HONORIUS I.

AD 625-638.

 

Emperor. HeraCLius, 610-641.

KINGS. ARIWALD, 626-636.   ROTHARI, 636-652.

Exarch. Isaac, 625-644.

                                                            

Of all the successors of St. Peter, Honorius I has in those our days been more discussed than any other. This is owing to his alleged fall into the Monothelite or “One-will” heresy. When at the Vatican Council in 1870, it was defined that the Pope, “when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when fulfilling his office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, .... he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, .... is endowed with that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be furnished in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals”,  when, we say, this was defined to be of Catholic faith, many appealed to the history of Pope Honorius, as showing that in his case at least “error” and not truth had been the subject of an ex cathedra decision of a pope. It will be seen in due course that even if Honorius had taught the doctrine of “One-will” in Our Lord, which as a matter of fact he did not, he issued no ex cathedra decree on the subject.

Considering, therefore, the interest that attaches to the doings of Honorius in the “One-will” controversy, it will be to the point to form a judgment as to his character from the other acts of his which history records. And a knowledge thus gained of his practical character will throw light on his conduct in the “One-will” controversy.

Honorius, who was consecrated November 3, 625, was a Campanian and the son of Petronius. As the latter is spoken of as a “consul” by the papal biographer, he probably occupied some civil or military position—more likely the former.

With chronological difficulties connected with the exact date of the consecration of the seventh century pontiffs, it is, generally speaking, scarcely worthwhile delaying the course of the narrative, as it is simply now impossible to fix the day of the month with certainty. In this case, however, an exception must be made, as certain conclusions have been drawn from the date of the consecration of Honorius. The biographer of Boniface V tells us that the See was vacant thirteen days after the death of that pontiff. That interval would make the consecration of Honorius fall in the middle of the week between Sunday, November 3, and Sunday, November 10. Hence Jaffé selects Sunday, November 3.

But counting the length of the reign of Honorius, as given in the Liber Pontificalis, backwards from the known date of his death, Sunday, October 27, is arrived at as the day of his consecration. This date is accepted by Duchesne. However, as this would not allow the three days interval required by the decree of Boniface III, the date November 3 is perhaps preferable. Though here again Duchesne contends that as, according to the Roman method of calculating, October 27 was of course exactly the third day after the burial of Boniface, the consecration of Honorius took place on the last day of the “close time” because it happened to be a Sunday. But this would certainly seem to be tampering with the decree of Boniface. Duchesne further urges that if there was any intervention of the exarch in this case of Honorius, it must be set down as due to some exceptional circumstance. Whichever date be accepted, the interval between the death of Boniface V and the consecration of his successor was very short for this period. Hence Sickel and others have concluded that the election of Honorius was confirmed by the exarch and not by the emperor himself directly. But, unless the exarch was in Rome, the interval assigned above was too short for confirmation even by him. It must either be supposed that there is some considerable error in the figures (at least as we have them now) of the biographers of Boniface and Honorius, a supposition by no means unlikely, or that, for some unknown reason, Honorius was consecrated without waiting for the emperor's consent. Suffice it to say here further, that the question as to the confirmation of papal elections by emperor or exarch is very obscure. More will, however, be said on it under the life of John IV, when an account will be given of the Liber Diurnus, with which the question is closely connected.

His biographer goes on to inform us that in his time Honorius did much good. Among his good deeds, he notes the Pope’s instruction of the clergy, and his building, adorning and repairing a long list of churches and cemeteries. Several contemporary inscriptions still extant bear testimony to the activity of Honorius in keeping up the great Christian monuments of the city. He did a great deal as well for the preservation as for the beautifying of St. Peter’s. With 975 pounds of silver he so adorned its principal gate that it came to be called the “Silver Gate”, and attracted the fatal attention of the Saracens when they plundered St. Peter’s in 846. An inscription sets forth how the Word took flesh; made St. Peter the first of his disciples; and gave him power to open and shut the gates of heaven. Among those to whom he would have to close the gates of heaven were those in the schism of Istria. But the leader of the people, Honorius, restored to the Church the members that had been torn from her. And as with finest silver he adorned “thy gates, do you, blest door-keeper of heaven, give peace to thy flock”. The inscription on the second leaf of the door shows that medallions of the two apostles, richly adorned with gold and gems, were conspicuous on the two leaves of the gate. With the consent of Heraclius he re-roofed St. Peter’s with bronze tiles taken from “the temple of Rome”, i.e. from the great basilica of Constantine on the Sacred Way. The shrunken population of Rome was no longer able to keep up the numerous colossal public edifices with which Rome had been graced in the days of her might. So that Honorius not unnaturally thought it best to preserve the buildings that were in use, even at the expense of those which were not used, which centuries were bringing to ruin, and which there was no money forthcoming to keep in repair.

On the Via Nomentana he rebuilt the famous church now known as S. Agnese fuori le Mura, and which had been built under Constantine the Great. The Church of St. Agnes is particularly interesting, because, despite modern alterations and restorations, it has to a very large extent kept its ancient form and internal arrangement. Extant inscriptions still tell of the gorgeous, if somewhat rude, manner in which Honorius decorated the tomb of the saint “with silver without stint”, and the Church itself with mosaics. The very mosaic (with its inscription also in mosaic) with which Honorius is said to have decorated the apse of the basilica is still preserved. There St. Agnes is seen with the emblems of her martyrdom and in the garb of a Byzantine empress, and to her right a figure in a purple planeta and white pallium, and. with tonsured head, presenting to her a model of the basilica. “Below the mosaic, the ancient verses, among the best of their period, and more artistic than the picture which they extol, are still legible”. The last four of the verses tell us that the mosaic was given by Honorius, who is to be recognized in it by his vestments, by the model, and by his bright face, the index of his pure heart.

