leo xiii, the great leader by rev. a. p. doyle written in august 1903, in _the catholic world_, a monthly magazine, on the occasion of the death of pope leo xiii. [portrait of pope leo xiii.] _my course i've run of ninety lengthening years. from thee the gift. crown them with endless bliss. o hearken to thy leo's prayers and tears, lest useless they should prove, o grant him this._ leo xiii.'s message to the twentieth century: the greatest misfortune is never to have known jesus christ. christ is the fountain-head of all good. mankind can no more be saved without his power than it can be redeemed without his mercy. when jesus christ is absent human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light: and the very end is lost sight of for which, under god's providence, human society has been built up. to reject dogma is simply to deny christianity. it is evident that they whose intellects reject the yoke of christ are obstinately striving against god. having shaken off god's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. god alone is life. all other beings partake of life, but they are not life. christ, from all eternity and by his very nature, is "the life," just as he is "the truth," because he is god of god. if any one abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth (john xv. 6). once remove all impediments and allow the spirit of christ to revive and grow in a nation, and that nation shall be healed. the world has heard enough of the so-called "rights of man." let it hear something of the rights of god. the common welfare urgently demands a return to him from whom we should never have gone astray: to him who is the way, the truth and the life,--and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. leo xiii., the great leader. by rev. a. p. doyle. the aged pontiff breathed his last at 4 p. m. on july 20. because he had lived for over ninety years, and not for any other immediate reason, the end came. though there was an apparent dissolution of his body under the devastating hand of time, still the mind is as keen and the heart as full of zeal, and the spirit as eager for work, as though the years of his glorious pontificate were before him. during the last fortnight the gaze of all the world has been eagerly fixed on the death-bed of the expiring pope, and under the white light of the public gaze he has loomed up, the great man he is, in all his gigantic proportions. the world saw the corporal feebleness of age and the ravaging hand of disease, but it saw also the conquering and unconquered spirit of the greatest man of his age--the noblest roman of them all. it is not time as yet to write his eulogy. we are too near the massive proportions of a great life to give a proper estimate of its greatness. it will be necessary to stand off from it at some distance in order to get the proper perspective. still there are, however, some things that have impressed the world, and from these we cannot get away. during these days of his mortal sickness, when the struggle with the grim monster became the keenest, leo never is anything but the christian gentleman. men of dominating minds and inflexible wills, especially if they have been accustomed to rule, are sometimes thoughtless of others who are about them. they have been so accustomed to brush away obstacles that the directness and force of their determination seem to know no fear or favor in dealing with things that surround them. leo never forgets the chivalry of christian gentleness. when the cardinals come in to see him, though he is as near prostrate in body as he may be, still he rises from his bed to meet them, and asks them to be seated. when dr. lapponi asks to be relieved for a short while to visit the sick bed of his daughter, leo apologizes for the trouble he is giving to every one around him, and says that they have all become martyrs for his sake. when one of the vatican pigeons lights on his window-sill and gently taps at the window, he awakes out of his weakness and asks that the window be raised and the bird admitted, and he feeds the pigeon as it lights on his bed, gently stroking its feathers. when every one is anticipating his speedy dissolution, he rises from his bed, goes over to his writing desk, and puts into poetry some beautiful thought that fills his mind. and in the midst of all his suffering he is full of devotion. he prays incessantly to the mother of god. st. leo's day comes, and ever since his childhood he has not failed to be present at holy mass on that day particularly; he directs that mass be said in the adjoining room, and he devoutly follows it. he was a member of the third order of franciscans, and in order to receive all the wonderful privileges that are granted to the faithful who are identified with that third order, he sends for the capuchin cardinal to give him the last blessing. his faith is strong and tender. in the visions that pass before his mind the joys of paradise are vividly depicted. he would stay to give his last breath for the church, but the alluring vision of heaven beckons him away. and in the midst of it all nothing can quench his unconquerable desire for work. there are some things that are unfinished; he calls cardinal rampolla and directs their execution. the biblical commission is very close to his heart, and he gives an admonition to his secretary that its work be prosecuted to a speedy end. these and many other little touches of character coming from the death chamber do not fail to paint the portrait of one of the greatest popes the world has ever known. leo has been a providential man in the fullest sense of the word. he has been a moses who has led the hosts of the lord from a captivity that was more galling than the slavery of egypt of old through the desert of suffering into the promised land. the forty years that have elapsed since the breach of porta pia have brought untold victories to the church. the robber king battering at the gates of rome is readily offset in the eyes of discerning readers by the eager visits of the kaiser, the head of the lutheran church, and the english king, the head of the episcopal church, to pay reverence and homage to the head of the great mother church of christendom, and everywhere throughout the world, people who are outside the fold have been devoutly praying that he might be spared to the world for many years to come. one cannot help contrasting the feelings of non-catholic people to-day towards the church of rome with the sentiments of antagonism that were expressed but a generation ago. not a little of this is due to the commanding, and at the same time attractive, figure of the great white shepherd of christendom. there have been popes who have emphasized certain characteristics, and they stand out in history as striking types of these special characteristics. innocent iii. was a great reformer; sixtus v. a great statesman; pius v. was crowned with the aureole of sanctity; gregory vi. was a man of great learning; but leo seems to have united in his own person in a very marked degree all these great qualities. his gifts were of so universal a nature that it is difficult to say which one belongs to him in the more pre-eminent degree. his genius has illuminated every department of religious activity, be it statecraft or be it letters; be it the devotional side of the church, or the philosophical, or the diplomatic, or the purely religious. as a statesman he has rallied to the support of the church the influences of the great civil powers. when he began his pontifical career england was the enemy of the papacy; germany was persecuting the catholics of the empire; the united states of america had established no definite relations with the holy see; while spain, and france, and austria, catholic at heart, were too much worried over internal difficulties to be the earnest supporters of the papacy that they should be. after twenty-five years there is no stronger friend of the dying pope than the emperor of germany. the antagonisms that were openly enunciated in the german empire against catholics have been replaced by expressions of fealty. the emperor has come to look upon the moral power of the papacy as one of the most potent supporters of the throne. leo has so stood for the authority of constituted governments, and the catholic religion has had such influence in inculcating reverence and submission among the people, that were there no force of this nature, it would be necessary to create one in order that its work may be done. in germany the people to-day are about equally divided between the catholics as loyal supporters of the throne and the socialists, who, if their programme were carried out in its entirety, would sweep the throne away and abolish the authority that it stands for. in england the same is true, though perhaps not to as large an extent as it is elsewhere. in spain leo has upheld the throne that was tottering to a disastrous fall. if it were not for his influence, spain would to-day be in the grasp of the revolution or broken up into a number of smaller states. in the united states the devotion of twelve million catholics has done not a little to cement together the stones of our social fabric by infusing the spirit of religion into the educational life of the country, and by standing for the permanency of the family and the integrity of the home. here is a sheaf of victories in the diplomatic world that would make any man's life a blessing to the world. of course it is a profound pity that more has not been done in france. that it has not been done is no fault of leo's. if his advice had been taken, and if the catholics of france had rallied to the support of the existing government, it may well be supposed that the present deplorable condition of religious affairs would not have come to pass. instead of witnessing the religious orders persecuted by an infidel government, there would probably have been a change of heart in the civil authorities, and as of yore france would be the eldest daughter of the church. the same may be said in italy. the italian people are more loyal to the holy see to-day than ever. the sympathy that has gone out to the prisoner of the vatican, as well as a certain sentiment of co-suffering that the people, ground down by heavy taxation, have felt with the pope, have made them more loyal in their fealty to the head of the church. not only in statecraft has leo proved himself an adept, but as a scholar he has elevated the standards of literary taste and of ecclesiastical studies. in calling the professors of the catholic world back to the scholastic philosophy he has laid the foundations deep and strong for theological science, and he has pointed out the way back to the great truths of the supernatural order for much of the rationalistic and scientific knowledge of the age. during the last half of the nineteenth century agnostic science triumphed in most of the universities of the world; but the human mind could not be content with its barrenness and its negations, and in reaching out for something more positive, as well as for a solution of the religious problems that always perplex human hearts, the old philosophy of aristotle constituted the best vantage ground, and with this solid basis to stand on the scholars of the day can much more readily reach out for that amalgamation between the modern and ancient schools. historical science owes not a little to the man who threw open the archives of the vatican, and who wanted the truth to be told, no matter who was injured thereby, and not a few scholars have profited by the initiative of leo, with the result that a good deal of the history that was written in german and english under the influence of the fierce antagonisms of the protestant revolt will have to, and is now being rewritten. in biblical science the rationalizing higher critics were having a free hand and a wide field, with the result that the sacred books were torn into tatters and the old reverence for the scriptures as the word of god was dying out among non-catholic people. the bible was all they had to depend upon, and when it was gone there came a decadence of the religious spirit. leo came to the rescue, and there was nothing closer to his heart than the outcome of the biblical commission he established, and amidst the suffering of his last sickness one of his admonitions was to see that these investigations were brought to a speedy and wholesome issue. so too in social studies, which are now vexing the nations, leo has given a magna charta in his encyclical on the "condition of labor." he has affirmed principles there that seemed radical in their enunciation, but now that they are being applied to practical difficulties, are doing not a little to bring about the harmonization of labor with capital. the catholic university of america was born of his inspiration; the universities in france and germany and among the slavonic peoples were started through his initiative. seminaries in rome for the education of the students of the oriental rites owe their existence to his generous gifts and derive their permanency from his largesses. all these and many more great things that he has done for the intellectual, make him the very prince among scholars. in the midst of his many labors with governments and among scholars he has not forgotten the devotional life of the people. his own spirit of prayer has been imparted to the multitudes, so that there has been a distinct revival in the devotional life of the church. the devotion to the sacred heart, with its first friday throngs, has received a distinct impetus from his instructions. the time-honored rosary has become a more favorite devotion among all classes, and the october devotions, as well as the prayers after daily mass, have become distinctive features of the devotional life of the church through his directions. the same may be said of the devotion to the holy spirit with its annual pentecostal novena. he has not only known what to suggest, but his practical sense has so arranged that his suggestions were not mere ephemeral directions but were soon incorporated into the very soul-life of the people. no one can look back over the last generation and make any contrasts without saying that leo has done as much for the religious spirit of the world as any of his predecessors. all these considerations convince us that leo has been an all-round great pope. he has been a leader among men. he has left the impress of his spirit on his age. his life has spanned one of the most critical periods of human activity. when the old order had been completely changed, in the rearranging of the new elements and in the re-establishing of new forces there was need of one with more than human wisdom to guide our ways and to direct our feet. if ever in the world there was need of a providential man; of one whose feet, while planted on the earth, yet whose head was above the clouds, and whose heart was in touch with divine things, it was during this marvellous age of ours; and leo has been such an interpreter of divine wisdom to the children of men. his long life has covered the nineteenth century; there were wrapped up in him the experiences of men and things through this most fateful of all eras; and it has been permitted to lap over into the twentieth century, so that with the wisdom of the past he may point out the ways to greater triumphs in the years to come. his message to the twentieth century is one of the most thrilling documents that have been sent out to the world. it ranks with the magna charta of english history or the declaration of independence of our own, and in the years to come it will be enshrined as they are in the hearts of multitudes of people: "to reject dogma is simply to deny christianity. it is evident that they whose intellects reject the yoke of christ are obstinately striving against god. having shaken off god's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. "god alone is life. all other beings partake of life, but are not life. christ, from all eternity and by his very nature, is 'the life,' just as he is 'the truth,' because he is god of god. if any one abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth (john xv. 6). "once remove all impediments and allow the spirit of christ to revive and grow in a nation, and that nation shall be healed. "the world has heard enough of the so-called 'rights of man.' let it hear something of the rights of god. "the common welfare urgently demands a return to him from whom we should never have gone astray; to him who is the way, the truth, and the life,--and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole." leo, great pontiff of the age, thou mayest well lay down the burden of thy four score years and ten! thou deservest well of humanity. you have been a great leader in the church of god. the weary pilgrimage of a desert land is over, and from nebo's height there stretches before you the promised land of rest and joy and everlasting bliss. "hail, champion of the faith! whose beacon light, held high in trembling hands, illum'ned the world with such a blaze as ne'er before hath shone, e'en from the torch that gregory upheld or pius kindled. hark, the swelling sound from many million throats! thy children see the signal, and in serried legions stand before the grateful world, and with one voice demand for thee, great father and great friend, the joy and peace that is thy due." the papacy never dies. at the present writing the question of choosing a successor to leo xiii. in the pontifical chair is of paramount importance. for this reason the traditional method of selecting a pope is a topic of more than ordinary interest. popes may die, but the papacy lives for ever. with temporal princes their succession may come to an end. reigning families may become exhausted; dynasties have come and gone; but by divine right the line of the popes will last till the end of the world. the methods of electing the successor of st. peter have changed in the nineteen centuries that the popes have reigned, but as soon as one is canonically elected he assumes unto himself all the prerogatives of the papal chair. there is no prince in all christendom whose power is greater. the influence of the vicar of christ is not confined to any race or people. it is not exercised by force of arms, nor is it maintained through the civil power. his jurisdiction is over the hearts of 260,000,000, and his word is obeyed with far more alacrity and submission than is accorded to any other ruler in the world. he is the successor of the prince of the apostles. he holds to all the faithful the place of the vicar of christ, and they acknowledge his infallibility in matters of faith and morals. these facts alone give to the election of the pope an importance that is not attributable to any other event in history. in the first place, it is a condemned proposition to maintain that the laity have any strict right of suffrage in the election of the pope. in ancient times the vote of the roman clergy, cast in the presence of the faithful, was the elective power; but as the papal dignity increased in wealth and splendor of temporal authority it often became an object of human ambition. for this reason it was deemed necessary to enact laws that definitely settled the mode of election. this was done by symmachus in the year 499. the history of the interference of civil princes in the election of the popes fills many a dark chapter in the papal records. it is the old story of the state, with its stronger power, laying its blighting hand on the liberties of the church. it was not till 1059, under nicholas ii., that the papacy was completely emancipated from any subjection to the empire, and his successor, gregory vii., the glorious hildebrand, was the last pope who ever informed the emperor of his election before proceeding to be consecrated and enthroned. the third general council of the lateran (1179) confined the right to elect to the cardinals without reference to the rest of the roman clergy or of the people, and required a two-thirds vote for a valid election. the word conclave is of a little later origin. it originated in the custom of selecting a hall whose door could be securely fastened (_cum clavi_--with a key) behind the voting cardinals until they agreed by a two-thirds majority on a candidate. in some instances, where the stubborn electors held out, a diminishing quantity of food was served so as to hasten an agreement, and in one instance, where a year and one-half elapsed before a definite result was obtained, the roof was removed and the venerable fathers were left to the inclemencies of the weather until they came to a conclusion. any one may theoretically be elected pope. he need not be a cardinal, nor even a priest. he need not be an italian. not a few persons of ignoble birth and of mean antecedents have been elected to the papacy, which they have illustrated by their virtues or their learning. sixtus v., 1585-1595, was a swineherd in his youth, and he repeatedly affirmed the fact when he was pope. it was sixtus v. of whom queen elizabeth of england said, when asked to marry, that she would offer her hand in marriage to no one but sixtus, and he would not accept it. the present cardinal gotti's father was a stevedore. almost every nationality has had a representative in the chair of peter, but for several centuries the italians have kept the accession within their own nation, for the reason that the popedom has been a civil principality. as soon as the pope breathes his last the cardinal chamberlain takes possession of the apostolic palace. he proceeds to the death chamber, assures himself of, and instructs a notary to certify to, the fact that the pope is really dead. then the ring of the fisherman is broken and the seal destroyed. the body is embalmed and carried in procession to the chapel of the blessed sacrament in the vatican basilica, where it remains for three days, the feet protruding a little through an opening in the iron railing which encloses the chapel, that the faithful may approach and kiss the embroidered slipper. the nine days of funeral services are gone through with. during the last three days the services are performed about an elevated and magnificent catafalque. on each of these days five cardinals in turn give the absolution, and on the ninth day a funeral oration is pronounced. the body is reverently put into a cyprus-wood coffin. this is put into a leaden case properly inscribed, and then all is placed in a wooden box covered with a red pall, and in this condition it is carried to the last resting-place, previously selected by the deceased. on the tenth day the cardinals assemble in the forenoon, and the preparations are made for the conclave. all the persons who are to remain in the conclave--as prelates, custodians, attendants on the cardinals, physicians, barbers, masons--are passed in review and take an oath not to speak even among themselves of matters concerning the election. every avenue leading to the conclave, except the eight loopholes, is walled up by the masons; but one door is left so that it may be opened by the late coming cardinals or to let out any one who may be expelled, or who for any good reason may be obliged to go out. any one who leaves cannot return. this only door has a combination lock, to be opened by the key of the prince marshal outside and of the cardinal chamberlain inside. the food for the cardinals is introduced by a turn, so well known in convents of cloistered communities. the next day, after mass of the holy ghost, the balloting begins, and continues until some one receives the necessary two-thirds. the ballots are cast into a chalice on the altar. there are now 63 cardinals in the sacred college. some may, on account of distance--as cardinal moran of australia--or on account of age or infirmities, be prevented from being present. if they were all present it would require 42 votes to elect. it would seem from the present aspect of the sacred college that a good many ballots may be taken before the requisite number is secured. in the last conclave cardinal pecci was so pre-eminently a leader that it took but one ballot practically to settle the question of his election. in all probability it will take more than one to settle the choice in the present conclave. it is ordinarily very foolish to prophesy, but it is especially so when the subject matter of the prophecy is the outcome of the conclave. there is an old roman proverb which says, "he who enters the conclave as pope comes out of it as cardinal." it does not always happen that the verdict of the cardinals ratifies that of public opinion or of the public press. in fact the more prominent cardinals, who are well known to the world at large, are generally the leaders of parties, and are for that very reason the less likely to draw unto themselves the suffrages of two-thirds of the sacred college. they are the ones who have positive characteristics and practically stand for definite policies, and for that reason they have awakened opposition to themselves. moreover leaders are not always necessary in the papal chair. leo xiii. has been so pre-eminently an aggressive character, and his brilliant mind has illuminated so many departments of church work, and his organizing hand has co-ordinated so many church activities, that a quiet, placid, conservative man might easily maintain the _status quo_ for many years to come. the meek and humble cardinal chiaramonti, who became pius vii., was far better fitted to withstand the eagle-like aggressiveness of napoleon the first than cardinal consalvi would have been, or a dominating spirit like sixtus the fifth would have been. if the latter were pitted against a napoleon, there would have been wreck and ruin throughout the church. moreover, in discussing the _papabile_, one is often deceived in the qualities of a cardinal's character. cardinal pecci was ranked among the liberals, and it was expected that he would establish a policy of agreement with the italian government; but the very first act of leo xiii. was to affirm irrevocably the attitude of protest against the usurper who ruled in the civil principality of the church. there is always a reserve in the ecclesiastical world in rome that the outside world rarely penetrates, and consequently it knows little of the great moving forces in the sacred college. these things have been said in order that too much weight may not be placed on any conjectural list of would-be popes. still it is allowable to discuss the chances various candidates may have and the characteristics that would seem best fitted to the times and the difficulties before the church. the question of the christian democracy is one of the great burning problems. socialism is a growing quantity in germany and elsewhere. it can be met in the best way by diffusing a deep and wide-spread knowledge of the truest socialistic principles among the people. hence the propaganda of christian democracy was instituted by leo xiii. the next pope must carry this work to its fullest perfection. the next pope must be one who will extend a warm hand of greeting to the throngs who have been born amidst protestantism and who now are as sheep without a shepherd. organized protestantism is fast going to pieces, and unless the next pope opens wide the door of the church to the wandering flocks they will be led away into poisonous pastures. the next pope should have an intimate knowledge of the great english-speaking races, where the church is as strong as it is anywhere else in the world. leo frequently recognized the strength of catholicism among the english-speaking people, and frequently affirmed that "america is the future." a mere nationalistic pope, who would not be able to rise above the provincialism of his own race, would be, humanly speaking, a disaster. the next pope should be one who would be able to open out the resources of truth and the wealth of religion that there is in the bosom of the church, and bid all nations come unto her, especially those who are without a knowledge of god, to drink of the living fountains. the names of rampolla and gotti and serafino vanutelli and satolli and sarto and ferrara are most frequently mentioned. cardinal rampolla, the present secretary of state, has been an _alter ego_ of leo, is in touch with his ideas, and is intimately acquainted with his most secret policies. he is, moreover, a man of profound piety and deep religious spirit. he may be depended on to carry out the projects of leo xiii. in all their detail. were he elected his reign would be in touch with progress. cardinal gotti is a carmelite, a man who has been trained to the religious life. all his life he has been a close student and a man of prayerful and devout spirit. he has held many high and responsible positions. in the pursuit of duty he has visited our western world; at one time was delegate apostolic to brazil. though he has not been in touch with high politics as some of his confrã¨res in the college of cardinals have been, still it is said that the kaiser has expressed the greatest admiration for him and has given it out that he would be pleased if cardinal gotti was the one selected. gotti has come from the very loins of the people, and if he were the next pope it would be altogether likely that strong sympathies would be established between him and the common people. the many social questions that need the bold hand of religious leadership for their solution may find such vigorous treatment in cardinal gotti. cardinal satolli is a profound theologian, having been most of his life a professor. he has, moreover, been in touch with life other than italian, and he professes to love america very much. it is quite certain that his residence in this country has given him larger knowledge of the great races of the world. moreover he has been a close student of leo, and he has absorbed not a little of his broad and comprehensive spirit. but a truce to all these vain prognostications. when the door of the conclave shuts behind the last cardinal, the intrigues of the world are shut out. there will be no vetos from the civil power, for more than ever is the church separated from the civil power, and more than ever is she in touch with the people. the catholics of the world are able to contemplate the future with greater equanimity and with a larger hope than ever in the history of the church. in some few places the church may be in sore straits, but never before has there been such world-wide loyalty to the see of rome, or such profound enthusiasm for the advancement of religion. they who have assisted during the last few years at the great ceremonies of the pontifical jubilee, and have seen the multitudes from every race and country, and have realized that sensation of greatness and strength and energy that seemed latent in the throngs that filled the grandest basilica on earth, and have witnessed the deep feeling of world-power and universal supremacy that possessed the hearts of the people, as the white phantom of the pope passed along like an apparition, have no element in their vision of the future that proclaims anything but glorious success and increasing greatness for the church of christ. [transcriber's note: after a vacancy of fifteen days, the papacy was filled by cardinal sarto on august 4, 1903. cardinal sarto took the name pope pius x., and forty years after his death in 1914, he was declared a saint by pope pius xii.] +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's notes: fixed a few obvious typos in the text: | | actually for actully, origin for orgin; and changed the | | case of "sees" to "sees". | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ the purpose of the papacy by the right reverend john s. vaughan, d.d. bishop of sebastopolis author of "thoughts for all times," "dangers of the day" "life after death," etc., etc. "let us go back to the beginning of the sixteenth century. either there was a church of god then in the world, or there was not. if there was not, then the reformers certainly could not create such a church. it there was, they as certainly had neither the right to abandon it, nor the power to remodel it."--j.k. stone. london sands & co. 15 king street, covent garden edinburgh: 21 hanover street st. louis, mo., u.s.a.: b. herder 1910 introduction. it may seem an impertinence on the present writer's part to indite a preface to the work of a brother bishop; and it would be a still greater one to pretend to introduce the author of this little book to the reading public, to whom he is so well and so favourably known by a stately array of preceding volumes. nevertheless bishop vaughan has been so insistent on my contributing at least a few introductory lines, that, for old friendship's sake, i can no longer refuse. it is a remarkable and outstanding fact that never before in the history of the church has the roman papacy, though shorn of every vestige of its once formidable temporal might, loomed greater in the world, ruled over such vast multitudes of the faithful, or exercised a greater moral power than at the present day. never has the _conscious_ unity of the whole world-wide church with its visible head--thanks to the marvellous developments of modern means of communication and transport--been so vivid, so general, so intense as in these times. not only does "the pope's writ run," as we may say, by post and telegraph, and penetrate to the inmost recesses of every part of the globe, so that the holy see is in daily, nay hourly communication with every bishop and every local catholic community; but never has there been a time when so many thousands, nay tens of thousands of catholic clergy and laity, even from the remotest lands, have actually seen the vicar of christ with their own eyes, heard his voice, received his personal benediction. well may we say to pius x. as to leo xiii.: "lift up thy eyes round about and see; all these are gathered together, they are come to thee; thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at thy side. then shalt thou see and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged, when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to thee, the strength of the gentiles shall come to thee" (isaias, lx. 4, 5). but not only is the present position of the papacy thus unique and phenomenal in the world; as the author of this little book shows in his first part, its career across the more than nineteen centuries of the world's chequered history, from peter to pius x., is no less unique and no less phenomenal. this is a fact which may well rivet the attention, not of the catholic alone, but of every thinking man, be he christian or non-christian, and which surely calls for some explanation that lies beyond and above that of the ordinary phenomena of history. the only possible satisfactory solution of this problem is the one so concisely, yet so simply, set forth in the following pages. the second part is concerned with a more particular aspect of the same problem, in its relation to the church in this country, and especially to that incredible latter-day myth which goes by the name of "the continuity theory". it is difficult to us to realise how such a theory can possibly be held by thoughtful and earnest men and women who have even a moderate acquaintance with history. bishop vaughan applies more than one touchstone, which, one would imagine, ought to be sufficient to prove to any unprejudiced mind the falsity of that theory. among these, what i may call the "pallium touchstone,"--which still bears its irrefragable testimony in the arms of the archbishops of canterbury,[1]--has always appeared to me peculiarly conclusive.[2] in the present small volume, bishop vaughan adds another to the series of popular and instructive books which have made his name a household word among catholic writers. may its success and its utility be as great as in the case of those which have preceded it. [cross] louis charles, _bishop of salford_. footnotes: [footnote 1: not in those of york since 1544, see woodward's _ecclesiastical heraldry_, p. 191 and plate xx.] [footnote 2: see _the pallium_, by fr. thurston, s.j., (c.t.s.) and the striking list in baxter's _english cardinals_, pp. 93-98.] author's preface. the following chapters were not intended originally for publication. if they are now offered to the public in book form, it is only in response to the expressed request of many, who listened to them when delivered _viva voce_, and who now wish to possess a more permanent record of what was said. in the hope that they may help, in some slight measure at least, to promote the sacred cause of truth, we wish them godspeed. [cross] john s. vaughan, _bishop of sebastopolis_. xaverian college, manchester _january_, 1910. contents. chap. page i. general notions 3 ii. the pope's great prerogative 18 iii. watchman! what of the night? 35 iv. the church and the sects 53 v. the pope's infallible authority 69 vi. the pope's ordinary authority 87 part ii. the anglican theory of continuity in the church of england, or the authority of the pope in england in pre-reformation times. i. the church in england before the reformation 107 ii. the oath of obedience 117 iii. the awkward dilemma 130 iv. king edward and the pope 145 the purpose of the papacy. chapter i. general notions. no one who is given to serious reflection, can gaze over the face of the earth at the present day without being struck by the religious confusion that everywhere reigns. who, indeed, can help being staggered as well as saddened by the extraordinary differences, the irreconcilable views, and the diversities of opinion, even upon fundamental points, that are found dividing christians in protestant lands! the number of sects has so multiplied, that an earnest enquirer scarcely knows which way to turn, or where to look for the pure unadulterated truth. a spiritual darkness hangs over the non-catholic world; and chaos seems to have come again. yet, amid this almost universal confusion, one bright and luminous path may be easily descried. as a broad highroad runs straight through some tangled forest, so this path runs through the ages, from the time of christ, even to the present day. we can trace its course, from its earliest inception in apostolic times, and then in its development age after age, down to our own day: from peter to gregory, from gregory to leo, and from leo to pius x., now gloriously reigning. we refer to the mystical (and one might almost say the miraculous) path trodden by the popes, each pontiff carrying in turn, and then handing on to his successor, the glorious torch of divine truth. though clouds may gather and thunders may roll, and tempests may rage, and though the surrounding darkness may grow deeper and deeper, that supernatural light has never failed, nor grown dim, nor refused to shed its beams and to illuminate the way.[3] the continual persistency of the papacy, to whom this steadily burning torch of truth has been entrusted, is unquestionably one of the most certain, as it is one of the most startling facts in the whole of history. it stares us full in the face. it arrests the attention of even the least observant. it puzzles the historian. it taxes the explanatory powers of the philosopher, and will remain to the end, a permanent difficulty to the scoffer and to the sceptic, and to all those who have not faith. as a fact in history, it is unique: forming an extraordinary exception to the law of universal change: a portent, and a standing miracle. its persistence, century after century, in spite of fire and sword; of persecution from without, and of treachery from within; in prosperity, and in adversity; in honour and dishonour; while kingdoms rise and fall; and while one civilisation yields to a higher, and the very conditions of society shift and change, is deeply significative, and betokens an inherent strength and vitality that is more than natural and that must be referred to some source greater than itself, yea, to a power far mightier than anything in this world,--_viz._, to the abiding presence and divine support of christ the man-god. verily, there is but one possible explanation, and that explanation is furnished us, by the words of the promise made by god-incarnate, _viz._, "behold, i am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world" (matt, xxviii. 20). yes, i, who am "the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world" (john i. 9), "will abide with you for ever, and will lead you into all truth" (john xvi. 13). if but few persons, outside the catholic church, realise the force and import of these words, it is because few realise the absolute and irresistible power of him who gave them utterance. with their lips they profess christ to be god, but then, strange to relate, they proceed to reason and to argue, just as though he were merely man--one, that is to say, who, when he established his church, did not consider nor bear in mind man's weakness and fickleness, and who possessed no power to see the outcome of his own policy, nor the difficulties that it would engender, nor the future multiplication of the faithful, in every part of the world. for, did he know and foresee all these things, he _must_ have guarded against them; and this they _practically_ deny, by continuing to associate themselves with churches where his promises are in no sense fulfilled, and where his most solemn pledges remain unredeemed. we refer to those churches wherein there is no recognised infallible authority; in fact, nothing to protect their subjects from the inroads of the world, and from the faults and errors inseparable from the exercise of purely human and fallible reason. those, however, who can put aside such false notions, and awaken to the real facts, will find the truth growing luminous before their gaze. history constrains them to admit that it was christ who established the church, with its supreme head, and its various members. but christ is verily god; of the same nature, and one with the father, and possessing the same divine attributes. now, since he is god, there is to him no future, just as there is no past. to him, all is equally present. hence, in establishing a church, and in providing it with laws and a constitution, he did this, not tentatively, not experimentally, not in ignorance of man's needs and weaknesses, and folly, but with a most perfect foreknowledge of every circumstance and event, actual and to come. he spoke and ordered and arranged all things, with his eyes clearly fixed on the most remote ages, no less than on the present and the actual. _we_ mortals write history after the characters have already lived and died, and when nations have already developed and run their course. but with christ, the whole history of man, his wars and his conquests, his vices and his virtues, his religious opinions and doctrines, had been already written and completed, down to the very last line of the very last chapter, an eternity before he assumed our nature and founded his church. it was with this most intimate knowledge before him, that he promised to provide us with a reliable and infallible teacher, who should safeguard his doctrine, and publish the glad tidings of the gospel, throughout all time, even unto the consummation of the world. since it is god who promises, it follows, with all the rigour of logic, that this fearless witness and living teacher must be a _fact_, not a _figment_; a stupendous reality, not a mere name; one, in a word, possessing and wielding the self-same authority as himself, and to be received and obeyed and accepted as himself: "who heareth you heareth me" (luke x. 16). this teacher was to be a supreme court of appeal, and a tribunal, before which every case could be tried, and definitely settled, once for all. and since this tribunal was a divine creation, and invested by god himself with supernatural powers for that specific purpose, it must be fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its work. for god always adapts means to ends. hence it can never resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in wholly ambiguous language--tribunals that dare not commit themselves to anything definite and precise. yea, which utterly fail and break down just at the critical moment, when men are dividing and disagreeing among themselves, and most needing a prompt and clear decision, which may close up the breach and bring them together. no! the decisions of the authority set up by christ are in very truth--just what we expect to find them--_viz._, clear, ringing and definite. they divide light from darkness, as by a divine hand; and segregate truth from error, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. christ promised as much as this, and if he keep not his promise, then he can hold out no claim to be god, for though heaven and earth may pass away, god's words shall never pass away. that he did so promise is quite evident; and may be proved, first, _explicitly_, and from his own words, and secondly, _implicitly_, from the very necessity of the case; and from the whole history of religious development. cardinal newman, even before his reception into the church, was so fully persuaded of this, that he wrote: "if christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must, humanly speaking, have an infallible expounder.... by the church of england a hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects in england an interminable division" (_develop._, etc., p. 90). in the catholic church alone the need is fully met. the church is established on earth by the direct act of god, and is set "as an army in battle array". it exists for the express purpose of combating error and repressing evil, in whatever form it may appear; and whether it be instigated by the devil, or the world, or the flesh. but, let us ask, who ever heard of an army without a chief? an army without a supreme commander is an army without subordination and without law or order; or rather, it is not an army at all, but a rabble, a mob. the supreme head of christ's army--of christ's church upon earth, is our sovereign lord the pope. some will not accept his rule, and refuse to admit his authority. but this is not only to be expected. it was actually foretold. as they cried out, of old, to one even greater than the pope, "we will not have this man to reign over us" (luke xix. 14), so now men of similar spirit repeat the self-same cry, with regard to christ's vicar. nevertheless, wheresoever his authority is loyally accepted, and where submission, respect and obedience are shown to him, there results the order and harmony and unity promised by christ: while, on the contrary, where he is not suffered to reign there is disorder, rivalry and sects. to be able to look forward and to foresee such opposite results would perhaps need a prophetic eye, an accurate estimate of human nature, and a very nice balancing of cause and effect. it could be the prognostication only of a wise, judicious, and observant mind. but we are now looking, not forwards, but backwards, and in looking backwards the case is reduced to the greatest simplicity, so that even a child can understand; and "he that runs may read". the simplest intelligence, if only it will set aside prejudice and pride, and just attend and watch, will be led, without difficulty, to the following conclusions: firstly, without an altogether special divine support, no authority can claim and exercise _infallibility_ in its teaching; and secondly, without such infallibility in its teaching no continuous unity can be maintained among vast multitudes of people, least of all concerning dogmas most abstruse, mysteries most sublime and incomprehensible, and laws and regulations both galling and humiliating to human arrogance and pride. it is precisely because the catholic church alone possesses such a supreme and infallible authority that she alone is able to present to the world that which follows directly from it, namely a complete unity and cohesion within her own borders. yes! strange to say: the catholic church to-day stands alone! there is no rival to dispute with her, her unique and peerless position. of all the so-called christian churches, throughout the world, so various and so numerous, and, in many cases, so modern and so fantastic, there is not a single one that can approach her, even distantly, whether it be in (_a_) the breadth of her influence, or in (_b_) the diversity and dissimilarity of her adherents, or in (_c_) the number of her children, or in (_d_) the extent of her conquests, or (_e_) in the absolute unity of her composition. even were it possible to unite into one single body the great multitude of warring sects, of which protestantism is made up, such a body would fall far short of the stature of her who has received the gentiles for her inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for her possession (ps. ii. 8), and who has the holy ghost abiding with her, century after century, in order that she may be "a witness unto christ, in jerusalem, and in all judea, and samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the world" (acts i. 8). but we cannot, even in thought, unite such contradictories, such discordant elements; any more than we can reduce the strident sounds of a multitude of cacophonous instruments to one harmonious and beautiful melody. and if the catholic church stands thus alone, again we repeat, it is because no other has received the promise of divine support, or even cares to recognise that such a promise was ever made. the catholic church has been the only church not only to exercise, but even to claim the prerogative of infallibility: but she has claimed this from the beginning. every child born into her fold has been taught to profess and to believe, firstly, that the catholic church is the sole official and god-appointed guardian of the sacred deposit of divine truth, and, secondly, that she, and no other, enunciates to the entire world--to all who have ears to hear--the full revelation of christ--_his truth_; the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; fulfilling, to the letter, the command of her divine master, "go into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (mark xvi. 15). how has this been possible? simply and solely because god, who promised that "the spirit of truth" (_i.e._, the holy ghost) "should abide with her for ever; and should guide her in all truth" (john xiv. 16, xvi. 12), keeps his promise. when our lord promised to "_be with_" the teaching church, in the execution of the divine commission assigned to it, "_always_" and "_to the end of the world_," that promise clearly implied, and was a guarantee, first, that the teaching authority should exist indefectibly to the end of the world; and secondly, that throughout the whole course of its existence it should be divinely guarded and assisted in fulfilling the commission given to it, _viz._, in instructing the nations in "all things whatsoever christ has commanded," in other words, that it should be their infallible guide and teacher. venerable bede, speaking of the conversion of our own country by augustine and his monks, sent by pope gregory the great, says: "and whereas he [pope gregory] bore the pontifical power _over all the world_, and was placed over the churches already reduced to the faith of truth, he made our nation, till then given up to idols, the church of christ" (_hist. eccl._ lib. ii. c. 1). if we will but listen to the pope now, he will make it once again "the church of christ," instead of the church of the "reformation," and a true living branch, drawing its life from the one vine, instead of a detached and fallen branch, with heresy, like some deadly decay, eating into its very vitals. footnotes: [footnote 3: no pope, no matter what may have been his _private_ conduct, ever promulgated a decree against the purity of faith and morals.] chapter ii. the pope's great prerogative. the clear and certain recognition of a great truth is seldom the work of a day. we often possess it in a confused and hidden way, before we can detect, to a nicety, its exact nature and limitations. it takes time to declare itself with precision, and, like a plant in its rudimentary stages, it may sometimes be mistaken for what it is not--though, once it has reached maturity, we can mistake it no longer. as cardinal newman observes: "an idea grows in the mind by remaining there; it becomes familiar and distinct, and is viewed in its relations; it leads to other aspects, and these again to others.... such intellectual processes as are carried on silently and spontaneously in the mind of a party or school, of necessity come to light at a later date, and are recognised, and their issues are scientifically arranged." consequently, though dogma is unchangeable as truth is unchangeable, this immutability does not exclude progress. in the church, such progress is nothing else than the development of the principles laid down in the beginning by jesus christ himself. thus--to take a simple illustration--in three different councils, the church has declared and proposed three different articles of faith, _viz._, that in jesus christ there are (1) two natures, (2) two wills, and (3) one only person. these may seem to some, who cannot look beneath the surface, to be three entirely new doctrines; to be, in fact, "additions to the creed". in sober truth, they are but expansions of the original doctrine which, in its primitive and revealed form, has been known and taught at all times, that is to say, the doctrine that christ is, at once, true god and true man. that one statement really contains the other three; the other three merely give us a fuller and a completer grasp of the original one, but tell us nothing absolutely new. in a similar manner, and by a similar process, we arrive at a clearer and more explicit knowledge of other important truths, which were not at first universally recognised as being contained in the original deposit. the dogma of papal infallibility is an instance in point. for though no catholic ever doubted the genuine infallibility of the _church_, yet in the early centuries, there existed some difference of opinion, as to _where_ precisely the infallible authority resided. most catholics, even then, believed it to be a gift conferred by christ upon peter himself [who alone is the _rock_], and upon each pope who succeeded him in his office, personally and individually, but some were of opinion that, not the pope by himself, but only "the pope-in-council," that is to say, the pope supported by a majority of bishops, was to be considered infallible. so that, while _all_ admitted the _pope with a majority of the bishops_, taken together, to be divinely safeguarded from teaching error, yet the prevailing and dominant opinion, from the very first, went much further, and ascribed this protection to the sovereign pontiff likewise when acting alone and unsupported. this is so well known, that even the late mr. gladstone, speaking as an outside observer, and as a mere student of history, positively brings it as a charge against the catholic church that "the popes, for well-nigh a thousand years, have kept up, with comparatively little intermission, their claim to dogmatic infallibility" (_vat._ p. 28). still, the point remained unsettled by any dogmatic definition, so that, as late as in 1793, archbishop troy of dublin did but express the true catholic view of his own day when he wrote: "many catholics contend that the pope, when teaching the universal church, as their supreme visible head and pastor, as successor to st. peter, and heir to the promises of special assistance made to him by jesus christ, is infallible; and that his decrees and decisions in that capacity are to be respected as rules of faith, when they are dogmatical, or confined to doctrinal points of faith and morals. others," the archbishop goes on to explain, "deny this, and require the expressed or tacit acquiescence of the church assembled or dispersed, to stamp infallibility on his dogmatic decrees." then he concludes:--"_until the church shall decide_ upon this question of the schools, either opinion may be adopted by individual catholics, without any breach of catholic communion or peace." this was how the question stood until 1870. but it stands in that position no longer; for the church has now spoken--_roma locuta est, causa finita_. hence, no catholic can now deny or call into question the great prerogative of the vicar of christ, without suffering shipwreck of the faith. at the vatican council, pope pius ix. and the archbishops and bishops of the entire catholic world were gathered together in rome, and after earnest prayer and prolonged discussion, they declared that the prerogative of infallibility, which is the very source of catholic unity, and the very secret of catholic strength, resides in the individual pope who happens, at the time, to occupy the papal chair, and that when he speaks _ex cathedrã¢_, his definitions are infallibly true, and consonant with catholic revelation, even before they have been accepted by the hierarchy throughout the world. but here it must be borne in mind that the pope speaks _ex cathedrã¢_, that is to say, infallibly, only when he speaks:- 1. as the universal teacher. 2. in the name and with the authority of the apostles. 3. on a point of faith or morals. 4. with the purpose of binding every member of the church to accept and believe his decision. thus it is clearly seen that from the year 1870 the dogma of _papal_, in contra-distinction to _ecclesiastical_ infallibility, has been defined and raised to an article of faith, the denial of which is heresy. the doctrine is at once new and yet not new. it is new in the sense that up to the time of the vatican council it had never been actually drawn out of the premises that contained it, and set forth before the faithful in a formal definition. on the other hand, it is not new, but as old as christianity, in the sense that it was always contained implicitly in the deposit of faith. any body of truth that is living grows, and unfolds and becomes more clearly understood and more thoroughly grasped, as time wears on. the entire books of euclid are after all but the outcome of a few axioms and accepted definitions. these axioms help us to build up certain propositions. and one proposition, when established, leads to another, till at last we seem to have unearthed statements entirely new and original. yet, they are certainly not really new, for had they not been all along contained implicitly in the few initial facts, it is quite clear they could never have been evolved from them. _nemo dat, quod non habet._ hence papal infallibility is not so much a new truth, or an "addition to the faith," as some heretics would foolishly try to persuade us, as a clearer expression and a more exact and detailed presentation of what was taught from the beginning. it is here that the well-known historian, dã¶llinger, who rejected the definition, proved himself to be not only a proud rebel but also a very poor logician. until 1870, he was a practising catholic, and, therefore, like every other catholic, he, of course, admitted that the pope and the bishops, speaking collectively, were divinely supported and safeguarded from error, when they enunciated to the world any doctrine touching faith or morals. yet, when the pope and the bishops, assembled at the vatican, did so speak collectively, and did conjointly issue the decree of papal infallibility, he proceeded to eat his own words, refused to abide by their decision, and was deservedly turned out of the church of god: being excommunicated by the archbishop of munich on the 17th of april, 1871, in virtue of the instructions given by our divine lord himself, _viz._: "if he will not hear the church (cast him out, _i.e._), let him be to thee as the heathen and publican" (matt. xviii. 17). he, and the few misguided men that followed him in his rebellion, and called themselves old catholics, had been quite ready to believe that the pope, with the bishops, when speaking as one body, were infallible. in fact, if they had not believed that, they never could have been catholics at any time. but they did not seem to realise the sufficiently obvious fact that, whether they will it or not, and whether they advert to it or not, it is utterly impossible now to deny the infallibility of the pope personally and alone, without at the same time denying the infallibility of the "pope and the bishops collectively," for the simple reason that it is precisely the "pope and the bishops collectively" who have solemnly and in open session declared that the pope enjoys the prerogative of infallibility in his own individual person. since the vatican council, one is forced by the strict requirements of sound reason to believe, either that the pope is infallible, or else that there is no infallibility in the church at all, and that there never had been. those who were too proud to submit to the definition followed, of course, the example of earlier heretics in previous councils. they excused themselves on the plea that the council was (_a_) not free, or else (_b_) not sufficiently representative, or, finally, (_c_) not unanimous in its decisions. but such utterly unsupported allegations served only to accentuate the weakness of their cause and the hopelessness of their position; since it would be difficult, from the origin of the church to the present time, to find any council so free, so representative, and so unanimous. pope pius ix. (whom, it seems likely, we shall soon be called upon to venerate as a canonised saint) convened the vatican council by the bull _ã�terni patris_, published on 29th june, 1868. it summoned all the archbishops, bishops, patriarchs, etc., throughout the catholic world to meet together in rome on 8th december of the following year, 1869. when the appointed day arrived, and the council was formally opened, there were present 719 representatives from all parts of the world, and very soon after, this number was increased to 769. on 18th july, 1870--a day for ever memorable in the annals of the church--the fourth public session was held, and the constitution _pater ã�ternus_, containing the definition of the papal infallibility, was solemnly promulgated. of the 535 who were present on this grand occasion, 533 voted for the definition (_placet_) and only two, one from sicily, the other from the united states, voted against it (_non placet_). fifty-five bishops, who fully accepted the doctrine itself, but deemed its actual definition at that moment inopportune, simply absented themselves from this session. finally, the holy father, in the exercise of his supreme authority, sanctioned the decision of the council, and proclaimed officially, _urbi et orbi_ the decrees and the canons of the "first dogmatic constitution of the church of christ". it may be well here to clothe the latin words of the pope and the assembled bishops in an english dress. they are as follows: "we (the sacred council approving) teach and define that it is a dogma revealed, that the roman pontiff, _when_ he speaks _ex cathedrã¢_--that is, when discharging the office of pastor and teacher of all christians, by reason of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the whole church--in virtue of the divine assistance promised to him in blessed peter, possesses that infallibility with which the divine redeemer willed that his church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that, therefore, such definitions of the said sovereign pontiff are unalterable of themselves, and not from the consent of the church. but if any one--which may god avert--presume to contradict this our definition, let him be anathema." "_every bishop in the catholic world_, however inopportune some may have at one time held the definition to be, submitted to the infallible ruling of the church," says e.s. purcell. "a very small and insignificant number of priests and laymen in germany apostatised and set up the sect of 'old catholics'. but all the rest of the catholic world, true to their faith, accepted, without reserve, the dogma of papal infallibility."[4] for over eighteen hundred years the infallible authority of the pope-in-council had been admitted by all catholics. and in any great emergency or crisis in the church's history, these councils were actually held, and presided over by the pope, either in person or by his duly appointed representatives, for the purpose of clearing up and adjusting disputed points, or to smite, with a withering anathema, the various heresies as they arose, century after century. but in the meantime, the church, which had been planted "like a grain of mustard seed, which is the least of all seeds" (mark iv. 31), was fulfilling the prophecy that had been made in regard to her, and "was shooting out great branches" (mark iv. 32) and becoming more extended and more prolific than all her rivals. she enlarged her boundaries and spread farther and farther over the face of the earth, while the number of her children rapidly multiplied in every direction. in course of time, the immense continents of america and australia, together with new zealand and tasmania and other hitherto unknown regions, were discovered and thrown open to the influences of human industry and enterprise. and as men and women swarmed into these newly acquired lands, the church accompanied them: and new vicariates and dioceses sprang up, and important sees were formed, which in time, as the populations thickened, became divided and sub-divided into smaller sees, till at last the number of bishops in these once unknown and distant regions rose to several hundreds. thus the whole condition of things became altered; and the calling together of an ecumenical council--a very simple affair in the infancy of the church--was becoming daily more and more difficult. not so much, perhaps, by reason of the enormous distances of the dioceses from the central authority, for modern methods of locomotion have almost annihilated space, but because of the immense increase in the number of the hierarchy that would have to meet together, whenever a council is called. on the other hand, with the greater extension of the church, would naturally come an increased crop of heresies. for, cockle may be sown, and weeds may spring up, in any part of the field, and the field is now a hundred times vaster than it was. now, it is extremely important that as fast as errors arise they should be pointed out, and rooted up without delay, and before they can breed a pestilence and corrupt a whole neighbourhood. but the complicated machinery of a great ecumenical council, which involves prolonged preparation, considerable expense, and a temporary dislocation in almost every diocese throughout the world, is too cumbersome and slow to be called into requisition whenever a heresy has to be blasted, or whenever a decision has to be made known. hence we cannot help recognising and admiring the providence of god over his church, in thus simplifying the process, in these strenuous days, by which his truth is to be maintained and his revelation protected. for the fact--true from the beginning, _viz._, that the pope enjoys the prerogative of personal infallibility--is not only a profound truth; but a truth for the first time formally recognised, defined, promulgated and explicitly taught as an article of divine faith. consequently, without summoning a thousand bishops from the four quarters of the globe, the sovereign pontiff may now rise in his own strength, and proclaim to the entire church what is, and what is not, consonant with the truths of revelation. this is evident from the vatican's definition, which declares that "the pope has that same infallibility which the church has"--"romanum pontificem eã¢ infallibilitate pollere, quã¢ divinus redemptor ecclesiam suam in definiendã¢ doctrinã¢ de fide vel moribus instructam esse voluit". words of the bull, "pastor ã�ternus". footnotes: [footnote 4: see _life of cardinal manning_, vol. ii., p. 452.] chapter iii. watchman! what of the night? the most sacred deposit of divine revelation has been committed by jesus christ to the custody of the church, and century after century she has guarded it with the utmost jealousy and fidelity. like a loyal watchman, stationed on a lofty tower, the pope, with anxious eyes, scans the length and breadth of the world, and, as the occasion demands, boldly, and fearlessly, and categorically condemns and anathematises all who, through pride or cunning, or personal interest and ambition, or love of novelty, attempt to falsify or to minimise or to distort the teaching of our divine master. without respect of persons, without regard to temporal consequences, without either hesitancy or ambiguity, he speaks "as one having power" (matt. vii. 29). and while, on the one hand, every true catholic throughout the world, who hears his voice, is intimately conscious that he is hearing the voice of christ himself, "who heareth you, heareth me" (luke x. 16); so, on the other hand, every true catholic likewise knows that all who refuse to obey his ruling, and who despise his warnings, are despising and disobeying christ himself. "who despises you, despises me" (luke x. 16). thus, the sovereign pontiff, as the infallible source of religious truth, becomes at the same time the strong bond of religious unity: for, just as error divides men from one another, so truth always and necessarily draws them together. in this way the pope becomes the connecting link which unites over 250,000,000 of men: and the foundation stone (or petros--peter) of the mystical building erected by god-incarnate ("upon this rock will i build my church," matt. xvi. 18). he is the foundation, that is to say, which supports it, and keeps its various parts together, in one harmonious and symmetrical whole, and against which the angry surges rise, and the muddy waves of error for ever beat, yet ever beat in vain: for "the gates of hell [satan and his hosts] shall not prevail against it". who doubts this denies the most formal and unmistakable promises of the eternal son of god, and makes of him a liar. our non-catholic friends close their eyes to these patent facts, and--with great peril to their salvation--refuse to see even the obvious. as the jews of old were so blinded by their prejudice, jealousy and hatred of him, whom they contemptuously styled "the son of the carpenter," that they steadily refused to consider the justice of his claims, and could not (or would not?) bring themselves to understand how clearly the scriptures bore witness to his divinity, and how marvellously the prophecies and predictions (the words of which they accepted), were fulfilled in his divine person; so now protestants steadily refuse to consider the claims of her whom they contemptuously style "the romish church," and are so prejudiced and full of suspicion, if not of hate, that they too cannot bring themselves to understand how she, like her divine founder, bears upon her immortal brow the distinctive and unmistakable impress of her supernatural origin and destiny. the incarnate son of god, who never asks, nor can ask in vain, implored his heavenly father, that all his followers might be one, and why? in order that this marvellous unity might ever be fixed as a seal of authenticity to his church, and be to all men a permanent sign and proof of her genuineness. "father," he prayed, grant "that they may all be one, as thou art in me, and as i am in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may know that thou hast sent me" (john xvii. 21). unity, then, is undeniably the test and sign-manual attached by christ to his bride, the church; the presence or absence of which must (if there be any truth in god) determine the genuineness or the falsity of every claimant. now, this mark is nowhere found outside the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, whose centre is in rome. other churches not merely do not possess unity. they do not possess so much as the requisite machinery to produce it, nor even the means of preserving it, if produced. with us, on the contrary, it flows as naturally and as directly from the recognised supremacy and infallibility of the vicar of christ as light flows from the sun. it is so manifest that it would seem only the blind can fail to see it: so that one is sometimes puzzled to know how to excuse educated protestants from the damnable sin of _vincible_ ignorance. thus, the faithful throughout the entire world are in constant communication with their respective pastors; the pastors, in their turn, are in direct communication with their respective bishops, and the bishops, dispersed throughout the length and breadth of christendom, are in close and direct communication with the one supreme and infallible ruler, whom the lord has placed over all his possessions; who has been promised immunity from error; and whose special duty and office is to "confirm his brethren" (luke xxii. 32). by this most simple, yet most practical and effective expedient, the very least and humblest catechumen in china or australia is as truly in touch with the central authority at the vatican, and as completely under its direction in matters of faith and morals, as the crowned heads of spain or austria, or as the archbishops of paris or malines. certainly _digitus dei est hic_: the finger of god is here. the simple fact is, there is always something about the works of god which clearly differentiate them from the products of man, however close may be the mere external and surface resemblance. a thousand artists may carve a thousand acorns, so cunningly coloured, and so admirably contrived as to be practically indistinguishable from the genuine fruit of the oak. each of these thousand artists may present me with his manufactured acorn, and may assure me of its genuineness. and, alas! i may be quite deceived and taken in; yes, but only _for a time_. when i plant them in the soil, together with the genuine acorn, and give them time to develop, the fraud is detected, and the truth revealed. for the real seed proves its worth. how? in the simplest way possible, that is to say, by actually doing what it was destined and created to do. that is, by growing and developing into a majestic oak, while the false and human imitations fall to pieces, belie all one's hopes, and are found to produce neither branch nor leaf nor fruit. this is but an illustration of what may be observed equally in the spiritual order, although there it is attended by more disastrous consequences. thus we find hundreds of churches proclaiming themselves to be foundations of god, which time, the old justice who tries all such offenders, soon proves, most unmistakably, to be nothing but the contrivances of man. they may bear a certain external resemblance to the true church, planted by the divine husbandman, but like the man-made acorns, they deceive all our expectations, and are wholly unable to redeem their promises, or to live up to their pretensions. for, while one and all declare with their lips that they possess the truth as revealed by christ, their glaring divisions, irreconcilable differences, and internal dissensions emphatically prove that the truth is not in them: and that they have been built, not on the rock, but on the shifting sand, and are the erections, not of god, but of feeble, fickle men. on the other hand, the catholic church, amid a thousand sects, resembles the genuine acorn among the thousand imitations. not only does she alone possess the whole truth; but she alone can stand up and actually prove this claim to the entire world, by pointing defiantly at her marvellous and miraculous unity--a unity so conspicuous, and so striking, and so absolutely unique, that even the hostile and bigoted protestant press can sometimes scarcely refrain from bearing an unwilling testimony to it. we might give many instances of this, and quote from many sources, but let the following extract from london's leading journal serve as an example. it is no other paper than the _times_, which makes the following admission on occasion of the vatican council which opened in 1869: "seven hundred bishops, more or less, representing all christendom, were seen gathered round one altar and one throne, partaking of the same divine mystery, and rendering homage, by turns, to the same spiritual authority and power. as they put on their mitres, or took them off, and as they came to the steps of the altar, or the foot of the common spiritual father, it was impossible not to feel the unity and the power of the church which they represented" (16th dec., 1869). here, then, is the most influential journal certainly of great britain, perhaps of the world, proclaiming to its readers far and wide, not simply that the roman catholic church is one, but that her oneness is of such a sterling quality, and of so pronounced a character that it is impossible--mark the word, impossible!--not to feel it. yet men ask where the church of god is to be found. they ask for a sign, and lo! when god gives them one they cannot see it, nor interpret it, nor make anything out of it: and prefer to linger on in what newman calls "the cities of confusion," than find peace and security in "the communion of rome, which is that church which the apostles set up at pentecost, which alone has 'the adoption of sons, and the glory and the covenants and the revealed law, and the service of god and the promises,' and in which the anglican [or any other protestant] communion, whatever it merits and demerits, whatever the great excellence of individuals in it, has, as such, no part". but this is a digression. let us return to our subject. the incontestable value and immense practical importance of the papal prerogative of infallibility have been rendered abundantly manifest ever since its solemn definition nearly forty years ago. in fact, although the enormous increase of the population of the world has not rendered the position of the sovereign pontiff any easier, yet he is better fitted and equipped since the definition to cope promptly and effectually with errors and heresies as they arise than he was before. we do not mean that his prerogative of infallibility is invoked upon every trivial occasion--one does not call for a nasmyth hammer to break a nut--but it is always there, in reserve, and may be used, on occasion, even without summoning an ecumenical council, and this is a matter of some consequence. for, though time may bring many changes into the life of man, and may improve his physical condition and surroundings, and add enormously to his comfort, health, and general corporal well-being, it is found to produce no corresponding effect upon his corrupt and fallen nature, which asserts itself as vigorously now, after nearly two thousand years of christianity, as in the past. pride and self still sway men's hearts. the spirit of independence and self-assertion and egotism, in spite of all efforts at repression, continue to stalk abroad. and human nature, even to-day, is almost as impatient of restraint, and as unwilling to bear the yoke of obedience, as in the time when gregory resisted henry of germany, or when pius vii. excommunicated napoleon. if, even in the apostolic age, when the number of the faithful was small and concentrated, there were, nevertheless, men of unsound views--"wolves in sheep's clothing"--amongst the flock of christ, how much more likely is this to be the case now. if the apostle st. paul felt called upon to warn his own beloved disciples against those "who would not endure sound doctrine," and who "heaped to themselves teachers, having itching ears," and who even "closed their ears to the truth, in order to listen to fables" (2 tim. iv. 1-5), surely we may reasonably expect to find, even in our own generation, many who have fallen, or who are in danger of falling under the pernicious influence of false teachers, and who are being seduced and led astray by the plausible, but utterly fallacious, reasoning of proud and worldly spirits. it would be easy to name several, but they are too well known already to need further advertising here. then, she has adversaries without, as well as within. for, though the church is not _of_ the world, she is _in_ the world. which is only another way of saying that she is surrounded continually and on all sides by powerful, subtle, and unscrupulous foes. "the world is the enemy of god," and therefore of his church. if its votaries cannot destroy her, nor put an end to her charmed life, they hope, at least, to defame her character and to blacken her reputation. they seize every opportunity to misrepresent her doctrine, to travesty her history, and to denounce her as retrograde, old fashioned, and out of date. and, what makes matters worse, the falsest and most mischievous allegations are often accompanied by professions of friendship and consideration, and set forth in learned treatises, with an elegance of language and an elevation of style calculated to deceive the simple and to misguide the unwary. it is father w. faber who remarks that, "there is not a new philosophy nor a freshly named science but what deems, in the ignorance of its raw beginnings, that it will either explode the church as false or set her aside as doting" (bl. sac. prologue). indeed the world is always striving to withdraw men and women from their allegiance to the church, through appeals to its superior judgment and more enlightened experience; and philosophy and history and even theology are all pressed into the service, and falsified and misrepresented in such a manner as to give colour to its complaints and accusations against the bride of christ, who, it is seriously urged, "should make concessions and compromises with the modern world, in order to purchase the right to live and to dwell within it". what is the consequence? let the late cardinal archbishop and the bishops of england answer. "many catholics," they write in their joint pastoral, "are consequently in danger of forfeiting not only their faith, but even their independence, by taking for granted as venerable and true the halting and disputable judgment of some men of letters or of science which may represent no more than the wave of some popular feeling, or the views of some fashionable or dogmatising school. the bold assertions of men of science are received with awe and bated breath, the criticisms of an intellectual group of _savants_ are quoted as though they were rules for a holy life, while the mind of the church and her guidance are barely spoken of with ordinary patience." in a world such as this, with the agents of evil ever active and threatening, with error strewn as thorns about our path at every step, and with polished and seductive voices whispering doubt and suggesting rebellion and disobedience to men, already too prone to disloyalty, and arguing as cunningly as satan, of old, argued with eve; in such a world, who, we may well ask, does not see the pressing need as well as the inestimable advantages and security afforded by a living, vigilant, responsible and supreme authority, where all who seek, may find an answer to their doubts, and a strength and a firm support in their weakness? and as surely as the need exists, so surely has god's watchful providence supplied it, in the person of the supreme pontiff, the venerable vicar of christ on earth. he is authorised and commissioned by christ himself "to feed" with sound doctrine, both "the lambs and the sheep"; and faithfully has he discharged that duty. "the pope," writes cardinal newman, "is no recluse, no solitary student, no dreamer about the past, no doter upon the dead and gone, no projector of the visionary. he, for eighteen hundred years, has lived in the world; he has seen all fortunes, he has encountered all adversaries, he has shaped himself for all emergencies. if ever there was a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the practicable, and has been happy in his anticipations, whose words have been facts, and whose commands prophecies, such is he, in the history of ages, who sits, from generation to generation, in the chair of the apostles, as the vicar of christ, and the doctor of his church." "these are not the words of rhetoric," he continues, "but of history. all who take part with the apostle are on the winning side. he has long since given warrants for the confidence which he claims. from the first, he has looked through the wide world, of which he has the burden; and, according to the need of the day, and the inspirations of his lord, he has set himself, now to one thing, now to another; but to all in season, and to nothing in vain.... ah! what grey hairs are on the head of judah, whose youth is renewed like the eagle's, whose feet are like the feet of harts, and underneath the everlasting arms." would that our unfortunate countrymen, tossed about by every wind of doctrine, and torn by endless divisions, could be persuaded to set aside pride and prejudice, and to accept the true principle of religious unity and peace established by god. then england would become again, what she was for over a thousand years, _viz._: "the most faithful daughter of the church of rome, and of his holiness, the one sovereign pontiff and vicar of christ upon earth," as our catholic forefathers were wont to describe her. chapter iv. the church and the sects. a natural tendency is apparent in all men to differ among themselves, even concerning subjects which are simple and easily understood; while, on more difficult and complicated issues, this tendency is, of course, very much more pronounced. hence, the well-known proverb: "_quot homines, tot sententiã¦_"--there are as many opinions as there are men. now, if this is found to be the case in politics, literature, art, music, and indeed in everything else, except perhaps pure mathematics, it is found to be yet more universally the case in questions of religion, since religion is a subject so much more sublime, abstruse, and incomprehensible than others, and so full of supernatural and mysterious truths, with which no merely human tribunal has any competency to deal. then, let me ask, what chance has a man of arriving at a right decision on the most important of all questions--questions concerning his own eternal salvation--who is thrown into the midst of a world where there is no uniformity of view on spiritual matters, where every variety of opinion is expressed and defended, and where every conceivable form of worship has its fervent supporters and followers. or, leaving all others out of account, may we not well ask how the vast multitudes even of catholics, scattered throughout such a world as this, are to maintain "the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace" (eph. iv. 3), to preserve the tenets of their creed intact, and to discriminate accurately and readily between the teaching of god, and the fallacious doctrines of men? in dealing with anxious and angry disputants there is little use to appeal, as protestants do, to the authority of teachers who have nothing more to commend them than a learning and an intelligence but little better than that of their disciples. where man differs from man each will prefer his own view, and claim that his personal opinion is as deserving of respect and as likely to be right as his adversary's--which is practically what obtains among non-catholics at the present day. indeed, the only superhuman and infallible authority on earth recognised by them is the bible; and that, alas! has proved a block of stumbling and not a bond of union, since, in the hands of unscrupulous men, it may be made to prove absolutely anything. the most sacred and fundamental truths, even such as the sublime doctrine of the blessed trinity, the divinity of christ, and the atonement, have all, at one time or another, been vehemently denied _on the authority of the bible_! the anglican bishop colenso, in writing to the _times_, could quote eleven texts of scripture to prove that prayer ought not to be offered to our divine lord! yet, it made no difference. he was allowed to go on teaching just as before! no one seemed to care. what is "pure gospel" to mr. brown is "deadly error" to mr. green; while "the fundamental verities" of mr. thompson are "the satanical delusions" of mr. johnson. in fact, there is really less dispute among men as to the interpretation of the vedas, of chinese chronology, or of egyptian archã¦ology, than of the bible, which, to the eternal dishonour of protestant commentators, has now almost ceased to have any definite meaning whatever, because every imaginable meaning has been defended by some and denied by others. it is beyond dispute that the bible, without an infallible teacher to explain its true meaning, will be of no use whatsoever as a bond of unity. if the unity, promised by god-incarnate, is to be secured, the present circumstances of the case, as well as the actual experience of many centuries, prove three conditions to be absolutely necessary, _viz._: a teacher who is _firstly_ ever living and accessible; _secondly_, who can and will speak clearly and without ambiguity; and _thirdly_, and most essential of all, whose decisions are authoritative and decisive. one, in a word, who can pass sentence and close a controversy, and whose verdict will be honoured and accepted _as final_ by all catholics without hesitation. these three requisites are found in the person of the infallible head of the catholic church, but nowhere else. experience shows that where, in religion, there is nothing but mere human learning to guide, however great such learning may be, there will always be room left for some differences of opinion. in such controversies even the learned and the well read will not all arrange themselves on one side; but will espouse, some one view, and some another. we find this to be the case everywhere. and, since the church of england offers us as striking and as ready an example as any other, we cannot do better than invoke it as both a warning and a witness. though her adherents are but a small fraction, compared with ourselves, and though they are socially and politically far more homogeneous than we catholics, who are gathered from all the nations of the earth, yet even they, in the absence of any universally recognised and infallible head, are split up into a hundred fragments. so that, even on the most essential points of doctrine, there is absolutely no true unanimity. this is so undeniable that anglican bishops themselves are found lamenting and wringing their hands over their "unhappy divisions". still, we wish to be perfectly just, so, in illustration of our contention, we will select, not one of those innumerable minor points which it would be easy to bring forward, but some really crucial point of doctrine, the importance of which no man in his senses will have the hardihood to deny. let us say, for instance, the doctrine of the holy eucharist. can we conceive anything that a devout christian would be more anxious to ascertain than whether our divine lord and saviour be really and personally and substantially present under the appearance of bread, or no! picture to yourselves, then, a fervent worshipper entering an anglican church, where they are said "to reserve," and kneeling before the tabernacle. just watch the poor unfortunate man utterly and hopelessly unable to decide whether he is prostrating and pouring out his soul before a mere memorial, a simple piece of common bread, or before the infinite creator of the universe, the dread king of kings, and lord of lords, in whose presence the very angels veil their faces, and the strong pillars of heaven tremble! imagine a church where such a state of things is possible! yet, we have it on the authority of an anglican bishop--and i know not where we shall find a higher authority--that this is indeed the case; as may be gathered from the following words, taken from a "charge" by the late bishop ryle, which are surely clear enough: "one section of our (_i.e._, anglican) clergy," says the bishop, "maintains that the lord's supper is a sacrifice, and another maintains with equal firmness that it is not.... one section maintains that there is a real objective presence of christ's body and blood under the forms of the consecrated bread and wine. the other maintains that there is no real presence whatsoever, except in the hearts of the believing communicant."