Agapetus I

ON ST. AGAPETUS I, POPE AND CONFESSOR,

AT CONSTANTINOPLE

In the year of Christ 536.

HISTORICAL-CRITICAL SYLLOGE.

Agapetus, Pope and confessor, at Constantinople. (S.)

BHL Number: 0124

BY J. C.

§1. The chronology of St. Agapetus's Acts variously handed down by various writers.

Saint Agapetus, the first of that name, whom some call Rusticus Agapetus, after John II came to the Roman Chair of St. Peter, St. Agapetus, celebrated with the most beautiful elogia and in the most difficult times of the Church illustrated it wonderfully by his heroic Constancy and by the glory of his learning and sanctity. Some Acts of his, besides Anastasius the Librarian in his Catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs, were left in writing to posterity by Liberatus the Deacon, a contemporary author, in his Breviary, chapter 21, and by St. Gregory the Great, book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 3. There is added to these an anonymous author praised by Baronius, whose little book On the things done by the holy Pontiff at Constantinople, on his death and funeral I exhibit at the end of this Sylloge. Certain other deeds of St. Agapetus are dug out, some from the council of Constantinople, some from his own letters, each of which we shall pursue in the order of time as best we can. And in the very brief time of his Pontificate the most celebrated Pontiff did such and so illustrious things, that as many writers as treat of him, both ancient and more recent, seem to vie in heaping praises upon him.

[2] by the Easterns as much Among the Easterns Marianus, monk and archimandrite of the monastery of blessed Dalmatius, most sweetly alludes to St. Agapetus's name in his Petition to the emperor Justinian, recited in the council of Constantinople under Mennas, Session 1. God, he says, sent to this city Agapetus, who is truly ἀγαπητός, that is, beloved of God and men. In his praises they thus run out in the council, Session 4: There came into this royal city, his Godhead assenting, Agapetus, Pope of holy and famous memory, most blessed, who at once stretched out his hand with God to the sacred canons. Gratian, On Consecration, Distinction 1, Canon 22, celebrates him in these words: Agapetus, a Catholic vessel, the trumpet of the Gospel, the herald of justice, washed with his Catholic prayers the sacred veils of the altar and of the see, infected by the breaths of the sacrilegious Anthimus. Finally, to pass over countless others, among the more recent Baronius concludes the Acts of the holy Pontiff with such an elogium: I do not know, he says at the year of Christ 536, number 70, whether another like to Agapetus can be found, who, presiding over the Catholic Church for so brief a space of time, accomplished such and so great things; whose most ample proclamations were as loudly sounded among the Westerns as among the Easterns; and who, departing from this life, left to all the Faithful a more ardent longing for him, which private love is wont to take away even from the best; who finally, falling upon times so deplorable, shone the more with priestly vigor and appeared more steadfast in Pontifical power.

[3] Not undeservedly does the most eminent annalist write that St. Agapetus's Pontificate fell upon deplorable times, and by the Westerns. since namely the heresy of Eutyches had at court a most crafty protectress, Theodora, who with every craft intruded into whatever sees she could — her husband Justinian either impiously promising his cooperation or basely indulging his wife too much — men of that most abandoned sect, who corrupted everything far and wide and profaned every holy thing with the basest crimes; and since besides Justinian the emperor himself, blinded by I know not what smoke of some doctrine, encroached upon the rights of the supreme Pontiff and contrived to frame ecclesiastical laws. Assuredly, for guarding against and averting so many evils, there was need of such fortitude of mind, such erudition and constancy, as we shall see that the holy Pontiff was endowed with, whose deeds we here illustrate. Moreover they are not without difficulty as to their chronological order, which, before we treat the rest, let us investigate. And first let us set before our eyes the epochs which trouble the learned not a little, and which are the origin of no small difficulty in fixing the time of St. Agapetus's Pontificate and in arranging his deeds.

[4] Anastasius in his Catalogue The chronology of his deeds the time in which the holy Pontiff occupied the Roman Chair of St. Peter,

thus circumscribes: He sat 11 months, 18 days: for which Papebroch published in his Conatus 20 days. Both the Pagis take away one from Anastasius's months, but add another to the days, and contend that one must read: he sat 10 months, 19 days. This number of days he asserts is found in several old Catalogues and in manuscript Copies of Anastasius too; but that one month he cuts off by his own judgment alone, in order to fix the chronology of St. Agapetus's death: certainly he produces nowhere any ancient guide for this cutting off. Baronius in his Annals at the year of Christ 535 extends St. Agapetus's Pontificate, begun in the winter of that opening year, for some months beyond the beginning of the next. In the Office of the Vatican and Lateran church, which is at this 20th day of September concerning St. Agapetus with three proper Lessons, in the sixth Lesson the Prelacy of our holy Pontiff seems to be extended not only beyond the period of one year but even to nearly another whole one; for he is said to have died before two years were completed: which I should not think must be taken merely negatively, as they say, but so as to signify nearly two completed years.

[5] Father Étienne Souciet of our Society, a writer most celebrated for various little works, labors under no small difficulties. The various on the ninth Inscription of Augusta Prætoria of the Salassi, when found, disputes at length most learnedly about the time of St. Agapetus's Pontificate, an occasion being offered from the Third year after the consulship of Paulinus the Younger, most illustrious man, which the inscription presents. His aforesaid Animadversions were inserted into the Journal de Trévoux for the month of May of the year 1720, and there he contends that St. Agapetus sat 1 year, 10 months, 19 days. Before we discuss the opinions of these authors, it will be worth while to have exhibited other epochs which do not seem able to be reconciled with the above chronological notes of Anastasius, and in reconciling which too among themselves the whole difficulty of the matter lies. Take them, reader, from the edition of our Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, columns 1745, 1788, and following, subjoined with no chronological order hitherto observed. The letter of John II to Justinian, in which he praises among other things his veneration toward the Apostolic See, is Given at Rome on the 8th of the Kalends of April, our lord Justinian PP. Augustus for the fourth time and Paulinus, most illustrious men, being consuls. Another of the same Pontiff to the bishops of Gaul about Contumeliosus is Given on the 7th of the Ides of April, Flavius Paulinus the younger, most illustrious man, being consul. Where Souciet judges one must read Flavius Justinian for the fourth time and Paulinus, most illustrious men, consuls.

[6] opinions of writers about it. The chronological notes The emperor Justinian writes to St. Agapetus and asks that he too should confirm with Apostolic assent the inserted profession of faith which John II, Agapetus's predecessor, had formerly approved. This letter, as regards that part which is directed to Agapetus, has there no chronological note, but as it is inserted into St. Agapetus's replies it is signed by the emperor Justinian Given on the day before the Ides of March at Constantinople, Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, being consul. And those reply-letters of our holy Pontiff are read subscribed in the same place on the 15th of the Kalends of April at Constantinople, Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, being consul. Another profession of faith, which begins Prima salus, Labbe exhibits in column 1801. This is thus subscribed: Given on the 18th of the Kalends of April, at Constantinople, Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, being consul. That an error lurks here in the numbers is plain, since the Ides of March fall on that day, and there are not more than seventeen days remaining before the Kalends of April. Reparatus, bishop of Carthage, had given a letter to Agapetus, in which he had signified that another had already been prepared which he had resolved to send to John II, our holy Pontiff's predecessor: but that among the delays in undertaking a voyage, which the harshness of the continued winter caused, the ordination (of St. Agapetus) had been announced to him by the benefit of almighty God, and on that account he had congratulated him. Agapetus replied by a letter given on the 5th of the Ides of September, after the consulship of Paulinus, most illustrious man. The same day, without any further consular note, the holy Pontiff's replies to the African bishops, about the Arians returning to the Church, present.

[7] of the letters of St. Agapetus, That the Arians returning to the Church might be admitted to the former dignities which they had held among their own, Justinian had pressed with the Pontiff, perhaps through legates, for I nowhere find the emperor's letters on that matter. However it be, St. Agapetus is wholly given to dissuading and condemning that counsel. This reply is signed Given on the Ides of October, again without any further chronological note. Finally, Agapetus gave two letters to St. Cæsarius, bishop of Arles: one in the case of Contumeliosus, the other about the goods of the church, of which he had asked the faculty of selling, for the relief of the needy. Each is signed Given on the 15th of the Kalends of August, after the consulship of Paulinus the younger, most illustrious man. To these two epochs are added from elsewhere, and they pertain chiefly to this matter. The first is drawn from Session 1 of the council of Constantinople, held After the consulship of Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, on the sixth of the Nones of May, in the fourteenth Indiction, where it is said: There being present … the other clerics of that Apostolic See who had been together with Agapetus of holy memory.

[8] and of others to him. The other is dug out of the Vatican manuscript codex 4961, produced by Noris and much praised in Pagi's Critique at the year of Christ 536, number 6, where is read: A copy of the Petition of Mennas, presbyter and warden of the hospice, who was made bishop of Constantinople on the 3rd of the Ides of March, again after the consulship of Paulinus the Younger, most illustrious man. St. Mennas, patriarch of Constantinople, was consecrated by St. Agapetus and substituted in the place of the heretic Anthimus, as his Acts prove. There could here also have place the epoch of the death of John II, St. Agapetus's predecessor, which very many manuscript Catalogues of Anastasius — namely the Freher one, two Thou ones, the royal, and the Mazarin one — and the writers Ordericus, book 2, Liutprand, Abbo, and Marianus Scotus in their Chronicles, in Pagi's Critique on Baronius at the year 535, number 2, mark as having happened on the sixth of the Kalends of June, or the 27th day of May. About that epoch of John II's death, on the testimony of the often to be praised Souciet, the learned agree; and we shall here for the time being suppose it as certain. For the rest, Anastasius says that after John II's death the see was vacant seven days, or, as other copies have it, six days. These things standing, those who comment on the Anastasian Catalogue, and the more recent chronologists who follow them, make out that St. Agapetus ascended the Roman Chair on the third day of the month of June, namely a Sunday, on which we must judge that the holy Pontiff was consecrated, since nothing stands in the way.

[9] And so among the documents already adduced we have four signed after the manner of the Easterns: and of others addressed to him. three drawn up under the consulship of Belisarius, namely on the fourteenth, the eighteenth, and some later day of the month of March, for in place of the faulty 18th of the Kalends of April no other determined day must hitherto be substituted. There remains the Constantinopolitan synod under Mennas, whose Session 1 is noted after the consulship of Belisarius, on the 2nd day of May, by which time Agapetus had already departed from among the living, of holy memory. The remaining documents either have no consular note, or are said to have been given in the style of the West After the consulship of Paulinus the younger, most illustrious man. St. Agapetus's letter to Cæsarius of Arles is signed on the 18th of July, another of the same to Reparatus, bishop of Carthage, on the 9th day of September. All these epochs I hitherto consider as genuine, meaning afterwards to correct them if anything shall certainly persuade that they must be emended. Meanwhile, from what has been adduced it is plain, first, that St. Agapetus's Pontificate must be restricted between the 7th day of April, under the fourth consulship of Justinian and that of Paulinus, on which day John II, his predecessor, wrote to the bishops of Gaul about Contumeliosus, and the second of May after the consulship of Belisarius in the East, where in Session 1 of the Constantinopolitan synod he is already called of holy memory. It is clear also that none of the documents adduced above — unless perhaps the beginning of the letter to Reparatus, which I shall discuss below — persuades that the time of his Pontificate should be extended beyond the 18th of July after the consulship of Paulinus, on which the first letters of St. Agapetus to Cæsarius were written, and the middle of the month of March, Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, being consul in the East.

[10] Now let us see the labors of more recent writers about these matters. Baronius, The efforts of more recent writers in reconciling them. Pagi, Noris, Labbe, Sirmond, and others who enclose Agapetus's Pontificate within the period of a year, make the fourth consulship of Justinian and that of Paulinus agree with the year 534; but they set Belisarius, the consulship having ceased in the West, as consul in the East without a colleague in the following year 535: and thus for them the year After the consulship of Paulinus the younger, together with the consulship of Belisarius, coincides with the year of Christ 535. These things being laid down, it is asked how Justinian could have addressed a profession of faith to Agapetus the Pontiff on the day before the Ides, that is, on the 14th day of March, and Agapetus reply to him four days later, on the 15th of the Kalends of April, Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, being consul, if Agapetus was consecrated Pontiff only on the 3rd of June of that year which in the West was marked After the consulship of Paulinus, but in the East Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, being consul, and if John II, his predecessor, survived until the 27th of May of that same year. Cutting this knot, Labbe and others believed from conjecture that all the chronological notes of Agapetus's letters to Justinian and of the latter's to him are corrupt, and judged that everywhere there must be substituted After the consulship of Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man. This opinion had some support from Session 1 of the Constantinopolitan council, held without doubt in the same year in which Agapetus had been in the East and had died, and which is really marked with this epoch.

[11] The efforts of Labbe, Pagi, At length Cardinal Noris's happy discovery added weight to the conjecture. For he, in the Historical Dissertation On one of the Trinity having suffered in the flesh, in Pagi's Critique at the year of Christ 535, number 5, produced a Vatican codex in which really such consular notes of Agapetus's letters to Justinian are found as the aforesaid chronologists desired to be emended from conjecture. Of that Vatican codex Pagi gives us such information, at the following year, number 6: It is marked number 4961. Pope Marcellus II, when he formerly administered the church of Gubbio, having received it from the monks of the Holy Cross of Fonte Avellana, gave it to the Vatican library. In it are read 243 Letters of the Roman Pontiffs, from Siricius to Vigilius, and of certain emperors also, of prefects of the city, and of governors, together with Ecclesiastical acts. To that codex Noris and Pagi attribute everything, and from it they set such a chronology of St. Agapetus's Acts. He was consecrated Pontiff on the 3rd of June of the year of Christ 535, which in the West was noted After the consulship of Paulinus the younger, in the East In the consulship of Flavius Belisarius. On the 18th of July of the same year letters were given by the holy Pontiff to Cæsarius of Arles, and on the 9th of September (or of December, as Pagi will have it, of which below) to Reparatus, bishop of Carthage.

