A Source Book for Ancient Church History Part 79

And the subscription of the laity.

I, (_name_), in the name of G.o.d, consul, have with full consent subscribed to this doc.u.ment which we have made concerning (_name_), most holy archdeacon, our bishop-elect.

(_d_) Paulus Diaconus, _Hist. Langobardorum_, IV, 44. (MSL, 95:581.)

Agilulf may have been a convert to the Catholic faith, _v. supra_, 99. His successors were not. In fact, not until 653, when Aribert, the nephew of Theodelinda, ascended the throne, were the Lombards permanently under Catholic rulers.

44. After Ariwald (626-636) had reigned twelve years over the Lombards he departed this life, and Rothari of the family of Arodus took the kingdom of the Lombards. He was a strong, brave man, and walked in the paths of justice; in Christian faith, however, he did not hold to the right way, but was polluted by the unbelief of the Arian heresy. The Arians say, to their confusion, that the Son is inferior to the Father and, in the same way, the Holy Ghost is inferior to the Father and the Son; we, Catholic Christians, on the contrary, confess that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are one true G.o.d in three persons, equal in power and glory. In the times of Rothari there were in nearly all the cities of his kingdom two bishops, a Catholic and an Arian.

To this very day there is shown in the city of Ticinus [Pavia] the place where the Arian bishop resided, at the church of St. Eusebius, and held the baptistery while the Catholic bishop was at the head of another church. The Arian bishop, however, who was in this city, whose name was Anastasius, accepted the Catholic faith and afterward ruled the Church of Christ. This king Rothari caused the laws of the Lombards to be reduced to writing and named the book _The Edict_; the law of the Lombards up to that time had been retained merely in memory and by their use in the courts.

This took place, as the king in the preface to his law-book says, in the seventy-seventh year(313) after the Lombards came into Italy.

109. Rome, Constantinople, and the Lombards in the Period of the First Iconoclastic Controversy; the Seventh General Council, Nica, A. D. 787

By the eight century the veneration of pictures or icons had become wide-spread throughout the Eastern Church. Apart from their due place in the cultus, grave abuses and superst.i.tions had arisen in many parts of the Church in connection with the icons. To Leo III the Isaurian (717-741), and to the army, the veneration of the icons, as practised by the populace, and especially by the monks, seemed but little removed from the grossest idolatry. Accordingly, in an edict issued in 726, Leo attempted to put an end to the abuses by preventing all veneration of the icons.

Meeting with opposition, his measures pa.s.sed from moderate to severe. In Italy, although the use of icons was not developed to the same extent as in the East, sympathy was entirely against the Iconoclasts. Gregory II (715-731) and Gregory III (731-741) bitterly reproached and denounced the action of the Emperor. Nearly all the exarchate willingly pa.s.sed under the power of the Lombards. Other parts of northern Italy also broke with the Emperor. Leo retaliated by annexing Illyric.u.m to the see of Constantinople and confiscating the papal revenues in southern Italy. From that time the connection between the Pope and the Emperor was very slight. The Emperor Constantine V Cop.r.o.nymus (741-775) was more severe than his father, and in many respects even fiercely brutal in his treatment of the monks. A synod was a.s.sembled at Constantinople, 754, attended by three hundred and thirty-eight bishops, who, as was customary in Eastern synods, supported the Emperor. His son, Leo IV Chazarus (775-780) was less energetic and disposed to tolerate the use of icons in private. But his widow, Irene, the guardian of her infant son, Constantine VI, was determined to restore the images or icons. A synod held at Constantinople in 786 was broken up by the soldiery of the capital. In 787 at Nica, a council was called at a safe distance and Iconoclasm was condemned.

Additional source material: _St. John Damascene on Holy Images_, Eng. trans. by Mary H. Allies, 1898; St. John of Damascus, _Exposition of the Orthodox Faith_, PNF, ser. II, vol. IX; Percival, _Seven Ec.u.menical Councils_ (PNF).

(_a_) _Liber Pontificalis, Vita Gregorii_ II. Ed. d.u.c.h.esne, I, 403.

Disorders in Italy consequent upon Iconoclasm.

