Pope Benedict II

To continue yesterday's post and talk about "re-orienting" wayward bishops with "wrong" ideas, we should first look at the Bishop of Rome, Benedict. By Bishop of Rome (elected by the clergy) I mean he was the pope, of course.

He was born Benedict, son of John. This was before it was common for popes to take regnal names. The first pope to do so was Mercurius, who was elected pope in 533 and felt it was improper for a Christian pope to be named for a Roman god, so he took the name John II. Many popes had names that they considered already suitable. Benedict had been involved in the courts of Popes Agatho and Leo II, and was known for his knowledge of Scriptures from an early age.

His confirmation as pope at the time had to come from the emperor, and the emperor at the time for the Roman Empire (what there was of it) was Constantine IV. It took a year for the request to go to Constantinople and for the reply to come back to Rome. He tried to persuade Constantine that they could save time by allowing the Exarch in Ravenna (the Byzantine emperor's local administrator) to ratify papal elections. Constantine was interested in the idea, but request for papal confirmations continued to go to Constantinople.

One of Pope Benedict's acts that connects to recent posts here was his confirmation of Pope Agatho's decree that Wilfrid should be returned to the See of York as archbishop.

Then, after the Sixth Ecumenical Council to determine once and for all the official stand on Monothelitism, bishops who adhered to Monothelitism were sent to Rome for re-education. Benedict did not want to simply condemn Macarius, who had been the Patriarch of Antioch: he wanted to convince him that Monothelitism was wrong and Macarius should relent. According to the notes of the Second Council of Nicaea, which addressed how to manage heretical bishops, Benedict spent 30 days trying to persuade Macarius.

A motive for not simply leaving Macarius deposed has been suggested: his successor at Antioch had just died, and Benedict might have wanted to reinstate Macarius. Macarius was not about to change his stance. He had told the emperor in the Sixth Ecumenical Council that he would rather be cut to pieces and thrown into the sea than admit the doctrine of two wills in Jesus.

So far as we know, Benedict's attempts failed. Macarius dropped out of the historical record. As for Benedict, he was pope from 26 June 684 to 8 May 685.

The Second Council of Nicaea was also called the Seventh General Council; it was the last of seven general councils between both the Western Roman and Eastern Byzantine Churches. We'll look at its subjects tomorrow.

The Sixth Ecumenical Council

The Sixth Ecumenical Council was called to settle a matter that had bothered the Byzantine Church for several years. The issue was Monothelitism, the idea that Jesus only had a single nature to him, either human or divine. There were lots of clergy who felt that he had a dual nature.

The Emperor Constans II had been so annoyed (or uninterested) in the debate over the two that he published a decree that the issue should not even be discussed. His son, Constantine IV, decided that the issue needed resolution, but that the emperor was not qualified to make that decision (and suffer the wrath of the losing side), so he wrote to the pope in Rome to find a way to solve the problem. Pope Agatho took up the challenge with several synods in the west that came up with an answer, which was then taken to Constantinople for the Sixth Ecumenical Council (which was also known as the Third Council of Constantinople, as depicted above in a painting in a church in Bucharest).

The imperial palace hosted 37 bishops on 7 November 680, with the patriarchs of Antioch and Constantinople. Patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem were represented by proxy. A few priests and bishops from Rome were present, to represent the conclusion of the West that Jesus had dual natures. Constantine was present for many of the sessions, participating in the discussions; he was present at the closing session on 16 September 681, at which 151 bishops were present.

A letter from Pope Agatho was read, stating that Jesus was both human and divine; this had been commonly accepted for centuries. The majority accepted this. There were champions for Monothelitism, however. One of them, Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, claimed that Monothelitism had been proposed by ecumenical councils in the past and by statements from popes, but he was challenged to present that evidence. A letter from Pope Honorius to an earlier patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius I, seemed to express support for Monothelitism. The papal legates had no problem declaring that Honorius was wrong and needed to be condemned in the light of the current stance on Monothelitism.

During the months of debate, one proponent of Monothelitism attempted to prove the rightness of it (and of his faith in it) by declaring that he could in fact bring the dead back to life, proving that God was on his side in the debate. A corpse was found, and the priest whispered prayers into its ears, but the result one would expect took place. The corpse remained dead.

Macarius was deposed by the council; he and four others who would not relent on their belief were sent to Rome for "further instruction." Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the man who took on the responsibility of bringing Macarius back "into the fold" so to speak.