[12] and of others, the common chronology Toward the end of that same year 535, or at the beginning of the next, Agapetus set out for Constantinople and came thither before the end of February of the year 536, which is inscribed After the consulship of Belisarius. There

in the month of March he received professions of faith from Justinian and wrote back to them, deposed the heretic patriarch Anthimus, and in his place ordained Mennas on the 3rd of the Ides of March, again after the consulship of Paulinus the younger, most illustrious man, and finally, being about to return to Rome, died on the 22nd of April, having spent in the Pontificate 10 months, 18 or 19 days. And these things, the emendation of the consular notes being admitted, cohere not badly in their chronology, except that Anastasius too must thus be corrected, who asserts that St. Agapetus went to Constantinople on the 10th of the Kalends of May; and there remains that second difficulty from Reparatus's words, which led Baronius into the error of believing that St. Agapetus was consecrated in the winter itself, long before the third of the month of June of the year of Christ 535. This Pagi evades, again changing at his own judgment and without necessity one chronological note. Of the passage of Anastasius the discourse will recur elsewhere. The second difficulty has place also in the chronology of Souciet set forth below, wherefore let us discuss it here.

[13] [does not cohere unless some epochs be changed. The news of Agapetus's consecration] St. Agapetus begins his letter to Reparatus, bishop of Carthage, in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column [ ], thus: By the letters of thy fraternity thou hast indicated that, after the letter to be directed to my predecessor, amid the delays in undertaking a voyage which the harshness of the continued winter caused, our ordination had been announced to thee by the benefit of almighty God; and that thou hadst congratulated us with the affection of a brother, because the Godhead has granted me the office of the Pontificate, at which we were not surprised in one of thy sincerity. And that letter of Agapetus is given on the 5th of the Ides of September, after the consulship of Paulinus, most illustrious man. Therefore, while the harshness of a continued winter delayed Reparatus's letter destined for John II, the consecration of St. Agapetus was announced at Carthage. But how is this announced to Reparatus in winter, since the holy Pontiff was ordained when spring was already advanced, namely on the third day of June? On that account Baronius judged, as I hinted above, that Agapetus's consecration must be drawn back to the winter itself. Pagi forges another wedge for this knot at the year 535, number 4, and contends that only in the month of November, when the following winter was already raging, did the holy Pontiff's ordination become known to Reparatus, and that he in the same month congratulated Agapetus on it, who replied to Reparatus's letters on the ninth of December, not of September, as all the common copies of those letters have it.

[14] Souciet, complaining that the common notes are again changed at the mere judgment of that modern, more probably reached Carthage in the same month in which he was ordained, judges that the month of September must be retained, and thinks that in the same year which in the East was marked In the consulship of Belisarius, Agapetus wrote to Justinian, and in the same gave letters to Reparatus, signed after the manner of the Westerns After the consulship of Paulinus, most illustrious man. How he tries to save the first difficulty in his chronology, and sets St. Agapetus in the East under the consulship of Belisarius, we shall presently see; here we treat only of the second. Moreover this does not seem to be wholly removed in his chronology; for according to it, in the month of September, Belisarius being consul, St. Agapetus was at Constantinople: but it seems beyond doubt that he wrote from Rome, and not from the East, to Cæsarius and Reparatus. This the formula usual to the Westerns, After the consulship of Paulinus, most illustrious man, persuades, which the holy Pontiff does not seem likely to have used when writing at Constantinople to these bishops, since he marked whatever other documents he drew up there with the consulship of Belisarius after the manner of the Easterns. The reckoning of time persuades the same; for it does not appear credible to me that Agapetus's consecration became known to the African bishops, between whom and the Roman See there was at that time so frequent an intercourse, only after six or eight months; especially since the crossing from Rome to Carthage is so short that it is accomplished in a few days.

[15] I certainly suspect that in the same month in which St. Agapetus was consecrated at Rome and a little after the news came to Carthage to Reparatus, and that he a little after gave a letter to the Pontiff, which in the month of August, or perhaps earlier, was carried to Rome by the legates of the African fathers, and that to it St. Agapetus sent a reply, to be delivered by the same legates, on the 5th of the Ides of September, which is the common chronological note of the letter. Nor thus are the words of the Pontiff recited above from the beginning of the letter tortured, at least among those who do not delight in a most strict setting forth of words everywhere, as we shall see more fully below. Certainly to say that the winter, or the whirlwinds and storms of winter, in the maritime cities of the African shore sometimes extend as far as advanced April is not to allege an unheard-of thing. Let us grant, according to this opinion of mine, that the winter which Reparatus seems to hint was that year drawn out beyond the usual and lasted to the end of April, that wintry and contrary winds blew, nay that Reparatus was not so watchful as to seize at once the first opportunity of sending his letter — and the words of St. Agapetus, or rather of Reparatus, in the letter already so often praised will not be difficult to understand. Now let us hear the often to be praised Souciet.

[16] After he had warned that the arbitrary emendations of critics upon the chronological notes Étienne Souciet's which are found in ancient documents must be got rid of, if with them the rest of the chronology, resting on a due foundation, can be reconciled without injury, he thus shakes the Achilles of those who wish After the consulship of Belisarius to be read in Agapetus's letters to Justinian and in the latter's to him. It is true (he says in French, page 910) that Cardinal Noris in the History of the controversy On one of the Trinity having suffered, pages 90 and 91, cites a Manuscript of the Vatican library marked number 961 (Pagi in the Critique at the year 536, number 6, has 4961) containing 243 letters of the Pontiffs, from Siricius to Vigilius, and asserts that in it the three documents of which we are speaking are marked with the year After the consulship of Belisarius. Souciet then goes on to attack the authority of that manuscript, and First, he says, of what sort is that manuscript? Nothing is alleged which commends it to us, nothing which proves its antiquity. Secondly, Cardinal Noris asserts that Baronius used the same manuscript and excerpted from it very many most illustrious monuments of the ancient age, which, transferred into his Annals, have added a value to them beyond any others.

[17] judgment about the Vatican codex praised by Noris. If these things are so, if Baronius found there such a consular note as Noris produces, and judged the manuscript to be of some authority in this matter, why did he not take these chronological notes, of which he had need for establishing his chronology, why did he not settle the matter from them, why did he not even mention them? And this observation of Souciet is such as to render Noris's emendation suspect at the very first glance. Through straitness of time it is not permitted me to demand from Rome an examination and judgment about the aforesaid manuscript; meanwhile I should be unwilling to stand by the authority of a codex whose first knowledge is almost traced back to Marcellus II, against the testimony of very many other manuscripts, unless a chronology sufficiently established from elsewhere should persuade such an emendation; both of which I shall prove in the following §. Let us here exhibit Souciet's chronology. For him the fourth consulship of Justinian and that of Paulinus the younger coincides with the year 535 of the Christian era. In the following year, the consulship ceasing in the West, Belisarius held office in the East without a colleague. St. Agapetus is set as consecrated Pontiff on the 3rd of June under the fourth consulship of the emperor Justinian and that of Paulinus the younger, that is, in the year of Christ 535, toward the end of which, or at the beginning of the next, he is believed to have set out for Constantinople, and there to have written to the emperor and to have received from him the professions of faith, signed after the manner of the Easterns In the consulship of Belisarius.

[18] His new chronology In the same year of Christ 536, in that chronology, Agapetus writes at Constantinople to Cæsarius of Arles and to Reparatus of Carthage, bishops, and signs his letters with the formula usual to the Westerns, After the consulship of Paulinus, most illustrious man. Finally in the following year of Christ 537 the Pontiff dies at Constantinople, not long before Session 1 of the council celebrated there on the sixth of the Nones of May, after the consulship of Belisarius, most illustrious man, having spent in the Pontificate 1 year, 10 months, and some days. And these things indeed, so far as they pertain to the Acts of St. Agapetus, flow clearly enough, but not a few things from elsewhere stand in the way of their being admitted. And first, Souciet here anticipates by a whole year the beginning of the Christian era received by others, nor does he sufficiently prove that the fourth consulship of Justinian and that of Paulinus must be reconciled with the year of Christ 535, and not with the preceding, according to the opinion of all other chronologists. I should think, he says on pages 904 and following, that I can prove that the first year of Christ, or the beginning of the common era, is the year of the consulship of Cossus Cornelius Lentulus, called Isauricus, and of L. Calpurnius Piso, who was called Augustus. This indeed I here suppose, for the deduction of proofs would carry me too far.

[19] But from the consulship of Lentulus and Piso down to the fourth consulship of the emperor Justinian 535 consulships are numbered; nor is it sufficiently solidly proved, therefore the consulship of Paulinus falls in the year of Christ 535. If I rightly grasp the most learned writer's mind, he agrees with Onofrio Panvinio in fixing the beginning of the common era, but retains, as consuls of the year of Christ 277, whom the latter omitted in order to return to the path, M. Aurelius Probus Augustus and M. Aurelius Paulinus, and thus in the subsequent years goes on producing the consulships by one year. As regards the first point, plainly solid arguments would be needed for anyone to prove, against the opinion of almost all the learned, that Christ was born in the consulships of Augustus Cæsar for the thirteenth time and of M. Plautius Silvanus, and therefore that the beginning of the common era must be taken from the consulship of Cornelius Lentulus and Calpurnius Piso which next followed on the Kalends of January. Certainly this matter deserved to be proved, since Pagi in his Dissertation on the Greco-Roman Period, in his Chronological Apparatus, and other chronologists elsewhere have brought forward not contemptible reasons for their own opinion. Although, this beginning of the Christian era being admitted, I do not know whether what the aforesaid writer deduces from it for himself sufficiently coheres.

[20] Sirmond, on this subscription to the third council of Orléans in Labbe's collection, volume 5, column 304: nor do those advantages follow from it Lupus, in the name of Christ metropolitan bishop of the church of Lyons … have subscribed. Noted … on the day of the Nones of the third month, in the fourth year after the consulship of Paulinus the younger, most illustrious man, in the 27th year of the reign of the lord king Childebert, had observed thus: But in the Lyons (manuscript codex), the year of king Childebert being omitted, the number of the Indiction has been added, in this manner: "Lupus, in the name of Christ bishop, have consented and subscribed, in the fourth year after the consulship of Paulinus the younger, in the second Indiction." But the second Indiction does not agree with the month of May of this year, but the first. Wherefore the error is manifest. Labbe on the same subscription noted in the margin: In some codices the second Indiction is added, wrongly: for it was only the first. After Souciet had reported these things, he goes on nearly thus: Cardinal Noris, Schelstrate, Pagi, and all the others who follow Bellarmine's chronology are in the same case as regards that Indiction.

[21] As for me, Souciet continues, I labor under no difficulty here; which follow, which the consulship of Paulinus into the year

of Christ 535 falls, and therefore the fourth year after the consulship of Paulinus is 539 of the common era, in which, in the month of May, the second Indiction was running. What he has thus far asserted he then proves on the same page 905. The second Indiction can coincide only with the year of Christ 539; for since the Indictions began in the year 312, if you subtract 312 from 539 years, there will remain 227, which if you divide by 15, you will find fifteen Indictions and two years remaining, and therefore in the year 539 it is the second Indiction. If therefore the fourth year after the consulship is the second Indiction, it can be no other than 539 of Christ, and not 538, as Baronius and Pagi believed. And if the fourth year after the consulship of Paulinus is the year of Christ 539, the very year of his consulship is 535 of the same era. Thus the aforesaid writer, meaning to correct Sirmond, Labbe, and almost all other chronologists by his new chronology. But he himself in the last proof, unless I am mistaken, manifestly betrays his own error, and overturns his own chronology.

[22] He anticipates the common era by a whole year; meanwhile he traces back the beginning of the Indictions to the second consulship of Constantine and the second of Licinius, he promised himself, nor rightly indeed with others; but that consulship, which for the other chronologists corresponds to the year of Christ 312, must in his chronology be deferred to the following year, and the beginning of the Indictions must be taken from the year of Christ 313, unless he wishes to overturn all the Acts which are marked with Indictions and to drag them to a later year, in which again the Indictions will not agree with all the other chronological notes. It would be easy to prove what I assert from countless documents; but that we may not run further from St. Agapetus's times, let it suffice to try Souciet's reckoning on the Constantinopolitan synod under Mennas. Its first Session is signed: After the consulship of Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, on the sixth of the Nones of May, in the fourteenth Indiction. In the same manner the other Sessions of that council — namely the second and the third in the same month of May, the fourth and fifth in the month of June — are noted with the same consular year and the same fourteenth Indiction. The year After the consulship of Belisarius is for Souciet the year of Christ 537; let us therefore work by his method. From 537 years I subtract 312; there remain 225; I divide by 15; there come out 15: and thus I have the 15th Indiction running in the months of May and June with the year After the consulship of Belisarius, not the fourteenth, which is noted in the Acts.

