Pope John II (533-535)

The first pope to change his name, according to the sources

No earlier source attests a pontifical change of name. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Mercurius "seems to have been the first to change his name upon elevation to the papacy"^[16]; the DBI notice states it even more firmly: a change « per la prima volta nella storia del Papato ».^[17] The accepted motive is that Mercurius directly designated the pagan god Mercury.

The gesture is no affectation. It is doctrinal. The successor of Peter cannot, in the Catholic mind of late antiquity, bear the name of a divinity of Roman mythology. The name of John is also that of Saint John I, who died a prisoner of Theodoric at Ravenna on 18 May 526: some have seen in it a deliberate tribute, giving the gesture its spiritual colouring — Mercurius taking the name of a recent martyr of the Roman See — but this reading remains a hypothesis unattested by the reference syntheses.^[18]

This gesture, held to be the first of its kind, would become, over the long term, one of the most visible marks of the papacy. From the 11th century onward, the choice of a pontifical name different from the baptismal name became the ordinary usage. All these acts, conscious or not, prolong the choice of Mercurius in 533.

The Roman senate and Athalaric against simony

The pontificate of John II begins in a scandal exposed in broad daylight. The death of Boniface II in October 532 (buried 17 October) was followed by a vacancy of more than two months, during which several candidates bought and sold the votes needed for the election. The Liber Pontificalis, through Loomis's note, explicitly mentions the sale of sacred vessels in a letter addressed by Athalaric to John II.^[19] The Catholic Encyclopedia is blunter still: during this vacancy, "a shameless trafficking in sacred things took place" and "even the sacred vessels were exposed for sale".^[20]

The Roman senate had, under Boniface II (before 17 October 532), voted a senatusconsult against simony in pontifical elections. This measure, which would be one of the last known acts of the ancient Roman senate, was confirmed by the Ostrogothic king Athalaric by a pragmatic sanction of 533.^[21][22] Athalaric went further: he ordered the decree to be engraved on marble and placed in the atrium of St Peter's Basilica.^[23][24]

The king's text further provided that, if a contested election were brought before the Gothic officials at Ravenna by the Roman clergy and people, a sum of three thousand solidi would have to be paid — a sum destined for the poor.^[25][26] The deterrent was financial as much as moral: simony became a major economic risk.

The theopaschite controversy settled

At the moment Mercurius became John II, Constantinople was seized by a Christological controversy relaunched by Justinian. The formula "Unus de Trinitate passus est carne" — "One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh" — had been proposed as early as 519 by the Scythian monks led by John Maxentius to block Nestorianism and Monophysitism.^[27][28] Pope Hormisdas condemned them severely: a letter to the African bishop Possessor of 13 August 520 against their methods^[29][30], then a decision on the substance in 521 — the formula is not false in itself, but it is dangerous through the interpretations it allows, and Chalcedon needs no addition^[31].

Thirteen years later, Justinian I took it up again, inserted it into his Code (Codex Justinianus I.1.6) and endowed it with a dogmatic edict dated 15 March 533. He then solicited pontifical confirmation through his letter Reddentes honorem of 6 June 533, quoted in constitution I.1.8.^[32][33][34] John II, after a delay of one year and ten days, confirmed the formula by his own letter of 25 March 534 and notified the excommunication of the Akoimetoi, who persisted in seeing in this formula a disguised Nestorianism.^{[35][36][37][38]}

The doctrinal web is subtler than it appears. The formula "Unus de Trinitate passus est" expresses, in Latin terms, the teaching of Saint Cyril of Alexandria on the communicatio idiomatum: it is not the divine nature that suffers as such, but it is indeed the Person of the Word — who is of the Trinity — that suffers according to his human nature.^[39] Accepting it does not contradict Chalcedon; refusing it, on grounds of prudence, leads in reality to a crypto-Nestorianism.

Justinian recognizes Rome as "head of all the holy Churches"

The other capital novelty of this pontificate is juridical. In a way with no earlier preserved equivalent, pontifical primacy was explicitly recognized in the civil code of a reigning Roman emperor. The pontifical reply of 25 March 534, called Inter claras, which quotes in its middle the imperial letter Reddentes honorem of 6 June 533, was inserted into the Codex Justinianus as constitution I.1.8, a text of positive law.^[40][41][42]

"Caput est omnium sanctarum ecclesiarum." — Justinian I, letter to John II quoted in the pontifical reply of 25 March 534, Codex Justinianus I.1.8.11^[43]

This formula, engraved for centuries in the civil law of the Empire, did not give birth to the primacy of Peter — it predates the emperors. But it consecrated it in the secular sphere by the very pen of the Byzantine legislator. What is new here is the inscription of this recognition in the civil code of a reigning emperor: John II obtained it.

