The Church and the Barbarians Part 2

[5] See Hefele, _History of the Councils_ (Eng. trans.), iv. 311.

[6] Given in Evagrius, v. 4.

[7] A.D. 700, Mansi, _Concilia_, xii. 115.

[8] See Gibbon, ed. J. B. Bury, vol. v. pp. 139, 140, 522, 523; and W.

H. Hutton, _The Church of the Sixth Century_, pp. 204-240, 303-309.

[9] Cf. Harnack, _Dogmengeschichte_, ii. pp. 396, 396, 399, etc.

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CHAPTER III

THE CHURCH IN ITALY, 461-590

[Sidenote: The end of the Empire in the West, 476.]

The death of S. Leo took place but a few years before the Roman Empire in the West became extinguished, and political interests entirely submerged those of religion in the years that followed it. Dimly, beneath the noise of the barbarian triumph, we discern the survival in Rome of the Church's powers and claims; but it is not till the rise of another pope of mighty genius that they claim any consideration as important. In 461 died S. Leo; in 476 Romulus Augustulus, the last of the continuous line of Western Caesars, surrendered his sceptre to the Herul Odowakar. The barbarian governed with the aid of Roman statesmen: he fixed his seat of rule at Ravenna rather than at Rome: he showed consideration to the saintly Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia: heretic though he was, he desired to keep well with the Catholic bishops of Rome. After him came a greater man, Theodoric the Goth, whose capture of Ravenna, March 5th, 493, was followed by the a.s.sa.s.sination of Odowakar. [Sidenote: Theodoric the Goth, 493.]

Theodoric, also an Arian, became sole ruler of Italy. He too was served by Roman officials, and his administration was modelled on that of the Caesars. A special interest attaches to his {30} dealings with the Church. The king, indeed, Arian though he was, looked on the Catholic Church with no unfriendly eye. His great minister, Ca.s.siodorus, was orthodox: and it is in his writings, which enshrine the policy of his master, that we must search for the relations 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 Ca.s.siodorus supply, if not a complete account, at least very valuable ill.u.s.trations, of the position a.s.sumed by the East Gothic power under Theodoric and his successors in regard to the Church. The favour shown by the Ostrogoth sovereign to Ca.s.siodorus, a staunch Catholic, yet senator, consul, patrician, quaestor, and praetorian praefect, is in itself an ill.u.s.tration of the absence of bitter Arian feeling. [Sidenote: His relation with the Catholic Church.] This impression is deepened by a perusal of the letters which Ca.s.siodorus 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.[1] The principle which dictated the whole policy of Theodoric is to be seen in a letter to Adila, senator and comes.[2] "Although we will not that any should suffer any wrong whom it belongs to our religious obligation to protect, since the free tranquillity of the subjects is the glory of the ruler; yet especially do we desire that all churches {31} should be free from any injury, since while they are in peace the mercy of G.o.d is bestowed 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 false claims may not be tolerated against men, how much less against G.o.d." 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."

It was on such liberality that the material power of the Church was slowly strengthening itself. Similarly, as in the East, clerical privilege was beginning to be allowed in the law courts: the Church was acquiring the right to judge all cases in which her officers were concerned. Theodoric's successors bettered his instructions.

Athalaric allowed to the Roman pope the jurisdiction over all suits affecting the Roman clergy.

[Sidenote: Weakness of the Church.]

But this picture of toleration and privilege which we obtain from the official letters of Ca.s.siodorus, cannot be regarded as a complete description of the att.i.tude of the East Gothic rule towards the Catholic Church. Pope after pope was the humble slave of the Gothic ruler. They were sent to Constantinople as his envoys, and though they stood firm for the Catholic faith and in rejection of all compromise with regard to the doctrine of Chalcedon, they were entirely impotent in Italy itself. Catholic Italy was at the feet of the Arian Goth.

The cruel imprisonment of Pope John, used as a political tool in 525 and flung away when he proved ineffective, gave a new martyr to the Roman calendar; and, in spite of {32} the absence of direct evidence, it is difficult to regard the executions of Symmachus and of Boethius as entirely unconnected with religions questions. Both were Catholics; both, to use Mr. Hodgkin's words,[3] "have been surrounded by a halo of fict.i.tious sanct.i.ty as martyrs to the cause of Christian orthodoxy."

The father-in-law, "lest, through grief for the loss of his son-in-law, he should attempt anything against his kingdom," Theodoric "caused to be accused and ordered him to be slain." [4] Boethius, who wrote the most famous work of the Early Middle Age, _The Consolation of Philosophy_, a book which became the delight of Christian scholars, of monks and kings, was translated by Alfred the West Saxon, and formed the foundation of very much of the Christian thought of many succeeding generations, met a horrible death in 526 on a charge of corresponding 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 Na.r.s.es had reestablished the imperial power, that the life and property of Catholics were absolutely safe.

