me. ochs. the world. Christianity as well as civilization became conterminous with the Roman Empire."1 The prestige of the Eternal City was also a colossal force, both as holding the veneration of the people and directing the ambitious policy of the Roman bishops. The Augustan City had administered the affairs of the empire in a dominion which the bishops of Rome claimed as a pattern for their own. Already, with the proclamation of Theodosius, had begun the dispute for supremacy between the Churches of the east and the west, never settled indeed by any concord between the two, but confirming in the western mind the claims of the Roman see. Long before the final rupture, the entire Church of the west had accorded the primacy of Rome and the universal authority of its bishop. Thus to the evident tokens of inherent power, on the beneficent action of which the very life of society and civilization had depended, was added the conscious ambition to become the vicegerent of God upon the earth. With such inspiration and with a system built up by centuries of spiritual guidance and of wise statecraft, Rome at last presented an institution, with which, when the kings of the earth attempted to cross swords, the struggle was as a battle of the gods. The periods of development may be roughly noted as follows: 1. That of Alliance, from Theodosius and Augustine to Gregory the Great. 2. That of ecclesiastical effort for supremacy, from Gregory the Great to Charlemagne. 3. That of the distinct Supremacy of the State, from Charlemagne to Hildebrand. 4. That of Church Imperialism, from Hildebrand to Boniface VIII. 5. That of Nationalism, from the time of Boniface VIII. to the present day. 1 Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, pp. 12, 13. The change from one to other, save as regards the revolution wrought by Hildebrand, was by slow steps and ever subject to fluctuations, with issues unsuspected at the beginnings. Thus, it is impossible to suppose that Augustine divined the historical sequence of his theories. His principles, that the civil power should constrain unity of faith, and should subserve the interest of the Church, did not reveal at once their baneful possibilities. They were potent in present usefulness for the resettlement of society and securing of peace, of salutary effect in almost all applications. So long as the two institutions, Church and State, were content to live in the early spirit of alliance, each regardful for the other, and each practically independent in its own internal administration, there could arise few reasons for friction. These reasons were brought forth when either party, forgetting the rights and dignity of the other, attempted interference and dictation. the Churcl Out of such attempts came the first change in the form of the question of Church and State, and in the attitude of one to the other. No longer satisfied with a mutually respecting alliance, each sought a superiority. Especially did the Church Claims of learn to resent and deny all theories of equality. Confessedly a divinely instituted power, it early claimed precedence of all earthly kingdoms. Keeper of the king's personal conscience, it claimed direction of his civil rule. It took to itself the words of Wisdom, "By me kings reign, and princes decree justice." (Prov. viii. 15.) Thus, in the full outcome of its claims, it demanded from kings homage for their crowns; interfered at pleasure with the internal affairs of kingdoms, and even presumed to absolve from allegiance the subjects of monarchs bold enough to resist the authority of the pope, who affected to be a king of kings. The complete claim is seen in Boniface VIII. (A.D. 1300), seated on the throne, crowned with the tiara and girt with a sword, exclaiming, "I am Cæsar. I am Emperor." In such increasing claim of universal dominion in things secular as religious, the 'eat. Church by degrees outlined and finally enforced an imperialism vaster and further-reaching than that of the proudest Cæsars. For this issue affairs were in long training and with many fluctuations, until the culmination of papal ambition was reached in the audacity of Boniface VIII. The beginnings of egory the it may be found in Gregory the Great, who, coming to the pontificate, A.D. 590, exercised vast influence, chiefly moral, in the pacification of political affairs in Italy and the west, and showed an example of genius for government, which his able successors were not slow to emulate. The success of their pretensions was due, fully so much as to their ability, to the disorder of society and the weakness of the princes. This process of papal aggrandizement thus begun, received a long and decided check from the power of Charlemagne, though at the same time his benefactions to the Church laid the foundation of further progress. arlegne. This greatest of Frankish kings had compacted under his sceptre the whole of western Europe, conquered Italy and Rome, revived the empire of the west, of which in the year 800 he