[5] was such a state of pitiable helplessness ever seen or heard or dreamed of anywhere! and yet this church, please to observe, is supposed to be a body sent by god to teach. heaven preserve us from such a teacher. as a further illustration of the utter incompetency of the establishment to perform this primary duty, we may call to mind the strikingly instructive correspondence that was published some years ago between his grace archbishop sumner and mr. maskell, who very naturally and very rightly sought direction from his ordinary concerning certain points of doctrine, of which he was in doubt. "you ask me," writes the archbishop to mr. maskell, "whether you are to conclude that you ought not to teach, and have not the authority of the [anglican] church to teach any of the doctrines spoken of in your five former questions, in the dogmatical terms there stated." here, then, we have a perfectly fair and straightforward question, deserving an equally clear and straightforward answer: and such as would be given at once if addressed by any catholic enquirer to _his_ bishop. but how does the anglican archbishop proceed to calm and comfort this helpless, agitated soul, groping painfully in the dark? what is his grace's reply? he cannot refer the matter to a sovereign pontiff, for no pontiff in the anglican church is possessed of any sovereignty whatsoever. in fact the archbishop himself has to "verily testify and declare that his majesty the king is the only supreme governor in _spiritual_ and _ecclesiastical_ things as well as temporal," etc.[6] nor dare he solve these troublesome doubts himself: for he is no more infallible than his questioner. then what does he do? practically nothing. he throws the whole burden back upon poor mr. maskell, and leaves him to struggle with his doubts as best he may. thus; though the church _of god_ was established to "teach all nations," and _must_ still be teaching all nations if she exist at all; the church _of england_ seems unable to teach one nation, or even one man. but to continue. the archbishop begins by putting mr. maskell a question. "are they (_i.e._, the doctrines about which he is seeking information) contained in the word of god? st. paul says, 'preach the word'.... now whether the doctrines concerning which you inquire are contained in the word of god, and can be proved thereby, _you have the same means_ of discovering for yourself as i have, and i have no special authority to declare." did any one ever witness such an exhibition of ineptitude and spiritual asthenia? we can conceive a man rejecting all revelation. it is possible even to conceive a man denying the divinity of christ. but we know nothing that would ever enable us even to conceive that infinite wisdom and infinite power had established a church which cannot teach, or had sent an ambassador utterly unable to deliver his message. there is no use for such church as that. total silence is better than incoherent speech. what is the consequence? the consequence is that in the anglican community endless variations and differences exist and flourish side by side, not alone in matters where differences are comparatively of little account, but in even the most momentous and fundamental doctrines, such as the necessity of baptism, the power of absolution, the nature of the holy eucharist, the effects of the sacrament of holy orders, and so forth. were it not for the iron hand of the state, which grasps her firmly, and binds her mutually repellent elements together, she must have fallen to pieces long ago. now, we must beg our readers to consider well, that from the very terms of the institution such a deplorable state of things as we have been contemplating is absolutely impossible and unthinkable in the church (1) which _god-incarnate_ founded, _for the express purpose of handing down his doctrine_, pure and undefiled to the end of time; and (2) with which he promised to abide for ever; and (3) which the holy ghost himself, speaking through st. paul, declared to be "the pillar and ground of truth" (1. tim. iii. 15). nevertheless, if the catholic church, numbering over 250,000,000 of persons, is not to fall into the sad plight that has overtaken all the small churches that have gone out from her, she must not only desire unity, as, no doubt, all the sects desire it, but she must have been provided by her all-wise founder with what none of them even profess to possess, _viz._, some simple, workable, and effective means of securing it. this means, as practical as it is simple, is no other than one supreme central and living authority, enjoying full jurisdiction over all--that is to say, the authority of peter, ever living in his see, and speaking, now by the lips of leo, and now by the lips of pius, but always in the name, and with the authority, and under the guidance of him who, in the plenitude of his divine power, made peter the immovable rock, against which the gates of hell may indeed expend their fury, but against which they never have prevailed and never can prevail. "the gates of hell shall not prevail against thee." that any one can fail to understand the meaning of these inspired words; that any one can give them any application save that which they receive in the catholic church, is but another illustration of the extraordinary power of prejudice and pride to blind the reason and to darken the understanding. without this final court of appeal, set up by the wisdom of god, the church would disintegrate and fall into pieces to-morrow. to remove from the church of christ the infallibility of the pope would be like removing the hub from the wheel, the key-stone from the arch, the trunk from the tree, the foundation from the house. for, in each case the result must mean confusion. if such a result could ever have been doubted in the past, it can surely be doubted no longer. the sad experience of the past three hundred years speaks more eloquently than any words; and its verdict is conclusive. it proves two things beyond dispute. the _first_ is, that even the largest and most heterogeneous body of men may be easily united and kept together, if they can all be brought to recognise and obey one supreme authority; and the _second_ is, that, even a small and homogeneous body of men will soon divide and split up into sections, if they cannot be brought to recognise such an authority. further, any one looking out over the face of christendom, with an unprejudiced eye, for the realisation of that unity which christ promised to affix to his church as an infallible sign of authenticity, will find it in the catholic communion, but certainly nowhere else--least of all in the church of england. "what," asks a well-known writer in unfeigned astonishment, "what opinion is not held within the established church? were not dr. wilberforce and dr. colenso, dr. hamilton and dr. baring equally bishops of the church of england? were not dr. pusey and mr. jowett at the same time her professors; father ignatius and mr. bellew her ministers; archdeacon denison and dr. m'neile her distinguished ornaments and preachers? yet their religions differed almost as widely as buddhism from calvinism, or the philosophy of aristotle from that of martin tupper." if a catholic priest were to teach a single heretical doctrine, he would be at once cashiered, and turned out of the church. but "if an anglican minister must resign because his opinions are at variance with some other anglican minister, every soul of them would have to retire, from the archbishop of canterbury down to the last licentiate of durham or st. bees". as surely as infallibility is the essential prerogative of a divinely constituted teaching church, so surely can it exist only in that institution which alone has always claimed it, both as her gift by promise and the sole explanation of her triumphs and her perpetuity. it would be the idlest of dreams to search for it in a fractional part of a modern community, like the church of england, which had always disowned and scoffed at it, and which could account for its own existence only on the plea that the promises of god had signally failed, and that _it_ alone was able to correct the failure. men ask for some sign, by which they may recognise the true church of god and discriminate it readily from all spurious imitations. god, in his mercy, offers them a sign--namely unity. yet they hesitate and hold back, and refuse to guide their tempest-tossed barques by its unerring light into the one haven of salvation. footnotes: [footnote 5: see charge, etc., dated november, 1893.] [footnote 6: _ang. ministry_, by hutton, p. 504.] chapter v. the pope's infallible authority. 1. the church of god can be but one; because god is truth: and, truth can be but one. the world may, and (as a matter of fact) does abound in false churches, just as it abounds in false deities; but, this is rendered possible only _because they are false_. two or more true churches involve a contradiction in terms. such a condition of things is as intrinsically absurd, and as unthinkable, as two or more true gods--as well talk of two or more multiplication tables! no! there can be but "one lord, one faith, one baptism". if several churches all teach the true doctrine of christ, unmixed with error, they must all agree, and, consequently, be virtually one and the self same. there is no help for it; and sound reason will not tolerate any other conclusion. the "branch theory" stands self-condemned, if truth be of any importance: because it is inconsistent with truth. for, if one church contradicts the other on any single point of doctrine, then one or the other must be false, that is, it must be either asserting what christ denied; or else denying what christ asserted. they cannot, under any circumstances, be described as _true_ churches. this is not sophistry or subtilty. it is common-sense. christ promised unity in promising truth; since truth is one. is christ divided? asks st. paul. no! then neither is his church. 2. how was his truth to be maintained and securely developed, century after century, pure and untainted, and free from all admixture of error? _humanly_ speaking, the thing was impossible. then what _superhuman_ guarantee did he offer? what was to be our security? nothing less than the abiding presence of the holy ghost himself. surely, then, we need not be anxious after that! listen, and remember it is to god you are listening. "the spirit of truth shall abide with you for ever" (john xiv. 17). non-catholics do not seem in the least to realise what those words mean, or that it is god himself who promises. but, to continue; what is the purpose of this extraordinary and enduring presence? why is it given? what is it for? well, for the express purpose of hindering divisions and sects. in order to lead, not to mislead us. how do we know? because god said so: "he shall guide you into all truth" (john xvi. 13). and this truth, thus permanently secured, was to draw all together into one body. in fact, we have it on divine authority, that the church of christ was to be as truly a single organic whole, in which every part is subject to one head, as is a living human body. the similitude is not of man's choosing, but is inspired by the holy spirit himself. "as the (natural) body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is christ.... now, ye are the (mystical) body[7] of christ" (1 cor. xii.). what can be clearer, what more explicit? now, if the spirit of truth, that is to say, the holy ghost, _is really_ with the church (as god promised he always would be), and if he is always present for the _express purpose of "guiding her into all truth"_ (as god promised would be the case), surely this guidance must be a great reality, and not the mere sham that it is everywhere found to be, outside the catholic church. 3. consciously or unconsciously, anglicans and other non-catholics have for centuries denied the truth of our lord's words and have contradicted his clearest statements. in fact, the church of england, in her book of homilies, declares that "clergy and laity, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees of men, women, and children, of whole christendom, were altogether drowned in damnable idolatry by the space of 800 years and more"! (hom. on peril of idol., part iii.). this is a specimen of the way in which god's promises are set aside, and the bible misinterpreted by outsiders while professing to make it the foundation of their creed. nor was this the teaching of a few irresponsible persons. it was enforced by the whole anglican church. "all parsons, vicars, curates, and all others having spiritual cure," were "straitly enjoined" to read these homilies sunday after sunday throughout the year in every church and chapel of the kingdom. and the 25th article declares the second book of homilies to contain "a godly and wholesome doctrine and necessary for these times"! probably this "godly and wholesome doctrine" is no longer obliged to be read and taught by anglicans; probably they no longer consider it either "godly" or "wholesome," but quite the reverse. this we are quite ready to admit. but, in the name of common prudence, who, in his senses, would trust the salvation of his immortal soul to a church that teaches a thing is white in one century and black in the next, and never knows its own mind? here then let us put two very pertinent questions, for our non-catholic friends to ponder over, and to answer, if they can. first: how is it possible for the church to go astray, if god the holy ghost is really guiding? second: how is it possible for the church to wander away into _error_, if this same spirit be leading her into _all truth_? will some one kindly explain that, without at the same time denying the veracity of god? 4. however, granting the absolute truth of christ's promises, we may now proceed to inquire in what way this divine and (because divine) infallible guidance into all truth is brought about? is it by the holy spirit whispering to each individual priest or to each individual bishop? emphatically not. why not? because, if that theory were well founded, then every priest and bishop would believe and teach precisely the same set of doctrines, without any need of an infallible pope to guide him. for, clearly, the spirit of _truth_ could not whisper "yea" to one, and "nay" to another, nor could he declare a thing to be "black" to one person and "white" to his neighbour. in fine, we have but two alternatives to choose from. we must confess either that the promises themselves, so solemnly made, are lies (which were blasphemy to affirm), or else, that god directs his church, and safeguards its truth, through its head, or chief pastor; just as we regulate and control the members of the physical body through the brain. we must either renounce all belief in christ and his promises, or else admit that his words are actually carried out, and that the prayer has been heard which he made for peter, and for those who should, in turn, exercise peter's office and functions, and should speak in his name. harken to the narrative, as given by st. luke: "the lord said: simon, simon, behold, satan hath desired to have you [_observe, the plural number_] that he may sift you as wheat; but i have prayed [_not for all, but_] for _thee_, that _thy_ faith fail not: and _thou_, being once converted, confirm thy brethren" (luke xxii. 32) [_observe the singular number_, "thee," "thy" and "thou"]. peter still lives, in the person of pope pius x., and _in virtue of that prayer_, and through the omnipotent power of god, peter still "confirms his brethren," and will continue to confirm them in the true and pure doctrine of christ, until the final crack of doom. as the venerable bishop w.b. ullathorne wrote to lady chatterton, soon after the vatican council, _i.e._, 19th november, 1875: "there is but one church of christ, with one truth, taught by one authority, received by all, believed by all within its pale; or there is no security for faith. if we examine our lord's words and acts, such a church there is. if we follow the inclinations of our fallen nature, ever averse to the control of authority, we there find the reason why so many who love this world, receive not the authority that he planted, to endure like his primal creation, to the end." "it is pleasant to human pride and independence to be a little god, having but oneself for an authority, and a light, and a law to oneself. but does this or does it not contradict the fact that we are dependent beings, and that the lord, he is god? this spirit of independence, with self-sufficiency for its basis, and rebellion for its act, is _just what_ sacred scripture ascribes to satan" (p. 230). true. and it is just the reverse of the disposition that christ demands from all who wish to enter into his one fold: for he declares with startling clearness that "unless we become as little children" (_i.e._, docile, submissive, trustful, etc.) "we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," which is his church. * * * * * 5. before proceeding further, it may be well here to draw a distinction between the pope, considered as the _supreme_ ruler, and the pope, considered as the _infallible_ ruler. the reigning pontiff, whosoever he may be, is always the supreme ruler, the head of the church, and the vicar of christ; but he is not, on all occasions, nor under all circumstances, the infallible ruler. to guard against any mistake as to the meaning of our words, let us explain that infallibility is a gift, but not a gift that the pope exercises every day, nor on every occasion, nor in addressing individuals, nor public audiences, nor is it a prerogative that can be invoked, except under special and indeed we may certainly add, very exceptional circumstances. and further--unlike other powers--it can never be delegated to another. the pope himself is infallible, but he cannot transfer nor communicate his infallibility, even temporarily or for some special given occasion, to anyone else who may, in other respects, represent him, such as a legate, ambassador, or nuncio. "neither in conversation," writes the theologian billuart, "nor in discussion, nor in interpreting scripture or the fathers, nor in consulting, nor in giving his reasons for the point which he has defined, nor in answering letters, nor in private deliberations, supposing he is setting forth his own opinion, is the pope infallible." he is not infallible as a theologian, or as a priest, or a bishop, or a temporal ruler, or a judge, or a legislator, or in his political views, or even in the government of the church: but only when he teaches the faithful throughout the world, _ex cathedrã¢_, in matters of faith or of morals, that is to say, in matters relating to revealed truth, or to principles of moral conduct. "it in no way depends upon the caprice of the pope, or upon his good pleasure, to make such and such a doctrine the object of a dogmatic definition. he is tied up and limited to the divine revelation, and to the truths which that revelation contains. he is tied up and limited by the creeds, already in existence, and by the preceding definitions of the church. he is tied up and limited by the divine law and by the constitution of the church. lastly, he is tied up and limited by that doctrine, divinely revealed, which affirms that, alongside religious society, there is civil society, that alongside the ecclesiastical hierarchy, there is the power of temporal magistrates, invested, in their own domain, with a full sovereignty, and to whom we owe in conscience obedience and respect in all things morally permitted, and belonging to the domain of civil society."[8] further, a definition of divine faith must be drawn from the apostolic deposit of doctrine, in order that it may be considered an exercise of infallibility, whether in pope or council. similarly, a precept of morals, if it is to be accepted as from an infallible voice, must be drawn from the moral law, that primary revelation to us from god. the pope has no power over the moral law, except to assert it, to interpret it and to enforce it. 6. from this, it is at once realised how restricted, after all, is the infallible power of the pope, in spite of the alarm its definition excited in the protestant camp, in 1870. still, it must be clearly understood that whether speaking _ex cathedrã¢_ or not, the pope is always the vicar of christ and the divinely appointed head of his church, and that we, as dutiful children, are bound both to listen to him with the utmost attention and respect, and to show him ready and heartfelt obedience. anyone who should limit his submission to the pope's infallible utterances is truly a rebel at heart, and no true catholic. the holy scripture is far from contemplating the exceptional cases of infallible definitions when it lays down the command: "remember them, who have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of god, whose faith follow". and, "_obey_ them that have the rule over you, and _submit_ yourselves, for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief". the margin in the protestant version (observes cardinal newman) reads "those who are your _guides_," and the word may also be translated "leaders". well, whether as rulers or as guides and leaders, whichever word be right, they are to be _obeyed_. 7. from this it is evident enough that assent is of two kinds. there is firstly the assent of divine faith; and secondly there is the assent of religious obedience. neither can be dispensed with. both are binding. all we affirm is that the one is not the other, and that the first must not be confused with the last. a special kind of assent, that is to say, the _assent of divine faith_ must be given to all those doctrines which are proposed to us by the infallible voice of the church, as taught by our lord or the apostles, and as contained in the original deposit [_fidei depositum_]. they comprise (_a_) all things whatever which god has directly revealed; and (_b_) whatever truth such revelation implicitly contains. these implicit truths are deduced from the original revelation, very much as any other consequence from its premisses. for example. it is a truth directly revealed, that the _holy ghost is god_. but, since god is to be adored: the further proposition:--_the holy ghost is to be adored_; is also contained, though only implicitly, in revelation; and is therefore, equally, of faith. so again; that christ is man, is a fact of revelation; but the further proposition--christ has a true body--though not explicitly stated, is implicitly affirmed in the first proposition. all consequences, such as the above, which are seen immediately and evidently to be contained in the words of revelation, must be accepted as of faith. other consequences, which are equally contained in the original deposit, but which are not so readily detected and deduced, _must be explicitly_ accepted as of faith, only so soon as the church has publicly and authoritatively declared them to be so contained; but not before. thus, to take an illustration, the immaculate conception of the blessed virgin is a fact contained from the beginning, implicitly locked up, as it were, in the deposit of faith, left by the apostles. were it not so it never could have been defined; for the church does not invent doctrines. she only transmits them. yet, this doctrine is not so clearly and so self-evidently included, and lies not so luminously and unmistakably on the very surface of revelation as to be at once perceptible to all. hence, before its actual definition, a catholic might deny it, or suspend his judgment, without censure; whereas, to do either the one or the other, after the church has solemnly declared the doctrine to be contained in the teaching of christ and the apostles, would be nothing short of heresy. "the infallibility, whether of the church or of the pope," says cardinal newman, "acts principally or solely in two channels, (_a_) in direct statement of truth, and (_b_) in the condemnation of error. the former takes the shape of doctrinal definitions, the latter stigmatises propositions as 'heretical,' 'next to heresy,' 'erroneous,' and the like" (p. 136). the gift of infallibility, observes cardinal manning, "extends _directly_ to the whole matter of divine truth, and _indirectly_ to all truths which, though not revealed, are in such contact with revelation that the deposit of faith and morals cannot be guarded, expounded, and defended, without an infallible discernment of such unrevealed truths" (_vatican decrees_, p. 167). 8. to sum up: persons who refuse to assent to doctrines which they know to be directly revealed and defined, or which are universally held by the church as of catholic faith, become by that very act guilty of heresy, and cut themselves adrift from the mystical body of christ, and are no longer his members. if, on the other hand, their assent is refused only to doctrines closely connected with these dogmatic utterances, and which, as such, are proposed for their acceptance, they become guilty, if not of actual heresy, then of something perilously akin to it, and are, at all events, guilty of serious sin. we may observe, in conclusion, that the infallibility of pontifical definitions, as father humphrey so pertinently reminds us, does not depend upon the reigning pontiff's possession of any real knowledge of ancient church history or theology, or philosophy or science, but _simply_ and solely upon the assistance of god the holy ghost, guaranteed to him in his exercise of his function of chief pastor, in feeding with divine doctrine the entire flock of god. our anglican friends seem penetrated with the utterly false notion of justification by scholarship alone; which is as untrue as it is unscriptural. indeed, their justification by scholarship is likely to lead to very undesirable and deplorable results. in the foregoing chapter we have considered especially the pope's infallible authority, and the assent and obedience due to it. in our next it remains for us to consider the proper attitude of a loyal catholic towards the sovereign pontiff as the supreme ruler and governor of the church of god, even when not speaking _ex cathedrã¢_. footnotes: [footnote 7: the word _soma_, observes mgr. capel, is never used in greek to express _mere_ association or aggregation (_catholic_, p. 13).] [footnote 8: from a pastoral of the swiss bishops, which _received the pope's approbation_.] chapter vi. the pope's ordinary authority. 1. when the holy father speaks _ex cathedrã¢_, and defines any doctrine concerning faith or morals, we are bound to receive his teaching with the assent of divine faith: and cannot refuse obedience, without being guilty of heresy. by one such wilful act of disobedience we cease to be members of the church of god, and must be classed with heathens and publicans: "who will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican" (matt, xviii. 17). but the holy father rarely exercises his prerogative of infallibility, and therefore the occasions of these special professions of faith occur but seldom--not once, perhaps, during the course of many years. 2. what then, it may be asked, is the proper attitude of a catholic towards the pope, at ordinary times? for a proper understanding of the answer, it may be well to remind the general reader, that the law of god enjoins obedience to all lawfully constituted authority; whether ecclesiastical or civil, and whether infallible or not: further that the pope, whether speaking _ex cathedrã¢_ or not, is always our lawful superior in all matters appertaining to religion, not only as regards faith and morals, but also as regards ecclesiastical order and discipline. his jurisdiction, or authority to command in these matters, is supreme and universal, and carries with it a corresponding right to be obeyed. he is the immediate and supreme representative of god upon earth; and has been placed in that position by god himself. and since the primacy is neither in whole, nor even in part of human derivation, but comes directly and immediately from christ, no man or number of men, whether kings or princes or individual bishops, nor even a whole council of bishops, have any warranty or right to command him in religious or ecclesiastical concerns.[9] the council of florence declares that: "to him, in blessed peter, was delivered by our lord jesus christ the full power of ruling and governing the universal church". now this "full power" accorded by christ cannot be limited except by the authority of christ. though the pope is not the sovereign of all the faithful in the _temporal_ order, he is the sovereign of all christians in the _spiritual_ order. if then--and this is admitted by all--we are bound in conscience to obey our temporal sovereign and magistrates and masters, and must submit to the laws of the country, so long as they do not conflict with higher and superior laws, such as the natural law and the revealed law, with still greater reason are we bound to obey our spiritual sovereign and the laws and regulations of the church. 3. to object that the pope may possibly make a mistake when not speaking _ex cathedrã¢_ though true, is nothing to the point. for civil governments are far more liable to fail in this respect, and as a matter of fact, do frequently abuse their power and pass unjust laws, and sometimes command what is sinful,[10] yet that fact does not militate against the soundness of the _general_ proposition that lawful superiors are to be obeyed. nor does it diminish the force of st. peter's inspired words, in which he bids us be subject, for god's sake, "whether it be to the king, as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil doers ... for such is the will of god" (peter ii.). nor does it detract from the truth and validity of st. paul's still more emphatic words: "let every soul be subject to higher powers; for there is no power but from god: and those that are ordained of god. therefore he that resisteth the power, _resisteth the ordinance of god. and they that resist purchase to themselves damnation_" (rom. xiii.). and again, when writing to titus he says: "admonish them to be subject to princes and powers, and to obey" (tit. iii. 1). if the apostles themselves thus command obedience to the state, even to a pagan government, such as the roman was at the time they wrote, it will scarcely be denied by any christian that obedience is due to the church, and to the ecclesiastical government, altogether apart from any question of infallibility. in fact, though both the civil government and the ecclesiastical government are from god, and though each is supreme within its own sphere; yet the authority in the case of the church is directly and immediately from god, whereas in the case of the state, it is from god only mediately. this is why the form of government, in the case of the state, may vary. it may be at one time monarchical, and at another republican, and then oligarchic, and so forth, whereas the church must ever be ruled by one supreme pontiff, and be monarchical in its form. further, it is generally held that even when not speaking _ex cathedrã¢_, "the vicar of christ is largely assisted by god in the fulfilment of his sublime office; that he receives great light and strength to do well the great work entrusted to him and imposed upon him, and that he is continually guided from above in the government of the catholic church." [words of father o'reilly, s.j., quoted with approval by cardinal newman, p. 140.] and that supplies us with a special and an additional motive for prompt obedience. "two powers govern the world," wrote pope gelasius, to the greek emperor anastasius, more than fourteen hundred years ago, "the spiritual authority of the roman pontiff, and the temporal power of kings". these two powers have for their end, one the spiritual happiness of man, here and hereafter, the other the temporal prosperity of society in the present world. so that, we may say, speaking generally, the roman pontiff has, in spiritual and ecclesiastical matters, the same authority that secular sovereigns and their parliaments have in worldly and political matters. they command and issue laws not only as regards what is _necessary_ for the welfare of their subjects, but also as regards whatever is lawful and expedient. it is not contended that they never make a mistake. it is not asserted that their ruling is necessarily, and in every particular, always wise and discreet, but even inexpedient orders, if not unjust, may be valid and binding, even though they might have been better non-issued. the principle to guide us is of practical simplicity. as regards both the church and the state--each in its own order--the rule is that obedience is to be yielded. and, in doubtful cases the presumption is in favour of authority. if anything were ordered, which is _clearly seen_ to be contrary to, or incompatible with the law of god, whether natural or revealed, then, of course, it would possess no binding force, for the apostle warns us that--"we must obey god, rather than man"--but, so long as we remain in a state of uncertainty, we are bound to give a properly constituted authority the benefit of the doubt--and submit. 4. with these preliminary explanations and considerations to guide us in our interpretation, we will now give the solemn teaching on the subject, as laid down in the third chapter of the _pastor ã�ternus_, drawn up and duly promulgated by the ecumenical council of the vatican; and therefore of supreme authority. "we teach and declare that the roman church, according to the disposition of the lord, obtains the princedom of ordinary power over all the other churches; and that this, the roman pontiff's power of jurisdiction, which is truly episcopal, is immediate; towards which (power) all the pastors and faithful, of whatever right and dignity, whether each separately or all collectively, are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in the things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the _discipline and government_ (_regimen_) of the church diffused through the whole world; so that, unity being preserved with the roman pontiff, as well of communion as of the profession of the same faith, the church of christ may be one flock under one pastor. this is the doctrine of catholic truth, from which no one can deviate without loss of faith and salvation." "we also teach and declare that the roman pontiff is the supreme judge of the faithful, and that in all causes belonging to ecclesiastical examination recourse can be had to his judgment: and that the judgment of the apostolic see, than whose authority there is none greater, is not to be called in question, nor is it lawful for any one to judge its judgment. therefore, those wander from the right path of truth who affirm that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council, as to an authority superior to the roman pontiff." "if any one, therefore, shall say that the roman pontiff has only the office of inspection or direction, but not full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal church, not only in the things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the church diffused throughout the whole world, or that he has only the principal place (_potiores partes_), and not the whole plenitude of the supreme power, or that this, his power, is not ordinary and immediate, whether over all and each of the churches, or over all and each of the pastors and faithful, let him be anathema!" 5. since the church is a perfect society, spread throughout the entire world, with one supreme ruler at its head, it follows that it must be endowed with all the means requisite for the carrying out of its mission. christ was sent, by his eternal father, from heaven with full powers. "all power is given me in heaven and in earth"; and these powers he handed on to his church. "as the father hath sent me, so i also send you" (john xx. 21). hence the popes are, to use scriptural phraseology, "ambassadors for christ; god, as it were, exhorting by them" (2 cor. v. 20); and no catholic dare contest their power or jurisdiction. indeed, it would have been hopelessly impossible to carry on the government of the church and to maintain unity amongst its ever-increasing numbers, if there were no supreme authority ready to assert itself; to correct errors; to resist abuses; and to restrain those who might introduce dissensions and differences. of this fact, the present deplorable chaotic state of the anglican and other non-catholic churches offers us abundant and forcible illustrations. from the very first the one true church has not only taught, but ruled; not only spoken, but acted. and when any of her subjects have proved obstreperous and disobedient, and stubborn in their resistance to her orders, she has invariably turned them out of her fold, so that they should not infect and contaminate the good and the loyal. it was in this sense that st. paul, the inspired apostle, in the very first century of the christian era, instructed titus to construe and administer the law committed to his charge. after warning titus that there are "many vain talkers and deceivers," st. paul commands him "to rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in faith". he adds further: "these things speak, and exhort, and rebuke, _with all authority_". but this was not all. he was not only to decide who were the "vain talkers and deceivers". nor was he simply "to exhort and rebuke them sharply, and with all authority," that they might become "sound in the faith," but if they persisted after the first and second admonition, he was also to reject them, and thrust them out of the church, as heretics. "reject a heretic, after the first and second admonition" (tit. iii. 10). now titus was neither an apostle nor a pope, but a simple bishop. if then such were the powers invested in him, how much more fully still must this authority be inherent in the vicar of christ himself, who is the supreme head upon earth of the entire church of god. it is this prompt amputation of the diseased members, before the hideous canker has time to spread, that has kept the church of god pure to this day, while heretical bodies have fallen into greater and greater spiritual decay. it is because she fearlessly and resolutely insists upon all her children accepting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that she presents to the world, century after century, with miraculous clearness and perspicuity, the divine hall-mark of unity. 6. outside the true church of god there is no recognised voice strong enough to enforce any uniformity of belief. though the pope's authority was acknowledged throughout england for over one thousand years, yet at the time of the so-called reformation, that voice of god, speaking through peter, was admitted no longer. hence, as cardinal manning most truly observes: "the old forms of religious thought are now passing away in england. the rejection of the divine voice has let in the flood of opinion; and opinion has generated scepticism; and scepticism has brought on contentions without end. what seemed so solid once, is disintegrated. it is dissolving by the internal action of the principle from which it sprung. the critical unbelief of dogma has now reached to the foundation of christianity, and to the veracity of scripture. such is the world the catholic church sees before it at this day. the anglicanism of the reformation is _upon the rocks_, like some tall ship stranded upon the shore, and going to pieces, by its own weight and the steady action of the sea. we have no need of playing the wreckers. it would be inhumanity to do so. god knows that the desires and prayers of catholics are ever ascending that all that remains of christianity in england may be preserved, unfolded and perfected into the whole circle of revealed truths, and the unmutilated revelation of the faith. "it is inevitable that if we speak plainly we must give pain and offence to those who will not admit the possibility that they are out of the faith and the church of jesus christ. but, if we do not speak plainly, woe unto us, for we shall betray our trust and our master. there is a day coming, when they who have softened down the truth, or have been silent, will have to give account. i had rather be thought harsh than be conscious of hiding the light which has been mercifully shown to me" (_temp. mission_, etc., p. 215). it would be well if all catholics took to heart these noble words of the great english cardinal, who was himself once an archdeacon in the anglican church. real charity urges us to set forth the truth in all its nakedness and beauty. this must be done, even though it may sometimes give pain and cause irritation. if a man be walking in a trance towards the crumbling edge of some ghastly precipice, who--let me ask--acts with the greater charity, he who is afraid to interfere, and will calmly allow the somnambulist to walk on, till he fall over into the abyss; or he who will shout, and, if need be, roughly shake him from his fatal sleep, and so, perhaps, save him from destruction? surely, to allow a fellow-creature to follow a path of extreme danger, for fear of wounding his susceptibilities and incurring his anger, by candidly pointing out his peril, is the mark, not of a lover of his brethren, but rather of one who loves himself alone. we will conclude with the warning of god, given through the inspired writer ezekiel, the application of which, _positis ponendis_, is sufficiently plain: "when i say unto the wicked, thou shall surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood i will require at thy hand. yet _if thou warn the wicked_, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but _thou hast delivered thy soul_" (ezek. iii. 18). _p.s._--among the authors quoted in the purpose of the papacy may be mentioned the following, as being easily obtainable by english readers: allnatt, allies, bonomelli, capel, castelplano, dering, deviver, franzelin, humphrey, manning, merry del val, meyer, minges, newman, o'reilly, rhodes, ullathorne, ward. footnotes: [footnote 9: "da chi dipenderã  il pontefice nell' esercizio del suo potere spirituale? dai rã¨? eccovi il gallicanismo parlamentare! dalle masse dei fedeli? eccovi il richerianismo, e febronianismo! dai vescovi? eccovi il gallicanismo teologico" (_l. di castelplanio_, p. 104).] [footnote 10: take for instance, 37 henry viii. chap. 17, which recites that "the clergy have no ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but by and under the king, who is the _only supreme head of the church_ of england, to whom _all_ authority and power is _wholly_ given to hear and determine all causes ecclesiastical."] part ii. the anglican theory of continuity in the church of england. or the authority of the pope in england in pre-reformation times. as the first part of this little treatise is devoted to a consideration of the position of the pope and the authority which he exercises throughout the universal church; so the second part is concerned with the position occupied and the authority exercised by the same sovereign pontiff in our own country of england, before she was cut off from the universal church in the sixteenth century. chapter i. the church in england before the reformation. one of the greatest glories of the catholic church is that she and she alone possesses and is able to communicate to others the whole truth revealed by jesus christ. the church of england and other churches that have gone out from her have, we are thankful to say, carried with them some fragments of christianity, but the catholic church alone possesses the whole unadulterated revelation of jesus christ. for over a thousand years, the church in england formed a part of the great universal church, the centre of which is at rome and the circumference of which is everywhere. from the sixth to the sixteenth century the church in england was a province of that church, and received her power and jurisdiction from the holy see. it was not until the sixteenth century that she apostatised, and was cut off from the stem, out of which she had sprung, as a rotten branch is lopped off from a healthy tree. it was not until then that she became a church apart, distinct from the church of god, no longer the _catholic_ church _in_ england, but henceforth the _national_ church _of_ england and of england alone. the pre-"reformation" church was, as we have said, not a separate church, but a part of the one catholic church, whereas the post-"reformation" church stands alone, unrecognised by the rest of christendom; hence the one is absolutely distinct from the other. the grand old cathedrals and churches designed, built, and paid for by our catholic ancestors have been forcibly taken possession of, but the faith, the teaching, and the doctrine--in a word, the church itself--is totally distinct. the wolf may slay and devour the sheep and may then clothe himself in its fleece, but the wolf is not the sheep, and the nature of the one remains totally different from that of the other. the proofs of all this are so numerous and so striking that one scarcely knows which to choose, nor where to begin. in the present chapter, we will content ourselves with calling attention to certain points that every one will be able to grasp. it is said that a straw will show which way the wind blows, so things even trivial in themselves will enable any unprejudiced man to see that there must be some radical difference between the church in england four hundred years ago, and the church of england to-day. first, let us just look round and consider the catholic church. it is spread all over the world. it is found in france, in belgium, in italy, in spain, and in other countries, all of which recognised the church in england before the "reformation" as one in faith and doctrine with themselves. they felt themselves united with it in one and the same belief; they taught the same seven sacraments; they gathered around the same sacrifice; they acknowledged the same supremacy of the same spiritual head. now there is no single catholic country that recognises the church of england as anything but heretical and schismatical. formerly when any archbishop of canterbury travelled abroad he was received as a brother by the catholic bishops all over the continent. he felt thoroughly at home in the catholic churches, and offered up the divine mysteries at their altars, using the same sacred vessels, reading from the same missal, speaking the same language, and feeling himself to be a member of the same spiritual family. can the present archbishop of canterbury follow their example? would the cardinal archbishop of paris, for instance, or the archbishop of milan receive the anglican archbishop of canterbury, as a brother bishop? would they cause their cathedrals to be thrown open to him? no. in vain does the archbishop of canterbury of to-day claim continuity with the pre-"reformation" archbishops. for no one would be found to admit such a claim. it may be said that this is of no great importance. it may not be in itself, but it is the straw which shows the way the wind blows; and clearly proves that the verdict of the entire world and the chief centres of christendom is against continuity. let us take another "straw". before the pseudo-reformation there were cardinals exercising authority in the church in england. some of them even became famous. there was, for instance, cardinal stephen langton, who was primate of england, and who brought together the barons, and forced the great charter from king john. there, amongst the signatures to that famous document we find the name of a roman cardinal. from the time of stephen langton to the time of cardinal fisher in the sixteenth century there was a long succession of cardinals in england, all of whom were members of the church in england. from the time of cardinal robert pullen to that of cardinal john fisher there were no fewer than twenty-two roman cardinals belonging to that church. how is it that during those thousand years the english church could have and actually did have cardinals, up to the time of the so-called reformation, but never since? how is it that such a thing has ceased to be possible? clearly because it is no longer the same church. before, england was a part of the universal church; and just as the church in italy, france, and spain, had, and still have, their cardinals, so england also was given its share of representation in the sacred college. we shall realise the inference to be drawn if we consider what a cardinal is. in the first place, he is one chosen directly by the pope; secondly, he is one of the pope's advisers; thirdly, when the holy father dies it is he, as a member of the sacred college, who has to elect a successor; furthermore, he swears allegiance to the sovereign pontiff, and on bended knee, with his hands on the holy gospels, he solemnly declares his adhesion to the roman catholic faith. no anglican of the present day, no protestant, no one who is not an out-and-out roman catholic can be, or could ever have been, a cardinal, yet there were cardinals here in the church in england, and, as we have stated, a long succession of them right up to the time of the pseudo-reformation. how can there be continuity and spiritual identity between the church _in_ england, which before that change could and did have cardinals, and the church _of_ england to-day, which can produce nothing of the kind? cardinals or no cardinals is not a matter of great importance in itself, but it is another "straw" which clearly shows the completely altered condition of things. let us pass to another point. during the period between the sixth and sixteenth centuries there were many canonised saints in the church in england. i refer to such men as st. bede, who lived in the eighth century; to st. odo of canterbury; to st. dunstan, archbishop of canterbury, in the tenth century; to st. wolstan of worcester; to st. osmond, bishop of salisbury in the eleventh century; to st. thomas ã  becket, in the twelfth century; to st. richard, bishop of chichester and st. edmund, in the thirteenth century; and to many others we could mention, whose names are enrolled in the lists of the catholic church, and who are set up before her children as models of virtue, as the most perfect specimens of sanctity, and as worthy of our imitation--all members of the church in england before the pseudo-reformation.[11] how is it that the present church of england has never canonised any saint? those to whom i have referred represent the best and truest of the church in england before the "reformation". we still show them reverence. in many cases we even recite their offices and masses. how, then, can they be members of the same church as the church of england of to-day, which we know to be a schismatical body, cut off from the unity of christendom some four hundred years ago? there has been no saint canonised according to the rite of the church of england, but if there had been, we would not and could not reverence them, for they would be to us outside the church--aliens, heretics, and, from that point of view at all events, unworthy of imitation. let us point out yet another "straw" which clearly indicates the essential difference between the church in england before the "reformation" and the church of england after it. when the young king henry viii. first came to the throne he, like all his predecessors, both kings and queens, was a true roman catholic. so much so, that when a doctrine of the church was attacked he wrote a book in its defence; in fact, the pope was so pleased with his zeal that he determined to reward him by conferring on him the title of "defender of the faith". but, in the name of common-sense! defender of what faith? was it the protestant faith? was it the faith professed by the present church of england? is it likely, is it possible, that any pope would confer such a title on any one who was not in union with the holy see, and who rejected catholic doctrine? such a thing is unthinkable. was the faith of henry viii. before the break with rome the same as that of edward vii. who on his coronation day declared the mass to be false, transubstantiation to be absurd, and catholics to be idolaters? if not, then what becomes of the continuity theory? the fact is that between the church in england before the sixteenth century and the church of england to-day there is no real connection, no true resemblance, and those who endeavour to prove the contrary are but falsifying history and throwing dust into the eyes of simple people, and trying to prove what is absolutely and wholly untrue. footnotes: [footnote 11: as early as 1170 pope alexander iii. decreed that the consent of the roman church was necessary before public honour as a saint could be given to any person. is it conceivable that such consent would be given by any pope in the case of one not united to rome in the same faith?] chapter ii. the oath of obedience. in order to realise the absolute absurdity of the continuity theory, and to see how thoroughly roman catholic england was right up to the "reformation," it is enough for us to turn back the hands of the great clock of time some few hundred years, and to visit england at any period during the long interval between the sixth and the sixteenth century. one of the first facts that would strike any observant visitor to our shores in those days, would be the attitude of the church in england towards the holy see. every archbishop, every metropolitan from the time of st. augustine himself, a.d. 601, up to the sixteenth century, not merely acknowledged the authority of the pope, but solemnly swore to show him reverence and obedience. furthermore, even when an archbishop had been appointed and consecrated, he could not exercise jurisdiction until he had received the sacred pallium, which came from rome, and was received as the symbol and token of the authority conferred on him by the supreme pastor. the pallium itself, "taken from the body of blessed peter," is a band of lamb's wool, and was worn by each archbishop as the pledge of unity and of orthodoxy, as well as the fetter of loving subjection to the supreme pastor of the one fold, the "apostolic yoke" of catholic obedience. in the early saxon times, long before trains or steamers had been invented, we find primate after primate of all england undertaking the long and perilous journey over the sea, and then across the continent of europe, and over the precipitous and dangerous passes of the alps, down through the sunny and vine-clad slopes of italy, in order to receive the pallium in person from the venerable successor of st. peter, in the great basilica in rome. but, whether they actually went for it themselves in person, or whether special messengers were sent with it from rome to england, they always awaited its reception before they considered themselves fully empowered to exercise their metropolitan functions. by way of illustration, it may be interesting to consider some special case, and we will then leave the reader to judge whether we are dealing with an england that is _catholic_ or an england that is _protestant_; with an england united to the holy see and to the rest of catholic europe, or an england independent of the holy see, isolated, and established by law and parliament, as it is to-day--an england in possession of the truth, which is universal and the same everywhere, or an england clinging to error, which is local, national and circumscribed. it does not much matter what name we select; any will answer our purpose. let us then take simon langham, as good and honest an english name as ever there was. it is the year 1366, some two hundred years before the church in england cut itself off from the rest of christendom. the metropolitan see of canterbury is vacant. the widowed diocese seeks, at the hands of the pope, urban v., a new archbishop. after mature inquiry and consideration the pope selects simon langham. and who is he? who is this distinguished man, now called to rule over that portion of the one catholic church represented by england? if we study his history we shall find that he in no way resembles the typical amiable anglican canon of the present day, with a wife and children, living within the cathedral close, but that he is a simple, austere, benedictine monk. he has been living for some time past in the famous abbey of westminster. he was first a simple monk, then he was chosen prior, and finally lord abbot. some years later, _i.e._, in 1362, he was appointed to the vacant see of ely. by whom? well, in those days the church was not a mere department of the state, so it was not by the crown. no: nor by the prime minister, as in the anglican church of to-day. but, as history records, by a special papal bull. thus, at the time we are now considering, _viz._, 1366, he had been bishop just four years. now, the primatial throne of st. augustine, as already stated, has become vacant, and simon langham, the bishop of ely, is appointed archbishop of canterbury, and lord primate of england. as with all the other archbishops before the "reformation," he cannot exercise his metropolitan powers till he has received from rome the insignia of his office, _viz._, the sacred pallium. on this occasion the archbishop does not go himself to italy, to receive it from the hands of the sovereign pontiff, but it is brought by special messengers from rome to england. we may well imagine the interest these visitors from the eternal city would excite among the population of london. their dark complexion and bright, black eyes, and foreign appearance would, no doubt, attract considerable attention. of course they would be made welcome and be shown the chief sights of the city. they would greatly admire, for instance, the beauty of westminster abbey, and would probably ask its history. then they would be told how it originated with st. edward the confessor. how he had made a vow to go on a pilgrimage to the tomb of the apostles at rome, like a loyal catholic, in order to pay homage to the successor of st. peter, whom christ appointed as head of the church; how the pious king, finding his kingdom in danger of invasion, and his authority threatened, and not daring to absent himself, begged the pope to release him from his vow; how the pope at once commuted it, and bade him build a church instead, in honour of st. peter; and so forth. then they would very likely visit the inmates of the abbey. the benedictine monks who served the abbey would entertain them, and ask after their brethren in italy. some of these english monks would in all likelihood have been educated at subiaco, where st. benedict first lived, or at monte cassino, where he died, and where his body still lies. in any case, these english monks were undoubtedly true children of st. benedict, and followed his rule, and were animated by his spirit, and rejoiced to acknowledge him as their founder and spiritual father. there was nothing of the modern anglican, and nothing insular about them! in the meantime the great day arrives. it is the 4th of november in the year 1366. the bells of the abbey are ringing a merry peal. the faithful are flocking in to witness the archbishop receive the pallium, the symbol of jurisdiction, and the sign that all spiritual authority emanates from st. peter, who alone has received the keys, and from his rightful successors in the petrine see of rome. it is a grand ceremony, and we have even to-day, in the old latin records, a full account of what took place. anything more truly roman catholic, or less like the anglican church of the "reformation," it would be difficult to imagine. it was directed by the rubrics, that the cathedral clergy should be called together, at an early hour, and that prime and the rest of the divine office should be recited, up to the high mass. then the cross-bearers and torch-bearers and thurifers, and the attendants carrying the book of the gospels and other articles of the sanctuary, are drawn up in processional order in the chancel. two and two, followed by priests and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, they walk down the nave. then comes the archbishop himself, robed in full pontificals, though, out of respect to the pallium, with bare feet. the rubric on this point is explicit, _viz._, "nudis pedibus". behind the archbishop come the prior and the monks wearing copes. in this order they all pass through the streets of london to the gate of the city to meet the papal commissioner who bears the pallium. he is dressed in an alb and choir-cope, and solemnly carries the pallium enclosed in a costly vessel either of gold or of silver. as soon as the procession meets the pallium-bearer it turns round, and those who issued forth retrace their steps towards the abbey. last but one walks the archbishop, and last of all follows the bearer of the pallium. on reaching the church the pallium is reverently laid on the high altar. the archbishop then remains, for some minutes, prostrate in prayer before the high altar. then the choir having finished their singing, the archbishop rises, and turning to the assembled multitude, gives them his blessing. he then approaches the altar, and with his hands upon the holy gospels, takes the following solemn oath. now, gentle reader, we are anxious that you should pay particular attention to the words of this oath. they may be found in wilkins' _concilia_ (vol. ii., p. 199), in the original latin, just as they were uttered by simon langham, and other archbishops, in old catholic days. we give them translated into english. and, as you read them, ask yourselves whether the archbishops who uttered them were genuine roman catholics, or merely parliamentary bishops of the local and national variety, belonging to the present english establishment. we take our stand in spirit in westminster abbey, on the 4th day of november, 1366, and, in common with the rest of the vast congregation which fills every available space, we listen to the newly elected archbishop, as in clear, ringing words, with his hands on the gospels, he swears as follow:-"i, simon langham, archbishop of canterbury, will be from this hour henceforth faithful and obedient to st. peter, and to the holy apostolic roman church, and to my lord the pope, urban v., and to his canonical successors." surely, some of us would open our eyes pretty wide if we saw the present anglican archbishop of canterbury with his hands on the gospels taking that oath. yet we are assured, _ad nauseam_, that the church to which simon cardinal langham belonged is the same as the present church of england, which repudiates the authority of the pope altogether. the same? well, yes; if light and darkness, and sweetness and bitterness, are the same. but let us read the whole of the oath: "i, simon langham, will be from this hour henceforth faithful and obedient to st. peter, and to the holy apostolic roman church, and to my lord the pope, urban v., and to his canonical successors. neither in counsel or consent or in deed, will i take part in aught by which they might suffer loss of life, or limb, or liberty. their counsel which they may confide to me, whether by their envoys or their letter, i will, to their injury, wittingly disclose to no man. the roman papacy and the royalty of st. peter, i will be their helper to defend and to maintain, saving my order, against all men. when summoned to a synod i will come, unless hindered by a canonical impediment. the legate of the apostolic see i will treat honourably in his coming and going, and will help him in his needs. every third year i will visit the threshold of the apostles, either personally or by proxy, unless i am dispensed by apostolic licence. the possessions which pertain to the support of my archbishopric, i will not sell, nor give away, nor pledge, nor re-enfeoff, nor alienate in any way, without first consulting the roman pontiff. so help me, god, and these god's holy gospels." if you, who read these lines, had stood by, and listened to this oath, would it leave any doubt in your minds as to the religion of the archbishop? could you possibly mistake it for the religion of the present church of england? was the present anglican archbishop of canterbury chosen and appointed by the pope? did he take a vow of celibacy? does the present archbishop acknowledge publicly and officially that he receives his jurisdiction from the pope? did he receive the pallium from rome, sent by special papal messengers? did he stand up and swear on the gospels that he would be faithful and obedient to his lord the pope? did he promise to visit rome every three years, to give his lord the pope an account of his diocese? nothing of the kind. yet we are gravely told that there is no break between the church of st. anselm, and simon langham, and of cardinal fisher, on the one hand, and the church of the present archbishop of canterbury on the other! why are these good men so exceedingly anxious to prove that black is white? why will they assert and re-assert, in every mood and tense, that things most opposite are identical, and things most unlike are exactly the same? we will deal with that question in the next chapter. all we now affirm is that the reason is abundantly clear and evident, though little creditable to these perverters of history. chapter iii. the awkward dilemma. in the whole catalogue of sin, there is hardly one so detestable in itself, or so withering in its effects, as the sin of heresy. consequently, though we feel a great love as well as a great interest in the church in england during the thousand years in which she formed a part of the church of god, we can have little love for the present church of england, as by law established, cut off, as she is, from the only true church, which christ, the incarnate god, was pleased in his infinite wisdom to build upon st. peter, and upon those who should succeed him in his sublime office, and who have received the divine commission to rule over the entire flock, to hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and to confirm their brethren to the end of time. besides, a careful study of the origin and genesis of the present anglican establishment is scarcely calculated to predispose any one particularly in its favour. it is not catholics only who might be thought biased upon such a point, but others also who feel this. in fact, it is precisely impartial men, unaffected by any interest either way, who most fully realise from what a very shady beginning the new state of things arose. as sir osborne morgan puts it, "every student of english history knows that, if a very bad king had not fallen in love with a very pretty woman, and desired to get divorced from his plain and elderly wife, and if he had not compelled a servile parliament to carry out his wishes, there would, in all human probability, never have been an established church at all." this gentleman is a protestant, and the son of a protestant clergyman, so we may be quite sure that he harbours no special leanings towards us, yet he speaks impartially as one who has not only read history, but read it without coloured spectacles. perhaps lord macaulay puts the case as bluntly as any one, and we may as well quote him because he, too, was no catholic, and held no brief for the church of rome. this brilliant writer, who was, perhaps, an historian before all things, tells us that the work of the reformation was the work, not of three saints, nor even of three ordinary decent men, but of three notorious murderers! these are not our words, but macaulay's, and it is not our fault if this is his reading of history. we merely summon him as a protestant witness. he calmly and deliberately states that the reformation was "begun by henry viii., the murderer of his wives; was continued by somerset, the murderer of his brother; and was completed by elizabeth, the murderer of her guest". not a very auspicious beginning, it must be confessed, and scarcely suggestive of the divine afflatus. those who planted the catholic church used no violence, and did not inflict death. no! on the contrary, they endured death, and their blood became the seed of the church. and that is quite another story. in former days every one admitted the present anglican church to be the child of the reformation. it was, to quote the protestant historian, child, "as completely the creation of henry viii., edward's council, and elizabeth as saxon protestantism was of luther." but now? oh! now, "nous avons changã© tout cela," and history has received a totally different setting. a certain section of anglicans, in these modern times, are labouring hard to persuade themselves and others that they can trace their church back to the time of st. augustine. they will by no means allow that they started into being only in the sixteenth century. in fact, it is quite pathetic to watch the strenuous efforts they make, and the extravagant means to which they have recourse, in order to lull themselves into the peaceful enjoyment of so sweet and consoling a delusion. a delusion which a candid study of past history must sooner or later ruthlessly dispel, and which has not a shred of foundation in fact to support it. but we promised to point out why, in spite of its absolute absurdity, these good men, like the bishop of london, persist in repeating and restating with ever-increasing vehemence that there has been no break in the continuity, and that the present church of england is one with the church of st. bede, of st. dunstan, of st. anselm, of st. thomas, and of other pre-reformation heroes; though they must surely know that there is not one amongst these glorious old catholic saints who would not a thousand times sooner have gone to the stake and been burnt alive, than have accepted the thirty-nine articles, or than have joined the present bishop of london in any of his religious services. why do anglicans make such heroic efforts to connect their church with the past? why do they advance an impossible theory? why will they stubbornly affirm what history utterly denies? why do they assert, and with such emphasis, what no one but they themselves have the hardihood to believe? why? for precisely the same reason that will induce a drowning man to grasp at a straw. in short, because even if they did not realise it before, they are now beginning to see that their very position depends upon their being able to make out some sort of case for continuity. they realise that to admit that the church of england began in the sixteenth century is simply to cut the ground from underneath their feet. therefore, purely in self-defence, they feel themselves constrained to cling to the continuity theory. it may be absurd, it may be unhistorical, it may be impossible and utterly repudiated by every impartial and honest man. that cannot be helped. impossible or not impossible; true or false, it is necessary for their very existence, so that, just as a drowning man catches at a straw, though it cannot possibly support him, so do these most unfortunate and hardly-pressed men clutch at and cling to the hollow theory of continuity. sometimes, when off their guard, and in a less cautious mood, they will confess as much themselves. and what is more, we can provide our readers with an instance of such a confession. many will well remember a well-known and distinguished anglican divine, named canon malcolm maccoll. he died a few years ago, and we do not wish to say anything against him. well, he wrote to _the spectator_ in 1900. his letter may be seen in the issue of 22nd december for that year. in the course of this letter he makes the following admission: he declares that "to concede that the church of england starts from the reign of henry viii. or elizabeth is to surrender the whole ground of controversy with rome. a church," he continues, "which cannot trace its origin beyond the sixteenth century is obviously not the church which christ founded." the late anglican canon maccoll is, of course, perfectly right, and his inference is strictly logical. a church, however highly respectable and however richly endowed, which came into existence only 1,500 years after christ, came into existence just 1,500 years too late, and cannot by any intellectual manoeuvring or stretching of the imagination be identified with the one church established by christ 1,500 years earlier. consequently every member of the anglican community finds himself, _nolens volens_, impaled on the horns of a truly frightful dilemma. for either he must frankly confess that his church is not the church of god, _i.e._, not the true church, which (human nature being what it is) he can hardly be expected to do; or else he must assert that it goes back without any real break to the time of the apostles; which though absolutely untrue, is the only other alternative. in a word, he finds himself in a very tight corner. he knows, unless he is able to persuade himself of the truth of continuity, the very ground of his faith must slip from under his feet, and that he must give up pretending to be a member of christ's mystical body altogether. no wonder there is consternation in the anglican camp. no wonder that sermons are preached, and history is re-edited and facts suppressed, and pamphlets are circulated to prove that black is white and that bitterness is sweet, and that false is true. no wonder there are shows and pageants and other attempts to prove the thing that is not. poor deluded mortals! it is really pitiable to witness such straining and such pulling at the cords; as though truth--solid, imperturbable, eternal truth--could ever be dislodged or forced out of existence! no! they may disguise the truth for a time, they may hide it for a brief period; just as a child, with a box of matches and a handful of straw, may, for awhile, hide the eternal stars. but as the stars are still there, and will appear again when the smoke has blown away, so will the truth reappear and assert itself, when men grow calm, and put aside pride and passion and prejudice and self-interest. "magna est veritas, et prevalebit!" it has been said: "mundus vult decipi"; the world wishes to be deceived; certainly the anglican world does. but no one else is taken in. the dissenter, the nonconformist, and others who have no axe to grind, know well that "fine words butter no parsnips," and are far too shrewd to be deluded. why, even the old catholic cathedrals with their holy-water stoups, their occasional altars of stone, still remaining, their lady chapels, and their niches for the images of the saints, as ill befit the present occupiers, and their modern english services, as a court dress befits a clown. that the sublime grotesqueness of the whole contention is clearly visible to other besides catholic eyes is clearly proved by the occasional observations of the non-catholic press. here, again, we will offer the gentle reader a specimen. the _daily news_ is one of london's big dailies. it has a wide circulation. it is representative of a large section of the english people. let us select a passage from one of its leaders. speaking of the arrogance of the anglican church, which, as compared to the catholic church, is but a baby, still in long clothes, it gives expression to its views in the following caustic lines. one might almost imagine it were the _tablet_ or _catholic times_ that we are about to quote from, but, nothing of the kind, it is the nonconformist organ, the _daily news_. it writes: "the anglicans may still persist in patronising the roman catholics as a new set of modern dissidents under the old name. it is the sort of vengeance which, under favourable circumstances, the mouse may enjoy at the expense of the elephant. if he can mount high enough by artificial means, the smallest of created things may contrive to look down on the greatest, and to affect to compassionate his want of range. for purposes of controversy, the anglican could talk of himself as a terrestrial ancient-of-days, and regret the rage for innovation, which led, not, of course, to his separation from rome, but to rome's separation from him! so the pebble, if determined to put a good face on it, might wonder what had become of the rock, and recite the parable of the return of the prodigal to the atlas range"; and so forth. the fact is that every unprejudiced man, who has so much as a mere bowing acquaintance with the facts of history, knows perfectly well that before the sixteenth century the church in england was united to the holy see, and rested where christ himself had built it, _viz._, on peter, the rock. whereas, after the sixteenth century, it became a state church, dependent, not on peter, but upon parliament, and as purely local, national, and english as the british army or the british navy. bramhall tells us that, "whatsoever power our laws did divest the pope of, they invested the king with" (_schism guarded_, p. 340). we dealt in the last chapter with the relation between the pre-reformation archbishops and metropolitans and the pope, and we saw how each in turn swore obedience to the vicar of christ as his spiritual sovereign. we will now conclude the present chapter by transcribing a typical address presented by another representative body of men to the pope, in past times. it is the year 1427. now chicheley, the archbishop of canterbury, had been accused at rome of some fault or indiscretion, so the other bishops of the province met together for the purpose of defending him. with this end in view, they address a letter to pope martin v. it begins as follows:-"most blessed father, one and only undoubted sovereign pontiff, vicar of jesus christ upon earth, with all promptitude of service and obedience, kissing most devoutly your blessed feet," and so forth. they then proceed to defend their metropolitan, and in doing so declare that "the archbishop of canterbury is, most blessed father, a most devoted son of your holiness and of the holy roman church". nay, more; they go on to testify that "he is so rooted in his loyalty, and so unshaken in his allegiance especially to the roman church, that it is known to the whole world, and ought to be known to the city (_i.e._, rome) that he is the most faithful son of the church of rome, promoting and securing, with all his strength, the guarantees of her liberty". now, what we wish to know is, how in the world can a man be "the most faithful son of the church of rome," so rooted in his loyalty to her that "his allegiance is known to the whole world," and yet not be a roman catholic? the bishops then add that "they go down upon their knees" to beseech the pope's favour for the archbishop, and in doing so declare that they are "the most humble sons of your holiness and of the roman church". then archbishop chicheley follows up their letter, by writing one himself, in which he says: "most blessed father, kissing most devotedly the ground beneath your feet, with all promptitude of service and obedience, and whatsoever a most humble creature can do towards his lord and master" (_i.e._, domino et creatori--literally "creator," in the sense that the pope had made or "created" him archbishop) and so forth. then he goes on to explain that "long before now, were it not for the perils of the journey and the infirmities of my old age, i would have made my way, most blessed father, to your feet, and have accepted most obediently whatsoever your holiness would have decided" (see wilkins, vol. iii. pp. 471 and 486). surely, no archbishop or bishop could use language of such profound reverence and of such perfect loyalty and obedience, unless he recognised the pope as the true representative of christ upon earth, invested with his divine authority ("to thee do i give the keys of the kingdom of heaven"). there is a whole world of difference between such men and the anglican prelates of to-day who take the oath of homage to the king, and say: "i do hereby declare that your majesty is the only supreme governor of this your realm, in spiritual and ecclesiastical things, as well as temporal". chapter iv. king edward and the pope. in a previous chapter, we promised to tell of a famous letter written by one of our greatest kings to the pope of his day. let us then introduce this interesting historical incident without further preamble or delay. the king of whom we are about to speak is king edward iii., who reigned over this land for more than fifty years, that is to say, from 1327 to 1377. the historian hume tells us that, in general estimation, his reign was not only one of the longest, but that it was considered also "one of the most glorious that occurs in the annals of our nation" (vol. ii., p. 297). it is important to remember, further, that edward was no timid weakling, ready to yield to others through weakness or fear. quite the contrary. he was strong, war-like, and courageous. hume informs us that "he curbed the licentiousness of the great; that he made his foremost nobles feel his power, and that they dared not even murmur against it, and that his valour and conduct made his knights and warriors successful in most of their enterprises" (_id._, p. 497). yet, in spite of his strong, independent and man-like character--or shall we not rather say because of it?