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

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СКАЧАТЬ to the eastern patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem, appointing his vicar over them, gives us in full detail a picture of the discipline existing in the Church just at the middle of the seventh century. As to doctrine, the Lateran Council stands precisely on that set forth two hundred years before at the Council of Chalcedon by the great authority of St. Leo. In condemning the Monothelite heresy, espoused by two emperors and three successive patriarchs of Constantinople, it alleges the tradition of the Fathers from the beginning, and the doctrinal decrees of the five Councils, then accepted as General. During these five centuries the East has been agitated almost without ceasing by the efforts of the Eutychean heresy and its last progeny, the Monothelite, to overthrow the true faith concerning the Incarnation, on which the whole economy of human salvation rests. The eastern patriarchates have utterly failed to secure the occupants of the sees of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, from the prevailing error. Cyrus, patriarch of Alexandria, and Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, are the chief patrons of this error. After them, Pyrrhus, and then Paul, are using the utmost power of the emperor from their seat in the capital to impose it by force: and the ecumenical patriarch especially is using it as a lever against the Roman Primacy, and in drawing up decrees of doctrine fathered by the imperial power is practically denying the Roman Primacy to be the guardian of the Christian faith, and striving to transfer that guardianship to himself, always under the wing of the emperor. Had the Popes yielded to the Ecthesis or the Typus, both the faith of the Church would have been altered, and its government transferred from Old Rome to Roma Nova. St. Martin, as the first act of his pontificate, plays this most remarkable part of summoning a Council which defeats this double aggression. And the moment at which it is done may be marked as that in which the temporal weakness of Rome touches its lowest point. The subsequent treatment of the Pope, which I have now to mention, is an incontestable proof how entirely he was exposed to the machinations, the violence, and the despotic tyranny of his enemies, especially to the malevolent union of emperor and patriarch. Yet it is to be observed that neither emperor nor patriarch even affects to deny the authority of St. Peter's successor; what they attempt to do is to control and subject him in the exercise of it.

      History is silent as to events in Rome from the end of the Council of 649 to 653. What the exarch Olympius, by special command of the emperor Constans II. did while it was being held, has been narrated above. Olympius was dead, but another exarch, Theodore Kalliopas, was sent from Constantinople to execute the work in which Olympius had failed. On the 15th June, 653, Kalliopas came to Rome. Concerning his purpose, Pope Martin himself wrote to his friend Theodorus in these words: “Your charity has desired to know how I was carried away from the See of the Apostle, St. Peter, like a solitary sparrow from the house-top. I am surprised at your question since Our Lord foretold of evil times to His own disciples: for ‘there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now; and unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved. But he who perseveres unto the end shall be saved.’ Therefore that you may know how I was removed and carried off from the city of Rome, you shall hear no false report. Through the whole time I knew what was preparing. And taking with me all my clergy, I remained by myself in the church of our Saviour, named after Constantine, which was the first built and endowed in all the world by that emperor of blessed memory, beside the bishop's palace. There we all stayed by ourselves from Saturday, when Kalliopas entered the city with the army of Ravenna, and the chamberlain Theodorus. I sent them some of the clergy to meet him, whom he received in the palace, and thought I was with them. But, finding I was not, he mentioned it to the chief clergy. Because it was our purpose to do him homage, but on the next day, which was Sunday, we would present ourselves and salute him, as on that day we could not. On Sunday he sent men to that church, suspecting that there was a great multitude there, being Sunday, and he reported that, being very tired with his journey, he could not come that day, but we should certainly meet the next day, ‘and we will do homage to your Holiness’. Now I myself had been very sick from October to that 16th of June. On Monday then he sent at dawn his chartular and certain attendants, and said, ‘You have prepared arms and you have armed men inside, and you have heaped up a quantity of stones for resistance. This is not necessary; do not allow any such thing.’ I heard this myself, and to remove their suspicions, thought it necessary to send them all over the episcopal palace, that, if they saw arms or stones, they might themselves give evidence. They went and found nothing, upon which I suggested to them that they had always acted thus, and proceeded against us by intrigue and false accusation, as when, at the coming of the infamous Olympius, they said that I might have repelled him by arms. Now I was lying in my bed before the altar of the church, and scarcely half-an-hour later the army came with them into the church. All were covered, bearing lances and swords, shields, and bows ready bent; and they did things there which are not to be uttered. For, as when the winter wind blows violently, the leaves fall from the trees, the candles of the church were struck down, and resounded in their fall upon the pavement. And the clash of arms sounded like a horrible thunder in the church, together with the vast number of broken candles. Upon this their sudden inroad, order was issued by Kalliopas to the priests and deacons who surrounded me, that I had, in violation of rule and law, taken undue possession of the bishop's office, and was not worthy to be in the Apostolic See, but was by all means to be sent to this imperial city, and a bishop elected in my stead. This has not yet been done, and I trust will never be done; since, in the absence of the pontiff, the archdeacon, the archpriest, and the first notary take his place. I have already told you the acts which had been doing concerning the faith. But, as we were not prepared for resistance, I thought it better to die ten times over than that anyone's blood should be shed in vain. And this was done without risk to anyone, after many evils displeasing to God had been effected. So I gave myself up at once to be taken before the emperor without resistance. I must admit that some of the clergy cried out to me not to do this, but I did not listen, lest murders should instantly take place. But I said to them: Let some of the clergy necessary to me, bishops, priests, and deacons, and, indeed, such as I choose, come with me. Kalliopas answered: By all means let such as will come. We use compulsion on no one. I answered, My clergy are in my own hands. Some of the priests cried out: We live and we die with him. Then Kalliopas himself and these who were with him began saying, Come with us to the palace. I did not refuse, but on that same Monday went out with them to the palace. On Tuesday all the clergy came to me, and many had prepared to sail with me, and had already put their baggage on board; some others also, both clergy and laity, were hastening to join us. On that same night then, preceding Thursday, the 19th June, about the sixth hour, they carried me from the palace, thrusting back all who were with me in the palace, and without even things necessary for my journey and for me when here, and they took me from the city with only six pages and a single drinking vessel. We were put on board a bark, and about four hours after dawn reached Porto. As soon as we left Rome the gates were closed, and kept closed that no one might go out and reach us at Porto before we sailed thence. Thus we were compelled to leave at Porto all the goods of those who had put them on board, and the same day we departed. On the 1st July we came to Miseno, where was the ship, that is, my prison. Now I met with no compassion, not in Miseno only but also in Calabria; nor in Calabria only, which is subject to the great city of the Romans, but in many islands in which we were detained for our sins as long as three months, save only in the island of Naxus, for there we spent a year, I was allowed to take two or three baths, and was a guest in a house. And now for seven and forty days I have not been allowed to wash in warm or cold water. I am sick and cold through and through; for both on board and on land to the present hour my stomach has allowed me no rest. When in my hunger I am about to take something, my whole body is so shaken that I cannot take anything to strengthen nature. I have an utter disgust against what I have. But I believe in the power of God, who beholds all things, for when I am relieved from this present life all my persecutors will be called to account, so that at least they may be drawn to repent, and so converted from their iniquity. God preserve you my very dear son.”

      The allusion above concerning the things done as to the faith is explained in a former letter to the same friend, wherein he says: “When I left the Lateran Church, where armed men had shut me in, they cried out in the presence of the exarch, Whoever says or believes that Martin has changed or will change one iota of the faith, let him be anathema. And whoever remain not in their orthodox faith to death, let them be anathema. When Kalliopas heard this he began to excuse himself that there was no other СКАЧАТЬ