ST. SERGIUS I

AD 687-701.

 

EMPERORS. JUSTINIAN II, 685-695 (first time). LEONTIUS, 695-698. TIBERIUS III (Apsimar), 698-705.

KING. PECTARIT, 672-688. CUNINCPERT, 688-700. ARIPERT II, 700-712.

EXARCH. JOHN PLATYN, 687-702.

 

Again we have to chronicle election troubles. Men  there will ever be whom the hope of ‘thirty pieces of silver’ will lure on to sell their friends, their country and their God. And, on the other hand, the temptation to offer bribe is much intensified by the known willingness of the person to be gained over to accept it. The subsequent conduct of the exarch John Platyn will show that he was a man with an ‘itching palm’. All this the archdeacon Pascal understood well. While Conon was  lying on his death-bed, Pascal sent off to the exarch to promise him money, if he would secure his election as Conon’s successor. Gold was bait enough for Platyn. Instructions were at once issued by him to the ‘judges’ he had appointed in Rome, to make order that Pascal should be the next Pope. Through their efforts Pascal was accordingly elected by a certain section of the people. It would seem, however, that he was not the first candidate in the field. Whether Pascal’s proceedings during Conon’s lifetime had been discovered, and good men were anxious to thwart them, or simply because the party that had elected the archdeacon Theodore, before Conon’s election, were faithful to him, and very wishful that he, now archpriest, should be Pope—at any rate, a party elected Theodore. From the fact that his party occupied the interior section of the Lateran palace, where were the Pope’s private apartments, it may perchance be inferred that Theodore was first elected. Pascal held the ‘exterior’ portion of the palace. To explain these terms ‘interior and exterior’, we may cite the following from Duchesne. The Lateran palace was divided into two groups of buildings. The one to the west occupied more or less the site of the modern palace; the one to the east, beginning at the facade of St. John Lateran, extended to the existing ‘Sancta Sanctorum’. On the north this latter range of buildings projected beyond the former; and on the north facade of this more easterly group, towards its northwest corner, was the grand entrance staircase. Now Theodore had ‘the interior portion’, i.e., the left of the grand staircase; Pascal, the right of the staircase, i.e., the site of the modern palace, embracing the oratory of St Silvester and the Julian basilica, and which abutted on the nave of the great Lateran basilica.

To put an end to the deadlock produced by the obstinate refusal of both candidates to yield their pretensions, the least factious, and consequently more numerous and sounder portion of the community, met together in the palace of the emperors, and, after much discussion, chose a third candidate in the person of the priest Sergius. They first took him into an oratory (that of St Cesarius M.) in the imperial palace, and then by force established him in the Lateran palace. The archpriest Theodore at once submitted and did homage to Sergius; and Pascal was made to do likewise. No sooner, however, was Pascal left to himself than he spared no promises of money to induce the exarch to come quickly and secretly to Rome. Quite unexpectedly, accordingly, Platyn arrived in Rome. So secretly did he come, that the usual procession, with crosses and standards, which went out of the city some distance to greet the exarch on his coming to Rome, was only able in this instance to get just outside the city by the time Platyn was upon it. And though he did not feel himself strong enough to set at naught the wishes of the people at large in their choice of Sergius, he insisted that the 1OO lbs. of gold promised him by Pascal, should be paid by Sergius. It was to no purpose that Sergius declared that he had given no such undertaking, and that he had not the money to give. The exarch would have his bond. As a guarantee that the sum should be ultimately paid, Sergius offered to pledge the ‘canthari’ and crowns which for ages had hung before the altar and confession of St, Peter. In vain, Platyn would have his pound of flesh, no more or no less. And not until the money was actually raised and paid over would the exarch permit Sergius to be consecrated (December 15, 687).

Not long after, for certain magical practices, Pascal was deprived of his archdeaconate, and shut up in a monastery, where he died impenitent in 692 or 693.