--he ever showed himself to be a most loyal child of the catholic church. he considered it no indication of weakness to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy and jurisdiction of the sovereign pontiff, and to subscribe himself as a most obedient son of the vicar of jesus christ, as we shall now proceed to prove, in spite of all the frogs and jackdaws that the bishop of london appeals to as witnesses to the contrary. now, it so fell out that, in the second decade of his reign, certain persons, with perhaps more zeal than discretion, began to lodge sundry complaints against the king. they carried stories to rome, and sought to prejudice the pope, benedict xii., against king edward. in the course of time the king got wind of what was going on, and found that the suspicions of the pope had been raised against him. now, what did edward do? if he had been a modern anglican, he would have snapped his fingers at the pope. forgetful of our lord's words, "unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven," he would have proudly declared that no pope or foreign bishop could claim any jurisdiction in england, for that he himself was, in his own realm, the supreme authority in things ecclesiastical as well as in things temporal. such would have been the natural and obvious course for him to have taken. that is to say had he been a modern anglican. but since he was not a modern anglican, but a genuine roman catholic to his very backbone, like all the rest of his kingdom, he did not act in that imperious, off-hand way, but was very much distressed and concerned, as a loving son would be, who had incurred the displeasure of a generous father. finally, in the thirteenth year of his reign, that is to say, in 1339, he determined to address a letter to the sovereign pontiff, firstly to protest against these accusations, secondly to assure the pope of his innocence, and thirdly to beg him to take no notice of those who had been calumniating him. the document is a very remarkable one, and from the point of view of continuity (of which it completely disposes) it is of very considerable interest. before you read it, and ponder over its contents, let me remind you that the writing of a letter in those days was a very serious business. there was no post such as we have now, and special couriers had to be despatched from london to rome. paper had not as yet been invented, so the message had to be carefully written, by paid scribes, on vellum or parchment. further, a letter from a king to the pope was not a thing to be dashed off on the spur of the moment, but to be carefully thought out, and expressed with great accuracy. the king would summon his advisers, and his secretary of state, and probably consult some of the bishops and weigh each word before committing his message to parchment. in short, the document would represent his own deliberate convictions as well as those of his official advisers and counsellors. after addressing the pope in the usual respectful and filial way, he says: "let not the envious information of our detractors find place in the meek mind of your holiness, or create any sinister opinion of a son" [observe the king calls himself a son of the pope], "who after the manner of his predecessors" [so previous kings were as loyal as he] "shall always firmly persist in amity and obedience to the apostolic see. nay, if any such evil suggestion concerning your son should knock for entrance at your holiness's ears, let no belief be allowed it till the son who is concerned be heard, who trusts and always intends both to say and to prove that each of his actions is just before the tribunal of your holiness, _presiding over every creature, which to deny is to maintain heresy_." nothing could be stronger than this last sentence; but we will return to that later. then the king goes on to speak of others, who are dependent upon him, and proceeds as follows: "and further, this we say, adjoining it as a further evidence of our intention and greater devotion, that if there be any one of our kindred or allies who walks not as he ought in the way of _obedience towards the apostolic see_, we intend to bestow our diligence--and we trust to no little purpose--that leaving his wandering course, he may return into the path of duty and walk regularly for the future". from these words it is clear that the king of england, not satisfied with obeying the pope himself, likewise insisted upon all under his authority obeying him likewise. indeed, he would have made short work of those who should refuse to do so. then, alluding to some reproach, admonition or censure which he had received from the pope, he goes on to express himself in words strangely out of harmony with the whole tone and spirit of modern anglicanism. they are as follows:-"that the kings of england, our predecessors, those illustrious champions of christ, those defenders of the faith, those" [listen!] "_zealous asserters of the rights of the holy roman church, and devout observers of her commands_, that they or we should deserve this unkindness, we neither know nor believe. and though, for this very reason many do say--though we say not so--that this aiding of our enemies against us, seems neither the act of a father nor of a mother towards us, but rather of a stepmother; yet this notwithstanding, we constantly avow that we are" [remember, it is still the king of england speaking], "and shall continue to be, to your holiness and to your seat, a devout and humble son, and not a step-son". can any one imagine greater reverence or greater loyalty to the vicar of christ than is shown forth in these words? can you, dear readers, by any stretch of the imagination, conceive any one who is not a roman catholic giving vent to such sentiments as are here expressed? have words lost their plain meaning for the bishop of london, and for those who (we must in charity suppose, _blindly_) follow him? the letter is a long one, and we need not transcribe the whole of it, but we will offer for your consideration just one more paragraph. the king writes: "your holiness best knows the measure of good and just, in whose hands are the keys to open and to shut the gates of heaven on earth, as the _fulness of your power_ and the excellence of your judicature requires.... we being ready to receive information of the truth, from your sacred tribunal, _which is over all_," etc. observe these words were written over five hundred years ago, long before the present anglican establishment was so much as dreamed of; yet, even if king edward iii. had actually foreseen the craze that would seize anglicans of to-day to prove that he, and his subjects were not loyal roman catholics, he could not have expressed his catholicity and his loyalty to the vicar of christ in more unmistakable or in more explicit terms. whom shall we believe? king edward iii. himself, who, in the above words, declares he is a staunch roman catholic, and an obedient son of the pope, ready to defend his rights against all, or the present bishop of london, who declares he was not? there is one sentence in the king's letter which is especially worthy of consideration, as it is so pregnant with meaning. we refer to the following: knowing that "your holiness presides over every creature, _which to deny is heresy_". you will observe that the king not only believes, but that he here practically makes an explicit profession of faith in the spiritual supremacy of st. peter and his successors, the popes. in fact, he not only admits and confesses the pope's supremacy to be true, which is one thing, but he declares it to be a _revealed_ truth, taught by our blessed lord himself, which is a great deal more. how does he do this? suffer us to explain. to deny any truth of religion is wrong and sinful, but it is not necessarily and always heretical. heresy is not the denial of any kind of truth: it is the denial only of a special form of truth. it is the denial of those truths which have been taught by jesus christ and the apostles. but the king explicitly declares in his letter to the holy father that to deny the pope's spiritual supremacy over all is not only wrong, not only sinful, but that it is to be guilty of the specially horrible sin of heresy. his words are: "it is to maintain heresy". yet anglicans still fondly cling to the delusion that the church in england in the time of edward iii. is in unbroken continuity with the church of england in the time of king edward vii.! but, to continue. it is interesting to note that the pope, benedict xii., in due course replies to this letter from his "devout and humble son," as edward describes himself. he begins by expressing his satisfaction that his "most dear son in christ king edward of england" should thus "follow the commendable footsteps of your progenitors, kings of england who," he goes on to say, "were famous for the fulness of their devotion and faith towards god and the holy roman church". will the present bishop of london, we wonder, be good enough to explain how pope benedict xii. could possibly tell a renowned king of england that his progenitors, that is to say, the kings of england who had preceded him, were famous--mark the word--"_famous_ for the _fulness_ of their devotion and faith towards god _and the holy roman church_," if they were all the while cut off from the roman church, and denounced as heretics by that church, if, in short, they were of one and the same faith as the anglicans are to-day? we pause for a reply. of course we know that anglicans are very hard pressed, and in a quandary, and that some allowance must be made for drowning men when they stretch forth their trembling hands to clutch at straws. but really the claim to continuity, however vital to them, should hardly be put forward in the face of such clear and overwhelming evidence of its falsity. the ultimate effects of such vain efforts to prove black to be white can only be to make them ridiculous, and to discredit them in the eyes of honest men. in conclusion, we are persuaded that some may feel curious or interested to see and read king edward's letter for themselves, and in its entirety. some may even wish to satisfy themselves that we are stating actual facts, and not romancing; so let us inform any such persons that the letter quoted belongs to the thirteenth year of king edward iii.'s reign (an. regni xiii. ed. rex iii.). the original, if not at the vatican, should be either at the record office or at the british museum. the english version, of which we have made use, may be found on pages 126-30 of _the history of edward iii._, by j. barnes, fellow of emmanuel college, cambridge, and published in 1688. had this history been composed in more modern times, this famous letter to pope benedict would probably have been quietly suppressed or omitted. but in 1688 the theory of continuity had not been invented by the father of lies, to bolster up a lost cause, so the letter actually appears in barnes' history, to tell its own unvarnished tale: and to bear its uncompromising testimony to the truth. in the meanwhile, time wears on, and the end draws near when each man will have to give an account of his life and conduct to the supreme judge of the living and the dead. and it will go hard with us if we turn our back upon the truth. god is speaking in this england of ours, and shedding his light, and many are finding their way back to that glorious faith of which they were cruelly robbed at the "reformation". "to-day, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts," but lend an attentive ear to his invitation, and pray that you may have courage enough to join hands once again with bede, and dunstan, anselm, and thomas ã  becket, and with edward iii. and his royal predecessors, all faithful sons of st. peter and the holy see, and to enter that church which was built by god incarnate on peter, and upon no other foundation; which still rests securely upon peter, and which (if there be any truth in god's promises) will continue to rest on peter till the end of time. "upon this rock (peter) will i build my church, and the gates of hell (_i.e._, the powers of darkness) shall never prevail against it." =also by rt. rev. john s. vaughan, d.d.,= =bishop of sebastopol.= =to be had of all catholic booksellers.= 1. concerning the holy bible: its use and abuse. with a letter from h.e. cardinal logue. pp. xvi.-270. price 3s. 6d. "it is impossible to take up this delightful volume without desiring to express one's admiration of it.... as to the matter, _it would be well if every catholic had it at his fingers' ends_, especially in this country.... it has an irresistible charm of style."--_the tablet_. h.e. cardinal logue writes to bishop vaughan: "you are to be congratulated on the success with which you have treated your important subject." _n.b.--the volume has already been translated into french and italian, and is now being translated into other foreign languages._ 2. earth to heaven. fourth edition. pages 200. price 2s. 6d. net. "there is a freedom, a freshness, and a new manner of expressing old truths in bishop vaughan's writings, which is exceedingly charming.... better even than their beauty is their suggestiveness," etc.--_tablet_. 3. faith and folly. second edition. pages 502. price 5s. net. "we know no author who has a happier method of popularising theology."--_catholic times_. "a candid antagonist will feel respect for the author."--_spectator_. "the author has gifts of happy illustration, of close reasoning, and of clear expression."--_ave maria_. "an excellent work and a timely one."--_the rosary magazine_. "we trust 'faith and folly' may have a wide circulation."--_dublin review_. 4. thoughts for all times. the eighteenth edition is now in preparation. pages 436. price 5s. net. "clear and well-written expositions, rich in illustrations and adorned in places with beautiful and sublime language."--_whitehall review_. "we would be glad to see a copy in every household in the land. it needs only to be known to have its merits appreciated."--h.e. cardinal gibbons. 5. life after death. fourteenth edition. pages 245. price 2s. net. "popular, luminous, eloquent, and persuasive. it is carefully thought out, and forms a massive argument of great value."--_the gentleman's journal_. "this work cannot but exercise a pleasing charm over the reader, and serve to hold his attention spell-bound throughout."--_catholic times_. 6. dangers of the day. "an admirable book. just what is wanted." 7. the purpose of the papacy; and, the anglican theory of continuity. just published. price 1s. 6d. * * * * * "how i came to do it; or, how parson blackswhite gave up his vow of celibacy." a holiday sketch. pages 300. 2s. 6d. net. edited by monsignor vaughan. a priest writes: "i read this novel, and laughed and laughed till the tears rolled down my cheeks." _the lamp_ says: "it is as instructive as it is amusing, and as amusing as it is instructive." the well-known french paper _l'univers_ says: "ce livre est charmant, et trã¨s interessant et mã©riterait d'ãªtre traduit en franã§ais". _how i came to do it_ is now being put into french by m. l'abbã© p. sã©cher, with the title _les raisons de ma dã©cision_. * * * * * p o p e r y! as it was and as it is also, auricular confession; and popish nunneries. by william hogan, esq., formerly a roman catholic priest. with several illustrations 1854. the following pages respectfully dedicated to american republicans, the author. preface. in submitting the following pages to the public, i can say, with truth, that i am actuated by no other motive than a sincere desire to promote the interest, and contribute all in my power to perpetuate the free institutions, of this, my adopted country. it is many years since i have had any intercourse or connection with the church or priests of rome; and i vainly imagined that, after the first outbreak of their animosity, for repudiating their doctrines, it would succeed into a calm indifference. i was aware of the custom, in that church, to defame and calumniate all who "went out from her;" but especially those who have held any distinguished position. against such, appeals are immediately made to the people by their priests, until, finally, maddened by sophistry, fanaticism, and falsehoods, they look upon the seceder as one whom it is their duty to destroy; and in whose word, honor, and virtue, no confidence is to be reposed. the object of the romish church, in this, cannot be mistaken. it is too plain to escape even the least observant eye. a lawyer who can render legally valueless the testimony of opposing witnesses, seldom fails in establishing his case; and hence it is that the romish church never fails to destroy, if she can, the credibility of all who break loose from her, knowing them to be the best witnesses of her iniquities. but for some years back, and until recently, the violence of popish priests against myself seemed to slumber. this was natural. in the body ecclesiastic, as well as in the natural body, a morbid excitement often succeeds a stupor; and recently these _gentlemen_ have assailed me again. to apparent indifference succeeded a frantic zeal; and from one end of this continent to the other, they have tried to injure me, by appeals to the public through their presses, and especially through the _confessional_. all this i would have disregarded, as usual, but i find that these priests have become politicians, and that every blow aimed at me, for the free exercise of my judgment as to the best mode of worshipping god, is aimed at the constitution of my adopted country, which grants this blessing, without let or hindrance, to all the children of men. well aware that americans are not acquainted with the designs of popery against their country and its institutions, i feel it my duty to lay before them the following pages. the perusal of them will satisfy every american that our country is in danger, not so much from enemies abroad as from foes within. they will find that papists have reduced political, as well as religious corruption, to a system, and are, at this moment, practising it amongst us, upon a great and gigantic scale. synopsis of popery, as it was and as it is. when this country renounced its allegiance to the british crown, and proclaimed itself independent popery was on the wane in europe; it was there getting more sickly, more languid and feeble, until it had little more than a mere nominal existence; but while its blossoms were fading, its thorns retained their vitality, inflicting pains and wounds on all who came in contact with them. the jesuits, one of the most influential orders of friars belonging to the roman church, continued still active as ever in their fiendish avocations; they roamed about, like so many gnomes, from country to country, and from people to people, carrying with them, and strewing on their paths, the seeds of moral death on all that was precious and valuable in the social system. whatever they touched was blighted; whatever they said or preached breathed treachery; wherever they went, vice, crime, and duplicity marked their track. but dark as the times were then, enshrouded as they had been in ignorance, and idolatrous as the people were, they began to manifest some dissatisfaction at the machinations of jesuits in their efforts to acquire temporal power. they began to feel it in the loss of their property, out of which they too late saw themselves gradually swindled; they felt it in the loss of their liberty and civil rights, out of which they had been persuaded, all for the good of the church. endurance became intolerable, and those unhallowed agents had to be partially suppressed. the popish church, at this time, seeing the influence of her most active agents gradually diminishing, her ancient glories fading, and her power vanishing from her grasp; and scarcely able to breathe any longer in the putrid atmosphere which her own corruption and impurities had created, very naturally turned her eyes towards this brilliant new world. it was then young and beautiful; it abounded in all the luxuries of nature; it promised all that was desirable to man. the holy church, seeing these irresistible temptations, thirsting with avarice, and yearning for the reestablishment of her falling greatness, soon commenced pouring in among its unsuspecting people hordes of jesuits and other friars, with a view of forming among them institutions which were already found to be destructive to the peace and morals of all social and religious principles in europe. we now see popish colleges, and nunneries, and monastic institutions, springing up in our hitherto happy republic; and, if similar causes continue, as they have ever done, to produce similar effects, it needs no prophet's eye to see, nor inspired tongue to tell, what the consequences must be to posterity. many suppose that popery has been modified; that it is different now from what it was in ancient times; that the spirit which actuated papists in those dark days ceases to influence them now that the faggot, the rack, and various other modes of torture, are not still in use in the roman church, and that it has long ceased to lay claim, by divine right, to temporal sovereignty, or to any other of those prerogatives which they formerly insisted upon. there are some so fastidiously liberal as to grant them all immunities which may be with safety granted to other sects; others there are, so patriotic as to hold at defiance all their power; and others so self-conceited as to fancy themselves an over-match even for jesuits, in religious chicanery and political intrigue. all this arises, not from want of true zeal in american protestants, but because they are unacquainted with the canons of the romish church. these canons are inaccessible to the majority of the american people, even of theologians, and with the purport and meaning of them none but those who have been educated roman catholic priests have much or any acquaintance. i hesitate not to say--although i do so with the utmost respect and deference--that there are but few american theologians who have much acquaintance with the doctrines or canons of the romish church. they form no part of their studies; a knowledge of them is not necessary in the legitimate discharge of their pastoral duties; and hence it is, that in many of their controversies with romish priests, they are not unfrequently browbeaten, bullied, and often almost ignominiously driven from the arena of controversy by men who, in point of general information, virtue, piety, zeal, and scriptural knowledge, are greatly their inferiors. he who argues with catholic priests must have had his education with them; he must be of them and from among them. he must know, from experience, that they will stop at no falsehood where the good of the church is concerned; he must know that they will scruple at no forgery when they desire to establish any point of doctrine, fundamental or not fundamental, which is taught by their church; he must be aware that it is a standing rule with popish priests, in all their controversies with protestants, to admit nothing and deny every thing, and that, if still driven into difficulty, they will still have recourse to the archives of the church, where they keep piles of decretals, canons, rescripts, bulls, excommunications, interdicts, &c, ready for all such emergencies; some of them dated from three hundred to a thousand years before they were written or even thought of; showing more clearly, perhaps, than anything else, the extreme ignorance of mankind between the third and ninth centuries, when most of these forgeries were palmed upon the world. with the aid of these miserable forgeries, they attempt to prove, among other things, that the _divine right of the pope_ to the sovereignty of this world was acknowledged by the fathers of the church, in the earliest days of christianity. there are to be found now, in the vatican at rome, canons and decretals which go to show that the pope was considered "equal to god," as early as the third century. more of these impious forgeries attempt to show that some of the most pious fathers of the church, in the days of her unquestioned sanctity and piety, acknowledged "mary, the mother of jesus, to be equal to god the son, and deserved supreme adoration." with these forged instruments, they attempt to show that the primitive christians believed in the real and actual presence of the whole body and blood of christ, in the wafer which they call the _eucharist_. monstrous, horrible, and impious, as these absurdities are, i once believed them myself. so much for the prejudices of education. the object of the following pages is to show, first, the origin of papal power; secondly, to call the attention of americans to its rapid growth in many of the nations of the earth; and, thirdly, to put my fellow citizens on their guard against giving it any countenance or support within the limits of the united states. origin of the temporal power of the pope. we have no authentic evidence that the bishops or presbyters of the primitive christian church laid claims to temporal power, much less to universal sovereignty, such as popes have arrogated to themselves, in subsequent times, even down to the present day. constantine, as we are informed by the best authorities, was the first to unite civil and ecclesiastical power. he introduced christianity among the romans by civil authority. this occurred between the years 272 and 337; but never during his reign, nor before it, was there an instance of a bishop or presbyter of the church aspiring to temporal jurisdiction. they were poor and persecuted; they were meek and humble; they were well content with the privilege of worshipping god in peace. the instructions of their divine master were fresh in their minds--they almost still rung in their ears. they felt that they were sent into the world with special instructions to "preach the gospel to every creature." their heavenly master told them that his "kingdom was not of this world." they felt the full force of that high and holy admonition, "render to cæsar the things that are cæsar's, and to god the things that are god's." they cheerfully submitted to the civil authorities. they claimed not the right of giving away kingdoms, crowning emperors, deposing princes, and absolving their subjects from their oaths of allegiance. these pure christians and devout men asked for no distinctions, but those of virtue and zeal in the cause of christ; they sought for no wealth but that of heaven; they desired no crown but that of glory; they sought no tiara save that of martyrdom; they were surrounded by no court but that of the poor; no college of cardinals waited on their pleasure; there were no nuncios sent from their court; no foreign ambassadors passed between them and the powers of this earth. the only court with which they had business to transact, and in which their treasures were laid up, was the court of heaven; and their only ambassadors at that court were the angels of heaven, sent forth to minister unto them. but this state of things did not last long. as a modern writer beautifully expresses it, "the trail of the serpent is over us all." the emperor constantine, seeing the poverty of the primitive church,--her vast and progressive increase in numbers and the consequent demand upon her charities,--granted to her bishops permission to hold property, real and personal. this concession on the part of constantine, simple and trifling as it seemed to be; this commingling of the things of heaven and earth, was unnatural. it contained within itself the principles of dissolution, or rather of entire destruction; and became, in time, the source from which have sprung most of the wars, massacres, and bloody strifes, that have desolated and divided into fragmentary sections, the richest, the fairest, and the finest portions of the globe, during the last fifteen hundred years; and will continue to do so, unto the end of time, unless the advance of civilization, and the great progress which the human mind has made in ethics, morals, and metaphysics, on this continent, puts an immediate check to popish interference with the policy of our country. could we suppose an individual, who knew nothing of ancient times; who was an entire stranger to the darkness which pervaded europe during the middle ages; who had no acquaintance with the pretensions, arrogance and insolence of roman pontiffs; who knew no other constitution and no other laws but those of our own country; he could not but feel surprised at being first told, that there now lived in rome, an upstart ecclesiastic, called _a pope_, who has the hardihood to assert that he is sovereign lord, and that too by divine right, of these united states, as well as of all other kingdoms of this world. he goes even further, and contends that his predecessors had similar divine rights, and that all the citizens and inhabitants of this country owed allegiance to him personally, and to no one else, unless delegated by him to receive it. but strange as this may appear, it is no less true, as i will show from authorities, which cannot be questioned, by those who claim such extravagant immunities. the pope of rome predicates his claim to universal sovereignty upon the power of _loosing and binding on earth and in heaven_; which, in the exuberance of their fancy, roman catholic writers contend was given to st. peter. their next step is to prove, that this supremacy was acknowledged by the primitive fathers of the church, and consequently their rights and claims are beyond dispute. but before i proceed to give any of the authorities, upon which roman catholic writers rest the antiquity of the recognition of their pope's temporal power, it may not be amiss to inform the reader that the very first on which they rely is one of the most unblushing forgeries on record; and is dated about six hundred years previous to the time at which it purports to have been written. it is taken from the words of a conveyance of certain temporal concessions, said to be made by the emperor constantine to pope sylvester, some time between the second and third centuries. it is in the following words: "we attribute to the chair of st. peter all imperial dignity, glory, and power. we give to pope sylvester, and to his successors, our palace of lateran, one of the finest palaces on earth; we give him our crown, our mitre, our diadem, and all our imperial vestments; we resign to him all our imperial dignity. we give the holy pontiff, as a free gift, the city of rome, and all the western cities of italy, as well as the western cities of other countries. to make room for him, we abdicate our sovereignty over all these provinces, and we withdraw from rome, transferring the seat of our empire to byzantium; since it is not just that a terrestrial emperor shall retain any power where god has placed the head of the church." it would be a waste of time to show that no such donation as the above ever existed. no mention is made of it in any history of the popes that has ever been written, or in any other document which had reference to them during the reign of constantine. it is a forgery so shallow, unreal, and unsubstantial, that there is no well-educated historian, and never has been one, who gave it any credence. the historian flewry pronounces it a falsehood; and he, being a roman catholic, must be considered good authority upon all matters relating to the _holy church_. the quotation, however, from this supposed deed of concession, by constantine to pope sylvester, is not without instruction to the citizens of this country. it should arouse them to a sense of the dangers which are hovering over them. it should remind them that every thing is perishable. the fairest flower must fade; the loveliest lily must wither; the laughing rose must droop; even our fair republic may lose its bloom, and pass away. a state of things may arise in this country, when its executive may be a papist, its judiciary papists, and a majority of its population may be papists. these things are not beyond the range of possibility; and are you sure that your own descendants, and those of the pilgrim fathers, may not, one day or other, give this republic as a free gift to the head of the papal church? you are now strong--so was rome. your power is now irresistible--so was that of rome and other countries. your arms are invincible--so were those of rome. you are now distinguished all over the world, for your progress in the arts and sciences; the world looks to you as models of patriotism and pure republicanism--so did the world once look to rome. but what is rome now, and what drove her from the high position she once occupied? i will tell you;--the intrigues of the popish church. and a similar fate awaits you, unless you cut off all connection, of whatever name, between the citizens of the united states and the church of rome. while this sink of iniquity breathes, it will carry with it destruction and death wherever it goeth. we have had several histories of the popes, and the first mention made of donations to them, at least of any comparative value, is by anastasius, who wrote about the beginning of the tenth century, or a little before the close of the ninth. he informs us that charlemagne conferred upon the holy see (as that hotbed of iniquity is impiously, even at the present day, called) _whole provinces_, and acknowledged that they belonged to the pope _by divine right_; though it is well understood, and denied by no competent historian, that charlemagne never even owned these provinces. it is well known to the readers of history, that there existed no empire of any extent, but that of the east, until the beginning of the eighth century. charlemagne assumed the title of king of italy, in the year eight hundred. he received homage from the pope, and so far from being subject to him, he acknowledged no divine right in him; but on the contrary, he held the pope in strict subjection to himself. he even went so far as to prohibit the _holy see_ from receiving donations of any kind, when given without the consent or to the prejudice of those who had just and equitable claims to them. this, if there were no other proof, is sufficient to show that neither the popes nor the holy see had any pretensions to universal supremacy, or to supremacy of any kind, as far down as the eighth century. it will not be denied that the civil authorities of rome were liberally disposed towards the popes or fathers of the church in the early days of christianity. the emperor theodosius the great, who died in the year three hundred and ninety five, recommended to all his subjects to pay "a due respect to the see of rome." valentian iii. commanded his subjects "_not to depart from the faith and customs of the holy see_." it will however be borne in mind, that this valentian was acknowledged emperor at the age of six, and his affairs were managed principally by his mother. so dissipated were his habits, that he finally fell a victim to them. but up to this period there is no evidence whatever that the popes either claimed or exercised temporal authority. about this time several councils met for the purpose of adjusting disputes that arose between the sons of the successor of charlemagne, who unwisely, as historians suppose, divided his empire into three equal parts among them. it was at one of these councils, that the doctrine of the _divine right of popes to temporal authority_ was first broached by the production of some of those forged documents to which i have heretofore alluded. pope gregory the fourth took an active part in fomenting the dissensions which necessarily arose from the division which the successor of charlemagne had made of his empire among his sons. the pope, with that craft peculiar to all ecclesiastics of the roman catholic denominations, was active in widening the breach between father and sons, and having effected this to his content, his next move was to sow further dissensions between the sons themselves, and finally to create such a general confusion and dissatisfaction among all parties, as to render a mediator necessary. having attained his object, he offered his services to the imperial father, and it was accepted. he presented himself at his camp, obtained an entrance, and what were the consequences? history tells the tale--it was a tale of treachery. americans will bear in mind that roman catholics believe their church to be infallible; that she never changes; that what was deemed right by her in the days of gregory and those of his immediate successors, is right now, and, _vice versa_, what she deems right now was right then. in a word, the church of rome is _infallible_. this is believed by every one of her members at the present day. it is taught by every popish bishop and priest in the united states. the following curse is contained in the roman catholic breviary, in which, every romish priest reads his prayers three times every day. "_qui dicit ecclesiam catholicam romanam non esse infallilrilem, anathema sit_--whoever says that the roman catholic church is not infallible, let him be accursed." such is the belief of every roman catholic. will not protestant americans pause and reflect for a moment? the population of the united states is about twenty millions, and about two millions are papists. consequently, seventeen millions and a half of our people are _accursed_ and _damned_, according to the doctrine of the romish ritual; and yet we protestants are called upon to extend the hand of friendship to these papists, and our legislators are asked to grant them charters to build colleges, churches, nunneries, and monk-houses, not for the purpose of teaching the growing generation the revealed will of god, as read in the scriptures, but to persuade them that all other religions, except that of rome, are erroneous; that their parents, brothers, and sisters, are heretics, accursed forever, and by implication entitled to no allegiance from them. the pope is now setting on foot a movement which is intended to embrace the whole world, and of which he desires rome to be the sole representative, centre, and circumference. the powers of the pope have met with several severe shocks since the reformation. his forces have been broken, his armies of jesuits, his friars of all orders, dominicans, franciscans, and capuchins, have been scattered and enfeebled. he determined to arm himself afresh, and this new world appeared to him as the safest ground on which he could unite his scattered forces in europe. this he well knows cannot be done, without throwing some fire-brand of dissension among our people, which at this moment he is trying to effect; and which nothing but the resistance offered to him by american republicans can check or prevent. on the continuance, strength, and union of this party, depends the stability of our government. this the romish priests and bishops well know, and are beginning to feel; and hence they are denouncing them from their pulpits, and in all their presses. but no protestant opposes this party why call it a party? it is no party. it is but the spontaneous move of the good and the virtuous of all parties who love their god, their bibles, and their country, and upon whose strong arm and bold hearts rests the question whether americans shall be free or the slaves of his royal holiness the pope of rome. often have i lifted my voice, a feeble one, indeed, in favor of _american republicans_. i believe their cause is the cause of god and freedom, and upon them every american and every protestant foreigner must rely for protection against the merciless spirit of popery. it requires no stretch of imagination to fancy a difference of opinion, or even of interest, between the citizens of this country. suppose, for instance, that the north and south were at variance; suppose them actually at war with each other; what would be the course of the pope's emissaries, hundreds of whom are now roaming through this land? the safest course and the surest mode of ascertaining what they would do in such an event, is to look back and ascertain what they have invariably done under similar circumstances. it is seldom wrong, and as a general principle it is safe, to judge of the future from the past; and if so, there can be no doubt of the course which jesuits and roman catholics would pursue in the event of any difficulties or collisions between the people of the different sections of this country. would they try to reconcile them? did they ever do so in a like case? what was the conduct of the jesuits and popes as early as the eleventh century, when the roman people differed in opinion as to their form of government, and some points of religious faith? the pope laid an interdict upon the whole people; the weaker party was overpowered by the papal authorities; and their leader, as flewry informs us, was burned alive by order of the pope adrian. frederick, called barbarossa, who was the tool of the pope on this occasion, became the next victim to his barbarity. and why? what had he done? what crime did he commit against the state? his only crime was,--he refused to hold the pope's stirrup. for this he incurred the displeasure of adrian, nor did he ever enjoy a day's peace until the pope seduced him into an expedition against saladin; where, together with thousands of others, who were persuaded to undertake that religious crusade, he died after several hard fought victories. the history of the popes, in all ages, shows that they never abandon any temporal or spiritual authority to which they lay claim; and had they the power of enforcing it now, they would exact from this country the same obedience which they did in the most benighted days of the middle ages. should a separation of these states take place; should the chain that has bound us together for the last half century, in links of love and social happiness, be unfortunately broken, by any untoward circumstances; think you, fellow citizens, that foreign papists in this country would try to re weld it? far from it. they would unite in breaking it, link by link, until not a particle of it remained. this they have done in every country where they obtained a footing; this they are doing now, under various pretences, all over europe; and should this country escape the fate of others, where jesuits and popes dare to exercise their supposed authorities, it will stand prominent and proudly, though solitary and alone, amid the records of ages, and ruins of time. i have no such hope. the efforts which are now making to check the progress of popery, may, perhaps, retard the day of our downfall; but come it must, unless the allegiance, which is now demanded by the pope of rome from his subjects in the united states, is unqualifiedly forbidden. the pope is a temporal prince. like other kings and princes, he should never be permitted to meddle, directly or indirectly, temporally or spiritually, with this country. he should not be permitted to appoint bishop or priest to any church, diocese, living, or office in the united states. the pope's _bulls_, rescripts, letters, &c., &c., should not be published or read from any pulpit this side of the atlantic; and, though roman catholics should not be prevented from the free exercise of their religion, they should be compelled to do so without reference to foreign dictation. if they must have a pope, let him be an american, and sworn to support our constitution. let him, and all roman catholics, be denied the right of voting, or of holding any office of honor, profit, or trust, under the government of the united states, until they forswear all allegiance, in spiritual as well as temporal affairs, to all foreign potentates and popes. until this is done, an oath of allegiance to this government, by a roman catholic, is entitled to no credit, and should not be received. this will appear evident to americans, if they will turn their attention for a moment to the following oath, which is taken by every romish bishop, before he is permitted to officiate, as such, in any of these united states:-"i do solemnly swear, on the holy evangelist, and before almighty god, to defend the domains of st. peter against every aggressor; to preserve, augment, and extend, the rights, honors, privileges, and powers of the lord pope, and his successors; to observe, and with all my might to enforce, his decrees, ordinances, reservations, provisions, and all dispositions whatever, emanating from the court of rome; to _persecute and combat, to the last extremity, heretics, schismatics, and all who will not pay to the sovereign pontiff all the obedience which the sovereign shall require_." while this oath is obligatory upon romish bishops, they are not to be trusted. they should not be permitted to interfere, directly nor indirectly, with the institutions, laws, or ordinances of any protestant country. their oaths should not be taken in courts of justice; their followers, every one of whom is bound by a similar oath of allegiance, should be excluded from our grand juries, from our petit juries, but more especially, from our halls of legislation; for wherever and whenever the supposed interest of the pope clashes with that of the civil authority, or even with the administration of reciprocal justice, a papist, under the control of his bishop, will not hesitate to sacrifice the good of the country, the interest, life, and prosperity of his fellow-being, for the good of the church. of the truth of this, history abounds with examples, and popish writers are replete with authorities. thomas aquinas, whose authority no roman catholic questions, says in his work _de regem_., "the pope, as supreme king of all the world, may impose taxes and destroy towns and castles for the preservation of christianity." the american reader will bear in mind, that by christianity, st. thomas means popery. pope gregory the seventh, about the year one thousand and fifty, has made use of the following language, and proclaimed it as the doctrine of the romish church. "the pope ought to be called universal bishop. he alone ought to wear the tokens of imperial dignity; all princes ought to kiss his feet; he has power to depose emperors and kings, and is to be judged by none." pope john the twelfth, in the year nine hundred and fifty-six, announced the following to be the universal belief, that "whosoever shall venture to maintain that our lord the pope cannot decree what he pleases, let him be accursed." pope bonifice the eighth, in 1294, declares, _ex cathedra_, "that god has set popes over kings and kingdoms, and whoever thinks otherwise declares him accursed." the same pope, in another place, says, "we therefore declare, say, define, and pronounce it to be necessary to salvation, that every human creature should be obedient to the roman pontiff." the pope of the present day, as every roman catholic writer maintains and teaches the laity to believe, has the same power _now_ that the popes had at any period of church history. the council of trent, the last held in the popish church, declares that pius the fifth, who was then pope of rome, "was prince over all nations and kingdoms, having power to pluck up, destroy, scatter, ruin, plant, and build." cardinal zeba, a sound theologian according to popish belief, maintains, with much ingenuity, "that the pope can do all things which he wishes, and is empowered by god to do many things which he himself cannot do." all writers upon canon law compliment the pope by calling him _our lord the pope_, and this title was confirmed to him by the council of lateran. in the fourth session of that council, it is maintained "that all mortals are to be judged by the pope, and the pope by nobody at all." massonius, who wrote the life of pope john the ninth, tells us that a bishop of rome, namely, a pope, cannot commit even sin without praise. were there no other reproach upon the romish church but the bare utterance of such blasphemy as this, it would be enough to disgust mankind; it should raise every voice in her condemnation, and every hand to pull down this masterpiece of satanic ingenuity. but strange as it may appear, the present pope maintains similar claims, and enforces obedience; nay, more;--in this year of our lord, 1845, insists upon the right of deposing all in power, and of absolving their subjects from further allegiance. but, extravagant as papal pretensions were between the ninth and tenth centuries, it was only about the middle of the eleventh that they began to show themselves in the full blaze of their hideous deformity. hildebrand, whom we have had occasion to mention as gregory the seventh, shook off all civil restraint, and proclaimed the universal and unbounded empire of the popes over the rest of the world. as shoberl expresses it, "he caused to be drawn up a declaration of independence in all things, temporal and spiritual, expressly specifying the pope's divine right of deposing all princes, giving away all kingdoms, abrogating existing laws, and substituting in their place such as the holy pope for the time being may approve of." this declaration, or bill of rights, is correctly translated by shoberl, and published in his work, entitled, "the rise and progress of the papal power." many, probably, may read this volume, who have had no opportunity of seeing shoberl's work; and others there are, who may refuse giving his statement that credence which circumstances compel them to give the writer. having been educated a roman catholic priest, and the fact being well known that admission cannot be had into her priesthood without being well versed, at least in her own doctrines, it is fairly to be presumed that my statements are entitled to full credit, when those of protestants may be denied by romish priests, who, while united with that church, are compelled, under pain of being cursed, to subscribe to any falsehood, however gross, provided it subserves the interest of the pope; and deny any truth, however plain, rather than contradict or weaken the authorities by which the impious follies and wicked pretensions of the church of rome are supported. i will give this bill of rights to my readers. it should be in the hands of every american. it should find a place in every primary school in the united states. it should be among the first lessons of infancy, so that every child, when he grows up and sees a roman catholic bishop or priest, should pause and ask himself, does that man believe those things? are we called on to pass laws for the support and protection of churches, where such doctrines, as this _bill_ contains, are promulgated? can we trust the man who promulgates them, or those who subscribe to them? is it safe to live in the same community with them? do they not endanger our civil institutions? do they not jeopardize the morals of our children? will it not, at some future day, be a blot upon the page of our history, and a foul stain upon our character for intelligence, that we have ever sanctioned such doctrines, or that we had ever allowed men who professed them, any participation in our civil rights? but let pope gregory's declaration of papal divine rights speak for itself. "the romish church is the only one that god has founded. "the title of universal belongs to the roman pontiff alone. "he alone can depose and absolve bishops. "his legate presides over all the bishops in every council, and may pronounce sentence of deposition against them. "the pope can depose absent persons. "it is not lawful to live with such as have been excommunicated. "he has the power, according to circumstances, to make new laws, to create new churches, to transform a chapter into an abbey, and to divide a rich bishopric into two, or to unite two poor bishoprics. "he alone has a right to assume the attributes of empire. "all princes must kiss his feet. "his name is the only one to be uttered in the churches. "it is the only name in the world. "he has a right to depose emperors. "he has a right to remove bishops from one see to another. "he has a right to appoint a clerk [priest] in every church. "he, whom he has appointed, may govern another church, and cannot receive a higher benefice from any private bishop. "no council can call itself general without the order of the pope. "no chapter, no book, can be reputed canonical without his authority. "no one can invalidate his sentences; he can abrogate those of all other persons. "he cannot be judged by any one. "all persons whatsoever are forbidden to presume to condemn him who is called to the apostolical chair. "to this chair must be brought the more important causes of all the churches. "the roman church is never wrong, and will never fall into error. "every roman pontiff, canonically ordained, becomes holy. "it is lawful to accuse when he permits, or when he commands. "he may, without synod, depose and absolve bishops. "he is no catholic who is not united to the romish church. "the pope can release the subjects of bad princes from all oaths of allegiance." those who have not been educated roman catholics, or who have not lived in catholic countries, will find it difficult to suppose that such pretensions as the above should ever have been entertained or submitted to: extravagant, absurd, wild, and wicked as they are, they have been acquiesced in by the court of rome; and are, at this day, contended for, and would be enforced, in this country, had that church the power to do so. she has never resigned the rights claimed in the above declaration; and there is not a roman catholic who dares assert the contrary, without a dispensation from his bishop or his priest to tell a deliberate falsehood, with a view of deceiving americans for the good of _the church_, this, however, they can always obtain and grant to each other, as circumstances may require. while a roman catholic priest, i have often received and given such indulgences myself; and there is not a period in the christian world, since the days of pope gregory, when all the powers and prerogatives, enumerated in the above papal bill of rights, were not claimed and acted upon by popes of rome, down to the hour at which i write. let us test the truth of this assertion by the unerring rule of history, although it may seem unnecessary, as no roman catholic will deny it; at any rate, it will not be questioned by those who have any acquaintance with the history of their own church. i am well aware that the majority of roman catholics in this country know nothing of the religion which they profess, and for which they are willing to fight, contend, and shed the blood of their fellow beings. i am not even hazarding an assertion, when i say there is not one of them who has read the gospels through, or who knows any more about the religion he professes, than he does about the koran of mohammed. he is told by the priest, "that christ established a church on earth; that it is infallible; and that they must submit implicitly to what its popes, priests, and bishops teach, under pain of eternal damnation." this is all the great mass of roman catholics know of religion; this is all they are required to learn; and hence it is that these people are unacquainted with the pretensions of the pope, the intrigues of jesuits, or the impositions practised upon them by their bishops and priests. but to the history of papal pretensions. as early as the year 1066, gregory, who was then pope, summoned william the conqueror, king of england, to repair to rome, prostrate himself upon his knees, and do homage to his holiness. this william refused; but his holiness deemed it expedient to compromise the matter, though he did not yield a jot of his very modest pretensions. this humble follower of the redeemer looked upon sardinia and russia as a portion of his dominions. the following extract of a letter of his, to the sovereign of russia, is a fair sample of the insolence of this man pope, or rather this god pope, as his subjects considered him. "we have given you a crown to your son, who is to come and to receive it at our hands on taking an oath of allegiance to us." he also commanded the emperor of greece "to abdicate his crown," and he also deposed the king of poland. this modest pope wrote to the different princes of spain, "that it would be much better to give up their country to the saracens, than not pay homage to the see of rome." he excommunicated philip the first of france, because he refused to "pay homage to him." writing to the french bishops, he says, "separate yourselves from the communion of philip; let the celebration of the holy mass be interdicted throughout all france; and know that, with the assistance of god, we will deliver that kingdom from such an oppressor." this same pope excommunicated henry the fourth, "because he refused to acknowledge him as his superior," and absolved his subjects from their oath of allegiance to him: and what was the result? henry was obliged to submit. having repaired to the pope's court, he was stopped at the entrance, and before he was permitted to appear in the presence of this ruffian pope, who was then shut up with matilda, countess of tuscany, one of the numerous women with whom he lived on terms of _intimacy_, he was compelled to undress and put on a hair shirt. the pope then condescended to say, "that henry should fast three days, before he could be permitted to kiss his holiness's toe; and he would then absolve him upon promise of good behavior." alexander the third, about the year 1160, deposed frederic first, king of denmark; and placing his foot upon his neck, he impiously exclaimed, "thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder." this practice and these pretensions to sovereign power, continued down to the days of elizabeth; and from thence down to the present moment. pope pius v. excommunicated elizabeth, and absolved her subjects from their oath of allegiance; and while doing so, addressed to himself the following words from the psalmist: "see, i have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy, to build up, and to throw down." more of this hereafter. such were the doctrines of the romish church in 1558. such were the practices of that church for centuries previous; nor is there one single instance on record of her having modified or abridged the extent or magnitude of her claims, unless when compelled to do so by coercion; and even then she did not abandon her claim, but only ceased to exercise it in obedience to the law of force. the romish church, in this country, as i shall show, claims the same temporal powers now which she has always claimed and exercised for so many centuries. she would now depose the executive of this country, as she did philip of france, if she dared do so. the pope would absolve our citizens from their oath of allegiance, had he the power of carrying his dispensation info effect; and what is the duty of americans under such circumstances? are you to submit passively? is it your duty to wait and witness the growth of popery among you, to nourish and feed it with the life blood of your existence as a nation, until the monster outgrows your own strength and strangles you, to satiate its inordinate appetite? i lay it down as a sound principle in political as well as moral ethics, that if a government finds, within the limits of its jurisdiction, any sect or party, of whatever doctrine, creed, or denomination, professing principles incompatible with its permanency, or subversive of the unalienable right of self government, and worshipping god, according to the dictates of each and every man's conscience, that sect or party should be removed beyond its limits, or at least excluded from any participation in the formation or administration of its laws. would it, for instance, be wise in our government to encourage the mormons to introduce among us, as the law of the land, the ravings and prophesies of joe smith? suppose that sect maintained that joe smith was their _lord god_; that the kingdoms of this world were his; that he claimed and did actually exercise the right of dethroning kings, and was endeavoring, by every means in his power, to place himself in a position to exercise, at no-distant period, the right of deposing our presidents, state governors, and absolving our people from their oaths of allegiance. should not that sect, as such, be instantly crushed? should it not, at least, be forbidden to interfere, directly or indirectly, with our civil institutions? let us suppose the prophet joe smith to hold the seat of his government in europe, and that europe was full to overflowing with mormons; we may further suppose this great high priest to have thousands and millions of subordinate officers, sworn and bound together by oaths cemented in blood, to sustain him as their sovereign ruler, by every means which human ingenuity could devise, and at every sacrifice of truth and honor. suppose, further, that this high priest was annually sending thousands of his subjects to this country, with no other view but to possess your fertile lands and overthrow your government, and substituting in its place that of this _foreign priest_ and tyrant; would you permit them to land upon your shores? would you allow them to pollute the purity of your soil? would you allow their unclean hands to touch the altars of your liberty? would you not first insist that they should purge themselves from the sins and slime of mormonism, and free themselves from all further connection with this monster man, and would-be god, who impiously demanded blind obedience and unqualified homage? i could answer for you, but i will not; the history of your republic answers for you; the movements, which are now going forth from one end of your country to the other, are answering for you, in tones too solemn and too loud to be drowned by the roaring of popish bulls. but it is much to be feared that americans do not yet fully understand the dangers to be apprehended from the existence of popery in the united states. it is difficult to persuade a single-hearted and single-minded republican, whose lungs were first inflated by the breath of freedom, whose first thoughts were, that all men had a natural right to worship god as they pleased--that any man could be found, so lost to reason, interest, and principle, as to desire to barter those high, privileges, which he may enjoy in this country, for oppression and blind submission to the dictates of a pope, or even any body of men, civil or ecclesiastic; still less can an american believe, without difficulty, that he who sees the excellence and practical operation of our form of government, will try to overthrow it, by submitting to any creed, to any king or pope, who requires from him allegiance, incompatible with that which he has already sworn to maintain. nor, generally speaking, will men do those things. while man believes in the moral obligations of an oath, he will not easily violate it. while he believes that there is an all-seeing providence, to whom alone he is accountable for his actions, he will be cautious in committing offences; but once satisfy a man, that there is, within his reach, a power which can pardon his sins, even those of perjury; which can change abstract evil into good, and he will stop at nothing. while the pardon of offences is a marketable article, it never will want for a purchaser, so prone are we to the commission of crime. let man have an adviser, in whom he is taught to place unlimited confidence, on whom he looks as the representative of his god on earth, and he soon becomes his ready tool for good or for evil. such precisely is the position in which ninety-nine out of a hundred roman catholics are placed. they are told by their priests, that, as members of society, the first allegiance they owe is to the head of their church, the pope of rome, and the next to the government, _de facto_, under which they live; but these well-practised ecclesiastical impostors never forget to add, that the first allegiance, being of a spiritual character, absorbs and supersedes the latter; thus annulling, and rendering the oath of allegiance, which they take to our government, something worse than even mere mockery; and hence it is, that very few catholics, particularly the irish, ever read the constitution of the united states, nor do they require it to be read for them. they know not, they care not what it is. it is enough for them to believe that the oath, which they take to support it, is not obligatory. of this they are assured by their priests. yet strange, these very priests tell them they commit mortal sin by becoming freemasons, or uniting themselves with that excellent and benevolent association, the odd fellows. and why, reader, do they do this? why prevent them from uniting with odd fellows or freemasons? why has the pope recently cursed all odd fellows? why has he sent a bull to this country, cautioning catholics against having any thing to do with them? why have the romish priests, from one end of this country to the other, echoed these curses? did the pope discover any bad thing in the constitution or rules of action of freemasons or odd fellows? are these institutions aiming at the overthrow of any fixed principles in morals, _in_ religion, or in virtue? no such allegation is made. why then do popes and priests forbid roman catholics from uniting with them? it is expressly because the pope knows nothing about those excellent institutions. it is because he is aware he can make no use of them; but let those societies beware, if they wish to keep their secrets. they should not allow any man to join them until he first swears that he is not a roman catholic; otherwise some jesuits will get among them, and the next packet will convey their doings to his royal holiness the pope. i cannot illustrate more clearly the value which foreign roman priests and their followers put upon an oath of allegiance to this government, than by stating a conversation which occurred between myself and a jesuit, the rev. dr. de barth, then vicar-general of the diocese of pennsylvania, and residing in philadelphia. it took place some years ago, and his opinion of the validity of an oath of allegiance to this government, is the same now that is held by all papists. i will give it by way of question and answer, just as it occurred. question by mr. de barth. do you intend becoming a citizen of the united states? answer. i believe not, sir. i don't think i could conscientiously take an oath of allegiance to this government, without violating that which i have taken at my ordination. mr. de b. you are entirely mistaken. any part of your oath of allegiance to this country, which may be incompatible with your _first_ and _greater_ allegiance to the head of your church, cannot be binding on you. ans. i have doubts upon that subject. mr. de b. what! doubt your superior, sir? this looks badly. it threatens heresy. have you been conversing with any heretics of this country? declare your intentions, sir, to become a citizen. take the oath; it is necessary you should be empowered to hold real estate for the good of _the church_. the church must have her property out of the hands of trustees; in this country they are all heretics; we must get rid of them in st. mary's church. this led me into an examination of the allegiance which i swore to the pope at my ordination. i found that i owed him none; that i was the dupe of an early education; that i owed allegiance only to my god and the country which protected my life, my liberty, and my freedom of conscience; and without further conversation with this intriguing and debauched jesuit--as i subsequently found him--i became a citizen of the united states as soon as possible; renouncing all allegiance, temporal and spiritual, to his _holiness the pope_; and firmly resolved to induce all others, who, like myself, had been the dupes of popish intrigue, to cut loose from them. i determined to support no civil constitution but that of the united states, and to have no one for my guidance in spiritual matters but my own conscience and the word of god. popish bishops and priests absolve allegiance to protestant governments. i am aware of the difficulty there is in persuading protestant americans, that roman catholic bishops and priests teach their people to believe, that they, the priests, possess the power of absolving them, either from their oath of allegiance or any other crime. it is, however, time to speak plainly to americans. it is time to let them know that there exists in the midst of them a body of people, amounting in number to about two millions, who believe in this doctrine, so corrupt in itself, and so well calculated to disturb the peace and harmony of society. there is not a priest or bishop in the united states who dares deny this; they act upon it every day. it is customary with the priests to confess weekly, and to forgive each other's sins; and i am sorry to say, from my knowledge of them, since my infancy to the present moment, that there is not a more corrupt, licentious body of men in the world. but i will not be judge, accuser, and witness, in this case. i know well that americans will take the _ipse dixit_ of no man. they are not in the habit of lightly judging any individual or body of men, in any case. i will, therefore, lay before them the roman catholic doctrine on the subject of penance and confession, as taught by the council of trent, and now believed and practised by roman catholics in the united states. i will only add, that i have taught these doctrines myself, when a roman catholic priest, and while groping my way through the darkness of popery. there are many now living who heard and received them from me, and to whom i have no apology to make for the errors into which i led them, except that, like themselves, i was the dupe of early education. the following are some of the canons of the council of trent concerning penance or confession. "whoever shall say, that those words of the lord and saviour: receive the holy ghost; _whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained_; are not to be understood of the power of remitting and retaining sins in the sacrament of penance, as the catholic church has always understood, from the beginning; but shall falsely apply them against the institution of this sacrament, to the authority of preaching the gospel; let him be accursed! "whoever shall deny that sacramental confession has either been instituted by divine command, or is necessary to salvation; or shall say that the mode of secretly confessing to a priest alone, which the catholic church always has observed from the beginning, and still observes, is foreign from the institution and command of christ, and is a human invention; let him be accursed! "whoever shall affirm, that in the sacrament of penance, it is not necessary by divine command, for the remission of sins, to confess all and every mortal sin, of which recollection may be had, with due and diligent premeditation, including secret offences, and those which are against the two last precepts of the decalogue, and the circumstances which change the species of sin: but that this confession is useful only for the instruction and consolation of the penitent, and was anciently observed, only as a canonical satisfaction imposed upon him; or shall say, that they who endeavor to confess all their sins, wish to leave nothing for the divine mercy to pardon; or finally, that it is not proper to confess venial sins; let him be accursed! "whoever shall say, that the confession of all sins, such as the church observes, is impossible, and that it is a human tradition, to be abolished by the pious; or that all and every one of christ's faithful, of both sexes, are not bound to observe it once in the year, according to the constitution of the great lateran council, and that for this reason, christ's faithful should be advised not to confess in the time of lent; let him be accursed! "whoever shall say, that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act, but a mere ministry to pronounce and declare, that sins are remitted to the person making confession, provided that he only believes that he is absolved, even though the priest should not absolve seriously, but in joke; or shall say, that the confession of a penitent is not requisite in order that the priest may absolve him; let him be accursed! "whoever shall say, that priests who are living in mortal sin do not possess the power of binding and loosing; or that the priests are not the only ministers of absolution, but that it was said to all and every one of christ's faithful: whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven; and whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained: by virtue of which words, any one may forgive sin; public sins, by reproof only, if the offender shall acquiesce; and private sins, by voluntary confession; let him be accursed! "whoever shall say, that bishops have not the right of reserving cases to themselves, except such as relate to the external polity of the church, and therefore that the reservation of cases does not hinder the priest from truly absolving from reserved cases; let him be accursed! "whoever shall say, that the whole penalty, together with the guilt, is always remitted by god, and that the satisfaction of penitents is nothing else than the faith by which they apprehend that christ has satisfied for them; let him be accursed! "whoever shall say, that satisfaction is by no means made to god, through christ's merits, for sins as to their temporal penalty, by punishments inflicted by him, and patiently borne, or enjoined by the priests, though not undergone voluntarily, as fastings, prayers, alms, or also other works of piety, and therefore that the best penance is nothing more than a new life; let him be accursed! "whoever shall say, that the satisfactions by which penitents redeem themselves from sin through jesus christ, are no part of the service of god, but traditions of men, obscuring the doctrine concerning grace, and the true worship of god, and the actual benefit of christ's death; let him be accursed! "whoever shall say, that the keys of the church were given only for loosing, not also for binding, and that therefore the priests, when they impose punishments upon those who confess, act against the design of the keys, and contrary to the institution of christ; and that it is a fiction, that when by virtue of the keys the eternal penalty has been removed, the temporal punishment may still often remain to be suffered; let him tie accursed!" i must be permitted here to remind americans, that all roman catholics are taught to believe, and distinctly to understand, that whatever they confess to their priests, is not to be revealed; nor is the individual, who confesses, permitted to reveal whatever the priest says or does to him or her, except to another priest. for instance, should a priest insult or attempt to seduce a woman, and succeed in doing so, she dare not reveal it under pain of damnation, except to another priest in confession, who is bound also to secrecy; and thus, priests, bishops, popes, and all females of that denomination, may be guilty of licentiousness,--the bare mention of which would pollute the pages of this or any other work,--with impunity. the priests can first pardon the woman, and then themselves, according to the doctrines of the _infallible church_ of rome. this is not all. it is not enough that the sanction of the church should be given to these enormities; but priests also claim the right of concealing, from the civil authorities, any knowledge which they may have of crimes against the state as well as the power of forgiving them. the following is the language of the church upon that subject. attend to it, fellow citizens, and tremble at the dangers that threaten the destruction of your republic, from the introduction of popery among you. "although the life or salvation of a man, or the ruin of the state, should depend upon it, what is discovered in confession cannot be revealed. the secret of _the seal_--confession--is more binding than the obligation of an oath." if a confessor is asked, what he knows of a fact communicated to him, he must answer that he does not know it; and, if necessary, confirm it by an oath; and "this is no perjury," says the popish church, "_because he knows it not as man, but as god_." there is popery for you, in its naked beauty! if a man wishes to murder, or to rob you, he may go to his priest, apprize him of his intention, confess to him that he will assuredly murder and rob you, or that he has done so already, and yet this priest may be your next door neighbor, and he will not make it known; and why, reader? because he knows it _as god,_ and as _god_ he tells the murderer to come to him and he will forgive him. it is not at all impossible but the day may come when this country may be at war with europe. we can easily fancy the despots of europe forming another holy _alliance_, for the laudable purpose of suppressing democracy. france, austria, spain, italy, and a large portion of germany and switzerland, together with the holy see, would necessarily constitute that holy junto; and if so, and war were declared by them against this country, what would be the consequence? inevitable ruin; certain defeat; not caused by foes abroad, but by foes within, leagued by the most solemn ties, and bound by the most fearful oaths to sacrifice our country, and all we value, for the advancement of the roman church. that there is a foe in the midst of us, capable of doing so, no man acquainted with the doctrines and statistics of the roman catholic church in this country can deny. it has now:--dioceses, 21; apostolic vicarate, 1; number of bishops, 17; bishops elect, 8; priests, 634; churches, 611; other stations, 461; ecclesiastical seminaries, 19; clerical students, 261; literary institutions for young men, 16; female academies, 48; elementary schools, passim, throughout most of the dioceses; periodicals, 15; population, 1,300,-000. late accounts carry the population up to 2,000,000. the increase of the romish church, in this country, since 1836, amounts to 12 bishops, 293 priests, 772 churches and other stations, 1,400,000 individuals, and other things in proportion. should the said church go on increasing for the next thirty years as she has done for the last eight years, the papists would be a majority of the population of the united states, and the pope our supreme temporal ruler. i have stated to you before what the doctrines of these two millions are in relation to the power of the pope; and i repeat it now, and most solemnly assure you, that there is not a roman catholic in europe or the united states who does not believe that the pope has as good a right to govern this country as he has to govern italy; and that he is, and of right ought to be, our king. pope gregory vii. has declared, "that the pope alone ought to wear the tokens of imperial dignity, and that all princes ought to kiss his feet." there is not a roman catholic clergyman, whether bishop or priest, who does not believe that it is the duty of our president, our governors, and magistrates, to do the same. bellarmine, one of the best authorities among catholic writers, says, "the supremacy of the pope over all persons and things is the main substance of christianity." mark that, fellow-citizens! that is the belief of bishop hughes, of new york; that is the belief of bishop fenwick, of boston, and of every other roman catholic bishop in the united states, as i will soon show. pope boniface viii. says, "it is necessary to salvation that all christians be subject to the pope." bzovius, an orthodox roman catholic writer, whose authority no bishop or priest will venture to question, says of the pope--"he is judge in heaven, and in all earthly jurisdiction supreme; he is the arbiter of the world." moscovius, another eminent popish writer, informs us that "god's tribunal and the pope's tribunal are the same." pope paul iv., in one of his bulls, published in the year 1557, declares, that "all protestants, be they kings or subjects, are cursed;" and this doctrine is an integral portion of the law of the roman catholic church, as may be seen in the fifth book of the decretals of the council of trent. this is not all. we find in the forty-third canon of the council of lateran, that "all bishops and priests are forbidden from taking any oath of allegiance," except to the pope. we find in another part of the decrees of the council of lateran, held under pope innocent iii., the following denunciation:--"all magistrates who interpose against priests in any criminal case, whether it be for murder or high treason, let him be excommunicated." bear that in mind, american protestants! if a priest murder one of you, if he commit high treason against your government, your magistrates dare not interfere, under pain of being _damned_. so says the infallible roman church; and so will she act, should she ever acquire the power of doing so, in this country. it is said by lessius, an eminent jesuit writer, and professor of divinity in the roman catholic college of louvaine, who wrote about the year 1620, and whose authority no roman catholic dare doubt, under pain of eternal damnation, that "the pope can annul and cancel every possible obligation arising from an oath." this he taught to his students in the college of louvaine. this same doctrine has been taught in the college of maynooth, ireland, where i was educated myself. it is taught there at the present day. see the works of de la hogue. judge you, americans, what safety there is for your republic, while you support and sustain among you a sect numbering two millions, who are sworn to uphold such doctrines as the foregoing. the very domestics in your houses are spies for the priests. nothing transpires under your own roofs which is not immediately known to the bishop or priest to whom your servants confess. but you may say, "the confessor will not reveal it." here you are partly right, and partly, mistaken; and it is proper to explain the course adopted by priests in such matters as confession. if it be the _interest_ of the church, that what is confessed should be made public, the priest tells the party to make it known to him, "_out of the confessional_," and then he uses it to suit his own views; perhaps for the destruction of the reputation, or fortune, of the very man, or family, employing domestic. but it may be replied that roman catholics are good-natured people; that they are generous and industrious. admitted: i will even go further; there is not a people in the world moreso. nature has done much for them, especially those of them who are natives of ireland; but the lack of a correct education has corrupted their hearts and imbittered their feelings; they are not to be trusted with the care or management of the animals of protestant families. it is not generally known, nor perhaps suspected by protestant parents, who employ roman catholic domestics, in nursing and taking care of their children, that these nurses are in the habit of taking their children privately to the houses of the priests, and bishops, and there getting them baptized according to the roman catholic ritual: i know this as a fact, within my own knowledge. when i officiated as a roman catholic priest, in philadelphia, i baptized hundreds, i may say thousands of protestant children, without the knowledge or consent of their parents, brought to me secretly by their roman catholic nurses; and i should have continued to do so till this day, had not the lord in his mercy, been pleased to visit me, and show me the wiles, treachery, infamy, corruption, and intrigue of the church, of which the circumstance of birth and education caused me to be a member. it was usual with me in philadelphia, in st. margaret church, of which i was pastor, to have services every morning at seven o'clock; and often when i returned home, between eight and eleven, have i found three, four, and sometimes six and eight children, whose parents were protestants, waiting for me, in the arms of their roman catholic nurses to be baptized. this is a common practice in every protestant country, where there are roman catholic priests; but as far as my experience goes, it prevails to a greater extent in the united states than elsewhere; and 1 should not be in the least surprised, if at this time, in the city of boston, nearly all the infants, nursed by roman catholic women, are baptized by their priests and bishops. roman catholic women are unwilling to come in contact, even with _heretic_ infants. they believe them _damned_, unless baptized by a romish priest. there is another fact, indirectly connected with this subject, which is not generally known. it is believed by roman catholics, that all mothers, after their confinement, are to be _churched_ by some romish priest or bishop. this _churching_ is performed by the repetition of a few prayers, in latin, a sprinkling of holy water, and the woman who does not submit to this mummery, is believed by any roman catholic nurse whom she may employ, to be eternally _damned_, together with her child. they go so far as to say, that the very ground upon which the unchurched mother walks is _accursed_; that the very house in which she lives is _accursed_; and that all she says and does is _accursed_. so firmly have the romish priests and bishops fastened this belief upon the minds of their _dupes_, that at this moment in ireland, and i may venture to say in this city of boston, no catholic woman will leave her bed after confinement, without being _churched, lest the ground_ on which she walks may be accursed. until this ceremony is performed, none of her catholic neighbors will hold any intercourse with her. how then can protestant mothers expect otherwise, than that catholic nurses will have _their_ children baptized by priests! or what security can they have that they will not, under the direction of priests, try to turn the minds of their children from the contemplation of truth, and pure gospel light, to the foul sources of popery and superstition! look to this, american mothers. it may not be amiss in this connection, to lay before american protestants, the doctrine of the romish church upon baptism; and, lest i may be accused of setting down aught in malice, i shall do so in the words of the council of trent. _canons of the council of trent concerning baptism._ "1. whoever shall say that the baptism of john, had the same virtue as the baptism of christ; let him be accursed! "2. whoever shall say that true and natural water is not absolutely necessary for baptism, and therefore wrests those words of our lord jesus christ, as though they had been a kind of metaphor: 'except a man be born of water, and the holy spirit;' let him be accursed! "3. whoever shall say that in the roman church, which is the mother and mistress of all churches, the doctrine concerning the sacrament of baptism is not true; let him be accursed! "4. whoever shall say that the baptism which is also given by heretics, in the name of the father, and of the son and of the holy ghost, with the intention of doing what the church does, is not true baptism; let him be accursed! [here is another of those rules, by which the holy romish church leaves herself room to impose upon the public. can any man believe, can any one even suppose a case, where a heretic acts, or intends to act, according to the intention of the church of rome; the very act of heresy was against that church and her doctrines; and the truth is, if the church would speak honestly, or her priests and bishops do so for her, all who are not baptized in the romish church, and who are baptized, are eternally damned. so thinks, and so teaches, the popish church.] "5. whoever shall say that baptism is optional, that is, not necessary to salvation; let him be accursed! "6. whoever shall say that a baptized person cannot, even if he would, lose grace, how much soever he may sin, unless he is unwilling to believe; let him be accursed! "7. whoever shall say that baptized persons, by baptism itself, become debtors to preserve faith alone, and not the whole law of christ; let him be accursed! "8. whoever shall say that baptized persons are free from all precepts of holy church, which are either written or traditional, so that they are not bound to observe them, unless they choose to submit themselves to them of their own accord; let him be accursed! "9. whoever shall say that men are so to be recalled to the memory of the baptism which they have received, that they may regard all the vows which are made after baptism as null and void, by virtue of the promise already made in baptism itself, as if by it they detract from the faith which they have professed, and from the baptism itself; let him be accursed! "10. whoever shall say that all the sins which we committed after baptism, by the mere remembrance and faith of the baptism received, are either dismissed or become venial; let him be accursed! "11. whoever shall say that a baptism, truly and with due ceremony conferred, is to be repeated on him who has denied the faith of christ among infidels, when he is converted to repentance; let him be accursed! "12. whoever shall say that no one is to be baptized, except at that age at which christ was baptized, or in the article of death; let him be accursed! "13. whoever shall say that infants, because they have not the act of faith, are not to be reckoned among believers after having received baptism, and on this account are to be re-baptized when they arrive at years of discretion; or that it is better that their baptism be omitted, than that they should be baptized in the faith only of the church, when they do not believe by their own act; let him be accursed! "14. whoever shall say that baptized children of this kind, when they have grown up, are to be asked whether they wish to have that ratified which their sponsors promised in their name when they were baptized; and that when they reply that they are unwilling, they are to be left to their own choice; and that they are not in the meantime to be compelled by any other punishment, to a christian life, except that they be prohibited the enjoyment of the eucharist, and the other sacraments, until they repent; let him be accursed!" this last canon, as the reader perceives, explains fully why roman catholics are so anxious for the baptism of protestant children by their priests. it gives them the power of compelling those children, should they deem it expedient to do so, to profess the catholic faith, and thereby strengthening her power. they try to alienate the children from the parents; or calculating upon that natural affection with which a parent clings to a child, they hope to bring over the parent also to the _catholic faith_; or, failing in this, they hope to break up those alliances of blood which nature has established, and that community of interest and feeling, which society has sanctioned, and religion and nature have blessed, between parent and child. a true papist will stop at nothing to advance the power of the pope, or the interest of the holy church. heretics, by which the reader will understand all who do not belong to the roman catholic church, are to be destroyed, cost what it will. death, and the destruction of heretics, is the watchword of popery. down with protestant governments, kings, presidents, governors, judges, and all other civil and religious authorities, is the war-cry in popish countries. they desire neither to live nor die with us. they refuse to be laid down in the same common earth with us. need this be proved to americans? one would suppose not. our intercourse with roman catholic countries is such, at present, that there can be no longer any doubt of this fact. our commercial transactions with spain, portugal, south america, mexico, and the neighboring island of cuba, enables many of our people to judge for themselves, and say what is now the condition of protestants in those countries where popery predominates. can a protestant worship god in those countries, according to the dictates of his own conscience? he cannot. they are all told by their priests, that a protestant is a thing too unclean to worship god until he is first baptised and then shrived or confessed by their priests. a protestant cannot even carry his bible with him, into these countries. many of my fellow-citizens, who may see this statement, will bear testimony to its truth. when a protestant arrives at any port in a _purely_ catholic country, his trunks and his person are examined; and if a bible is found in them, or about him, it is taken from him. the ministers of his religion dare not accompany him, or if he does, his lips are sealed, under pain of a lingering death. should sickness lay its heavy hand upon him, there is no minister to attend him, no bible allowed him, from which he may quench his thirst for the waters of life. should death visit him, there is _no one to close_ the eyes of the lonely protestant stranger. a good roman catholic would not touch the _accursed heretic_, and when dead he is not allowed the rights of christian interment; he must be cast by the wayside, as suitable food for the hog, the dog, and the buzzard. how many a worthy american have i seen myself, in cuba, cast away when dead, as you would a carrion, not even a coffin to cover him; and why all this? because he was a heretic; because he did not believe in the supremacy of the pope, and the infallibility of the romish church; and yet those inhuman wretches, those libels upon religion and humanity, come among us, ask you for lands on which to build churches and pulpits, from which they curse you and your children; become citizens of your republic, inmates in your families, with smiles on their faces and curses in their hearts for you. let not this language be deemed exaggeration. i have heard it, i have witnessed it, i have seen it. and yet americans, heedlessly fancying themselves and their institutions secure, refuse these, their sworn enemies, and foes of their religion, nothing they ask for. such is the listlessness and apathy of our people upon this subject, that, as far as i am acquainted, no appeal has ever been made to our government, to ask even for a modification of those barbarities, with which our protestant citizens are treated, in roman catholic countries; nor has there been any effort made to alter our free constitution, so as to enable us to retaliate upon those popish monsters, and obtain from the bloodthirsty cowards, at the point of the bayonet, those common privileges, which are almost among the necessary appurtenances of humanity, and which even a pagan would scarcely deny to a fellow-being. i hold it as undeniable, that even as protestants, we are, at least by implication, entitled by our treaties of alliance with popish countries, to far different treatment from that which we receive; and had the question been considered by _our people_, either in their primary meetings, or through their representatives, they would have long since, insisted upon due protection and respect for the natural rights of their citizens abroad. these natural rights can neither be sold nor exchanged; their free exercise is guaranteed by implication in every treaty we make with foreign nations, and cannot be violated by them without giving just cause of war. let political casuists say what they please, there is no principle better established in political ethics, than that all international treaties of amity and commerce, should be formed, and if formed, should be kept, upon principles of justice and reciprocity. the same national amity and courtesy, which our protestant country extends to popish nations and their people, should be extended by them to us by national friendship and comity, is not, i apprehend, and should not, be meant or understood, the privilege of selling a bale of cotton here or a bag of coffee there. it includes the free exercise of the rights of the parties thereto, so far, at least, as they are not incompatible with each other, or with the general principles of natural or national law. the spaniard, the portuguese, the italian, the mexican, or cuban, may worship his god, the virgin mary, or any saint he pleases, and no american will disturb him; no american will forbid him. if he dies, his priests may have him buried where he will. this is as it should be. man has a natural right to worship god; it is a right implanted in his very nature. as well may we say to a man, thou shalt not breathe the air of our country, as say, thou shalt not worship the god that gave thee birth; and as well also may we say, thou shalt not worship that god except according to the mode which we prescribe, as forbid him doing so at all. the natural right of worshipping god, or a first cause, implies the right of doing so according to the dictates of each man's conscience, provided, in doing it, we interfere with none of those laws, which civilized nations should reverence. this is the principle on which we act with popish countries and people, and upon the principle of reciprocal justice, we ought to demand similar treatment from them. we have friendly treaties with these people. friendly, forsooth! can that man or that nation be friendly, who forbids us to read our bibles within their territories, or to bury our dead among their dead, or to worship god according to the usages of our forefathers, or the dictates of our own conscience? such treaties should rather be termed _treaties for the abrogation of natural rights of americans within popish dominions_. we enjoy no rights there; and if we have any by implication, under our treaties, they are impiously wrested from us by a wicked rabble of priests and bishops, distinguished only for their ignorance, rapacity, and licentiousness. i solemnly call upon every american citizen, who reveres his god, respects his fellow-citizens, or values the happiness of his country, to submit no longer to popish insolence abroad, and to allow them no rights in this country, which they are not willing to reciprocate. if our existing treaties of _amity_ with popish powers are not sufficient to protest us in the free exercise of our religion, when among them, let us break them, let us tear them asunder, and scatter them as chaff before the wind. they were never binding upon us. they were made in violation of natural rights, which god alone could give, and man cannot take away. call upon your government to protect you; choose no man as your representative who will allow popery to flourish in this free soil, and witness the religion of your forefathers trampled upon, with impunity, by papists in a neighboring country; and if you cannot obtain your rights by law, you will show the world that you have, at least, moral and physical courage enough to redress your wrongs. let not papists, who, at the distance of a few days' sail from your ports, would deny your brother the rights of christian interment, or the consolation of dying with his bible in his hand, dare call upon your aid, to propagate a religion, which inculcates principles worse and more dangerous than were ever practised in pagan lands. much sympathy is felt and expressed, particularly in this state of massachusetts, where i write for some of her colored population, because it is deemed necessary, in slave states, to prevent them from commingling with their slaves, lest they may excite them to dissatisfaction with their condition, and ultimately to insurrection. it is deemed a matter of such magnitude that massachusetts, in the plenitude of its sympathy, felt herself called upon to send an ambassador to south carolina, to protect her citizens, and demand redress for this supposed outrage upon her rights. it is not my intention to enter into the merits or demerits of the question at issue between the states of massachusetts and south carolina. i will merely state, that the former consists in this, viz: by a law of the state of south carolina, every free person of color, entering that state, is liable to be imprisoned till he leaves the state. this is done by south carolina and some other slave states, as a necessary measure of precaution; but the prisoner is kindly treated; at least, we hear nothing to the contrary; no such complaint is made by massachusetts. the prisoner is allowed the free exercise of his religion; his friends may visit him almost at any hour; his spiritual instructor is never denied access to him; he may have his bible with him, or any other books he may think proper. but this will not satisfy the sympathizing people of massachusetts. they call public meetings of their citizens; threaten to dissolve the union; and declare they will raise a sufficient military force to invade south carolina, and redress this outrage upon a citizen's rights, at the point of the bayonet. man is truly a strange being, and various indeed are the currents of his sympathies, but still more various and unaccountable are the causes which often set them in motion. it is comparatively but seldom, that a colored citizen of the north goes to slave states; but if there should be the least infraction of his civil rights, the whole north flies into a passion; and yet this very people of the north can see the citizens of their own country, kindred, and blood, in a neighboring popish port of havana, for instance, deprived of all their rights, both conventional and natural, without a murmur. not a complaint is heard in new england, from the son, whose father is confined in the dungeons of cuba, not because he is suspected of any intention to create insurrection, but simply because he refused to kneel to some wooden image, which a parcel of debauched priests are lugging about the streets; or because he expresses his belief that such processions and mummeries are worse than pagan idolatry. the american protestant, who will dare worship his god publicly, or even in private, within the walls of his own house, unless with closed doors, and without the knowledge of the popish spies of the inquisition, is liable to imprisonment, from which, in all probability, he is never to be released. if a bible be found in his house, it is burned, and he and his family are cast into jail. this is the case in every country where the popish church has power enough to make its religion that of the state; and yet we have treaties of _amity_, with these countries. what a burlesque upon _amity!