Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III. Allies Thomas William

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СКАЧАТЬ Chalcedon, until we come to the addition which at once transfixes the heresy and sets forth the faith. After the words “we believe one and the same only-begotten Son, God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ,” the addition runs, “and we believe as Two Natures of the same, united without confusion, so likewise Two Natural Wills, the divine and the human, and Two Natural Operations, the divine and the human, for the perfect and unfailing assurance that He is truly perfect God and perfect Man in very deed, one and the same our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, willing and working divinely and humanly our salvation, as the prophets of old and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught us, and the creed of the holy fathers handed down, and in general all the holy universal Councils and the whole band of approved doctors in the Catholic Church. This, in agreement with them all according to their inspired teaching, we one and all confess and define.”

      Among the documents read at the Lateran Council was one from the whole African episcopate addressed to Pope Theodorus three years before, in 646, in the following titles: “To our most blessed Lord, seated in the apostolic headship, the Father of Fathers, Theodorus, most holy Pope and Chief Shepherd of all Prelates, Columbus Bishop of the first See of the Byzacene Council, and Reparatus Bishop of the first See of the Mauritanian Council, and with us all the bishops of the three Councils of Africa.” It is to be noted that the Archbishop of Carthage is not mentioned, for Fortunatus was elected somewhat later to take the place of a Monothelite. “No one can question that a great and neverfailing spring of grace wells forth from your Apostolic See, enriching all Christians. Thence in abundance rivulets come forth, irrigating the whole Christian world, whence, O Father of Fathers, in honour of most holy Peter, your Apostolic See has been appointed, by divine decree in a peculiar and unique manner, to search into and to treat the sacred doctrines of the Church, receiving which as truly handed down it is the most necessary function of the high priest of that supreme and apostolic See to certify.” Then the African bishops, by quoting, made their own that famous answer given by Pope Innocent I. to the African bishops in the time of St. Augustine, 230 years before. “This obedience,” they proceed, “we humbly render to your apostolic supremacy, and beseech the Pope to do away with the hateful novelty which has sprung up in the Church of Constantinople.”

      This letter has a double interest, being one of the last recorded acts of the ancient African episcopate, which was already in conflict with the Mohammedan assault, and about fifty years later was entirely swept away. It would be difficult to find stronger words than it uses to describe the Papal authority and the special gift which it recognises as belonging to the See of Peter by divine ordinance.

      Several of the letters written by Pope Martin after the Lateran Synod testify his zeal to overthrow the Monothelite heresy. Among these is his answer to the just-quoted letter, which he addresses to the Church of Carthage, and all the bishops, clergy, and laity subject to it. He praises them for the synodical letters drawn up by the Church's glorious orator, Augustine, through the Holy Ghost, to his Apostolic See, alluding to that great confession of his Primacy which we have in the letters of the Saint, and which, he says, their words repeat, and so he presents to them the acts of the Lateran Council.

      Particularly remarkable is the Pope's letter to the bishops under the Sees of Jerusalem and Antioch, that is, the patriarchates which had fallen under Mohammedan domination. He announces to them that, after due examination, he had condemned “the Exposition of the Emperor Heraclius, and the formula of the present serene emperor,” and he deplores the havoc which heretics had made in the East, irregularly setting up a false bishop at Antioch, the heretic Macedonius, and another, Peter, at Alexandria. The Pope adds that in his anxiety to build up the Church of God, which they were laying waste, he had, according to the power given him by the Lord in the person of blessed Peter, ordered his brother John, Bishop of Philadelphia, to supply his place in all ecclesiastical matters through the East, and to create in all cities episcopally subject to the Sees of Antioch and Jerusalem bishops, priests, and deacons, and he begs them as sons of obedience “to help our Vicar set by Apostolic authority”.

      The Bishop of Thessalonica, in the course of 200 years since St. Leo and the succeeding Popes had made him their Vicar for the great province of Eastern Illyricum, had become a prelate of very high rank. Paul was actually bishop, but he favoured the new heresy, and the Pope, after warning him in vain, wrote deposing him, unless he received without the least omission everything which had been synodically ratified and defined at the Council. At the same time he wrote to the people of Thessalonica, enjoining them to have no society, agreement, or connection with such a man.

      Thus, in the case of any diocese, whether that of a simple bishop, or a primate, or a patriarch, the Pope does not hesitate to tell their several diocesans that they are set free from all duty of obedience to one condemned by him. No act can show the superior authority of the universal Primate more strongly than this. St. Gregory the Great had said that all bishops were equal when performing their respective work in their own diocese; but if that work is not duly performed, he knows of no bishop who is not subject to the Apostolic See. The power of the Primacy is essentially for edification of the whole Church, and so is exerted whenever the Church and the faith of the Church are anywhere in danger. The acts of St. Martin I. at a crisis of singular danger follow exactly the rule of St. Gregory. If an emperor supports heresy, he condemns his act, though he may be a lawful sovereign; if a patriarch is false to the faith, he sets a vicar of his own to appoint fresh bishops in the patriarchate. If his own vicar sins against the power which appointed him, he dissolves the primary bond according to which the people of that diocese is bound to their own bishop.

      But the supreme authority of the Roman See is indicated most plainly in the encyclical letter issued by the Pope. It is addressed “Martin, Servant of the Servants of God, by grace Bishop of God's holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the Romans, together with the Synod of Bishops here canonically assembled with us for the confirmation of the true dogmas of the Catholic Church, to those who have inherited the like precious faith as we of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through the laver of regeneration, who sojourn in holiness and justice in every part of His dominion, our brethren the bishops, priests, deacons, heads of monasteries, monks, ascetics, and to the whole sacred plenitude of the Catholic Church”.

      I give the main contents of this letter thus addressed to the whole world to announce the decision of the Council by Pope Martin. It expresses in every line, supported by constant quotations of Scripture, the solicitude of the Pope for the maintenance of the doctrine concerning the Person of the Lord which had been held from the beginning. “Our predecessors, the Pontiffs of Catholic memory, have not ceased to admonish the innovators to recede from this their heresy. Bishops from various provinces, and, what is more, general synods, have not only by their own writings called upon them to amend their heresy, but conjure our Apostolic See to exercise its regular authority, and not to suffer to the end this innovation to make a prey of the churches. Meeting, therefore, in this Roman most Christian city, we have confirmed by our sentence the holy Fathers; we have anathematised the heretics with their most depraved doctrines, the impious Ecthesis and the most impious Typus, in order that all you who dwell over the whole earth, recognising that these things have been piously done by us for the safeguard of the Catholic Church, may carry them out together with us.” “The Lord says, every kingdom divided against itself shall not stand, and every sentence, every law divided against itself shall not stand; and if the Typus destroys the Ecthesis, and the Ecthesis destroys the Typus, the one asserting that our Lord has one will and operation, the other denying it, then both are divided; and how shall the heresy stand, being shown to be invalid and empty by itself, rather than destroyed by us?” This, the never-ending refutation of heresy, runs through the whole letter, and against it is set “the manifestation of God through apostles, prophets, doctors, and the five Universal Councils, whose decrees are the law of the Catholic Church”. “Behold the Judge stands before the door joyfully promising crowns to those who suffer for His sake.”

      Thus the Lateran Council of 649, presided over by Pope Martin, who directs all the proceedings, who informs the emperor of the condemnation of the Typus, composed by this emperor's own patriarch, and issued by himself as a law, who addresses an encyclical letter to all bishops and their people, summing up its acts, who writes to various provinces, СКАЧАТЬ