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Updated: June 28, 2025
When brought before Belisarius, he found him sitting at the feet of Antonina, who reclined on a couch. The attending clergy had been left behind the first and second curtains. The Pope and the deacon Vigilius entered alone. "Lord Pope Silverius," said Antonina, "what have we done to thee and the Romans that thou wouldst deliver us into the hands of the Goths?"
It was for his use that the granaries had been replenished: the charity of Pope Vigilius had purchased and embarked an ample supply of Sicilian corn; but the vessels which escaped the Barbarians were seized by a rapacious governor, who imparted a scanty sustenance to the soldiers, and sold the remainder to the wealthy Romans.
The Emperor exerted all his efforts in this direction, and there did not appear to be the least doubt that Paul would be reinstated. But Vigilius, who at the time was in Byzantium, resolved not to submit to the Emperor's orders in this matter, and declared that it was impossible for him to annul by his own decision a sentence which Pelagius had given in his name.
Rome was, however, very far from receiving the advantages she had expected; the inconceivable wickedness of Constantinople was brought into Italy. Pope Sylverius, who was the son of Pope Hormisdas, was deposed by Theodora, the emperor's wife. This woman, once a common prostitute, sold the papacy to Vigilius for two hundred pounds of gold.
Then Vigilius set out to return to Rome, but died on his way at Syracuse in the beginning of 555. He had spent seven years in the Greek capital, in a position more difficult than had ever before occurred; ignorant himself of the language; struggling to his utmost to meet the dangers which assaulted the Church from every side. Now one and now another seemed to threaten the greater evil.
John Chrysostom, that Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria? who can admire or revere Pope Vigilius? And here another consideration presents itself to my thoughts.
The Latin Church, with Vigilius the pope at its head, declined to accept the Imperial decree, which was in contradiction to the Council of Chalcedon of 451.
If his treatment of Vigilius, whom he acknowledged in the clearest terms as Pope, was scandalous and cruel, still worse, if possible, was the assumption of a right to interpret and to define the Church's doctrine for the Church. The usurper Basiliscus had been the first to issue an imperial decree on doctrine. This was in favour of heresy.
They ascribed their own polemical works to the most venerable names of Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples; and the famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability, from this African school.
He persecuted Vigilius: he deposed his own patriarch Eutychius. His example, as that of the most distinguished Byzantine monarch, told with great force upon his successors, for the persecution of future Popes and the deposition of future patriarchs.
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