_ what a mockery of friendly relations, with a people who deny us the exercise of the natural right which every man has, to worship god as he pleases! who compel our fathers, brothers, and our sons, to bow the knee, in idolatrous worship, to wooden images, and particles of bread, which are paraded as _gods_, through the streets, in roman catholic countries. friendly relations, forsooth, with a people who consider us damned, and already consigned to perdition! and yet we hear no complaint in massachusetts, of cruelties to our citizens; nothing is said of the violation of those friendly relations, secured to us by treaty, and annually declared by our presidents, in their messages, to exist and to be maintained between our people and those popish countries. when we hear of an american citizen in cuba, when we hear of his natural rights being trampled under foot, by catholic governors, bishops, and priests, no complaint is made of a violation of friendly alliance; no meeting is called to express sympathy for the individual sufferer, or indignation against the treacherous government of popery; no act of our legislature has been passed, making appropriations to send ambassadors to these neighboring nations, for injuries done to our citizens; and yet it is a well-known fact, that where one colored citizen of new england is imprisoned, for a few days, in south carolina, there are a thousand of our enterprising seamen and merchants, confined in the dungeons of spain, italy, portugal, mexico, and cuba, at our very door. how long will these outrages be tolerated? a popish captain comes here; the hands before the mast are papists; the ship may have her chaplain, or may have as many _little gods_, and saints, indulgences, scapulas, beads, and rosaries, as they please; they may land, captain, crew, saints, and all, and no one molests them; but if an american ship arrives at the very port from which the other sailed, her captain and crew are forbidden even to carry their bible on shore; but should the ship have a protestant chaplain, and that chaplain venture on shore, with his congregation of sailors--all american freemen--he dare not take his bible with him, or hold religious worship on this popish soil; and should this captain, chaplain, or any of the crew die, he is not allowed christian burial, unless he can buy the privilege from, profligate priests, at an enormous sacrifice of money, and after certain purifications effected by holy water, and smoking, which they call _incense_. this is what our government calls _friendly relations_. how long shall we be amused by the executive messages, annually informing us of receiving "assurances of friendship from popish countries?" let the people take this subject into their own hands; let them have no alliance, no treaty, no commerce with a people, who will deny them the right of worshipping god peaceably and respectfully, or who will refuse them the right of burying their dead decently and with due solemnity. the treaties which are made with papists begin, on their part, with the most solemn avowal of good faith, in the name of the father, son, and holy ghost. they assure us of their friendly sentiments towards us under this solemn and awful sanction; but no sooner is this promise made--no sooner have they pledged their honor, their faith, and all that is holy, to support it--than they disregard all those obligations, feeling and believing that they are already dispensed with by their church, which teaches them to hold no faith with heretics. the priests, however, and bishops, more crafty than the mass of their people, plead _state necessity_ for withholding from us privileges which we give them. this is a shallow pretext, and worthy only of the source from which it comes. can any case be supposed, or any necessity arise, to violate the eternal principles of right and wrong, of justice and truth? are moral and national obligations anything more than mere dead letters and leaden rules, which can be bent by hands strong enough to do so, and to suit their own purposes and designs? suppose a man in private life--suppose further that man to be a papist--he enters into a treaty of alliance and friendship with a protestant; he calls god the father, son, and holy ghost to witness that he will fulfil his engagement; we can easily fancy the protestant, within the jurisdiction of that papist, reading his bible, without interfering or any way molesting the individual within whose jurisdiction he is. let us imagine this protestant seized by the papist, thrown into prison by him, while alive, and if dead, thrown away as food for the birds of prey. would you call this fulfilling the obligations of friendship or friendly alliance? would the protestant ever enter into such a treaty of alliance again? would not every protestant who witnessed this transaction look upon the papist who committed it, even though he be but a private individual, as a bad man, with whom no further intercourse ought to be had? assuredly, he would. but let it be borne in mind, that actions do not change their nature; immutable principles are always the same; they do not change with the paucity or number of actors; what is bad in an individual will be wrong in a nation, and in every individual of that nation. the only difference is, that an act of perfidy and bad faith in a nation is, if possible, worse in itself, and infinitely more mischievous, than if committed by an individual. our political sophists may deny this, and gloss over the conduct of popish governments towards our citizens while among them; but they cannot long hide from our people that the eternal laws of truth cannot be violated; nor can their meaning be frittered away by the technicalities of treaties. truth, whether moral or political, is like the suu of heaven; it is but one--it is the same every where. it is sometimes clouded, it is true, but these clouds are momentary; they pass away, and it shines again in its native brilliancy. the day is fast coming, and i trust it has even arrived, when americans will see, that by a treaty of amity is not meant the right of shipping our commodities to popish countries, and receiving theirs in exchange; reserving to one party the privilege of denying to the other a right dearer to him than all earthly considerations; and which is guarantied to him by the eternal laws of god, while the other party is under no restraint as to the full and free enjoyment of those natural rights. and here, i beg leave to say to our legislators, that protestant americans, upon due reflection, will not long give their assent to any treaty, nor form an alliance with any country, which shall deny them the free exercise of their religion. the american, who will enter into an alliance with the pope, or a popish country, explicitly agrees to deny his god, and forswear the religion of his forefathers. he virtually consents that the party with which he makes the agreement shall be privileged to curse and damn him, his country, his religion, and his rights. this needs no proof. look around you, and see your citizens in mexico denying their god by submitting to popish laws, which forbid their worship according to the dictates of their conscience. were your puritan forefathers to witness this, would they not exclaim, "shame upon our degenerate sons, who will barter their religion and their birthright for the petty advantages of commerce!" no wonder that popish priests and popish presses should call americans _cowards and the sons of cowards_. who but a coward, and what but a nation of cowards, would surrender that liberty of conscience which their forefathers purchased at the price of blood? this americans do by assenting to a treaty with any country which does not guarantee to them the right of worshipping god without hindrance. americans will not forget, though they cannot too often be reminded of the fact, that those countries where their feelings are thus outraged are, _de facto,_ governed by the pope and his vicegerents, whose actions for centuries back have proved them to have been no other than conspirators against the improvement and happiness of the human race. what were the means by which they conducted their governments? the very same that they are now in every roman catholic country, all over the globe; craft, dissimulation, oppression, extortion, and above all, fire, faggot, and the sword. there is not an article of their faith, nor a sacrament of their church, which is not enforced by curses, as i shall show in the sequel. these vicegerents of the humble redeemer have the insolence to ape the very thunders of heaven. history informs us, that their robes have been crimsoned in blood. their images of saints, some of which i have seen in mexico, made of solid gold, and many of them six feet high and well-proportioned, were wrung from the poor. many of those countries, which they now possess, and where god and nature have scattered plenty, have been made barren by popish avarice and the licentiousness of its priests. the fields, which laughed with plenty, they have watered with hunger and distress. they found the world gay with flowers, and with roses: they dyed it with blood. they and their doctrines acted upon it like the blast of an east wind. popery, since the eighth century in particular, has been what a pestilence or conflagration is to a city. come with me, in imagination, to italy, and judge for yourselves. pass on with me, to spain, portugal, south america, and you will sec that i am not exaggerating. you will find that i have only told truth, but not the whole truth. no tongue can tell it. we have no language to express it. i will give you a few instances of the fruits of popery in the neighboring island of cuba. what i am about stating has come under my own observation; and is, besides, a matter of record, and accessible to many. the natives of cuba pay fifteen millions per annum to her _most christian_ majesty, the queen of spain. they support an army of sixteen thousand men, every one of whom is a native of old spain, kept there for the sole purpose of extorting this enormous annual tribute. the number of priests there is immense. they, too, must be supported at the point of the bayonet. these priests are known to be the most profligate vagabonds in creation. and why, it will naturally be asked, should such men be tolerated? why supply them with money to gamble at the faro table, at cock-fights and bull-fights? the reason is plain; they act as spies for the pope, who, in reality, manages the government of old spain, and contrives to draw, from that already impoverished and distracted country, the last dollar of a people whom god has endowed with every virtue, and a capacity of cultivating them, had not the curse of popery fallen upon them. such is the avarice of the popish church and popish tyrants, that, if a farmer in cuba kills even a beef for his own use, he must pay the government ten per cent, upon its value. when i was in cuba, the farmer must pay ten and a half dollars duty upon every barrel of flour imported into the island; when he might raise, in the field, before his own door, the finest wheat in the world, if the government would let him. such are but a few of the blessings of popish governments. do americans desire this republic reduced to such a state of vassalage as this? or will you profit by these lessons, which experience is daily teaching you? wherever you turn your eyes, and see popery in the ascendant, you will find it the pandora's box, out of which every curse has issued, without even leaving hope behind. it should, therefore, be suppressed on its appearance in any country. it should be the duty of every good man to extirpate it, and sweep it, if possible, from the face of the globe. it is nothing better than a political machine, cunningly devised, for the propagation of despotism. it is the masterpiece of satanic wickedness. execrated and exploded be this infernal machine! and thanks forever be to that god, who has shown me its intricacies, in time to save me from becoming what, i know of my own knowledge, roman catholic priests are--hypocrites, infidels, and licentious debauchees, under the mask of sanctity and holiness. their religion is supported by _curses_, as i have before stated, and will now prove from the doctrines of their own church. the reader has already been told, that the popish church maintains the doctrines that a belief in seven sacraments is necessary to salvation. these sacraments are designated as follows: _baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony_. and she enforces this by _curses_. i have already enumerated the curses with which she enforces her belief in baptism. the next sacrament is confirmation, enforced by the following eloquent curses, pronounced by the infallible council of trent:!!!!! "1. whoever shall say that the confirmation of baptized persons is a needless ceremony, and not rather a true and proper sacrament: or that anciently it was nothing else than a kind of catechizing, by-which the youth expressed the reason of their faith before the church; let him be accursed! "2. whoever shall say that they do despite to the holy spirit who attributes any virtue to the holy chrism of confirmation; let him be accursed! "3. whoever shall say, the ordinary minister of holy confirmation is not the bishop alone, but any mere priest whatsoever; let him be accursed!" the next sacrament is the eucharist. the following is the doctrine of the romish church in relation to this:!!!!! decree of the council of florence for the instruction of the armenians, "the third is the sacrament of the eucharist, the matter of which is wheaten bread, and wine from the vine; with which, before the consecration, a very small quantity of water should be mixed. but water is thus mixed, since it is believed that the lord himself instituted this sacrament in wine, mixed with water: besides, because this agrees with the representation of our lords passion: because it is recorded that blood and water flowed forth from the side of christ: and also because this is proper to signify the effect of this sacrament, which is the union of christian people with christ: for water signifies the people, according to rev. xvii. 15. _and he said to me, the waters, which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and nations, and tongues_. "the form of this sacrament are the words of the saviour, by which this sacrament is performed: for the priest, speaking in the person of christ, performs this sacrament: for, by virtue of the words themselves, the substance of the bread is converted into the body, and the substance of the wine into the blood, of christ; yet so that christ is contained entire under the form of bread, and entire under the form of wine: christ is entire also under every part of the consecrated host, and of the consecrated wine, after a separation has been made. the effect of this sacrament, which it produces in the soul of a worthy partaker, is the union of the person to christ," &c. _canons of the council of trent, concerning the most holy sacrament of the eucharist._ "1. whoever shall deny that, in the sacrament of the most holy eucharist are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our lord jesus christ, and therefore the entire christ, but shall say that he is in it only as in a sign, or figure, or virtue, let him be accursed! "2 whoever shall say that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist, the substance of bread and wine remains together with the body and blood of our lord jesus christ, and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, only the forms of bread and wine remaining, which conversion indeed the catholic church most aptly calls tran-substantiation; let him be accursed! "3 whoever shall deny that in the adorable sacrament of the eucharist, the entire christ is contained under each kind, and under the single parts of each kind, when a separation is made; let him be accursed! "4. whoever shall say that the body and blood of our lord jesus christ are not present in the admirable eucharist so soon as the consecration is performed, but only in the use when it is received, and neither before nor after, and that the true body of our lord does not remain in the hosts, or consecrated morsels, which are reserved or left after the communion; let him be accursed! "5. whoever shall say either that remission of sins is the principal fruit of the most holy eucharist, or that no other effects proceed from it; let him be accursed! "6. whoever shall affirm that in the holy sacrament of the eucharist, christ, the only-begotten son of god, is not to be adored, even with the external worship of latria, and therefore that the eucharist is to be honored neither with peculiar festive celebration, nor to be solemnly carried about in processions according to the laudable and universal rite and custom of the church, or that it is not to be held up publicly before the people that it may be adored, and that its worshippers are idolaters; let him be accursed! "7. whoever shall say that it is not lawful that the holy eucharist be reserved in the sacristy, but that it must necessarily be distributed to those who are present immediately after the consecration; that it is not proper that it be carried in procession to the sick; let him be accursed! "8. whoever shall say that christ, as exhibited in the eucharist, is eaten only spiritually, and not also sacramentally and really; let him be accursed. "9. whoever shall deny that each and every one of christ's faithful, of both sexes, when they have attained to years of discretion, are obliged, least once every year, at easter, to commune according to the precept of holy mother church; let him be accursed! "10. whoever shall say that it is not lawful in the officiating priest to administer the communion to himself; let him be accursed! "11. whoever shall affirm that faith alone is sufficient preparation for taking the sacrament of the most holy eucharist; let him be accursed and lest so great a sacrament be taken unworthily and therefore to death and condemnation, the sacred holy synod doth decree and declare, that sacrimental confession must necessarily precede in the case of those whom conscience accuses of mortal sin, if a confessor is at hand, however contrite they may suppose themselves to be. but if any one shall presume to teach, preach, or pertinacious assert, or in publicly disputing, to defend the contrary, let him by this very act be excommunicated." canons of the same council concerning the communion of children, and in both kinds. "1. whoever shall say that each and every of of christ's faithful ought to take both kinds of the most holy sacrament of the eucharist, by the command of god, or because necessary to salvation let him be accursed! "2. whoever shall say that the holy catholic church has not been induced, by just causes and reasons, to administer the communion to the laity, and also to the clergy not officiating, only under the form of bread; or that she has erred in this; let him be accursed! "3. whoever shall deny that the whole and entire christ, the fountain and author of all graces, is received under the one form of bread, because, as some falsely assert, he is not received under both kinds, according to the institution of christ; let him be accursed! "4 whoever shall say that the communion of the eucharist is necessary for little children before they have attained to years of discretion; let him be accursed!" &c. the next in order is extreme unction, canons of the council of trent concerning extreme unction. "1. whoever shall say that extreme unction is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by christ our lord, and promulgated by the blessed apostle james, but only a rite received from, the fathers, or human invention; let turn be accursed! "2. whoever shall say that the sacred anointing of the sick does not confer grace, nor remit sins, nor raise up the sick, but that it has now ceased, as if the gift of healing existed only in past ages; let him be accursed! "3. whoever shall say that the ceremony of extreme unction in the practice which the holy roman church observes, are repugnant to the meaning of the blessed apostle james, and that, therefore, they are to be changed; let him be accursed!" the sixth sacrament is that of orders. canons of the council of trent concerning orders "1. whoever shall say that in the new testament, there is not a visible and external priesthood: or that there is not any power of consecrating and offering the true body and blood of the lord, and of remitting and retaining sins: but only the office and naked ministry of preaching the gospel; or that they who do not preach are surely not priests; let him be accursed! "2. whoever shall say that besides the priesthood there are not other orders in the catholic church, both greater and inferior, by which as by certain steps, the priesthood may be attained; let him be accursed! "3. whoever shall say that orders, or sacred ordination, is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by christ the lord; or that it is a certain human invention, devised by men ignorant of ecclesiastical things, or that it is only a certain ceremony of choosing the ministers of the word of god and of the sacraments; let him be accursed! "4. whoever shall say that by sacred ordination the holy spirit is not given, and that therefore the bishops say in vain, receive the holy ghost: or that by it character is not impressed: or that he who has once been a priest may again become a layman; let him be accursed! "5. whoever shall say that the sacred unction which the church uses in holy ordination is not only not required, but is contemptible and pernicious; likewise also the other ceremonies of orders; let him be accursed! "6. whoever shall say that in the catholic church there is not a hierarchy instituted by divine appointment, which consists of bishops, priests, and ministers; let him be accursed! "7. whoever shall say that bishops are not superior to priests, or that they have not the power of confirming and ordaining; or that which they have is common to them with the priests; or that orders conferred by them without the consent or call of the people or the secular power, are null and void; or that they who have been neither duly ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical and canonical power, but come from some other source, are lawful ministers of the word and sacraments; let him be accursed! "8. whoever shall say that the bishops, who are appointed by the authority of the roman pontiff, are not lawful and true bishops, but a human invention; let him be accursed!" canons of the council of trent concerning marriage. 1. whoever shall say that marriage is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical laws instituted by christ the lord, but that it is invented by men in the church and does not confer grace; let him be accursed! "2. whoever shall say that it is lawful for christians to have several wives at once, and that this is forbidden by no divine law; let him be accursed! "3. whoever shall say that only those degrees of relationship and affinity, which are expressed in leviticus, can hinder marriage from being contracted, and annul the contract; and that the church cannot dispense in any of them, or appoint that more may hinder and annul; let him be accursed! "4. whoever shall say that the church could not constitute impediments annulling marriage, or that in constituting them, she has erred; let him be accursed! "5. whoever shall say that the bond of marriage may be dissolved on account of heresy, or mutual dislike, or voluntary absence from the husband or wife; let him be accursed! "6. whoever shall say that a marriage solemnized, but not consummated, is not annulled by the solemn profession of a religious order by one of the parties; let him be accursed! "7. whoever shall say that the church errs, when she has taught and teaches that according to the evangelical and apostolical doctrine, the bond of marriage cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of one or the other of the parties, and that neither of them, not even the innocent party who has given no cause for the adultery, may contract another marriage, whilst the party is living, and that he commits adultery, who marries another after putting away his adulterous wife, or she, who marries another, after putting away her adulterous husband; let him be accursed! "8. whoever shall say that the church is in error when, for many reasons, she decrees that a separation may be made between married persons, as to the bed, or as to intercourse, either for a certain, or an uncertain time; let him be accursed. "9. whoever shall say that the clergy, constituted in sacred order, or regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, may contract marriage, and that the contract is valid, notwithstanding ecclesiastical law, or vow, and that to maintain the opposite, is nothing else than to condemn marriage; and that all may contract marriage, who do not think that they have the gift of chastity, even though they have vowed it; let him be accursed: as god does not deny this to those who seek it aright, nor does he suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear. "10. whoever shall say that the married state is to be preferred to a state of virginity, or celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or celibacy, than to be joined in marriage; let him be accursed! "11. whoever shall affirm that the prohibition of the solemnization of marriage, at certain times of the year, is a tyrannical superstition, borrowed from the superstitions of the pagans, or shall condemn the benedictions, and other ceremonies, which the church uses at those times; let him be accursed! u 12. whoever shall affirm that matrimonial causes do not belong to the ecclesiastical judges; let him be accursed!" the atrocity of the above doctrines, is evident to every reflecting mind. protestants can now see for themselves, whether they can safely hold any communion with them, or have any confidence in roman catholics. there is not a protestant christian in the united states, nor in the world, who is not publicly and solemnly denounced, as an accursed being, by the roman catholic church, and by each and every one of its members; but in addition to those curses, which i have enumerated, there is another more solemn; one which is annually pronounced against them, by the pope of rome, and by every bishop and priest in this country. it is known by the title of _bulla in cena domini_. the curse contained in this bull, is pronounced annually at rome, by the pope, on thursday before good friday. it includes every living being who is not a roman catholic. all our president, congress, governors, magistrates, municipal authorities, officers of our navy and army, all our protestant clergymen, whether unitarians, presbyterians, episcopalians, baptists, or methodists; and upon all these, without distinction, the pope of rome, dressed in his royal robes, invokes the curse of heaven, once at least every year. every priest in the roman church is bound to do the same. it was a part of my own duty, and one which i never failed to discharge, until i protested against the doctrines of the romish church. the popish priests never deemed it prudent to pronounce this curse publicly?-in the united states, but while i was among them, we never omitted to do so privately, on the morning of thursday before good friday. it commences with the following words on the part of the pope:!!!!! "we, therefore, following the ancient custom of our predecessors, of holy memory, do firstly--excommunicate and curse, in the name of almighty god, father, son, and holy ghost, and by the authority of st. peter and st. paul, and by our own authority, all heretics, hussites, wiekliffites, lutherans. calvinists, huguenots, anabaptists, trinitarians, and all apostates from the faith, and all who read their books," &c, &c. this curse includes every soul in the united states, who is not a roman catholic. will you, americans give these men and their doctrines footing among you? will they longer dare to curse you and your children with impunity? in the 6th section of the above bull, the pope and his priests curse all civil powers, who impose taxes without the consent of the roman court. in the 12th section, they curse all who maltreat cardinals, bishops, or priests. you are, therefore, to take heed and not quarrel with priests, though they insult your wives, or debauch your families. in the 15th section, all are cursed, who take away jurisdiction from the court of rome, and prefer leaving pauses of difference between them and priests, to our civil tribunals. in the 17th section, all are cursed, who in any case appeal to civil tribunals, when the difficulty is between romish priests and citizens. in the 18th section, the pope curses all who take away church property. in the 19th section, the pope curses all who, without express license from him, impose taxes on priests, monasteries, nunneries, or churches. our legislature is sitting while i write. take heed, gentlemen, lest you tax the roman catholic bishop fenwick, or any of his priests. be sure you do not tax his real estate, his nunneries, or other property. if you do, you are doubly damned. in the 20th section, the church curses all judges, and magistrates, who shall sit in judgment on a bishop or priest, without license from the holy see. in the 22d section, this _bull_ is declared to be binding forever, and it is brought to a conclusion by a solemn assurance that if any priest shall violate it, he shall incur the wrath of almighty god, and of st. peter and paul. i would again ask americans whether roman catholic priests, or bishop, or the two millions of followers which they have in this country, are any longer to be trusted. i tell americans, and i proclaim it to the world, that they are spies upon our republic; they are the sworn foes of our laws, of our principles, and of our government; and they are united by the most fearful oath never to rest while our religious liberty lasts, and to use every means which ingenuity can devise, and treachery and perjury accomplish, to effect its overthrow, and substitute in its place, the religion of the pope; a religion, if such a name can be given to a most infamous system of policy, which for sixteen hundred years has deluged europe in blood. i make these assertions, not at random, not upon hearsay, not upon the authority of protestant writers, but upon that of roman catholic theologians, and upon my own personal knowledge. i solemnly declare it to be my deliberate opinion, that it is the duty of all civil governments on the face of the earth, to unite in excluding, from their territories, all roman catholic priests and bishops, as their deadly enemies, and the sworn transgressors of all national law; and for us in this country to countenance them, while they have any connection with the pope of rome, or profess to owe him any allegiance, is nothing short of a species of insanity. the _bull_ of which i have spoken, is taught in every roman catholic college in the united states. the students in those institutions are educated in the belief that their church, which is infallible, requires of them to be unfaithful to this heretical government, and not only that, but to betray it, whenever the interest of the church demands it. every irish roman catholic priest, who comes to this country, is instructed by his bishop, to pull down, if possible, the standard of heresy, which he is told he will find waving over the united states, and erect in its place that of the pope, which he swears to defend. these are the principles of priests and their followers, who are coming amongst you in thousands; whom you have encouraged for the last fifty years, until at last, you have emboldened them, by your mistaken sensibility and mock philanthropy, to say and proclaim to the universe, _americans shan't rule us_. this was their motto, during the last presidential election; a motto devised and blessed by those turbulent demagogues and pensioned agents of the pope, in new york. but they are not the only papists who have proclaimed that americans shall not rule them. the same has been done in philadelphia and boston! these men are at the bottom of all the riots, tumults, and popular commotions, which have occurred in this country for several years back. witness the disturbances in philadelphia, in 1821 and 1822, by an irish bishop, in trying to get possession, in the name of the pope, of church property, estimated to be worth over a million of dollars. (i shall refer to this hereafter.) witness the riots in the same city last may, where several americans have been sacrificed to the fury of a popish mob. witness the proceeding in this city of boston, on the occasion of a nun having made her escape from the convent in charlestown, to avoid, i have no doubt, what delicacy forbade her to mention. other causes were assigned for her escape, and some were weak enough to deem them sufficient; but from my own knowledge of convents, there can be no doubt of the real cause of the escape, of the virtuous young lady, of whom mention is made. here is another instance of the morbid and mistaken sensibility of many of our people. a certain number of popish agents have applied to our legislature to build a _jail_, which they call a convent, in our very midst. to this jail, they attach a school, for the education of young ladies, and for this ostensible purpose, numbers of older ones are kept in the _jail_ or convent, by the pope's agents. the young ladies, who are sent to this school, are treated with kindness and attention; every thing is done to please, to flatter them, and even to cultivate their minds. the interior of the jail or nunnery is depicted in the most delightful colors. the happiness of the inmates is said to be equal to the saints in paradise. no opportunity is lost to impress on the minds of their pupils, the temporal as well as eternal beatitudes of this convent, until, finally, the young minds of the scholars become perfectly enchanted, and, in the full glow of their youthful imagination, they determine to become nuns. this step, too, they are taught to take with apparent caution; they must serve a noviciate, go through all the ceremony of wearing a white veil; the old nuns representing to them the happiness they are about to enjoy, when they are about to assume the black veil. but when this is done, the poor innocent victims soon feel the horrors of their condition. they are confined to solitary cells, to which no one has access _but the priests_, and thus, in our very midst, a free born american citizen is seduced from her parents, from her guardians, and fellow-citizens, and no one is permitted to go and ask her freely how she likes her condition. she is confined there with more severity, and watched more closely, than any female in a turkish seraglio; and as we all recollect, a few years ago, a popish bishop, with his priests, and some thousands of their _subjects_, viz., irish papists, threatened to sack the city of boston, because the people deemed it necessary to pull down that synagogue of satan, the charlestown nunnery. i am not an advocate of mobs or riots: i would observe the law of the land, and see it enforced at every risk; but there is a point at which no man would support even the civil law. there are laws founded upon necessity, and the eternal laws of morality, which have a paramount claim upon one. allegiance. suppose some hoary-headed profligate should obtain a charter to build a house on mount benedict; suppose further, he attaches a school to it, to be governed by the faded victims of his former dissipation, with a view of making money for himself; suppose he and they had the address to gather around them some of the most innocent, lovely, and respectable females in the country; let us even suppose that ninety-nine in a hundred of those young ladies left that school with unblemished reputation and high accomplishments; and we had that evidence that _only one_ in a hundred fell victims to the designs of the founders of this corrupt institution: who would hesitate to determine what should be done with this institution, or this nunnery, as roman catholic priests would call it? an answer is not necessary. but suppose the hoary-headed gentleman should apply to the legislature to rebuild it, would they do so? there was a time when their acquaintance with popery might have induced them to say aye, if such a resolution were introduced; but now that they have seen popery in its native colors, withered should be the tongue of him who would advance such a proposition; and paralyzed should be the arm of the american who would support it. but it may be replied, that the roman catholic church is different now from what it was in ancient times; that it has essentially changed in its doctrine and in its discipline. others may say that protestants, too, have been intolerant, and guilty of many cruelties, in the propagation of their religion. this is freely admitted: but there is this wide difference between the two religions. the popish creed inculcates persecution and utter extermination of all who do not believe in its doctrines; while on the contrary, the creed of the latter has never, and does not now, inculcate any other doctrine, than jesus christ, and him crucified. in plain english, the romish church curses all who differ from her; while the protestant church blesses all, though they may be in error, and sincerely prays for their conversion. the spirit of the latter breathes nothing but love, joy, peace, and good will to mankind; that of the former, malice, hatred, ill will, and persecution. this has been her uniform theory from the middle of the third century; and as i will now show you, from the lips of her own divines, and cannonized saints, her members have never ceased to reduce it to practice. cyril, who is to this day invoked, and prayed to as a saint, taught and practised the above romish doctrine. he was bishop of alexandria, in the year four hundred and twelve. there is not a roman catholic, who is not taught to pray to him; and, of course, they can have no objection to my giving him as authority. whatever st. cyril believed, is believed by papists now. whatever he did was right, and according to sound doctrine consequently as holy mother, the church, never errs, and never can err, it must be right now. let us see what this saint has done and believed, in his time. socrates, a native of constantinople, gives the following account of a portion of the life of st. cyril, and other bishops of alexandria. i take it from his ecclesiastical history. the bishops of alexandria had begun, says socrates, to exceed the limits of ecclesiastical power, and to intermeddle with civil affairs, imitating, thereby, the bishop of rome, whose sacred authority had, long since, been changed into dominion and empire. the governors of alexandria, looking upon the increase of the romish episcopal power as a diminution of the civil, watched the bishops, in order to restrain them within the limits of the spiritual, and prevent their encroaching on the temporal jurisdiction. but cyril, from the very beginning of his episcopacy, bade defiance to civil power, acting in such manner as showed but too plainly that he would be kept within no bounds. soon after his installation, he caused, by his own authority, the churches, which the novitians were allowed to have in alexandria, to be shut up, seized on the sacred utensils, and plundering the house of their bishop, theapemptus, drove him out of the city, stripped of every thing he possessed. not long after this, cyril put himself at the head of a _christian_ mob, and, without the knowledge of the governor, took possession of the jewish synagogue, drove the jews out of alexandria, pillaged their houses, and allowed the _christians_--all papists--who were concerned with him in the riot, to appropriate to themselves all their effects. this the governor highly resented, and not only rebuked cyril very severely, for thus encroaching on his jurisdiction, and usurping a power that did not belong to him, but wrote to the emperor, complaining of him for snatching the sword of justice from him, to put it into the hands of the undeserving multitude. this occasioned a misunderstanding, or rather an avowed enmity between st. cyril and the governor. with the _saint_ sided the clergy, the greater part of the mob, and the monks; with the governor, the soldiery and the better class of citizens as the two parties were strangely animated against each other, there happened daily skirmishes in the streets of alexandria. the friends of the governor, generally speaking, made their party good, having the soldiery on their side. but one day, as the governor was going out in his chariot, attended by his guards, he found himself, very unexpectedly, surrounded by no fewer than five hundred monks. the monks were, in those days, the standing army of the bishops, but are now of the pope's alone. the monks in the service of st. cyril, having surrounded the governor's chariot, dispersed the small guard that attended it, fell upon him, dangerously wounded him, and determined to put an end to the quarrel between him and st. cyril, by taking his life. the citizens, alarmed at his danger, flew to his rescue, put the cowardly monks to flight, and having seized on the monk by whom the governor was wounded, delivered him into his hands. the governor, to deter others, caused the monk to be put to death. but st. cyril, partly to reward the zeal which the monk had exerted in attempting to assassinate his antagonist, caused him to be honored as a holy martyr. the partizans of st. cyril, enraged at the death of the monk, and under the advice of this romish _saint_, determined to revenge it; and the person they singled out among the friends of the governor to wreak their rage and revenge on, was one who, of all the inhabitants of alexandria, deserved it the least. this was the famous and celebrated hypatia, the wonder of her age for beauty, for virtue, and knowledge. she kept a public school of philosophy in alexandria; where she was born, and her reputation was so great, that not only disciples flocked from all parts to hear her, but the greatest philosophers used to consult her as an oracle, with respect to the most abstruse points of astronomy, geometry, and the platonic philosophy, which she was particularly well versed in. though she was very beautiful, and freely conversed with men of all ranks, yet they were so awed by her known virtue and modesty, that none ever presumed to show, in her presence, the least symptom of passion. the governor entertained the highest opinion of her abilities, often consulted her, and in all perplexed cases governed himself by her advice. as she was the person in alexandria whom he most valued, st. cyril and his friends, to wound him the more effectually, entered into a conspiracy to destroy this beautiful and innocent lady. this barbarous resolution being taken, as she was one day returning home in her chariot, a band of the dregs of the people, encouraged and headed by one of st. cyril's priests, attacked her in her chariot, pulled her out of it, and throwing her on the ground, dragged her to the great church called cæsareum; there they stripped, her naked, and with sharp tiles, either brought with them or found there, continued cutting, tearing, and mangling her flesh, till nature, yielding to pain, she expired under their hands. her death did not satisfy their rage and fury. they tore her body in pieces, dragged her mangled limbs through all the streets of alexandria, and then gathering them together, burned them. such was the end of the famous hypatia, the most learned person of the age she lived in; but she was not a roman catholic. can you, americans, believe that this very cyril is now a saint in the roman catholic church; that he is daily prayed to, honored, and worshipped by papists? can you believe that the catholics whom you employ in your houses, the nuns to whom you intrust the education of your children, daily invoke the intercession of this murderous cyril? and think you, fellow-citizens, that the spirit of the popish bishop, cyril, has died with him, or that the church, which approved of his conduct, would refuse to sanction a similar act at this day? if you do, you are mistaken. was the conduct of cyril ever censured by the church? were the murders and atrocities which he committed, and caused to be committed, even disapproved by the holy mother? if they were, i would ask at what council was it done? where and when was such a council held? who was the presiding pope? the fact is, so far from incurring the displeasure of the romish church, this notorious popish murderer of jews and heretics was _canonized and sainted_; and similar distinctions would be now awarded to him who would commit similar crimes, if his holiness the pope deemed it prudent to have such crimes committed. we saw an instance of the spirit which actuated cyril, some years ago, in this city, when, in the case of the ursuline convent, to which i have already referred, every papist within fifty miles of boston, who was able to bear arms, volunteered his aid to his bishop, in taking vengeance upon our citizens, merely because they would not sanction among them the existence of a house, called a nunnery, and used as a jail, for the confinement of some of our most virtuous females, against their will. had miss reed, who escaped from that den of profligacy, been caught by her popish pursuers, and without the knowledge of our citizens, what would have been her fate? she might not have been torn to pieces, as hypatia was, but her torments would not have been less cruel. she would have been kept upon her bare knees, perhaps ten hours in the twenty-four, for months. she would be obliged to pray to the same st. cyril, and a string of such vagabonds, for the _remission of her sins_. she would be compelled to kiss the ground and lick it with her tongue, at stated intervals, and bread and water her diet, until the zeal of her holy confessors was perfectly satisfied. and if those who aided her escape were detected, what would have been their fate? thanks to our republican government, they could not be punished in this country; but had they committed the deed under a purely catholic government, the _infallible_ church would consign them to the inquisition, and have broken them upon the rack. this is the church, and her members are the men, whom you are countenancing amongst you. the romish church never surrendered the right which she once claimed of destroying heretics. she only suspends it for the moment, until her strength and numbers shall enable her to enforce it. but there are some who will not believe this, especially when catholic priests and bishops deny it. many protestants, who are natives of this country, and unacquainted with roman catholic doctrines, will not believe it. many, even, of our protestant clergymen will scarcely believe it; such is the craft and consummate falsehood of priests and bishops, that i have never met with one protestant who entertained the most remote idea that keeping no faith with heretics, and persecuting them to death, formed any portion of the doctrine of the church of rome. this is owing to the fact of their being born in a free country, at a distance from the seat of romish power, and their having little access and no acquaintance with the standard works of popery. many, even, of the native born americans, who have become roman catholics, know little or nothing of the doctrines of the church into which they have permitted themselves to be seduced. i will hazard the assertion, that there are not ten lay members amongst them, in the united states, who have read the works of belarmine, the canons, or decrees of the various councils that have been held in the popish church, or even the _corpus juris canonici_, containing the decrees of the council of trent. if the writings of de la hogue, used in the college of maynooth, ireland, or the works of antoine or den, taught in that college when i was a student there, were thoroughly read, and the doctrines contained in those standard works of popery understood, there is not a moral man living who would not shun the church of rome, as a thing too unclean, too impure, too licentious, too wicked, too corrupt, and of too persecuting a character to be allowed to exist at all. this their priests well know; and, having recently discovered that a few copies of den's "theology" had found their way into this country, they have the unblushing effrontery to deny that his work was ever approved of by the church, or was ever received as such in any college in ireland. i studied in the college of maynooth, and have read speculative theology under dr. de la hogue, and moral theology under dr. antoine, in the same class with several priests now in this country, and among other works which we read in that class was the "moral theology" of the rev peter den; especially his treatise _de peccatis_. i have the pleasure of an acquaintance with some native americans who are become roman catholics. they are men of honor, moral worth, and possess highly cultivated minds. they were religious men; and deeming a connection with some church to be necessary, and seeing nothing of the romish church but its seductive and imposing ceremonies, they united themselves with it, or, if they happened to hesitate in joining it, and deemed it necessary to consult with catholic priests and bishops, these crafty jesuits soon furnished them with catholic works manufactured for such occasions, and unobjectionable to the most pious christian; taking good care, at the same time, to keep out of their way such works as i have alluded to, from which they may learn that there is no religion in the popish church, and that it is no more than a political machine, devised for the suppression of republicanism, knowledge, and the liberties of man. let us pass over the time which intervened between the fourth and twelfth centuries. the history of the popes and the romish church, during that period, is replete with crimes committed by popes, and atrocities sanctioned by the church, the bare mention of which humanity shudders the very earth is almost saturated with the blood which popish despots caused to be shed under the mask of religion, but, in reality, for the advancement of their own temporal power. i will now show that the spirit of cyril had not died with him. during the reign of pope innocent iii., that holy pontiff discovered that there was, in the province of narbonne and in several other provinces of the south of france, a religious sect, called the albigenses, who presumed to differ from the romish church, and had the audacity to believe that the bible was the only rule of faith. they rejected the external rites of the romish church, except baptism and the lord's supper. they had no faith in images, indulgences, and other such semi-pagan mummeries. auricular confession and the forgiveness of sins by man they rejected as impious. they looked upon nunneries as places of sin, instituted by priests, as a sort of substitute for the marriage of the clergy. they demolished such of them as were in existence among them, and declared the marriage of the clergy as lawful and honorable. they scouted at the idea of the temporal jurisdiction of the pope over the nations of the earth, and looked upon him as emphatically _the man of sin_. these crimes, of course, were not long overlooked by the _infallible church!_ they were heresies. these people were heretics, and the holy mother, _in the plenitude of her affection_ for her strayed children, determined that they should be exterminated. but how was this to be done? the holy father, pope innocent iii., was not long in determining. he sent two spies amongst them, of the names of guy and regnier. these were monks, whose hands were already stained with blood. they were empowered by the pope, to use their own discretion in checking the heresy of the albigenses by fire, sword, faggot, or the inquisition, which employed all those means upon such occasions. the albigenses however, were so numerous their lives so pure, so chaste and correct, that this was not easily accomplished; and his holiness had to preach a crusade against them, and published a bull addressed to all the authorities of southern france, declaring them _accursed_ and _excommunicated_, and giving absolution to all who should murder them and take possession of their property. here are the words of the bull, "according to the canonical sanctions of the holy fathers, no faith ought to be kept with those who do not keep faith with god, or are separated from the communion of the faithful"--papists. "we release, by our apostolical authority, all those who deem themselves bound to them by any oath, either of alliance or fealty; we permit every catholic man to seize their persons, to take their lands, and keep them for the purpose of extirpating heresy." here, americans, is a specimen of true, genuine popery, as innocent expresses it, "_sanctioned by the canons and holy fathers of the romish church_." people of new england, what think you of it? bear in mind that this is not the act of a few fanatics; it is not the belief of a few zealots. if it were, it would be wrong to charge it to the romish church. all denominations have had among them fanatics; but the extravagances of a few individuals are not chargeable to the body to which they might have belonged. even our new england presbyterian forefathers had among them persecutors; but who, in his sound mind, could charge this to the presbyterian church? there is nothing in their creed or doctrines which sanctions the persecution of those who differ from them and there the romish church differs from all others. the persecution and destruction of heretics, and the confiscation of their property, is an _integral part_ of the roman catholic faith, and the watchword of papists. the crusade against these unfortunate albigen-ses commenced its march about the year 1209. indulgences were offered to all who would unite in the war, and history informs as that the pope and his vassals in the church raised an army of between three and five thousand men, who were to serve for forty days; at the termination of which, the pope, in one of his heavenly transports, saw that "every one of the sect of the albigerises should be massacred." to this army his _holiness_ caused to be added, by an offer of indulgences, multitudes of peasants, with scythes and clubs, who were to be under the command of monks, and whose peculiar duty it was, to slaughter the wives and children of these _heretics_, while their husbands and fathers were engaged in the field with their adversaries. horrible! yet this is a true picture of what _has been_, and what _will be_ in this country, at some future day, should popery gain the ascendancy. it is much to be lamented that the christian league, as it is termed, had not looked to this, in place of going abroad in search of objects worthy of their philanthropy. they seem to me to have acted like a man who, while his own house is in a blaze, runs out to see if there be any of his neighbors' houses on fire, and leaves his own to smoulder into ruins. assuredly, such a man would not be deemed prudent, nor should he even be considered sane. far be it from me to think or speak disrespectfully of the pious and reverend gentlemen who compose that league; but their solicitude for the welfare of a foreign country and a foreign people appears to me strange, when all their charities are much more needed at home. they desire the suppression of popery, especially in italy, where it is kept alive by austrian bayonets and popish bulls, and where it will live until those bayonets are broken and those bulls are burned. they can no more suppress popery in italy, than they could confine a fire with a flaxen band. the continuance of popery depends upon this country alone. extinguish it in the united states, and it dies every where. the old world is sick of it; it has cursed it long enough. it is for us alone to say whether it shall live or die. americans alone can sound the death knell of popery; and, if this christian league will unite their energies and bring them all to bear, in excluding popery from the united states, they will be conferring a blessing, not only upon this, but upon the old world. but to return to our subject. cruel, beyond measure, were the sufferings of the albigenses, a few instances of which i beg to lay before my readers, as specimens of popish charity and their mode of fulfilling that holy commandment, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." when the pope's army arrived at a place called beziers, the citizens were, of course, alarmed. the pope's legate sent many messengers among them, advising them to give up such heretics, with their wives and children, as continued obstinate among them. they replied in the following words--"_rather than be base enough to do what is required of us, and abandon our religious principles, we will eat our children first, and our wives will die with us_." on receiving this answer, the pope's army, or rather incarnate devils, rushed upon them so suddenly, and in such numbers, that they had to surrender, after little or no resistance. there were many among them who were not heretics, but, seeing the injustice done to their fellow-citizens, and knowing the purity of their lives, united with them in resisting oppression. some of the most merciful of the pope's army, entertaining scruples as to what should be done to those who were not heretics and happened to fall into their hands, deemed it a duty which they owed to _holy mother_, to consult the pope's legate upon this occasion; and what, christian reader, think you was the reply of this representative of the _roman catholic church?_ what was the answer of this imbodiment of popery? it was what it would be this day, under similar circumstances.--"kill them all; the lord will know his own!" at this answer, the bells rung, by order of this legate. and never ceased to toll, until fifteen thousand were butchered upon the spot, according to the account given by the legate himself; although a contemporary historian, named bernard itier, and much better authority than this blood-thirsty legate, informs us that thirty-eight thousand were slaughtered in cold blood. during this time, pope innocent and the infallible church were not idle in other parts of france. wherever heresy existed, or heretical blood was to be shed, there were to be found the representatives of the holy church, until not a vestige of the protestant doctrines of the albigenses was to be seen. nearly all its ministers and its followers suffered the most cruel deaths, and their church was drowned in the blood of its defenders. but the man of sin being still apprehensive that some vestige of protestantism might remain, or that the life of some unfortunate member of the albigenses might have escaped, the popish murderers established, in those countries, that accursed tribunal, the inquisition; some of whose members appeared in the guise and occupation of farmers, to act as spies among that class of people; others as merchants, others as mechanics, &c. to these were added female jesuits, some of whom were shop-keepers, milliners, servant-maids, &c.; and, suitably educated, whenever necessary, were ready to act their parts well. thus no man was safe. no family, no lady, was safe. they dreaded the very air they breathed. they knew not when the officers of the inquisition would call them from their homes, their children, their husbands, and their wives, to be cast into the dungeon of the inquisition, without knowing their offence, or who accused them. this was popery in the twelfth century; this was popery in the fourth century; and this is popery in the nineteenth century. americans, are-you aware that there are jesuit nuns now in this country? are you aware of the reasons why they are so anxious to get protestant rather than catholic scholars into their schools? the reason is this; they are in this country spies upon your actions. your thoughts, your designs, your influence, the probable amount of your wealth, and your political opinions, are known to your children. these jesuit nuns worm themselves into your confidence; the young hearts of their pupils are soon laid bare to these artful hypocrites; and before you scarcely notice the absence of your children, your domestic secrets are known to some popish agent, who makes such use of them as the holy church may direct. this is done daily. i make this statement of my own knowledge, and i warn you, if you value your domestic happiness, or the peace and harmony of your children, never permit one of them, male or female, to enter a school kept by nuns or jesuits. from these observations, the reader must have seen that popery, in its teachings and actions, is, and has been, the same always. what, then, becomes of the assertions, so frequently made by roman catholic priests and bishops, that the doctrines of the church, in relation to heretics, have been relaxed? certain it is, at all events, that there has been no mitigation in the treatment of heretics down to the thirteenth century. let us come down a little farther, and see if any had taken place during the thirteenth century. we discover none whatever. it was during this century, that the "greater excommunication," as it is called, was pronounced by the pope, and the whole church, against all who should interfere with the clergy in the exercise of their _temporal or spiritual rights_. the curse was pronounced, by every parish priest, throughout the papal world, four times a year,---_christmas, easter, pentecost_, and _all-hallows day_. the curse is in the following words, and is now repeated on the same days, by the pope and all the priests and bishops of the romish church, not publicly,--that they dare not do,--but in private. "let them be accursed, eating and drinking, walking and sitting, speaking, and holding their peace, waking and sleeping, rowing and riding, laughing and weeping, in house and in field, in water and on land, in all places; cursed be their heads and their thoughts, their eyes and their ears, their tongues and their lips, their teeth and their throats, their shoulders and their breasts, their feet and their legs their thighs and their inward parts; let them remain accursed, from the sole of their foot to the crown of their heads; and just as this candle (the curser has a lighted candle in his hand, which he extinguishes) is deprived of us present light, so let them be deprived of their souls in hell." such is the curse which the pope pronounced against all heretics in the thirteenth century! and however surprised you may be, a similar one is pronounced once a year against all protestants. there are many americans who cannot believe that such a curse as the above, has ever been pronounced against a fellow-being. i have conversed with some intelligent protestants in this city, who doubted whether such an anathema was ever uttered, and seemed struck with horror, as well as surprise, when i informed them that it was pronounced against myself in philadelphia in presence of, at least, three thousand people. the reader must know, by this, that i am a heretic, and look upon the introduction of popery into the united states, as the greatest evil which providence has permitted to fall upon us. arise, fellow-citizens, in the fulness of your power,--every protestant in this country is a heretic, as well as myself. we are all annually cursed and damned by a set of popish agents, bishops, and priests; men who, from my own personal acquaintance with them, i know to be unworthy of your friendship or your support; who walk your streets with apparent sanctimoniousness, but whose lives in private are such as delicacy forbids me to mention. these men, under pretence of being democrats are attacking your liberties with the club of hercules. they are acquiring gigantic force. you have recently witnessed the truth of this assertion; they fancied they had strength enough to cut you down as the legate of pope innocent did the albigenses in the twelfth century. they bid defiance to reason, argument, and the lew of your land; and it grieves me to see every thing yielding to their power, as chaff before the wind. but providence interposed, and these miserable dupes of romish priests received a check, which, if followed up, will have a salutary effect in future. but, i pray you, be on your guard; watch the movements of papists among you: have no confidence in them; have as little as possible to do with them. trust them in nothing which may either directly or indirectly involve their religion. i most solemnly appeal to our national and state legislatures, to exclude them from every office of honor, profit, or trust, while they have any connection whatever, _spiritual or temporal_, with the pope of rome. believe them not, when they tell you that their allegiance to the pope is only _spiritual_. i understand what they mean by spiritual allegiance. from what has been stated, it is clear that no modification had taken place in popish pretensions during the thirteenth century, neither had the church relaxed one iota in her persecutions of heretics. on the contrary, her cruelties increased-the declarations of popish priests to the contrary notwithstanding. let us now see what has been the conduct of the popish church towards heretics, from the latter end of the thirteenth century to the conclusion of the fourteenth. how was the illustrious john wickliffe, professor of divinity in oxford, treated by the church of rome, during the reign of boniface ix. but let us first see what the crimes of wickliffe were, for which he had been so severely punished by the _holy roman church_. the illustrious and good wickliffe, the founder of the reformation, whose very name every christian venerates, maintained, 1st, that the scriptures contain all truths necessary to salvation; 2d, that in the scriptures only, is to be found, a perfect rule of christian practice; 3d, he denied the authority of the pope in temporal matters; 4th, he maintained that the pope was the man of sin, the _son of perdition_, to which st. paul alluded, "sitting as god in the temple of god." as soon as the opinions of wickliffe were ascertained, gregory xl, the ruling pope, addressed a bull to the primate of england, ordering him to have wickliffe arrested and imprisoned, until he received further instructions. the popularity of wickliffe was such, that this step was considered dangerous; and we find that nothing further was done to this eminently pious man, than banishing him from the university of oxford into private life, where he died in peace, and went to his grave with the blessings of the good and the virtuous. but this did not satisfy the pope, nor the _infallible church_. o, no. the _holy mother_ never forgives a heretic, dead or alive. as soon as wickliffe departed this life, in the sixty-first year of his age, the church and papists exhibited the wildest symptoms of joy. one of their writers, in giving an account of his death, uses the following language: "on the day of st. thomas, the martyr, that limb of the devil, enemy of the church, deceiver of the people, idol of heretics, mirror of hypocrites, author of schism, sower of hatred, and inventor of lies, john wickliffe, was, by the immediate judgment of god, suddenly struck with a palsy, which seized all the members of his body, when he was ready to vomit forth his blasphemies against the blessed st. thomas, in a sermon which he had prepared to preach that day!" but holy mother was not yet satisfied. she had not the felicity of hanging wickliffe; her ears were not delighted with his groans upon the rack; she did not hear his flesh hissing amid the flames of the faggot, nor his bones breaking upon the wheel; she must, however, have all the revenge left to satiate her malice. thirty years after the death of wickliffe, the _infallible_ council of constance, at which the pope presided, passed an order that the body and bones of john wickliffe, if they might be known and discerned from the bodies of faithful people--papists--should be taken from the ground and thrown _far away from the_ burial of any church, according to the canon laws and decrees. this decree was not put in execution for thirteen years afterwards. his grave was then opened and his body disinterred with great solemnity, and in the presence of the catholic bishop of lincoln, it was publicly burned, and the ashes thrown into a neighboring rivulet. but the indignities offered to wickliffe, while living, and after his death, were not sufficient to appease the malice of papists. blood, and blood alone, could satiate their thirst for revenge. his followers were hunted up and mercilessly put to death. among the first of his followers, who suffered, was lord cobham, a nobleman, distinguished for his valor, devotion to his country, and true piety. his character was without blemish, and his morals and patriotism undoubted; but he was a heretic; he was among the followers of wickliffe; he believed in the holy scriptures. this was crime enough, and for this he was _excommunicated_. cobham appealed to the pope, but the appeal was refused: he was cited again; he was offered absolution, if he would sue for it, and submit to the popish church. this he refused; the consequence was, he was thrown into prison, from which he escaped and was not retaken for nearly four years, he was, however, finally captured after a most heroic resistance. he might have escaped again, being an overmatch for his captor, had not a _pious roman catholic woman_, while he was nobly defending himself, taken up a stool, and with a desperate blow, broken both his legs. in this condition he was recommitted to prison until he was sentenced to death _for his heresy_. the sentence was, "that he should be drawn from his place of confinement through the city of london, to temple bar, there to be hanged, and burned hanging." the historian bale gives a most affecting account of his execution. "on the day appointed," says bale, "he was brought out of the tower with his arms bound behind him, having a very cheerful countenance. then he was laid upon a hurdle as though he had been a most heinous traitor to the crown, and so drawn forth into st. giles's field, where they had set up a new gallows. when he arrived at the place of execution, and taken from the hurdle, he fell down devoutly on his knees, and prayed god to forgive his enemies. then he stood up and beheld the multitude, exhorting them, in the most godly manner, to follow the laws of god, written in the scriptures, and to beware of such teachers as they see contrary to christ, in their conversation and living, with many other special councils. then was he hanged up there, by the middle, in chains of iron, and so consumed alive in the fire, praising the name of the lord, so long as life lasted. in the end he commended his soul into the hands of god, and so, most christianly, departed home, his body being resolved to ashes." thus was a nobleman, and a noble christian, most barbarously put to death for believing that the bible contained god's truth; and therein differing from the roman church, which teaches that the traditions of the fathers, and dreams of monks, are of equal authority. followers of wickliffe,--and there are many of you in this country, who are an honor to his name,--have you ever reflected that there are nearly two millions of papists in these united states, who entertain the same belief that the murderers of cobham did; who believe that you are all _excommunicated_, as he was, and who, if they had the power, would consign yourselves, your wives, and children, to the same fate? and who are taught by their church, that, in so doing, they would be serving god? romish priests may deny this. they do well. otherwise, an indignant populace would tear them to pieces, or at least banish them from this land of freedom. but i tell the priest or bishop, who dares deny it, that they are liars,--wilful and deliberate liars. i too have been a priest, and i solemnly declare to the world, and to my fellow-citizens of the united states in particular, _that to keep no faith with heretics, but to destroy them, is one of the most solemn duties of a catholic_; and i go further, and state to you, that _if a bishop or priest denies this, upon oath, you are not to believe him_; his church requires from him to keep no faith with heretics, but to destroy and extirpate them. it allows him also to deny, under oath, the existence of such an obligation. do you, followers of wickliffe, require any proof of this? it is a serious charge, and should not be lightly made. i therefore refer you to the letters of martin ii., who was pope in the-year 1417, and considered one of the best popes the romish church ever had. this pope, in one of his letters to the duke of lithuania, makes use of the following strong and emphatic language. "_be assured, thou sinnest mortally, if thou keep thy faith with heretics_." st. thomas aquinas teaches the same doctrine. innocent viii., who was pope in 1484, declares "that _all persons who are bound by any con-tract whatever to heretics are at liberty to break it, even though they had sworn an oath to fulfil_ it." you here see, that i have done no injustice to roman catholics, in putting you on your guard against them, and charging them with a willingness to destroy yourselves, your wives and children, _as heretics_, had they power and opportunity of doing so. i am supported by the authority of pope martin v., and pope innocent viii.; and though in your estimation, those blood-thirsty vagabonds may give no weight to my testimony, still it cannot fail to be highly satisfactory to papists. some of the catholics may tell you, that the followers of wickliffe were a seditious people; that they threatened to overthrow the civil institutions of the country; that all law and order were set at defiance by them; and that this was the cause of their persecution. this is false in fact--it is historically false. if the followers of wickliffe, or lollards, as they were called, were disturbers of the peace; if their lives were seditious, disorderly, and rebellious, why were they not indicted, under some statute of the realm, made and provided to take cognizance of such crimes? why were they not even accused of such crimes? was the meek, mild, and learned john wickliffe, accused or indicted for disturbing the peace? was it for disturbing the peace, that his venerable bones were disinterred thirty years after being deposited in the cold grave? was it for disturbing the peace, and for riotous proceedings, his bones were subsequently burned, and their ashes thrown into the next river? was it for disturbing the peace, the learned and brave cobham was hung in iron chains, by the middle. no such accusation has ever been brought against these great and good men, or against thousands who suffered with them. they were accused only of _heresy_. papists were their accusers; papists were their judges; and papists were their executioners. but the malice of those blood-thirsty catholics was not even then satiated. it is as fresh _now_, as it was then. papists are not content, that hundreds of years ago, wickliffe and his followers should be persecuted, and the greater portion of them massacred and burned. their memories, also, are objects of popish hatred, even to this day on which i write. they represent them as enemies of the human race. as despisers of chastity and morality. you will probably see these charges advanced against them in the popish presses throughout the united states. but recollect, americans, that age does not improve the piety of papists. the older _holy mother_ gets, the harder becomes her heart, and the more bitter her virulence. i might satisfy you, if necessary, on the testimony of the most respectable protestant writers, that there lived not in the world, a people more simple, more pious, or virtuous than the waldenses, or wickliffites. it may be said of them, with truth, "_qualis pater tales filii_." but i will not refer to protestant authority; knavish, lying, popish priests may question it! i refer you, for the character of this persecuted people, to an early popish historian, florimond--. history of heresy, book vii. ch. 7. "they"--the waldenses--says this writer, "have nothing in their mouths but christ the saviour--they know nothing else than jesus christ. these people read the bible continually, in such a manner that they know all the books of it by heart." horrid people these wickliffites must be, to read the bible until they know it by heart! and as these bible-reading and bible-loving people now constitute a vast majority of our citizens, i call upon them to rise in the full force of their moral power, and ward off from themselves and their children, the curse of popery, or the fate of wickliffe and his followers will assuredly be theirs. many of you, americans, are followers of wickliffe. you believe as he believed! you live as he lived! you love peace as he loved it. do you wish to continue as you are now? or will you permit a flood of vile priests, monks, and nuns, to overrun your country, and seduce your children from the paths of virtue, in which your own example and the perusal of their bibles have taught them to walk? i now call your attention to the belief and practice of the romish church in the fifteenth century, and you will find that heresy and heretics were still persecuted by her. witness the conduct of pope innocent viii. toward the vaudois. he sent one of his jesuit legates amongst them, with instructions to prevail on louis xii. to extirpate them from his dominions, without even hearing any deputies which they might send him. the answer of louis did him much credit--"though i were at war with a turk or the devil, i would hear what he had to say for himself." they accordingly made their defence; and, upon this, the good king louis sent commissioners to examine the state of things among them. the following was their report, as history informs us: "having made a strict inquiry into their mode of living, we cannot discover the least shadow of the crimes imputed to them. on the contrary, it appears that they piously observe the sabbath, baptize their children after the manner of the primitive church, and are thoroughly instructed in the doctrine of the apostles' creed, and in the law of god." on hearing this report, the king exclaimed, in a passion, addressing himself to the pope's legate--"by the holy mother of god, these heretics, whom you and the pope urge me to destroy, are better men than you or myself." he, however, soon departed this life, and every man acquainted with history knows what their sufferings were from the time of his death down to the days of cromwell, who, whatever his faults may have been, fired with indignation at the barbarities committed by the romish church, interposed in behalf of those persecuted people, and called upon protestant princes and sovereigns to aid him in protecting them. i will not burden the reader with a history of the sufferings of these people. it is familiar even to our schoolboys. i must, however, repeat the fact, that they were persecuted for no other reason than because they believed the bible contained all the truths necessary to salvation, and because they did not believe in all the mummeries of popery. will catholic bishops and priests still continue to assert that their church does not teach them to persecute heretics, and to hold no faith with them? will they continue to assert, that the pope of rome does not claim temporal as well as spiritual jurisdiction over the kingdoms of the earth? or if they do, are we compelled to listen to them? there is scarcely any one who does not recollect the conduct of the holy see, as it is nicknamed, towards queen elizabeth, on her ascension to the throne of england. the queen sent a messenger to the court of rome, to inform the pope of the event. this was an act of state courtesy; but his holiness had the insolence to reply to the messenger who represented his sovereign: "tell your mistress that england was held in fief of the apostolic see; that she could not succeed, being illegitimate; nor could she contradict the declarations made in that matter by his predecessors, clement vii. and paul iii. tell your mistress," said this insolent ecclesiastic, "that it was great boldness in her to assume the crown without my consent, for which, in reason, she deserves no favor at my hands; yet if she will _renounce_ her pretensions and refer herself wholly to me, i would show a fatherly affection to her, and do every thing for her that could consist with the dignity of the _roman see_." fellow-citizens, do you want any other proof to satisfy you that the pope of rome claims universal jurisdiction over kings, queens, nations, kingdoms, and all mankind? it is only about three hundred years since this occurred; and is there evidence on record that the pope has resigned the prerogative of universal dominion which he then claimed? you may laugh at the idea of his claiming it over this country; but, mark what i tell you, some successor of the present pope will not only claim, but exercise it in less than half the time that has elapsed since the days of elizabeth. other objects may divert your attention from this subject; you may sleep on in fancied security, but your sleep may be fatal. "america," as a talented writer (giustiniani) expresses it, "is the promised land, the land of the jesuits' operations. to obtain the ascendency, they have no need of a _mercenary swiss guard_, or the assistance of the _holy alliance_, but a majority of votes, which can easily be obtained by an importation of roman catholics from ireland, bavaria, and austria. rome, viewed at a distance, is a colossus; near at hand, its grandeur diminishes, its charm is lost. but the jesuits are every where the same--cunning, immoral, and sneaking intriguers, until they have obtained the ascendency. rome feels her weakness at home; she knows herself to be a mere _political_ institution, dressed in the garment of christianity. she takes good care to uphold that holy _militia_, the jesuits, in order to appear what she is not. it is a strife for existence. i am not a politician," says this writer, "but knowing the active spirit of jesuitism, and the indifference of the generality of protestants, i have no doubt whatever, that in _ten_ years the jesuits will have a mighty influence over the ballot-box, and in _twenty_ they will direct it according to their own pleasure. now they fawn, in ten years they will menace, and in twenty command." in this city they not only "fawn," but they have proceeded to "menace." some of the knowing ones among the catholics now boast that they have the power to govern this city, and they intend to exercise it. this is no idle threat. even now, though they are actually less in numerical strength in the aggregate, than the protestants, and pay far less for the support of our free schools, they, nevertheless, have succeeded in depriving protestant children of the privilege of using the bible for a school-book, as they have been wont to do. protestants may sleep on if they will, but they may be assured that they are sleeping on the sides of a burning volcano, and that ere long they will be awakened, but too late, we fear, by the angry thunders of the upheaving fires within, which shall scathe and desolate the fair heritage they now enjoy. i entreat you, fellow-citizens, never to forget the solemn declaration of the father of your country: "against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (i conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of a republican government." this is the warning of the immortal washington, and should not pass unheeded. to the same effect spoke other revolutionary patriots. jefferson says, "i hope we may find some means in future of shielding ourselves from foreign influence, political, commercial, or in whatever form it may be attempted. i can scarcely withhold myself from joining in the wish of silas deane--that there were an ocean of fire between this and the old world." and madison said, "foreign influence is truly a _grecian horse_ to the republic. we cannot be too careful to exclude its entrance." the cruelty of papists, the intrigue and craft of popes, the hypocrisy of jesuits, the dynasties which they have overthrown, the devastations and carnage which they had occasioned, for centuries back, were matters of historical notoriety, and were well known to our pure-minded and clear-headed forefathers. they dreaded similar occurrences in this happy republic, which they have bequeathed to us as their trustees, to be handed down to posterity; and hence arose their warnings to be on our guard against all foreign interference with our institutions or our country. ponder upon those warnings, and let each and every protestant in the union pledge himself to guard our liberties, as the apple of his eye. i speak from experience. i am myself a foreigner by birth, though a resident of this country for thirty years. my life has been a checkered one. born a roman catholic in the south of ireland, educated a roman catholic priest, officiating in that capacity for some years, here, as well as in my native country, and for many years a member of the bar in south carolina and georgia, i could not fail to acquire a correct knowledge of the doctrines and practices of the romish church. the result of my experience is, that the doctrines of the roman catholic church are fatal to the morals of any people; at variance with sound national policy and pure religion. it is a rank and poisonous weed, which will flourish even in the soil of liberty. would that i could eradicate it! would that you would enable me to tear up this upas, which is spreading its poison, from one end of our land to the other! would that you could aid me in muzzling those popish bloodhounds, who are freely coursing over our eastern mountains and western valleys! already have they scented blood, and i warn you to be on your guard or they will scent more. i am no sectarian; i am not the tool of any party, either in church or state. i have never asked the countenance or support of any religious denomination, nor has any ever been tendered to me. i have stood alone in my opposition to that hydra-headed monster, popery. there is no abuse which i have not received; no calumny which has not been heaped upon me; no crime which they have not accused me of; no scurrilous epithet which they have not applied to me. all this i have met single-handed; but i would bear it again, rather than submit to the iniquitous doctrines of popery. i would bear it again, rather than submit, as _native americans_ have done, and are doing, to be publicly denounced, as _cowards and sons of cowards and pirates_. but, fellow-citizens, they do not consider you cowards and pirates alone; they will, by-and-by, apply to you a term, which you will better deserve. it is sweet, it is a euphonious name, and i trust you will bear it with as much christian philanthropy, as you have that of cowards, and pirates--_fools_. it is the only ignominious term, in the english language, which they have not applied to myself, and i assure my fellow-citizens, natives of this country, that if you are willing to be governed by the pope of rome, and his priests, and bishops, i shall never question your paramount claim to this preeminent distinction. can you bear the following opprobrious language applied to you by the jesuit, now the boston pilot, the organ of the bishop of that city. "how in the name of conscience," says this popish organ, "can a man have the impudence to find fault with honest emigrants, whose own fathers were _emigrant pirates?