After the martyrdom of St. Fabian, in January, A.D. 250, the Holy See remained vacant for a year and a half, until in the month of June, 251, Cornelius was raised to that post of perilous dignity under a tyrant like Decius, who had declared that he would sooner see a new pretender to the empire than another bishop of Rome. This election, although made almost unanimously by all orders, gave rise to the first schism, because Novatian, who headed the rigorous party in the affair of the Lapsi, was consecrated bishop and set himself up as anti-pope. We have an invaluable testimony to the election of St. Cornelius from the pen of St. Cyprian: Factus est autem Cornelius episcopus de Dei et Christi ejus judicio, de clericorum pæne omnium testimonio, de plebis, quæ tunc adfuit, suffragio et de sacerdotum antiquorum et bonorum virorum collegio, cum nemo ante se factus esset, cum Fabiani locus id est cum locus Petri et gradus cathedræ sacerdotalis vacaret.[[122]] From this passage of the great Bishop of Carthage we can obtain, says Baronius,[[123]] a tolerably good idea of a papal election in the early ages. Prayers were first offered up to God to obtain his assistance in making a choice; the desire of the faithful, or rather of their representatives, and such testimony to the worth of the subjects proposed as they were prepared to give was heard; the wish of the Roman clergy, and their willing assent to the proceedings, were inquired into and sought; and after maturely weighing the for and against, the bishops of the vicinity, with any others in communion with the Holy See who happened to be in Rome at the time, went into executive session and gave the decisive votes—in commitiis suffragia ferebant. With regard to those among the laity who took part in these elections, we must observe that in the beginning, as long as the majority of Christians was composed of persons who had embraced the faith from pure and unworldly motives, whose aim was to behold the church prosperous and glorious, and whose charity, being yet warm, sought not their own end but that which is another’s,[[124]] the whole body of Christians who had reached mature years and belonged to that sex which alone had a voice in the church[[125]] gave their testimony and assent in favor of that one whom it was proposed to elect;[[126]] but the evils of anything like a popular election in a great city were so manifest[[127]] that attempts were soon made to leave the choice of such on the part both of clergy and laity—but earlier in the case of the latter order—to a select body or committee, a general suffrage being gradually superseded by the votes of approval given by the rich only and the high in station.
We find, perhaps, a germ of this even in the earliest times.[[128]] The Council of Laodicea (A.D. 365) clearly desired that the choice should be made by some definitely-organized body, and not by a mere mass-meeting; St. Leo and the Roman council of A.D. 442, and again the former in Epist. lxxxix.cvi., expressly mention the “Honorati,” the magnates at such elections.[[129]] The influence of the principal personages in a city was not to be ignored through the clamor of those who too often formed only a mob.[[130]] A letter of Pope Cornelius to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, has fortunately been preserved by Eusebius,[[131]] which gives us the exact number of the Roman clergy of every grade, and a clue[[132]] to what may have been the Christian population of Rome, in the middle of the third century. According to these precious statistics, there were then belonging to the Roman clergy 46 priests, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists, readers, and ostiarii. Fifteen hundred widows and orphans were provided for by the church, whose children composed an immense population in the capital of the empire. Hence we may rest assured that deliberations for the election of the Roman pontiff could not have been open to all of either clergy or laity, but must necessarily, in the interests of good order, and by reason of the small size of places of public meetings then possessed by the Christians, have been confined to a select number.
The ancient records of the Roman Church reaching back to the beginning of the early middle ages, which have been published by Mabillon and Galletti, show us its clergy divided into three distinct classes—viz., priests, dignitaries, and inferior ministers. The priests were the seven cardinal suburbican bishops and the twenty-eight cardinal-priests; the dignitaries were the archdeacon and the seven palatine judges (prothonotaries-apostolic); the inferior ministers were the subdeacons, acolytes, and notaries without office at court. The laity was likewise divided into three classes—viz., citizens, soldiers, and commoners; i.e., the nobility, the army, and the Third Estate.[[133]]
After the death of Pope Zozimus, on the 26th of December, 418, a majority of the clergy and people elected the cardinal-priest Boniface to succeed him. A serious dispute immediately arose. Eulalius, the archdeacon, who, as such, had been practically the most important personage of the Holy See after the pontiff himself, and felt indignant at having been passed over in the election, held possession of the Lateran Palace, where he was chosen pope by a few of the clergy, to whose faction, however, all the deacons and three bishops belonged.[[134]] The fear of future contests suggested to Pope Boniface I., who is described by Anastasius as unambitious, of mild character; and devoted to good works, to obtain from the Emperor Honorius, in the year 420, a rescript by which it was decreed that, in the contingency of a double election, neither rival should be pope, but that the clergy and people should proceed to another choice. The decree was almost textually inserted in the canon law.[[135]] This difference between St. Boniface and Eulalius, or rather the latter’s schism, gave occasion to the first interference of the secular arm in the election of the Roman pontiffs. St. Hilary, who was elected in the year 461, convened a council of forty-eight bishops at Rome, and, among other provisions for filling worthily the Holy See, declared that no pope should ever appoint his own successor. Despite this recent enactment, Boniface II.—in whose favor, however, it must be said that he sought to preclude, as even a greater evil than a passing violation of the canons, the threatened interference of the Gothic king, who wanted to put a partisan on the papal throne—called a council at St. Peter’s in the year 531, and there designated the celebrated deacon Vigilius as his coadjutor with future succession. Subsequently, repenting his action, he called another council, and with his own hand burned the paper appointing him.[[136]]