Table of witnesses

The dossier is, in documentary terms, incomparably better than for most popes of that time. The reason is juridical: the correspondence between John II and Justinian was incorporated into the Byzantine civil code and was therefore preserved in full, with its exact dates. Very few 6th-century pontificates are so well attested by contemporary official texts.

Holy See, Liber Pontificalis and Treccani

The Holy See's official entry gives John II as 56th pope, with an election on 31 December 532 followed by a consecration on 2 January 533, an end on 8 May 535, and specifies that his baptismal name was Mercurius and that he was born at Rome.^[44] The DBI notice (Andrea Bedina) confirms these dates and stresses three traits: Roman by birth, son of Proietto, priest of the title of Saint Clement's — and, like the Catholic Encyclopedia, it holds the change of name to be the first of its kind in the history of the papacy, without giving its motive.^[45][46] The pagan motive is made explicit only by the New Catholic Encyclopedia: Mercurius judged it inappropriate to keep the name of a pagan deity.^[47]

The Liber Pontificalis is, as for the other 6th-century pontificates, the principal narrative source. It mentions the Roman origin, the father Projectus, the service as priest in the Church of Saint Clement's, the election after a long vacancy, simony, Athalaric's letter to the pope on the sale of the sacred vessels, the senatusconsult engraved on marble, and the burial at St Peter's.^[48]

Codex Justinianus, Book I, Title 1

The constitutions 6, 7 and 8 of Book I, Title 1, of the Codex Justinianus are decisive for this article. They transmit:

• CJ I.1.6: Justinian's dogmatic edict of 15 March 533, which defines the Chalcedonian faith and integrates into it the theopaschite formula: Christ crucified, one of the consubstantial holy Trinity, suffering in the flesh without the Godhead suffering.^[49][50]
• CJ I.1.7: Justinian's letter to Patriarch Epiphanius of Constantinople — not to be confused with the letter Reddentes honorem to John II of 6 June 533, which has no number of its own and is preserved only quoted in the middle of the pontifical reply (constitution I.1.8, quotation introduced at I.1.8.7: "Textus autem epistulae talis est").^[51]
• CJ I.1.8: John II's reply to Justinian, called Inter claras from its incipit, dated 25 March 534 (given at Rome, VIII calends of April, under the consulate of Justinian IV and Paulinus), which confirms the formula, quotes in its middle the imperial letter Reddentes honorem of 6 June 533 recognizing the Roman See as "head of all the holy Churches", and notifies the excommunication of the Akoimetoi as Nestorians.^[52][53]

The insertion of this correspondence into the civil code is no accident. It gives the confession of faith and pontifical primacy the force of positive law throughout the Empire. This is what makes this pontificate doctrinally more important than its brevity suggests.

Catholic Encyclopedia, Britannica and the Dictionary of Christian Biography

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) gives the old Catholic reading of the pontificate, stressing four points: the change of name, the initial simony, the maintained Chalcedonian orthodoxy, and the discipline of the Gallic clergy in the Contumeliosus affair.^[54] The Dictionary of Christian Biography (1882) soberly summarizes: eleven-week election, sale of the vessels, letters to Justinian and to the Roman senators, sentence against Contumeliosus of Riez; it also notes that the theopaschite letter long met with resistance in the Roman clergy before being adopted on 25 March 534.^[55]

A Roman family of the Caelian district

The Liber Pontificalis calls Mercurius a Roman and son of Projectus.^[56] The Catholic Encyclopedia specifies that he was probably born in Rome's second Augustan region, the Coelimontium — that is, the Caelian Hill district —, and that he had at least served there as priest.^[57] Treccani retains the same elements.^[58]

As is often the case for the ancient popes, the date of Mercurius's birth is unknown: the Catholic Encyclopedia says so expressly.^[59] Modern syntheses sometimes advance a birth around 475, which would make him a man of nearly sixty at his election — but this estimate, advanced by popularizing syntheses (Wikipedia EN, Italy on This Day), rests on no ancient source — the Catholic Encyclopedia expressly says the date of birth is unknown — and remains a mere hypothesis.^[60][61]

The presbyter Mercurius of the basilica of the Mons Coelius

The identification of Mercurius with the basilica of San Clemente on the Caelian Hill is no late deduction. The basilica preserves, to this day, epigraphic memorials of the former priest. The Catholic Encyclopedia is here a precise and precious source: "the presbyter Mercurius is found on a fragment of an ancient ciborium" and the monogram of Johannes, in 6th-century style, "is found on several marble slabs enclosing the schola cantorum".^[62]

"The basilica of Saint Clement still preserves several memorials of 'John surnamed Mercurius'." — Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope John II", 1910^[63]

Before his election, Mercurius left his mark on the basilica: the Catholic Encyclopedia notes the name of the "presbytre Mercurius" on a fragment of ancient ciborium, and the monogram of Johannes, in 6th-century style, on several marble slabs enclosing the schola cantorum.^[64] The material continuity is striking: even today, the preserved elements bear both names — that of the priest Mercurius and that of Pope Johannes — as if together they bore witness to the change experienced in 533.