_" you are also complimented by the literary and catholic sentinel, another popish press, in philadelphia. that blessed organ of popery, the sentinel, in its comments upon a sermon delivered by that eloquent presbyterian divine, mccalla, thus eulogizes new england. he, mr. mccalla, knew the character of his new england audience, that their minds were warped by fanaticism, darkened by bigotry, and vitiated by the abhorred, and atrocious principles inculcated by the _vile and sanguinary wretches, called the pilgrim fathers_. he well knew that the mental capacity of the generality of his hearers were chained down by ignorance. very flattering this, especially to bostonians, and their puritan fathers. their fathers were sanguinary wretches, if we believe papists, and the people of boston are an ignorant set of boobies. you, americans, may bear all this; you know not the designs of popery, but i do; and while i have liberty to write, i will write for liberty, and in opposition to popery. truth may be unpalatable to papists, but it is my duty to record it. among the instructions which i received from my bishop in ireland, when he sent me out to this country as a catholic priest, was one to which i beg to call your attention. the same is given to every priest in the united states. "let it be your first duty to extirpate heretics, but be cautious as to the manner of doing it. do nothing without consulting the bishop of the diocese, in which you may be located; and if there be no bishop there, advise with the metropolitan bishop. he has his instructions from rome, and he understands the character of the people. be sure not to permit the members of our holy church, who may be under your charge, to read the bible. it is the source of all heresies. whenever you see an opportunity of building a church, make it known to your bishop. let the land be purchased for the pope, and his successors in office. never yield or give up the _divine right_, which the head of the church has, by virtue of the _keys_, to the government of north america, as well as every other country. the confessional will enable you to know the people by degrees; with the aid of that _holy tribunal_, and our bishops, who are guided by the spirit of god, we may expect, at no distant day, to bring over north america to the bosom of our holy church." this needs some explanation. by extirpating heresy, he meant the conversion of heretics to the romish church, without violence, if possible, if not, by such means as the romish church has adopted in all ages. you have already seen what these means were--i need not now repeat them; but you shall see them more plainly, when i lay before you, as i intend to do hereafter; the ways and means which the church has adopted, to bring over the huguenots from the darkness of protestant error, to the glorious light of popish truth. the bible, as you are aware, is a forbidden book in the romish church. i remember when acting as popish priest, in philadelphia, having ventured to suggest to the very rev. mr. de barth, then acting as vicar-general of that diocese, the advantages of educating the poor, and circulating the bible among them. he scouted at the idea, as heretical, and lodged a written complaint against me, before the archbishop of baltimore, then romish metropolitan. i was reprimanded verbally, through the aforesaid de barth. he was too crafty to send it in writing; the papists were not then strong enough to forbid, openly, the reading of the bible. it was then too soon to seal up the fountain of eternal life in this free country. the most sympathizing protestants could scarcely believe then, that in less than thirty years, papists would not only dare forbid it to be read, by their own people, and in their own schools, but cast it out of protestant schools, as they did the other day in new york. what are we coming to, americans? your ancestors have come to this country, with no recommendations but holy lives; with no fortune but their pious hearts and strong arms; with no treasure but the word of god. will you now permit papists to cast those bibles out of your schools, to burn them on the public streets, as they have done in the state of new york, under the inspection of popish priests, as proved on the oath of several respectable witnesses? that priest, however, did no more than every priest and bishop would do, did he deem it _expedient_; and here, fellow-citizens, let me assure you, that same power which authorizes that priest, or any other priest, to burn your bibles, also authorizes him to burn every heretic or protestant in the country. the same power which authorizes them to officiate as priests, empowers them to _destroy heretics_, whenever it is _expedient_; and is ready to absolve them from the commission of this foul deed. _saint_ thomas aquinas, in his second book, chapter the 3d, page 58, says: "heretics, may justly be killed." but you will answer, there is no danger of this. they can never acquire the power to enact any laws in this country which would sanction such a doctrine. how sadly mistaken you are! how lamentably unacquainted with the secret springs or machinery of popery! i regret that circumstances oblige me so often to introduce my own name, but it cannot be well avoided, for the purpose of explaining certain popish transactions in the united states. while i was a romish priest in philadelphia, and soon after my difference with the archbishop of baltimore, in relation to the introduction of the bible, a consultation was held between the popish priests in the diocese of philadelphia, and it was secretly resolved by them, that the best mode of checking _hogan's heresy_, as they were pleased to term my advocating the reading of the bible, was to take possession of the church in which i officiated, in the name of the pope. they accordingly wrote to his holiness, humbly praying this man-god to send them out a bishop, and to give him, and his successors in office, a lease of st. mary's church, in philadelphia, and all the appurtenances thereunto belonging. accordingly his royal holiness the pope sent them a bishop with the aforesaid lease. i was immediately ordered out of the church; and having refused to depart, unless the trustees thought proper to remove me, this emissary of the pope, only a few days or weeks in this country, had me indited and imprisoned for disturbing public worship, or in other words, officiating in st. mary's church, even with the full and undivided consent of the trustees. but the bishop's legal right was questioned; the case was brought before the supreme court of pennsylvania, chief justice tighlman presiding. i was discharged from bail and custody, and the rights of the trustees, under their charter from the state, sustained. but the priests and bishops were not content with this decision. they put their heads once more together, and fancied that they discovered another mode by which they could rob the people of their rights, and defeat the intentions of the donors of the property of st. mary's church; and what was their plan, think you, fellow-citizens? the bishop called a meeting of all the priests and leading catholics in the diocese. every lay member was ordered to bring with him a hickory stick. the meeting was held in the church of st. joseph; and at the hour of twelve at night, the _romish bishop of the diocese of pennsylvania_, an irishman, not more than a few months in the country, attended in his pontificals, told the multitude who were there assembled to lay down their sticks in one pile, in order that he might _bless_ them for their use. this was done as a matter of course. [illustration: bishop of pennsylvania blessing the sticks. p125] the bishop said mass, sprinkled holy water upon the sticks, blessed them, and this done, the whole party bound themselves by a solemn vow never to cease until they elected a legislature in pennsylvania that would annul the charter of st. mary's church; and, as an american citizen, i blush to state the fact, they succeeded. the charter was annulled by an act of the legislature, and property, worth over a million of dollars, would have passed into the hands of the pope and his agents, were there not a provision in the constitution of that state empowering the supreme court to decide upon the constitutionality of the acts of the legislature. we brought the question of the constitutionality of the act, which annulled the charter, before the court, justice tighlman still presiding. the court decided in the negative, otherwise the trustees and myself would have been defeated; i should have been fined and imprisoned, and they ousted out of their trust. this, i believe, was the first attempt the pope has made to establish his _temporal power_ in this country; and it is a source of consolation to me, dearer almost than existence itself, to be the first to meet this holy bull. if i have not strangled him, and trampled him to death, i have, at least, the comfort of seeing his horn so blunted, that his bellowings have been, ever since, comparatively harmless. but there seems a recuperative power in the beast. he is again attempting to plant his foot upon our soil, and establish his temporal power amongst us; and how is he trying to accomplish this, fellow-citizens? the papists have united themselves together as a body, headed by their priests, and resolved to carry, through the ballot box, what they cannot otherwise accomplish, at least for the present. popish priests have all become politicians; they publicly preach peace, good order, and obedience to the "powers that be," but they tell the people in the _confessional_, to disregard those instructions, and stop at nothing which may promote the interests of _the church_. they have now, what they call "religious newspapers," under the supervision of their bishops, but in which, not a word of pure religion, or christian charity, is to be found. they are political presses, whose object is to overthrow our laws, our government, and introduce, in their stead, anarchy and confusion. these people--and here i allude to irish catholics and their priests in particular--have no regard for the obligations of an oath. let the priest only tell them that it is for the _good of the church_, and they will stop at no crime; no, not even at murder; and they are daily becoming more audacious in consequence of the support which they receive from unprincipled politicians, and the morbid indifference of protestants. i have shown you, in a former page, that the increase of catholics, in this country, will soon give them a majority of voters: and who, think you, will they vote for? a protestant is it? any man distinguished for virtue, and for love of republican principles? assuredly not. will they select such a man as the virtuous and pious frelinghuysen, of new jersey? will they choose such a man as the upright and honorable archer, of virginia? will they cast their votes for such a man as the honest john c. calhoun, of south carolina; than whom, whatever may be his politics, there is not a greater or a better man of the age. i might name hundreds, equally good and great men, who are disqualified, by their virtues, from receiving the votes of popish vassals. none but mercenary demagogues, such as the pope's tool, daniel o'connell, who _generously_ sacrifices five thousand pounds a year to obtain fifty-six thousand, the sum which he received last year in order to _ameliorate the condition of the poor irish_. give the power, and they will elect such a political desperado as this restless o'connell, a jesuit by education, an intriguer by nature, and as great a coward as ever drew breath. this is the champion, and his followers--the irish--are the people, who call americans _cowards_, and _their_ "pilgrim fathers," _pirates_ and _sanguinary wretches_. these are the men, with daniel o'connell at their head, numbering nine millions of the "_bravest men in the world_," who have been for centuries, and are now, on their knees, begging favors from the british government. americans, too, once asked for favors, or rather their just rights, from that government, but not having obtained them, they drew their swords, threw away their scabbards, and, though the whole population of the united states did not, at that time, amount to two and a half millions, they fought for their rights, and they won them. yet these popish braggarts, but wretched slaves, call you cowards, and your fathers pirates. how long will you suffer this? we know, from history, that popery and liberty cannot coexist in the same country. a popish government has never advanced human happiness. it never promotes any object truly great or philanthropic. how deplorable would it be, did this country fall a prey to those who are trying to establish it amongst us. the truth is, popish glory, the trappings of its court, have been always the silly objects of the roman church, while the mass of her people has ever been left in the recesses of want, obscurity, and ignorance. americans, at present, seem sunk in a sort of political lethargy; and this is taken advantage of, by foreign priests and jesuits; but i would tell those disturbers of our peace, not to trust too much to this apparent sluggishness; a calm often precedes a storm: the continued insolence, abuses, and threats of papists, may arouse our young lion, and, if i mistake not--although, appearances are at present against it--his holiness and his minions, who are trying to set up a power in this country unknown to our constitution, and not enumerated in our bill of rights, may have occasion to tremble. to effect this, however, without the shedding of blood, it is necessary--indispensably necessary--that no papist should hold office, or even vote, until he ceases to have any connection, or hold any alliance with the pope, who is a _foreign potentate_, as well as head of the church. let them come amongst us, if they will, but let it be with healing on their wings, and not to disturb our peace and tranquillity. let them prove themselves the friends of liberty, religion, and mankind, and americans will receive them with open arms, admit them to a full participation in all their own privileges, and extend to them the hand of friendship; but never let this be done, until they forswear _expressly_ and _without mental reservation_, all allegiance, of whatever kind, and under whatever name, to the pope of rome, who is a _foreign potentate_, and acknowledged as such by the powers of europe. when a papist refuses to do this, trust him not. i repeat it, trust him not, americans. he is a spy amongst you, a traitor to your country, and the sworn enemy of your religion and your liberties. this, however, they do not. they come amongst you with different motives and far different characters. though i know them well, it would be impossible for me to express to you the designs which mark their entrance into this country. they cross the atlantic, under instructions from their priests, and bring nothing with them but their bigotry, intolerance, and ignorance. their tastes, their passions, and their native hatred of protestants are wafted over to us, and are already corrupting the morals of our people. in their native country they feel, or pretend to feel, oppressed by british laws and british government. they are taught by their priests to despise their government, at home; that its laws are all penal, and that there is no crime in evading them. there is not an irish catholic, who leaves that country, but feels it his duty to resist the laws of protestant england, and evade, by perjury or otherwise, their execution. "in no country in the world," says a modern writer, "are the rights of property so recklessly violated: amongst no people on the face of the earth are the obligations of an oath, or the discharge of the moral duties, so utterly disregarded. any man, the greatest culprit, can find persons to prove an _alibi_; the most atrocious assassin has but to seek protection, to obtain it. and why is this so? because the religious instruction of the people has been totally neglected; because their priests have become politicians; because their bishops, pitchforked from the potatoe-basket to the palace, have become drunk with the incense offered to their vanity; and the patronage granted in return for their unprincipled support, instead of checking the misconduct of the subordinates, stimulate them to still further violence, and stop at nothing which can forward their objects. because the opinions of the people are formed on the statements and advice of mendicant agitators, who have but one object in view--their own aggrandizement. because a rabid and revolutionary press, concealing its ultimate designs under the motive of affording protection to the weak, seeks to overthrow all law and order, pandering to the worst passions of an ignorant and ferocious populace." irish priests and irish bishops complain of poverty and grievances at home. they complain that men of property leave their homes and spend their incomes abroad; but as this writer, to whom i have alluded expresses it, "what encouragement do they give to such as return from their residences abroad?" allow me, fellow-citizens, to give you an instance of the treatment which protestants of fortune receive from irish roman priests, when they do return to reside upon their estates in ireland. i quote from the same author:!!!!! "the marquis of waterford, a sportsman boundless in his charities, frank and cordial in his manners, not obnoxious on account of his politics, and admitted on all hands to be one of the best landlords in ireland, comes to reside, and spend his eighty thousand sterling per annum, in the country. he gets up a splendid establishment in the county of tipperary; and how is he treated? his hounds and horses were twice poisoned. there are scarcely any protestants in the county of tipperary. his offices were fired, and his servants, with difficulty, saved their lives. compelled to abandon tipperary--that sink of popish iniquity, every nook and corner of which i am acquainted with--this generous and fine-hearted young nobleman retires to his family mansion, in waterford; and how is he received there? i will not tell you; let his parish priest tell the story. 'men of portlan,' says this _holy romish priest_, addressing the tenants and neighbors of the marquis of waterford, 'you were the leading men who put down beresford, in '26 (the marquis's father); i call on you now, having put down one set of tyrants, to put down another set of tyrants, the marquis himself.'" many of the romish priests, which we have in this country, are from that very county of tipperary, and thousands of the poor irish amongst us have had their education, such as it is, from such worthy _apostolic successors_ as the parish priest of the marquis of waterford. such are the people to whom you are yielding the destinies of this happy republic, by allowing them to vote at your elections, or to hold any office of honor or trust, while they have any connection with the head of their church, the pope of rome. let the reader pass on from popish tipperary to protestant ulster, and he will see that the crimes of the irish, and the miseries which many of them suffer, are to be attributed almost solely to their religion and their priests. mr. kohl, a fair and very impartial writer, at least, upon ireland, and who is often quoted by the great agitator, o'connell, says,--in passing from that part of the country, where the majority of the inhabitants profess the roman catholic religion to that in which the great bulk of the population are protestants or presbyterians,--"on the other side of these miserable hills, whose inhabitants are years before they can afford to get the holes mended in their potatoe kettles, (the most important article of furniture in an irish cabin,) the territory of leinster and that of munster begins. the coach rattled over the boundary line, and all at once we seemed to have entered a new world. i am not in the slightest degree exaggerating when i say, that everything was as suddenly changed as if by an enchanter's wand. the dirty cabins by the road side were succeeded by neat, pretty cottages; well cultivated fields and shady trees met the eye on every side. at first i could scarcely believe my own eyes, and thought the change must be merely local, caused by particular management of that particular state, but the improvement lasted, and continued to show me that i was among a totally different people, the scottish settlers, and the industrious presbyterians." we see, in this country, the same difference of character and habits, between the irish protestants and the irish catholics. the irish protestant, wherever you find him, laboring on his loom in the north of ireland, working in a factory in new england, keeping a shop in new york, or cultivating a plantation in carolina, values his home and integrity, as pearls of great price. he is generally temperate, frugal, and industrious. we seldom, or never, hear him accused of disturbing the peace, or fraudulently voting at elections; on the whole, he arrives amongst us a worthy man, and, in time, becomes a useful citizen; and to what is this owing? it is owing to his education. he has been taught the bible in his youth; from this he learned to love his god, above all things, and his neighbor as himself. but how is it with the roman catholic, who comes amongst you? scarce does he land on your shores, when he becomes more turbulent, more noisy, and more presumptuous, than when he left his native bogs. as soon as he confesses to his priest, he _hurrahs_ for democracy, by which he means anarchy, confusion, and the downfall of _heretics_. he must vote; if he cannot do so fairly, his priest tells him how to evade the obligations of an oath. he will swear to support a constitution, which he never read, and never was read to him; he goes again to the confessional, and leaves that _sacred tribunal_ with an oath upon his lips, that "americans shall not rule him." he soon hears the words, "pilgrim fathers;" he goes to his priest, and asks what these words mean; he is told that they were _vile wretches, pirates_, who came to this country many years ago, and whose sons were _all cowards_, and thus we see that, as far as it is in their power, they are trying to reduce this country, and its native inhabitants, to a level with that in which their vile religion--popery---has placed themselves. if we could cast our eyes over the history of the world, we should be struck with horror at the fatal consequences of popery. wherever its followers have had an ascendency, or wherever they have it now, they appear to be conspirators against the happiness of the human race. what were the means by which popish kings, emperors, and princes, conducted their governments--_with the advice and consent, of the pope of rome, the vicegerent of heaven?_ craft, extortion, fire, and sword. what are the means by which those governments, which at this day are under the pope and his priests, are conducted? the pope apes the very thunders of heaven, and such are the "imitative powers" of his priests and bishops, that they are equally as destructive as the original. i have alluded to the contrast between the catholic and protestant people of ireland. the one prosperous and happy; the other poor, miserable, and degraded. heaven's vicegerent, as the bishops call the pope, and the papists call the bishops, seldom bestow a thought upon their subjects, except to gull and inveigle them for the aggrandizement of their church; and we now see ireland, one of the fairest countries upon earth, a country over which god has scattered plenty, and to which nature is peculiarly bountiful, reduced to want by insolent, haughty bishops, and vile, profligate priests. that beautiful land which nature taught to smile with abundance, they have watered with tears, and with blood, all the result of popery; and this has been its effect everywhere. it operates like the east wind, causing blasting, barrenness, and desolation, wherever it goes, and nothing but the herculean arm of this young and vigorous republic can check its progress among ourselves. but i may be told that nothing is to be dreaded in this country from papists; that they have neither numbers, nor means, to accomplish their designs upon our institutions. let us see whether this is so. i have stated, in a former page, the number of bishops, priests, seminaries, and papists, in this country. i have also shown you, to a demonstration, that if the number of emigrant papists should continue to increase for the next thirty years, as they have for the last eight, they will be a majority of the population of the united states, and the pope our supreme temporal ruler. permit me, now, to give you some idea of what their means are, at least such portion of them as they derive from europe, and you can judge for yourselves what they are in the united states. i will give you the amount sent from europe, during the years 1841, 1842, and 1843. i quote from their own books and receipts. [illustration: table of irish immigrants p136] with such an amount of funds annually, from abroad, in the hands of a body of men, who understand how to manage and appropriate them, perhaps better than any other association in the world, with the majority of the population of these united states, and having but one single object in view, namely, the supremacy of their pope and their church; what have americans not to fear? they will avail themselves of a corrupt state of representation; they will procure a majority in your national legislature, and then, i say, woe be to your liberties. your school-houses, which now ring, at stated hours, with the praises and glories of god on high, wherein children are given to drink of the waters of life, will be converted into monk-houses, and lying-in-hospitals; prayers to god will no longer be heard in them; vagabond saints and wooden images will be the only objects of adoration; ignorance and vice will take the place of intelligence and virtue; idleness will take the place of industry; and the free american who, heretofore, was taught to walk erect before god and man, will shrivel and dwindle into a thing fit only to crouch before a tyrant pope, and become a hewer of wood and drawer of water, for lazy and gluttonous priests, who, for centuries, have been trying to extinguish the light of reason and science, and who, even at the present moment, aye, at our very doors, are trying to abolish some of the finest productions of genius. witness the prohibition, recently, in france, of the publication of the wandering jew. witness the prohibition of its circulation in cuba; and why is it prohibited? because it exposes some of the trickery of jesuitism--because it lays bare some of the intrigues of that hellish association--and because holy mother church knows full well, that no honest or honorable man could see her in her native deformity, without a shudder of disgust--because she knows that herself and her priests are but whited sepulchres, filled not with dead men's bones, but with the living fires of despotism, avarice, lust, and treachery--because she knows that eugene sue, who has written the wandering jew, is a roman catholic, well acquainted with the practices of jesuits, sanctioned by the church. a continuation of the wandering jew, and its circulation, might show the world, even if there were no better authority, that monasteries and nunneries, under the control of jesuits, were but vast sodoms and prisons, full of crime and pollution. eugene sue could, and i believe would, show the world, if his health had not failed him, that roman catholic priests and bishops, though forbidden, under pain of _excommunication_, to marry, were allowed to keep concubines. i refer the reader to the memoirs of the romish bishop, scipio de ricci, for the truth of this assertion. i also refer you to another valuable work, _binnii concillia_, first volume, page 737. you will find the same in a work called _corpus juris canonici_, page 47, to be had in the philadelphia library. you will find the same permission sanctioned by the council of toledo, at which pope leo presided. the only restriction put upon the licentiousness of priests, by the council of toledo, was to forbid them from "keeping more than one concubine at a time, _at least in public_." cardinal campeggio expressly says, "that a priest who marries commits a more grievous sin than if he kept many concubines." st. bernard, who died about the beginning of the twelfth century, and who must have been a very charitable man, as all catholics now pray to him, tells the world that "bishops and priests commit acts in secret, which it would be scandalous to express." pope john xii., was convicted by a general council, of _fornication, murder, adultery, and incest_, but these were not sufficient to depose him. he still believed in holy mother, the church, and his own infallibility. there is not an individual who reads these statements, and is at all acquainted with history, who does not know that pope paul iii., who convened the council of trent, had made large sums of money from licenses given to houses of ill fame in that city. the holy church to this day, in the city of mexico, to my own knowledge, receives large sums from the same sources, and these are supported principally by monks, friars and priests. no wonder, then, that the publication of the wandering jew should be prevented in catholic countries. the writer, mr. sue, is a man of the world, he has read the book of nature with as much attention as he has those in his library. he is a well-read historian, and possesses an admirable faculty of communicating his ideas. he clothes them with a simplicity and beauty, almost peculiar to himself. the man that could depict _rodin_, the sanctimonious jesuit, in his true character, as mr. sue has done, must necessarily be silenced in a catholic country. it must not be known that jesuits may come among us in the garb of merchants, or in any other disguise which they may please to assume; no intimation must be given, that the poisoned cup, the assassin's dagger, the desperate sea-captain, or the valiant soldier, could be concealed under a jesuit's cowl, or that he may throw off that cowl, at his pleasure, and exchange it for a pea-jacket, a dancing pump, the violin, the fencing foil, or even the costume of a barber, or tamer of wild beasts. it will not answer the purposes of the holy church, that a man should live and write, who is capable of raising the curtain which hides its do-signs, and conceals the instruments, which she has ever used, and is now using, for the destruction of liberty. such a man is the author of the wandering jew. no man can look at the picture which he has drawn of ignatius morok, without recognizing, in its every feature, those of a jesuit and a villain. he travelled about, in the assumed character of a "tamer of wild beasts," but in reality, he was a jesuit missionary, and sent by that order, with full power to accomplish, by _any_ means within his power, one of the most infamous acts of fraud that over was committed by man. he was accompanied, (as the reader of eugene sue will find,) by a _lay_ jesuit, named karl, and i cannot give my readers a better idea of jesuitism, as it ever has been, and is now, than by requesting of them to observe the course adopted by those two villains in accomplishing the object of their errand. look at their treatment of the honest and faithful dagobert. look at the cruelties which they inflicted on the two innocent orphans, committed to his charge. see the schemes, by which they have made even the wife of dagobert subservient to their designs. see the arts by which jesuit priests crept into families, under various disguises, sowing amongst them discord, hatred, and domestic strife. they have put the father against the son, and the son against the father; husband against wife, and wife against husband; brother against sister, and sister against brother. see how they have contrived to filch from the poor and almost starving, the last sou they possessed, to have masses said for the repose of the souls of those who were actually living, to the knowledge of the priest, though represented by him at the confessional, to have been long since dead! see how one of those vagabond jesuits, in the assumed character of a physician, aided by one of the sisters of that order, madam de st. dizier, imposed upon the heiress, mademoiselle de cardoville. he offered his services to accompany her to visit a friend of hers, but had a private understanding with a _lay jesuit_ in the 'disguise of a hack-driver, to take them to a lunatic asylum, where he deposited the heiress. i will not quote from the "wandering jew," it would be depriving my readers of much pleasure; but i would recommend the perusal of it, in order to become acquainted with some of the prominent features of jesuitism. the work appears as a romance, but it contains many sad and serious facts. it is a compendium of jesuitism, and should be looked upon as a warning to the citizens of this new world. americans will scarcely believe that we have any such jesuits in this country, as are described in the wandering jew. i tell them they are mistaken; we have them in every state in the union, but especially in new york, maryland, district of columbia, pennsylvania, and massachusetts. i speak from my own knowledge. "bred in the harem, all its ways i know." a word to those who have daughters, and fortunes to give them; and also to those young ladies, who have fortunes in their own right. jesuits will leave nothing undone, to form acquaintance with the children of such as are supposed to be wealthy. the catholic bishops of the united states, in their annual and semiannual _despatches_ to rome, boast that they are peculiarly _fortunate_ in gaining _converts_ from such families, and i trust a word of caution from me will not prove useless. the mode which jesuits have adopted, in approaching such families, are various: but the most general, and hitherto the most successful is, to induce their children to go to their colleges and schools. in these, every male and female teacher is to bend the minds of their scholars towards popery, and to report progress twice a week to their _superiors_. but when parents do not send their children to jesuit schools, the next expedient is to get roman catholic servants into the family, who are instructed in the _confessional_ by the priests how to proceed, especially with their young daughters, in prepossessing their minds in favor of the romish church, and the great beatitudes of a single life. i have known cases myself, where it was not deemed prudent to go so far as to say one word in favor of the catholic church, or of a single life. the young ladies may be _engaged_, and their young hearts _pledged_. a different course must now be pursued, and the popish domestic has her instructions accordingly. she must find out to whom the lady is, or is likely to be, engaged; and it must be broken off, not abruptly--that is not the way jesuits do things--it is to be done gradually. their young minds must be poisoned, but the poison must be given in small quantities, until finally it produces the desired effect; and then the happiness and the glories of a _nun's_ life are to be the theme of conversation, more or less, according to the instructions received in the confessional. it is not long since i met with a protestant friend of mine, and in the course of conversation, some allusion was made to the subject of nunneries. he observed that their schools were excellent; that his daughter had just finished her education there, and had returned home in perfect ecstacy with her school, with the lady abbess who presided over it, and with all the nuns by whom she had been educated. "it is said," observed this gentleman to me, "that nuns try to tamper with the religious opinions of their pupils, and endeavor to make 'nuns of them,' but there is no truth in this; they never interfered with my daughter's religious opinions, nor did they insinuate to her the most remote idea of _taking the veil,_ or _becoming a nun._" i made no reply--courtesy forbade it. i might easily have answered my friend, but i feared the answer, which truth compelled me to give, would hurt his feelings. i might have said to him, sir, your daughter had not a dollar in her own right, neither had you one to give her, and you must know that jesuits seldom covet penniless applicants for the black or white veil you should have also known that, although your daughter may have seemed very beautiful in your eyes, she was probably devoid of those external charms which would attract the libidinous eye of a jesuit. when ladies are taken into a convent by jesuits, they must be possessed of something more than ordinary attractions. these reverend jesuits, having the liberty of choosing, are rather fastidious. _verbum sat_. truly, and from my heart, i pity the female, who risks herself in the school of jesuit nuns. she hazards all that is dear to her. though she may leave it, single-minded and innocent as she entered,--as i believe they all do who do not become nuns,--still the peril of going there at all is eminently hazardous and dangerous. but woe be to those who become _nuns_. i have been chaplain to one of those nunneries; and i assure my readers, on the honor of a man, who is entirely disinterested, and whose circumstances place him in an independent position, who wants neither favors nor patronage from any individual, that the very air we breathe, or the very ground upon which we walk, is not made more obedient or more subservient to our use, than a nun, who takes the _black veil_, is to the use of popish priests and jesuits. the internal economy and abominations of a convent are horrible in the extreme. i dare not mention them, otherwise my book would, and ought to be, thrown out of every respectable house in the city. i will only call my reader's attention to the fact, that, in all catholic countries, nunneries have _foundling hospitals_ attached to them. this any man can see who goes to france, spain, portugal, or mexico. it will be seen, even in this country, that they have their private burying places and _secret vaults_. it is not more than five or six years, since a number of jesuits, in baltimore, petitioned the legislature of maryland for leave to run a _subterraneous passage_ from one of their chapels to a nunnery, distant only about five hundred yards. the object of the petitioners was too plain. it was the most daring outrage ever offered any deliberative body of men; but, much to the credit of the legislature of maryland, they rejected the petition with undisguised marks of indignant scorn. these statements will be rather unpalatable to jesuits, but my only regret is, that decency forbids a full development of the crimes committed, with perfect impunity, in popish convents. in new york, every effort seems to be making, by the present legislature of that state, to suppress immorality. a bill is now before that body, making adultery a penitentiary offence; yet popish priests are building _nunneries_ there, and if roman catholic ladies think it proper to hold a fair to collect money for the building of those nunneries, these very new yorkers will contribute their money freely; and thus, this ill-placed liberality, which americans bestow, not only there but elsewhere, becomes the cause of evils which they seem desirous to crush. how is it with us in massachusetts? look at our statute book, and if we are to judge from that, of the utter detestation with which our people look upon immorality of every kind, we deserve to be considered paragons of propriety. should there be amongst us a house, even of _equivocal fame_, our guardians of the night and civil officers are allowed to demand entrance into it at any hour, and if refused, they may use force. yet we have _convents_ amongst us, _nunneries_ and nuns too. poor helpless females are confined in them, but not an officer in the state will presume to enter. if admission is asked, it may or may not be given by the mother abbess or one of the reverend bullies of the institution; but no force must be used. the poor imprisoned victims, whether content or not with her station, must bear it without a groan or a murmur. this should not be in any civilized country; and i will venture the assertion, that it could not continue one hour, at least among the moral and charitable people of boston, were they not utterly unacquainted with the iniquities of the romish church. this fully explains the opposition to the circulation of the wandering jew by the _infallible church_. i have given the reader but a faint view of the persecutions of popery, down to the close of the fifteenth century, and revolting as they are, there is no record to be found from which we can even infer, that the church has ever altered her doctrine or practice, on the subject of exterminating heretics, namely, all who are not roman catholics. if there were any such record, it could not have escaped my notice. some pope or some council would, long since, have given it to the world. i was, as has been stated, born a roman catholic, and educated a priest in that church. i solemnly declare to you, fellow-citizens of my adopted country, that nothing has been more forcibly impressed upon my mind, by my teachers, when a boy--by the priest to whom i confessed when young--by the professors under whom i read popish theology--or by the bishop who ordained me, and with whom i lived subsequently as chaplain--than the obligation i was under of extirpating heresy, by argument, if possible; and, if not, by any other means, even to the shedding of blood. and there is not now, in this country, an irish priest nor an irish roman catholic, and _true_ son of the church, who does not believe that, if he could collect all the heretics in the united states, and form them into one pile, he would be serving god in applying a torch to it. and, incredible as it may appear to you, their church teaches them that, in doing so, they would be serving you. the doctrine is taught now, as it was in past by their priests, that _the body must be destroyed, for the good of the soul_. "it is a benefit." say the pious popish priests, "to heretics _to be killed; the fewer will be his sins, and the shorter will be his hell!_" you naturally shudder at this doctrine, but it is not many years since leo xii. in one of his _bulls of jubilee_, or indulgence to the faithful, announces publicly, and without shame, or sorrow, proclaims to catholics, his _beloved subjects_, that in order to obtain the indulgence granted by that bull of jubilee, there are two conditions, without which, they can derive no benefit from it, namely, _the exaltation of the holy mother church, and the extirpation of heresy_. this "_blessed bull_" was published in 1825, and directed to the archbishop of baltimore, and all other popish bishops in the united states, to be made such use of as their _lordships_ may think proper! will you believe it, americans, that this doctrine is taught, this very day, in the college of maynooth, ireland. you will find it in de lahogue's tract. theolog. ch. viii. p. 404, of the dublin edition. no priest or bishop will question the authority of dr. de la hogue. he has been professor in that college for nearly half a century. i must, however, add here, for the information of all who are unac-quainted with the doctrine of the pious frauds practised by romish, priests, that their respective bishops, or in his absence, the vicar-general, can give any of them a dispensation to deny any truth or to tell any falsehood for the "exaltation of holy mother church." i have received such dispensations myself, but, not having the fear of the pope before my eyes, i took the liberty of disregarding them. many will ask me, why have you not made these things known before now? there were many reasons why i suppressed them. i knew my motives, however disinterested, might then be questioned; secondly, the public mind was not prepared for the developments which i have made. thirdly, my love of peace and quietness induced me to withdraw to a part of the country, distant from the scene of my controversy, hoping that the miscreant priests and bishops of the romish church would permit me to pursue my new profession of the law, without interruption. but in this, as i ought to have known, i was disappointed. although i have not, since i left philadelphia, until very recently, even replied to the calumnies which vagabond irish priests who infest this country, and the still greater vagabond bishops who govern them, together with the tools which they keep in their employment, have heaped upon me; still they have, in the true spirit of their _vocation_, never ceased to pursue me with their vengeance. no sooner had i abjured the pope, disregarded his-_bulls_, and thereby become a heretic, than they had me burnt in effigy! but much more gratified would they be, had they my person in the place of the effigy. i still remained unmoved. soon after this, bishop england, of charleston, south carolina, established a press, called the "catholic miscellany," whose columns teemed, for months,--almost for years,--with the grossest and vilest abuse against me; yet while this restless demagogue, who is now in his grave, was spewing forth his filthy abuse, i was prospering in my profession, and partially recovering my health, which i thought was radically destroyed by the persecutions i suffered in philadelphia; and thus, while the pope in rome, and the romish bishops and priests of this country, were cursing me, heaven was blessing my efforts and gaining me the confidence of the virtuous and good, whom i had the pleasure of meeting in my intercourse with the world. strange indeed are the practices of papists! previous to my _heresy_ in philadelphia, there was not in that city a more popular man--not another more respected; i may almost say, that there was no man, of any pursuit or calling, whose friendship was more courted. yet the moment i committed the _unpardonable sin_ of differing with the pope of rome, every one of his faithful children, not only there but throughout the world, was bound by his oath of allegiance to persecute me in every possible way. never forget, americans, that the same oath of allegiance, which binds them to persecute me, is also binding on them to persecute and destroy you. some of you will say, this cannot be. a church, numbering among her priests such men as massillon, fenelon, chevereux, and taylor of boston, cannot entertain, much less command, a spirit of persecution. true, as far as we can judge, these were godly men. they would be an honor to any religion. but in the popish church, they were like stars that strayed from their homes, and losing their way, fell, by accident, upon the dark firmament of sin and popery; but even there, their native light could not be obscured; on the contrary, the darker the clouds around them, the more beautiful and brilliant did their light appear. poor taylor,--"peace be to thy memory,--we have been friends together." methinks i can, even now, feel the warm pressure of thy hand, see the charities of thy soul beaming in thy speaking eye and gentle countenance, yet thou too had been considered almost a heretic in the city of new york, and would have been denounced as such by the rude and vulgar bishop of that diocese, had not the amiable chevereux interfered. often have i regretted that this mr. taylor, who was my classmate, and companion of my youth, had not, in addition to his private virtues, more fortitude and decision of character. he was the erasmus of his day, in the united states. he was born and educated a gentleman; so was the amiable but timid erasmus. he was educated a roman catholic; so was erasmus. he was a chaste and elegant classical scholar; so was erasmus. taylor, knowing full well the corruptions of the romish church, went from new york to rome, about the year 1822, in order to induce the pope to modify such of its doctrines as were objectionable in this country. but he wanted courage, and hastily retreated back, lest he should be consigned to the inquisition. erasmus, too, wanted courage, a quality as necessary for a reformer as it is to a general in storming a city and hence it is; that those two amiable men, similar in character and disposition, though living in ages widely apart, have lived ostensibly members of a church, whose doctrines they loathed from the very bottom of their souls. this might have been the temper, the character, and the cause, why such men as massillon and fenelon have lived and died roman catholics. they felt, probably, as erasmus did, when he said, "it is dangerous to speak, and dangerous to be silent." "i fear," said he, in another place, "that if a tumult arose, i should be like peter in his fall." it is not at all strange, that such men as we have spoken of, should have contented themselves with having inculcated virtue, and denounced vice. there were such men in all ages, and, as a modern writer expresses it, "in all great religious movements there are undecided characters." but let it be borne in mind, that even great and good as they seemed to be, and eloquent and pious as they appeared, still they are only exceptions in the great body of the advocates of popery. no wonder americans look back to those lights in the dark and bloody wilderness of popery. it is refreshing to see them. they are green spots in the deserts made barren and desolate, by popish iniquities; and long may their memories shine in unclouded lustre. it is pleasant to the historian, who is wearied and disgusted with contemplating the past and present horrors of popery, to turn for a moment from the frightful spectacle, and rest in devout contemplation on the lives of those comparatively excellent men. how mistaken are those would-be philanthropists, who, at the present time, teach americans to infer, that, because those were good and holy men, possessing a pious and forgiving spirit, it follows that the papist church, her bishops and priests, entertain a similar spirit. this is equivalent to telling them that all history, past and present, is false, a mere romance, the dream of madmen. it is equivalent to telling them that the very history and records of the lives of fenelon, and massillon, &c., were entitled to no credit. who can read, and not see that rome has spilt oceans of blood to enforce her cruel creed! who can read, and not see that she has squandered treasures enough to relieve the poor of civilized europe, in establishing and keeping up a despotism inimical to man and hateful to god! the papists, even in this country, do not deny that they intend to eradicate heresy, and to use every means which their church considers _legitimate_ to effect that purpose. this the priests preach from their pulpits; this they tell you to your beards. they admit their determination to bring these united states, if possible, under the _spiritual_ control of the court of rome. they use the word _spiritual_, in utter contempt of your understanding, to deceive you, and while using it, they laugh at your credulity. popish spiritual control, spiritual allegiance! it is almost incredible that any body of men should have the impudence to come forward, in the nineteenth century, and talk of _spiritual allegiance_ to his royal holiness the king of rome. they admit their determination to possess this country, and have the modesty to ask you to give them lands and churches, and means to accomplish their object, and effectuate your destruction. their next step will be to quarter upon you an army of friars, jesuits, or monks, who will carry at the point of the bayonet what is left undone by duplicity, treachery, and intrigue. this has been the fate of every country where popery has found a resting place, and america is the only nation which, for the last three centuries, has given them such a footing. they tried what they could do in china. they succeeded in establishing several bishoprics, jesuit convents, nunneries, monk-houses and churches, among the peaceable and quiet chinese; but happening to differ among themselves on the subject of their respective temporal rights, they, as in duty bound, referred their differences to the pope. this movement came to the ears of the emperor of china, whom they had so long and so successfully deceived by the cant words, _spiritual allegiance to the pope_. the parties were summoned before his commissioner to ascertain what was meant by _spiritual allegiance_. they tried to explain it, but all their ingenuity, all their subtilty, could not satisfy the commissioner that spiritual allegiance meant anything else than what it fairly expressed, and as soon as he found that it meant, in the eyes of the pope and the romish church, things real and tangible, such as real estate, the conveying it from the rightful owner under the laws of the land, to another under the laws of the pope, who lived in rome, he satisfied himself, that the _spiritual supremacy_ of the pope meant, among other things, the power to govern the kingdoms of the earth; to give away, and take them away, to whom and from whom, his royal holiness pleased. the emperor instantly issued an order, directing that every roman catholic bishop, priest, friar, jesuit, monk, and nun, within his empire, should quit, within a given time, on pain of losing their heads. many of them disobeyed the order and were executed, and their churches levelled to the ground. the chinese had no objection to papists worshipping god, according to the dictates of their own conscience; but as soon as it was discovered that they owed _spiritual allegiance_ to a foreign power, they deemed it _prudent_ to remove them from the country. but the chinese are _barbarians_, and it seems reserved for this new world of ours, to interpret properly the meaning of spiritual allegiance, and in all differences, between our citizens and the agents of the pope, as to the temporalities of the romish church, to lay the subject before his _royal holiness_, and be governed by his decision. witness the difference between bishop hughes of new york, and the trustees of a roman catholic church in buffalo, only a few weeks ago. witness that in new orleans, between the bishop and the trustees of the roman catholic church. all these were referred to the pope, who decided the matter, without any respect or regard to the laws of this government. call you this _spiritual allegiance?_ call you this an exercise of spiritual power, on the part of his royal holiness the pope? yes, you do; and it would not much surprise me, if the papists of this very city of boston should recommend to its legislature, to lay the difficulties between themselves and the state of south carolina, before the pope of rome for adjudication. should the day ever arrive, when the papists have a majority in your legislature, and a difference should occur between these states, the pope will be called in to decide it. i am at a loss to know how, even in these days of transcendentalism, _any other meaning_ can be given to _spiritual allegiance_, than that which the roman catholic gives it in practice. they consider the pope, as the _spiritual_ head of the church, has, _a fortiori, a divine right_ to be the head and sovereign of the world. this is the sense in which catholics understand and act upon it, and swear to support the pope, as the supreme arbiter of the destinies of the world. the chinese understood this. the emperor of russia understands it at the present day; and though a catholic himself, no priest or bishop, within his vast dominions, dare avow any allegiance, _spiritual_ or temporal, to the king or pope of rome. the holy synod of st. petersburg, russia, have notified the catholic missionaries, who have incited rebellion, and interfered with the civil authorities in georgia, to renounce their intercourse with the see of rome, or quit the country. but americans, in the alembic of their fertile brains, have manufactured a definition for _spiritual allegiance_, peculiarly their own, for which the papists are so much obliged to them, that whenever an opportunity of knocking out the aforesaid brains occurs, they will do so. witness in the philadelphia riots, &c, &c, strong proofs of the _spirituality_ of that allegiance which catholics owe to the pope. permit me to give you another evidence of the nature of that allegiance to the pope of rome, to which i have heretofore alluded. it is to be found in the massacre of the huguenots, by roman catholics. there is no event in the history of france, with which the world is more familiar, than this. several historians have related it with great minuteness and much elegance. to these i can add nothing of my own, and the reader is more indebted to them, for the following statement, than to myself. massacre of the huguenots. this bloody massacre took place immediately after the conclusion of the treaty of st. germain, at which the hostilities which had so long existed between the catholics and protestants in france, were suspended, or, as the protestants believed, were entirely terminated. the sufferings of the protestants, up to the conclusion of that treaty, were truly great. their property was wasted; their beautiful chateaus were burned and levelled to the ground; their flourishing vineyards were destroyed, and they themselves were left, reduced in property and numbers; but great as were their calamities, the spirit which lived within them was not quenched. their hearts, though oppressed, 7 were not broken. the love of god bore them up against all their trials and privations. among those who suffered most in the protestant cause, was the brave and pious admiral coligny, who, after the treaty of st. germain, and the destruction of his beautiful estates by order of the popish and bloody catharine, retired to rochelle. even here there was no safety for him. the licentious queen, and her paramours, consisting of priests, determined on his destruction. it is said of this woman, that she occupied twelve years of her life in instructing her son charles to swear, to blaspheme, to break his word, and to disguise his thoughts as well as face. we are told by contemporary historians, that this _blessed daughter_ of the holy church supplied him with small animals, when a child, and a sharp sword to cut off their heads, and shed their blood by stabbing them; all this to familiarize him with the shedding of blood, and that at some future day he might indulge in the same amusement upon a larger scale, in cutting off the heads and stabbing heretics and protestants. the persecutions of the huguenots are known almost to all readers; few there are, who are not familiar with them. the illustrious characters, who headed the protestant cause in those days, are known to all protestant americans, but none of them, perhaps, more intimately than the great coligny, who was one of the first martyrs to that wretched popish thing, in the shape of a woman, catharine de medicis, regent of france. i trust, therefore, the reader will pardon me for giving a few incidents in the life of this nobleman and martyr, during one of the regencies of this popish queen catharine. after the marriage of henry of navarre, coligny, as we are told, suddenly retired from the banquet given upon the occasion at the louvre. it was remarked that he seemed sad and dejected. he retired to his hotel, which he would have gladly left and returned home, but dreading that he might alarm his wife, he preferred writing to her, explaining matters as far as he could, under existing circumstances. the letter is so interesting, so affectionate, and altogether so worthy of the good man, that i cannot refrain from laying it before my readers. it was as follows:!!!!! "my very dear and much beloved wife: "this day, was performed the ceremony of marriage between the king's sister and the king of navarre. the ensuing three or four days will be spent in amusements, banquets, masks, and sham-fights. the king has assured me that, immediately afterwards, he will give me some days to hear the complaints, made in divers parts of the kingdom, touching the edict of pacification, which is violated there. it is with good reason that i attend to this matter as much as possible; for, though i have a strong wish to see you, still you would be angry with me (as i think) if i were remiss in such an affair, and harm came of it from my neglect to do my duty. at any rate, this delay will not retard my departure from this place so long but that i shall have leave to quit it next week. if i had regard to myself alone, i had much rather be with you than stay longer here, for reasons which i will tell you. but we ought to consider the public welfare as far more important than our private benefit. i have some other things to tell you, as soon as i shall have the means to see you--which i desire, day and night. as for the news that i have to tell you, they are these: this day, at four in the afternoon, the bells were rung, when the mass of the bride was chanted. the king of navarre walked about the while in an open place near the church, with some gentlemen of our religion who had accompanied him. there are other little particulars which i omit, intending to tell you them when i see you. whereupon i pray god, my most dear and beloved wife, to have you in his holy keeping. from paris, this 18th of august, 1572. "three days back i was tormented with colic and pain in the loins. but this complaint lasted only eight or ten hours, thanks be to god, through whose goodness i am now delivered from those pains. be assured on my part, that amidst these festivities and pastimes, i will not give offence to any one. adieu, once more, "your loving husband, "chastillon." after having despatched the above letter, coligny deemed it his duty to see the king before he left paris. his sole object in so doing was to obtain, if possible, some concessions, or at least some guarantee for the future protection of the persecuted protestants, of whom he was a member. the king received him well, promised him all he asked; but the king consulted the pope's nuncio, who was then in the city, and that _holy_ man advised him to keep no faith with that protestant coligny, but on the contrary, to make all the use he could of him, in order the more effectually to accomplish the destruction of the heretical band to which he belonged. after receiving this christian advice, the king became apparently more friendly to coligny, and went so far as to promise him a safe escort on his way home. "if you approve of it," said the king to coligny, "i will send for the guard of my arquebusiers for the greater safety of all, for fear they might unawares do you a mischief; and they shall come under officers who are known to you." the generous and unsuspecting christian, coligny, accepted the offer of the guards, and twelve hundred of them were ordered into the city. there were many of the protestants in the city, who on seeing this array of troops, felt alarmed for the safety of their friend coligny; they whispered their fears to the brave warrior, who until then did not even dream of treachery. but now, fearing that something might be wrong, he resolved to see the queen mother. she expected this, and granted him an interview with great apparent pleasure. as soon as he commenced to suggest any fears or apprehensions of treachery, this _holy daughter_ of the church, suddenly interrupting him, exclaiming, "good god, sir admiral," said she, "let us enjoy ourselves while these festivities continue. i promise you on the faith of a queen, that in four days i will make you contented, and those of your religion." coligny had now the word of a king, and the honor of a queen, as a guarantee for his own safety, and that of the protestants in france. who could any longer doubt that they were safe? who could believe that a king would violate a solemn promise freely given? who could question the honor of a lady and the promise of a queen? who would venture to assert that a mother would not use her best effort to redeem the honor and plighted faith of a son, and that son a king? no one but a roman catholic could doubt it. charles was a roman catholic king. his church taught him, that no faith was to be kept with heretics. coligny was a heretic. catharine, the queen mother, was a roman catholic; her church taught her to keep no faith with heretics, but to "destroy them, root and branch, under pain of eternal damnation." _heritici destruendi_ is the doctrine of the roman catholic church; and accordingly, on the evening of that very day on which coligny had an audience with the queen, these distinguished and pious children of the holy roman catholic church appointed an interview with the pope's nuncio, and after that _holy man_ sung the _veni creator spiritus_, (a hymn which they invariably sing, when laying any plan for the destruction of heretics,) these three worthy children of the infallible church resolved to send for the "king's assassin," a man named maureval, and ordered him to assassinate coligny. it must be observed here, that the pope's legate allowed charles and his mother to keep an assassin, to cut down _such thistles or tares as the devil may plant in the vineyard of the holy see_. soon after this, coligny had occasion to go out on some business. the popish assassin pursued him at a distance, secreted himself in a house where he knew he could deliberately shoot at him; he did so, but the wound, though severe in the extreme, did not prove mortal. among the first who visited him were the king and his mother; and such was the apparent grief of catharine, that she shed tears for the sufferings of the warrior. the good son of this good mother mingled his tears with hers, promising that the assassin, whoever he was, should be brought to condign punishment; but need i now tell you, americans, that the tears of this popish queen, for the sufferings of this protestant, were like those of the hyena, that moans in the most piteous strains, while sucking the life-blood of its victim? need i tell you they were like those of the crocodile, which sheds them in abundance while devouring its prey? need i inform you that by her promises of future protection, she resembled the filthy buzzard, which spreads its wings over the body or carcass of its prey, while plunging its beak into its very entrails? and such i tell you now, as i have told you before, americans, and shall tell you while i live, is the sympathy, and such the protection which every good mother and son of the holy roman catholic church would extend to you, your protestant religion and its followers, in these united states. we will now pass over the various meetings held by the king, his mother, queen catharine, and the pope's nuncio, for the purpose of devising ways and means, not for the death of coligny, but for the destruction of all the protestants in france. to detail these would be a tedious undertaking; and not more tedious than revolting to the best feelings of humanity. depravity was reduced to a science in the court of catharine, and her son charles. she employed even her _ladies_ of honor for the seduction of her young nobility. they were ladies--i should say human things--selected for their beauty, and trained up by this royal mother in the romish church, in habits of utter abandonment to seduction and lasciviousness. young men of honor, virtue, and patriotism, were introduced to them, by catharine, especially those who were at all suspected of being favorable to protestantism. these _maids_ were required to ascertain from these young noblemen who, and how many of their young friends were friendly to the cause of protestantism, with a view of marking them for extermination, as soon as herself and the pope's legate should deem it expedient to do so the hour at last arrived, when the holy trio deemed it expedient to order a general massacre of the protestants. the order was issued. the bells of the roman catholic churches were rung, and the royal order "kill! kill! kill!" all, was issued by the king, and repeated by his roman catholic mother. i could not if i would, nor would i if i could, describe the scene that followed. suffice it to say, that particular orders were given not to spare admiral coligny. blameless as was his life, and devoted as he was to his king and government, yet he was a protestant, and must die, and that by the hand of a popish assassin. the holy church reserved to herself the glory of murdering this heretic. as soon as the order to murder was given, a rush was made towards the residence of coligny. they entered his chamber, and to use the language of another, they found him sitting in an armchair, his arms folded, his eyes half upturned with angelic serenity towards heaven, looking the image of a righteous man falling asleep in the lord. one of the murderers, a pious catholic, called besma, fixing his fiendish eye upon the admiral, asked him, 'art thou the admiral?' pointing his sword at him at the same time. 'i am the admiral,' replied coligny. 'young man, thou shouldst have regard for my age and infirmities;'" but the murderer plunged his sword into the christian hero's breast, pulled it out, and thrust it in again. thus died this noble protestant! thus died the veteran coligny, by the hands of a popish boy! and for what? he believed in the bible--he was a protestant. and thus, fellow protestants of the united states, will your posterity be sacrificed, for similar crimes, unless god in his mercy drive from your land, and mine by adoption, every vestige of the popish religion. no sooner was coligny put to death, than his head was cut off and presented to queen catharine, who sent for her perfumer, and ordered it to be embalmed and forwarded to the pope, as a mark of her devotion to the holy see. but even this did not satisfy the queen. her popish bloodhounds, on hearing of coligny's murder, rushed through the streets to his apartments, searching every where for his mangled body, and having found it, a general cry was raised, "the admiral! the admiral!" they tied his legs and his arms together, and dragged them through the streets shouting, "here he comes, the admiral!" one cut off his ears, another his legs, another his nose, hands, &c. they abandoned the body, to let the boys amuse themselves by inspecting it, and then tumbled it into the river. but the zealous catharine was not satisfied yet. this good daughter of the pope ordered the river to be dragged, until what remained of coligny was found, and then ordered it to be hung in chains on a gibbet at a place called mountfaçon. a contemporary writer, a roman catholic, speaking of this, says: "the road to mountfaçon was a scene of incessant bustle, created by the gentlemen of catharine's court, who, in splendid dresses and perfumed with essences, went to insult the relics of coligny. catharine also went with her numerous retinue. charles accompanied his mother. on arriving before the gallows, the courtiers turned away their heads, and held their noses on account of the stench arising from the half putrefied remains. 'poh!' said charles and his mother, to their courtiers, '_the dead body of a heretic_ always smells well.' on returning home she consulted with her confessor, who advised her, now that the devil had the heretic's body, it would be well to have a solemn high mass for the occasion, to be said at the church of st. germain, at which charles and his mother attended, and a te deum was sung in honor of the glorious victory gained by the church, by the destruction of so many heretics. as soon as the pope heard this news, his holiness despatched a special messenger to france, to congratulate the king on having "caught so many heretics in one net." so joyous and elated did his royal holiness appear, that he offered a high reward for the best engraving of the massacre; having, on one side, as a motto, "the triumph of the church;" and on the other, "the pontiff approves of the murder of coligny." this engraving is now to be seen in the vatican of rome. the number of those who were massacred on st. bartholomew's day is variously stated. mazary makes it thirty thousand; others over sixty: but the pope's nuncio, who was on the spot during the massacre, in a letter to the pope, tells him, "the number was _so great it was impossible to estimate it._" recollect, american protestants, that this massacre, and others to which i have alluded, was not the work of a few fanatics. it was the work of a nation, by their representative, the king, empowered to do so by the head of the roman catholic church. in vain is it for papists to tell us that all this blood-shedding and destruction of human life was the work of a few, with which the church was neither chargeable nor accountable. americans may believe them if they will. let them believe. "there are none so blind as those who will not see." if neither the testimony of history, nor a statement of facts, bearing all the necessary evidence of truth, will convince them, vain indeed are my efforts to do so. but there is no impropriety in my earnestly and solemnly appealing to americans, and suggesting one or two questions, which they should put to any roman catholic who may deny that the church ever sanctioned those evil deeds of which i have spoken. have you any record of the fact, that the church ever discountenanced the destruction of heretics? did the popish authorities ever deliver up those whom they knew to have murdered heretics to the civil tribunals? were there ever any heretics murdered, as such, except by the advice, counsel, and connivance of the popish church and her priests? if there were, in what country, in what age, and in what reign? until these questions can be truly answered, you are not to be satisfied. but why will americans, for a moment, entertain a doubt upon the subject? popish historians never deny it. the actions of papists all over the world proclaim it. the church of rome has ever thirsted for the blood of' heretics. she now yearns for an opportunity of shedding it again; all for the purpose of "purifying the earth of heresy." do you not see that her conduct, in all ages and all places where she had opportunities, confirms this? do you not even see, that in this country, the members of that church can scarcely keep their hands off you; and so bloody are the sentiments which they inherit, that, for want of other subjects, they will sometimes shed that of each other? what would they not have done, a few weeks ago, in philadelphia, had they the power? what in new york? what in boston, or any where else in the united states? do you not see, in all your intercourse with them, the ill-concealed hatred which they, bear you? if you have any charitable institutions for the support of protestants, will they aid you? if you hold a fair for the purpose of building a church, or for any other protestant purpose, will they attend it and purchase from you? they will not. if they do, they commit a sin against the church, and the power of absolving from that sin is _reserved_ for the bishop of the diocese. it is a _reserved case_, as the church terms it. it is only by virtue of a _dispensation_, granted by the pope to this country, that a roman catholic is even allowed to attend the funeral of a protestant; and should he go into one of your churches, even though there was no service at the time, if he is a true son of the church, he will hasten to his priest and obtain absolution for that special crime. yet, if they want churches built, you will furnish them with money. if they want land to build them upon, you will give it to them. is this wise in you? you are denounced in those churches as heretics; your religion ridiculed, and yourselves laughed at. your motives are undoubtedly good. you believe, because you do not know to the contrary, that, by your contributions, you are advancing the cause of morality. you do not reflect--and perhaps the idea never occurred to you--that there is a wide difference between the religion of a protestant and that of a papist. that of the protestant teaches him to be a moral and virtuous man; whereas, that of the papist has not the remotest connection with virtue. a catholic need not dream of virtue, and yet be a member of that church. the most atrocious villain, as an eminent writer expresses it, may be rigidly devout, and without any shock to public sentiment in catholic countries, or even among roman catholics in the united states, religion, as the same writer says, and as we all know, at least as many of us as have been in those countries, and who are acquainted with catholics in this, is a _passion, an excuse, a refuge_, but never a _check_. it is called by papists themselves _refugium peccatorum_. hence it is, that priests may be drunkards, and their flocks never think the worse of them. i have known some of them, whose private rooms where they heard confessions, were sinks of debaucheries, which a regard for public decency prevents me from mentioning. i have known females, who have been seduced by them, and who afterwards regularly went to confession, under the impression which every catholic is taught to feel, that no matter what a priest does, provided he speaks the language of the church. _don't mind what he does, but mind what he speaks_, is a proverb among the poor irish papists. none of them dare look me in the face and deny this, and yet these wretches talk of morals. but what think you, protestants, of this kind of morality or of the church which does not even forbid it, and only requires to have it "concealed from _heretics?_" do you desire it propagated amongst you? do you wish your children to learn it? no virtuous daughter or decent woman should ever venture under the same roof with those men. paganism, in its worst stages, was a stronger check to the passions than popery. i will give you one instance of the abominations of popery. papists believe in the doctrine of the _real presence_ of christ, in the sacrament of the eucharist. it is the duty of every priest in that church to administer this _sacrament_ to the dying, and for this purpose, they consecrate a number, of small wafers, made of flour and water, each of which, they pretend to believe, contains _the body and blood, soul and divinity_ of our lord and saviour jesus christ, or in other words, the lord god himself. the priests carry with them, in & small box called _pixis_, a number of them to be given to the sick and dying. there are but few of them in the united states, in whose breeches' pockets may not be found, at any hour of the day, at least a dozen of _those gods_. can there be religion here? can there be morality among those men or their followers? i would go further, and ask, is there any thing in paganism equally impious or more revolting to god or man? they know full well that such a creed cannot be sustained either by reason or scripture, and hence it is, they want all power concentrated in the pope of rome, in order to extirpate their opponents, protestant heretics. papists understand the character of americans, and are well aware, that if sufficiently satisfied of the existence among them, of a sect who believed in a doctrine so absurd, and so impiously profane, as that of the real _bodily presence of christ in the eucharist_, they could not countenance them. my own impression is, that if the people of boston, where i write, knew that catholic priests taught their followers to believe, that they (the priests) could make god's by the dozen, carry them in their pockets, take them out when and where they pleased, and there kneel to them, in _adoration_, they would have them indicted under the statute against blasphemy. the rev. abner kneeland was indicted because he denied the procession of the holy ghost, and found guilty of blasphemy. but what was his crime, when compared with that of romish bishops and priests! it was bad enough, to be sure, in the eyes of all christian men, and few questioned the righteousness of the verdict of his guilt. if a pagan priest should arrive amongst us, bringing with him his gods, and worshipping them in our midst, should we _sanction_ him? i know not that our constitution forbids such a thing, but the reverence which we have for the _one true god_, our love of morality and good order, would forbid it. we would accuse and indict them for blasphemy. but is their blasphemy more horrid than that of the romish church? the pagan priest hews his god out of wood; the popish priest makes his out of flour and water. the pagan priests convey their gods in some vehicle, from place to place, and stop to worship them, wherever their inclination or devotion prompts them. the romish priests carry theirs in their pockets, or otherwise, as occasion or love of pomp may suggest. where, americans, is the difference? which is the greater blasphemer? which is the bolder and more reckless violator of that great commandment, "_i am the lord thy god." "thou shalt have none other gods before me"?