Quo Primum and the rumored forthcoming attack on Traditional Mass communities

About two years ago, I wrote a post lamenting the continuing efforts to restrict access to the Traditional Latin Mass by the spiritually tone-deaf, aging radical contingent which is currently favored in Rome. At that time, I quoted the encyclical of Pope Saint Pius V, Quo Primum, which grants in perpetuity the right of all priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass.

Since doing that, I realized recently that I left off a fairly critical piece, namely the closing admonition of Pope Saint Pius V, which reads as follows in Latin:

Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam Nostrae permissionis, statuti, ordinationis, mandati, praecepti, concessionis, indulti, declarationis, voluntatis, decreti et inhibitionis infringere, vel ei ausu temerario contraire. Si quis autem hoc attentare praesumpserit, indignationem omnipotentis Dei, ac beatorum Petri et Pauli Apostolorum eius se noverit incursurum. 

This translates to English as follows:

Therefore, let it be licit for none among men to infringe upon the permissions, statutes, ordinances, mandates, precepts, concessions, indults, wills, decretals and inhibitions in this document of ours, or to have the rashness to oppose them. If, however, someone should presume to attempt this, he should know that he will incur the anger of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

Those in Rome attempting to push forward the rumored harsh restrictions, assuming they believe in God, should tremble before doing so. It should be recalled that St. John Chrysostom warned: "If you have sinned, but in your own person merely, you will have no such great punishment, nothing like it: but if you have sinned as bishop, you are lost." Our bishops and priests ignore at their own peril the warnings of the saints and the will of the Holy Spirit, who bestows good fruit upon the devout, and evil fruit upon the worldly.  

And it is well to recall the observations of Fulcher of Chartres in the 12th century AD: 

When the Roman Church, which is the source of correction for all Christianity, is troubled by any disorder, the sorrow is communicated from the nerves of the head to the members subject to it, and these suffer sympathetically....For when the head is thus struck, the members at once are sick. If the head be sick, the other members suffer.

The head is clearly sick. Thus, we suffer. Thus, the world suffers. 

If further restrictions come, no one should be surprised at what happens next.

Justinian and Theodora in meme-form

The anxiety of being married to Empress Theodora.

I've been creating a good number of memes lately. While what happened to Pope St. Silverius is certainly no laughing matter, I figured something like this is a good way of starting conversations about Silverius and encouraging folks to ask for his intercession. The meme has garnered a good bit of attention on Reddit and other places where I've posted it, so who knows?

For what it's worth, Silverius is one of the individuals to whom I dedicated Book III of my Belisarius series, Rome the Eternal. And it seemed fitting given that his sad reign plays a major role in the story. 

For other posts on Pope Saint Silverius, see:

• Pope Saint Silverius ~ Resisted state-mandated heresy. Died a martyr.
• The Martyrdom of Pope St. Silverius -- Starved to death on the Island of Palmarola in AD 538
• The epitaph of Pope Saint Hormisdas, written by his son, Pope Saint Silverius
• "I am receiving the reward for my deeds" ~ The Miserable Reign of Pope Vigilius, AD 537-555

What if Belisarius had accepted the Gothic offer to become Western Roman Emperor in AD 540 ~ And why he didn't

A fanciful portrait of Belisarius as Augustus of the Western Roman Empire.

I left off the previous post considering what might have happened if Belisarius had accepted the imperial diadem of the Western Empire when it was offered to him at the end of the first war in Italy in AD 540. Could he have remained on the throne? How would Justinian have reacted? Did Belisarius have the diplomatic and administrative skills to manage the Western Empire? Would his men have remained loyal to him and willing to advance his military goals abroad?

In a best-case scenario that's perhaps not too far-fetched, the answer is yes, Belisarius could certainly have ruled successfully as Western Roman Emperor. The Goths were not only accepting of him, but positively enthusiastic for him to rule them. The core of the Roman army in Italy was made up of his household troops, some 7,000 strong. It's hard to imagine that these elite soldiers would not have remained loyal to the commander who had recruited and trained them. And Belisarius was known to be extraordinarily generous toward his men. Some of the imperial troops and their commanders—men like John the Nephew of Vitalian, Aratius and his brother Narses—would have been reluctant to go along. But future events would prove that these men were all flawed as commanders, unable to work in tandem and largely unloved by the men serving under them. Belisarius would have either received their pledges of loyalty, offered them a one-way ticket back to Constantinople, or quelled them and their forces if they attempted to resist.

