Pope Pelagius I (556-561)

The pope of a misunderstood doctrinal crisis

The controversy of the Three Chapters is difficult because it cannot be reduced to a simple opposition between orthodox and heretics. The texts in question concern Theodore of Mopsuestia, certain writings of Theodoret of Cyrus and the letter attributed to Ibas of Edessa to Maris.^[9] In the East, Justinian wants to condemn these texts to reassure anti-Nestorian circles and try to win back the anti-Chalcedonians. In the West, many fear that this condemnation would amount to disowning Chalcedon, which had received Theodoret and Ibas after their reconciliation.^[10]

Pelagius is at the centre of this tension. As a deacon, he first resists the condemnation; as pope, he must then explain that the faith of Chalcedon is not betrayed by the condemnation of writings that are truly suspect or erroneous. His case shows that doctrinal history sometimes advances through hurtful formulations, political misunderstandings and successive corrections, without the faith itself changing in substance.

Witness of a Rome ruined by the Gothic War

Pelagius is also a first-rate civil actor in a starving Rome. When Vigilius leaves for Constantinople, he remains in the city as the Roman representative at the moment when Totila blocks and then takes Rome. New Advent reports that he distributes his personal fortune to the starving and obtains from the Gothic king that the inhabitants be spared at the capture of December 546.^[11] The notes of the Liber Pontificalis summarise the ancient memory: having returned to Rome, he plays the role of leading citizen and negotiates with Totila to avoid murder and outrages.^[12]

This dimension is essential. Pelagius is not only a chancery polemicist. He is a deacon who bears the weight of a shattered city, in which the papacy must become at once doctrinal authority, social service, political mediation and administration of ecclesiastical goods.

A pontificate that foreshadows the temporal government of the papacy

After his election, Pelagius uses the opportunities opened by Justinian's Pragmatic Sanction (554) to put in order the goods of the Church, ecclesiastical courts, appointments and clerical discipline.^[13] The correspondence preserved in Latin shows a pope who writes to Narses, to the Frankish kings, to bishops and administrators, not only to define the faith, but also to have goods restored, to relieve the poor, to correct abusive clerics and to constrain schismatics.^[14]

The 1972 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica ("Papacy" article) sums up this aspect by saying of Pelagius that he made resolute use of his new rights and organized the temporal government of the territory over which he was effectively sovereign, thus setting the papacy on the road to political power.^[15] The formula must be understood without anachronism: Pelagius does not yet found the Papal States. But he already governs a Rome where the bishop becomes one of the rare stable powers capable of feeding, judging, restoring and negotiating.

Table of witnesses

The ancient sources do not give a comfortable portrait. The Liber Pontificalis insists on Roman hostility and public purgation; the letters of Pelagius sometimes show a harsh recourse to the secular arm; Western sources hostile to the council of 553 suspect his volte-face; modern notices at the same time recognise his administrative energy and his Roman charity.^[16]

The Holy See and the minimal chronology

The official sheet of the Holy See gives Pelagius I as 60th pope, of Roman origin, with a pontificate from 16 April 556 to 4 March 561.^[17] This chronology must be preferred in the infobox. There is however a one-day variant: the Catholic Encyclopedia gives the death on 3 March^[18], and the FIU biographical dictionary of cardinals gives "3 or 4 March"^[19], while the Liber Pontificalis gives the death on 2 March with a duration of four years, ten months and eighteen days.^[20]

The difference probably comes from traditions of computation and copying. For the article, the safest is to distinguish: official beginning of the pontificate according to the Holy See, death given as 4 March by the official list (3 March according to the Catholic Encyclopedia), and notice of the Liber preserving a burial or death date of 2 March.

