YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE CHURCH OF THE SIXTH CENTURY the great CISTERN (BIN BIR DEREK), CONSTANTINOPLE. THE CHURCH OF THE SIXTH CENTURY SIX CHAPTERS 4 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY WILLIAM HOLDEN HUTTON, B.D. filEKBECK LECTURER IN ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF S. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD E.XAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP OF ELY WITH ILLUSTRATIONS LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1897 All rights reserved TO MY FRIEND, MY COMPANION AT CONSTANTINOPLE, IN REMEMBRANCE OF OUR HAPPY DAYS PREFACE It is more than half a century since Hallam wrote, "No one can take a philosophical view of the Middle Ages without attending more than is at present fashionable to their ecclesiastical history." Fashions change rapidly ; and it has long ceased to be necessary for a scholar, orthodox or agnostic, to apologize for the study of the life and institutions of the Christian Church. Grad ually the vast surface of medieval history is being reclaimed by the labours of minute investigators, and year by year we are learning more clearly that there is no subject more fruitful in its bearing on social, political, and moral development than the history of ecclesiastical progress. b X PREFACE. The Sixth Century was for a long time neglected by students. But during the last half century Greek, German, and Italian scholars have had compeers among other nations, and in England the age of Justinian has been illuminated by the work of several eminent writers. Dr. Hodgkin has given to Ensflish readers somethino- of his own know- ledge, and not a little of his own enthusiasm, for the history of Italy and her invaders. Professor Bury leaves us wondering as well as instructed by the breadth of his learning and the charm of his treatment. Mr. Oman, in two brilliant surveys, has shown alike his information and his insight. Mr. Bryce's many achievements still leave us to regret that he has not given us a Life of Justinian. But at present the Church history of a period which is now recognized to be one of the most important in the history of the world has not received, I think PREFACE. XI in England, a separate investigation. The present volume, it will be seen, makes no claim to exhaustive treatment. It is merely a series of studies of different aspects of an era in the life of the Church, which I hope may prove to be not without interest to those who find instruction in the history of the past. Problems in opinion and in conduct are constantly recurring, and there is not a little in which the nineteenth century may learn from the failures or successes of the sixth. My book owes its existence to two causes. Firstly, it has been written in consequence of the kindness of the Master and Council of Trinity College, Cambridge, who did me the honour in 1895 to appoint me to the office of Birkbeck Lecturer in Ecclesiastical History. The duties of this post are most satisfactorily met by the publication of the lectures delivered, at least as an earnest Xll PREFACE. of the gratitude of the lecturer for an appointment which connects him with so famous a Society. As an Oxford tutor appointed to such a post, I feel deeply the honour of lecturing in that great University and in that great College. And coming from the sister University with the natural feeling of a desire to learn, it is with humility, and with the sense of very considerable deficiency, that I find myself set down to lecture or instruct. The knowledge that I am occupying the place of Professor Prothero, to whom historical studies in Cambridge owe so much, certainly does not tend to diminish the sense of my own shortcomings. Nor do I forget the other distinguished men whose unworthy successor I am become. But the kindness of the reception extended to me by the Master and Fellows of Trinity, if it does not suffer me to forget my imperfections, allows me to PREFACE. Xlll hope that they are content to ignore them ; and I now offer my lectures as an act of homage to the distinguished body with which I feel it a very high honour to be, for the time, connected. The six chapters as now published re present, with only a few verbal changes and corrections, the six lectures as they were delivered in Michaelmas Term, 1896. This I hope will account for certain features in the composition which might have been modified with advantage. It is necessary in lecturing to an audience of different degrees of knowledge to paint the subject in broad outlines. I can only hope that this has been done without the sacrifice of the historical accuracy which is my first aim. The second cause to which the publication of my book is due is the opportunity which my appointment afforded for a visit, to which for years I had looked forward, to xiv PREFACE. Constantinople. With a friend, whose com panionship added very greatly to the pleasure of some weeks of investigation, I visited in the spring of 1896 the city where the history of the later Roman Empire and the Orthodox Church is most vividly illustrated by surviv ing memorials of great ages of architecture and art. It is tempting, no doubt, to say something of what must strike every visitor of the present condition of the Empire which now rules where Justinian built and legislated for distant ages. But it is wiser to be silent. This only may be said by an Enghshman, that but a very slight know ledge is needed to convince him that those who, both at home and in the East, are responsible for English policy to-day, know more truly and feel more deeply than our selves the condition of affairs with which the Powers of Europe have to deal. For mv purpose it is only necessary to repeat, as I PREFACE. XV have said in the pages that follow, that a study as minute as possible of Constantinople, as well as of Ravenna (which I had the privilege of visiting in 1890 with one of the most learned of English scholars), is of the very first value to the student of the age about which I have attempted to write. There is an extraordinary fascination about Constantinople, just as there is about the history of Justinian and Theodora ; and it is a fascination which seems to appeal peculiarly to moderns. There is a signi ficance about Victorien Sardou's melodra matic treatment of the central figures of the Sixth Century ; still more in the grim tragedy of Equal Love, which we owe to the romantic fancy of ' Michael Field.' But the scenes are even more enthralling than the persons, as we know when we watch them in the prose of Pierre Loti, or the verse of Theophile Gautier or ' Violet Fane.' xvi PREFACE. " Dans un baiser, I'onde au rivage Dit ses douleurs ; Pour consoler la fleur sauvage, L'aube a des pleurs ; Le vent du soir conte sa plainte Au vieux cypres. La tourterelle au terdbinthe Ses longs regrets. "Aux flots dormants, quand tout repose, Hors la douleur, La lune parle, et dit la cause De sa paleur. Ton dome blanc, Sainte-Sophie, Parle au ciel bleu, Et, tout reveur, le ciel confie Son reve \ Dieu. " Arbre ou tombeau, colombe ou rose, Onde ou rocher. Tout, ici-bas a quelque chose Pour s'dpancher . . . Moi, je suis seule, et rien au monde Ne me rdpond, Rien que ta voix morne et profonde, Sombre Hellespont ! " If it seems strange to quote these lines in the preface to a book on Church History, it will seem strange only, I think, to those PREFACE. XVll who have not felt the wonder of the New Rome as she was and as she is. In the very atmosphere is romance, and in every spot is history. Year after year adds to the fateful memories of the place : and there still linger to an extraordinary and unexpected extent the visible survivals of the great ages of the past. It would be difficult to exaggerate, for instance, the number or the importance of the inscriptions which still re main : and signs are not wanting that some care is at last being taken to preserve what is priceless to the historian and the antiquary. I cannot forbear in this connection to say how great was the work of the late Canon C. G. Curtis of the Crimean Memorial Church. His Broken Bits of Old By zantium, undertaken and completed with the aid of his sister, Mrs. Walker, is a work of the highest value as preserving much that has perished since the authors XVlll PREFACE. sketched and wrote. Of his personal kind ness I entertain the most grateful remem brance. It had been my hope to offer him the book in the design of which he was so kind as to express a keen interest. I share very truly the deep sorrow of the English community for his loss. My book, then, owes its existence to a lectureship at Cambridge and a visit to Constantinople. A few points about it I may here take leave to mention. I have endeavoured in the notes to trace to some extent the course of my studies in the great writers of the sixth century, on whose authority my conclusions are based. Where I have been indebted for instruction and assistance to the works of modern writers I have, I hope, admitted my obligations with gratitude. Many subjects have been passed over rapidly which I would gladly have treated in more detail. Some of them PRE FA CE. XIX are discussed in the standard histories of the early and medieval Church. To others it is my hope that I may, perhaps, be able some day to return. I should much regret if there should appear to be a polemical tone in some parts of the book. This is certainly not intentional. I do not think the object of Church History should be controversial ; but I am obliged to state what I conceive to be the truth. The career of Pope Vigilius is a difficult one for all historians. I am aware that Roman Catholic writers assure us that no one save a member of their body understands the true meaning of the dogma of Papal infallibility. I feel the difficulty of not understanding when a Papal declaration is ex cathedra and when it is not. And I should be heartily glad to find a clear statement of this in the case of the decisions of the sixth century. But I have XX PREFACE. not the slightest wish to offend any prejudice, still less to affront any person or society. A word of thanks must not be forgotten. To the personal kindness of the Right Hon, George Curzon, Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and His Excellency . Sir Philip Currie, Her Majesty's Ambas sador at Constantinople, I owe a great deal which has made my work, I do not say more complete, but certainly vastly more interesting, more pleasant, and more easy to myself To the kind friends whose generous offers of their time and their knowledge of the tongues have aided me where both seemed deficient, I can only say that I am most truly grateful. I have also to thank The Guardian for permission to use matter which I have contributed to its columns. W. H. HUTTON. The Great House, Burford, Epipha-ny, 1897. CONTENTS CHAPTER L PAGE The State and the Church in East and West 3 CHAPTER II. The Eastern Church and its Missions . . 45 CHAPTER III. The Papacy 89 CHAPTER IV. The Church and the Heresies of the Sixth Century 133 CHAPTER V. The Theology of the Sixth Century . . 183 CHAPTER VL The Art of the Sixth Century .... 243 APPENDIX. The Alleged Heresy of Justinian . . . 303 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE T. The Cistern of Bin Bir Derek (iooi Columns) Constantinople Frontispiece 2. The Palace of Justinian on the Sea of Marmara ii6 3. In the Gallery of S. Sophia, Constan tinople 135 4. Justinian, from the Mosaic at S. Vitale, Ravenna 186 5. The Church of S. Irene, Constantinople (now an Armoury) 251 6. Ground Plan of S. Vit.ale, Ravenna. . 266 7. S. Sophia, Elevation and Section . . . 275 8. Ground Plan of S. Sophia . . . . 278 9. Baptistery of S. Sophia 287 10. Lion outside the Museum at Constan tinople 295 II. Ancient Font, from the Desecr.^ted Church of S. Peter and S. Mark , 299 The Frontispiece is from a sketch ; illustrations Nos. 2 and 3, from photographs by M. Berggren of Constantinople; Nos. 6, 7, and 8 from Gvvilt's History of Architecture ; and Nos. J, 9, 10, and 1 1 from photographs taken by my friend Mr. J. W. Milligan when we visited the sites together. W. II. H. THE STATE AND THE CHURCH IN EAST AND WEST. CHAPTER I. THE STATE AND THE CHURCH IN EAST AND WEST. The sixth century is one of the great ages of the world's history. It is an age of great soldiers and great statesmen, of lawyers and historians, of missionaries and saints. It is an age of great events as well as of great men. It saw the ruin of the East Gothic power, the restoration of the Empire to almost its widest boundaries, the invasion and settle ment of the Lombards, the foundation of the medieval Papacy, the beginnings of English Christianity. The field of investigation is immense, the materials are extraordinarily copious. Rome and Greece still produced great writers, and 4 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH the barbarians were beginning to acquire the arts of their conquerors. The adequate treatment of the ecclesiastical history of this wonderful age could only be accomplished on a vast scale. In outline it has often been admirably described. The first of these tasks I cannot, the second I do not wish to, undertake. But it seems to me that the events of the century, looked at from the standpoint of the Church historian, group themselves round certain persons and certain places, and thus the illustration of the period may be confined within certain limits. The sixth century, as a distinct epoch' in the history of the world, seems to me to begin with the reunion of the Churcl^s of East and West in 519, and to end with the consecration of Gregory the Great in 590. It is the period, that is, of a re united Church, under the leadership of Con stantinople rather than of Rome. Doctrinally IN EAST AND WEST. 5 it is the period of the controversy con cerning the " Three Chapters." Personally, it seems to me that the interests centre round one man, the Emperor Justinian, Locally the interest centres round two cities, Constantinople and Ravenna. We have still, it must never be forgotten, to deal with one Empire — with Rome, with all its old claims and all its new peoples. The Empire is one : East and West are terms unmeaning or erroneous in political history : but the Church, although it also is one, yet has local characteristics so strong, sympathies and tendencies in different parts of the world so plainly divergent, that in eccle siastical matters we may rightly and safely speak of East and West. And the influence of the Church, though, like the influence of the Empire, it is one, yet radiates from two points — from Constantinople, the home of Caesar, of missionary zeal and dogmatic 6 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH definition, the source of law in Church as in State ; — and from Ravenna, at first the centre of the barbarian power which yet preserved the Roman civilitas, and later the seat of the revived imperial authority. Rome, over whom all the ages have passed, if she bears to-day any marks of her sorrows and her heroism in the age of Theodoric and Belisarius, yet bears them almost un noticed among her unnumbered honours. But Ravenna, the seat of the Ostrogothic King and the Imperial Exarch, though she holds the body of Dante, yet has for her proudest distinction the unique permanence which she gives to that one bygone age. Nowhere does the sixth century still live as it lives at Ravenna. But Constantinople, like the old Rome, the mother of many nations and the treasury of many memories, through all the changes which have left her the glorious walls which Heraclius built IN EAST AND WEST. J and where Constantine fell, and have stamped upon her — not indelibly — the marks of a barbarous and infidel domination, has yet preserved, sometimes changed indeed and disfigured, but often with all the imperial majesty of old, the splendid works of the greatest of her builders. The Golden Gate, through which swept the triumph of Belisa rius from the paved highway outside which his master had laid along those four miles without the walls from the Golden Horn to the Sea, still stands — closed indeed, but unmoved : and even for those who know nothing of his law or his theology, the great cisterns and the churches preserve the name of Justinian. And this survival, which invites us to-day to seek for the abiding memorials of the sixth century at Ravenna and in the new Rome, is a fit symbol of the great his torical fact that in that age the work which 8 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH was done in the shaping of the world came chiefly from those two places. The old Rome, from the day when she was taken by the Goths to the day when Gregory, great statesman and great priest, became her ruler almost as clearly in State as in Church, did not govern the nations or teach the peoples. I shall endeavour, then, in these short six lectures, to select and to arrange my materials so as to illustrate the chief ideas of the age of Justinian, and to confine myself within the period which is marked by the predominance in the Roman Em pire of Constantinople and Ravenna. In passing, I would note that this involves the omission of some subjects of very great interest and importance, such as the early Church history of Britain, and the extinction or suppression of paganism in the Roman Empire, and the work of S. Benedict. IN EAST AND WEST. 9 The Empire was Roman. But outside its borders, and among the barbarians who nominally submitted to its sway, its rulers and its soldiers were often called Greeks. And this was a recognition of the fact that the city from which came the decrees of the C^sars, and the people which ruled the Empire, were Hellenic, while the govern ment was Roman. It was in the city as in the Empire. It had the constitution of old Rome — for we meet in the pages of Pro copius with the prefect, the senate and people, the queestor, and, until 541, even the consuls ; it had also something of that higher civilization and culture which the Roman authority could neither conquer nor disguise. The capital as well as the Empire was cosmopolitan as well as conservative. The quiet herdsman on the Syrian frontier had as much right to the name of Roman as had the inhabitant of old Rome. Every IO THE STATE AND THE CHURCH soldier in the armies of Belisarius, even though he might be a deserter from the Goths of Witigis, or the Huns and Bulgarians of Zabergan, or the Persians of Chosroes Nushirvan, was a Roman to Procopius and Agathias. Yet this was merely a political statement. It could not be an actual his torical fact. The barbarian could never be come a Roman : still less could the Greek. And it was the Greek, with all Roman train ing, and perhaps with a barbarian pedigree, who now ruled. The forms of the imperial decisions — of the imperial government — were Roman ; but the spirit more and more, in Church as in State, was becoming Greek. At the same time it must be added that never, perhaps, was the Empire more cos mopolitan than now. Justin and Justinian were of barbarian origin,^ and the great ^ This must still be accepted in spite of the probable worthlessness of Alemanni's authority, Theophilus IN EAST AND WEST. II Emperor, if Procopius may be believed, spoke Greek to the end of his life with a marked foreign accent. Greek, Roman, and barbarian met at the seat of empire, and in the Emperor himself Besides the cosmopolitan character of the age, the epoch of Church history which begins with the reign of Justinian has another and a very special interest. For the first time since Christianity became the religion ofthe Empire, the world had a ruler who was both a great lawgiver and a sincere and informed Christian. Theology and law walked hand in hand to guide the Emperor's steps. It is this union of legal with theo logical, rather than purely philosophical, in terests in a barbarian emperor which explains many of the phenomena of the period. Though he was the restorer of the imperial (Bogomil), as shown by Mr. Bryce. See English Historical Revieis), ii. 657 sqq., and Professor Bury, Introduction to Gibbon, vol, i. p. Ix. 12 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH dominion in Italy, he never visited Rome; and though a fluent writer in the tongue of Hellas, he destroyed the schools of Athens, The Empire over which Justin obtained sway in 518 was, it is not necessary to repeat, in theory still that of the Roman world. True, the old Rome was no longer the capital or even the possession of the Csesars : the Gothic king, Theodoric the Amal, ruled in Italy, and before the century began he had made peace with the Emperor for his " unauthorized assumption of the royal title." The relations between emperor and king, there can be little doubt, were left un defined ; ^ but certainly the imperial authority in Italy was little more than nominal, although ' This is admirably expressed by Mr. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. iii. p. 435. Dr. Paul Jors, Die Reichspolitik Kaiser Justinians, Giessen, 1893, con siders that " Theoderich hat fiir ihn und seine Nachfolger stets als ihr legitimer Vertreter in Italien gegolten" (p. 10). See also Mommsen, " Ostrogothische Studien" in Neues Archiv, 14, 1889, 228. IN EAST AND WEST. 13 Theodoric always followed the dating by the eastern consuls, and so never formally asserted his independence.^ The Roman Empire was, indeed, in appearance an Oriental power, and " its enemies were already be ginning to speak of its subjects as Greeks." ^ The northernmost point of the Emperor's actual possessions was near the modern Galatz, or further east, where the Danube discharges itself into the Black Sea. That river was its northern boundary, and Sin- gedon, Belgrade, — as noble and admirable now as when Procopius described it after its rebuilding by Justinian — its northernmost point towards the west ; and what is now Ragusa was its highest port on the Adriatic. The Grecian peninsula, with the adjacent islands and Crete, formed the whole of its possessions in Europe. The strength of the ^ Procopius, De Bell. Goth. , ii. 6. - Freeraan, Historical Geography, p. 104. 14 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH Empire lay in the fertile provinces of Asia, which alone stood in small danger of the de vastations of war. A frontier which stretched from the south-eastern corner of the Black Sea, where a nominal supremacy over the barbaric Lazi was maintained by the strong fort of Petra,^ past towns of such import ance as Theodosiopolis and Amida, on by the Euphrates and the southern limits of the Persian power till its Syrian boundary was touched by the wild Ghassanides, reached its most southern point in the extremity of the Sinaitic peninsula, where Justinian built a fort and church.^ Of the African posses sions of the Empire no more remained than Egypt, with an uncertain boundary to the south, and extending westwards to the mountainous district on the shores of the gulf of Sidra. ^ Perhaps the modern Batoum, ^ Procopius, De JEdificiis, v. 8. IN EAST AND WEST. 1 5 These were the boundaries of the Empire of Anastasius and Justin ; and within these limits the influence of the Eastern Church was practically confined. But the victories of Justinian's armies gave back a mighty heritage to the empire. Once more the Caesar ruled at Rome and at Ravenna, and the Catholic Church held sway at Cordova and at Carthage. The great work of the sixth century was a refusal to confine the Empire and the Church within the limits of an eastern power. New Rome claimed the heritage that old Rome had won.^ Again , the Empire extended from the Euphrates to ; the pillars of Hercules. It is important, then, in the first place, to . have a clear view of the internal relations with the Church of this great Catholic power, ^ For new light on the divisions of the Roman empire at the end of the sixth century, see an article by Professor Bury in the English Historical Review, vol. ix. (April, 1894), pp. 315 sqq. 1 6 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH with its claims to the homage of the world, These can best be illustrated from the legis lation of the great' Emperor who " steered the course of the world for nearly half a century." ' Of Justinian one great living authority has said, "No Roman Emperor so nearly assumed the position of a temporal pope," ^ and another has described the eccle siastical history of the reign under the title of "Justinian's Caesaropapism." ^ A con temporary view is that expressed by Proco pius : * "As for religion, which he found uncertain and torn by various heresies, he destroyed everything which could lead to error, and securely established the true faith upon one solid foundation." It is this ' Professor Paul Jors, Die Reichspolitik Kaim Justinians, Giessen, 1893, p. 6. Mr. Bryce, in Dictionary of Christian Biographi, vol. iii. p. 550. ^ Professor Bury, Later Roman Empire, vol. ii. chap. i. * I do not say that he held it. The passage is in De .i£dificiis, i. i. IN EAST AND WEST. 17 characteristic, the use of the State power for the benefit of Christianity, that we should look for in his legislation. This may be most conveniently, though not most ex haustively, studied, first in the "elementary manual for educational purposes " — which possessed the full force of law — the Insti tutes, with a briefer reference to the Code itself; and secondly, in the Novellae, the original legislation of the later years of Justinian himself I. Much of the legislation of the period shows distinctly Christian influence. Thus ^ it is declared that " those things are sacred which have been duly consecrated to God by His ministers, such as churches and votive offerings which have been properly dedicated to His service ; and these we have by our constitution forbidden to be alienated * Book I. title i. 8. I use throughout Dr. Moyle's translation, Clarendon Press, second edition, 1890. 1 8 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH or pledged except to redeem captives from bondage." This legislation against disen- dowment is amplified in the Novellae. In things less distinctly ecclesiastical, the in fluence of Christian principles acting on and through a settled state of society is seen in the legislation concerning women. A hus band may not sell or mortgage his wife's dower, even with her consent' Daughters are put on the same footing as sons in respect of disherison.^ Mothers are given the right of succession to their children.^ The distinction of sex is abolished in the case of succession to a freedman.* Additional facilities are given to a wife for the recovery of her dowry.^ The legislation of the emperor is also a powerful coercive force in favour of morality.* Other laws show a distinct amelioration of the condition of ' "• 8> ?>¦• ^ ii- i3> 5- ° iii- 3> 4. * iii- 7, 3- ° iv. 6, 9. ^ E.g. i. 22, pr. ; ii. 20, 36; iv. t8, 8, IN EAST AND WEST. 19 slaves, humanitate suggerente^ and a recog nition of the rights of children, reducing the limits of the patria potestas? But this list gives only a very slight idea of the activity of the emperor in Church matters as it is seen in the Code. The first thirteen titles of the first book are concerned entirely with Christian theology. The personal work of Justinian is here obvious and remarkable. Heresies are condemned in the terms of Church canons.^ The management of Church property is regulated. The minutest regula tions are laid down with- regard to the election of bishops and the heads of religious houses, and to the management of Church property. Penalties are threatened against heretics, with a very marked difference be tween those beliefs which were thought to ^ iii. 6, 10. See also ii. 7, 4. " ii. 9, I, 2. ^ Lib. I. Tit. i. The subjects next mentioned follow the order of the code. 20 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH encourage immorality, and the more purely speculative errors. The eleventh title is of very considerable importance. It is a summary of earlier legislation, as it received the sanction of Justinian, designed for the destruction of paganism. It is clear enough that theology and morality were equally important in the Emperor's mind in determining his severe attitude toward the ancient religion. The spirit of this law is the same as that which caused the closing of the schools of Athens and the mission of John of Ephesus to the pagans of Asia. In all this there is enough of distinctly original work on which to found an estimate of the attitude of the imperial government towards the Church. I think it would be too much to say that the emperors regarded themselves as the supreme legislators of the Church. They show no lack of reverence IN EAST AND WEST. 21 for purely ecclesiastical decisions on purely ecclesiastical subjects. They seem to restrict themselves to certain powers of initiative — as in the summoning of councils — and to the enforcement by the secular power both of Church censures and of rules necessary for the sound government of the Church. They rather assist the Church — too often with disastrous results — than either obey or coerce it. 2. So far of earlier legislation. But from theyear 535 to the end of Justinian's reign we have a mass of new legislation, which profoundly affected the position of the Church. Out of one hundred and fifty- three novels, fifty -two are more or less directly concerned with religion and the Church. Seven of these relate to crime and to moral reform : twelve concern the law of marriage and divorce. It is worth observing that, except in three cases of an 2 2 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH exceptional nature, the Emperor practically prohibits divorce at all :' an ordinance which was evidently framed in obedience to the law of the Church, but went beyond the feeling of the times and was revoked by Justin 11.^ The Emperor legislates, indeed, as supreme temporal head of the Church. This spirit is evident in those novels which are con cerned with heresy. The i32nd^ is a declara tion of faith, half irenicon, half appeal to heretics to be converted. The 42nd is the publication of the edict against Anthimus, Severus, Peter, and Zoaras, issued by the Synod of 536.* Others deprive heretic women of the benefit of the new regulations con cerning dowries, and deny exemption from taxation to Jews and Samaritans (Nov. 45). ^ See Novellae, cxy\\. 10, 12; cxxxiv. 11. I have used the edition of Schoell and Kroll : Berlin, 1895. ^ Novellae, cxl. ¦¦* De interdictis collectis haereticorum, * De depositione Anthimi, Severi, Petri et Zoarae. IN EAST AND WEST. 23 A large number of novels relate to ordina tion and consecration ; and to these the sixth ' adds such provisions as that " a bishop cannot be more than one year out of his diocese upon any business whatsoever ; that none can come to Court unless permitted by his metropolitan ; and that no clerk can desire audience of the Emperor unless he give an account to the patriarch of Con stantinople of the occasion of his journey." The very minute precautions against the ordination of unworthy persons and against simony show an earnest desire for the welfare of the Church, and illustrate the dangers to which it was exposed. Several novels deal with the conditions and restrictions under which ecclesiastical land might be alienated, and with the length of time which might give a title to lands originally belonging to ^ Quomodo oporteat episcopos et reliquos clericos ad ordinationem deduci et de expensis ecclesiarum. 24 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH the Church. Others are concerned with the question of privilege of clergy, and these, in the light of subsequent history, may be regarded as the most important of the eccle siastical enactments. Among them the following may be observed. The 8 ist' exempts a bishop from patria potestas. The 79th allows to bishops the cognizance and decision of the causes which pertain to professed religious. The 83rd "' ordains that if any have a civil cause with a cleric, he shall first apply to the bishop ; that if the bishop cannot be judge of it, either because of the nature of the business or for some other reason, then he may apply to the judges ; that if it be a criminal cause the judges shall try it, and if they find the ac cused guilty he shall be degraded by the ' Constitutio quae dignitatibus et episcopatu liberat filium patria potestate. ^ Ut clerici apud proprios episcopos primum con- veniantur et post haec apud civiles judices. IN EAST AND WEST. 25 bishop before he be condemned by the secular power. The 86th' gives power to the bishops to compel the judges to do justice, and also to judge the accused them selves when the judges are open to suspicion. Justinian had evidently bestowed much thought upon the position and prospects of Monasticism. He may indeed, almost without exaggeration, be called the legal S. Benedict, for, like his great contemporary, he went far to perfect the organization of the religious life. The 5th and the 133rd novels are lengthy and severe enactments for the enforcement of monastic rules, and may be considered in a measure as an eastern counterpart of the work on which ^ Ut differentes iudices audire interpellantium allega- tiones cogantur ab episcopis hoc agere ; et ut, quando in suspicionem habuerint iudicem, pariter audiat causam et civitatis episcopus ; et de cautela quam oportet omnino episcopum agere. 26 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH S. Benedict was at the same time engaged in the West.' Matters of local importance figure largely in the novels. There is the 8th, which makes the Emperor's birthplace a metropolitan see ; and the 40th, which allows the church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem to sell the houses which it owned in the city. Several regulate the government of the great church of Constantinople, such as the 3rd, which fixes the number of the clergy at 60 priests, 100 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 90 subdeacons, no readers, and 25 singers. Further illustrations of the condition of the Church in the sixth century may be obtained from such enactments as that of the sixth novel against ignorant clergy, and against the election of digamists to bishoprics; that forbidding the celebration of the sacred mysteries in private houses without the ' V. de monachis : cxxxiii. quomodo oportet. IN EAST AND WEST. 27 authority of the Church,' and the order that provincial synods shall be held at least once a year.^ From this very brief sketch it will be evident that if the Emperor assumed very large powers for the State, he conferred very large powers upon the Church. Especially noteworthy is the wide authority which he conferred upon the bishops, and the extension of the privilege of clergy. This is especially characteristic of the Eastern Church and the Empire in the East. It testifies to a union more close than ever existed in the West ; and it shows, not an assumption of arbitrary power on behalf of the sovereign, but a nice recognition of the limits of the provinces of Church and State, and a definite and inten tional establishment of a separate ecclesiastical ' Nov., Iviii., Ut in privatis domibus sacra mysteria non fiant. ^ Nov., cxxxvii., De creatione episcoporum et cleri- corum. 