Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III

by T. W. Allies

But Pope Sergius also received a special messenger from his lord Justinian II. He had sent the canons of the eastern Council of 692, held in his palace, to the Pope, requesting him to sign them on the line left vacant between his own signature and that of his patriarch. The Greeks were above all things anxious to obtain their acceptance by the Pope. This was refused by Pope Sergius, who forbade the acts of the Council to be published. Upon this the emperor sent a high officer to Rome, who carried off to Constantinople John, bishop of Porto, and Boniface, counsellor of the apostolic see. But he did not stop with this. He sent likewise the captain of his guards, Zacharias, with orders to seize the Pope and deport him to Constantinople.[148] But by the mercy of God, and help of Peter, prince of the apostles, [pg 273] who guarded his own Church, the heart of the army of Ravenna, and also of the duchy of Pentapolis (that is the five cities, Ancona, Umana, Pesaro, Fano, and Rimini), was moved not to allow the Pontiff of the Apostolic See to go up to the royal city. And when the soldiers had assembled in a multitude from all sides, Zacharias the guardsman, in fear and trepidation lest he should be killed by the angry crowd, besought the Pope that the gates might be closed, but he himself took refuge with the Pope, and besought him with tears, that he would take pity on him and not suffer him to be killed. Now the army of Ravenna had entered by St. Peter's gate, and reached the Lateran palace in its ardour to catch sight of the Pope, who was said to have been taken away in the night, and put in a vessel. The gates of the palace, both upper and lower, had been shut. They threatened to tear them down unless they were opened. The guardsman Zacharias, in his extreme terror and despair, had crept under the Pope's bed. He had lost his senses, but the Pope comforted him, and came out and seated himself on the basilic of St. Sebastian, in the seat called “under the apostles,” where with mild words he turned away the wrath of the soldiers and people, but they would not leave the palace until with mocks and gibes they had turned the guardsman out of Rome.

So after forty years Justinian II. had repeated the worst deed of his grandfather Constans. Had Pope Sergius been taken to Constantinople the same lot awaited him there as had befallen his martyred predecessor [pg 274] Pope Martin. Yet in the interval the emperor's own father had acknowledged in the amplest terms the authority of St. Peter's successor. But the people of Rome as well as the emperor's own army at Ravenna and in central Italy had learnt rather to defend the Pope than to yield to an unjust outrage.

Justinian, at this time beaten in the field by Saracens and Bulgarians, was anxious to improve the beauty of his palace, by constructing a magnificent fountain and esplanade, from which he could better view the party of the Blues which he favoured. Now a church stood in the way of this enlargement, and he called upon Callinicus, who had succeeded Paul as patriarch in 693, to use the prayers customary when a church was pulled down. The patriarch replied that he had prayers for the building of churches, but none for their demolition. The emperor insisted, and Callinicus so far yielded as to use the prayer, “Glory be to God, now and for ever more, who allows and endures even this”. After which the church was pulled down.

Three years afterwards the tyranny of Justinian met with its reward. He had prepared a massacre, in which also the patriarch would have been included. The patrician Leontius, a general of merit, had been imprisoned for some years. He was set free and ordered to Greece. On his way he lamented his fate to some friends. They advised him to rise against the emperor. He presented himself at the prætorium, gained admission in the emperor's name, overpowered the officer in command, set free the prisoners under his charge, some of [pg 275] the best men in the city who had been confined there for six or even eight years. Leontius then with his friends marched through the streets, inviting all Christians to Sancta Sophia. He went to the patriarch who knew that he was involved in the sentence of death intended by Justinian. The patriarch accompanied Leontius to the baptistery where a great multitude had assembled and uttered these words: “This is the day which the Lord has made”. It became the signal for a general insurrection. The people rushed to the hippodrome. Thither in the morning Justinian was brought. His nose and tongue were both maimed, and he was banished to the Crimea. And Leontius reigned in his stead.