The Liber Pontificalis: a decisive Roman scene

The notice of the Liber Pontificalis is brief, but it has a rare force. It shows a Rome where monks, clerics and faithful refuse Pelagius because they suspect him of having participated in the death of Vigilius.^[21] Loomis's note, following Duchesne, judges this accusation difficult to sustain: Pelagius himself had suffered in the East with Vigilius and was still in difficulty in the crisis of the Three Chapters.^[22]

Perhaps most important is the correction given by the critical note: the public oath did not answer only the accusation of homicide, but suspicions of heresy and betrayal of the faith of the Fathers. Pelagius then publishes a profession intended to remove the suspicion, affirms that he receives the first four councils, the apostolic canons, and condemns or approves those whom his predecessors condemned or approved.^[23]

"Holding the Gospels and the cross of the Lord above his head, he went up to the ambo and thus satisfied all the people: he had done no harm to Vigilius." — Liber Pontificalis, notice of Pelagius I^[24]

The letters: a pope who governs by correspondence

The letters preserved in the Patrologia Latina show a very different style from the narrative account. Pelagius writes to Narses, patrician and general in Italy, to ask him to help the Roman legates correct disruptive bishops.^[25] He affirms there that separation from the unity of the Church is not a private disorder, but a public wound.

In the following letter, he defends the use of civil authority against the fomenters of schism. The formula is harsh for a modern sensibility, but it must be replaced in a society where religious unity is also a political and juridical bond. For Pelagius, repressing schism is not persecuting the faith, but preventing the laceration of the ecclesial body.

"Only he persecutes who compels to evil. He who punishes evil already done or prevents it from being done, he does not persecute, he loves." — Pelagius I, letter to Narses, PL 69, col. 394D-395A^[26]

This sentence must not be isolated as a timeless maxim of coercion. It expresses the logic of a 6th-century pope, in a fragmented Italy, where the schism of Aquileia threatens the communion and stability of entire provinces.

A Roman and aristocratic origin

The Liber Pontificalis presents Pelagius as Roman, son of John the vicar.^[27] New Advent specifies that his father seems to have been vicar of one of the two great Italian civil districts.^[28] Loomis's note goes in the same direction: the term vicarianus may indicate a high civil office; Pelagius probably comes from an aristocratic milieu.^[29]

This origin explains two features of his career. He possesses a personal fortune, which he can distribute to the poor during the famine; and he knows how to speak at once the language of law, imperial administration and Roman diplomacy.

Apocrisiarius of Agapetus in Constantinople

In 536, Agapetus I goes to Constantinople to deal with Justinian. Pelagius accompanies him and, shortly before his death, Agapetus appoints him apocrisiarius or permanent representative of the Roman Church at the imperial court.^[30] This post is strategic: the apocrisiarius must defend Rome before the emperor, follow Eastern controversies, intervene in appointments and transmit the doctrinal line of the Apostolic See.

The same context inserts him into the dossiers of Alexandria and Antioch. New Advent reports that he chose the orthodox Paul for Alexandria in 540, then had to depose him two years later, and that he intervened again in the affairs of Origen.^[31] Pelagius is therefore already a man of ecclesiastical government before becoming pope.

The shadow of the Silverius case

The case of Saint Silverius is more delicate. The tradition hostile to Vigilius and to the Empress Theodora — who had Silverius deposed by Belisarius to impose Vigilius, of whom she hoped to make her instrument — suspects Pelagius of having participated in the intrigues that prevented the return of Silverius after his deposition.^[32] The notes of the Liber Pontificalis even recall that he would have been sent to Constantinople with Vigilius as apocrisiarius and that he would have favoured the accession of Vigilius against Silverius.^[33]

One must remain cautious. The sources are polemical, and the article on Silverius shows how traditions overlap. But this point explains the ambiguous reputation of Pelagius: even before the crisis of the Three Chapters, he is associated with a Byzantine papacy, with Theodora, Vigilius and imperial influence games.

Vigilius leaves, Pelagius remains

When Vigilius is summoned to Constantinople in November 545, Pelagius remains in Rome as representative of the pope.^[34] The city is then caught in the second phase of the Gothic War. Totila blocks Rome; roads are cut; elites flee; the population lacks food.

In this context, Pelagius acts less as a theologian than as a civic protector. He uses his fortune for the starving, tries to obtain a truce and negotiates with Totila. New Advent stresses that he does not at first obtain the truce, but that he then succeeds in sparing the inhabitants when the city is taken in December 546.^[35]

A deacon facing the Gothic king

The episode reveals the concrete function of the Roman Church in the collapse of civil frameworks. The senate is weakened, the Byzantine army does not durably control the city, the Goths return, and the bishop of Rome is absent. The deacon Pelagius therefore becomes the most visible interlocutor between the Roman population and the military power.

