The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I

To appreciate this letter, it must be borne in mind that it was written by Pope Simplicius a year after the western empire was extinguished; that the writer had seen nine western emperors deposed, and most of them murdered, in twenty-one years; that it was addressed to the eastern and now only Roman emperor; and that the writer was living under the absolute rule of the condottiere chief who had succeeded Ricimer, and is called by Pope Gelasius a few years afterwards "Odoacer, barbarian and heretic".32

The whole East was disturbed at this time by the condition of the great patriarchal sees of Alexandria and Antioch. The Eutychean party was perpetually trying for the mastery. At Alexandria, Proterius, who succeeded Dioscorus when he was deposed at the Council of Chalcedon, had been murdered in 458. The utmost efforts of Pope Leo and the emperor Leo were needed to maintain his legitimate successor Timotheus Solofaciolus, against whom a rival of the same name, Timotheus Ailouros, had been set up by the Eutychean party, which was far the most numerous. It was on the death of this patriarch, Timotheus Solofaciolus, in 482, that the clergy and many bishops had chosen John Talaia as his successor. John Talaia had announced his election to the Pope in order to be acknowledged by him; also, as was customary, to the patriarch of Antioch; but had sent his synodal letter by some indirect manner to Acacius, who thus received the notice by public report, rather than in the official way. But in the four years which had elapsed since the restoration of Zeno, Acacius had acquired great influence over him. Zeno had published a decree in which, "out of regard to our royal city," he assured to that "Church, the mother of our piety and the see of all orthodox Christians, the privileges and honours over the consecration of bishops which, before our government, or during it, it is recognised to possess," in which he named Acacius, "the most blessed patriarch, father of our piety". Acacius had made his maintenance of the Council of Chalcedon go step by step with his claim to exercise patriarchal rights over the great see of Ephesus. This had led to fresh reclamations from the Pope. Acacius had gone ever forwards, and seemed, by the favour of Zeno, to be reaching complete subjection of the eastern patriarchates to the see of Constantinople. Incensed at what he considered the slight offered to him by John Talaia, he took up, with the utmost keenness against him, the cause of a rival, Peter the Stammerer, who had been elected by the Eutychean party. He worked upon the emperor's mind in favour of the Monophysite pretender. Peter the Stammerer himself came to Constantinople, and urged to Zeno that the utmost confusion and disorder might be feared in Egypt if the powerful and numerous opponents of the Council of Chalcedon had an unacceptable patriarch put upon them. At the same time, he proposed a compromise which would unite all parties and prevent the breaking up of the eastern Church. Acacius, a few years before, had denounced to Pope Simplicius himself this Peter the Stammerer as an adulterer, robber, and son of darkness. He now entirely embraced this plan, and not only won the emperor to Peter's side for the patriarchate, but induced Zeno to publish a doctrinal decree. This was to express what was common to all confessions of faith down to the Council of Chalcedon, to avoid the expressions used in controversy, and entirely to set aside the Council of Chalcedon. In 482 appeared this Formulary of Union, or Henotikon, drawn up, it was supposed, by Acacius himself, addressed to the clergy and people of Alexandria. It was first subscribed by Acacius, as patriarch of Constantinople, then by Peter the Stammerer, acknowledged for this purpose as patriarch of Alexandria; then by Peter the Fuller, as patriarch of Antioch; by Martyrius of Jerusalem, and by other bishops, but by no means all. Zeno used the imperial power to expel those who would not sign it.

As Peter the Stammerer had gone to the emperor to get his election approved and supported by Zeno and Acacius, so John Talaia had solicited Pope Simplicius to confirm his election. This the Pope had been on the point of confirming, when he received a letter from the emperor accusing John Talaia, and urging the appointment of Peter the Stammerer. Acacius had not hesitated to absolve him, and admit him to his communion, and strove by every effort of deceit and force to induce the eastern bishops to accept him. The last letter we have of the Pope, dated November 6, 482, strongly censures Acacius for communicating nothing to him concerning the Church of Alexandria, and for not instructing the emperor in such a way that peace might be restored by him.