Inscriptions, the book of the popes and topographies, dating back to the seventh century, tell of the restoration of the Church of St. Pancratius, as well as of that of St Agnes. But, as this is not a history of the city of Rome, we must cry: Enough of churches.

However, before finally leaving the subject, it is worth while recording that among the discoveries made (1900) by the new “English School” at Rome, was the base of a fountain. It was found on the upper surface of the Comitium, “the greater part of which has now been laid bare, .... immediately opposite to the door of the Curia (S. Adriano)”, and probably “formed the cantharus in front of the church which Honorius I constructed in the Curia about the year 635”. For this and other items of information to be quoted later, regarding the recent work of our school of archaeology in Rome, I am indebted to a letter sent to the Times (January 9, 1901) by the head of the school, Mr. G. Rusforth.

If weight can be attached to a passage of the Liber Pontificalis, which has been interpolated into one MS., Honorius repaired the aqueduct, known as the Aqua Trajana (Acqua Paola now), which entered Rome by the Porta S. Pancrazio, bringing water from the Sabatine Lake (Lago di Bracciano), some thirty-five miles from Rome. Witigis had, in 537, cut the eleven aqueducts which supplied Rome with water. They must have been repaired in some kind of way, for Gregory the Grea’s words, when endeavoring to get the care of them placed in proper hands, show they were to some extent in working order. “The aqueducts are so neglected, that if greater care be not bestowed upon them, they will, in a short time, be entirely useless”. Likely enough, then, Honorius bestowed the needful care on the Aqua Trajana, only to have his work undone by the Lombard king, Aistulf, in his siege of Rome in 756. He also erected mills close to the wall to be worked by the water of the Trajan aqueduct, and it is certainly interesting to find between the Janiculum and the Tiber flour-mills still being worked by water from the same source.

The scanty remnants of the Register of Honorius are extensive enough to furnish further illustration of how temporal sway in Rome was falling into the hands of the popes by the force of circumstances. The care of the corn and water supply of the city is now in their hands. And, like Gregory the Great, Honorius extended his care to the city of Naples. He appointed for it, and all that appertained to it, civil and military authorities, and gave them instructions as to how it was to be ruled.

The case of certain “clerics of Cagliari”, if it does not put before us direct exercise of temporal power on the part of the Pope, gives us a further insight into the authority he possessed through the great officials of the empire, in virtue of imperial concessions. Excommunicated and summoned to Rome, these clerics had embarked to obey the papal orders when, writes the Pope to the sub-deacon Sergius, “the perverse president of the Isle of Sardinia” shipped them off to Africa. Though Honorius had already written himself to Gregory, the prefect of the praetorium in Africa, urging him to punish the misconduct of Theodore, he instructed Sergius also to admonish the prefect, to reprimand the president, and to send the clerics to Rome. “We have sent to your experience”, continued the Pope to Sergius, “a copy of the constitutions of Theodosius and Valentinian, for you to forward to the prefect. The mere reading of them will show how the emperors have all confirmed the privileges of the Apostolic See, and what privileges have of old been granted to it”. Of the issue of these negotiations nothing is known. But taken in conjunction with the Pope’s action with regard to Naples, they are enough to justify the epithet, which the inscriptions concerning him repeatedly give him, viz., “the people’s ruler or duke”—dux plebis.

His Register also shows Honorius attending to the “patrimony of St. Peter”, letting estates in Rome and its neighborhood. Before passing to more lengthy matters, it may here be noted that he also issued various decrees connected with ritual, e.g., that metropolitans who used the pallium in the public streets or in processions were to be deprived of the right to wear that sacred vestment In this strictness with regard to the use of the pallium, he was but imitating Gregory. He also decreed that every Saturday there should be a procession of all the people chanting sacred canticles from the Church of St. Apollinaris to St. Peter’s, from which it was not far distant. And, at the request of St. Bertulf, the second abbot of Bobbio, the famous abbey of St. Columbanus, he freed that monastery from subjection to any other authority but the See of Rome.

The Lombards, 625

In the beginning of his reign, the name of Honorius occurs in the story of the mysterious downfall of the Lombard king Adalwald. During his reign the conversion of the Lombards from Arianism went on steadily. Whether because he was a Catholic, or because, as Paul the Deacon expressly avers, he had lost his reason, this son of the devout Theodelinda was dethroned and the Arian Ariwald put in his place by the Lombard nobles. The so-called Fredegarius, really some unknown writer in Gaul, who continued the Frankish history of Gregory of Tours, but in a most barbaric style and inaccurate manner, and who died about 663, relates some extraordinary details about the fall of Adalwald. On his authority we have it that about the year 624, the Lombard king came in some most marvelous manner under the influence of Eusebius, an official (exarch?) of the court of Constantinople. For after being anointed in a bath with some unguents, Adalwald is said to have fallen under the control of the will of Eusebius. Under his magnetic (?) influence, the Lombard king began to destroy the chief men of his kingdom, with the object of afterwards surrendering both it and himself to the empire. However all this may be, it is certain that the Lombards rebelled, and Ariwald (married to his rival’s sister) got the upper hand. Perhaps Adalwald then turned to the Pope. At any rate there is extant a letter of Honorius to the exarch Isaac, which is generally assigned to the close of the year 625. The Pope writes that he has been informed that some bishops in the parts beyond the Po had been endeavoring to induce the ‘glorious Peter’ to be false to Adalwald. Peter scorned their suggestions. “But because it is injurious to God and man that those who ought to dissuade others from traitorous conduct, exhort them to it; when, by the help of God and yours, Adalwald has been restored to his kingdom, do you be good enough to send the aforesaid bishops to Rome, because we cannot suffer such conduct to go unpunished”.

