ST. AGATHO.

AD. 678-681.

 

EMPEROR. POGONATUS, 668-685.

KING. PERCTARIT, 672-688.               

EXARCH. THEODORE, 677-687.

 

Though Pope Agatho reigned but for a short time, his name is conspicuous in the history of the Church, not only because he is honored as a saint both by the Greeks and Latins, but because in his pontificate was celebrated the Sixth Ecumenical Council, the third of Constantinople (680), in which one more of the errors (Monothelism) that arose from a false view of the nature of Our Lord Jesus Christ was condemned.

As what is known of the actions of Agatho practically centres round this country and the General Council, his doings in connection with the Church in England, and then with the Council, will here be treated of after a little has been said of the Pope himself.

A Sicilian by birth, and by profession a monk, Agatho was a man of remarkable affability and generosity. He had a cheerful word and a smile for everybody, and was especially kind to his clergy. He would seem also to have had a turn for finance, as, contrary to custom, when he became Pope, he took into his own hands the office of treasurer of the Roman Church, and, with the aid of a nomenclator, himself transacted the business of the treasury. Ill health, to which he alludes in his letter to Constantine, forced Agatho to appoint a treasurer with full powers as usual.

It is not quite certain whether Agatho was consecrated in June or July, as the data in the Book of the Popes do not tally. We are, however, disposed to agree with Pagi and Duchesne, and to assign that event to Sunday, June 27, 678.

For the fifth time the indefatigable abbot of Wearmouth, Benedict Biscop, appeared in Rome in the early days of the pontificate of Agatho to obtain “for the ornament and defence of his Church” what he could not find even in Gaul. Acting in accordance with the wish of Egfrid, King of Northumbria, who had given the land for the Wearmouth monastery, Benedict obtained from the Pope a charter of privileges for the said monastery, and leave to take back with him to England John, the arch-chanter of St. Peter's, to “teach in his monastery the method of singing throughout the year, as it was practiced in St. Peter’s at Rome”. John had, moreover, been commissioned by the Pope “carefully to inform himself concerning the faith of the English Church, and to give an account thereof on his return to Rome”. “For”, continues Bede, “the Pope was desirous of being informed concerning the state of the Church in Britain, as well as in other provinces, and to what extent it was chaste from the contagion of heretics”. To satisfy the Pope, the famous synod of Heathfield or Hatfield was summoned by Archbishop Theodore (September 17, 680). The faith in England was found to be sound on all points. A profession of faith was drawn up and sent to Rome, “and most thankfully received by the Apostolic Pope and all those that heard or read it”.

It is said that there was also read at this same synod a letter of Pope Agatho, confirming, at the request of Ethelred, King of the Mercians, Archbishop Theodore and others, for the abbey of Medehampstede (afterwards known as Peterborough), of which we have spoken before, exemption from payment of taxes or military service to king, bishop, or earl; and forbidding the ‘ordinary’ or ‘shire-bishop’ to perform any episcopal functions within the monastery except at the request of the abbot. “And it is my will”, says the Pope, “that the abbot (of Medehampstede) be holden as legate of Rome over all the island, and that whatsoever abbot shall be there chosen by the monks, be consecrated by the archbishop of Canterbury. I will and concede that whatever man shall have made a vow to go to Rome, which he may be unable to fulfill through sickness or any other cause, let him come to the monastery of Medehampstede and have the same forgiveness of Christ and St. Peter, and of the abbot and of the monks, that he should have if he went to Rome”. “This decree”, says our earliest English chronicle, “Agatho and 125 bishops sent to England by Wilfrid, Archbishop of York”.