On March 2, 483, Pope Simplicius died, and was succeeded by Pope Felix. John Talaia had come in person to Rome to lay his accusation against Acacius. Also the orthodox monks at Constantinople, and eastern bishops expelled for not signing the Henotikon, begged for the Pope's assistance, and denounced Acacius as the author of all the trouble. Amongst these expelled bishops who appealed to Rome were bishops of Chalcedon, Samosata, Mopsuestia, Constantina, Hemeria, Theodosiopolis.

The Pope called a council, in which he considered the complaint now brought before him by John Talaia, as a hundred and forty years before St. Athanasius had carried his complaint to Pope Julius. It was resolved to support the ejected bishops, to maintain the Council of Chalcedon, and to request from the emperor the expulsion of Peter the Stammerer, who was usurping the see of Alexandria. For this purpose the Pope commissioned two bishops, Vitalis and Misenus, to go as his legates to the emperor. They were to invite Acacius to attend a council at Rome, and to answer therein the complaint brought against him by the elected patriarch of Alexandria.

The legates carried a letter33 from Pope Felix to the emperor, in which, according to custom, the Pope informed him of his election. He observed that, for a long time, the see of the blessed Apostle had been expecting an answer to the letters sent by his predecessor of blessed memory, "especially inasmuch as it had bound your majesty, with tremendous vows, not to allow the see of the evangelist St. Mark to be separated from the teaching or the communion of his master… Again, therefore, the reverend confession of the Apostle Peter, with a mother's voice, renews its instance. It ceases not with confidence to call upon you as its son. It cries: O Christian prince, why do you allow me to be interrupted in that course of charity which binds together the universal Church? Why, in my person, do you break up the consent of the whole world? I beseech you, my son, suffer not that tunic of the Lord woven from the top throughout, by which is signified, as the Holy Spirit rules the whole body, that the Church of Christ should be one and individual – suffer it not to be broken. They who crucified our Saviour left it untouched. Do not let it be rent in your times. My faith it is which the Lord Himself declared should alone be one, never to be conquered by any assault: He who promised that the gates of hell should never prevail over the Church founded on my confession. This Church it was which restored you to the imperial dignity, deprived its impugners of their power, and opened to you the path of victory in defending it.34

"Look at me, his successor, however humble, as if the Apostle were present. Look deeper into those ways which concern the reverence due to God and the condition of man; and be not ungrateful to the Author of your present prosperity. In you alone survives the name of emperor. Do not grudge us the saving you. Do not diminish our confidence in praying for you. Look back on your august predecessors Marcian and Leo, and the faith of so many princes, you, who are their lawful heir. Once more, look back on your own engagements, and the words which, on your return to power, you addressed to my predecessor. The defence of the Council of Chalcedon is expressed in the whole series." And he ends: "What I could not put in my letter I have entrusted my brethren and legates to explain. I beseech you to listen, as well for the preservation of Catholic truth as for the safety of your own empire."

To Acacius also the legates carried a letter of the Pope, which he opened by announcing that he had succeeded to the office of Pope Simplicius, and was forthwith involved in those many cares which the voice of the Supreme Pastor had imposed upon St. Peter, and which kept him watchfully occupied with a rule which extended over all the peoples of the earth. At that moment his greatest anxiety, as it had been that of his predecessor, was for the city of Alexandria, and for the faith of the whole East. And he went on to reproach Acacius for not duly informing him of what was passing, for not defending the Council of Chalcedon, and not using his influence with the emperor in its defence: "Brother, do not let us despair that the word of our Saviour will be true; He promised that He would never be wanting to His Church to the end of the world; that it should never be overcome by the gates of hell; that all which was bound on earth by sentence of apostolic doctrine should not be loosed in heaven. Nor let us think that either the judgment of Peter or the authority of the universal Church, by whatever dangers it be surrounded, will ever lose the weight of its force. The more it dreads being weakened by worldly prosperity, the more, divinely instructed, it grows under adversity. To let the perverse go on in their way, when you can stop them, is indeed to encourage them. He who, evidently, ceases to obstruct a wicked deed, does not escape the suspicion of complicity. If, when you see hostility arising against the Council of Chalcedon, you do nothing, believe me, I know not how you can maintain that you belong to the whole Church."