The priest that picked out like a brand from the burning to rule the Church of God was a Syrian of Antioch. His father, Tiberius, had apparently emigrated to Sicily, perhaps in consequence of the Mohammedan incursions; and Sergius was educated at Palermo. Coming to Rome he was received into the ranks of the Roman clergy by Pope Adeodatus. And, because he was zealous and clever at music, he was handed over for training to the ‘head cantor’. At that time he must have reached man’s estate, as he became Pope about sixteen years after his arrival from Sicily. And though the ‘schola cantorum’ was at this period reserved for youths in the minor orders, it is supposed that the phrase in the Book of the Popes just quoted means that Sergius was attached to that school. He was at length ordained priest (June 27, 683) by Leo II, for the ‘title’ (Church) of St, Susanna ‘ad duas domos’ on the Quirinal. Whilst a priest he was distinguished by his love for saying Mass in the catacombs. For in this century pious interest in these cemeteries of the early Christians seems to have fallen off considerably.

Passing over his reception (688) of St. Julian’s second apology on the orthodoxy of certain phrases used by the fourteenth council of Toledo, we will review in succession his relations with this country. Sometime in the latter half of 688, Caedwalla, ‘the strong-armed’, the powerful king of the West Saxons, “quitted his rule for the sake of Our Lord and His everlasting kingdom”, and went, the first of our royal pilgrims, to the successors of St. Peter, to Rome to be baptized “in the church of the apostles”. His conversion was one of the results of the indefatigable exertions of St. Wilfrid. Arrived in Rome, he was baptized by the Pope, taking, “at Father Sergius’ word”, the name of Peter (April 10, 689). And while “still in his white garments”, he fell ill and died (April 20); thereby having had fulfilled for him his wish of immediately passing to the joys of heaven in his baptismal innocence. We can only imagine the interest and joy with which Sergius looked on this barbarian prince, whom religion had changed so rapidly from a revengeful warrior into a gentle and tender follower of the crucified Lamb of God. The Pope ordered the remains of the royal convert to be buried in St. Peter’s, and an epitaph to be placed over his tomb, so that men might be induced to be imitators of his virtue.

St. Wilfrid and Brithwald

Sergius was one of the many popes who favored St. Wilfrid in his long struggle against the ‘Celtic customs’. And he supported him, not only by ordering that his dignity should be restored to him, but by approving of Brithwald as St Theodore’s successor in the See of Canterbury. For Brithwald showed himself a friend to Wilfrid. In the new archbishop’s behalf the Pope wrote two letters. The first was addressed to “Ethelred, Alfrid and Aldulf, kings of the Angles”. In it Sergius bids them rejoice that the first of the apostles and the most firm rock of the faith, Peter, is mindful of them, and bids them gladly receive Bishop Brithwald, the primate of all Britain, bestowed on them by his (St. Peter’s) authority. In his letter to all the bishops of Britain, Sergius rejoices in the good repute in which they are, informs them that Brithwald has, on account of his merits, obtained from him, that is from Blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, the primacy of all the churches of Britain, and exhorts them to receive and obey their new primate as they would the Pope himself.

Among the many Englishmen who went to Rome in the days of Pope Sergius were certain monks of the monasteries of SS. Peter and Paul of Wearmouth. They had been sent by their abbot, the wise and energetic Ceolfrid, to obtain a charter of privilege for his double monastery, such as Benedict Biscop had obtained from Pope Agatho. Doubtless from these monks Sergius would hear more particulars of the great learning of their fellow-monk, Bede. At the mention of the name of this noble Englishman, the glory of the Saxon Church, and the most enlightened man in Europe in his day, which of his countrymen does not feel a glow of just national pride? And what English writer, when he has occasion to mention his name, but feels a strong temptation to leave his subject and dilate on the transcendent merits of this simple northern monk? We must, however, resist our inclinations and refer our readers for information regarding him to any of the historians of England. For whatever their religious belief, one and all have a good word for Bede, the father of English History. The enthusiasm which, after the lapse of so many centuries, the name of Bede arouses in Englishmen today was apparently felt by his contemporary Pope Sergius. At any rate, William of Malmesbury has preserved for us a letter, addressed by Pope Sergius (about the year 701) to abbot Ceolfrid, in which he asks him to send Bede to Rome, so that he (Sergius) may consult with Bede. That Bede, however, never went to Rome seems certain, as he himself tells us that he never left his monastery. But there does not seem sufficient reason to doubt with some that he was summoned there. Possibly the reason why Bede remained at home was that the Pope who summoned him died very soon after sending off the letter to Ceolfrid. In his letter to the abbot, Sergius says that certain difficult questions have arisen, and he is in need of learned men to aid him in looking into them; and therefore he asks Ceolfrid to send him without delay “that religious servant of God, Bede, a priest of your monastery”. The Pope undertakes that Bede shall return as soon as the business is finished for which he was summoned, and points out that what Bede may do for the Church will redound to the credit of the monastery. Some have doubted of the authenticity of this letter, because in a copy of it that is older than the work of Malmesbury the name of Bede is not found, but the letter N in its stead. All, however, that that proves is that the one who transcribed the letter could not clearly make out the copy he had before him. And as Bede’s name is found not only in Malmesbury, but in a MS. copy of the whole letter, of which Malmesbury only professes to give us extracts, we find the letter now accepted by such an authority as Jaffé. Hence if Bede did not go to Rome, he was probably summoned there.

