Church clerics: pomp, power & corruption Introduction Few popes were able to assert their authority until the fifth century. The Christians were disliked by the Jews and the Romans persecuted them periodically. The last systematic persecution was by Emperor Diocletian 284-305. But already doctrinal disputes and heresies were beginning to surface. For example, Cyprian of Carthage (c 200-250) - later made a saint - openly disagreed with Pope Stephen I about baptism. And there was a gap of four years between the death of Pope Marcellinus in 304 and the election of the next bishop of Rome (see Table below).
The encounter with Constantine
Barbarians from Central and Eastern Europe had been attacking the Roman Empire
from 248 CE, starting with the Goths. Needing help in defending the far flung
Empire, Emperor Diocletian
appointed a colleague, Maximian, as co-emperor in charge of Italy and Northern
Africa while he himself took charge of the Eastern territories of Thrace, Asia
and Egypt. In addition, he assigned the western and central regions to two
generals, Constantius and Galerius, conferring on them the lesser title of
Caesar. With the joint abdication of Diocletian and Maximian in 305, there was discord and feuding for 18 years. The
principal players over the period 305-324 were Constantine (son of Constantius), Maxentius (son of Maximian) and Licinius (a colleague of
Galerius) (Ref 3). Maxentius proved
to be a tyrannical ruler of Italy and Africa and he harboured ambitions over
the remaining provinces. Eventually, Constantine engaged Maxentius in battle
and defeated him at Milvian Bridge outside Rome on 28 October 312. Maxentius
was drowned in the river Tiber by the weight of his own armour.
The empire was
divided between Constantine in the west and Licinius in the east. But soon the
two turned against each other. Licinius was eventually defeated in battle in
321. Constantine became sole Emperor of the whole Roman Empire - an event of great significance to the
development of early Christianity. Constantine’s father was tolerant of the Christians and his mother Helena, a concubine, had become a Christian. The story goes that on the eve of the battle against Maxentius, while at worship before his sun god, Sol, Constantine heard a voice uttering the name Christos and the words: ‘In this sign, you will conquer.’ And sure enough he won. He was grateful and allowed Christianity full expression. Death by crucifixion was outlawed. However, he did not abandon his sun god and other deities. Neither did he give up the sacred pagan title Pontifex Maximus (Supreme Pontiff) which the Popes were later to assume. It was used by the pagan high priest of Rome. The Church is donated property and lavish gifts Constantine and his children made generous donations of property to the Church, built new churches (as well as pagan temples) and furnished them lavishly. Below is an extract from a list of gifts made to a particular basilica: ¨ 7 altars of finest silver each weighing 200 lb ¨ 7 gold patens each weighing 30 lb ¨ 16 silver patens each weighing 30 lb ¨ 40 smaller chalices of finest gold each weighing 1 lb ¨ one chandelier of finest gold in front of the altar with 80 dolphins ¨ 45 silver chandeliers in the centre of the basilica ¨ a hammered silver fastigium - with the Saviour seated in front, 5 ft and weighing 120 lb and 12 apostles, each 5 ft and weighing 90 lbs, (See Ref 2 for more)
In 330 Constantine transferred the seat of Empire to Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople (today’s Istanbul). Because of his long absences, the Bishops of Rome had greater freedom of action and became more immersed in civic affairs, including the administration of newly acquired property. Constantine died in 337; he had been baptised in the same year, not by the Pope as is piously believed but the Arian Bishop Eusebius.
Popes acquire an imperial outlookPope Gregory I (590-604), later known as Gregory the Great, made some curious rules for Christians such as: - the sex act is sinful during pregnancy and lactation, - a man who has had sex with his wife cannot enter a church until he has washed himself and done penance.
With the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and the effective collapse of Roman civil administration, Gregory was not only Patriarch of the West but became virtual political leader in Italy. He consolidated the vast lands of the church into a single unit which were later to become the Papal States. Power became centralised, bureaucracy grew, and the hierarchy increasingly distanced itself from the ordinary people. “The Bishop of Rome looked like Constantine, dressed like him, lived in palaces, had exactly the same imperial outlook…” (Ref 1).
