THE LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES OF THE SIXTH CENTURY

 

SAINT HORMISDAS A.D. 514-523

THIS saint, who is also named Celius, was born at Frosinone, a town of Latium, and not at Capua, as stated by Muratori. He was raised to the pontificate on the 26th of July, 514, as Saint Cesarius of ArLes had foretold of him that he would be.

This pope named as his primate or vicar in Spain the Bishop of Tarragona, and confirmed the Bishop of Seville, whom Pope Simplicius had named primate in Andalusia and in Portugal, giving to him the same solely personal prerogative, which consisted in the faculty of exercising the functions of the pope, but without encroaching upon the privileges of the metropolitans for the observance of the canons, the preservation of the integrity of the Catholic faith, the settlement of causes and differences, and the preservation of harmony among priests. As regarded most difficult and important affairs, they were to be referred to Rome. By a decretal letter directed to all the bishops of Spain, Hormisdas commanded that priests should be ordained conformably to the canons, not per saltum, but with the prescribed intervals. Public penitents could not be ordained; long and careful inquiry should be made as to the probity and the knowledge of those seeking holy orders. A bishopric was not to be obtained by gift or sought by flattery. Finally, the provincial synods were to be held twice in every year, or at the least once, as being a very efficacious means of preserving discipline.

Hormisdas desired to send his legates to the Emperor Justin, to demand the union of the Greek and Latin churches, which had been divided for thirty-five years by the schism of Acacius. The Holy Father was sanguine of effecting this union; but as he joined to his many religious virtues a rare and profound political foresight, he feared that the departure of the legation might offend Theodoric, king of the Goths. The latter, after having completed the conquest of almost all Italy, had fixed his royal residence at Ravenna. Hormisdas repaired thither in 518, and obtained the consent of the king, who, although an Arian, showed himself kind towards the Catholic faith.

It is known that this pope received ambassadors from Clovis, king of the Franks, who recognized him as the true Vicar of Jesus Christ. The king sent to the pope a crown of gold, and promised him that he, the king, would preserve pure and unspotted the Catholic faith, which he had received under the reign of Saint Anastasius II. Saint Hormisdas reprobated, as being liable to erroneous and mischievous interpretation by heretics, the proposition of some monks of European Scythia : "One person of the Trinity suffered in the flesh". That controversy lasted twenty-five years, and was carried on with great vigor.

It was under this pontiff, about the year 520, that the order of Benedictines was instituted by Saint Benedict. A great number of monks joined with him, and they established various monasteries. The holy patriarch retired to Monte Cassino, where he formed his rule, which served as the model of the monastic orders of the West. France received the rule from the hands of Saint Maur, a disciple of the founder. Pope John XXII, created in 1316, after having ordered exact researches in the pontifical registers containing the number of canonized saints, ascertained that the order of Benedictines had produced twenty-five holy pontiffs; nearly forty thousand saints and beatified, five thousand five hundred of whom were from Monte Cassino; nearly two hundred cardinals, seven thousand archbishops, five thousand bishops, fifteen thousand abbots, whose confirmation depended on the Holy See; and more than two hundred and twenty-four sons of kings and emperors. We will remark on this subject that opinions differ as to the number of Benedictine pontiffs. Pope Gregory XV declares that, during a long succession of ages, the Church received her pontiffs from the Benedictine family. Mabillon says that in the eleventh century there were so many Benedictine popes that it seemed that the pontifical authority had become hereditary in that order. Spondanus, in the Annals of the Church, year 1334, gives different figures; but not as relates to the twenty-five holy pontiffs, about whom there is no dispute.

Hormisdas was a model of modesty, of patience, and of charity; he watched over all the churches with an unwearying attention; he recommended to the clergy the virtues befitting their state, and gave them instructions in psalmody. The Collection of the Councils contains eighty-one letters of this pope. In one of those letters, written to Sallust of Seville, his vicar in Spain, we perceive how potent was the authority which the popes exerted over the Church long prior to the pretended Isidore Mercator.

In various ordinations Hormisdas created fifty-five bishops, twenty-one
priests, and ten deacons. He governed the Church nine years and eleven days. He died on the 6th of August, 523, four years after he had put an end to the schisms between the Greek and Latin churches, which had been separated during thirty-five years, on account of the former having kept on its books the name of Acacius, condemned by Felix III. Hormisdas had the happiness to see the Burgundians renounce Arianism; the Ethiopians paganism; and the Omerites the Jewish superstition. Saint Hormisdas, in ornamenting the churches of Rome, employed five hundred and seventy-one pounds of silver, furnished by the charity of the faithful. He was interred in the Basilica of Saint Peter. The Holy See remained vacant six days.