[23] does it sufficiently cohere Moreover, just as the second Indiction which Sirmond found in the subscription of the third council of Orléans is in his chronology, and in that of most other writers, one year later than the other notes, and yet agrees with them in Souciet's chronology in the same year, so whatever Indictions in the opinion of those chronographers conspire with the consular years will necessarily conflict with them in Souciet's reckoning, since there the consular years everywhere fall back by one year of the common era. I do not judge that the chronological notes of almost all the ancient monuments should be overturned in order that we may defend a faulty subscription of the council of Orléans, and therefore I cannot embrace the new chronology. But if anyone should wish, the rest being retained, to amend the error in the beginning of the Indictions, he will gain nothing, as I shall demonstrate in the following §; for the same things, unless I am mistaken, will hold in the common chronology.

§2. It is examined in what month and on what day St. Agapetus ascended the Chair and died. His memory in the sacred calendars.

It is inquired whether in the time of the consulship The beginning of the Indictions being corrected in Souciet's system, the rest seem able to be reduced to this: whether St. Agapetus came to the Roman chair under the fourth consulship of Justinian and that of Paulinus the younger, or only in the following year, which in the East was noted by the consulship of Belisarius, and in the West After the consulship of Paulinus. The first the aforesaid writer holds, the second almost all the other chronologists. Moreover Souciet has here no support for his opinion from the common era anticipated by one year; for since no epoch can here anywhere be taken from the years of Christ, the chronology of the holy Pontiff's deeds can be arranged in exactly the same way according to the consular years; so that for both chronologies the very same arguments hold here which I now examine. The first opinion — namely that St. Agapetus sat one year, ten months, and some days — not a few things commend, and they are such that, unless not fewer things from elsewhere, and not less weighty, were opposed, I should go over to it with hands and feet. To one weighing the holy Pontiff's Acts there first offers itself the very brief space of some months in which, in the common chronology of Pagi and others, so many and so great things must have been done. And although the several things are there exhibited as arranged and disposed not altogether ineptly, they nevertheless appear to be forced together with some violence within so narrow a period.

[25] Besides, it is certain, as the aforesaid Souciet notes on page 907, of Paulinus the younger, or only in the following year, that no Acts of John II, St. Agapetus's predecessor, which we have compel us to extend his Pontificate beyond the consulship of Paulinus the younger, since under it, and indeed before the month of May, all the monuments of his which survive to us are signed. There is added another thing from Anastasius's chronological notes in the Catalogue, which again can in no way be preserved entire in the contracted chronology of Pagi and others. Anastasius writes: And this Agapitus went to Constantinople on the 10th of the Kalends of May, entered Constantinople, and bishop Agapitus was received with glory. No month of May did Agapetus pass in the reckoning of the aforesaid chronologists, being consecrated on the 3rd day of June and dying in the month of April of the following year. In whatever sense therefore you take Anastasius's ambiguous phrase — whether you believe that the 10th of the Kalends of May is to be connected with went to Constantinople, or with he entered, or finally whether you set forth went to Constantinople as set out, namely from Rome — you will never reconcile the chronology with his words, which nevertheless in the former opinion are excellently combined.

[26] Then, since in that opinion Agapetus is set as having been in the East for almost the whole time of Belisarius's consulship, St. Agapetus came to the Chair. there are also preserved unharmed the chronological notes of those documents which the Pontiff and the emperor drew up at Constantinople under that same consulship, which again must be dislocated and emended by Pagi and others, as also the epoch last produced from the Librarian, for which they judge that the 10th of the Kalends of March must be substituted. But since here again they have no ancient witness, and in all the manuscript Catalogues the 10th of the Kalends of May is read, the whole chronology of those authors might seem sewn together from merely arbitrary dislocations of the chronological notes. Although, these things notwithstanding, I cannot be torn away from the second opinion. Those who examine the deeds of only one Pontiff are wont not rarely more freely to extend or contract the time of his Pontificate, caring little what is to be done about some others who preceded him in the Chair or followed him. Whether they do this rightly, let the learned judge. Certainly, that I should not dare to draw back the beginning of St. Agapetus's Pontificate to the consulship of Paulinus the younger, or the year 534 in the common chronology, is caused first by the chronology of the Acts of some preceding Pontiffs, sufficiently solidly established, at least as to the number of years, in the aforesaid authors.

[27] That chronology, I say, I should neither dare nor wish to disturb, More probable is the opinion which especially since it does not seem possible to be done except by striking out and changing countless chronological notes of the published Anastasius, while one or another of the same should be defended here with so great effort. It is true indeed that no Acts of John II are found signed after the month of April under the consulship of Paulinus; but neither have documents hitherto been brought forward which prove that St. Agapetus subscribed before June, After the consulship of the same; and accordingly the force of the negative argument is thus far equal on both sides. To ours from another quarter there accrues the greatest support: for since the holy Pontiff, on the 10th of the Kalends of May under Belisarius's consulship, in the first chronology entered Constantinople, he had already occupied the Roman Chair for nearly eleven months, and must have drawn up at Constantinople all the documents which we have marked with his name, which appears to me altogether incredible. Certainly St. Agapetus, having set out for the East, never afterwards returned thence. All the letters too which the holy Pontiff subscribed have chronological notes later than the 22nd of April, on which day, from the passage of Anastasius, he is supposed to have entered Constantinople; for they are signed After the consulship of Paulinus, which year certainly coincides with the consulship of Belisarius in the East, and none of them is read as given before the month of July, as may be seen in numbers 5 and following of this Commentary.

[28] Moreover from those very letters it becomes most clear that Caius and Peter, bishops, and Liberatus the Deacon, were sent as legates from the African synod to Rome, places the beginning of his Pontificate and there transacted the business of their legation with the Pontiff. It is no less manifest that St. Agapetus sent his replies from Rome through those same legates to Reparatus and the other bishops of the synod of Carthage, and not from Constantinople, where in the first opinion the holy Pontiff must at that time have been. This can be confirmed from the very epochs with which those documents are marked: for those letters have chronological notes written after the manner of the Westerns, whereas on the contrary all the monuments which Agapetus is known to have drawn up at Constantinople are subscribed In the consulship of Belisarius, the formula usual to the Easterns. Nor will anyone, I think, say that when the Pontiff had already set out for the East the legates of Carthage landed at Rome, and, having learned of his absence, followed him thither; for these things are not credible, since of that journey no mention is anywhere made in Liberatus. In this opinion, not only Reparatus, but besides all the bishops assembled at Carthage would have been ignorant of the death of John II, to whom their letter is addressed, for almost a whole year, which is no more credible.

[29] in the year of Christ 535, which in the calendars is Certainly St. Agapetus in that opinion is set as having stayed in Italy for the remaining months of the consulship of Paulinus, and one or two of the following year, and therefore the African legates would have come to Rome only toward the end of the first year of his Pontificate, or perhaps even at the beginning of the next, which by no means appears likely to me. And these are the things which cause me not here to depart from the chronology of Labbe, Pagi, and others. There remain indeed to be corrected in it the chronological notes of the documents drawn up by St. Agapetus in the East, which, if Belisarius received the consulship in the East on the Kalends of January After the consulship of Paulinus in the West, and laid it down on the same day of the following year at Syracuse, and if documents were not noted at Constantinople with his consulship until it was there established that he had laid it down, can in no way be saved. But that emendation the manuscript produced by Noris persuades. And although it may perhaps not deserve, from its antiquity and excellence, so great authority as the critics praised above attribute to it, yet, since the remaining chronological order of St. Agapetus's deeds favors it, this emendation of ours has a chronology favorable to it, and a writer at least ancient as its guide, of which one or the other is lacking to the changes of the other

epochs which must be made in the first opinion.

[30] After the consulship of Paulinus, binds it To be corrected also in our chronology is that passage of Anastasius: He went to Constantinople on the 10th of the Kalends of May, and in its place one must read of March. The month perhaps being noted by Anastasius by the two letters Ma could have afforded a most ready occasion of error to a copyist, and therefore the emendation is the more easily to be tolerated. From what has therefore been disputed thus far, St. Agapetus came to the Roman Chair After the consulship of Paulinus, most illustrious man, which coincides with the year of Christ 535 in the common chronology; let us now inquire further into the month and the day. I have indeed said in §1, number 7, that Souciet borrows from Pagi as certain that the holy Pontiff was ordained on the 3rd day of June; which opinion those Anastasian codices openly support which place John II's death on the 27th of May and then determine six or seven days of interpontificate. But what is here conceded to Anastasius's authority must necessarily be taken from it on another side. For, as Pagi confesses in his Critique at the year of Christ 536, number 10, in the copies of Anastasius and in all the Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs 11 months, 19 or 18 days are attributed to Agapetus; which, if he died, as Anastasius writes, on the 10th of the Kalends of May, in no way cohere; since thus he could have sat only 10 months and 19 days.

[31] The aforesaid critic indeed does not hesitate at these things, but without scruple pronounces Pagi rests on a weak foundation in fixing that Anastasius must be corrected and 10 months be read: namely lest St. Agapetus be set as having survived to the beginning of the Constantinopolitan synod, where he is called of holy memory, or lest John II be said not to have died on the 27th of May of the preceding year, which nevertheless he holds as undoubted. But such a method of reasoning appears to me not sufficiently firm: It is constantly and everywhere asserted that St. Agapetus sat 11 months and some days: yet this chronological note is certainly faulty, because some writers and Catalogues have certain other chronological notes which do not cohere with this, while meanwhile other codices, and those not fewer, vary in those notes to which he wishes the other, constantly asserted, to be corrected. I believe that we must rather adhere to this than to those, and that the rest must be arranged and measured by it. And so it must be examined whether the beginning of St. Agapetus's Pontificate cannot be drawn back to a point from which to April of the following year the recorded 11 months and days may flow. Constant in the Anastasian codices is the epoch of St. Agapetus's death. He died, he says, at Constantinople on the 10th of the Kalends of May; hence to those going back through 11 months and 19 or 18 days there occurs the sixth of May, which in the year 535 was a Sunday: but from that day to the 22nd of April of the following year 11 months and only 16 days are numbered.

[32] Therefore one or the other of Anastasius's chronological notes is faulty, the day of his coming to the Pontificate. St. Agapetus unless you throw back the holy Pontiff's consecration from a Sunday to a Thursday or a Friday, which for reconciling them I shall not readily concede. Let us therefore go by another way. All the Greeks constantly in their sacred calendars, of which below, fix St. Agapetus's death on the 17th day of the month of April, on which his memory is kept among them, as may be seen in Papebroch in his Conatus. He there asserts that in this matter, which happened among them, the Greeks are rather to be believed than our own men who were absent, and than Anastasius, who teems with countless errors. That judgment of the learned writer is fairer than Pagi's unusual conjecture, who asserts that that day is not for the Greeks St. Agapetus's death-day, but is celebrated on account of the memory of a church once built to the holy Pontiff, of which indeed he assigns no traces anywhere. And so I agree with Papebroch, and believe that the credit about St. Agapetus's death-day must be given to the Greeks which he attributes to them. Moreover thus, the remaining notes of Anastasius being kept almost entire, his accession to the Roman See would have to be set on the 29th day of April, a Sunday, between which and the 17th of the same month of the following year the noted 11 months and 19 days intervene.

[33] But what then of John II his predecessor? He, died on the 17th of April; but ascended the Chair on Anastasius's testimony, sat two years, four months, six days … And he was buried in the Basilica of blessed Peter the Apostle on the 6th of the Ides of June, after the second consulship of Lampadius, and the bishopric was vacant seven days. I answer: to those notes of Anastasius no one whom I have seen has hitherto adhered, since they limp on more than one side. Let it therefore be allowed to me too to depart from them. Our Papebroch, as regards the years and months of John II's Pontificate, subscribes to the published Anastasius, but for six days reads 3 days. If we borrow these from him, an easy chronology of both Pontificates will flow. John II in Papebroch's Conatus is said to have been Ordained on the 19th of December on a Sunday, namely in the year of Christ five hundred and thirty-two. He sat 2 years, 4 months, 3 days, and therefore until the 22nd of April of the year 535. The See was vacant six complete days, or seven incomplete, and Agapetus was ordained in the year 535, on the 29th of April, on the third Sunday after Easter, which in that year had fallen on the 8th day of the same month.

[34] on the 29th day of the same month of the preceding year. The illustrious Agapetus sat 11 months, 19 or 18 days, and thus one runs out to the 17th of April of the following year of Christ, which day the Greeks set as his death-day. And this chronology, as it is bare and simple, pleases me above others, in which, while Anastasius is undertaken to be reconciled with himself, that same author is no less dislocated. Then in this of ours those things are not difficultly understood which I observed in the preceding § , number 15, about Reparatus's letter to Agapetus; for thus the holy Pontiff's ordination could easily be announced to him at Carthage while the winter had not yet wholly relented. Now let us dig out the Saint's ancient cult from the sacred calendars. There I find mention of St. Agapetus chiefly on three days: namely on the 17th and the 22nd of April, and on this 20th of September. Maurolico indeed announces Pope Agapetus on the 23rd of April, with whom agree the Victorine codex and that of the Queen of Sweden marked number 130, among the Appendices to Usuard in Sollier: but the Hagenau copy on the 21st of the same month thus celebrates him in the same place: At Rome, of St. Agapitus, Pope, who is much praised in the Pontifical Deeds. He entered Constantinople and called back the emperor Justinian from the error of Arthemius, deposing Arthemius himself and setting up Mennas, a Catholic man. This Arthemius denied two natures in Christ. And the Pope died at Constantinople, and is translated to Rome, and is buried with glory in the church of St. Peter the apostle. He also made Constitutions.