For his part, Justinian would not have attacked Italy, certainly not immediately. As mentioned in the previous post, the emperor was at that time facing a very dire threat from Chosroes who had marched the Persian army into the Roman eastern provinces. In fact, by the time Belisarius arrived back in Constantinople, Chosroes had sacked Antioch, the fourth largest metropolis of the empire, leading away tens of thousands of captives which he would settle in a city he built for them called "Better-than-Antioch." Though Justinian would have been rightfully furious over the betrayal of Belisarius, he wouldn't have been able to do anything about it until Belisarius's position in Italy was solidified and made permanent. Most likely, Justinian would have instructed his diplomatic corps to make a virtue of necessity, and initiate friendly relations with the new Western Emperor to ensure there was peace on the western frontier while he dealt with the Persian menace.

Where Emperor Belisarius and Justinian would likely have come into conflict was over Africa. Once news reached Africa of Belisarius's accession to the Western Empire, it is not unlikely that the Africans would have declared for Belisarius. After all, Africa was traditionally a Latin-speaking province of the West. Its fertile crops had supplied Rome with wheat for centuries. Beyond that, it had been the brilliant deeds of Belisarius five years before that liberated Africa from the Vandals. More recently, he had again saved Africa from a dangerous mutiny of the garrison army that Justinian had left unpaid. The fact that Solomon, the governor of Africa in AD 540, was once a member of Belisarius's household tends to seal the deal. Once again, if Africa had switched its loyalty to Belisarius in AD 540, there's not much Justinian could have done to prevent it given his preoccupation with the Persians.

Considering his strategic genius, it's not impossible that Belisarius would have been able to extend Roman power into the former provinces, particularly those which retained significant Roman population centers. Given the disparate units that he managed to command successfully in his own household guard: Illyrian and Thracian Romans, Isaurians, Huns, Heruls, etc., he would have had little difficulty commanding the Gothic army. I suspect that the Goths would have been downright eager to learn and master the tactics of the man who had defeated them. With a reconstituted and re-tooled Gothic grand army built around a core of his magnificently trained household troops, Belisarius would have had a force powerful enough to face the Visigoths or Franks in the open field. He likely would have pressed Gothic claims in Septimania—a region of southern Gaul that the Ostrogoths had unwillingly ceded to the treacherous Frankish king, Theudibert, during the Italian war. However, given the prostration of Italy which was still recovering from famine, and the incipient waves of plague which had begun sweeping across the Mediterranean world beginning in AD 542, it's hard to imagine Roman arms making much more progress in the West. Perhaps he would have found some limited success in Spain as Justinian did later.

In Books II and III of my series of novels, I have Belisarius himself offer some counter arguments—conflicts that could have turned the speculative reign of Belisarius into a disaster. In both cases, it is Belisarius's ambitious wife, Antonina, who plays the role of devil's advocate. 

In Glory of the Romans, Antonina tempts Belisarius to view himself in the role of king after his defeat of the Vandals. Belisarius's reaction is forceful and immediate:

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     [Antonina] moved in close to her husband until she whispered in his ear. “Every day, you enter the Vandal palace and sit on the throne to administer Carthage. And every day, I see you and think to myself: what a magnificent king he would make.”
     His eyes wide with horror, Belisarius pulled away from Antonina with a jerk as if she had touched his face with a red-hot iron poker.
     “Antonina,” he finally gasped. “I will forget that such words ever escaped your lips.”
     Undaunted, she closed with him and put her mouth again close to his ear. “Why not? You are a hero in this place. You have a mighty army and a fleet. And Africa is rich! No one could touch us. We would be free!”
     “Free,” he stammered, holding her away from him. “Free you say? You would make me a king while I live, but upon my death, I shall be a slave chained in the lowest depths of hell. Is that the fate you wish for me?”
     Now it was Antonina’s turn to be surprised by Belisarius’s vehemence.
     “I took an oath, wife!” he growled, keeping his voice down lest anyone hear. “Without my oath, what good am I to anyone? An oath-breaker is the most despicable of all men. A betrayer I would be, no better than Judas. And worse, to break an oath made before God? It is unthinkable! May I be struck dead before I ever do such a thing!”
     Antonina stood back aghast. She had gravely miscalculated.
     “Justinian is my lord here on earth, Antonina. I will never betray him. Never! Even if he stripped me of all rank, title, and wealth. Even if he deprived me of my very life! He is the God-protected emperor. Any authority I have comes through him. Were I to defy my emperor, what right would I have to claim the loyalty of the men under me?”
     “Forgive me, husband,” Antonina muttered, ashamed.
     Belisarius continued as if he hadn’t heard her: “I would have no claim on their loyalty. They would defy me as I defied my lord. And they would be right to do so for I would have shown myself to be a contemptible scoundrel and worse—a liar, a betrayer, and a murderer of the truth.”