St. Aldhelm

From the number of distinguished Englishmen who went to Rome in his time, it may be argued that Sergius must have been one of the many popes who have had and displayed great love for this country. Among the rest who visited Pope Sergius was the most popular Englishman, not only of his own time, but of many succeeding years, the abbot Aldhelm, afterwards Bishop, of Sherburne, and the practical founder of Malmesbury Abbey. The present abbey church of Malmesbury, which, partly in ruins and partly in use, does so much to deepen the old-world aspect of that quaint old Wiltshire town, well typifies, with its massive yet comely Norman pillars, the strong, yet most attractive character of the monk Aldhelm. Having obtained large grants of land for his monastery from the kings of Mercia and Wessex, he went, with their consent, to Rome to obtain from Pope Sergius a charter of privilege for his beloved abbey. William of Malmesbury tells us with pride how well Aldhelm was received by the Pope, who made the abbot stay with him in the Lateran palace, and was delighted to find in the Anglo-Saxon as well learning as piety. Charmed with his virtue, Sergius made no difficulty in granting Aldhelm (about 701) a brief, plac­ing his monasteries of Malmesbury and Frome under the immediate jurisdiction of Rome.

The love and respect for the See of Peter with which our forefathers were animated, and which, despite the difficulties and dangers of the way, urged them to Rome in these centuries to visit the Popes, was, of course, of a practical kind, of a kind which moved them to try to bring others to the same way of thinking as themselves. And so, wherever they came into contact with any want of proper submission to the Holy See, they at once endeavored to subdue it. And while St. Wilfrid in the North of England endeavored to bring the Celts into line with the Roman Church on the Easter question, St. Aldhelm did the same in the South-West. Urged by a West Saxon synod, Aldhelm wrote (705) to Geraint (Geruntius), King of the Britons of Dyfnaint (Devonshire and Cornwall), and to the priests of his kingdom, to conform to the practices of the Roman Church in the matter of the tonsure and Easter. After unfolding the questions to them, he implored them “no longer contumaciously to turn their backs on the doctrine and decrees of Blessed Peter, and not, relying on the obstinacy of might, arrogantly to despise the tradition of the Roman Church cm account of the ancient decrees of their fore­fathers. For Peter, when, with happy voice, he had confessed the Son of God, deserved to hear: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, etc.; and to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven’ (St. Matt. XVI. 18). If then the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given by Christ to Peter .... who that sets at naught the principal decrees of his Church will enter the gates of heaven ...? But perchance some wily book-worm or smart analyst of the Scriptures may offer some such defence as this: ‘With all the sincerity of a believing heart do I venerate the doctrines of both the Old and New Testament. I confess the Trinity, the Incarnation, etc., and by virtue of this faith I shall be accounted a Catholic’ .... ‘Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well. The devils also believe and tremble ... Faith without works is dead’ (St. James II. 19). For Catholic faith and the harmony of fraternal charity go hand in hand. And to sum up all in one conclusion, to no purpose do they boast of their possession of the Catholic faith, who do not follow the doctrine and teaching of St. Peter. For the foundation of the Church and the support of the faith, resting in the first instance on Christ, and then on Peter, will never be shaken by tempests. As the apostle notes: ‘For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid which is Jesus Christ’ (I Cor. III. 11). And to Peter has truth itself thus assigned his position in the Church: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’.”