28 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH estate under its own rules, which receive State sanction. Justinian, says the greatest English legal authority on his work, Mr. Bryce,' "probably never dreamt of the dangerous consequences which might follow the exemptions from civil jurisdiction which he conceded to the clergy, and the large powers of administering not only ecclesiastical but charitable property which he conferred upon the bishops. And, indeed, the result proved that in the East these exemptions and powers were not dangerous. The Eastern emperor always maintained his authority over the Church ; while different political conditions enabled the Western patriarch, and the Western Church generally, to throw off the control of the civil power and even extend its own jurisdiction over civil causes." The impression which we receive from the ^ Dictionary of Christian Biography, vol. iii. p. 558, IN EAST AND WEST. 29 ecclesiastical legislation of Justinian is con firmed by our knowledge of his personal character and his theological activity. We see him sitting up far into the night in that stately palace which looked upon the blue waters of the Sea of Marmara, of which now but one wall is standing, bare and broken, but recalling wonderful memories ; with the great tomes of the Fathers and Councils, and the Holy Scriptures themselves, before him, pondering the difiiculties which kept the Churches sundered, and planning how they might again be one. How Rome and Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem might acclaim together the One Person and the Two Natures, it was his aim to discover : and he achieved his end. That desolate palace wall, and the desecrated church of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus that stands near and little harmed, have been the scene of long meditations and earnest 30 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH prayers : and they remain still to be — some day even more than now- — memorials of that Unity of the Faith for which we owe so much to the Eastern Church and a Roman Emperor. Across the sea another church and another palace fragment preserve the memory of a great and tolerant king. Only a wall with nine marble columns and a gateway in what is now the Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi, at the corner of the Via Alberoni, represents the magnificent house which the Goth at Ravenna had only just completed when he died ; but something of its former stateliness is to be seen in the mosaic representation of it in the church hard by. While the palace has perished the church survives, fit emblem of the destruction of the Gothic power and the survival of the Catholic faith. The splendid basilica which Theodoric reared for Arian worship was hallowed by Agnellus in 570 as a Catholic church. IN EAST AND WEST. 3 1 S. Apollinare Nuovo, as we now see it, with its glorious processions of martyrs and virgins offering their triumphant lives to the Babe of Bethlehem and the Christ enthroned, is a memorial of the dignity and reverence which Theodoric, no less than the Catholic bishops, thought fitting for the service of God. The king, indeed, Arian though he was, looked on the Catholic Church with no unfriendly eye. His great minister, Cassiodorus, was orthodox : and it is in his writings, which enshrine the policy of his master, that we must search for the rela tions between Church and State in the days before Belisarius had won back Ravenna and Italy to the allegiance of the Roman Caesar. The letters of Cassiodorus supply, if not a complete account, at least very valuable illustrations, of the position assumed by the East Gothic power under Theodoric and his successors in regard to the Church. The 32 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH favour shown by the Ostrogoth sovereign to Cassiodorus, a staunch Catholic, yet senator, consul, patrician, quaestor, and prae torian praefect, is in itself an illustration of the absence of bitter Arian feeling. This impression is deepened by a perusal of the letters which Cassiodorus wrote in the name of his sovereign. The subjects in which the Church is most frequently related to the State are jurisdiction and property. In the latter there seems a clear desire on the part of the kings to give security and to act even with generosity to all religious bodies. Catholic as well as Arian. Church property was frequently, if not always, freed from taxation.' The principle which dictated the whole policy of Theodoric is to be seen in a letter to Adila, senator and comes.^ " Al though we will not that any should suffer any ^ So Var., i. 26, ed. Mommsen, p. 28, ' ii. 29, ibid. p. 63. The next letter gives further privileges to the same church, IN EAST AND WEST. 33 wrong whom it belongs to our religious obli gation to protect, since the free tranquillity of the subjects is the glory of the ruler ; yet especially do we desire that all churches should be free from any injury, since while they are in peace the mercy of God is be stowed on us." Therefore he orders all protection to be given to the churches : yet answer is to be made in the law courts to any suit against them. For, as he says in another letter, " if chicanery may not be tolerated against men, how much less against God." ' Again, " If we are willing to enrich the Church by our own liberality, a fortiori will we not allow it to be despoiled of the gifts received from pious princes in the past." " ^ iii. 45, Mommsen, p. loi. This is Mr. Hodgkin's explanation (calumnise = chicanery) ; but I cannot help thinking that the word refers to the false claims of the Samaritans to which the letter alludes. " iv. 20, iUd, p. 123. I use Mr. Hodgkin's abbre viated version. 34 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH In the matter of jurisdiction it is interest ing to observe a process similar to that which was going on in the ' East. The sovereigns . were gradually coming to the conclusion that clerical privilege, and the special jurisdiction of clerical courts, was a security for public justice. The steps to wards this conclusion can be traced in the letters of Cassiodorus. Thus Theodoric writes to Eustorgius, bishop of Milan,' as to the restoration of the bishop of Aosta,^ who had been falsely accused, and he hands over the accusers, as clergymen, to the bishop to be dealt with ^ Far. i. 9 (Mommsen, p. i8) : sed quoniam et ipsi clericatus nomine fungebantur, ad sanctitatis vestrse iudicium cuncta transmisimus ordinanda cuius est et probitatem moribus talibus imponere et districtionem ecclesiasticam custodire. ^ The bishop referred to may have been the Jucundus, who was present at the Synods in Rome in 501 and 503 ; his signature, side by side with that of the bishop of the civitas Tauritana, proves that civitas Augtistana really means Aosta, and not (as some have thought) Turin. IN EAST AND WEST. 35 by the Church. Thus a jurisdiction over persons is recognized, not over property,' though this also is recognized in the case of a bishop later on. On another occa sion Theodoric leaves it to a bishop to deal with accusations against his servants,^ and requires another to do justice because " causes which concern him should first be submitted to him." ^ This tendency to refer ecclesiastical causes to ecclesiastical judges is intensified as the monarchy be comes weaker. Thus Athalaric transfers suits affecting the Roman clergy to the judgment of the pope in the first instance, with a resort to the secular courts, if the petition shall have been spurned by the ' See above, ii, 29 ; cf. iii. 37 (Mommsen, p. 98). iii. 14 ; Mommsen, p. 87 ; Mr, Hodgkin {Letters of Cassiodorus, p. 204) seems to minimize the impor tance of this, following Dahn, Konige des Germanen, iii, 193. It is natural to compare this letter with i. 9. ' iii. 37 (P- 98). 36 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH pontiff (" quod credi nefas est").' But even Athalaric retains considerable power, as his condemnation of simony in papal elec tions shows. ^ Witigis, in the last days of the monarchy, writes to the bishops with the deepest respect. " Si sacerdotibus etiam ignotis honorem debemus, quanto magis illis quos amabili veneratione conspeximus." ^ The full recognition of the spiritual functions of the episcopate, which is prominent in all these letters, finds conspicuous expression in a circular, alike statesmanlike and pious, of Cassiodorus himself, writing as praetorian praefect, to " divers bishops." " Episcopus doceat ac index possit invenire quod puniat." It explains much of the pains which the Amal sovereigns took to keep well with the Church. But this picture of toleration and privilege ' viii. 24 (p. 255) ; cf. Constitutions of Clarendon. "- ix. IS, 16 (pp. 279-281). ' x, 34 (p, 320). IN EAST AND WEST. 37 cannot be regarded as a complete description of the attitude of the East Gothic rule to wards the Catholic Church. The cruel imprisonment of Pope John, used as a political tool and flung away when he proved ineffective, gave a new martyr to the Roman calendar ; and, in spite of the absence of direct evidence, it is difficult to regard the executions of Symmachus and of Boethius as entirely unconnected with re ligious questions. Both were Catholics ; both, to use Mr. Hodgkin's words,' " have been surrounded by a halo of fictitious sanctity as martyrs to the cause of Chris tian orthodoxy." The father-in-law, " lest, through grief for the loss of his son-in-law, he should attempt anything against his king dom," Theodoric " caused to be accused and ordered him to be slain." ^ Boethius had ^ Italy and her Invaders, vol. iii. p. 516. ^ Anonymus Valesii. 38 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH met his horrible death on a charge of cor responding with the orthodox Emperor Justin. No doubt the main reason for the butchery was political; but it is impossible in this age wholly to separate religion from politics ; especially when we read, in almost immediate conjunction with the story of the murder of these men, that Theodoric ordered that on a certain day the Arians should take possession of all the Catholic basilicas.' It was not until the Gothic power had finally fallen, and N arses had re-established the imperial power, that the life and property of Catholics was absolutely safe. With the restoration of the imperial power the Church came to the front more prominently. So long as Justinian reigned the popes were kept in subjection ; but ^ There is, no doubt, some confusion of dates here : but the association of ideas in the Anonymus — probably Maximianus of Ravenna — is significant. IN EAST AND WEST. 39 ecclesiastics generally were admitted to a large share in judicial and political power. The emperors looked for their strongest poli tical support in the Catholic party. Suppres- / sion of Arianism became a political necessity | at Ravenna. Justinian gave to Agnellus the ^ churches of the Arians. In 554 the Emperor issued his solemn Pragmatic Sanction for the Government of Italy. Of this, section xii. gives a power to the bishops which shows the intimate connection between State and Church. " Moreover we order that fit and proper persons, able to ad minister the local government, be chosen as iudices of the provinces by the bishops and chief persons of each province from the inhabitants of the province itself." This is important of course as allow ing popular elections, but far more im portant in its recognition of the im portance of the clerical estate. Justinian's 40 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH new administration of Italy was to be military ; but hardly less was it to be ecclesiastical. Here we have, says Mr, Hodgkin,' — whose words I quote because I can find none better to express what seems to me to be the significance of this act — " a pathetic confession of the Emperor's own inability to cope with the cor ruption and servility of his civil servants. He seems to have perceived that in the great quaking bog of servility and dis honesty by which he felt himself to be surrounded, his only sure standing-ground was to be found in the spiritual estate, the order of men who wielded a power not of this world, and who, if true to their sacred mission, had nothing to fear and little to hope from the corrupt minions of the court." This rule of the Pragmatic Sanction was not an isolated instance ; at every point ' Italy and her Invaders, vol. vi. p, 523. IN EAST AND WEST. 4 1 the bishop was placed en rapport with the State, with the provincials and with the Exarch himself.' In jurisdiction, in advice, from the moment when he assisted at a new governor's installation, the bishop was at the side of the lay officer, to complain and even, if need be, to control. One power still remained to the Emperor himself (in the seventh century it was transferred to the Exarch) — that of confirm ing the election of pope. N arses seated Pelagius on the papal throne ; but when one as mighty as the " eunuch General " arose in Gregory the Great, the power of the Exarchate passed, slowly but surely, into the hands of the Papacy. The changes of rulers in Italy, the policies of the falling Goths and of the rising Roman Empire, found their completion in the effects of the ' Instances are collected by M. Diehl, Etudes sur r administration Byzantine dans Texarchaf de Ravenne, p. 320- 42 THE STATE AND THE CHURCH. Lombard invasion. Gradually the onward sweep of the new barbarians, who called themselves Arians but were not strongly bound by any creed, swept away all power save their own and the pope's. The destruc tion of Monte Cassino was typical of one side of their work ; the turning aside from Rome at Gregory's intercession of another, 'The Empire struggled to retain its hold on j Italy, and to govern the western world from Ravenna, with instructions from the New Rome ; but it failed. The papacy studied to be quiet. And the end of the sixth century showed that power would return in the end to the city which had founded the Empire, and to the Church which was now claiming to teach and to unite the nations. THE EASTERN CHURCH AND ITS MISSIONS. CHAPTER II. THE EASTERN CHURCH AND ITS MISSIONS. Of the grandeur and dignity of the Eastern Church in the sixth century a modern student is tempted to think and to speak too highly. The ancient thrones of the patri archs survive to-day, in the midst of perse cution and neglect, and still men of lofty character, of learning and sanctity, preside over the great churches which they repre sent. The ancient liturgies still thrill the hearer with their immemorial dignity and pathos. And the West still bows to authority which came from the East. We recite her creeds, we condemn the heresies which she brought to light ; and we may see in her 46 THE EASTERN CHURCH to-day "the truest representative on earth of the old days of fathers and of councils." Many of the characteristics of her polity and her life that now strike us most were prominent in the sixth century ; for her noblest boast is that she is ever the same. Yet both the extent of her dominion and the impressive dignity of her history are far greater now than they were thirteen centuries ago. Persecution and missionary effort have added just those qualities which she might seem then to lack. « Still, in the sixth century, as now, the Holy Eastern Church claimed to be the defender of the faith and the guide of missionary effort, I. The first claim is that which is most prominent in the sixth century. The long ^ I quote the words of the great historian who loved Greece and knew her Church so well, Edward Augustus Freeman, Edinburgh Review, April, 1858. AND ITS MISSIONS. 47 fight with monophysitism, the struggle with countless sects in the Oriental patriarchates, the definition and re-definition — the supre macy, in fact, of purely theological questions — that is the great feature of the Church history of this age. And it is a feature which it owes to the influence of the East, There is no infallible tribunal residing in a single person set up by the Church at this time : the doctrine or dogma comes from the repeated arguments of doctors, stereo typed by the decisions of the CEcumenical Councils, The heresies arose in the East, and by the East they were condemned, Arianism came from Egypt, Nestorianism from Syria, Monophysitism flourished in the eastern provinces of the empire : and these heresies marked something of a political and racial divergence. As Constantinople more and \ more concentrated in itself the power of 1 48 THE EASTERN CHURCH the Empire, Antioch and Alexandria became remote from the guardian of orthodoxy as from the source of authority. Heresies flourished there which met a speedy death in the New Rome ; and with heresy came schism. Thus we have the Mono physitism of Egypt, of Syria, and of Armenia, and the Nestorianism of the Persian empire and the " patriarch " of Babylon. But this chiefly belongs to later history. It is now only to be observed that in the sixth century the Eastern Church was the guardian of orthodoxy, and that it kept watch, not in the name of one supreme pontiff, but by the authority of the Catholic Church and the CEcumenical Councils. Side by side with the patriarch of Constantinople, in definition as in jurisdiction, were the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jeru salem. This explains the proposal that the questions which were ultimately submitted to AND ITS MISSIONS. 49 the Fifth General Council should be decided by the five patriarchal sees, each patriarch i having three bishops to assist him.' I I turn aside for a moment to inquire more closely how far the Eastern defence of the faith was dependent on the position of the patriarch of New Rome. The position of the patriarchate of Con stantinople throughout the century may be said to be similar to that claimed by the Patriarch John when he signed the formula of Catholic faith drawn up and proposed by Pope Hormisdas. He insisted on prefixing a repudiation of the Roman claim to supremacy over Christendom. " I hold," he declared, "the most holy Churches of the Elder and the New Rome to be one. I define the See of the Apostle Peter and this of the Imperial City to be one See." By this it is clear that he designed to assert See pp. ng, 120. 50 THE EASTERN CHURCH both the Unity of the Church— which, as it has always seemed to the East, was threatened by the demand of the Roman obedience— and the equality of the two great churches ofthe Old and the New Rome. Just as at the Council of Chalcedon the Alexandrine representatives styled the pope "oecumenical archbishop and patriarch of the Great Rome," so the patriarch of Con stantinople used the style and dignity of "oecumenical patriarch." From the use of this title, it is true, came grave controversy. In 588, the acts of a synod of Constantinople were declared by Pelagius II. to be invalid because the patriarch used the title oiKov)u,evtK:ds ' or universalis: and in 595 Gregory the Great strongly condemned the use of such a phrase, ^ As early as 518 the patriarch of Constantinople was so styled ; and Hefele says it was " a title very customary at that time" {^Hist. Cone, Engl, tr,, vol, iv. p. 117, note 2). AND ITS MISSIONS. 5 I at the same time repudiating its use for his own see. " The Council of Chalcedon," he wrote, " offered the title of universal to the Roman pontiff, but he refused to accept it, lest he should seem thereby to derogate from the honour of his brother bishops." ' And to the Emperor Maurice he said still more distinctly, " I confidently afiirm that whosoever calls himself saCerdos universalis, or desires to be so called by others, is in his pride a forerunner of Antichrist." ^ But the patriarchs continued to use the title, and before a century had elapsed, the popes followed their example. Justinian ^ spoke of the Constantinople as " omnium ecclesiarum caput," but it is clear ^ S. Greg. Epp. v. 18, The term sacerdos is commonly used for bishop at this date. Thus Gregory of Tours calls a bishop sacerdos during this life, antistes after his death. S. Gregory must not, however, be understood as disclaim^ ing a papal supremacy. 2 Ibid. vii. 33. ^ Cod. I. ii, 24. 52 THE EASTERN CHURCH that he did not regard this position as conferring any supreme or exclusive jurisdic tion. It was a title of honour which he would use of other patriarchates ; and that he did not consider the power of the patriarchates as unalterable is seen by his attempted creation of the new jurisdiction of his own city Justi- niana Prima (Tauresium), a few miles south of Sofia, over a large district,' To the archbishop whom he here created he gave authority to " hold the place of the apostolic throne " within his province,^ This position, then, of the Byzantine ^ See Novel, De ecclesiasticis titulis, cxxxi, 2 (ed, Kroll. p. 655). The actual birthplace of Justinian is now thought to be Uskiup. Tozer, Highlands of European Turkey, ii. 370. - See Procopius, De JEdif., iv. i (ed. Bonn, pp. 266, 267) ; ¦3.x\ii Novellae, xi. (de privilegiis archiepiscopi primse Justinianse) and cxxxi. (de ecclesiasticis canonibus et privilegiis), cap. 3. It is no alteration of patriarchal powers, but rather the assertion of them. Still patriarchal jurisdictions are not regarded as unalterable — as is clear from the creation of the modern national churches of the Balkan lands. AND ITS MISSIONS. 53 patriarchate, as independent of the other patriarchates, and equal to that of the older Rome, but occupying in point of honour a secondary position, was recognized by Church and State alike in the sixth century. If I were to search for a definition of the opinion then held — such is the conservatism of the Greek Church — I could not find a better than that which was enunciated in the Patriarchal and Synodical Encyclical Letter delivered by the Great Church of Constanti nople in 1895 i^ answer to the Encyclical of Leo XIII. on Reunion. " During ' the nine centuries of the CEcu menical Councils, the Eastern Orthodox Church never recognized the excessive claims of primacy on the part of the bishops of Rome, nor consequently did she ever submit to them, as Church history plainly ^ I give the authorized English translation by the Very Reverend Achimandrite Eustathius Metallinos, p. 45. 54 THE EASTERN CHURCH bears witness," The same prerogative of presidency that was assigned to the Old Rome, among equals, was assigned also to the New. The Eastern Church held to the decision of Chalcedon in this matter, as in those of doctrine. " We do also determine and decree the same things respecting the prerogatives of the most holy Church of the said Constantinople, which is New Rome ; for to the throne of the elder Rome, be cause that city was imperial, the fathers have naturally given the prerogatives. And the hundred and fifty most religious bishops, moved by the same consideration, assigned equal prerogatives to the most holy throne of New Rome."' This was the position and claim of the patriarch of Constantinople, in the sixth century as in the nineteenth. And the ^ Twenty-eighth canon of Council of Chalcedon, cf. Gore, Roman Catholic Claims, pp. 97, 98, AND ITS MISSIONS. 55 relation of that position to the definition and decision of doctrine (as of discipline) is equally clearly expressed in the letter from which I have already quoted. "Just as the bishops of the self-governing Churches of the East, so also those of Africa, Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain, managed the affairs of their own Churches, each by its local synods, the Bishop of Rome having no right to interfere, and he himself was equally subject and obedient to the decrees of synods. But on important subjects, which needed the sanction of the universal Church, an appeal was made to an CEcumenical Council, which alone was and is the supreme tribunal of the universal Church." ' Such was the position of the patriarchate ; and it is clear therefore that the patriarchs claimed no sole or separate power as judges of doctrine. When important matters came ^ Loc. cil, p. 43. 56 THE EASTERN CHURCH in dispute, they were eager to submit them to the decision of a council. This was the service which the Great Church of Con stantinople rendered to the world in the sixth century. From the point of view of the historian, it is clear that the whole future of Chris tendom depended upon the acceptance by the Christian nations of a single, rational, and logically tenable Creed. This involved the rejection of the Three Chapters, as it involved equally the condemnation of Mo nophysitism and Monothelitism. From the point of view of theology or philosophy the value of the work of the Church in this age is equally great. The heresies which were condemned in the sixth century (as in the seventh) were such as would have utterly destroyed the logical and rational concep tion of the Person of the Incarnate Son, as the Church had received it by divine AND ITS MISSIONS. 57 inspiration. Some Christian historians may seem for a moment to yield a half assent to the shallow opinions of those who would refuse to go beyond what is some times strangely called the " primitive sim plicity of the Gospel." But it is impossible in this obscurantist fashion to check the free inquiry of the human intellect. The truths of the Gospel must be studied and pondered over, and set in their proper relation to each other. There must be logical inferences from them, and reasonable conclusions. It is this which explains that struggle for the Catholic Faith, of which historians are sometimes im patient, and justifies a high estimate of the services which the Church of Constantinople rendered to the Church Universal. The history of the world shows that a reasoned faith is at least as important in the making of a nation as a strong arm. The " verbal disputations " of this age — and it 58 THE EASTERN CHURCH was very much more than words about which men contended — laid still more firmly the foundations of that One Church, One Faith, which was to survive when the con tending peoples had become merged in new nations and new kingdoms of the earth. The services of the Eastern Church to the Faith of Christendom in the period which I have chosen for discussion centre round the Fifth General Council. But this may be more fitly discussed in a general survey of the theological history of the period. I pass now to the second characteristic of the Eastern Church of this age — its missionary energy. II. The missionary work ofthe Church in this age was largely due to the influence and direction of Constantinople. It was part of that long and patient process by which the Christian Empire won the nomad tribes from barbarism. The missionary AND ITS MISSIONS. 59 interest was checked in the West. The western patriarchate had to defend its very life against barbarians. The Goths at the beginning of the century, the Lombards at the end, at times semi-Christian, but deficient certainly in the most essential attributes of Christian feeling, confined the religious energies of Rome within her own land. If she looked abroad at all, she looked to Constantinople. Thus Pelagius II. prevented Gregory's undertaking a mission to the Angles, and sent him instead, as his apocrisiarius, to Constantinople — a significant illustration of where interest and empire lay. From the beginning of the century till the accession of Gregory the Great, Rome was not known as a missionary Church. It was Constantinople — its Caesar and its patriarch — who spread the gospel " to the ends of the earth." Everywhere, with the reconquest of the 6o THE EASTERN CHURCH old imperial lands, came the re-establishment of the Catholic Church. In Africa the con quest from the Vandals was marked by the re-establishment of the Catholic Sees. In 535 no less than 207 orthodox bishops met in synod ' ; and the Church was re-estab lished in possession of all its rights. Nor was the Emperor satisfied with a restoration. Procopius tells of new conversions. Anjelah (Angila), where he says that up to Justinian's time men did sacrifice to Alexander of Macedon, preserved its ancient temples. These the Emperor replaced by a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin ; and " above all by teaching them the religion, so that he made them all Christians in a body, and turned them from the pagan customs of their ancestors,"^ In the city of Borium, "lying near the Moorish barbarians," the Emperor compelled ' Baronius, ad ann., 535. ^ ^dif., vi. 2, AND ITS MISSIONS. 6 I Jews to become Christians — these missions had sometimes a spice of compulsion about them ; yet it was rare that conversion was imposed by force, and as one of the condi tions of peace, by the conquering Empire,' — and turned a temple, which tradition said had been built by Solomon, into a church,^ Later missionary efforts were made under Justin to convert the tribes of the interior.^ The reconquest of Spain was similarly marked ; but there Catholicism was far from being so successful, John, abbat of Biclaro,* and afterwards bishop of Gerona, writes of the years after Justinian, as a voice crying in an Arian wilderness, till the day when Reccared became Catholic. During ' Gasquet, L Empire byzantin et la Monarchic fran- que, p. 77, ^ Procopius, as above. ^ Johannes Biclarensis. Biclaro = modern Valclara, in the hills a little to the west of Tarracona, between that city and the great bend of the Ebro. ^ In Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxxii. p. 863 sqq. 62 THE EASTERN CHURCH the critical years of the imperial reconquest, the Spanish Catholics were practically iden tical with the imperial party : to be a Visi- gfoth was to be an Arian. The connection with Constantinople was a vital point in the conversion of Spain. The Empire sent its missions to the reconquered land. S. Martin, bishop of Gallicia, came from Pannonia, and preached among the Suevi,' who became later the strongest support of Hermenigild and the imperial party. It was at Constantinople, the seat of empire, that Leander of Seville, who had already obtained the baptism of Hermeni gild, and no doubt confirmed, in the faith, his young wife, Ingunthis, in the midst of the persecutions she endured ^ — she was ' See Gregory of Tours, Migne, Fair. Lat., Ixxi, 352-3- Cf, Venantius Fortunatus's poem to S. Martin, Carm. lib, v. When the brave girl would not be baptized into Arianism, her step-mother, "iracundiee furore succensa AND ITS MISSIONS. 63 seized by the hair of her head by her mother-in-law, beaten, and thrown into a fish-pond — met Gregory the Great, It was there that resistance was organized against the still Arian Visigoths : Hermenigild threw himself, as a Catholic, into the imperial party : and it was thither at last that, when she was left a widow — some counted her husband a martyr, — the brave Ingunthis was sent for safety, with her baby son, though, according to Gregory of Tours, she died at Carthage on the way. The Catholic John of Biclaro speaks still of Spain as fespublica — as part of the Empire, though for a time torn away : and the reconquest, there can be no doubt, was regarded as a religious as well as a political work. Though I wander somewhat beyond the apprehensam per comam capitis puellam in terram col- lidit, et diu calcibus verberatam ac sanguine cruentatam, jussit exspoliari et piscina immelrgi " (Greg. Turon. loc. dt., p. 354). Cf. Johannes Biclarensis, sub ann., 581, 64 THE EASTERN CHURCH limits which I have set myself, I cannot refrain from completing, very briefly, the story of the reconversion of Spain. When Leander of Seville returned from Constan tinople he was able, through the Catholic tendencies of King Reccared (Hermenigild's brother), to win the great Council of Toledo in 589 to accept the Catholic Faith' in the form in which it had been defined by the General Councils. But this conversion was contemporary with the revival of the Roman See, and Gregory the Great, who had spent some years with Leander at Constantinople, and was his personal friend, welcomed the change and conferred the pallium on the Metropolitan of Seville,^ ' See his speech " in laudem ecclesiae," Migne, Patr. Lat., vol, kxxii, pp. 893-898. The account of this, the third Synod of Toledo, is given by Hefele (Eng, trans,), vol. iv. pp. 416 sqq. ^ For the Spanish history of this period, see Mrs. Humphry Ward's articles on the chief kings and saints AND ITS MISSIONS. 65 "Gaul was really independent of the Empire in all respects," ' and it is not there that we should seek for ecclesiastical rela tions with Constantinople.^ But there can be no question that the Catholicism of the Franks owed something to Eastern in fluences. There are points in the Gallican ritual which are distinctly Byzantine, and must belong to this period. Chlodovech, as an ally rather than a subject, and not least, perhaps, because he was a Catholic, received the dignity of the consulate from Anastasius.^ of Spain, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. Mr. Freeman would often regret that she abandoned her " real work " for the writing of novels. Cf. his " Life," vol. ii. p. 390. " I have been reading ' Robert Elsmere.' What a fool he was ! I should be sorry to believe or dis believe anything without some better reason. And for this kind of thing the West Gothic Kings are left undone." ^ Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, vol. i. p. 396. ^ " Gab es doch vorlaufig auch noch recht viele gemeinsame Interessen des ostromischen und frank- ischen Reichs," Dr. Paul Jors, op. cit., p. 12. He mentions common opposition to Arianism and to the East Goths. ' Greg. Tur. ii. 38 : Migne, Patr. Lat., p. 236. F 66 THE EASTERN CHURCH And in the reign of the great Justinian, the Merwings looked to the Emperor for re cognition and support. Theodebert, his " son," accepted a commission to propagate the Catholic faith in the imperial name.' Bishops, too, who might be in need of advice and consolation, applied naturally to Constantinople. Nicetius, bishop of Trier, that " man of highest sanctity, admirable in preaching, and renowned for good works," ^ persecuted by Chlotochar and his men, wrote naturally to the holy and orthodox Emperor, "dominus semper suus." In the midst of barbarities scarce conceivable,^ the finest characters were trained by the simple verities of the Catholic faith, to which ' Bouquet, Recueil, tom iv. epist, 15 : cf Gasquet, L'Empire byzantin et la Monarchic franque, p, 165. "- Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, x. 29 (Migne, p, 560) : cf also his Vitae Patrum, 17. Hontheim, Historia diplo- matica, i. 48 sqq. ^ Cf Greg. Turon, v. iii., on the frightful cruelty of Ranching. AND ITS MISSIONS. 67 they clung with an extraordinary tenacity. Nor is this anywhere more strongly shown than in the history of the Franks, Of the meaning of the great struggle of Catholicism against Arianism, and of its immense personal value, the histories afford many instances. There is an eloquent passage in Mr. Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders^ which I cannot forbear to quote. " In the previous generation both Brunichildis and Galswintha had easily conformed to the Catholic faith of their affianced husbands. Probably the councillors of Leovigild ex pected that a mere child like Ingunthis would without difficulty make the converse change from Catholicism back into Arianism. This was ever the capital fault of the Arian statesmen, that, with all their religious bitterness, they could not comprehend that the profession of faith, which was hardly ^ Vol, V, p. 352. 68 THE EASTERN CHURCH more than a fashion to most of themselves, was a matter of life and death to their Catholic rivals. Here, for instance, was their own princess, Brunichildis, reared in Arianism, converted to the orthodox creed, clinging to it tenaciously through all the perils and adversities of her own stormy career, and able to imbue the child-bride, her daughter, with such an unyielding devo tion to the faith of Nicea, that not one of all the formidable personages whom she met in her new husband's home could avail to move her by one hair's breadth towards ' the Arian pravity.' " There is much that one would like to ask of the relation of the Catholics of these lands with the Church of the East. When the Frank envoys brought with them Angles to the court of Justinian,' did the Kentishmen De Bello Gothico, iv. 20. Cf Freeman, Comparative Politics, second ed., p. 36. AND ITS MISSIONS. 69 ask or learn from the patriarch and his priests of the faith which the councils had confirmed } Procopius is silent. But if the influence of the distant East and of the imperial name was felt in Gaul and Spain, far more clearly can it be traced in mis sionary efforts on the eastern borders of the empire. " Christian missions," says Finlay, " had been the means of extending very widely the benefits of civilization. Christian mis sionaries first maintained a regular com munication between Ethiopia and the Roman Empire, and they had frequently visited China."' Christianity flourished in Ceylon and Malabar. Religious as well as political ties with Ethiopia were drawn more closely by the mission of Nonnosus in 533. Of the farthest East itself we have hardly sufficient evidence to speak positively. 1 Greece binder the Romans, p. 326. 70 THE EASTERN CHURCH " Monks," Procopius calls the men — whoever they may have been — who brought the silkworm to the court of Justinian ' ; they belonged, it may be, to the Christians of S. Thomas of Malabar. The actual intro duction of Christianity into China, under the Tang Dynasty, must most probably be dated early in the seventh century, and the famous inscription at Si-gan-fou, which dates the arrival of the Christian mission there in 635, would appear to show that the original missionaries were Syrian. It is probable that in that century Christian influence was stronger than has been usually supposed.^ Commercial interests began the first connection of Constantinople with the Turks, who sent an embassy in 568 or 569. The closeness of their relation with the 1 De Bell. Goth., iv. 17. See Abr'eg'e de I'histoire de la grande dynastie Tang, 2nd partie, in vol. xvi. of Memoires concerning the Chinese, p. 379. AND ITS MISSIONS. 