_ you will not hesitate to decide. the pagan may be honest in his belief; he may worship according to the light that is in him, or the knowledge that has reached him. he may never have seen the gospel. _the day star from on high_ may never have arisen over him, or illumined his path! "the morning upon the mountains" may perhaps never have gladdened his vision; he may, to us at least, be excusable, and as far as we can see, without offence before god. but is the romish priest, who makes his god out of flour and water, and worships it, sinless? is he not an idolater? what can be more blasphemous than to believe that a wafer, made of flour and water, can be changed, by the incantations of a romish priest, into the god of heaven and earth! the popish church teaches that the flour, of which the wafer is made, loses its substance, and all its natural properties, and is changed by the words of consecration into the almighty god; that is, it is no longer flour and water; it is changed,--not _spiritually_, as protestants believe,--but actually and really becomes the _body and blood, soul and divinity_ of jesus christ, such as it was when nailed to the cross, and as such they worship the wafer. if this is not idolatry, i cannot understand what idolatry is. if this is not blasphemy, i wish some new england gentleman of the ministry, or the bar, would explain it, and tell me what they mean by their statute against blasphemy. does blasphemy, in their estimation, mean nothing? or is it something introduced into our laws, only for the purpose of exercising the ingenuity of legal and ecclesiastical casuists? surely, if the word has any meaning whatever, in law or morals, in church or state; if it can be enforced at all, and there is such a crime as blasphemy, it should be enforced against the romish priest or bishop, who bows and teaches his followers to bow, in adoration, to a piece of bread and water, and thus blasphemously insult, as far as poor mortals can, the great and living god. surely, the state authority, which would institute a criminal prosecution for blasphemy against kneeland, because he did not believe the holy ghost to proceed "from the father and the son," and does not prosecute for blasphemy popish priests, who believe, and teach their followers to believe, that they can create, or rather manufacture as _many gods_ as they please, out of flour and water, either neglects his duty, or his knowledge of it is very equivocal. either this is the case, or the treatment of kneeland originated in some cruel persecution. the latter i am far from believing. as a citizen of this state, i would ask respectfully, why proceedings, under the statute against blasphemy, are not immediately commenced against popish priests? is it because kneeland was friendless and alone, that he was selected as a proper victim? and is it because popish priests are supported by a large party, equally criminal with themselves, that they are spared? not at all, say the _sympathizers_ with papery. kneeland made a noise in his meetings; they were troublesome in the neighborhood where they were held. be it so. i will not deny this, nor do i wish to be considered as the apologist of kneeland, his blasphemies, or his meetings; but i would ask the prosecuting officer of the state, whether kneeland's meetings were more noisy than _popish repealers?_ were they even half so turbulent or uproarious? let those whose duty it is answer the question, and tell us why priests are not prosecuted for blasphemy. i contend that if there is one blasphemy under the sun more revolting than another, it is that of believing and teaching that a wafer can be changed from what god made it, into that same almighty god, by mumbling over it a few latin words. it makes me shudder at the weakness of man, and the unaccountable influence of early education, to think that i myself once believed in this horribly blasphemous doctrine. the doctrine of popish priests in adoring a wafer made of bread and water, and their mode of manufacturing the wafer into god, is not only blasphemous, but extremely ludicrous. has the reader ever seen a popish priest in the act of making, or metamorphosing bread and water into _flesh and blood?_ if he has not, it would be well, if not profane, to witness it; for never before has he seen such mountebank tricks. the priest, this great _creator_ of flesh and blood out of flour and water, appears decked out in as many gewgaws as would adorn a pagan priestess, and about twice as many as would be necessary for a jewish rabbi. amid the ringing of small bells, dazzling lights, genuflections, crossings, incense, and a variety of other such "tricks before high heaven," this clerical mountebank metamorphoses this wafer into _god_, and exhibits it to his followers, whom he calls upon to go on their knees and adore it. this horrible practice should induce our philanthropists, who are sending vast sums abroad for the conversion of the pagan, to pause and ask themselves, whether there is, in the whole moral wilderness of paganism, any thing worse, or half so bad, as that idolatry which we have at our own doors! if a being from some unknown world, and to whom this world of ours was as little known as the one from which he came was to us, should, by accident or otherwise, arrive among us, and we were to take him into a roman catholic church during the celebration of mass, and there tell him, that the _great actor_ in the service was making flesh and blood out of bread and water, and could actually accomplish that feat, he would unhesitatingly award to these united states the credit of having among them some of the most accomplished jugglers in the world. what are your eastern fire-eaters, sword-swallowers, and dervishes, to a popish priest? why, it would be easier to swallow a rapier, ten feet long, or a ball of fire as large as the mountain orizaba, than to metamorphose flour and water into the "_great and holy god_, who created the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein." let me not be accused of levity, or want of reverence to that almighty being, to whom i am indebted for my creation and preservation, and on whom alone, through the merits of the saviour, my hopes of salvation are placed. my only object is, to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to the absurd and profane doctrines of popery; and that having seen them, in their true colors, it is to be hoped they will find little favor from a thinking and reflect-ing people. it is extremely unpleasant to my feelings, thus to expose the profanity of a religion which i once professed, and inculcated upon the minds of others; but the best atonement i can make for my unconscious offence to my god and my fellow-beings is, to acknowledge my error, and caution others against falling into the snares which an early education, received from priests and jesuits, had precipitated me. the reader will therefore pardon me if i lay before him a few more popish extravagances. it is generally known, that papists believe in the doctrines of miracles. so do i, and so do all christians. but it is not so well known that the miracles, in which protestants believe, differ widely from those which the romish church teaches her followers. we believe the miracles recorded in the holy scriptures; to these, however, the _infallible church_ pays little or no attention, but hands us down a catalogue of miracles, for the truth of which she herself vouches, and calls upon all to receive them as the "genuine article." it may be edifying, and if not, it can not fail to be amusing to american protestants, to see a specimen or two of popish miracles. i assure the reader, they are very fair ones, to my own personal knowledge, and considered as such by every true roman catholic in this city of boston as well as elsewhere. st. hieronymus, better known by the name jerome, who died early in the fifth century, relates the following miracle:--"after st. hilary was banished from france to phrygia, he met in the wilderness a huge bactrian camel, and having seen, in a vision, that his camelship was possessed of the devil, he exorcised him, and the devil sprang out from him, running wild through the wilderness, leaving behind him a strong smell of brimstone." he tells us another miracle, with much gravity. "paul the hermit," says this saint, "happening to die in the wilderness, his body remained unburied, until discovered by st. anthony. the saint being alone, and not having the means of digging a grave, nor strength enough to place in it the body of the hermit, prayed to the virgin mary to aid him in his difficulties. the result was, two lions, of the largest species, walked up to him, licked his hands, and told him that they would dig the grave themselves with their feet, and place the body of paul in it. they did so; and having finished their business, went on their knees, asked the saint's blessing, and vanished in the woods." palladus, who lived in the fifth century, and was greatly distinguished in the romish church, tells us of a hyena, which, in a certain wood in greece, killed a sheep. the next day, a pious hermit, who happened to live in the neighborhood, was surprised at seeing this hyena at the-door of his cave; and on asking it what was the matter, the hyena addressed him in the following language: "holy father, the odor of thy sanctity reached me; i killed a sheep last night, and i came to ask your absolution." the saint granted it, and the hyena departed in peace. we find in butler's lives of the saints, which is for sale in almost all roman catholic bookstores, an account of some most extraordinary miracles, for the truth of which, the _infallible_ church pledges her veracity. for instance; when heretics cut off the head of st. dennis, the saint took it up, put it under his arm, and marched off some miles with it. butler relates another extraordinary miracle, and if american protestants presume to doubt it, they may expect a bull from the pope of rome. a certain lady in wales, named winnefride, was addressed by a young prince, named caradoc. but she, being a _nun_, could not listen to his addresses. the young prince got impatient, and finally, in a fit of rage and disappointment, he pursued her in one of her walks, and cut off her head. a saint, by the name of beuno, hearing of this outrage, went in pursuit of caradoc, and having come up with him, he caused the earth to open and swallow him. upon his returning where the _nun's_ head fell, he found that a well had opened, emitting a stream of the purest water, the drinking of which, to this day, is believed to cast out devils. when the holy st. beuno looked at the head of the _nun_, he took it up and kissed it, placed it on a stump, and said mass. no sooner was the mass finished, than the beheaded nun jumped up, with her head on, as if nothing had happened. come forward, americans, if you dare, and deny this miracle. the _holy church_ vouches for its truth. st. patrick, the great patron of daniel o'connell, whom his holiness the pope calls the _greatest layman living_, performed some very extraordinary miracles, as we are told; among them was the following: a poor boy strayed from home, and died of starvation, or something else, and the body was nearly devoured by hogs, when st. patrick, chancing to pass that way, discovered it in this mutilated condition. the holy saint touched it, and it instantly sprang into life, resuming its former shape and proportions. on another occasion, as we read in the lives of the saints, st. patrick fed fourteen hundred people with the flesh of one cow, two wild boars, and two stags; and what is more strange than all, the same old cow was seen, on the following morning, brisk and merrily grazing on the very same field where she was killed, cooked, and eaten by the multitude. we read of another very great miracle, which no roman catholic can doubt, without running the risk of being considered a _heretic_. st. xavier, who is considered one of the most distinguished saints in the romish church, had a valuable crucifix. on one of his journeys at sea, it fell overboard, much to his regret. when he arrived at his place of destination, he took a walk along shore, meditating on the power, grandeur, and infallibility of the _mother of saints_, and what was the first object that caught his eye? lo, and behold, he saw a crab moving towards him, bearing in its mouth the saint's crucifix, and continued to advance until he reverently laid it at his feet. no roman catholic writer, since the days of st. xavier, questions the truth of this miracle. the popish biographers of st. xavier tell us of another great miracle performed by him, the truth of which is attested by the _infallible church_. the devil tempted xavier, and the "_old boy_" assumed the shape of a lovely female; the saint ordered her off, but she refused, and attacked him again on the same day; but the saint, unwilling to be annoyed any longer, spit in the devil's face, and he instantly fled. i cannot dismiss, this subject without relating a few more of those miracles which roman catholics believe. they may be seen in belarmine's treatise on the _holy eucharist_, book iii. ch. 8. st. anthony, of padua, got into an argument with a heretic, concerning the doctrine of _transubstantiation_ or the changing of bread and water, by romish priests, into the flesh and blood of jesus christ. after arguing the question for a long time, the heretic proposed to st. anthony to settle their controversy in the following manner: "i have a horse," said the _heretic_, "which i will keep fasting for three days; at the expiration of that time, come with your _host_ (an image) and i will meet you with my horse. i will pour out some grain to my horse, and you will hold the host before him; if he leave the grain, and adores the host, i shall believe." they met, and st. anthony addressed the horse in the following words. i translate, literally, from that illustrious writer in the roman church, belarmine. "_in virtue, and in the name of thy creator, whom i truly hold in my hand, i command and enjoin thee, o horse, to come, and with humility, adore him." the horse, instanter, left his corn, advanced towards the host in the priest's hand, and, devoutly kneeling, adored it as his god._ st. andrew, as we read in romish history, was a man of great eminence and _sanctity_. papists pray for his intercession daily. the _infallible church_ informs us, that he performed some very great miracles i beg to give my readers one, as a sample of the many which he performed. the devil, armed with an axe, and accompanied by several minor devils, with clubs in their hands, made an attack upon the saint, whereupon he called upon st. john, the apostle, to rescue him. st. john lost no time in making his appearance, and summoning some holy angels to aid him, with chains in their hands, he rescued st. andrew from these devils, and chained every one of them to the spot; whereupon, as we are informed in the _acts of the saints_, st. andrew burst into laughter, and the devils fell to screaming and crying mercy. in the year 1796, a work, entitled _official memoirs_, was published in ireland, under the authority of dr. bray, archbishop of cushel, and dr. troy, archbishop of dublin. in this work it is stated--and to doubt the fact in ireland, would be-_heresy_--that in the month of may, 1796, at toricedi, tears were seen to flow from the eyes of a _wooden image_ of the virgin mary. impious as such doctrines are, they are now believed by roman catholics. i was myself personally acquainted with archbishop troy, and i remember, when young, that he and the priests by whom i was instructed, took much more pains in impressing upon my mind the truth of such miracles, as that of the wooden virgin mary, than they did the truths of the gospel; and, in fact, every catholic is taught to rest his _salvation_, almost entirely, upon the intercession of the _virgin_. ninety-nine in a hundred of irish catholics rest all their hopes of salvation on the virgin mary. they adore her, they worship her, and what is worse, popish bishops and priests teach them to do so. they even compel them to adore the virgin, though the miserable beings have the hardihood to deny it before americans. but will they dare do it before me? when a poor, ignorant catholic goes to confession, the usual penance imposed by the priest, for minor offences, is the repetition of the following address to the virgin mary, two or three times a day, for a week or more, according to the heinousness of the sin committed:!!!!! "holy mary, holy mother of god, holy virgin of virgins, mother of christ, mother of divine grace, mother most pure, mother most chaste, mother undefiled, mother untouched, mother most amiable, mother most admirable, mother of our creator, mother of our redeemer, virgin most prudent, virgin most venerable, virgin most renowned, virgin most powerful, virgin most merciful, virgin most faithful, mirror of justice, seat of wisdom, cause of our joy, spiritual vessel, vessel of honor, vessel of singular devo-mystical rose, tower of david, tower of ivory, house of gold, ark of the covenant, gate of heaven, morning star, health of the weak, refuge of sinners, comfort of the afflicted, help of christians, queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, queen of apostles, queen of martyrs, queen of confessors, queen of virgins, queen of all saints." the above tissue of blasphemy is daily, nay, several times in a day, repeated by catholic priests and their _penitents;_ and i am much mistaken, if there is upon the face of the globe, whether in pagan, mahometan,1 or heathen countries or creeds, to be found any thing equally blasphemous, or more disgusting to the mind of any individual who believes in the _pardon of sin through the atonement of christ_; and i hesitate not to say, that the christian, who countenances such a doctrine, or contributes, in any way, to its propagation, denies his saviour, and shows himself unworthy of the name he bears. to the professed infidel i have nothing to say. to him, who mocks and scoffs at the triune god, i will attach no blame; with him i have nothing in common, further than brotherhood of the same species; but i must appeal to the christian, and seriously ask him, why do you encourage such blasphemy as this address to the virgin mary? why do you encourage its propagation amongst your brethren? why do you hold communion with those who utter it? would the primitive christians, if they now lived, hold any communion with idolaters? would they contribute their money to build temples for _isis and dagon?_ would they basely bend the knee to the golden calf of old? no. sooner--much sooner--would they lay their heads upon the block. they would look upon it as a denial of their god, and a recantation of their faith in him. would your puritan forefathers give the right hand of fellowship to the worshippers of a wooden image? would they give their money to a priest, to build churches, and teach his followers that they could hew out for them images of wood, possessing power to work miracles, or in other words, to change the laws of nature, which the _eternal law-maker_ alone can change or suspend? custom, the point of the bayonet, or even that cruel tyrant, early education, may enforce such idolatry on the old world; but the free-born american, unbiassed by education--unawed by tyrants--has no apology. his submission to such doctrines is an unqualified surrender of his reason, his religion, and the liberties of his country. when the star of our independence first arose, it was hailed by the christian philosophers of the old world, as a foreshadowing of the downfall of tyranny, superstition, and idolatry. they looked upon it as fatal to the bastard paganism, taught in the popish church; but what must be their astonishment, if permitted at the present day to look down upon our country, and see our people practising that same paganism, nicknamed christianity, and asking from our government protection--a privilege which the framers of our constitution never intended should be extended to tyrants or idolaters! here i would stop, and never more put pen to paper, for or against popery, did i not see many of my fellow-citizens, possessing the finest minds and precious souls, falling victims to the sophistry, ingenuity, and quibbling casuistry of popish priests and bishops. it is not long since i saw a letter from the roman catholic bishop fenwick, of the diocese of massachusetts, in which he informs the _authorities of rome_ that he is making converts from some of the _first families_ in his diocese. this, i presume, is correct, and these are the very individuals most easily imposed upon. they know nothing of popery. they are not aware that papists have two sides to the picture, which they exhibit of their church. one is fair, brilliant, dazzling, and seductive. nothing is seen in their external forms of worship but showy vestments, dazzling tights, and the appearance of great devotion. nothing is heard but the softest and most melting strains of music. no wonder these should captivate minds which are strangers to guilt; nor is it strange that they should bring into their church those who are most guilty, in the full assurance that their guilt shall be forgiven, and their crimes effaced from the records of heaven, by only confessing them to one of their priests. will the heads of those respectable families, to whom bishop fenwick alludes, and from whom he is making so many converts, permit me to ask them, whether they have ever reflected upon what they were doing, in permitting romish priests to come among them? i have myself been a catholic priest, as i have more than once stated; i am without any prejudice whatever. if i know myself, i would do an injustice to no man; but i hesitate not to tell those heads of families, whether they are the parents or guardians of those _converts_ to the romish church, of whom mention is made, that if they have not used all their authority with which the laws of nature and of the land invests them, to prevent these _conversions_, they are highly culpable. if they are parents, they have become the moral assassins of their own children, and perhaps their own wives. do any of those fathers know the _questions_ which a romish priest puts to those children, at confession? do husbands know the _questions_ which priests put to their wives, at confession? though a married man, i would blush to mention the least of them. though not so fastidious as others, i cannot even think of them, much less name them, without a downcast eye and crimsoned cheek, and particularly those which are put to young and unmarried ladies. fathers, mothers, guardians, and husbands of these _converts_, fancy to yourselves the most indelicate, immodest, and libidinous questions which the most immoral and profligate mind can conceive!!!!! fancy those ideas put into plain english, and that by way of question and answer--and you will then have a faint conception of the conversation which takes place between a pampered romish priest and your hitherto pure-minded daughters. if, after two or three of these _examinations_, in that _sacred tribunal_, they still continue virtuous, they are rare exceptions. after an experience of some years in that church, sooner--far sooner--would i see my daughters consigned to the grave, than see them go to confession to a romish priest or bishop. one is not a whit better than the other. they mutually confess to each other. it was not my intention, when i commenced this work, to enter into any thing like a discussion of the doctrines maintained by the romish church. my sole object was to call the attention of _american republicans_ to the dangers which were to be apprehended, and would inevitably follow, from the encouragement which they are giving to popery amongst them. i have, however, deviated a little from my first intention, in more than one instance; but i trust, not without some advantage to many of my readers. i am aware that i have exposed myself to the charge of carelessness and indifference to public opinion, in not paying more attention to the construction and order of my sentences. did i write for fame, or the applause of this world, i would have been more careful; but, as my object is only to state facts, in language so plain that none can misunderstand it, i have no doubt the reader will pardon any defects which he may find in the language, or want of consecutiveness in the statements, which these pages contain. i will now ask the attention of the reader, for a few moments, to the popish doctrine of _indulgences_; and i do so because priests and bishops deny that such things as _indulgences_ are now either taught or granted to catholics. they say from their pulpits and altars that indulgences are neither * bought nor sold by catholics, and never were. it is an axiom in our courts of law--and should be one in every well-regulated court of conscience--that _falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus_. the meaning of this axiom is, that he who tells a falsehood in one case will do so in every other. if this be true--and it is as true as that two and two make four--i pronounce all roman catholic priests, bishops, popes, monks, friars, and nuns, to be the most deliberate and wilful set of liars that ever infested this or any other country, or disgraced the name of religion. i assert, and defy contradiction, that there is not a roman catholic church, chapel, or house of worship in any catholic country, where _indulgences_ are not sold. i will even go further, and say, that there is not a roman catholic priest in the united states, who has denied the fact, that does not sell indulgences himself; and yet these priests, and these bishops--these men of sin, falsehood, impiety, impurity, and immorality--talk of _morals_, and preach _morals_, while in their sleeves, and in their practices, they laugh at such ideas as moral obligations. here i would appeal even to irish catholics who are in this country. i would ask all, or any of them, if ever they have heard mass in any catholic chapel in dublin, or any other city in ireland, without hearing published from the altar, a notice in the following words, or words of similar import. "_take notice, that there will be an indulgence on----day, in--------church. confessions will be heard on------day, to prepare those who wish to partake of the indulgence_." i have published hundreds of such notices myself; and any american, who may visit ireland, or any catholic country, and has the curiosity to enter any of the romish chapels, can hear these notices read; but when he returns to the united states, he will hear the roman priests say that "there are no indulgences sold by the romish church." beware, americans! how long will you be the dupes of popish priests? will the reader permit me to take him back a few years, and show him in what light _indulgences_ were viewed in the 16th century, under the immediate eye of the pope and full sanction of the _infallible church!_ the name tetzel, is familiar to-every reader. he was an authorized agent for the sale of indulgences. i will give you one of his speeches, as recorded on the authority of roman catholic writers, and recently published in this country in d'aubigne's history of the reformation. _indulgences_--says this reverend delegate of the pope--are the most precious and sublime of god's gifts. draw near, and i will give you letters duly sealed, by which even the sins you shall hereafter desire to commit shall be all forgiven you. i would not exchange my privileges for those of st. peter in heaven; for i have saved more souls by my indulgences, than he by his sermons. there is no sin so great, that the indulgence cannot remit it, and even if any one should--which is impossible--ravish the holy mother of god, let him pay, let him only pay largely, and it shall be forgiven him. the very moment the money goes into the pope's box, that moment even the condemned soul of the sinner flies to heaven. examine the history of paganism, and you will not find in its darkest pages any thing more infamously blasphemous than the above extract, taken from a speech delivered by one of the pope's auctioneers for the sale of indulgences. but even this would be almost pardonable, if priests did not try to persuade americans that those sales have long since ceased. it is not more than twelve months since i was in the city of principe cuba; and i beg permission to relate to my readers what i have there personally witnessed; or, as we would express it in our most homely language, seen with my own eyes. at an early hour in the morning, i was aroused from my slumbers by a simultaneous ringing of all the bells in the city. on looking out, i witnessed the marching of troops, firing of cannons, field-officers in their full uniforms, all the city authorities wearing their official robes, with innumerable priests and friars bustling about from one end of the city to the other. my first impression was, that a destructive fire must have broken out somewhere, or that some frightful insurrection had taken place: but, on inquiry, what think you, reader, caused this simultaneous movement of the whole population of principe, amounting in all to about sixty thousand? "tell it not in gath; publish it not in the streets of askelon:" a huge bull of indulgences had arrived from the pope of rome, and they turned out--troops and all--to pay it _due homage_, and hear it read in the cathedral of principe. a day was appointed for the sale of the indulgences contained in the aforesaid bull! accompanied by a scotch gentleman, with whom i had the pleasure of forming an acquaintance, we went, with others, to the house of the _spiritual auctioneer_, and i there purchased of the priest, for two dollars and fifty cents, an _indulgence_ for any sin i might commit, except four, which i will not mention. these, i was told, could only be forgiven by the pope, and would cost me a considerable sum of money. many of our citizens are in the habit of visiting havana, and can purchase those indulgences at any sum from twelve and a half cents to five hundred dollars. will you still listen to popish priests, who tell you that indulgences are neither sold nor bought now in the romish church? from cuba i immediately proceeded in the united states' ship vandalia, to vera cruz, and from thence to the city of mexico. i felt desirous of ascertaining the state of popery in that exclusively popish country, and availed myself of every opportunity to do so. accordingly, soon after my arrival in mexico, i strolled into the _cathedral_, and saw in the centre aisle a large table, about forty feet long and four wide, covered with papers, resembling, at a distance, some of our bank checks. curiosity induced me to examine them, and, instead of bank checks, i found checks on heaven; or, in other words, _indulgences_ for sins of all descriptions. i resolved upon purchasing; but, knowing full well that americans, though _the most intelligent people in the world_, but long the dupes of roman catholics, would scarcely believe me if i told them that i bought an indulgence in mexico. i went back and requested of our consul there, mr. black, to come with me to the cathedral and witness the purchase of, and payment by me for an _indulgence_. will catholic priests tell you there is no truth in this? if they do, be not hasty in making up your minds on the question. there are two or 8* three lines of packets running from new york to vera cruz, and you can easily ascertain, from mr. black, whether i am telling truth, or whether _papists_ are humbugging you, as they have been for the last half century. but why go abroad for evidence to fix upon romish priests the indelible stigma of falsehood on the subject of indulgences? i have sold them myself, in philadelphia and in europe! the first year i officiated in philadelphia as a roman catholic priest, i sold nearly three thousand of these indulgences, as the agent of _holy_ mother, _the infallible church_; and though several years have elapsed since, many of those who bought them are still living in that city. some explanation is necessary here, as i cannot presume that americans are yet acquainted with a doctrine called pious frauds, held and acted upon by the _infallible_ church. the pope of rome and the propaganda, taking into consideration the _savage ignorance_ of americans, deemed it _prudent_ to substitute some other _name_ for the usual name _indulgences_, and something else for the usual document specifying the nature of the indulgence which was given to _pious sinners_ in "the new world:" they thought it _possible_ that yankees might have the curiosity to read the _written_ indulgences. this, said they in their wisdom, must be prevented; and here is a case where our doctrine of _pious frauds_ comes beautifully into play. after singing the "_veni creator spiritus_"--as usual in such cases--they resolved that indulgences should be in future called _scapulas_, and thus _piously_ enable all roman catholic priests and bishops to _swear on the holy evangelists that no indulgences were ever sold in the united states._ this is what _holy mother_ calls _pious fraud_. all the indulgences which i sold in philadelphia were called _scapulas_. they are made of small pieces of cloth, with the letters i. h. s. written on the outside, and are worn on the breast. i will give you an idea of the revenue arising from the sale of those scapulas in the united states, by stating to you the price at which i sold them. the scapula costs the purchaser one dollar. the priest who sells it tells him that to make it thoroughly efficacious, it is necessary that he should cause some _masses_ to be said, and the poor dupe gives one, five, ten, or twenty dollars, according to his or her means, for those masses. i may safely say, that, on an average, every scapula or indulgence sold in the united states costs at least five dollars. what think you now of the word, the honor, or the oath of a popish priest? are you not ashamed to be so long their dupes? do you not blush at the reflection, that you have given so much of your money, your sympathy, and hospitality, to such arrant knaves? sad is the reflection to me, and dark are the thoughts, that i should have ever belonged to a church, which imbodies in its doctrines all that is degrading to humanity, and reduces man, from being "little lower than the angels," to a thing, such as a papist priest, in full communion with the pope, having nothing in common with his fellow-beings but the form of humanity. you, americans, who have thoughtlessly united yourselves with these priests in their church, come out, i beseech you, from among them. entail not upon your children the curse of popery. flee from them as lot did from sodom. to err is the lot of man. to fall and to trip in his passage through life, is the lot of even the best of men. you have erred in joining the romish church, but you will doubly err by continuing in membership with her. the country which gave you birth is a glorious one; it has all the advantages of nature; it is fertilized by salubrious seas, and its own beautiful lakes. there is nothing you want which the god of nature has not given, and blessed for your use. there is but one dark speck upon the horizon of your national prosperity and greatness, but that is a deep one. it is a sad one, and may be a bloody one. popery hovers over it, like some ill-omened bird, waiting only a favorable opportunity to pounce upon its prey; or some foul exhalation, which, being checked in its soaring, turns to a fog, causing darkness and scattering disease, wherever it falls. alas, fellow-citizens, it has already fallen amongst us, and is growing with fearful rapidity; like the more noxious weed, it loves a rich soil; it cannot fail to flourish in ours. take heed, americans, lest you allow this weed to come to maturity. eradicate it in time; let it not ripen amongst you; allow not its capsule to fill, blossom, and ripen; if you do, mark what i tell you: it will burst, scattering its noxious, sickening, and poisonous odors amid the pure breezes of that religious and political freedom, which have so long, so gracefully and sweetly played over this beloved "land of the free and home of the brave." if you will look around you, and visit our courts of law; if you extend your visits to your prisons, your houses of industry and reformation; if you go farther, and examine your penitentiaries, what will you find? permit me to show you what you will behold in one single city, the city of new york. this, of itself, were there no other cause of alarm, should be sufficient to arouse your patriotism, for you must not forget that nearly all the foreigners, enumerated in the document which i here subjoin, are roman catholics, or reduced to their present condition while living in catholic countries. but let the document speak for itself. it is official, and may be relied on.. it came from a committee of the board of aldermen of the city of new york upon the subject of alien passengers. taking this as your data, you may be able to form some idea of what you suffer in money, in virtue, and in your morals, from the introduction of foreign papists among you. "the foreign poor in our alms-houses, and the foreign criminals in our penitentiaries.--we hasten to lay before our readers a highly interesting document, from a committee in the board of aldermen, upon the subject of bonding alien passengers in new york. from the document, it appears that the bonds of nine firms in this city exhibit the enormous liabilities of $16,000,000: that of the 602 children supported by the city, at the farm schools, 457 are the children, (many, if not the most of them, illegitimate) of foreign parents; that of the latest-born infants at nurse, at the city's expense, 32 are foreign, and only two american, and that of the whole number of children, 626 have foreign parentage, and 195 amer-can; exhibiting the average of more than three foreigners to one native, and an alarming increase of the ratio of foreigners in the more recent births.' "the whole number of inmates in our penitentiary is 1419, showing an increase of 400 since july last; of these 333 are americans, and 1198 foreigners. the number of prisoners and paupers, to support whom we all pay taxes, is 4344, showing an increase, since july last, of nearly 1000. "in view of these alarming facts, and remember* ing that over 60,000 immigrants were commuted and bonded here the last year, the committee make some forcible appeals to the country, which cannot be without their effect. the enormous taxation to which we are subject, in order to support foreign paupers and criminals, is a great and growing evil, which presses heavily upon industry, as well as upon the character, morals, and politics of the country." this is a frightful picture of things, especially in a country abounding and almost overflowing with the means of sustaining and abundantly supplying fifty times the population it contains. examine well the results of popery, in a religious, moral, and political point of view, especially during the last thirty years, and you will find that there is no vice, no crime, no folly or absurdity, which time has brought into the old world, as milton expresses it, "in its huge drag-net," that papists are not introducing among you; and there is no consequence which followed it there which we shall not see here, unless you are to a man "up and doing," until this noxious weed is rooted from amongst you. i wish these unfortunate papists no evil; far be such a sentiment from my mind. i would be their best friend; but who can befriend them, while they permit themselves to be controlled and deluded by their priests. a roman catholic priest is, _pro tanto_, the worst enemy of man. he degrades his mind by rendering him the slave of his church. he debauches his morals, and those of his wife and children, by withholding from them the word of god. he weakens his understanding, by filling his mind with absurd traditions. he evokes, and indirectly invites, the indulgence of his worst passions, by promising him the pardon of his sins. he checks the noblest aspirations and finest charities of his soul, by instilling into it the rankest hatred and animosity towards his fellow-being, whom god has commanded him to love as he loves himself, but whom the priest tells him to curse, hate, and exterminate. in a word, he almost degrades him to a level with the beast, by teaching him to lower that holy flag, on which should be written, _glory be to god on high_,--and raising above it the bloodstained flag of popery. this american protestants know full well. they feel it. it is known and felt in every protestant land; but it seems as "if some strange spirit was passing over people's dreams." though found to be unsound, and even bad policy; though destructive to agricultural, commercial, and every other interest, yet we see no efforts made to arrest its advance amongst us. neither are there any means taken, as far as the writer knows, in other protestant countries, to suppress this religious, political, and commercial nuisance; on the contrary, we find that even in great britain further stimulants are being applied to popish insolence. sir robert peel, the premier of england, has, or is about introducing a bill into parliament, with a view of making further appropriations for the romish college of maynooth, in ireland; and, much to my surprise, as well i believe as to that of every man who correctly understands the spirit of popery, he has some supporters. even some of the british reviewers give him high praise. "the credit to which sir robert peel is entitled," says one of the british quarterlies, "is greatly increased by reason of the prejudices of some of his supporters; but (continues the same quarterly) his resolution is taken and his declaration made. this should read, in my humble apprehension his resolution is taken, and his infatuation complete." i have been a student in that college; i know what is taught and done in that institution. i am well acquainted with all the minutiae of its business and theological transactions; and i could tell sir robert peel that he either knows not what he is doing, or is a traitor to his government! does sir robert know that in that college are concocted all the plans and all the measures which o'connell is proposing, and has been pursuing during the last thirty years, for emancipation, and now for the repeal of the union? does he know that maynooth is the focus from which radiate all the treasons, assassinations, and murders of protestants, in ireland? is he aware that this very maynooth is the great popish eccaleobion, in which most of those priests who infest ireland, and are now infesting the united states, are hatched? does he know that daniel o'connell and that college are the mutual tools of each other? o'connell, riding on the backs of the priests into power and into wealth, and they alternately mounted upon dan, advancing the _glory_ of the _infallible church!_ it is not probably known to mr. peel that thirty years or more have elapsed since it was _secretly_ resolved in maynooth that _none but a catholic should wear the british crown, and that he should receive it as a fief from the pope_ of rome. every move and advance which o'connell makes in remans a step gained towards this object, and upon this his ambitious eye rests with intense avarice. for this, maynooth and its priests thirst with insatiable desire. it is not many years since o'connell and maynooth asked for _emancipation_, and they obtained it. protestants of england were duped into the belief that papists would now be satisfied, and unite in supporting the government; but, scarcely was this granted, when the great agitator, _with the advice and consent of maynooth_, asked for--what, think you, reader? nothing less than a dismemberment of the british government--nothing less than a repeal of the union; or, in other words, to permit one of the most turbulent demagogues that ever lived, daniel o'connell, to become king of ireland, and to receive his crown from the pope of rome. this is now the _avowed object of repeal_; but there is another object, not yet seen nor dreamed of by those who are not roman catholics; and i beg the reader to keep it in his recollection. it is this. o'connell, by agitating ireland, and scattering firebrands throughout england, believes that he and the catholics will ultimately succeed in dethroning the sovereign of england, and placing the crown on some popish head. were the college of maynooth further endowed through the efforts or folly of sir robert peel, does he believe, or can any man, acquainted with the genius of popery believe, that this would satisfy o'connell or the pope's agents in ireland? the very reverse would be the case. it would only imbolden them still further. it would only increase their insolence; it would only add a new impetus to their treasonable demands, and give an increased momentum to their disorganizing meetings. should the british government grant all o'con-nell asks, or should parliament pass a bill for the repeal of the union, is it to be supposed that o'connell and the irish bishops--the sworn allies of the king of rome--would be satisfied? not they. the truth is--and i wish i could impress it upon the minds of every protestant in england as well as in this country--nothing short of the _total overthrow of the government of great britain and the protestant religion_ will content the popish church, whose cats-paw daniel o'connell is. should providence, in his inscrutable designs, grant them this, our experiment in the science of self-government is at an end. we shall become an easy prey to any _alliance_ which should be formed against our republican institutions. the jackals of popery are amongst us: they have discovered us; and popish priests, the natural enemies of free institutions and of the protestant religion, will soon destroy our republic and our religion. it is useless to deny the fact. it cannot be denied. it were folly to conceal it. the _extirpation of heresy_, or, in other words, of the protestant religion, is the grand object which o'connell and the pope have now in view; and, to effect this, they have judiciously divided and advantageously posted all their forces. these forces are well officered by jesuits and priests, men without honor, principle, or religion; whose time is spent in advancing. popery and the grossest indulgence of their own passions. the pope and o'connell have, in this country, an army of nearly two millions of reckless desperadoes, who have given already strong evidences of their thirst for american protestant blood. it is necessary to watch them well. americans must recollect that these men receive their orders from rome, through o'connell, who, i sincerely believe, is this moment the worst man living, though the pope calls him _the greatest layman living_. he is upon earth what the pirate is upon the seas, _inimicus humani generis_--the enemy of mankind. during the last thirty years he has kept the poor of ireland in a state of poverty and excitement bordering upon madness. he has filched from them the last farthing they possessed. he has withdrawn them by thousands from their ordinary pursuits of industry: he has sown amongst them mutual hatred and a general discontent with their situations in life. but that is not all. he has pursued the poor people even to this country. he robs them here of their little earnings. they make remittances to him of hundreds and thousands of dollars; and this, while many of them, to my own knowledge, and not a hundred yards from where i write, are shivering in the cold blasts of winter,--all _for their good_, while o'connell himself is feasting in ireland, and enjoying the sports of the chase, on about three hundred thousand dollars a year. this is not all. the great agitator, this national beggar, daniel o'connell, has recently discovered that there were some little glimmerings of protestantism in france; that louis phillippe was neither a don miguel, a ferdinand, nor a very strong advocate of popery, opens upon him a battery of abuse. this foul-mouthed brawler was not content with sowing discord among the poor irish, and scattering treason among the people of great britain, he tries what he can do with the inflammable people of france, who are now in the enjoyment of more domestic happiness and national glory than they have had for the last century. but even this is not enough; the genius of the great national beggar, fertile in schemes, treasons, rebellions, scurrility, and popery, must cross the atlantic and denounce americans, who, since the declaration of their independence, have been the best and warmest friends of his poor countrymen; they have received them, employed them, giving them bread and clothing in abundance. they permitted them to bring with them their priests and their religion; they shielded and protected them in their lives and liberties. this country was to the irish, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they might have enjoyed it, and been happy, had it not been for their accursed religion and its priests. the great dan saw and felt this. a stop must be put to it. the _holy church_ saw that this state of things, would not answer her purposes. the harmony, which existed for so long a time between the hospitable and generous americans and the forlorn irish, must be broken, lest papists should become protestants and forget their allegiance to the pope; and accordingly, the great agitator, this enemy to order, to god, and to peace, commenced denouncing americans, as _usurers and infidels,_ who had not even a national law of their own. he calls upon the irish to come out from among them, and have nothing to do with them. soon after this, the pope sends over some bulls making similar demands upon the irish and all other catholics, under pain of excommunication; and what is the result? the name of an irishman is now a by-word, in the united states, especially if he is a roman catholic. it is associated with every thing that is low, vulgar, and bigoted. no longer do the americans receive the irish with open arms: no longer do they welcome them to their shores; nor in fact is it safe for them longer to do so. and what occasioned this? that demagogue, o'connell, and the pope of rome. does mr. peel reflect, when he is moving in parliament for an additional appropriation for the college of maynooth, in ireland, that he is only adding fuel to the political fire, which these men are trying to enkindle, and have actually enkindled in a great part of europe, and in the united states? has the fact escaped his notice, that the pope and the greatest layman living, as his royal holiness calls o'connell, have no misunderstanding with spain, portugal, or any other government, strictly popish? they have no feeling of compassion for the degraded italian, the ignorant and half-starved spaniard or portuguese, or the wretched mexican slave. o, no! it is only for a papist under a protestant government, that their compassion is moved. their condition must be _ameliorated_, or in plain english, these governments must be overthrown and popery must reign supreme. let mr. peel reflect upon this single fact, and he and his supporters cannot fail to see, that, in giving further aid to the popish college of maynooth, he is but "sowing dragons' teeth, from which armed men will spring up." he is only throwing an additional force into that trojan horse, which his predecessors had introduced into unfortunate ireland, and which popes and priests have secretly stolen into these united states. i know o'connell well. i have had, in my younger days, some personal acquaintance with him; and i can tell mr. peel, that with the college of maynooth to back him, he,--mr. peel and his party--are no match for him in craft and intrigue. all o'connell's plans for the extirpation of protestanism are devised in rome. they are submitted to the _propaganda_, and from thence sent to maynooth to be there revised and corrected. as soon as this is done, a copy is forwarded to each of the metropolitan bishops of ireland, who return it with such observations as they deem necessary, and all things being prepared, _secundum ordinem,_ the usual _veni, creator_ is sung; the project, whatever it may be, is sanctioned; every priest in ireland is prepared to carry it into effect; and all that now remains to be done is, to give the _great beggar_ his secret orders. what can peel, or his few supporters, do against such a party as this? nothing, unless the government changes its mode of proceeding against o'connell, maynooth, and the irish bishops. but it is to be feared, that this will not be done while peel is at the head of affairs. england, once indomitable, and always brave; england, proud of her religion and of her laws, seems recently to forget her ancient glories. she is showing the white feather; she is dallying with popery, and singing lullabies to quiet and put asleep daniel o'connell and his irish bishops, whose treason and political treachery can only be stopped, and should have been stopped long since, by consigning the _greatest layman that ever lived_, and a few of his right reverend advisers, to transportation for life. americans may think this wrong, but though i have not the least pretension to the faculty of prophesying, i think i can safely tell them, that, in less than twenty years, they will have to enact much severer laws against roman catholics than any which are now recorded against them on the statute book of great britain. it must be borne in mind, that popery never bends, and therefore it should and must be broken. it was in this college of maynooth, and from those bishops and priests, with whom sir robert peel is dallying, i first learned that the king of england was an _usurper_. it was they, who first taught me that the pope of rome--_virtute clavorum, by virtue of the keys_--was the rightful sovereign of england, as well as of all the kingdoms of the earth. it was in the college of maynooth, i was taught to keep no faith _with heretics_, and that it was my solemn duty to exterminate them; it was there i first learned, that any oath of allegiance, which i may take to a _protestant_ government, was null and void, and need not be kept. it was at this same college of maynooth, that nine tenths of the priests in this country received their education; and is it not deplorable to reflect, that such men as sir robert peel, in england, and several equally distinguished in this country, should be so entirely blindfolded and unmindful of the interest of their respective countries, as to give any countenance, aid, or support to popery, or popish institutions among them? i trust, however, and fondly hope, that this imprudent, impolitic, and ill-advised scheme of sir robert peel's, will be resisted and thrown out of parliament, with such marks of disapprobation as becomes every honest protestant and true briton. will those who sympathize with popery in the united states, look back to the page of history? and if they will not take instruction from me, let them take it from the past. let them listen to the voice of the dead, and learn a lesson from them. let them read the history of france. who urged on all the oppositions that have been made, from time to time, to the government and constituted authorities of that country? what were the causes, remote or immediate, of all the blood that has been shed in france for centuries back? the pope of rome and his agents. it is truly to be lamented, that napoleon had not lived longer; he might, it is true, have caused some disturbance, and hastened the fall of some of the tottering thrones of europe. spain, italy, portugal, and even austria and prussia, might have ceased to have kings, by _divine right;_ but a far better order of things could not fail soon to have arisen. the pope would have been hurled from his throne; napoleon would have stripped from him the trappings of royalty; he would have taught him to feel, and reduce to practice the heavenly declaration of his divine master, which his holiness now repeats in solemn mockery, _regnum meum nan est de hoc mundo_. he would have confined him to his legitimate duty, in place of spending his time in dictating political despatches to foreign powers, and sending bulls of excommunication which are now become laughing-stocks to all intelligent men; he might be devoted to the advancement of true christianity, and the world saved from those contentions and disturbances, occasioned by this man of sin and his agents. why will not our statesmen reflect upon these things, lest in some future contest with the powers of europe the scales of victory may be turned against them by this man of sin, whose agents in this country, as 1 have heretofore remarked, amount to nearly two millions. the defeat or subversion of the government of great britain, by popish power, is equivalent to a victory gained by it over the united states. i tell the protestants of england and of the united states, that their respective governments are doomed to fall, if popery gains the ascendency over either; and all those who try to foment or urge any difficulties between them, are not the friends of either, but the enemies of both. it is only by the combined efforts of protestants, all over the world, that popery can be crushed, and peace, and religion, and fraternal love, restored to mankind. i have produced some facts that admit of no _denial_, and i put the question, confidently, to every honest and sensible protestant in england or america, who is unwarped by prejudice or interest, whether the cause of liberty is not in danger, and likely to decline, if we any longer submit to or acquiesce in the doctrines of popery! and i ask every reflecting american in particular, whether the influence which popery has now in this country, is not likely to create anarchy, or even despotism amongst us, though we may preserve the forms of a free constitution! i have alluded to the struggles in england with popery; i have mentioned the name of that demagogue, o'connell, because he is the agent of the pope for both countries, and because i believe it is the mutual interest of the two to unite, and stand shoulder to shoulder in opposition to popish intrigues, evolved in the proceedings of this selfish and dangerous man, o'connell. the designs of o'connell and the irish bishops, and those of the pope and his jesuit agents in the united states, are proved upon testimony which admits of no denial, viz: their own admissions. o'connell, the mouthpiece of popery in ireland, avows publicly that protestant england shall not govern irish papists, and the pope's agents in the united states declare and swear, that _americans shall not rule them_. how are the english and americans to treat this common enemy? let them go into the enemy's armory, divest themselves of their mawkish sympathy, buckle on the very armor which their enemy wears, and adopt the mode of warfare used by them. give the common enemy no quarters, assail them from every point, and the _subjects_ of his holiness the pope, either in great britain or the united states, will not long remain insensible to the miseries, into which the great _national rent beggar_ has plunged them. this, however, i find cannot be easily done in the united states. the difficulty with our people is this, they would find it much easier to assume the armor used by the common enemy, than to lay down that of sympathy and hospitality, which they have heretofore worn, and thus, although a moral and religious people, their zeal is but dim and sluggish, while that of their adversaries, the pope and his agents, burns higher and clearer every day. this must not be. god and freedom forbid it. the political contest, which has just ended, has tended greatly, at least for the moment, to im-bolden and encourage popery. each party courted the papists, and they supported him from whom they expected most favors. they laid their meshes, nets, and traps for president polk; but i believe they have been "_caught in their own traps_." that gentleman is said to be a moral and religious man, and one of the last in the world to countenance idolatry, blasphemy, or treason amongst us. but now that the contest is over, and no further avowal of distinct party principles is necessary or profitable, it is to be hoped that the good and virtuous of both parties will unite in passing such laws, as will shield our country and our people from any further popish interference with our government or our institutions. he, who shall bring about this desirable result, and those who aid him, will merit the gratitude of their country. in the present position of parties, much is expected from the great "american republican" association, which has recently been formed throughout the united states. every eye is fixed upon its movements, and the hopes of all protestants hang upon its success. do not disappoint us, american republicans. you alone can save the protestant foreigner from the persecutions of popery, and we call upon you, by the memory of your sires, to shield us from it. you have a great part to act; you are young; but the purity of your principles, and the justice of your cause, abundantly supply what is wanting in age. you are the mediators between two great political parties, whose extremes cannot meet, of if they did, would only tend to render their respective centres still more corrupt, by their internal powers of contamination. neither of those parties will ever consent to be governed by the other; nor has either of them the moral courage to come forth boldly and say to popery, stand off, thou unclean thing. thou hast polluted all europe for ages past; stand aloof from us; wash thy polluted hands and bloodstained garments; until then, thou art unfit to enter the temple of our liberties. thou art, in thy very nature, impure, and hast already diffused amongst us too much of thy deadly poison before we took the alarm. like an infected atmosphere, thou hast silently entered the abodes of moral health; thou hast penetrated the strong holds of our freedom, without giving us any warning! avaunt, thou scarlet lady of babylon! recede to the pontine marshes, whence thou earnest, and no longer infect the pure air of freedom! the foul stains of thy corruption shall no longer be permitted to spot the pure and unsullied insignia of _independence!_ i am aware that the sympathizers with popery will say that such language as the above is rather harsh. they will tell us it is cruel. they will assert, in their usual mawkish style, that it was never the intention of the framers of our constitution to treat those who come amongst us with unkindness. they themselves invited the oppressed of every land, creed, and people, to our shores. they extended the hand of friendship to all, without distinction of party, sect, or religion. so they did, and so do their descendants. any and every man is welcome to this country. whether he comes from the banks of the euphrates, shores of the ganges, or bogs of ireland, he is sure to receive from americans a warm and hospitable reception. his person, his liberty, and his property, are protected; but there is a condition under which this reception is given, and without which it never should be granted. the recipient of all these favors is required to yield obedience to the mild and equitable laws of the united states; forswearing at the same time, all allegiance to any other king, potentate, or power whatever. this condition, so just, so reasonable, and so politic, is generally complied with by all foreigners, who land in these united states, with the exception of roman catholics. all others come amongst us, and either refuse at once to become citizens, or honestly incorporate themselves with us. the papist alone refuses incorporation with americans. he alone comes amongst us the avowed enemy of our institutions, and the sworn subject of a foreign king, the pope of rome. among all the foreigners who land upon the shores of this country, none but papists avow any hostility to its institutions. they alone would dare say, "_americans sha'n't rule us_." on them alone have americans just cause to look as traitors to their government, and foes to their religion; and they alone should be singled out as just objects of fear and jealousy. i have, in the preceding pages, traced the origin of the papal temporal power to its proper source; and endeavored to follow the course of its turbid and muddy stream, through many of its sinuosities and canonical--if i may use such a term--gyrations, down to the middle of the 16th century. i freely admit that i have made many "short cuts" and have been obliged to pass unnoticed several of its acute angles. were i to proceed "_pari passu_" with its course, taking all its bearings and accompanying them with the necessary observations, it would require a volume at least ten times as large as that which i now respectfully present to the public. i shall, however, if providence leaves me health, continue the subject of popery as it was and as it is. i will dissect the body papal, so that every american, who honors me with the perusal of my observations, will see its inmost structure. i have studied its anatomy; i understand all its minutiæ; and if any can view the skeleton without horror and shame for having so long contributed to feast and fatten the monster, it shall not be my fault. the performance of this operation will be, in every point of view, extremely unpleasant. whichever way i look, the prospect must be disagreeable. behind, i can only see an object in which i once felt an interest, and with which i was unfortunately connected: and before, nothing is to be seen but further persecutions and calumnies. but, most what it may, it shall not be said of me by friend or foe, that i have shrunk from the performance of a duty which i owe to the cause of morality, and to my adopted country. i have merely touched upon the persecuting and treacherous spirit of the popish church. the profligacy of its priests are scarcely noticed by me as yet. its idolatries and blasphemies are barely alluded to. indulgences, miracles, and the iniquities committed in nunneries, are scarcely glanced at. the twilight view, which i have given of these subjects, is only intended for a better observation of them, under the full light of some mid-day sun. before i conclude this volume, permit me to give you a brief view of popery as it is at this very day on which i write. i have a double object in doing this. first, what i am about stating has perhaps escaped the notice of many of my fellow-citizens; and secondly, it will confirm one of the most serious charges which i have made against papists; and thirdly it will prove to a demonstration, that roman catholic priests and bishops, who surround us and live amongst us, are a set of barefaced liars, whose entire disregard for truth fits them for no other society than that of brigands and felons. the reader will bear in mind that roman catholics are the loudest advocates of _religious freedom_. he will also not forget that i have charged them with being its most inveterate enemies. the papists and myself are now fairly at issue. either they are right and i am wrong, or _vice versa_. i have sustained my accusation against them by proofs derived from their own general councils, and from their uniform practice for centuries back. still, these catholics will say and assert publicly, in their pulpits, and at their meetings religious and political, that they were always and are now the advocates of religious toleration. let the past for a moment be forgotten. i presume no one will question what the practices of the romish church have been in relation to religious toleration in former times. let us rather see what it is now among our neighbors in madeira; and as all roman catholics are a unit in faith and practice, we may judge from what we see in madeira, of what may be seen, and if not seen, is felt, in the united states. i submit the following letter to my readers. it is from one of the most respectable men in madeira. "religious persecution in madeira. we have just had a sort of miniature civil war. dr. rally, who has been converting the natives, is the original cause of it. he converted the woman they sentenced to death here not long since. having been imprisoned for some time, the doctor was at last liberated, and resumed his habit of preaching to the people in his house; and it was not generally known, until within a short time, that he had made several hundred converts. on ascertaining this fact, the governor, don oliva de correa, at the request of the priests of the established church, who feared that the people might throw off their allegiance to the roman catholic church, appointed a country police to prevent the protestants from assembling together. on sunday week, the converts of st. antonia de sierra, while engaged in prayer, were assailed by the police, who broke in the door, knocked down the person who was officiating in the service, broke the benches, and dispersed the people, except four or five whom they took prisoners, and then proceeded to town. after going two miles, the police were overtaken by the populace, armed with pitchforks, rusty muskets, hoes, &c. "the police were overpowered, and after being ducked in the river by the mob, they were tied together by the hands and feet and left on the road; the protestants returning to the mountains with their rescued comrades. one of the police officers, who escaped from the mob, made his way to town and alarmed the government. three hundred and fifty soldiers were immediately ordered out; the police were released from their confinement on the road-side, and the army marched to the villages of the 'rallyites.' the dwellings were fired indiscriminately; several aged women, who could not fly to the mountains, were put to the torture, to make them reveal the places of concealment of the 'heretics.' the catholic army then proceeded up the mountain to massacre the protestants; but in passing the foot of the hill they were assailed by the protestants above, who threw down stones and rocks upon them, killing eight soldiers and wounded forty others severely. as soon as the troops could be gathered after their fright and alarm, they opened a deadly fire upon the protestants, chasing them five miles over the country, taking eighty or ninety prisoners, and killing and wounding several of the unfortunate wretches. "the army marched their prisoners down to the sea-coast, to machico, where they were put on board the diana fifty gun frigate, and taken thence to punchal. the vessel of war, don pedro, was left at anchor on machico to awe the country, but another, the vouga, which had been despatched to lisbon with official accounts of the battle, ran aground and had to return for repairs. the don pedro will therefore go to lisbon. the captives will be sent to lisbon, i suppose for trial, some time next week. dr. rally, the cause of the disturbance, remains at his house unmolested, which is singular. i don't think they will let him be quiet long. the yorktown, american sloop-of-war, was here the other day. we have had a beautiful winter so far. about four hundred people have come here this year for the benefit of their health." the above letter was received in new york a few weeks ago, and needs no comment. if any papist doubts it, he can easily write to madeira and ascertain its truth or falsehood. until then he has no reason to be surprised if american protestants shall refuse to hold any connection or communion with them. there is one feature in the letter to which i would call the attention of the reader. it shows not only the persecuting spirit of popery, but the uniformity and consistency of their mode of operation. go back to the former persecutions of the popish church against the followers of wickliffe and the huguenots. the wickliffites had to fly to the mountains for shelter; but they were hotly pursued and cut down by the swords of their fiendish persecutors. they were massacred and butchered, even in the fissures and caves of their native rocks and mountains. the protestants in madeira, only a few weeks ago, had to fly to the mountains from a bloodthirsty, popish soldiery, headed by their priests and monks. there, at our very doors, and in a country with which we have _treaties of friendship and alliance,_ american protestants are butchered and slaughtered by popish savages, under the mask of religion; and when the news of this transaction reached our own shores, what action has been taken upon the subject? was there any indignation meeting called? were there any resolutions passed? were there any ambassadors appointed in new england or elsewhere to ascertain the cause of this bloody tragedy? did our government demand any explanation from the authorities at madeira? the writer is not aware of any. our government is too much occupied with affairs of more importance, viz., _who shall be secretary of state, who shall be secretary of war, &c_. the interest of morality seems a matter of minor importance with the "powers that be." the blood of our protestant fellow-citizens, the cries of their widows and orphans cannot reach the eye or ear of our grave law-makers. the question with them seems, not what our country may become, by the treachery and persecutions of popery, which are witnessed along the whole line and circumference of our own coast--a question of far more importance to them seems to be, who shall hold the fattest office, or whether massachusetts or south carolina is in the right on the subject of the imprisonment of a few citizens, belonging to the former, by the latter: while they witness all around, and in the very midst of them, popish priests and bishops persecuting their fellow-citizens abroad, and gnawing at their very vitals at home. fatal delusion this on the part of our government and people! i have accused the romish church and her priests of treachery, prevarication, and fraud, in all their dealings with protestants. their guilt has been established by proofs and evidences such as they cannot deny, viz., the canons of their church and their own admission. there is not a people in the world more anxious for correct information on all subjects than americans; and it is, therefore, the more singular that they should be so indifferent to the all-important subject of popery. this, however, may be accounted for, in some measure. the moral monstrosities--if i may use such language--of popery, are such, that it requires something more than ordinary faith to believe them, and a greater power of vision than generally falls to the lot of man, even to look at them. there are objects on which the human eye cannot rest without blinking, and upon which nothing but force or fear can induce it to fix its gaze for any length of time. it will always gladly turn from them, and rest upon something else. this may account for the fact that my adopted countrymen and fellow protestants pay so little attention to the subject of popery, or the hideous crimes and revolting deeds which it has ever taught, and its priests have ever practised. i cannot otherwise account for the apparent indifference and unconcern of our government and people on the subject of our relations with catholic countries, and the encouragement given to popish emissaries in the united states. i have myself seen so much of popery, that my mind shrinks from the further contemplation of its iniquities. i can assure my protestant friends, that nothing but an inherent love of liberty, and a desire, as far as in my power, to ward off that blow which i see popery treacherously aiming at protestants and the protestant religion in the united states, could ever have induced me to publish these pages; and, although i feel that i have already drawn too heavily on the indulgence of my readers, i cannot dismiss the subject without laying before them another evidence of popish treachery, which occurred only a few weeks ago, on the island of tahiti. it seems that in 1822, or thereabouts, an individual, named m. moerenhout, representing himself a native of belgium, arrived in valparaiso, and obtained a situation as clerk from mr. duester, the dutch consul in that city. after some time, he gains the confidence of his employer, on whom, together with two more merchants, he prevailed to charter a vessel and send a cargo by her to the society islands, with himself as supercargo. they did so accordingly in 1829, and the worthy supercargo appropriated to his own use the whole profits of the voyage, and continued for some time longer upon the island, selling whisky, brandy, and other liquors. in 1834, (says the quarterly review, from which, together with other sources, i derived my information,) this gentleman departed for europe, with a view of communicating with the french government; or rather, as i am informed upon good authority, to confer with the order of jesuits in that country. on his way to europe, this moerenhout came to the united states, obtained some letters of introduction in new york and boston, with which he proceeded to washington; and on the strength of them, was appointed united states' consul for tahiti. with the title of consul-general of the united states, this diplomatist proceeds to france, and immediately--no doubt according to previous arrangement--entered into all the plans of the jesuits for the extirpation of protestantism in the society islands. he became the agent of the _propaganda_ in france, an institution placed under the patronage of st. xavier. the duty of converting all the islands of the pacific, from the south to the north pole, is committed to this propaganda, and a decretal to that effect was confirmed by the pope on the 22d june, 1823. a bishop was appointed for eastern oceania, and several priests preceded him to the islands. among these priests was an _irish catechist_, by the name of murphy. the bishop, it seems, established himself at valparaiso, while the priests proceeded to tahiti. i here give an instance of the manner in which those popish missionaries discharge their duties. you will find it the october number of the foreign quarterly review. you may rely upon the statement. the popish missionaries have acted in the case just as i should have done myself when a romish priest, in obedience to the instructions given by the _infallible church_. "i always bear about me," says the _reverend_ jesuit, patailon, "a flask of holy water and another of perfume. i pour a little of the latter upon the child, and then, whilst its mother holds it out without suspicion, i change the flasks and sprinkle the water that regenerates, unknown to any one but myself." this is what the holy church calls a pious fraud; and this is what the priests of boston are doing, in a little different manner, to the children of protestant mothers. in tahiti, popish priests make christians by jugglery, under the very eye of the mother. in the united states they make christians of protestant children by ordering their catholic nurses to bring them secretly to the priest's house to be baptized. but let us resume the subject of the jesuit missionaries from the propaganda in france to tahiti. the jesuits, always wary and cautious, deemed it necessary, before they landed upon the island in a body, to send one of their number in advance, in order to ascertain "how the land lay," and what their prospects of success were; and accordingly, in 1836, the _irish jesuit, murphy_, proceeded alone disguised as a carpenter, and landed safely at a place called papeete. the unsuspecting inhabitants received the scoundrel among them just as americans receive jesuits in this country; and while he was acting the traitor, and clandestinely writing to jesuits, they shared with him the hospitality of their tables--precisely as americans have done, for the last fifty years, to other murphies, in this country. during this whole time that murphy was on the island, working as a carpenter, he had secret interviews with the american consul, moerenhout, until he succeeded in bringing into the island his brother missionaries. they could not, however, remain on the island without permission from the queen, and the payment of a certain sum of money. the queen refused them permission to remain, under any circumstances, fearing, as she well might, that some treason was contemplated against her government. the jesuits called a meeting, and, under the patronage of the american consul, they urged their demand to remain, comparing themselves to st. peter, and the protestants to st. simon, the magician. i use the language of the quarterly. i must here observe, in justice to our government, that the conduct of moerenhout, united states' consul at tahiti, was promptly disavowed, and he was immediately removed from office. but, notwithstanding the improper interference of the american consul, they were ordered to leave the island. it is due to the protestant missionaries to state, that they took no part whatever in the expulsion of these jesuits; nor could they, in justice to themselves or to the cause of morality, interfere in preventing it. a french writer, speaking of the occupation of tahiti, says: "the catholic priests, instead of going to civilize barbarous nations and checking debauchery, seem, on the contrary, only desirous of becoming rivals to the protestant ministers, and decoying away their proselytes." as soon as the expelled jesuits arrived in france, one of them proceeded to rome, to consult with his holiness the pope; the result of which was, an immediate order to a french captain, named dupetit thouars, who was then stationed at valparaiso, to proceed to tahiti, and demand reparation for a supposed indignity to france. here we see the influence of the pope, and an evidence of jesuit intrigue. in what consisted the alleged indignity to france? had not the queen of tahiti the right to receive or refuse those jesuit missionaries, if she had evidence that they were spies among her people? if it appeared clear to her that the object of those reverend intriguers' visit was only to overthrow her government, and to decoy away from the path of virtue and religion both herself and her subjects, what right had louis phillippe or the french government to look upon this as an indignity to the french nation? the fact is, if the whole truth were known, louis phillippe knew but little of this affair, and his minister for foreign affairs, or some other member of his cabinet, was either imposed upon or bribed by jesuits. a statement of the difficulties, into which the hitherto peaceful island of tahiti has been thrown by jesuits, could not fail to be interesting to my readers; but, as the whole affair is to be found in the foreign quarterly, i refer the public to that work. i cannot, however, dismiss the subject, without asking the reader's particular attention to the _irish jesuit, murphy_, who figures so conspicuously in the transaction. a brief view of the conduct of this reverend spy cannot fail to have a good effect, and must tend greatly to remove that delusion under which the protestants of the united states have so long labored. i have been recently conversing with a very intelligent member of the massachusetts legislature, on the subject of jesuitical intrigue. i stated to him that it was a common practice among them, ever since the formation of that society, to keep spies in all protestant countries, under various disguises and in different occupations. but though i had given him such proofs as could scarcely fail to satisfy any man, yet he replied, as american protestants generally do, on all such occasions, "_those times are gone by. the romish church is not at all now, what it was in the days you speak of_." but, when the fact was made plain to him--when he learned from authority, admitting of no doubt, that only a few weeks ago, a jesuit, and _an irishman_ too, crept into tahiti in the disguise of a carpenter, and continued to work there, in that character, until he laid a proper foundation for the overthrow of the protestant religion on that island, his incredulity seemed to vanish; the cloud, which so long darkened his vision, evaporated into thin air; and my impression is, that he no longer thinks our country safe, unless something is done to exclude forever all papists, without distinction, from any participation in the making and administration of our laws. this murphy, to whom allusion is made, appeared in great distress when he arrived among the natives of tahiti. he seemed entirely indifferent upon the subject of religion; all he wanted, apparently, was employment. this was procured for him among the simple natives by the american consul, both of whom soon united themselves together, according to some previous arrangement; and, while they were "breaking bread" with the natives, they were laying plans for their destruction. a blow was aimed at their national and moral existence, and the death of both has nearly been the result. thus we see a harmless and inoffensive people, only just rescued from a savage state by the laudable efforts of protestant missionaries, partly thrown back again into their original condition by infidel popish priests, whose "god is their belly," whose religion is allegiance to their king, the pope, and whose sports and pastimes consist in debauching the good and virtuous of every country. the flourishing condition of tahiti, before the jesuits found access to it, is well known in this country. peace, plenty, and religion flourished among its people--all produced by the efforts of our protestant missionaries. but what sad changes have jesuits effected among them! by their intrigues they have caused a difficulty between tahiti and france. the french government fancied itself insulted; false representations were made by the jesuits; and, with the aid of their brethren in france, the government was deceived and the island blockaded, until reparation was made by the inoffensive queen, pomare. i will quote an instance of the conduct of the french--all roman catholics, and under the advice of jesuits--after they entered tahiti. it is taken from the foreign quarterly review of october, and not denied by the french themselves. "after persuading four chiefs, who were authorized to act in the absence of the queen, to affix their names to a document, asking 'french protection,' a boat was sent by the french captain, dupetit thouars, to a place called eimeo, with a _peremptory_ order for queen pomare to sign it within twenty-four hours. "it was evening before the boat reached the place whither pomare had retired with her family. her situation was one in which it is the custom for women to receive the most anxious and respectful attention from all of the opposite sex, especially if they call themselves gentlemen. she was every moment expected to give birth to a child; and, according to custom, had come to lie-in at eimeo, leaving paraita, who basely betrayed his trust, re gent in her absence. on learning the demand made by thouars, the queen, surprised and alarmed, sent for mr. simpson, the missionary of the island, and a long and painful consultation ensued. armed resistance was obviously impossible. the only alternative was between dethronement and protection. pomare at first determined to choose the former, but her friends pressing round her, represented that great britain, the court of appeal whither all the grievances of the world are carried for redress, would certainly interfere; that subjection would be but temporary, and that she would ultimately triumph. stretched on her couch, in the first pangs of labor, the unfortunate queen withstood all supplications until near morning. mr. simpson observes, that this was indeed 'a night of tears.' many hours were passed in silence, interrupted only by the sobs of the suffering pomare. "let us leave her for a while, and turn to consider in what manner the french buccaneer and his crew passed the same night. we refer to no inimical statement. our authority is a letter which went the round of all the paris papers, written by an officer on board the reine blanche, who did not seem to perceive any thing at all immoral in what he related. his intention was merely to excite the envy of his fellow-countrymen by detailing the delights that, were to be found in the new cythera of bougainville. we dare not follow him into his details. it will be enough to state that more than a hundred women were enticed on board the ship, and there compelled to remain all night, under pretence that it would be dangerous to row them back in the dark, some were taken to the officers' cabin, others were sent to the youthful midshipmen, the rest to the crew. when this account made its appearance, the government, alarmed at the effect it might produce, published an official declaration in the 'moniteur,' (30 mars,) addressed to 'french mothers,' denying the truth of the statement. but m. guizot, or whoever directed this disavowal, merely argued from the silence of his own despatches--if they were silent--and not long before, in the voyage of dumont d'urville, published by royal 'ordon-nance,' a description of conduct, still more atrocious, had been given to the world. "towards morning, the sufferings of pomare increasing, her resolution began to fail her, and at length she signed the fatal document. then bursting into a flood of tears, she took her eldest son, aged six years, in her arms, and exclaimed, 'my child, my child, i have signed away your birthright!' in another hour, with almost indescribable pangs, she was delivered of her fourth child. meanwhile the boat which carried the news of her yielding, sped for the port of papeete. the sea was rough, and the wind threatened every moment to shift. the white sail was beheld afar off by the look-out on the mast of the reine blanche, and it was thought impossible she could reach by the appointed time. thouars, however, troubled himself but little about all these things. he was fixed in his resolve, that if the answer did not arrive before twelve he would bombard papeete. the guns were loaded, gun-boats stationed along the shore; and whilst the frightened inhabitants crowded down to the beach, beseeching, with uplifted hands, that their dwellings might be spared, the ruthless pirate, bearing the commission of the king of france, was giving his orders, and burning to emulate the exploits of stopford and napier at st. jean d'acre, by destroying a few white-washed cottages on the shore of a little island in the pacific. hero! worthy the grand cross of the legion of honor which was bestowed on him for this achievement! worthy the sword raised by farthing subscriptions among 'haters of the english,' which was presented to him for so distinguished an exploit! what exultation must have filled his breast as he beheld the white sail of the boat scud for a moment past the entrance of the port; and what sorrow, when, by a skilful tack, it bore manfully along the very skirts of the breakers, and rushed through the hissing and boiling waters into the placid bay of papeete, exactly one half hour before mid-day! "we must pass rapidly over the arrangements which followed. the treaty of protection professed to secure the external sovereignty to the french, but to leave the internal to the queen. the former, however, were empowered 'to take whatever measures they might judge necessary for the preservation of harmony and peace.' when we learn that the ever recurring m. moerenhout was appointed royal commissioner to carry out this treaty, we at once perceive that pomare had in reality ceased to reign. how this base person employed his power may be discovered from the fact, that it became his constant habit, when he desired to obtain the signature of the queen to any distasteful document, to vituperate her in the lowest language, and shake his fist in her face. "it has been asserted, in this country and elsewhere, that the passive resistance of the queen and people to the proper establishment of the protectorate, did not begin until the arrival of mr. pritchard on the 25th of february, 1843. the object of this has been to attribute all the subsequent difficulties experienced by the french to him. but the fact is well known, that before he made his appearance the queen had written to the principal european powers, stating that she had been compelled against her will to accept the protectorate of france. on the 9th of february also, a great public meeting, presided at by the queen, was held, in which speeches of the most violent description were made. it was resolved, however, that by no overt act the french should be furnished with an excuse for further arbitrary proceedings. the determination come to, was to write for the opinion of great britain. the morning after this meeting moerenhout went to the queen and acted in a manner so gross and insulting, that she determined to complain to sir thomas thompson, of the talbot frigate, who promised her protection. all this happened, as we have seen, before the arrival of mr. pritchard, who, in truth, instead of proving a firebrand, introduced moderation and caution into the councils of pomare. sir toup nicolas, it is true, commanding the tiudictive, which brought our consul to tahiti, did go so far, despising some of the forms which were perhaps necessary, as threaten that unless the french ceased to molest british subjects, he would use force to compel them. he is said even to have cleared for action. when we consider what was daily passing under his eyes, there was some excuse for this gallant captain's warmth. setting aside the insults offered to our own countrymen, he was the spectator of constant tyrannical conduct towards the queen. messrs. reine and vrignaud, under whose name all this was done, were but instruments in the hands of the sagacious moerenhout. the following letter of queen pomare, hitherto, we believe, unpublished, will throw some light on his conduct. it is addressed to toup nicolas, who took measures to fulfil the wishes it contains. pagfae, march 5, 1844. 