The following pa.s.sage from the _Liber Pontificalis_ gives a vivid and, on the whole, accurate picture of the confusion in Italy during the last years of the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire in the peninsula. It is hardly likely that the Emperor ordered the death of the pontiff as recorded, and more probable that his over-officious representatives regarded it as a means of ingratiating themselves with their master. The pa.s.sage is strictly contemporaneous, as the _Liber Pontificalis_, at least in this part, is composed of brief biographies of Popes written immediately after their decease and in some instances during their lives. For a fuller statement of the whole period, see Hefele, 332 _ff._, who gives an abstract of the following and also of two letters alleged to have been written by Gregory II to the Emperor, which Hefele accepts as genuine. For a criticism of these letters, see Hodgkin, _op. cit._, VI, 501-505. Hodgkin gives an excellent account of King Liutprand in ch. XII of the same volume, pp.

437-508, and throws much light on the following pa.s.sage.

For the events immediately preceding this, see Paulus Diaconus, _Hist. Langobardorum_, VI, 46-48, given above in 106. Paulus refers to the capture of Narnia in the last sentence of ch. 48.

and his next chapter is apparently a condensation of the following sections of the official papal biography.

At that time [_circa_ A. D. 725] Narnia(314) was taken by the Lombards.

And Liutprand, the king of the Lombards, advanced upon Ravenna with his entire army, and besieged it for some days. Taking the fortress of Cla.s.sis, he bore off many captives and immense booty. After some time the duke Basilius, the chartularius Jordanes, and the subdeacon John, surnamed Lurion, conspired to kill the Pope; and Marinus, the imperial spatarius, who at that time held the government of the duchy of Rome, having been sent by the command of the Emperor to the royal city, joined their conspiracy. But they could not find an opportunity. The plot was broken up by the judgment of G.o.d, and he therefore left Rome. Later Paulus, the patrician, was sent as exarch to Italy, who planned how at length he might accomplish the crime; but their plans were disclosed to the Romans, These were so enraged that they killed Jordanes and John Lurion. Basilius, however, became a monk and ended his life hidden in a certain place. But the exarch Paulus, on the command of the Emperor, tried to kill the pontiff because he hindered the levying of a tax upon the province, intending to strip the churches of their property, as was done in other places, and to appoint another [Pope] in his place. After this another spatarius was sent with commands to remove the pontiff from his seat. Then again the patrician Paulus sent, for the accomplishment of this crime, such soldiers as he could withdraw from Ravenna, with his guard and some from the camps. But the Romans were aroused, and from all sides the Lombards gathered for the defence of the pontiff at the bridge of Solario, in the district of Spoleto, and the dukes of the Lombards, surrounding the Roman territories, prevented this crime.

In a decree afterward sent, the Emperor ordered that there no longer should be in any church an image(315) of any saint, or martyr, or angel (for he said that all these were accursed); and if the pontiff a.s.sented he should enjoy his favor, but if he prevented the accomplishment of this also he should fall from his position. The pious man, despising therefore the profane command of the prince, armed himself against the Emperor as against an enemy, rejecting this heresy and writing everywhere to warn Christians of the impiety which had arisen.

Aroused by this, the inhabitants of the Pentapolis(316) and the armies of Venetia resisted the command of the Emperor, saying that they would never a.s.sent to the murder of the pontiff, but on the contrary would strive manfully for his defence. They anathematized the exarch Paulus, him who had sent him, and those who sided with him, refusing to obey them; and throughout Italy all chose leaders(317) for themselves, so eager were all concerning the pontiff and his safety. When the iniquities of the Emperor were known, all Italy started to choose for itself an emperor and conduct him to Constantinople, but the pontiff prevented this plan, hoping for the conversion of the prince.

Meanwhile, in those days, the duke Exhiliratus,(318) deceived by the instigation of the devil, with his son Adrian, occupied parts of Campania, persuading the people to obey the Emperor and kill the pontiff. Then all the Romans pursued after him, took him, and killed both him and his son.

After this they chased away the duke Peter [governor of Rome under the Emperor], saying that he had written against the pontiff to the Emperor.