71 Chinese of this century is now clearly established, with the importance of their power and the subservience of the Tun- gusic dynasties to the Khan Makan.' It appears that they sought to prevent the Emperor giving shelter to the Avars whom they had driven out of Asia.^ That part of Armenia which was under Persian rule, Persarmenia, appealed to Justin, 571-2. The people, " professing the Christian faith, were grievously afflicted by the Persians, specially for their religion and conscience.' Wherefore they sent ambassadors secretly unto Justinus, requesting that they might become subjects unto the Empire of ^ Cf Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xi. pp. 438-9. {The Origin of the Turks, by E. H. Parker.) ^ John of Ephesus tells how Christian virgins were sent to them by the Persians, and how they sought death in a great river rather than be the slaves of the heathen. " Evagrius, v, 2. I use the old translation of Meredith Hanmer. John of Ephesus gives a much fuller account which he learnt froni the Catholikos himself, 72 THE EASTERN CHURCH Rome, that thenceforth they might serve God without let or hindrance," When the Persian Chosroes remonstrated, the Emperor gave answer — -would that Christian powers would give it now! — "that it was not for the professors of the Christian Faith to leave succourless such Christians as fled to them for aid," The Catholikos himself came to Constantinople to lay his story of massacre and persecution before Justin, Many barbarous tribes during Justinian's reign were admitted to the Christian Faith and Fellowship. The Tzani dwelling on the border of Armenia and Pontus, " separated from the sea by precipitous mountains and vast solitudes, impassable torrent beds and yawning chasms," ' — in a land where, Procopius tells us,^ " it is not possible to irrigate the ground, to ^ Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, i. 441, ^ Mdif., iii. 6. AND ITS MISSIONS. 73 reap a crop, or to find a meadow anywhere ; and even the trees bear no fruit, because for the most part there is no regular suc cession of seasons, and the land is not at one time subjected to cold and wet, and at another made fertile by the warmth of the sun, but is desolated by perpetual winter and covered by eternal snows. They changed their religion to the true faith, became Christians, and embraced a more civilized mode of life," The king of those Heruls who served in the Roman army, and a Hunnish king, Gordas, became Chris tians, The Abasgi of the Caucasus and the Nobadae ' of the Sudan were converted ; and the Sudanese Alodaei, who received their bishop from the Nobadae, and the Iberians of Georgia,^ " when they were compelled by ^ On this, see John of Ephesus, pp, 251 sqq. Mr. Bufy has quoted the account in his History of the Later Roman Empire. ^ Joannes Biclarensis, p, 853. 74 THE EASTERN CHURCH the Persian King to worship idols" put themselves under the imperial protection. The Tetraxite Goths, " who though few in number yet religiously observed the Christian laws," ' in 540 requested from Constantinople a bishop, knowing that the Abasgi had already received a priest from the Emperor. In Abyssinia,^ the Church founded in the days of S, Athanasius received Justinian's constant support, and endured in connexion with Constantinople at least till the time of Mohammed.^ The Abyssinian and Egyptian Churches were both in close relation with those of the Sudan, ^ Procopius, de Bell. Goth., iv, 4. "^ The kingdom of Axum, 17 ivSore'pa 'lv8ia (Theo- phanes). ¦^ That the Abyssinian conversion was directly due rather to Egypt than Constantinople is illustrated by the fact that the Abyssinian Liturgies are a variety of the Egyptian rite ; whereas the Armenian Liturgies have affinity with that of Byzantium. See Liturgies Eastern Cind Western, F. E. Brightman, vol, i. AND ITS MISSIONS. 75 In Jerusalem itself it is chiefly to be said that the Emperor engaged in large restorations and some original church build ing after the style of his better known work. He had a severe struggle with the Samaritans, but it led to many conver sions.^ But the most interesting account of the missionary activity of the Eastern Church in the sixth century is unquestionably that which is furnished by the Syriac ecclesi astical history of John, Monophysite bishop of Ephesus. His life gives the best illustra tion we can obtain of the work done in the conversion of the heathen by the direc tion and with the support of the Imperial Court. He was a native of Mesopotamia, and a kinsman, it would appear, of the historian ' Cf Procopius, ^dif., and John Moschus, Pratum Spirituale (Migne, Patr. Grcec, v. Ixxxvii, (3)). "^ Procopius, Aidif., v. 8. 76 THE EASTERN CHURCH Evagrius of Antioch.' For thirty years he was in high favour with Justinian, and although he was a Monophysite, his honesty, candour, and the devotion of his life, com mended him to the Emperor as fitted for the great work of a " teacher of the heathen." In 542 he was appointed by the Emperor to undertake a mission to the heathen in the four provinces of Asia, Caria, Phrygia, and Lydia,^ He was accompanied by one Deuterius, " a man of industrious and up right habits, who from his youth to old age uninterruptedly, through a period of five and thirty years, was fellow labourer with " him "in instructing the heathen," They built, says John, ninety-nine new churches and twelve monasteries ; and John, when he grew old, set Deuterius as bishop to administer ^ I use the translation of the late Dr. Payne Smith, Oxford, i860. His introduction, p. i, states the author's place of birth. 2 John of Ephesus, ii. 44 (Payne Smith's trans,, p, 159), AND ITS MISSIONS. ']'] the Monophysite congregations in Caria. It is strange that Justinian should have sent a Monophysite as a missionary ; but it may be presumed that the instruction which John gave to the heathen was of a very simple sort, and that their discussions did not involve a recourse to the Tome of Leo or the decisions of the Fourth Council. Of the work done I can give no better account than by quoting the missionary's own words, as the book has been neglected by nearly all historians, I think, except Professor Bury, John' says that he began his ministry " in the mountains which overhang Tralles, in the territory of which city alone he con verted many thousands from the error of idol worship, and built for their use twenty- four churches and four monasteries, all of which were entirely new. Of these the principal was erected upon the site of a ^ Dr, Payne Smith's translation-, pp. 230-233, 78 THE EASTERN CHURCH famous idol temple built high up among the mountains, lat a village called Derira, and, as he had often been told by the older inhabitants, in the days of its prosperity no less than fifteen hundred temples, situated in the neighbouring provinces, were subject to its authority, and every year, at a vast assembly held there, the regulations were fixed for the ensuing twelvemonth, and the order of the ministrations settled for the use of both priests and people. John, therefore, being directed by a Divine mission, made this temple the first object of his attack, and having levelled it to the very founda tions, he built his chief monastery, to which he gave the same name as the idol temple had held, on a strong site upon a lofty mountain in the centre of the new churches : and subsequently he erected the three other monasteries, one of w^hich was still higher up among the mountains, and two in the valleys AND ITS MISSIONS. 79 below ; but all alike were subject to the autho rity of the monastery of Derira. And this, as the chief, he built very strongly, and of great extent, from ample funds supplied him by King Justinian, who also bore the expense of the other monasteries and churches. The king, moreover, published three imperial edicts, by which the chief monastery was invested with authority over the others, and also over the new churches, with power to visit and teach them, and take oversight of them, and settle their observances. But from the very first Satan had looked with an evil eye upon this monastery, and raised up against it many trials and strong opposi tion from all quarters. For the devils who used to dwell there in times past, and fatten upon the blood of the sacrifices offered them, upon which they would settle in swarms like flies upon putrid ulcers, openly showed them selves, and contended with the builders. 8o THE EASTERN CHURCH And when it was first begun they even went so far as to lay hold upon one of the masons who was in holy orders, and lifted him up in the air, and threw him down upon a rock below, from which he was dashed to one even more precipitous still further down ; while John and the other builders gazed in horror as they watched him fly along, and fall head foremost on his face, and roll down from cliff to cliff, till finally his fall was stopped by a rock in the river, which was not less than a thousand cubits below the place whence he was thrown. And as they watched his descent, and cried, ' Kyrie eleison,' they felt sure that his brains must be beaten out, and scattered upon the rocks against which he was dashed, and that he would be torn limb from limb. They ran, therefore, with loud lamentations to gather up though it were only the fragments of his bones, and give them burial ; but on reaching AND ITS MISSIONS. 8 1 the spot they found him whole, and in a sitting posture and looking at them. And when they saw him alive, they were astonished and full of joy, and gave thanks to God, who had saved him from a bitter death by the machinations of these pestilent devils : nor had Christ permitted him to receive even a single bruise, or any other injury except the loss of some skin upon his face. And all who saw and heard it were in astonishment at the miracle which had been wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ. The year after the monastery of Derira was finished, which was the sixth year from its commencement, the bishop of Tralles was stirred up by envy against it, and swore, saying, ' I will make that monastery of Derira part of the endowment of my church, and will spend there all the hot summer season,' For even before he had a quarrel against John, and now started to thwart him G 82 THE EASTERN CHURCH at the court of Justinian, And on arriving there he told him of the monastery, and prayed him to give orders that it might be made subject to his authority and rule, and that John might not have access to it. But the king said, ' I have not entered either your church or city without Christ's blessing, nor could I have effected what I have done unless the management and government had been intrusted to John ; for you could not possibly have administered the church which you have just now unjustly claimed. What you want is to seize upon a monastery which belongs to me, and which was built with my knowledge and at my command.' And then he commanded him not to quit the capital until after John's arrival. After a time, then, John came, and the king informed him of all that had been said to him by the bishop, and of his own reply, and further gave orders that John should go in person. AND ITS MISSIONS. 83 and himself administer the affairs of the church of Tralles and of the bishop's own hospice there, and that the bishop should have no power to do anything whatsoever without first receiving his orders from John. And other trials too there were and diffi culties, which Satan raised up against this monastery, and the twenty-four new churches which John had erected in its vicinity for the service of the heathen whom he had baptized and made Christians in the moun tainous district of the city of Tralles ; but God in His mercy brought to nought all the envy of the evil one, and established them unto the glory of His name, so that they continue to flourish unto this day." It is a typical tale of the early middle age, with its jealousies and credulities and superstitions, and behind them its solid faith and noble self-devotion. This mission is directed by a Catholic 84 THE EASTERN CHURCH emperor, but it is undertaken by a Monophys ite bishop. The wider field of missionary work owed much to the labours of the Nestorians. It is possible that Cosmas,' who had travelled far afield in the first half of the sixth century, may have been a Nestorian ; but the reverence with which he speaks of the orthodox faith, and his constant use of the Catholic writers, would seem to show rather that, when he became a monk, at any rate, he was orthodox. From him, however, we obtain knowledge of the wide field of Nestorian missions. Recent discoveries have largely added to our knowledge.^ It is clear that in the sixth century, ap parently before 540, Nestorian bishop rics were founded in Herat and Samarkand. ' The Christian Topography was written between 535 and 537. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, p. 279. ^ Here I am greatly indebted to my friend Mr. C. Raymond Beazley, who has minutely and exhaustively studied all the known evidence. AND ITS MISSIONS. 85 Monumental inscriptions date back as far as 547. Merv as early as 650 is spoken of as a " falling church " ' amid the triumphs of Islam. China has been already mentioned, and though it is not clear that only Nestorian missions prospered in the far land, there is no doubt that their success was the most prominent. Christian communities existed near the borders of Thibet ^ in the seventh century ; and in the eighth and ninth they were strong in India. Even in the eleventh century the " Nestorian worship retained a great hold over many parts of Asia, be tween the Euphrates and the Gobi desert." Into the later and fragmentary history of these missions it is not here the place to enter. Let it only be remembered that the labours of "those Nestorian missionaries who preached and baptized under the shadow ' Assemani, Bibl. Orient, iii. i, 130, 131, ^ See Waddell, Buddhism in Thibet, pp, 421, 422. 86 THE EASTERN CHURCH. of the wall of China, and on the shores of the Yellow Sea, the Caspian, and the Indian Ocean " ' were made possible by the diplo matic and military triumphs which radiated from Constantinople in the sixth century,^ and by the Christian zeal of orthodox emperors and patriarchs. The Eastern Church in the age of Justinian was as keenly alive to the necessity of spiritual effort as was the State to the opportunity of political reconquest. ' Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, p. 211. - Cf Professor Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, on the relation between Justinian and the Persian power. THE PAPACY, CHAPTER III. THE PAPACY. In a survey of the Church history of the sixth century the Western Church must be content to take a secondary place. It is not that she had ceased to be active, devoted, a mother of kings, of monasteries, and of missions ; but no just historical estimate can, I think, deny that in the East the Church in each of these honours won a higher renown. It was in the East that the Church was recovering and increasing her territories. It was from the East that there came again and again new laws of the State, more and more decisively Christian, as well as new canons of the Church more and more decisively orthodox. The papacy of the sixth century is rather 90 THE PAPACY. the rival than the superior of the other patriarchates ; and its history, tangled and confused almost beyond expression, is yet full of the profoundest interest. Briefly, I would sketch first the position of the papal power in this period ; secondly, the history of the more important popes. I. Constantine, says Dante, had founded his New Rome on the Bosphorus that he might " give the shepherd room." Two centuries had passed. The expansion had begun ; but it had been checked by the wave of Gothic conquest. It is impossible wholly to disentangle the religious power from the political. At the beginning of the sixth century not the pope, but Theodoric, was master of Rome. The Arian was a not intolerant lord.' ' There was early expectation of his favour to the Roman See. Cf Gelasius to him (Mommsen's addenda to the Epistulce Varia. of Cassiodorus, p. 391) in 496: " certum est magnificentiam vestram leges Romanorum THE PAPACY. 91 When he came first to the Eternal City he prayed "like a Catholic" at the tomb of the Apostles. He offered two great silver candelabra to S. Peter. It is probably Maximianus, bishop of Ravenna, Catholic to the core, who writes of his visit to Rome that " Pope Symmachus and all the senate and the people of Rome poured out to meet him outside the city gates with every sign of joy." ' Though a heretic, he was recognized as a friend, as well as submitted to for a master. But a master he was. By him synods were summoned. To him bishops vowed obedience in their session : " ideoque nos toto afifectu et obsequio iussioni vestrae pafere voluimus." ^ Though the rule of principum, quas in negotiis hominum custodiendas esse praecepit, multo magis circa reverentiam beati Petri apostoli pro suae felicitatis augmento velle servari." ^ Anonymus Valesii. ^ Epp. Rom. Pontif., Thiel, Ep. 5, p. 657, quoted by Gregorovius, i. 318, note i. 92 THE PAPACY. Odovacar,' a rule recognized by the Pope Simplicius, was repealed,^ that election to the papacy could only be made firm by the presence and sanction of a royal officer ; yet the memorable dispute between Symmachus and Laurentius was submitted to the absolute decision of Theodoric : "et^ facta intentione hoc constituerunt partes ut ambo ad Raven- nam pergerent ad iudicium regis Theo- dorici. Qui dum ambo introissent Ravennam hoc iudicium aequitatis invenit, ut qui primo ordinatus fuisset vel ubi pars maxima cognosceretur, ipse sederet in sedem apos- tolicam." The ecclesiastical relations of Hormisdas with the Emperor Justin were equally controlled by the Arian king.* Later, it was a pope whom he sent to demand ^ Though the document referred to is a letter of Simplicius, I think we may infer that the order was that of Odovacar. ^ Langen, Gesch. R.K. von Leo I. bis Nicol I., p. 232. ' Liber Pontificalis , i. 260. * Ibid. p. 270. THE PAPACY. 93 from the Emperor the cessation of the per secution of Arians in the East — a pope whom the Church, when the king brought about his death by a cruel imprisonment, honoured as a martyr.' On his death Rome received its new bishop on Theodoric's absolute nomination. What was the State's theory of its own position with regard to the papacy can be read nowhere more clearly than in the letter of Athalaric to the senate — ^by the pen of Cassiodorus — at the end of the year 526:^ the Church is bound to obey the sovereign, even though he be of another religion, in his choice of a pontiff. But the election of Boniface II., in 530, is of considerable importance. His prede cessor Felix IV., in a ' precept ' to bishops and priests and deacons, and all the clergy, ^ John I., Liber Pontificalis, p. 275, ' Ed. Mommsen, p. 246. 94 THE PAPACY. the senate, and the people, had earnestly recommended him for election.' Neverthe less sixty priests and a majority of the senate preferred Dioscoros. Had he lived, says the greatest living authority on the papal history of this age,^ he would probably have figured among the lawful popes, and Boniface would have appeared only as an anti-pope. His timely death ended a schism. But the claim of Felix IV. to nominate his successor, — to place the papacy on a footing similar to that of the hereditary monarchies, — extraordinary though it was and contrary to canonical rule, was not forgotten. The senate, tacitly recognizing the papal nomina tion, at the same time forbade all payment of money in connection with papal elections.' It cannot be said that the lay power ^ See Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, i. 282. ^ The Abbd Duchesne in Revue des Questions Historiques, October i, 1884. " Liber Pontificalis, as above. THE PAPACY. 95 exercised all these rights of interference and control without some protest being made : Symmachus himself was not silent as to papal claims.' But the powers exercised by Theodoric are significant enough of the position of the papacy in his time. The dignified attitude of Hormisdas in his relation with the East does not alter the position of the papacy in Italy. A period of " masterly strategy " — to use Mr. Hodg kin's phrase ^ — is also a period of real weak ness. East and West are reunited. Rome and Constantinople alike accept the Council of Chalcedon and abhor the Monophysites ; but it is rather that Constantinople agrees, than that Rome dictates. Such, very briefly, is the position of the 1 I need only refer to Hefele's account of the actual work done in the Roman synods of this pontificate. It does not affect what I have said. ^ Italy and her Invaders, vol. iii. p. 485- 96 THE PAPACY. Roman See in its external relations, up to the accession of Justinian. The historj' of the city of Rome itself reveals a similar state of affairs. There was an increase of papal power. It was certain, but it was very gradual. It was probably in 527' that Athalaric, in a letter to the clergy of the Roman Church, ordered that all disputes between clergy and laity should be submitted to the decision of the pope. In case of wrong, a layman must appeal first to the pope, and only if he would not hear him, might he apply to the secular tribunals. This marked a striking increase of papal power within the city itself The election of John II. , in 532, was marked by another royal intervention, which illus trates at the same time the position of the senate in the last days of its existence. In a letter to Salventius, praefect of the city, Atha laric announces that he has confirmed the ' Mommsen, p. 255, dates it about the year 527. THE PAPACY. 97 decree of the senate forbidding the sale of the papal office, and he orders that the decrees of king and senate shall be engraved on marble tablets and placed " ante atrium beati Petri apostoli in testimonium publicum." ' This senatus consultum was the last, Gre gorovius thinks, ever issued by the august body.^ To the end it kept its power over the Church and its bishops. The lives of the succeeding popes must be treated in more detail. It suffices to say here, that, under Vigilius, Roman by birth, but hated by the Romans and utterly in effectual in Rome, the destruction, by siege and havoc, of the power of ancient Rome was preparing a mighty victory for the papacy. The causes of the growth of the ^ Var., ix. 16. Mommsen, p. 281. - Rome, vol. i. p. 349. But observe Mr. Hodgkin's note G, Italy and her Invaders, vol. vi. p. 561. Cf also Diehl, D administration Byzantine dans texarchat de Ravenne, p. 124. H 98 THE PAPACY. papal power are commonplaces of history. Two only, it seems to me, need here em phatic reassertion. Pass by the Gothic rule, the imperial restoration and failure, and two great names stand out, by which, at the end of the sixth century, the power of the papacy was built up, S, Benedict, greatest of monks, gave enthusiasm, devotion, and the organization of a sacred militia; S, Gregory, saint and statesman, sprang into the place which Gothic kings and Roman emperors had abandoned, II. The history of the papacy, during the period which I have chosen to illustrate, centres round the life of the enigmatic Vigi lius and that of his successor Pelagius. It is during the life of Boniface II. that Vigilius, a deacon, of one of the oldest Roman families, whose father had been consul, first comes into notice. Boniface, who himself owed his position to the THE PAPACY. 99 extraordinary action of Felix IV,, chose Vigi lius for his successor, and commended him to the synod for election. Later, he withdrew his request, and confessed that he had sinned therein.' He died, and Vigilius was not elected. But his elevation was not long delayed. In 533 he was sent on an embassy to Justinian ; and he was in Constantinople when Pope Agapetus arrived on a mission from the Gothic king, Theodahad,^ in 536. Agapetus was one of the most illustrious of the early popes. Himself the son of a priest, Gordianus, he had been brought up as a student, "in regulis ecclesiasticis ap- prime eruditus ; " ^ he was a book-lover and a friend of Cassiodorus ; a man fitly to be trusted with a great mission of peace in a time of stress. But he died on April 22, 536. ' Liber Pontificalis, i. p. 281. ^ Cf Cassiodorus, Var., xii. 20 ; ed. Mommsen, p. 376V " Liberatus, Brev., c. 21. IGO THE PAPACY. It was a moment of extreme importance for the Church. Anthimus, patriarch of Constantinople, had been deposed for heresy ; yet a strong party, in different parts of the East, was in his favour. Would he be re stored through the intervention of a new pope ? Vigilius hastened back to Rome with letters from Justinian and Theodora to Belisarius. He was too late. Already Theodahad, exercising powers as great in the weakness of the Gothic rule as Theo doric had ever wielded in its strength, had forced upon the Roman clergy, by threat of the sword, the appointment of Silverius, son of Pope Hormisdas.' Not only threats passed, but money. Silverius was elected and consecrated ; the Goths fled from Rome, and Belisarius entered, with Vigilius in his train, to find a pope in possession. A few weeks passed. The pope was suspected of ' See Liber Pontificalis, i, pp. 290^293. THE PAPACY. IGI treasonable relations with Witigis. He had refused, says the Liber Pontificalis, the request of Theodora that he should restore Anthimus to the patriarchate ; and she had sent orders to Belisarius to depose the stiff- necked pope. He was summoned to the palace on the Pincian Hill. He entered with Vigilius, where lay Antonina on a couch, the great general sitting at her feet. "Tell us, lord pope," said the lady, "what have we done to thee and the Romans that thou wouldest betray us into the hands of the Goths ? " While she yet spoke he was stripped of his pallium. Then, dressed as a monk, he was sent into exile on the Isle of Palmaria, where he lived on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, till death ended his misery.' ^ This is the story of the Liber Pontificalis, supported by Liberatus. Procopius, BeU. Goth., i. 25, says : VTTOXJ/ia? Sk es '^Lk/Sipiov tov rrjs TroAecos apx^^P™ yey€vr]fJiev-rjS, u>s 8rj -irpoSotriav « TotOovs irpacra-ii, a.vTOv I02 THE PAPACY. A few days after the deposition of Silverius Belisarius called together the Roman clergy and ordered the election of Vigilius. Though no canonical deposition of Silverius had taken place, the majority yielded, and on March 29, 537, Vigilius was consecrated. It was at one time customary for papal historians to declare that Vigilius, till the death of Silverius, was but an antipope, and became legitimate only on the death of his predecessor.' No such distinction was then /X£V es T-i]v 'EA.A.aSa (-Treixipsv avTiKa. That Vigilius was himself largely responsible for this there can be little doubt. He had been promised the papacy. He did not hesitate to take it even at the price of crime. " Faire pdrir son prdd&esseur de misbre et de faim, quand meme on ne voudrait voir en lui qu'un rival gSnant, ce n'est pas un tort, c'est un crime. La morale est la meme pour les papes et pour les autres hommes." M. Duchesne in Revue des Questions Historiques, Avril, 1885, p. 586. ^ E.g. Baronius ; and the Roman Breviary, by the length of pontificate it gives to Silverius, does not admit Vigilius to be lawful pope till his death. THE PAPACY. IG3 recognized. The Roman clergy accepted him from his consecration. In June, 537, he appears on an inscription as " beatissimus papa. That his elevation had been the result of a discreditable intrigue his contemporaries certainly believed ; and it was soon asserted that Theodora had demanded of him the price of his honour — that he should order the restoration of Anthimus. But it was impossible for him, apart from the vital question of the theology of Chalcedon, to restore Anthimus without recognizing the invalidity of his own succession. He refused ; and Justinian supported him in his refusal. Less true, perhaps, were other rumours. It was said that he was not free from the guilt of murder. He pleased neither Augusta nor the Romans. On November 22, 545, he was suddenly seized in the church of ' De Rossi, Inscr. Christ, i. 482, I04 THE PAPACY. S. Caecilia, put on board ship, and taken from Rome amid the execrations of the people, — a scene, thinks the Abb^ Duchesne, arranged beforehand that he might escape the Goths, who were now sore pressing the city, and that Justinian might have him under his own control. When a year later the pope arrived at Constantinople, he found the court, the church and the city alike in commotion over the " Three Chapters." The East had con demned the errors of Theodore of Mopsu estia, of Theodoret and of Ibas, as Justinian's edict had ordered : would the Roman See do the like ? Already Dacius, bishop of Milan, had taken another view, and had refused to communicate with Mennas, the patriarch of Constantinople, because he had joined in the condemnation. It was already clear that the Italian, Sardinian, and African prelates would take the same view ; and THE PAPACY. 105 Zoilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, had assured the pope that the imperial edict was erroneous, and that it had been signed only under constraint. Vigilius was received with every honour. The Emperor himself escorted him to S. Sophia and lodged him in the royal palace of Placidia, which stood at the eastern end of the promontory that divides the Sea of Marmara from the Golden Horn. In this beautiful spot, where now stand the build ings of the old Seraglio, Vigilius, looking across to Asia and the churches of Chal cedon, meditated of the council and of the anathemas demanded of him. He was not long undecided. He took the bold step of excommunicating the patriarch and the sect of the Akephali. This might seem no obscure threat against the empress her self But he soon found that he had acted too precipitately. Further investigation — Ig6 THE PAPACY. not to speak of the influence of the court — convinced him that the Greeks knew their own language better than he did, and heresy, when they met with it, at least as well. He condemned the Three Chapters. He discussed them with the Western theologians around him. He issued his " Judicatum" at Easter, 548. Of this only five fragments now exist,' but they are sufficient to enable us to estimate the nature of its contents. It^was addressed to the Patriarch Mennas, It condemned the Three Chapters; that is to say, the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the letter of Ibas to Maris, and the writings of Theodoret contrary to the faith and against the twelve anathemas of S. Cyril, The authority of the Council of Chalcedon was, nevertheless, strongly ^ Hefele, Hist, of the Councils, Eng. trans., vol, iv, P- 253- I am here practically using the summary of the Abbe Duchesne. THE PAPACY. ioy safeguarded. The declarations of its validity and force were so clear and precise that no Monophysite could subscribe them, without at the same time making a complete abjura tion of his heresy. The safeguard, however, was not sufficient to preserve Vigilius. The West showed the greatest alarm. It was declared everywhere that the Council of Chalcedon had been despised and betrayed. Facundus, bishop of Hermiane, in the African province of Byzacena, who was preparing a great book ' in defence ofthe "Three Chapters," abstained from communion with the pope, and on his return from Constantinople so powerfully in fluenced the African Church that in a synod in 550, under the presidency of Reparatus of Carthage, Vigilius was formally excom municated till he should do penance and ^ Pro defensione trium capitulorum (in Migne's Patro logia, vol. Ixvii.). Ig8 THE PAPACY. withdraw the iudicatum} Zoilus, patriarch of Alexandria, and the patriarch of Jerusalem both refused to accept the iudicatum. So important were the letters of the African bishops on this point regarded, that the Emperor himself answered them.^ The formal excommunication of a pope by a large and orthodox section of the Church is a significant fact. It does not prove, of course, that the pope's judgment was wrong ; but it does prove that the Universal Church did not regard it as infallible. Vigilius retorted on his adversaries by the excommunication of two of his deacons who had declared against him. But peace was not to be purchased in this way. Justinian and Vigilius agreed that the whole matter should be submitted to a General Council ; ' Victor of Tunis, a.d. 550. ^ See Isidore of Seville, de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, in Fabricii, Bibliotheca Eccles., pt. ii. p. 54. THE PAPACY. 109 and meanwhile the iudicatum was withdrawn. Vigilius swore secretly that he would use all his authority to obtain the condemnation of the Three Chapters. Of other preparations for the Council I do not speak — of the deprivation of the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem — of the summoning of bishops : but it is im portant in this connexion to observe that, at this moment, the Emperor published his "Confession of the Orthodox Faith, against the Three Chapters."' Its sounding title shows the pow^er which its author claimed. " In the Name of God the Father, and of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and of the Holy Ghost. Imperator Caesar, Philochristus, Alamannicus, Gothicus, Francicus, Germanicus, Anticus, Alanicus, Vandalicus, Africanus, pius, felix, inclytus, victor, triumphator, semper venerabilis, 1 Migne, Patrol. Grcec, tom, Ixxxvi. (i) pp. 993 sqq. no THE PAPACY. Augustus, universo coetui Catholicae et Apos tolicae Ecclesiae," In the whole of this important document, of which I shall else where speak, there is not a single reference to the infallibility, or the supreme authority, oi the pope or of the Roman See, The centre of ecclesiastical unity, as of secular unity, is held to be at Constantinople, There is " one Faith, one Baptism ; " but they are guarded alike by orthodox emperor, by patriarch, and by pope, Justinian makes no new claim, nor does he condemn any papal assumption. He simply declares the orthodox faith, without any reference to the Roman bishop as its supreme interpreter. But the issue of the imperial confession was regarded as prejudging the question to be submitted to the council — perhaps rightly so regarded. Dacius, bishop of Milan, and Vigilius himself, declared that if any one recognized the confession he should THE PAPACY. Ill be excommunicated by them. Theodore Askidas, bishop of Caesarea, brought the question to an immediate issue by going straightway to a church where the imperial declaration was publicly exposed, and cele brating mass with great pomp. Then Vigilius, with Dacius and twelve other western bishops, deposed the bishop of Caesarea, and excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople. Of this act it should be sufficient to say that the most extreme assertors of papal supremacy can hardly defend it. The Eastern prelates merely served and worshipped in their own churches, to the doors of which the imperial edict was affixed. The imperial edict contained nothing to which the pope had not al ready declared his assent. He had excom municated several ecclesiastics for disputing his iudicatum : he now excommunicated others because they did not publicly reject 112 THE PAPACY. a document which contained the same statements. To excommunicate the patriarch in his own city because he did not condemn his Emperor's confession of faith — with which he, as well as the pope, agreed — was an extreme act, Vigilius and Dacius knew what they had done, and they fled at once to the basilica of S. Peter,' which then stood at the north of — and touching, so that one door served them both ^ — the church of S. Sergius and S, Bacchus, built by Justinian ^ If I am not mistaken, its only remains are those exquisite marble capitals of columns which lie in the sea a few yards from S. Sergius and S. Bacchus. Some of them were sketched in 1891, and appear on the cover of part ii. of Broken Bits of Byzantium, by Canon Curtis. ^ See Grosvenor's Constantinople, vol. i. p. 410, It is interesting to observe that, two centuries later, the basilica of S, Peter had been already destroyed and forgotten, and it was identified with the church of SS, Sergius and Bacchus. Theophanes says : o 8e (fio/i-gOeh TTjv opyrjv TOV /JacriXeos tc3 Ova-iao-TrjpCw Trji tov "^ipyiov tov jj.apTvpo'i /Aov^s TOV OpfxicrSov -n-pocrit^vyev. THE PAPACY. 