'o commodore, 'i make known unto you that i have oftentimes been troubled by the french consul, and on account of his threatening language i have left my house. his angry words to me have been very strong. i have hitherto only verbally told you of his ill-actions towards me; but now i clearly make these known to you, o commodore, that the french consul may not trouble me again. i look to you to protect me now at the present time, and you will seek the way how to do it. 'this is my wish, that if m. moerenhout, and all other foreigners, want to come to me, they must first make known to me their desire, that they may be informed whether it is, or is not, agreeable to me to see them. 'health and peace to you, 'o servant of the queen of britain, (signed) 'pomare, 'queen of tahiti, mourea, &c. &c.' "during the time that elapsed between the establishment of the protectorate and the third visit of dupetit thouars to tahiti, the only overt act which the french could complain of was the hoisting of a fancy flag by the queen over her house. whatever difficulties existed at the outset, had been in reality overcome in spite of the 'intriguing mr. pritchard.' even m. guizot has declared in his place in the chamber of deputies: 'there existed on the admiral's arrival none of those difficulties which are not to be surmounted by good conduct, by prudence, by perseverance, by time, or which require the immediate application of force.' nevertheless, on the first of november, 1843, our buccaneering admiral entered the harbor of papeete, and wrote immediately to inform the queen that unless she pulled down the flag she had hoisted, he would do so for her, and at the same time depose her. in spite of his threats, however, she refused compliance; and lieutenant d'aubigny landed at the head of five hundred men, to occupy the island. the speech in which this person inaugurated french dominion in tahiti was one of the richest specimens of bombast and braggadocia ever uttered. "much merriment might be excited by its repetition, but it has already caused the sides of europe to ache, more than once. suffice it to say, that the deposed queen fled on board the british ship of war, the dublin, commanded by capt. tucker, and papeete was, for many days, like a town taken by storm. drunkenness, debauchery, rioting, filled its streets, and every means were taken to undo what the missionaries had, by half a century's labor, accomplished." the above is another melancholy evidence of the spirit of popery; and if any thing can open the eyes of our people to a sense of danger from it, this evidence cannot fail to do so. i lay it down as a truth--though i may be censured for the boldness of such an assertion--that there is not a man of common sense, or ordinary penetration, who does not see, at a glance, that our danger as a nation, and our morals as a people, are eminently perilled by the continuance of popery amongst us. there are certain truths which need not be proved; they prove themselves. like the sun, which is seen by its own light, they carry with them their own evidence; and, among those self-evident truths, i see none more clear or more lucid, than that popery, which has taken root in this country, will--if not torn up and totally uprooted before long--dash to pieces the whole frame of our republic. sympathizers, puseyites, and all other such bastard protestants, may think differently. be it so. valueless as my opinion may be, let it be herein recorded, that i entirely disagree with them. it seems that another speck of popery is just making its appearance on the north-west horizon of our national firmament. it appears, by accounts very recently received from oregon, that the _propaganda_ in rome has sent out a company of jesuits and nuns to that territory. popish priests and jesuits seldom travel without being accompanied by nuns: they add greatly to their comforts while on their pilgrimage for the advancement of morality and chastity. hitherto the occupants of oregon have advanced quietly. they have adopted a temporary form of government, established courts of law, and such municipal regulations as they deemed best calculated to forward their common interest. but the modern serpent, jesuitism, has already entered their garden: the tree of popery has been planted: it is now in blossom, and will soon be seen in full bearing. it is truly a melancholy reflection to think that this pest; popery, should find access to all places and to all people. one year will not pass over us, before the aspect of things in oregon will be entirely changed. these jesuits who arrived there haye been preceded by some popish spy--some reverend irish murphy, in the capacity of carpenter, or perhaps horse-jockey, has gone before them, and has been laying plans for their reception. i venture to say, it will be discovered, at no distant day, that all the good which our protestant missionaries have done there will soon be undone by popish agents. they will commence, as they have done in tahiti, by causing some panic among the resident settlers. they will find in oregon, as well as in our united states, some functionary who may want their aid; and he, like many of the unprincipled functionaries among ourselves, will give them his patronage in exchange. liberty has, in reality, but few votaries among officeholders, in comparison with popery; and this is one of the chief causes of the great advances which the latter is making, and has been making, especially for the last six or eight years. look around you, fellow-citizens, and you will scarcely find an individual in office, from the president to the lowest office-holder, possessed of sufficient moral courage to raise his voice against popery. but justice to americans requires me to say, that in this the great mass of the people are without blame--for i cannot call certain leading, unprincipled politicians, the people. the first steps which foreign priests and jesuits have taken, in disturbing the harmony of our republican system of government, might have been easily checked; but those who have represented the people, and who held offices of honor and emolument, were not, and will not be, disturbed by a moment's reflection on a proper sense of their duty. the whole responsibility of the gross outrages offered to our protestant country, by _popish priests_ and papal allies, rests upon our representatives in congress. they could, if they would, have long since checked popery; and it is now high time that the people should take this matter into their own hands, and so alter the constitutions of their respective states, as to exclude papists from any positive or negative participation in the creation or execution of their laws. jesuits calculate with great accuracy upon the selfishness of man: they know that, generally speaking, it is paramount to all other considerations. artful, intriguing, avaricious, and more licentious themselves than any other body of men in the world, they soon discover all that is vulnerable in the american character, and take advantage of it. they discover that popular applause is greatly coveted by americans; and this is the reason why we see established among us so many _repeal associations_. the writer understands that several of those associations are now formed in oregon; and it was at their request that the pope had sent out jesuits and nuns amongst them. repeal is looked upon as the great lever by which the whole political world can be turned upside down. its members meet in large numbers, in order to show the gullible americans the consequent extent of their power, and the great advantage which some office-hunter may gain by bringing them over to his views. the bait has taken well hitherto; but as we have--solemnly attested by the sign manual of the pope himself--seen his object in causing to be established repeal societies, the american, who continues hereafter to encourage them, deserves the execration of every lover of freedom. the pope tells americans, through his agent, o'connell, what the design and objects of all the movements of papists in the united states are; and i trust, when americans see them in their true colors, they will sink deeply into their hearts. hear, then, i entreat you, americans, the language of o'connell, as the pope's agent, as uttered by him in the _loyal national repeal association_ in dublin, ireland. it is addressed to irish catholics in the united states. _where you have the electoral franchise, give your votes to none but those who will assist you in so holy a struggle. you should do all in your power to carry out the pious intentions of his holiness the pope_. this is plain language; there is no misunderstanding it. it is ad-dressed to papists, whether in oregon or the united states, and what are the pious intentions of the pope? i will tell you. i understand those matters probably better than you do. the object is, in the first place, to _extirpate protestantism_; and, secondly, _to overthrow this republican government, and place in our executive chair a popish king_. this is the sole design of all the ramifications of the various repeal clubs throughout the length and breadth of the united states and its territories. o'connell--the greatest layman living--is the nuncio of the pope for carrying this vast and holy design into execution. will americans submit to this? will they again attend repeal associations? does not every meeting of the repeal party impliedly make an assault upon our constitution? is not this foreign demagogue endeavoring to pollute our ballot-box? and will you any longer trust an irish papist, who is the fettered slave of the pope? aye! a greater slave than the african, the mussulman, or the chinese. never before was there such a combination formed for the destruction of american liberty, as that of _irish repealers_, and never before was such an insidious attempt made to pollute the morals of the wives and daughters of americans, as that which jesuits have for years made, and are now making, by the introduction of priests and nunneries among them. repeal unchains the loud blasts of conspiracy, and opens the bloody gates of sedition; yet this repeal lives in the very midst of us. i can almost hear, while i am writing these lines, the wild shouts of its lawless members; and to the shame and everlasting disgrace of americans, the sons of free and noble sires, there are many of them, at the very repeal meetings to which i allude, aiding and abetting them in aiming their mad and wild blows at liberty, while she sleeps sweetly, perhaps dreaming that she was safe, with the spirits of washington, warren, and others, watching over her slumbers. sleep on, fair goddess! popish traitors cannot, shall not disturb thee. american republicans will not let them; and to you, protestant foreigners, i would most earnestly appeal. let us stand by those noble patriots. we know what tyranny is! we felt many of its pains and penalties. we know what popery is! it has desolated our native land 1 it has made barren our fairest fields! it has sealed up from our parents, our brothers, sisters, and relatives, the eternal fountain of life! it is drunk with the blood of the saints! it has closed against us the gates of liberty! it has rendered us strangers to its blessings, and it was not until we landed upon these shores, that we were first permitted to inhale its fragrance or taste its fruits. but now that we enjoy all these blessings, let us thank god for them. let us be grateful to americans for receiving us among them, and prove by our deeds that we are not unworthy of the kind and hospitable reception which they gave us, by being foremost amongst them in resisting and warding off the blows which that enemy of mankind, the pope, and his foul-mouthed nuncio, daniel o'connell, with his irish repealers, are striking at american freedom! they shall not succeed. the slaves of a pope cannot succeed. "the sensual and the dark rebel in vain, slaves by their own compulsion! in mad game they burst their manacles, and wear the name of freedom, graven on a heavier chain o liberty! with profitless endeavor have i pursued thee many a weary hour;- but thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. alike from all, howe'er they praise thee- nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee- alike from priestcraft's harpy minions, and factious blasphemy's obscener slaves, thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, the guide of horseless winds, and playmate of the waves! and there i felt thee!--on that sea-cliffs verge, whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above, had made one murmur with the distant surge;- yea, while i stood and gazed, my temples bare, and shot ray being through earth, sea, and air, possessing all things with intensest love, o liberty! my spirit felt thee there!" the church of england cleared from the charge of schism, upon testimonies of councils and fathers of the first six centuries. by thomas william allies, m. a. rector of launton, oxon. london: james burns, 17, portman street, portman square. 1846. * * * * * london: r. clay, printer, bread street hill. * * * * * advertisement. * * * * * the writer of the following pages is more and more convinced that the whole question between the roman church and ourselves, as well as the eastern church, turns upon the papal supremacy, as at present claimed, being of divine right or not. _if it be_, then have we nothing else to do, on peril of salvation, but submit ourselves to the authority of rome: and better it were to do so before we meet the attack, which is close at hand, of an enemy who bears equal hatred to ourselves and to rome; the predicted lawless one, the logos, reason, or private judgment of apostate humanity rising up against the divine logos, incarnate in his church. _if it be not_, then may we take courage; for the position of the church of england being tenable, all the evils within her pale, which we are now so deeply feeling, will, by god's blessing, be gradually overcome. as to practical abuses in her, who will venture to say they are so great as in the roman church of the tenth century, when the first see was filled successively by the lovers of abandoned women, who made and deposed popes at their will? our cause being good, all that we have to deplore of actual evil should lead to more earnest intercession, more continued striving after that love which breathes itself forth in unity, but should not shake the confidence of any obedient heart in our mother's title. when the donatists made the crimes of individuals an excuse for breaking unity, st. augustin reminded them, that the crimes of the chaff do not prejudice the wheat, but that both must grow together till the lord of the harvest send forth his angels to make the separation. the writer will not conceal that he took up this inquiry for the purpose of satisfying his own mind. had he found the councils and fathers of the first six centuries bearing witness _to_ the roman supremacy, as at present claimed, instead of _against_ it, he should have felt bound to obey them. as a priest of the church catholic in england, he desires to hold, and to the best of his ability will teach, all doctrine which the undivided church always held. he finds by reference to those authorities which could not be deceived, and cannot be adulterated, that while they unanimously held the roman primacy, and the patriarchal system, of which the roman pontiff stood at the head, they as unanimously did not hold, nor even contemplate, that supremacy or monarchy which alone rome will now accept as the price of her communion. they not only do not recognise it, but their words and their actions most manifestly contradict it. this is, in one word, his justification of his mother from the sin of schism. if true, it is sufficient: if untrue, he knows of no other. but should any opponent think these pages worthy of a reply, the writer warns him, at the outset, that he must in fairness discard that old disingenuous trick of using testimonies of the fathers to the primacy of the roman see in the episcopal and patriarchal system, in order to prove the full papal supremacy, as now claimed, in a system which is nearly come to pure monarchy. by this method, because the fathers recognise the bishop of rome as successor of st. peter, they are counted witnesses to that absolute power now claimed by the roman pontiff, though they recognise other bishops, in just the same sense, to be successors of the holy apostles; or though they call every bishop's see the see of peter, as the great type and example of the episcopate. what such an one has to establish in order to justify the roman church, and to prove that the english and the eastern are in schism, is, that roman doctrine, as stated by bellarmine, which is really the key-stone of the whole system, that "bishops succeed not properly to the apostles," "for they have no part of the true apostolic authority," but that "all ordinary jurisdiction of bishops descends immediately from the pope," and that "the pope has, full and entire, that power which christ left on the earth for the good of the church."[1] let this be proved on the testimony of the first six centuries, and if it be true, nothing can be more easy than to prove it, as the contradictory of it is attempted to be proved in the following pages, and all controversy will be at an end. we claim that it should be proved, for even de maistre, who has put forward this theory with the least compromise, declares, "there is nothing new in the church, and never will she believe save what she has always believed."[2] * * * * * the church of england cleared from the charge of schism. the course of events, for some time past, has been such as to force upon the most faithful sons of the church of england the consideration of questions which they would rather have left alone, as long ago settled; for the nature of these questions is such, not to speak of their intricacy and painfulness, as almost to compel the student to place himself, as it were, _ab extra_ to that community, which he would rather regard with the unreasoning and unhesitating instinct of filial affection. one of these questions, perhaps the first which directly meets and encounters him, is the charge of schism brought against the church of england on account of the events of the sixteenth century, and her actual state of separation from the latin communion, which has been their result. time was, and that not long since, when it might have been thought a sort of treason for one who ministers at the altars of the church of england, and receives by her instrumentality the gift of life, so much as to entertain the thought, whether there was a flaw in the commission of his spiritual mother, a flaw which, reducing her to the condition of a sect, would invalidate his own sonship. and certainly the treatment of such a question must be most painful to any one, who desires to be obedient and dutiful, and therefore to be at peace. how can it be otherwise, when, instead of eating his daily portion of food in his father's house, he is called upon to search and inquire whether indeed he have found that house at all, and be not rather a fugitive or an outcast from it. such, however, is the hard necessity which is come upon us. let no one imagine that it is our _choice_ to speak on such subjects. we are in the case of a beleaguered soldier in an enemy's country; he may not think of peace; he must maintain his post or die; his part is not aggression, but defence: the matter at issue is the preservation of all that he holds dear, or extermination. the question of _schism_ is a question of salvation. but over and above the general course of events which forces us to reconsider this question, circumstances have taken place in the past year which we may boldly pronounce to be without a parallel in the history of the church in england since she became divided from catholic communion. those who have followed with anxious sympathy that great restorative movement which, for twelve years, has agitated her bosom,--those who have felt with an ever increasing conviction, as time went on, and the different parties consolidated and unfolded themselves, that it was at the bottom a contest for the ancient faith delivered to the saints, for dogmatic truth, for a visible church, in whom, as in a great sacrament, was lodged the presence of the lord, communicating himself by a thousand acts of spiritual efficacy, against the monstrous and shapeless latitudinarianism of the day; against the unnumbered and even unsuspected heresies which have infected the whole atmosphere that we breathe; against, in fine, the individual will of fallen man, under cover of which the coming antichrist is marshalling interests the most opposite, and passions the most contradictory; and further, those not few nor inconsiderable, we believe, who, by god's grace, owe to the teaching of _one man_ in particular a debt they never can repay,--the recovery, perchance, of themselves from some form of error which he has taught them to discern, or the building them up in a faith whose fair proportions he first discovered to them,--these will feel with deeper sorrow than we can express the urgency of the occasion to which we allude. for how, indeed, could the question, whether the church of england is fallen into schism, or be, as from the laver of their regeneration they have been taught to believe, a member of that one sacred body in which christ incarnate dwells,--how could this question be so forced upon their minds, as by the fact that her champion, whom they had hitherto felt to be invincible, who had seemed her heaven-sent defender, with the talisman of victory in his hands, of whom they were even tempted to think si pergama dextra defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent, that he, who fighting her battles, never met with his equal, unsubdued by any foe from without, has surrendered to his own doubts and fears; self-conquered, has laid down her arms, and has gone over to the camp opposed. henceforth she has ranged against her those powers of genius and that sanctity of life, to which so many of her children looked as to a certain omen of her catholicity. they felt that she who bore such children, must needs be the spouse of god. it is no wonder that many others, of no mean name among us, and whom we could ill afford to spare, have had their doubts and disquietudes determined by such a fact as this. for the first time, i repeat, in the history of the church of england have earnest and zealous children of hers, who desired nothing but their own salvation and the salvation of others, found no rest for the sole of their feet within her communion. men who set out with the most single-minded purpose of defending her cause, nay, of winning back to her bosom alienated multitudes, of building her up in a beauty and a glory which she has not yet seen, and one, especially, who has been the soul of that great movement to restore her,--these have now, after years of hard fighting spent in her service, quitted her, and proclaim that all who value their salvation must quit her likewise. these are some of the special circumstances which force upon the most reluctant the question of schism. it was the privilege of other days to feed in the quiet pastures of truth. we have to seek the path to heaven through the wilderness of controversy, where too often "the highways are unoccupied, and the travellers walk through byways." but it is a question which cannot be put off or thrust aside. no instructed christian, who has any true faith or love, can bear the thought that he is out of the one fold of christ. the question cannot be put off, for it will brood upon him in his daily devotions and labours; a doubt as to the justice of his cause will paralyse all his exertions. it cannot be thrust aside; for the imputation of heresy on another has no tendency to answer the charge of schism against oneself. it must be met openly, honestly, and without shrinking. the charge of schism touches immediately the christian's conscience, for this reason, that, if true, it takes away from his prayers, his motives, his actions, his sufferings, that one quality which is acceptable to almighty god. here it is most true, that "all, which is not of faith, is sin:" he who does not believe, at least, that he is a member of the one church, whatever outward acts he may perform, cannot please his judge. in the words of one who himself gave his goods to feed the poor, and shed his blood for the testimony of jesus,[3] "if such men were even killed for confession of the christian name, not even by their blood is this stain washed out. inexpiable and heavy is the sin of discord, and is purged by no suffering. he cannot be a martyr who is not in the church; he can never attain to the kingdom, who leaves her with whom the kingdom shall be." "a man of such sort may indeed be killed, crowned he cannot be." therefore the charge of schism, when once brought before the reflecting mind, cannot be turned aside,--it must be met and answered: if it is not answered, at least to the conviction of the individual, it leaves upon the whole of his obedience the stain of insincerity, which is fatal. in this respect it is more pressing and imperious, more fatal, even than that of heresy. i observe this, because, in the comments i have seen on the painful departures of friends from among us, and in exhortations not to follow them, it has not seemed to be always recognised. when men leave us on the ground that we are in schism, surely all censure of them, and all defence of ourselves, is beside the mark, which does not meet and rebut this particular accusation. under this no man can rest: it is useless, it is sinful, to ask him to rest, unless you can remove the imputation. to talk of "disappointment, or a morbid desire of distinction, or impatience under deficiencies, want of discipline, or sympathy in spiritual superiors," and such-like causes, as being those which have impelled a man to the most painful sacrifices, and "in the middle of his days to begin life again," is surely both untrue as regards the individual, and futile as to preventing others doing like him, when the ground of schism among others is alleged by himself, and is felt to lie at the bottom. could we prove that the church of england is clear both of enunciating heresy in her formularies, and of allowing it within her pale, it would in no respect answer this charge of schism against her, except so far as the _à priori_ presumption, that she who is clear of the one would be clear of the other also. but it would remain to be met and answered specifically. moreover, i must confess that this is a point on which i, for one, cannot write in the spirit of a controversialist. i must state, to the best of my poor ability, and to the utmost reach of my limited discernment, not only the truth, but the whole truth. i cannot keep back points which tell against us. gibbon charges thomassin with telling one half the truth, and bingham the other half, in their books upon the ancient discipline of the church. whether this be true or not, i cannot, in my small degree, do likewise. i have found bishop beveridge, in his defence of the 37th article, quote, in several instances, part of a paragraph from ancient fathers, because it told for him, and omit the other part, because it told against him. and, in considering the celibacy of the clergy, it is usual to find protestant writers enlarging on the fact, that st. peter was married; and that the greek church has always allowed its parish priests to be married; while they keep out of view that st. peter's marriage preceded his call, and that the eastern church never allowed those who were already in holy orders, to marry, but only to keep those wives which they had taken as laymen. or again, in deference to the circumstances of the english church, writers conceal the fact, that the whole church of the east and west, on the authority, as to the first point, of the express word of god itself, has never allowed a person who married twice, or who married a widow, to be in holy orders at all. i have observed bingham, when he treats of celibacy, alluding triumphantly to the biography of st. cyprian, by pontius, to prove that an ancient saint, martyr, and bishop, of the third century, was a married man; but taking care to leave out the express notice of pontius, that, from his conversion, he lived in continence. those who wish to see on the roman side another sort of unfairness alluded to in the advertisement may look to the 6th chapter of the 1st book of de maistre, on the pope, where they will find a host of quotations to prove the supremacy, which only prove at the outside the primacy; and by far the greater number of them might be paralleled by like expressions which are addressed to other bishops, but of which fact no mention is made. they are assumed in a sort of triumphant strain to prove the point in question, while, to the student of antiquity, their weakness, or, sometimes, their irrelevancy, only proves the reverse. this sort of disingenuousness is so common on both sides, that it may be said to be the besetting sin of controversialists. if, however, there be any question in which perfect candour is requisite, it is surely this of schism. would it not be a most miserable success to be able to deceive oneself, or others, as to whether one is or is not within the covenant of salvation? the special pleader in such a case is surely the most unhappy of all men; for he deprives himself of the greatest of blessings. he seems to win his cause, while he most thoroughly loses it; for if a man be indeed out of the ark of christ's church, what benefit can one possibly render him equal to that of bringing him within it? i write, then, with the strongest sense of responsibility on this subject, and shall not be deterred from making admissions, if truth require them, which seem to tell on the other side, and which have accordingly been shrunk from, or slurred over, by our defenders in former times. and this leads to another consideration. the charge of schism against the church of england is, that by rejecting the papal authority in the sixteenth century, she lost the blessing of catholic communion, and ceased to belong to that one body to which salvation is promised. now, in such a matter, the church of england must be judged by principles which have been, from the first, and are still, recognised by all christendom. whatever obedience we may owe, in virtue of our personal subscription, to articles or other formularies, drawn up in the sixteenth century, it is obvious they can decide nothing here. what i mean will be best shown by an example. suppose a person were to take the 6th article, and set upon it a meaning, not at all uncommon in these days, viz. that the church of england therein declares, that holy scripture is the sole standard of faith; and that every man must decide for himself, what is, or is not, contained in holy scripture; and that he, searching holy scripture for the purpose, can find nothing whatever said about the papal authority;--it is obvious, that such a mode of arguing would be utterly inadequate either to terminate controversy, or, one would think, to quiet any troubled conscience: for whether or no this be the meaning of the 6th article, the whole greek and latin church would reject with horror such propositions as the first two put together, as being subversive of the very existence of a church, and of all dogmatic authority. it is a valid argument enough to an individual to say, you have signed such and such documents, and are bound by them: but if he is in doubt whether the documents themselves be tenable, they cannot be taken to prove themselves. the decision of a province of the church in the sixteenth century cannot be quoted to prove that that decision is right, for it is the very thing called in question. it is the reformation itself which is put on trial; it cannot appeal to itself as a witness; it must be content to bring its cause before a judge, whose authority all will admit,--and that judge, need we say, must be antiquity, and the consent of the undivided church. and the church of england, it must be admitted, has not shrunk from this appeal. her often-quoted canon enjoins her ministers, in that part of their duty wherein most is left to their private judgment, "to teach nothing which they wish to be held and believed religiously by the people, save what is agreeable to the doctrine of the old or new testament, and what the catholic fathers and ancient bishops, have collected out of that very doctrine." thus she spoke in the year 1571. the church had then passed through fifteen centuries of a chequered, but superhuman, and most marvellous existence. her continuous life implies a continuity of principles, ruling her from the beginning; and any controversy which affects her well-being, as does that concerning the integrity or loss of a great member, must be judged according to those principles. the present position of the church of england may be merely a provisional one, i firmly believe that such is the fact; but if she is to claim the allegiance of her children as a part of the catholic church, it must be proved that such her position is tenable upon the principles which directed that church when undivided. in short, i propose honestly, though briefly, to meet this imputation of schism by an appeal to the authority of the first six centuries: an authority, which no roman catholic can slight or refuse. let us go back to the first period at which the universal church, emerging from the fires of persecution, is found acting as one body. united, indeed, it had ever been from the day of pentecost, in charity, in doctrine, in sacraments, in communion. the christian people, scattered throughout the wide precincts of the roman empire, and speaking its various tongues, was one in heart and spirit--"a peculiar people," like none other: the bread which they ate, and the cup which they drank, made them one living body. but so long as the church was engaged in a fierce and unrelenting conflict with the paganism and despotism of the empire, she could hardly exhibit to the world her complete outward organization. so, although in the intervals of persecution, important provincial councils had been held, and though it was felt to be necessary for discipline that local synods should take place twice every year, yet not until the year 325, at the council of nicea, does the whole church meet in representation; the immediate cause of that assemblage being a heresy so malignant as to threaten her existence, and which could be repressed by no less energetic means. that is a strongly marked and important point in her existence, throwing light upon the centuries preceding, and establishing irremovable landmarks for those ensuing, at which we have full means for judging what her constitution and government were. as the decrees of the 318 fathers established for ever the true doctrine concerning the eternal son, so do they offer an imperishable and unambiguous witness concerning the discipline and hierarchy of the church. what was schism then, is schism now; what was lawful and compatible with christian sonship and privileges then, is so now. what then is the view they present us with? we find the bishops throughout the whole world recognised, without so much as a doubt, to be the successors of the apostles, invested with the plenitude of that royal priesthood which the son of god had set up on the earth in his own person, and from that person had communicated to his chosen disciples, and so possessed of whatever authority was necessary to govern the church. thus spoke a fresh and unbroken tradition, so universal and so unquestionable that no other voice was heard beside. thus the episcopal power may be safely recognised as of divine appointment: in truth it is scarcely possible to have stronger evidence than we have of this. one of the most learned of those who are opposed to us on the charge of schism, thus sums up the decisions "of all the fathers and all the councils of the first ages." "the bishop represents christ, and stands in his place on earth. as therefore the priesthood of christ embraces all sacerdotal authority and complete power to feed the flock, so that while we may indeed distinguish and define the various powers included in that fullness and perfection, yet it is a great crime to dissever and rend them in any way from each other, just as we distinguish without dividing the attributes and perfections of the godhead itself; so the episcopate in its own nature contains the fullness of the priesthood, and the perfection of the pastoral office. for christ received the perfection of the priesthood from his father, when he was sent by him. moreover the perfection of the priesthood, or both the episcopal powers, (_i.e._ the sacerdotal and the pastoral,) he gave at once to his apostles when he sent them as he himself was sent by the father. lastly, that same perfection they transmitted to bishops, sending them as they themselves were sent by christ." "whence bishops are fathers by the most noble participation of divine fathership which is on earth; so that here that expression of paul is true--'from whom every fathership in heaven and earth is named.' for no greater fathership is there on the earth than the apostolical and the episcopal." _thomassin_, part i. liv. i. ch. 2. and, viewed in itself, this power was sovereign and independent in every individual bishop, who was the spouse of the church, the successor of the apostles, and of peter, the centre of unity; able, moreover, to communicate this authority to others, and to become the source of a long line of spiritual descendants. but was this power in practice exercised in so unmodified a form? would there not have been not only imminent danger, but almost certainty, that a power unlimited in its nature, committed to so large a body of men, who might become indefinitely more numerous, yet were each independent centres of authority, instead of tending to unity would produce diversity? accordingly we find, together with the apostolical authority, admitted to be lodged in the episcopal body in general, a preponderating influence exercised by certain sees, viz. by rome in the west, and by alexandria and antioch in the east. under these leading bishops are a great number of metropolitans; and others, again, like the bishops of cyprus, have their own metropolitan, but are not subordinate to either of the three great sees. next to these, rank the bishops of ephesus, cesarea, and heraclea, who preside respectively over the provinces of asia, cappadocia, and thrace, and were afterwards called exarchs. and the source of this preponderating influence is to be traced to the fact that the apostles laid hold of the principal cities, and founded churches in them, which became centres of light to their several provinces, and naturally exercised a parental authority over their children. the three great bishops, though not yet called patriarchs, or even archbishops, seem to have exercised all the power of patriarchs. no general council would be binding without their presence in person, or by deputy, or their subsequent ratification. moreover, among these, the bishop of rome, as successor of st. peter, has a decided preeminence. what the extent of that preeminence was, had not yet been defined; but it is very apparent, and acknowledged in the east as well as in the west. it does not seem, indeed, that his authority differed in _kind_, but only in _degree_, from that of his brethren, especially those of alexandria and antioch. the apostolical canons, more ancient than the council of nice, and representing the whole east, say:--"the bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them, and account him as their head, and do nothing of consequence without his consent; but each may do those things only which concern his own parish, (_i.e._ diocese,) and the country places which belong to it. but neither let him (who is the first) do anything without the consent of all, for so there will be unanimity, and god will be glorified through the lord jesus christ." canon 34. the council of nicea mentions the sees of alexandria, antioch, and rome in precisely similar terms:--"let the ancient customs be maintained, which are in egypt and libya, and pentapolis; according to which the bishop of alexandria has authority over all those places. for this is also customary to the bishop of rome. in like manner in antioch, and in the other provinces, the privileges are to be preserved to the churches." canon 6. that is, as it would seem, let the bishop of alexandria have the power to consecrate bishops in the three provinces of his patriarchate, for the bishop of rome does the same in his, _i.e._ in the suburbicarian provinces, or in italy, south of the province of milan, and in sicily. this precedence or prerogative of rome, to whatever extent it reached, was certainly, notwithstanding the famous 28th canon of chalcedon, not either claimed or granted merely because rome was the imperial city. it was explicitly claimed by the bishop of rome himself, and as freely conceded by others to him, as in a special sense successor of st. peter. from the earliest times that the church comes before us as an organized body, the germ at least of this preeminence is observable. from the very first, the roman pontiff seems possessed himself, as from a living tradition which had thoroughly penetrated the local roman church, with a consciousness of some peculiar influence he was to exercise on the whole church. this consciousness does not show itself here and there in the line of roman pontiffs, but one and all, whatever their individual characters might be, seem to have imbibed it from the atmosphere which they breathed. st. victor, and st. stephen, st. innocent, st. leo the great, and st. gregory, are quite of one mind here. that they were the successors of st. peter, who himself sat and ruled and spoke in their person, was as strongly felt, and as consistently declared, by those pontiffs who preceded the time of constantine, and who had continually to pay with their blood the price of that high preeminence, as by those who followed the conversion of the empire, when the honour of their post was not accompanied by so much danger. we are speaking now, be it remembered, of the feeling _which possessed them_. the feeling of their brother bishops concerning them may have been less definite, as was natural: but, at least, even those who most opposed any arbitrary stretch of authority on their part, as st. cyprian, fully admitted that they sat in the see of peter, and ordinarily treated them with the greatest deference. this is written so very legibly upon the records of antiquity, that i am persuaded any one, who is even very slightly acquainted with them, cannot with sincerity dispute it. i cannot think mr. newman has the least overstated the fact when he says, "faint they (the ante-nicene testimonies to the authority of the holy see) may be one by one, but at least they are various, and are drawn from many times and countries, and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body of proof. thus, st. clement, in the name of the church of rome, writes a letter to the corinthians, when they were without a bishop. st. ignatius, of antioch, addresses the roman church, and it only out of the churches to which he writes, as 'the church which has the first seat in the place of the country of the romans.' st. polycarp, of smyrna, betakes himself to the bishop of rome on the question of easter;" (but the pope, st. anicetus, and he, not being able to agree as to the rule of keeping easter, agreed to retain their several customs; a fact which is as much opposed to the present notion of the roman supremacy, as any fact can well be.) "the heretic, marcion, excommunicated in pontus, betakes himself to rome. soter, bishop of rome, sends alms, according to the custom of his church, to the churches throughout the empire, and, in the words of eusebius, 'affectionately exhorted those who came to rome, as a father his children.' the montanists, from phrygia, come to rome to gain the countenance of its bishop. praxeas, from africa, attempts the like, and for a while is successful. st. victor, bishop of rome, threatens to excommunicate the asian churches. st. irenæus speaks of rome, as 'the greatest church, the most ancient, the most conspicuous, and founded and established by peter and paul,' appeals to its tradition, not in contrast, indeed, but in preference to that of other churches, and declares that 'in this church every church--that is, the faithful from every side, must meet,' or 'agree together, _propter potiorem principalitatem_.' 'o church, happy in its position,' says tertullian, 'into which the apostles poured out, together with their blood, their whole doctrine.' the presbyters of st. dionysius, bishop of alexandria, complain of his doctrine to st. dionysius, of rome; the latter expostulates with him, and he explains. the emperor aurelian leaves 'to the bishops of italy and of rome' the decision, whether or not paul, of samosata, shall be dispossessed of the see-house at antioch. st. cyprian speaks of rome as 'the see of peter, and the principal church, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise, ... whose faith has been commended by the apostles, to whom faithlessness can have no access.' st. stephen refuses to receive st. cyprian's deputation, and separates himself from various churches of the east. fortunatus and felix, deposed by st. cyprian, have recourse to rome. basilides, deposed in spain, betakes himself to rome, and gains the ear of st. stephen."[4] it must be observed that the _extent_ of this authority, in the chief see, has not been defined; but, whatever it was, it did not interfere with the divine right of the bishops to govern each in his own diocese. they derived their authority by transmission from the apostles, as the bishop of rome from st. peter; the one was as much recognised as the other. they were not his _delegates_, but his _brethren_. frater and co-episcopus _they style him_, as he styles them, for hundreds of years after the council of nicea; owing him, indeed, and willingly rendering him the greatest deference, but never so much as imagining that their authority was derived from him. this fact, too, lies upon the face of all antiquity, and is almost too notorious to need proof. if, however, any be wanted, it is found in the names which bishops bore both then, and for a long time afterwards, and in their mode of election and their jurisdiction. for their names: "it must first be confessed," says a very learned roman catholic, who, in his humility, shrunk from the cardinalate offered to him for his services to the papal see, "that the name of pope, of apostle, of apostolic prelate, of apostolic see, was still common to all bishops, even during the three centuries which elapsed from the reign of clovis to the empire of charlemagne;" and he adds presently: "these august names are not like those vain and superficial titles with which the pride of men feeds itself; they are the solid marks of a power entirely from heaven, and of a holiness altogether divine."[5] indeed, the view which every where prevailed was that so admirably expressed by st. cyprian: "episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur."[6] "the episcopate is one; it is a whole in which each enjoys full possession." st. isidore, of seville, says: "since also the other apostles received a like fellowship of honour and power with peter, who also were scattered throughout the whole world, and preached the gospel; whom, at their departure, the bishops succeeded, who are established throughout the whole world in the seats of the apostles."[7] but pope symmachus (a.d. 498-514) has expressed the equality and unity of the episcopate and apostolate between the pope and all bishops, by the highest and most sacred similitude which it is possible to conceive. "for inasmuch as after the likeness of the trinity, whose power is one and indivisible, the priesthood is one in the hands of various prelates, how suits it that the statutes of the more ancient be broken by their successors?"[8] we are told by the same author: "pope hormisdas (a.d. 514-523) prescribed, and all the bishops of the east subscribed, after the patriarch john of constantinople, a formulary of faith and of catholic communion, where, among other remarkable points, this is worthy of particular attention:--that as all churches make but one church, so all the thrones of the apostolate, and all the sees of the episcopate, spread through all the earth, are but one apostolic see, inseparable from the see of peter." this is the view of st. augustin, expressed again and again in his writings, especially when he is explaining those remarkable words of our lord to st. peter, on which roman catholics ground the _scriptural_ proof of his primacy. "for it is evident that peter, in many places of the scriptures, represents the church, (_personam gestet ecclesiæ_) chiefly in that place where it is said, 'i give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' what! did peter receive those keys, and paul not receive them? did peter receive them, and john and james not receive them, and the rest of the apostles? or are not those keys in the church, where sins are daily remitted? but since in meaning hinted, but not expressed, (_in significatione_), peter was representing the church, what was given to him singly, was given to the church. so, then, peter bore the figure of the church: the church is the body of christ."[9] so st. chrysostom: "but when i speak of paul, i mean not only him, but also peter, and james, and john, and all their choir. for as in a lyre there are different strings, but one harmony, so, too, in the choir of the apostles, there were different persons, but one teaching; since one, too, was the musician, even the holy spirit, who moved their souls. and paul signifying this, said: 'whether, therefore, it were they or i, so we preach.'"[10] how little, on the one hand, the pre-eminence of st. peter's see derogated from the apostolicity of other bishops, or, on the other hand, their distinct descent and jurisdiction hindered them from paying due deference to the chief see, is apparent likewise in these words of st. jerome: "but, you say, the church is founded upon peter; although, in another place, this self-same thing takes place upon all the apostles, and all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, _and the strength of the church is consolidated equally upon them_: nevertheless, for this reason, out of the twelve one is selected, that, by the appointment of a head, the occasion of schism may be taken away."[11] thomassin doubts whether at the council of nicea, or even at that of antioch, sixteen years afterwards, the name even of archbishop was yet in use; the highest title used in those two councils being that of metropolitan. st. epiphanius quotes a letter of arius to alexander, of alexandria, in which he only gives him the quality of pope and bishop, but nowhere that of archbishop. so much for the equality of the names of bishops in the fourth century, which recognises the essential equality and unity of their office. the laws in force respecting their consecration and jurisdiction are as decisive. every bishop, after being elected by the clergy and people, and the assembled provincial bishops, was consecrated by the metropolitan of his province, except, indeed, in the patriarchate of alexandria, where the primate, as we have seen, and not the metropolitans under him, consecrated all bishops. where a metropolitan had no immediate superior, in case of a vacancy, the bishops of his own province consecrated him, as in the case of carthage. whatever might be the particular privileges of patriarchs and metropolitans, as a general rule, no one bishop had direct jurisdiction in the diocese of another. the bishops of the great sees, specially rome, alexandria, and antioch, announced their accession to each other, together with a profession of the orthodox faith. but as for any jurisdiction emanating from rome to the great bishops of the east, such a thing was never even imagined. let us even rest the whole question on this important point, for it is absolutely necessary to the papal theory; and i do not think any vestige of such a doctrine can be found in the first six centuries. at least, let it be shown; for, to assert it in the face of canons which imply a system the very reverse of it, is merely begging the whole question. that in cases of difficulty, or disputed succession, or heresy, or schism, the voice of the bishop of rome would have great weight, is, indeed, indisputable. when the ship of the church was in distress, whom should we expect to see at the rudder but st. peter? thus st. jerome, himself baptized at rome, naturally looks to rome in this difficulty. mr. newman says:[12] "the divisions at antioch had thrown the catholic church into a remarkable position; there were two bishops in the see, one in connexion with the east, and the other with egypt and the west,--with which, then, was catholic communion? st. jerome has no doubt upon the subject. writing to st. damasus, he says: 'since the east tears into pieces the lord's coat, _and foxes lay waste the vineyard of christ, so that among broken cisterns, which hold no water, it is difficult to understand where the sealed fountain and the garden inclosed is_, therefore by me is the chair of st. peter to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the apostle's mouth, _thence now seeking food for my soul where of old i received the robe of christ. whilst the bad children have wasted their goods, the inheritance of the fathers is preserved uncorrupt among you alone. there the earth from its fertile bosom returns the pure seed of the lord a hundred fold: here the grain buried in the furrows degenerates into darnell and tares. at present the sun of righteousness rises in the west; but in the east that fallen lucifer hath placed his throne. you are the light of the world: you the salt of the earth: you the vessels of gold and silver: but here the vessels of earth or wood await the iron rod and the eternal flame.' therefore_, though your greatness terrifies me, yet your kindness invites me. from the priest the sacrifice claims salvation; from the shepherd the sheep claims protection. let us speak without offence: i court not the roman height: i speak with the successor of the fisherman, and the disciple of the cross. i, who follow none as my chief but christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness; that is, with the see of peter. on that rock the church is built i know. whoso shall eat the lamb outside that house is profane.... i know not vitalis (the apollinarian); meletius i reject; i am ignorant of paulinus. whoso gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, he who is not of christ is of antichrist."[13] considering all the circumstances of the case, no one can wonder at st. jerome's application. when it is remembered that the roman see, up to that time, had been free from all suspicion of heresy, and that the arian controversy was the one in question, and that he himself, of full manhood, had been baptized, and had lived at rome, the force of his language is hardly surprising. his words certainly prove, what, i suppose, no student of antiquity can doubt, the primacy of the roman see: but could there be a greater unfairness than to apply their bare letter to a state of things totally changed? or to consider expressions proving the _primacy_ of rome, as claimed in the fourth century, to prove equally a _supremacy_ as claimed in the nineteenth, which is as different from the former as one thing can well be from another. this very st. meletius, a man of pre-eminent sanctity of life, the ordainer of st. chrysostom, dies, it would appear, out of communion with rome, and has ever been accounted a saint in the western as well as in the eastern church. but to recur to the point of jurisdiction at the time of the nicene council. it is beyond question, both from the acts of that council, and from the apostolic canons, which represent the eastern church in the second and third centuries, that, whatever the pre-eminence of rome might consist in, there was no claim whatever to confer jurisdiction on bishops out of the roman patriarchate, then comprising italy, south of milan, and sicily. even differences, any where arising, were to be settled in provincial councils. "it is necessary to know, that, up to the council of nicea, all ecclesiastical affairs had been terminated in the councils of each province; and there had been but very few occasions in which it had been necessary to convoke an assembly of several provinces. the council of nicea, even, only speaks of provincial councils, and orders that all things should be settled therein."[14] the testimony and conduct of st. cyprian will illustrate the roman primacy, to which mr. newman claims him as a witness. and such he is beyond doubt. in his fifty-fifth letter, which begins, "cyprian to his brother cornelius, greeting;" he complains bitterly to that pope that felicissimus and his party "dare to set sail, and to carry a letter from schismatical and profane persons to the see of peter, and to the principal church, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise; nor consider that they are the romans whose faith had been praised by the preaching of the apostle, to whom faithlessness can have no access." this mr. newman considers a pretty strong testimony in his "cumulative argument" for the authority of rome. it would be as well, however, to go on a little further, and see what was the cause of st. cyprian's vehement indignation. it was, that felicissimus ventured _to appeal to pope cornelius_, when his cause had already been heard and settled by st. cyprian, at carthage. "but what was the cause of their coming and announcing that a pseudo-bishop had been made against the bishops? for, either they are satisfied with what they have done, and persevere in their crime, or, if they are dissatisfied, and give way, they know whither they may return. for, since it has been determined by all of us, and is both equitable and just, that the cause of every one be heard there where the crime has been committed, and _to every shepherd a portion of the flock is allotted, which each one rules and governs, as he is to give an account of his doings to the lord_, it is certainly behoving that those over whom we preside should not run about, nor break the close harmony of bishops with their deceitful and fallacious rashness, but should plead their cause where they may find both accusers and witnesses of their crime; _unless to a few desperate and abandoned men the authority of the bishops seated in africa seem less_, who have already judged concerning them, and have lately condemned, by the weight of their sentence, their conscience, bound by many snares of crimes. their cause has been already heard, their sentence already pronounced; nor is it becoming to the judgment of priests to be reprehended by the levity of a fickle and inconstant mind, when the lord teaches and says, 'let your conversation be yea, yea; nay, nay.'" let any candid person say, whether he who so wrote to one whom he acknowledged as the successor of st. peter, could have imagined that there was a divine right in that successor to re-hear not only this, but all other causes; to reverse all previous judgments of his brethren by his single authority; nay, more, to confer on all those brethren their jurisdiction "by the grace of the apostolic see."[15] another letter of st. cyprian to another pope, st. stephen, will set forth both his view of the primacy, and of the episcopal relation to it. he wishes st. stephen to write a letter to the people of arles, by which their actual bishop marcian, who had joined himself to the schismatic novatian, might be excommunicated, and another substituted for him. this alone shows how great the authority of the bishop of rome in such an emergency was. but the tone of his language is worth considering. it is just such incidents as these which are made use of by roman catholic controversialists in late times to justify the full extent of papal power now claimed.[16] "cyprian to his brother stephen, greeting. faustinus, our colleague at lyons, dearest brother, hath more than once written to me, signifying what i know has certainly been reported to you also, both by him, and by the rest of our brother-bishops, in that province, that marcian of arles, has joined himself to novatian, and has departed from the unity of the catholic church, and from the agreement of our body and priesthood.... this matter it is our duty to provide against and remedy, most dear brother, we, who considering the divine clemency, and holding the balance of the church's government, so exhibit to sinners our vigorous censure as not to deny the medicine of divine goodness and mercy to the restoration of the fallen and the healing of the wounded. wherefore it behoves you to write a very explicit letter to our fellow bishops in the gauls, that they may not any longer suffer our order (_collegio nostro_) to be insulted by marcian, obstinate, haughty, the enemy both of piety to god, and of his brethren's salvation.... for, therefore, most dear brother, is the numerous body of priests joined together in mutual concord, and the bond of unity, that _if any one of our order_ attempt to make a heresy, and to sever and lay waste the flock of christ, the rest may fly to the rescue, and, like useful and merciful shepherds, collect the lord's sheep into a flock.... for, although we are many shepherds, yet we feed one flock; and we ought to collect and cherish all those sheep which christ sought with his own blood and passion.... for we must preserve the glorious honour _of our predecessors_, the blessed martyrs, cornelius and lucius," (the last popes,) "whose memory we indeed honour, but which you much more, most dear brother, who are become their successor, ought to distinguish and preserve by your weight and authority. for they being full of the spirit of god, and made glorious martyrs, determined that reconciliation was to be granted to the lapsed, and set down in their letters, that, after a course of penitence, the advantage of communion and peace was not to be refused them. _which thing we all have everywhere entirely determined._ for there could not be in us a difference of judgment in whom there is one spirit." now, might it not be stated, that st. cyprian wrote to pope stephen, to request him to depose marcian, bishop of arles? but how much is the inference from this fact modified by the language of cyprian himself? it is just such a letter as an eastern primate would have written to the patriarch of alexandria, or of antioch, to request his interference at a dangerous juncture. it bears witness, not to the present papal, but to the patriarchal, system. it tallies exactly with the spirit of him who wrote elsewhere, to the lapsed, "our lord, whose precepts and warnings we are bound to observe, regulating the honour of the bishop, and the constitution of his church, speaks in the gospel, and says to peter, 'i say unto thee that thou art peter,' &c. thence, according to the change of times and successions, the ordination of bishops and the constitution of the church has descended, _so that the church is established upon the bishops, and every act of the church is directed by the same, its governors_. this being established by divine law,"[17] &c. it is evident that, if the see of peter, so often referred to by st. cyprian, means the local see of rome, it also means the see of every bishop who holds that office, whereof peter is the great type, example, and source. but it was reserved for a more celebrated controversy, fully to bring out st. cyprian's view of the relation of the bishop of rome to the rest of the episcopal body: i mean, of course, the controversy whether heretics should be admitted into the church by rebaptization or by the imposition of hands. i most fully believe, be it observed, that cyprian acknowledged the roman primacy, that he admitted certain high prerogatives to be lodged in the roman pontiff, as st. peter's successor, which did not belong to any other bishop. it is this very thing which makes his conduct the more remarkable. he took a very strong view on one side of the controversy in question: and st. stephen took an equally strong one on the other. st. stephen, we all know, turned out to be right. that fervent pontiff, it may be remarked, when st. cyprian would not give up his view, seemed inclined to treat him much as st. gregory the seventh did a refractory emperor, or st. innocent the third, the dastard tyrant john. this may be very satisfactory to the modern defenders of papal omnipotence, but st. cyprian's conduct is not so at all. st. cyprian called a council of bishops of the provinces of carthage and numidia; they attended to the number of seventy-one, and decided that heretics should be rebaptized. st. cyprian informs the pope of the decision of himself and his colleagues. after saying that they had found it necessary to hold a council, he proceeds--[18]"but i thought i ought to write to you and confer with your gravity and wisdom concerning that especially which most belongs to the authority of the priesthood, and to the unity alike and dignity of the catholic church derived from the ordering of a divine disposition.... this, most dear brother, we have brought to your knowledge on account both of the honour we share with you, and of our single-hearted affection, believing that what is both religious and true is acceptable to you also according to your true religion and faith. but we know that some are unwilling to give up an opinion they have once imbibed, nor easily change their mind; but, without interruption to the bonds of peace and concord with their colleagues, retain certain peculiarities which have once grown into usage among themselves." (such is the manner in which st. cyprian mentions a judgment deliberately expressed by a pope on a matter of high discipline, which involved a point of faith.) "in which matter we too do violence and give the law to no one, inasmuch as _every bishop has the free choice of his own will in the administration of the church, as he will give an account of his acts to the lord_." st. stephen received this decision of the african council so ill, that he would not even see the bishops who brought it, nor allow the faithful to offer them common hospitality. so important in his eyes was the matter in dispute. st. cyprian reports his answer in a letter to his brother-bishop pompeius, in which he says, [19]"although we have fully embraced all that is to be said concerning the baptizing of heretics, in the letters of which we have sent to you copies, most dear brother, yet, because you desired to be informed what answer our brother stephen sent me to our letters, i send you a copy of his rescript, after reading which you will more and more mark his error, who attempts to assert the cause of heretics against christians and against the church of god. for amongst other either proud or impertinent or inconsistent remarks, which he has written rashly and improvidently, &c.... but what blindness of mind is it, what perverseness to refuse to recognise the unity of the faith coming from god the father and the tradition of jesus christ our lord and god.... but since no heresy at all, nor indeed any schism, can possess outside (the body) the sanctification of saving baptism, why has the harsh obstinacy of our brother stephen burst forth to such a degree?" &c.... "does he give honour to god, who, the friend of heretics and the enemy of christians, deems the priests of god, maintaining the truth of christ and the unity of the church, worthy of excommunication?" st. stephen had inflicted this on the african prelates, until they should give up their judgment on the point in question.... "nor ought the custom, which has crept in _among certain persons_, to hinder truth from prevailing and conquering. for custom without truth is but old error."... "but it is hurried away by presumption and contumacy that a person rather defends his own perverseness and falsity than accedes to the right and truth of another. which thing the blessed apostle paul foreseeing, writes to timothy and warns, that a bishop must not be quarrelsome, nor contentious, but gentle and teachable. now he is teachable, who is mild and gentle to learn patiently. for a bishop ought not only to teach, but also to learn, because he teaches better who daily improves and profits by learning better." even as we copy this language used concerning a pope by a great bishop and martyr of the third century, who elsewhere writes, [20]"that our lord built his church upon peter alone, and though he gave to all the apostles an equal power, yet in order to manifest unity he has by his own authority so placed the source of the same unity as to begin from one;" we feel the contrast to be almost overpowering with the tone in which the first patriarch of the latin church, however good his cause might be, would now venture to address the supreme pontiff. towards the conclusion of this letter he says, instead of admitting that the pope's judgment terminated the matter--"this now the priests of god ought to do, preserving the divine precepts, so that if in anything truth has been shaken and tottered, we may return to the fountain-head of the lord, and to the evangelical and apostolical tradition, and that the rule of our acting may spring thence, whence its order and origin arose." after receiving the pope's rescript, and his excommunication, st. cyprian convoked another council of the three provinces of africa, numidia, and mauritania, which was held at carthage on the 1st of sept. 256. it was attended by eighty-five bishops, among whom were fifteen confessors, beside priests and deacons, and a great part of the people. st. cyprian opened it, observing: "it remains for us each to deliver our sentiments on this matter, judging no one, nor removing any one, if he be of a different opinion, from the right of communion. _for no one of us sets himself up to be a bishop of bishops, or by fear of his tyranny compels his colleagues to the necessity of obedience, since every bishop according to his recognised liberty and power possesses a free choice, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. but let us all await the judgment of our lord jesus christ, who singly and alone has the power both of setting us up in the government of his church, and of judging our proceedings._"[21] the bishops delivered their judgments _seriatim_, finishing with st. cyprian, and unanimously ratified what they had agreed upon before, that heretics should be admitted into the church by baptism, and not merely by the imposition of hands: and thus an african council of the third century treated a judgment of the pope, and his sentence of excommunication until they altered their practice. but these last words of st. cyprian are so remarkable in themselves, and have such a bearing on the present papal claims, that they deserve further notice. now, lest we should imagine that st. cyprian was hurried away by the ardour of his defence of a favourite doctrine, and his sense of the pope's severity, into unjustifiable expressions concerning the rights of bishops, it so happens that we possess the comment of the greatest of the fathers on these very words. st. augustin, writing 140 years after, and fully agreeing with the judgment of pope stephen, as had the whole church finally, quotes the whole passage. "'it remains for us each to deliver our sentiments on this matter, judging no one, nor removing any one, if he be of a different opinion, from the right of communion.'[22] there he not only permits me without loss of communion further to seek the truth, but even to be of a different judgment. 'for no one of us,' saith he, 'sets himself up to be a bishop of bishops, or by fear of his tyranny compels his colleagues to the necessity of obedience.' what can be more gentle? what more humble? certainly no authority deters us from seeking what is the truth: 'since,' he says, 'every bishop according to his recognised liberty and power possesses a free choice, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another:' certainly, i imagine, in those questions which have not yet been thoroughly and completely settled. for he knew how great and mysterious a sacrament the whole church was then with various reasonings considering, and he left open a freedom of inquiry, that the truth might by search be laid open.... i cannot by any means be induced to believe that cyprian, a catholic bishop, a catholic martyr, and the greater he was the more in every respect humbling himself, that he might find grace before god, did, especially in a holy council of his colleagues, utter with his mouth other than what he carried in his heart, particularly as he adds--'but let us all await the judgment of our lord jesus christ, who singly and alone has the power both of setting us up in the government of his church, and of judging our proceedings.' under appeal then to so great a judgment, expecting to hear the truth from his colleagues, should he offer them the first example of falsehood? god avert such a madness from any christian, how much more from cyprian. we possess then a free power of inquiry, admitted us by cyprian's own most gentle and true language." who can conclude otherwise than that st. augustin in the year 400, as st. cyprian in the year 256, was utterly ignorant of any such power as is now claimed for the see of rome, under cover of that original primacy to which both these great saints have borne indubitable witness? for the words of st. cyprian, attested and approved by st. augustin, contain the most explicit denial of that power lodged in the see of rome as distinct from an oecumenical council, by which alone, if at all, the church of england has been declared schismatical and excommunicate. these are bishops of the west speaking, but the east also must give its voice. st. dionysius of alexandria, and many other eastern prelates, among the rest firmilian, metropolitan of cesarea, in cappadocia, supported st. cyprian on the question of rebaptization. the latter had been informed of st. stephen's strong judgment and decided proceedings in the matter, who had threatened to separate the bishops of the east also from his communion, if they did not comply with his rule. firmilian wrote a long letter to cyprian, which contains very remarkable expressions. he alludes in it more than once to the primacy of st. peter, and to that of stephen as descending from him. [23]"but what is the error, and how great the blindness of him (_i.e._ the pope) who says, remission of sins can be given in the meetings of heretics, nor remains in the foundation of the one church which was once fixed by christ upon the rock, may be hence understood, because to peter alone christ said, whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and again, in the gospel, when on the apostles alone christ breathed and said, receive the holy ghost: whose sins ye remit they are remitted, and whose ye retain, they are retained. _therefore the power of remitting sins was given to the apostles and the churches which they, being sent by christ, set up, and to the bishops who have succeeded them by ordination in their stead_.... and here i am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of stephen, because, glorying as he does in the rank of his episcopate, and maintaining that he holds the succession of peter, upon whom the foundations of the church were laid, he introduces many other rocks, and sets up new buildings of many churches, while he affirms, on his own authority, that baptism is in them.... nor does he perceive that the truth of the christian rock is clouded over by him, and in a manner abolished, who thus betrays and deserts unity.... you africans can say against stephen, that, when the truth became known to you, you relinquished an erroneous custom. but we join custom also to truth, and to the custom of the romans oppose a custom indeed, but that of truth, holding from the beginning this which has been delivered down from christ, and from the apostles." he had said before, "one may know that those who are at rome do not in all things observe what has been delivered down from the beginning, and vainly allege the authority of the apostles, even by this, that in celebrating easter, and in many other sacred rites, one may see there is among them certain variations; nor are all things there kept as they are kept at jerusalem; just as in very many other provinces also, according to the diversity of places and names, there are variations; nor yet on this account have the peace and unity of the catholic church ever been departed from. which now stephen has dared to do, breaking peace towards you, which his predecessors always kept with you, in reciprocal love and honour; casting, too, shameful reproach (infamans) on the blessed apostles, peter and paul, as if they had handed this down, &c." the letter concludes with an apostrophe to stephen, which only a regard to truth induces us to quote, so painful is its vehemence, though it proves _ex abundanti_ the point we are upon: "and stephen is not ashamed to assert this, that remission of sins can be given through those who are themselves in all their sins.... but thou art worse than all heretics; for whilst many, acknowledging their error, come to thee thence to receive the true light of the church, thou assistest the errors of those so coming.... nor understandest that their souls will be demanded at thy hand, when the day of judgment is come, who to the thirsting hast denied the church's draught, and hast been the cause of death to those who would live. and moreover thou art indignant! see with what ignorance thou venturest to censure those who strive for the truth against falsehood. for who had most right to be angry at another; he who supports the enemies of god, or he who argues for the truth of the church against him who supports god's enemies? except that it is evident that the ignorant are also passionate and wrathful, whilst, through lack of wisdom and discourse, they readily betake themselves to passion, so that it is of none other than thee that holy scripture says, 'the passionate man prepares quarrels, and the wrathful man heaps up sins;' for what quarrels and dissensions hast thou caused through the churches of the whole world! but how great a sin hast thou heaped upon thyself, _when thou didst cut thyself off from so many flocks; for thou hast destroyed thyself. do not be deceived. since he is the true schismatic who has made himself an apostate from the communion of the church's oneness; for whilst thou dost fancy that all can be excommunicated by thee, thou hast excommunicated thyself alone from all_.... this salutary advice of the apostle how diligently hath stephen fulfilled! preserving humility of feeling and lenity, _in his first rank_, (primo in loco.) for what could be more humble or gentle, than to have disagreed with so many bishops throughout the whole world, breaking peace with one and the other on various grounds of discord, now with the eastern, as we are sure you are aware, now with you in the south; episcopal deputies from whom he received with such patience and mildness, that he did not even admit them to an interview; moreover, so mindful of the claims of charity and affection, that he charged the whole brotherhood, that no one should receive them into his house?" &c. concerning this remarkable history, fleury says:[24] "it is not known what was then the issue of this dispute. it is certain that it still continued under pope saint sixtus, successor of st. stephen: this is seen by the letters that st. dionysius of alexandria wrote him; and it does not appear that st. cyprian or firmilian changed their mind." (so that st. cyprian died under excommunication from pope stephen.) "still st. cyprian is counted among the most illustrious martyrs, even in the roman church, which names him in the canon of the mass, in preference to pope st. stephen; and the greeks, in their menologium, honour the memory of firmilian. with reason, since we shall see him preside over the first council of antioch, against paul of samosata; and the fathers of the second council, writing to the pope, name firmilian, of happy memory, as they do dionysius of alexandria. why the error of st. cyprian and st. firmilian hurt not their sanctity is, that they always preserved on their part the unity of the church, and charity, and that they maintained in good faith a bad cause, which they believed good, _and upon which there had not yet been a decision received by unanimous consent of the whole church_. thus st. augustin speaks of it, _not counting as a final decision the decree of pope st. stephen, though true in its matter, and clothed with all the force that he could give it. no one of the ancients has accused these holy bishops of obstinacy for not having obeyed this decree_. the decision of pope st. stephen respecting the baptism of heretics has prevailed, because it was the most ancient and the most universal, and consequently the best.... at length this question was entirely set at rest by the authority of the universal council, that is to say, at the latest, at the council of nicea." most fair and just: st. cyprian and st. firmilian may have innocently erred in such a matter; but what of the way in which they treated the pope? could they be ignorant of the constitution of that church of which they were primates, saints, and one a martyr? if his decision was final, must they not have known it? if his primacy involved their obedience, must they not have rendered it? but if they were his deputies, as the present roman claim would have it, who can express their rashness? had they been right, and the pope wrong, according to the present tenets of the latin church, obedience had been better than sacrifice. in truth, they would have anticipated the noble submission of the archbishop of cambrai, and yielded at once to the chair of st. peter, whatever had been their conviction as to the truth of their views; but the archbishop of carthage, the sternest defender of ecclesiastical unity and discipline which even the church of the fathers produced, knew not that he had any such duty towards the see of st. peter. nay, and st. augustin knew it not either. it was no more the belief in his day than in st. cyprian's. the donatists alleged against him in the question of baptism the authority of cyprian in this great council of carthage. this leads him to make a very important statement--"you are wont to object against us cyprian's letters, cyprian's judgment, cyprian's council: why do you assume the authority of cyprian for your schism, and reject his example for the peace of the church? but who is ignorant that canonical holy scripture, as well of the old as of the new testament, is contained in its own certain limits, and is so preferred to all subsequent letters of bishops, that no doubt or discussion at all can be held concerning it, as to whether that be true or right, which is acknowledged to be found written in it: but that the letters of bishops which either have been or are written after the confirmation of the canon, may be reprehended both by the reasoning, peradventure more full of wisdom, of some one in that matter more skilled, and by the weightier authority and more learned judgment of other bishops, and by councils, if haply there has been in them any deviation from the truth; and that councils themselves, holden in particular regions or provinces, yield, beyond all question, to the authority of plenary councils, which are made out of the whole christian world: and that former plenary councils themselves are often corrected by subsequent ones, when by some practical experience what has been hidden is laid open, and what lay concealed is recognised, without any puffing up of sacrilegious pride, without any haughty exhibition of arrogance, without any strife of livid envy, with holy humility, with catholic peace, with christian charity."