But, as was noted under the life of Vitalian, full reliance cannot be placed on these details in connection with Medehampstede, as they are only to be found in the twelfth century Peterborough MS. of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

St. Wilfrid of York

What brought Wilfrid to Rome in the days of Pope Agatho will now be ours to set forth as clearly as may be, but shortly, as the career of this glorious Englishman and servant of God belongs rather to the history of the Church in this country than to the Lives of the Popes. Besides, his heroic life, his long undaunted struggle in the cause of freedom, have been well written of in books that are easily accessible to the English reader. But as Wilfrid came to Rome and the popes three times; and as, towards the close of his days, he “thought of returning once again to that See of Peter whence he had received justice and freedom, to end his life there”, he cannot be passed over in treating of the popes from Eugenius to John VI. Nor indeed should we care to leave unnoticed him whom that noble Frenchman, the Count de Montalembert, so great an admirer of our nation, in the warm glow of his beautiful and eloquent language, calls “the eldest son of an invincible race, the first of the English nation”; the first of “that great line of prelates, by turns apostolic and political, eloquent and warlike, brave champions of Roman unity and ecclesiastical independence, magnanimous representatives of the rights of conscience, the liberties of the soul ... a line to which history presents no equal out of the Catholic Church of England; a lineage of saints, heroes, confessors and martyrs, which produced St. Dunstan, St. Lanfranc, St. Anselm, St. Thomas a Becket, Stephen Langton, St. Edmund the exile of Pontigny, and which ended in Reginald Pole”. Would that in detailing in brief Wilfrid’s splendid course we might be filled with the inspiring powers of expression of the illustrious author of the Monks of the West!

Of a noble Northumbrian family, born about 634, Wilfrid at the early age of fourteen joined himself to the monks of Lindisfarne or Holy Island. We have already seen, under the pontificate of Eugenius I, how his expanding mind led him to Rome to seek for truth at its source. Returned thence convinced of the importance of unity even in small matters, such as the shape of the tonsure to be worn by clerics, let alone in such graver questions as the time of celebrating Easter, and with his heart full of love for Rome and all its ways, he began at once to oppose the Roman to the Celtic customs. He was able to do this with the more effect that he was called to be the tutor of Alchfrid, the son of King Oswin or Oswy, the powerful sovereign of Northumbria. By his abilities, his address, and the natural attractiveness of a handsome person, he soon obtained great influence, and succeeded in bringing about the famous assembly of Whitby (664), in which the ‘Easter question’ was settled for Northumbria. Naturally many of the defeated adherents of the traditions of Columba never forgot Wilfrid’s share in their discomfiture at Whitby; and, acting on the proverb that all is fair in love and in war, never lost an opportunity of opposing him. On the death of Bishop Tuda, Wilfrid was elected to succeed him as bishop of Northumbria. To be quite free from any taint of schism, nothing would suit Wilfrid but that he should go to France and get consecrated (665) by Agilbert, Bishop of Paris. But during his absence a reaction had set in; and King Oswy, gained over by the Celtic party, had one Ceadda or Chad consecrated bishop of York. On his return Wilfrid made no protest against this unkind and tyrannical act, but retired to the famous monastery of Roman observance he had founded at Ripon. “Thus the saint begins to be visible in his character”. But in the year 669 there came to England, as we have seen, sent by Pope Vitalian, the heroic old Greek Theodore to be its metropolitan. And the old man, who was afterwards to do so much wrong to Wilfrid, began his ever-memorable pontificate in our island by restoring Wilfrid to the bishopric of York, with the consent of Oswy, who yielded to the apostolic commission. After this, till the death of the great Bretwalda (670), Wilfrid was again in full favor with Oswy, and for some years with his son and successor Egfrid. Wilfrid was, however, destined again to remember that “faith was not to be put in princes”. The dislike which Egfrid had begun to entertain for Wilfrid, on account of an intricate and delicate cause, with which this work has nothing to do, was augmented by his (Egfrid’s) second wife Ermenburga. Jealous of the wealth and in­fluence of Wilfrid, this Jezabel, as the saint’s biographer calls her, contrived, by constantly harping on the one theme, to inspire her husband with the same base passion. The pair, in their resolve to degrade Wilfrid, had the art to engage Archbishop Theodore on their side. The arch­bishop had long been rightly convinced that one bishop for each of the eight Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was utterly inadequate to the spiritual needs of England. Up to this time, however, he had done nothing in the matter. Now, gained over by Wilfrid’s enemies, he greatly curtailed his jurisdiction (678); and out of his diocese formed three new ones, for each of which he consecrated a bishop. Against this high-handed measure, which he denounced as “mere robbery”, Wilfrid protested, and declared that he would appeal to the judgment of the Holy See. To Rome accordingly Wilfrid journeyed; and there, after escaping many snares which his enemies had caused to be laid for him, he arrived in 679. There also arrived, with letters from Theodore, full of violent accusations against Wilfrid, a monk Coenwald. To examine the Council at affair thoroughly, Agatho summoned a council, and at which he presided in person. Feeling that the proceedings of the court that listened to the first appeal to Rome from England must be of special interest to Englishmen, we will give them, as far as our sources will allow us, at some length.