As soon as the two legates arrived at the Dardanelles, they were arrested, by order of Zeno and Acacius, put in prison, their papers and letters taken from them. They were menaced with death if they did not accept the communion of Acacius and of Peter the Stammerer. Then they were seduced with presents, and deceived with false promises that Acacius would submit the whole affair to the Pope. They resisted at first, but yielded in the end, and, passing beyond their commission, gave judgment in favour of Peter the Stammerer. They had broken all the instructions of the Pope, and carried back letters from Zeno and Acacius to him, full of extravagant praises of Peter the Stammerer. His former deposition and condemnation were entirely put aside. On the other hand, the character of John Talaia was bitterly impugned. The emperor asserted that he had treated Church matters with the utmost moderation, and guided himself entirely by the advice of the patriarch Acacius.

In fact, Acacius was the spiritual superior of the whole eastern empire, and appeared not to trouble himself any more about the Roman See. He made no pretence to give any satisfaction for what he had done. Before he had been the champion of orthodoxy, now he had become in league with heretics. But he lost all remaining confidence among Catholics. The zealous monks of his own city withdrew from his communion, and sent one of themselves, Symeon, to Rome to inform the Pope of all that had happened, and disclose the faithless behaviour of his legates.35

In another letter the Pope had cited Acacius to appear at Rome to meet the accusation brought against him by John Talaia, the patriarch of Alexandria. Acacius took no notice of this citation, nor of the complaint brought against him.

Thereupon, the Pope, in a council of seventy-seven bishops, held at Rome the 28th July, 484, made inquiry into all this transaction. He annulled the judgment on Peter the Stammerer, passed without his authority by his legates, deprived them of their offices, and of communion. He renewed the condemnation of Peter the Stammerer, he had in the interval admonished Acacius again, without result. He now issued the decree of deposition upon him. It runs in the following words:

"You are36 guilty of many transgressions; have often treated with insult the venerable Nicene Council; have unrightfully claimed jurisdiction over provinces not belonging to you. In the case of intruding heretics, ordained likewise by heretics, whom you had yourself condemned, and whose condemnation you had urged upon the Apostolic See, you not only received them to your communion, but even set them over other Churches, which was not, even in the case of Catholics, allowable; or have even given them higher rank undeservedly. John is an instance of this. When he was not accepted by the Catholics at Apamea, and had been driven away from Antioch, you set him over the Tyrians. Humerius also, having been degraded from the diaconite and deprived of the Christian name, you advanced to the priesthood. And as if these seemed to you minor offences, in the boldness of your pride you assaulted the truth itself of apostolic doctrine. That Peter, whose condemnation by my predecessor of holy memory you had yourself recorded, as the subjoined proofs show, you suffered by your connivance again to invade the see of the blessed evangelist Mark, to drive out orthodox bishops and clergy, and ordain, no doubt, such as himself, to expel one who was there regularly established, and hold the Church captive. Nay, his person was so agreeable to you, and his ministers so acceptable, that you have been found to persecute a large number of orthodox bishops and clergy, who now come to Constantinople, and to encourage his legates. You put upon Misenus and Vitalis to find excuse for one who was anathematising the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, and violating the tomb of Timotheus of holy memory, as sure information has been given us. You have not ceased to praise and exalt him so as to boast that the very condemnation you had yourself recorded was untrue. You went even further in the defence of a perverse man. They who were late bishops, but are now deprived of their rank and of communion, Vitalis and Misenus, men whom we had specially sent for his expulsion, you suffered to be deprived of their papers and imprisoned; you dragged them out thence to a procession which you were having with heretics, as they confessed; in contempt of their legatine quality, which even the law of nations would protect, you drew them on to the communion of heretics, and yourself; you corrupted them with bribes; and, with injury to the blessed Apostle Peter, from whose see they went forth, you caused them not only to return with labour lost, but with the overthrow of all their instructions. In deceiving them, your wickedness was shown. As to the memorial of my brother and fellow-bishop John (Talaia), who brought the heaviest charges against you, by not venturing to give an answer in the Apostolic See, according to the canons, you have established his allegations. Likewise, you considered unworthy of your sight our most faithful defender Felix, whom a necessity caused to come afterwards. You also showed by your letters that known heretics were communicating with you. For what else are they who, after the death of Timotheus of holy memory, go back to his church under Peter the Stammerer, or, having been Catholics, have given themselves up to this Peter, but such as Peter himself was judged to be by the whole Church, and by yourself? Therefore, by this present sentence have with those whom you willingly embrace your portion, which we send to you by the defender of your own church, being deprived of sacerdotal honour and Catholic communion, and severed from the number of the faithful. Know that the name and office of the sacerdotal ministry is taken from you. You are condemned by the judgment of the Holy Ghost37 and apostolic authority, and never to be released from the bonds of anathema.

"Cælius Felix, bishop of the holy Catholic Church of the city of Rome. On the 28th July, in the consulship of the most honourable Venantius."

This was a synodal letter,38 signed by sixty-seven bishops, as well as the Pope. But the copy of the decree against Acacius sent to Constantinople was signed by the Pope alone, partly according to ancient custom, partly in order with greater security to transmit it to the eastern capital. Had this copy been signed by the bishops also, ruling practice would have required it to be carried over by at least two bishops, which then appeared very dangerous. A Roman synod of forty-three39 bishops, in the following year, 485, wrote to the clergy of Constantinople: "If snares had not been set for the orthodox by land and sea, many of us might have come with the sentence of Acacius. But now, being assembled on the cause of the church of Antioch at St. Peter's, we make a point of declaring to you the custom which has always prevailed among us. As often as bishops40 meet in Italy on ecclesiastical matters, especially when they touch the faith, the custom is maintained that the successor of those who preside in the Apostolic See, as representing all the bishops of the whole of Italy, according to the care of all churches which lies upon him, appoints all things, being the head of all, as the Lord said to Peter, 'Thou art Peter,' &c. The three hundred and eighteen holy fathers assembled at Nicæa acted in obedience to this word, and left the confirmation and authority of what they treated to the holy Roman Church; both of which things all successions to our own time by the grace of Christ maintain. What, therefore, the holy council assembled at St. Peter's decreed, and the most blessed Felix, our Head, Pope, and Archbishop, ratified, that is sent to you by Tutus, defensor of the Church."

