POPE VIGILIUS NEVER ELECTED.

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pontificate. This infallible pope caused the deposed but equally infallible Silverius to be banished to a desert island, under charge of executioners, who put him to death by the slow process of starvation !(3) Yet, notwithstanding all this, Vigilius was recognized by a General Council and " knowledged for a lawful pope," says Du Pin, "without proceeding to a new election, or even confirming that which had been made. (") His name, as also that of Silverius, who has been made a saint-is found in every published list of the popes; and, strange as it may now seem, one of the ecumenical councils of the Church-the second of Constantinople-was held under his pontificate, and received all its authority and validity from his official approval, as the infallible successor of Peter!(0) He was made pope November 20th, 537, and the death of Silverius did not occur until June 20th, 538. Yet Butler says: "Vigilius was an ambitious intruder, and a schismatic, as long as St. Silverius lived; but after his death became lawful pope by the ratification or consent of the Roman Church, and from that time renounced the errors and commerce of the heretics," (") a method of covering up the heresy and tergiversations of a pope neither ingenious nor plausible. His fierce contest with the Emperor Justinian about the Three Chapters led to his

Du Pin, vol. v., p. 47.

(39) Ibid.

(4) The history of this General Council and of the pontificate of Vigilius is most instructive to the student of ecclesiastical history. The chief points of controversy in the Church, at that time, arose out of what were called "The Three Chapters," that is, the Nestorian heresy contained in the writings of Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus-a letter of Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, and the works of Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuesta. These were condemned by the Emperor Justinian; but Pope Vigilius rejected his edict and excommunicated Theodorus of Cesarea, its author. The council was convened to settle the controversy. It condemned "The Three Chapters," but not their authors, having decided "that the works of an author could be justly censured without condemning him personally!" Vigilius refused, at first, to approve this condemnation, and was banished. "Nevertheless," says Du Pin, "not being guided by zeal for the truth, but by his own caprice or interest, he quickly condemned them after an authentic manner, that he might return into Italy."-History of the Catholic Church, by Noethen, p. 265; Lives of the Saints, by Butler, vols. iv., v., vi., p. 608; Ecclesiastical History, by Du Pin, vol. v., p. 47. For history of this council, see Du Pin, vol. v., p. 135. (") Butler's "Lives of the Saints," vols. iv., v., vi., p. 608.

being summoned to Constantinople by the emperor, when he was arrested and held in custody. On his return to Rome after his release, he died, as some have supposed, by poison; when Pelagius I., by order of Justinian, and without waiting for the formality of an election, clothed himself' with the pontifical mantle and declared himself pope! When he reached Rome, the clergy and people refused to recognize him, and charged him with the murder of Vigilius. With the assistance, however, of the temporal authority of the emperor, he maintained himself on the chair of Peter for nearly four years. This combination of facts gives but little support to the pretense that popes are always elected by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and still less to the doctrine of papal infallibility and temporal power.

In the year 566, two bishops of Burgundy were convicted, by a provincial synod, of adultery, rape, and murder, and were expelled from their sees. They appealed to Pope John III., as spiritual head of the Roman Church, and he restored them. (") Such examples could not do otherwise than lead to many abuses and extortions, as well as to great assumption of pontifical authority. The latter was carried to such an extent, that some of the popes declared themselves the dispensers of a fourth part of the property of the Church, in order that thereby they might become the distributors of large rewards to their dependents and friends. By these means they were so rapidly becoming the rivals of princes, that the latter resolved upon resisting, with more firmness, their efforts to acquire absolute inde. pendence and superiority. The emperor, therefore, decreed that his consent should be necessary to the valid elections of the bishops of Rome, Ravenna, and Milan. This decree was in force at the election of Pope Gregory I., in the year 590. Gregory-from humility, it is said-wrote to the em peror to induce him not to confirm his election; a circumstance which excludes all possibility of there having been any temporal power possessed by the popes up to the close of the sixth century. The popes, unquestionably, struggled hard to acquire it, but without success. Their ambition was

(42) Cormenin, vol. i., p. 120.

