PASCHAL I

A.D. 817-824.

 

 

EMPERORS OF THE EAST.                                             EMPEROR OF THE WEST.

Leo V (the Armenian), 813-82o.                                       Louis I, the Pious, 814-840.

Michael II (the Stammerer), 820-829.

 

No careful observer, who in a visit to Rome goes to see the principal churches, can fail to have the name of at least one of the popes of the early Middle Ages impressed upon him. He will soon realize that the monogram of Paschal I is familiar to him, and that he has seen his portrait in a contemporary mosaic more than once. Should interest in the Greek rite have led him to mount the Celian to visit the Titular Church of S. Maria-in-Domnica, one of the very oldest churches in Rome, he will have seen a great ninth century mosaic covering the vaulted roof of the apse, and representing Our Lady seated on a throne with the Divine Child on her knees and surrounded by angels. Kneeling on a step of the throne is a small figure, holding in his hands the right foot of the Virgin. It is that of Pope Paschal, whose monogram appears in a medallion above the figure of Our Lady. Beneath it an inscription proclaims that the church, which was falling to ruins, now shines resplendent, adorned with golden mosaic work. Its glory is as that of the sun in the heavens when it has driven away the dark veil of night. Mary, Virgin, it is for you that the venerable Pontiff Paschal has built in gladness of heart this house to endure through the ages.

Should his piety have drawn him to the Church of S. Prassede (or Praxedes), which dates back to the age of the great persecutions, and of which Paschal had been the titular, to pray before the column at which tradition tells Our Lord was scourged, he will have found many reminders of that “shrewd and energetic” Pope. Again will he have observed the ceiling of the apse aglow with golden mosaic work. On the right of Our Saviour, who occupies the center, is the figure of a man clad in a loose garment of cloth of gold. Holding out his hands beneath this vestment, he is supporting the model of a church. Again, both a monogram and an inscription let us know that we are gazing on the features of Paschal. In the chapel of S. Zeno, wherein is the sacred column, there is not only an inscription to tell us that it owes its decorations to the pious vows of Pope Paschal, but also a half-length figure in mosaic, with a square nimbus bearing the name and curious title of Theodora, Episcopa. In this medallion we have a portrait of the Pope’s mother.

Finally, if his love of music should have carried our observer across the Tiber on a pilgrimage to the church of its patron, S. Cecily, in Trastevere, he would have once more been confronted with a great apsidal mosaic. With her right hand on Paschal’s right shoulder, S. Cecily is seen presenting him to Our Lord, who is giving his blessing in the Greek fashion. Again is the Pope distinguished by the square nimbus of life, and represented as holding a model of the church. Monogram and inscription proclaim the handiwork of Paschal. In language closely akin to the others we have quoted, the latter tells how the Pope repaired and beautified the church, brightened its apse with mosaics, and brought hither from the catacombs the bodies of S. Cecily and her companions. In the same church there is a fresco representing the apparition of S. Cecily to Pope Paschal, of which mention will be made in the sequel. This, however, will not help us to form an idea of Paschal’s personal appearance, inasmuch as it was not painted till about the twelfth century.

All the contemporary mosaics represent him as tall, with large eyes, long face, beardless and tonsured. He is in each case also depicted as clad in a tunic reaching to his feet and ornamented with two long stripes, and wearing a white pallium, with little crosses in red.

The Pontiff, whose figure is today so prominent on the walls of the churches in Rome, was in his time no less distinguished in the world, both by his character and his works. In language borrowed from the biographies of Leo III and Gregory II, and hence, perhaps to some extent at least, made to fit Paschal, a very flattering character is given to him in the Liber Pontificalis. There we are told that the young Roman, the child of Bonosus and Theodora, devoted himself to sacred studies in the school of the Lateran palace, and became not only an adept in church music, but especially learned both in the Old and New Testament. His virtues procured for him his ordination to the priesthood. Among these virtues his piety, modesty, cheerfulness, eloquence, hospitality, love of the poor, and his ready but discriminating charity towards them are especially noted. He was also devoted to prayer and fasting, was a most careful observer of the canons, merciful but just, and a great lover of the churches and of his people. We are also told that he largely increased the donative the popes were wont to give to the clergy, and that he spent large sums of money in redeeming captives in Spain and other far distant lands—captives made by the Saracen pirates—and, “like a good and true shepherd”, bringing them back to their homes. At least before he became Pope, and had more leisure, he was very fond of holding converse with holy monks or others on pious subjects. His well-deserved reputation led Leo III to make him superior of the monastery of S. Stephen the protomartyr, near St. Peter’s. In this position his hospitality found abundant scope in looking after the poor pilgrims, who, “for love of Blessed Peter, the apostle, came from distant climes to his shrine”.