Three days after the sentence on Acacius, Pope Felix wrote to the emperor Zeno.41 He reminded him that, in violation of reverence to God, an embassy to the Holy See had been taken captive, its papers taken away; it had been dragged out of prison to communicate with the officers of the very heretic against whom it had been sent. "Since even barbarous nations, who knew not God, allowed to embassies for the transaction of human affairs a sacred liberty, how much more should that liberty be preserved sacred, especially in divine things, by a Roman emperor and Christian prince? Putting aside the embassy, which even in the case of the Apostle Peter was disregarded, be assured at least by these letters that the see of the Apostle Peter has never granted communion, and will never grant it, to that Alexandrian Peter long ago justly condemned, and again by synodal decree suppressed. But as you have not regarded the words of exhortation I addressed to you, I leave it to your choice to select which you will have, the communion of the blessed Apostle Peter or that of the Alexandrian Peter. You will know by the letters of this man's abettor, Acacius, to my predecessor of holy memory, copies of which I enclose, how even in your own judgment he was condemned. But this Acacius, who has committed many atrocities against the ancient rules, and has come to praise one whom he affirmed to be condemned, and whose condemnation he obtained from the Apostolic See, has been severed from apostolic communion. But I believe that your piety, which prefers to comply even with its own laws rather than to resist them, and which knows that the supreme rule of things human is given to you on condition of admitting that things divine are allotted to dispensers divinely assigned, I believe that it will be undoubtedly of service to you if you permit the Catholic Church in the time of your principate to use its own laws, nor allow anyone to stand in the way of its liberty, which has restored to you the imperial power. For it is certain that this will bring safety to your affairs, if in God's cause, and according to His appointment, you study to subdue the royal will and not to prefer it to the bishops of Christ, and rather to learn holy things by them than to teach them; to follow the form traced out by the Church, not after human fashion to impose rules on it, nor wish to dominate the commands of that power to whom it is God's will that your clemency should devoutly submit, lest, if the measure of the divine disposition be overpast, it may end in the disgrace of the disponent. And from this time I absolve my conscience as to all these things, who have to plead my cause before Christ's tribunal. It will be well for you more and more to reflect that both in the present state of things we are under the divine examination, and that after this life's course we shall according to it come before the divine judgment."

St. Gregory the Great, writing his Dialogues42 about one hundred and ten years after this letter, informs us that the writer of it was his great-grandfather, and speaks of his appearing in a vision to his aunt Tarsilla and showing her the habitation of everlasting light. At the time of writing it, Pope Felix was living under the domination of the Arian Herule Odoacer. The great Church of Africa was suffering the most terrible of persecutions under the Arian Vandal Hunneric, the son of his father Genseric. Arian Visigoth rulers were in possession of Spain and France, of whom Euric, as we have seen, was described rather as the chief of a sect than the sovereign of a people. In all the West not a yard of territory was under rule of a Catholic sovereign. And he whom the Pope addressed, with the dignity of the Apostolic See in its reverence for the power which is a delegation of God, as Roman emperor and Christian prince, was in his private life scandalous, in all his public rule shifty and tyrannical, and in belief, if he had any, an Eutychean heretic. It may be added, as a fact of history, that the emperor went before the divine judgment sooner than the Pope; that during the seven years which intervened between the letter and his death he utterly disregarded all that the Pope had done and said. He suffered, or rather made the bishop of Constantinople to be the ruler of the eastern Church; he maintained heretics in the sees of Alexandria and Antioch. After this he died in 491, and the last fact recorded of him is that the empress Ariadne, the daughter of Leo I., who had brought him the empire with her hand, when he fell into an epileptic fit and was supposed to be dead, had him buried at once, and placed guards around his tomb, who were forbidden to allow any approach to it. When the imperial vault was afterwards entered, Zeno was found to have torn his arm with his teeth. The empress widow, forty days after the death of Zeno, conferred her hand, and with it the empire a second time, upon Anastasius, who had been up to that time a sort of gentleman usher43 in the imperial service. Anastasius ruled the eastern empire twenty-seven years, from 491 to 518.

The Pope further sought by a letter44 to the clergy and people of Constantinople to remove the scandal caused by the weakness of his legates, and to explain the grounds upon which he had deposed Acacius. "Though we know the zeal of your faith, yet we warn all who desire to share in the Catholic faith to abstain from communion with him, lest, which God forbid, they fall into like penalty."

Acacius did not receive the papal judgment against him, but sought to suppress it. A monk ventured to attach to his mantle as he went to Mass the sentence of excommunication. It cost him his life, and brought heavy persecutions on his brethren. Acacius met the Pope with open defiance, and removed his name from the diptychs.45 He rested on the emperor Zeno's support, who did everything at his bidding. Every arm of deceit and of violence he used equally. The monks, called, from their never intermitted worship, the Sleepless, in close connection with Rome, suffered severely. So Acacius passed the remaining five years of his life, dying in the autumn of 489.

