CHAP. jealous of the honour of Leo and the synod of ChalceXLVII. don; and if they had fought as they usually did under the Heresy of standard of Rome, they might have prevailed in the cause of reason and humanity. But their chief was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy; the throne of St. Peter, which had been disgraced by the simony, was betrayed by the cowardice, of Vigilius, who yielded, after a long and inconsistent struggle, to the despotism of Justinian and the sophistry of the Greeks. His apostacy provoked the indignation of the Latins, and no more than two bishops could be found who would impose their hands on his deacon and successor Pelagius. Yet the perseverance of the popes insensibly transferred to their adversaries the appellation of schismatics: the Illyrian, African, and Italian churches, were oppressed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers, not without some effort of military force", the distant barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican, and in the period of a century, the schism of the three chapters expired in an obscure angle of the Venetian province. But the religious discontent of the Italians had already promoted the conquests of the Lombards, and the Romans themselves were accustomed to suspect the faith, and to detest the government, of their Byzantine tyrant. Justinian was neither steady nor consistent in the nice process of fixing his volatile opinions and those of his subjects. In his youth, he was offended by the slightest deviation from the orthodox line; in his old age, he transgressed the measure of temperate heresy, and the Jacobites, not less than the Catholics, were scandalised by his declaration that the body of Christ was incorruptible, and that his manhood was never subject to any wants and infirmities, the inheritance of our mortal flesh. This phantastic opinion was an 97 See the complaints of Liberatus and Victor, and the exhortations of pope Pelagius to the conqueror and exarch of Italy. Schisma.... per potestates publicas opprimatur, &c. (Concil. tom. vi. p. 467, &c.). An army was detained to suppress the sedition of an Illyrian city. See Procopius (de Bell. Goth. 1. iv. c. 25); ων περ ενεκα σφίσιν αυτοις οι Χρισιανοι διαμάχονται. He seems to promise an ecclesiastical history. It would have been curious and impartial. 98 The bishops of the patriarchate of Aquileia were reconciled by pope Honorius, A. D. 638 (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. v. p. 376); but they again relapsed, and the schism was not finally extinguished till 698. Fourteen years before, the church of Spain had overlooked the fifth general council with contemptuous silence (xiii. Concil. Toletan. in Concil. tom. vii. p. 487-494). nounced in the last edicts of Justinian; and at the mo- CHAP. ment of his seasonable departure, the clergy had refus- XLVII. ed to subscribe, the prince was prepared to persecute, and the people were resolved to suffer or resist. A bishop of Treves, secure beyond the limits of his power, addressed the monarch of the East in the language of authority and affection. "Most gracious Justinian, re"member your baptism and your creed! Let not your "grey hairs be defiled with heresy. Recal your fa"thers from exile, and your followers from perdition. "You cannot be ignorant that Italy and Gaul, Spain "and Africa, already deplore your fall and anathema"tise your name. Unless, without delay, you destroy "what you have taught; unless you exclaim with a "loud voice, I have erred, I have sinned, anathema to "Nestorius, anathema to Eutyches, you deliver your "soul to the same flames in which they will eternally "burn." He died and made no sign". His death restored in some degree the peace of the church, and the reigns of his four successors, Justin, Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, are distinguished by a rare though fortunate vacancy in the ecclesiastical history of the East100. contro The faculties of sense and reason are least capable The Moof acting on themselves; the eye is most inaccessible to nothelite the sight, the soul to the thought; yet we think, and versy, even feel, that one will, a sole principle of action, is es- A. D. 629. sential to a rational and conscious being. When Heraclius returned from the Persian war, the orthodox hero consulted his bishops, whether the Christ whom he adored, of one person, but of two natures, was actuated by a single or a double will. They replied in the singular, and the emperor was encouraged to hope that the Jacobites of Egypt and Syria might be reconciled by the profession of a doctrine, most certainly harmless, and most probably true, since it was taught even by the Nestorians themselves. The experiment was tried 99 Nicetius bishop of Treves (Concil. tom. vi. p. 511-513.) he himself, like most of the Gallican prelates (Gregor. Epist. I. vii. ep. 5. in Concil. tom. vi. p. 1007.) was separated from the communion of the four patriarchs by his refusal to condemn the three chapters. Baronius almost pronounces the damnation of Justinian (A. D. 565, No. 6). 