Under this pope flourished Saint Fulgentius. He wrote courageously to Trasamond, king of the Vandals, who consulted him upon some points of religion. "It is rare", wrote he, "to see a barbarian king, so constantly occupied with the care of his kingdom, inspired with so ardent a desire to obtain wisdom. In general, it is only men of leisure and Romans who so strongly apply themselves to wisdom". Neither the Vandals nor any of the other conquerors considered the name of barbarian an affront, but called themselves barbarians in contradistinction to the Romans. It may be added that there were two kinds of Romans the Romans of Rome, and the inhabitants of Constantinople, who also called themselves Romans.

 

SAINT JOHN I A.D. 523-526

 

JOHN I, son of Constantius, of Sienna, in Tuscany, was cardinal-priest of Saints John and Paul, in Pammachio, and was created pontiff on the 1sth of August, 523. Some time after his election he was called to Ravenna by King Theodoric. That Arian prince determined that John should go to Constantinople to demand three things from the Emperor Justin :

(1) That the Arians, previously compelled by Caesar to receive the Catholic religion, should be permitted to return to their sect; (2) that the churches taken from the Arians in the East should be restored to them; and (3) that for the future no one should be ordered to abjure the sect of the Arians. On the first demand the pope was pretty fully resolved to say nothing to the emperor; it is said that as to the two others he obtained some mitigation. The pope knew, moreover, that, in a spirit of vengeance, the king would inflict torments upon the Catholics, whom he had it in his power to persecute in Rome and throughout Italy.

On reaching Corinth, Pope John was received as in triumph. At Constantinople he was received with still more magnificence. The whole population met him, carrying lighted tapers in their hands. The emperor promptly appeared and knelt, thus rendering to him the homage which he would have rendered to Saint Peter. On the 30th of March, 525, the Mass was celebrated in the cathedral, in the Latin language and with the Roman ritual. John crowned Justin, and was the first pontiff who had decorated an emperor with the imperial insignia; for the other emperors had only been crowned by the bishops after verbally and in writing professing the Catholic faith. Justin, in his turn, clothed the pope in the Augustal vestments, at the same time granting the use of them to him and his successors.

Justin gave the pope a paten of gold, weighing twenty pounds and enriched with jewels, five vessels of silver, and fifteen palls of gold tissue.

John immediately sent those presents to the churches of Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Mary, and Saint Laurence. That noble example has invariably been followed by the popes who have succeeded John. They have always transferred to the churches or the public establishments the gifts sent to them by princes. "But",says Caesarotti, "John, who found homage in the East, was to find a prison in the West". Scarcely had he returned to Ravenna, where it was soon known that he had not wished for the entire success of his difficult mission, than he was thrown into prison, and Theodoric gave orders that he should be rigorously treated. This conduct has drawn down warm censure on the prince who till then had shown himself great, generous, and clement.

John was weakened by his long journey, and he sank beNeath his fatigues on the 2yth of May, A.D. 526. Four years afterwards his body was transferred to Rome, and interred in the Basilica of Saint Peter.

The Holy See remained vacant one month and twenty-seven days.

 

SAINT FELIX IV A.D. 526-530

FELIX IV belonged to the Fimbri family of Benevento, and was cardinal-priest of Saints Sylvester and Martin a' i Monti. He was elected pope on the 24th of July, 526. The secret reasons which had led Theodoric to imprison Saint John I began to be known. That prince was bent upon exercising great power over the election of the popes. It was Theodoric who indicated the choice that ought to be made on this occasion. The Roman clergy wisely respected the will of the Gothic king, whose will in truth they had no power to resist with success. In this will the clergy avoided a schism which might have led to fatal consequences. It was not, however, entirely without opposition that the clergy submitted to the will of the king. Calm spirits represented that Felix was distinguished alike for science and for piety. The Roman senate had also shown some resistance, not to the elected, but to the manner of the election, which had been conducted contrary to ecclesiastical law. That question was not well settled till it was agreed that the clergy by their vote, and the Roman people by its consent, should, according to ancient custom, elect the Roman pontiff. That mode of election necessarily continued in force as long as Gothic kings remained in Italy. In default of those kings, the emperors of the East usurped that privilege. "From that imperial usurpation", says Baronius, "it followed that the clergy studied to choose pontiffs who would be agreeable to the emperors; as were Vigilius, in 538; Gregory the Great, in 590; Sabinianus, in 604; Boniface III, in 607; and Pascal I, in 817". Previous to becoming pontiffs they had resided at the imperial court as political agents. Muratori adds that from that circumstance the electing clergy could not doubt that residence at Constantinople necessarily gave the apocrisiarii, or political agents, a profound knowledge of public business.