Adalwald, however, died soon after this, by poison says Fredegarius, and Ariwald became the acknowledged ruler of the Lombards (626).

Treating of the relations of Honorius with bishops across the Po, it will be suitable to speak of those which he had with the bishops, both schismatical and orthodox, of Venetia and Istria. Paulinus, the metropolitan of Aquileia (it is not known when these metropolitans first took the title of patriarch), the originator of the schism of Aquileia, through fear of the Lombards fled to the islet of Grado, with all the treasures of the Church, about the year 569, and there fixed the See of Aquileia. By the exertions of the popes, helped sometimes by the influence of the emperors, whose ships of war had easy, access to Grado, many of the schismatics were brought back to the unity of the Church. And this in such numbers, that, on the death of the patriarch Severus in 606, the Catholics were able to secure the election of a patriarch (Candidian), who was ready to place himself in communion with the See of Rome. The schismatics, on their side, sheltering themselves behind the swords of the Lombards, elected a patriarch (John) for themselves. He fixed his See at Aquileia, the ancient See of the metropolitans of Venetia and Istria, and begged (c. 607) Agilulph to see to it that, “after the unhappy Candidian had passed from this life to eternal torments, no other unholy consecration might take place there” (i.e., Grado). “From this time”," says Paul the Deacon, “there began to be two patriarchs”.

About the time that Honorius became Pope, one Fortunatus, who at heart was a supporter of the Three Chapters, was elected patriarch of orthodox Grado. His position, however, soon became too hot for him; and having stripped his church, and several others of the province of Istria, fled (c. 628) with his treasure to Cormons, not far from Aquileia. The Catholic bishops of the plundered provinces at once sent to inform Honorius of the robberies and heresy of Fortunatus. The Pope accordingly chose Primogenius, a regionary subdeacon, to be the new patriarch of Grado, and sent him thither with the pallium, and a letter addressed to all the bishops throughout Venetia and Istria. In his letter (February 18, 628) Honorius renewed the censures he had already issued against Fortunatus for his traitorous conduct, and said that they (the bishops) ought to be thankful that the wolf in sheep’s clothing had been cast forth from the fold. They must rejoice that by the ruin of one man the foundations of the faith of all have been restored. He has sent them Primogenius to be consecrated, and to him they must render sincere obedience. His (the Pope’s) ambassadors have been sent to the Lombard king to urge him to have Fortunatus, with what he had carried off, seized, as a traitor to God and man.

Primogenius was duly consecrated, and was still ruling the See of Grado when Theodore I was Pope. “And to this day”, writes the anonymous author of the chronicle of the patriarchs of Grado, “has the bishop of Grado received the honor of the pallium from the supreme apostolic See”.

From some lines of the epitaph of Honorius it has been conjectured that, at least for a time, he extinguished the schism of Aquileia. The verses tell how Istria, worn out with schism, has at length, at the admonition of Honorius, returned to the faith of the Fathers. The Pope’s words, just cited, about the fall of one man being a gain to the faith of all, point to the same conclusion. But the end of the schism was not yet. The success of Honorius can only have been partial.

Scanty as are the records of the age, the energy of the Venerable Bede has saved a few facts from being buried in the darkness that envelops the seventh century. He tells us of the efforts of Honorius to spread the faith in fresh portions of England, and to still more firmly establish it in those parts which had already embraced it.

By this time (about 634) the faith had been preached and was to a considerable extent established in the kingdoms of Kent, Northumbria and East Anglia. The beginning of the conversion of Wessex is thus told by the Venerable Bede. To a certain Birinus is due the bringing of the knowledge of the faith of Christ to the West Saxons. He came to England with the approval of Pope Honorius. But after he had, by the Pope’s orders, been ordained bishop, and had undertaken, in the Pope’s presence, to sow the seeds of faith in the interior regions of England, where no preacher had ever been before, when he found that the first people he came to had never heard of the faith, he remained among them and died among them, after having firmly planted the faith among them.

In Northumbria the letters of Pope Boniface V and the labors of St. Paulinus had brought forth their fruit in due season, and King Edwin had been baptized at York (627). The people in great numbers had followed the example of their king, to whom in 634 Honorius addressed an eloquent letter, exhorting him “with paternal love to preserve by earnest endeavor and constant prayer the grace to which the divine mercy had deigned to call him, and to constantly occupy himself with reading the works of Gregory, his preacher, in order that his (Gregory’s) prayers may cause the king’s realm and people to flourish and the king himself to be blameless in the eyes of God”. Honorius concludes by telling the king that, in return for his great faith, on account of the distance between them and at his request, he has sent two palliums, one for Honorius and the other for Paulinus; and that on the death of either, the survivor may by his (the Pope’s) authority consecrate a successor to the deceased prelate. And in a letter to the newly consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also called Honorius, in which the Pope tells him of the sending of the palliums, he exhorts the archbishop to do his best to increase the faith which the labors of Gregory had sown in the country, and tells him that he sends the palliums and grants the above-mentioned rights of consecration at the request of the archbishop and the king, “by this present rescript, and acting in the place of Blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles”.

