fell together into bondage under the special enemy of the Cross. In this bondage the hierarchies of the three patriarchates, as distinct wholes, almost disappear from history. It is well to consider here the condition in which they had been even from the time of the Arian heresy.73 The declension of Antioch had been of as long standing as the declension of Alexandria. At the end of the fourth century St. Chrysostom bore witness to its [pg 143] hundred thousand Christians. But in the course of the fifth the great third see of the Church lost much of its reputation and power. Partly it fell into weak hands, as John I., from 428 to 441, who held but a poor position in the Nestorian conflict, while Domnus II. took part in the robber council of 447. Then, at Chalcedon, the elevation of Jerusalem to a patriarchate took from its jurisdiction the three Palestines. But especially the encroachments of the see of Byzantium told upon it. The bishops of the royal city claimed to consecrate the already-named patriarchs. Anatolius ordained Maximus, who was substituted for Domnus II. when deposed in spite of his subservience to Dioscorus. In this he disregarded the rights of the bishops of the Antiochene patriarchate, and the Byzantine bishops forthwith turned that precedent into a right. Maximus was followed by Basilius, Acacius, and Martyrius. The Monophysite Peter Fullo formed such a party against the last that he resigned in despair. This usurper resisted the Emperor Zeno's condemnation to banishment, and put himself, first secretly, then openly, as patriarch against Julian. He so persecuted the Catholics, that Julian died of sorrow. The Emperor Zeno banished the heretical Peter Fullo to Pityuns. He was succeeded by the equally heretical John II., Kodonatus. But this patriarch was deposed in three months by the exertion of the bishops. The Monophysites already prevailed. They murdered in the sacred place itself the new Catholic patriarch, Stephen II., and threw his mangled body into the Orontes. The emperor punished the crime, [pg 144] and Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, put in his place Stephen III. Pope Simplicius censured this violation of the canons, and prohibited it for the future, which did not prevent Acacius renewing his encroachments when, after the death of Stephen in 482, he consecrated Colendion. Colendion was afterwards banished by the Emperor Zeno, and had to yield to the old heresiarch, Peter Fullo, who kept his patriarchate to his death in 488, and was succeeded by the equally heretical Palladius. Almost all Syria rose against the Catholic patriarch Flavian; the monk Severus got hold of the patriarchate, and kept it for six years. He fled in 519, under the Emperor Justin I., to Egypt. His successors, Paul II., who resigned in 521 through fear of an accusation, and Euphrasius of Jerusalem, could no longer secure superiority to the Catholics. Patriarch Ephrem followed from 526 to 545. He held a Synod against Origenism. Patriarch Domnus III. took part in the Fifth Council in 553. He was followed by the distinguished Anastasius I., and after St. Gregory I. by Anastasius II. The See remained a long time vacant. Those who then followed, Athanasius, Macedonius, and Macarius, were Monothelites. The two latter from the time the Saracens took Antioch, in 637, resided in Constantinople for safety. After George, who is said to have subscribed the Trullan Council in 692, the See was vacant forty years, and the patriarchs had often to endure extortions, ill-treatment, and banishment.
How well Alexandria had prepared itself for the Mohammedan captivity may be seen by the following [pg 145] facts. Under the violent Dioscorus the see of St. Mark not only declined from its distinction when ruled by St. Cyril, but threw the whole of Egypt into wild confusion by espousing the Monophysite error. The Catholic patriarch, Proterius, was murdered in 457: and the heretical Timotheus Ailouros set up by his party instead. He, though condemned by the emperor, Leo I., to banishment, maintained himself stubbornly against the Catholic patriarch, Solophakialos. After his death, Peter Mongus was able to expel the Catholic, John Talaia: and then, from 490 to 538, Alexandria had a succession of five Monophysite patriarchs. Under Justinian, from 538, during forty years, we find four Catholic patriarchs. So, again, in Eulogius, the friend of St. Gregory, and John the alms-giver. But during this time the Monophysites also had their patriarchal succession, and that even from different sects of the heresy. The end of it was that the bitterest enmity arose between the Melchite or Royalist, and the Monophysite party. The former, being a small minority, held by favour of the Byzantine emperor and his troops in Egypt the possession of authority. The Copts, being a great majority, considered themselves oppressed, and welcomed as deliverers, in 638, the conquering Arabs. The Melchite party sunk so low that their patriarchal place was vacant during eighty years, and the number of their bishops greatly sank. After 750, the Christian inhabitants of Egypt were more and more exposed to Mohammedan brutality. Sharp laws against them were issued: distinguishing marks and clothes prescribed.
