The second attempt was by Zeno, when he had recovered the throne, and fallen into the hands of his patriarch Acacius. He then issued the Henoticon, which Acacius had drawn up, which was imposed by force on the bishops, and which Fravita, Euphemius, Macedonius, and Timotheus, successive patriarchs of Constantinople, submitted to subscribe, the first under Zeno, the following three under Anastasius. The wisdom and firmness of successive Popes frustrated this attempt, and Hormisdas finally obtained a full reparation, and the acknowledgment of his own charge over the whole Church, by the gift of Christ to St. Peter, which the bishops of the Apostolic See inherited.
Yet, notwithstanding this most solemn confession on the part of the bishop of Constantinople, of the emperor, and of the nobles of the East, some thirty years later, Justinian, having become direct lord of Rome, and having summoned Pope Vigilius as his temporal subject, to go to Constantinople, makes a third attempt, and issues to the Fifth General Council his own “Confession of Faith,” which a recreant court-archbishop, Theodore Askidas, supplies him with, and which the patriarch of Constantinople, Eutychius, then, [pg 063] by the emperor's nomination, presiding over the Council, as well as the eastern bishops in the Council, receive. The whole attitude and conduct of Justinian at the Fifth Council show how deeply this most distinguished of the eastern emperors was imbued with the doctrinal despotism of his throne. And from that time, the contention of his successors is still more pronounced, and their temporal power over the Pope, as their subject, is unsparingly exercised, not to deny his spiritual supremacy in itself, but to make its exercise subject to their imperial power, and in this the patriarchs of Constantinople, assuming by and with the consent of the emperors, the title of Ecumenical Patriarch, serve their sovereign as the chief instrument for reducing the Church to servitude. It is to be observed that Justinian conferred this title upon them in his laws. From that time they one and all clung to it.
The fourth attempt is made by Heraclius at the end of his long reign, when he had fallen under the influence of Sergius, as his predecessor, Zeno, had fallen under the influence of Acacius. Not only did Sergius hold the great see of the capital during twenty-eight years from 610 to 638, but things recorded of him seem to indicate that he was a man of extraordinary resolution. He had preserved Heraclius from deserting his capital, and flying back for refuge to his father at Carthage, after a long series of defeats from the Persians. He had acted as guardian of his son, and administrator of the empire during the marvellous six years when Heraclius, shaking off twelve years of [pg 064] apathy, and going forth in the name of God, and in publicly uttered commendation of his kingdom to the Blessed Mother of God, had triumphed over the Great King. Servius finally supplied him with the exposition, which was to present in seeming concord the wrangling episcopacy of his eastern empire, and overcome the Roman Pontiff in his maintenance of the faith.
The fifth attempt was made by Constans II., grandson of Heraclius, for whom Paul II., patriarch of Constantinople, invested his heresy in fitting language, and presented it in the Typus as an imperial decree which all were to accept under punishment to property, freedom, or life. And Pope Martin I. had to fight the old battle of the Church as a subject to a sovereign who was at once without mercy and without scruple.
The Typus is the perfect specimen of the theologising emperor, who begins by attributing to himself the charge over the whole Church, and puts himself precisely in the place of the Pope and the bishops in formulating the true Christian doctrine, wherein he claims the initiative, and the ultimate decision.
It need only be added that in all this succession of attempts to deprive the Church of God of her liberty, and the Pope of that guardianship of the faith which alone is adequate to its maintenance, the successors of Constantine departed essentially from the position which the first of Christian emperors took at the first General Council. He did not sit in that Council. He placed himself with the sword of empire at the entrance to guard the approach. He made the decrees of the [pg 065] Council laws of the Roman empire; but he acknowledged that the power to make them rested in the bishops alone.