113 in 527, and adjoining his palace, the Palace of Hormisdas, Justinian sent the praetor with armed men, who, after a discreditable scuffle, in which the pope showed no will ingness to submit, dragged Vigilius from the altar ; but the popular indignation forced the praetor to withdraw. Later a more peaceable deputation, led by Belisarius him self, induced the pope to return again to the Palace of Placidia, and to consider whether it were not better to discuss than to excommunicate. But he felt still in terror of his life ; he heard, he said, from his bedroom the voice of spies : and he fled by night (December 23, 551) across the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara to Chalcedon, He took refuge in the church of S, Euphemia, where a hundred years before, the CEcumenical Council had sat. The site now bears no memorial of the famous church. The little town has been again I I 14 THE PAPACY. and again sacked and destroyed, and at last its very stones were carried across to Stamboul, The columns of the church of S. Euphemia were taken to the mosque of Souleiman L, built between 1550 and 1556, to commemorate the capture of Belgrade, of Rhodes, and of Bagdad, by the " Magni ficent," the contemporary of Henry VIII. They stand, it may be, at that wonderful entrance, which no one who has seen it can forget, of the greatest and most splendid of all the Turkish mosques. At Chalcedon ' Vigilius was safe. In Asia he looked across the storm-swept winter sea, cold even in late spring from the bitter winds that blow from the snow-covered Asiatic mountains, to the islands a few miles southwards, or towards the north-west, where ' Now Kadi Keui, "the village of the judge," Evagrius, ii. 3, has a delightful description of the place and the church. THE PAPACY. 117 the walls of the Palace of Hormisdas, in which Justinian lived, hung over the waves. One wall of the palace still stands, one of the most striking of all the sixth-century memorials in Constantinople, The railway runs between it and the Kutchuk Ayia Sophia — the church to which Vigilius had fled. Across the sea the white houses of Kadi Keui stand out sharply in the sun. In January, 552, Belisarius led another embassy to offer all guarantees of security if the pope would return to Europe. The pope refused : Justinian menaced : Vigilius issued an encyclical letter in which he recorded all his wrongs. To this he added a profession of faith — a counterblast to Justinian's — most explicit in its adherence to the Council of Chalcedon, but without a word of the Three Chapters, This testa ment, for it was one, was addressed universo populo Dei, in the name of Vigilius, " bishop Il8 THE PAPACY. of the Catholic Church." The Christian world— I use the words of a most learned papalist — would know what to think of the faith and the constancy of its spiritual chief Then there was, in those happy words of Carlyle, a "pause of an awful nature." Pelaeius, of whom much more is to be said, and TuUianus were torn by force from Chalcedon. Vigilius formally issued the sentences of excommunication against the patriarch and others which he had hitherto only privately announced. They appear to have made their peace with him, accepting — as indeed they had always accepted — the Four General Councils and the Tome of S. Leo. They asked pardon for having admitted to communion persons excommunicated by him. Peace was made ; and within the year the patriarch died, and Dacius of Milan likewise. ' The Abb^ Duchesne, Revue des Questions His toriques, October, 1884, p, 414, THE PAPACY. 119 Eutychius, the new patriarch, sent a formal letter' to the pope, his "most holy and most blessed brother and colleague in the ministry Vigilius," declaring his adhesion to the Four Councils and the dogmatic letter of S, Leo, and urging the necessity of a discussion on the matter of the Three Chapters, concerning which ques tion had arisen. The tone was one of perfect equality. The pope agreed, and the Council was summoned. An important question arose. Was the West sufficiently represented .'' It was at least as strongly represented as in the earlier councils. But the Greeks sug gested a compromise : that each of the five patriarchates should send its patriarch ' Migne, Patr. Grcec, vol. Ixxxvi. (2), pp. 2402 sqq. Cf the address with that given by Leo the Philosopher, as the proper form for a patriarch of Constantinople to use to a pope, which recognizes no higher dignity in him than in the other patriarchs (Migne, Patr. Grcec, vol. cvii. p. 417). I2G THE PAPACY. and three bishops. Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, they were all equal ; they should have equal votes. Justinian agreed to this. But Vigilius would not consent ; he had himself proposed four bishops from the West and four from the East, not, it would seem, a very strong- declaration of papal infallibility. His mind, it would appear, was now made up. When the Council condemned the Three Chapters, the pope, while declaring many statements of Theodore of Mopsuestia to be heretical, refused to condemn him after his death, and asserted that Theodoret and Ibas were removed from censure by the consideration which had been given to them by the fathers of Chalcedon, This was the Constitutum of Vigilius, He had refused to join the Council, to speak, or to vote. The Council acted as oecumenical councils had acted before. THE PAPACY. 121 It condemned those who refused to accept its canons, and it ordered the name of Vigilius to be struck out of the diptychs. The State banished those who refused the conciliar decisions. Vigilius, after six months on an island in the Sea of Marmara, wrote to the patriarch of Constantinople, fully and unreservedly anathematizing the Three Chapters (Dec. 8, 553). On Feb. 23, 554, he repeated this condemnation in a letter [Constitutum) to the Western bishops. He had now studied the writings thoroughly, he said, and he joined without hesitation in the anathemas of the CEcu menical Council. This was a complete con tradiction to his earlier Constitutum. It was his last act. He was allowed to return to Italy, and he died in Sicily on the way, June 7, 555, Of his pitiable career it is difficult to speak. His judgments — at least four times 122 THE PAPACY. directly contradictory to one another — have not been pronounced by the Church to be infallible — at any rate, not all of them. His morality has been more than questioned. Only a determined opponent of the Emperor Justinian could find in him a hero or a saint, Pelagius was his successor. How he, the stoutest of opponents of the imperial policy, of the condemnation of the Three Chapters and of the Fifth General Council, was convinced by the theologian who was also Caesar we do not know. The Holy See, by the pen of Vigilius, had definitely approved the condemnation formulated by the Council. It was the duty, no doubt, of all Catholics to submit,' Pelagius had not ceased to protest and to execrate the de cision ; but now that the See of Rome was ' So Dom Frangois Chamard, in the Revue des Ques tions Historiques, Avril, 1885, p, 560. THE PAPACY. 123 vacant, and the Emperor friendly, his opinion changed.' He had already, in his adhesion to the Constitutum, of 553, condemned, at least indirectly, the doctrine of Theodore of Mopsuestia; he now' signed all the decisions which he had before repudiated. He sailed for Rome, and prepared to ascend the papal throne. He was a man of great power, a theo logian, and, in his way, a statesman. He was, like Vigilius, of an old Roman family, and had, at least since 536, been prominent in the train of pope or emperor. His greatest success in ecclesiastical diplomacy had been achieved during his mission in 539 to the East, when he placed the monk Paul on the patriarchal throne of Alexandria, pledged to suppress the heresy of the Apthartodocetes. But the brutality of ' If this seems an impertinent sneer, I can only say that my view is that of the Abb^ Duchesne. 124 ^^^ PAPACY. the new patriarch made his deposition also necessary, and he was replaced by Zoilus,' On his return to Constantinople Pelagius had brought from the East strong argu ments against the Origenists, which led to the issue of the Emperor's letter to Mennas, condemning Origen's opinions. Justinian then had long known the ability of Pelagius, and in nominating him to the papacy he knew the man he had selected. But the reception of Pelagius at Rome was chilling in the extreme. The people declared that he was the murderer of Vigilius, The clergy joined in the cry against him as a heretic. There were not three bishops to be found who would consecrate him ^ — or, it may be, not three ^ For the later history of Paul, see Procopius, Anecdota, Bonn ed. p. 150. - Et dum non essent episcopi qui eum ordinarent, inventi sunt duo episcopi, Johannes de Perusia et Bonus de Ferentino et Andreas presbiter de Hostis, et ordina- verunt eum ( Liber Pontif., i. 303). THE PAPACY. 125 suburbicarian bishops were left, though this is improbable, — only the bishops of Perugia and Ferentino and a priest of Ostia would act. Thus consecrated without the due number of bishops required by the canons, on Easter Day, 556, he entered upon his thorny way. He formally declared his ad hesion to the Four General Councils, was significantly silent as to the Fifth, and declared that he received as orthodox what his predecessors (omitting Vigilius from his list) had so received, and " especially the venerable bishops Ibas and Theodoret." Here, again, was the pope rejecting a formal statement of his predecessor. This confession of faith gave him peace at Rome. But the Archbishop of Milan and the patriarch of Aquileia refused to communi cate with him. In Gaul there was no readi ness to acknowledge him, or to receive the pallium from his hands ; and he was obliged 126 THE PAPACY, to write to King Childebert, submitting to him a profession of his faith.' It is clear that the Gallican Church, no more than the Lombard, regarded the pope as ipso facto orthodox or the guardian of orthodoxy. Even this letter of Pelagius was not re garded as satisfactory. It was long before the churches entered into communion with him ; and even to the last, the northern sees of Italy refused. He ruled, unquietly enough, for four years ; and died, leaving a memory free at least from simony, and honoured as a lover of the poor. Under him, as under Vigilius, the papacy had been compelled to submit to the judg ment of the East. " The Church of Rome," says the Abbe Duchesne, "was humi liated." = The lives of these two popes cover ' Migne, Patr. Lat., tom. Ixix. p. 402. Revue des Questions Historiques, Oct. 1884, p. 439. THE PAPACY. 127 the most important period in the eccle siastical history of the sixth century. With the death of Pelagius I., in 561, and up to the accession of Gregory the Great in 590, political rather than ecclesiastical interest rules Italian history. There is the endeavour to rule Italy from Constantinople ; but the centre of the delegated authority is Ravenna, not Rome, and the effort is a failure. The invasion of the Lombards (from 568), and their gradual settlement in Italy, coincides with this period of papal insignificance, and partly accounts for it. But the time of quietness at Rome is a time of steady growth for the papal power. I. It was the aim of each pope to set up his power against that of the imperial Exarchate, by which Italy was ruled after its reconquest. Gradually, step by step, he claimed cognizance of secular matters, in tervened in politics, gave advice de omnibtis 128 THE PAPACY. rebus et quibtisdam aliis. The imperial administration saw the danger, and, from time to time, made definite opposition to the papal pretensions. It endeavoured to restore the unity of the Church, to secure the universal condemnation of the Three Chapters ; but under sanction of Ravenna rather than of Rome. Thus the Exarch Smaragdus, in 587, led Severus, patriarch of Aquileia, before the Ravennate prelates to make submission ; ' and later the Emperor Maurice interfered to prevent the pope compelling the patriarch to submission. But these endeavours were futile ; and the great Gregory, statesman and administrator of the first order, made the papacy the most important political power in the western provinces of the Empire. In 599, this was apparent in Gregory's negotiation with the Lombard king Agilulf ' Fa2ilus Diaconus., iii. 26, ed, \\a.\\.z, pp, 105-107, THE PAPACY. 129 2, The papal influence was increased, and the Greek power diminished, by the direct replacement of Eastern monks by Bene dictines.' The monasteries founded by Greeks during the imperial restoration, no longer replenished from Constantinople, fell into the hands of the great papal force founded by the greatest saint, and marshalled by the greatest administrator of the century. 3. And, lastly, the power of the papacy was at once evidenced and increased by the revival of its missionary energy. What Pelagius II. had stayed, Gregory the Great accomplished — the conversion of England by the mission of Augustine. Spain, too, was won from Arianism by a personal friend of Gregory's, though without Roman inter vention ; ^ and within Italy itself the pope began the great work of the conversion of ^ Diehl, op, cit,, gives a Hst, p. 256. ^ Joannes Biclarensis, Chronicon ; Migne, Patr. Lat., Ixxii. 868. K 130 THE PAPACY. the Lombards to the Catholic faith, with the full teaching both of the Tome of Leo and of the Fifth General Council.' ' Gregory the Great sent the Acts of the Council to be taught to the little child Adalwald, the Lombard king. THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. CHAPTER IV. THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. In the theological history of the sixth century one distinct and prominent feature is to be observed — the influence of Con stantinople. This is evident from the time of the negotiations ofthe Emperor Anastas ius with Pope Hormisdas in 515, to the con secration of Gregory the Great as bishop of Rome in 590. This period, with some short intervals, is a period of reunion between East and West, on the basis of the acceptance both of the Tome of Leo and of the decisions of Chalcedon. The reunion of the Churches was actually accomplished in 519, and it led 134 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES up to the great work of the united Church under the political leadership of Justinian — the central fact of the century. This again led, through the reconquest of Italy, the growth of monasticism, and the conversion of the Lombards, to the triumph of the Roman See, which was inaugurated by Gregory the Great. Four divisions natur ally suggest themselves in the treatment of the period, according as the history of theo logical development is concerned with (i) Arianism, (2) Monophysitism, (3) the Ori genists, (4) the controversy of the Three Chapters. (i) Arianism had long ago received its death-blow, but it died hard. So long as the East Goths ruled in Italy, the West Goths in Spain, and the Vandals in Africa, it was a State religion over a large part of the Roman world, enforced, as by the Vandals, with great severity. But even then the B|^> -' '^-;?^jTC|mH^^Hi|^^^^^^^HIB^B ii'mi. 1 -„..„-,.^^ W.' '^^MBMl^^BBBi ¦ 1 ^B^S^ff^^^ \ ]S^SSSB^^^^^^g^^/itilmKm '^lS i \ ' -^^^^S^B^^^m^^^' Kl fe .^' u M^HPl'^&ttii^ '• -gmiill^ i™. B^^^^^HS^B^^^' flf ^^^m y^^HHHRH^^D^^^^^E|^r tp- TiPBB5iy^ii r <'^ ¦j.fja.s: ^ i^daS^..^^B^M^'^Ktt, un «ISI V ^K / "^ '^^^KS^P^^iB'^^^^^^f^^^^f^ Kl ^Bm^^L.^ '^^w^w^n ^MBHajHBti ^nT^Miiji JiMfi nriww''** w^s^w^ i^ [.'^ ^^^^ " '""-^ Ezzz::^"""". . '±^1 ^r ^^¦yMdj0V^^K^^]^^B^lJ7^H^^^^^2^ — IW V ^^^r.H.M^ '" ^B^K^^ ^RHBs^^B^^^HI^I WI ^^^. r^r^^^pl 1 1 4 ^^^^^Hk^F ^h|^K9 ^ aS ^^^^^^^^^¦^^^ "^ ^g^.MiWS^I w ^^^^^^^^^BSiLr~ <^ t ¦'^ij* «««|^4-1BBHP*™ J ll '£a^ IJ^^'yHMBBP . f »i| I^^Ks--r^|^^^H|p||Hffi^n^|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|^^^P^^^Bnipp^ 1 I^^BnlAj^L!:^^y^"P '7>M{t^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^k^ j ¦; i^^^S^^^^^^^ " ''^' ^9 ; :SL 1^ ^^B9|^j^^^^'X>j7'^ttHr. >e^» M^BP^M^^^'jy'ti'J^^BHjMHMiMtf B^UH tfj ^fe^^^H^^HB|^^^^^^^^^H|^^R|^ti^'^^^'^^M^'~^''^'^'''''^^^^^^| 1 i ^^^^H^^^^^^^^^^^K^^::-' ^ •a, k fc.._ OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 37 greatest of Arian rulers had to choose his ministers from among the Catholic^ : if Theodoric slew Symmachus and Boethius, Cassiodorus stood at his right hand. As an opinion Arianism was dying ; the Church had formally condemned it, and no opinion long survived the formal condemnation of the Church. And the political forces of the age completed its destruction. On the one side the growth of the Prankish power, on the other the restoration of the imperial autho rity under Justinian, reduced it from an arrogant supremacy to extinction or a rare and secret survival. The Catholic population looked everywhere to the Roman Emperor. " His conquests, for which he had to thank in no small degree the Church and her bishops, destroyed not only the Goths and Vandals, but also the Arian creed." ' Arianism was indeed already a religion of ^ Dr. P, Jors, op. cit., p. 16. 138 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES the past ; but Monophysitism was for a great part of the sixth century strong in the present. (2) Under Anastasius, the convinced oppon ent of the Council of Chalcedon and himself to all intents a Monophysite in opinion, some slight negotiations were begun with Rome. In 515 legates from Pope Hormisdas visited Constantinople; in 516 the Emperor sent envoys to Rome; in 517 Hormisdas re plied, not only insisting on the condemna tion of those who had opposed Chalcedon, but also claiming from the Caesar the obedience of a spiritual son; and in that same year Anastasius, "most sweet-tempered of em perors," ' died, rejecting the papal demands. The accession of Justin was a triumph for the orthodox faith, to which the people of Constantinople had firmly held. The VTTO TU) Tra.vTwv /SacrtXecov Ty/ieptoTaTO), Joannes Lydus, iii. 26. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 139 patriarch, John the Cappadocian, declared his adherence to the Fourth Council : the name of Pope Leo was put on the diptychs together with that of S. Cyril ; and synod after synod acclaimed the orthodox faith. Negotiations for reunion with the West were immediately opened. The patriarch and the Emperor wrote to Pope Hormisdas, and there wrote also a theologian more learned than the patriarch, the Emperor's nephew, Justinian. "As soon," he wrote, "as the Emperor had received by the will of God the princely fillet, he gave the bishops to understand that the peace of the Church must be re stored. This had already in a great degree been accomplished." ' But the pope's opinion must be taken with regard to the condemna tion of Acacius, who was responsible for the Henoticon, and was the real cause of the severance between the churches. The ' Letter to Hormisdas, Mansi, Concilia, viii. 438. I40 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES Steps towards reunion may be traced in the correspondence between Hormisdas and Justinian, It was finally achieved on the 27th of March, 519. The patriarch of Con stantinople declared that he held the churches of the old and the new Rome to be one; and with that regard he accepted the four Councils and condemned the heretics, in cluding Acacius. Thus the Tome of Leo received a solemn confirmation from the whole Church ; the Two Natures were recognized in the "gene- ratio singulariter mirabilis et mirabiliter singularis," and East and West alike affirmed, " Qui enim verus est Deus, idem verus est homo, et nullum est in hae unitate mendacium, dum invicem sunt et humilitas hominis et altitudo Deitatis. Sicut enim Deus non mutatur miseratione, ita homo non consumitur dignitate. Agit enim utraque forma cum alte rius communione quod proprium est ; Verbo OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 41 scilicet operante quod Verbi est et carne exequente quod carnis est." ' The Church of Alexandria did not accept the reunion ; and Severus, patriarch of Antioch, was deposed for his heresy. There was indeed a considerable party all over the East which remained Monophysite ; and this party it was the first aim of Justinian, when he became Emperor, to convince or to subdue. It had, even in his own household, a supporter in the Empress Theodora, a disciple, it would seem, from early years of the Patriarch Severus.^ The divergence on this point was a matter of notoriety, and is severely commented upon by Procopius and Evagrius, the latter of whom attributes it to design (/car' olKovofiCav) . From the ^ S. Leonis Papse, ad Flavianum Epistola, cap. 2 and cap. 4. ^ Cf. Ddbidour, D Imp'eratrice Theodora, pp. 138 sqq., for an ingenious working out of this connection through Theodora's life at Antioch. 142 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES •first, Justinian applied himself seriously to the study of the question in all its bearings. Night after night, says Procopius, he would study in his library the writings of the Fathers and the Holy Scriptures themselves, with some learned monks or prelates with whom he might discuss the problems which arose from their perusal. He had all a lawyer's passion for definition, and all a theologian's delight in truth. And as year by year he mastered the intricate arguments which had surged round the decisions of the Councils, he came to consider that a rapprochement was not impossible between the Orthodox Church and those many Eastern monks and prelates, who still hesi tated over a repudiation which might mean heresy or schism. And from the first it was his aim to unite not by arms but by arguments. The incessant and wearisome theological discussions which are among OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 143 the most prominent features of his reign, are a clearly intended part of a policy which was to reunite Christendom and consolidate the definition of the Faith by a thorough in vestigation of controverted matters. Justinian first thought out vexed questions for himself, and then endeavoured to make others think them out. The first point to which the theological activity of the Emperor was directed was the smouldering controversy concerning the expression, " One of the Trinity suffered upon the Cross." ' This had two periods of prominence — in 519 and 533. It is a strange story. Monks from " Scythia," at war with their bishop, Paternus of Tomi, came to Con.stantinople with the generous and unsophisticated desire of reconciling the divisions of the Church by an addition to ^ 'Eva T^s ayias rpiaSos TreTrov^ei'ai crdpKi ; unum ex Trinitate crucifixum esse. 144 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES the Creed. It appears that the matter was referred to John II., patriarch of Constanti nople, and that a public discussion thereon was attended by Justin, Justinian, and five legates of the pope. No decision was arrived at : the legates said, " because it is not defined in the Four Councils, nor in the letters of the blessed Pope Leo, we can neither affirm it nor add it to the creed." The Scythian monks went to Rome to lay their wishes before the pope. Justinian himself asked the papal opinion on the phrase;' John Maxentius, one ofthe monks, defended his opinions ; ' the pope at first seemed willing to leave the decision to John of Constantinople, but soon preferred to discuss the question himself. A weary series of letters ensued, Hormisdas hesi tating, and Justinian urging him to a ^ Eight letters (Migne, Patr. Grcec, Ixiii.) are con cerned with this. ' Migne, Patr. Grac, Ixxxvi. (i) 75-78. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 45 decision.' The chief personal interest of this proljx controversy is to be found in the illustration it gives of the infinite pains which the young theological student, who was destined to be Caesar, gave to the elucida tion of the question which the monks had brought forward. He was setting himself as seriously to understand theology as he was to the study of law, of architecture, and of political and military problems. And still the pope lingered. Fourteen months passed by. Other eminent prelates, to whose decision, as well as that of Hor misdas, the question had been submitted, answered. The Vandal ruler in Africa, Thrasamund, had exiled to Sardinia thirty of the Catholic bishops. Fulgentius of Ruspe answered on their behalf that the ^ "Petimus ut nulla prsebeatur qua de tua quisquam possit ambigere voluntate, sed habentes prae oculis iudicium maiestatis supernae modis omnibus festinare dignemini." — Thiel, Epp. Rom. Pontif, p. 957. L 146 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES formula was admissible, but that it should run, " One person of the Trinity, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God." ' The pope thereat was less pleased than ever ; and the episode closed with some very harsh expressions bandied between his holiness and John Maxentius ; ^ and so the monks vanish from history with what a modern German writer calls a " Schwanen- gesang."^ And Hormisdas at last con descended to say that no further protest was necessary against the Eutychians and the Nestorians.* Several years later, in 533, the question was revived by the Vigilists * — a name given to the monks of a house near Constantinople, where prayers were never intermitted day ^ Migne, Patr. Lat., Ixv. 462. " Migne, Patr. Grcec, Ixxxvi. (t) 77 sqq. '^ Dr. August Knecht, Die ReligioHs-Politik Kaiser Justinians I. (Wurzburg, 1896), p. 85. Thiel, loc cit, pp. 959 sqq. ^ ' kKOLy.r)Tou OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. I47 or night — and Justinian, now Emperor, set himself, by the publication of an edict and by letterc to pope and patriarch, to bring the matter to a final decision. " If One of the Trinity did not suffer in the flesh, neither was He born in the flesh, nor can Mary be said, verily and truly, to be His Mother." The Emperor himself was accused of heresy by the Vigilists ; and at last Pope John II. declared the phrase, " One Person of the Trinity was crucified," to be orthodox. His judgment was confirmed by the Fifth General Council.' This tedious controversy may be regarded - — indeed, has been regarded ^ — as a triumph for the Emperor. At the first he had pierced to the heart of the matter when he 1 Mansi, Concilia, ix. 384. The phrase was preserved in the Hymn 'O/t^ovoycvrfs, which was inserted in the Mass, and the composition of which is ascribed to Justinian himself. See below, p. 190. ^ Knecht, op. cit., p. 89. 148 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES exclaimed to Hormisdas, "The strife seems only to turn on words ; as to the sense, Catholics are united." He learnt not to look to Rome for a decision. The pope would not, or could not, decree ; and the Emperor began to look, if he had not looked before, for the voice of the Church in a general Council. Of other consequences of the discussion I do not speak.' It may suffice to say that, from this date, Justinian, who always recognized the primacy of Old Rome among the Christian bishoprics, looked to the pope for confirmation of decisions otherwise arrived at, rather than for decisions origi nally issued. It seems that this attitude was accepted by Pope John II. " Most Christian prince," he writes, " in the glorious crown of your wisdom and piety there shines a star of peculiar light, to wit, ' See Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, ii. 37, 289, 383. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 149 that you, with religious zeal and Christian love, and intimately acquainted with eccle siastical doctrine, preserve the veneration of the Roman See ; that you make all things subject to it, and conduce to unity with it, that See to whose founder, the chief of the apostles, the Lord said, ' Feed My sheep.' . . . We have heard that, with apostolic zeal for religion, and with the assent of our brethren and fellow bishops, you have issued a decree to the faithful for the rooting out of false doctrines. See ing that this is consonant with the apostolic teaching, we confirm it by virtue of our office." It was only against the outposts of Mono physitism that these dogmatic decrees had been directed ; and the Emperor's pronounce ments against Nestorianism — though they are not unconnected with his attitude towards the Monophysites — are concerned I50 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES rather with a dying creed. Already Nes torianism, strongly though its supporters clung to it, had ceased to imply a serious divergence from othodoxy. Decrees were necessary, repeated anathemas were justified ; but the Nestorian Churches were already on the way to a practical — though, after thirteen centuries, they have not reached a formal — union with Catholic belief. From this time the reconciliation of the Monophysites became the object of Justinian's keenest desires. In the first year of his reign he had endeavoured, in a conference, to win the chief Monophysites to submission, but he had failed. Already from an opposite standpoint a similar attempt had been made, by the Scythian monks, and especially Leontius of Byzantium, who professed to accept the Council of Chalcedon, but at the same time, to emphasize those statements of S, Cyril, which the Monophysites claimed as OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 151 favourable to their views. Renewed atten tion was directed to the controversy by the elevation, in 535, of Anthimus, bishop of Trebizond, to the patriarchal See of Con stantinople. He was a friend of Severus, the semi-Monophysite patriarch of Antioch, whom Justin had deposed, and who was re siding at Constantinople under the favour of the Empress Theodora. The appointment of Anthimus was probably intended as an over ture of peace : he had not himself refused, as had Severus, to accept the decision of Chalcedon and the dogma of the " Two Natures." But events unforeseen at his consecration caused the scheme to fail. The mission from Theodahad which reached Constantinople in 535 was the means of ex posing the heterodoxy of Anthimus. At its head was Pope Agapetus, who had succeeded John II. at the end of 534, and had almost immediately entered into correspondence with 152 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES Constantinople. Justinian had expressed his anxiety for the conversion of the heretics, and in a letter written to the new pope immediately after his elevation, had declared his opinion that it would be wise that those bishops who became reconciled to the orthodox faith should be confirmed in their sees and should not be shut out from further preferment. The pope did not seem inclined to agree to any such bribe to conversion, and did not approve of the suggestion. Indeed he was not a man from whom, at such a juncture, conciliation might be ex pected,' He had heard of the suspected heresy of the new patriarch ; he was strongly opposed to translation from see to see. He demanded on his arrival that Anthimus should make confession of the Catholic faith. A tedious discussion ensued, in which the Emperor seems at first to have taken the ^ Du Pin, Eccl. Hist, vol. v. p, 31, (Edit, 1699,) OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 153 side of his patriarch. It resulted in the condemnation of Anthimus, not apparently by the pope, but by the Emperor, with the sanction of the pope and the approval of a synod.' Later Italian tradition, by an easily explainable error, regarded the pope as arraigning Justinian himself — " E prima ch'io all' opra fossi attento, Una natura esser in Cristo, non piue, Credeva, e di tal fede era contento. Ma il benedetto Agapito, che fue Sommo pastore, alia fede sincera Mi dirizzb con le parole sue. Io gli credetti ; e cib che in sua fede era Veggio era chiaro, si come tu vedi Ch'ogni contradizzion e falsa e vera." " The deposition was followed by an im perial declaration against the Monophysite leaders, Anthimus, Severus, Peter, and ' See Liberatus and the Liber Pont'ificalis. Hefele (iv,, p, 193) says cautiously of the deposition, that Agapetus " brought it about." Justinian speaks of it both as the work ofthe pope and as the work of the synod. ''- Paradise, canto vi. 13, sqq. 154 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES Zoaras. A decree, dated August 6, 536,' was addressed to the new patriarch of Constantinople, with an injunction to convey its message to the Eastern churches.^ It contains a short sketch of the heresy of the Monophysite leaders, and then, ratifying by the civil power the decision of Agapetus and the holy synod, it pronounces sentence of deposition and banishment. Within a month of the deposition, Mennas, head of the hospitium of Samson ^ at Con stantinople, was appointed to the patri archate and consecrated by the pope. The synod to which Justinian refers had been summoned to reconcile or condemn the ^ Migne, Pa/'n Grisc, Ixxxvi. (i) 1095 .f^^. The "Con sulship of Belisarius," by which it is dated, reminds one of the work that had already been done in other spheres. "^ Ibid., p. II 03. ^ This hospitium is described by Procopius, De Mdif., i. 2. It was rebuilt by Justinian, and stood between S. Irene and S. Sophia, probably close to where the Bab-i-Humayun now stands. See also Paspates, The Great Palace of Constantinople, pp. 67 sqq. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. I 55 Monophysite leaders. Agapetus died before it met, and Mennas presided over it.' It condemned the bishops and deposed them — Anthimus now losing even the See of Trebizond, — following and obeying, as Mennas declared, the decision of Agapetus, but recognizing that nothing could be done without the Emperor's knowledge and com mand.^ The religious interest of these years passed after this to Rome ; Monophysitism, directly, was not again the subject of long discussion. A few years later Justinian addressed to certain Egyptian monks a long dogmatic epistle on their rejection of the doctrine of the " One Nature." ^ The heresy took long to die; but the determination of ' Hefele gives its proceedings at great length. It was the local synod, crvVoSos ivSrjfwvcra, probably the synod which still meets regularly with the patriarch. ^ Mansi, viii. 980-84. ^ Dr. Knecht, op. cit., p. 18, dates this 543 or 542. 156 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES the Emperor and his insistence on argument and definition dealt it its death blow. The Church reaffirmed that the Divine and the Human Natures could not be so joined as to become one, composite and confused, (3) The third division into which the ecclesiastical history of the time naturally falls is afforded by the consideration of the attitude of the Church towards the (so-called) Origenists, It was in 531 that attention was directed at the centre of Church life, Con stantinople, to the prevalence of Origenist tenets, by the arrival of S. Sabas, abbat of the famous monastery of the Old Laura, to lay before the Emperor complaints of the spread of Origenist opinions. The monastery of the "New Laura'' was said to foster this teaching and to spread it throughout Palestine, S, Sabas died in 532, and the matter seemed to slumber for a while, Domitian, bishop of Ancyra, and OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. I 57 Theodore Askidas, bishop of the Cappa docian Caesarea, rose high in the Emperor's favour, yet both held Origen's writings in great veneration. Both had been monks of the New Laura : and while contests between the two monasteries were filling Palestine with the outcries of theological amenity, it was their aim to prevent the echoes of the strife from reaching the ears of the Emperor. His concrete and critical mind was not likely to sympathize with the Origenists. At last an appeal was made to the Patriarch Ephraim of Antioch, who held a synod in the year 541 or 542, which issued a decree condemning the "doctrinal propositions of Origen." ' The only imme diate result was schism between the two Eastern patriarchates, and Peter of Jeru salem struck the name of his brother of Antioch off the diptychs. ' See Hefele, iv, 216, 158 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES This, however — the question is extremely confused' — does not seem to have implied any sympathy with Origenism ; for after a short interval Peter sent representatives to Constantinople to bring a complaint before the Emperor against the Origenists. They were met on their way by Pelagius, the papal apocrisiarius,^ who had been sent by Justinian to investigate the charges against the Patriarch Paul of Alexandria. Pelagius strongly supported the envoys of the Patriarch Peter, being jealous, it has been suggested, of the influence of the New Laura in the Imperial Court.^ Mennas joined in the cry, and the immediate result was the issue of a declaration by the Emperor himself — long and painstaking, as ¦a^re all his theological pronouncements — ^ See Liberatus, Breviar., c. 23; Evagrius, iv, 38; firyce. Diet. Chr. Biog. ; Knecht, op. cit., pp. 119 sqq. ^ See p. 123. ^ Knecht, op. cit., p. ¦120. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 59 against Origen, with a specific condemna tion of ten propositions contained in his writings. He concluded his letter, which was addressed to the patriarch of Constanti nople, by advising him to hold a local synod to procure in writing a condemnation of these errors. It may be observed that the Emperor ^ " stated that he had written the same to the Patriarch Vigilius, the pope of Old Rome, as well as to the other holy patriarchs " — of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem — "that they might also take precautions in this matter." Here it may be said was Caesaro-papism indeed.^ ' I employ here the words of Hefele, that it may be clear that I use no anti-papal exaggeration. Councils, iv. 219. " Some have assumed with Baronius that this edict was drawn up with the authority of the Papal Legate Pelagius. But there is no evidence for this. Cf Hefele, iv. 220, who says, "It seems to me that we have here one of those many and great, even if well meant, Byzan tine encroachments, which does not disappear even when we assume that the Emperor acted in agreement with Mennas and Pelagius. i6g the church and the heresies The synod met and proceeded as the Emperor had directed. A letter of Justinian's, which many have thought was addressed to this Council, derives the errors of the Palestinian monks from Pythagoras, Plato, and Plotinus, referring but slightly to Origen. It is possible that this may mark reluctance to condemn one whom Theodore of Caesarea so strongly favoured ; but at least it is in utter contradiction to the edict: and Dr. Knecht's suggestion is plausible enough — that it was not written by Justinian at all, and might indeed be a "later sup plementary letter written by the Patriarch Mennas, and sent with his own letter from the Emperor to the bishops who were stay ing at Constantinople." ' The synod formally condemned Origen's * Knecht, op. cit., pp. 16-17. A most interesting argu ment. Many think that the letter was sent to the Fifth General Council. But see Hefele, iv. 221. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. l6l person — a precedent for the later anathemas of the Fifth General Council — and fifteen propositions from his writings, ten of them being those which Justinian's edict had denounced. The decisions were sent for subscription to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, as well as to Rome. This sanction gave something of an uni versal condemnation of Origenism ; but, since no general council confirmed it, it cannot be asserted that Origen lies under anathema as a heretic. The opinion of the legalists of the age was utterly out of sympathy with one who was rather the cause of heresy in others than himself heretical. But Origen was not " for ever condemned." ' The effects of the edict of this synod were "more violent than durable," for Origenist opinions — though their sup porters split into two sects — revived in full ^ As Dr. Knecht, p. 125, asserts. M l62 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES force as soon as the controversy of the " Three Chapters " arose.' (4) With the controversy of the " Three Chapters " and the session of the Fifth CEcumenical Council, the theological de velopment of the sixth century culmi nates. Many theological and historical interests centre round the years which were devoted to this contest, and much bitter sarcasm has been expended by some what superficial critics upon the dispute which threatened again to rend Chris tendom, and added new dogmas to the definitions of the Catholic Church. I have endeavoured elsewhere to estimate more ^ I do not enter here into the question as to whether the condemnation of the fifteen propositions, discovered by Lambeck at the end of the seventeenth century among the Vienna MSS., was really the work of the Fifth General Council. It is possible that it may still be reopened; but it seems to me conclusively proved (as, e.g., by Hefele, iv. 221 sqq.) that the condemnation belongs to this earlier, local synod. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 63 justly the service rendered by the great Church of Constantinople, and the Fathers of the Council, to the cause of progress.' Here it befits rather to trace the history of the controversy and examine its formal results. Justinian's vigilance with regard to Mo nophysitism had not slept since 536. He was still scheming to reunite the extremer section, the Akephali, to the Church.^ He was interrupted by a skilful project of Theodore Askidas, which was designed to restrain him from further action against the Origenists, and to procure a personal ven geance on Pelagius and the orthodox party. ^ Theodore began by assuring the Emperor that the Monophysite objection to the Council of Chalcedon was grounded on a ' Above, pp. 55-58. ^ See his tractate contra Monophysitas ; Migne, Patr. Grcec, xxxvi. (i) 1103 sqq. ^ Dr. Knecht calls it a " well-prepared, well-considered, and diplomatic move against the anti-Origenists." 1 64 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES fear that it countenanced writings of a Nestorian tendency. Among these he espe cially mentioned the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the letter of Theodoret of Cyrrhus against S. Cyril of Alexandria, and the letter of, or attributed to, Ibas, bishop of Edessa, to the Persian bishop. Maris. His intention was not only to secure the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose writings were much disliked by the Origenists, but also to weaken the authority of the Council of Chalcedon by condemning the writings of those whom it had seemed to acknowledge as orthodox. Against Theodore of Mopsuestia, the head of the Syrian school of theology, there was much to be said. He was the teacher of Nestorius; and the Nestorians relied on him as their chief doctor, claiming especially that he had never been condenimed. Theodoret, the most learned theologian of the school of OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 165 Antioch, had been a disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia,' " and if he did not go so far as he did, yet he had, in former times, frequently maintained that by the doctrine of Cyril and of Ephesus the natures in Christ are mingle i." He had defended Nestorius and attacked S. Cyril. It was the same with Ibas. His letter to Maris had attacked S. Cyril, and denied the com- municatio idiomatum. It was an onslaught on the Third General Council. All the three might not unreasonably be accused of Nes torianism, yet all three had died in seeming peace with the Church : and it is to be noted that at the Fourth General Council the papal legates had declared that, after the reading of his letter, they pronounced Ibas orthodox. This, however, was not regarded as a bar to their condemnation. Justinian again undertook a long theological investigation ; ^ Hefele, iv. 235. 1 66 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES and in the end he published an edict — pro bably in 544 — in which three chapters, r/jia Ke(f)dXaLa, or propositions, asserted the heresy of the incriminated writings. Within a short time the phrase " The Three Chapters " was applied to the subjects of the condemnation ; and the Fifth General Council, followed by later usage, describes as the "Three Chapters" the " impious Theodore of Mopsuestia with his wicked writings, and those things which Theodoret impiously wrote, and the impious letter which is said to be by Ibas." ' Once convinced of the heretical tendency of these writings, Justinian devoted himself with mar vellous assiduity to their conviction before the Catholic world. He issued a condemnatory edict, some fragments of which are preserved by Facundus of Hermiane, and others in the letter of the African bishop, Pontianus;^ a ^ Mansi, ix. i8i. •' Migne, Pat. Lat., Ixvii. 527, 852, and 995. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 67 defence of his condemnation ; ' a minute exposition of the heresy itself,^ and a letter on the same subject to the Fifth General Council.^ These documents illustrate the progress of a controversy which must now be briefly sketched. The edict was received with hesitation by the Eastern clergy. Mennas, the patriarch of Constantinople, expressly declared that his assent to it must be withdrawn if the pope's approval was not also obtained ; and many of the bishops professed to yield to com pulsion. The condemnation of the " Three Chapters " was very commonly taken to imply a censure of the Council of Chalcedon. The papal apocrisiarius, Stephen, Dacius of Milan, and some African bishops then in Constantinople, broke off communion with the patriarch. Nearly all the Latin bishops ^ Migne, Pat. Grcec, Ixxxvi. (i) 1041-1095. 2 Loc cit, 993-1035. ' Loc cit., 1035-1041. 1 68 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES rejected the edict; but after a while the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jeru salem signified their assent, and were followed by most of the remaining Eastern prelates. Yet for a time it seemed as if a new schism had arisen. The imperial edict was attacked and defended on all sides, and was exposed — as is so frequently the case with ecclesiastical documents — to the fiercest criticism, and received with the most stubborn opposition, before it had been thoroughly read, and long before the grounds on which it was based had been studied. Discouraged, it may be, by the general opposition, or, more probably, confident that an exhaustive examination by the recognized heads of the Christian churches would result in the acceptance of his asser tions, Justinian summoned the Pope Vigilius to Constantinople. The strange series of tergiversations which ensued may be very OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 69 briefly summarized.' " Vigilius (i) con sented to condemn the ' chapters ' by his 'Judicatum,' April, 548; (2) withdrew it in form, but took a solemn oath to do nothing in favour of the 'chapters,' August, 550; (3) refused to come to the Council as being predominantly Eastern, so that it was opened without him. May, 553 ; (4) issued his ' Constitutum ' censuring- Theodore's heretical language, but declining to anathem atize him posthumously, or to touch the honour of Theodoret or Ibas ; (5) and when his name had been erased from the ' dip tychs,' gave way under fear of exile, and accepted the condemnation of Theodore and his writings, of Theodoret's writings against Cyril, and of the letter of Ibas, December, 553, February, 554." Of this I speak elsewhere. Here the ' In the words of our most learned English Church historian. Dr. Bright, Waymarks in Church History, p. 237, note 2. I70 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES history of these years of wearisome contest may be passed by, and attention directed solely to the event in which the Church history of the time culminates, the session of the Fifth CEcumenical Council. Years were spent in preliminary discussions, and gradually it became clear that the dispute could only be ended and the truth defined by a General Council of the Church. In August, 552, the patriarch of Constan tinople died, and Eutychius was appointed in his stead. He sent, as was customary be tween patriarchs, a confession of faith to the pope on the Epiphany of 553, in which he declared his adhesion to the decisions of the Councils, and to the writings of S. Leo, and asserted the necessity for the submission of the question of the " Three Chapters " to a new Council. To this Vigilius agreed ; ' and Justinian proceeded to summon the assernbly. ^ Mansi, ix. 187. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 171 Hardly was this done before Vigilius with drew his assent, and rejecting the proposal that each patriarch should have the same number of representatives, kept apart from all the proceedings. On the 5th of May, 553, the Council met at Constantinople. The patriarch of Con stantinople presided, and the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch were present. The patriarch of Jerusalem sent three bishops to represent him. One hundred and forty- five other prelates attended ; and on the last day 164 signatures were affixed to the decisions. There was certainly a pre ponderant representation of the East ; but it was by no fault of the Emperor's that the Western Church was not as fully in evi dence. The attitude of pope and Emperor towards its sessions suggests a significant contrast. Vigilius refused to appear, de clared that the number of the Eastern 172 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES bishops was too large in comparison with the few Western prelates, and finally sent a statement of his views in writing to the Emperor.' He practically refused to re cognize the Council, which accordingly proceeded to act without him, and in its whole relation to his pretensions strictly followed the precedent of the four earlier Qicumenical Councils.^ Though the sitting began with the reading of a letter from Justinian — in which ^ he sketched the whole history of the controversy of the " Three Chapters " from its beginning, gave his reasons for opening it, and recommended the examination of the writings, — the Emperor seems to have exercised no other influence over the deliberations. There ^ Mansi, ix. 61. "" Cf Nic^a, Canon vi. ; Constantinople, Canons ii. and iii. ; Ephesus, Canon viii. ; Chalcedon, Canons ix. and xvii. " Mansi, ix. 178-184; Hefele, iv. 298 sqq. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 173 is every outward appearance of complete freedom and of untrammelled debate.' The first three sessions passed without further result than the repeated refusal of Vigilius to attend, and the compilation of a declaration of faith in the terms of the orthodox councils. The later sessions were devoted to an exhaustive examination of the " Three Chapters." The possibility of con demning men who had long passed from the earth, at which Vigilius had not unreasonably hesitated, was now admitted without hesita tion. And, indeed, there were not wanting recent precedents for such a course. Origen had been anathematized by the local synod of 543.: and Justinian himself appealed to another recent example, the condemnation of Dioscoros '-'after death, by the holy Roman Church."^ The acts of local councils, ^ On the acts of the Council, their authenticity, etc., see Hefele, iv. 288. ^ See Liber Pontificalis, 'D\ic\\tsnt, i, 283, 174 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES too, proved that Theodore of Mopsuestia had long been struck off the diptychs. Fortified by these considerations, and after an exhaust ive examination of the writings of Theo dore, the Council proceeded to endorse the first " chapter," by the condemnation of the Mopsuestian and his writings. The case of Theodoret was less clear : indeed a very eminent authority has regarded the action of the Council in his case as "not quite equitable." ' But the grounds of the con demnation were such statements of his as that " God the Word is not incarnate," " we do not acknowledge an hypostatic union," and his description of S. Cyril as impius, tmpugnator Christi, novus haereticus, with a denial of the communicatio idiomatum, which left little if any doubt as to his own position.^ When the letter of Ibas came ' Dr. W. Bright, Waymarks in Church History, p. 238. ¦' See Hefele, iv. 311. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. I 75 to be considered, it was plainly shown that its statements were directly contrary to the affirmations of Chalcedon, It denied the Incarnation of the Word, refused the title of Theotokos to the Blessed Virgin, and condemned the doctrines of Cyril. The Council had no hesitation in saying anathema. Here its work was ended. It had safe guarded the faith by definitely exposing the logical consequences of statements which indirectly impugned the Divine and Human Natures of the Incarnate Son. Modern criticism is sometimes a little hasty in con demnation of the action of this Council. It is said that it stigmatized the three bishops " a century or more after their deaths as suffering the punishment of everlasting fire." The Council was guilty of no judgment so rash, and no language so untheological. The formal denunciations of the Council say 176 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES no more than the repeated a.va.Qe[i.a eo-rw ' : and in answer to the letter of Justinian ask ing for the condemnation, they declared, " Damnamus etiam proscribimus Theodorum . . . quapropter effrenes haereticorum isto- rum linguas impiissimaque scripta ipsosque ad extremum in falsis suis opinionibus ac malitia perseverantes optimo iure patri mendaciorum diabolo annumerantes, dici mus 'Vadite in lumine ignis vestri et in flamma quam concepistis ' " ^ — a reference to Isaiah 1. which certainly passes no judgment on the eternal condition of the three bishops. So long as human progress is based upon intellectual principles as well as on material growth, a teaching body which professes to guard and interpret a Divine Revelation must speak without hesitation when its "deposit" is attacked. The Church has clung, with an inspired sagacity, to the reality of the ' Mansi, ix. 413. s /^^-^^^ ^g^^ OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 77 Incarnation: and thus it has preserved to humanity a real Saviour and a real Ex emplar. The subtle brains which during these centuries searched for one joint in the Catholic armour wherein to insert a deadly dart, were foiled by a subtlety as acute, and by deductions and definitions that were logical, rational, and necessary. If the Councils had not defined the faith which had been once for all delivered to the saints, it would have been dissolved little by little by sentimental concessions and shallow in consistencies of interpretation. It was the work of the Councils to develope and apply the principles furnished by the sacred Scrip tures ; and " whatever blemishes may be recorded of " them, " it is undeniable that the picture which their decisions presented to the world was the picture presented in the New Testament." ' ' Leighton PuUan, Lectures on Religion, p. 271. Cf A. J. Balfour, The Foundations of Belief, note, pp. 278-9. N 178 THE CHURCH AND THE HERESIES It was long before the true value of the decisions of the Fifth General Council was perceived by an united Christendom. Local jealousies and Western lack of accurate knowledge long interfered with their full acceptance. But eventually they were ac cepted by the Catholic Church ; and it re mained for modern Protestant rationalism to raise a new protest against them. Justinian has been declared to have forced upon the Empire which he had reunited the orthodoxy of S. Cyril and the Council of Chalcedon, and the attempt has been made to prove that Cyril himself was a Monophys ite.' The best refutation of this view is the perfect harmony of the decisions of the Fifth General Council with those of the previous oecumenical assemblies, and the fact that no novelty could be discovered to have been ^ Cf Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, pp. 395, 396, 399, etc. OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 179 added to " the Faith " when the " Three Chapters " were condemned. With the close of the Council the definition of Christian doctrine passes into the back ground till the rise of the Monothelete con troversy. When its decisions were accepted, the labours of Justinian had given peace to the churches. THE THEOLOGY OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. CHAPTER V. THE THEOLOGY OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. There are two ways in which the theological history of a period in the life of the Church may be studied. The process of definition may be traced in the action of authorized Church assemblies, in Church laws, and in accepted writings ; or one prominent person may be selected in whom the theology of the time appears to be adequately repre sented, and a close study of his writings will produce an intimate acquaintance with the leading ideas of the age. The first method has been adopted in the previous lecture. Of the value of the second, as supplementing in detail such a general 184 THE THEOLOGY OF summary as is obtained from a mere record of events, it is scarcely necessary to speak. The writings of S. Athanasius, S, Cyril, S. Augustine, sum up in different ways the predominant theological influences of their times. In the sixth century we do not go to a great ecclesiastic for a similar illustra tion. The age is by no means deficient in theological writers. A glance, for instance, at the eleventh volume of Remy Ceillier's Histoire gSndrale des auteurs sacrds et ecclesi- astiques will surprise those who are not very intimately acquainted with the literature of the century. There is certainly no lack of Church histories and of dogmatic or moral treatises. But it is not easy to find a churchman whose writings afford a com plete and, as judged from the standpoint of trained students of theology, an unbiassed exposition of the theological attitude of the Church in the sixth century. No JUSTINIAN, FROM THE MOSAIC AT S. VITALE, RAVENNA, THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 87 ecclesiastic, in fact, covers anything like the whole field. There is only one writer whose works can afford an adequate illustration, and he is the great legist and restorer of the imperial power, the Emperor Justinian, He who gave Arianism its death blow and overcame the Monophysite strife, who united Church and State together as no emperor before him had done, and while honouring the Roman primacy, yet allowed to it no encroachment on the liberty of the Church, achieved these great victories not by the coercion which it was in the power of emperors to employ, but because he was himself a close and unwearied student of the controversies which it was the Church's aim in his day to set at rest. No one so carefully and completely examined the press ing questions of the hour in the light of Holy Scripture and the ancient authors. That the conciliar decisions of the Church 1 88 THE THEOLOGY OF were in agreement with his conclusions was a tribute to his patient investigation, not to his material power. Several of the writings of Justinian have already been alluded to, but it will be well here to give a list of them. Besides his ecclesiastical laws, which must be sought for among the Novellae, and his earlier amendments, which can be discovered here and there in the Code (as in the Institutes),' his works fall into two classes. (I.) A series of letters, (II.) A number of dogmatic treatises, I, The letters include ten addressed to Pope Hormisdas, and concerned chiefly with the reunion of East and West after the Acacian schism, and with the phrase " One of the Trinity was crucified," ^ one to Pope John 1 1, ,2 another to Agapetus,* others ' See Chapter I, ^ All in Migne, Patr. Grcec, Ixiii. ' Migne, Patr. Lat, Ixvi. * Ibid. THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 89 to patriarchs of Constantinople, and others concerned with the Fifth General Council. II. His theological treatises are: (i) an edict against Origen, addressed to the Patriarch Mennas;' (2) his letter to the local synod of 543, the authenticity and the destination of which are questioned ; ^ (3) a tract against the Monophysites, addressed to Alexandrine monks ; ^ (4) a dogmatic epistle to Zoilus, patriarch of Alexandria, of which only a fragment remains; * (5) part(?) of a letter addressed to those who opposed the condemnation of Theodore of Mops uestia ; ^ (6) the edict against the Three Chapters, the second of those known to have been issued;® (7) an epistle supplementary to the above, concerning Theodore of ^ Migne, Patr. Grcec, cxxxvi. (i) 146-994. ^ See above, p. 162. ^ Migne, Patr. Grcec, Ixxxvi. (i) 1103-1146. * Ibid., 1146-1150. " Ibid., 1042-1096. " Migne, Patr, Grcec, cxxxvi. (i) 991-1035. I90 THE THEOLOGY OF Mopsuestia ; ' (8) a Greek hymn on the Incarnation.^ Among these writings three subjects of the first importance can be distinguished, Mono physitism, Origenism, and the " Three Chap ters ; " and it will be well to consider the dogmatic position assumed in relation to each. The dogmatic letter against the Mono physites may be briefly examined. Its object is thus explained : "In order that you may know the confession of faith to which, follow ing the Catholic and Apostolic Church, we hold fast, we have briefly drawn up the same in chapters, and make it known to you and through you to all those who in Alexandria and its neighbourhood have em braced the monastic life." ^ The Emperor begins by saying that he considers a right ^ Migne, Patr. Grcec, cxxxvi. (i) 1035-1042. ^ See on this Dr. Knecht, Religions-Politik Kaiser Justinians I., pp. 20, 21 ; and above, p. 147, note. ' Migne, Patr. Grcec, Ixxxvi. (i) 1141, THE SIXTH CENTURY. 191 confession of faith to be of primary im portance, and most of all to those who have adopted the religious life. He had learned from the blessed Archbishop and Patriarch Zoilus that they to whom he wrote had returned to the Church, recognizing that she teaches the truth and condemns every heresy. She rejects the heresies of Paul of Samosata and Nestorius, who, like the Jews, insanely denied the Divinity of Christ ; equally does she condemn the heresies of ApoUinaris and Eutyches, by which the true Humanity was denied. The letter is interesting in three respects. It expressly and in close theological language defends the Two Natures ; it defends the orthodoxy of S. Cyril, and shows that, as in his "second commentary to Succensus," he asserted the Swo (jivaets ; and it demonstrates in a very interesting critical argument the spuriousness of certain heretical letters which the extreme 192 THE THEOLOGY OF Monophysites — the Akephali — asserted to have been written by Pope Julius I. and S, Athanasius respectively.' The style of the tractate is throughout pre-eminently clear; it is the theology of one who is also a lawyer. Thus the distinction between substance and person (using the unsatisfactory English terms) is thus ex plained : " When we speak of God, we mean the One Substance of the Holy Trinity ; when we speak of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, then we declare the three Hypostases or Persons in the One Nature of the Godhead."' The This is an extremely interesting critical investigation, quite in the style of a modern scholar discussing the authenticity of a document from internal and external sources. In the case of Julius, he argues : (i) that the contents are utterly unlike the " semper eadem " theology of the Roman See ; (2) the form of writing is not that of the Roman bishops ; (3) the letter itself cannot be found among the Papal archives. Ore -yap eitto^cv ©eo'i', TTfv p,i.o.v oicrtav r^s ' dyi'as THE SIXTH CENTURY. 1 93 work as a whole shows clearly enough the lines on which the Church opposed the Monophysites. It upheld the doctrine of the Two Natures as being explicitly con tained in the Gospels and Epistles, as safeguarding alike the Divinity and the Humanity of the Lord, and as having been asserted by the Fathers of the Church long before the question was raised by the heretical teachers. The points in which the Church opposed the Origenists are less clear on the surface, and less vital ; nor can it be assumed that the judgment of Justinian has been justified by subsequent decisions. But the edict against Origen is well worthy of examination as an illustration of the theology of the age. It' has ever been his highest care, the TpiaSos 6apTov to tov Kvpiov awfia tAtytv ux>ai koi TWV (j)V(nKS)v nadbjv avt-n^iSiKTOV, koi oi!t(i)C iaOUiv irpb TOV ¦jradovc; Kat tt'ivuv KaQa Sr; (cat (lira to TraOo^. dXXa Kal tov ¦KaTpiap\i)v 'Evtv-^iov firj KaTaSiXOfuvov Tavra t^opl^it tv 'A/xamut, o6tv kol (lipfxr^ro. These are the words of Glycas ; but It Is obvious that no weight can be attached to writers of his date unless they are sup ported by contemporary testimony. It is surely a sign of the weakness of the case against Justinian that those who bring it THE SIXTH CENTURY. 21 t forward have recourse to authorities so inadequate. But have they no stronger support ? It cannot be asserted, I believe, that there are more than four contemporary writers who state, or imply, that Justinian became heretical. We have first a certain Eustathius, biographer and chaplain of the Patriarch Eutychius. His Life of Eutychius (born 512, died 582) is given by Aloysius Lipomanus {Vitae SS. Patrum, 1558, vol. vii. pp. 50 sqq.), by his editor and continuator Surlus,' and in the Bollandist^^/^ Sanctorum^ In both cases only in Latin. The Greek is given in the Appendix to the same volume of the Acta Sanctorum,^ " ex MS. Vaticano signato 1660, estque etiam Venetiis in Bibliotheca S. March" The book is an interesting one. Full of quaint and mystical ^ DeProb. Hist Sand., vol. ii. p. 547 ^M- ' April 6, Apr. vol. i. p. 548 sqq. ' pp. lix. sqq. 212 THE THEOLOGY OF matter. It leaves no part of the patriarch's life unadorned by scriptural quotation or edifying miracle. The statements of Eusta thius on this point are too long for quotation. Suffice it to say that he gives a prolix account of Justinian's action in favour of the heresy of the Aphthartodocetes and of Eutychius's banishment in consequence of his refusal to receive the edict in which the Emperor endeavoured to enforce the re ception of Aphthartodocetic opinions. The passage describing the heresy is worth quotation. "Hic' [Justinian] nescio quo authore et magistro coepit execrabilem ac detestandum et perniciosam opinionem ilia sub specie religionis probare, quae Domini nostri Jesu Christi corpus ex ipsa divinitatis conjunctione incorruptum asserebat. Quae quidem ut cancer serpens atque depascens totum prope orbem perdidisset, nisi noster ^ I use the Latin of Surius. THE SIXTH CENTURY. 213 Phinees antevertens restitisset." The de tailed description of the doctrine must be compared with that of a fourth authority, John of Nikiu.' Passages in support of his statement are nowhere to be found in Justinian's writings,^ which, as I shall show, explicitly contradict the doctrine. There is external evidence for the authenticity of this Vita Eutychii in the Middle Ages, but it is not, I believe, re ferred to by any early authority. " The Byzantine historians constantly made use of biographies of this kind without specifying their sources," says Mr. Bury.^ Certainly : and in the present case we find the statement of Evagrius recurring constantly in later writers, but I ^ See Appendix. 2 Cf Dr. Knecht, op. cit, p. 142. * Guardian, March 14, 1896, 2 14 THE THEOLOGY OF do not think we ever find the statement of Eustathius {Vita Eutychii) reproduced whether with or without reference to Its origin. The book is full of manifest fables and inaccuracies. Of the fabulous and miraculous element I will not speak, though it seems to me to surpass similar elements In most writings of the sixth century, and to bear comparison with the Anecdota of Pro copius, a book which, when unsupported by other evidence, I cannot think it possible to accept as a valid authority. It would take too long to go through the book and point out its Inaccuracies, even if I were able to do so. One instance, which seems noteworthy, I will give. The Vita states that Eutychius was sent by the bishop of Amasea, after the Fifth General Council had been summoned, and he himself a while after had fallen sick, to represent him at that Council ; and that he was seen by the THE SIXTH CENTURY. 215 Patriarch Mennas, who prophesied that he should be his successor, and sent a message to Justinian to that effect. But Mennas died in August, 552, and the Council was certainly not definitely summoned — though it is true, no doubt, that several bishops had assembled in Constantinople, from one cause or another — till some time after his death. Thus the statement of the Vita is improbable.' I will not presume to declare that the work of Eustathius is a forgery, but I do not think that any one would be much sur prised if the Life of Eutychius were shown to be a later hagiological work, drawn up by an ingenious manufacturer of legends for the edification and exaltation of the See of Con stantinople. The silence as to its existence in writers on the period of Justinian for centuries after its supposed composition does ' See Hefele, History of the Councils, English transla tion, vol. iv. pp, 286-8, 2l6 THE THEOLOGY OF not tell in favour of its authenticity. In any case, the book adds nothing material to the statement of Evagrius. Now Evagrius (536 to c 594) is an un doubted authority. We may make every deduction for his credulity, his inaccuracy, and his lack of order and arrangement, but still he remains a witness of the first im portance. It will be well, therefore, to quote the whole passage in which he treats of the subject.' I use the quaint translation of Meredith Hanmer, published in 1636— " At the selfsame time Justinian treading out of the way of true doctrine, and lighting on such a path as neither the Apostles nor the Fathers ever led him unto, fell among briars and brambles, with the which he pur posed to stuff the Church of God ; yet brought he not his will about, for the Lord, had fortified the highway with such strong ' Lib. iv. cap. 38, Migne, Patr. Graec, tom. 86, p. 2782. THE SIXTH CENTURY. 21 7 hedges that murderers could not leap over, as if — according to the prophecy — the wall had been broken down and the hedge broken. Wherefore, the same time when John, surnamed Cateline, was Bishop of Old Rome, after the death of Vigilius, John Sirmius of Constantinople, Apollinarius of Alex andria, Anastasius after Domninus of Theo- polis otherwise called Antioch, and Macarius now restored unto his proper see of Jeru salem, when the council after the deprivation of Eustochius condemned Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius, Justinian -wrote an edict " — to KoKoviJievov Trp6<; 'Pwjaatwv IZlktov ypd<^ei is the original — " wherein ( he affirmed that the body of the Lord was not subject to death or corruption, that it was void of such affections as nature engrafted, and were unblamable, that the Lord ate before His Passion in such sort as He did after Hi-s resurrection, that His most holy Body was 2l8 THE THEOLOGY OF nothing altered nor changed, either in the framing thereof in the womb or in the voluntary and natural motions, no, not after His resurrection ; unto which opinions he' purposed to compel bishops to sub scribe. But all they making answer that they expected the opinion of Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch, posted him off for the first time." To this he appends a description of the Patriarch Anastasius, and he states that on this occasion he wrote letters against Aphthartodocetism, proving clearly from the testimony of the Apostles and Fathers that the Lord's Body was subject to death, and addressed to the people of Antioch, bidding them stand fast in the faith. He thus ends (cap. 41) — " But the edict of Justinian, by the provi dence of God, which provided far better ' Was trying to compel, — Ko.T'-t]v6.yKa.lf., THE SIXTH CENTURY. 219 for US, was not issued; for Justinian, who threatened exile to Anastasius and his clergy, was suddenly taken himself, and when he had reigned thirty-eight years and eight months he departed this life." In these chapters of Evagrius I believe we have the origin of all the assertions of later writers, whether of the ninth or of the nineteenth century. It will be observed that he does not support the assertion that the edict was issued ; ' he expressly states that this was prevented by the Emperor's death. Now all admit Evagrius to be an authority of the highest value. Yet I think that he is inaccurate in many points ; and in a case like this a mistake seems to me to be very easy to make. Mr. Bury himself thinks that ' This is also denied by many writers. " Nessun critico diligente ed ingenno potrk credere ereticale I'editto di Giustiniano," — Tancredi, S. Ormisda e S. Silverio, p, 546. 2 20 THE THEOLOGY OF Justinian's heresy was "merely the scandal of a few months, which need not have spread beyond well-informed circles." ' Is it not conceivable that Evagrius may have been misinformed ? Was there no other matter upon which Justinian might have come into conflict with Anastasius of Antioch except. Aphthartodocetism ? I f such a series of events as Evagrius records had really happened, if Justinian was trying to compel bishops of the East^ to subscribe an heretical edict, and they put him off on the plea of consulting Anastasius, and Anastasius was moved to reply to Justinian — is it not extra ordinary that there should be absolutely no contemporary evidence (if we except the Vita, and that makes no reference to Antioch) to support Evagrius in his statement ? ^ Guardian, as above. ^ Evagrius says tous eKacrTa;^-^ tcjotts, i.e. bishops every where. He does not say " priests," as Hanmer represents. THE SIXTH CENTURY. 