Procopius, in his Gothic War (III, 16), describes him as already notable among all the Italians before the siege, then endowed with still greater renown for his philanthropy after distributing a large part of his fortune to the starving.^[36] The formula "the most illustrious man in Italy" is a gloss of the Loomis critical note, not a literal quotation of Procopius: the prestige of Pelagius does not come only from his proximity to Constantinople; it also comes from his public service during a famine.

From Rome to Constantinople

Totila, impressed, sends Pelagius to Constantinople to negotiate peace with Justinian.^[37] The emperor refuses to negotiate directly and refers the decision to Belisarius. Pelagius then returns to the East to support Vigilius in the crisis of the Three Chapters.

This trajectory is paradoxical: the one whom the Romans will later suspect of being Justinian's man was also the defender of starving Rome against the violence of war, then the companion of Vigilius against the emperor in the first phase of the doctrinal conflict.

What the Three Chapters are

The Three Chapters are not three chapters of a book. The expression designates three doctrinal dossiers: the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia; certain writings of Theodoret of Cyrus against Saint Cyril and Ephesus; and the letter attributed to Ibas of Edessa to Maris.^[38] To condemn them was to touch figures linked, closely or distantly, to the reception of Chalcedon.

The issue is therefore twofold. On the Eastern side, Justinian wants to show that Chalcedon is not Nestorian. On the Western side, many fear that by condemning men or writings received or tolerated at Chalcedon, one gives reason to the adversaries of that council. The crisis arises from this collision between a useful doctrinal correction and a wounded conciliar memory.

Vigilius and Pelagius first resist

New Advent reports that Pelagius writes to Ferrandus of Carthage to gather his opinion after the imperial decree of about 544, then that he supports Vigilius in his resistance to Justinian.^[39] In 551, encouraged by Pelagius, Vigilius offers firmer resistance and publishes his first Constitutum in May 553, before yielding after the council.^[40]

Pelagius, thrown into prison with other supporters of the pope, does not submit immediately. He writes against the adversaries of the Three Chapters and reproaches Vigilius for his docility towards the emperor.^[41] This detail is crucial: Pelagius is not at first the champion of the imperial line. He becomes so after a reversal that he justifies by the unity of the Church, and which his adversaries attribute to ambition.

Constantinople II: condemning without denying Chalcedon

The Second Council of Constantinople, held in 553, affirms that it receives the first four councils and condemns the ancient Christological heresies, notably Nestorius and Eutyches.^[42] Its sentence against the Three Chapters aims to show that certain texts can be rejected without the faith defined at Chalcedon being abandoned.

The most useful passage for understanding the logic of the council is the following: the Church receives the faith of Scripture, the Fathers and the four holy synods, then rejects those who justify the Three Chapters and persist in their error.^[43] In other words, the council does not say: "Chalcedon was wrong." It says: "Chalcedon must not serve as a shield for texts that favour Nestorius."

Pelagius's reversal

After the death of Vigilius at Syracuse on 7 June 555, Pelagius finally accepts the Roman line of reception of the council.^[44] The Liber Pontificalis notes that Justinian then proposes Pelagius as a possible successor, but Duchesne's note judges suspect the idea that the emperor supported him precisely at the moment when he had resisted the condemnation.^[45]

The historical truth is probably more sober. Pelagius becomes acceptable to Justinian because he has rallied; he remains suspect for part of the West because he rallied too quickly or too completely. This position explains the whole sequel of his pontificate.

A long vacancy and a candidate imposed by circumstances

Vigilius dies in Sicily on the way back. His body is brought to Rome and buried at Saint Marcellus on the Via Salaria.^[46] The vacancy lasts several months, because the Roman Church lacks available bishops and the name of Pelagius deeply divides.