The council was held in the Lateran basilica, and was opened by the Pope himself. Then the bishops of Ostia and Portus arose, and, after laying down that the “regulating of all the churches was in the hands of the Pope, who was in the place of Peter”, and declaring that they had carefully read over the charges made against Wilfrid by Theodore and others, and Wilfrid’s defence, found that he had not been canonically deposed, and, on the contrary, had evinced his moderation by keeping clear of broils and quietly appealing to the Apostolic See, in which Christ founded the primacy of the priesthood. At the command of the Pope, Wilfrid was brought before the assembly, and his (Wilfrid’s) petition read before the synod. It begins : “I, Wilfrid, the humble and unworthy bishop of the English, have come to this Apostolic eminence, as to a tower of strength. And I trust that I shall get justice, whence flows the rule of the sacred canons to all the Churches of Christ”. The memorial then goes on to show how uncanonically its author had been treated, though no accusation is made against Archbishop Theodore, “because he had been commissioned by the Apostolic See”. In conclusion, Wilfrid declares that he will abide absolutely by the decision of the Holy See; “to the equity of which he has come with fullest confidence”. Full of admiration at the spirit that animated Wilfrid, the Pope and the synod decreed that he should be restored, that the bishops who had replaced him should be expelled; but that the archbishop should ordain as coadjutors to Wilfrid, such men as the saint thought proper to select himself in a synod assembled for that purpose. All bishops and princes alike were commanded to obey this decree, under pain of different penalties. Various other decrees were also passed at this synod for the better governing of the Church in England. We can well understand that Wilfrid made no haste to return home. The journey to Rome was a very serious undertaking in those days, and there was much to be seen there, even at a time when the city was going to decay; and much to interest and astonish an enlightened man coming from this country. Wilfrid collected relics of the saints, and purchased a large variety of things for decorating his churches on his return.

Wilfrid stayed long enough in Rome to be present at the synod of 125 bishops (March 27, 680), assembled by Pope Agatho (which will be spoken of presently), to select deputies to be sent to Constantinople to assist at a general council to be held against Monothelism. Wilfrid subscribed as Bishop of York, who had appealed to and had been absolved by the Apostolic See, and who, sitting as judge in synod with 125 other bishops, confessed by his signature the true and Catholic faith, in the name of all the northern parts of Britain, Ireland, and the islands inhabited by the Britons and the Angles, the Scots and the Picts.

By the order of the Pope, Wilfrid returned to England after this council, and humbly showed to Egfrid the decrees in his favor. But the king and his councilors, pretending that they had been bought, had Wilfrid imprisoned. In vain the king tried to bribe Wilfrid into acknowledging that the Apostolic briefs were forged. But, full of trust in the authority of the Holy See, Wilfrid declared that he would sooner have his head struck from his body than make such a declaration.

After some months’ imprisonment, Wilfrid was released from prison, but banished the kingdom of Northumbrian. After having been driven from one kingdom to another, he was engaged in improving his exile by laboring for the conversion of the pagan inhabitants of Sussex, when Archbishop Theodore, made to examine into his conduct by the consciousness of approaching death, realized that he had, in his treatment of Wilfrid, been false as well to him as to the authority of the Holy See. He became perfectly reconciled to him, and procured for him from Aldfrid, the successor of Egfrid, the restoration of his See (686).

