The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations Part 8

Nor must it be forgotten that it was the constancy of the Popes in these sixty years which alone prevented the prevailing of Eutychean doctrine in the East. Blent with that doctrine was the attempt of three emperors to subst.i.tute themselves as judges of doctrine for the Apostolic See and the bishops in union with it. At the moment when John Talaia[113] was expelled from Alexandria, the Monophysite heresy, espoused by Acacius and imposed by Zeno, would have triumphed, save for the Popes Simplicius and Felix. And it would have triumphed while the instrument of its triumph, the Henotikon, would have inflicted a deadly blow upon the government of the Church by taking away the independence of her teaching office. This struggle continued during the reign of Zeno; and Anastasius, as soon as he became emperor, used all the absolute power which he possessed to enforce the reception of the same doc.u.ment. Even Euphemius and Macedonius were obliged to sign it, and the sacrifice which they made in suffering deposition does not deliver their character of bishops from the stain of this weakness. We see in this period the first stadium traversed by the Greek Church in that descending course which, in another century, brought it to the ruin wrought by Mahomet.

On the other hand, the seven Popes kept the position of St. Leo--rather, they more than kept it, because, under outward circ.u.mstances so greatly altered for the worse, they both maintained his doctrine and justified his conduct. They insisted through the darkest times, under pressure of the greatest calamities, deprived of all temporal aid, that the person of Acacius should be solemnly removed from recognition as a bishop by the Church. They insisted, and it was done. The act of Acacius, if allowed to pa.s.s, would have carried into actual life the a.s.sertion of the canon which St. Leo had rejected: that the privileges of the Roman See were derived from the grant of the Fathers to Rome because it was the capital. The expunging of his name from the diptychs, with the solemn a.s.severation that the rank of the Holy See was derived from the gift of Christ, and that the Church's solidity as a fabric consisted in it, and equally the maintenance of the Catholic religion, established the contradictory of that 28th canon, and enforced for ever the subordination of the see which Acacius sought to exalt. At the same time it pointed out the distinction between the See of Peter and all other sees: the distinction that in the case of every other bishop the spiritual life of the bishop, as a ruler, is local and attached to his see. But the See of Peter is the generator of the episcopate, because of Peter ever living in his successor.

It may also be remarked that it is this overflowing life of Peter which invests t.i.tular bishops with the names of dead sees. Thus they sit as members of a General Council, verifying to the letter St. Cyprian's adage, that the episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each without division of the whole.

The submission of Constantinople in its bishop, its clergy, its emperor, its n.o.bles, attested by the subscription of 2500 bishops throughout the East, is an event to which there can hardly be found a parallel. The submission was made to Pope Hormisdas when he was himself, as his predecessors for forty-three years had been, subject to an Arian ruler.[114] If there be in all history an act which can be called in a special sense an act of the undivided Church, it is this. It was made more than three hundred years before the schism of Photius. If the confession contained in this submission does not exhibit the mind of the Church, what form of words, what consent of will, can ever be shown to convey it? If those who subscribed this confession subscribed a falsehood, why pretend any longer to attribute authority to the Church? But it must be added, if their confession was the truth, why not obey it?

It is to be noted that this period of sixty years is full of events which caused the greatest suffering to the Popes, were unceasingly deplored by them, and resisted to the utmost of their power. The temporal condition of themselves, of the bishops, of their people in Italy, Africa, France, Spain, Illyric.u.m, Britain, was most sad. The most vehement of persecutions desolated Africa. Again, there was the suppression of the western emperor, with the consequent subjection of the Apostolic See to the temporal government of the most hateful of heresies: the Oriental despotism of Zeno and Anastasius, continued for forty-four years, mixed with another heresy, and tending to destroy both faith and independence in the bishops subject to it. The Popes, as Romans, felt with the keenest sympathy the political degradation of Rome. Can any appeal be more touching than that which they made, and made in vain, to the "Christian king and Roman prince"? Out of all these things, whose natural consequences tended to extinguish their princ.i.p.ate, came forth the most magnificent attestation to it which is to be found in the first five hundred years of the Christian religion.

