But the emperor, Constantine III., died 103 days after his father, poisoned, as eastern historians say, by his step-mother, the empress Martina: with which crime they also inculpate the patriarch Pyrrhus. She then reigned with her son, Heracleonas; but not for long. An insurrection deposed her: both she and Heracleonas were maimed and banished, and Constans II., son of Constantine III., and grandson of Heraclius, at twelve years old became emperor, under tutelage of the council. The answer given to the letter of Pope John IV. was that the Ecthesis affixed to the door of churches should be removed.
But the empire was torn to pieces by the strife of the various heresies contending for mastery. The patriarch Pyrrhus, who had succeeded Sergius in the see of Constantinople, and in the patronage of his heresy, found it expedient on the deposition of Martina to leave his see. He appeared in Africa, and had a great controversy with Maximus in the presence of the African episcopate in 645. He acknowledged himself to be defeated: and went to Pope Theodorus at Rome, where he renounced the Monothelite heresy, and was received by the Pope [pg 157] as bishop of the capital. But he returned presently, at the instance of the exarch of Ravenna, to the errors which he had renounced.
In due time the emperor, Constans II., produced the Typus to take the place of his grandfather's Ecthesis. And, when Pope St. Martin held his great Council at Rome in 649, Constans burst into fury, and, as above recorded, afterwards caused the Pope to be kidnapped, to be tried at Constantinople, and to be condemned for high treason; finally, to perish of want in the Crimea.
With Pope St. Martin, Maximus had been the great defender of the faith. It is time to give some record of his life, his labours, and his reward.
Maximus sprung about the year 580 at Constantinople from an old and noble family. There were few of rank superior to his relations. He had great abilities, received an excellent education, and became one of the most learned men in his time, and the ablest theologian. The emperor Heraclius drew him against his wishes to the court, and made him one of his chief secretaries. But, in the year 630, his love for solitude, as well as his observance of the wrong bias which the mind of Heraclius was taking, led him to withdraw from court. He resigned the brilliant position which he occupied, became a monk in the monastery of Chrysopolis, that is, Scutari, and, on the death of its abbot, was chosen unanimously to succeed him. Henceforth to the end of his life, at the age of eighty-two, he became, by word and deed, a champion of the Catholic faith against the Monothelite heresy. In 633, he went with Sophronius, [pg 158] then a simple monk, to Alexandria, and joined him in entreating the patriarch, Cyrus, to desist from promulgating the new heresy. Against this, Sophronius, having become patriarch of Jerusalem, published his synodical letter quoted above. Maximus went on to the west, visiting Rome and Carthage, and rousing the African bishops against the heresy. He showed his great dialectical skill in a contest with Pyrrhus, then the deposed successor of the patriarch Sergius. Pyrrhus even accompanied him to Rome, and renounced the heresy before Pope Theodorus.
Maximus continued at Rome to use all his efforts against the heresy, and counselled Pope Martin to call the Lateran Synod, and formally condemn it. As the Ecthesis of Sergius had been composed against Sophronius, and then the Typus—drawn up by the patriarch Paul, and imposed by the will of the emperor Constans II.—had been substituted for it at Constantinople, the Council of the Lateran which in 649 condemned both, excited the bitterest wrath of the emperor. Three men had especially in his mind counter-worked all his endeavours to impose his will as the standard of faith upon the Romans and the bishops. These three men were Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, who had died shortly after the surrender of his city to Omar, Pope Martin, and the Abbot Maximus. How he avenged himself on the Pope St. Martin has been already described.
About the same time at which the Pope was carried off to Byzantium, in 653, Maximus also was seized, with [pg 159] his two disciples, both named Anastasius, one a monk, the other a Roman priest, who had been a nuncio. They were carried also to Byzantium, and thrown into prison. After the Pope had been judged by the senate, and condemned to death for high treason, Maximus and his disciples were also brought to trial.
Maximus had distinguished himself by a great number of writings. He is considered the greatest theologian of the seventh century. He has kept a very high rank through all the centuries which have followed him. After the death of Sophronius, the intellectual combat against the Monothelite heresy rested mainly upon him. The very high rank which he had held as a minister of Heraclius, conjoined with his scientific defence of the truth, made him the most conspicuous person in the Church after the martyrdom of Pope Martin, whose friend, counsellor, and supporter he had been, and his unbending constancy under the severest tortures has given him among the Greeks the name of “the Confessor.”
Part of a letter[77] is extant from him to a certain Peter, a man of high rank, who had entreated him to meet and resist the patriarch Pyrrhus in the African conference. With regard to him Maximus says: “if Pyrrhus will neither be heretical, nor be so-called, let him not satisfy this or that individual. That is superfluous and unreasonable; for just as when one is scandalised in him all are scandalised, so when one is satisfied all surely [pg 160] will be satisfied. Let him then hasten to satisfy before all the Roman See. When this is satisfied all men everywhere will accept his religion and orthodoxy. In vain he speaks who would gain me and suchlike as me: and does not satisfy and implore the most blessed Pope of the holy Roman Church, that is, the Apostolic See, which has received and holds the government, the authority, and the power of binding and loosing over all the holy Churches of God in the whole earth in all persons and matters from the Incarnate Word of God Himself, and likewise from all holy Councils according to the sacred canons. For with him the Word who rules the celestial virtues, binds and looses in heaven. For if he thinks that others must be satisfied, and does not implore the most Blessed Pope of Rome, he is like the man who is accused of homicide, or any other crime, and maintains his innocence not to him who by law is appointed to judge him, but without any use or gain strives to clear himself to other private men who have no power to absolve him.”
Yet more remarkable, if possible, is another testimony which this great martyr, born and bred at Constantinople, and up to the age of fifty a minister of the eastern emperor, who bears the greatest name among the theologians of the seventh century, has left behind him. It was apparently written at Rome after the completion of the Lateran Council in 649, which he mentions in it, and numbers with the five preceding ecumenical Councils. It runs thus:—