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

From 604 to 625, five Pontiffs had ascended the Roman chair, and all had to wait, after their election, for the good pleasure of the Byzantine emperor, that they should take their seat. In 625, there succeeded a man of great distinction. He was a Campanian of high birth, and he strove to follow the example of his master, St. Gregory. Honorius I. sat for 13 years, and with Vitalian, a. d. 657-672, and Sergius, 687-701, alone reached that length of pontificate, while twenty-one other Popes share between them, including vacancies and delays interposed by the Byzantine, the remaining 69 years. We have no documents existing to account for such a number of short pontificates. Honorius busied himself much in the conversion of the southern Saxon kingdoms in England, where St. Bede attests that the Bishop Birinus came by his instance. Anastasius gives a long account of the gifts which he bestowed on the churches of Rome; among them, that he covered the confession of St. Peter with pure silver, weighing 187 pounds: and the whole church with brazen tiles which, with the consent of the emperor Heraclius, he took from the temple of Roma: that he built the church of St. Agnes, and made her a silver shrine, weighing 252 pounds; also, the church of the Four-crowned. Of his character, the Abbot Jonas, near his time, writes: he was “a venerable prelate, sagacious, strong in counsel, clear in doctrine, powerful by his gentleness and humility”. He also clothed with silver plates, weighing 975 pounds, the middle or royal door of St. Peter's, on which there was an inscription, calling him “Honorius, the good bishop, the leader of the people. Your own prelate, blessed Peter, made your doors of silver; O doorkeeper of heaven, maintain for this in tranquillity all the times of your flock.” And there, in the great Basilica, he was buried in all honour.

But, in his person, one of the State-made patriarchs of Constantine's city is able to make the solitary boast that he once deceived one Roman Pontiff. Sergius, who sat in that See, from 610 to 638, and who seems to have obtained as great a mastery over the mind of the emperor Heraclius as his predecessor, Acacius, had over the emperor Zeno, constructed a doctrinal exposition called the Ecthesis, which he induced the emperor to father and promulgate. He was desirous, above all things, to obtain the Pope's approval of the doctrine which he afterwards set forth in this document. He wrote to the Pope letters, the purpose of which the successor of St. Peter, instead of seeing through, appears to have misconceived. After the death of Honorius, the Monothelite emperors and patriarchs claimed to have received the support of that Pope. His not having detected, and actively condemned the deceit of Sergius, brought upon the memory of Honorius the heavy rebuke that Pope St. Leo. II. assented so far to the sentence of the Sixth General Council in 682, as to have written to the Spanish bishops: – “Those who had been traitors to the purity of the Apostolic tradition were punished with eternal condemnation: they are Theodore of Pharan, Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paulus, Petrus of Constantinople, together with Honorius, who, instead of extinguishing, when it began to arise, the flame of heretical doctrine, fostered it by his neglect”.

Much light would appear to be thrown upon the belief of Pope Honorius by the history of the forty years succeeding his death.

He sat within a few days of thirteen years. He was buried, says Anastasius, on the 12th October, 638, in St. Peter's, and the See remained vacant one year seven months and seventeen days. Why did it so remain vacant?

The era and the question are both most important to note. The following narrative will explain why the Papal See was kept vacant nineteen months after the election of a successor to Pope Honorius.

In the year 638, Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, composed in the name of the emperor Heraclius an edict which he called Ecthesis or exposition, as if it were merely an exposition of the Catholic faith respecting the dispute about the One or the Two Operations in our Lord. He then brought about that the emperor subscribed and published it. Perhaps Sergius wished to take advantage of the vacancy in the Papal See to make the Monothelite error a law of the State, and to compel the future Pope to subscribe it, for which he wished to get the imperial subscription making it a law.

The Ecthesis begins with a confession of faith in the Holy Trinity which is quite orthodox. It then enlarges upon the Incarnation, and draws out the distinction of the Two Natures and the Unity of the Person. It proceeds: – “We acknowledge one Son and Lord Jesus Christ, who is at once capable and incapable of suffering, visible and invisible. We teach that the miracles and the sufferings belong to one and the same; we ascribe all divine and human Operation to one and the same Word become flesh; we offer … to Him one adoration, and allow no man to hold and teach either One or Two Operations in the Divine Incarnation of the Lord; but rather, according to the tradition of the holy General Councils, that one and the same only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, works both the divine and the human actions, and that the whole Operation belonging at once to God and to man proceeds from one and the same Incarnate God, the Word, indivisibly and unconfusedly, and is to be referred to one and the same. Since the expression, One Operation, if used by some fathers, still sounds strange and disturbs the ears of some who conceive that it is used for the doing away of the Two Natures personally united in Christ our God, and in like manner the expression Two Operations offends many, as not used by any one of the chief doctors of the Church, and because there follow from it two Wills opposed to each other, as if God the Word willed to fulfil His saving passion, while His Manhood resisted that will of His, and so two are introduced willing contrary things, an impious thing opposed to Christian doctrine. For even the impious Nestorius, though he divided the divine taking of the manhood from the Lord, and introduced two Sons, did not venture to speak of two Wills. Rather he taught identity of will in the two persons invented by him. How then can they who confess the right faith, and glorify one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God, receive two Wills and those opposed to each other in Him? Following, therefore, the holy Fathers in all things and in this, we confess One Will of our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God, so that at no time did His Flesh, animated by the mind, make a natural movement of itself separately and by its own impulse, which was contrary to the bidding of God the Word personally united with it; but when and such and as much as God the Word Himself willed … and we exhort all Christians to be so minded, and so to hold, adding nothing and taking away nothing. I, Heraclius, the faithful emperor in Jesus Christ our Lord, have subscribed.”

Sergius did not fail to have the Ecthesis confirmed by a council at Constantinople. He died himself in December, 638, but before this he had it read, probably, to his Resident Council, and asked for the judgment of its members. The bishops answered, like good courtiers, “The exposition of our great and most wise Emperor agrees in truth with the teaching of the Apostles. This is the doctrine of the Fathers, this the support of the Church. This the confessions of the Five Councils teach; by this the unity of the Christian people is assured, the weakness of the simple strengthened. This works the salvation of mankind. This we also believe; this we confirm; with this we agree.” Sergius gave his solemn confirmation, and added, “If any one henceforth, disregarding the prohibition of the Emperor and the Council, dares to teach that there is One Operation or that there are Two in Christ he shall, if he be bishop, priest, deacon, or clerk, be deposed; but if monk or layman, be excluded from Communion in the Body and Blood of our Lord until he return to his duty”. Thereupon the Ecthesis was attached publicly to the narthex of Sancta Sophia.