Why the name Mercurius was a problem

Roman Christianity in late antiquity long coexisted with an onomastics still marked by mythology. Many Christians bore first names inherited from paganism: Apollinaris, Saturninus, Bacchus, Mercurius. Baptism did not systematically change the baptismal name; one could be Christian and keep a mythological name.

But the See of Peter is no ordinary see. The successor of Peter signs dogmatic letters, seals pontifical acts, is invoked by the liturgy and inscribed in the diptychs. The New Catholic Encyclopedia makes the motive explicit: Mercurius "considered it inappropriate to keep Mercury, the name of a pagan deity" — Mercurius is that of the pagan god Mercury.^[65] Neither the Catholic Encyclopedia nor the DBI notice, which nevertheless attest the unprecedented character of the gesture, gives its motive.^[66][67]

The name of John is also that of the pope who died in prison at Ravenna nearly seven years earlier, Saint John I, already venerated as a martyr of the liberty of the Roman Church in the face of Theodoric.^[68] Some have seen in it a deliberate tribute, by which Mercurius would inscribe himself in the recent memory of the great Roman popes rather than in a rupture with them — a plausible reading, but unattested by the reference syntheses.

The founding gesture of a pontifical tradition

On the scale of the history of the papacy, this change of name passes for inaugural. The gesture remained isolated for several centuries: Popes Pelagius I, John III, Benedict I, Pelagius II, Saint Gregory the Great, Sabinian, Boniface III kept their baptismal name. Only with John XII in the 10th century would the practice develop more regularly, then become the ordinary usage from the 11th century.^[69]

But once the usage was established, it became one of the visible markers of the universal papacy. John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis: all, in taking a pontifical name, walk in the path opened by Mercurius in 533.

Each milestone of this table rests on a work of reference: the Catholic Encyclopedia for Octavius become John XII as for Peter Bucca Porci become Sergius IV, the Liber Pontificalis (Loomis transl.) for Pelagius I keeping his name. The unestablished lines — Gregory the Great in 590 and an ordinary usage "after 1024" — have been removed: they rested only on popularizing syntheses.

Death of Boniface II and vacancy

Boniface II died at Rome in October 532 and was buried on 17 October.^[76] The vacancy that followed was unusually long: more than two and a half months, about eleven weeks according to the Dictionary of Christian Biography.^[77] The precedent weighed heavily: Boniface II himself had been imposed against the majority of the Roman presbyterium; he had then attempted to designate his successor, the deacon Vigilius, before publicly burning that decree in 531 under pressure from the Roman senate.^[78][79]

The episode left, upon Boniface II's death, a Roman Church weakened by successive electoral methods and a clergy suspected of manipulation. The vacancy dragged on while several candidates — Vigilius foremost — manoeuvred to impose themselves. Treccani's online synthesis states it bluntly: Mercurius « successe a Bonifacio II, con l'aiuto del re goto Atalarico (533), al posto del diacono Vigilio » — with the help of the Gothic king Athalaric, in place of the deacon Vigilius whom Boniface himself had designated before dying.^[80] The scholarly DBI notice, for its part, names neither Vigilius nor Athalaric as kingmaker: it places the election in an "incandescent" climate of anti-simoniacal suspicion and brings in Athalaric only through a letter of late 533, which some interpret as the effect of undocumented papal pressures.^[81]

Sale of the sacred vessels

The Liber Pontificalis preserves the trace of a letter addressed by Athalaric to Pope John II in which explicit mention is made of the sale of sacred vessels during the vacancy.^[82] The Catholic Encyclopedia specifies the context: simony was rife among clergy and laity, and after the predecessor's death "even the sacred vessels were exposed for sale".^[83]

"During this vacancy, a shameless trafficking in sacred things took place. Even the sacred vessels were exposed for sale." — Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope John II", 1910^[84]

The gravity of the deed goes beyond the financial elements. The sacred vessels are liturgically untouchable: chalices, patens, ciboria. Selling them to buy votes means placing the objects of the Eucharist in the hands of a profane commerce. It is a profanation, doubled with embezzlement.