As the influence of the Germanic Christian kingdoms grew, the authority of the Byzantine (Eastern) emperors waned and tensions grew between the Western church and the East. By 732 (under Gregory III) all ties with Constantinople were severed. The Popes now pondered the prospect of a revived Western Empire with themselves as supreme head! In due course they took on 9 titles: - Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Apostles - Pontiflex Maximus (Supreme Pontiff) of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy - Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Province of Rome, State Sovereign of Vatican City, Servant of the servants of God. Note the contradiction: Supreme Pontiff, State Sovereign versus Servant of servants. In March 2006, Pope Benedict XVI decided to drop one title - Patriarch of the West, as a concession to the Greek Orthodox Church.
Here's what Peter De Rosa commented (ref 1, pg34): "The transfer of Constantine's imperial court to Constantinople in the 4th century left an immense political and administrative gap which the Bishops of Rome began to fill. Scholars searched the Scriptures for texts that would underpin his role as leader and patriarch of the West. The Bishops started to separate Peter from Paul and apply to themselves th promises made to Peter. It required skill to take statements made by a poor carpenter to an equally poor fisherman and apply them to a regal pontiff who was soon to be called Lord of the World. "Jesus was born in a stable. Today his Vicar lives in a palace with 11,000 rooms. And there is Castelgandelfo, overlooking Lake Alban, where pontiffs go to escape the summer heat - where Pope John Paul II had a swimming pool built for his personal use. "Jesus renounced possessions and taught: "Go, sell all thou hast and give to the poor... lay upon for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither rust nor moth can spoil it" But Christ's Vicar lives surrounded by treasures, some of pagan origin. When the pope offers his high masshe is literally cald in gold and the costliest silks. "In the 14th century, Petrarch the scholar remarked at a papal mass in Avignon: 'I am astounded to see these men loaded with gold and clad in purple. We seem to be among the kings of the Persians or Parthians..."
Corrupt practices & scandals Period 750 – 900 CE Pepin & Pope Stephen III Stephen II was pope for just four days in 752. His successor Stephen III feared that the Lombards (barbarian invaders from the Baltic) might march into Rome. He crossed the Alps in the winter of 753 to seek the help of Pepin, the Frankish king. In an attempt to win over the king, Stephen handed him an ancient document called The Donation of Constantine, believed to be a deed made out by Constantine in 315, offering Sylvester the crown together with “the purple mantle, scarlet tunic and all the imperial trappings…also the imperial sceptre, standards and banners”. The deed went on: “We hand over our palaces, the City of Rome and all the provinces, cities of Italy and regions of the West to the most blessed pontiff and universal pope, Sylvester.” King Pepin was duly impressed by the document. He fought and routed the Lombards and forced them to cede large chunks of territory to the church, effectively turning the pope into a feudal lord. This territorial grant, known as the Donation of Pepin established the temporal power of the papacy, thus freeing it from dependence on the Byzantine Empire.
A Grand Forgery It turned out several centuries later (in 1440) that the Donation was a massive fraud. Sylvester was not even pope at the time, it was Mathiades. The author of the fraud, a papal cleric, Christophorus by name, sought to transfer temporal authority from the emperor and invest it in the pope. The forgery was exposed in 1517 - the very year that Martin Luther was attacking the sale of indulgences by unscrupulous clerics. A copy of the book came into Luther’s hands; it only served to confirm his earlier views about papal excesses.
Papal revenues on the rise The pope now administered a score of towns and received their revenues. This made the papal office a major attraction for ambitious clerics. Surely enough, on the death of the next pope, Paul I, in 767, rival claims were made on the papacy. One influential local lord hastened to propose his own brother as successor (Constantine II). The objection that the brother was a layman was easily overcome. He was ordained cleric, sub-deacon and priest and then elevated to be bishop and pope - all on the same day. But one day rival supporters waylaid him, dug his eyes out and left him for dead. (Christophorus the forger was killed in one of the skirmishes.) A second contender was murdered outright. Eventually another aspirant, Stephen IV, threatened to bring in the feared Lombards and was accepted as successor.
Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne emperorThe next Pope, Adrian I, served for 24 years and was succeeded by Leo III (795-816). Pepin’s son, Charlemagne, was King of the Franks at the time. Despite the best of tutors he could neither read nor write. He was well disposed towards the church but was no more saintly than Constantine. In 782 he had 4500 Saxons beheaded on the banks of the river Aller. He had divorced his first wife, had six children by a second, two by a third and none by a fourth. He also kept several concubines.