So beloved by all was he for his distinguished merits that, by divine inspiration, he was unanimously elected Pope by the concurrent voice of clergy and people, and consecrated (January 25, 817) the very day after the death of Stephen. He at once forwarded to the emperor notice of his accession. The anonymous author of the life of Louis says that Paschal “sent envoys to the emperor with presents and an apologetic letter (epistola apologetica), in which he pointed out that he had accepted the dignity of the papacy, rather moved thereto by the election and acclamation of the people than urged by any personal ambition.” This apologetic letter is called by Einhard a letter of excuse. It must be noted, however, that it is not an apology or excuse for his consecration without the emperor’s consent, but a humble explanation of his accepting the great honor at all. For Einhard himself sums up the contents of the letter by sayings that the Pope averred that “the honor had been, as it were, thrust upon him, though he did not want it, and often refused it”. Hence even Muratori concludes that it is perfectly plain that up to this period none of the agreements entered into between the popes and the Frank sovereigns included any condition that the popes should not be consecrated without the consent of the Western emperors.

Soon after the dispatch of the first, Paschal sent a second  embassy to Louis, of which the nomenclator Theodore was the chief. The embassy requested that “the agreement or treaty (pactum), which had been made with his predecessors, might be renewed with him”. The request was granted. These same ambassadors are credited with bringing back a “donation” from Louis on the lines of those of Pippin and Charlemagne. The authenticity of this diploma, which begins Ego Ludovicus, is altogether denied by some, as by Pagi and Muratori, and affirmed by others. Some take a middle course, and hold that the diploma, as we now have it, contains falsifications. This is the modern line of those who do not accept it unreservedly. The document may be read among those collected by Cardinal Deusdedit towards the end of the eleventh century, and in many other authors. Our quotations will be from the copy in Theiner, who has used the text of Cencius Camerarius (thirteenth century).

The constitution begins : “I, Louis, Emperor Augustus, decree and grant by this deed of our confirmation to you, Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and through you to your Vicar the Lord Paschal, supreme Pontiff and universal Pope, and to your successors forever, the city of Rome and its duchy and dependencies (which are then named), as up to this time they have been held by you and your predecessors under your authority and jurisdiction”. Next, the Pope is confirmed in the possession of the exarchate, Aemilia, and the Pentapolis, which Pippin and Charlemagne had “by deed of gift restored to his predecessors”, and he is granted the Sabine territory and the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, with various cities of Lombard Tuscany, and “Campania, and the patrimonies that belong to your authority and jurisdiction, as that of Beneventum and Salerno, that of upper and lower Calabria, and that of Naples, and wherever, throughout the kingdom and empire committed by God to us, your patrimonies are known to be”.

In like manner Louis confirms the donations which Pippin and Charles “spontaneously” offered (spontanea voluntate), and the revenues which were wont annually to be paid into the palace of the Lombard kings, both from Lombard Tuscany and from the Duchy of Spoleto, “as is set forth in the above-mentioned donations and was agreed upon between Pope Hadrian and Charlemagne, when that Pontiff came to an understanding with him concerning the two duchies of Tuscany and Spoleto, to the effect that every year the above-mentioned revenues should be paid to the Church of Blessed Peter, but that the emperor’s supreme dominion over those duchies was to be preserved”.

All the above territories, etc., were to remain under the jurisdiction of the Pope and his successors, and were not in any way to be interfered with by Louis or his descendants, but rather defended; nor were they to assume any rights in the said territories, etc., except when requested by the Pope of the time.

On the death of a Pope, no Frank nor Lombard is to cause any trouble; but the Romans, with all veneration and without any tumult (most seasonable words for the childishly turbulent Romans), were to duly elect and consecrate a successor to him. After the consecration, envoys were to be sent to the Frankish rulers, to renew “the friendship and peace” that had existed between them and the popes during the reigns of Charles (Martel), Pippin, and Charlemagne.

The diploma signed by Louis himself, his three sons, ten bishops, eight abbots, fifteen counts, a bibliothecarius  (librarian), a mansionarius (a sort of sacristan), and a hostiarius (an apparitor), was sent to Pope Paschal by the nomenclator Theodore.

It is urged against the authenticity of this diploma it gives to the popes Sicily, which was at the time in the hands of the Greek emperors, and never came into the possession of the Carolingian emperors, and that, despite the clause on freedom of pontifical elections, Gregory IV (827-844) and other popes were not consecrated until the arrival of the imperial envoys. Other points of minor importance are also brought forward.