The Roman senatusconsult and Athalaric's confirmation

Under the pontificate of Boniface II, the Roman senate voted a senatusconsult explicitly against simony in pontifical elections. This measure is, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the last known decree promulgated by the senate of Rome: a testimony that the ancient Roman institution survives, however weakened, to defend the electoral integrity of the See of Peter.^[85][86]

The Ostrogothic king Athalaric, then about fifteen years old and governing under the regency of his mother Amalasuntha, confirmed the senatusconsult by a pragmatic sanction of 533.^[87][88] The pragmatic goes further than the senatorial text: it provides that, if a contested election is brought before the Gothic officials at Ravenna by the Roman clergy and people, a sum of three thousand solidi will have to be paid — a sum destined for the poor.^[89][90]

The senatusconsult engraved on marble in the St Peter's atrium

The most spectacular gesture came from the king. Athalaric ordered the text of the senatusconsult and of his own confirmation to be engraved on marble and set up in the atrium of St Peter's Basilica.^[91][92] The atrium is the transitional space between the street and the sanctuary — the place where pilgrims arriving at Rome read and see before entering.

The inscription made the law visible to all who entered the Vatican basilica, and thus to the candidates of every future Roman election. A juridical text engraved in marble before St Peter's is more than a publication: it is a memorial. Pilgrim, cleric, candidate read in passing, and know that simony is no longer discreet.

"Athalaric ordered the decree to be engraved on marble and set up in the atrium of Saint Peter's." — Catholic Encyclopedia, "Pope John II"^[93]

The inscription itself is lost today, but it is attested by the Catholic Encyclopedia from medieval sources and by the notices of the Liber Pontificalis.^[94] It may be considered to have been destroyed during the multiple reconstructions of St Peter's, from the Constantinian basilica to the present one.

"Unus de Trinitate passus est carne": meaning and issue

The Latin formula "Unus de Trinitate passus est carne" — "One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh" — sums up, in six words, the teaching of Saint Cyril of Alexandria on the unity of the person of Christ. It means that the subject suffering on the Cross is not a "human person" distinct from the Word, but indeed the Person of the Word — who is of the Trinity — suffering according to his assumed human nature.^[95][96]

Before entering the quarrel proper, the theological trap it aims to avoid must be understood. If one says: "it is not God who suffered, it is only the man Jesus", two separate subjects appear: an impassible Word and a suffering man. This dissociation is precisely what Cyril reproached Nestorius with. To preserve the unity of Christ — one Christ, one Person, true God and true man — one must be able to say that it is indeed God the Son who suffered, not in his Godhead as such (impassible) but in the human nature he assumed.

"Unus de Trinitate passus est carne." — theopaschite formula in its received form (Treccani: "Unus de Trinitate passus est carne"), adopted by the imperial edict of 15 March 533^[97][98]

The issue is therefore the following: is the formula orthodox or disguised Monophysitism? The Catholic answer matured in the 6th century is: it is orthodox, provided it is understood in the Cyrillian and Chalcedonian sense. This is exactly what the Second Council of Constantinople would later confirm in 553.^[99][100]

The Scythian monks precedent and Hormisdas's prudence (519-520)

The history of the formula begins in reality well before John II. In 519, when the Formula of Hormisdas has just been ratified and Constantinople reunited with Rome after the Acacian schism, monks from Scythia Minor (present-day Dobruja) arrive at Constantinople then at Rome.^[101][102] At their head, John Maxentius, who will remain in history as the theologian of the formula. The group's posterity would also pass through Leontius of Byzantium, whom the encyclopedic notice ranks among its notable members — though he cannot be made an actor of the 519 delegation.^[103]

They proposed to Pope Hormisdas that he add to the decisions of Chalcedon the formula "Unus de Trinitate passus est carne" to exclude both Nestorianism and Monophysitism. But the timing was bad. Peace between Rome and Constantinople had barely been restored; asking for a complement to Chalcedon could seem to relaunch the troubles.

Hormisdas refused. On 13 August 520, he wrote to the African bishop Possessor to condemn severely the methods of the monks^{[104][105][106]}; in 521, he ruled on the substance: the formula is not false in itself, but it is dangerous through the interpretations it allows, and Chalcedon needs no addition.^[107] The refusal thus aimed first at methods and pastoral prudence: adding to the text of Chalcedon, in the context of a fragile reunion, then seemed dangerous.

Justinian takes up the formula in his Codex

The context changed radically with Justinian I, become emperor in 527. Justinian shared the Scythian monks' conviction that the theopaschite formula could be the instrument of a stable Christological peace. He integrated it into the profession of faith placed at the head of his first Code of 529 (commission created in February 528, promulgation in April 529 by the Constitutio Summa).^[108] Later, in his great codification project, he again made use of it in the definitive Codex Justinianus.