Later on, at the request of the archbishop, the Pope confirmed the decrees of Pope Boniface V, setting forth that the Church of Canterbury was to be forever the head of the churches of England.

Honorius was solicitous also for our “sister isle”, and was instrumental in bringing to a partial settlement the Easter Controversy in Ireland. This question of discipline agitated the Catholic Church, to a greater or less degree, for nearly the first 800 years of its existence. It was not till during the seventh and eighth centuries that this matter was, in these islands, brought to a satisfactory termination. That a mere question of discipline should be so long under discussion, and should cause, as it did, so much trouble, was due first, of course, to the importance of the question, and secondly, to the many, varied, and complicated points that arose in connection with it as time went on. Despite the scoffer, the question was important. Even one of our old Anglo-Saxon kings could feel deeply how unseemly it was—not to say inconvenient and absurd—that while some were still in the fast of Lent, others were in the full joy of Paschal time. As, then, the matter was of moment, and will crop up again, it will be worthwhile to spend a little time in discussing it.

Controversy on the time of celebrating Easter arose in the first instance from a wish on the part of many Christians to dissociate themselves from the Jews in every possible way; and then from astronomical difficulties in connection with fixing the time of Easter and the subsequent obstacles in the way of getting the solution of those difficulties known in distant and semi-barbarous lands.

As the crucifixion and resurrection of Our Lord occurred at the time of the celebration of the feast of the Passover by the Jews, it was, of course, only natural that at first the Jews and Christians were both celebrating their greatest feasts at the same time, viz., on the fourteenth day of the first Jewish month, i.e., Nisan (our March), the period of the first full moon in the spring. But when the Christians found that they were being confounded with the Jews, they thought it better, as one way of distinguishing themselves from the Jews, to celebrate the feast of the resurrection, not on the fourteenth day of the month, but on the following Sunday. Of course, there are always some people who will let their feelings sway them instead of their reason, and who prefer sentiment to common sense; and so many of the Eastern churches refused to comply with the change. However, the celebration on the Sunday was enforced by the Council of Nice (325 AD), and those who held to the fourteenth day were branded as ‘quartodecimans’. The council also fixed the vernal equinox to the 21st of March; and so Easter Sunday was to be the Sunday after the full moon which occurred on or after the vernal equinox.

The decree of the Council of Nice only settled one set of difficulties. Others soon arose from the ascertained inaccuracy of the old Jewish cycle of eighty-four years which was first used by the Church to calculate the day on which the spring full moon would occur in each year. First one cycle was adopted, then another. It was not till the year 525 that the cycle now in use was finally adopted, viz., the Metonic cycle of nineteen years. After each nineteen years, the new moons begin again to fall on the same days as they did nineteen years before. Even this cycle is not perfectly accurate, but it is practically the most convenient.

In the Seventh century the Irish were still using the old cycle of eighty-four years they had learned from St. Patrick, blissfully ignoring apparently the existence of any other system of calculation. However, from a visit of St. Dogan to England (610), from his there meeting with St. Lawrence and others of the missionaries from Rome, and from a letter which these missionaries sent “to the bishops and abbots of all Ireland” on the subject, the question of the proper method of calculating the time of Easter was looked into. The investigation was stimulated by a letter 3 (630) from Honorius, earnestly begging of the Irish people, comparatively few in numbers as they were, and at the ends of the earth, not to consider themselves wiser than all the churches of Christ throughout the world, but to celebrate Easter at the time laid down by the bishops of the world.

In consequence of this letter a synod was held at Old Leighlin, or Magh Lene  (630). In the debate that ensued at the council there was cited the famous Canon of St. Patrick: “Moreover, if any case should arise of extreme difficulty, and beyond the knowledge of all the judges of the nations of the Scots, it is to be duly referred to the chair of the archbishop of the Gaedhil, that is to say, of Patrick, and the jurisdiction of this bishop (of Armagh). But if such a case as aforesaid, of a matter at issue, cannot be easily disposed of (by him), with his counselors in that (investigation), we have decreed that it be sent to the apostolic seat, that is to say, to the chair of the apostle Peter, having the authority of the city of Rome. These are the persons who decreed concerning this matter, viz., Auxilius, Patrick, Secundinus and Benignus. But after the death of St. Patrick his disciples carefully wrote out his books”. Thus does the canon run in the Book of Armagh, the most important of the extant ancient books of Ireland, a book as remarkable for the beauty of its penmanship as for its antiquity of some 1100 years.

To Rome, then, it was decided by the Fathers of Magh Lene that representatives “should go as children to learn the wish of their parent”, as the letter  of the Abbot Cummian to Abbot Segenius expresses it. Segenius, it may be noted, was the abbot of Iona who sent St. Aidan to preach the faith in Northumbria. Cummian (d. 661), known as the Tall, to whose letter just cited we are indebted for most of what we know of the synod of Campus Lene, was bishop and abbot of Clonfert. Related to the chieftains of South Connaught, and equally distinguished for learning and piety, he was the admiration of his countrymen. His master, Colman, who survived him, regarded him as fit to sit in the chair of Peter. The Four Masters have preserved a few lines of Colman’s elegy on his pupil. In Bishop Healy’s translation they read :

“Of Erin's priests, it were not meet

That one should sit in Gregory's seat,

Except that Cummian crossed the sea.

 For he Rome's ruler well might be”.