[pg 146]And here not only is the fall of the three patriarchates under conquerors who strive to destroy the Christian faith to be noted as following upon two centuries of incessant heresy, but another divine judgment also. No sooner have the three patriarchs lost their original position, the two elder as second and third bishops of the whole Church in virtue of their descent from Peter, and taken definitively a position subordinate to the upstart at Byzantium, who in the last decade of the fifth century, in the time of Pope Gelasius, was proclaimed in his Council at Rome no patriarch at all, than they fall under a domination which is not merely infidel but antichristian. The aim of the chalifate is to supplant Christ by Mohammed. The patriarchs, who accepted as superior one who rose above them simply because he was bishop of the imperial residence, had from that time forward to live under a despot who reigned in the name of the false prophet. From being subjects of the Greek Basileus, who, by means of the bishop exalted by him in successive generations, strove to hamper in the exercise of his office the successor of St. Peter, even to the point of making him subject to the guidance of the Byzantine crown in spiritual matters, which was the meaning of the Ecthesis of Heraclius, they passed to be subjects of the Mohammedan chalif, who claimed the supremacy of both powers in the name of the falsehood just invented.
In the diminished territory of Byzantium, which during the rest of the century after Heraclius could but just keep the Mohammedan conqueror outside its walls, [pg 147] the bishop of the royal residence became in fact the sole patriarch. Sergius and Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, the first four of those so exalted, were branded as heretics by the Sixth Council. Those who still bore the names of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem appeared at times, or were deemed to appear, at a Byzantine Council, but the hundred bishops of the Alexandrine, and the hundred and sixty bishops of the Antiochene waned and wasted more and more with every generation miserably spent under the absolute rule of the Prophet's chalif, who had for Christians only two modes of treatment, the one a noxious patronage of their heresy, if such prevailed; the other, persecution of their faith, if they were faithful and zealous.
From the accession of St. Athanasius to the See of Alexandria in 328 to the placing Cyrus in that See by Heraclius in 628, exactly three centuries elapse. In this time the great revolution begun by Constantine, when he took for his counsellor the court-bishop Eusebius, has full space to work itself out. His own son, Constantius, “patron of the Arian heresy,” in St. Jerome's words, inaugurates in full force the attempt of the Byzantine monarchs to extend their temporal power over the spiritual. Valens so persecutes the eastern Church that when Theodosius is called in to save the empire, he finds the eastern episcopate in the state of ruin described by St. Basil. Unfortunately, he saw no better means of restoring it, when, in 381, he invited the bishops of his empire to anxious deliberation, than by laying the first stone of the Byzantine bishop's exaltation. [pg 148] An eastern Council, at his prompting, strives to make that bishop the second bishop of the whole Church on a false foundation, because Constantinople is Nova Roma. Every Byzantine monarch adds his stone to the Byzantine bishop's pillar of pride. St. Leo exposes and censures the assumption. Pope Gelasius does not reckon him among the patriarchs. Justinian enacts him to be ecumenical patriarch, which St. Gregory pronounces to be a title of diabolical pride: being, in fact, the building of spiritual power on temporal lordship. In thirty years after St. Gregory, the act of pride denounced by him receives its full interpretation. The patriarch Sergius attempts to mould the doctrine of the Church under the authority of Constantine's successor: and Constantine's empire is cut in half by the chalif of the man who claims all temporal power on the pretence that he has been invested by God with spiritual power. And two conflicting heresies, the Nestorian and Eutychean, the latter making its last development in the Monothelite, have severed the eastern empire into rivalities so bitter, that the Christians of the several parties hate each other more than they hate the new Mohammedan pretender. The episcopate, seen in all its glory and grandeur when first assembled by Constantine in 325, sinks ingloriously under the successors, in Alexandria and Antioch, of the very prelates who maintained the faith at Nicæa: sinks before Mohammed, who is seen to complete the work of Arius. The successor of St. Peter has done his utmost during two hundred years to preserve the eastern sees of [pg 149] Peter: and in them the whole ecclesiastical constitution formed for herself by the Church in the ten generations preceding Constantine: but Alexandria and Antioch have no prerogative of infallibility: they perish by their own folly: heresy pollutes their sees for generations, and at last the false prophet's chalif alternately blights them with the favour which he shows to their heresy, or wastes them with the oppression which he has always ready for the faith. As to the great eastern patriarchate, from its capture by the Saracens in 638, its host of bishops, at the head of Hellenic cities descending from Alexander's empire, becomes, sooner or later, the prey of the Moslem. From the capture of Alexandria, Egypt becomes Monophysite under what the Copts fancy to be protection from the chalif, with the ultimate result that the country of the desert Fathers becomes the heart of the religion denying Christ: and, with Omar's entry into Jerusalem, upon his rough camel, with his wooden platter and his bag of barley, begin the 1260 years of the Holy City's treading down by the Gentiles.
