680. persuaded thereof, that he resented the obstinacy of Wilfrid in refusing to declare it so. However, to act in this affair with the precaution that became his character, he called his nobility and clergy to advise upon the matter; and after mature deliberation, instead of yielding obedience to the judgment of Agatho and his council and restoring Wilfrid to his bishopric, that prince, by the advice and consent of his bishops and nobility, sent Wilfrid to prison, and put him under such strict confinement that he suffered nobody to come near him. And in this miserable condition he languished nine months, where we must leave him, and look back to the state of the English church under Theodore. CHAPTER VII. AB ANNO 680 AD ANNUM 691. 1. Account of the rise and progress of the Monothelite heresy. Honorius bishop of Rome guilty thereof. It occasions the convening the council at Hatfield. 2. The state of learning and of the English bishoprics at the time of this council: wise conduct thereof. 3. Proceedings of the council of Hatfield. English church settled on the doctrine of Christ explained by the first general councils. 4. This council imitates a provincial council at Milan and the ancients. John precentor of St. Peter's at Rome present thereat. The mistakes that Baronius runs into upon that account. The true occasion of his coming into England. 5. Theodore sends a copy of this council to Rome. The monkish account of this council. 6. The bishoprics of Worcester, Leicester, Hereford, founded; Sidnacester restored. 7. Leicester said to be mistaken for Chester. Reason of that charge considered. 8. Wilfrid flies to the South-Saxons, where he is instrumental in the conversion of the people of Sussex and Surrey. 9. Occasions and circumstances of their conversion. Bishopric of Selsey erected. Wilfrid first bishop thereof. 10. Christian religion generally received in England. Wilfrid reconciled to Theodore; restored to York. Changes thence ensued. 11. Wilfrid's unquiet spirit occasions a new banishment; flies to the king of Mercia; is made bishop of Leicester. Death of Theodore archbishop of Canterbury. 1. THOUGH the difficulties with which men penetrate 6 Eddius ibid. c. 33. common things should, one would think, lead them to the 680. most profound modesty in their judgments and discourses of things in their own natures incomprehensible, yet such is our unhappy temper, that, whilst ignorance leads us into errors, the vanity of men is such that it is with the greatest difficulty they part with them, and very often we choose rather to part with God's way of speaking than with our own. And as this unhappiness in the nature of men has given beginning to many heresies, so it has made them very troublesome and uneasy to the world. That which at this time divided the eastern and western churches was the heresy of the Monothelites, which seems rather a branch of the Eutychian heresy, or that heresy in another dress, than a new and distinct opinion. Eutyches, abbot of the monastery of Constantinople about the middle of the fifth century, had broached an opinion which destroyed the distinct properties of the divine and human nature of Christ, and with obstinacy persisted therein; but that heresy, falling under the censure of the council of Chalcedon during the life of Eutyches, made no great progress in the world'. But out of the ashes of that heresy arose that of the Monothelites about the middle of the seventh century, which by asserting one will and operation in Christ did, at least in the consequence of it, destroy the distinction of natures; for which reason, as I think, Bede in his preamble to the Council of Hatfield speaks of the heresy best known by that of the Monothelites under the name of the Eutychian heresy 2. But, to let pass the original of this error, about the middle of this century the heresy of the Monothelites begun to spread itself in the church, and prevailed so far, that Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul, successively bishops of Constantinople, and Honorius bishop of Rome, and many of the leading men of the eastern church, fell into this error; and Theodore at 1 [For an account of Eutyches and his sect see Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History Cent. V, part II, chap. v, §§ 13-20; Neander's Church History vol. IV, pp. 216-247, in Clark's Foreign Theological Library.] 2 [Bed. Eccles. Hist. IV, 17. For an account of the heresy of the 680. this time patriarch of Constantinople3, and Macarius patriarch of Antioch, together with many of their clergy, were great favourers of it. And this interrupted the ancient method to preserve the unity of the church by epistles, containing a confession of faith, sent from new advanced bishops to the patriarchs and other eminent bishops of the church, as well from the bishops of Rome to those of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, as on the contrary. And these letters being thus reciprocal, a common friendship and communion were preserved. But for the reasons above this course ceasing about this time not only put a stop to the intercourse betwixt the eastern and western churches, but it made so wide a breach betwixt them, that some eastern bishops petitioned the emperor Constantine Pogonatus, that the names of the bishops of Rome might be left out of the diptychs of the church, and particularly the name of Vitalian, by whom Theodore was sent into Britain 5. As this occasioned the calling of the sixth general council to meet this year at Constantinople, and in order thereunto several provincial councils, so Theodore archbishop of Canterbury could not but think himself