Against this it is pointed out that perhaps the largest of the papal “patrimonies”, used to be in Sicily ; that they (along with those in Calabria) had been unjustly confiscated by the Greek iconoclast emperors, and hence that there is no reason for calling in question that the emperor Louis might, as an act of compensation, offer to give the popes the whole island, “if ever it should come into his power” —words actually used in the diplomas of the emperors Otho I and Henry I. Or it may be supposed, in accordance with the text of the two “privileges” just mentioned, that there was in this instance only reference to the patrimony in Sicily.

The clause on the freedom of elections was modified in 824 by the constitution of Lothaire (the son of Louis, and co-emperor with him), which was drawn up with the full consent of Eugenius II. Hence the clause really tells in favor of the authenticity of the diploma, as up to that time the elections had “de facto” been free, and the diploma was legislating on existing lines.

That some document was sent by Louis to the Pope bearing on the donation question is clear enough from the words of Einhard cited above, and still clearer from the words of John V III. to the Roman synod in 875, where he speaks of the great emperor Louis, who not only equaled his ancestors in their liberality towards the Head of the Church and confirmed what they had done, but even increased their donations by most munificent gifts. And if the deed of Louis is not mentioned in that of Otho I, it is in that of Henry I. We conclude, then, in harmony with the general consensus of modern opinion, that it is substantially authentic, as it is in substantial agreement with the deeds of Otho and Henry, and throws light on the donation of Charlemagne. For it shows that, by some later agreement between Hadrian and Charlemagne, the supreme dominion over Lombard Tuscany, and the duchy of Spoleto, which we never find exercised by the popes, was given back to Charlemagne. The popes, however, kept the revenues arising therefrom.

Partition of the Empire

In the same year (July 817) an event, big with fate for the empire, was brought about in Frankland, at Aix-la.-Chapelle, by Louis and his advisers. Of these, the principal ones, the great ecclesiastics of the empire, were primarily anxious to preserve its unity; while others, less foreseeing, were interested in forwarding the German idea of division between sons. The outcome of these conflicting views was a compromise which took the form of an ordinatio imperii. While setting forth that it was not right that “the unity of the empire given to us by God should, for the love of children, be sundered by any human division”, the document declared that the emperor’s eldest son Lothaire should be crowned “in a solemn manner with the imperial diadem, and constituted our consort and successor”. But Pippin and Louis were to be called kings, and to have territories assigned them, “in which, after our death, they may, under their eldest brother, possess regal power”. As Agobard expressed it in 833: “You assigned to your other sons (Pippin and Louis) parts of your empire (regni), but, that it (regnum) might be one and not three, you set over them the one whom you had made the partner of your name”. Pippin was to have Aquitaine, with south-eastern France, etc.; Louis, Bavaria; while Bernard, the emperor’s illegitimate nephew, was left, in an inferior position, in charge of Italy. Various provisions, all, of course, to no purpose, were enacted to preserve the unity of the empire. The kings were not to marry, make war or peace, without the consent of the emperor, and to prevent further subdivision, the kings were not to divide their kingdoms among their children. Their people were to elect successors to Pippin and Louis out of their legitimate children.

Lothaire was accordingly at once duly crowned by his father, and was meanwhile declared heir of the kingdom of Italy. And that the ordinatio might have the highest sanction, it was sent to Rome, and received the confirmation of the Pope. Unworkable as was the new scheme of empire, the first, as we shall see, to break through it was the emperor Louis himself. In the preamble to his ordinatio he had laid it down that the unity of the empire was not to be rent for love of children. He himself was to be the cause of its being torn to pieces owing to that very predilection which he had himself condemned.

Meanwhile the new arrangement did not please Bernard. He appealed to arms; but, terrified by the approach of the emperor with a large army, he gave himself up into his hands. Though his life was nominally spared him, he perished under the punishment—the loss of his eyes—which was awarded him (Easter, 818).

It was some little time before his successor was appointed, and even after Lothaire had received his nomination as king of Italy (820) he was not immediately sent there. Whether an embassy which Paschal sent to the emperor in the May of this year had any connection with Lothaire’s appointment cannot be stated. But a later one, of which the nomenclator Theodore, now primicerius, was the chief, was closely connected with Lothaire. In the following year (828) that prince married Ermengard, the daughter of Count Hugo of Tours, one of the principal men of the empire, and received from the papal envoy the presents from the Pope of which he was the bearer.

Lothaire came to Italy under the tutelage of Wala, abbot of Corbey, in the year after his marriage (822). Under Charlemagne, one of whose most trusted ministers he was, Wala had already ruled Italy, in the name of Bernard. But, finding himself an object of suspicion to Louis, of whose abilities he had a very poor opinion, he had left the world, and retired to Corbey when he became sole emperor. His abilities, however, made him indispensable, and Louis took him from his monastery to guide Lothaire in the government of his kingdom.

