Historical Excursus on the After History of the
Council.
Pope Vigilius died on his way home, but not until, as we
have seen, he had accepted and approved the action of the council in
doing exactly that which he “by the authority of the Apostolic
See” in his
Constitutum
had forbidden it to do.
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He died at the end of 554 or the
beginning of 555.
Pelagius I., who succeeded him in the See of Rome,
likewise confirmed the Acts of the Fifth Synod. The council
however was not received in all parts of the West, although it had
obtained the approval of the Pope. It was bitterly opposed in the
whole of the north of Italy, in England, France, and Spain, and also in
Africa and Asia. The African opposition died out by 559, but
Milan was in schism until 571, when Pope Justin II. published his
“Henoticon.” In Istria the matter was still more
serious, and when in 607 the bishop of Aquileia-Grado with those of his
suffragans who were subject to the Empire made their submission and
were reconciled to the Church, the other bishops of his jurisdiction
set up a schismatical Patriarchate at old Aquileia, and this schism
continued till the Council of Aquileia in 700. But before this
the II. Council of Constantinople was received all the world over as
the Fifth Ecumenical Council; and was fully recognized as such by the
Sixth Council in 680.
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The last sentence of
the
Constitutum
, the sentence which the Pope gave and which the
council rejected, is as follows: “We ordain and decree that
it be permitted to no one who stands in ecclesiastical order of office,
to write or bring forward, or undertake, or teach anything contrary to
the contents of this
Constitutum
in regard to the Three
Chapters, or, after this declaration begin a new controversy about
them. And if anything has already been done or spoken in regard
of the Three Chapters in contradiction of this our ordinance by anyone
whomsoever, this we declare void by the authority of the Apostolic
See.” It is perfectly clear that the Emperor is the
“anyone” referred to.