100 After relating the last heresy of Justinian (1. iv. c. S9, 40, 41.) and the edict of his successor (1. v. c. 3.) the remainder of the history of Evagrius is filled with civil, instead of ecclesiastical, events. 101 This extraordinary, and perhaps inconsistent, doctrine of the Nesto CHAP. without effect, and the timid or vehement Catholics conXLVII. demned even the semblance of a retreat in the presence of a subtle and audacious enemy. The orthodox (the prevailing) party devised new modes of speech, and argument, and interpretation: to either nature of Christ, they speciously applied a proper and distinct energy; but the difference was no longer visible when they allowed that the human and the divine will were invariably the same102. The disease was attended with the customary symptoms; but the Greek clergy, as if satiate with the endless controversy of the incarnation, instilled a healing council into the ear of the prince and people. They declared themselves MONOTHELITES (asserters of the unity of will,) but they treated the words as new, the questions as superfluous; and recommended a religious silence as the most agreeable to the prudence and charity of the gospel. This law of silence was thesis of successively imposed by the ecthesis or exposition of Heraclius, the type or model of his grandson ConThe type stans103: and the Imperial edicts were subscribed with alacrity or reluctance by the four patriarchs of Rome, A. D. 648. Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. But the bi The ec Heraclius, A. D. 639. of Con stans, 103. shop and monks of Jerusalem sounded the alarm: in the language, or even in the silence, of the Greeks, the Latin churches detected a latent heresy and the obedience of pope Honorius to the commands of his sovereign was retracted and censured by the bolder ignorance of his successors. They condemned the execrable and abominable heresy of the Monothelites, who revived the errors of Manes, Apollinaris, Eutyches, rians, had been observed by La Croze (Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 19, 20.) and is more fully exposed by Abulpharagius (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 292. Hist. Dynast. p. 91. vers. Latin. Pocock) and Asseman himself (tom. iv. p. 218). They seem ignorant that they might allege the positive authority of the ecthesis. Ο μικρός Νεστόριος καίπες διαιρων την θείαν τε Κυρίδ ενανθρώπησιν, και δυο εισάγων υίες (the common reproach of the Monophysites), δυο θεληματα τούτων εἰπεῖν εκ ετόλμησε, τεναντιον δε ταυτο Βόλιαν των δυο TROσWTOV Edogaσs. Concil. tom. vii. p. 205. 102 See the orthodox faith in Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. tom. v. 1. ix. c. 6-10. p. 433-447.) all the depths of this controversy are founded in the Greek dialogue between Maximus and Pyrrhus (ad calcem tom. viii. Annal. Baron. p. 755–794.) which relates a real conference, and produced as a short-lived conversion. 103 Impiissimam ecthesim . . . scelerosum typum (Concil. tom. vii. p. 566.) diabolicæ operationis genimina (fors. germina, or else the Greek . Mara, in the original. Concil. p. 363, 364.) are the expressions of the xviiith anathema. The epistle of Pope Martin to Amandus, a Gallican bishop, stigmatises the Monothelites and their heresy with equal virulence (p. 392). &c.; they signed the sentence of excommunication on CHAP. the tomb of St. Peter; the ink was mingled with the XLVII. sacramental wine, the blood of Christ; and no ceremony was omitted that could fill the superstitious mind with horror and affright. As the representative of the western church, pope Martin and his Lateran synod anathematised the perfidious and guilty silence of the Greeks: one hundred and five bishops of Italy, for the most part the subjects of Constans, presumed to reprobate his wicked type and the impious ecthesis of his grandfather, and to confound the authors and their ad. herents with the twenty-one notorious heretics, the apostates from the church, and the organs of the devil. Such an insult under the tamest reign could not pass with impunity. Pope Martin ended his days on the inhospitable shore of the Tauric Chersonesus, and his oracle, the abbot Maximus, was inhumanly chastised by the amputation of his tongue and his right hand 104. But the same invincible spirit survived in their successors, and the triumph of the