[35] memory of the holy Pontiff in the calendars of the Latins But it is clear enough that his memory was torn away from the 22nd day of April, on which Anastasius fixes the holy Pontiff's death. On that day certainly he is recorded, in the most illustrious d'Aste's Notes on the Roman Martyrology, in Holste's old Calendar, in the Roman manuscripts Barberini and Vatican of St. Peter, and in the Appendix to Ado; and in Sollier's Appendices to Usuard in the Utrecht, Leyden, Alberg, Danish, Brussels, and Anchin ones, as also by Galesinius, Maurolico, Greven, and Molanus. Notker had gone before these at the 10th of the Kalends of May, announcing: Likewise of Agapitus the Pontiff, who sat at Rome eleven months, and, entering Constantinople to the emperor Justinian, deposed Anthemius, bishop of Constantinople, who denied two natures in Christ, and in his place consecrated Mennas, a Catholic. And this day indeed is, as I have already warned, that on which the Latins believe the holy Pontiff to have died: but the day of the translation of his body from the East to Rome is today's, on which his memory is celebrated in these words in the Roman Martyrology: On the same day, of St. Agapitus, Pope, whose sanctity blessed Gregory the Great commemorates. Someone might here, and not undeservedly, wonder that no mention of the most celebrated Pontiff is made by Ado and Usuard. Fuller elogia of him are found among the Greeks at the 17th day of April, on which they mark his death. In the Basilian Menologium he is thus celebrated: Our holy father Agapetus, under the rule of Justinian, born in old Rome, on account of the exercises of a religious life and his other virtues ascended to the dignity of the supreme Pontificate.

[36] and of the Greeks alike. And he was famous also for the miracles he wrought: for when once, having gone out of the city of Rome, he was sailing to Constantinople to visit the emperor, and had come into Greece, and there had found a certain man dumb and immovable through infirmity, taking him by the hand he made him whole. Then, when he was passing beneath the golden gate and had come upon a certain blind man sitting there, laying his hand on him he restored his sight. Whence he was so venerable with the emperor and the senate that he both cast out Anthimus, bishop of Trebizond, who was squatting on the throne of Constantinople and was imbued with the Eutychian heresy, and in his place ordained the most holy Mennas. After these things, being seized with infirmity, he departed from this life, and was buried in the church of the holy Apostles. In the Menæa the elogium is similar, except that it agrees more with the narration of Gregory, which I shall give below.

§3. The deeds of Agapetus in Italy.

St. Agapetus's parents: The chronology of the holy Pontiff being established, let us set out his illustrious Acts in chronological order, so far as is allowed. St. Agapetus was, on Anastasius's testimony, a Roman by nation, of a father Gordian, a presbyter, a cleric at St. John and Paul's before he was taken up to the supreme dignity in the Church. In about what year he was born, or what he did before his Pontificate, is not clear, nor who that Gordian, St. Agapetus's father, was. To Agapetus the name Rusticus is attributed by Procopius, whence he took it is not easy to say. Of St. Agapetus, Liberatus the Deacon, a contemporary author, begins chapter 21 of his Breviary with these words: But when John Mercurius was dead, Agapetus, archdeacon of the Roman Church, is ordained Pope, excellently learned in the ecclesiastical Rules. Peter de Natalibus, book 4, chapter 77, distinguishes holy Agapetus with the title of Cardinal, which Robert Bar extends also to his father Gordian, citing Onofrio Panvinio. His words are, number 58: Saint Agapetus, son of Gordian, Cardinal presbyter of SS. John and Paul, of the title of Pammachius, a Roman.

[38] These things Chacón adopts, where he thus begins St. Agapetus's deeds: his deeds before the Pontificate obscure; Saint Rusticus Agapetus, son by lawful matrimony of Gordian, Cardinal presbyter of the holy John and Paul, of the title of Pammachius, a Roman, archdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, Cardinal presbyter in the basilica of the holy twelve Apostles. Whence this was drawn by them I do not know, yet I find the same things asserted by several other more recent commentators on the Catalogues of the Pontiffs. He (Agapetus, Anastasius continues) consumed with fire, in the midst of the church when it was assembled, the little books of anathema which Boniface had by the guile of envy extorted from presbyters and bishops against the canons and against Dioscorus, and absolved the whole Church from the envy of the perfidious. Thus indeed the holy Pontiff, as soon as he had ascended the holy Chair of Peter,

turned his pastoral cares to the tranquillity of the flock committed to him. Now the Boniface whom Anastasius here accuses of envy and guile is the Pope of that name, the second, who had sat before John II, St. Agapetus's predecessor; while Dioscorus, against whom he writes that the anathema was pronounced, is more probably that same legate sent into the East by Hormisdas, among whose letters there survive the reports of the legation he undertook. This Dioscorus had contended with Boniface over the Roman See. About those contentions and their origin different men think differently.

[39] Baronius in his Annals at the year of Christ 530, number 3 and following, is of opinion he dissolves the anathema pronounced by Boniface II that Dioscorus was infamous with the stain of simony, and indeed hints not obscurely that he had wished to ascend to the Chair of Peter with the votes wiped out by money, and he concludes from Justinian's edict to John the Roman Pontiff that he was for that reason struck with an anathema after his death. Our Papebroch, in the Paralipomena to the Conatus, page 49, number 8, prefers to believe that that crime was imposed upon Dioscorus through envy and calumny, since Anastasius not obscurely censures Boniface both in the words brought forward above and also earlier, where, reviewing Boniface's Deeds, he writes: In those same days (in which Dioscorus was snatched from the living) Boniface, led by zeal and guile, with great bitterness reconciled the clergy under the bond of an anathema in writing: which written instrument he shut up in the archive of the Church, as though condemning Dioscorus; and he gathered the clergy: to which nevertheless in the episcopate no one subscribed, since a very great multitude had been with Dioscorus. From these things Papebroch's opinion seems to me exceedingly probable: for thus that is best understood which must beget a difficulty for those who think with Baronius, namely how Anastasius relates not without praise the deed of St. Agapetus in taking away the anathema pronounced against Dioscorus through envy and guile.

[40] pronounced against Dioscorus. He receives legates from the African bishops But whose cause was the better, Boniface's or Dioscorus's, let others decide. Certainly, if — as very many things persuade — the senate, groaning under the rule of the Goths, together with a very few of the clergy favoured Boniface, a Gothic man, as the name of his father Sigisbuld persuades, while almost the whole clergy, refusing the yoke imposed on them by the Arian kings of electing Pontiffs under the scrutiny of the Gothic court, stood by Dioscorus, the affair was such as to beget a wretched schism in the Church, had not God averted it by taking Dioscorus away after a few days. Let us return to St. Agapetus's deeds. Africa having been brought back under Justinian's rule by Belisarius, the African church began to breathe again, and at once, to consult for its good, 217 bishops came together at Carthage with Datianus, Florentinianus, and Reparatus the prelate of that city, to deliberate by what easiest way they might succour the almost collapsed affairs of the faith. Among other things, two difficulties chiefly occurred. One about the Arian bishops and priests who were coming over to the Catholic Church: namely whether, when they had been received into communion, there should be left to them the grades and dignities which they had formerly enjoyed among their own. The other was about the little ones baptized among the Arians: whether they are wont, or ought, to be admitted to the clerical state, if they should ask it. Upon these things they sought out the oracles of the Apostolic See, having sent to Rome to John the Pontiff as legates the bishops Peter and Lucius, with Liberatus a deacon of the church of Carthage, and a letter, which Baronius recites at number 27 at the year 535.

[41] in the first months of his Pontificate, But the legates, when they had reached Rome, found John II dead and our St. Agapetus substituted in his place, to whom accordingly they handed over the letter of the Carthaginian fathers. And these things were done at the beginning of his Pontificate, in some month midway between April and September; for the letter which Agapetus wrote back to the African fathers is dated on the 5th of the Ides of September, and is extant in Labbe, tome 4, Col. [ ]. There among other things he thus speaks: On the return of Caius and Peter, our brothers and fellow-bishops, and of Liberatus the deacon our son, we bring forth the most sincere charity of your counsel: since, as befitted men both wise and learned, you have not been unmindful of the Apostolic primacy: but, wishing to dissolve the bonds of the question brought forward, you sought (as was fitting) approach from that See to which has been granted the power of the locks. And after some things, he thus dissolves the questions: But let us render an office of this sort (as has seemed to us also most cautiously) in the watch of shepherds, lest, while we wish to gather the lost, we perish, and, while under too great a relaxation we absolve, we fall — which the Lord avert — guilty into fault: especially since the sentence of those before us embraced with such charity in the faith those returning to us from the Arians, in whatever manner, at whatever age polluted by the stain of that pestilence, and with such justice and under love reproved them, and with such reasoning excluded them from the canvassing of honour, that they should blush to seek anything more than to return.

[42] But as to that which you have inquired with most pious compunction, and answers their questions, and writes to Reparatus: whether they ought to be received to their office, or whether they ought not to be promoted at all, or whether they should at least be helped with the benefits of maintenance. We praise, we exhort, we embrace it, that in truth, renouncing his promotion or the office in which they had been, all may judge that you seek rather the reverence of the canons than bear the ardour of cupidity. Together with these answers to the African fathers Agapetus gave a particular letter to Reparatus, bishop of the see of Carthage, dated on the same day, which led Baronius astray into that error of believing that Agapetus was promoted to the Chair in winter. This is its opening, in the Labbe cited: By the letter of thy Fraternity thou hast indicated that, after the letter to be directed to my predecessor, amid the delays of undertaking the voyage which the harshness of a continued winter was generating, our ordination was announced to thee by the benefit of almighty God, and that thou didst rejoice with the affection of brotherhood, because the Divinity has granted me the office of the Pontificate.

[43] These things, I say, moved Baronius to believe that St. Agapetus's consecration happened before the month of March, Baronius's error about these things. since it is said to have been announced to Reparatus in winter. Pagi, being about to correct Baronius, contends at number 4 that Reparatus wrote to the Pontiff not in that winter which took up the beginning of the year 535, but at the beginning of the other, following winter, namely in the month of November, and on that account that the chronological note of Agapetus's letter must be emended, and that for the fifth of the Ides of September, as the copy published by Baronius and Labbe has it, one must read the fifth of the Ides of December. But nothing much persuades that arbitrary emendation, as I have shown in §1, numbers 12 and following. Certainly without it everything is explained conveniently enough: for the news of Agapetus, consecrated on the 29th of April, could reach Carthage after not so very many days. And so, if Agapetus's ordination became known to Reparatus about the beginning of the month of May, it will easily be understood how in the month of September the Pontiff could write back by the legates, and how in this same year, on the Kalends of August at Constantinople, the emperor Justinian, having received the letter from the Carthaginian council, wrote to Solomon, prefect of the praetorium of Africa. Certainly what Pagi wishes to be concluded thence in his own favour I do not sufficiently grasp. Finally Reparatus's own phrase hints sufficiently against Pagi that his speech is not about the beginning of the winter but about its end, and the whole of Agapetus's letter sufficiently persuades that it was sent to Reparatus by those same African legates.

[44] But not in all that time did the affairs of Africa alone occupy St. Agapetus's pastoral cares; In the same year, in the month of July Gaul too had its own: for there are extant in the cited Labbe two letters of the holy Pontiff to St. Caesarius, that great bishop of Arles. Each is dated on the 15th of the Kalends of August after the consulship of Paulinus the younger, most illustrious man, namely in the year 535. Of these the one, the longer, is wholly on the cause of Contumeliosus, bishop of Riez, who is said to have foully defiled that see with the most shameful crimes. St. Caesarius had proceeded against him with other bishops of Gaul, and had contended out of the sacred canons that the unworthy shepherd must be driven from his see. And so he had sent to Rome the action instituted against him, to John II, who at that time held the Chair of St. Peter. John had written back a letter to Caesarius, which Labbe exhibits at tome 4, Col. [ ] and following, and had given other letters on the same matter to the bishops of Gaul, and others to the presbyters and deacons of Contumeliosus. Both you have printed in the same place. Moreover the latter two are dated on the 7th of the Ides of April, Paulinus the younger, most illustrious man, being consul. The first, to Caesarius, lacks all chronological note: yet it is permitted to suspect that it was written at the same time, or even a little before, since the Pontiff seems to make mention of this one in those.

[45] he writes back to St. Caesarius about the cause of Contumeliosus I cull a few things hence which look more closely to the present matter: We grieve (says John a little after the beginning) at the loss of a pontiff; nevertheless the rigour of the canons must be kept. And therefore our authority suspends the aforesaid (Contumeliosus) from the order of the episcopate: for it is not lawful that one polluted with crimes should serve the sacred ministries; but, by thy ordering, let him be directed into a monastery, where, mindful of his misdeeds, let him not omit to pour out tears in penitence, that from him who has mercy on all, our Lord Jesus Christ, he may be able to earn mercy. In his place appoint a visitor, until the church, which has been emptied of its priesthood, may be able to deserve a priest of its own. And a few things being interposed, he thus closes: But what the canons prescribe about these things we have added below, that you may be able to know what must be done. May God keep thee unharmed, dearest brother. In the other letters cited John repeats almost the same things. In those, however, which were given to the clergy of Contumeliosus, he explains his mind and his cares a little more at length thus: There has come to us a report sent by our brothers and fellow-bishops, where Contumeliosus is read to have confessed his crimes and to have been convicted. And because, entangled in crimes of this kind, he cannot now handle the ministries of the priesthood, we believe it necessary to join to you the solaces of a visitor: and therefore our authority has decreed that a visitor be given in his church, so that the church, deprived of its own prelate, may not lack the solaces of the supreme Pontiff: whom we decree that you obey in all things, only as regards those which are to be performed in the sacred mysteries, yet in such a way that he presume nothing of the ecclesiastical property, and that the clergy, established in the Order in which it now is, be promoted to no grades, until it can have its own priest.

