780 FOUKTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
accepted an invitation of his pupil Otho III. to Magdeburg, followed him to Italy (996), was by imperial favor made arch bishop of Ravenna (998), and a year afterwards raised to the papal throne as Sylvester II. He was the first French pope. The three R's (Rheims, Ravenna, Rome) mark his highest dig nities, as expressed in the line ascribed to him :
" Scandit ab It. Gerbertus in JR., fit postea papa vigens R"
As Gerbert of Rheims he had advocated liberal views and boldly attacked the Roman Antichrists who at that time were seated in the temple of God ; but as Sylvester II. he disowned his Gallican antecedents and supported the claims of the papacy.1 He did, however, nothing remarkable during his short and troublesome pontificate (between 999-1003), except crown King Stephen of Hungary and give the first impulse, though prema turely, to the crusades at a time when hundreds of pilgrims flocked to the Holy Land in expectation of the end of the world after the lapse of the first Christian millennium.2
His character has been very differently j udged. The papal biographers of the later middle ages malignantly represent him as a magician in league with the devil, and his life and pontifi cate as a series of monstrous crimes.3 This story arose partly
1 Hefele (IV. 654) assumes a gradual change in his views on the papal power in consequence of deeper reflection and bitter experience, and applies to him the words of Pius II.: " JEneam rejicile, Fium recipite" Eeuter says (I. 84) : " Der Heros der Aufkldrung wurde der Reprdsentant der auf ubernaturlichem Fundament basirten Autoritat" But Gerbert was a strong supernaturalist before that time, as his book on the Lord's Supper proves. His controversy with the papacy had nothing to do with doctrine any more than the contro versy between Gallicanism and Ultramontanism. It was simply a question as to the extent of papal jurisdiction.
2 See above, p. 295 sq.
3 Dollinger, in his Papstfabeln des Mittelalters (English transl. ed. by Henry B. Smith, pp. 267-272), devotes several pages to this fable, and traces it to Eome and to Cardinal Benno, the calumnious enemy of Gregory VII., who was likewise accused of black arts. According to Benno, Satan promised his pupil Gerbert that he should not die till he had said mass in Jerusalem. Gerbert thought himself safe till he should get to Palestine; but when he read
2 179. GERBERT (SYLVESTER II.). 781
from his uncommon learning and supposed contact with Mo hammedanism, partly from his former antagonistic position to Rome. Some modern historians make him an ambitious in triguer.1
His literary labors are chiefly mathematical.2 His theologi cal works are few and unimportant, and do not rise above the superstition of his age. His short treatise, " De Corpore et fianguine Domini" is a defense of the doctrine of transubstantiation as taught by Paschasius Radbertus, with the additional notion that the consecrated elements are not digested like other food (as the Stercorianists held), but are imperishable spiritual nourishment for the inner man, and constitute the germ of the future resurrection body.3 Where words give out there is the more room for faith.4
In his sermon De informatione episcoporurrij if genuine,5 he presents the high theocratic view of the middle ages, raises the episcopate far above royalty,6 and attacks the common traffic in ecclesiastical dignities (simony), but maintains also that all
mass in the Jerusalem church (Santa Croce in Jerusalemme] at Rome, he was summoned to die, and caused his tongue and hand to be cut off by way of ex piation. The Dominicans adopted the myth, and believed that Gerbert early sold himself to Satan, was raised by him to the papal throne, and had daily intercourse with him, but confessed at last his enormous crimes, and showed hia repentance by hacking off one limb after another. Since that time the rattling of his bones in the tomb gives notice of the approaching death of the pope.
1 So especially Gfrorer, partly also Hauck. But Hock, Biidinger and Daraberger defend his character and orthodoxy. Neander, Htfele, Giesebrecht deal justly with him.
2 " Le s avoir dominant dc Gcrbert e'tait la science des mathematiques." (Hist. lit. de la France.) He wrote De numcrorum divisione; De geometria; De spherse constructione ; De Rationali et Ratione uti, etc. See Migne, 1. c. 125 sqq.
3 In Migne, col. 179-188. Comp. above, p. 552.
* De Corp. et Sang. D. t. 7 (col. 185) : " Ecce quantum fides proficit, ubisermo deficit."1' 6 Olleris and Giesebrecht doubt the genuineness.
' L. c. col. 170: " Sublimitas episcopalis nullis poterit comparationibus &quari. Si regum compares infulas et principum diademata, longe erit inferius, quasi plumbi metallum ad auri fulgorem compares"