The death of Theodoric (August 30, 526) was followed by the downfall of his power. Within ten years all Italy was won back to the Roman and Catholic Empire ruling from the East.

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[Sidenote: The imperial restoration, 554.]

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 ecclesiastics generally were admitted to a large share in judicial and political power. The emperors looked for their strongest political support in the Catholic party. Suppression of Arianism became a political necessity at Ravenna. Justinian gave to Agnellus the churches of the Arians. [Sidenote: The Pragmatic Sanction.] 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 administer 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 allowing popular elections, but far more important in its recognition of the position of the clerical estate. Justinian's new administration of Italy was to be military; but hardly less was it to be ecclesiastical. Here we have, says Mr. Hodgkin,[5]--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 corruption and servility of his civil servants. He seems to have perceived that in the great quaking bog of servility and dishonesty 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 {34} 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 is significant in regard to the rise of the power of the popes in the Western capital of the Empire and in the whole of Italy.

It was by the good deeds of the clergy, and by the need of them, that they came forward before long as the masters of the country.

This rule of the Pragmatic Sanction was not an isolated instance; at every point the bishop was placed _en rapport_ with the State, with the provincials, and with the exarch himself.[6] In jurisdiction, in advice, from the moment when he a.s.sisted 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 confirming the election of the pope. Na.r.s.es 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 pa.s.sed, 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 Lombard invasion. But before this there were thirty years of growth for the Church, and the growth was due very largely to a new force, though for a while it remained below the surface. It was the power of the monastic life, realised anew by the genius and holiness of S. Benedict of Nursia. {35} [Sidenote: The work of S. Benedict.] Born about 480, of n.o.ble parentage, he gave himself from early years to serve G.o.d "in the desert." At about the age of fifteen he is spoken of by his biographer, the great S. Gregory, in words which might form the motto of his life, as "sapienter indoctus." First, a solitary at Subiaco; then the unwilling abbat of a neighbouring monastery, whose monks endeavoured to kill him; then again living "by himself in the sight of Him who seeth all things"; at last, in 529, he founded in Campania the monastery of Monte Ca.s.sino, the mother of all the revived monasticism of the Middle Age.

[Sidenote: His rule.]

The monastery of Monte Ca.s.sino became a pattern of the religious life.

S. Benedict was a wise and statesmanlike ruler, to whom men came with confidence from every rank and every race, to be his disciples, or to place their boys under him for instruction. The rule which he drew up was as potent in the ecclesiastical world as was the code of Justinian in the civil. It had its bases in the root ideas of obedience, simplicity, and labour. "Never to depart from the governance of G.o.d"

was his primary maxim to his monks; and a monastery was to be a "school of the Lord's service" and a "workshop of the spiritual art." The beginning of all was to be prayer. "Inprimis ut quidquid agendum inchoas bonum, a Deo perfici instantissima oratione deposcas." And though absolute power was left, without appeal, in the hands of the abbat, and the rule of the whole house was to be "nullus in monasterio proprii sequatur cordis voluntatem," yet great individual liberty was left to each monk in the direction of his own religious {36} life.

Everyone, he knew, had "his own gift of G.o.d"--some could fast more than others; some could spend more time in silent prayer and meditation; and none could do any good, he knew, however strict their outer rule, without daily enlightenment from G.o.d. There was place in his scheme for those whose work was chiefly manual, those who reclaimed uncultivated lands and turned the wilderness into a garden of the Lord, and for those who spent long hours in contemplation and prayer. The public solemn singing of offices was no more characteristic of his rule than was the following of the hermits in pure prayer.

One who would be admitted to the monastery must take oath before the whole community that he intended constantly to remain firm in his profession, to live a life of conversion to G.o.d, and to obey those set over him, but the last only "according to the rule." True monks were his followers to count themselves only if they lived by the labours of their hands. Idleness, said Benedict, is the enemy of the soul. The life of the monks was ascetic, but without the extreme rigour of the earlier "religious"--hermits and coen.o.bites. The rule required austerities, and gave strict injunction as to food at all times, and especially in Lent; but it did not encourage voluntary austerities beyond the rule, and it admitted many relaxations for the old, the infirm, or those whose labours were especially hard.