[46] the bishop of Riez, whom Caesarius had expelled from his see, But all this solicitude we enjoin upon Caesarius our brother and fellow-bishop, to whose care we have judged that all things which are necessary pertain. John the Pontiff therefore had committed to St. Caesarius the whole care in the cause of Contumeliosus, and the execution of his mandates. He, delaying nothing, seems to have executed the sentence pronounced against the bishop of Riez. But Contumeliosus cried out against it, and appealed to Rome to the Pontiff, nor was he willing to subscribe to the Petition which John asserts in his letter to the bishops that he had sent, complaining perhaps also that the penalties were extended beyond the measure of the fault. Though let us rather dig out from the monuments of those times what we can. Wholly about that matter is our St. Agapetus's letter to Caesarius which I cited above, and I have judged that it must be exhibited whole, that what may be deservedly deduced thence

may be more easily judged. It is moreover of this sort. We had wished, most loving brother, that, the reputation of bishop Contumeliosus remaining entire, there should neither have arisen for thee long since the necessity of a judgment, nor for us the cause of pronouncing. Especially because in the accusation of the man written above the reverence of our common honour seems in a certain manner to have been assailed. Whence, inasmuch as by the presumption, as he asserts, of his innocence he has wished to fly to the help of an appeal, let us lean upon this with assiduous prayers , that the benefit of a repeated inquiry may restore him absolved to the rejoicing of all.*

[47] For we are about to delegate, with our God helping, an examination, and he disapproves St. Caesarius, so that, according to the constitutions of the venerable canons, under the consideration of justice all things which have been done or transacted before thy Fraternity concerning a business of this kind may be demanded with the most diligent investigation. For it is not fitting that he be pressed by the outcome of the inquiry previously held, since indeed he himself has sought a judgment. Let the will of the mind not be turned away from the prayers of the weak, when they shall have been in necessity: lest to us — which the Lord avert — those things can be said which are read in the Proverbs: He who stops his ear that he may not hear the weak, he too shall call upon the Lord, and there shall be none who will hear him. For what is weaker than bishop Contumeliosus, who, set in tribulation, is both confounded by the shame of the past judgment and troubled by the expectation of the inquiry which is to come? For however much — which is to be wished — the purity of innocence may perhaps support him, he cannot but have solicitude for the judgment. And we indeed, although Emeritus the advocate, blamed by us, has confirmed by the will of thy Charity that the said bishop has returned to his church, until the outcome of the judgment which we shall have delegated, we wish bishop Contumeliosus, his own substance being now restored to him, to be meanwhile suspended from the administration of the ecclesiastical patrimony and from the celebration of Masses, because what he had seen to have been taken from him by a judgment he will more gloriously — if the truth supports him — have received back by a judgment than have seized by usurpations.*

[48] But thy Fraternity had done better if, after — an appeal to the Apostolic See having been interposed — [he having appealed to the judgment of the Roman Pontiff, to have proceeded to the execution] he desired an examination, it had allowed nothing about his person to be diminished from the time of the sentence, so that the business which was sought by the interposed challenge might be entire. For if the first sentence is sent into execution, the second inquiry has nothing which it may investigate. It must be added that, even if the aforesaid bishop had not opposed the adjudication, he could according to the canons rather have sought a private retirement than have received the severity of Religion. [Bishop Contumeliosus therefore being suspended, as we have said before, let him have only the celebration of Masses which he is said to have presumed,] and the patrimony of the church being placed in the governance of the archdeacon of the same church, in such a way that maintenance be not insufficiently denied to the bishop, we command that a visitatorial person be ordained in his place, and that he patiently await to hear the judges whom, the Lord inspiring us, we shall have appointed. Moreover, lest there should be anything which might seem unknown to thy Charity, out of zeal of love for the constitutions, we have caused the chapters to be annexed below, that we may be made partakers of the knowledge of the canons, as we share in affection, etc. The chapters which Agapetus here says he has annexed I do not find.

[49] Moreover the place which you see enclosed in brackets, of the sentence pronounced long since by John II, Harduin has rightly corrected — as is clear from what has been said before, of which this is a repetition — thus from a royal manuscript codex: Bishop Contumeliosus therefore being suspended, as we have said before, from that celebration of Masses only which he is said to have presumed. From all these things it seems able to be gathered, first, that Contumeliosus protested against the first declaration of the sentence together with not a few others, against whom, if I am not mistaken, there came forth from St. Caesarius that sufficiently sharp writing which in Labbe is subjoined to the 6th letter of John II. Secondly, that canon 22 of the synod of Epaon was unknown to Agapetus, in accordance with which Caesarius had thrust the deposed Contumeliosus into a monastery, since the Pontiff disapproves that deed, as also that Contumeliosus had been stripped of his own substance or goods. Finally, that Caesarius was indeed reprehended by Agapetus, but that nevertheless almost all his statutes were left entire, so that, even the appeal being admitted, the Pontiff remitted scarcely anything of the penalties already inflicted. There are those who labour much to free both Saints from all suspicion, here too, of precipitancy: Caesarius, who committed the sentence to execution while Contumeliosus was protesting in vain to the Pontiff, and Agapetus, who carped at him for having transacted the matter according to the sentence of John II and of the Gallic bishops.

[50] which perhaps St. Agapetus did not know, Although it would not diminish the glory of either Saint if out of human frailty — which has scarcely not at some time befallen anyone — they should be said to have erred, yet I do not believe that here either of them sinned. St. Caesarius had done all things by the will and precept of the supreme Pontiff John II. If Contumeliosus soon appealed from the sentence to the Apostolic See, Caesarius perhaps judged that for one who had confessed his crime there was no appeal to a judge by whom, the sentence being already pronounced, he had been condemned, and therefore that this ought to be no delay in removing the scandal. Certainly whatever Contumeliosus, through the whole time of John's Pontificate, was able to contrive at Rome through Emeritus or his other friends seems to have obtained no effect, but to have been rejected or at least neglected. The accession of a new Pontiff to the Chair seemed to Contumeliosus's patrons an opportunity for resuming and urging the appeal, which St. Agapetus admitted, as is clear from what is above. That he was ignorant of his predecessor's statutes in the same cause, although on other grounds it seems difficult to believe, I nevertheless suspect, on account of the apparent silence in his letters about John's sentence. Certainly the holy Pontiff is wont everywhere else to lean very much on the statutes of his predecessors. But if he had here judged John II's sentence to have been harsher than was due, he would without doubt have signified it somewhere more openly, nor would he have exhibited Caesarius as the author of the whole affair and as the more rigid judge.

[51] St. Agapetus, who proves himself Whatever it may be, however, whether Agapetus was ignorant of what his predecessor had done in the same cause, or whether he was led on by Contumeliosus's patrons to think that the sentence pronounced by him should be mitigated and that on that account a more diligent examination should be instituted, there is nothing in it foreign to the laws of prudence. Certainly, the cause having been discussed again, the Pontiff seems to have rejected Contumeliosus's appeal, for his name occurs nowhere afterwards among the bishops of Gaul. In the other letter to the same holy prelate of Arles St. Agapetus proves himself no less rigid a cultivator and patron of the sacred canons. St. Caesarius had so spent all his own goods on the flock of the poor that now there remained to him nothing wherewith to succour their miseries. The greatness of the calamities and the holy prelate's compassion made him turn his eyes to the immovable goods of his church. But the sacred canons stood in the way, forbidding the alienation of such goods. Caesarius had written to the Pontiff, and had asked that for the sake of the needy something be relaxed from their rigour, and that he be allowed to sell certain estates of his church.

[52] a most rigid patron of the canons. Agapetus answers, Caesarius's affection towards the poor being much praised: The most manifest venerable constitutions of the Fathers call us back, by which we are forbidden to transfer estates held by the right of the church, over which the omnipotent Lord has appointed us to preside, under any title whatever to the rights of others. In which matter we believe it to be most acceptable to your wisdom also, that in nothing do we presume to go against the constitutions or rules of the ancient definition, for any occasion whatever, or under regard for any person whatever. Nor believe that we do this out of zeal for tenacity, or for the cause of secular advantage, but out of consideration of the divine judgment it is necessary for us to keep inviolably whatever the holy synodal authority has decreed. To the same effect holy Agapetus wrote to the emperor Justinian on the Ides of October, and therefore in this very year of Christ 535. Justinian had given a letter to Agapetus through Heraclius the presbyter, in which he congratulated him on his entry into the Pontificate, set out the state of the realm, and finally — perhaps at the instigation of the impious Theodora — urged much that to the Arian bishops and priests who were returning to the Church their honours, prerogatives, sees, and dignities be left.

[53] The holy Pontiff answers to each point, and, the emperor's ardour for the amplification of the faith being praised, Justinian having sent congratulations on his entry into the Pontificate he subjoins: Insisting more vehemently on the zeal of which benevolence, you think that we too, in acquiring those whom you signify as wishing to shun the Arian perfidy, can decline the censure of the paternal tradition; namely that they should both persevere in those honours in which they were among the heretics, and be promoted to others. Wherefore this is indeed good, and outstanding with the highest praise, that you desire to gather all into the Lord's sheepfold through the true faith: but we ought not to receive those who strive to enter not rightly, the blessed Apostle Paul admonishing: Giving offence to no one, that our ministry be not blamed. But how great an offence against the paternal constitutions they would incur if they were so received — which be far from us — lest anything should happen to lie hidden from your Piety, I have believed that the rules themselves should also be subjoined, which had specially decreed that no one of such, when reconciled, should either be increased by the advancements of the ecclesiastical Order, or desire to possess further the honours which he ought not now to doubt that he culpably lost. From which your Piety will be better able to estimate whether it is in any way lawful to infringe constitutions of the Apostolic See so open and so synodal, since the sentence of the Apostle cries out: If, however, I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator.

[54] Then, very many things being added to the same effect, he subjoins an answer to those things the Pontiff answers on the 15th of October, and the emperor which Justinian had brought forward for excusing Epiphanius, patriarch of Constantinople. This man had ordained a certain Achilles, perhaps returned from the Arians to the Church, bishop of some see, or at least had promoted him to some ecclesiastical dignity; for neither the name of Achilles nor this very deed of Epiphanius have I been able to find anywhere else more distinctly described among the writers, nor is that letter of Justinian extant, whence something more certain could be established. The emperor therefore, deservedly suspecting that St. Agapetus would greatly disapprove what had been attempted against the canons by the bishop of Constantinople, had endeavoured to transfer from him all the fault upon himself as the one who had commanded it. The holy Pontiff answers: But as to your Clemency's having deigned to excuse the person of our brother and fellow-bishop Epiphanius, because in the consecration of the aforesaid Achilles your command rather than his ordination had prevailed: we believe that he too has acknowledged himself rightly blamed, who, besides the other things in which he transgressed, will certainly scarcely be able to excuse this, that to a prince so most pious and most clement, and one defending also the privileges of blessed Peter, he did not, either opportunely or importunely, suggest what in this part was owed to the reverence of the Apostolic See.

[55] About which business at the same time … what it shall have happened to be more fully deliberated, the primacy of blessed Peter, whom you love, being preserved, and with the affection of your Piety, and not obscurely St. Epiphanius we shall (God being propitious) most speedily make known through those legates whom we direct to you. Thus, that is, with heroic freedom the holy Pontiff sharply reprehends the temerity of the patriarch Epiphanius, and not obscurely censures the mandates of Justinian himself. That Epiphanius had elsewhere not rarely attempted some things too confidently against the Roman See, from which he afterwards came to his senses and was numbered among the Saints. His memory is kept on the 25th day

of August, at which place he has a place in our Work. What was afterwards done about Achilles, I do not know. If he was promoted by Epiphanius to an episcopal chair, it is likely that he was thrust out of it by the legates, or by St. Agapetus himself afterwards. Certainly his name is not found subscribed anywhere to the great synod of Constantinople gathered under Mennas, to which very many of the Eastern bishops had come together. But who those legates were who were sent by Agapetus to Justinian can be conjectured from the Acts of the same synod, at which those same men, in place of the dead Pontiff, in all likelihood took part.

[56] he reprehends. He meditates erecting schools at Rome; In Action 1, and often elsewhere, they are reviewed in almost the same words thus: And on the right side indeed there sitting with him (St. Mennas the patriarch) and hearing along with him, according to the pious command of our emperor Justinian, most loving of Christ and guarded by God, the most holy and most God-loving bishops Sabinus of Canusium, Epiphanius of Asculum, Asterius of Salernum, Rusticus of Faesulae, Leo of Nola, all from the region of Italy, sent indeed first by the Apostolic See, but afterwards unanimously consenting to Agapetus, Pope of ancient Rome, of holy memory, when he came hither, etc. For the rest, Baronius and not a few others disturb the order of things done, while they believe that other letters were given by Agapetus to Justinian before this letter; about which, and about the hallucination of those writers, we shall have to treat again below, and we have already said something in §2 of this Commentary. For the rest, when St. Agapetus had ascended to the Roman Chair, he noticed that the Christian cause suffered much from the unskilfulness of the clergy and their ignorance of the divine Letters. Namely, the vicissitudes of the Gothic empire, under which Italy groaned, the tumults and the din of wars, while the arts and the remaining secular sciences flourished, had so driven out the divine ones that few were found imbued with them.