When, therefore, a dissension arose in and about Ravenna, some consenting to the wickedness of the Emperor and some holding to the pontiff and those faithful to him, a great fight took place between them and they killed the patrician Paulus [exarch at that time]. And the cities of Castra milia, Ferroria.n.u.s, Montebelli, Verabulum, with its towns, Buxo, Persiceta, the Pentapolis, and Auximanum, surrendered to the Lombards.(319) After this the Emperor sent to Naples Eutychius Fratricius, the eunuch, who had formerly been exarch, to accomplish what the exarch Paulus, the spatarii, and the other evil counsellors had been unable to do. But by G.o.ds ordering his miserable craft was not so hidden but that his most wicked plot was disclosed to all, that he would attempt to violate the churches of Christ, to destroy all, and to take away the property of all. When he had sent one of his own men to Rome with written instructions, among other things, that the pontiff should be killed, together with the chief men of Rome, this most b.l.o.o.d.y outrage was discovered, and the Romans would at once have killed the messenger of the patrician if the opposition of the Pope had not prevented them. But they anathematized the same exarch Eutychius, binding themselves, great and small, by an oath, never to permit the pontiff, the zealous guardian of the Christian faith and the defender of the churches, to be killed or removed, but to be ready all to die for his safety. Thereupon the patrician [Eutychius], promising many gifts to the dukes and to the king of the Lombards, attempted to persuade them by his messengers to abandon the support of the pontiff. But they despised the mans detestable wiles contained in his letters; and the Romans and the Lombards bound themselves as brothers in the bond of faith, all desiring to suffer a glorious death for the pontiff, and never to permit him to receive any harm, contending for the true faith and the salvation of Christians. While they were doing this that father chose, as a stronger protection, to distribute with his own hand such alms to the poor as he found; giving himself to prayers and fastings, he besought the Lord daily with litanies, and he remained always more supported by this hope than by men; however, he thanked the people for their offer, and with gentle words he besought all to serve G.o.d with good deeds and to remain steadfast in the faith; and he admonished them not to renounce their love and fidelity to the Roman Emperor.

At that time in the eleventh indiction,(320) the castle of Sutri was taken by the Lombards by craft, and was held by them for a period of forty days,(321) but urged by the constant letters of the pontiff and warnings sent to the king, when very many gifts had been made, as a gift at least for all the towns, the king of the Lombards restored them and gave them as a donation to the most blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. At the same time, in the twelfth indiction [A. D. 729], in the month of January, for ten days and more, a star, called Gold-bearing,(322) with rays, appeared in the west. Its rays were toward the north and reached to the midst of the heavens. At that time, also, the patrician Eutychius and King Liutprand made a most wicked agreement, that when an army had been gathered the king should subject Spoleto and Beneventum,(323) and the exarch of Rome, and they should carry out what was already commanded concerning the pontiff.

When the king came to Spoleto, oaths and hostages were received from both [_i.e._, the dukes of Spoleto and Beneventum], and he came with all his troops to the Campus Neronis.(324) The pontiff went forth and presented himself before him and endeavored to the extent of his ability to soften the mind of the king by pious warnings, so that the king threw himself at his feet and promised to harm no one; and he was so moved to compunction by the pious warnings that he abandoned his undertaking and laid on the grave of the Apostle his mantle, his military cloak, his sword belt, his short two-edged sword, and his golden sword, as well as a golden crown and a silver cross. After prayer he besought the pontiff to consent to make peace with the exarch, which also was done. So he departed, for the king forsook the bad designs with which he had entered into the plot with the exarch. While the exarch remained in Rome, there came into Tuscany to Castrum Maturianense,(325) a certain deceiver, Tiberius by name, called also Petasius,(326) who attempted to usurp the rule of the Roman Empire and deceived some of the less important, so that Maturianum, Luna, and Blera [Bieda] took oath to him. The exarch, hearing of this, was troubled, but the most holy Pope supported him, and, sending with him his chief men and an army, he advanced and came to Castrum Maturianense. Petasius was killed, his head was cut off and sent to Constantinople, to the prince; nevertheless the Emperor showed no great favor to the Romans.

After these things the malice of the Emperor became evident, on account of which he had persecuted the pontiff. For he compelled all the inhabitants of Constantinople, by force and persuasion, to displace the images of the Saviour as well as of His holy mother, and of all saints, wherever they were, and (what is horrible to tell) to burn them in the fire in the middle of the city, and to whitewash all the painted churches. Because very many of the people of the city withstood the commission of such an enormity, they were subjected to punishment; some were beheaded, others lost a part of their body. For this reason also, because Germa.n.u.s, the prelate of the church of Constantinople, was unwilling to consent to this, the Emperor deprived him of his pontifical position, and appointed in his place the presbyter Anastasius, an accomplice. Anastasius sent to the Pope a synodical letter, but when that holy man saw that he held the same error, he did not regard him as brother and fellow-priest, but wrote him warning letters, commanding him to be put out of his sacerdotal office unless he returned to the Catholic faith. He also charged the Emperor, urging wholesome advice, that he should desist from such execrable wickedness, and he warned him by letter.(327)

(_b_) John of Damascus, _De Fide Orthodoxa_, IV, 16. (MSG, 94:1168.)