This letter caused many to conform to the Catholic celebration of Easter, says Bede.        

But it is time to retrace our steps and treat of matters that concern the Universal Church. The first of these affairs of general interest that calls for our attention is the so-called ‘Quinisext’ Council of 692, well described by our first historian Bede as “erratic”. The “cruel and presumptuous” Justinian II, in the year 692, reflecting that the fifth and sixth ecumenical councils had issued indeed important dogmatic decrees, but had not published any disciplinary canons, summoned a synod to supply this omission. As a sort of complement to the fifth and sixth councils, this synod received the extraordinary name of ‘Quinisext’; though it is sometimes called the Trullan synod, because it was held in the same ‘domed’ hall as the Sixth General Council. From the extant subscriptions to its canons, it appears that some 211 Eastern bishops took part in this council, so fraught with important results both in the history of the Church and in that of Europe. By legalising a married clergy the fathers of this council so far at least degraded the whole body of the Eastern clergy as to render it, by that very concession, less powerful for good; and, drawing such a sharp line of demarcation between Eastern and Western custom on such an important practical question, made a still further step in the direction of the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches—a separation fatal to Christianity in the East. The attempt on the part of this synod to place the See of Constantinople on a level in ecclesiastical matters with that of Rome was of course another advance towards schism. And anything that tended to produce isolation of the Eastern Church meant isolation and destruction for the Greek empire. The council “in Trullo”, remarks Finlay, was “an additional cause of separation, when the strictest unity of religious opinions was necessary to maintain the political power of the empire”.

Of the 102 canons decreed by the Quinisext Council, some consist simply of the renewal of ancient canons; some, again, were liturgical; while others treated of monks and nuns, fasting and superstitions. Many of the decrees were made in direct opposition to the custom of the Roman Church. Among others, one of the canons on clerical celibacy (the thirteenth), after setting forth the opposite discipline of the Roman Church, adds: “We, however, allow them (priests and deacons) to continue in matrimony”, and forbid them to send away the wives they had before their promotion to Sacred Orders.—Thus did these infatuated Greeks cast away the salt that preserves the Church, a celibate clergy. By their thirty-sixth canon also, the Orientals aimed a blow at the See of Rome that only recoiled on themselves, and left them more than ever the slaves of the emperors of Constantinople. “We define”, runs the canon, “that the See of Constantinople shall enjoy equal rights with that of Old Rome, shall be exalted in ecclesiastical affairs as it is, and shall be second after it”. It may be noted in passing what a striking acknowledgment that canon was of the preeminent position in the Church of the Roman Pontiff at that time. While endeavoring to snatch the crown, it showed on whose head it was.

These canons were signed by the emperor, and by all the great patriarchs but the Roman, whose place, immediately after the emperor’s, was left unfilled. If Archbishop Basil of Gortyna, in Crete, signed the decrees, adding, after his name, “holding the place of the whole synod of the Holy Church of Rome”, just as he did at the Sixth General Council, it was not that he had received any special commission from Rome to represent it at the council, but that he acted on his own responsibility. And when the Book of the Popes, in its life of Sergius, says that the ‘legates’ of the Pope subscribed, deceived by the emperor, it means the papal apocrisiarii resident at Constantinople. For it is quite certain that no legates were dispatched by the Pope to represent him at the council. And when Nicholas I, in a letter to the Emperor Michael, speaks of the emperor’s predecessors, in the time of Pope Conon, leading into error those who wanted to save them, Hefele believes he refers to these very apocrisiarii, who had at least been sent to Constantinople by Conon.

Justinian, however, knowing well that without the signature of the Roman Pontiff the decrees of his council would have no force in the West at any rate, straightway sent them to Rome, and required the Pope, as “the head of all the bishops”, to sign them. But though many of the decrees were excellent, it was not to be expected that the Pope would sign them as a whole. And indeed he boldly declared that he would die rather than put his signature to them; and he would not allow them to be read. As usual with the rulers of Constantinople, Justinian at once had recourse to violence. “And well was it for the Roman See”, says a non-Catholic writer, “that a strong man filled the chair of St. Peter”. Finding that carrying off two of the Pope’s councillors to Constantinople had no effect in daunting Sergius, the emperor sent Zacarias, his protospatharius, or captain of the bodyguard, to Rome with orders to drag the Pope himself to Constantinople.