Latins avenged their recent defeat, and obliterated the disgrace of the three chapters. The synods of Rome were confirmed by the sixth general VIth gecouncil of Constantinople, in the palace and in the pre-council: sence of a new Constantine, a descendant of Heraclius. Ind of The royal convert converted the Byzantine pontiff and Constanti a majority of the bishops10s; the dissenters, with their A. D. 680, chief, Macarius of Antioch, were condemned to the Nov. 7 spiritual and temporal pains of heresy; the East con- Sept. 16. descended to accept the lessons of the West; and the creed was finally settled, which teaches the Catholics of every age, that two wills or energies are harmonised in the person of Christ. The majesty of the pope and the Roman synod was represented by two priests, one deacon, and three bishops but these obscure Latins had neither arms to compel, nor treasures to bribe, nor language to persuade; and I am ignorant by what arts 104 The sufferings of Martin and Maximus are described with pathetic simplicity in the original letters and acts (Concil. tom. vii. p. 63-78 Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 656, No. 2. et annos subsequent. Yet the chastisement of their disobedience, εξορία and σώματος οικισμος, had been previously announced in the Type of Constans (Concil. tom. vii. p. 240.) 105 Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 368.) most erroneously supposes that the 124 bishops of the Roman synod transported themselves to Constantinople; and by adding them to the 168 Greeks, thus composes the sixth council of 292 fathers. neral nople, A. D. 681, XLVII. CHAP they could determine the lofty emperor of the Greeks to abjure the catechism of his infancy, and to persecute the religion of his fathers. Perhaps the monks and people of Constantinople were favourable to the Lateran creed, which is indeed the least favourable of the two: and the suspicion is countenanced by the unnatural moderation of the Greek clergy, who appear in this quarrel to be conscious of their weakness. While the synod debated, a fanatic proposed a more summary decision, by raising a dead man to life: the prelates assisted at the trial, but the acknowledged failure may serve to indicate, that the passions and prejudices of the multitude were not inlisted on the side of the Monothelites. In the next generation, when the son of Constantine was deposed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted the feast of revenge and dominiou: the image or monument of the sixth council was defaced, and the original acts were committed to the flames. But in the second year, their patron was cast headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were released from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith was more firmly replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes, and the fine problems of the incarnation were forgotten in the more popular and visible quarrel of the worship of images107. Union of and Latin Before the end of the seventh century, the creed of the the Greek incarnation, which had been defined at Rome and Conchurches. stantinople, was uniformly preached in the remote islands of Britain and Ireland 108: the same ideas were entertain 106 The Monothelite Constans was hated by all dia Tei Tauta (says Theophanes, Chron. p. 292-qision opodga raga wavrov. When the Monothelite monk failed in his miracle, the people shouted, o naos aveßonce (Concil. tom. vii. p. 1032.) But this was a natural and transient emotion; and I much fear that the latter is an anticipation of orthodoxy in the good people of Constantinople. 107 The history of Monothelitism may be found in the acts of the Synods of Rome (tom. vii. p. 77–395. 601-608.) and Constantinople (p. 609—1429.) Baronius extracted some original documents from the Vatican library; and bis chronology is rectified by the diligence of Pagi. Even Dupin (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. vi. p. 57-71.) and Basnage (Hist. de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 541-555.) afford a tolerable abridgment. 108 In the Lateran synod of 679, Wilfrid, an Anglo-Saxon bishop, subscribed pro omni Aquilonati parte Britanniæ et Hiberniæ, quæ ab Anglorum et Brittonum, necnon Scotorum et Pictorum gentibus colebantur (Eddius, in Vit. St. Wilfrid, c. 31. apud Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 88.) Theodore (magnæ insula Britanniæ archiepiscopus et philosophus) was long expected at Rome (Concil. tom. vii. p. 714); but he contented himself with holding (A. D. 680) his provincial synod of Hatfield, in which he received the decrees of pope Mar tin and the first Lateran council against the Monothelites (Concil. tom. vii. p. |