Although the actual naming of his successor by the pope has never been tolerated, there have been several, and some very opportune, cases in which a pope on the point of death has recommended a particular person, more or less efficaciously, to the body of electors as one well fitted to succeed to the vacant throne. This was done by St. Gregory VII., who proposed three candidates to the cardinals—namely, Desiderius, Cardinal-Abbot of Monte Casino; Otho, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia; and Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons—and particularly recommended the election of the first as the only one of the three who was in Italy at the time. Desiderius became Pope Victor III. Other similar, but not always equally successful, recommendations were made by popes of that era. In order finally to put the strongest official check upon the election of his own successor by a pope, Pius IV., after exposing in consistory his age and infirmities, reminded the cardinals that he was well aware how under his predecessor, Paul IV., the question was mooted whether this could be done, and that some theologians and cardinals held to the affirmative,[[137]] but that he would pronounce in the negative, and intended to issue a bull—as in fact he did, on the 22d of September, 1561[[138]]—declaring that no pope could do so, even with the consent of the Sacred College. His immediate predecessor had reaffirmed in 1558 an ordinance increasing the penalties of its violation, which had originally been passed over a thousand years before by Pope Symmachus in a council of seventy-two bishops convened at Rome in the year 499, forbidding, under pain of excommunication and loss of all dignities, to treat of a successor during the lifetime of the reigning pontiff.[[139]] From this we learn how some of the best and greatest popes have tried to frame such wise provisions as might assure an untainted election to the Papacy; yet they could not succeed in every case, because even the most stringent laws must be well executed to be effective, and must find docile subjects to obey them. The Romans do certainly appear to have been a stiff-necked people during many generations; and while we think it ungenerous continually to throw in their teeth the wretched opinion St. Bernard must have had of them, as we see by his treatise De Consideratione, addressed to Pope Eugene III., and hardly fair in the annalist Muratori to transfer so much of the blame for factious elections from the German emperors to the Roman populace, the least that even their best friend can honestly say is that they might have done better.[[140]]
The election of the pope, says Cardinal Borgia,[[141]] was perfectly free during the first four centuries, being made by the clergy in presence of the people; but in process of time, as the papal dignity increased in wealth and splendor of temporal authority, it often became an object of human ambition, of which secular rulers were not slow to avail themselves, that by iniquitous bargains and preconcerted plans they might bind, if possible, the priesthood to the empire, and derive the immense advantage of the spiritual power administered by a subject or a dependant. The first instance of direct interference by the state in a papal election—for the decision in the case of Boniface and the anti-pope was an arbitration invited by the church—appears towards the close of the fifth century. Odoacer, a Gothic chief of the tribe of the Heruli, having deposed Romulus Augustulus, in whom the Western Empire came to an end, was proclaimed King of Italy, rejecting the imperial style of Cæsar and Augustus for a title which he expressly created for himself. It would seem—although even this is not beyond dispute—that Pope Simplicius had requested Odoacer, in whom the powers of the state were now vested, to stand ready, in the common interests of order and good government, to repress the civil commotions which he foresaw were likely to arise after his death on the election of a successor. However this may be, the king went beyond a merely repressive measure, and, pretending that Simplicius had commissioned him to do so, published an edict on the pope’s death in 483, forbidding the clergy and people of Rome to elect a successor without his intervention or that of his lieutenant, the prefect of the prætorium. When, therefore, the elective assembly met in St. Peter’s to fill the vacant see, Basil the patrician came forward and claimed in his master’s name, and by virtue of the dying wish and even command of Simplicius, the right of regulating its acts and of confirming the election it might make. This pretension was firmly repelled, and, disregarding the tyrant, Felix III. was elected on March 8, 483. Baronius is of opinion that Simplicius never addressed such a requisition to the king, but that the story of his having done so was fabricated a few years later by the party of Lawrence, the anti-pope. The document purporting to emanate from Simplicius was rejected by a Roman council in 502 without further investigating its genuineness, than by exposing that it lacked the pope’s signature, and was in any case opposed to the sacred canons and ipso facto null and void.[[142]] On November 22, 498, St. Symmachus was elected pope, but a minority set up a certain Lawrence, and both were consecrated on the same day. Civil strife was imminent, and, although the most regular mode of action would have been to call a council of the provincial bishops, delay was too dangerous, and the prompt interference of Theodoric was asked and submitted to.