The deputies of the synod, on their return (633), pointed out the unanimity with which the Roman calculation as to the time of keeping Easter was observed throughout the Christian world. From that time, “on the admonition of the bishop of the apostolic See”, says Bede, the whole of the South of Ireland fell into harmony with the rest of Christendom on the Paschal question. The North of Ireland, the Picts and the Britons of Cambria, came over to the Roman calculation at different epochs of the eighth century, and so brought the Easter controversy to a close.

SPAIN

The Visigothic kings who succeeded Recared were engaged in finally breaking up the remains of the imperial power in the peninsula, in subduing the Basques, in trying to bring into harmonious working the naturally discordant elements of their kingdom, the Visigoths, the Suevi and the Spaniards. Under Chintila (636-40) were held two councils at Toledo (V and VI), attended by the bishops and nobles of the kingdom, to legislate on its religious and civil concerns. To the bishops assembled in the sixth council (January 638), Honorius dispatched a letter exhorting them to show themselves “more zealous for the faith, and more alert in suppressing the disorders of the perfidious”. Whether these words were directed against the Jews it is impossible to say, as only the argument of this letter is extant. But decrees of the assembly, to which it was directed, bore heavily on them, thus sharing in the general movement against the Jews which, as we have noted above, was on foot at this time. The twenty-first letter of Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa (from which is gathered the substance of the Pope’s letter), addressed in the name of the synod to Honorius, begged him to condemn those who put forth the report that Rome allowed baptized Jews to return to their superstitions.

As this letter of Braulio (ap. Florez, España Sagrada, vol. xxx. p. 348) is written in the name of all the bishops of Spain, it is deserving of a full analysis. It opens by stating that the Pope will be fulfilling in the very best way the obligations of “the chair given him by God”, when, “with the holy solicitude of all the Churches, and with shining light of doctrine”, he provides protection for the Church and punishes “those who divide the Lord’s tunic with the sword of the word”. The bishops of Spain, at the instigation of Chintila, ‘their king’ and the Pope’s ‘most clement son’ were going to assemble together, when the Pope’s exhortation that they should do so reached the king. They thought, however, that the language used in the papal ‘decree’ was rather hard upon them, as they indeed had not been altogether inactive in the cause of their duty. They therefore thought it right to let the Pope see what they had accomplished—sending him the decrees of their synods—that ‘his eminent apostleship’ might judge for himself. This they did “with the veneration which they owed to the apostolic See”.

They know, indeed, that no “deceit of the serpent can make any impression on the Rock of Peter, resting as it does on the stability of Jesus Christ”, and hence they are sure that that cannot be true which false and silly rumors have set going, viz., that “by the decrees of the venerable Roman prelate, it has been permitted to baptized Jews to return to the superstitions of their religion”.

In conclusion Braulio begs the prayers of the Pope.

It was most likely by the bearers of this letter, and of the acts of the council, that Chintila forwarded to Rome a covering or decoration (pallium) for the altar of St. Peter, on which was worked an inscription setting forth that King Chintila offered this gift to St. Peter, the first of the apostles, the chief of all Christ's disciples, and begged his assistance.

Fragmentary as is the character of this section on Honorius and Spain, it is still useful as showing the paramount position of the Pope in matters religious in that country.

So far, we have seen Honorius successful in all his undertakings, and in his dealings with others. And from what has been said already of his life, it may fairly be inferred that Honorius was an active-minded, business­like man; and that, like a true Roman, he always looked at the practical side of things. If this estimate of his character is correct, it will serve to throw light on what has now to be treated of at some length, viz., his correspondence with Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, and his connection with the Monothelite heresy. If Honorius was over-reached by Sergius, it was because, being honest, practical, and straightforward, he thought that the wily Greek was approaching him in the same spirit. It never entered into the thoughts of Honorius that what seemed to be a plain letter asking for guidance was a trap to inveigle him, at least, into ambiguous language, on the question of the one or two wills in Our Lord. If Sergius is here spoken of as wily, it is because, though it is taken for granted, that at first, at least, he did not see the Monophysite bearings of the formula, ‘one energy’, or ‘principle of work’, and though, no doubt, at first he really imagined that the formula would properly serve to reconcile the Monophysites to the Church, it is difficult to believe that he continued to act straightforwardly and honestly in his advocacy of his ideas.

The Monothelite or ‘one-will’ heresy was but another phase of the Monophysite or ‘one-nature’ heresy which infected so many of the Easterns. Of course, if there was but one nature, and that divine, in Our Lord, after the union of the two natures of God and man had been effected, it follows that there would have been but one will in that one nature, and that a divine will. That is to say, the doctrine of Monothelism or ‘one will’ would have been true. But considering there were two natures in Our Lord after the hypostatic union (that is to say, considering that the union of the two complete natures of God and man in Our Lord did not destroy or absorb the nature of man in Him), there were, therefore, really two, what one might call physically distinct wills in Our Lord. Or, in the strict sense of the words, ‘Duothelism’, or ‘two wills’, was, and of course is, the proper term to express the truth relative to the number of wills in Our Lord. As, however, the two wills in Our Lord could not be at variance, there was practically, in action resulting from the application of will, but one will in Our Lord. Hence, were there question of divergent wills, one would say there was but one will in Our Lord; and, on the contrary, were there question of physically distinct wills, one must say that there were two wills in Our Lord. It is easy to see, therefore, that as, in a sense both expressions, ‘one will’ and ‘two wills’, are correct, a designing, or well-meaning, but illogical, individual, under cover of the ambiguity that arises from that fact, might insinuate false doctrine to an unsuspecting person. And so it will be seen that Sergius, putting forth in his letter to Pope Honorius the idea of divergent wills, taught his Monothelite doctrine; whereas Pope Honorius, in his reply, though he seemed to indulge in Monothelite language, making use of the terms that Sergius had done, really taught the true doctrine of two wills, as is plain from his constantly insisting on the fact of the two complete natures in Our Lord, and their independent, though ever harmonious action. To throw further light on the letter of the Pope, I will cite two apposite passages (pp. 78, 81) from Father Luke Rivington’s Dependence: “Further, there is in Our Lord’s human nature what is sometimes called the will of the reason, and the will of the senses, but between the two there is not, and there cannot be, contrariety. In the Agony the will of the senses expressed itself, but was incapable of disobedience, for it was not wounded by the fall, and it was the will of the Eternal Word. There was no triumph of the one over the other, for there was no rebellion, no faintest wish that it might be otherwise. In a word, the operation of the human will (with its two departments) is distinct from the operation of the divine in the selfsame Person of the Word; but, whilst distinct, incapable of contrariety .... Honorius discountenanced the expression two energies, which he applied to contrariant wills in Our Lord’s human nature, whilst really Sergius and his followers were using it of the separate natures of Our Blessed Lord—in which sense it was a vital truth”.