was, at Rome and by the pope, crowned emperor. Himself devoted to the Church, he confirmed the hierarchical system to which he abandoned the government of the Church; sanctioned the canon law; constituted the "States of the Church," as representing the temporal sovereignty of the popes; and established throughout his empire "the tithe, a tax on land, one third of which went to support the bishops and clergy, one third to maintain the edifices of the Church, and one third to the poor." At the same time he reserved to himself the convoking of synods and the confirming of their actions; the appointment of bishops whom he regarded as vassals of the crown; and the final decision as to the legislation of the Church. Far in advance of former rulers, Charlemagne asserted a supremacy of the state over the Church, and initiated a policy which continued operative with more or less effectiveness for two centuries. He regarded his own office as equally spiritual as secular, and his empire as a theocracy. "Among his intimate friends he chose to be called by the name of David, exercising in reality all the (theocratic) powers of the Jewish King, presiding over the kingdom of God upon earth." "There are letters of his extant, in which he lectures Pope Leo in a tone of easy superiority, admonishes him to obey the holy canons, and bids him pray earnestly for the success of the efforts which it is the monarch's duty to make for the subjugation of pagans and the establishment of sound doctrine throughout the Church. Nay, subsequent popes themselves admitted and applauded the despotic superintendence of matters spiritual which he was wont to exercise, and which led some one to give him playfully a title that had once been applied to the pope himself, Episcopus episcoporum.'. . . Within his own dominions his sway assumed a sacred character; his unwearied and comprehensive activity made him, throughout his reign, an ecclesiastical, no less than a civil, ruler; summoning and sitting in councils, examining and appointing bishops, settling by capitularies the smallest points of Church discipline and polity."1 His immediate successors were weak, and his dominions were divided for nearly half a century, but the empire was reconstituted, as the "Holy Roman Empire," in 852, by the Saxon Otto the Great, who Otto. added to the policy of Charlemagne the demand that no pontiff should be elected at Rome without the emperor's consent. This demand could not be refused, and "The pope became a secular subject to the emperor." The weakness of succeeding Franconian emperors suffered the papacy to fall under the power of Italian princes until, in 1046, Henry III. entered Italy with an army, and calling a synod, deposed three contending popes and secured for himself the right of nomination, a right exercised in the appointment of three successive pontiffs. This marked the extreme of the supremacy of the state, 1 Holy Roman Empire, pp. 64, 66. ... the power of which after the death of Henry, waned rapidly, in consequence, partly of the long minority of Henry IV. Idebrand. and chiefly of the character and power of Hildebrand. Of this pope writes Ranke in graphic words: "Gregory VII. was a man of bold, bigoted, and aspiring spirit; straightforward as a scholastic system, invincible in the stronghold of logical consequence, and no less dexterous in parrying just and wellgrounded objections with specious arguments. . . . He resolved to emancipate the papal power from the imperial yoke. The bond between both was the right of investiture. The determination that this ancient right should be wrested from the emperor was of the nature of a revolution."1 Hildebrand, first as counsellor to Popes Victor, Stephen, Nicholas II., and Alexander II., and afterwards as Gregory VII., was the ablest of the long line of pontiffs. Taking advantage of the minority of Henry, he succeeded not only in setting aside the nomination of the pontiff by the emperor, but in removing the election of the pope from the clergy and citizens of Rome to the college of cardinals. Further than this, he asserted the right of the popes to inquire into the civil administration of the empire. This was a tremendous stride of ecclesiastical ambition, for the taking of which an immediate event gave nry IV. occasion. The young Henry had attained to his majority, and in the exercise of his power had been so arbitrary that many of his subjects appealed to the pope, who summoned him to Rome to answer the complaints. To this summons Henry replied with a synod of the German Church at Worms, which called on Gregory to retire from the pontificate as having abused his office. Gregory's response was terrific. Nothing like it had ever been attempted by any bishop of Rome, and could hope to be effective only by reason of the Church's hold upon the mind and affection of the people. He excommunicated Henry and released from allegiance all his subjects. Henry was forced to submit, illustrating his penitence by standing 1 History of the Popes, p. 24. |