But “a change had come over the spirit of the dream” since the days of Pope Martin. Mingled with the scant residue of the Italian citizens of the Roman empire, the barbarians, who broke that empire to pieces, and had settled down in Italy, its fairest province, were beginning to form a new and vigorous Italian people. Italy, or those parts of it in which they dwelt, was now beginning to be regarded by them as their country. They were organizing themselves for its defence. They were beginning to see that it was not the emperor of Constantinople that had their interests at heart; they could see that their money was all he cared for. On the other hand, it was equally plain  to them that the only one of any position who had any care for their concerns, and who was any manner of protection to them against the tyrannical Greek official or the Lombard, was the Bishop of Rome. Around him, then, would they rally! No longer would they allow him to be carried off with insult to Constantinople. Accordingly, no sooner did the errand of Zacarias become known, than the “army of Ravenna and of the Duchy of Pentapolis” marched to Rome. In terror Zacarias begged the Pope to have the gates of the city shut; and with tears besought him not to allow anyone to lay hands on him. But soon the troops of Ravenna were thundering at the gates of the Lateran palace. The guardsman took refuge under the Pope’s bed, and Sergius showed himself to the soldiers. The people were somewhat appeased when they found that, contrary to the report, the Pope had not been carried off during the night and placed on board ship for Constantinople. Calmed by the Pope’s word, they spared the guardsman’s life, but drove him in ignominy from the city. “And”, adds the papal biographer, “by the action of Divine justice, he who sent the guardsman was at this time deprived of his kingdom”. The reference is to the uprising of Leontius (695), who, by a successful coup de main, seized the imperial throne, and sent off the cruel Justinian with his nose slit as an exile to Cherson. Thus did one more angry wave beat but to break itself into impotent spray and foam against the rock of Peter.

St. Wilibrord and Frisia.

The country lying between the Rhine and the Elbe, and bounded on the north by the ocean, and which, at this period, bore the name of Frisia, had received already the first seeds of Christianity from St. Eligius and our own St. Wilfrid. But it was reserved for another Anglo-Saxon, sent by Pope Sergius, to complete the conversion of Frisia. Willibrord, one of that large number of devoted English and Irish saints that won to the faith of Christ the whole of Central Europe, arrived in Frisia about the year 691; and when Eddi was writing his life of Wilfrid, was, as that biographer noted, still continuing the work of his master (Wilfrid) in converting the people of Friesland. Trained in St. Wilfrid’s monastery of Ripon, and in Ireland, Willibrord conceived a great desire to labor in a vineyard, wherein some of his fellow-monks had gone to toil, but had gleaned but little fruit. As soon as Willibrord landed, he found that the prospects of preaching the faith with success were greater than before, owing to the fact that Pippin of Heristal had made Radbod, duke of the Frisians, acknowledge the suzerainty of the Franks. Accordingly he made haste to get to Rome, that he might begin his wished-for labor of preaching the Gospel to the heathens, with the leave and blessing of Pope Sergius, who was then Pope. He also, adds Bede, wanted thence to learn or procure various things which so great a work required.

Great success attended the labors of Willibrord and his fellow-workers. With the consent of all, Willibrord was sent to Rome by Pippin, with the request that he might be made archbishop of the Frisians. Very willingly did Sergius consent, and Willibrord was consecrated (November 21, 695) in St. Cecilia’s. The Pope on that occasion changed his name to Clement, and sent him back to his bishopric fourteen days after his arrival in Rome. A most interesting document has preserved for us the true date of the consecration of Willibrord. It is ordinarily stated, on the authority of Ven. Bede, that he was consecrated November 22, 696, which was a Wednesday. But in the National Library at Paris there is preserved a MS. Calendar (a part of which has been published in facsimile), which was used by St. Willibrord himself. In the margin of this calendar he has written that he came from across the seas into France in the year 690; that, though unworthy, he was ordained bishop by the Apostolic Pope Sergius in 695; and that “now”, in the year 698, he was still at work. The day, indeed, of his consecration is not marked by the saint himself, but an apparently contemporary hand has added, in the margin of the calendar, to the 21st November the words, “The consecration of our lord Clement”. The 21st November, a Sunday, is then clearly the true date. All this is told us by Duchesne in his notes to the biography of Sergius in his edition of the Liber Pontificalis.