Pope Leo III who had enemies, both outside and within Rome invited Charlemagne to Rome both for protection and to demonstrate papal supremacy. He was also facing a charge of adultery. Before Charlemagne arrived, Leo had been attacked by a hostile mob who tore out his eyes and cut off his tongue. As Charlemagne knelt in front of St Peter’s tomb on Christmas day in 800, Leo managed to place a crown on Charlemagne’s head, pronounced him Emperor and knelt in respect. Charlemagne was both surprised and pleased to receive the honour but not from a vassal.
Leo’s act had set a precedent - the papal right to select, crown and even depose emperors. However, his predecessor, Pope Adrian I, had already granted Charlemagne the privilege of appointing the Roman pontiff. The question then was: who was greater? A pope approved by Charlemagne or the emperor crowned by a pope? Charlemagne died in 814 and his son, Louis I’s reign was marked by feudal and family strife that culminated in the partition of the empire in 843. Despite these dissensions within Empire, the popes maintained the imperial set up for most of the 9th century.
Trial
of a Corpse A chattering teenaged deacon served as counsel or the defence. After being found guilty by the Synod, the corpse was stripped of all but a hair-shirt clinging to the withered flesh. The two fingers used to give the apostolic blessing were hacked off. The body was dragged through the palace and hurled on to the mob in the streets. They in turn dragged it to the river Tiber and flung it in. The corpse held together by the hairshirt was recovered by Formosus’ supporters and given a decent burial. It was eventually returned to its tomb in St Peter’s.
Later in the same year 896 Stephen himself was seized and strangled. His supporters elected a certain Cardinal Sergius as pope while the opposing party elected one of their own. In the violence that followed, Sergius and his supporters were chased out of the city. Over the next 12 months, four more popes (among them Romanus and Theodore II) scrambled onto the bloodstained Chair of St Peter, maintaining themselves precariously for a few weeks (or even days) before being hounded out.
Period 900 – 1000 CEPope Sergius III The first pope of the 10th century was Benedict IV (900-03). His successor, Leo V, reigned for just one month when he was seized and imprisoned by a usurper, Cardinal Christopher. Meanwhile Cardinal Sergius who had tried for the papal office some seven years earlier now tried again. His supporters got both Leo and Christopher murdered and their leader became Pope Sergius III in 904.
Sergius had taken part in the Synod Horrenda and one of his first acts as pope was to honour Pope Stephen VII with a handsome epitaph and to overturn the judgment that had re-instated Pope Formosus’ character. In fact, Sergius had Formosus, now ten years dead, re-exhumed and condemned once again. The corpse was then beheaded, three more fingers cut off and thrown into the river Tiber. The headless body was caught in a fisherman’s net and returned a second time to St Peter’s.
Theodora & Marozia At the time one Theophylact was the senator of Rome (and civic head of the city). He had supported Sergius’ party in the battles that followed the Synod Horrenda and the family (wife Theodora and daughters Marozia and Theodora) came to know Sergius well. It is believed that Sergius seduced Marozia in the Lateran Palace and she became his mistress around 905 (the year after he became Pope) when she was 15 and he was 45. She soon had a son by him who was later to become pope. Meanwhile her mother Theodora’s influence had grown and it was her nominees who became the next two popes, Anastasius III and Lando. One of her lovers was reportedly John, Bishop of Bologna. Under her influence, he rose to become Archbishop of Ravenna and then Pope John X in 914.
Popes John X and XI
At this time, a northern soldier of fortune, Alberic came to Rome. He was a good ally to Theophylact, and Theodora got him married to her daughter Marozia. After the deaths of Theodora and Alberic (both around 928), Marozia had Pope John (her mother’s lover) imprisoned and reportedly suffocated to death. The next two popes, Leo VI and Stephen VIII, reigned for less a year and three years respectively. Both disappeared mysteriously.
Marozia’s first son (by Pope Sergius) became Pope John XI in 931. Her second son called Alberic after his father was feeling increasingly left out. He put the pope (his half-brother) under permanent arrest in the Lateran Palace and imprisoned his mother Marozia in Hadrian’s mausoleum where she remained for over 50 years. Alberic’s greatest achievement was to strip John XI (and his successors Leo VII, Stephen IX, Marinus II and Agapitus II) of all temporal power. This allowed the popes to concentrate on their spiritual duties and the good effects were felt far and wide. Alberic died in 954 at the age of 40 but not before he had made the nobles swear at the tomb of St Peter that they would make his son Octavian pontiff on the death of Agapitus II.
