Book 3

Chapter XX.

Finally, after pope Benedict, Pelagius [1] was ordained pontiff of the Roman church without the authority of the emperor, because the Langobards had besieged and surrounded Rome, and no one could leave the city. This Pelagius sent to Helias (Elias), bishop of Aquileia, who was unwilling to respect the Three Chapters [2] of the Synod of Chalcedon, a very salutary letter which the blessed Gregory composed while he was still a deacon.

[1] The second of that name. This election of Pelagius actually occurred in 578-579 (Hodgkin, V, 195), and is placed by Paul at too late a period, after the elevation of Authari to the throne (Jacobi, 48, 49).
[2] Paul is mistaken in calling them the ''Three Chapters of the Synod of Chalcedon." The Three Chapters were the doctrines of three bishops, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa, which were condemned by the Synod of Constantinople in 532 (Waitz, P. Ill, 26, note). It was, however, considered by many that this condemnation affected the validity of the decrees of the previous Council of Chalcedon. Paul is also in error in saying that Elias was unwilling to respect the Three Chapters. It was Elias who supported these doctrines and it was Pope Pelagius who condemned them. The controversy regarding the Three Chapters which agitated the church from the time of Justinian (543) to that of Cunincpert (698), had its origin in still older disputes concerning the incarnation of the Messiah. Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, taught that there was one incarnate nature of Christ; that the God-head was united to the body of a man, and the Logos, the Eternal Wisdom, supplied in him the place of a human soul. These teachings were condemned as heresy, and at the beginning of the fifth century the combination of two natures was the prevailing doctrine of the church, yet the mode of the co-existence of these natures could not be represented by our ideas nor expressed by our language, and contention began between those who most dreaded to confound, and those who most feared to separate the divinity and the humanity of Christ. Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria, was at the head of one faction and Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, at the head of the other. Both were fanatical and intolerant. Nestorius abhorred the confusion of the two natures and repudiated the doctrine that the Virgin was the mother of God. Cyril espoused the side of a greater unity in Christ's nature. Pope Celestine approved his creed and condemned the doctrine of Nestorius. The first Council of Ephesus was called, and amid much tumult and violence Cyril was upheld and Nestorius pronounced a heretic. Cyril, however, softened to some extent his previous anathemas, and confessed with some ambiguity the union of a twofold nature in Christ. Eutyches, an abbot of Constantinople, was the head of a sect that was so extreme in its opposition to the doctrine of Nestorius that it incurred itself the reproach of heresy. Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, condemned the doctrine of Eutyches. A second council was summoned at Ephesus, but it was dominated like the first by the patriarch of Alexandria and it accepted his doctrine. A furious multitude of monks and soldiers broke into the church. Flavian was buffeted and kicked and trampled until he expired from his wounds, and the Council of Ephesus has passed into history as "The Robber Synod.'' Pope Leo the Great was not in accord with the doctrine of Eutyches. His famous Tome or epistle on the mystery of the Incarnation had been disregarded at the last Council of Ephesus, but upon the death of the emperor Theodosius, the decrees of that council were overthrown, the Tome of Leo was subscribed by the Oriental bishops, and a new council was summoned at Chalcedon, near Constantinople. (Gibbon, ch. 47.) In this council (Hodgson. Early History of Venice, pp. 44 and 45) Leo's letter was accepted as the orthodox doctrine and as a refutation of Eutyches, and it was declared that the two natures of Christ existed without any "confusion, conversion, division or separation." At the same time certain letters of Cyril were accepted as a refutation of Nestorius, and the controversy was now regarded as settled. This council was held in the year 451. Nearly a century afterwards when Justinian came to the throne, he and his wife Theodora re-opened the question by issuing an edict against certain writings of three men long dead - Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose orthodoxy had always been doubtful, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who had been condemned by the Robber Synod and reinstated by the Council of Chalcedon, and a bishop of Edessa named Ibas. The emperor's edict set forth certain passages from the writings of these men and anathematized them as infected with Nestcrianism. The condemned doctrines were known as "The Three Chapters.'' The papacy was then held by the weak and irresolute Vigilius, a creature of Theodora, whose election to office had been tainted with simony. When the imperial decree was promulgated against the Three Chapters, the Western church which had supported the Council of Chalcedon, naturally opposed it, and Vigilius came to Constantinople in 547 pledged against the emperor's edict. But when he had been in that city a little more than a year, he was induced by flattery and promises to issue his 'Judicatum', which assented to the emperor's doctrine, "saving, however, the Council of Chalcedon." The remonstrances of the western bishops led him again to reconsider his position. In 550, the 'Judicatum' was withdrawn; in 551, the pope pronounced a solemn condemnation of Justinian's advisers in the matter. The emperor now resorted to violence, Vigilius was roughly handled, a general council was summoned at Constantinople which was attended almost exclusively by eastern bishops. The pope took no part except to send to that body a Constitution in which he asserted his right to guide the opinions of all churchmen and annul all decrees inconsistent with his teachings. He did not defend the orthodoxy of Theodore, but in regard to Ibas and Theodoret, he adhered to the approval given them at Chalcedon. But after the Council of Constantinople had disregarded his authority and anathematized the Three Chapters, and the emperor was proceeding to banish him for contumacy, he retracted, finding that the decrees of this council were not irreconcilable with those of Chalcedon (Hodgson, 46, 47), and after his death Pelagius I, his successor, ratified the condemnation of the Three Chapters. After the papacy had thus committed itself to the views of Justinian, it became very earnest in its advocacy of these views, although the churches of Spain and Gaul refused to condemn the Three Chapters, while Milan, Aquileia and the churches of Istria went further and refused communion with all who held with the Council of Constantinople (Hodgson, 48, 49). Paulinus, who was bishop of Aquileia from about 558 to 570, assembled a synod in which Pelagius, Justinian and Narses were all excommunicated (Filiasi, V, 255). John III, the successor of Pelagius, tried to convert the schismatics, but failed, whereupon Narses proceeded by command of Justinian against the rebellious bishops. After two years of turmoil Justinian died, whereupon the tumult partly subsided, and Narses sought to quiet it rather by skill than by violence (Hodgson, 48, 49). After the invasion of the Langobards In 568 Paulinus moved the See of Aquileia from that city to Grado, and soon afterwards died (P. II, 10). Probinus, who followed him, was also a schismatic, as well as Elias, his successor, who held a synod in Grado, which sent legates to Constantinople, and prevailed upon the emperor to leave the schismatics in peace (Hodgson, 48, 49). John III was succeeded by Benedict, and he by Pelagius II (Hodgkin, V, 460), who wrote to Elias exhorting the Istrians to abandon the schism, and inviting them to send bishops and presbyters to Rome to receive satisfaction on all the points upon which they were in doubt (Hodgkin, V, 462, 3). The messengers were sent, but evidently not to receive the promised explanation, for they brought with them a sharp definition of the views of the schismatics, demanding in effect that the pope himself should give way. Pelagius in a second letter argued the question with them and demanded that they should send instructed persons able to give and receive a reason in debate. The Istrian bishops sent another letter announcing their own authoritative decision, and it was to this second letter that Pelagius sent as his answer the ''useful epistle'' composed by Gregory, and referred to in the text (Hodgkin, V, 465). The argument insists that Pope Leo had not confirmed all the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, but had rather reserved private and personal matters; that the acts of the three Syrian bishops might be considered as included in this reservation; that the Council had impliedly condemned these bishops since it had approved of Cyril and the Council of Ephesus which they opposed; that there was good authority for anathematizing heretics even after their death, and that the long reluctance by Vigilius and the Western bishops to accept the decrees of the Council of Constantinople, arose from their ignorance of Greek and gave all the more value to their final conclusions. The letter however, did not convert the schismatics, and more violent measures were soon taken (Hodgkin V, 565 - 567) as we shall see hereafter (Book III, ch. 26 and note).