By the time of his death (739) the Frisians, as a nation, had become Christian. It is surely scarcely necessary to call attention to the fact that the history of the missionary work of the apostle of the Frisians is another proof that in the West the Gospel was only preached by those “who were sent”, that is, received their mission, from the successors of St. Peter.

Mention has already been made of the success of Pope Sergius in extinguishing the schism of Aquileia. Comparing the accounts of this affair that have been left us by the Liber Pontificalis, by Bede and Paul the Deacon, with the contemporary poem edited by Bethmann, it would appear either that a synod was first held at Aquileia, in which the schism was reaffirmed, and that then afterwards, by the efforts of Pope Sergius and King Cunincpert, who summoned a synod at Pavia about 700, the schism was quashed for ever at that council. Or else, which seems more likely, that what Bede and the others call the ‘synod of Aquileia’, simply meant, as it often did in the language of those times, the collection of suffragan bishops under the patriarch of Aquileia. Hence we may conclude that the king of the Lombards, acting in unison with the Pope, invited the bishops of the schismatical patriarchate to a synod at Pavia. They came, and amidst tears of joy on their own part and those of the spectators, they declared their wish to be restored to the unity of the Church. The joyful news was sent to Sergius, who blessed the king with the words, that “he who converteth a sinner from the error of his ways shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins” (St. James V. 20). At the same time he ordered that all the works treating on the errors of the late schismatics should be burnt, lest the new converts might be again troubled with the same evil doctrines.

The name of Sergius is also connected with another famous city in the north-east of Italy, with Venice, or, to speak more accurately, with the Venetians, who at about this time inhabited the various islands, on some of which Venice was founded later on (about 710). Driven, willingly or unwillingly, from the mainland by Huns, Goths and Lombards, the inhabitants of the old province of Venetia took refuge on the numerous islands that lie in the midst of the muddy shallows or lagunes situated between the rivers Adige and Piave. There, protected by the shallows from the mainland and from the sea by the intricate channels between the outermost encircling islets, the Venetians maintained a practical, if not always nominal, independence from the days of the Goths until the days of that arch-destroyer Napoleon, called the Great.

Up to the period now being treated of, the different isles and cities of which the rising republic was formed were more or less independent of one another, each under its own ‘tribune’. The result of this system of government was, of course, weakness both at home and abroad. Accordingly, about the year 700, there assembled in the city of Heraclea, Cristoforo, patriarch of Grado, his suffragans, the clergy, the tribunes, the nobles and the people. The outcome of their deliberations was the election of a duke or ‘doge’, with authority over all the ‘lagune state’. The first doge of Venice was Paoluccio Anafesto. It is also said by Hazlitt that the promoters of this new constitution asked and obtained from Pope Sergius his confirmation of their action. On this Hazlitt remarks: “In a newly-formed society like that of Venice, placed in the difficult situation in which the republic found herself at the close of the seventh century .... it ought to create no surprise that the patriarch Christoforo and his supporters should have formed a unanimous determination to procure the adhesion and consent of the Holy See before any definite steps were taken to carry the resolutions of the popular assembly into effect. The mission, which was immediately dispatched for this purpose to Aquileia, where the Pope was then holding a council, consisted of Michele Participazio (or Badoer) and two other Venetian citizens of good family. The result was eminently favorable”. As, however, the beginnings of all great states are always more or less obscure, and as the principal authority for this account of the foundation of the Venetian republic is apparently the Chronicle  of the Doge, Andrea Dandolo, which, though a great work, was not written till the close of the first half of the fourteenth century, we must conclude that the origin of the Venetian Republic is not known with any great degree of certainty.