Byzantine Economy

Constantine IV had other problems besides potential usurpers and Umayyads. Because his father, Constans II, had moved the administrative seat from Constantinople to Sicily, a large part of the treasury was in the middle of the Mediterranean, not in Constantinople, where Constantine was still living. When Mizizios tried to take control of the empire in Sicily, he had possession of a large part of the empire's funding.

Not only that, but the Arab raids mentioned yesterday also meant the loss to Constantinople of some important mines that were the source of precious metals like gold and silver. This created an economic crisis which needed addressing. Constantine re-issued a copper coin that had been created by Justinian, whose reign just over a century earlier (527 - 565) was looked on by many as a golden age. Constantine took further steps to re-organize the economy to the way it was in Justinian's time. Shortly after, Constantine bore a son whom he named Justinian II, further creating the symbolism of a return to a more glorious period in Byzantine history.

Counter-attacks in Syria and Egypt that reversed some of the progress of the Arab invasions further enhance the new emperor's reputation. The death of Umayyad Caliph Muawiyah I in 680, the architect of the Arab attempt to conquer Constantinople and its territories not long before, put an end to fears of Arabs for a long time.

He then took on a challenge his father had avoided: dealing with the Monothelitism controversy. Appealed to by the patriarchs and priests, he claimed it was not his decision, but that the church must rule on whether Jesus had one nature/energy/will or two. He wrote to Pope Donus in Rome to suggest an ecumenical council to decide the matter. By the time the letter reached Rome, Donus had died, but Pope Agatho agreed to the need and ordered synods throughout the West to confirm the West's belief in the matter. This culminated in a synod in Rome, after which Agatho sent emissaries to Constantinople.

Constantine called for the Third Council of Constantinople, which was also the Sixth Ecumenical Council (depicted above in the 12th century chronicle by Constantine Manasses). The emissaries from the pope met with the Patriarch of Constantinople and all the Byzantine bishops, and the matter was settled.

Constantine had two brothers, Heraclius and Tiberius. They had also been crowned co-emperors by their father, but Constantine decided that, if he were to die, he would rather be succeeded by his son. He had both brothers mutilated by slitting their noses. This physical deformity made them ineligible to rule. When he died on 10 July 685, Justinian II succeeded him at the age of 16.

But let's not summarize the Sixth Ecumenical Council in just a sentence or two. There's a little more to the story, including an attempt to bring someone back from the dead. Come back next time and I'll tell you.

Constantine IV

Constantine's father, Constans II, died in 668 while in Sicily, and immediately some Sicilian bishops wanted someone else to take over, even though Constans had made his son co-emperor years before (in 654, when Constantine was four years old), marking his son as the rightful successor. The bishops did so because they considered Constans a heretic for his tacit support of Monothelitism. The bishops' choice—the Armenian Mizizios, a general in the Byzantine army—was not the choice of Pope Vitalian.

Reportedly, Mizizios did not want the position, but he stayed at the head of this rebellion for seven months until Constantine led an expedition to Sicily to suppress the rebels, killing Mizizios and the man who killed Constans. On the other hand, the Liber Pontificalis ("Book of Popes") recorded that it was the Exarchate of Africa (a Byzantine administrative district) that suppressed the revolt and sent Mizizios' head to Constantinople. (Years later, Mizizios' son John also rebelled in Sicily, and we are told Constantine went to Sicily to stop him; this revolt lasted seven months. It is possible that early historical records have conflated these two rebellions.)

With this slightly rocky start, the 18-year-old emperor went on to reign for 17 years. As well as rebellion to the west, he had to focus on danger from the east. There was a desire by an Umayyad Caliph, Muawiyah I, to overthrow the emperor in Constantinople. Carthage and Sicily were attacked in 667. Fleets captured or attacked other coastal cities for the next two years, and by the start of 668, Constantinople was besieged by both a land army and a fleet.

The countryside was ravaged, but the city itself was merely blockaded, not attacked. It became a waiting game. By June of 668, the Arab armies encamped around Constantinople were running out of food and malnourished. Famine followed, and an outbreak of smallpox caused the leaders to lift the siege and retreat to the town Cyzicus across the water. They continued to raid outlying Byzantine territory until they returned to Syria in 669/70.