Pope John XII And so Octavian became Pope John XII in 955 about the age of 18. He promptly assumed temporal powers, again making the papacy a lucrative position to aspire to. Dormant factions became active and street battles and intrigues became commonplace. John XII became one of the most profligate popes known. He was a great gambler and kept a stud farm of 2000 horses which were fed on almonds and figs soaked in wine. He pilfered pilgrims’ offerings and violated female pilgrims in the basilica of St Peter. He kept a harem at the Lateran Palace and rewarded his paramours with golden chalices taken from St Peter’s and even land. Women were warned not to enter St John Lateran if they prized their honour. King Otto of Germany (936-73) came to John’s aid when Berengar II, king of Italy, occupied the papal states. John made him emperor of the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ in 962.
Otto asked John to mend his ways. John fled to Tivoli after plundering the treasury of St Peter’s. Otto promptly called a Synod at which 16 cardinals and numerous bishops were present, in effect to try John. Bishop Liudprand of Cremona read out a list of the pope’s misdeeds: celebrating mass without communion, charging for ordinations, fornicating with numerous women, blinding his spiritual director, castrating a cardinal etc.
King Otto then communicated the decisions of the Synod to John: “Everyone, clergy as well as laity, accuses you, Holiness, of murder, perjury, sacrilege, incest with your relatives including two sisters and of having invoked Jupiter, Venus and other demons.” Pope John wrote back promptly. “To all the Bishops: We hear that you wish to make another Pope. If you do, I excommunicate you by Almighty God and you have no power to ordain or to celebrate Mass.”
John was warned to return and when he didn’t, he was formally deposed by the Synod and Otto proposed Leo VIII (a German) as the next pope. The Romans were not pleased and John was persuaded to return. Thereupon Leo fled to Germany and was excommunicated. Several of those responsible for deposing him were summarily maimed or executed. John then resumed his old ways. One night he was caught in bed with another’s wife by the husband. The latter is reported to have taken a hammer and killed him on the spot by smashing the back of his head. John was only about 26 and it was his 8th year as pope.
Successors of John XIIThere was a dispute about John’s successor. The Romans chose Benedict V while Emperor Otto who insisted that choice of pope needed his approval preferred Leo VIII, whereupon Benedict knelt at Otto’s feet, stripped off his papal garments and agreed that Leo was the lawful successor. Both Leo and Benedict lasted no more than a year. Otto then selected John XIII as the next pope. The Romans found this pope provoking wars and treating his enemies with extreme cruelty (for example, gouging out their eyes). They packed him off to Germany whereupon Otto sent him back. John XIII remained pope was seven years. He was followed by Benedict VII. Like John XII, he was noted for his sexual excesses and is believed to have died in the act of adultery.
All these years Marozia languished in prison. In 986 when she was in her mid-90s, she was at last released by order of Pope John XV and King Otto III (grandson of Otto I). A bishop exorcised her of any demons she possessed and she was absolved from her sins. She was then executed. The same Otto III became Holy Roman Emperor in 996 at the age of 16. He went to Rome and appointed his cousin Bruno as Pope Gregory V and when Gregory died in 999 made his former tutor Gerbert pope as Sylvester II, the last pope of the 10th century.
Dark Period of the Papacy Historians agree that the 10th century was one of the darkest periods of the papacy. Cardinal Baronius, the church historian who wrote Ecclesiastical Annals in the 16th century called the pontiffs of this period: “invaders of the Holy See, less apostles than apostates…vainglorious Messalinas filled with fleshy lusts and all sorts of wickedness governed the Chair of St Peter for their minions and paramours.”
Cardinal Bellarmine of the 17th century was a great defender of the papacy but he considered John XII to be abominable. Nevertheless, he wrote in his book De Romano Pontifice: “The Pope is the supreme judge of faith of morals…If the Pope were to err by imposing sins and forbidding virtues, the church would still have to consider sins as virtues and virtues as vices…” References
1.
Peter de
Rosa, Vicars of Christ (Corgi Books 1989)
2.
Raymond
Davis, The Book of Pontiffs
(Liverpool University Press 1989) 3.Edward Gibbons, Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire (Bison Books 1979) 4.E R Chamberlain, Bad Popes, Barnes & Noble 1993
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