Before the young emperor returned to Frankland, at the request of the Pope, and at the express will of Louis himself, the Pope, he went to Rome, “that he might be associated with his father in the empire, not merely in power and name, but also in consecration”, according to the words which Paschasius Radbert (d. 865), makes Lothaire himself use when addressing his father. Received with all honor by the Pope, Lothaire was crowned by him as king of Lombardy and emperor, on Easter Day in St. Peter’s, and, as he is made to say by Paschasius, was girt with the sword for the defence of the empire and the Church, which no one was more willing or more in duty bound to defend than himself. Some historians suppose that Paschal next proceeded to invest Lothaire with supreme power within the city of Rome. The ground for this supposition is a statement by an anonymous continuator of the Lombard history of Paul the Deacon, to the effect that the Pope “granted to the emperor Lothaire the power which the ancient emperors had over the city of Rome”. To say the least of it, this chronicler must have been here anticipating events. Under Eugenius II, the successor of Paschal, large concessions of power in the city of Rome were made to the emperor, as we shall see. But up to the present the Carolingian emperors had not put forth any pretensions to supreme power in Rome. The arrangement or treaty of 817 was still in force. And, if what is said by the anonymous continuator about Paschal’s concession be true, what was done in that direction by Eugenius II would have been meaningless.

Farfa.

During Lothaire’s sojourn in Rome, and whilst with the Pope and the nobility of Rome and the empire he was engaged in administering justice, Sergius, “the librarian of the Holy Roman See”, came forward and maintained that the famous Sabine monastery of Farfa was subject to the dominion of the Roman Church. The abbot Ingoald, however, was able to produce diplomas which showed that it had been under the protection (sub tuitione et defensione), first of the Lombard kings and then of Charlemagne. The latter had declared it free from all tribute, like the great Frankish monasteries of Luxeuil, Lerins, and Agaune (or St. Maurice). As the papal advocate was unable to produce any counter documents, the Pope not only decided that, with the exception of consecration, he had no temporal dominion over the monastery, but ordered the restoration to it of all that his predecessors had unjustly taken away from it.

For the favors shown them by the emperors the monks were always grateful, and in the long struggle between the empire and the papacy the monastery of St. Mary always stood for the former.

After the departure of Lothaire from Rome, the factious elements in the city again began to cause trouble. Under the pretense of loyalty and devotion to the interests of the emperor, a certain section of the higher clergy, and apparently of the nobility also, pursued their schemes of independence or personal aggrandizement with too little regard for secrecy. Two of their number, Theodore, the primicerius, a man whom we have seen deep in the councils of the Pope, and his son-in-law, Leo, were seized in the Lateran palace, blinded, and then beheaded. Their partisans at once sent word of the affair to the emperor Louis, accused the Pope of ordering or conniving at the execution, and asserted that the victims had been treated as they had because they were devoted to the young emperor Lothaire. Paschal also sent legates to the emperor. Louis dispatched to Rome, in order to look into the matter, Adalung, abbot of St. Vedases, and Humphrey, count of Coire. By “compurgation” (that is, by taking an oath along with a great many bishops) the Pope proved his complete innocence “of the blood” of Theodore and Leo. But, at the same time, he took upon himself to defend those who had put them to death, inasmuch as they were his dependents, and had justly inflicted the sentence of death on men who were guilty of high treason. Further envoys were sent by the Pope, with the result that, when Louis heard of the oath of the Pope, and his defence of the authors of the death of the traitors, he concluded that there was nothing further for him to do in the matter. Paschal’s death soon after the return of his envoys put an end, as far at least as he was concerned, to all further relations between Rome and the empire. But the terrible incident set the lovers of law and order both in the Church and the State earnestly thinking. That factions should have become so powerful as to dare, without the knowledge and consent of the Pope, to put even to a deserved death his chief minister, viz., the primicerius, revealed a state of things which imperatively demanded a remedy. The palliative invented by the statesmen of the empire and the Church was, as we shall see, the constitution of 824. If it lessened the liberty of the Holy See, it tended to strengthen its hands against the fearsome factions of the Roman nobility. Of what these were capable, indications have already been given in the cases of the attack on Leo III and of the murder of Paschal’s ministers. When, in the tenth century, the arm of the Empire, which the pact of Lothaire (824) was to place more at the disposal of the popes, became impotent, their awful power for evil will be clearly revealed against a lurid background of sacrilege and murder.