But Wilfrid’s old opponents, the upholders of the Celtic traditions, had only been scotched, not killed. They excited enmities between Wilfrid and the king; and after some years of bickering, Wilfrid was again an exile (691). Archbishop Brithwald also, the successor of Theodore, turned on Wilfrid; and at a great council at Ouestraefelda (703), probably Austerfeld, a little village on the borders of Yorkshire and Notts, and near Edwinstow in Sherwood Forest, Wilfrid was required to resign his bishopric. But asking them how they dared to resist the decrees of Popes Agatho, Benedict and Sergius in his behalf, and pointing out what he had done for the Church of Northumbria during his forty years’ episcopate, he again appealed to Rome. Arrived in Rome, “as it were at his mother’s breast”, he was summoned before a synod presided over by Pope John VI (704). In seventy sessions the points in dispute between the envoys of Brithwald and Wilfrid were thoroughly sifted. Wilfrid urged that now for the third time had he come to Rome for help, and asked for a favorable hearing, as he had received verdicts in his behalf from Popes Agatho, Benedict and Sergius, and as the action of the Apostolic See was wont to be even and consistent. In the course of the proceedings, the assembly learnt with amazement from the testimony of the oldest among them that the venerable septuagenarian in their midst was the same Wilfrid who twenty-four years previously had subscribed to the decrees of the Roman council against the Monothelites! With one voice the astonished multitude expressed their sorrow that one who had for over forty years been a bishop should be treated with the indignity that Wilfrid had been. Whereupon the Pope, having declared that in all the careful examinations they had made of the case, the synod had found no crime in Wilfrid, declared him absolved from the charges brought against him.

He then put into Wilfrid’s hands a letter for Ethelred, King of the Mercians, and Aldfrid, King of Northumbria. He tells them how grieved the whole Church was at the discord in their midst, exhorts them to be obedient, points out the care with which the case had been gone into at Rome, and orders Brithwald to summon a synod, to bring before, it Wilfrid and the usurpers of his See, and to settle the difference between them. If that cannot be done, they are to be sent to Rome to be tried, under penalty, if any refuse to come, of being deposed and excommunicated. At the command of the synod, Wilfrid set out for England. The archbishop and King Ethelred promised obedience to the Pope’s orders. But Aldfrid declared that what he and the archbishop “sent from Rome” had decided, he would never, while he lived, change on account of what it had been thought fit to call the decrees of the Apostolic See! But, quietly adds the biographer, from whose spirited pen we have all these most interesting details: “Afterwards he completely changed his decision, and was truly sorry for his conduct”. Taken suddenly ill, he confessed the sin he had been guilty of against Wilfrid and the Apostolic See, but died before he could make reparation (705). Eadwulf, the successor of Aldfrid, was even more violent than Aldfrid, but his reign was limited to a duration of two months; and under his successor Osred, the dying wishes of his (Osred’s) father Aldfrid were carried out.

Brithwald summoned the synod (705) the Pope had ordered to meet, at the village of Nidd, on the river of the same name, south of Ripon. In the presence of the bishops, of the king, and his nobles, the decrees of the Pope were read and explained. The bishops, after some consultation, became reconciled with Wilfrid, and his two great monasteries of Ripon and Hexham were restored to him; and he was restored to the See of Hexham. “And thus he lived in peace four years, i.e., until the day of his death” (709).