Although he had done nothing to oppose the invaders except keep the city together, Constantine's popularity rose after the unsuccessful siege. He had other problems, however, including an economic crisis, which we'll talk about tomorrow.

Constans II

Constans continued to do things that were uncommon for other Byzantine Emperors. He was the first Byzantine Emperor to visit Rome (in 663) since the fall of the Western Empire in 476. Pope Vitalian greeted him warmly (since 476, the emperor in Constantinople was also the emperor of the entire Roman Empire, west as well as east, and so the pope's secular lord). Constans, however, did not respect Rome, in that he took treasures from several buildings, including the Pantheon, to be sent back to Constantinople (even though he was making Sicily his new power base).

Three years later, he declared that the pope did not have authority over the Archbishop of Ravenna, since Ravenna was the city of Constans' representative, the Exarch. The Exarchate of Ravenna was an administrative district that owed allegiance to Constantinople. It was the Exarch Theodore I Calliopas in 652 who arrested Pope Martin on Constans' orders, dragging him from the Lateran and putting him on a ship to Constantinople for trial, for daring to get involved in Constans' decree about Monothelitism.

Although much of what I have reported about Constans seems self-serving, he did undertake some larger issues. Concerned about delays of traffic on the Silk Road, he sent emissaries to China to discuss with Emperor Taizong of Tang China how to better manage the tribal conflicts in the Turkic Khaganate that were causing disruption. Chinese histories talk of the meetings in which Constans II sent gifts such as red and green gems (see the illustration).

Very few Byzantine emperors seemed to die of old age, however, and at the age of 37 Constans was assassinated by his chamberlain while taking a bath. His 18-year-old son became Emperor Constantine IV. Constantine was willing to manage the issue of monothelitism, and had better luck than his father against the encroaching Arabs. I'll tell you about him tomorrow, as well as his first challenge, a usurper pushed into place by the Sicilian bishops.

Monothelitism

The Western Roman Empire and Eastern Byzantine Empire had many differences over the centuries. Some of the biggest differences were religious. One such was the Filioque controversy: did the Holy Spirit proceed from the father, or the Father and the Son? Another was the question of Monothelitism.

Monothelitism ("one will") had come up in the 600s in opposition to dyothelitism ("dual wills"), the doctrine that Jesus had two "wills": a divine aspect and a human aspect. Monothelitism was the opinion that he had one will, a single "energy."

The debates over this had started generations earlier. The Church had determined that Jesus was the Son of God, but exactly how a human could also be God was still being argued. The First Council of Nicaea had decreed that Jesus was fully divine, and any other thought was heretical (this was to combat Arianism; this is the council where Nicholas of Myra reportedly slapped Arius). By declaring that God's Son became a man, they opened the door to discussion (and debate) over how two different natures could combine in a human being.

The debates could be fierce, and fights broke out over them. Emperor Heraclius (610 - 641) suggested monothelitism in order to establish one unifying doctrine. Patriarch of Constantinople Sergius I wrote to Pope Honorius, arguing that the idea of two wills in Jesus could lead to the argument that his human and divine wills were opposed to each other. (Consider the scene in Gethsemane when Jesus asks if fate can be taken away.) Sergius wanted Honorius to agree that divisive arguments should be suppressed. Honorius went along at first, but arguments arose that monothelitism was inconsistent with orthodoxy.

When Constans II came to power in 641, the debate in the Eastern Mediterranean was still raging. Constans tried to suppress it by decree, which did not endear him to either faction. This decree, called the Type of Constans, made it illegal to discuss whether Christ had one or two natures or energies and the matter was to be forgotten. He was 17 years old at the time, and did not care much about religion.

When Pope Martin I wrote to him, telling him to condemn both monothelitism and his own decree, Constans had Martin arrested and brought to Constantinople for trial. Martin was exiled to Crimea. When Adrian of Canterbury—a monk and an acquaintance of Constans—was traveling through Gaul, he was detained by Frankish authorities (Ebroin, Mayor of the Palace) on suspicion of being there to create disruption. The only disruption I can imagine of which he might be accused is regarding monothelitism, which the Roman Catholic West opposed.

When Constans died, his son, Constantine IV, was asked to rule on the subject, but he refused, saying it should be determined by church synods. Several were held over the following years, and monothelitism was declared erroneous.

Before we leave Constans, however, I want to talk about the last years of his reign that did not have anything to do with religion, including his connections with China. See you next time.