But Leontius was not fortunate in war. He had dethroned by this sudden revolution the fifth sovereign in the line of Heraclius. In three years an army which dreaded punishment because it had not saved Carthage from the Saracens rebelled against him; he was deposed by another officer, Apsimar or Tiberius II., who lasted seven years from 698 to 705. At that time the banished and maimed Justinian was enabled by help of the Bulgarians to recover possession of Constantinople.[149] Then began the time of vengeance not only on the two usurpers, as he deemed them, who had sat between them ten years on his throne, but on all who had supported them. Leontius and Apsimar were carried in chains through all the streets. Then, as the games in the circus were proceeding and the people crowding to them, [pg 276] they were thrown prostrate before the emperor who was seen seated with a foot on the neck of each, while the crowd as they went by shouted, “Thou hast trodden upon the asp and the basilisk, and trampled on the lion and the dragon”. When the games were over Justinian removed his foot from the necks of his fallen rivals, and dismissed them to be beheaded. The patriarch Callinicus he deprived of sight, and banished to Rome, and put in his stead Cyrus, a monk, who had foretold his restoration. He slew a vast multitude of civilians and soldiers. He tied men up in sacks, and threw them into the sea. He invited men to a great banquet, and as they rose from it had them hung or beheaded. In the meantime, while these events took place at Constantinople, Pope Sergius had closed in honour his pontificate of thirteen years and eight months, in September, 701. The native soldiers of Italy had defended him against the attempt of Justinian, and during all his pontificate he refused to recognise the Trullan canons. He was succeeded in less than two months by another Greek, Pope John VI. At the time Tiberius Apsimar was emperor, having dethroned Leontius. He ordered his exarch Theophylact to proceed to Rome. He was supposed to come with a bad intent against the Pope. Italian troops from the provinces flocked to Rome, and the city also rose against him. The Pope again, as in the time of Pope Sergius, ordered the gates to be closed; induced the Italians to retire from Rome, and saved the exarch. Without troops himself he possessed a greater influence over the Italians than the [pg 277] exarch. This Pope also induced the Lombard Duke of Beneventum to retire from an attack on Campania, in which he had done much harm. Pope John from the treasury of the Church redeemed his captives. We hear nothing of the exarch giving help either to defend or to ransom the emperor's subjects.

After little more than three years John VI. was succeeded by another Greek, John VII. He was consecrated in March, 705. In the autumn of that year Justinian II. regained his throne. He sent at once two Metropolitans to Rome, to urge the Pope to accept the Trullan canons. The Pope returned the canons in silence. He did not accept the Council of 692 any more than his predecessors. He died in 707, and was followed by Sisinnius, a Syrian, who sat but 20 days, and his successor Constantine, also a Syrian, was consecrated in March, 708, the seventh Pope in succession who came from Syria or the Greek empire.

In the year 709, Justinian II. wreaked his vengeance on Ravenna, stored up during the ten years of his banishment, whether it was that their opposition with that of Pope Sergius had rankled in his mind, or that they had rejoiced at his fall, or, at any rate, that they had not been faithful to him. Now, at length, he sent the patrician Theodore, who commanded the army in Sicily, with a fleet against them. The chief people of the city, including the archbishop Felix, were enticed by the general to his ship, where they were received by twos in his tent. They were then seized, gagged, and put into confinement below. The Greeks landed, burned [pg 278] and plundered the city, and killed many. The chief captives were carried to Byzantium, and brought before the emperor, who sat on a throne studded with emeralds, and wore a diadem of pearls embroidered with gold. As soon as he saw them, he ordered them to execution, contenting himself with only blinding archbishop Felix, and banishing him to Pontus.[150]

Intense was the hatred of Byzantium kindled in Italy by such deeds.[151] It was at this time that Justinian II., by an imperial letter, summoned Pope Constantine to his capital. The Pope obeyed the command, and set sail from Porto on the 10th October, 710, accompanied by a considerable attendance. After he had left Rome, the exarch, John Rhizocapus, came, in the emperor's name, to Rome, and put to death four of the chief officers of the papal court, and “going to Ravenna, there for his most foul misdeeds perished by a most ignominious death”.

Pope Constantine passed by Naples and Sicily, and wintered at Otranto. Here he received an imperial order, requiring the magistrates to treat him wherever he went with the same honour as the emperor himself. When he reached Constantinople, the young son of the emperor, the highest nobility, the patriarch Cyrus, with the clergy, and a great multitude, came out seven miles to meet him. The Pope, wearing the dress which he wore at Rome in great ceremonies, entered the city with his train, riding the imperial horses richly caparisoned. [pg 279] They were taken in triumph first to the royal palace, and then to the Pope's own abode at the Placidia palace. Justinian, being at Nicæa, sent him a letter full of thanks, and begged the Pope to meet him at Nicomedia. When they met, the emperor, wearing his crown, threw himself at the Pope's feet, and kissed them. They then embraced to the great joy of the people.

It appears that the Deacon Gregory,[152] the next successor of Pope Constantine, was attending on him, and that he answered with great ability certain questions put by the emperor. They are supposed to have referred to the Trullan canons. They were not confirmed. The later practice[153] of the Roman Church, with regard to these canons, continued to be to suffer those only to hold, which were not contrary to the decrees of the Popes and the western discipline. On the Sunday, the Pope celebrated Mass before the emperor, who received Communion from him; besought him to pray that his sins might be forgiven, renewed all the privileges of the Roman Church, and left the Pope free, to return home. That return was delayed by the frequent sicknesses of the Pope. At length, however, he reached Gaeta in safety, where a great number of clergy and of the Roman people met him, and he entered Rome in joy in October, 711.