In this sketch of the life of St. Wilfrid, there is one fact that cannot fail to impress itself on the reader. In the histories which have come down to us of the struggle for liberty on the part of the people in the earlier days of the countries of Europe, Rome and the popes are always to be seen as most useful and trustworthy allies of its champions. The history of St. Wilfrid gives us a striking instance of this truth. In his long contest for his rights as a bishop, Wilfrid was really fighting for the rights of every citizen against the arbitrary tyranny of kings. He was doing battle for that personal freedom we English value so highly; and his allies were the popes of Rome. With their power behind him, he finally triumphed over despotism; and in his victory the nation shared. Especially did they reap its fruits in the freedom he won for the episcopacy. “Thanks to him, until the Norman Conquest, four centuries later, no English king dared arbitrarily depose a bishop from his See”. In a bid for liberty, what chance have the people, when the king has the clergy at his beck? Is it not hence strange to find freedom-loving Englishmen railing against men like St. Dunstan and St. Thomas a Becket? It is due to the heroic resistance of such men against would-be absolutism that we are the free nation that we are today.

But we must return to Pope Agatho and the principal event in his reign—the Sixth General Council. Victor over the Caliph Muaviah (or Moawyah) (678), and at peace with the Avars, thus causing “a universal state of security both in East and West”, Constantine determined to try and bring about the same universal peace in the Church. He accordingly wrote (August 12, 678) a letter, already several times quoted, to Pope Donus, “Archbishop of Old Rome and Universal Pope”. It was received by Agatho, and begins by observing that the Pope knows that he (the emperor) has been often asked to have a discussion on the question in dispute between the two Sees of Rome and Constantinople. He has never agreed, because partial discussion only made matters worse, and the times had hitherto been unfavorable for the holding of a general council. As, therefore, the times will not permit the summoning of a general council to end the unfortunate discussion, the emperor begs the Pope to send learned men, furnished with the needful books, and with full powers to speak in the name of the Pope and his council, in order to confer with the patriarch of Constantinople, and Macarius, patriarch of Antioch; and by the grace of the Holy Spirit to agree upon the truth. The emperor will show no favor to either party, but will receive the papal legates with fitting honor. He suggests that the Pope might send as deputies three clerics to represent the Roman Church, and some twelve bishops and metropolitans, with four monks from each of the four Greek monasteries in Rome, to represent the rest of his patriarchate. The letter concludes with the assurance that the emperor has ordered the exarch Theodore to do everything for the safety and convenience of those who should be sent to Constantinople.

Agatho at once fell in with these views of the emperor; and to give the greater weight to the words of those who were to be his legates at Constantinople, he ordered synods to be held in the different countries of the West, so that his deputies would speak with its united voice. We know of synods being, in consequence, held at Milan, and at Heathfield in England. And in Rome there met together in synod 125 bishops, in the Easter week of 680. After this assembly broke up, the priests Theodore and George, and the deacon John, who was afterwards to be Pope (John V), representing the Pope, and three bishops, to speak for the whole West, set out for Constantinople bearing two long letters for the emperor, one from Pope Agatho himself, and the other from the bishops of the Roman synod.

In his letter to Constantine, Agatho says he would have sent the deputies before, but had been prevented, not only by his own illness, but chiefly by the time he had had to wait for the assembling of the bishops from the more distant parts of his patriarchate. The deputies he is now sending are not to be estimated by their scientific attainments. For how, asks the Pope, can men who have to live in the midst of enemies and who have to earn their daily bread by the labor of their hands, find time for acquiring learning? Still they would be found men well able to hand on inviolate the deposit of faith they had received from their ancestors in the faith. He then lays down the doctrine of the two wills and operations, as he has received it from his predecessors. This, he adds, is the true belief of Christianity, taught not by human wit but by the Holy Ghost through the princes of the apostles. This is the confession of him who was pronounced “blessed”, in that he received his revelation from heaven, and of him to whom the Redeemer of Mankind thrice committed His sheep and under whose guidance this Church has never swerved from the way of truth in any particular—this Church, whose authority, as that of the prince of all the apostles, the whole Catholic Church and all the ecumenical councils have ever embraced and followed, and whom heretics have on the contrary ever attacked with falsehood and hatred. The rule of the true faith, the Apostolic Church will preserve perfect to the end in accordance with the prayer of Our Lord that Peter’s faith might not fail.