While thus occupied with such great external works as conversion of nations, the extinction of schisms, and the foundation of states, Sergius did not neglect affairs at home of lesser moment. St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, and other basilicas he repaired and adorned, and furnished with new and splendid vessels of marble, gold, and silver. He also richly endowed and adorned the church of St. Susanna on the Quirinal, of which he had been parish priest, and which was in a very struggling condition, as both Anastasius and a marble inscription pieced together by De Rossi, recording the deed of gift to the Priest John, inform us. He also discovered in an out-of-the-way corner of the sacristy of St. Peter’s a silver box, which proved to contain a portion of the true cross enclosed in a beautifully jewelled cross, which relic, say the historians of this discovery, has ever since that time been ‘kissed and adored’ by all the people on the feast of the ‘Exaltation of the Holy Cross’ in the basilica of Our Saviour (the Lateran). While searching about in the sacristy, Sergius also came across the body of St. Leo the Great. This he transferred (June 28, 688) to a splendid tomb which he caused to be erected in a prominent position in the interior of the basilica itself, as again we have on the authority not only of the Book of the Popes but of the inscription still preserved, set up by Sergius on the occasion.

In connection with the service of the Church, he ordained that “at the time of the breaking of Our Lord’s body (in the Mass) the Agnus Dei should be sung by clergy and people”. He also decreed that on the feasts of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Dormition or Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and of St. Simeon (or the Purification), litanies should be recited from the Church of St. Adrian to St. Mary.

This great and holy Pope was buried in St. Peter’s (September 8, 701). The epitaph which Baronius gives as belonging to this Pope really belongs to Sergius III. But we may cite as his epitaph what Alcuin says of him in his metrical life of St. Willibrord :

Pontificalis apex, Petri dignissimus heres,

Sanctus apostolicam tenuit tunc Sergius aulam

Vir bonus et prudens, nulli pietate secundus.

We have now set forth the history of the popes for a Review of hundred years; and, considering the number of biographies that have had to be written, it must be confessed that not very much has been said about them. The reason of that, however, is, that there is very little to be said. Of all the centuries of the Middle Ages, we know least about this their first century, at any rate as far as the popes are concerned, with the possible exception of the tenth century. In the dearth of historical records, practically all that is to be told of the popes of the seventh century has now been told.

From what the genuine records of history have made known to us, we see that during this seventh century the See of Rome was occupied by an unbroken succession of good men. It opened and closed with the fourteen years’ reign of a saint. So bright are their characters, that it would be to degrade them to contrast them with, we will not say, the secular princes of their time, but even with their would-be rivals, the ambitious patriarchs of Constantinople. There are, indeed, a number of modern historians who, to serve their ends or to indulge a habit, have supplied from their imaginations the lacunae of contemporary authorities. With material thus derived, they have endeavored to detract from, or to dull the bright characters of some of the popes of this seventh century, by attributing more or less disreputable ‘motives’ to their actions. We have tried to steer clear of such an unscientific and unsatisfactory course, and to let the plain facts of history speak for themselves. And again we assert that these facts tell us that if Honorius I was a little weak in theological acumen, the aged Conon somewhat wanting, on one occasion, in economical foresight, the popes of the seventh century were model men, and a credit to the high position they occupied.

Abroad we have seen the popes materially assisting in the conversion of nations to the faith of Christ, in the foundation of states, in extinguishing schisms, and combatting heresies backed by imperial power; and, by their influence over the barbaric kings of the Lombards, saving Rome for the empire and for its citizens. And though we have seen the Holy See kept vacant for months, the palace of the popes plundered, themselves assailed with violence and sent off to exile and to death, in what condition do we find them at the close of the century? Stronger than they were at the beginning. The schism that weakened their power in Italy has been closed, and they have become so strong in the affections of the people that the despotic power of the Eastern emperors has broken against them. By the end of this century the popes have become safe from Oriental tyranny, and, we may add, their temporal power is assured. For in the next century we shall see that temporal power an accomplished fact, and Italy freed, by the action of the popes, from the incubus of the Lombards, as it was practically freed in this century from the Eastern emperors.