Thus the southern wandering of the nations came upon the northern. When it came, three hundred years of such times as St. Jerome saw and described had already spread over the earth, sufferings too great for words, changes, as he says, such as neither Thucydides nor Sallust could express. But the southern wandering was much more rapid in time, and in effect far more complete. The ten years of Omar's chalifate had changed the whole aspect of [pg 150] the world, had shifted the centre of political power. It had been at Constantinople: it was shifted to Medina. From Constantine to Heraclius the empire had taken and enrolled in its armies unnumbered men of Teuton race. Alaric had been a Roman general: Stilicho and Aetius, saviours of Rome. This race had also fed the Church with converts of more stalwart nature than the enfeebled races who needed the infusion of northern blood even to till their fields, as well as to guard their frontiers, or to guide their polity. But the southern wandering gave no soldiers to the empire, and no converts to the Church. There would be no greater contrast than the two races from which these two great movements came. The northern barbarian, with all his wildness, could take the impress of the Church. He had in his woods and marshes, in his transmigrations and encampments, kept, in no small degree, the original tradition of the human race. Already Tacitus had noted his regard for woman as the companion of his life, for the sanctity of marriage, for monogamy, in the practical guarding of which he put to shame the degenerate Roman, and still more corrupted Greek. The heroic courage, natural to him, was an omen of the point which, as Christian martyr, he might reach. The self-government shown in the original habits of the tribe was a soil whereon princes and bishops might sit in council to form governments in which “liberty and empire,” unknown to Byzantine, might dwell together. These qualities were [pg 151] elements of the social, the political, even the ecclesiastical life. Far otherwise was the Saracen type. Savage, rude and ignorant, with no tincture of art or learning: with habits of unlimited polygamy: with leanings to unmitigated despotism: with no regard to human life. In courage only was the southern a match for the northern barbarian. The outcome of his whole character as to the rest was different: and the religion invented for him was but the barest development of his natural temperament.
At the death of Chalif Omar, this new antichristian power had taken from the empire of Heraclius every yard of land formerly under its dominion from Tarsus to Tripoli: and stood in most threatening attitude over against all which remained to it: indeed, to the whole Christian name. Mohammed was its watchword against Christ. The northern wandering had no such counter watchword. It respected Roman laws and customs when it seized on Roman lands. It had understanding enough, not only as shown in its princes, Ataulph and Theodorich, but in a race of officers surpassing not only Roman courage, but Roman fidelity in the civil and military administration, to venerate as unapproachable by any wisdom of its own, the political fabric of which, in so many lands, it confiscated the resources.
But Omar's treatment of Greek learning in the library of Alexandria was the expression of his whole mind towards Christian civilisation. And Omar's [pg 152] powerful hand had not only maimed Byzantium, but absorbed Persia. All this had been done since Heraclius carried back the Cross in triumph to Jerusalem. The Persian had kept it in its shrine during its captivity with the seals untouched. The Saracen scorned all which it represented. The contest of those whom Heraclius would leave in his place was to be with the Saracens, Omar, Osman, and Ali.
After the Chalif Omar was mortally wounded in the mosque at Medina, he at first named Abd Errahman for his successor, who declined the chalifate. Whereupon Omar named six of Mohammed's companions, together with the same Abd Errahman to choose a new chalif. They were engaged during three days in heated contest, since each of the six wished to become the chalif, and were at last induced with great difficulty by Abd Errahman to accept one of their number named by him. Thus Osman, at the age of seventy, was chosen as successor of Omar. His chalifate lasted from November, 644, to June, 656: during the whole of which, eleven years and a-half, the Saracen realm was disturbed by internal struggles. Yet external wars continued. Governors, appointed by Osman, were decried, but they did many successful deeds of arms.74 In North Africa, the boundaries of the realm were extended on from Tripolis as far as Kairawan. In Persia, a governor, afterwards removed, gained a province. The whole of Persia, which had been overrun rather than subdued under Omar, was finally conquered under [pg 153] Osman. An attempt of the Greeks to recover Alexandria and Egypt succeeded for a moment, but was frustrated by the aid given to the Moslim by the Monophysite Copts. Parts of Armenia and Asia Minor were taken, and the island of Cyprus. The Moslim carried their conquering arms to the Oxus, and slew, in his retreat from a lost battle, the last heir of the kings of Persia.