Second Iconoclast Persecution, 815-842

 

 

As to his predecessor Leo III, the persecuted monks in the East turned to Paschal. For a short time the upstart emperor Leo V the Armenian, had had the good sense to leave the direction of religious matters to those whom it concerned. But after completing various secret preparations, he began his more open attack on image-worship by forcing the patriarch Nicephorus, who now displayed a noble firmness, to abdicate. He was then sent into exile (March 815). An imperial officer, a layman, an ignorant and married man, one Theodotus, “who was called Cassiteras and Flavianus”, was consecrated patriarch in his stead (April I, 815). Being the brother-in-law of Constantine Copronymus, he had thoroughly imbibed his iconoclastic spirit. His immediate successors were Theodore the Studite. And again did he turn to Rome for comfort and strength in the midst of his trials (817). In his own name and in that of four other abbots he wrote to Paschal, the pastor established by God over the flock of Christ, the stone on which is built the Catholic Church. “For you are Peter”, he said, “since you fill his See”. Theodore then proceeds to tell the Pope of the persecution that had fallen on images and men alike, and begs him to come to their assistance, as Jesus Christ had given him command to confirm his brethren. He entreats the Pope, “as the first of all”, to let all the world know that he anathematizes those who had dared to anathematize the patriarch and the image-worshippers in the East, and assures him that, by so doing, he would be performing a work which would please God, sustain the weak, confirm the strong, and raise up those who had fallen. The patriarch Theodotus also wrote to the Pope, and sent him envoys. But these the Pope would not see, an action which elicited (818) a second letter from Theodore. The Pope was from the very beginning the pure source of the orthodox faith, wrote the unconquerable monk; he has proved that the visible successor of the Prince of the Apostles, recognizable by all, truly governs the Roman Church, and that God has not abandoned the Church of Constantinople.

Besides sending letters full of words of consolation to the clergy and religious of the Eastern Empire, Paschal also sent (about the year 818) legates to the emperor with a refutation of his iconoclastic arguments. In the fragment of this which has come down to us the Pope urges : “When in the Holy Spirit (I Cor. XII. 3) the name of Jesus is pronounced, the heart is filled with pious affections. To paint a picture of Jesus is to do more, as it is a more difficult thing than to pronounce His name, and surely if done in the Holy Spirit will not be of less aid to devotion. Will it be maintained that there is no need of signs to unite ourselves to God? That would be to forget that the sacraments are also signs. Would baptism be necessary if there were no need of signs? If faith does not admit of signs, why make the sign of the cross? If God detests images, why do we consider it our highest prerogative to be made after the image of God?”. The Pope also shows that the arguments drawn from the Old Testament have no weight, and points out the difference between adoration and veneration, between the substance of an image and the sublime original which it represents. These common­sense arguments had no more effect on Leo V than they have today on many non-Catholics. To both, image-worshippers are idolaters. But they had a most beneficial effect on the suffering Catholics. They gave them courage in their hour of need. Hence, while Theodore laments that the iconoclasts have cut themselves off from “the See of the supreme pastor, where Jesus Christ has deposited the keys of the faith, against which the gates of hell—the tongues of heretics—have never prevailed and never shall prevail”, he cries out, “Let, then, the apostolic Paschal rejoice, for he has accomplished the work of Peter, and let the multitude of the faithful thrill with gladness because they have seen true bishops, formed on the model of the ancient Fathers!”." Like so many other persecutors of the Church, Leo V perished by a violent death (December 25, 82o); and, as we shall see under the life of Eugenius II, the Church of Constantinople had a few years of comparative peace.

In the correspondence of the Studite, as may be seen even in the extracts cited above, there is frequent allusion to St. Peter’s keys. It is not at all unlikely that they were especially impressed upon his mind by their use in a curious religious ceremony observed in Rome in connection with them, of which we have certain knowledge only through his letters. These reveal to us the fact that he was in constant communication not only with Greek monks resident in Rome, especially with Basil, abbot of SS. Andrew and Sabas in cella nova on the Coelian, but also with others who were in the habit of going backwards and forwards between Old and New Rome. Hence there is no cause for hesitating to accept what he tells us about Roman customs on the ground that he was a stranger to the Eternal City.

In a letter of the saint treating of image-worship, comparatively recently discovered, and printed in a volume (IX) of the Nova Patrum Bibliotheca, which was presented to Leo XIII on the occasion of his sacerdotal jubilee in 1887, there occurs the following interesting passage : “I am informed that in Rome they carry in solemn procession the keys of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. Christ, of course, did not give him these material keys, but he gave them to him mystically when he gave him the power of binding and loosing. But the Romans have made silver ones, and present them for the veneration of the people. Great is their faith! Among them, according to the word of the Lord, is set the immovable rock of the faith, whilst here (at Constantinople), as it seems, infidelity and wickedness are in the ascendant”. This unique passage not only makes known to us a pretty religious observance of the Roman Church, but throws light on earlier writings which enable us, seemingly, to trace back this veneration of the keys at least to the close of the fifth century, and gives further meaning to the custom of sending golden or other keys to important personages practiced by the popes, at least, as early as the sixth century.