The formula thus rebounded thirteen years after its rejection by Hormisdas — not through a new monastic initiative, but through the political will of an emperor who wanted to seal in law the Christological confession of his empire.

The dogmatic edict of 15 March 533

On 15 March 533, Justinian promulgated a dogmatic edict defining the Chalcedonian faith and explicitly integrating the theopaschite formula. The text is found in the Codex Justinianus I.1.6.^[109][110] It confesses:

"The sufferings as well as the miracles which Christ endured of His own will in the flesh are of one and the same." — Justinian I, dogmatic edict of 15 March 533, Codex Justinianus I.1.6^[111]

The edict did not content itself with affirming the formula. It inscribed it in a positive presentation of Chalcedonian Christology: one Christ, two natures without confusion or separation, consubstantial with the Father according to Godhead and consubstantial with us according to humanity.^[112] This confession is, word for word, that of Chalcedon. The theopaschite formula is only a direct consequence.

The Akoimetoi: the resistance of Constantinople's monks

At the moment Justinian promulgated his edict, the monastery of the Akoimetoi (in Greek ἀκοίμητοι, "those who do not sleep") at Constantinople occupied a particular doctrinal place. Their name comes from their liturgical rule: three choirs relayed each other without interruption, day and night, to ensure perpetual praise. Theologically, they defended a strictly Antiochene reading of Chalcedon, careful to distinguish the natures in Christ.

At the time of the 533 edict, the Akoimetoi refused the theopaschite formula. For them, saying "one of the Trinity suffered" amounted to attributing suffering to the Godhead itself — which seemed to them a concession to Monophysitism. They appealed to Rome, probably counting on the prudence Hormisdas had shown thirteen years earlier toward the Scythian monks.^[113][114]

Justinian's letter Reddentes honorem (6 June 533)

Justinian transmitted to Pope John II his edict accompanied by a letter, commonly designated as Reddentes honorem, dated 6 June 533 and preserved quoted in the middle of constitution I.1.8.^{[115][116][117]} The text, quoted in the middle of constitution I.1.8 of the Codex Justinianus, opens with a spectacular declaration on pontifical primacy:

"We have exerted Ourselves to unite all the priests of the East and subject them to the See of Your Holiness." — Justinian I, Reddentes honorem letter to John II, 6 June 533, quoted in Codex Justinianus I.1.8^[118]

Justinian explicitly recognized that the Roman See is the head of all the holy Churches, and asked the pope to confirm the doctrine defined in the edict of 15 March 533. Justinian also had his edict conveyed to the pope, to the Senate and to the Roman people, asking the pope to approve the formula and condemn the recalcitrant monks.^[119] The diplomacy was clear: Justinian wanted a formal pontifical approval, but he also wanted it to be publicly received.

John II's reply of 25 March 534

The formula accepted and Chalcedonian orthodoxy

John II took his time. The Dictionary of Christian Biography notes that he first gathered the Roman clergy, who failed to agree, then that a synod convened by the pope accepted and confirmed the imperial confession of faith.^[120] Anastos specifies that one year and ten days elapsed between the imperial edict and the pontifical reply.^[121] This delay was not hesitation: it was close doctrinal examination.

On 25 March 534, by his letter called Inter claras from its incipit — "Inter claras sapientiae mansuetudinis vestrae laudes..." — inserted into the Codex Justinianus I.1.8, John II confirmed the formula, declared orthodox the teaching of the imperial edict, and notified the excommunication of the Akoimetoi as Nestorians — an act which the Catholic Encyclopedia as well as the New Catholic Encyclopedia date to 24 March, the letter itself bearing the date of 25 March.^{[122][123][124][125]} The pope invented no doctrine: he recognized, in the formula "Unus de Trinitate passus est carne", the direct consequence of Chalcedonian teaching.

"Among the shining motives for praising your wisdom and gentleness, most Christian of emperors, there shines with a purer light, like a star, the fact that, through love of the faith and zeal for charity, instructed in ecclesiastical disciplines, you keep reverence for the See of Rome, submit all things to it and bring them back to its unity." — John II, Inter claras letter to Justinian I, 25 March 534, Codex Justinianus I.1.8, translated from Krueger's Latin^[126]

"The same Christ is consubstantial with the Father according to Godhead and consubstantial with us according to humanity; the miracles and the sufferings are of one and the same." — John II, letter to Justinian I, 25 March 534, Codex Justinianus I.1.8.18^[127]

"Caput omnium sanctarum ecclesiarum"

The same constitution contains the sentence which, centuries later, would be quoted by Roman theologians of primacy: the quoted imperial letter declares the Roman See to be "caput est omnium sanctarum ecclesiarum" — "head of all the holy Churches" —, a formula attested a single time, at paragraph 11 of the constitution preserved as Codex Justinianus I.1.8.11.^[128] The formula thus became, in the civil code of a Byzantine emperor, a text of positive law.

