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

by T. W. Allies

But the Pope had left behind him, and counselled in [pg 280] vain, an emperor bent on his own destruction. Justinian had conceived a furious hatred against the town of Cherson. He had sent a large fleet against it. Its chief men were taken away and cruelly tortured. The fleet itself was afterwards utterly wrecked by a tempest: upon which Justinian prepared another, under fresh commanders, who were instructed to inflict fresh cruelties. In the end the people of Cherson was driven into revolt. They proclaimed emperor Bardanes, one of the commanders of the fleet. Another officer, a chamberlain of Justinian, whom he had frightfully injured, and who expected to be killed by him, joined in the revolt. He was sent by Bardanes to seize Justinian, persuaded the soldiers to desert him, fell upon him, and, with his sword, cut off his head, which he sent at once to Bardanes, who forthwith despatched it by the same soldier to Rome. And thus the extinction of the race of Heraclius was signified to the West by the exposure of his head. His only son, Tiberius, a boy of ten, had already been slaughtered like a sheep.[154]

Thus it was that Pope Constantine, three months after his return to Rome, received tidings that Justinian was killed, and that Philippicus Bardanes had taken his place. In these days[155] theology had so penetrated every relation of life that every emperor, on his accession, was accustomed to send his profession of belief to the highest bishops of his empire. That of Philippicus [pg 281] unhappily signified to the Pope that he was a Monothelite. Thereupon Pope Constantine, in council, refused to accept his letter.

In fact, the Armenian officer who had at length put an end to the life and crimes of Justinian II., had no sooner obtained recognition as emperor, than he resolved to overthrow the Sixth Council, and establish the heresy which it had condemned. In the year and a-half, during which he reigned, he caused a council to meet at Constantinople. He deposed the patriarch Cyrus, who would not yield to his wishes: and put in his place the deacon, John, who was more submissive. This council, whose Acts were buried with the emperor, and whose numbers are not known, ordered the Monothelite heresy to be subscribed by all. Most of the bishops, with miserable cowardice, gave way to the will of the court. Among the number is said to have been even Germanus, then archbishop of Cyzicus, and afterwards, as patriarch of Constantinople, a firm defender of the faith. Only a few bishops, like Zeno of Sinope, resisted. The copy of the Acts of the Sixth Council, kept in the palace, was burnt. At Rome, the Pope's rejection of the new emperor's creed was taken up by the people with the utmost zeal. They would not receive his image in the church, nor bear the mention of his name in the Mass, nor tolerate his coin.

But, in eighteen months, his own profligate life caused him to be deposed. Two officers of high rank, one of them commanding the forces in the neighbouring provinces, determined to rid the empire of such a [pg 282] master. An emissary of theirs, entering on Whitsun eve suddenly by the golden gate, with a company of soldiers, gained admittance to the emperor's chamber, and carried him off unconscious from the effect of a drunken carouse on his birthday. They took him to the hippodrome, and there blinded him. On the next day, being Pentecost, the people were assembled in the great church, and Artemius, the first secretary, was crowned, and his name changed to Anastasius. On the following Saturday, he punished with blindness the two conspirators who had so treated his predecessor.[156]

Thus Rome and the East were suddenly delivered from a revolution which had fallen upon them with equal suddenness, a fresh domination of the Monothelite heresy. All acts done by the government of the fallen Philippicus were annulled, and the Sixth Council solemnly proclaimed afresh by clergy and people at Rome. There was great rejoicing at the fall of Philippicus, and the rise of Anastasius, who sent to the Pope a letter containing his orthodox belief.

It is to be noted also that the patriarch of Constantinople, John VI., who had been put into the place of Cyrus by Philippicus, had joined in the emperor's acts against the Sixth Council, and led the council which rejected it, now wrote to Pope Constantine to excuse himself for having yielded to force. He began the letter with these words:—[157]

“God, who has constructed the magnificence of visible [pg 283] things as a mark of His own Godhead and power, has specially in the formation of man, the most honoured of the sensible creation, shown His glory and wisdom, so that the prophet cried out, ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me’. Now, the Maker of our nature, designing the head to be over the whole body, placed in it the most important of our senses, and caused all the movement and perfection of the other limbs to spring from it, and be preserved in it. If one of these meet with loss or injury, it is not left without care, but the head shows a natural sympathy even to the extremest parts of the body, and heals the local suffering by the hand's ministry and the eye's guidance, the aid of which it does not refuse as useless. With this we can compare your own apostolical pre-eminence, counting you, according to the canons, as the head of the Christian priesthood.[158] And so with reason we ask of you to be released from the discouragement which has fallen on the body of the Church by the pestilent exercise of tyrannical power.”

The patriarch further beseeches the Pope to pardon his fault that under this stress he had rejected the doctrine of the Sixth Council, in the words: “Since you are the disciple and the successor of him who heard from the Lord, ‘Simon, Simon, behold Satan has sought to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and thou when thou art converted confirm thy brethren,’ you are a debtor to supply what is [pg 284] needed for the correction which confirms, and also to show a sympathetic kindness”.

Pope Constantine is the fifth and also the last Pope who paid a visit to Constantinople. As these visits cast an important light upon the condition during two hundred years under which, being acknowledged as successors of St. Peter, they exercised as subjects in the civil order their supreme authority in the Church, I think it belongs to the matter now treated to refer to the facts and results of each visit. Pope John I., who sat from 523 to 525, was a subject of King Theodorich, and was summoned by him to Ravenna. There he was compelled, much against his will, to go with three senators on an embassy to the emperor Justin I. Theodorich was most indignant that the emperor had required Arians in his empire to give back their churches to the Catholics. He threatened the Pope that if this treatment was not reversed he would drown Italy in blood.[159] So the Pope, being sick, went with the senators to Constantinople. On their arrival the whole city went out with wax lights and bannered crosses in honour of the blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, for the Greeks testified that from the time of Constantine and St. Silvester they had never merited to receive a successor of St. Peter. Then the emperor Justin, doing honour to God, threw himself to the ground upon his face and worshipped the most blessed Pope John. Pope John and the senators besought him with many tears to accept [pg 285] their legation. The emperor rejoiced that he had been found worthy to see in his kingdom a successor of St. Peter and was gloriously crowned by his hands.

When they returned with success to King Theodorich at Ravenna they found that he had imprisoned the two illustrious senators, Symmachus and Boethius; he put the Pope likewise in prison, and so the bishop of the first see suffered affliction in ward, and died of want. Ninety-eight days after his death in prison the heretical King Theodorich by the will of God suddenly died.