Although this monarch was an Arian, he had protected the Catholics on many occasions, and had for prime minister the celebrated Cassiodorus, whose virtues, justice, and wisdom were renowned throughout Italy. Such considerations as these must have led the Roman clergy to submit a purely ecclesiastical matter to the court of Ravenna. On the advice of his minister the king decided that the one who had been first elected and had received the greatest number of votes should be recognized as the legitimate pope. Both conditions were verified in Symmachus. His first pontifical act was to summon a council in the basilica of St. Peter on March 1, 499, to regulate more effectively the mode of future elections. Seventy-two bishops, sixty-seven priests, and five deacons composed the council. Three canons were drawn up relative to this matter. By the first it was ordained that if any clergyman be convicted of having given or promised his suffrage for the pontificate to any aspirant during the pope’s lifetime he shall be deposed from his office; by the second it was provided that if the pope die suddenly, and a unanimous election cannot be reached, the candidate receiving a majority of the votes shall be declared elected; by the third immunity from prosecution was promised to accomplices who should reveal the intrigues of their principals to obtain an unfair election.[[143]]
Theodoric the Goth, having once been appealed to, now thought to take the initiative in the election of a successor to John I., whom he had left to die of starvation and neglect on his return from Constantinople, where he had spoken rather according to his conscience than in favor of the Arians, as the king expected. On his recommendation St. Felix IV. was elected pope on the 12th of July, 526. The Roman clergy and senate protested against this stretch of royal authority, although they had no objection to the nominee, who was simple, mild, and charitable. The affair was not adjusted until a compromise was effected under Athalaric, whereby the Roman clergy by their votes, and the Roman people by their assent, were to elect the Roman pontiff, who would then be confirmed by the king as a matter of course. The popes were elected in this way until the extinction of the Gothic kingdom of Italy in the person of Teias, who was defeated and killed by Narses, general of Justinian, in the year 553. The Greek emperor, having recovered his sway in Italy, continued the abuse, to which the Romans had submitted only through fear of the barbarians, and arrogated to himself and successors the right of confirming the election of the pope. Hence, as Baronius remarks, arose the prudent custom at Rome of electing to the Papacy those members of the clergy who had been Apocrisiarii—i.e., agents or nuncios of the Holy See at Constantinople, where it was presumed they had won the favor of the court and become versed in matters of state. Thus the right of confirmation was reduced in practice to a mere formality, although in principle ever so wrong. In this way were elected Vigilius in 550, St. Gregory I. in 590, Sabinian in 604, Boniface III. in 607, and others who were personally known to the Byzantine rulers.
Avarice, or a love of money under some pretext or another, was a besetting sin of the Greeks, and from it arose a new and more degrading condition imposed on papal elections. The imperial sanction was given only on payment by the Holy See of a tax of 3,000 golden solidi, a sum equal to thirteen thousand dollars of our money.[[144]] The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, at the request of the papal legates to the Fourth General Council of Constantinople in 681, exempted the Holy See from the further payment of the tax. He was moved to do so by the sanctity of St. Agatho; but he still retained the assumed right of forbidding the pope’s consecration until his election had been confirmed. A few years later, however, he granted a constitution to Benedict II., his personal friend, and to whose guardianship he left his two sons, Justinian (II.) and Heraclius, in which he for ever abrogated this arbitrary law. The concession was ungratefully revoked by Justinian; and Conon, who was elected on October 21, 686, was obliged to ask the consent of the exarch of Ravenna, viceroy of the emperor, to his consecration. This necessity generally occasioned a delay of from six weeks to two months. The exarchs of Ravenna, having command of the troops and the key to the imperial treasury in the west, felt themselves in a position to abuse authority and try to set up creatures of their own in Rome. Often did the Roman clergy and many popes protest against their irregular acts. The choice of Pelagius II., in 578, was not submitted to the customary ratification, because the Lombards around Rome had cut off all communication with the outer world.
The historian Novaes says that although the Holy See resisted the interference of secular princes, yet the turbulent spirit of the Romans, often stirred up by unscrupulous ministers or by the sovereigns themselves, obliged the popes to have recourse to these same princes to maintain order at their consecration. Nothing, we think, better confirms the necessity of a temporal dominion whereby the popes can exclude the exercise of foreign influence in Rome, and themselves vindicate the character of good government for which they are responsible. Papal elections were of an absolutely peaceful nature only after Goths, Lombards, Greeks, and Germans ceased to support an armed force in Rome or its vicinity. Guarantees are deceitful; and a mere personal sovereignty of the pope without a territory attached would be insufficient to assure the independence of the Holy See.