Hence, continues the Pope, when the patriarchs of Constantinople endeavored to introduce heretical novelties into Christ's unspotted Church, my predecessors never ceased exhorting them to desist from their errors, at least by keeping silence, (a clear allusion to the attitude of Pope Honorius towards Sergius). Agatho then proceeds to enlarge upon the “two natural wills and operations”, adducing in support of his explanation testimonies from the writings of the Greek Fathers. He shows how Sergius and his heretical successors varied even in their errors, from which the Church must be withdrawn and all must “with us” confess the truth founded on the firm rock of that Peter who preserves his Church from error. In conclusion, the Pope earnestly begs the emperor to see that all be allowed freedom of speech at the forthcoming council.

The synodal letter, signed by the Pope and the 125 bishops present at the council, is quite to the same effect, insisting just as strongly and repeatedly on the infallibility of the See of Peter. The bearers of these letters reached Constantinople on September 10, 680, and were honorably received by the emperor, who, the very same day, addressed a mandate to the patriarch George, in which he gave his sanction to his summoning to Constantinople the bishops subject to his jurisdiction, for the purpose of discussing the question of the “wills” in Our Lord. George was also informed that the emperor had given the same sanction to Macarius of Antioch.

In consequence of this energetic action on the part of the emperor, the Sixth Ecumenical Council was opened, November 7, 680. Theophanes assures us that 289 bishops and “fathers” took part in it, but the minutes of the council only give us forty-three bishops as present at the first session, and 174 at the last. The council was held in a hall of the imperial palace, known by the name ‘Trullus’, from being furnished with a cupola or dome.

The proceedings were opened by the Papal legates; and they signed first the minutes of the last session. The emperor was present in person at many of the sessions.

The Fathers, in council assembled, pronounced that the Monothelites had forged various documents; decreed the restoration of the name of Pope Vitalian to the diptychs; condemned and declared degraded Macarius of Antioch for his obstinate adhesion to Monothelism; anathematized, in their thirteenth session, Sergius, Cyrus of Alexandria and the other Eastern leaders of Monothelism, and moreover Honorius, who was formerly Pope of Old Rome; and in their eighteenth and closing session (September 16, 681) issued their decree relative to the two wills in Our Lord. The Fathers of the council, after declaring that they received with full trust, and greeted with Uplifted hands the letter of Pope Agatho to the emperor, and the synodal letter of the bishops assembled under him, and that they followed the five preceding general councils, unfolded at length, and with great perspicuity, the Catholic doctrine of the two wills and energies in Our Lord.

At the close of the synod a letter was presented to the emperor, in which the bishops inform him that, inspired by the Holy Ghost, in full agreement with one another, and following the dogmatic letter of their most holy father Agatho, and that of the synod held by him, they declare the two wills in Christ, and that they condemn Sergius, etc., and Honorius, as he followed them. They point out that the zeal of the Pope or the synod is not to be blamed, as they were merely acting on the defensive, and that in their behalf fought the prince of the apostles, inasmuch as his imitator and successor is their supporter, and in his letter explained to them the divine mysteries. Peter spoke through Agatho.

A letter was also dispatched to Pope Agatho, “the wise physician granted by Our Lord to banish disease from the Church and to restore health to its members”. To him, as to the bishop of the first See in the universal Church and as standing on the firm rock of faith, the fathers of the council leave what has to be done. In accordance with the sentence previously passed upon them in the Pope’s letters, they had anathematized the heretics, Theodore of Pharan, Sergius, Honorius, etc., and, enlightened by the Holy Ghost, and with the Pope’s instructions to guide them, had proclaimed the doctrine of the two wills. And as with the Pope they have shed abroad the light of the orthodox faith, they beg him to confirm their action in writing.

