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From The Lives of the Popes from the Time of our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII. Written Originally in Latin by B. Platina, Native of Cremona, and translated into English (from an anonymous translation, first printed in 1685 by Sir Paul Rycaut), Edited by William Benham, Volume I, London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, [1888, undated in text]; pp. 153-155.

The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina

Volume I.


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[153]

MARTIN  I.

A.D. 649-655.

MARTIN the First, born at Todi, son of Fabricius, succeeding Theodorus, forthwith despatches his legates to Constantinople, to admonish Paul to quit his errors, and at length to return into the way of truth. But he not only disobeyed the Pope’s commands, but also, being countenanced therein by Constantius, offered great indignities to those legates, and then banished them into several islands. Martin, highly resenting this usage, calls a synod of a hundred and five bishops at Rome, wherein he renews the condemnation of Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius, and Pyrrhus, and excommunicates and deprives Paul the patriarch with the bitterest anathemas imaginable.

While these things were transacting, the peace of Italy, which had lasted between the Romans and the Lombards thirty years, began now to be disturbed. For the Lombards took mightily upon them, and imposed such unjust conditions upon the Romans as they could not submit to; particularly Rhotaris, being himself an Arian, and scarce any city over which he did not set up an Arian as well as a Catholic bishop. This was an evil which both Theodorus and Martin had often 154 endeavoured to remedy, but in vain. For this reason, and also at the instance of Theodorus the exarch, a war was proclaimed with the Lombards, whereupon they take up arms, and near Scultenna, a river of Modena, a sharp engagement there was on both sides. But in the end Theodorus was vanquished and routed, and lost in the fight near seven thousand of his men. Rhotaris, being flushed with this victory, in a short time easily made himself master of all Liguria. Now Constantius, hoping that the change of his general might change his fortune too, recalls Theodorus, and sends Olympius, his exarch, into Italy, with instructions, both to propagate the sect of the Monothelites throughout Italy, and also either to put Pope Martin to death, or else to take care to have him sent prisoner to Constantinople. Olympus coming to Rome, where there had been already a synod held against this and other the errors of the Oriental Church, and finding that he could not disperse the contagion as he thought to do, sends one of his officers to seize Martin in the church of St Maria Maggiore, and either to bring him to him, or else to kill him if he refused and made resistance. The officer, being just ready to execute this order, was by miracle suddenly struck with blindness; and so by Divine providence Martin escaped danger. The Saracens taking heart upon this great dissension between the Eastern and Western Church, set sail from Alexandria with a great fleet, and arriving at Rhodes, and taking the city, they destroyed the famous and celebrated colossus there, with the brass of which it is said they loaded nine hundred camels; this colossus being seventy feet high, the workmanship of Chares, the scholar of Lysippus. Afterwards having possessed themselves of several islands in the Archipelago, and thence sailing to Sicily, they very much infested the inhabitants of that island. Hereupon Olympius, at the entreaty of Pope Martin, makes an expedition and forces them thence; though not without the loss of many of his ships and men, and even that of his own life too, for he fell sick in Sicily and died there. But Constantius, who was not in the least bettered by all these calamities, commands Theodorus Calliopa again into Italy, with express order that he should forthwith send Pope Martin bound to him; and to assist him in that affair, he joins Paulus Pellarius with him, who was to take care to see it done. Theodorus, having been honourably received by the Romans, and going upon pretence of making a visit to the Pope, seizes 155 and puts him in fetters, and so sends him to Constantinople, from whence he was afterwards banished to the Chersonese, the place where Clemens Romanus had formerly been an exile. Now Martin, being thus compassed with calamities, and pinched with extreme want, at length dies in banishment, after he had been in the chair six years, one month, twenty-six days. And because it was long before there came certain intelligence of his death, the see was vacant fourteen months.

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Previous Pope:  74. Theodorus I. 75. Martin I. Next Pope: 77. Eugenius I.

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