unbounded; and such was the character of the most of them that they would have adopted any means to obtain their end; yet they were held in inferiority by the strength of the imperial power, and compelled to remain subjects. By their machinations, and the perpetual schisms they engendered, they succeeded, in the end, in sundering, all the bonds of affection and alliance between the Eastern and the Western Christians. They had to await the rise of more powerful allies in the West-of Pepin and Charlemagne before they could break the ties of their allegiance to the empire. But they succeeded in this also, by the infliction of terrible blows upon the true prosperity of the Church. If the peaceful diffusion of the Gospel had been their sole object, and the Christian spirit of charity and toleration had occupied their minds, their personal struggles with each other, and their numerous controversies about heresy, would have been attended with far less disastrous results, and would not have given rise to so much cruelty and persecution. But other and more unworthy motives prevailed, temporal ambition took the place of the higher Christian virtues, and whatever they did was centred in the groveling object of acquiring earthly power. The government of the world became the great prize for which the combatants contended, on both sides, and the cause of Christianity was only saved from final and complete overthrow by the sheltering protection of Providence, and the courage of the few pious and devoted men, who, in spite of all the prevailing corruption, preserved their own Christian integrity and the teachings of the apostolic fathers.

CHAPTER X.

Churches Independent before Constantine.-Victor I. endeavored to establish the Supremacy of Rome.-Ambition of the Popes.—Aided Constantine to overthrow Maxentius.-Consequences.-Constantine a Usurper.-Maxentius the Lawful Emperor.-Constantine baptized just before his Death.— His Motives.-Influence upon Roman Clergy.-Arianism.-The Council of Nice.-The Pope had Nothing to do with It.-Called by the Emperor.— The Pope did not preside by his Legates. He did not approve the Decrees as Necessary to their Validity.—Constantine was the Master Spirit.— He dictated the Creed.-He fixed Infallibility in the Council.-The Council did not decree the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome. -It enacted only Twenty Canons.-All other pretended Ones are Forgeries.

THE many schisms which have occurred in the Roman Catholic Church, and the frequent elections of rival and hos tile popes, lead to the conclusion that there is something inherent in the papal system which renders entire unity impossible. As all minds of any intelligence naturally repel any attack upon their independence, the harshness and severity employed by the popes to keep this class of minds in subjection have necessarily induced antagonisms. The ignorant alone, outside the governing class, have proved submissive; and they only because they are unconscious of their inferiority. These, for many centuries, constituted the mer cenary armies of the papacy.

There is no difficulty in tracing this want of unity to its real source, or in showing that, but for the disturbance of Christian harmony in the Church by such popes as subordinated the interests of Christianity to the accomplishment of their own personal ends, Roman Catholicism might have been, to-day, a very different thing from what it is. It might have been one of the most powerful and effective instruments in carrying on the work of improving and eleva ting the world. And the present pope, instead of sending forth mingled curses and groans from a pretended prison, might have united in the general rejoicing at the advanced

INDEPENDENCE OF THE EARLY CHURCHES.

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condition into which modern Christianity and civilization have brought the nations.

The Church of Christ was undoubtedly established upon a rock, because the faith upon which it rested was designed to be more immovable than the mountains.. Love, charity, harmony, and all the heavenly virtues clustered together at its foundation, and there can be nothing rightfully about it. to destroy its symmetry or mar its beauty. But the papal system is constructed out of uncongenial and inharmonious materials. It was the work of man-not God. Erected out of beautiful materials gathered from the partial wreck of apostolic Christianity, by mingling them with the rude fragments of pagan Rome, it lacks the symmetry of a perfect plan, and displays the conflicting designs of its various architects. Its external organization has grown out of illiberal and unchristian divisions, fomented by designing popes and prelates, with no higher object than to gain authority and distinction for themselves, even at the sacrifice of the simple faith and worship of the early Christians. Its own factions have never ceased to prey upon its vitals from the hour of its birth, and have been to each other what the plagues sent down from the gods were to those who first stole fire from heaven. It has made fierce and cruel war upon every thing that stood in its path or endeavored to check its ambition; and if, at any time, it has been met by intolerance, the weapons used against it have been supplied from its own armory, and belong to the brood of monsters

which itself has hatched.

Before the time of Constantine, each of the several churches planted by the apostles and the early fathers exercised its own jurisdiction over its own members, and thus preserved harmony in faith and worship. The right of visitorial guardianship, exercised by the apostles while planting and watering them in infancy, existed no longer, because there was no longer any necessity for it. But while each church governed its own affairs, they all realized the necessity of preserving a spirit of unity, and such brotherhood and fellowship among the whole as would enable them to sympathize with and assist each other in the adjustment of their local disagreements, if any should arise. A harmonious and beauti