The emperor, on his side, issued an edict enjoining all, whether cleric or lay, under pain of punishment to accept the decrees of the council. And with the returning papal legates, he also sent a letter to Pope Leo II, as word had reached Constantinople, before the Roman legates left it, that Pope Agatho had died (January lo, 681). Leo was informed of what had been done by the council, and of the contumaciousness and subsequent deposition of Macarius and others, who refused to receive the letters of Pope Agatho, thus flying in the face, as it were, of Peter, the leader and prince. However, as Macarius and his supporters had all in writing begged him (Constantine) to send them to the Pope, he has done so, and leaves their case in the Pope’s hands.

Leo in his reply (after September 682) confirmed the decrees of the Sixth General Council, and, as we shall see in his life, notified them to the West. In his letter of confirmation to the emperor, Leo said that as the acts of the council were in agreement with the faith of Pope Agatho and his synod, he therefore assented to what had been defined, and by the authority of Blessed Peter confirmed its decrees and received it as he did the five preceding general councils, Leo proceeded to condemn Theodore, Cyrus, and the other Monothelite leaders, and Honorius, who, by his teaching obscured the Apostolic See, and by a profane surrender would have overthrown the immaculate faith; or, following the Greek version, permitted the spotless to be stained.

With regard to Macarius and his followers, the Pope had up till then not been able to effect much.

The definitions of the Sixth General Council were practically the death-knell of Monothelism. The names of the heretical patriarchs from Sergius to Peter were removed from the diptychs, and their portraits from wherever they were to be found either in the churches or in the public places. Deprived of State support, and receiving no encouragement from the higher clergy, Monothelism soon “died the death”; for its attempted revival by the Emperor Philippicus partook of the ephemeral nature of the reign of that prince.

What caused the emperor's proposed ‘conference’ to become an ecumenical council is not known. Perhaps it was because it was found that deputies from all the five great patriarchal Sees had arrived in Constantinople, and it was felt that the decisions of a general council would put an end to the ‘one-will’ heresy at once.

The Pope's legates at Constantinople were successful in their mission not only from a doctrinal, but also from a temporal point of view. They induced Constantine to lessen the tax the popes had to pay at their ordination—an impost first levied by the Gothic kings. He also did away with the delegated power by which the exarchs of Ravenna had confirmed the papal elections, again reserving that right to the emperors. He even waived that right later on. It must not be forgotten, however, that, as already noticed, the exact meaning of this decree is not established. Those who believe that papal confirmation by the exarch did not begin till the time of John V (685), hold that this decree of Constantine simply proclaims that, while he remitted the money payment for the imperial ratification, he made it clear that he only did so on the under­standing that there was to be no alteration in the ancient custom of seeking for imperial assent to the election.

In the history of the intermittent struggle of the Archbishops of Ravenna for increased independence, we read that Theodore (677-691) followed in the footsteps of his immediate predecessor (Reparatus), submitted to the Pope Agatho, and assisted at the Roman council of 680. We are assured by Agnellus, the episcopal historian of his predecessors in the See of Ravenna, that Theodore made an arrangement with Pope Leo II (682), that the archbishops of Ravenna were not to be obliged to stay in Rome more than eight days at the time of their consecra­tion, nor to come to Rome themselves afterwards, but were each year to send one of their priests to do homage to the Pope. However, it was during the same pontificate that Constantine Pogonatus decreed the restoring of the Church of Ravenna to subjection to the See of Rome, and that the archbishop elect should, in accordance with ancient custom, go to Rome to be ordained. And the Pope himself decreed that the anniversary of Maurus, the first rebellious archbishop of Ravenna, should not be observed. For a time we shall hear no more, after St. Leo II, of the autonomy of Ravenna.

The Book of the Popes, after telling us that Agatho gave a large sum for lights for the churches of the apostles and St. Mary Major, adds that he was buried in St. Peter’s, January 10,681. A fearsome plague had devastated Rome during the summer of 680, and it is possible that Agatho may have died from its effects, direct or indirect. He is depicted on a painting (which Gregorovius assigns to the fifteenth century) on the walls of St. Peter ad Vincula, as taking part in a procession for the cessation of the pestilence.

 

ST. LEO II.