In 656, the discontents produced by Osman's favour of his own family culminated in an insurrection at Medina, in which the dwelling of the chalif, after a siege of several weeks, was at last broken open, and the third Commander of the Faithful, also, like Ali, a son-in-law of Mohammed, was slain by the eldest son of Abu Bekr, the first chalif. A week after his death, the third chalif, Osman, was succeeded by Ali, the fourth, widower of Mohammed's favourite daughter, Fatima. But the six and a-half years of Ali's chalifate were occupied with a violent struggle between him and Muawiah, cousin of Osman, and governor of Syria.75 There had ever been enmity between the family of Haschim, from which Mohammed descended, and the family of Abd Schems, from which Osman and Muawiah descended. In the course of the struggle Egypt fell away from Ali to Muawiah; and, in 660, Medina and Mecca paid him homage. Ali's power, then, was seated only in Irak and Persia. Civil war pressed so heavily on Islam that three men resolved to rid it in one day of Ali, Muawiah, and Amrou, as the causers of all the [pg 154] trouble. Ali was to be assassinated in the mosque of Kufa; Muawiah in that of Damascus; Amrou in that of Fostat, to terminate a war carried on, not only in the field, but by mutual imprecations from the pulpit. But of the three, Ali alone was mortally wounded, Muawiah escaped with a light wound, and Amrou's representative was killed instead of him. Ali died, three days after, on the 24th January, 661. He is said to have surpassed not only Muawiah, but Abu Bekr and Omar in abhorrence of all falsehood, in love of justice, in valour and eloquence. In simplicity of life and generosity, Ali resembled his two predecessors: but, like them also, the severity which he practised by no means included moral restraint. He died at sixty-three; after Fatima's death, and, therefore, in the latter half of his life, he contracted six or eight marriages, besides maintaining nineteen slave women, with whom also, after the custom of that time, he lived.
So the second, third, and fourth chalifs—Omar, Osman, and Ali—perished by assassination within seventeen years of each other, in 644, 656, and 661. Let us turn to see what has been doing at Constantinople in these seventeen years. We have already seen how Omar, in his ten years, had built up an empire from the spoils of Byzantium and Persia, which, during the civil wars of his two successors, was yet increased. The seat of its sovereign power was transferred from Medina to Damascus as soon as Muawiah was acknowledged as chalif, in the year 661. But during the four chalifs, from the death of Mohammed in 632 to 660, the [pg 155] immense Mohammedan realm was governed from Medina.
When Heraclius died in 641, he was covered with defeat, and the chief provinces of his empire were, day by day, falling away. He left a son, Constantine, twenty-eight years old, who had been named emperor from his birth: and, by his second marriage with his niece, Martina, a son, Heracleonas, nineteen years old, who had been named emperor two years before, and two younger sons, David and Marinus, named Cæsars, besides two daughters, who, like their mother, had been named expresses. In his will he directed his two sons, Constantine and Heracleonas, to reign together with equal power, and to acknowledge Martina as empress-mother. Constantine III. was not Monothelite, but orthodox. At his accession he received a letter76 from Pope John IV., maintaining the true doctrine, and also that his predecessor, Honorius, answering a question put to him by the patriarch Sergius, “taught concerning the mystery of the Incarnation, that there were not in Christ, as in us sinners, opposing wills of the mind and the flesh: and for this, certain persons, trusting to their own meaning, threw out the suspicion that he had taught there to be the only one will of the Godhead and the Manhood, which is altogether contrary to the truth”. This the Pope proceeds to prove at length. And he ends by saying that he finds a certain document, contrary to Pope Leo, of blessed memory, and the Council of Chalcedon, has been issued, to which bishops are [pg 156] compelled to subscribe. This was the Ecthesis of Heraclius. And he entreats the new emperor, as guardian of the Christian faith, to command this document to be torn down, and, as a first sacrifice to God, to scatter from His Church every cloud of novelty. So, if he regard the things of God, may the Lord, whose faith is preserved in purity, preserve his empire from the nations trusting in their ferocity.