[57] but is impeded by wars. The holy Pontiff therefore, who had learned to esteem them from his own experience, applied himself to this, that schools should be instituted for expounding the sacred Scriptures and for cultivating ecclesiastical learning. Cassiodorus, with whom Agapetus had shared the plan, testifies to this in the preface of his book On the Institution of Divine Letters in these words: I therefore strove, together with the most blessed Agapetus, Pope of the city of Rome, that — as at Alexandria it is handed down to have been long instituted, and now also in Nisibis, a city of the Syrians, it is said to be diligently expounded by the Hebrews — expenses being contributed, professed teachers in the city of Rome might rather receive a Christian school, whence both the soul might receive eternal salvation and the tongue of the faithful might be adorned with chaste and most pure eloquence. But the most prudent plan of both great men the wars that afterwards sprang up, and the turbulent times, as the same Cassiodorus testifies, frustrated of effect, as the same Cassiodorus afterwards complains. For the rest the holy Pontiff, as Stella relates, ordained that on Sundays processions should be made in the churches.

[58] Sophronius relates that the innocence of a certain bishop, To these times also, while St. Agapetus was still acting at Rome, belongs the prodigy which Sophronius narrates in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 150, in these words: Abbot Theodore the Roman related to us, saying: There is not far from the city of Rome a small town which is called Rumellum . In that little town there was a bishop of great virtue and merit. On a certain day, therefore, the inhabitants of the town came in to the most blessed Roman Prelate Agapetus, accusing their bishop and saying that he eats out of a consecrated vessel. But the Pontiff, struck by the mere hearing, sends two of the clerics to bring the bishop to Rome bound and travelling on foot. And when he came he immediately put him in prison. When therefore the bishop had spent three days in prison, the Lord's day came. And when the Pope was resting, as the Lord's day was dawning, he saw in a dream someone standing by him and saying: On this Lord's day, neither do thou offer the saving victim, nor any other of the bishops who are in this city, but only the bishop whom thou hast shut up in prison: for him do I wish to offer today. But the Pope, awakened and hesitating about the vision which he had seen, said within himself: Have I received such an accusation against him, and is he to offer?*

[59] There came therefore to him a second time a voice in a vision, saying: I told thee falsely accused before him, was prodigiously that the bishop who is in prison should alone offer. While he still wavered, a third time it appeared to him, repeating the same. But the Pontiff, awakened, sent to the prison, and, the bishop having been summoned to him, questioned him, saying: What is thy work? But the bishop answered him nothing else but: I am a sinner. And when he could not persuade the bishop to say anything else, then the Pope said to him: Today thou must offer. When therefore he stood at the holy altar, and the Pope stood near him, the deacons surrounding the altar, the bishop began the holy solemnities of the Masses. And when he had completed the prayer of the Oblation, before he concluded it, he began a second time, and then a third and a fourth time, to say that same holy prayer of the Oblation. But when all were bearing that delay ill, the Pontiff says to him: What is this, that thou hast now four times said this prayer, and dost not conclude it? Then the bishop answered: Pardon me, holy Father: because I did not see, according to custom, the descent of the Holy Spirit, therefore I did not end the prayer. But, my holy lord, remove from the altar that deacon standing near me who holds the fan, for I dare not tell him.

[60] Then by St. Agapetus's command the deacon withdrew, and immediately the bishop and the Pope saw the coming of the Holy Spirit. proved. The credit of these things is left to the author. But the veil also which had been laid over the altar was of itself lifted up, and covered the Pope and the bishop and all the deacons who were standing at the holy altar for about three hours. Then the venerable Agapetus, the bishop's sanctity being recognized from the miracle he had beheld, and knowing how false a calumny he had endured whom he had so harassed, being made sorrowful, determined no more to do anything by surreption, but to proceed with mature and considered judgment and great long-suffering. Thus Sophronius, a writer of the seventh century, credulous enough of prodigies and a compiler of very many little tales. Whether the things which he here narrates are to be reckoned among them, I cannot say for certain. The age of the author, which is scarcely a century distant from St. Agapetus's times, requires that we attribute something to him, since nothing occurs whence he may here be convicted of falsehood. All things, however, the contemporaries being silent, let them be left to the credit of Sophronius and of the abbot Theodore who narrated these things to him.

perhaps quanta*.

perhaps enitamur*.

perhaps to be interposed, refragante*.

* Formellum

§4. A fiction about St. Agapetus: his journey from Rome to Constantinople, the things done there, his death.

The things which about St. Agapetus and Childebert Before we follow our holy Pontiff to Constantinople, there comes to be related an enormous little tale which some writers have annexed to the year of Christ 536. Oldoinus, and from him Piazza in the Vatican Ephemerides, praise St. Agapetus's heroic constancy and fortitude in preserving and defending the immunities of the Church, out of those things which Genebrard in book 3 of his Chronography thus narrates: He (St. Agapetus) excommunicated Childebert, king of the Franks, son of Clovis, because with his own hand he had killed Gautier of Yvetot in a church, and he exempted Gautier's successors from the jurisdiction of the kings of France. Wherefore to this day the soil of Yvetot alone in the middle of Normandy enjoys the title of a kingdom. And these things indeed seem to have passed from Froissart, or Gilles, to Genebrard, from him to Gaultier, and thence to others. Although Froissart attributes to Clothar I, king of the Franks, what is here narrated of Childebert; Gautier is also said to have been lord of the territory of Yvetot, and to have been killed by the king on Good Friday, while he was taking part in the sacred rites in the church of Soissons. Moreover Yvetot is in Normandy and the Caux country, two miles distant from Caudebec, but six from Rouen.

[62] some writers of the 15th century invented. It has attached to it a territory not large, which by others is narrated a little differently, namely as given by the king himself, in redemption of the injury inflicted, with the title of a kingdom and the privilege of exemption. But how fabulous all these things are, MM. de la Roque and de Vertot, who have vigorously discussed this matter, have learnedly shown, as Martinière in his Geographical Lexicon attests. And the Dissertation of the latter, On the Origin of the Kingdom of Yvetot, is said to have been inserted in the Ephemerides of the royal academy of the year 1714, which let him consult who desires more about these things, and likewise the lucubration of the former. Let it suffice me here to exhibit the little tale as related and exploded in Briet's words. He writes at the year of Christ 535: To this time belongs the fabulous kingdom of Yvetot in Normandy, put together out of 17 districts, in favour, as is believed, of Gautier, a noble man, whom, as he was returning from the Saracen war and furnished with a letter of the Pontiff Agapetus, Clothar is said on the day of the Parasceve to have slain with his own hand. Of which invention the first author is Gaguin, a good monk, who lived under Charles VIII, and Nicolas Gilles, who wrote under Louis XII, that is 900 years after the event. But what the lords of Yvetot put forward for themselves proves only that this land is of its own jurisdiction, and in our age they have preferred to be legitimate princes rather than ridiculous kings.

[62] St. Agapetus, at the urging of Theodahad, king of the Goths, The remaining months of the year 535 being spent at Rome, there grew for our St. Agapetus a harvest of labours and of merits; Divine providence directing that the inconveniences which he was forced to undergo for the safety of the Gothic king should turn out to the profit of the Church and to the safety of the holy faith. He was sent (Anastasius subjoins in the words cited above) by Theodahad, king of the Goths, on an embassy to the lord Justinian Augustus, because at that same time the lord Justinian, emperor Augustus, was indignant at king Theodahad, in that he had killed queen Amalasuintha, daughter of king Theodoric, commended to him, who had made him king. These things, as Bencini notes, Anastasius drew from Procopius's books On the Gothic War. The same Procopius, in his Secret History, chapter 16, writes that Theodahad was impelled by the impious Theodora, through Peter, to the murder of the most celebrated queen. But Justinian could have been ignorant of this crime of his wife, who feared for herself from her husband's affection for Amalasuintha, and could have blazed with most just anger against the most ungrateful king. Whatever it may be, certainly Belisarius had already brought his army over into Sicily, and the unwarlike king of the Goths was afraid for his whole realm from the emperor's forces, and, peace having been sought more than once in vain, even on the most unfair conditions, he threatened the Roman senate with the destruction of the whole City unless they should obtain peace for him from Justinian.

[64] Liberatus the Deacon narrates the matter in his Breviary, chapter 21. the sacred plate being pledged to the treasury, sets out to Justinian At which time (he says) Theodahad, king of the Goths, writing to the Pope himself (Agapetus) and to the Roman senate, threatens that he will slay with the sword not only the senators but also their wives and their sons and daughters, unless they should treat with the emperor that he withdraw his appointed army from Italy. But the Pope, an embassy for that same cause having been undertaken, set out for Constantinople.

Therefore St. Agapetus, obeying the king's will and the prayers of the senate and the Roman people, prepared a journey to Constantinople; but, being about to make up the money for undertaking the embassy, he found the treasury of the Roman Church so exhausted that it in no way sufficed for the necessary expenses. Wherefore he was forced to pledge the sacred plate to the treasury. Cassiodorus narrates this in book 12 of the Various Letters, letter 20, which he wrote to Thomatus and Peter, the royal treasurers, after he had obtained the redemption of the sacred vessels from the king, who was most greedy of money. You retain with me (he says), most faithful men, that holy Agapetus, Pope of the city of Rome, when he was sent by royal command for the sake of an embassy to the prince of the East, pledges being given, solemnly received from you so many pounds of gold, a receipt being made, so that for him whom the provident Ruler commanded, it should press even to his sudden departure … Admonished by our precept, and secure in the royal command, restore without any delay the vessels of the Saints, with the obligation of the written bond, to the authorities of St. Peter the apostle. Very many of the clergy accompanied the holy Pontiff, as is clear from the council of Constantinople, at which after St. Agapetus's death they took part.

[65] But in what month of the year St. Agapetus set out from Rome, about the beginning of the year 536, and on the journey a man and when he reached Constantinople, is not sufficiently clear. Anastasius indeed writes, whom Chacón and others have followed: But Agapetus went to Constantinople on the 10th of the Kalends of May, and entered Constantinople, and Agapetus the bishop was received with glory: but in §2, number 30, I have shown that that chronological note is faulty, and that one must read the 10th of the Kalends of March: for it is certain, as Pagi proves, that St. Agapetus was already at Constantinople on the thirteenth day of March, which will be made plain from the things which I shall bring forward at number 71. Therefore, as the year 535 was expiring, or when the next was scarcely born, he set out thither, and to the inconveniences of the journey was added the harshness of winter. But heavenly goodness soothed the holy Man's labours, while it adorned his virtues with an immense miracle: for hither looks what St. Gregory the Great in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 3, thus narrates: But after not much time, the cause of the Goths requiring it, that most blessed man Agapetus also, Pontiff of this holy Roman Church, which by God's dispensation I serve, went to the prince Justinian. And to him, as he was still journeying, on a certain day, now in the parts of Greece, there was presented for healing a man dumb and lame, who could neither utter any words nor ever rise from the ground.

[66] And when his kinsfolk had presented him weeping, the Man of the Lord solicitously inquired whether they had faith for his healing. dumb and lame he prodigiously heals. And when they said that they had a fixed hope of his health in the power of God from Peter's authority, immediately the venerable Man betook himself to prayer, and, having begun the solemnities of the Masses, he immolated the sacrifice in the sight of almighty God. Which being finished, going out from the altar he took the lame man's hand, and, the people standing by and looking on, he at once raised him from the ground upon his own steps. And when he put the Lord's body into his mouth, that tongue, long dumb, was loosed to speak. All, wondering, began to weep for joy, and fear and reverence at once invaded their minds, when they saw, that is, what Agapetus had been able to do in the power of the Lord from the help of Peter. Thus assuredly God proved his Servant's sanctity to the Easterners at once at his very entry, and won for him that reverence and authority in which he had to be most strong for transacting matters so great. For scarcely did he reach Constantinople when a most arduous affair befell him with the emperor, to which Liberatus, cited, testifies in these words: And at first indeed receiving honourably those directed to him by the emperor, he nevertheless spurned in his mind the presence, and was unwilling to receive him for a greeting. Namely there was among those whom Justinian had sent to greet the Pontiff Anthimus, whose name is to be put in place of animo, and one must read Anthimi præsentiam, as Liberatus's own phrase sufficiently shows.

[67] Having entered Constantinople, Anthimus the heretic, Anthimus was a crafty man and composed for dissimulation, especially dear to the empress Theodora, that impious patroness of heretics. Of him Liberatus thus writes in Breviary, chapter 20: At that time, Epiphanius, bishop of Constantinople, being dead, Theodora Augusta transferred to the same see Anthimus, who had been bishop of Trebizond in the region of Pontus, one secretly not receiving the council of Chalcedon. But this hypocrisy of his had already become known to Agapetus from the report of various persons, the Eastern monks saying in their Supplication to the emperor, which is reported in the council of Constantinople, Action 1: This honourable man therefore (Agapetus), knowing through the memorials of very many of us the things which were iniquitously presumed against the churches, receiving them at one glance, was unwilling even to receive Anthimus to sight. The memorial which Marianus with his monks had offered to St. Agapetus against Anthimus and other heretics, perhaps before Anthimus came to him, is recited at sufficient length in the same Action 1 of the same council. And so the holy Pontiff repelled the heretical bishop and pseudo-patriarch from his sight, lest even so he should seem in any way to communicate with him. But that matter stirred Theodora's anger, who moved every stone with Justinian that Agapetus might be forced to receive Anthimus into communion, and she easily persuaded her husband to attempt it.