"...for she [Your Holiness] is the head of all the holy Churches." — Justinian I to John II, letter quoted in the pontifical reply of 25 March 534: translation of "...quia caput est omnium sanctarum ecclesiarum" (Codex Justinianus I.1.8.11)^[129]

The expression was not new in the Catholic mind. It is ancient, attested in Leo the Great and in Gelasius I. But what was new is that it figured in the civil code of the Empire, signed by Justinian and taken up by the pope. The whole sequel of Byzantine history would have to reckon with this juridical text.

The excommunication of the Akoimetoi as Nestorians

John II first tried to persuade the Akoimetoi to abandon their opposition before the canonical measure.^{[130][131][132]} Failure being patent, the pope excommunicated them as Nestorians — an act dated 24 March 534 by the Catholic Encyclopedia as by the New Catholic Encyclopedia — then informed the emperor of it by his letter Inter claras dated the next day, 25 March, preserved in Codex Justinianus I.1.8 (subscription "d. VIII kal. April.").^{[133][134][135]} The two dates thus coexist without contradiction: 24 March is that of the notified sentence, the 25th that of the letter to Justinian — to which is added, according to the DCB (Labbe), a distinct letter to the Roman senators.^[136] As for 6 April 534, it does not belong to this dossier: it is, according to the DBI notice, the date of the letter to the priests and deacons of Riez in the Contumeliosus affair, followed on 7 April by the condemnation of the bishop.^[137]

The sentence did not target their liturgical rule of perpetual praise, which is in no way heretical. It targeted a precise Christological position: refusing to attribute to the Word suffering in the flesh amounts, in Cyrillian grammar, to separating two subjects in Christ — that is, to falling into Nestorianism. The excommunication was therefore, despite its harshness, doctrinally coherent.

"When persuasion failed, the pope excommunicated them as Nestorians." — Dictionary of Christian Biography, "Joannes II Mercurius", 1882^[138]

A bishop accused of adultery and alienation

During John II's pontificate, the Gallican Church went through a disciplinary crisis in Provence. Contumeliosus, bishop of Riez (in today's Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), was publicly accused of two grave faults: adultery and alienation of Church property.^[139][140] The accusations were taken seriously by the Provençal clergy, who referred them to its metropolitan.

The metropolitan of Arles was then Saint Caesarius, already famous for having convened and presided over the Second Council of Orange in 529, whose pontifical confirmation by Boniface II doctrinally founded the rejection of Semi-Pelagianism.^[141]

The Council of Marseille 533 under Caesarius of Arles

Caesarius convened a council at Marseille in 533. Sixteen bishops of Provence, under his presidency, examined the accusations and pronounced sentence against Contumeliosus: the Catholic Encyclopedia attests it in its Marseille notice — "sixteen bishops of Provence, under the presidency of St. Cæsarius at Arles, passed sentence on Contumeliosus, Bishop of Riez".^[142] The council pronounced his deposition.

The affair was then brought to Rome by Caesarius for confirmation of the sentence. It is in this framework that John II was seized of it: not as judge of first instance, but as judge of appeal and confirmation. The Roman reflex is typical: Caesarius did not seek to impose the sentence on Rome, but to have it ratified.

The pontifical sentence and confinement in a monastery

In April 534, John II answered Caesarius and the Churches of Gaul with letters whose exact dates the DBI notice gives: on 6 April, to the priests and deacons of Riez, he announced the sending of Caesarius as apostolic visitor; on 7 April, he condemned the misdeeds of Contumelioso, already relegated to a monastery.^[143] The Dictionary of Christian Biography confirms the arrangement: letters to Caesarius, to the bishops of Gaul and to the clergy of Riez, with an order of confinement in a monastery.^[144] The Catholic Encyclopedia, likewise, has John II order the bishops of Gaul to confine him to a monastery.^[145] The pontifical decision was therefore precise: Contumeliosus had to accomplish in a monastery an appropriate penance.

The sentence was not only repressive. It sent the culprit a framework for conversion: monastic life as a structure of penance for a fallen bishop. This articulation between canon law and spiritual discipline is typical of Roman practice in the 6th century.

The affair did not end, however, with John II. His successor, Saint Agapetus I, would accept an appeal from Contumeliosus — whom the council of Marseille had condemned for immorality — and order Saint Caesarius to grant the accused a new trial before pontifical delegates.^[146] This opening by Agapetus did not contradict John II's sentence: it simply confirmed that every canonical sentence must, if the accused so requests, be re-examinable. It is an ancient Roman principle which the papacy was keen to preserve.