This scene is meant to portray Belisarius's steadfast loyalty to Justinian as well has his devotion to the truth as a Christian. It should be recalled that in Book I, Belisarius willingly took an oath over the Sacrament of the Altar to be loyal to Justinian unto death. That scene was meant to correspond with the statement from Procopius featured in the previous post to the effect that Belisarius "had been bound by the emperor previously with most solemn oaths."

In this next scene taken from Rome the Eternal, Antonina, attempts to persuade her husband to take the imperial power once he has the Goths on the point of capitulation. Belisarius presents her with his reasons why he will not do so. Considering the later criticisms of Belisarius for his uxoriousness, perhaps these reasons are persuasive, not necessarily because he bows to her will—he doesn't—but because he cares more about what might happen to her than to attaining power and glory:

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     “If you achieve this victory—and let us admit that the situation shows every indication of resolving in our favor—your name will be mentioned among the most brilliant generals in history,” Antonina quipped, as she quaffed her cup of honeyed wine. “Constantine. Pompey. Even Alexander. Have you considered that? Belisarius the Great. It rolls right off the tongue.”
     Belisarius snorted. Though he was reading over reports from his garrison commanders in southern Italy, he was attentive to every word his wife said.
     “What? Is not the conquest of two immensely powerful barbarian nations something worthy of mention in the annals of history? Procopius certainly thinks so.”
     “You know very well that I do not fight for fame or glory,” Belisarius replied, looking up from his reading.
     “Yes, yes. And not for power, wealth, or from an inordinate lust for battle,” Antonina groused impatiently. “I know all that. You fight for Justinian, because he commands you to. But just once, I wish you would fight for yourself. Or, God forbid, for me.”
     “We’ve had this conversation before,” said Belisarius, his face grave. “You already know my answer.”
     “I do. And the answer is ludicrous,” Antonina said, meeting his gaze. “I see how the Gothic ambassadors regard you, how they address you, how they respect you, admire you. These are men who value nothing more than strength, both of character and of the right arm. You have both in abundance. If you but said the word, the nobles of the Goths would cast that feeble dotard Vitiges off his throne and put you...that is, they would follow you. Then, with your biscuit-eaters and the swords of all the Goths behind you, no one in the world could command you.”
     “And as I said to you once before, no honorable man would follow a general who did what you propose,” Belisarius replied with mounting frustration. “What’s more, you do not know what you are asking.”
     “How so?” Antonina said. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”
     “I never suggested that you were, my love,” Belisarius softened. “But let us play out your ambitious scheme a bit. Let us assume that the Goths depose Vitiges and elevate me in his place. And I, shattering all bonds of loyalty, accept their acclamations. And ignoring this act of perfidy, my army supports the claim and allows me to sit in security upon a throne in Italy. Have you thought about what happens next?”
     Antonina smiled, her eyes glistening with avarice. “Yes. You rule brilliantly, and I rule beside you as your consort as Theodora does in Constantinople.”
     “No, my dearest,” Belisarius said, a little sadly. “Within a month, my subjects will notice that I have but one child—a girl-child who resides in the East within easy reach of the Emperor and Empress. You don’t expect that our Joannina will be allowed to leave and join her traitorous parents, do you?”
     “That is of no concern,” Antonina whispered urgently. “I have agents in Byzantium who could spirit her away before anyone in the palace knew.”
     “For their part, the Goths will not accept Photius,” Belisarius continued in the same tone.
     “Why not? He is your son...”
     “They will see him as your son, not mine,” Belisarius declared. “They will demand a natural son to be my heir. For them, blood is of paramount importance. Do you begin to understand? They will encourage, cajole, wheedle, and threaten me to put you away and marry another woman—a younger woman—who will bear me sons. Recall how they have treated Amalasuntha and her son? How they have treated Matasuntha, though she is the granddaughter of Theodoric? Most likely, they will declare Matasuntha’s marriage to Vitiges annulled, seeing how the vows were made under duress. They will urge me to set you aside and marry her. And considering I have already broken my sacred oath to Justinian, sundering my marriage vow would be a comparatively small thing.”
     Antonina smiled. “There is only one problem with your scenario,” she said seductively, moving her lips toward his ear. “Justinian doesn’t love you as I do.” With her perfectly manicured fingers, she caressed his beard. “You will never set me aside. I have no anxiety. What’s more, do not doubt my ability to handle threats to us. I shall work upon the Gothic nobles, playing one off against the other, arranging advantageous marriages for their sons. I have no fear of court intrigue, for if you make me a queen, I will hold to my diadem with a death-grip every bit as tight as that of my mentor, Theodora.”
     Belisarius sighed, not unkindly, and kissed her. Then, rising to his feet, he gave her hand a squeeze and smiled affectionately. “I have no doubt you were born to be a queen, my love.” Collecting his papers, he made his way toward the door. “But unfortunately, you have married a mere soldier.”