His excommunication by the Pope caused a schism between the East and West which lasted thirty-five years, from 484 to 519. He met that supreme act of authority by the counter act of removing the Pope's name from the diptychs. This invites us to consider the position which he assumed.

From the year 482 (that is, four years after Zeno had recovered the empire), Acacius appears in possession of full influence over the emperor. The position of the bishop at Constantinople was, in itself, one of immense dignity. He was undoubtedly the second person in the imperial city, surrounded with a pomp and deference only yielding to that accorded to the emperor, but in some respects superior to it. He was regarded as sacrosanct: all the respect which the Church received in the minds of the good was centred in his person. And as he had risen to all this dignity in virtue of Constantinople being the capital, there was a special connection between the capital and its bishop, which led it to sympathise with every accession of power which he received. There can be no doubt that the right acquired by that bishop over the great sees of Ephesus, Cæsarea in Pontus, and Heraclea in Thrace was extremely popular at Constantinople; and that when he proceeded further to show his hand over the patriarchate of Antioch – as, for instance, in nominating one of its archbishops at Tyre, as the Pope reproached him – the capital was still better pleased. Most of all when, breaking through all the regulations which the Nicene Council had consecrated by its approval, – which, however, it had not created, but found in immemorial subsistence, – he ventured to ordain at Constantinople a patriarch of Antioch. Thus Stephen II., patriarch of Antioch, had been murdered in 479 by the fanatical Monophysites, in the baptistry of the Barlaam Church, and his mangled body thrown into the Orontes. The incensed emperor punished the criminals, and charged his patriarch Acacius to consecrate a new bishop for Antioch. Acacius seized the favourable opportunity, after the example of Anatolius, to advance himself, and appointed Stephen III. Emperor and patriarch both applied to Pope Simplicius to excuse this violation of the rights of the Syrian bishops, alleging the pressure of circumstances, and promising that the example should not occur again. Simplicius, so entreated, excused the fault, recognised the patriarch of Antioch – though he had been consecrated in Constantinople by its bishop – but insisted that such a violation of the canons should not be repeated. Presently Stephen III. died, upon which Acacius committed the same fault anew, and in 482 consecrated Calendion patriarch of Antioch. Calendion brought back from Macedonia the relics of his great and persecuted predecessor, St. Eustathius; but presently Zeno and Acacius displaced Calendion. Acacius was using the power which he possessed over the emperor to advance his own credit in the appointment of patriarchs, and to establish two notorious heretics – Peter the Fuller at Antioch, and Peter the Stammerer at Alexandria. All this meant that the bishop of Constantinople's hand was to be over the East, as the bishop of Rome's hand was over the West. Then, ever since the Council of Chalcedon, the two great eastern patriarchates had been torn to pieces by the conflicts of parties. The Eutychean heresy fought a desperate battle for mastery. As to Antioch, from the time that Eusebius of Nicomedia had brought about the deposition of St. Eustathius, preparatory to that of Athanasius in 330, the great patriarchate of the East had been declining from the unrivalled position which it had held. As to Alexandria, from the time that the 150 fathers at Constantinople, in 381, had attempted to make Constantinople the second see, because it was Nova Roma, the see of St. Mark bore a grudge against the upstart which sought to degrade it. In spite of the unequalled renown of its two great patriarchs, St. Athanasius and St. Cyril, it was sinking. And now heresy, schism, and imperial favour seemed to have joined together to exhibit Acacius as not only the first patriarch of the East, but as exercising jurisdiction even within their bounds, and as nominating those who succeeded to their thrones. All which would only tend to increase the power and popularity of the bishop of Constantinople in his own see.