Athalaric: jurisdiction over the Roman clerics

Under Athalaric, governing under Amalasuntha's regency, the Roman papacy enjoyed a deliberately respectful policy. All actions brought against Roman clerics were, by the king's order, referred to the pope's tribunal.^[147][148] The decision was doubly significant: it recognized ecclesiastical jurisdiction over clerics, and it protected the clergy against vexations from the Gothic civil tribunals.

The measure prolonged an orientation already visible under Theodoric, but it was here put in writing. The Liber Pontificalis kept its memory in John II's notice, and Athalaric's letter quoted by Loomis confirmed it.^[149] For the Roman clergy of the time, it was real juridical security.

Justinian: profession of faith and precious gifts

Besides the official letters, Justinian sent Pope John II his profession of faith and many precious gifts.^[150] The gesture showed the importance the emperor attached to communion with Rome at the moment he consolidated his project of imperial restoration in the West.

What was being prepared must be understood. In 533-534, Belisarius led in North Africa the campaign that would destroy the Vandal kingdom and allow the retaking of Carthage. The reconquest of Italy was imminent. Justinian wanted, at the moment he restored Roman authority in the West, to march with the pope, not against him. This is the political background explaining the remarkable deference of the Reddentes honorem letter.

The Council of Carthage of 535 and the question of the Arian lapsi

The collapse of the North African Vandal kingdom opened an immediate pastoral question. The Vandals were Arians and had persecuted Catholics for a century. After the Byzantine victory, 217 bishops gathered in council at Carthage in 535 put a precise question to Rome: how to reinstate the Catholic bishops who had passed over to Arianism under Vandal pressure?^[151]

The question, submitted to John II, however received no answer from him. The pope died before he could reply. It was his successor, Saint Agapetus I, who would answer the Carthaginians.^[152] For John II's history, this dossier counts because it proves that the Catholic West spontaneously regarded him as the authority of reference for these major disciplinary questions.

8 May 535

John II died on 8 May 535.^[153][154] The sources give no precise cause. His death came at the moment the Byzantine campaign in Italy was about to intensify: Belisarius would land in Sicily as early as the summer of 535, opening the Gothic war that would ravage Italy for two decades. John II would see none of this catastrophe.

The Dictionary of Christian Biography, following Anastasius, makes the pontificate run from 31 December 532 to 27 May 535^[155]: the Vatican and the Catholic Encyclopedia retain 8 May 535 for the death.^[156][157] The gap stems from the chronologies of the sources, none of which attests a burial on 27 May.

Burial in St Peter's Basilica

The pope was buried in St Peter's Basilica, like most ancient popes.^[158] Encyclopedia.com specifies that he was buried in the portico of the basilica^[159] — the entrance space where Athalaric had had the senatusconsult engraved on marble installed two years earlier.^[160]

The location was, in its way, perfectly fitting. The pope who had obtained a Roman inscription against simony at the entrance of St Peter's slept under the same atrium. If both notices aim at the same place, the pilgrim coming to St Peter's could both read the anti-simoniacal law and pass near the tomb of the pope who had obtained its publication — a suggestive juxtaposition, which no source expressly confirms.

A short but doctrinally decisive pontificate

John II reigned less than two and a half years. Too brief to reform the Roman Church in depth, his pontificate nevertheless concentrated three doctrinal and juridical acts of lasting scope: the pontifical confirmation of the theopaschite formula, the excommunication of the Akoimetoi, and the formal imperial recognition of the primacy of the Roman See in the civil code.

Beside these three acts, two annex gestures had their own scope. The senatusconsult engraved on marble by Athalaric attacked simony at the heart of the Roman electoral procedure. The sentence against Contumeliosus of Riez confirmed the Roman doctrine of appeal and ratification of Gallic sentences.

Consistency with Hormisdas despite appearances

The most apparent objection concerns the relationship between John II and Hormisdas. Hormisdas had refused the formula in August 520; John II confirmed it in March 534. Was there a contradiction?

The honest answer is: no, though the appearance exists. Hormisdas never condemned the formula as heretical on its substance. He refused it for reasons of pastoral prudence in the precise context of 520, marked by the fragility of peace with Constantinople and by the behaviour of the Scythian monks. John II approved it thirteen years later, in a transformed context: Justinian had become emperor, the formula was incorporated into a precise dogmatic edict, and its acceptance became necessary lest it be believed the Catholic Church tolerated crypto-Nestorianism.

The Second Council of Constantinople in 553, under Pope Vigilius, would definitively confirm the formula.^[161][162] The trajectory was therefore coherent: Hormisdas's prudence, John II's acceptance, conciliar ratification in 553.

