And now I turn another leaf in the book of human actions, which our Lord holds on His knees and unfolds in His history of His one Church.
During the whole pontificate of St. Gregory he was defending himself against the deceit and despotism of the man whom he acknowledged as his lawful sovereign, the Byzantine emperor. The despotism usually veiled itself in deceit, while the deceit rested upon the despotism rooted in the heart of the eastern that he was [pg 006] lord of the world.3 Worse than the Lombards, who pursued to the very gates of Rome the people nourished by Gregory on the Church's patrimonium, who spoiled, maimed, and tortured those whom they could catch, were the intrigues of the imperial lieutenants, the exarchs of Ravenna, plotting with the Lombards, enemies of the emperor, against his subjects, the Pope and his Romans. With this state of things the seventh century begins, and so it continues to the end. We have to consider the great events which took place in this century, and especially to point out their connection with this fact of the Byzantine temporal despotism as it was turned upon the spiritual power.
Again, during his whole pontificate, St. Gregory was resisting the attempts of the bishops of Constantinople to extend their power. In his own time it would seem to have been an effect of Justinian's legislation that the Roman See accepted them as patriarchs, which Pope Gelasius denied them to be. Not only so but in every step of their advancement they were backed by the emperors to go on yet further by pushing their See under the title of Ecumenical to a position over the eastern empire parallel to that of the Pope over the West, while it was subordinate at the same time to the emperor himself. The four-and-twenty immediate successors of St. Gregory, from Pope Sabinian, elected in 604, to Pope Constantine, who died in 715, were exposed to the full force of this attempt. The bearing of it upon [pg 007] the rise of the Mohammedan empire will appear more and more as we proceed in the history of this terrible century.
The first event on which we must dwell for a time on account of its great effect upon the history of the century, is the long continued hostility between the eastern and the Persian empires. In the year 602 the general Phocas had deposed the emperor Mauritius.4 From his reign most Byzantine historians date the ever increasing calamities of the empire. The popular feeling that a bad ruler is a judgment from God was expressed in the story that a pious monk once asked, O God, why hast Thou set this man over us as emperor? when he received for answer, Because I could find none worse. Phocas reigned about seven years, and his end was as follows. The patriarch Thomas had, by his entreaties, drawn to Constantinople Theodore of Siceon, who enjoyed a great reputation for holiness. The mind of patriarch Thomas had been greatly moved by auguries of misfortune which as it were filled the air. He urged the saint to pray and then to give him his advice. The saint at last yielded to his entreaties and said, “It was my mind not to disturb you. It is not for your good to know these things. But since you will have it so, learn that the incident which troubles you betokens many great misfortunes. Many will leave our religion. Incursions of barbarians will follow, and great blood-shedding. Devastation and insurrection through the whole world. Churches will be deserted. The fall of [pg 008] the divine service and of the empire is approaching: and the adversary is nigh at hand.”
Whilst St. Theodore was at Constantinople the emperor Phocas suffered from gout in hands and feet. He sent for the saint, who laid his hands upon him and prayed for him. The emperor felt relief, and commended himself and his realm to Theodore's prayers. The saint replied that if he wished such a prayer to be heard he must cease from oppression and shedding of blood. Phocas had great need of such warning, but profited little by it. Narses was the ablest and bravest general whom he had to send against the Persians, but he broke his word, and had him burnt alive. This frightful execution moved the patrician Germanus to try after the place of emperor which Phocas had once offered to him. He planned a conspiracy with Constantina, widow of the emperor Mauritius. She had taken asylum with her daughters in Sancta Sophia. This was in 606. At the sight of her the people flocked together and took up arms. Phocas sent orders to bring out Constantina with her daughters. The patriarch Cyriakus refused: only when he had compelled Phocas to swear that no harm should be done to them, he gave them up. Phocas kept his word, and only confined them in a monastery. Germanus was forced to become a priest. In the next year, 607, Germanus and Constantina with other persons of high rank made a new conspiracy. It was discovered. Germanus with his daughter, the widow of prince Theodosius, eldest son of the preceding emperor Mauritius, was beheaded. The same lot befel Constantina and her [pg 009] daughters at Chalcedon, on the spot where, five years before, the emperor Mauritius had witnessed the execution of five sons, one after another, uttering at each stroke only the words: “Just art Thou, O Lord, and just is Thy judgment”: and then offering his own head to the sword. Phocas put to death the other conspirators with fearful tortures. Such executions were followed by fresh conspiracies, and these by similar punishments. At last, Crispus, the very stepson of Phocas, rose against him, and invited Heraclius, governor of Africa, to depose the emperor. Heraclius despatched a fleet under the command of his son, bearing the same name. Only as it drew near Constantinople did Phocas hear of it. He prepared for defence, but Crispus secretly traversed all his efforts, pretending to be on his side. After a bloody engagement the fleet appeared before the walls of the capital on Sunday the 4th October, 610. The next morning a senator, whose wife Phocas had dishonoured, appeared with a troop of soldiers at the palace. Phocas was seized, stripped of the purple, his hands bound behind his back, and carried through the city and the fleet before the young Heraclius, who was still on board his vessel. “Wretch,” said Heraclius, “hast thou governed the empire so?” “And wilt thou,” answered Phocas, “govern it better?” Heraclius trampled on him, cut off his hands and feet, and then his head, in sight of the vast throng which lined the shore. His head and limbs were carried on spears through the city, the trunk dragged through the streets, and all at last burnt.
Heraclius, accompanied by Crispus, disembarked. He [pg 010] invited Crispus to put on the imperial robe, since he was not come to invest himself with it, but only to avenge Mauritius and his children. Crispus refused, and then Heraclius had nothing to oppose to the request of the patriarch Sergius, who had just succeeded Thomas, that he should be crowned by him. Crispus was given the government of Cappadocia: but becoming a few years later unfaithful to Heraclius, as he had been to his stepfather Phocas, was compelled to receive the torture, and pass the rest of his days in banishment.
It may here be said that the dynasty thus begun occupied the throne for five generations. Justinian II., great-great-grandson of Heraclius, was more cruel if possible, than Phocas: he was deposed by an adventurer in 695, and his nose cut off to incapacitate him for any future recovery of the throne. His successor lasted three years: and another for seven; after which Justinian, who wore a golden nose for the one which he had lost, recovered the throne; practised during five years atrocious cruelties, was deposed by a third adventurer, Philippicus Bardanes in 711: put to death, and his head carried to Rome to assure all men that they were delivered from a tyrant, and a special oppressor of the Church.
Such in personal conduct was the manner of men who sat on the eastern throne of the great Constantine during the seventh century: whom four-and-twenty Popes found themselves bound to acknowledge as “Christian kings and Roman princes”. What they were in this capacity, which was the first and greatest of all their duties, as [pg 011] recognised by the imperial laws, will be seen as the narrative proceeds. Under these men the Popes, utterly deprived of temporal power, in the midst of a province an outlying domain of a distant despot, had to maintain the unity of the Christian faith, and the independence of the Holy See as its guardian. In the midst of these things the chalifs of Mohammed broke upon the eastern empire, and severed from it its fairest provinces. It is requisite to follow closely the series of events, and the connection of times.
Upon his accession to the throne in 603 Phocas had sent an embassy to the Persian emperor Chosroes, expressing his desire to maintain peace with him. But Chosroes under pretext of avenging his benefactor, the late emperor Mauritius, began a war which lasted more than four and twenty years, inflicted fearful sufferings on both empires, and had the most important consequences by leaving them in a state of great weakness to meet the assault of a new enemy, the Mohammedan chalifate.
During the first eighteen years of this war, that is, from 604 to 622,