But the emperor, Constantine III., died 103 days after his father, poisoned, as eastern historians say, by his step-mother, the empress Martina: with which crime they also inculpate the patriarch Pyrrhus. She then reigned with her son, Heracleonas; but not for long. An insurrection deposed her: both she and Heracleonas were maimed and banished, and Constans II., son of Constantine III., and grandson of Heraclius, at twelve years old became emperor, under tutelage of the council. The answer given to the letter of Pope John IV. was that the Ecthesis affixed to the door of churches should be removed.
But the empire was torn to pieces by the strife of the various heresies contending for mastery. The patriarch Pyrrhus, who had succeeded Sergius in the see of Constantinople, and in the patronage of his heresy, found it expedient on the deposition of Martina to leave his see. He appeared in Africa, and had a great controversy with Maximus in the presence of the African episcopate in 645. He acknowledged himself to be defeated: and went to Pope Theodorus at Rome, where he renounced the Monothelite heresy, and was received by the Pope [pg 157] as bishop of the capital. But he returned presently, at the instance of the exarch of Ravenna, to the errors which he had renounced.
In due time the emperor, Constans II., produced the Typus to take the place of his grandfather's Ecthesis. And, when Pope St. Martin held his great Council at Rome in 649, Constans burst into fury, and, as above recorded, afterwards caused the Pope to be kidnapped, to be tried at Constantinople, and to be condemned for high treason; finally, to perish of want in the Crimea.
With Pope St. Martin, Maximus had been the great defender of the faith. It is time to give some record of his life, his labours, and his reward.
Maximus sprung about the year 580 at Constantinople from an old and noble family. There were few of rank superior to his relations. He had great abilities, received an excellent education, and became one of the most learned men in his time, and the ablest theologian. The emperor Heraclius drew him against his wishes to the court, and made him one of his chief secretaries. But, in the year 630, his love for solitude, as well as his observance of the wrong bias which the mind of Heraclius was taking, led him to withdraw from court. He resigned the brilliant position which he occupied, became a monk in the monastery of Chrysopolis, that is, Scutari, and, on the death of its abbot, was chosen unanimously to succeed him. Henceforth to the end of his life, at the age of eighty-two, he became, by word and deed, a champion of the Catholic faith against the Monothelite heresy. In 633, he went with Sophronius, [pg 158] then a simple monk, to Alexandria, and joined him in entreating the patriarch, Cyrus, to desist from promulgating the new heresy. Against this, Sophronius, having become patriarch of Jerusalem, published his synodical letter quoted above. Maximus went on to the west, visiting Rome and Carthage, and rousing the African bishops against the heresy. He showed his great dialectical skill in a contest with Pyrrhus, then the deposed successor of the patriarch Sergius. Pyrrhus even accompanied him to Rome, and renounced the heresy before Pope Theodorus.
Maximus continued at Rome to use all his efforts against the heresy, and counselled Pope Martin to call the Lateran Synod, and formally condemn it. As the Ecthesis of Sergius had been composed against Sophronius, and then the Typus—drawn up by the patriarch Paul, and imposed by the will of the emperor Constans II.—had been substituted for it at Constantinople, the Council of the Lateran which in 649 condemned both, excited the bitterest wrath of the emperor. Three men had especially in his mind counter-worked all his endeavours to impose his will as the standard of faith upon the Romans and the bishops. These three men were Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, who had died shortly after the surrender of his city to Omar, Pope Martin, and the Abbot Maximus. How he avenged himself on the Pope St. Martin has been already described.
About the same time at which the Pope was carried off to Byzantium, in 653, Maximus also was seized, with [pg 159] his two disciples, both named Anastasius, one a monk, the other a Roman priest, who had been a nuncio. They were carried also to Byzantium, and thrown into prison. After the Pope had been judged by the senate, and condemned to death for high treason, Maximus and his disciples were also brought to trial.
Maximus had distinguished himself by a great number of writings. He is considered the greatest theologian of the seventh century. He has kept a very high rank through all the centuries which have followed him. After the death of Sophronius, the intellectual combat against the Monothelite heresy rested mainly upon him. The very high rank which he had held as a minister of Heraclius, conjoined with his scientific defence of the truth, made him the most conspicuous person in the Church after the martyrdom of Pope Martin, whose friend, counsellor, and supporter he had been, and his unbending constancy under the severest tortures has given him among the Greeks the name of “the Confessor.”
