in the divine.  The patriarch of Constantinople, always jealous of the popes, eagerly upheld this doctrine which the papacy continually and consistently denounced.  Now Constans II. cared for none of these things.  He refused to allow that either pope or patriarch was right, but as though he had been living in the sixteenth instead of the seventh century gravely announced that “the sacred Scriptures, the works of the Fathers, the Decrees of the five General Councils are enough for us;” and asked:  “Why should men seek to go beyond these?” Roundly he refused to allow the question to be either supported or attacked.

Now the whole of the West was very heartily with the pope in sentiment; but save for the bishops of Italy he stood alone against the great patriarchates of the East.  Nevertheless, he refused to be silent and to obey the emperor.  Therefore Olympius, Constans’ chamberlain in 649, came to Italy as exarch with orders to arrest the pope and bring him to Constantinople:  this it seemed to him a prudent thing to do; he was to judge for himself.  Olympius decided it was not a prudent thing to do.  He found the Italian bishops and the people eagerly Catholic.  There is a story that he attempted instead to take the pope’s life as he said Mass, but this is probably untrue, for we find pope and exarch presently excellent friends.  He went on into Sicily to meet the first invasion of the Saracens in that island, and died there of the pestilence.

Theodore Calliopas was appointed exarch for the second time as his successor in 652.  He had either less sagacity or less scruple than his predecessor, for in the following year he appeared with an army in Rome.  He found the pope ill and in bed before the high altar of S. John Lateran.  He surrounded the church and entered it with his men, who were guilty of violence and desecration.  But the pope, to save bloodshed, surrendered himself to the exarch, shouting as he emerged from the church, “Anathema to all who say that Martin has changed a jot or tittle of the Faith Anathema to all who do not remain in his orthodox Faith even to the death.”  Through the tumultuous and weeping city the pope passed to the palace of the exarch upon the Palatine Hill.  He entered it a prisoner and was presently smuggled away on board ship to Constantinople, where he was examined and condemned to death, insulted in the Hippodrome, and his sentence commuted to imprisonment and exile to Cherson, where he died in 655.

The controversy slumbered.  Before long, surely to the amazement of the West, the emperor landed in Italy at Tarentum with the object of finally dealing with the Lombards, for Rothari was dead.  It is said he asked some hermit there in the south:  “Shall I vanquish and hold down the nation of the Lombards which now dwelleth in Italy?” The answer was as follows, and, rightly understood, contained at least the fundamental part of the truth:  “The nation of the Lombards,” said the hermit after a night of prayer, “cannot be overcome because a pious queen coming from a foreign land has built a church in honour of S. John Baptist who therefore pleads without ceasing for that people.  But a time will come when that sanctuary will be held in contempt, and then the nation shall perish."[1]