18 October 707 A.D. John VII Dies—Rome’s 86th; Greek-Born; Restored Palace on Palatine Hill; Timorous Disposition; Justinian II Writes “Many Things Against Rome”
Mann, Horace. "Pope John
VII." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1910.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08423b.htm. Accessed 19 Jul 2014.
Pope John VII
(705-707).
The year of his birth is unknown; d. 18 October, 707. Few particulars of his life remain. Like many other popesduring the period of Byzantine influence in Rome, John was a Greek. Sprung from a distinguished family, he was the son of Blatta and Plato. The latter carried out various restorations in the imperial palace on thePalatine hill in Rome, and, for the sake, perhaps, of living where once his parents had lived, John after he had become pope (March 1, 705) constructed a palace (episcopium) near the church of Sancta Maria Antiqua. Before his elevation, John was the rector of the papal patrimony on the Appian way. It was in that capacity that he erected a memorial "with a broken heart to a most loving and incomparable mother, and to the kindest of fathers" (687). One of the churches which John beautified or restored during his pontificate was the afore-mentioned church of Sancta Maria Antiqua. "He adorned with frescoes the basilica of the Holy Mother of God which is known as the Old", and gave it a new ambo. When the remains of this church were brought to light in 1900, among the many figures found upon its walls, one with a square nimbus is supposed to represent Johnhimself. There was also then discovered the base of his ambo. It bore upon it inscriptions which proclaimed him to be "the servant of Mary". John also erected a chapel to Our Lady in St. Peter's. When this oratory was destroyed, some of his mosaics were preserved, and may be seen in the Roman Church of Sancta Maria in Cosmedin and in other places. Though John was a man of learning and eloquence, and though he was remarkable for his filial affection and piety, he was of a timorous disposition. Hence, when the fierce Emperor Justinian II sent him the decrees of the Quinisext Council, "in which were many articles against the See of Rome", with a request that he would set forth what he approved in them, John simply returned them, as though there were nothing to condemn in them. He received back from the Lombard King Aripert II the papal patrimonies in the Cottian Alps, which the Lombards had confiscated. John is credited with having prevailed upon the Anglo-Saxon clergy resident in Rome to renounce their secular style of dress, and with having written to those in England bidding them follow this example. John died in the palace he had built near the Palatine, and was buried in the oratory he had erected in St. Peter's.
Sources
Liber
Pontificalis,
I, 385 sqq.; NICEPHORUS AND THEOPHANES, Chron., 696-8; BEDE, De sex ætat., ad an. 708; PAUL THE
DEACON, Hist. Lang., VI, 23 (28);
RUSHWORTH in Papers of the British
School at Rome, I (London, 1902);
FEDERICI in Archivio Rom. di stor.
pat.,
XXIII (Borne, 1900), 517 sqq.; MARUCCHI, Le Forum Romain (Paris, 1902), 230
sqq.; MANN, Lives of the Popes in
the early Middle Ages, vol. I, pt. 1 (London and St. Louis, 1902), 109 sqq.
No comments:
Post a Comment