obliged to take notice of a heresy which made so much noise in the world at this time; and therefore having intimated this to Ecgfrid king of the Northumbrians, to Ethelred king of the Mercians, Adulph king 3 [Theodore seems to have been made bishop of Constantinople in 676. He was displaced by the emperor in 678, and restored by him, after the death of George his successor in the see, in 683. See Pagi on Baron. Annal. an. 666, ii; an. 678, v; an. 682, vii.] 4 Concil. Labbe VI, 594, [Mansi XI, 196. The reference here made is to the emperor's letter addressed to pope Donus, but received after his death by pope Agatho, by which the sixth general council was called together. It states that Theodore, on becoming patriarch of Constantinople, would not send to the bishop of Rome the usual synodical epistle, fearing it would not be received, but sent a hortatory letter instead. The contents of Theodore's letter are not known, nor is there any record of the answer sent to it. But it is very plain from the emperor's letter, that the new opinions had already caused much disagreement between the eastern and western churches; and he summoned the council in the hope of settling the points in dispute and of restoring peace and unity to Christendom.] 5 Ibid. [The cessation of these letters, if they did now cease, was the consequence, rather than the cause, of the breach between the eastern and western churches. Theodore of Constantinople and Macarius of Antioch were the eastern bishops who petitioned the emperor. They wished to leave out the names of all the bishops of Rome after Honorius. See before, vi, 6, note 3.] of the East-Angles, and Lotharius king of Kent, a council was called, which met at Hatfield the fifteenth of the calends of October, or the fifteenth of September, 680. 2. Learning was at this time in so few hands and at so low an ebb through the western churches, that what Baronius saith of Agatho's sending for archbishop Theodore to Rome to assist him in writing against the heresy of the Monothelites 1 has much more appearance of truth than what he elsewhere saith of his being summoned thither as a subject to the council of Rome 2; and his conduct in this council seems to answer the received opinion of his abilities. For, notwithstanding what Diceto saith of an hundred bishops assembled in the council of Hatfield 3, one has much ado to find out the tenth part of that number. For the whole kingdom of Mercia, containing all the midland counties of England, had at this time but two bishops, and these were Sexulfus bishop of Lichfield and Ethelwine bishop of Sidnacester; or at the most but five, if the division of that kingdom was made the year preceding +. But it seems probable that that division was owing to the resolution taken in the council of Hatfield to increase the number of bishoprics 5; and, if the design was formed the preceding year, yet it appears that Bosel, who was the first actual bishop of Worcester, was not consecrated till this year 6. Erkenwald bishop of London was the only bishop of the East-Saxons, and Hedda of the West. Bosa was bishop of York, Eata of Lindisfarne and Hagul 6 [Rather, the seventeenth.] 1 Baron. Annal. an. 679, v. [See before, vi, 9, note 4.] 2 [Baron. Annal. an. 679, ix; 680, ii, viii.] 3 ["Concilium coegit centum episcoporum et doctorum plurimorum". Rad. de Dicet. Hist. Archiep. Cant., Vit. Theodori, Angl. Sacr. II, 679. But in Abbrev. Chron. an. 683 he says, "Theodorus archiepiscopus cœtum episcoporum doctorumque plurimorum collegit." Scriptor. X ed. Twysden, col. 441. Probably in the course of transcription centum was substituted in the former passage for cœtum.] [See before, vi, 2, 5; and § 6 in this chapter.] 5 [No such resolution" is recorded to have been "taken in the council of Hatfield." See before, vi, 10, note 6.] 6 Annal. Wigorn., Angl. Sacr. I, 469. [Florence of Worcester, Append. " Hwiccia", expressly says that the see of Worcester was constituted in 679, and that Tatfrith, a monk of Streanaeshalch (now Whitby), was chosen for the first bishop, but died before he could be consecrated. It is very likely therefore that Bosel, who was chosen in his room, could not be consecrated before 680.] 680. 680. stad, Ecca bishop of the East-Angles . Quichelm was about this time bishop of Rochester; and it is probable that his predecessor Putta, some time before driven from that see, was yet living. As for Wilfrid, it is very probable that, notwithstanding what is said to the contrary by Baronius, he was a prisoner in England at the time of this council: and it is very evident that the South-Saxons were yet unconverted. So that upon the whole matter it appears that the English bishops who assembled in this council, including Theodore archbishop of Canterbury, could not exceed the number of nine or ten at the most: and for the British or Scotch bishops, there is no reason to believe that they were present, or so much as summoned to it; but on the contrary that it was made up of the clergy of the dominions of those princes whose names are inserted in the preamble thereof; and if the name of the king of the East-Saxons be omitted, it is probable it was because he was at this time a tributary to the king of the Northumbrians. Bede by his way of speaking of this assembly gives some reason to think that the bishops were assisted therein by some of the lower clergy, but does not give us light enough to determine who they were, or what interest they had in this affair 10. But, whatever the men were by whom this council was conducted, the result thereof carries great appear 7 [See before, vi, 4.] 8 When Bisi, who was sole bi- |