THE VATICAN
A bird's-eye view from the dome of St. Peter's.
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Not only was there this telling stroke by the imperial sword in 538, helping to clear the way before the Papacy, but at this same time the first of a new order of popes was placed upon the papal throne by the imperial arms. Pope Silverius, accused of sympathy with the Goths, was deposed by Belisarius in 537. The emperor intervened, and the question of the validity of his deposition was held up by the emperor until 538. In that year, as Schaff says:
"Vigilius, a pliant creature of Theodora, ascended the papal chair under the military protection of Belisarius (538-554)."—"History of the Christian Church," Vol. III, p. 327.
THE FAMOUS SACRED STAIRWAY IN ROME
Here Luther, climbing the stairway on his knees, heard the message, "The just shall live by faith."
With him begins a new order. Though personally he was humiliated by the emperor's demands, and the Papacy itself was brought into a state of subjection that it had not known even under heretical Gothic kings, yet this very arbitrary use of the papal prerogative by Justinian, strengthened the idea that the Pope of Rome was the supreme authority in religion, to speak for the universal church. In Bemont and Monod's textbook on "Medieval Europe," page 120, we read:
"Down to the sixth century all popes are declared saints in the martyrologies. Vigilius (537[E]-555) is the first of a series of popes who no longer bear this title, which is henceforth sparingly conferred. From this time on the popes, more and more involved in worldly events, no longer belong solely to the church; they are men of the state, and then rulers of the state."