined their conspiracy. But they could not find an opportunity. The plot was broken up by the judgment of God, and he therefore left Rome. Later Paulus, the patrician, was sent as exarch to Italy, who planned how at length he might accomplish the crime; but their plans were disclosed to the Romans, These were so enraged that they killed Jordanes and John Lurion. Basilius, however, became a monk and ended his life hidden in a certain place. But the exarch Paulus, on the command of the Emperor, tried to kill the pontiff because he hindered the levying of a tax upon the province, intending to strip the churches of their property, as was done in other places, and to appoint another [Pope] in his place. After this another spatarius was sent with commands to remove the pontiff from his seat. Then again the patrician Paulus sent, for the accomplishment of this crime, such soldiers as he could withdraw from Ravenna, with his guard and some from the camps. But the Romans were aroused, and from all sides the Lombards gathered for the defence of the pontiff at the bridge of Solario, in the district of Spoleto, and the dukes of the Lombards, surrounding the Roman territories, prevented this crime.
In a decree afterward sent, the Emperor ordered that there [pg 687] no longer should be in any church an image[315] of any saint, or martyr, or angel (for he said that all these were accursed); and if the pontiff assented he should enjoy his favor, but if he prevented the accomplishment of this also he should fall from his position. The pious man, despising therefore the profane command of the prince, armed himself against the Emperor as against an enemy, rejecting this heresy and writing everywhere to warn Christians of the impiety which had arisen.
Aroused by this, the inhabitants of the Pentapolis[316] and the armies of Venetia resisted the command of the Emperor, saying that they would never assent to the murder of the pontiff, but on the contrary would strive manfully for his defence. They anathematized the exarch Paulus, him who had sent him, and those who sided with him, refusing to obey them; and throughout Italy all chose leaders[317] for themselves, so eager were all concerning the pontiff and his safety. When the iniquities of the Emperor were known, all Italy started to choose for itself an emperor and conduct him to Constantinople, but the pontiff prevented this plan, hoping for the conversion of the prince.
Meanwhile, in those days, the duke Exhiliratus,[318] deceived by the instigation of the devil, with his son Adrian, occupied parts of Campania, persuading the people to obey the Emperor and kill the pontiff. Then all the Romans pursued after him, took him, and killed both him and his son. After this they chased away the duke Peter [governor of Rome under the Emperor], saying that he had written against the pontiff to the Emperor. When, therefore, a dissension arose in and about Ravenna, some consenting to the wickedness of the Emperor and some holding to the pontiff and those faithful to him, a great fight took place between them and they killed the patrician Paulus [exarch at that time]. And the cities of Castra Æmilia, Ferrorianus, Montebelli, Verabulum, with [pg 688] its towns, Buxo, Persiceta, the Pentapolis, and Auximanum, surrendered to the Lombards.[319] After this the Emperor sent to Naples Eutychius Fratricius, the eunuch, who had formerly been exarch, to accomplish what the exarch Paulus, the spatarii, and the other evil counsellors had been unable to do. But by God's ordering his miserable craft was not so hidden but that his most wicked plot was disclosed to all, that he would attempt to violate the churches of Christ, to destroy all, and to take away the property of all. When he had sent one of his own men to Rome with written instructions, among other things, that the pontiff should be killed, together with the chief men of Rome, this most bloody outrage was discovered, and the Romans would at once have killed the messenger of the patrician if the opposition of the Pope had not prevented them. But they anathematized the same exarch Eutychius, binding themselves, great and small, by an oath, never to permit the pontiff, the zealous guardian of the Christian faith and the defender of the churches, to be killed or removed, but to be ready all to die for his safety. Thereupon the patrician [Eutychius], promising many gifts to the dukes and to the king of the Lombards, attempted to persuade them by his messengers to abandon the support of the pontiff. But they despised the man's detestable wiles contained in his letters; and the Romans and the Lombards bound themselves as brothers in the bond of faith, all desiring to suffer a glorious death for the pontiff, and never to permit him to receive any harm, contending for the true faith and the salvation of Christians. While they were doing this that father chose, as a stronger protection, to distribute with his own hand such alms to the poor as he found; giving himself to prayers and fastings, he besought the Lord daily with litanies, and he remained always more supported by this hope than by men; however, he thanked the people for their offer, and with gentle [pg 689] words he besought all to serve God with good deeds and to remain steadfast in the faith; and he admonished them not to renounce their love and fidelity to the Roman Emperor.
At that time in the eleventh indiction,[320] the castle of Sutri was taken by the Lombards by craft, and was held by them for a period of forty days,[321] but urged by the constant letters of the pontiff and warnings sent to the king, when very many gifts had been made, as a gift at least for all the towns, the king of the Lombards restored them and gave them as a donation to the most blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. At the same time, in the twelfth indiction [A. D. 729], in the month of January, for ten days and more, a star, called Gold-bearing,[322] with rays, appeared in the west. Its rays were toward the north and reached to the midst of the heavens. At that time, also, the patrician Eutychius and King Liutprand made a most wicked agreement, that when an army had been gathered the king should subject Spoleto and Beneventum,[323] and the exarch of Rome, and they should carry out what was already commanded concerning the pontiff. When the king came to Spoleto, oaths and hostages were received from both [i.e., the dukes of Spoleto and Beneventum], and he came with all his troops to the Campus Neronis.[324] The pontiff went forth and presented himself before him and endeavored to the extent of his ability to soften the mind of the king by pious warnings, so that the king threw himself at his feet and promised to harm no one; and he was so moved to compunction by the pious warnings that he abandoned his undertaking and laid on the grave of the Apostle his mantle, his military cloak, his sword belt, his short two-edged sword, and his golden sword, as well as a golden crown and a silver cross. After prayer he besought the pontiff to consent to make peace with [pg 690] the exarch, which also was done. So he departed, for the king forsook the bad designs with which he had entered into the plot with the exarch. While the exarch remained in Rome, there came into Tuscany to Castrum Maturianense,[325] a certain deceiver, Tiberius by name, called also Petasius,[326] who attempted to usurp the rule of the Roman Empire and deceived some of the less important, so that Maturianum, Luna, and Blera [Bieda] took oath to him. The exarch, hearing of this, was troubled, but the most holy Pope supported him, and, sending with him his chief men and an army, he advanced and came to Castrum Maturianense. Petasius was killed, his head was cut off and sent to Constantinople, to the prince; nevertheless the Emperor showed no great favor to the Romans.
After these things the malice of the Emperor became evident, on account of which he had persecuted the pontiff. For he compelled all the inhabitants of Constantinople, by force and persuasion, to displace the images of the Saviour as well as of His holy mother, and of all saints, wherever they were, and (what is horrible to tell) to burn them in the fire in the middle of the city, and to whitewash all the painted churches. Because very many of the people of the city withstood the commission of such an enormity, they were subjected to punishment; some were beheaded, others lost a part of their body. For this reason also, because Germanus, the prelate of the church of Constantinople, was unwilling to consent to this, the Emperor deprived him of his pontifical position, and appointed in his place the presbyter Anastasius, an accomplice. Anastasius sent to the Pope a synodical letter, but when that holy man saw that he held the same error, he did not regard him as brother and fellow-priest, but wrote him warning letters, commanding him to be put out of his sacerdotal office unless he returned to the Catholic faith. He also charged the Emperor, urging wholesome advice, that he should desist from such execrable wickedness, and he warned him by letter.[327]