22 1 What has become of the letters which passed on this subject ? I have no space for a detailed criticism of Evagrius, but I cannot forbear to note an instance of his errors when writing of what he had actually seen with his own eyes. In the magnificent book of Messrs. Lethaby and Swainson on Sancta Sophia, they say of the measurements which he gives from his own observation with so much pride, that they are " so inaccurate that we do not profess to explain them." More over, I do not think it would be difficult to prove that he was occasionally in error as to the events that happened even in his own city. Surely, then, he may have been mistaken as to the cause of the correspond ence between Justinian and Anastasius ! At any rate the question is extremely difficult. John of Ephesus, who is well acquainted with events at Antioch, has no knowledge of this dramatic episode, 222 THE THEOLOGY OF though he is aware that Justin II. deposed Anastasius.' The case of Anastasius, however, does not stand alone. The fact that Eutychius was deposed from the patriarchate of Constanti nople is unquestionable. Victor of Tunis states it, though he gives no such cause for it as does the Vita. But if he was deposed for orthodoxy, it is strange that he should not have been restored when an orthodox sovereign came to the throne, and that he should have been replaced by a prelate whom no one asserts to have been an aphthartodocete. It seems to me far more probable that Eutychius was deposed for some support of Origen, of whose teaching Justinian was a bitter opponent, S, Gregory^ shows that Eutychius was an Origenist, That Eutychius was heretical on more ^ John of Ephesus, Eccl. Hist, p. 79. ^ Moralia, xiv. 29, THE SIXTH CENTURY. 223 than one point is asserted by several authori ties. It has been said by one of the latest writers ' on the subject that he was probably removed from his see on suspicion of heretlcally promoting the doctrine of the resurrection held by Philoponus, a philo sophic Origenist. John of Ephesus asserts that he originally followed the heresy of Paul of Samosata, and afterwards denied the resurrection of the body.^ If this sug gestion will explain the banishment of Eutychius, and help us to understand the mistake into which the writer of the Life, whatever his date, may have fallen, is it not possible that some similar mistake may have misled Evagrius ? I confess it seems to me very likely that the discussion at Antioch was over some side of the interminable con troversy of the " Three Chapters," and much ^ Knecht, op. cit, p. 143. ^ Eccl. Hist, pp. 147, 149. 2 24 THE THEOLOGY OF more probable that Evagrius should be confused over such a very confusing subject, than that a trained and obstinate theologian should change his mind — without any reason that we can guess at — at the age of eighty, and adore what beforetime he burned.' ' I think the question of probability really must come into a matter of this kind. " What," says Professor Bury, " would Mr. Hutton have said if Justinian had been a consistent aphtharto docete to the end of his reign and had then been con verted to the orthodox view ? Would that change also be ' inherently improbable to the last degree ' ? " I spy here what Ralph Robinson called " a nipping taunt " against poor theologians — " theological insects " Gibbon called them — but I will answer the question with perfect candour. I should consider it most im probable that a consistent and devoted adherent of an opinion which he had defended in elaborate treatises, showing a perfect appreciation of his opponent's case, should change his mind late in life. But I should not consider it so improbable that a heretic should become orthodox as that an orthodox theologian should become heretical — for the same reason that I should consider it improbable that a great judge would proclaim bad law when he grew old. The fact that the general judgment THE SIXTH CENTURY. 225 Surely in cases such as the one before us arguments ex silentio are valid. Should we expect to find writers of the seventeenth century declaring that Oliver Cromwell was not a strong High Church Anglican ? The fact, that every writer, as I believe, of the sixth century, except Evagrius, and one other to whom I shall presently allude, asserts again and again that Justinian was a pillar of orthodoxy, and asserts this, so far as I can judge, in works written at every period during his life and after his death, still seems to me strong evidence that he did not become an aphthartodocete. Mr. Bury would say that his fall into heresy was known of those who study the question consider the Aphtharto docete position untenable, while practically all trained theologians accept the orthodox view, makes it to my mind more probable that a student of theology, starting from an unsound position, should grow into orthodoxy than that an apparently convinced opponent of Aphtharto docetism should turn round and accept heresy. 2 26 THE THEOLOGY OF to but few. This hardly agrees with his belief that Evagrius, and the " bishops " he refers to, knew it. Why is there no evidence from anyvi^here but Antioch ? And if Justinian really did depose the patriarch of Constantinople because he would not become an aphthartodocete, why have we no other statement of the fact but that of an enthusiastic biographer of the patriarch, who attributes to him almost every power, natural and supernatural, known to the imagination of man, and, knowing he was banished, has to account for it without saying anything to his discredit, and a heretical foreigner who clearly blunders in his facts ? ' It seems probable, indeed, that the Patri arch Eutychius was not regarded as orthodox by the orthodox, or he would have been restored to his see by the orthodox Justin, and not suffered to wait till John, who is ¦^ John of Nikiu. See Appendix. THE SIXTH CENTURY. 227 asserted to have been uncanonically intruded into his see, died after twelve years' occupancy. Victorof Tunis was probably in Constantinople at the time, and he is ready enough to cast stones at Justinian ; but he is quite unaware that Eutychius was banished for his orthodoxy. So far Eustathius and Evagrius. But there is other evidence which points against the orthodoxy of Justinian. Among the letters of S. Nicetius, bishop of Trier, exists an epistle which is stated by its editor to be addressed to Justinian for the purpose of weaning him from his heresy.' It is an exceedingly rhe torical appeal, full, there can be no doubt, of deep feeling. It bitterly bewails a lapse into heresy, and a persecution even to death of "fathers beforetime venerated." It makes, however, not the slightest allusion to Aphthartodocetism. It alludes to Nestorius ' In Hontheim, Historia Diplomatica, i. 47, 48 ; also Freher, Hist. Franc, i. 89. Cf John of Nikiu (Appendix) 228 THE THEOLOGY OF and Eutyches ; it appeals to the judgment of Him "Whom you have deprived of His honours and made a mere man." ' Its whole tone, in fact, is one of condemnation of an heretic who had espoused an error long recognized and long condemned by the Church. Now, it is inconceivable that Aphthartodocetism could be considered Jo make of Christ "a mere man." It declared that His body was impassible, incapable of suffering- or death. It denied an essential characteristic of the Lord's Humanity ; itwas an extreme form of Monophysitism ; but Nestorian it certainly could not be. However this may be, we must take the difficulties of the letter as we find them, and if it is clear that it was addressed to Justinian by a man who knew what he was writing about, it goes a long way to complete a ^ "Quod si non feceris sit index ille inter nos et te; sed quantum citius cui tu honores tulisti et purum hominem fecisti," etc. THE SIXTH CENTURY. 229 proof of the Emperor's heresy. But it is palpably absurd to charge Justinian with Nestorianism, and that in itself would be evidence that the writer did not know what he was writing about. It is just possible that the letter may really have been addressed to Justin II., who certainly engaged in perse cution. But, as it stands, it tells to some extent against Justinian, in so far as it shows that he was believed by a contem porary Prankish bishop to have fallen into heresy. It remains only to sum up the arguments on the other side. Firstly, it is clear that Justinian had long been acquainted with the Aphthartodocete position, and had condemned it. During the early part of his reign he had dealt severely with both divisions of the Monophysites, with the Aphthartodocetae, as well as those nicknamed Phthartolatrae. On 230 THE THEOLOGY OF this point it may suffice to quote a few passages from his own writings, which seem to be conclusive as to his condemnation of the Monophysite error in the aspect in question. In the Confessio rectae fidei adversum tria Capitula ' we find — "O0EV l'^ kKUTipac; v(jer]a-€v, e-upaiv€TO Itti rots yeyovociL (sc. the death of Arius), says Socrates (i. 38). And there is all the difference in the world between Constantine and Justinian. The former was certainly not deeply in terested in nice points of theology ; the latter positively revelled in them. ^ Mansi, vol. xi. 2 Migne, Patr. Grace, tom, 147, lib, xvii, c. 31, THE SIXTH CENTURY. 235 And the whole council received and approved his letter. Throughout the Acts of the Council, whenever Justinian is mentioned, it is with some such phrase as "6 t-^s ^et'as X-/j^e&)9." It is difficult to believe that reverence such as this should have been paid, as it was paid century after century to the memory of the great Caesar, if he had died in heresy, and not at peace with the Church. Nice phorus tells how he was yearly commemorated in the sacred offices at S, Sophia and in the Church of S, John at Ephesus, Among the Latins, too, his memory was reverenced by the whole Church. At Ravenna the gorgeous mosaics in S. Vitale and the curious portrait, also mosaic, at S. Apollinare Nuovo remain as glorious memorials of the orthodox Emperor. The judgment of Dante, too, represents far more than an individual opinion. He would never have placed in Paradise one who died by his own heretical 236 THE THEOLOGY OF choice at enmity with the Catholic faith. And it is no ordinary glory which Justinian wears in the verse of the immortal seer. Even in the melodious movement and tran scendent joy of the Paradiso he is conspicuous among the saints. He stands like the sun in his strength hiding himself in excess of light— " Sl come'l Sol, che si cela egli stessi Per troppa luce, quando il caldo ha rose Le temperanze de' vapori spessi ; Per pill letizia sl mi si nascose Dento al suo raggio la figura santa." ^ I do not ask that the judgment of history should be reversed by an appeal even to the noblest of poets ; but I claim that we have no sufficient ground for depriving the great legist and administrator of his laurels as a life-long defender of the faith. Some have avoided one of the diffi culties by asserting that the Emperor ' Paradiso, Canto V,, 1, 133 sqq. THE SIXTH CENTURY. 237 repented of his error before his death,' but of this there is no evidence what ever. In spite, then, of the consensus of historians I plead for a reopening of the question, and I still claim that we cannot state on purely historical grounds that Justinian became an Aphthartodocete. The evidence for the statement is that of " the two testimonies," says Mr. Bury, " of Evagrius and the Vita Eutychii" The second of these seems to me not to stand the test of criticism ; the first seems to me, valuable though the witness of its author be, insufficient of itself to prove that the Emperor became heretical. The undated ^ and vague letter of Nicetius is powerful, but not absolutely conclusive evidence, for if it is powerful evidence for heresy, it is for a ^ See Vita Joannis IIL, Migne, Patr. Lat, Ixxii. p. 10, note. 2 The various editors date it 563 or 565, according to their conclusions as to Justinian's heresy. 238 THE THEOLOGY OF heresy contradictory to that expected by the other writers. I think it cannot be denied that the general judgment of later ages was that he was orthodox. I do not think the evidence for the prosecution is strong enough to obtain a conviction. In all this argument I may seem, perhaps, to have used something of the methods of the "special pleader." If I am justly open to this charge, it Is because I believe that the arguments against the received view have never yet been fairly stated. It is no arriere pensde which makes me hesitate to convict Justinian : it is the extreme difficulty of reconciling a conviction with the repeated assertion of contemporary historians and the affirmations of orthodox prelates and councils. One possible explanation of the difficulty may be tentatively suggested. Aphtharto docetism in some of its aspects was not THE SIXTH CENTURY. 239 far removed from orthodox belief While Julian of Halicarnassus affirmed that the Body of Christ was incorruptible, and from this his opponents drew the inference that the Humanity was unreal, his opponent Severus regarded the Lord's Body as subject to the general laws of corruptibility, which affect all material substances, but subject only to these natural conditions when and as He willed. Neither asserted that the Body of the Lord had seen corruption ; but the one asserted very strongly a doctrine which would destroy the reality of the Incarnation. Justinian may have seemed — from some writing perhaps which we have lost — to approach too near to the opinion of Severus. Exaggerated reports may have been spread, and distant bishops have taken alarm. Nicetius, ignorant as his letter would seem clearly to show that he was, would appeal to his "honoured lord. 240 THEOLOGY OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. the dear Justinian," to remove the reproach which, after all, may never have been deserved. Be that as it may, I must be content to leave the question, as I believe, unsolved, I do not believe that we have yet full proof either way ; but if that proof ever comes, I should be more surprised to find that it made certain the heresy than that it confirmed the orthodoxy of the greatest Greek theologian of the sixth century. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. R CHAPTER VI. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. The sixth century is the great age of the new Byzantine art. From the time of Constantine, and still more clearly from that of Theodosius, art, unlinked from the traditions of the old culture, had found a new life. It now claimed a universal ex tension. As the barbarian races confirmed their sway in the West, they replaced it, between the eighth and the tenth centuries, by their own system of ornament ; but in the East it held, and still holds, the field. A word must be said as to the origin of this style, so impressive and permanent, whose grandest memorials are associated with the Church of the sixth century. 244 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY, The beginnings of Christian art coexisted with the remains of the art of the ancient world. They were marked by the general characteristic of a simple and childlike symbolism. All over the Christian world the same ideas were worked out in decora tion, with an obvious similarity, but some local distinctions,' The art thus produced was distinctively Christian, but it was not vigorous or enduring. After the fourth century it begins to fade, and finally disap pears, lingering only, as art critics tell us, in the medieval Coptic art, Byzantine art is a new development. It takes up and continues the ideas of the great artists, and assimilates with them the earliest Christian tone and sympathy,^ 1 See YiVdins, Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Archi tecture. "^ Strygovski calls this new Byzantine art "historisch- dogmatisches," Byzant. Zeitschrift, i, (1892), 65, It is from this article that much of this introduction is taken. The THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 245 It began with the founding of Constanti nople; it reached its highest point when the world under Justinian looked to Con stantinople as the centre of Christendom. The great city, the home of law and govern ment, commerce, and the Orthodox Faith, had become the rallying-point of the new Christian world. Far more important than Alexandria in Hellenistic times, than Rome in the fourth century, Constantinople since Theodosius had stood without a rival as the leader of the new movement in art. Since the fourth century the new Rome was the universal heir of all ancient and early Christian art. Romans, Greeks, Alexandrines, men of Syria and of Asia Minor, congregated at the seat of empire, and contributed their intellectual powers and their artistic traditions. Not only this, but it has been pointed out that chief points, however, were anticipated by Mr, Freeman as early as 1849 {History of Architecture, p, 166 sqq.). 246 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. the material, coming in abundance from the marble quarries of Proconnesus, gave the possibility of an independent future at least for architecture and for sculpture. The plenty and the nearness of material gave freedom to the work. The first emperors at new Rome were also great builders, and their work was carried out under the impetus of a new re ligion. The new religion is the mother of a new art. At Constantinople, again, there was no tradition, as at Rome ; the new settlers brought each their different traditions, and a new style resulted from the convergence. The new style took up the latent powers of the ancient art and developed them ; and having so done, it spread over the whole extent of Justinian's empire. The art of the sixth century was decisively the art of Constantinople. The characteristic features are found all along the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea— In Asia THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 247 Minor, the Crimea, Syria, Palestine, at Alexandria and Tunis, as well as in Greece and Italy. If the Constantinople of Justinian gave laws and religion to the world, no less certainly did it give art. In a brief examination of the art of this period, it is thus clear that the chief illustra tions must be taken from Constantinople ; and this is so, not only because it was the mother-city, but also because there still remain there more memorials of that age than anywhere else. And what Constan tinople is for the East, Ravenna Is for the West. As the capital of the Gothic kingdom, and then of the Imperial Exarchate, it was the centre of the influence which the imperial restoration exercised in Italy. Rome, in art as in everything else, with its great memories, must stand apart. All ages have passed over it, and none has left an over mastering impression. The same is true 248 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. in a less degree of Constantinople. But Ravenna, in its greatest features, is the creation, and the unique survival, of the sixth century. This distinction, however, must be noted at starting between the two cities as we now examine them. Ravenna retains a far greater proportion than Constantinople of the churches of the earlier stage of Christian architecture. The sixth century is the age in which the domical style — that in which the distinguishing feature of the church Is its dome or series of domes — replaces the basilican, in which the old Roman design lingers without substantial modification. Both Ravenna and Constantinople show the transition ; but Ravenna preserves many more remains of the earlier form. In Ravenna, then, we see the new Christian art before it had received the impress of the newer style which had been elaborated THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 249 by Anthemius of Tralles and Justinian at Constantinople. At Constantinople there remain few in deed of the basilicas that existed before Justinian's time. His zeal for restoration removed some. Time and the Turks have destroyed others. Putting aside two or three about which I am doubtful,' after an inspec tion, there remain two of the first importance. The Church of S. John of the Studium,^ ' E.g. S, Thekla (Toklou Ibrahim Dedeh Mesjid) and S. Theodore of Tyrone (Killiseh Djami) both have basilican features, but have undergone much trans formation. The Church of S, Mary iv -Trrjyy (Balukli), still Christian, shows probably no features of this date. Procopius's description of the site {.tEdif,, i. 3) is as true to-day as when it was written: "In the place which is called the Fountain, where there is a thick grove of cypress trees, a meadow whose rich earth blooms with flowers, a garden abounding with fruit, a fountain which noiselessly pours forth a quiet and sweet stream of water — in short, where all the surroundings befit a sacred place." It is now Mir Akhor Djami, on a hill to the west of the Psamatia railway station. 250 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. built in 463, lies in the Psamatia, in a district largely inhabited by Christians. It is a basilica with two aisles and a narthex, and has still, in spite of many alterations, much of the old work left. It is more nearly square than Western basilicas. The columns of the narthex have richly worked entablatures. The gallery is now without a floor, but the whole even now is a satis factory example of the early Byzantine basilica, S, Irene is more important. It was re built by Justinian in 532, and buttresses were added after the earthquake of 740, but without alteration of its original design in either case. It is very briefly alluded to by Procopius,' as built by Justinian to decorate the harbour. It is still the nearest church to the Seraglio point, though the later buildings now obscure the view. Of the interior of this I must ^ De ^dif, i, 7, THE CHURCH OF S. IRENE, THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 253 speak simply from descriptions and photo graphs. It can only be seen by an irade from the Sultan, and though the British Ambassador most kindly applied for one for me, it was not obtained. The outside, however, gives a fair idea of the proportions of the building. It has never been turned into a mosque. It lies east and west, has a narthex opening into an atrium (as had S. John of the Studium), and two aisles covered by galleries. The dome rests upon a drum lighted by twenty windows. Its gal leries still stand, and, says Mr. Grosvenor, the latest authority,' " numerous pictures in fresco and mosaic remain intact and undisturbed. Over the altar spreads an immense and unmutilated cross." These two churches remain to perpetuate the style of the period before Justinian's greatest w^orks gave a new impetus to ^ Constantinople, vol, ii, p. 477, 254 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. architecture. Of one other, of great his torical interest, which has wholly perished, a description is preserved by Procopius. This is the Church of S. Peter and S. Paul, which was joined to the still standing Church of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus. They were similar, says Procopius, in magnificence. " In one respect alone they differ — that the one is built longitudinally, whereas the columns of the other for the most part stand in a semicircle. The portico at their entrance, is common to both, and from its great length is called narthex " ' {f.e. a reed). I infer from this that the church now destroyed stood where the railway now runs, between S. Sergius and S. Bacchus and the palace of the Emperor. It is of a special interest to find that it was ^ De yEdif., i. 4. The now closed door of the destroyed church can be seen at the south of the narthex. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 255 joined to the church in which the new style, perhaps for the first time, showed itself. The same form of apse is to be observed in the still standing example of the latter as in S. John of the Studium and the two Ravenna churches which I have now to mention. Seen from outside it is polygonal, from within semicircular.' The Constantinople scheme of this date differs in design little If at all from the Italian. This applies also, I believe,^ to the remaining churches in the Balkan peninsula and Greece proper. Only the galleries, a specially prominent feature in the Eastern churches, show a noteworthy difference from the Ravennate plan. At Ravenna we can trace the steps by which the architecture of the sixth century ^ Cf Kraus, Geschichte der christlichen Kunst, p. 302. 2 Cf Kraus, op. cit, p. 341. He adds that " of any specially Byzantine style in these basilican buildings there cannot yet be any question." 256 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. attained its full development. In the magnificent remains of early Christian architecture, which that desolate and sombre city preserves, four stages may be traced. There is the work of Galla Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius, and wife first of Athaulf the Goth and then of Constantlus; the work of Theodoric himself; the work of Justinian's day, undertaken by Julianus Argentarius ; and the later work of the same century. In the earlier work no divergence from the type common in the East at that date is to be traced. The dome of S. Nazarius and S. Celsus (mauso leum of Galla Placidia) is like the dome of S. Irene. The ground plan of S. Apollinare in Classe is not unlike that of S. John of the Studium. Like the two Greek basilicas, those at Ravenna are simple to meanness without ; within they glitter with mosaics and shine with marbles, as, Procopius tells us, THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 257 did the basilicas which his master beautified. Built though they were when the Goths ruled, nothing of barbarian Influence is to be seen at Ravenna, nor yet of originality, save perhaps in the towers, of which those of S. Francesco and S. Apollinare in Classe are the most interesting ; but characteristic features there are, such as the impost between the capital and the spring ofthe arch, which are worth detailed comparison with the work in S. Sophia and in S. Sergius and S. Bacchus, and in the cisterns, most of all, I think, in that called Yeri Batan Serai.' In the sea near Justinian's palace there lie many beautiful marble capitals. These, I cannot doubt, once belonged to the Church of S. Peter and S. Paul. They greatly resemble the work at Ravenna. The new impost capital is 1 Even more than in the Bin Bir Derek (the famous 1001 columns). See illustration in Grosvenor, i. 366 and 371. Cf Curtis, Broken Bits of Byzantium, ii. 30. 34- S 258 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. probably first found at Byzantium,' but within a few years It is to be found also at Ravenna, and then gradually over the whole Roman Empire. " We have referred before to our belief" say Messrs Lethaby and Swainson, in their splendid book,^ " that Constantinople was a working centre from which sculptured marbles were distributed to all parts of the Roman world. . . . We suppose that, as white marble had to be bought in any case, the custom grew up of obtaining the capitals fully wrought. Importation was, of course, a general antique practice in regard to figure sculpture, columns, and other objects of marble. Proconnesian marble seems to have been the common stone of Constanti nople, so that it Is used for the columns and capitals of the cisterns. We believe that careful examination of the capitals ^ Cf Lethaby and Swainson, S. Sophia, p. 249. ¦¦' Op. cit., pp. 255, 256. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 259 at Ravenna, Parenzo, and other Byzantine centres, will show that they are in the main of this material." Strygovski' regards this impost-capital as the invention of the builder of the great cistern, -ft'ho he thinks may have been Anthe mius, here proving his fitness for the great work of S. Sophia. It was, he shows, an architectural revolution. The capital, with undercut volutes, was suitable for a straight architrave, but not for the arch. Hence a piece was inserted to transfer the weight from the angles to the centre. The Theo- dosian age used an inserted impost. The constructive activity of the age of Justinian produced the impost-capital. As to design, the capitals lying neglected about the city, together with those in situ in the churches and cisterns, furnish a perfect museum of the types with which others, ' Byzant Zeitschrift, i. 69. 26o THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. dispersed over the whole area of the Empire, agree in the minutest particulars of design and workmanship. The acanthus leaves, so familiar through all the work of these cen turies — from the Golden Gate (388) onward, and in the portico to S. John of the Studium a century later — assume the beautiful " wind blown " design in the ruins near the " Rose Mosque," and in S. Apollinare in Classe.' There are also at Ravenna some of the same design, and bearing the monogram of Theodoric. Leaving the earlier work, of the age of Theodosius, we must notice at Ravenna the two great basilicas of the sixth century. The first is S. Apollinare Nuovo, erected in 500 by Theodoric ^ for the Arian worship, and dedicated to S. Martin. It has now no ' See Curtis, op. cit., ii. 54, 56. ^ '' Theodoricus rex hanc ecclesiam a fundamentis in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi fecit " (Agnellus, Lib. Pontif.). THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 26 1 longer its atrium or its apse ; but the nave, with the twenty-four marble columns which divide it from the aisles, still remains in much of its old beauty. Still more mag nificent is the deserted church of S. Apolli nare in Classe, " the best preserved early Christian basilica in Italy." ' This, again, is a nave and two aisles and a splendid apse, with twenty-four columns of green and white marble supporting the arches. It was begun by Julius Argentarius in 534, and consecrated by Bishop Maximianus in 549. Here, where internal details of impost and capital closely resemble the work at Con stantinople, the exterior, of later date than the Byzantine basilicas, is far more inte resting and impressive. The upper story is ornamented with arcades in relief, for here " the lighting of the interior by windows in the upper walls of the nave " ^ is abandoned ; ^ Kraus, op. cit, p. 33 r. ^ See Baldwin Brown, From Schola to Cathedral, p. 1 18. 262 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. the west has a vestibule with arcades of columns ; and the impressive tower, pierced by a few narrow windows, adds dignity to the solemn church. These splendid memorials of the early sixth-century building are not the only illus trations which Ravenna affords of the basilica of this date. In the mosaics of S. Apolli nare Nuovo is given a representation of the Civitas Ravenn\atensis\, including a basilica with an extremely high nave and a porch and an apse, and large clerestory windows for lighting the interior. It is not im probable that this may be Intended for S. Apollinare Nuovo itself Next to it is a round church with a dome. This may pos sibly be the building which serves decisively to link the art of Ravenna to that of Con stantinople, the Church of S. Vitale, ^ Kraus, op. cit, p. 279, apparently thinks this pos sible. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 263 S. Vitale has been very generally con sidered a work of distinctly Byzantine origin. This, however, as regards its historical foun dation, is incorrect. It is not a work of the imperial restoration, but was begun at the instance of Bishop Ecclesius (524-534), and perhaps while Theodoric still lived. It was built ' under the direction of Julianus Argen tarius, after the bishop had been on a ' Agnellus, Lib. Pont. Rav. It should be observed that the dome " is entirely composed of earthen pots, and protected by a wooden roof It is true these pots have been used in the East for domes and roofs from the earliest ages, and form as stable and as permanent a mode of covering as stone itself, and might easily be so used as to surpass the heavier material for this purpose. But such is not the case here ; and though it is hard to blame what has stood the wear and tear of thirteen centuries, and seen the fall of so many of its younger and more aspiring rivals, still the construction of this dome serves to show how excellent the expedient is rather than how it should best be apphed " (Fergusson, Illustrated Handbook of Architecture, vol. ii. p. 513). This seems to me to tell against the author's idea that " there is nothing at all to justify the title of Byzantine usually applied to this church," 264 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. mission to Constantinople. The marbles, columns, designs In detail, are similar to those at Constantinople. That the main scheme itself had a similar origin is not im probable. It was unquestionably completed during the period of the imperial power, as Its mosaics show, and it was consecrated by Maximianus in 547. It was thus finished twenty years after the church which it so greatly resembles, the still standing memorial of Justinian's salvation from a plot in the days of Anastasius, the Kutchuk Aya Sofia, as the people call it — little S. Sophia — the Church of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus. The chief feature of S. Vitale is its central dome, round which are seven semi-domes, one side opening on an apsed choir which stretches its polygonal end beyond the circuit of the building. The superstructure of the inner building is formed by pillars united by arches. In the dome are eight windows, each THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 265 divided into two round arched lights. The effect of the interior is extremely striking, marred though it is by hideous seventeenth or eighteenth century painting of sham ar cades, and though the unity of the scheme Is broken by the choir. In spite of those who deny the Byzantine influence, it is impossible to help observing the similarity of this to S. Sergius and S. Bacchus,' This has the Byzantine feature of a structural narthex — not, after all, so unlike the porch of S, Vitale — and the ground plan of the atrium, with its fountain, is most probably, I think, preserved by the Turkish houses and gardens which lie close to it across the path to the west. The internal arrangement is almost exactly the same as that of S. Vitale; the central dome, and even the 1 Cf. Bury, Later Roman Empire, vol, ii. p. 45. note 2. No similarity certainly exists between S, Vitale and S. Sophia, though writers such as Gerspach {La Mosdique, p, 59) assert it. 266 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. windows of the apse, the galleries and the columns on which they rest, have a very close resemblance. It too has suffered In dignity from the horrible painting by the GROUND PLAN OF S. VITALE, RAVENNA, hands of Moslems, as bad as the Christians who defaced S, Vitale. The details of the Kutchuk Aya Sophia constantly remind us of S. Vitale : sometimes they are identical, as in the case of the eight-lobed melon- THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 267 formed capital, as well as of the impost-capital in its simplest form.' The vine-leaves which decorate some of the capitals and the frieze are a curious commemoration of the name of the second of the two martyrs after whom the church is named. The church is, save for its painting, little harmed by the Turks. On the pillars of the west gallery I found many crosses cut in the marble and undefaced. Over the frieze of the octagon remains an inscription in honour of Justinian and Theodora ; and at the south side, over the imperial entrance, are their monograms. The inscription runs ^ somewhat after this 1 Cf Lethaby and Swainson, .S. Sophia, p. 256. 