Saint Felix IV dedicated to Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian the temple which had been built in honor of Remus and Romulus in the Roman Forum. He decreed that laymen should not be ordained priests excepting upon authentic certificates of good life and irreproachable morals. In two ordinations, in February and March, the Holy Father created twenty-nine bishops, fifty-five priests, and four deacons. He governed the Church four years, two months, and eighteen days. Felix was beloved for his simplicity, his spirit of benevolence, and his unalterable charity to the poor. He died on the 12th of October, 530, and was interred in the Basilica of Saint Peter. The Holy See remained vacant three days. We may mention, in proof of this pontiff's humility, that the error of the Semi-Palagians having taken root in Gaul, Saint Cesarius, Bishop of ArLes, applied to Felix for advice and directions. Felix could think of nothing more appropriate to the occasion, or better calculated to preserve the faithful from seduction, than to extract from the works of Saint Augustine the most luminous passages on Grace and Free Will, which he transmitted to Cesarius, as containing precise and unequivocal the traditional doctrine of the Church.

 

BONIFACE II A.D. 530-532

 

BONIFACE II, Roman born, but son of Sigibald, a Goth, was cardinal-priest of Saint Cecilia, and was created pontiff on the 16th of October, 530. On the day of his election a fraction of malcontents named, as pope, Dioscorus, a former legate from Hormisdas to the Orientals; but that false pope died seventeen days after that intrusion, and even after his death he was excommunicated, because he had been guilty of the crime of simony. Boniface, being thus left in peaceable possession of the Holy See, in order to provide a remedy against the intrigues and especially against the pretensions of the Gothic kings, assembled a council in 531, and named Vigilius as his successor. Boniface, repenting of having violated the holy laws and the canons, principally those of Nice, and of having offended the liberty of the holy comitia, called the council together again, and annulled the decree that he had issued as to the election of his successor. By the approbation which he bestowed upon the acts of the second Council of Orange, celebrated by Saint Cesarius, the illustrious Bishop of ArLes, the pope might fairly claim that he helped to extinguish that heresy of the Semi-Pelagians which during so many years had afflicted France. On that occasion he gave to Saint Augustine the same praises which had already been given to him by Saint Felix IV.

Boniface II governed the Church a little more than two years. He died on the 16th of October, 532, and was interred in the Basilica of Saint Peter. The Holy See remained vacant two months and fifteen days.

SAINT JOHN II A.D. 532-535

 

JOHN II, surnamed Mercury, on account of his eloquence, was a Roman, the son of Projectus, and is reckoned among the pontiffs of the Conti family. Made cardinal-priest by Saint Clement, he was created pontiff in the Church of Saint Peter in Vincula, on the 31st of December, 532. Simony ravaged nearly all the diaconates. Unfaithful agents pledged even the sacred vessels in support of their candidates for the benefices. Simony did not respect even the election of the bishops and that of the pontiffs. John II obtained from Athalaric that simonists should be severely punished by the civil law, as the ecclesiastical law could not sufficiently reach that fatal crime.

An edict of the king interposed in this important matter, and the prince even had that law, graven in marble, placed in the porch of Saint Peter's. By the same constitution, Athalaric established the amount of the sum which the pope and the bishops were to pay for confirmation in their benefices. The product of that tax was devoted to the relief of the poor. Thus, a sovereign pontiff was to pay three thousand pieces of gold, the metropolitans two thousand, and the bishops five hundred, for their consecration. It was a tyrannical edict.

The Holy Father approved, as Catholic, the proposition of the Scythian monks, when thus amended : "One person of the Trinity suffered in the flesh". The monks had ardently defended that proposition, which Pope Hormisdas had treated as a novelty and had suspected of being intended to lend aid to some fallacious pretension of the Eutychians. Hormisdas had not pronounced that proposition positively heretical in itself. John signified to the monks that if they did not cease to condemn that proposition as heretical, the authority of the Holy See would separate them from the Church.

The apparent opposition of views between Hormisdas and John will perhaps surprise some readers; but the following statement will speedily satisfy them. The contradiction is only apparent: Hormisdas questioned; John decided. The first considered the proposition with relation to prudence; the second analyzed it with reference to the dogma. It displeased the first, because he suspected it to be a device of the Eutychians; but he did not condemn it as absolutely heretical in itself.

In an ordination, in December, the Holy Father created twenty-one bishops and fifteen priests. He governed the Church two years, four months, and twenty-six days. He died the 27th of May, 535, and was interred in the Basilica of Saint Peter.