With the view of reconciling the Monophysites, Sergius, before the year 622, impregnated the Emperor Heraclius with his heterodox views, pointing out to him that, by simply insisting on ‘one will’ and ‘one ruling energy or operation’ , in Our Lord, he would probably be able to bring over the Monophysites, who, for that concession, would agree to acknowledge the two natures. To ensure the success of his schemes, he managed to get Athanasius, the Jacobite, who had adopted his compromise, made patriarch of Antioch (629) and Cyrus, another of his partisans, translated from the See of Phasis to that of Alexandria (630). On the basis of ‘one theandric operation’, Cyrus brought over a sect of Monophysites to the Church (633). Sergius would now have had all his own way, had it not been for the opposition of a monk Sophronius, who became patriarch of Jerusalem in 633 or 634. Before, however, Sergius had received any official information of Sophronius’ election, he wrote to Pope Honorius a very artful letter, in which he begins by praising in an exaggerated way the labors of Cyrus, patriarch of Alexandria, by whom the people of Alexandria, and almost all Egypt, Libya, etc., had been brought into the one fold of Jesus Christ, on the basis of certain articles, among which was one on the ‘one operation’ of Our Lord. He then goes on to set forth how a certain holy monk Sophronius stepped in to spoil what had been accomplished by objecting to the article on the ‘one operation’, saying that there were ‘two operations’. Even when he (Cyrus) had pointed out that, since the fathers had used the phrase ‘one operation’, it was not advisable, especially under the circumstances, to call it in question, even then Sophronius would not withdraw his opposition.

And, continued Sergius, when Cyrus in consequence wrote to him (Sergius), he thought it hard that the phrase ‘one operation’ should be removed from the articles of reconciliation, after so happy a union had been brought about. Accordingly he (Sergius) wrote to Sophronius asking to give the very words of any of the great Fathers using the exact phrase ‘two operations’. When, as Sergius goes on to say, Sophronius could not do this, he (Sergius) wrote to Cyrus and pointed out to him that it would be better to drop both phrases, as heresies had generally sprung from such-like disputes, and simply confess that Our Lord Jesus Christ wrought works both human and divine. Because some, he pretended, would think that the phrase ‘one operation’ had been introduced to attack the hypostatical union of the two natures in Christ; and the phrase ‘two operations’, as not used by the ‘fathers’ would scandalize many. For the phrase would imply two contrary wills in Our Lord. And in the one person there cannot be two contrary wills on the same subjects.

At the request of the emperor, he had extracted and sent to him (Heraclius) the testimonies of the Fathers on the ‘one operation’ which Mennas had sent to Pope Vigilius. It is in accordance with the wish of the emperor that he (Sergius) is sending the account of this affair to Honorius, and in conclusion he (Sergius) begs the Pope by his charity and the grace given him by God, to amend what may be imperfect in his letter, and to write to him what seemed best to him (Honorius) on these matters.

First letter of Honorius to Sergius

This most diplomatic and apparently open letter wae written in 634, after Sophronius had become patriarch of Jerusalem, but before either Sergius or Honorius had received the official synodical letter of Sophronius informing them of the fact. Honorius replied (634) at some length to Sergius by a letter in which, after approving of Sergius’ wish to preserve silence in connection with a new phrase which might scandalize the simple, he emphasizes the great defined truth of there being two complete natures in Our Lord; and adds that Our Lord “wrought” divine acts through the mediation of His humanity, which was united hypostatically to the Word of God, and that the union took place “while the differences of the two natures marvelously remained unchanged”. With much more to the same effect, he infers that the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ was but one, because He took, when “He was made flesh”, a human nature that was perfect, one created before the existence of sin. He thinks it the more necessary to point that out, because in Scripture “flesh” often means “corruption”. Whereas, of course, Our Saviour did not assume a corrupt nature, a nature that was at war with “the law of the mind” (Rom. VII, 23). For in Our Saviour there was “no other law in His members” or a will that was at war with Him. With regard to such expressions in the New Testament as “not My will but Thine be done”, (St. Mark XIV. 36; St John VI. 38), they are not indications of a will at variance with the divine, but they are recorded to teach us by His example to follow the will of God rather than our own. The Pope thinks it not right to bring under the defined teaching of the Church either phrase, viz., either one or two energies, as these phrases have not been sanctioned by the Church in any way. And, therefore, although the Scripture teaches plainly that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, “is one and the same person, performing completely both divine and human acts”; whether “on account of the operations of the divinity and the humanity we ought to speak of one or two operations”, is to be left to grammarians to decide.