One result of Leo’s persecution was to cause a still further immigration of Greek monks into Rome and other parts of Italy, and a consequent deepening of Hellenic influence, especially in its more southerly portions. It was no doubt some of these exiles whom Paschal placed in the monastery which he built and endowed in connection with the Church of St. Praxedes, in order that, “by day and night”, they might in their own tongue praise God and the saints whose relics there reposed.

One of the Greek monks, who at this time came to Rome, “inasmuch as it was outside the tyrant’s sway”, was a biographer of the historian Theophanes, the holy monk Methodius. On the death of Leo V he returned to Constantinople with letters from the Pope for the new emperor, Michael II. Paschal exhorted him to return to the orthodox faith, and to re-establish Nicephorus on the patriarchal throne. But though, with courageous freedom, Methodius in person supported the Pope’s arguments, the emperor was not moved. He upbraided the good monk with being a source of trouble and bad example, and caused him to be scourged and imprisoned. In the beginning of his reign, he had shown himself comparatively tolerant towards the worshippers of images, but after he subdued the rebel Thomas (823), they felt his hand, though not so rough as Leo’s, still heavy upon them.

The conversion of the Danes

The efforts made by Charlemagne to subjugate and civilize the Saxons, and to secure the north-eastern frontiers of the empire by force of arms and by the preaching of Christian doctrine, had often been retarded by fierce inroads of the cruel heathen Danes, “who dwell upon the sea”. It was clearly, therefore, a work even of the first political importance to bring about their acceptance of the precepts and truths of Christianity. Some attempts had already been made to convert them.

The great St. Wilibrord had labored amongst them. We find another of our countrymen eagerly inquiring, in the year 789, “if there is any hope of the conversion of the Danes”. But from the opposition of princes, and from one cause and another, especially from the fear entertained by the Danes that their independence would disappear with their religion, no conspicuous success had attended these early endeavors. Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims, was now unfortunately to add to the number of failures. His design of working for the conversion of the Danes was at once approved by the emperor Louis, and by the great ones of the empire. To proceed with due regard to ecclesiastical order, Ebbo went to Rome with intent to procure the sanction of the Holy See. This he duly received. Paschal addressed a letter (c. 822) “to all his most holy brethren and fellow bishops and priests, and to the most glorious princes, dukes, and magnificent counts, and to all Christians”. In his solicitude for the Lord’s flock, it becomes the Pope, he writes, to have a care for those who sit in the shadow of death, and so “to the parts of the North”, by the authority of the holy apostles, he sends Ebbo to enlighten them. In any difficulties that may arise he must ever have recourse to the Holy Roman Church. One Halitgar is named by the Pope as a colleague for Ebbo. All are exhorted to help the undertaking.

In Denmark no opposition was placed in the way of Ebbo. In a short time after he had crossed the Eider, which was fixed by treaty between Charlemagne and the Danish King Hemming as the boundary of Denmark, he had baptized a great many idolaters. But, for some reason, he unfortunately gave up the great work he had taken in hand, and returned to France. Though he did not cease to interest himself in the conversion of the Danes, the glorious title of Apostle of the North was to be given not to him but to St Ansgar, who, however, in his modesty, afterwards attributed to Ebbo and to the emperor Louis all the success of his own unceasing apostolic toil. To Ebbo, on the contrary, was reserved deposition (835)—undeserved perhaps—for taking part against the emperor Louis. But though a real beginning of the Christianizing of Denmark was made by Ansgar, if not by Ebbo,” a hundred and fifty years were to roll by before the faith of Christ was anything like generally adopted by its people, and two hundred before it could be regarded as the religion of the nation”.

Concerning Paschal’s other dealings with men or things outside Rome, but little further can be gleaned from his letters or from our other sources. As that little is of no special interest, we shall only notice one more of these extra-urban relations. It is partially revealed to us by a fragment of a letter of Rhabanus (properly Hrabanus) Maurus to Hatto, abbot of Fulda. From this document, which has been preserved for us in a most confused manner by the centuriators of Magdeburg, it appears that there had been a dispute between Bernulf, bishop of Wurzburg, and the abbot of Fulda, which was in his diocese, as to the extent of the privilege which St. Boniface had secured for that famous abbey from Pope Zachary. The bishop, who lost his case before a local synod, and was condemned for holding what was decided to be an illegal ordination in the monastery, seems to have appealed to Rome, and to have secured some decision in his favor. Whatever was the nature of the verdict, it seems to have proved very distasteful to the monks. Rhabanus, who became their abbot in 822, wrote a very strong letter to the Pope on the subject of the privileges of the monastery. So annoyed was he at its contents, that he threw into prison the monks who brought it, denounced its author to the bishops of France, and threatened to excommunicate him. How this affair terminated is not known. We cannot, however, leave this, the greatest scholar of his age, the primus praeceptor Germaniae, without noting what was his idea of the position held by Pope Paschal. He calls him the first bishop of the world, the successor of Peter, and entreats him to lead men to the pastures of life. He describes himself as the follower of Paschal, and prays “Christ our God to open wide the gates of heaven that Paschal and his flock may enter it together”.