John of Damascus (_ob. ante_ 754) was the last of the Church Fathers of the East. He became the cla.s.sical representative of the theology of the Eastern Church, and his system forms the conclusion and summing up of the results of all the great controversies that had distracted that part of the Church. His greatest work, _De Fide Orthodoxa_, may be found translated in PNF. In the following chapter John sums up briefly the arguments which he uses in his three orations _In Defence of Images_ (to be found in MSG, 94:1227 _ff._; for translation see head of section).

By images one should understand pictures rather than statues. The latter were never common and fell entirely out of use and were forbidden. They seemed too closely akin to idols. In the translation, the phrase to show reverence is the equivalent of the Greek p??s?????.

Since some find fault with us for showing reverence and honoring the image of our Saviour and that of our Lady, and also of the rest of the saints and servants of Christ, let them hear that from the beginning G.o.d made man after His own image. On what other grounds, then, do we show reverence to each other than that we are made after G.o.ds image? For as Basil, that most learned expounder of divine things, says: The honor given to the image pa.s.ses over to the prototype.(328) Now a prototype is that which is imaged, from which the form is derived. Why was it that the Mosaic people showed reverence round about the tabernacle which bore an image and type of heavenly things, or rather the whole creation? G.o.d, indeed, said to Moses: Look that thou make all things after the pattern which was shewed thee in the mount [Ex. 33:10]. The Cherubim, also, which overshadowed the mercy-seat, are they not the work of mens hands? What is the renowned temple at Jerusalem? Is it not made by hands and fas.h.i.+oned by the skill of men? The divine Scriptures, however, blame those who show reverence to graven images, but also those who sacrifice to demons. The Greeks sacrificed and the Jews also sacrificed; but the Greeks to demons; the Jews, however, to G.o.d. And the sacrifice of the Greeks was rejected and condemned, but the sacrifice of the just was acceptable to G.o.d. For Noah sacrificed, and G.o.d smelled a sweet savor of a good purpose, receiving, also, the fragrance of a good-will toward Him. And so the graven images of the Greeks, since they were the images of demon deities, were rejected and forbidden.

But besides this, who can make an imitation of the invisible, incorporeal, uncirc.u.mscribed, and formless G.o.d? Therefore to give form to the Deity is the height of folly and impiety. And therefore in the Old Testament the use of images was repressed. But after G.o.d, in the bowels of His mercy, became for our salvation in truth man, not as He was seen by Abraham in the semblance of a man, or by the prophets, but He became in truth man, according to substance, and after He lived upon earth and dwelt among men, worked miracles, suffered, and was crucified, He rose again, and was received up into heaven; since all these things actually took place and were seen by men, they were written for the remembrance and instruction of us who were not present at that time, in order that, though we saw not, we may still, hearing and believing, obtain the blessing of the Lord. But since all have not a knowledge of letters nor time for reading, it appeared good to the Fathers that those events, as acts of heroism, should be depicted on images(329) to be a brief memorial of them. Often, doubtless, when we have not the Lords pa.s.sion in mind and see the image of Christs crucifixion, we remember the pa.s.sion and we fall down and show reverence not to the material but to that which is imaged; just as we do not show reverence to the material of the Gospel, nor to the material of the cross, but that which these typify.(330) For wherein does the cross that typifies the Lord differ from a cross that does not do so? It is the same also as to the case of the Mother of G.o.d.(331) For the honor which is given her is referred to Him who was incarnate of her. And similarly also the brave acts of holy men stir us to bravery and to emulation and imitation of their valor and to the glory of G.o.d. For, as we said, the honor that is given to the best of fellow servants is a proof of good-will toward our common lady, and the honor rendered the image pa.s.ses over to the prototype. But this is an unwritten tradition, just as is also to show reverence toward the East and to the cross, and very many similar things.(332)

A certain tale is told also that when Augarus [_i.e._, Abgarus] was king over the city of the Edessenes, he sent a portrait-painter to paint a likeness of the Lord; and when the painter could not paint because of the brightness that shone from His countenance, the Lord himself put a garment over His divine and life-giving face and impressed on it an image of Himself, and sent this to Augarus to satisfy in this way his desire.

Moreover, that the Apostles handed down much that was unwritten, Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles writes: Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught of us, whether by word or by epistles [II Thess. 2:14]. And to the Corinthians he writes: Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remembered me in all things and keep the traditions as I have delivered them to you [I Cor. 2:2].