The Liber Pontificalis reports that only two bishops, John of Perugia and Bonus of Ferentino, with Andrew, priest of Ostia, are found to ordain him pontiff.^[47] The notes explain that the war has disorganized the suburbicarian ordinations: several bishops are dead, absent or impeded; but hostility towards Pelagius also plays a role.^[48]

The oath at Saint Pancras and Saint Peter's

To dispel the accusations, Pelagius goes with Narses to Saint Pancras, then in procession to Saint Peter's. The choice of Saint Pancras is not neutral: the Liber makes it the solemn starting point of the oath procession towards Saint Peter's. The pope holds the Gospels and the cross above his head, goes up to the ambo and affirms that he did no harm to Vigilius.^[49]

The scene is spectacular, but it is not theatrical in the modern sense. In a sacral society, it has a juridical, political and ecclesial function: to make communion publicly possible with a man whom many suspect.

The discourse against simony

The same passage of the Liber Pontificalis continues with an exhortation against simony. Pelagius asks that ecclesiastical promotions be accepted by worthy men, "but not for gold nor for promises".^[50] This word corresponds to the disorders of a ruined Church: war has displaced people, confiscated goods, created vacancies and opened the way to trafficking in offices.

The pontificate of Pelagius therefore begins with two acts of restoration: restoring his own credibility before Rome, then restoring the discipline of ecclesiastical promotions.

Restoring churches and property

New Advent stresses that Pelagius gradually regains the confidence of the Romans by employing his fortune and authority to their advantage: repairing churches, renewing sacred furnishings, putting in order the possessions and ecclesiastical revenues disorganized by the Gothic War and the prolonged absence of the popes.^[51]

The Liber Pontificalis confirms that he appoints Valentinus as notary, has the gold and silver vessels and vestments restored in all churches, then begins the basilica of the apostles Philip and James.^[52] This basilica will later become the Basilica of the Holy Apostles, associated in Roman tradition with the Byzantine presence and the reconstruction of the Christian city.

Reorganizing ecclesiastical administration

The fragments of letters discovered and cited by New Advent show a Pelagius organizing ecclesiastical tribunals, repressing clerical abuses, restructuring patrimonies and bringing money and clothing for the poor from Gaul and distant countries.^[53] This action is less known than the controversy of the Three Chapters, but it is perhaps more important for Rome.

The papacy emerges here from a merely liturgical or doctrinal function. It becomes an institution of management, capable of holding together worship, charity, law, property, diplomatic network and material security.

A father of the poor?

New Advent concludes its notice by calling Pelagius "Father of the poor and of his country".^[54] The formula is strong, but it is coherent with the dossier. Pelagius gave his patrimony during the famine, restored ecclesiastical resources, organized relief and restored the Roman Church to its role as mother of the poor.

This point gives a spiritual reading of his pontificate. His name remains marked by a doctrinal crisis; but his pastoral holiness, if one may use the term without liturgical canonization, is manifested in concrete charity towards a city that had known famine, sieges, violence and ruins.

Aquileia, Milan, Istria, Dalmatia

Pelagius succeeds better in winning back Rome than in convincing northern Italy. New Advent indicates that the schism born of the condemnation of the Three Chapters took particularly deep root in the North of Italy; Paulinus I of Aquileia (557-569), successor of Macedonius (535-556), in synod, breaks communion with Rome and even excommunicates Narses.^[55][56] Treccani recalls that opposition affected African, Illyrian and Dalmatian bishops, and that the schism of Aquileia lasted until around the year 700.^[57]

One must understand the logic of these bishops. Many do not defend Nestorius. They think they are defending Chalcedon against imperial manipulation. Their error is therefore not necessarily a direct Christological heresy; it is a refusal to recognize that the Church can condemn ambiguous writings without denying the council that had received certain persons.

Appeal to the secular arm

Pelagius becomes impatient. In his letters, he asks Narses to employ public authority against the disturbers of unity.^[58] He writes that he who separates himself from the Apostolic Sees is in schism and attempts to erect an altar against the universal Church.^[59]

"Whoever is separated from the Apostolic Sees, there is no doubt that he is in schism, and he attempts to erect an altar against the universal Church." — Pelagius I, letter to Narses, PL 69, col. 395A-B^[60]

This sentence carries the Roman consciousness of communion. But it also shows a historical limit: in the 6th-century Justinian world, the unity of the Church and public order are so linked that recourse to civil constraint seems normal. A Catholic article must recognize at once the truth of ecclesial unity and the moral difficulty of certain means employed.