The Holy See remained vacant six days.

SAINT AGAPETUS I A.D. 535-536

 

SAINT AGAPETUS I, Roman, archdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, the son of Gerdian, was created pontiff on the 3d of June, 535. The Emperor Justinian immediately sent his profession of faith to the pontiff. It was all that could be desired; and Agapetus, in his reply, congratulated the emperor upon the victories of Belisarius. He censured the acts, already revoked by the council, by which Boniface had chosen his successor. He also revoked, for reason unknown, the excommunication which the same Boniface had launched against the antipope Dioscorus. In the following year the Holy Father was obliged, by Theodatus, king of the Goths, to set out for Constantinople, to demand that the army sent to Sicily with orders to pass into Italy, under the command of Belisarius, should be recalled to Byzantium. But, on account of the great expense attendant upon raising so many soldiers, the emperor could not comply with the entreaties of the Holy Father. Agapetus, giving his attention to other matters, sought for the means of re-establishing peaceful relations among the Eastern priests. He deposed Anthymus, Bishop of Trebizond, whom he perceived to be a dissembling Eutychian heretic, who, under the patronage of Theodora, wife of Justinian, had usurped the see of Constantinople. Agapetus appointed Mevas to that see and consecrated him with great pomp. He was a man illustrious alike for virtue and for doctrine, and was the first Eastern bishop who was consecrated by a pope. Justinian, listening to bad advice, resolved to reinstate Anthymus, and threatened the pope with exile. The pope, full of courage and constancy, replied to that threat : "We believed that we had a Catholic emperor, but it appears that we have to do with a Diocletian; but Diocletian must learn that his threats do not alarm us".

Subsequently the pope proposed to the emperor that Anthymus should be subjected to an examination as to his sentiments. Anthymus, when questioned as to the two natures of Jesus Christ, refused to confess them. Then Justinian perceived the fraud of the heretical bishop; and the emperor threw himself on his knees before the pope, who so firmly upheld the Catholic Church and faith, approved the deposition of Anthymus, and, on the 16th of March, transmitted to Agapetus his own imperial confession of faith, signed with his own hand.

The Holy Father accredited, as his nuncio to the emperor, Pelagius, the pope s archdeacon, who afterwards was himself pope, and the Holy Father then prepared to return to Italy. Previous to setting out, he held an ordination, at which he created eleven bishops and four deacons. But soon after he fell dangerously ill, and died before he could leave Constantinople.

His death occurred on the 22d of April, 536. He was very learned in ecclesiastical laws and regulations. Gregory the Great called him "Apostolic Vessel, Trumpet of the Gospel, and Herald of Justice". There has been no pope who in so short a time (ten months and nineteen days) has done such great things and borne so much fatigue. His labors procured him the admiration of both East and West. His body was transported to Rome, and interred with great solemnity in the Church of Saint Peter, in the month of September.

According to Novaes, the Holy See, at the death of this pontiff, remained vacant fifteen days. But there must be some error, for in those days it took a courier more than fifteen days to go from Constantinople to Rome by land, and a still longer time by sea. Before he went to the East, this indefatigable pontiff formed a design of establishing public schools for the instruction of persons intended for the sacred ministry. Cassiodorus agreed with the pope, but his death prevented, for the time, the founding of establishments so useful.

During the pontificate of Agapetus an event occurred strikingly illustrative of the vanity of conquests. It relates to the sacred vessels of Jerusalem, taken from the Jews by Titus, at the time of the taking of the Holy City, and which were taken from Rome by Genseric, king of the Vandals. Fleury speaks of this matter as follows : "Belisarius triumphed at Constantinople, and among the wealth that was displayed to the populace during the procession of the triumph, the most remarkable objects were the sacred vessels of Jerusalem, which the Emperor Titus (or rather Titus before he was emperor, for at the taking of Jerusalem he commanded under his father, Vespasian, who was then emperor) had brought to Rome, and which Genseric, on pillaging Rome, carried to Carthage. A Jew, having seen them, said to a man known to the emperor: "It is not right to put those vessels in the treasury of Constantinople; their only proper place is where Solomon put them. It is in punishment of that offence that Genseric took the Roman capital, and that the Romans have taken that of the Vandals".

This calls to mind the celebrated Greek horses, the fate of which seems to be connected with that of empires. They adorned, in succession, Constantinople, Venice, and Paris; thence they returned to Venice. It has been asserted that these horses, taken by the Venetians from the Hippodrome of Constantinople, belonged to Corinth and had first been taken to Rome. All this is imaginary; their style especially proves that they are of the time of the decline of art.