[67] sent to him by the emperor, Then (says Liberatus), the prince having been seen, he (Agapetus) was pleading the cause of the embassy undertaken. But the emperor, unwilling on account of the great expenses of the treasury to turn away from Italy the army he had appointed, would not hear the Pope's supplications. From these things Anastasius is convicted of falsehood, when he writes: But Agapetus the Pope obtained all that for which he had been directed; for Theodahad's request about removing the army from Italy was rejected by the emperor. What the Pontiff did after suffering a refusal, Liberatus continuing teaches us: But he (Agapetus) discharged what was his own, the embassy of Christ. Finally, when the princes asked that the Pope receive Anthimus in greeting and in communion, he said it could be done if he should prove himself Orthodox by a memorial and should return to his own see. It was impossible, he said, that a translated man should remain in that see. But though the Augusta secretly promised many gifts, and again threatened the Pope with threats, the Pope persisted in this, that he would not hear her petition. Thus by blandishments and by threats the holy Pontiff's constancy was tempted, but not stormed.

[69] But the whole series of this matter Anastasius narrates more fully thus: he refuses to admit into his sight, And first he began to have an altercation with the most pious prince Justinian Augustus about religion. To whom the most blessed bishop Agapetus gave back the answer of the most constant faith of the Apostles, saying: That our Lord Jesus Christ is God and man, that is, that there are two natures in the one Christ. And while the contention was being carried on, the Lord so assisted that he found the bishop of Constantinople, by name Anthimus, a heretic. Even though he craftily covered his errors and promised Agapetus that he would do very many things, the Pontiff did not believe the crafty man, which the emperor bore most ill. And when the contention was being carried on with the Augustus and Agapetus the Pope, the emperor Justinian said to him (the royal, Mazarin, and de Thou codices read more correctly:)

But when the contention had long been carried on between the Augustus and Agapetus the Pope, he said to him, namely Justinian) either consent to us, or I shall cause thee to be carried off into exile. Then the most blessed Agapetus the Pope answered with joy, saying to the emperor: I indeed a sinner desired to come to Justinian, a most Christian emperor, but now I have found a Diocletian, whose threats nevertheless I do not fear. Yet that thou mayest know thee (Baronius reads better that thou mayest know him) not to be fit for the Christian religion, let thy bishop confess two natures in Christ.

[70] From these things Justinian seems to have believed that Anthimus thought Catholicly, and convicted of heresy as he perhaps spoke, and to have urged this most of all, that he should retain the see of Constantinople, from which Agapetus contended that even a Catholic must be expelled; unless the emperor cared little about that, being perhaps infected with the same heresy, as I shall report from Paul the Deacon of Aquileia, what Anthimus secretly thought, provided only he might gratify his wife. However it be, Then (Anastasius continues) at the command of the Augustus the bishop of Constantinople, by name Anthimus, having been summoned, and a discussion made, he was never willing to confess, in the doctrine of the Catholic response to the interrogation of the blessed Pope Agapetus, two natures in the one Lord Jesus Christ. Whom the holy Pope Agapetus convicted, and he was glorified by all Christians. Then the most pious Augustus Justinian, filled with joy, humbled himself to the holy Apostolic See, and venerated the most blessed Pope Agapetus. At the same time he cast out Anthimus from communion, and drove him into exile. Then the most pious Augustus Justinian, entreating the most blessed Agapetus the Pope, he also consecrated a Catholic bishop in Anthimus's place.

[71] Liberatus writes almost the same things. But Anthimus, he says, he expels from the see, and substitutes St. Mennas seeing himself driven from the see, returned to the emperors the pallium which he had, and departed to where the Augusta might protect him with her patronage. Then the Pope, by the prince's favour, ordained Mennas prelate in his place, consecrating him with his own hand in the basilica of St. Mary. This prerogative Agapetus reckons among the other titles of Mennas's dignity in his circular Letter, which is recited in the council of Constantinople, Action 1, writing: And we believe this to have been added to his dignity, that from the times of Peter the apostle the Eastern church has never received any other bishop ordained by the hands of our See. Now Mennas was consecrated on the thirteenth day of the month of March, as is clear from the Vatican codex which Pagi cites, and where it is thus read at page 45: A copy of the memorial of Mennas, presbyter and warden of the hospice, who was made bishop of Constantinople on the day of the 3rd of the Ides of March, again after the consulship of Paulinus the younger, most illustrious man. From these things it is proved that St. Agapetus reached Constantinople before that day, indeed long before: for the things we have narrated as done with Justinian preceding Mennas's ordination do not seem to have happened in the space of one or another day, nor indeed of a week, and therefore it is very likely that St. Agapetus arrived at Constantinople even before the month of March.

[72] on the 13th of March 536, and about that matter sends a circular letter to Anthimus having been expelled, and Mennas substituted in his place, lest that fugitive should perhaps deceive some bishops, by a most prudent counsel St. Agapetus sent a synodal letter through the East, full of that spirit with which he burned for the safety of the Catholic Church. A copy of it, given to Peter, bishop of Jerusalem, is recited in the often-cited council of Constantinople, Action 1, in Labbe, tome 5, column 47, whence I cull a few things. When therefore, he says after some things, we came to the court of our most serene emperor, our son, we found the see of the church of Constantinople unfittingly usurped, against all the honesty of the canons, by Anthimus, bishop of the church of the Trapezuntines, whose soul we desired to lead back from perdition not only according to that part, but, what is greater, in the confession of the true faith. But, persisting in the error of Eutyches, he despised to come to the way of truth. Whence, though we had awaited his penitence in the faith, we meanwhile declare by a pronounced sentence that he is worthy neither of the name of Catholic nor of that of priest,

until he receive all things handed down by the Fathers, through which the faith and discipline of the true religion is guarded, and that according to a fitting satisfaction.

[73] [the Eastern bishops, censuring those who had in any way confirmed Anthimus's consecration.] Then after a few things he thus rebukes the pusillanimity of Peter, who had seemed to have consented, however constrainedly, to Anthimus's promotion: And we have indeed wondered beyond measure that your Fraternity not only neglected to bring to our notice this work so openly contrary to the decrees of the Fathers, but even confirmed it by a reprehensible consent. Finally, a most beautiful elogium of Mennas being interposed, he concludes: Receive therefore, brothers, the common joy with pious exultation, and signify by the accustomed rescript how far you approve the judgment of our Apostolic See, having a double cause of exultation, both that evils are corrected without delay and that for these the things wished for have followed; taking care for the rest lest again anything contrary to the canonical sanctions be done by you — which I do not believe — or be confirmed by your consent acceding, since, just as the error of him who has sinned once is worthy of pardon, so frequent transgression demands a movement of austerity. And thus St. Agapetus, by fatherly admonitions and by sharp reprehensions against the delinquent, consulted for the safety of the faith, and abundantly proved his supreme authority in the church. Indeed, the Primacy, says Pagi appositely, which the patriarchs of Constantinople had hitherto more than once attempted to deny, the Roman Pontiff could not more gloriously exercise than by cashiering a heretical patriarch of Constantinople and ordaining another in his place, no synod having been convoked.

[74] He receives a Profession of faith from Mennas, and Justinian, For the rest Agapetus, although he so judged of Mennas as to have written in the cited letter: For to no one was he unknown either in learning or in life, but the fame of the aforesaid man so shone forth both by the integrity of his faith and by his study of the sacred Scriptures and also by the office of a pious administration, that it seemed to come to him too slowly, whereof he was held worthy — nevertheless he wished his faith, as far as he could, to be approved to all and confirmed. Wherefore he not only obtained from him in writing the public profession of faith long since prescribed by Hormisdas to the Easterners, but also exacted and received publicly before all the people, from the man about to be consecrated, a memorial in which he testified that he condemned all heretics, and those especially who were then troubling the Church with their errors, and that he thought with the Roman Church in all things. A copy of this memorial Cardinal Noris dug out from a Vatican manuscript, whose title I gave above at number 71, and Pope Vigilius mentions it in a letter to the emperor, which is extant in tome 5 of the Councils, column 315. Now let us return to the things done between Justinian and St. Agapetus.

[75] Not a few writers are of opinion that the emperor was infected with the Eutychian stain. perhaps infected with the Eutychian heresy, Paul the Deacon, book 17, page 675, writes: A conference having been held with him (Justinian), he (St. Agapetus) found that he had fallen into the dogma of Eutyches. And Aimoin, On the Deeds of the Franks, book 11, chapter 6: At which time also the most holy Agapetus, Pontiff of the Roman See, having set out for the royal city, brought back the prince Justinian, who had slipped into the sect of Eutyches, to the true and Catholic faith. There are those who are of opinion that the name of heretic clung to the emperor not because he thought as a heretic, but because he had communicated with Anthimus and had defended his iniquitous cause still more iniquitously against the Orthodox bishops. But that Justinian had slipped into the very errors of Eutyches and into heretical dogmas will not be difficult to believe for him who gives full credit to Procopius's Secret History. Certainly his living with the most crafty Theodora, long since infected with that pest, to whom he deferred too much, and his own pride, by which he scrutinized the mysteries of religion and decided about them too confidently, could easily seduce the emperor, and Agapetus could detect this in the contentions which he had with him in the cause of Anthimus. But if it is so, the Pontiff convicted Justinian and led him back from error, without doubt before, so changed, he consented to Anthimus's expulsion.

[76] Then, whether he wished thus to remove from himself all suspicion of heresy, he unteaches his error: from the same he receives professions of faith. or whether the emperor had regard to something else, he gave a letter to St. Agapetus, asking that by Apostolic authority he would again confirm his edict against the Acoemete monks, Nestorius, and the Eutychians, confirmed long since by John II. This letter of Justinian is extant in tome 4 of the Councils, column 1789, and this title is prefixed to it: Letter of Justinian to Agapetus. After the manner of his ancestors he publishes before the Roman Pontiff, newly elected, the profession of his faith, the same which he had sent above to John II: and it is subscribed: given on the day before the Ides of March at Constantinople, Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, being consul, which notes designate the year of Christ 535. Cardinal Baronius in the Annals at the aforecited year recites that same letter of Justinian at number 24, and is of opinion that it was given for the same cause which the title prefixed to it by the editors of the councils sets forth. Baillet admits the same without scruple, following after his manner the first thing that came to hand without much examination. But all these judge wrongly: for besides the things which we have disputed in the first two §§, the other chronological notes themselves show that this does not cohere with their chronotaxis.

[77] For it is certain that St. Agapetus four days later gave a reply to the emperor, dated at Constantinople under the same consulship. Now at the beginning of his Pontificate Agapetus was not at Constantinople The first of these was written on the 14th of March, to which but at Rome; whence certainly he could not send answers to letters written four days earlier at Constantinople, inasmuch as they could not be carried thither in so tiny an interval of time. There is added to these that nothing in the text persuades that it is a congratulatory letter, such as was wont to be sent by the emperors to the newly consecrated Roman Prelates. That Justinian congratulated St. Agapetus on his entry into the Pontificate is altogether certain from the words of the holy Pontiff writing back. But I believe that that letter of the emperor has perished, and that this was the very one by which he urged that the Arian bishops who came to their senses might remain in their ecclesiastical dignities, of which I treated at number 52 and following. Finally Noris's Vatican codex has here After the Consulship of Belisarius, most illustrious man, which agrees with our year 536. Therefore Justinian, either convicted of error by Agapetus or suspected by him of heresy, wished his faith to be approved to him, and wherefore he offered the Pontiff a profession of faith, whose beginning is Rendering honour to the Apostolic See, in Labbe, tome 4, Col. [ ].

[78] on the 18th of March, censuring the emperor's arrogance, On the third day after the profession was published, namely on the 15th of the Kalends of April, the Pontiff wrote back a letter, printed in the same place at Col. [ ], with this beginning: We rejoice, venerable emperor. In it Agapetus praises Justinian's zeal for preserving and establishing the purity of the Catholic faith, but no less censures the arrogance of a layman presuming to make laws for the Church. For thou desirest, he says, venerable emperor, that we too should by our authority confirm the letter of thy Piety about the exposition of your faith, lately directed through the bishops Hypatius and Demetrius to our predecessor John of blessed memory, Prelate of the Roman See, and strengthened by the aforesaid Prelate. We praise it, we embrace it: not because we admit in laymen the authority of preaching, but because we confirm and strengthen the zeal of your faith as agreeing with the rules of our Fathers. Through which both the unity of the Church now comes about, and we trust that the remaining members of the Catholic Church will return by the constancy of Christianity to its framework.

[79] he replies. Then another from Justinian Annexing below the tenor of which profession or of your letter, we confirm by our authority the zeal which you bear entirely towards God, declaring that a faith of this kind agrees with all the rules of our Fathers and is in concord with the dogmas of the Apostolic See: appointing that, if anyone shall attempt to go against our Catholic faith, which for removing the suspicion of heretics we confirm by the present definition as consonant with the paternal rules, he be made a stranger to holy communion. He then again condemns Cyrus and his followers, the heretical Acoemetes, who deny that Christ is one of the Trinity, inserts the emperor's letter once sent to John, and concludes: Whoever therefore shall presume to contradict this confession, as has been said before, and this faith, let him know himself estranged from Catholic communion. Given on the 15th of the Kalends of April at Constantinople, Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man, being consul; for which, from the Vatican codex now often cited, substitute: After the consulship of Flavius Belisarius, most illustrious man. Besides that first profession of faith of Justinian there is extant another, with this opening: The first salvation is to keep the rule of the right faith, and it is dated on the 18th of the Kalends of April, without doubt faultily, since between the Kalends of April and the Ides of March there run no more than 16 days. Most advise that one must read the 17th of the Kalends: but by mere arbitrary choice and without a witness that day is substituted, determined among the others which run up to the Kalends of April.