Nor would it be unhistorical to note that in proportion as the emperors, whose seat was Byzantium, encroached upon the liberty of the Church, and sought domination over the successor of St. Peter, in whose prerogatives that liberty was seated, their temporal empire declined. The despotism which flung itself with insolence and violence against the Church became odious to its own subjects. We shall see an instance of this which almost passes belief when the patriarchate of St. Athanasius embraces the Moslem conqueror, to escape the Byzantine sovereign, and terms the defenders of the Christian faith Melchites, that is, Royalists, because, while they rejected the Eutychean heresy, they were likewise loyal to the eastern emperor.
Let us see how Pope Martin meets this attempt. No sooner is he invested with “the great mantle,”32 than he summons a Council to meet in the basilica of Constantine, then called the Church of the Saviour, now St. John Lateran, adjoining the papal palace, the Mother Church of Rome. He called this council in order to judge the doctrine which two emperors, using two Byzantine patriarchs, and at the same time used by them, seek to impose upon the Church, instead of the doctrine of St. Leo the Great, accepted and set forth at the Council of Chalcedon. It held from the 5th to the 31st October, 649, five sittings. It was attended by [pg 066] 105 bishops, chiefly from Italy (excluding the Lombard dominion), Sicily and Sardinia, with some African, and a few foreign. The acts have come to us complete, both in Greek and Latin, the former being the proper language of the two documents, the Ecthesis and Typus. I give the following epitome of the Pope's speech to the Council:—
“Christ has commanded pastors to be watchful: this concerns us also, and especially must we watch over the purity of the faith, since certain bishops, who do not deserve this name, have lately sought to spoil our confession of belief by new invented expressions. Everyone knows them, since they have come forward openly to injure the Church: such are Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius of Constantinople, and his followers, Pyrrhus and Paulus. Cyrus eighteen years ago taught in Alexandria One Operation in Christ, and published from the pulpit nine heads of doctrine. Sergius approved this, issued somewhat later the Ecthesis under the name of the emperor Heraclius, and taught One Will and One Operation, which leads to One Nature of Christ. The Fathers distinctly taught that Operation answers to Nature, and whoever has like Operation must likewise be of like Nature. Since then the Fathers teach Two Natures in Christ, it follows that Two Wills and Operations are united without mixture and without division in one and the same Incarnate Word. That both are naturally one thing is not possible. Pope Leo also taught Two Wills, and so holy Scripture indicates. So Christ wrought what belonged to the Godhead [pg 067] corporeally, since He manifested it through His flesh animated by a reasonable soul; but what belonged to the Manhood, He wrought by the Godhead, since He took upon Him freely for our sake human weaknesses, that is, sufferings, but without sin. Cyrus, in issuing his nine heads of doctrine, Sergius, in issuing the Ecthesis, contradicted the doctrine of Leo, and of the Council of Chalcedon. But Pyrrhus and Paulus spread the error more widely; in particular, Pyrrhus by threats and flatteries seduced many bishops to subscribe his impiety. When he had afterwards come to shame, he came hither and presented to our Holy See a writing in which he anathematised his former error. But he returned as a dog to his vomit, and was therefore rightly deposed. But Paulus went even beyond his predecessor; he confirmed the Ecthesis, and contradicted the true doctrine.
“Therefore he also was deposed by the Holy See. Specially imitating Sergius, to cover his error he counselled the emperor to issue the Typus, which annuls the Catholic doctrine, denies to Christ properly all will and all operation, and therewith likewise each nature, for nature is shown by its operation. He has done what hitherto no heretic has dared; he has destroyed the altar of our Holy See in the Placidia Palace, and forbidden our Nuncios to celebrate thereon. He has persecuted those nuncios because they exhorted him to give up his error, as well as other orthodox men, imprisoning some, banishing others, beating others. As these men (that is, Sergius and the rest) have disturbed well-nigh [pg 068] the whole world, complaints both written and oral have come to us from various sides urging us to put down the falsehood by apostolic authority. Our predecessors have both by writing and by their nuncios tried to correct them, but without success. We have, therefore, thought it needful to convoke you, to consider together with you them and the new teaching.”33
Pope Theodorus had named Stephen, Bishop of Dor, in Palestine, to be Apostolic Vicar in that province.