NOTES:

[70] _Epist._ i.; Labbe, v. 406.

[71] Mansi, viii. 193.

[72] Epistola Aviti episcopi Viennensis ad Clodoveum regem Francorum.--Mansi, viii. 175.

[73] See for this narrative the German Rohrbacher, viii. 486; Civilta, 1855, art. 9, pp. 152-3; Hefele, ii. 607; Photius, i. 136.

[74] Photius, i. 137. Der Einfluss des romischen Stuhles war doch mehr durch die Erneuerung des laurentianischen Schisma als durch die Macht der arianischen Ostgothen auf langere Zeit gelahmt.

[75] _Ep._ vi.; Mansi, viii. 213-217.

[76] Qualiscunque praesulis apostolici debes vocem patienter audire.

[77] _I.e._, Manicheans placed the seat of evil in matter, and Eutycheans denied the materiality of the Lord's body. The Pope alludes to the Emperor's Eutychean doctrine.

[78] Catholici principes quidem semper apostolicos praesules inst.i.tutos suis literis praevenerunt, et illam confessionem fidemque praecipuam, tanquam boni filii, quaesierunt debitae pietatis affectu, cui noscis ipsius Domini Salvatoris ore curam totius Ecclesiae delegatam.

[79] Ubi te, rerum humanarum princeps, qualiscunque Sedis Apostolicae vicarius contestari mea voce non desino.

[80] Ad eam sua protinus scripta miserunt ut _se docerent ejus esse consortes_.--Mansi, viii. 217.

[81] See Hefele, ii. 607 and 209.

[82] "Intuitu misericordiae," says Anastasius.

[83] Hefele, ii. 216.

[84] Mansi, viii. 247-252; Hefele, ii. 623-5.

[85] _Acts of the Synodus Palmaris._--Mansi, viii. 247-251.

[86] Hefele, ii. 624.

[87] Mansi, viii. 293-5. _Ep._ x.x.xi. Migne, vol. lix, 248.

[88] Hefele, ii. 625-30; Rohrbacher, viii. 463.

[89] Mansi, viii. 284, _The libellus apologeticus_, pp. 274-290.

[90] Replicabo, uni dictum, Tu es Petrus, &c., et rursus sanctorum voce pontific.u.m dignitatem ejus sedis factam toto orbe venerabilem, dum illi quicquid fidelium est ubique submitt.i.tur, dum totius corporis caput esse designatur.--Mansi, viii. 284.

[91] The narrative from Photius, i. 134.

[92] Ephrem, v. 9759.

[93] Ecclesia orientalis ad Symmachum episcopum Romanum.--Mansi, viii.

221-6.

[94] In qua fort.i.tudinem Ecclesiae suae const.i.tuit. Epistola Anastasii ad Hormesdam pontificem.--Mansi, viii. 384.

[95] Mansi, viii. 389-393.

[96] Photius, i. 143-5, translated.

[97] _Ep._ x. _ad Avitum Viennensem._ Mansi, viii. 410.

[98] Theophanes, p. 248.

[99] Mansi, viii. 425.

[100] German Rohrbacher, viii. 532, book 43, 81, mostly followed.

[101] Mansi, viii. 435.

[102] Mansi, viii. 438.

[103] Mansi, viii. 441. Indiculus quem acceperunt legati Apostolicae Sedis.

It much resembles the former one, given to the legates sent to Anastasius.

[104] Photius, i. 148.

[105] Mansi, viii. 451.

[106] In qua est integra Christianae religionis et perfecta soliditas.

[107] Suggestio Germani et Joannis episcoporum, Felicis et Dioscori diaconorum, et Blandi presbyteri.--Mansi, viii. 453.

[108] Sacra imperatoris Justini ad Hormisdam.--Mansi, viii. 456.

[109] Photius, i. 149, who refers to the Deacon Rusticus, _Disputatio contra Acephalos_.

[110] Mansi, viii. 60.

[111] Il granto manto, Dante.

[112] Quia in sede Apostolia inviolabilis _semper_ Catholica custoditur religio.