[80] Certainly this last profession everywhere agrees, except that it is more prolix in words, he receives a profession of faith, and memorials of various men against with the Rule of faith which Pope Hormisdas had prescribed, and at the end it is said: And we profess that these things are kept unshaken, and to compel that all bishops act according to the tenor of that memorial, that the most holy patriarchs indeed do so to your Holiness, and the metropolitans to the patriarchs, and the others to their metropolitans. Whence it is clear that it is not so much Justinian's own profession as the common one prescribed to the bishops. Hence I suspect that Justinian, struck by St. Agapetus's first answer, offered him this common and general one, or asked that besides his own this also be approved, which was to be prescribed as to be made by the rest. Whatever it be, however, the Pontiff is not found to have answered it, perhaps already impeded by illness. For the rest, very many other memorials also were offered to St. Agapetus by Eastern bishops and monks, against Severus the pseudo-patriarch of Antioch, Peter of Apamea, Zonaras or Zoaras, a Syrian monk, and other Eutychian heretics. Those memorials Baronius recites at number 32 from the Acts of the council of Constantinople. Among them one, offered after Anthimus's expulsion, shows St. Agapetus's compassion towards him and his fatherly mildness.

[81] Since indeed it is clear from it that the holy Pontiff left open to Anthimus an approach to his former see of Trebizond, heretics. In one of them there is disapproved the too great if ever he should come to his senses and, his errors being condemned, should candidly profess the Catholic faith. And this affection of compassion indeed seemed excessive to the Archimandrites, because the Pontiff had not even fixed a certain space of time within which, unless he should return to the Catholic faith, no further approach to his former see would lie open to him. Wherefore they thus supplicate the Pontiff: Since therefore this man (Anthimus) has been justly punished by you and cast out from the see of this royal city, and our most faithful emperor has approved your just indignation against him, he himself also helping and protecting the divine canons and the Catholic faith, and since you do not wish his utter perdition but that he be converted (for you imitate Christ our God, who came to call not the just but sinners) and altogether receive him with fatherly bowels, if he shall have recognized his own sin and be converted.

[82] We adjure your Beatitude (though a bold

thing though it be that we do) by the holy and consubstantial Trinity, mildness and indulgence towards Anthimus. and by Peter the prince of the Apostles, and by the safety and victory of our most pious emperor, that you despise not the divine canons, which are being ruined by him, nor the church handed over to him, which is despised by him, but that, following in all things those who before your Beatitude shone in your See, you do against him — even now growing strong against the authority of the canons, and one who has preferred to pass his life with heretics than with his own church — those things which it is clear that holy Celestine did against Nestorius, by assigning him a term, as he too did to Nestorius, within which, unless meeting it he shall have presented the aforesaid memorial to your Apostolic See and to your Beatitude and to the most holy archbishop of the royal city, and shall have freed himself from the heretical disease, and shall set out for the church of the Trapezuntines entrusted to him, define, most Holy one, that he is a stranger to and stripped of all pontifical dignity and power, and has subjected himself to the condemnation of the aforesaid heretics and has received their portion; but that another be ordained in his stead for the church of Trebizond.

[83] Whether the holy Pontiff acquiesced in these things and fixed a certain space for coming to his senses, He satisfies the other memorials, by condemning heretics, is uncertain. He seems to have been forestalled by death, since that time is afterwards read to have been defined for Anthimus by the council of Constantinople. I believe that after Mennas's consecration decrees also were framed by which he struck the errors of other heretics. And that Severus indeed and the other heretics, against whom memorials had been offered, were condemned by St. Agapetus, is clear from the cited synod, where in their cause Mennas pronounces in Action 4: We, as does your Charity, follow and obey the Apostolic See, and hold as in communion those in communion with it, and condemn those condemned by it. And in Action 5 again: They have indeed despised the Roman Church, successor of the Apostles, which pronounced sentence against them … Therefore, following the sentences of our holy Fathers, against Severus, Peter, and Zonaras … we cast them out as wolves rushing into the sheepfold of Christ, and strike them with a like anathema. And all those indeed, St. Agapetus being dead, were driven into exile by Justinian, who commanded in Novel 42 that the Pontiff's decrees be committed to execution. That Agapetus convoked a council against them Theophanes writes at the year 537 — that one, namely, which was begun in the month of May under Mennas, and at which his legates, in whom his authority and power gloriously survived, were present.

[84] and, a council having been announced, he dies. But the holy Pontiff, broken by so many and so great labours and cares, had already before passed to those above, as the Acts of that council testify, where at the very opening he is at once called Pope of Ancient Rome, of holy memory. His day of death we have fixed above, and Anastasius marks it, thus continuing: But after some days (from Mennas's consecration) being moved by sickness, he died at Constantinople on the 10th (rather the 15th, as we have shown at number 32) of the Kalends of May. Whose body was translated in a leaden coffin as far as the basilica of blessed Peter the Apostle, where also he was buried on the 12th of the Kalends of October. He made two Ordinations in the city of Rome, four deacons, eleven bishops through various places. Liberatus the Deacon thus closes the deeds of St. Agapetus in chapter 22 of his Breviary: These things being finished (the consecration of Mennas), the Pope, appointing with the emperor as apocrisiary of his church his own deacon Pelagius, while he was arranging to return into Italy, died at Constantinople. On the leaden coffin in which his sacred remains were translated from the East to Rome, on the testimony of Paolo de Angelis and Piazza, there is read such an epitaph inscribed by one of his successors.

And rejoicing in the simplicity of the good alone:

Gentle in compliance, and full of pure love,

Leading a peaceful life by the right of quiet.

Thou who, pleasing to the peoples and worthy of lofty honour,

Didst take by thy merits the Pontifical dignity.

And, feeding what was committed to thee, with goodness as mistress,

Thou didst keep the whole flock under piety.

And Agapetus, duly venerating thine honour,

Has offered these welcome gifts to thy tomb,

He who now as Prelate, lofty in the Roman city,

Holds the sacred summits of the Apostolic See.

Now I subjoin an ancient monument, about which see Oldoinus in his Notes on Chacón and Baronius in the Annals at the year of Christ 536, number 59, illustrated with a very few notes. Baronius testifies that he dug it out of the Vatican library, and thus indicates the place in the margin: Vatican Library, book number 1538, in the Register of St. Gregory, page 194. He adds that it appears to him to have been written by someone who was then present: but that the manuscript is much corrupted, and that he has restored it as he could. As regards the writer's age, although nothing greatly persuades it, I should nevertheless not wish to dissent from him, since nothing manifestly contrary is proved. Gratian seems to have had it before his eyes, since he transferred a scrap from it, which I exhibited from him at number 2. The writer nowhere reveals himself. Baronius is of opinion that he was a Latin and wrote in Latin, since some things are taken from the letter of St. Jerome to Alethius on the funeral of Rufina.

[86] The letter of St. Jerome to Alethius I long sought in vain. about the things done at Constantinople. I found one given to Alethius by St. Paulinus of Nola, which is the 33rd among his letters: but no word there which could seem transferred hither. At length by chance I lit upon that letter of St. Jerome which is to Eustochium and is entitled Epitaph, or, as other codices have it, Life of St. Paula, and is extant in Vallarsi's edition as 108: and there at last, in columns 715, 716, and 717, I found the things which I shall give below enclosed in brackets. To these Baronius could have added, in favour of his opinion, that the verse at number 3, And now flying fame, the herald of so great a grief, was copied by the anonymous writer from book 2 of Virgil's Aeneid — unless he himself perhaps substituted this for things which could be read only with difficulty in the manuscript. It is not worth while to scrutinize Baronius's opinion more scrupulously. I suspect nevertheless that there will be some to whom, from the phrase and the attribute given to the church of Constantinople and to its bishop, the title of Universal and Apostolic, a scruple may cling, lest it were written by a Greek. Whatever it be, it is certainly an ancient monument, which I subjoin.

APPENDIX

On the things done at Constantinople by Pope Agapetus, and on his death and funeral;

By an anonymous author, perhaps contemporary

From an old manuscript of the Vatican library, published by Baronius.

Agapetus, Pope, confessor, at Constantinople (S.)

BHL Number: 0123

By an anonymous writer.

[ ] St. Agapetus is sent by Theodahad, king of the Goths In the four hundred and ninetieth year of the building of the Roman Church ^a, Agapetus, who was Prelate of the first See, came to Constantinople from Theodahad, the most wicked king of the Goths, to ask peace from Justinian Augustus. Straightway ^b both king and Pontiff, tasting holy kisses and each venerating the other, drew the day out to evening, only the peace of the embassy being denied. But Agapetus, who according to Peter's precept was to profit all the churches, which at that time all leaned and lay down upon themselves ^c, turned himself to their necessity, and propped himself up as an immovable column ^d. Thus far I have told how the Roman Pontiff came to Constantinople; now I shall tell how Anthimus invaded the universal ^e church. For Epiphanius, the twentieth bishop of the royal city, having departed this life, Anthimus, who, having long since left the bishopric at the city of Trebizond ^f, had come to Constantinople and was commending his life by fasts ^g, whether by the decree of the Fathers ^h, or by the Augustus's favour, or by the wish of the nobles, relying on the moneys of heretics and on the crowds of the seditious, rushed unforeseen into the see of the church of Constantinople, invaded it as an adulterer, and, the clergy groaning and the people turning their eyes to heaven, that hostile man sat upon the apostolic throne, and silently sowed his madness among all the rest, scattering doles to the needy after a Simoniacal rite.

[2] to Constantinople, where he deposed the patriarch Anthimus, Such an adulterer of the church and seducer of the people did Pope Agapetus, without any obstacles of delay, expel from the church, and appointed him a time of penitence, which, since he repelled it without delay, and reprobated the ancient church which he had left, and stored up his perfidy in the depth of his mind, he was safely struck by the voice of Pope Agapetus and by the canonical one; and his accomplices Severus and Peter, once bishops of the cities of Antioch and Apamea, were carried off from exile into exile. Zoaras ⁱ too, a presbyter and their follower, was bound by the Apostolic voice. But Pope Agapetus, a Catholic vessel, the trumpet of the Gospel, the herald of justice ^k, washed with his Catholic prayers the sacred veils of the altar and of the see, infected by the breaths of the sacrilegious Anthimus, and expiated with orthodox supplications all the buildings of the temple from the stains inflicted therein by Anthimus, the hireling and wolf of the sheep being thrust outside the walls of the church from the Lord's fold. The ministers of the churches, the Catholic prince smiling upon them, enter unanimous into a council: commending with their own voices to Agapetus the Prelate Mennas ^l, a presbyter, to be ordained as their bishop, they bring him forward into the midst. Pope Agapetus demands ^m a memorial of him, published in the likeness of his faith by his own hand; namely that he might himself present it at Rome to the blessed apostle Peter.

[3] substitutes Mennas, and dies. The memorial of his faith being published by Mennas according to the precept of his creator, and offered to Pope Agapetus in the sight of his church, by the same prince of all the bishops ⁿ, a hand being laid on, he obtained the universal ^o bishopric, and alone as the twenty-first [p] bishop of his church deserved to be ordained by the Prelate of the Roman See. Thus far we have rejoiced in the admonitions of Agapetus our teacher, in those things which have been said by us: now, troubled by his sudden infirmity, we mourn. [For who could with dry eyes tell of Agapetus dying! He fell into the gravest illness: nay rather, he found what he desired: that he should leave us and be free of the evils of the times soon following [q], and be more fully joined with the holy fathers to the Lord. His breath had failed, and his soul, panting in death, longed to break forth, and turned that very rattle by which the life of mortals is ended into the praises of the Lord [r].] Not yet had he breathed out his spirit, not yet had he rendered to Christ the soul that was owed, and already flying fame, the herald of so great a grief, called the peoples of the whole world, with whom the city was filled, to the obsequies. There were present numerous bishops of various provinces, and choirs of priests and monks had almost filled the city. The whole crowd of Byzantium came together to his funeral. He thought it sacrilege who had not rendered the last office to such a Pontiff. The psalms sounded, and the Alleluia, re-echoing on high, shook the lofty roofs of the houses.

[4] The celebrity of the obsequies. Here you would see choirs of young men, here of old. What songs, what priestly praises, what deeds are told! Never was anyone in the whole world, whether of bishops or of emperors, seen when departed this life to be buried amid such abundance of obsequies. Consider the multitude of those going forward and surging in troops at his obsequies: neither the streets, nor the porticoes, nor the roofs rising above could hold those who looked on. Then the royal city beheld its peoples in one. All favoured one another for the glory of the dead Priest. Nor is it wonderful if men exulted over the faith of him from whose preaching

the Angels rejoiced in heaven. [What may be wonderful, pallor had changed nothing in his face: but a certain dignity and gravity had so filled his countenance that they thought him not dead but sleeping [s].]

ANNOTATA.

p. The anonymous writer sets Epiphanius above as the twentieth patriarch, and here Mennas as the twenty-first, Anthimus being neglected, who had wickedly occupied the see of Constantinople between them. St. Mennas with us in the Chronological History, page * 65, comes twenty-ninth in order. Baronius at number 60 asserts that, the schismatics and intruded heretics being excluded, no more are numbered from Metrophanes than our anonymous writer reckons. But, unless he shall have struck out Arsacius and St. Atticus, who came to that chair when St. John Chrysostom had been unjustly expelled, he will find the series greater by two.

q. A little afterwards the gravest evils harassed the Church, arising both from wars and from the iniquitous machinations of Theodora and Vigilius.

r. The things which are here, and at the end, enclosed in brackets, are found scattered in just so many words in St. Jerome's Letter to Eustochium on the funeral of St. Paula, column 715 in Vallarsi's edition. Consult, if you please, the last number but one of the Sylloge.

s. It is clear, if I am not mistaken, that the narration is mutilated at the end.