The life of Paschal must not be brought to a close without some notice of the restorations that exclusively absorb the attention of his contemporary biographer. To us the most interesting work of the Pope in this department is that in connection with the Anglo-Saxon quarter of the city of Rome, viz., that part of the Trastevere about the church of S. Spirito in Sassia. The Book of the Popes tells how, through the carelessness of some of the English, a fire destroyed not only the whole of their quarter, “which in their own language they call burgh”, and which the modern borgos that lead to St. Peter’s from the bridge of St. Angelo still mark out, but almost all the splendid colonnade that led up to St. Peter’s. Full of anxiety for the Church of St. Peter, and “for the distress of the English pilgrims”, the Pope rushed barefoot to the scene of the fire. And so much, continues the biographer, was the hand of God with the Pope, that the flames did not spread beyond the place where he first arrived. The fire had broken out in the very early morning, but Paschal remained on the spot till daylight, when at length, by his prayers and the exertions of all the people, the flames were subdued. The distress caused by the fire was relieved by the Pope by large gifts not only of money and clothes, but also of building materials, so that the English were enabled to rebuild their houses. The damaged colonnade was also completely restored by the energetic Pontiff.

Paschal’s love of the Church of St. Peter caused him to expend money upon its adornment. He built within it a large and very beautiful oratory dedicated to SS. Processus and Martinianus, erected an altar in honor of S. Sixtus II near the confession of St. Peter, and presented it with many elaborately embroidered vestments and with valuable plate.

Love of his predecessor “of pious memory, the lord Pope Leo III”, led him to put again into thorough working order the hospital for pilgrims which Leo had built near St. Peter’s, “in the spot called Naumachia”, but which the neglect of its governors had already caused to be overwhelmed with poverty.

A diligent inquiry into the condition of all the neighboring monasteries revealed to Paschal the fact that the nuns of the convent of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, situated on the other side of the aqueduct of Claudius and near his Lateran palace, were so poor that the time they had to devote to procuring for themselves the means of livelihood left them none in which to sing “the praises of God and His saints”. The Pope so endowed them that “they could live well and religiously”.

One most interesting feature of Rome, however, he did not attempt to restore, viz., the catacombs, the cemeteries of the early Christians. After the triumph of Christianity, in the fourth century, the catacombs became places of pilgrimage; for there rested the bodies of those who had given their lives for Christ, the Lord. But the damage they sustained in the following centuries at the hands of Goth and Lombard, the rapidly increasing unhealthiness of the country round Rome, and the consequent translation of the relics of the martyrs into the City, caused them to be gradually abandoned. It was about the middle of the seventh century, under Pope Theodore I, that the practice of translating the bodies of the saints from the catacombs to churches in the City was inaugurated. In the following century it was in active operation. The wholesale denuding of the catacombs by Paschal of the sacred treasures, which had so long attracted the pilgrim, was the death­blow to the custom of pious pilgrimage to them.

It was to the Church of St. Praxedes, which he had quite rebuilt, that Paschal translated most of the relics which he took from the ruined cemeteries; for he did not wish that the bodies of the saints there buried should fall into the same unhonored decay as their sepulchers. The translation was conducted with the greatest pomp. A long list of the sacred remains which were removed on July 20, 817, has come down to us engraved on marble. Altogether some two thousand three hundred bodies were brought to St. Praxedes’s. Most of them were buried beneath the high altar by the Pope’s own hand, but a few were interred in the chapel of St. Zeno, which the Pope had built in memory of his mother Theodora, and in other oratories of the basilica.

Of all the relics, however, which were touched by him, those of St. Cecily are the most famous and interesting. In fact the history of St. Cecily and her relics is not merely interesting, it is of the first importance as proving what a really large amount of credibility may be due even to those acts of the martyrs which are not considered authentic.

