general, was completely under the power of his wife Antonina. With the conquest of Italy the popes fell into a perilous and unworthy dependence on the emperor at Constantinople, who reverenced, indeed, the Roman cliaii', but not less tiiat of Constantinople, and in reality sought to use both as tools of his own state-church despotism. Agapetus (535-536) offered fearless resistance to the arbitrary course of Justinian, and § 64. THE PAPACY FKOM LEO I. TO GREGORY I. 327 successfully protested against the elevation of tlie Eutycbian Anthiinus to the patriarchal see of CoDstantiuo23le. But, by the intrigues of the Monophysite empress, his successor, Pope SiLVERius (a son of Ilormisdas, 536-538), was deposed on the charge of treasonable correspondence with the Goths, and banished to the island of Pandataria, whither the worst heathen emperors used to send the victims of their tyranny, and where in 540 he died — whether a natural or a violent death, we do not know. ViGiLius, a pliant creature of Theodora, ascended the papal chair under the military protection of Belisarius (538-554). The empress had promised him this office and a sum of money, on condition that he nullify the decrees of the council of Chal- cedon, and pronounce Anthimus and his friends orthodox. The ambitious and doubled-tongued prelate accepted the con- dition, and accomplished the deposition, and perhaps the death, of Silverins. In his pontificate occurred the violent contro- versy of the three chapters and the second general council of Constantinople (553). His administration was an unprincipled vacillation between the dignity and duties of his office and subservience to an alien theological and political influence ; between repeated condemnation of the three chapters in behalf of a Eutychianizing spirit, and repeated retraction of that con- demnation. In Constantinople, where he resided several yeare at the instance of the emperor, he suffered much personal persecution, but without the spirit of martyrdom, and without its glory. For example, at least according to Western ac- counts, he was violently torn from the altar, iipon which he was holding with both hands so firmly that the posts of the canopy fell in above him ; he was dragged through the streets with a rope around his neck, and cast into a common prison ; because he would not submit to the will of Justinian and his comicH. Yet he yielded at last, through fear of deposition. He obtained permission to return to Home, but died in Sicily, of the stone, on his way thither (554), Pelagius I. (554-560), by order of Justinian, whose favor he had previously gained as papal legate at Constantinople, was made successor of Yigilius, but found only two bishops 328 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. ready to consecrate liim. His close connection witli the East, and his approval of the fifth ecumenical council, which was regarded as a partial concession to the Eutjchian Christology, and, so far, an impeachment of the authority of the council of Chalcedon, alienated many Western bishops, even in Italy, and induced