Part of a letter77 is extant from him to a certain Peter, a man of high rank, who had entreated him to meet and resist the patriarch Pyrrhus in the African conference. With regard to him Maximus says: “if Pyrrhus will neither be heretical, nor be so-called, let him not satisfy this or that individual. That is superfluous and unreasonable; for just as when one is scandalised in him all are scandalised, so when one is satisfied all surely [pg 160] will be satisfied. Let him then hasten to satisfy before all the Roman See. When this is satisfied all men everywhere will accept his religion and orthodoxy. In vain he speaks who would gain me and suchlike as me: and does not satisfy and implore the most blessed Pope of the holy Roman Church, that is, the Apostolic See, which has received and holds the government, the authority, and the power of binding and loosing over all the holy Churches of God in the whole earth in all persons and matters from the Incarnate Word of God Himself, and likewise from all holy Councils according to the sacred canons. For with him the Word who rules the celestial virtues, binds and looses in heaven. For if he thinks that others must be satisfied, and does not implore the most Blessed Pope of Rome, he is like the man who is accused of homicide, or any other crime, and maintains his innocence not to him who by law is appointed to judge him, but without any use or gain strives to clear himself to other private men who have no power to absolve him.”
Yet more remarkable, if possible, is another testimony which this great martyr, born and bred at Constantinople, and up to the age of fifty a minister of the eastern emperor, who bears the greatest name among the theologians of the seventh century, has left behind him. It was apparently written at Rome after the completion of the Lateran Council in 649, which he mentions in it, and numbers with the five preceding ecumenical Councils. It runs thus:—
[pg 161]“All78 the ends of the world, and all therein confessing the Lord with pure and upright faith, gaze stedfastly upon the most holy Church of the Romans, its confession and faith, as upon the sun of eternal light. They expect the brightness which ever lightens from it, in the doctrine of Fathers and Saints, as, guided by a divine wisdom and piety the six Councils have set it forth, drawing out with greater distinctness the Symbol of the Faith. For from the beginning when the Incarnate Word of God descended to us, all churches of Christians everywhere possess and hold as the only basis and foundation that greatest of churches, as against which, according to the promise of the Saviour, the gates of hell never prevail: as which possesses the keys of the right faith and confession of Him: as which discloses the real and only religion to those who approach it religiously, while it shuts up and stops every heretical mouth loudly speaking iniquity. For they are seeking without labour and apart from suffering, O wonderful patience of God which endures it!79 by two words to pull down what has been established and built up by the Creator and Ruler of all things, our Lord Jesus Christ, by His disciples and apostles, by all the sequence of holy Fathers, Teachers, and Martyrs, who offered themselves up by their words and deeds, their struggles and labours, their toil and blood-sheddings, and lastly, by wondrous deaths, for that Catholic and Apostolic Church of us who believe in Him. They [pg 162] would annul that mystery of right Christian worship with all its greatness, its brightness, and its renown.”
Pope Martin, who held this great Council, at which Maximus was present, supporting the Pope with all his learning, had been seized, as we have seen, in his own city and church, in the year 653, four years after it. At the same time, Maximus, being about 73 years old, was seized at the same place, and deported to Constantinople, and upon his arrival was taken straight from the ship, naked and without sandals, together with his two disciples and companions, and they were put into different prisons by five officers and their attendants. Later, when the proceeding against the Pope had been; closed, Maximus was brought into the palace before the whole senate and a great crowd.80 He was placed in the middle of the hall, and the fiscal angrily addressed him with the words, “Art thou a Christian?” Maximus replied, “By the grace of God I am”. “That is not true.” “Thou mayest say so, but God knows that I am a Christian.” “And if thou art a Christian, how canst thou hate the emperor?” asked the judge. “But,” replied Maximus, “how is this known to thee? Hatred, like love, is a secret affection of the spirit.” “It is become plain by thy deeds that thou hatest the emperor and his realm, for it is only thou who hast delivered Egypt and Alexandria and the Pentapolis, Tripolis and Africa into the hands of the Saracens.”
These accusations fell to the ground, as the false witnesses brought could not maintain them. But the [pg 163] end of this trial was to condemn Maximus and his two companions to a separate and severe exile.
The Pyrrhus whom Maximus had so far prevailed over in the famous conference held in Africa in 645, that he had renounced his heresy to Pope Theodorus, and been received by him in St. Peter's, who had then fallen back through the influence of the exarch, and been excommunicated, had succeeded in regaining the see of Constantinople, upon the death of Paulus, the author of Typus. After a few months, he had died in the summer of 655. He was followed by Peter, whose synodal letter, sent to Rome to Pope Eugenius, is said to have been so dark on the subject of heresy that the clergy and people would not suffer the Pope to celebrate Mass in the Church of St. Mary until he had promised not to accept this letter.