A Latin pontifical primacy recognized in the civil code

The most lasting event of the pontificate was probably the insertion into the Codex Justinianus of the letters between Justinian and John II. No earlier pontifical letter had received such juridical consecration. The pope was, henceforth, inscribed in the positive law of the Empire as head of all the holy Churches.

The effect was paradoxical. Over the long term, this juridical text would serve Rome as much as Constantinople: Rome would find in it an ancient imperial proof of its primacy; emperors would also find in it a framework for their doctrinal interventions. This is the very complexity of the Byzantine and Latin Christendom — a Christendom with two poles, whose relations would oscillate between communion and tension for five centuries.

Did John II betray Hormisdas by accepting Unus de Trinitate?

No. The apparent contradiction rests on a superficial reading of the two positions. Hormisdas had refused the formula out of pastoral prudence in August 520, in the fragile context of reconciliation with Constantinople, and not through doctrinal condemnation on its substance. John II confirmed it thirteen years later, in a context transformed by Justinian's dogmatic edict, and in the Cyrillian and Chalcedonian sense.^[163][164] Doctrinal continuity was total; what changed was the moment.

Does accepting the formula make theopaschism orthodox?

Yes, in the Cyrillian and Chalcedonian sense: the formula confesses that the subject who suffers is indeed the Person of the Word — one of the Trinity —, but in the human nature he assumed, not in the impassible divine nature. This grammar was made explicit by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.^[165][166] Outside this grammar, the formula can of course be deformed into Monophysitism, but that is neither Cyril's sense, nor Justinian's, nor John II's.

Did the senatusconsult against simony work?

Partially. In the short term, the effect seems real: no major contested election was reported during the immediate pontificates. In the long term, however, simony remained a recurrent scourge in the medieval papacy, against which the Gregorian reform movement of the 11th century would still have to fight. The senatusconsult of 533 was, in this respect, an ancient juridical precedent: it would be invoked by later reformers as testimony that the Roman conscience, at the heart of late antiquity, had already legally condemned this abuse.

Is John II a pope "under imperial sway"?

This is the most classic objection. Treccani's online synthesis writes that John II « approvò, per pressioni dell'imperatore Giustiniano, una professione di fede in contrasto con l'atteggiamento in proposito del papa Ormisda » — he approved, under Justinian's pressures, a profession of faith in contrast with Hormisdas's attitude.^[167] (The scholarly DBI notice takes up neither the "pressures" nor the contrast with Hormisdas: it describes a Justinian missive requesting confirmation, then an approving pontifical reply.^[168]) The objection has its share of truth: Justinian did insist, and the delay of one year and ten days before the pontifical reply testifies to the difficulty of Roman discernment.

But reducing the pontificate to political submission is exaggerated. John II consulted a Roman synod before replying. His reply was not a copy of the imperial edict; it reformulated the doctrine in terms proper to the Roman magisterium. And above all, his letter received and confirmed the recognition of the Roman See as head of all the holy Churches — which is exactly the opposite of submission. The pope, in this correspondence, received the emperor's deference and answered him as pastor, not as subject.

John II was a short and weighty pope. Short in duration — two years and four months. Weighty in accomplished acts. In January 533, Mercurius took the name of John, opening the way to a pontifical tradition that would last more than fifteen centuries. In 533, the Roman senate and King Athalaric had engraved in marble, under his auspices, a text of law against simony. In March 534, the pope confirmed the theopaschite formula, excommunicated the Akoimetoi and received in the Empire's civil code the recognition that the Apostolic See is head of all the holy Churches. In 534 again, he confirmed the sentence of the Council of Marseille against Bishop Contumeliosus of Riez. In May 535, he died and was buried in St Peter's Basilica, in the very place where the decree against simony published under his auspices remained engraved in the atrium.

The pontificate of John II is the typical example of a pontificate doctrinally decisive without being theatrical. It declares no new dogma; it confirms, in politically complex conditions, what Chalcedonian and Cyrillian teaching implied. It does not reform the Church through a grand programme; it has engraved in marble a law against simony. It does not triumph before Justinian; it signs with him letters inscribing Rome's primacy in the positive law of the Empire.

• Pope Boniface II — John II's predecessor, whose death in October 532 opened the simoniacal vacancy.
• Pope Saint John I — the pope who died at Ravenna in 526, whose name Mercurius took upon his election.
• Pope Saint Hormisdas — the pope who had refused the theopaschite formula in August 520.
• Pope Saint Agapetus I — John II's successor, who would answer the Council of Carthage and welcome Contumeliosus's appeal.
• Council of Chalcedon — the Christological basis of the theopaschite formula confirmed by John II.
• The Great Heresies of the Early Centuries — for situating Nestorianism, Monophysitism and theopaschism in their common trajectory.