Again and again, before the close of his letter, and in a variety of different phrases, does the Pope insist on the Catholic doctrine of the One Person and the two complete natures, acting perfectly according to those natures.

Second letter

There is extant also a fragment of a second letter of Pope Honorius to Sergius, written, perhaps, after the Pope had received the synodical letter of Sophronius informing him of his election. This letter is to the same effect as the first; and writers, who cannot be suspected of partiality, allow that it is practically orthodox.

During the lifetime of Honorius his letters to Sergius were never made public by that patriarch, and the ‘one-will’ controversy seems to have slumbered. Sergius must evidently have regarded Honorius not as a supporter of his heretical views, but as one who would prove a most uncompromising and formidable opponent should he discover them. But on the death of Honorius and during the vacancy of the Holy See—to give an outline here of the Monothelite affair which will be filled in under the lives of the succeeding pontiffs—Sergius induced Heraclius to publish under his imperial authority a document which he had himself composed, and which is known as the ‘Ecthesis’. This document, while enjoining silence as to the use of the terms ‘one or two energies’, asserts ‘one will’ in Our Lord, as usual, under cover of the pretext of avoiding two contrary wills in Him.

Sergius died soon after the publication of the ‘Ecthesis’, viz., in the month of December 638. His successor, Pyrrhus, continued to spread the Monothelite heresy. But John IV, having (641) condemned the ‘Ecthesis’, Heraclius, before his death (February 11, 641), renounced his own edict. After the short reigns of Constantine III and Heracleonas, Constans II, an unworthy prince, at the wish of Paul, the heretical successor of Pyrrhus, issued as his own (648) an instrument drawn up by Paul, which went by the name of the ‘Type’. This edict forbade mention to be made of either one or two wills or operations in Christ. In a synod in 649, Pope Martin I condemned this ‘Type’, an action that cost him his life. The Sixth General Council (680) practically extinguished this heresy, though we meet with a slight revival of it under the Emperor Philippicus, who reigned from 711-713. It is instructive to note that while the emperors were dogmatizing, they were losing their empire to the Saracens. Jerusalem was taken by the latter in 637, and Alexandria in 641. Africa was lost to the empire in 698, and the last flare-up of Monothelism  (711-713) revealed the loss of Spain, as well of that part which remained to the empire as of that which was in the hands of the Visigoths, to the Mohammedan Moors.

Before leaving Honorius, a critical remark or two on his letters to Sergius, in their theological aspect, may be pardoned on account of the general interest taken in them. Theology is not the province of an historian, certainly, but these letters, especially the first of them, have been so much quoted in connection with certain Catholic teachings, that they can hardly be spoken of without a reference to their theological side. They are said by some to be a clear refutation of the doctrine of papal infallibility. This they could only be if, heretical in themselves, they were ex cathedra utterances; or if they were condemned as heretical ex cathedra pronouncements, by some authority that Catholics acknowledge to be infallible, viz., by a Pope, acting as head of the Church and teaching the Church, or by a general council. Now neither of these propositions can be established with reference to the letters of Honorius. Of the two letters of Honorius to Sergius, it must be noted that there are only extant Greek translations. The originals are lost. Further, as the second letter is acknowledged to be ‘practically orthodox’ by even Protestant historians, it is not to the point in the present discussion.

If the first letter be read together with the letter ot Sergius, it will be clear to the careful and impartial reader, from the analysis of those letters given above, not only that Honorius thought correctly on the subject of the two wills, but that, taken with the context, there is not a single heretical sentence in his letter. There is indeed a sentence in his letter which is not wise—the sentence in which he doubts whether the new terms ‘one or two operations’ are useful or desirable. Subsequent adoption of the term ‘two operations’ showed its usefulness. And there is a sentence in his letter which, at first sight, seems heterodox, viz., where he agrees with Sergius that there is only ‘one will in Our Lord’. But the very reason that he gives for his statement shows that he was referring to the resultant will of Our Lord, i.e., to the will of Our Lord when reduced to action, and not to the number of wills in the second person of the Blessed Trinity after His incarnation. He says that Our Lord had one will, viz., one will in agreement with the divine will, because He assumed a perfect human nature, not one in which the ‘law of the flesh’ warred against “the law of the spirit” (Romans VII. 25). The Pope did not regard the question as one affecting the completeness of the two natures in Christ, but merely as one of words. He thought that neither phrase ‘one or two energies’ was desirable, inasmuch as St. Paul (1 Cor. XII. 6) used the phrase ‘diversities of operations’, or ‘energies’. For the Greek translator of the Pope’s letter uses energeia, as the equivalent of the Pope's ‘operationum’. This would seem to point to the fact that Honorius considered the two ‘energies’ or ‘principles of action’ of Sergius as simply equivalent to two resulting ‘acts’, or rather ‘classes of acts’. This double use of the word operation might well lead the Pope to refer to grammarians the exact force of the word energeia—the more so that he was probably laboring under the same difficulty as St. Gregory I complained about, viz., a want of men able to translate the letters of the Greeks into Latin.