Later in the summer, Maximus was again brought into the judgement hall of the palace, where the two Monothelite patriarchs—Peter of Constantinople and Macedonius of Antioch, then living in the capital—were present. “Speak the truth,” said Troilus to him, “and the emperor will have mercy on thee, for if one of the accusations be proved juridically against thee, thou wilt be guilty of death.” Maximus declared they were all false; that he had submitted the Typus to anathema, not the emperor. The Lateran Council was asserted to have no force for he who held it has been deposed, “Deposed he was not,” said Maximus, “but expelled.” Maximus and his companion, Anastasius, were sent to different banishments.
[pg 164]A year later, a fresh attempt was made to break down his resolution. Paul and Theodosius, two men of consular rank, and Theodosius, Bishop of Cæsarea, the latter as commissary of the patriarch, Peter, the former two of the emperor, reached the imprisoned confessor on the 24th August, 656. Every effort was made to induce Maximus to accept the Typus, and enter into communion with the see of Constantinople.
The terms which Maximus required were reported to the emperor, and fresh commissaries, the patricians, Troilus and Epiphanius, and the same bishop, Theodosius, sent again to Maximus.81 “The Lord of the world sends us to thee,” said Troilus, “to inform thee what it pleases him to require. Wilt thou obey his command or not?” Maximus requested that he might hear the command. They required that he should first answer the question. Maximus said, “Before God and Angels, and you all, I promise, what the emperor commands me, in respect of earthly things, I will do”. At length Epiphanius said, “The emperor by us informs thee: since all the West and all the perverse-minded in the East look to thee and make contention because of thee, since they will not submit to us in faith, the emperor wills to move thee that thou enter into communion with us on the basis of the Typus issued by us. We will then personally go out to Chalce, and embrace thee, and offer thee our hand and, lead thee to the cathedral with all honour and pomp, and place thee by our side where the emperors are wont to sit, and we will then [pg 165] partake of the life-giving Body and Blood of Christ, and declare thee again for our father: and there will be great joy not only in our own residence, but in all the world. For we are well assured that if thou enterest into communion with this holy see, all who have divided themselves from our communion on thy account will unite themselves to us again.”
Then Maximus turned to the bishop and said to him with tears:—“My good lord, we are all awaiting the Day of Judgment. You know what we drew out, and agreed upon respecting the holy Gospels, the life-giving Cross, the image of our God and Saviour, and the all-holy ever-virgin Mother who bore Him.” The bishop cast down his eyes, and said to him, in a lower voice:—“What can I do, since the emperor has chosen something else?” Maximus said, “Why did you and those with you touch the holy gospels, when you could not bring about the promised issue? Indeed, the whole power of heaven would not persuade me to do this. For what answer shall I give, I say not to God, but to my own conscience, that for the glory of men, which has in it no substance, I have forsworn the faith which saves those who cling to it.”
At this word they all arose, their fury overmastering them: they pushed and scratched and tore him; they covered him with spittle from his head downwards, so that his clothes reeked, until they were washed. And the bishop, rising, said, this ought not to be done, but his answer only should be heard, and then be reported to our lord. For religious matters are done in [pg 166] different fashion from this. The bishop could scarcely induce them to desist. They took their seats again, and reviled him with indescribable insults, and imprecations. Epiphanius said furiously, “Malefactor and cannibal, speakest thou thus, treating us and our city and our emperor as heretics? We are more Christian and orthodox than thou art. We confess that our Lord and God has both a divine will and a human will, and an intellectual soul, and that every intellectual nature has by nature, Will, and Operation, since motion belongs to life, and will to mind: and we know Him to have the capacity of Will not only in the Godhead, but also in the Manhood. Nor do we deny His Two Wills and Two Operations.”
The abbot, Maximus, answered:—“If you so believe, as the intellectual Natures and the Church of God, why are you compelling me to communicate on the terms of the Typus, which merely destroys those things?” “That,” said Epiphanius, “has been done for accommodation, that the people may not be injured by these subtleties.” Maximus said:—“On the contrary, every man is sanctified by accurate confession of the faith, not by its destruction, as put in the Typus”. “I told thee in the palace,” said Troilus, “that it did not destroy, but bade silence be kept that we may all live in peace.” Maximus answered:—“What is covered in silence is destroyed. The Holy Spirit says by the prophet:—‘There are no speeches nor languages, where their voices are not heard’: a word not spoken is no word at all.” Troilus said: “Keep in thy heart [pg 167] what thou wilt; no one prevents thee”. Maximus answered, “But God did not limit salvation to the heart when he said:—‘He that confesseth Me before men, I will confess him before My Father in heaven,’ and the Apostle, ‘With the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made to salvation’. If then God, and God's prophets and apostles bid the great and terrible mystery which saves all the world to be confessed by holy voices, there is no need that the voice which proclaims it be in any way silenced, in order that the salvation of those who are silent be not impaired.”