2 I did not copy the whole, and I take Mr. Grosvenor's version, vol. i. pp. 412, 413. An extremely interesting inscription, which I do not think has been pubhshed, was copied from a water-gate near this by Canon Curtis some years ago. It and the gate have now disappeared. Three visits, by sea and land, failed to show me the 268 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. fashion : " Other kings have honoured dead heroes whose achievements were small ; but our sceptre-bearing Justinian, inspired by piety, glorifies with a magnificent church Sergius, the servant of omnipotent Christ ; him neither the kindling breath of fire, nor the sword, nor any other sort of torture shook : for the Divine Christ he endured, and, though slain, he gained the kingdom of heaven by his blood. For ever may He hold in His keeping the realms of the vigilant king, and augment the power of Theodora, the divinely crowned ; of her whose mind Is filled with piety, and whose labour and constant exertions are directed to the diffusion of temporal blessings." The inscription is a characteristic record of the relation of the Empire of Justinian to the Church. The popular name for this fine church slightest trace of either. Thus precious memorials are constantly destroyed by the Turks. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 269 rightly expresses its importance in the art- history of the reign. It is a "little S. Sophia." Its work in design and in detail ' looks on to the greatest achievement of the Eastern architects. S. Sophia is at once the culmination of the art ofthe sixth century, and the finest expression of the Byzantine union of Eastern ideas with the old classical treat ment. The earlier work in Constantinople shows how year by year foreign elements — especially Syrian^ — had entered into the work that was being undertaken in archi tecture and in sculpture. By these the basilica had been developed through the galleries and the triple apse ; and new subjects had appeared in the illustrations ^ For instance, several of the monograms of Justinian and of Justinian and Theodora are repeated from the "little" in the great S. Sophia (cf Lethaby and Swainson, p. 295). ^ Kraus, op. cit, p. 551, instances the sharply drawn pointed leaves of the foliage design. 270 THE- ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. of sacred history which gradually became prominent in internal decoration. Those to whom all divergence from Rome, even in art, appears of necessity a degrada tion, assert — with Kraus ' — that deterioration set in in Byzantine work from the time of Chrysostom. But it is difficult, I think, for an unprejudiced mind to deny that the work which culminated In S. Sophia was con tinued for centuries in the same spirit ; of course, without the same magnificent results, but still with the same dignity and sincerity and splendour. A typical Instance of this is to be found to-day in Constantinople in the Kahriyeh Djami, the Church of the Chora (Xcopa). This was built originally by Justinian on the site where Constantine had founded a monastery — where it was still p.ovy] T7JS xoipo.'i, i.e. outside the walls of Constantine —which fell into decay, and was restored ' Op. cit, pp. 551 sqq. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 27 1 from the foundations by Alexios Komnenos, and again by Theodore the Logothete In 1 32 1, and finally within the last few years. Here the Byzantine art shows its continuous progress. There is an inner and an outer narthex, a church and two chapels, and it is " rich with mosaics of the four teenth century, of a style purer and more refined than that which Is more often seen and admired at Ravenna and Palermo." ' The mosaics — the wonderful history of the Blessed Virgin, and the enthroned Christ with Theodore kneeling before Him — are a striking proof that Byzantine art had not de cayed since the building of S. Sophia, and had followed on the lines then laid down. Proofs of equal cogency are found, I think, in the other buildings, mostly now mosques, which have survived the Muhammedan conquest, ^ Canon Curtis, than whom no one was a greater authority, in the Encyclopcedia Britannica, article Con stantinople. 272 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. such as — to mention some which I have myself inspected — the Fetihiyeh Djami (S. Mary Pammakarlstos), the Giul Djami (S. Theodosia), Zeirek Djami (Church of the Pantokrator), Toklou Ibrahim Dedeh Mesdjid (S. Thekla), as well as the quaint and touching little S. Mary the Mouchlio- tlssa, still a Christian church, and the only one in Constantinople which has never been turned from its sacred purpose. S. Sophia, then, is not significant of a period which had begun to be markedly "a deterioration of all Christian life, a pro found and rapid decline of the Church in Constantinople," ' but is rather the highest expression of an art which continued to flourish for many centuries In Intimate asso ciation with the national life.^ ^ Kraus, op. cit., p, 551. ^ The list of the remaining monuments of this period in Kraus, op. cit, pp, 551, 552, is incomplete. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 273 On December 26, 537, the great church was consecrated ; after the partial destruc tion of the apse by an earthquake in 558, it was re-consecrated on December 24, 562,' What it was on that day — with re mains of the earlier Constantinian building here and there around,^ with some deface ments and some destruction, more Important without than within — it remains now, A few hours, as it seems to a visitor, would turn the great mosque again into the Church ofthe Divine Wisdom, We have four contemporary descriptions of this magnificent building at the time of ^ The great authority for S. Sophia is Salzenberg, Altchristliche Baudenkmale von Constantinopel, Berlin, 1854; but in knowledge and interest Messrs. Lethaby and Swainson's 3'. Sophia, r894, is little, if at all, inferior. ^ E.g. the circular brick building at the north-east angle of the present building, identified rightly, I think, by Lethaby and Swainson (pp. 19, 20) with the baptistery of the pre-Justinian church. T 2 74 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. Its construction. Procopius wrote of it before 559;' Agathias, Evagrius, and Paul the Silentiary after its final completion. I will quote the shortest of these accounts. It seems to me exactly to express the feel ing which comes upon every traveller as he sees it to-day, and to emphasize the chief wonder in the construction which awes now as then.^ " And at Constantinople also, while he raised many beautifully decorated shrines to the Divinity and the saints, he built one great and incomparable work, hitherto un paralleled In history, the Church's greatest temple, fair and surpassing, and beyond the power of words to describe. But I will be bold to attempt, as I may be able, to describe the sacred precinct. The nave of ^ See Krumbacher, Geschichte der Byzantinischer Litter atur, p. 42. ^ Evagrius, Hist. Eccl, iv. 31; Migne, Pat Grcec, Ixxxviii., pp. 2758 sqq. S. SOPHIA, ELEVATION AND SECTION, THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 277 the temple is a dome, lifted on four arches, and rising to so great a height that from below it is difficult for the observers to reach with their eyes the apex of the hemi sphere ; while from above none who might get there, howsoever hardy he might be, would for a moment attempt to lean over and cast his eyes to the bottom. And the arches spring clear from the floor up to the covering which forms the roof; and on the right and the left, columns, wrought of Thessalian stone, are ranged with {i.e. are in line with) the piers of the arches and sup port upper chambers [enclosed] with other similar columns, so enabling them that wish to lean forward and see the rites that are being performed : and it is here that the Empress also when she is present on the festivals assists at the celebration of the mysteries. But the arches to the east and the west are left clear without anything to intercept the 278 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. marvellous Impression ofthe huge dimensions. And there are colonnades under the upper chambers already mentioned, finishing off the GROUND PLAN OF S. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE. vast structure with small columns and arches."' Paul the Silentiary ^ says, in the enthusiastic language of a poet — which even now sounds scarcely overstrained within the walls of ' The figures that Evagrius gives are inaccurate. The church is 250 feet long from east to west, not including the narthex or the apse ; 235 feet across, ^ Migne, Pat. Grmc, Ixxxvi, (i) pp, 21-30 sqq. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 279 the " most perfect and most beautiful church which has yet been erected by any Chris tian people " — " Whoever raises his eyes to the beauteous firmament of the roof, scarce dares to gaze on its rounded expanse sprinkled with the stars of heaven, but turns to the fresh green marble below, seeming, as it were, to see flower-bordered streams of Thessaly, and budding corn, and woods thick with trees ; leaping flocks too, and twining olive trees, and the vine with green tendrils, or the deep blue peace of summer sea, broken by the plashing oars of spray-girt ship. Whoever sets foot within the sacred fane would live there for ever, and his eyes well with tears of joy. So now it is. The wild herdsman of Bokhara and the olive-skinned Mongolian prostrate themselves, overwhelmed by the solemnity of the holy place ; and the 2 8o THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. Christian's eyes "fill with tears" when he remembers the days of old. Structurally S. Sophia marks the solution of the "problem of uniting the longitudinal with the central building" with "the appro priate disposition of space, the grouping of subsidiary chambers and the costliness of mosaic splendour." ' We enter down a flight of steps at the north-west into the narthex, beyond which to the west is the outer narthex. The great mosaic can still be traced over the central door into the nave, dimly seen through the covering of Moslem paint. It is the Lord enthroned, with the gospel in His hand open at the words, " I am the Light of the world : " ^ and below, on a brass just above the door, is the text, still un defaced, " The Lord said, I am the Door of ^ Kraus, op. cit, p. 361. ^ The monarch at His feet is certainly not Justinian (as Gerspach, La Mosdique, p. 54, note). THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 28 1 the sheep ; by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture." When the heavy curtain is pushed aside the enormous expanse within is revealed, and the eye is instantly carried up to the great central dome, which is the core of the whole design. East and west of the central dome are two semi-domes. From these the eye descends to smaller semi- domes — thence to the arches of the gallery, and thence to those which support the gallery. When we stand in the gallery in " the place of the most noble Lady Theo dora," or within those doors where sat the Fifth General Council, or at the west and look straight towards the apse, we are astonished at the intricacy of the scheme which merges in the central unity. The size, though it is inferior to several Western cathedrals, is far more impressive, because it is in no way broken up. The eye can 2 82 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. take in, at least superficially, the whole of the ground plan at once. S. Sophia has been so often and so well described that I shall attempt no new de scription. It is impressive far beyond expectation at the first entrance, and the impression deepens every hour. Two points must strike every beholder. First, its fitness for the Divine liturgy. No building of the size has, perhaps, ever been so well designed for the participation of all the worshippers In the great act of thanksgiving. The galleries and the aisles alike permit the sight of the apse — the bema. The eye would be carried towards the ciborium, and fixed upon the ikonostasis and the ambo, which the sixth century writers describe with such enthu siasm. Connected with this result, I think, is the perfect symmetry of the whole build ing. As has been said, " the length and breadth and height of it seem equal," and THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 283 "among all the Christian sanctuaries of the world, there is not another with a nave at once so spacious and so symmetrical as this." ' The second feature is the mar vellous richness of decoration. Even now the immemorial pillars, which had stood in the temple of Baalbek before Christ lived on earth, are glorious in their beauty. Porphyry and verde antique, of colossal size, surmounted by elaborately carved capitals, with the monograms, undefaced, of Justinian and Theodora, they stand, to all appearance, as they have stood for thirteen hundred years. And if the dignity of the great columns impresses, the beauty of the varied work on the capitals attracts and interests. There may be traced the growth of Byzan tine art, foreign influence, and ancient sur vival. Emblem and monogram and device enrich the new impost-capital, which, in its ' Grosvenor, Constantinople, vol. ii. pp. 514! S'S- 284 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. four main varieties, is found in the great church. The minute care which is shown in these designs' is seen no less in the decoration of doors — much of -which still remains — and the beauty of bronzes and inscriptions. Of the mosaics, which were once the greatest adornment of the building, and made the great dome glitter like the firmament of heaven, many remain and were restored by Forsati. Four only are visible without any covering. On the pendentives of the dome are four gigantic seraphim with six wings. Only the face is painted over ; the wings, as seen from below, seem a dark brown relieved by a blue-grey. In the vault of the apse the figure of the Lord may be seen dimly, through the paint, in a favour able light ; but, practically, the immense ' Many are admirably reproduced by Messrs, Lethaby and Swainson, as also by Salzenberg, THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY, 285 seraphs are all that the worshipper now beholds of the magnificent decoration with which Justinian enriched the triumph of his architect's genius, Bema, ikonostasis, ambo, then glittered with jewels, treasures, relics, and " the splendour of the hghted interior," with its thousands of lamps, guided the mariner to sea "by the divine light of the church itself," Of all this nothing now is left ; it is the marvellous architectural triumph which still makes S, Sophia supreme among churches ; and that nothing but the destruction of the building can take away. Of the outside of S. Sophia little need be said. It has suffered from countless dis figurements, and probably was never deco rated. Only its size impresses, and the great dome still towers over the surrounding buildings. Of these in general it is not necessary to speak. One example only of 286 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. the building of the age must be mentioned. The sixth century was rich in baptisteries. At the north-east angle of S, Sophia there still remains a circular building which may very probably be the baptistery of Constan tine's Church,' At the south-west is the baptistery of Justinian's building, a rectangle externally, and within an octagon with a low dome. In it was buried Mustapha I, in 1622. When I saw it it was deep in dust, and was being repaired and repainted within, over the twelfth century mosaics. Both these baptisteries closely resemble those at Ravenna. There the " Arian baptistery," S. Maria in Cosmedin, and the "Orthodox baptistery," S. Giovanni in Fonte, are both octagonal and domical. In both the ancient mosaics are resplendent. In each the centre of the dome is occupied ^ As Lethaby and Swainson, pp, 19, 20, 154, 155, 183, 217, BAPTISTERY OF S. SOPHIA, THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 289 by the baptism of our Lord, with Moses in the Arian baptistery, and in the Catholic a figure by some taken, with little probability, to represent the Jordan, So also at S, Sophia the dome of the baptistery gave the same representation. It was seen by Antony, Archbishop of Novgorod, in the year 1200.' Ravenna indeed completes the picture, which is outlined at Constantinople, of the decorative art of the sixth century. The Catholic baptistery and the beautiful tomb of Galla Placidia give earlier mosaic : the Arian baptistery and S. Apollinare Nuovo give work of Theodoric's day ; under Justinian were made the mosaics of S. Vitale and S. Apollinare in Classe. There are some later mosaics (of the time of the exarchate) in the two churches of S. Apollinare. The mosaics of this age at Constantinople, now visible, are practically confined to S. Sophia and to 1 See Lethaby and Swainson, p. 106. 290 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. the museum, where four half-length figures, which seem to me of the sixth century, lie neglected in one of the rooms. Of the richness of the work it is difficult to give an adequate impression. The subjects treated seem to have been definitely limited. No representation of the Crucifixion occurs. Where our Lord is represented He appears in glory,' or in a representation of some historic incident of His earthly life, such as His Baptism. He is represented, I think in nearly every case, as young and beard less. But not infrequently the scheme of decoration centres round a cross. There is some reason for thinking that the original^ scheme of decoration at S, Sophia did not in clude figures. It is certain that at the centre of the dome was a vast cross in a blue field ^ The beautiful representation of Him as a shepherd at the mausoleum of Galla Placidia belongs to the fifth century. ''¦ See Lethaby and Swainson, p. 280. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 29 1 spangled with stars. In the dome of the Arian baptistery at Ravenna, In the midst of the circle of apostles is a throne on which is placed a jewelled Latin cross ; ' and in the apse of S. Apollinare in Classe, the Trans figuration is represented in symbol by a cross with three lambs, the background again showing stars. This resembles the decoration often found on the ciborium (or baldachino), as originally at S. Sophia. Direct representation of the Passion never occurs. The most beautiful representation of our Lord in glory is that in the apse of S, Vitale at Ravenna, where in His right hand He holds a crown, in His left the gospel (as in the Constantinople representations), and has by Him two angels, with S, Vitalis and Ecclesius, the bishop who began the church, ^ See F, E, Brightman, " The Cross in its relation to the Altar," in Transactions of the S. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, vol. iii. pp. 105 sqq. 292 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. In S. Apollinare Nuovo He is seated — with His right hand in the attitude of benediction — enthroned between angels. Here the figure has been much restored, and possibly the beard may be due to this later work. Next to the Cross and to our Lord, the most common subjects are the apostles, either together or S, Peter and S, Paul sepa rately — never, I think, S, Peter alone — and more rarely, as In S, Apollinare Nuovo, the Blessed Virgin with our Lord in her arms. The magnificent processions of martyrs and virgins at S. Apollinare Nuovo are unique in their splendour. A very special interest attaches to the representations of Justinian and Theodora in S. Vitale, and of Justinian now in S, Apollinare Nuovo, since there is every reason to believe they are por traits. From the mosaics some idea of the more perishable decorations of the churches may also be obtained. The door veils which THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 293 hung where the heavy Turkish carpets now cover the nine doors from the narthex to the nave of S. Sophia, may be pictured from those represented in the mosaics at S. Vitale and S. Apollinare Nuovo.' The beautiful water-vessels — one of which may be seen to-day in S. Sophia — are represented on the ivory throne at Ravenna.^ Altar cloths reaching on all sides to the floor are also represented on the Ravenna mosaics,^ and described in the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus.* Remains of the sculpture of this period are not common, but there are some both at Ravenna and at Constantinople. There are some beautiful sarcophagi at Ravenna, show ing most delicate work,' and the ivory chair of Maximianus in the sacristy of the 1 Drawn in Lethaby and Swainson, p. 89. Cf pp. 86, 87. 2 Ibid., pp.'85-87. ' Ibid., p. 76. * Migne, Pat. Lat, evi., p. 603. * See Kraus, pp. 252-4. 294 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. Cathedral, the decoration of which so strikingly recalls the magnificent Bewcastle Cross.' At Constantinople there are one or two in the museum of this date, and in the grounds near are two lions of vigorous workmanship, which probably came from the atrium of S. Sophia. The mosaics of S. Sophia have led me to speak of the general decoration of their period. I must return, and conclude, with two more directly architectural works. There remain in Constantinople two extremely interesting columbethrae or fonts of this age. One in the museum was believed by Paspates to have come from the Baptistery of S. Sophia.^ It is "8 feet 20 inches long, 6 feet i\ Inches wide, and ^ See the Bishop of Stepney's Conversion of the Heptarchy, p. 197. ^ The Great Palace of Constantinople, pp. 121, 129. But with his usual rashness he concluded that this baptistery had been destroyed. LION IN THE GROUNDS OF THE MUSEUSI, PROBABLY FROM THE ATRIUM OF S. SOPHIA. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 297 4 feet 6 inches high, wrought out of Proconnesian marble. The outside is care fully finished, which shows that it stood above the floor. The inside is formed into steps, and about the rim are several roughly sunk crosses." ' Outside the wretched mosque of Atik Mustapha Pacha— the old Church of S. Peter and S. Mark — is another, made also of a single block, and with three steps de scending to the bottom. These are the only remains of the kind in Constantinople, and they are of extreme interest, as illustrating the baptismal ritual of the age. Their sim plicity perhaps shows that they belong to the earliest years of the reign of Justinian, and thus to the period of experiment, a period which is illustrated also by the two famous cisterns of Philoxenus, the Bin Bir Derek and Yeri Batan Serai. 1 Lethaby and Swainson, pp. 81, 82. 298 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. The former is now empty, and the six teen rows of fourteen columns each can be closely examined. It has been considered as exhibiting "the highest development of the art of cistern building," and thus " in its ¦ particular sphere" resembling S. Sophia; " like it the boldness of the construction was never again equalled by the Byzan tines." ' The capitals are not as a rule highly ornamented, but some have mono grams which are repeated in S. Sophia. Impressive though this great building is, it is not nearly so striking as the awful gloom of the Yeri Batan Serai (the Under ground Palace) — the Basilike. There seems little doubt that this is the cistern alluded to by Procopius,^ as made by Justinian under the Portico of the Basilica. " It is still in ' Forchm einer and Strygovski (quoted by Lethaby and Swainson, p. 248). "- DejEdif.,\. II. ANCIENT FONT, OUTSIDE THE MOSQUE OF ATIK MUSTAPHA PACHA. THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. 30I perfect preservation, with the entire roof in tact ; its three hundred and thirty-six columns, twelve feet apart, arranged in twenty-eight symmetric rows, stand each in place, crowned by a finely wrought capital ; it still serves its original purpose, supplying water from the aqueduct of Valens in as copious measure as of old." ' The capitals here are elaborately carved, in endless variety, and in the very finest style of the age. Darkness, immensity, and the colossal size of the columns seen in the flickering torchlight, make this one of the most impressive memorials of the sixth century. It is below ground what S. Sophia is above. So we conclude our survey of the art of this great age, as it is illustrated in these two cities. The era of Justinian has left here memorials which are made only the more precious by time. ' Grosvenor, Constantinople, vol. i p- 399. 302 THE ART OF THE SIXTH CENTURY. The sixth century gave to Europe through the work of two great architects, Anthe mius of Tralles and Julianus Argentarius of Ravenna, the perfection of an art which was still in its youth. The problem of " teaching the column to support the arch " ' was success fully solved, and the combination of a square church with a dome was brought to Its cul mination of grandeur and beauty, Ravenna gives the Romanesque development which, with all its changes, has so mighty a future. The last great gift of Hellenic genius ^ is seen in S. Sophia, "the fairest church," as says Sir John Mandeville, " In all the world." ¦^ Cf Freeman, Hist. Essays, iii. series, p. 6 1. ^ Lethaby and Swainson, p, 201. APPENDIX ON THE ALLEGED HERESY OF JUSTINIAN. Since this book was passed for the press, Pro fessor Bury has published an article in the Guardian of January 13, 1897, which obliges me to add briefly to what I have written above. He makes out a strong case for the authenticity of Eustathius, He quotes the letter of S, Nicetius of Trier, which I have discussed, pp. 227-229. The passages he quotes do not elucidate the question further. They are as follows : — " In integro mundo splendebas ut sol ; et cum omnes inde gratia Domini rectores ecclesiae cuncti concilii ipsius gauderemus, divulgante fama. ex lapsu vestro quem nunquam pervenire debuimus contristati et humiliati usque in terra sumus. Dulcis noster lustiniane, quis te sic decepit? quis ut talia sequereris suasit? quis ut Christum purum hominem fatereris docuit ? " etc. 304 APPENDIX. " Turn cum in ultima senectute tua componere et coniungere te ad Redemptorem tuum debuisti, ipse te non alter sed tu et te et tuos decepisti. . . . Nam notum tibi sit quod tota Italia, integra Africa, Hispania vel Gallia cuncta nomen tuum, cum de perditione tui plorant, anathematizant. Et si non quae docuisti destruxeris et publica voce clamaveris : Erravi, erravi ; anathema Nestorius, anathema Eutyches ; cum ipsis te ad supplicia sempiterna tradidisti." The difficulty remains, that Nicetius does not accuse Justinian of being an aphthartodocete ; and, indeed, the evidence of his letter seems to be contradictory to that of Evagrius and Eustathius, Professor Bury then refers to another authority, I quote his words — " It ought to have occurred to me, when I read Mr. Hutton's first paper (August 12th, 1891), a long time after its publication, to look into the chronicle written at Alexandria in the last quarter of the seventh century by the Jacobite, John of Nikiu. I had studied this chronicle, partially, years ago, but the passage bearing on the heresy of Justinian escaped my memory. This passage must be reckoned with by any one who desires to promulgate a new theory on the history of APPENDIX. 305 Justinian's theological opinions. As the chronicle has been translated from Greek into Arabic, from Arabic into Ethiopian, from Ethiopian into French, I will not take upon myself to turn the passage from French into a fifth language, but will give M. Zotenberg's rendering (p. 518, sqq^. It is hardly necessary to premise that John of Nikiu, being a Jacobite, followed the doctrine of Severus, and not that of Julian, as to the nature of Christ's body — " ' II y avait de I'incertitude au sujet du corps de Notre-Seigneur Jesus-Christ, et Ton discutait beau- coup a Constantinople sur la question de savoir s'll etait corruptible ou incorruptible. II y eut beaucoup de mouvement, i Alexandrie, a cause de la discussion qui existait a ce sujet entre les partisans de Theodose et ceux de Gainas. L'empereur Justinien fit demander sur cette matilre I'avis d'Eutychius, qui etait alors patri- arche de Constantinople, et qui partageait, quant a la doctrine, les sentiments de S6vfere et de Theodose. Eutychius lui repondit ainsi:— "Le corps de Notre-Seigneur qui s'est soumis a la soufifrance pour notre salut est vivant, imp^ris- sable, incorruptible, inalterable: nous croyons qu'il a souffert par sa propre volont^, et qu'apres X 3o6 APPENDIX. la resurrection il a ^t^ incorruptible et inalterable, sous tous les rapports, et d'une maniere absolue." L'empereur ne fut pas satisfait de cette declara tion. La vraie solution de cette difficulte se trouve dans la lettre adressee par saint Cyrille a Suc census. L'empereur inclinait vers I'opinion de Julien, 6veque des partisans de Gainas qui avaient la m^me doctrine et qui disaient : J^sus-Christ a k.th. homme comme nous ; les saintes feritures affirment qu'il a souffisrt pour nous en son corps. L'empereur Justinien fut done tr^s irrite contre le patriarche Eutychius, parce qu'il ne lui avait pas r^pondu comme il I'avait desire, qu'au contraire il s'etait prononce comme Severe et Anthime. Ceux- ci, disait-il, avaient trompe les habitants de Con stantinople, et (Eutychius) les trompe egalement. Justinien adressa ensuite une lettre a Agathon, prefet d'Alexandrie, et ordonna qu'ApoUinaire, comes du couvent de Bdntdn (?), fiit ^tabli patriarche des Chalc^doniens dans Alexandrie et dans les autres villes d'Egypte. Mais les habitants de cette province etaient fortement attaches a la doctrine de I'incorruptibilite ; ils suivaient I'enseignement de nos p^res, consign^ dans les livres, d'apres lequel le saint corps de Notre-Seigneur a ith in corruptible avant la resurrection ; il a soufifert la passion par sa propre volonte jusqu'i la mort et, APPENDIX. 307 aprfes la resurrection, il est devenu immortel et impassible; telle est la formule de Gr^goire le thdologien. C'est pourquoi nous devons, dans la question de I'incorruptibilite, ecarter la passion salutaire qu'il a subie en son corps, par sa propre volonte et par sa libre determination, et qu'il a preparee pour notre redemption. Or l'empereur Justinien, ayant depose et exile Eutychius, patri arche de Constantinople, nomma a sa place Jean de la ville de . . . qui lui promit de declarer par ecrit qu'il etait d'accord avec lui dans la foi et d'ecrire une lettre synodale. Mais apr^s avoir pris possession de son si^ge, Jean ne tint pas compte de la volonte de l'empereur et refusa d'ecrire comme il lui avait dit. En effet il avait ete d'abord laique ; il ne connaissait pas les Ecritures et avait pas etudie a fond la sainte religion ; mais lorsqu'il fut pretre il s'appliqua k etudier les saintes Ecritures et il sut les peines et les afflictions que nos saints P^res ont supportees a cause du Christ ; il apprit ainsi la doctrine orthodoxe et abandonna la doctrine corrompue de l'empereur. Ce meme patriarche Jean composa (le livre intitule) Mystagogia traitant de la nature unique du Christ, le Verbe de Dieu devenu chair, dont il affirma, d'accord avec le temoignage d'Athanase rapostoli- que, I'essence unique, divine et humaine. 3o8 APPENDIX. " ' Un homme nomme Menas, qui avait ete auparavant patriarche de Constantinople, adressa a Vigile, patriarche de Rome, un ecrit dans lequel il s'exprimait ainsi : — " II n'y qu'un seul arbitre et une seule volonte dans Notre-Seigneur et Sauveur jesus-Christ ; nous croyons en Dieu dans la crainte parfaite du coeur et en nous penetrant de I'enseignement de nos p^res." Tout ce discours etait conforme aux idees de Jean, patriarche de Constantinople. Or l'empereur voulait deposer Jean ; mais, pendant qu'il y songeait, craignant qu'il n'y edt des troubles, parce qu'il avait deji exile Eutychius, sans jugement legal, Justinien mourut, dans une vieillesse avancee, dans la trente- neuvieme annee de son r^gne.' " I insert this that my readers may have the opportunity of weighing its evidence for themselves. If I understand the passage aright, it asserts that Eutychius declared that the Lord's body before His crucifixion was incorruptible, and that Justinian held that " He was Man like as we are," and that " the Holy Scriptures affirmed that He has suffered for us in His body." Surely this — which, it must be observed, is in complete contradiction to the statement of the Vita Eutychii (Surius, vol. ii. p. SS7) — is to state that Eutychius was an aph thartodocete, and that Justinian was orthodox. The APPENDIX. 309 subject is confusing enough, but I can see no other meaning in the passage from John of Nikiu. The subject may be further studied in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, articles " John of Nikiusi,' " Julian of Halicarnassus," " Severus." M. Zoten- berg has pointed out {Journal Asiatigue, 7™^ Serie, tome xii. pp. 343-345) that John does not seem to have a clear conception of the theological question, and that the writing of Mennas mentioned is apocryphal. Nor does the statement which he attributes to Justinian agree with the opinions of Julian of Halicarnassus, Thus, then, these two authorities, Nicetius and John, call Justinian a heretic ; but the former asserts a heresy incompatible with Aphthartodocetism; and the latter, himself a heretic, uses language which seems to show the Emperor to be orthodox. Neither of them supports Mr. Bury's contention that " there is abundant evidence to convict Justinian, beyond appeal, of the Aphthartodocetic heresy." I recur, then, to my tentative explanation on pp. 238-240. It is not only an honour to discuss with so distinguished a scholar as Mr. Bury, but a pleasure, even if it be through my errors, to assist him in elucidating the truth. X 3 INDEX A Africa, Christianity in, 73, 74 Anastasius, Eniperor, 138 Arianism, 30 sgg., 47, 63, 67, 134-137 Armenia, 71,72 Athalaric, 35, 93 B Basilicas at Ravenna, 256, 260-262 at Constantinople, 249- 255 Baptisteries at Ravenna, 286- 289 at Constantinople, 286- 289 Belisarius, 7, 100-102, 113, 117 Boethius, 37, 38, 137 Bryce, Mr., 16, 28, 158, 205 Bury, Professor, 11, 15, 16, 65, 72, 86, 206-208, 213, 219, 233, 237, 265, 303-309 Cassiodorus, his letters, 31- 37, 90, 93. 99, 137 China, Christianity in, 69- 71,85 Churches at Ravenna — S. Apollinare in Classe, 256, 257, 261 S. Apollinare Nnovo, 260, 262, 289, 293 S. Maria in Cosmedin, 286 S. Vitale, 263-265, 289, 291, 293 S. Francesco, 257 S.S. Nazaro and Celso, 256, 289 at Constantinople — S. John of the Studium, 249, 253, 255, 256, 260 S, Thekla, 249, 272 S. Theodore of Tyrone, 249 S. Mary at Balukli, 249 S. Irene, 250-253 S. Peter and S. Paul, 112, 254, 257 312 INDEX. Churches at Constantinople continued — S. Sergius and S. Bacchus, 112, 117, 254, 257, 264, 265-269 The Chora, 270 S. Mary Pammakarlstos, 272 S. Theodosia, 272 The Pantokrator, 272 S. Mary the Mouchliotissa, S. Sophia, 272-289, 292, 294: 298, 301, 302 S. Peter and S. Mark, 297 Cisterns, at Constantinople, 7, 259, 297-301 Constantinople, Church of, 49, SI, 53, 58,62 City of, 6-8 Patriarch of, 48-50 Curtis, Canon, 112, 257, 260, 267, 274 D Dante, 90, 153, 236 Duchesne, Abbd, 94, 102, 106, 118, 123, 126, 173 Eutychius, Patriarch of Con stantinople, 170, 171, 211- 15, >-> -t-f. 226, 227, 237, 304-308 Evagrius, ecclesiastical his torian, 141, 216-219, 220, 224-227, 274-278 Fonts at Constantinople, 294- 297 Franks, the, 65-69 Freeman, Mr., 46, 65, 245, 302 Gregory the Great, 8, 42, 50, 59, 129, 130, 134, 222-223 Grosvenor, Mr., his Con stantinople, 112, 253, 257, 267, 283, 301 H Hodgkin, Mr,, 12, 33, 35, 37, 40, 67, 95, 97, 206 J John of Ephesus, 20, 71, 73, 75-83, 221-223 Justin, Emperor, 15, 138, 139 Justinian, his power, 5, 7 ; his legislation, 16-29 ; his attitude towards the See INDEX. 313 of Constantinople, 51, 52 ; his new patriarchate, 52 ; his missions, 72, 76 ; his relations with Vigilius, 99- 122 ; with Pelagius, 123- 126 ; with the Arians, 137 ; with the Monophysites, 141, 149, 154 ; religious controversy, 143 ; with Ori genism, 160 ; his writings, passim, especially 187- 204 ; his relations with the Sixth General Counc il, 162 - 175 ; his alleged heresy, 204-240, 303-309 ; his buildings, 249, 250, 253, 257, 267, 279-302 K Knecht, Dr. August, 146, 155, 158, 160, 161, 163, 190, 195, 196, 207, 212 Kraus, F. X., Chapter VI., Leo the Great, Pope, 118, 119, 130, 133,139, 140,144, 170 Lethaby and Swainson, Messrs., Chapter VI., passiin M Mennas, patriarch of Con stantinople, 154, 155, 159, 167, 170, 214, 215 Monophysitism, 47, 56, 138, 141, 149, 150,153,155,163, 187, 189 Monotheletism, 56, 179 Mosaics, at Ravenna, 289- 293 at Constantinople, 271, 289, 290, 294 N Nicetius of Trier, 227-229, 303-309 Nikiu, John of, 212, 226, 227 304-309 Pelagius I., Pope, 98, 122- 127, 159 Procopius, 10, 13, 14, 16, 60, 69, 70, 73, loi, 143, 249, 250, 254, 274 R Ravenna, 5, 6, 30, 31, 41, 42, 247, 255-265,286,289-293, 302 S Sixth century, the, its charac teristics, I ; its limits, 4, 5 ;, 3M INDEX. its theology, 184-240; its art, 243-302 Spain,recovery ofthe Church and Empire in, 62-64, 129 Theodora, Empress, 103, 141, 151, 268, 269,281, 283, 292 Theodoric, his power, 12 ; his legislation, 31 ; his re lations with the Papacy, 91 sqq. ; his buildings, 30, 256, 260, 289 Three Chapters, controversy of the, 104, 106, 107, 109, 117, 119, 120, 121, 134, 162- 178, 190, 197, 223 Turks, the, in the sixth century, 70, 71 ; in the nineteenth century, 249, 265, 267 V Vigilius, Pope, 97-123, 124, 125, 159, 168-170, 171, 173 PRINTED DV WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. A Selection of Works IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE PUBLISHED BY Messrs. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. London : 39 Paternoster Row, E.G. New York : gi and 93 Fifth Avenue. Bombay : 32 HORNBY Road. Abbey and Overton.— THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By Chakles J. Abbey, M.A. , Rector of Checkendon, Reading, and John H. Overton, D.D., Canon of ; Lincoln and Rector of Epworth. Crown Zvo. js. 6d. SAdams.— SACRED ALLEGORIES. The Shadow of the Cross *^ —The Distant Hills— The Old Man's Home— The King's Messengers. By the Rev. William Adams, M.A. Crown Svo. 3J. 6d. The four Allegories may be had separately, with Illustrations. ibrno. IS. each. Aids to the Inner Life. Edited by the Rev. W. H. HUTCHINGS, M.A., Canon of York, Rector of Kirby Misperton, and Rural Dean. Five Vols, ¦^'zmo, cloth limp, dd. ~ each; or cloth extra, xs. each. OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By THOMAS X Kempis. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR THE DEVOUT LIFE. By St. Francis de Sales. THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SOUL. THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT. By Laurence Scupoli. Bathe.— Works by the Rev. Anthony Bathe, M.A. A LENT WITH JESUS. A Plain Guide for Churchmen. Containing Readings for Lent and Easter Week, and on the Holy Eucharist. ; 32ff80, IJ. ; or in paper caver, dd. 'AN ADVENT WITH JESUS. 32OT0, is.; or in paper cover, 6d. iWHAT I SHOULD BELIEVE. A Simple Manual of Self-Instruction ¦ - for Church People. Small Svo, limp, u. ; cloth gilt, zs. Bathe and Buckham.— THE CHRISTIAN'S ROAD BOOK. 2 Parts. By the Rev. Anthony Bathe and Rev. F. H. Buckham. vPart I. Devotions. Sewed, 6d. ; limp cloth, is. ; clothextra, is. dd. Partu. Readings. Sewed, is.; limp cloth, zs, ; cloth extra, 3s.; or complete in one volume, sewed, is. dd. ; limp cloth, 2S. dd. ; cloth extra, 31. dd. A SELECTION OF IVORKS Benson.— THE FINAL PASSOVER : A Series of Meditations upon the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. By the Rev. R. M. Benson, M.A., Student of Christ Church, Oxford. Small Svo. Vol. I.— The Rejection, s-^- Vol. II.— The Upper Chamber. Part 1. ss. Part II. s^- Vol. III.— The Divine Exodus. Parts I. and II. 5;. each. Vol. IV.— The Life Beyond the Grave, sr. Biokersteth.- YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER: a Poem in Twelve Books, By Edward Henry Biokersteth, D.D., Bishop of Exeter. One Shilling Mdition, i8mo. With red borders, idmo, zs. dd. The Crown Bvo Edition (51.) may still be had. Blunt.— Works by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, D.D. , THE ANNOTATED BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: Being an Historical, Ritual, and Theological Commentary on the Devotional System of the Church of England, ^lo. zis. THE COMPENDIOUS EDITION OF THE ANNOTATED BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER : Forming a concise Commentary on the Devotional System of the Church of England. Crown Svo. los. dd. DICTIONARY OF DOCTRINAL. AND HISTORICAL THEOLOGY. By various Writers. Imperial Svo. zis. DICTIONARY OF SECTS, HERESIES, ECCLESIASTICAL PAR TIES AND SCHOOLS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. By various Writers. Imperial Svo. zis. THE BOOK OF CHURCH LAW. Being an Exposition of the Legal Rights and Duties of the Parochial Clergy and the Laity of the Church of England. Revised by Sir Walter G. F. Phillimore, Bart,, D.C.L., and G. Edwardes Jones, Barrister-at-Law. Crown Svo. 7J. dd. A COMPANION TO THE BIBLE : Being a Plain Commentary on Scripture History, to the end of the Apostolic Age. Two Vols, small Svo. Sold separately. The Old Testament. 3j. dd. The New Testament. 3J. dd. HOUSEHOLD THEOLOGY : a Handbook of Religious Information respecting the Holy Bible, the Prayer Book, the Church, etc., etc. Paper cover, idmo, is. Also the Larger Edition, jr. dd. Body.— Works by the Rev. George Body, D.D., Canon of Durham. THE LIFE OF LOVE. A Course of Lent Lectures, idjno. zs. dd. THE SCHOOL OF CALVARY ; or, Laws of Christian Life revealed from the Cross, idmo. zs. dd. THE LIFE OF JUSTIFICATION, idmo. zs. dd. THE LIFE OF TEMPTATION, idmo. zs. dd. Boultbee.— A COMMENTARY ON THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. By the Rev. T. P. Boultbee, formerly Principal of the London College of Divinity, St. John's Hall, Highbury. Crown Svo. ds. IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 3 Bright.— AVorks by William Bright, D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesi_astical History in the University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church, O.xford. THE ROMAN SEE IN THE EARLY CHURCH : And other Studies in Church History. Crown Svo. qs. dd. WAYMARKS IN CHURCH HISTORY. Crown Svo. -js. dd. MORALITY IN DOCTRINE. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. I..ESSONS FROM THE LIVES OF THREE GREAT FATHERS : St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine. Crown Svo. ds. THE INCARNATION AS A MOTIVE POWER. Crown Svo. ds. Bright and Medd.— LIBER PRECUM PUBLICARUM EC- CLESI.^ ANGLICAN.^;. A GuLiELMO Bright, S.T.P., et Petro Goldsmith Medd, A.M., Latine redditus. Small Svo. 7s. dd. Bro-wne.— AN EXPOSITION OF THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES, Historical and Doctrinal. By E. H. Browne, D.D., formerly Bishop of Winchester. Svo. ids. Campion and Beamont.— THE PRAYER BOOK INTER LEAVED. With Historical Illustrations and Explanatory Notes arranged parallel to the Text. By W. M. Campion, D. D. , and W. J. Beamont, M.A. Small Svo. js. dd. Carter.- Works edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A,, Hon. Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. THE TREASURY OF DEVOTION : a Manual of Prayer for General and Daily Use. Compiled by a Priest. iSmo. zs. dd, ; cloth limp, zs. Bound with the Book of Common Prayer, y. dd. Red-Line Edition. Cloth extra, gilt top. iSmo, zs. dd. net. Large-Type Edition. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE WAY OF LIFE : A Book of Prayers and Instruction for the Young at School, with a Preparation for Confirmation. Compiled by a Priest, iSmo. IS. dd. THE PATH OF HOLINESS : a First Book of Prayers, with the Service of the Holy Communion, for the Young. Compiled by a Priest. With Illustrations, idmo. is, dd. ; clofh limp, is. THE GUIDE TO HEAVEN : a Book of Prayers for every Want. (For the Working Classes.) Compiled by a Priest. iSmo. is. dd. ; cloth limp, IS. Large- Type Edition. Crown Svo. is. dd. ; cloth limp, is. THE STAR OF CHILDHOOD : a First Book of Prayers and Instruc tion for Children. Compiled by a Priest. With Illustrations, idmo. [continued. A SELECTION OF WORKS - Carter.— Works edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., Hon. Canon of Christ Church, Oxford — continued. NICHOLAS FERRAR : his Household and his Friends. With Portrait engraved after a Picture by Cornelius Janssen at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Crown Svo, ds, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN KETTLEWELL. With Details of the History of the Non- Jurors. With Portrait. Crown Svo. ds. Conybeare and Howson.— THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL. By the Rev. W. J. Conybeare, M.A., and the Very Rev. J. S. Howson, D.D. With numerous Maps and Illustrations. Library Edition. T-wo Vols. Svo. zis. Students' Edition. One Vol. Crown Svo. ds. Popular Edition. One Vol. Crown Svo. 3s. dd. Devotional Series, 16mo, Red Borders. Each 2s. 6d. BICKERSTETH'S yesterday, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER. CHILCOT'S TREATISE ON EVIL THOUGHTS. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. FRANCIS DE SALES' (ST.) THE DEVOUT LIFE. HERBERT'S POEMS AND PROVERBS. KEMPIS' (A) OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. WILSON'S THE LORD'S SUPPER. Large type. ?TAYLOR'S (JEREMY) HOLY LIVING. * HOLY DYING. * These two in one Volume. 55. Devotional Series, 18mo, without Red Borders. Each is. BICKERSTETH'S YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. FRANCIS DE SALES' (ST.) THE DEVOUT LIFE. HERBERT'S POEMS AND PROVERBS. KEMPIS (X) OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. WILSON'S THE LORD'S SUPPER, Large type. *TAYLOR'S (JEREMY) HOLY LIVING. * HOLY DYING. * These two in one Volume, zs. dd. Edersheim.— Works by Alfred Edersheim, M.A., D.D., Ph.D., sometime Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint, Oxford. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JESUS THE MESSIAH. Two Vols. Svo, 24J. JESUS THE MESSIAH : being an Abridged Edition of ' The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. HISTORY OF THE JEWISH NATION AFTER THE DESTRUC TION OF JERUSALEM UNDER TITUS. New Edition (The Third). Revised by the Rev. Henry A. White, M. A. , Fellow of New College, Oxford. With a Preface by the Rev. William Sanday, D.D., LL.D., Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. Svo. iSs. IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 5 Eland.— THE LAYMAN'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: being a Short History of its Development. By the Rev. Edwin H. Eland, M.A., Balliol College, Oxford. With Facsimile. Crown Svo. ^s. Ellicott.— Works by C. J. Ellicott, D.D., Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. A CRITICAL AND GRAMMATICAL COMMENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES. Greek Text, with a Critical and Grammatical Commentary, and a Revised English Translation. Svo. I Corinthians, ids. Galatians. Ss. dd. Ephesians. Ss. dd. Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. loi. dd. Thessalonians. 7s. dd. Pastoral Epistles, ios. dd. HISTORICAL LECTURES ON THE LIFE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Svo. izs. Epochs of Church History.— Edited by Mandell Creighton, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of London. Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6d. each. the ENGLISH CHURCH IN other lands. By the Rev. H. W. TOCKEK, M.A. THE HISTORY OF THE REFOR MATION IN ENGLAND. By the Rev. Geo. G. Perey, M.A. THE CHURCH OF THE EARLY FATHERS. By the Rev. Alfred Plummer, D.D. THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By the Rev. J. H, Overton, D.D. THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. By the Hon. G. C. Brodrick, D.C.L. THE UNIVERSITY OF CAM BRIDGE. By J. Bass Mullinger, M.A. THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES. By the Rev. W. Hunt, M.A. THE CHURCH AND THE EASTERN EMPIRE. By the Rev. H. F. Tozer, M.A. THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE. By the Rev. A. Carr, M.A. THE CHURCH AND THE PURI TANS, 1570-1660. By Henry Offley Wakeman, M.a. HILDEBRAND AND HIS TIMES. By the Rev. W. R. W. Stephens, M.A. THE POPES AND THE HOHEN STAUFEN. By Ugo Balzani. THE COUNTER REFORMATION. By Adolphus William Ward, Litt. D. WYCLIFFE AND MOVEMENTS FOR REFORM. By Reginald L. Poole, M.A. THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. By H. M. Gwatkin, M.a. Fosbery.— Works edited by the Rev. Thomas Vincent Fosbery, M.A., sometime Vicar of St. Giles's, Reading. VOICES OF COMFORT. Cheap Edition. Small Svo. 3^. dd. The Larger Edition {is. 6d.) fttay stilt be had. ~ HYMNS AND POEMS FOR THE SICK AND SUFFERING. In connection with the Service for the Visitation of the Sick. Selected from Various Authors. Small Svo, 31. dd. A SELECTION OF WORKS Gore.— Works by the Rev. Charles Gore, M.A., D.D., Canon of Westminster. THE MINISTRY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Svo, los. di, ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS. Crown Svo. 31. dd. Geikie.— Works by J. Cunningham Geikie, D.D., LL.D., late Vicar of St. Martin-at-Palace, Norwich. HOURS WITH THE BIBLE : the Scriptures in the Light of Modern Discovery and Knowledge. New Edition, largely rewritten. Com plete in Twelve Volumes. Crown Svo. ds. each. OLD TESTAMENT. In Six Volumes. Sold separately, ds. each. Creation to the Patriarchs. With a Map and Illustrations. MosES to Judges. and Illustrations. With a Map Samson to Solomon. Map and Illustrations. With a With Rehoeoam to Hezekiah. Illustrations. Manasseh to Zedekiah. the Contemporary Prophets. a Map and Illustrations. Exile to Malachi. With the Contemporary Prophets. With Illustrations. WithWith NEW TESTAMENT. In Six Volumes. Sold separately, ds. each. The Gospels. With a Map and Illustrations. Life and Words of Christ. Wilh Map. 2 vols. Life and Epistles of St. Paul. With Maps and Illustrations. 2 vols. St. Peter to Revelation. Com pleting the New Testament Series. [^Nearly ready. LIFE AND WORDS OF CHRIST. Presentation Edition, With Map and Illustrations. 2 vols. Imperial Svo, z^s. Cabinet Edition. With Map. 2 vols. Posi Svo. 12s. Cheap Edition, ¦without the Notes, i vol. Svo. 7s, dd. A SHORT LIFE OF CHRIST. With numerous Illustrations, Crown Svo. y. dd. OLD TESTAMENT CHARACTERS. With many Illustrations. Crown Svo. 31. dd. LANDMARKS OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. Crown Svo. SJ. dd. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. Crown Svo. y. dd. ENTERING ON LIFE. A Book for Young Men. Crown Svo. zs. dd. THE PRECIOUS PROMISES. Crown Svo. zs. BEN AMMI : being the Story of the Life of Lazarus of Bethany, told, reputedly, by Himself. [Preparing for publication. IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. Hall.— THE VIRGIN MOTHER: Retreat Addresses onthe Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary as told in the Gospels. With an appended Essay on the Virgin Birth of our Lord. By the Right Rev. A. C. A. Hall, D.D., Bishop of Vermont. Crown Svo. i^. dd. Harrison.— Works by the Rev. Alexander J. Harrison, B.D., Lecturer of the Christian Evidence Society. PROBLEMSOFCHRISTIANITYANDSCEPTICISM. Cr.Svo. 7s.dd. THE CHURCH IN RELATION TO SCEPTICS : a Conversational Guide to Evidential Work. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE REPOSE OF FAITH, IN VIEW OF PRESENT DAY DIFFI CULTIES. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. Hatch.— THE ORGANIZATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1880. By Edwin Hatch, M.A., D.D., late Reader in Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford. Svo. 5^. Holland.— Works by the Rev. Henry Scott Holland, M.A., Canon and Precentor of St. Paul's. GOD'S CITY AND THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM : Crown Svo. 7s. dd. PLEAS AND CLAIMS FOR CHRIST. Crown Svo. y. dd. CREED AND CHARACTER : Sermons. Crown Svo. y. dd. ON BEHALF OF BELIEF. Sermons. Crown Svo. y. dd. CHRIST OR ECCLESIASTES. Sermons. Crown Svo. 2S. dd. LOGIC AND LIFE, with other Sermons. Crown Svo. y. dd. Hutchings.— SERMON SKETCHES from some ofthe Sunday Lessons throughout the Church's Year. By the Rev. W. H. Hutch ings, M.A., Canon of York. Vols. I and II. Crown Svo. y. each. INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS ; or. Thoughts on the Communion of Saints and the Life of the World to come. Col lected chiefly frora English Writers by L. P. With a Preface by the Rev. Henry Scott Holland, M.A. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. Jameson. — Works by Mrs. Jameson. SACRED AND LEGENDARY ART, containing Legends of the Angels and Archangels, the Evangelists, the Apostles. With 19 Etchings and 187 Woodcuts. 2 vols. Svo. zos. net. LEGENDS OF THE MONASTIC ORDERS, as represented in the Fine Arts. With 11 Etchings and 88 Woodcuts. Svo. ios.net. LEGENDS OF THE MADONNA, OR BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. With 27 Etchings and 165 Woodcuts. Svo. los. net. THE HISTORY. OF OUR LORD, as exemplified in Works of Art. Commenced by the late Mrs. Jameson ; continued and completed by Lady Eastlake. With 31 Etchings and 281 Woodcuts. 2 Vols. Svo. zos. net. A SELECTION OF WORKS Jennings.— ECCLESIA ANGLICANA. A History of the Church of Christ in England from the Earliest to the Present Times. By the Rev. Arthur Charles Jenj^ings, M.A. Crown Svo, 7s, dd. Jukes.— Works by Andrew Jukes. THE NEW MAN AND THE ETERNAL LIFE. Notes on the Reiterated Amens of the Son of God. Crown Svo. ds. THE NAMES OF GOD IN HOLY SCRIPTURE : a Revelation of His Nature and Relationships. Crown Svo. 41. dd. THE TYPES OF GENESIS. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. THE SECOND DEATH AND THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE MYSTERY OF THE KINGDOM. Crown Svo. zs, dd. THE ORDER AND CONNEXION OF THE CHURCH'S TEACH ING, as set forth in the arrangement of the Epistles and Gospels throughout the Year, Crown Svo. zs. dd. Knox Little.— Works by W. J. Knox Little, M.A., Canon Residentiary of Worcester, and Vicar of Hoar Cross. SACERDOTALISM, WHEN RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD, THE TEACHING OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. Crown Svo, ds. THE CHRISTIAN HOME. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE HOPES AND DECISIONS OF THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY REDEEMER. Crown Svo. zs. dd. CHARACTERISTICS AND MOTIVES OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. Ten Sermons preached in Manchester Cathedral, in Lent and Advent. Crown Svo. zs. dd. SERMONS PREACHED FOR THE MOST PART IN MANCHES TER. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE MYSTERY OF THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY REDEEMER. Crown Svo. zs. dd. THE WITNESS OF THE PASSION OF OUR MOST HOLY REDEEMER. Crown Svo. zs. dd. THE LIGHT OF LIFE. Sermons preached on Various Occasions. Crown Svo. y, dd. SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. Sermons preached for the most part in America. Crown Svo. y. dd. IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. Lear. — Works by, and Edited by, H. L. Sidney Lear. FOR DAYS AND YEARS. A book containing a Text, Short Reading, and Hymn for Every Day in the Church's Year. idmo. zs. dd. Also a Cheap Edition, szmo. is,; or cloth gilt, is.dd,; or with red borders, zs. dd. FIVE MINUTES. Daily Readings of Poetry, idmo. 2S. dd. Also a Cheap Edition, szmo. is.; or cloth gilt, is. dd. WEARINESS. A Book for the Languid and Lonely. Large Type. Small Svo. y. CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHIES. Madame Louise de France, Daughter of Louis xv., known also as the Mother T^r&se de St. Augustin. A Dominican Artist : a Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Pfere Besson, of the Order of St. Dominic. Henri Perreyve. By PfeRE Gratry. St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva. Nine Vols. Crown Svo. y. dd. each. The Revival of Priestly Life IN THE Seventeenth Century IN France. A Christian Painter of the Nineteenth Century. Bossuet and his Contempora ries. F]£nelon, Archbishop of Cam brai. Henri Dominique Lacordaire. New and DEVOTIONAL WORKS. Edited Uniform Editions. Nine Vols. Fenelon's Spiritual Letters to Men. Fenelon's Spiritual Letters to Women. A Selection from the Spiritual Letters of St. Francis de Sales. Also Cheap Edition, ^zmo, dd. cloth limp ; is. cloth boards. The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales. Liddon.— Works by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L.,LL.D., late Canon Residentiary and Chancellor of St. Paul's. LIFE OF EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, D.D. By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D. Edited and prepared for publication bv the Rev. J. O. Johnston, M.A., Principal of the Theological College and Vicar of Cuddesdon, Oxford ; and the Rev. Robert T Wilson, D.D., Warden of Keble College. With Portraits and illustrations. Four Vols. Svo. Vols. /. and IL, 36J. Vol. IIL, iSs. Vol IV in Preparation. Icorttinued. by H. L. Sidney Lear. idmo. zs. dd. each. The Hidden Life of the Soul. The Light of the Conscience. Also Cheap Edition, %zmo, dd. cloth limp ; and is. cloth boards. Self-Renunciation. From the French. St. Francis de Sales' Op the Love of God. Selections from Pascal's ¦ Thoughts.' IO A SELECTION OF WORKS Liddon.— Works by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., late Canon Residentiary and Chancellor of St. Paul's. — continued. SERMONS PREACHED ON SPECIAL OCCASIONS, 1858-1889. Crown Svo. y. CLERICAL LIFE AND WORK : Sermons. Crown Svo. y. ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES : Lectures on Buddhism— Lectures on the Life of St. Paul — Papers on Dante. Crown Svo. y. EXPLANATORY ANALYSIS OF PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. Svo. 14s. SERMONS ON OLD TESTAMENT SUBJECTS. Crown Svo. y. SERMONS ON SOME WORDS OF CHRIST. Crown Svo. y. THE DIVINITY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1866. Crown Svo. y. ADVENT IN ST. PAUL'S. Sermons bearing chiefly on the Two Comings of our Lord. Two Vols. Crown Svo. y. dd. each. Cheap Edition in one Volume, Crown Svo. y, CHRISTMASTIDE IN ST. PAUL'S. Sermons bearing chiefly on the Birth of our Lord and the End of the Year. Crown Svo. y. PASSIONTIDE SERMONS. Crown Svo. y. EASTER IN ST. PAUL'S. Sermons bearing chiefly on the Resurrec tion of our Lord. Two Vols. Crown Svo. y, dd. each. Cheap Edition in one Volume. Crown Svo. y. SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. Two Vols. Crown Svo. y. dd. each. Cheap Edition in one Volume. Crown Svo. y. THE MAGNIFICAT. Sermons in St. Paul's. Crown Svo. zs. dd. SOME ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. Lent Lectures. Small Svo, zs, dd. ; or in paper cover, is. dd. The Crown ^o Edition (5J.) may still be had. SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF H. P. LIDDON, D.D. Crown Svo. y. dd. MAXIMS AND GLEANINGS FROM THE WRITINGS OF H. P. LIDDON, D.D. Selected and arranged by C. M. S. Crown idmo. is. Luckock.— Works by Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D., Dean of Lichfield. THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE, JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN, IN RELATION TO DIVORCE AND CERTAIN FORBIDDEN DEGREES. Second Edition, Revised. Crown Svo. ds, AFTER DEATH. An Examination of the Testimony of Primitive Times respecting the State of the Faithful Dead, and their Relationship to the Living. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE INTERMEDIATE STATE BETWEEN DEATH AND JUDGMENT. Being a Sequel to After Death. Crown Svo. y. dd. [continued. IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. n Luckock. — Works by Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D., Dean of Lichfield. — continued. FOOTPRINTS OF THE SON OF MAN, as traced by St. Mark. Being Eighty Portions for Private Study, Family Reading, and Instructions in Church. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE DIVINE LITURGY. Being the Order for Holy Communion, Historically, Doctrinally, and devotionally set forth, in Fifty Portions. Crown Svo. y. dd, STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. The Anglican Reform— The Puritan Innovations— The EUrabethan Reaction — The Caroline Settlement. With Appendices. Crcfwn Svo, y. dd. THE BISHOPS IN THE TOWER. A Record of Stirring Events affecting the Church and Nonconformists from the Restoration to the Revolu ion. Crown Svo. y. dd. LYRA GERMANICA. Hymns translated from the German by Catherine Winkworth. Small Svo. y. MacOolL— Works by the Rev. Malcolm MacColl, M.A., Canon Residentiary of Ripon. CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO SCIENCE AND MORALS. Crown Svo. ds. LIFE HERE AND HEREAFTER : Sermons. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. Mason.— Works by A. J. Mason, D.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge and Canon of Canterbury. THE CONDITIONS OF OUR LORD'S LIFE UPON EARTH. Being Lectures delivered on the Bishop Paddock Foundation in the General Seminary at New York, 1896. To which is prefixed part of a First Professorial Lecture at Cambridge. Crown Svo. y. THE PRINCIPLES OF ECCLESIASTICAL UNITY. Four Lectures delivered in St. Asaph Cathedral. Crown Svo. 3s. dd. THE FAITH OF THE GOSPEL. A Manual of Christian Doctrine. Crown Svo. 7s. 6d. Cheap Edition. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE RELATION OF CONFIRMATION TO BAPTISM. As taught in Holy Scripture and the Fathers. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. Maturin.-SOME PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. By the Rev. B. W. Maturin, Mission Priest of the Society of S. John the Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford. Crown Svo. 4r. dd. Mercier.— OUR MOTHER CHURCH : Being Simple Talk .on High Topics. By Mrs. JEROME Mercier. Small Svo. y. dd. B/Tilne— THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF THE EUCHARIST as deduced from Scripture and the Ancient Liturgies. By J. R. Milne, Vicar of Rougham, Norfolk. Crown Svo. y. dd. A SELECTION OF WORKS Mortimer.— Works by the Rev. A. G. Mortimer, D.D., Rector ot St. Mark's, Philadelphia. CATHOLIC faith AND PRAC- Manual of Theological TICE : A Instruction for Confirmation and First Communion. Crown Zvo. HELPS TO MEDITATION: Sketches for Every Day in the Year. Vol. I. Advent to Trinity. Zvo. ys. 6d. Vol. II. Trinity to Advent. Svo. 7s. 6d. STORIES FROM GENESIS : Sermons for Children. Crown Bvo. i\s. (THE LAWS OF HAPPINESS; or. The Beatitudes as teaching our Duty to God, Self, and our Neighbour. Timo. 2S, SERMONS IN MINIATURE FOR EXTEMPORE PREACHERS : Sketches for Ever3^ Sunday and Holy Day of the Christian Year. Crown Svo. 6s. NOTES ON THE SEVEN PENE- TENTIAL PSALMS, chiefly from Patristic Sources. Ec^. Svo. 3s. 6d. THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF OUR MOST HOLY REDEEMER: with Meditations on some Scenes in His Passion. Crown Svo. ss. LEARN OF JESUS CHRIST TO DIE : Addresses on the Words of our Lord from the Cross, taken as Teach ing the way of Preparation for Death. l6W(7. 2S. THE LAWS OF PENITENCE : Ad dresses on the Words of our Lord from the Cross. i6mo. is. 6d. Mozley.— Works by J. B. Mozley, D.D., late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OX FORD, and on Various Occasions. Crown Svo. 3J. td, SERMONS, PAROCHIAL AND OCCASIONAL. CrownSvo. 3s. 6d. A REVIEW OF THE BAPTISMAL CONTROVERSY. Crown 8z>o. 3s 6d. ESSAYS, HISTORICAL AND THEO LOGICAL. Two Vols. Svo. 241. EIGHT LECTURES ON MIRACLES. Being the Bampton Lectures for 1865. Crown Svo. 3s. 6d. RULING IDEAS IN EARLY AGES AND THEIR RELATION TO OLD TESTAMENT FAITH. Svo. 6s. Wewbolt.— Works by the Rev. W. C. E. NEWBOLT, M.A., Canon and Chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral. THE GOSPEL OF EXPERIENCE ; or, the Witness of Human Life to the truth of Revelation. Being the Boyle Lectures for 1895. Crown Svo, y. COUNSELS OF FAITH AND PRACTICE : being Sermons preached on various occasions. New and Enlarged Edition. Crown Svo. y. SPECULUM SACERDOTUM ; or, the Divine Model of the Priestly Life. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. Being Ten Addresses bearing on the Spiritual Life. Crown Svo. zs, dd. THE MAN OF GOD. Being Six Addresses delivered during Lent and the Primary Ordination of the Right Rev. the Lord Alwyne Compton, D.D., Bishop of Ely. Small Svo. is. dd. THE PRAYER BOOK : Its Voice and Teaching. Being Spuitual Addresses bearing on the Book of Common Prayer. Crown Svo. zs. dd. IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 13 Newman. — Works by John Henry Newman, B.D., sometime Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford. PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN SERMONS. Eight Vols. Cabinet Edition. Crown Svo. y. each. Cheaper Edition, y. dd. each. SELECTION, ADAPTED TO THE SEASONS OF THE ECCLE SIASTICAL YEAR, from the ' Parochial and Plain Sermons,' Cabinet Edition. Crown Svo. y. Cheaper Edition, y. dd. FIFTEEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Cabinet Edition. Crown Svo. y. Cheaper Edition. y. dd. SERMONS BEARING UPON SUBJECTS OF THE DAY. Cabinet Edition. Crown Svo. y. Cheaper Edition. Crown Svo. y. dd. LECTURES ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. Cabinet Edition. Crown Svo. y. Cheaper Edition, y. dd. *»* A Complete List of Cardinal Newman's Works can be had on Application. Norris.— RUDIMENTS OF THEOLOGY : a First Book for Students. By John Pilkington Norris, D.D., late Archdeacon of Bristol, and Canon Residentiary of Bristol Cathedral. Cr. Svo. y. dd. Osborne. — Works by Edward Osborne, Mission Priest of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford. THE CHILDREN'S SAVIOUR. Instructions to Children on the Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Illustrated, idmo. zs. dd. THE SAVIOUR KING. Instructions to Children on Old Testament Types and Illustrations of the Life of Christ. Illustrated, idmo. zs. dd. THE CHILDREN'S FAITH. Instructions to Children on the Apostles' Creed. Illustrated, idmo. zs, dd. Overton.— THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE NINE TEENTH CENTURY, 1800-1833. By the Rev. John H. Overton, D.D., Canon of Lincoln, Rector of Epworth, Doncaster, and Rural Dean of the Isle of Axholme. Svo. 14J. Oxenden.— Works by the Right Rev. Ashton Oxenden, formerly Bishop of Montreal. PLAIN SERMONS, to which is prefixed a Memorial Portrait. Crown Svo. SJ. THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE : An Autobiography. Crown Svo. SJ. PEACE AND ITS HINDRANCES. Crown Svo. is. sewed ; zs. cloth. THE PATHWAY OF SAFETY ; or. Counsel to the Awakened. Fcap. Svo, large type. zs. dd. Cheap Edition. Small type, limp, is. THE EARNEST COMMUNICANT. New Fed Rubric Edition, 3zmo, cloth, zs. Common Edition. 32mo. is. OUR CHURCH AND HER SERVICES. Fcap. Svo. zs. dd. [continued. M A SELECTION OF WORKS Oxenden. —Works by the Right Rev. Ashton Oxenden, formerly Bishop of Montreal — continued. FAMILY PRAYERS FOR FOUR WEEKS. First Series. Fcap, Svo, zs. dd. Second Series. Fcap. Svo. zs. dd. ' Large Type Edition. Two Series in one Volume. Crown Svo. ds. COTTAGE SERMONS ; or. Plain Words to the Poor. Fcap. Svo. zs. dd. THOUGHTS FOR HOLY WEEK, idmo, cloth, is. dd. DECISION. iSmo. is. dd. THE HOME BEYOND ; or, A Happy Old Age. Fcap. Svo. ts. dd. THE LABOURING MAN'S BOOK. iSmo, large type, cloth, is. dd. Paget.— Works by Francis Paget, D.D., Dean of Christ Church. STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Sermons. With an Introductory Essay. Crown Svo. ds. dd. THE SPIRIT OF DISCIPLINE : Sermons. Crown Svo. ds. dd. FACULTIES AND DIFFICULTIES FOR BELIEF AND DIS BELIEF. Crown Svo, ds. dd. THE HALLOWING OF WORK. Addresses given at Eton, January 16-18, 1888. Small Svo. zs. PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS. By a Clergyman. With Prefaces by H. P. Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., and the Bishop ob Lincoln. Crown Svo. The Book of Genesis. The Psalms, y. Isaiah. 4^. dd. 4;. dd. The Minor Prophets, us. dd. Tke Holy Gospels. 41. dd. Acts to Revelations, ds. PercivaL— THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS. Treated Theo logically and Historically. By HENRY R. PERCIVAL, M.A., D.D., Author of 'A Digest of Theology,' 'The Doctrine of the Episcopal Church," etc. Crown Svo. y. Powell.— THE PRINCIPLE OF THE INCARNATION. With especial Reference to the Relation between the Lord's Divine Omniscience and His Human Consciousness. By the Rev. H. C. Powell, M.A. of Oriel College, Oxford ; Rector of Wylye, Wilts. Svo. Prynne. — THE TRUTH AND REALITY OF THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE, Proved from Holy Scripture, the Teaching of the Primitive Church, and the Book of Common Prayer. By the Rev. George Rundle Prynne, M.A. Crown Svo. 3s. dd. Pullan.— LECTURES ON RELIGION. By the Rev. Leighton Pullan, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Lecturer in Theology at Oriel and Queen's Colleges, Oxford. Crown Svo. ds. PuUer.— THE PRIMITIVE SAINTS AND THE SEE OF ROME. By F. W. PuLLER, M.A., Mission Priest of the Society of St. John Evangelist, Cowley, Oxford. Crown Svo. 7s. dd. IN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 15 Pusey.— LIFE OF EDWARD BOUVERIE PUSEY, D.D. By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D. Edited and pre pared for publication by the Rev. J. O. Johnston, M.A., Principal of the Theological College, Vicar of Cuddesdon, Oxford, and the Rev. Robert J. Wilson, D.D., Warden of Keble College. With Portraits and Illustrations. Four Vols. Svo. Vols,LandIL,3ds. Vol. III. , iSs. Randolph.— THE LAW OF SINAI : being Devotional Addresses on the Ten Commandments delivered to Ordinands. By B. W. Ran dolph, M.A., Principal of the Theological CoUege and Hon. Canon of Ely. Crown Svo. y. dd. Sanday.— Works by W. Sanday, D.D., Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. INSPIRATION : Eight Lectures on the Early History and Origin of the Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration. Being the Bampton Lecttures for 1893. New and Cheaper Edition, with New Preface. Svo. 7s. dd. THE ORACLES OF GOD : Nine Lectures on the Nature and Extent of Biblical Inspiration and the Special Significance of the Old Testament Scriptures at the Present Time. Crown Svo. 4J. Strong.— CHRISTIAN ETHICS : being the Bampton Lectures for 1895. By Thomas B. Strong, M.A., Student of Christ Church, Oxford, and Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Durham, Svo. ly. Tee.— THE SANCTUARY OF SUFFERING. By Eleanor Tee, Author of 'This Everyday Life,' etc. With a Preface by the Rev. J. P. F. Davidson, M.A., Vicar of St. Matthias', Earl's Court; President of the ' Guild of All Souls.' Crown Svo. 7s. dd. Williams. — Works by the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D. ^ A DEVOTIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL NARRA TIVE. Eight Vols. Crown Svo. y. each. Sold Separately. Thoughts on the Study of the Holy Gospels. A Harmony of the Four Gospels. Our Lord's Nativity. Our Lord's MiNiSTRY(Second Year). Our Lord's Ministry (Third Year). The Holy Week. Our Lord's Passion. Our Lord's Resurrection. FEMALE CHARACTERS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. A Series of Sermons. Crown Svo. y. THE CHARACTERS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. Crown Svo. y. THE APOCALYPSE. With Notes and Reflections. Crown Svo. y. SERMONS ON THE EPISTLES AND GOSPELS FOR THE SUN DAYS AND HOLY DAYS. Two Vols. Crown Svo. SJ. each. PLAIN SERMONS ON CATECHISM. Two Vols. Cr. Svo. y. each. i6 A SELECTION OF THEOLOGICAL WORKS Wordsworth.— Works by the late Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Bishop of Lincoln. THE HOLY BIBLE (the Old Testament). With Notes, Introductions, and Index. Imperial Svo. Vol, I. The Pentateuch. 25^. Vol. II. Joshua to Samuel. ly. Vol. III. Kings to Esther. 15J. Vol. IV. Job to Song of Solomon. 25^. Vol. V. Isaiah to Ezekiel. 25^. Vol. VI. Daniel, Minor Prophets, and Index. 15J. Also supplied in 12 Parts. Sold separately. THE NEW TESTAMENT, in the Original Greek. With Notes, Intro ductions, and Indices. Imperial Svo. Vol. I. Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. 23J. Vol. II. Epistles, Apocalypse, and Indices. 37s. Also supplied in 4 Parts. Sold separately. LECTURES ON INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. SmaU Svo. IS, dd. cloth. IS. sewed, A CHURCH HISTORY TO A.D. 451. Four Vols. Crown Svo. Vol. I. To THE Council of Nic^a, a.d. 325. 8.r. dd. Vol. II. From the Council of Nicea to that of Constantinople. 6j. Vol. III. Continuation, ds. Vol. IV. Conclusion, To the Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451. ds. THEOPHILUS ANGLICANUS: a Manual of Instruction on the Church and the Anglican Branch of it. izmo. zs. dd. ELEMENTS OF INSTRUCTION ON THE CHURCH. idmo. IS. cloth, dd. sewed. ON UNION WITH ROME. Small Svo. is. dd. Sewed, is. THE HOLY YEAR : Original Hymns. id7no. zs. dd. and is. Limp, dd. „ „ With Music. Edited by W. H. Monk. SquareSvo. ^.dd. MISCELLANIES, Literary and Religious. Three Vols. Svo. 3ds. ON THE INTERMEDIATE STATE OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 3zmo. is. Wordsworth.— Works by John Wordsworth, D.D., Bishop of Salisbury. THE HOLY COMMUNION: Four Visitation Addresses. 1891. Crown Svo. y. dd. THE ONE RELIGION : Truth, Holiness, and Peace desired by the Nations, and revealed by Jesus Christ. Eight Lectiu-es delivered before the University of Oxford in 1881. Second Edition. Crown 8zu. 7s. dd, UNIVERSITY SERMONS ON GOSPEL SUBJECTS. Sm.Svo. zs,dd. PRAYERS FOR USE IN COLLEGE, idmo. is. 10,000/10/96. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty, at the Edinburgh University Press. 3 9002 00961 7896