ed to
confirm this council; and, in 695, the emperor, Justinian II., surnamed
Rhinotmetus, who had succeeded his father, Constantine Pogonatus, in
685, was dethroned for his cruelty, and his nose being slit, (from which
circumstance he received his surname,) banished into Chersonesus. First
Leontius, then Apsimarus Tiberius, ascended the throne; but Justinian
recovered it in 705, and invited pope Constantine into the East, hoping
to prevail upon him to confirm the council in Trullo. The pope was
received with great honor, and had with him our saint, who, in his name,
answered the questions put by the Greeks concerning the said council.
After their return to Rome, upon the death of Constantine, Gregory was
chosen pope, and ordained on the 19th of May, 715. The emperor Justinian
being detested both by the army and people, Bardanes, who took the name
of Philippicus, an Armenian, one of his generals, revolted, took
Constantinople, put him and his son Tiberius, only seven years old, to
death, and usurped the sovereignty in December, 711. In Justinian II was
extinguished the family of Heraclius. Philippicus abetted warmly the
heresy of the Monothelites, and caused the sixth council to be
proscribed in a pretended synod at Constantinople. His reign was very
short, for Artemius, his secretary, {411} who took the name of
Anastasius II., deposed him, and stepped into the throne on the fourth
of June, 713. By him the Monothelites were expelled; but, after a reign
of two years and seven months, seeing one Theodosius chosen emperor by
the army, which had revolted in January, 716, he withdrew, and took the
monastic habit at Thessalonica. The eastern army having proclaimed Leo
III., surnamed the Isaurian, emperor, on the 25th of March, 717,
Theodosius and his son embraced an ecclesiastical state, and lived in
peace among the clergy. Pope Gregory signalized the beginning of his
popedom by deposing John VI., the Monothelite, false patriarch of
Constantinople, who had been nominated by Philippicus, and he promoted
the election of St. Germanus, who was translated to that dignity from
Cyzicus, in 715. With unwearied watchfulness and zeal he laid himself
out in extirpating heresies on all sides, and in settling a reformation
of manners. Besides a hospital for old men, he rebuilt the great
monastery near the church of St. Paul at Rome, and, after the death of
his mother, in 718, changed her house into the monastery of St. Agatha.
The same yea