Then Epiphanius, speaking most harshly, said, “Didst thou sign the writing?” he meant the Lateran Council. Abbot Maximus said, “Yes, I signed”. “And how didst thou dare to sign, and anathematise those who confess and believe as the intellectual Natures and the Catholic Church? In my judgment thou shalt be taken into the city, and be put in chains in the forum, and the actors and actresses, and the women that stand for hire, and all the people shall be brought, that every man and woman may slap thee, and spit in thy face.” Abbot Maximus replied:—“Be it as thou hast said, if we have anathematised those who confess Two Natures of which the Lord is, and the two natural Wills and Operations corresponding to Him who is both God and Man. Read, my Lord, the acts and decree, and if what you have said is found, do all your will. For I, and my fellow-servants, who have subscribed, have anathematised those who, according to Arius and Apollinarius, maintain one Will and Operation, [pg 168] and who do not confess our Lord and God to be intellectual in each of those Natures of which, in which, and which He is: and, therefore, in both of them having Will and Operation of our salvation.”
They said, “If we go on treating with this man, we shall neither eat nor drink. Let us go, and take food, and report what we have heard. For this man has sold himself to the devil. They went in and dined, and made their report, it being the eve of the Exaltation of the life-giving Cross in the year 656.”82
The next day, Theodosius, the Consul, came out early to the aforesaid Abbot Maximus, and took away all that he had, and said, in the emperor's name:—“Since thou wilt not have honour, it shall be far from thee. Go to the place thou hast thought thyself worthy of, suffering the judgment of thy disciples, him at Mesembria, and him at Perberi.” The patricians Troilus and Epiphanius had said:—“We will bring the two disciples, him at Mesembria, and him at Perberi, and put them, too, to the proof, and see the result. But learn, Sir Abbot, that, when we get a little relief from this rout of heathens (that is, the Saracens), by the Holy Trinity, we will bring you to terms, and your Pope, who is now lifted up, and all the talkers there, and the rest of your disciples: and we will cook you all, each in his own place, as Martin has been cooked”. And the Consul Theodosius took him and committed him to soldiers, and they took him to Perberis. It is not known how long what is called the second exile of [pg 169] St. Maximus lasted, which ensued after he had thus resisted the offers of the emperor.
At a later time, he was brought from Perberis, with his disciple, Anastasius, back to Constantinople.83 A Synod, there held, excommunicated them both, as well as Pope St. Martin, St. Sophronius, and all the orthodox.84 The second Anastasius, who had been a Nuncio, was also brought, and the Synod passed on all three the sentence:—“As the Synod has passed against you its canonical sentence, it only remains that you be subject to the severity of the civil laws for your impiety. And though no punishment could be proportionate to your crimes, we, leaving you to the just Judge in respect of the greater punishment, grant you the indulgence of the present life, modifying the strict severity of the laws. We order that you be delivered to the prefect, and by him taken to the guard: that you be then scourged; that in you, Maximus and Anastasius, and Anastasius, the instrument of your iniquity, the blaspheming tongue be cut out to the roots, and then your right hand, which has served your blaspheming mind, be cut off: that thus deprived of these execrable members, you be carried through the twelve quarters of this imperial city, and then be delivered to perpetual banishment and prison, to lament for the remainder of your errors.”
This sentence was carried out by the prefect. St. [pg 170] Maximus was then transported to Lazika, in Colchis: the other two to different castles. As Maximus, from weakness, could neither ride nor bear a carriage, he was borne on a sort of bed made of branches to the Castle of Schemarum. St. Maximus foretold the day of his death, which took place on the 13th August, 662, when he was eighty-two years old. At that moment the chalif Muawiah had about completed the first year in which he had fixed the seat of the Saracenic empire at Damascus: and the “rout of heathen” from which the Byzantine Consul had anticipated deliverance, held in peril during the whole of Muawiah's reign to 680 the imperial city on the Bosphorous, where “the lord of the world” usually resided.