The case of Gaul and Childebert

Pelagius succeeds better in Gaul. New Advent reports that in response to the Frankish king Childebert I, he sends a profession of faith affirming his agreement with the doctrine of Leo the Great and hoping that no calumny will provoke a schism in Gaul.^[61] He also grants the pallium to Sapaudus of Arles and constitutes him vicar over the Churches of Gaul, according to the usage of his predecessors.^[62]

The method is different from that used towards northern Italy. With the Franks, Pelagius acts through doctrinal profession, diplomacy and recognition of the role of Arles. This prevents a Gallic extension of the schism.

The real question: is Chalcedon betrayed?

The decisive doctrinal point is this: does the condemnation of the Three Chapters destroy Chalcedon? Pelagius answers no. New Advent summarises his argument: the differences between Chalcedon and Constantinople II are superficial, not real; even if the circumstances made debatable the opportuneness of condemning certain writings, these being in fact heretical, there is no harm in declaring it officially.^[63]

This answer does not erase Justinian's political clumsiness. It distinguishes the imperial instrument, often brutal, from the doctrinal truth finally recognized by the Church. The Catholic faith does not depend on the purity of the emperor's motivations.

The four councils and the reception of the fifth

In his profession intended to lift suspicions, Pelagius affirms that he receives the first four councils and the apostolic canons.^[64] This insistence is explained: opponents fear precisely that the fifth council abolishes the four previous ones. By beginning with Nicaea, Constantinople I, Ephesus and Chalcedon, Pelagius wants to show that his reception of Constantinople II is a continuation, not a rupture.

The council of 553 itself receives the four previous synods and bases its condemnation in Scripture, the Fathers and Catholic tradition.^[65] Catholic coherence is at stake here: defending Chalcedon does not mean defending everything that certain authors linked to its history have written.

A lesson for crises of reception

The crisis of Pelagius I shows that the reception of a council can be long, painful and mixed with political factors. The Catholic Church does not claim that each administrative step is clear immediately; it affirms that the defined faith, once received by the Church, does not contradict the previous faith.

This lesson holds beyond the 6th century. Crises of reception are often born when a true doctrinal text is carried by a bad political context, or when a legitimate formula seems to threaten a prior memory. The role of the pope is then to purify interpretation, hold continuity and prevent the wound from becoming schism.

Death in Rome

Pelagius dies in Rome on 4 March 561 according to the official list of the Holy See^[66] (with the one-day variant noted above: 3 March for the Catholic Encyclopedia^[67]). The Liber Pontificalis (Loomis ed., p. 162) gives a burial at Saint Peter's and notes a vacancy of two months and twenty-five days; the detail "in front of the sacristy" comes from the Mann notice, which here summarizes the Liber (Duchesne, vol. I).^[68] His successor, John III, will inherit a still unstable Italy and an unresolved schism.

An ambivalent but real legacy

The legacy of Pelagius is ambivalent. He did not succeed in pacifying northern Italy; his appeals to civil constraint shock today; his rallying after his initial resistance durably nourished suspicions. But he maintained Roman communion with the fifth council, prevented Gaul from entering schism, restored part of the goods of the Church and succoured Rome.

In the history of the papacy, he belongs to the same dramatic generation as Agapetus, Silverius and Vigilius: popes or servants of popes caught between Ostrogoths, Justinian, Theodora, Chalcedon and Roman misery. His pontificate recalls that the papacy does not advance only through great visible saints; it also advances through discussed men, capable of bearing a doctrinal and administrative burden in a collapsed world.

• Pope Saint Agapetus I (535-536)
• Pope Saint Silverius (536-537)
• Pope Vigilius
• The Second Council of Constantinople (553)
• The Council of Chalcedon (451)
• The Monophysite crisis
• Pope John III