Where all depended so much on a superior it was of especial importance that he should be wisely chosen and should rule wisely. In three things he was to be pre-eminent--exhortation, example, and prayer; and prayer, says the saint, is the greatest of these; for {37} although there be much virtue in exhortation and example, yet prayer is that which promotes grace and efficacy alike in deed and word. He was to recognise no difference of social rank. Good deeds and obedience were to be the only ways to his favour. Only if exceptional merit required promotion was there to be any breach of the proper order in which each should hold his place, "since, whether slaves or free, we are all one in Christ, and, under the same Lord, wear all of us the same badge of service."

In a cell hard by the monastery dwelt Benedict's sister, S.

Scholastica, whose religious life he directed, but whom he rarely saw, and who became a pattern to nuns as he to monks.

[Sidenote: Its wide influence.]

The influence of Benedict was, even in his own lifetime, extraordinary.

There were times when it might almost be said that all Italy looked to him for guidance; and there is no more striking scene in the history of the decaying Gothic power than when the cruel Totila, whose end he foresaw, and the secrets of whose heart lay open to his gaze, visited him in his monastery and heard the words of truth from his lips. When, fortified by the Body and Blood of the Lord, he pa.s.sed away with hands still uplifted in prayer, he had created a power which did more than any other to make the Church predominant in Italy. The rule, the definite organisations, of monasticism came to the world from Italy and from Benedict. Though the Benedictines were never actively papal agents, yet indirectly, by their training and by their influence on the whole nature of medieval religion, they formed a strong support for the growing power of the Roman see.

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But Benedict was not the only leader, though he was the greatest, in the monastic revival of the sixth century. With another great name his work may be placed to some extent in contrast.

[Sidenote: Scholars.h.i.+p and learning.]

S. Benedict was no advocate of exclusively ecclesiastical study. He adapted the ancient literatures to the purposes of Christian education.

It is true that the main subjects of study for his monks were the Holy Scriptures, and the chief object the edification of the individual by meditation and of the people by preaching; but the monks learnt to write verse correctly and prose in what had claims to be considered a style. Yet what he himself did in that direction was little indeed.

Perhaps the most that can be said is that he left the way open to his successors. And of these the greatest was Ca.s.siodorus.

[Sidenote: Ca.s.siodorus.]

Ca.s.siodorus, the statesman, the orthodox adviser and friend of the Arian Theodoric, lived to become a Christian teacher and a monk. The friend of Pope Agapetus, he endeavoured with his sanction in 535 to set up a school in Rome which should give to Christians "a liberal education." The pope's death, a year later, prevented the scheme being carried out. But a few years later, in the monastery of Vivarium near Squillace, he set himself to found a religious house which should preserve the ancient culture. Based on a sound knowledge of grammar, on a collation and correction of texts, on a study of ancient models in prose and verse, he would raise an education through "the arts and disciplines of liberal letters," for, he said, "by the study of secular literature our minds are trained to understand the Scriptures {39} themselves." That was the supreme end at Squillace, as it was at Monte Ca.s.sino; and though Ca.s.siodorus looked at letters differently from Benedict, his work, too, was important in founding a tradition for Italian monasticism.

[Sidenote: Weakness of the papacy under Pelagius, 555-60.]

While monasticism was transforming Italy and placing Catholicism on a firm basis in the Western lands of the Empire, the power of the papal see, when Rome was reconquered by the imperial forces from Constantinople, seemed to sink to the lowest depths. The papacy under Vigilius (537-55) and Pelagius (555-60) was the servant of the Byzantine Caesars. The history of the controversies in which each pope was engaged, the scandal of their elections, there is no need to relate here. Suffice it to say that the decisions of the Fifth General Council were in no way the work of either, but were eventually accepted by both. The self-contradictions of Vigilius are pitiable; and the acceptance of Pelagius by the Romans was only won by his rejecting a formal statement of his predecessor.

Consecrated only by two bishops[7] on Easter Day, 556, he began a pontificate which was from the first disputed and even despised. The Archbishop of Milan and the patriarch of Aquileia would not communicate with him. In Gaul he was received with suspicion, and he was obliged to write to King Childebert, submitting to him a profession of his faith.[8] It is clear that the Gallican Church no more than the Lombard regarded {40} the pope as _ipso facto_ orthodox or the guardian of orthodoxy. Even this letter of Pelagius was not regarded 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 judgment of the East. "The Church of Rome," says Mgr. d.u.c.h.esne, "was humiliated." [9]

The lives of these two popes cover the most important period in the ecclesiastical history of the sixth century. After the death of Pelagius I., and up to the accession of Gregory the Great in 590, the interest of Italian history is political rather than ecclesiastical.

The emperors tried to rule, through their exarchs at Ravenna, from Constantinople. The papacy grew quietly in power. Then came the Lombards and a new era began.