What should really be final, as to whether Honorius was really a Monothelite or not, should be the declaration of the man who wrote the letter for Pope Honorius. Such a statement is fortunately extant. The great champion of orthodoxy, the abbot Maximus, in a famous disputation which he had with Pyrrhus, the successor of Sergius, in the year 645, triumphantly asked his opponent, who had brought forward Honorius as teaching one will in our Lord, “Who is the more worthy interpreter of the Pope’s letter, the one who wrote it in the Pope’s name, and who is still alive, and has illuminated the whole West with his learning, or those at Constantinople who say what they wish?” Pyrrhus replied, “Certainly the one who composed the letter”. “Then”, retorted Maximus, “the same man, again writing in the name of a Pope (John IV), and to the Emperor Constantine, says, speaking of this same letter: When we spoke of one will in Our Lord, we were speaking of His human will only, as is plain from our arguing that there could not be contrary wills in Our Lord —viz., of the flesh and of the spirit” This answer silenced Pyrrhus on that point, which, from his ready dropping of it, he cannot have thought strong. In another place St. Maximus speaks indignantly of the impudence of Pyrrhus, the successor of Sergius, in daring to cite the great, the divine Honorius, the apostolic See itself, as a partisan of his heresy. In a letter to the priest Marinus, he declares definitely that Honorius, when he spoke of one will, did not deny the duality of wills in the two natures of Our Lord. He proceeds to show from the Pope’s words that he was only arguing against the idea that there could be two opposing wills in the person of Christ. Towards the close of this letter, St. Maximus says that he is sure he has taken the right view of the letter of Honorius from what he has been told by the abbot Anastasius, who has just returned from Rome. Anastasius told him, avers the saint, that when in Rome he asked the chief ecclesiastics of that great church, and the abbot John, who had drawn up the letter, why the phrase one will had been inserted. The Romans, continued the Greek abbot to St. Maximus, were very much put out at the meaning which had been given to the phrase, and declared that numerical unity of will in Our Lord had never been intended to be expressed, nor had there been any intention of conveying the idea that the human will of Our Savior had been annihilated. There had only been a wish to show that there was no depraved will in Our Lord as there is in us.

Hence, in conclusion, the saint expresses his unbounded astonishment at the deceitful tactics of the heretics, who, by interpreting his words as they chose, claimed as their supporter one who did not side with them in the least.

Finally, in the document known as the apology for Pope Honorius, which was addressed by the abbot John himself, in the name of Pope John IV, to the Emperor Constantine, the last-named pontiff asserts positively that his predecessor only objected to the idea that there were two wills (that is, of course, what is spoken of as a good and a bad will) in Our Lord as man. Hence, were the letter of Honorius, taken by itself, much more difficult to explain in an orthodox sense than it is, the evidence of the abbot John, and the other contemporary Roman ecclesiastics to whom the abbot Anastasius addressed himself, would compel its being understood in a sense adverse to Monothelism.

But even if the letter be allowed to be heterodox on the subject of the one will, and if it be allowed to be an ex cathedra pronouncement, it would not even then militate against the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. For on the matter of the controversy Honorius formulated no decision. On the question of ‘one or two wills’, all that he really insisted on was silence on the part of those already engaged in disputing on the subject brought before him. Whatever that subject was, and whatever the Pope may have thought or written upon it, all he wanted was, not to instruct the Catholic world upon it, but to avoid (as he hoped) worse trouble, and that the Catholic world should not be stirred up on the matter, through the disputes which he wished his letter to end.

Honorius and the sixth general council.

A word must here be said, in anticipation, about the action of the Sixth General Council (680) in condemning not only Monothelism but also Honorius, the heretic. It has indeed been contended that, the Council may not have anathematized Honorius in the same sense as it did Pyrrhus and Sergius. For it must be observed that the word heretic did not always denote one who “knowingly and willingly” taught error. It sometimes, as Bolgeni has conclusively shown, was applied to such as favored error in any way. And it would certainly seem, from the edict which Constantine issued at the close of the council regarding the observance of its decrees, that when the council included Honorius in its anathemas, it only did so in the sense of his having favored the spread of Monothelism by his letters to Sergius. The edict speaks of Honorius as “a confirmer of the heresy and as one who was not consistent with himself”.

It cannot, however, be denied that it is more natural to assume that all those condemned by the council were all condemned in the same sense. But is not this admission fatal to the doctrine of papal infallibility? Does it not suppose that an authority (a general council), acknowledged by Catholics as infallible, declared that Honorius did teach heresy? In reply to this contention it must be borne in mind that it is Catholic doctrine that the decrees of any council only obtain force in so far as they are confirmed by the sovereign pontiff. And Leo II, in confirming the decrees of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, placed a limitation to their decrees (Sep.-Dec. 682). He anathematized Honorius certainly, but not for teaching error, but simply because “he permitted  the immaculate faith to be stained”, as the Greek original phrases it. And so, as one (Form. 84) of the formulas of the Liber Diurnus shows us, after the sixth general council the Popes in their profession of faith were wont to condemn Sergius, etc., “and Honorius, who gave encouragement to their heresy”.

There is no need to go into what later popes or councils have said about Honorius. Their words are on the same lines as those respectively of the sixth council and of Pope Leo. For in the twentieth century one may say—with far greater reason than Anastasius, the librarian, in the ninth—that paper rather than matter would fail in an attempt to collect all that has been said in defence of Honorius.

With whatever degree of guilt he incurred from his action with regard to his letter to Sergius, Honorius went to meet his Maker in October 638. He was buried as usual in St. Peter’s. By the non-Catholic Gregorovius he is regarded as “a pious and highly educated man, .... who distinguished himself in Rome by the building of churches, securing for his memory a place by the side of Damasus and Symmachus, and furthering the transformation of the ancient city”.

 

SEVERINUS.