(_c_) Basil the Great, _De Spiritu Sancto_, ch. 18. (MSG, 32:149.)

Basil is speaking of the three persons of the Trinity, and says that although we speak of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we must not count up by way of addition gradually increasing from unity to mult.i.tude, but that number must be understood otherwise in speaking of the three divine persons.

How then, if one and one, are there not two G.o.ds? Because we speak of a king and of the kings image, and not of two kings. The power is not parted nor the glory divided. The power ruling over us is one, and the authority one, and so also the doxology ascribed by us is one and not plural; because the honor paid to the image pa.s.ses over to the prototype.

Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent upon the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the G.o.dhead.

(_d_) The Seventh General Council, Nica, A. D. 787, _Definition of Faith_. Mansi, XIII, 398 _ff._

In addition to Hefele, and PNF, ser. II. vol. XIV, see Mendham, _The Seventh General Council, the Second of Nica, in which the Wors.h.i.+p of Images was Established; with copious notes from the ____Caroline Books,____ compiled by order of Charlemagne for its Confutation_, London, n. d.

The holy, great and ec.u.menical synod which, by the grace of G.o.d and the command of the pious and Christ-loving Emperors, Constantine, and Irene his mother, was gathered together for the second time at Nica, the ill.u.s.trious metropolis of the eparchy of Bithynia, in the holy Church of G.o.d which is named Sophia, having followed the tradition of the Catholic Church, hath defined as follows:

Christ our Lord, who hath bestowed upon us the light of the knowledge of Himself, and hath redeemed us from the darkness of idolatrous madness, having espoused to Himself His holy Catholic Church without spot or defect, promised that He would so preserve her; and a.s.sured His holy disciples, saying, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world [Matt. 28:20], which promise He made, not only to them, but to us also who through them should believe in His name. But some, not considering this gift, and having become fickle through the temptation of the wily enemy, have fallen from the right faith; for, withdrawing from the tradition of the Catholic Church, they have erred from the knowledge of the truth, and as the proverb saith: The husbandmen have gone astray in their own husbandry, and have gathered in their hands sterility, because certain priests in deed, but not priests in reality, had dared to slander the G.o.d-approved ornaments of the sacred monuments. Of whom G.o.d cries aloud through the prophet: Many pastors have corrupted my vineyard, they have polluted my portion [Jer. 12:10; _cf._ LXX]. And, forsooth, following profane men, trusting to their own senses, they have calumniated His holy Church espoused to Christ our G.o.d, and have not distinguished between holy and profane, styling the images of the Lord and of His saints by the same name as the statute of diabolical idols. Seeing which things, our Lord G.o.d (not willing to behold His people corrupted by such manner of plague) hath of His good pleasure called us together, the chief of His priests, from every quarter, moved with a divine zeal and brought hither by the will of our Emperors, Constantine and Irene, to the end that the divine tradition of the Catholic Church may receive stability by our common decree.

Therefore, with all diligence, making a thorough examination and investigation, and following the trend of the truth, diminis.h.i.+ng naught, adding naught, we preserve unchanged all things which pertain to the Catholic Church, and following the six ec.u.menical synods, especially that which met in this ill.u.s.trious metropolis of Nica, as also that which was afterward gathered together in the G.o.d-preserved royal city.

We believe in one G.o.d life of the world to come. Amen.(333)

We detest and anathematize Arius and all who agree with him and share his absurd opinion; also Macedonius and those who, following him, are well styled foes of the Spirit.(334) We confess that our lady, St. Mary, is properly and truly the Theotokos, because she bore, after the flesh, one of the Holy Trinity, to wit, Christ our G.o.d, as the Council of Ephesus has already defined, when it cast out of the Church the impious Nestorius with his allies, because he introduced a personal [p??s?p????] duality [in Christ]. With the Fathers of this synod we confess the two natures of Him who was incarnate for us of the immaculate Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary, recognizing Him as perfect G.o.d and perfect man, as also the Council of Chalcedon hath promulgated, expelling from the divine Atrium as blasphemers, Eutyches and Dioscurus; and placing with them Severus, Peter, and a number of others blaspheming in divers fas.h.i.+ons. Moreover, with these we anathematize the fables of Origen, Evagrius, and Didymus, in accordance with the decision of the Fifth Council held at Constantinople.

We affirm that in Christ there are two wills and operations according to the reality of each nature, as also the Sixth Council held at Constantinople taught, casting out Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, and those who are unwilling to be reverent and who agree with these.