So in the end, it seems likely that Belisarius could have had a long and successful reign as Western Roman Emperor—and it's very likely that he knew that the political and military situation was favorable to him—but he refused the imperial diadem for three reasons:

1. Because he would not transgress the solemn oath he took to Justinian.
2. Because he would not transgress the solemn oath he took to his wife. 
3. Because he was a devout Christian and to him, the keeping of oaths was more important than glory in this world.

If the above reasons are correct, Belisarius becomes a rather rare bird in human history. And we can more easily understand why the Gothic nobles were so utterly flabbergasted when Belisarius ended up leaving Ravenna and rejecting the greatest office in human history: Emperor of the Romans.

"They reproached him as a breaker of promises, calling him a slave by his own choice." ~ Belisarius declines the throne of the Western Empire, AD 540

Belisarius hit the Goths with a major plot-twist in AD 540.

Everyone knows that the Western Roman Empire formally ended in AD 476 when Odoacer deposed the boy-emperor Romulus Augustulus. Or was it AD 480, when the exiled Western Emperor Julius Nepos was assassinated? Or was it in AD 486 when the Roman general Syagrius was defeated by Clovis, King of the Franks, and his outpost of Roman rule in northwestern Gaul was absorbed into the Frankish Kingdom? 

No matter which date is attached to it, the Western Empire had certainly assumed room temperature by AD 493, even if the Eastern Emperor in Constantinople kept up the fiction that the Ostrogoths under Theodoric the Great ruled Italy and Dalmatia as his viceroys. 

But something strange happened about fifty years later in AD 540. A serious effort was made to revive the Western Roman Empire, and if not for the loyalty and devotion of one man, it may have happened.

Regular readers of this blog have seen my frequent posts about war in Italy launched by Justinian beginning in AD 536 (see here, here, here, and here). This war of reconquest was a long, grinding affair which included long sieges of Neapolis (Naples), Rome, Ariminum (Rimini), and Ravenna. The Goths began the war with a significant advantage in both men and morale, only to be methodically worn down by Justinian's Master of Soldiers, Belisarius. By spring of AD 540, Belisarius and his reinforced Roman army had King Vittigis and the remnant of the Gothic forces trapped in Ravenna. 

Considering the scale of the reverses the Goths had suffered, they had no confidence left in their poorly-chosen king, and were ready to talk peace. For his part, Justinian was also ready to talk peace. The Persians under Chosroes I had crossed the frontier and had invaded Roman Mesopotamia, penetrating far into the Empire and threatening the cities of Syria. For Justinian, bringing the war in Italy to a rapid close was his top priority. He therefore sent ambassadors to Ravenna to negotiate an armistice which would leave the Goths in control of Italy north of the River Po, thereby forming a buffer state between Roman Italy to the south of the Po and the bellicose Franks.  

Feeling cheated of his hard-won victory in Italy, and perhaps not fully comprehending the disaster unfolding in the East, Belisarius greeted the peace overtures from Constantinople with dismay. In the words of Procopius who was an eye-witness to events in Italy:

Belisarius, upon hearing this, was moved with vexation, counting it a great calamity that anyone should prevent him from winning the decisive victory of the whole war, when it was possible to do so with no trouble, and leading Vittigis a captive to Byzantium. So when the envoys returned from Ravenna, he refused absolutely to ratify the agreement by his own signature. [Procopius, History of the Wars, Book VI, Chapter XXIX]

Belisarius's stubbornness perplexed both the Goths and the Roman ambassadors. Even his own officers were unanimous in their opinion that he should forgo the conquest of all of Italy and follow the Emperor's decision to split the country. For their part, the Goths feared a double-cross and would not accept any treaty unless it was ratified by Belisarius. 