Chapter XXI

Meanwhile Childepert, king of the Franks, waged war against the Spaniards and overcame them in battle. [1] And this was the cause of the struggle: King Childepert had given Ingundis his sister in marriage to Herminigild, son of Levigild, king of the Spaniards. And this Herminigild, by the preaching of Leander, bishop of Hispalis (Seville), and by the exhortation of his wife, had been converted from the Arian heresy, in which his father was languishing, to the Catholic faith, and his impious father had caused him put to death by the axe upon the very holiday of Easter. [2] Ingundis indeed fled from the Spaniards after the death of her husband and martyr [3] and when she sought to return to Gaul, she fell into the hands of the soldiers who were stationed on the boundary opposite the Spanish Goths, and was taken with her little son and brought to Sicily and there ended her days.[4] But her son was sent to Constantinople to the emperor Maurice.

[1] Paul is in error regarding this war. It was conducted not by Childepert, but by Gunthram, and was unsuccessful (Jacobi, 36).
[2] This fact is doubtful (Hodgkin, V, 255). He was probably assassinated, although he seems to have raised the standard of rebellion against his father (Hartmann, II, I, 66).
[3] He was not regarded as a martyr by Gregory of Tours (VI, 43), but as a rebel against his father.
[4] The soldiers into whose hands Ingundis fell were Greeks. She probably died at Carthage in Africa (Hodgkin, V, 256), not in Sicily.


Chapter XXII.

The emperor Maurice on the other hand dispatched ambassadors to Childepert and persuaded him to send his army into Italy against the Langobards. [1] Childepert, thinking that his sister was still living at Constantinople, gave his assent to the ambassadors of Maurice and again sent the army of the Franks to Italy against the Langobards so that he could get his sister. And when the army of the Langobards hastened against them, the Franks and Alamanni, having a quarrel among themselves, returned to their own country without securing any advantage.

[1] About 587 (Hodgkin, V, 258).