In this century, then, it is asserted that the foundations of the temporal power of the popes were strengthened to the point of being ready to receive the superstructure. While we find Gibbon, Milman, and Greenwood, in their calmer moments, asserting that it “was the circumstances of the times” that forced temporal power into the hands of the popes, we find many at all times roundly proclaiming that it was by their own ambitious exertions that such power ever fell into their hands. Their proof of their proposition would seem to be that the popes did acquire temporal power, and therefore it must have been the result of their ambition. As historical data are wanting to them, they fall back upon logic. The records of the history of the popes of the seventh century show, however, that the popes owed their temporal power to the manner in which they attached to themselves the people of Italy, by the unexceptionable arts of defending their civil liberties against emperor and Lombard, of expending the wealth of the Holy See on the poor and the captive, and of upholding even to death the rights of conscience.

May it be ours now to write the history of the popes of the eighth century, and to unfold the causes which developed the temporal power of the popes, such as we have seen it in the hands of St Gregory I, Honorius etc., into full and perfect independent regal sovereignty.

Before, however, entering upon the biographies of the eighth century pontiffs, it may be convenient to bring together the brief scattered notices that are to be met with—chiefly in the letters of St. Gregory I and the Ordo Romanus I—concerning the officials through whom the pope governed his local See of Rome in the seventh century.

For purposes of spiritual administration the city was divided into parishes, in each of which was a titular church, presided over by a cardinal priest. At their head was the important archpriest.

For the temporal needs of the people, and for other purposes generally, the city had at a very early period been divided into seven regions, partly, perhaps, because the fourteen civil regions of the city could be easily divided into seven fresh divisions; partly, perhaps, for some mystical reason; and again, perhaps, that there might be, a fixed set of officials each day to attend the pope at the various stations. It is certain that in the first ages of the Church, seven notaries had been appointed to take down the acts of the martyrs. When the centuries of persecution passed away, the notaries remained now in charge of the Papal Chancery, and at their head in the seventh century was one of the most distinguished members of the officials of the pope, viz., the primicerius of the notaries.

In connection with the seven regions were seven deaconries, bureaux as it were, where all that concerned the poor (hospitals, orphanages, etc.), was managed. At the head of these establishments, as their name implies, was a deacon. And over the deacons themselves was a great functionary, the archdeacon, who is spoken of in the Ordo Romanus as the Vicar of the Pope. Of all the Roman officials of the seventh century, the regionary deacons were the most important. From them were selected the apocrisiarii who were sent to Con­stantinople, and from their ranks were chosen the successors of St Peter. Their orders were carried out by the regionary subdeacons and acolytes.,

By all these functionaries was the pope assisted at the stations, and, during the vacancy of the Holy See or during the absence of the pope, the Roman See was governed by the archpriest, the archdeacon and the primicerius of the notaries.

We have already seen how, equally in connection with the seven regions, Gregory the Great established a college of defensors, with a primicerius at their head, for the management of the patrimonies of the Church in Rome and elsewhere—the patrimonies whence were drawn the means by which the work and charities undertaken by the Roman Church were able to be carried on. The dispensator ecclesiae seems to have been the head per­manent official connected with the administration of the patrimonies.

In the documents of the seventh century there is also frequent mention of the schola cantorum, again subject to a primicerius. It was there, apparently, that the young aspirants for the ranks of the Roman clergy received their general as well as their musical education. They are said to have left it when they had received the minor order of acolyte.

Many other officers of the Roman Church are also not unfrequently mentioned in our sources. There was the Vicedominus, whom some would distinguish from the Majordomo, assigning to the first the charge of the papal palace, and to the second the functions of a guest-master. The nomenclator was a sort of gentleman-usher; the arcarius, the treasurer, chief of the papal exchequer; and the saccellarius, the paymaster, though Ewald rather regards him as an almoner.

Among the lay assistants of the pontifical administration of high standing was the consiliarius (possibly legal adviser) of the Holy See. This official, several times met with in the letters of Gregory the Great, is first noticed by Pope Vigilius. Of the minor laymen in the service of the Church were the mansionarii, who had to look after the churches, much as the modern sacristans do. It only remains to be stated that as time went on we shall find the sphere of action of some of these officials diminished and that of others extended. Temporal power, too, will bring with it new officers.

The centre of papal government during the seventh century was the Lateran palace, whither in the course of that period the documents relating to the Church were removed from the library of Pope Damasus. For a short time during the next century a palace at the foot of the Palatine Hill was to be the centre of papal activity.