It was at this moment that a most unexpected thing happened: someone in the Gothic court suggested that they not surrender to Justinian, but to Belisarius instead. At the same time, they would declare Belisarius Emperor and seat him upon the vacant throne of the Western Roman Empire. 

Who proposed this audacious plan? Procopius does not say. In Rome the Eternal, I put the idea into the mouth of Aurelius Cassiodorus, largely for dramatic reasons. However, it is possible if not likely that Cassiodorus played a role in this gambit. After all, he was an extremely able man with long experience navigating a dangerous course between the conservative Roman nobility and the sometimes volatile Gothic royal court. He had been Praetorian Prefect under Queen Amalasuntha, King Theodatus, and under Vittigis as well. After AD 538, he drops out of the historical record for about a decade—his official correspondence ceases during this time. His name is not found at all in the histories of Procopius. Given his political prominence, and his stature as an historian in his own right, having completed an extensive history of the Goths in the early 530s, it is certainly strange that Procopius doesn't mention him. Could there have been a bit of professional jealousy or political rivalry at work? After all, for a classicizing historian like Procopius, the greatest insult he could offer someone he disliked was to pretend he didn't exist. 

One gets a strong sense when reading Procopius's account of the Gothic offer of the Purple to Belisarius, that the historian is not telling the whole story—that he is purposely holding back some of the key details. This is likely because the topic itself was fraught with peril. If the taint of disloyalty to the emperor was attached to any individual in Procopius's retelling, it could have disastrous consequences for the person thus exposed. 

In the case of Belisarius, his legendary loyalty to the emperor and his subsequent behavior tended to immunize him from any charges of treachery. So Procopius has no difficulty describing the part in this affair played by his illustrious benefactor.

When the Goths presented their bold proposal to Belisarius, he pretended to accept. Procopius records Belisarius's true feelings as follows:

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Belisarius was quite unwilling to assume the ruling power against the will of the emperor; for he had an extraordinary loathing for the name of tyrant, and furthermore he had, in fact, been bound by the emperor previously with most solemn oaths never during his lifetime to organize a revolution; still, in order to turn the situation before him to the best advantage, he let it appear that he received the proposals of the barbarians gladly. [Procopius, History of the Wars, Book VI, Chapter XXIX]

What happened next? The Goths surrendered and Belisarius took all the necessary oaths, holding back only the oath to receive the imperial power which he said he would do when he was in Ravenna with his army. The Gothic envoys did not think this at all odd, as Procopius relates:

The envoys, thinking that he would never reject the kingship, but that he would strive for it above all other things, made not the least hesitation in urging him to come with them into Ravenna. [Procopius, History of the Wars, Book VI, Chapter XXIX]

Once inside Ravenna, Belisarius put King Vittigis under guard, disbanded the Gothic army, and proceeded to bring in provisions to feed the starving populace. He did not take any action, ceremonial or otherwise, to proclaim his reign. It wasn't long before the Gothic nobles realized that Belisarius had no intention of ruling as emperor or anything other than Justinian's Master of Soldiers. When Belisarius was summoned back to Constantinople and it became clear that he had every intention of following the emperor's command, the Goths were incensed. In a last ditch effort, they called on Belisarius to uphold his promises, as Procopius writes:

These envoys, upon coming before Belisarius, reminded him of the agreement made with them and reproached him as a breaker of promises, calling him a slave by his own choice, and chiding him because, they said, he did not blush at choosing servitude in place of the kingship. [Procopius, History of the Wars, Book VI, Chapter XXX]

Belisarius did not respond as they hoped:

He, contrary to their expectations, refused them outright saying that never, while the emperor Justinian lived, would Belisarius usurp the title of king. [Procopius, History of the Wars, Book VI, Chapter XXX]

Soon after this confrontation, Belisarius left Italy for Constantinople. Shortly thereafter, the Goths named a new king, Totila, who would be the scourge of Italy for the next decade plus.

19th century woodcut of Belisarius refusing the imperial diadem.

But questions remain. If Belisarius had accepted the diadem of the Western Roman Empire, what would have happened? Could he have remained on the throne? How would Justinian have reacted? Did Belisarius have the political and administrative acumen to rule successfully? Would he have had the military and diplomatic skill to extend Roman power beyond Italy?

Given how long this post has become, I will explore these questions in a separate post.