The relics of St. Cecily

At one time the acts of the martyrdom of St. Cecily were regarded as almost entirely fabulous. But, nowadays, the discoveries of De Rossi in the Catacomb of S. Callixtus, following on the records of the biographer of Paschal, and on the investigation of Cardinal Sfondrati in the sixteenth century, have made it plain that if the acts of St. Cecily, as they have come down to us, do not date beyond the fifth century, and have been corrupted, they are nevertheless true, “not only in their chief features, but also in many minute details which only a contemporary witness could have collected, and which no later copyist has altered”. Finding that the Church of St. Cecily, in Trastevere, was falling into ruins through old age, Paschal rebuilt it on a more magnificent scale. And considering that the Church of St. Cecily ought to have her relics, he tried to find them. At first no success attended his efforts, and when he was told that the Lombards had carried off the body of the saint in one of their riflings of the cemeteries, he abandoned the search altogether. Early one Sunday morning, however, when he was saying matins in St. Peter’s, he fell asleep. In his slumber a maiden in angelic raiment seemed to stand at his side and upbraid him for listening to idle tales, and giving up his search for her when he had been so near her that they might have conversed together. In reply to the Pope’s questions, the maid told him that her name was Cecily, and that the Lombards, though desirous of doing so, had failed to find her body, and that he must continue his quest for it. Thus incited, Paschal recommenced his search, and at length found it clad in cloth of gold, and with linen cloths soaked in the martyr’s blood at the foot of the body. With great honor were the relics of the saint brought into the city; and, together with the body of her spouse Valerian and with those of other saints, were placed under the high altar of the new church.

Though not directly bearing on the life of Paschal, the following facts in connection with the relics of the saint are too interesting to be passed over. In the year 1599 Cardinal Sfondrati, when making certain alterations in the Church of St. Cecily, came across a marble sarcophagus. Within it he found a coffin of cypress wood, and, within that again, the body of St. Cecily, clad in its garments of cloth of gold, and in the position in which the acts of her martyrdom describe her as buried, and as it was afterwards represented in the beautiful statue of Maderno. The body was still incorrupt, and was exposed for some weeks for the veneration of the faithful. The excitement caused by this discovery can be well imagined. The sculptor Maderno often went to see the body; and, as the inscription on his marble statue of the saint sets forth, he depicted it as he saw it. The great historian Baronius and the archeologist Bosio, who were eye-witnesses of these events, have left full accounts of them.

Finally, when in the nineteenth century the great archeologist De Rossi discovered the chapel of the popes in the cemetery of St. Callixtus, mindful of the fact that, not only from the biography of Pope Paschal, but also from earlier documents, St. Cecily had been buried near the popes, made a diligent search for her original burial place. To his intense joy he discovered a chamber, then full of earth, leading from the chapel of the popes. When the earth was removed, frescos on the wall proved that the sepulcher of this illustrious virgin martyr had been discovered, and gave a most wonderful confirmation, not only to the biography of Paschal, but even to the acts of her martyrdom.

Women interfere with the Pope’s devotion

Among the many changes effected by the Pope in the  churches, we read of his raising the pontifical chair in St. Mary Major’s in order that he might be able to pray and carry out the ceremonies of the Church with less distraction. Before he made the change, the women who came to Mass were close behind the Pope’s chair, so that he could not speak to the servers without their knowledge. To understand the significance of this passage of the Liber Pontificalis, it is necessary to bear in mind that in this church, while the Pope’s chair was in the center of the apse as usual, the matroneum, or place for the women, was not in its ordinary position, nor was the apse itself of the customary type. The matroneum was not in the upper galleries above the porticos of the men, but at the back of the apse, in a space formed by its peculiar arrangement. For the apse was supported not by a blank wall, but by pillars; while at some distance behind them, thus leaving a space for the matroneum, there was a blank wall which served as a sort of buttress to the basilica.

On their return from their embassy to the emperor Louis, the Pope’s envoys had found him, as we have already noticed, very ill. It is more than likely that his spirit was broken by the ingratitude and treason of his primicerius. He died soon after their return, apparently on February 11, 824; or, according to Jaffe, in the month of May or in the very beginning of June. The Liber Pontificalis says he was buried in St. Peter’s. But Theganus has it that “the Roman people would not allow his body to be buried in St. Peter’s before Eugenius succeeded him, and that he ordered the body to be buried in the place which he had built in his lifetime”, i.e. in the Church of St. Praxedes, as an ancient inscription there, now no longer in existence, once proclaimed.

When we find it stated that Paschal died “hated by a great part of the Romans”, it is necessary to note how very ambiguous is the passage just quoted, on the strength of which the statement is made. It is quite capable of meaning that they would not have the prompt election of a new Pope interfered with by funeral functions. In any case we must be on our guard against receiving a false impression. Those whom we should nowadays understand by the Romans, or the Roman people, were then of no account; they had no more influence on events than had the people of any other country at the time. If Paschal was hated, it was only by that party among the nobles which was opposed to him, and which became so powerful on his death as to carry the election of their candidate, Eugenius, in despite of opposition.

In the Roman martyrology he is honored among the saints 1 on May 14.