[25] here, where, in a _dignus vindice nodus_, we should have expected some mention of the chief see, and st. peter's rights, all is referred to the voice of bishops in council,--that see, in which, according to bellarmine, the plenitude of all the power resides which christ left in his church, is not even spoken of. he proceeds--"wherefore holy cyprian, the more exalted, the more humble," (in a matter for which he was excommunicated by the pope, and in which, if the present papal theory be true, his conduct was to the last degree insolent, and unjustifiable,) "who so loved the example of peter as to say,--'showing, indeed, an instance to us of concord and patience, that we should not pertinaciously love our own opinion, but should rather count for our own any useful and sound suggestions, which at times are made by our brethren and colleagues, if they be true and lawful:' he sufficiently shows that he would most readily have corrected his judgment, had any one pointed out to him that the baptism of christ might be given by those who had gone out (from the church) in the same manner that it could not be lost when they went out: on which point we have already said much. nor should we ourselves venture to make any such assertion, were we not supported by the unanimous authority of the whole church: to which he too, without doubt, would yield, if the truth of this question had at that period been thoroughly sifted, and declared, and established by a plenary council. for if he praises and extols peter for having with patience and harmony suffered correction from a single younger colleague, how much more readily would he himself, with the council of his province, have yielded to the authority of the whole world, when the truth was laid open? because, indeed, so holy and so peaceful a soul might most readily agree to one person (_i.e._ the pope), speaking and proving the truth; and this, perhaps, was really the fact, but we know not. for not all which at that time was transacted between bishops could be committed to posterity and writing, nor do we know all which was so committed. for how could that matter, involved in so many clouds of altercations, be brought to the clear consideration and ratification of a plenary council, unless first for a long time throughout all the regions of the world it had been thoroughly tried, and made manifest by many discussions and conferences of bishops on the one side and on the other? but wholesome peace produces this, that when obscure questions have been long under inquiry, and, through the difficulty of ascertaining them, beget various judgments in brotherly discussion, until the pure truth be arrived at, the bond of unity holds, lest in the part cut off the incurable wound of error should remain." he considers pope stephen here, even when he was right, as one of many _brethren_, who had a right to be deferentially heard, but no more. as in another place, arguing with these same donatists, he distinctly considers the case of the judgment of the roman pontiff being erroneous. "the donatists,"[26] says he, "chose with a double purpose, to plead their cause with coecilian before the churches across the sea; being doubly prepared, that if they could by any skilfulness of false accusation have overcome him, they might to the full satiate their desire: but if they failed in this, might continue in the same perversity, but still as if they would have to allege, that they had suffered in having bad judges: this is what all wrong suitors cry, though they have been overcome by the plainest truths: as if it might not be answered them and most justly retorted,--let us suppose that these bishops who judged at rome," (pope melchiades and his council,) "were not fair judges; there still remained a plenary council of the universal church, where the cause might have been tried even with those very judges, so that had they been convicted of false judgment their decision might be reversed." nay, it appears, the cause of the donatists, after being decided by pope melchiades, was reheard, and that, not by a plenary council, but by other bishops of the west, deputed by constantine. "know,"[27] says st. augustin, "that your first ancestors carried the cause of coecilianus before the emperor constantine. demand this of us, let us prove it to you, and if we prove it not, do with us what you can. but because constantine dared not to judge in the cause of a bishop, he delegated the discussion and terminating of it to bishops. this took place in the city of rome under the presidency of melchiades, bishop of that church, with many of his colleagues. they having pronounced coecilianus innocent, and condemned donatus, who had made the schism at carthage, your party again went to the emperor, and murmured against the judgment of the bishops in which they had been beaten. for how can the guilty party praise the judge by whose sentence he has been beaten? yet a second time the most indulgent emperor assigned other bishops as judges, at arles, in gaul, and from them your party appealed to the emperor himself, until he too heard the cause, and pronounced coecilianus innocent, and them false accusers." did he who wrote these words mean to censure constantine for granting a second hearing after the judgment of pope melchiades? "basilides," says mr. newman, "deposed in spain, betakes himself to rome, and gains the ear of st. stephen." this, however, is only half the case. it comes to the knowledge of st. cyprian that he has done so. let us take fleury's account.[28] "as basilides and martial still endeavoured to force themselves back upon their sees, felix and sabinus, their legitimate successors, went to carthage with letters from the churches of leon, asturia, and merida, and from another felix, bishop of sarragossa, known in africa as attached to the faith, and a defender of the truth. these letters were read in a council of thirty-six bishops, at the head of whom was st. cyprian, who answered in the name of all by a letter addressed to the priest felix, and to the faithful people of leon and asturia, and to the deacon loelius, with the people of merida." in this letter he says, "wherefore,[29] according to divine tradition, and apostolic observance, that is to be kept and observed, which is observed by us also, and generally throughout all the provinces, that in order rightly to celebrate ordinations, the nearest bishops of the same province should meet together with that people for whom the head is ordained, and the bishop should be chosen in the presence of the people, which is most fully acquainted with the life of every one, and has observed the conduct of each individual from his conversation. and this we see was observed by you in the ordination of our colleague sabinus, so that, according to the suffrage of the whole brotherhood, and the judgment of the bishops, who were either present, or had sent you letters about him, the episcopate was conferred upon him, and hands laid upon him in the place of basilides. nor can it invalidate a rightful ordination, that basilides, after the detection of his crimes and the laying bare his conscience even by his own confession, going to rome deceived our colleague stephen, who was far removed and ignorant of the thing as it was really done, that he might make interest for an unjust restoration to that episcopate from which he had been rightfully deposed. it comes to this, that the crimes of basilides have been rather doubled than wiped away, since to his former sins, the crime of deceit and circumvention has been added. _nor should he be so much blamed, who through negligence was overreached_, as the other execrated, who fraudulently deceived. but if basilides could overreach men, god he cannot," &c. if the appeal of basilides to stephen proves the roman primacy, what does the subsequent appeal of the people of leon, asturia, and merida, to carthage, prove? and if the restoration of basilides by stephen, proves that he possessed that power, what does the subsequent pronouncing of that restoration void by cyprian and his brother bishops, without even first acquainting stephen, prove? in truth, all the acts of st. cyprian's episcopate, of which we have given several in illustration, are an indisputable assurance to the candid mind that he treated the roman pontiff simply as his brother,--his elder brother, indeed,--holding the first see in christendom, but, individually, as liable to err as himself. and it is equally clear that st. augustin, a hundred and forty years later, did not censure him for this. what we have seen, is this. in the matter of fortunatus and felicissimus, cyprian rejects with vehement indignation their appeal to rome: in the case of marcian of arles, he writes as an equal to pope stephen, almost enjoining him what to do: in the question of rebaptizing heretics, he disregards st. stephen's judgment, and the anathema which accompanies it; and how strong st. firmilian's language is we need not repeat, who declares that st. stephen's excommunication only cut off himself: in the case of basilides, he deposes afresh one whom stephen had restored. such are the illustrations afforded by the preceding century to what we have stated was the unquestioned constitution of the catholic church at the time of the council of nicea; viz. that while the three great sees of rome, alexandria, and antioch exercised a powerful but entirely paternal influence on their colleagues, that of rome having the undoubted primacy, not derived from the gift of councils, or the rank of the imperial city, but from immemorial tradition as the see of st. peter; yet, at the same time, the fullness of the priesthood, and with it all power to govern the church, were acknowledged to reside in the whole episcopal body. "the bishop," says thomassin, quoting with approbation a greek writer, as representing the doctrine of the early fathers, and of the universal church since, "is the complete image in the church on earth of him who in the holy trinity alone bears the name of father, as being the first principle without principle, and the fruitful source of the other persons, and of all the divine perfections.... the bishop communicates the priesthood, as he who is without principle in the godhead, and is therefore called father."[30] the apostolic canons, and those of the council of nicea, are the legislative acts bearing witness to this order of things: the conduct and words of st. cyprian, st. firmilian, and st. augustin, which we have instanced, and an innumerable multitude of other cases, exhibit it in full life and vigour; while, on the other side, there is absolutely nothing to allege. the history of the church during the three hundred years following the nicene council is but a development of this constitution. the problem was, how to combine in the harmonious action of one organized body those apostolical powers which resided in the bishops generally. the patriarchal system was the result. as the church increased in extent, her rulers would increase in number. this multiplication, which would tend so much to augment the centrifugal force, was met by increased energy in the centripetal: the power of the patriarchs, and specially of the bishop of rome, grew. it is impossible, in my present limits, to follow this out, but i propose to give a few specimens, as before, in illustration. in so vast a system of interlaced and concurrent powers as the church of christ presented, differences would continually arise; and in so profound a subject-matter as the christian revelation, heresies would be continually starting up: to arrange the former, and to expel or subjugate the latter, the bishops, says thomassin, having already more than once appealed to the christian emperors for the calling of great councils, saw the danger of suffering the imperial authority to intervene in ecclesiastical causes, and sought to establish a new jurisprudence on this head.[31] "the council of antioch (a.d. 341), and that of sardica (a.d. 347), which were held almost at the same time,--the one in the east, the other in the west,--set about this in a very different manner, aiming, however, at the same end. the council of antioch ordered that bishops, priests, and deacons, who should have been condemned by a provincial council, might recur to a larger council of bishops; but that if they carried their complaints before the emperor they could never be reestablished in their dignity." "one must in good faith admit, that this regulation had much conformity with what had been practised in the first ages of obscurity and persecution, for it was in the same way that extraordinary councils had been held, such as were those of antioch against paul of samosata, bishop of that great city. it was the metropolitans and bishops of the neighbourhood who assembled with those of the province where the flame of a great dissension had been kindled. the council of sardica, urged by the same desire to break through the custom which was introducing itself, of having recourse to the emperor for judgment of spiritual causes of the church, bethought itself of another means, which was not less conformable to the practice of the preceding centuries, and which had, beside that, much foundation in the holy scriptures. for jesus christ, having given the primacy, and the rank of head, to st. peter, above the other apostles, and having given successors as well to the apostles, to wit, all the bishops, as to st. peter, to wit, the roman pontiffs; moreover, having willed that his church should remain for ever one by the union of all bishops with their head, it is manifest, that if the bishops of a province could not agree in their provincial council, and if the bishops of several provinces had disputes between each other, the most natural way to finish these differences was to introduce the authority of the head, and of him whom jesus christ has established as the centre of unity of his universal church." accordingly, at the council of sardica, attended by st. athanasius, then in exile, and about a hundred western bishops, after the secession of the eastern or arian portion, hosius proposed, "if two bishops of the same province have a disagreement, neither of the two shall take for arbitrator a bishop of another province: if a bishop, having been condemned, feels so assured of his right, that he is willing to be judged anew in a council, _let us honour, if you think it good, the memory of the apostle st. peter_: let those who have examined the cause, write to julius, bishop of rome; if he thinks proper to order a fresh trial, let him name judges; if he does not think that there is reason to renew the matter, let what he orders be kept to. the council approved this proposition. the bishop gaudentius added, that, during this appeal, no bishop should be ordained in place of him who had been deposed, until the bishop of rome had judged his cause."[32] "to make the preceding canon clearer, hosius said, 'when a bishop, deposed by the council of the province, shall have appealed and had recourse to the bishop of rome, if he judge proper that the matter be examined afresh, he shall write to the bishops of the neighbouring province to be the judges of it; and if the deposed bishop persuade the bishop of rome to send a priest from his own person, he shall be able to do it, and to send commissioners to judge by his authority, together with the bishops; but if he believes that the bishops are sufficient to settle the matter, he will do what his wisdom suggests to him.' the judgment which pope julius, together with the council of rome, had given in favour of athanasius and the other persecuted bishops, seems to have given cause to this canon, and we have seen that this pope complained that they had judged st. athanasius without writing to him about it." such is the modest commencement of that power of hearing episcopal causes on appeal, which has been the instrument of obtaining the wonderful authority concentrated by a long series of ages in the see of rome. however conformable to the practice of preceding centuries, as thomassin says, this may have been, this power is here certainly _granted_ by the council, _not considered as inherent in the see of rome_. and this one fact is fatal to the present claim of the supremacy. to use de maistre's favourite analogy, it is as though the states general or parliament conferred his royal powers on the sovereign who convoked them, and whose assent alone made their enactments law. accordingly, like the whole course of proceedings in these early councils, it is incompatible with the notion of the pope being the monarch in the church. we may safely say, history offers not a more wonderful contrast in a power bearing the same name, than that here conferred on pope julius in 347, and that exercised by pope pius the seventh in 1802. on the bursting out of the french revolution, out of a hundred and thirty-six bishops more than a hundred and thirty remained faithful to god and the church: some offered the testimony of their blood; the rest became confessors in all lands for christ's sake, in poverty, contempt, and banishment. after ten years, the civil governor, who had lately professed himself a mahometan, proposes to the pope to re-establish the church, but on condition of himself nominating to the sees, and those not the ancient sees of the country, but a selection from them, to the number of eighty. thereupon the pope requires those eighty bishops and confessors who still survived, and whom he acknowledged to be not only blameless, but martyrs for the name of christ, to resign into his hands their episcopal powers. of his own single authority he abolishes the ancient sees of the eldest daughter of the western church, constitutes that number of new sees which the civil power permits, and treats as schismatics those few bishops who disobey his requisition. i do not presume to express any blame of pope pius; i simply mention a fact. but it seems to me, certainly, that those who would entirely recognise the power and precedence exercised by pope julius, are not necessarily schismatics because they refuse to admit a power not merely greater in degree, but different in kind, and to set the high priesthood of the church beneath the feet of one, though it be the first of her pontiffs. the restrictions under which, according to the council of sardica, the pope could cause a matter to be reheard, are specific. much larger power is assigned in the fourth general council, that of chalcedon, to the see of constantinople, in the ninth canon, which says, "if any bishop or clergyman has a controversy against the bishop of the province himself (_i.e._ the metropolitan), let him have recourse to the exarch of the diocese, or to the throne of the imperial city of constantinople, and plead his cause before him." but, between these two councils of nicea, a.d. 325, and chalcedon, 451, the whole patriarchal system of the church had sprung up, and covered the provinces of the roman empire with as it were a finely reticulated net. the system may be said to be built on two principles, recognised and enforced in the apostolic canons, and consistently carried out, from the bishop of the poorest country town up to the primatial see of rome. these principles are, "the authority of the metropolitan over his bishops in important and extraordinary affairs, and the supreme authority of bishops in the ordinary government of their particular bishoprics. with this distinction, that the metropolitan even cannot arrange important and extraordinary affairs but with the counsel of his suffragans, whilst every bishop conducts all the common and ordinary affairs of his diocese without being obliged to take the advice of his metropolitan."[33] this latter principle, it will be seen, expresses the essential equality and unity of the high priesthood vested in bishops by descent from the apostles, to which st. cyprian bears such constant witness, so that it may be said to be the one spirit which animates all his government: while the former, leaving this quite inviolate, builds together the whole church in one vast living structure. for as the bishops of the province have their metropolitan, and their spring and autumn councils under him, so the metropolitan stands in a like relation to his exarch, or patriarch; and of the five great patriarchs of rome, constantinople, alexandria, antioch, and jerusalem, who are found at the council of chalcedon to preside over the church catholic, that of rome has the unquestioned primacy, and is seen at the centre, sustaining and animating the whole. "the most important of all the powers of metropolitans, exarchs, and patriarchs, was the election of bishops, the confirmation and consecration of bishops elected. for all the other degrees of authority were founded on this one, which rendered the metropolitan the father, master, and judge of all his suffragans."[34] "and so that famous canon of the council of nicea, (the 6th,) which seems in appearance only to confirm the ancient right of the three first metropolitans of the world to ordain the bishops of all the provinces of their dependence, establishes in effect all the rights and all the powers of the metropolitans, because it establishes the foundation on which they all rest. 'if any one be made a bishop contrary to the sentence of his metropolitan, the great synod declares that he should not be a bishop.' nothing is juster than to found the right of a holy and paternal rule on the right of generation. for by ordination the bishops engender not children indeed, but fathers, to the church." this system continued unimpaired in the whole church, at least to the time of st. gregory the great. it offers, i think, an unanswerable refutation to what must be considered the strongest argument of the roman catholics for the supremacy, that there could be no unity in the church without it, as a living organized body; history says, there _was_ unity, with five co-ordinate patriarchs, and an episcopate twice as numerous as that of the present latin communion. in the latin church itself, this system was only gradually overshadowed by another system which sprang from the excessive development of one of its parts; in the greek and russian church, it continues down to this day; whatever ecclesiastical constitution we still have ourselves, is a part of this system. and by reference to, and under cover of this, which if not strictly of divine right, as is the high priesthood of bishops, approaches very nearly indeed to it, and was the effluence of the spirit of god ruling and guiding the church of the fathers, we must justify ourselves from the damning blot of schism. we cannot, dare not, do this upon principles such as "the right of private judgment"--"the bible alone is the religion of protestants,"--and the like, which lead directly, and by most certain consequence, to dissent, heresy, and anarchy. god forbid that they who profess to be members of the one holy catholic church should, urged by any unhappiness of their provisional and strange position, take up satanic and antichristian arms. no! if we may not hope for that system under which augustin and chrysostom laboured and witnessed, we will have nothing to do with those who destroy dogmatic faith altogether, and break up the visible unity of the church of christ into a multitude of atoms. _quot homines, tot voluntates._ we cannot so relapse into worse than a second heathenism, and with the unity of pentecost offered us, deliberately choose the confusion of babel. but over and above his natural eminence in the church, which i have attempted to describe, a concurrence of events in the fourth century tended to give a still greater moral weight to the voice of the bishop of rome. while the other great sees of the church were vexed with heresy or schism, his was providentially exempted from both. the same century witnessed coecilianus of carthage, judged and supported by pope melchiades, while the donatist schism all that century long rent africa in twain; and st. athanasius, of alexandria, driven from his see, and persecuted by the whole east, received and justified by pope julius; and st. john chrysostom, too good by far for a corrupt capital and a degenerate court, in life protected, and in death restored, by pope innocent. we have seen st. jerome appeal to pope damasus, to know which of three competitors for the patriarchal throne of antioch was the right bishop. but it is impossible to describe the confusion and violence which the arian heresy, and the cognate heresies concerning the person of our lord, wrought throughout the church and empire. in all these the roman patriarch was beheld immovable, supporting, with his whole authority, what turned out to be the orthodox view. what mr. newman asserts is, moreover, entirely in accordance with the patriarchal system, as we have attempted to describe it, "that the writers of the fourth and fifth centuries fearlessly assert, or frankly allow, that the prerogatives of rome were derived from apostolic times, and that because it was the see of st. peter." i confess that these words set me upon the search, and that i have found such testimonies in abundance; but then they are invariably to the bishop of rome _as holding the first see, not as_ episcopus episcoporum: _they bear witness to the patriarchal system, not to the papal_. for instance, all lovers of truth would be obliged to mr. newman to point out, in all the works of st. augustin, a single passage which is sufficiently distinct and specific to justify the papal claims, nay, which does not consider the pope the first bishop, and _no more_. it is little to say i have searched for such in vain. but in a western father, whose extant writings are so voluminous, and whose personal history is almost a history of the church during the nearly forty years of his episcopate, and who continually gives judgment on all matters concerning the church's government and constitution, it would seem impossible but that such a testimony should be found, if a thing so wondrous as is the papal power then existed. on the contrary, st. augustin, continually explaining those often cited passages of scripture, on which mediæval and later roman writers ground the papal prerogatives, that is, thou art peter, &c., feed my sheep, &c., says specifically, that peter represents the church. one of these passages we have already quoted. take another. "and i say unto thee, because thou hast said to me; thou hast spoken, now hear; thou hast given a confession, receive a blessing; therefore, and i say unto thee, that thou art peter; because i am the rock, thou art peter; for neither from peter is the rock, but from the rock, peter; because not from the christian is christ, but from christ the christian. and upon this rock i will build my church; _not upon peter, which thou art, but upon the rock which thou hast confessed_. but i will build my church, _i will build thee, who in this answer representest the church_."[35] again, in a passage which conveys that old view of cyprian, that every bishop's chair is the chair of st. peter. "for as some things are said which would seem to belong personally to the apostle peter, yet cannot be clearly understood unless when they are referred to the church, which he is admitted, in figure, to have represented, on account of the primacy which he held among the disciples,--as is,--i will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;--and if there be any such like."[36] again: "for peter himself, to whom he entrusted his sheep as to another self, he willed to make one with himself, that so he might entrust his sheep to him; that he might be the head, the other bear the figure of the body, that is, the church; and that, as man and wife, they might be two in one flesh."[37] again: "the lord jesus chose out his disciples before his passion, as ye know, whom he named apostles. amongst these, peter alone almost everywhere was thought worthy (_meruit_) to represent the whole church. on account of that very representing of the whole church, which he alone bore, he was thought worthy to hear, i will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. _for these keys not one man but the unity of the church received._ here, therefore, the eminence of peter is set forth, because he represented the very universality and unity of the church, when it was said to him, i give to thee what was given to all. for that you may know that the church has received the keys of the kingdom of god, hear what in another place the lord says to all his apostles: receive the holy ghost. and presently: whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to him; whosesoever ye retain, they are retained. this belongs to the keys concerning which it was said, what ye loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven; and what ye bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven. but this he said to peter. that you may know that peter then represented the whole church, hear what is said to him,"[38] &c. "for deservedly, after his resurrection, the lord delivered his sheep to peter himself to feed; _for he was not the only one among the disciples who was thought worthy to feed the lord's sheep_. but when christ speaks to one, unity is commended; and to peter above all, because peter is the first among the apostles."[39] again: "as in the apostles, the number itself being twelve, that is, four divisions into three,"--(he seems to mean, that there was a mystical universality betokened in the number four, as a mystical unity in the number three,)--"and all being asked, peter alone answered, thou art the christ, the son of the living god. and it is said to him, i will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, _as if he alone had received the power of binding and loosing; the case really being, that he singly said that in the name of all, and received this together with all, as representing unity itself; therefore one in the name of all, because unity is in all_."[40] this, written at so many different times, was evidently the view preferred by this great father;[41] and be it observed, that while, on the one hand, there is a total silence as to the local see of rome, on the other hand, there is in these words a specific denial of the present roman doctrine, that all spiritual jurisdiction throughout the whole church is derived from the see of rome _alone_. that jurisdiction is derived from the see of rome, and the other apostolic sees in conjunction, is the truth of the patriarchal system; that it is derived from the see of rome, as distinct from them, and without them, is the exaggeration of the papal system. i may remark here, that st. leo the great does apply these passages both to st. peter personally, as distinct from the other apostles, and to the roman pontiffs, as his successors, distinct from all other bishops. st. augustin's different application is the more remarkable. the strongest expressions respecting the power of the roman see, which i have been able to find in the works of st. augustin, are contained not in his proper works, but in two letters of pope st. innocent, written in answer to the synodical letters of the council of milevi,--"who thought fit likewise to communicate their judgment to the pope st. innocent in order to join the apostolical authority to their own."[42] their own words are,--"what we have done, sir and brother, we have thought good to intimate to your holy charity, that the authority of the apostolical see may also be added to what we, in our mediocrity, have ordered, to protect the salvation of many, and also to correct the perversity of some."[43] they were writing concerning a point nearly touching the common faith, _i.e._, in condemnation of pelagius. the pope in his answer, praises them, that--"guarding, according to the duty of priests, the institutions of the fathers, ye resolve that those regulations should not be trodden under foot, which they with no human but divine voice decreed: viz., that whatever was being carried on, although in the most distant and remote provinces, should not be terminated before it was brought to the knowledge of this see: by the full authority of which the just sentence should be confirmed, and that thence all other churches might derive what they should order; whom they should absolve; whom, as being bemired with ineffaceable pollution, the stream, that is worthy only of pure bodies, should avoid; so that as from their parent source all waters should flow, and through the different regions of the whole world the pure streams of the fountain well forth uncorrupted."[44] and in like manner to the bishops of numidia, at the same council. "ye do, therefore, diligently and becomingly consult the secrets of the apostolical honour, (that honour, i mean, on which beside those things that are without, the care of all the churches awaits,) as to what judgment is to be passed on doubtful matters, following in sooth the direction of the ancient rule, which you know, as well as i, has ever been observed in the whole world. but this i pass by, for i am sure your prudence is aware of it: for how could you by your actions have confirmed this, save as knowing that throughout all provinces answers are ever emanating as from the apostolic fountain to inquirers? especially, so often as a matter of faith is under inquiry, i conceive that all our brethren and fellow-bishops ought not to refer, save to peter, that is, the source of their own name and honour, just as your affection hath now referred, for what may benefit all churches in common, throughout the whole world. for the inventors of evils must necessarily become more cautious, when they see that at the reference of a double synod they have been severed from ecclesiastical communion by our sentence."[45] there is certainly an indefiniteness about these expressions, which may be made to embrace anything; but they do not fairly mean more than that supervision of the faith which belonged to the office of the first of the patriarchs. moreover, they come from a pope; in st. augustin's mouth, they would have much more force. they show us, besides, what a tendency there was in the power of the patriarch continually to increase, as being the centre of appeal to so many, not only bishops, but metropolitans. nay, at this very time, within less than a century, a rival power had grown up in the east, in the see of constantinople, which, from a simple bishopric, under the exarch of heraclea, threatened to push aside the patriarchs of alexandria and antioch; and, by virtue of the imperial residence at, or near constantinople, to exercise as great an influence through the whole east, as rome did in the west. if this happened where there was no apostolic see to build upon, but simply the privileges of the royal city, how much more in the case of rome, which stood alone in the west the single object of common reverence; "since it is well known," says this same pope innocent, "that there were no churches founded by any one, either in italy, the gauls, spain, africa, sicily, or in the adjacent islands, unless by those whom the apostle st. peter, or his successors, had appointed bishops."[46] so that the pope, on the patriarchal theory, was the common father of the whole west. in the latter years of st. augustin's life, the important question of appeals from african bishops to rome was settled. apiarius, a priest, had been excommunicated by his bishop, and appealed to the pope. the bishops of africa would not agree to the pope's claim, that the causes of clergy, condemned by their own bishop, should be brought before the neighbouring bishops; nor that bishops should appeal to rome. the pope alleged the canons of nicea, (not, be it observed, an inherent power in his see to judge bishops;) the bishops of africa said they could not find those canons in the copies which they had. they agreed, however, to be thus treated, provisionally, for a short time, till they were better informed of the decrees of nicea. it turned out that, by the canons of nicea, the pope meant those of sardica, to which the african bishops refused obedience. the end of this was, that pope st. coelestine restored apiarius to communion, and sent him back to africa, with faustinus, his legate. "at his arrival, the bishops of africa assembled a council, in which aurelius, of carthage, and valentine, primate of numidia, presided. thirteen more are named, but the name of st. augustin does not appear among them. this council having examined the affair of apiarius, found him charged with so many crimes, that it was impossible for faustinus to defend him, though he acted the part rather of an advocate than of a judge, and violated all right in the opposition he maintained against the whole council, under pretence of supporting the privileges of the church of rome. for he wanted apiarius to be received to the communion of the bishops of africa, because the pope had restored him to it, believing that he had appealed, though he could not prove even the fact of his appeal. after a debate of three days, apiarius at last, stung with remorse, and moved by god, confessed, on a sudden, all the crimes of which he had been accused, which were so infamous and incredible as to draw groans from the whole council; after which he was for ever deprived of all ecclesiastical administration. "the bishops wrote a synodical letter to pope coelestine, in which they conjure him, for the future, not to receive to his communion those who have been excommunicated by them; since this was a point ruled by the nicene council. for, they added, if this be forbidden with respect to the minor clergy, or laymen, how much more did the council intend its observance in respect to bishops? those, therefore, who are interdicted from communion in their own provinces, ought not to be restored by your holiness too hastily, and in opposition to the rules; and you ought to reject the priests, and other clergy, who are so rash as to have recourse to you. for no ordinance of our fathers has deprived the church of africa of this authority, and the decrees of the nicene council have subjected the bishops themselves to their respective metropolitans. _they have ordained with great wisdom and justice, that all matters should be terminated in the places when they arise; and did not think that the grace of the holy ghost would be wanting in any province to bestow on its bishops the knowledge and strength necessary for their decisions; especially, since whosoever thinks himself wronged, may appeal to the council of his province, or even to a general council, unless it be imagined that god can inspire a single individual with justice, and refuse it to an innumerable multitude of assembled bishops. and how shall we be able to rely on a sentence passed beyond the sea, since it will not be possible to send thither the necessary witnesses, whether from the weakness of sex, or of advanced age, or any other impediment? for that your holiness should send any one on your part we can find ordained by no council._" "with regard to what you have sent us by our brother, faustinus, as being contained in the nicene council, we find nothing of the kind in the more authentic copies of that council, which we have received from our brother, the bishop of alexandria, and the venerable atticus, of constantinople, and which we formerly sent to boniface, your predecessor, of happy memory. for the rest, whoever desires you to delegate any of your clergy to execute your orders, we beseech you not to comply, lest it seem that we are introducing the pride of secular dominion into the church of christ, which ought to exhibit to all men an example of simplicity and humility. for as to our brother faustinus, since the wretched apiarius is cut off from the church, we depend confidently on your goodness, that, without violating brotherly charity, africa shall be no longer forced to endure him. such is the letter of the council of africa to pope st. coelestine."[47] i confess it was not without astonishment that i first read this passage of history; so exactly had the african bishops, in 426, when the greatest father of the church was one of them, anticipated and pleaded the cause of the english church, in 1534. it is precisely the same claim made in both instances, viz. that these two laws should be observed, on which the stability of the government of the whole church catholic rests; as thomassin remarks:--first, that the action of the bishop in his own diocese, in matters proper to that diocese, should not be interfered with; secondly, that the action of the metropolitan with his suffragans, in matters belonging to his province, should be left equally free. who ever accused the african bishops, and st. augustin, of schism, for maintaining a right which had come down to them from all antiquity, was possessed and acted on all over the church, was specifically enacted at the greatest ecumenical council, and recognised in every provincial council held up to that time? this was all that the church of england claimed; she based her claim on the unvarying practice of the whole church during, at least, the first six centuries. we repeat, it is not a case of doubt, of conflicting testimony, in words elsewhere quoted, "of popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age against the church of another age."[48] it is the church of the martyrs, the church of the fathers, of athanasius, basil, gregory, and chrysostom, ambrose, jerome, augustin, and gregory the great, bearing one unbiassed indisputable witness, attested in a hundred councils, denied in none, for the patriarchal system, and against a power assumed by one bishop, though the greatest, most venerable, and most illustrious in his own see, to interfere, dispense with, suspend, or abrogate, the authority of the bishop in his diocese, and of the metropolitan in his council; to exercise singly, by himself, powers which belong only to an ecumenical council, and to annul the enactments of at least the first four ecumenical councils. had an advocate been instructed to draw out the abstract case of the english church, he could not have described it more exactly than the african bishops in stating their own. true, indeed, it is, that the african bishops were maintaining a right which not only had never been interrupted, but was universal; while the english bishops resumed a power which had been surrendered, not only by them, but by all the west of europe, for many hundred years. accordingly, the african bishops did not suffer even a temporary suspension of communion with rome, for having both condemned afresh apiarius, whom the pope had restored, and explicitly refused permission to the pope to interfere in the ordinary government of their dioceses; while the english church has ever since been accused of schism by the rest of the latin communion. this decision of the african bishops, in the year 426, is a proof that the canon of the council of sardica, conferring, in certain cases, the power of ordering a cause to be reheard on the pope, and the most favourable to his authority of any canon of an ancient council, was yet not received even throughout all the west. in the year 402, st. augustin wrote a letter to the catholics, commonly called his treatise "on the unity of the church." the bearing of this book on the controversy respecting schism between ourselves and the roman catholics is very remarkable. the saint refers triumphantly to most express passages from the law, the prophets, the psalms, our lord's own teaching, and that of his apostles, bearing witness to the catholicity of the church, an "ecclesia toto terrarum orbe diffusa." he challenges his adversaries, the donatists, to produce a single passage, which either restricted the church to the confines of africa, or declared that it would perish from the rest of the world, and be restored out of africa. his test seems decisive against the donatists, and against all those who in after times have restricted the church to one province, or have declared the roman church to be so corrupt that it is not a part of the true church. for if it be not, then the promises of christ have failed. but while it annihilates the position of the donatists, and of the puritan or evangelical faction in these present times, it leaves unassailed that of andrewes and ken. st. augustin every where appeals to the church spread throughout the whole world, as being, by virtue of that fact, the one communion in which alone there was salvation, and this upon the testimony of the holy scriptures only. "to salvation itself, and eternal life, no one arrives, save he who has christ for his head. but no one can have christ for his head, except he be in his body, which is the church, which like the head itself we ought to recognise in the holy canonical scriptures, nor to seek after it in the various reports, opinions, doings, sayings, and sights of men."[49] but in the whole book there is not one word about the roman see, or the necessity of communion with it, save as it forms part of the one universal church. it is not named by itself any more than alexandria, or antioch. any one will see the force of this fact who has but looked into the writings of late roman catholic authors. he will see how unwearied they are in setting forth the necessity of the action of the roman see; how they consider it, and rightly, the centre of their system; how they are ever crying, "without the sovereign pontiff there is no true christianity."--_de maistre._ the contrast in st. augustin is the more remarkable. the creed of the council of trent says, "i acknowledge one holy, catholic, and apostolic roman church, the mother and mistress of all churches: and i promise and vow true obedience to the roman pontiff, successor of the blessed peter, prince of the apostles, and vicar of jesus christ." this is distinct and unambiguous: just as much so is st. augustin's "orbis terrarum." "for this the whole world says to them (the donatists,) an argument most briefly stated, but most powerful by its truth. the case is, the african bishops had a contest between themselves; if they could not arrange between themselves the dissension which had arisen, so that the wrong side should either be reduced to concord, or deprived, and they who had the good cause remain in the communion of the whole world through the bond of unity, there was certainly this resource left, that the bishops beyond the sea, where the largest part of the catholic church is spread, should judge concerning the dissensions of their african colleagues,"[50] &c. no doubt the bishop of rome was one, and the most eminent of these bishops beyond the sea; but st. augustin refers the decision of the donatist controversy not to him specially, but to the bishops generally. this is the very principle, for which the eastern church for a thousand years, and the english church for three hundred, have contended against the church of rome. i know not whether what st. augustin says or what he does not say is strongest against the present roman claim; but i think his _silence_ in his book "de unitate ecclesiæ" absolutely convincing to any candid mind. let us hold for an infallible truth his dogma, "securus judicat orbis terrarum;" but the latin communion is not the "orbis terrarum." in truth, the papal supremacy at once cut the church in half; the west, where the pope's was the only apostolical see, unanimously held with him; the east, with its four patriarchs, as unanimously refused his claim, as a new thing which they had never received. even de maistre observes, (liv. 4. ch. 4,) "it is very essential to observe that never was there a question about dogmas between us at the beginning of the great and fatal division." again, st. augustin has five sermons on the day of the apostles peter and paul; he enlarges, as we might expect, on their labours and martyrdom; on the wonderful change of life which grace produced in them, the one thrice denying, and then thrice loving; the other, a blasphemer and persecutor, and then in labours more abundant than all. he speaks of their being joined in their death, the first apostle and the last, in the service and witness of him, who is the first and the last; of their bodies, with those of other martyrs, lying at rome. but not one allusion is there in all these to the roman pontiff; not a word as to his being the heir of a power not committed to the other apostles. on the contrary, on the very occasion of st. peter's festival, he does say, "what was commended to peter,--what was enjoined to peter, not peter alone, but also the other apostles heard, held, preserved, and most of all the partner of his death and of his day, the apostle paul. they heard that, and transmitted it for our hearing: we feed you, we are fed together with you." "therefore hath the lord commended his sheep to us, because he commended them to peter."[51] thus peter's commission is viewed not as excluding, but including that of all the rest; not as distinguished from, but typical of, theirs. yet at this very time roman catholics would have us believe that the successor of peter communicated to all bishops their power to feed the lord's flock; and that such a wonderful power and commission is passed _sub silentio_ by the fathers. the very same principles which the great voice of the western church proclaims in africa, st. vincent of lerins repeats from gaul. take the summary of his famous commonitorium by alban butler. "he layeth down this rule, or fundamental principle, in which he found, by a diligent inquiry, all catholic pastors and the ancient fathers to agree, that such doctrine is truly catholic as hath been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful. by this test of universality, antiquity, and consent, he saith all controverted points in belief must be tried. he sheweth, that whilst novatian, photinus, sabellius, donatus, arius, eunomius, jovinian, pelagius, coelestius, and nestorius expound the divine oracles different ways, to avoid the perplexity of errors we must interpret the holy scriptures by the tradition of the catholic church, as the clue to conduct us in the truth. for this tradition, derived from the apostles, manifesteth the true meaning of the holy scripture, and all novelty in faith is a certain mark of heresy; and in religion nothing is more to be dreaded than itching ears after new teachers. he saith, 'they who have made bold with one article of faith, will proceed on to others; and what will be the consequence of this reforming of religion, but only that these refiners will never have done, till they have reformed it quite away?' he elegantly expatiates on the divine charge given to the church, to maintain inviolable the sacred depositum of faith. he takes notice that heretics quote the sacred writings at every word, and that in the works of paulus samosatenus, priscillian, eunomius, jovinian, and other like pests of christendom, almost every page is painted and laid on thick with scripture texts, which tertullian also remarks. but in this, saith st. vincent, heretics are like those poisoners or quacks, who put off their destructive potions under inscriptions of good drugs, and under the title of infallible cures. they imitate the father of lies, who quoted scripture against the son of god, when he tempted him. the saint adds, that if a doubt arise in interpreting the meaning of the scriptures in any point of faith, we must summon in the holy fathers, who have lived and died in the faith and communion of the catholic church, and by this test we shall prove the false doctrine to be novel. for that only must we look upon as indubitably certain and unalterable, which all, or the major part of these fathers have delivered, like the harmonious consent of a general council. but if any one among them, be he ever so holy, ever so learned, holds any thing besides, or in opposition to the rest, that is to be placed in the rank of singular and private opinions, and never to be looked upon as the public, general, authoritative doctrine of the church. after a point has been decided in a general council, the definition is irrefragable. these general principles, by which all heresies are easily confounded, st. vincent explains with equal elegance and perspicuity." "the same rules are laid down by tertullian in his book of prescriptions, by st. irenæus, and other fathers."--_lives of the saints_, may. 24. but not a word is there here of the authority of the see of rome deciding of itself what is, and what is not, error; or of its communion of itself being a touchstone of what is, and what is not, the catholic church. these are necessary parts of the papal supremacy; instead of which st. vincent holds universal consent. now let us hear bossuet speaking of st. vincent's rule. "these things then are understood not by this or by that doctor, but by all catholics with one voice, that the authority of the church catholic agreeing is most certain, irrefragable, and perspicuous. christians must rest on that agreement, as a most firm and divine foundation; from whom nothing else is required but that in the apostles' creed, that believing in the holy spirit they also believe the holy catholic church; and claim for her the most certain authority and judgment of the holy spirit, by which they are led captive to obedience. which entirely proves that this indefectible power both lies and is believed to lie in consent itself; and this clear and manifest voice dwells altogether in the agreement of the churches; in which we see clearly, on the testimony of the same vincent of lerins, that not a part of the church, but universality itself, is heard: for we follow," saith he, "the whole in this way, if we confess that to be the one true faith which the whole church throughout the world confesses." and a little after, "what doth the catholic christian, if any part hath cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? what surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to that pestilent and corrupted member?[52] "thence floweth unto general councils that certain and invincible authority which we recognise in them. for it is on no other principle that unity and consent have force in councils, or in the assembled church, than because they have equal force in the church spread through the whole world. for the council itself hath force, because it represents the whole church; nor is the church assembled in order that unity and consent may have force, but it is therefore assembled, that the unity which in itself has force in the church, everywhere spread abroad, may be more clearly demonstrated in the same church assembled, by bishops, the doctors of the churches, as being the proper witnesses thereunto. "hence, therefore, is perceived a double method of recognising catholic truth; the first, from the consent of the church everywhere spread abroad; the second, from the consent of the church united in ecumenical or general councils; both which methods i must set forth in detail, to show more clearly that this infallible and irresistible authority resides in the whole body of the church." he then proceeds to show that the type or form of all ecumenical councils was taken from the first council held at jerusalem by the apostles. he notes these particulars: first, there was a great dissension, the cause of it: then, that the chief church, in which peter sat, was then at jerusalem; whence it became a maxim, that councils should not be regularly held without peter and his successors and the first church in which he sits. thirdly, it was as universal as could be. fourthly, all were assembled together. fifthly, the question was stated, next deliberated on, lastly decided by common sentence; which all became rules for future councils. sixthly, the discussion is thus stated in the acts, "when there had been much disputing." seventhly, the deliberation is opened by peter, whence it became a custom that the president of the council should first give sentence. eighthly, paul and barnabas give their testimony, in confirmation of peter's sentence; and james expressly begins with peter's words--"simon hath declared," whence the custom that the rest give their voice at the instance of the president. "they do not, however, so proceed as if they were altogether bound by the authority of the first sentence, but themselves give judgment; and james says, 'i give sentence.' then he proposes what additions seemed good to the principal question, and gives sentence also concerning them." tenthly, "the decree was then drawn up in the common name, and adding the authority of the holy spirit, 'it seemed good unto us being assembled with one accord,' and 'it seemed good to the holy ghost and to us;' there then lies the force, 'to the holy ghost and to us:' not, what seemed good to peter precisely, but, to us; and led by the spirit, not peter alone, but the unity itself of the holy council. whence, too, christ said that concerning the spirit whom he was about to send: 'but when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he shall teach you all truth:' you, saith he, the pastors of the churches, and the masters of the rest. hence, the spirit is always added to the church and the holy congregation. 'i believe in the holy ghost, the holy church, the catholic church:' and with reason therefore, and carefully was the maxim which we have mentioned laid down of old by our doctors: 'the strength of councils resides not in the roman pontiff alone, but chiefly in the holy spirit and in the catholic church.' "eleventhly: when the matter had been judged by common sentence, nothing was afterwards reconsidered, nor any new dissension left to any one; but the decree was carried to the churches, and the people are taught to keep the decrees which were decreed, in the greek 'judged,' by the apostles and elders which were at jerusalem. "this we catholics urge with common consent against heretics who decline the commands and authority of councils: which would have no force, unless together with the authority we also prove the form, and place the force itself of the decree, not in peter alone, but in unity, and in the consent of the apostles and the pastors of the church."[53] in another place he says, 'in ecclesiastical acts we do indeed find that the catholic church is affirmed by chief pontiffs and councils to be represented by ecumenical synods, which contain all its virtue and power, which we are wont to mean by the word "represent." but this we do not read of the roman pontiff, as affirmed either by the pontiffs themselves, or by ecumenical councils, or any where in ecclesiastical acts.[54] i have been unable to find any testimony of st. chrysostom to the transmission of st. peter's primacy over the whole church to the bishop of rome. he has, however, a passage about rome which is worth transcribing; for sometimes, as we have just seen, as much is proved by what is _not_ said, as by what _is_ said. speaking then of st. paul, he writes:--"rather if we listen to him here, we shall surely see him there; if not standing near him, yet we shall see him surely shining near to the king's throne, where the cherubim ascribe glory, where the seraphim spread their wings. there with peter shall we behold paul--him that is the leader and director of the choir of the saints,--and shall enjoy his true love. for if, being here, he so loved men, that having the choice "to depart and be with christ," he chose to be here, much more there will he show warmer affection. rome likewise for this do i love, although having reason otherwise to praise her, both for her size, and her antiquity, and her beauty, and her multitude, and her power, and her wealth, and her victories in war. but passing by all these things, for this i count her blessed; because, when alive, he (paul) wrote to them, and loved them so much, and went and conversed with them, and there finished his life. wherefore the city is on that account more remarkable than for all other things together, and like a great and strong body, it has two shining eyes, the bodies of these saints. not so bright is the heaven when the sun sends forth his beams, as is the city of the romans sending forth everywhere over the world these two lights. thence shall paul, thence shall peter, be caught up. think, and tremble, what a sight shall rome behold, when paul suddenly riseth from that resting-place with peter, and is carried up to meet the lord. what a rose doth rome offer to christ! with what two garlands is that city crowned! with what golden fetters is she girdled; what fountains does she possess! therefore do i admire that city; not for the multitude of its gold, nor for its columns, nor for its other splendours, but for these the pillars of the church."[55] had st. chrysostom felt like a roman catholic could he have stopped there? loving rome for possessing the blessed and priceless bodies of the two apostles, could he have failed to mention the sovereignty of the universal church, which together with his body peter had left enshrined at rome? would it not have seemed to him by far the greatest marvel at rome, as it has to a late eloquent partisan, that providence has placed "in the middle of the world, to be there the chief of a religion without its like, and of a society spread everywhere, a man without defence, an old man who will be the more threatened, the more the increase of the church in the world shall augment the jealousy of princes, and the hatred of his enemies."[56] "this vicar of god, this supreme pontiff of the catholic church, this father of kings and of nations, this successor of the fisherman peter, he lives, he raises among men his brow, charged with a triple crown, and the sacred weight of eighteen centuries; the ambassadors of nations are at his court: he sends forth his ministers to every creature, and even to places which have not yet a name. when from the windows of his palace he gazes abroad, his sight discovers the most illustrious horizon in the world, the earth trodden by the romans, the city they had built with the spoils of the universe, the centre of things under their two principal forms, matter and spirit: where all nations have passed; all glories have come: all cultivated imaginations have at least made a pilgrimage from far: rome, the tomb of martyrs and apostles, the home of all recollections. and when the pontiff stretches forth his arms to bless it, together with the world which is inseparable from it, he can bear a witness to himself which no sovereign shall ever bear, that he has neither built nor conquered, nor received his city, but that he is its inmost and enduring life, that he is in it like the blood in the heart of man, and that right can go no further than this, a continuous generation which would make the parricide a suicide." such feelings as these are what any churchman must habitually entertain, who looks on the roman pontiff as at once the governing power and the life of the church. could, then, st. chrysostom have beheld in rome the church's heart, whence her life-blood courses over the whole body, and have seen no reason to love her for that? or have stated that she was more remarkable for possessing even the bodies of the blessed apostles than for all other things together? what roman catholic would so speak now? the power of the roman pontiff in the latin communion is actually such, that lacordaire's words respecting the city of rome apply to the whole church; to destroy that power would be to destroy the church herself; the parricide would be a suicide. but how can this dogma be imposed upon us as necessary to salvation, if st. augustin, st. chrysostom, and the church of their day knew it not? or let it be shown us, how any men who did know it, could either have written as they write, or have been silent as they are silent. we may sum up st. augustin's view of the relation of the roman pontiff to his brother bishops in his own beautiful words to pope boniface: "to sit on our watch-towers and guard the flock belongs in common to all of us who have episcopal functions, although the hill on which you stand is more conspicuous than the rest."[57] my object in these remarks throughout has been to show, that a denial of either of these truths is a violation of the church's divine constitution. the papacy has greatly obscured the essential equality of bishops; its opponents have avenged themselves by explaining away the unquestionable primacy of st. peter, and its important action on the whole church. what this primacy was, and how it was exercised at a most important crisis of the church, i will now endeavour to show. five years after the decision of the african bishops about appeals, the third ecumenical council assembled at ephesus,--and here, as in other cases, i prefer that another should speak, and he the most illustrious prelate of france in modern times.[58] "in the third general council of ephesus, and in those which follow, our whole argument will appear in clearer light, its acts being in our hands; and there existing very many judgments of roman pontiffs _on matters of faith_, set forth with the whole authority of their see, which were afterwards re-considered in general councils, and only approved after examination, than which nothing can be more opposed to the opinion of infallibility. and as to the council of ephesus, the thing is clear. the innovation of nestorius, bishop of constantinople, is known; how, by denying to the virgin mary the title of 'mother of god,' he divided into two the person of christ. pope st. coelestine, watchful, according to his office, over the affairs of the church, had charged the blessed cyril, bishop of alexandria, to send him a certain report of the doctrine of nestorius, already in bad repute. cyril declares this in his letter to nestorius; and so he writes to coelestine all the doctrines of nestorius, and sets forth his own: he sends him two letters from himself to nestorius, who likewise, by his own letters and explanations, endeavoured to draw coelestine to his side. thus the holy pontiff, having been most fully informed by letters from both sides, is thus inquired of by cyril. 'we have not confidently abstained from communion with him (nestorius) before informing you of this; condescend, therefore, to unfold your judgment, that we may clearly know whether we ought to communicate with him who cherishes such erroneous doctrine.'" and he adds, that his judgment should be written to the other bishops also, "that all with one mind may hold firm in one sentence." here is the apostolic see manifestly consulted by so great a man, presiding over the second, or at least the third, patriarchal see, and its judgment awaited; and nothing remained but that coelestine, being duly consulted, should perform his apostolic office. but how he did this, the acts themselves will speak out. "and first, he approves of cyril's letters and doctrine; for he writes to him thus: 'we perceive that you hold and maintain all that we hold and maintain:' and to nestorius, 'we have approved, and do approve, the faith of the prelate of the church of alexandria:' and he threatens him with extremities, "if you preach not that which cyril preaches.' nothing could be said more marked. nor does he only approve cyril's doctrine, but disapproves, too, the perverse dogma of nestorius: 'we have seen,' he says, 'your letters containing open blasphemy;' and that distinctly, because he was unwilling to call the blessed virgin 'mother of god:' and he decrees that he should be deprived of the episcopate and communion, unless, within ten days from the date of the announcing of the sentence, he openly rejects this faithless innovation, which endeavours to separate what scripture joineth together, that is, the person of christ. here is the doctrine of nestorius expressly disapproved, and a sentence of the roman pontiff on a matter of faith most clearly pronounced under threat of deposition and excommunication: then, that nothing be wanting, the holy pope commits his authority to cyril to carry into execution that sentence, 'associating,' he saith to cyril, 'the authority of our see, and using our person, place, and power:' so to nestorius himself; so to the clergy of constantinople; so to john of antioch, then the bishop of the third or fourth patriarchal see; so to juvenal, bishop of the holy city, whom the council of nice had ordered to be especially honoured: so he writes to the other bishops also, that the sentence given may be duly and in order made known to all. cyril proceeds to execute his office, and performs all that he had been commanded. he promulgates and executes the decrees of coelestine; declares to nestorius, that after the _ten_ days prescribed and set forth by coelestine, he would have no portion, intercourse, or place with the priesthood. nothing evidently is wanting to the apostolical authority being most fully exercised; but whether the sentence put forward with such authority, after a great dissension had arisen and mention been made of an ecumenical council, was held to be final, the succeeding acts will demonstrate. "we have often said--we shall often say--that it is the constitution of the church only in extraordinary cases and dissensions to recur, of necessity, to an ecumenical council. but in the usual order even the most important questions on the faith, when they arise, are terminated by the consent of the church being added to the decree of the roman pontiff. this is clearly manifest from the cause of nestorius. we confess plainly that the sentence of coelestine would have been sufficient, as cyril hoped, to repress the new heresy, had not great commotions arisen, and the matter seemed of such a nature as to be referred to an ecumenical council. but nestorius, bishop of the royal city, possessed such influence, had deceived men's minds with such an appearance of piety, had gained so many bishops, and enjoyed such favour with the younger theodosius and the great men, that he could easily throw everything into commotion; and thus there was need of an ecumenical council, the question being most important, and the person of the highest dignity; because many bishops, amongst these almost all of the east, that is, of the province of antioch, and the patriarch john himself, were ill disposed to cyril, and seemed to favour nestorius; because men's feelings were divided, and the whole empire of the east seemed to fluctuate between cyril and nestorius. such was the need of an ecumenical council. "to this must be added the prayers of the pious and orthodox; here were most pious monks, who had suffered much from nestorius for the orthodox faith, and the expression, 'mother of god,' supplicating the emperor 'for a sacred and ecumenical council to assemble, by the presence of which he should unite the most holy church, bring back the people to one, and restore to their place the priests who preached the pure faith, before that impious doctrine (of nestorius) crept wider.' and again, 'we have asked you to call together an ecumenical council, which can most fully consolidate and restore the tottering.' here, after the judgment of the roman pontiff, a firm and complete settling of the tottering state of things is sought for by the pious in an ecumenical council. "the emperor, moved by these and other reasons, wrote to cyril,--'it is our will that the holy doctrine be discussed and examined in a sacred synod, and that be ratified which appeareth agreeable to the right faith, whether the wrong party be pardoned by the fathers or no.' "here we see three things: first, after the judgment of st. coelestine, another is still required, that of the council; secondly, that these two things would rest with the fathers, to judge of doctrine and of persons; thirdly, that the judgment of the council would be decisive and final." "he adds, 'those who everywhere preside over the priesthood, and through whom we ourselves are and shall be professing the truth, must be judges of this matter; on whose faith we rest.' see in whose judgment is the final and irreversible authority. "both the emperor affirmed, and the bishops confessed, that this was done according to the ecclesiastical canons. and so all, and coelestine himself, prepared themselves for the council. cyril does no more, though named by coelestine to execute the pontifical decree. nestorius remained in his original rank; the sentence of the universal council is awaited; and the emperor had expressly decreed, 'that before the assembling and common sentence of the most holy council, no change should be made in any matter at all, on any private authority.' rightly, and in order; for this was demanded by the majesty of an universal council. wherefore, both cyril obeyed and the bishops rested. and it was established, that although the sentence of the roman pontiff on matters of faith, and on persons judged for violation of the faith, had been passed and promulged, all was suspended, while the authority of the universal council was awaited. this we have seen acted on by the emperor, acquiesced in by the bishops and the pope himself. the succeeding acts will declare that it was approved in the ecumenical council itself. "having gone over what preceded the council, we review the acts of the council itself, and begin with the first course of proceeding. after, therefore, the bishops and nestorius himself were come to ephesus, the universal council began, cyril being president, and representing coelestine, as being appointed by the pontiff himself to execute his sentence. in the first course of proceeding this was done. first, the above-mentioned letter of the emperor was read, that an ecumenical council should be held, and all proceedings in the mean time be suspended: this letter, i say, was read, and placed on the acts, and it was approved by the fathers, that all the decrees of coelestine in the matter of nestorius had been suspended until the holy council should give its sentence. you will ask if it was the will of the council merely that the emperor should be allowed to prohibit, in the interim, effect being given to the sentence of the apostolic see. not so, according to the acts; but rather, by the intervention of a general council's authority, (the convocation of which, according to the discipline of those times, was left to the emperor,) the council itself understood that all proceedings were of course suspended, and depended on the sentence of the council. wherefore, though the decree of the pontiff had been promulged and notified, and the ten days had long been past, nestorius was held by the council itself to be a bishop, and called by the name of most religious bishop, and by that name, too, thrice cited and summoned to take his seat with the other bishops in the holy council; for this expression, to take his seat, is distinctly written; and it is added, in order to answer to what was charged against him. for it was their full purpose that he should recognise, in whatever way, the ecumenical council, as he would then afterwards be, beyond doubt, answerable to it; but he refused to come, and chose to have his doors besieged with an armed force, that no one might approach him. "thereupon, as the emperor commanded, and the canons required, the rule of faith was set forth, and the nicene creed read, as the standard to which all should be referred, and then the letters of cyril and nestorius were examined in order. the letter of cyril was first brought before the judgment of the council. that letter, i mean, concerning the faith, to nestorius, so expressly approved by pope coelestine, of which he had declared to cyril, 'we see that you hold and maintain all that we hold and maintain;' which, by the decree against nestorius, published to all churches, he had approved, and, wished to be considered as a canonical monition against nestorius: that letter, i repeat, was examined, at the proposition of cyril himself, in these words: 'i am persuaded that i have in nothing departed from the orthodox faith, or the nicene creed; wherefore i beseech your holiness to set forth openly whether i have written this correctly, blamelessly, and in accordance with that holy council.' "and are there those who say that questions concerning the faith, once judged by the roman pontiff on his apostolical authority, are examined in general councils, in order to understand their contents, but not to decide on their substance, as being still a matter of question? let them hear cyril, the president of the council; let them attend to what he proposes for the inquiry of the council: and though he were conscious of no error in himself, yet, not to trust himself, he asked for the sentence of the council in these words: 'whether he had written correctly and blamelessly, or not.' this cyril, the chief of the council, proposes for their consideration. who ever even heard it whispered, that after a final and irreversible judgment of the church on a matter of faith, any such inquiry or question was made? it was never so done, for that would be to doubt about the faith itself, when declared and discussed. but this was done after the judgment of pope coelestine: neither cyril, nor any one else, thought of any other course: that, therefore, was not a final and irreversible judgment. "in answer to this question, the fathers in order give their judgment,--'that the nicene creed, and the letter of cyril in all things agree and harmonise.' here is inquiry and examination, and then judgment. the acts speak for themselves: we say not here a word. "next that letter of nestorius was produced, which coelestine had pronounced blasphemous and impious. it is read: then at the instance of cyril it is examined, 'whether this, too, be agreeable to the faith set forth by the holy council of the nicene fathers, or not.' it is precisely the same form according to which cyril's letter was examined. the fathers, in order, give judgment that it disagreed from the nicene creed, and was, therefore, censurable. the letter of nestorius is disapproved in the same manner, by the same rule, by which that of cyril was approved. here, twice in the same proceeding of the council of ephesus, a judgment of the roman pontiff concerning the catholic faith, uttered and published, is re-considered. what he had approved and what he had disapproved, is equally examined, and, only after examination, confirmed. "these were the first proceedings of the council of ephesus in the matter of faith. we proceed to review what concerns the person of nestorius, in the same proceeding. first, the letter of coelestine to cyril is read and placed on the acts; that, i mean, in which he gave sentence concerning nestorius: on which sentence, as the fathers were shortly, after full consideration, to pass their judgment, for the present it was only to be placed among the acts. in the letter of coelestine there was no special doctrine: it only contained an approval of cyril's doctrine and letter, and a disapproval of those of nestorius; concerning which letters of cyril and nestorius, the judgment of the holy council was already past, so that it would be superfluous to add anything to them. "but for the same reason, the other letter of cyril being read,--that, i mean, which executed the sentence of coelestine,--nothing special was done concerning that letter, but it was only ordered to be placed on the acts. "after these preliminaries, judgment was to be pronounced on the person of nestorius. inquiry was made, whether what coelestine had written to nestorius, and what cyril had done in execution, had been notified to nestorius; it was certified that it had been notified, and that he had remained still in his opinion: and that the days had elapsed, both which were first fixed by st. coelestine, and, afterwards by the emperor, convoking the council. next, for accumulation of proof, testimonies of the fathers are compared with the explanations of nestorius: the huge discrepancy shows nestorius to be an innovator and heretic. a decree is made in these words. the holy council declares,--'since the most impious nestorius has neither been willing to obey our procedures, nor to admit the bishops deputed by us, we have, necessarily, proceeded to the examination of what he has impiously taught: finding, therefore, partly from his own letters, partly from his discourses, that he holds and preaches impiety,--compelled by the holy canons, and by the letters of our most holy father, our fellow-minister, coelestine, bishop of the roman church,--we have come to this sentence: "our lord jesus christ, by this most holy council, declareth nestorius to be deprived of his dignity."' you see the canons joined with the letters of coelestine in terms, indeed, of high honour, which tend to set forth the majesty of the apostolic see. you see the council carry out what coelestine decreed, and thus compelled it comes to a painful judgment, but that a new one, and put forth in its own terms in the name of christ; and after, by legitimate inquiry, it was evident that all had been done rightly and in order. "finally, the sentence pronounced by the council, is written to the most impious nestorius: 'the holy council to nestorius, another judas: know thou hast been deposed by the holy council. so he, who before the inquiry of the holy council was called the most religious bishop, after this inquiry, is presently set forth as most impious, as another judas, and as deposed by an irrevocable sentence, from his episcopal seat. "thus a most weighty matter is completed by the most weighty agreement; that same which we have asserted gives validity to everything in the church: and the order of the judgment is plain in itself. that is, sentence is put forth by coelestine; it is suspended by the convocation of a general council; it is heard and examined; it is corroborated by a new and irrevocable judgment, united with the authority of the whole church. this the fathers declare in their report to the emperor: 'we have removed nestorius from his see, and canonically deprived him; highly extolling coelestine, bishop of great rome, who before our sentence had condemned the heretical doctrines of nestorius, and had anticipated us in giving judgment against him.' this is that unity, this that agreement, which gives invincible and irresistible force to ecclesiastical judgments. "so every thing is in harmony, and our judgment is supported. for in that the holy council approves and executes the judgment of the apostolical see, on a matter of faith and on a person, it does, indeed, recognise the legitimate power and primacy of the said see. in that it does not approve of its judgment, until after legitimate hearing and renewed inquiry, it instructs us that the roman pontiff is, indeed, superior to all bishops, but is inferior only to a general council, even in matters of faith. which was to be proved. "in the mean time, the bishops arcadius and projectus, and the presbyter philip, had been chosen by coelestine to be present at the council of ephesus, with a special commission from the apostolic see, and the whole council of the west. so they come from rome to ephesus, and appear at the holy council, and here the second procedure commences. "wolf, of louvain, amongst other records of antiquity, has put forth the charge of coelestine to his legates, and his instructions, as coelestine himself calls them. in these he charged them, to defend the dignity of the apostolic see; 'not to mix themselves with the dissensions of the bishops, whose judges they should be,' in conjunction, that is, with the council: 'to confer on proceedings with cyril, as being faithful.' we shall now review what they did, in compliance with these orders: and by this we shall easily show that our cause is confirmed. "first, they bring forward the letter of st. coelestine to the council, in which the charge committed to his legates is thus expressed:--'we have directed our holy brethren to be present at the proceedings, and to execute what we have ordained.' hence, it is evident, that the council of ephesus was employed in executing the apostolical judgment. but of what sort this execution is, whether it be, as they will have it, mere obedience, or by a legitimate hearing of the council itself, and then by a certain and infallible judgment, the ensuing proceedings will show. "after reading the letter of coelestine, the legates, in pursuance, say to the bishops;--'according to the rule of our common faith, command to be completely and finally settled what coelestine hath had the goodness before to lay down and now to remind you of.' this is the advantage of a council; after whose sentence there is no new discussion, or new judgment, but merely execution. and this the legates request to be commanded by the council, in which they recognise that supreme authority. "firmus, bishop of cæsarea, in cappadocia, answers for the council;--'the apostolical and holy see of the bishop coelestine hath prescribed the sentence and rule for the present matter.' the greek words are, hath first set forth the sentence and rule, or type, which expression is afterwards rendered, form. we will not quarrel about words; let us hear the same firmus accurately explaining what the thing is:--'we,' says he, 'have charged to be executed this form respecting nestorius, alleging against him the canonical and apostolic judgment;' that is, in the first procedure, in which, after examination and deliberation, we have seen the decree of coelestine confirmed. thus a general council executes the sentence of the first see, by legitimate hearing and inquiry, and not as a simple functionary; but after giving a canonical and apostolical judgment. let the pope's decree, as is due to the authority of so great a see, be the form, the rule; which same, after convocation of a council, only receives full authority from the common judgment. "it behoved, also, that the legates, sent to the council on a special mission, should understand whether the proceedings against nestorius had been pursued according to the requisition of the canons, and due respect to the apostolic see. this we have already often said; wherefore, with reason, they require the acts to be communicated, 'that we too,' say they, 'may confirm them.' the proceedings themselves will declare what that confirmation means. "after that, at the request of the legates, the acts against nestorius were given them, they thus report about them at the third procedure:--'we have found all things judged canonically, and according to the church's discipline.' therefore judgments of the apostolic see are canonically, and, according to the church's discipline, re-considered, after deliberation, in a general council, and judgment passed upon them. "after the legates had approved the acts against nestorius communicated to them, they request that all which had been read and done at ephesus from the beginning, should be read afresh in public session, 'in order,' they say, 'that obeying the form of the most holy pope coelestine, who hath committed this care to us, we may be enabled to confirm the judgment also of your holiness.' after these all had been read afresh, and the legates agreed to them, cyril proposes to the holy council, 'that the legates, by their signature, as was customary, should make plain and manifest their canonical agreement with the council.' to this question of cyril the council thus answers, and decrees that the legates, by their subscription, confirm the acts; by which place, this confirmation, spoken of by the council, is clearly nothing else but to make their assent plain and manifest, as cyril proposed. this true and genuine sense of confirmation we have often brought forward, and shall often again; and now congratulate ourselves that it is so clearly set before us by the holy council of ephesus. "but of what importance it was that the decrees of ephesus should be confirmed by the authority of the legates of the apostolic see, as says projectus, one of the legates, is seen from hence; because, although cyril, having been named the executor of the pope's sentence, had executed it in the council, yet he had not been expressly delegated to the council, of which coelestine had yet no thought, when he entrusted cyril to represent him. but arcadius, projectus and philip, being expressly sent by coelestine to the council, confirmed the acts of the council, in virtue of their special commission, and put forth in clear view by all manner and testimony the consent of all churches with the chief church, that of rome. "add to this, that the legates, sent by special commission to the council of ephesus, bore the sentence, not only of the apostolic see, but also of the whole west, whence the presbyter philip, one of the legates, after all had been read afresh, and approved by common consent, thus sums up; 'it is then established according to the decree of all churches, for the priests of the church, (eastern and western,) either by themselves, or by their legates, to take part in this consent of the priesthood, which was pronounced against nestorius.' "hence it is clear how the decrees of the churches themselves mutually confirm each other; for all those things have force of confirmation, which declare the consent and unity of all churches, inasmuch as the strength of ecclesiastical decrees itself consists in unity and mutual agreement. so that, in putting forth an exposition of the faith, the east and the west, and the apostolic see and synodical assemblies, mutually confirm each other; whence, too, we read that acclamation to coelestine, in the council of ephesus:--'to coelestine, guardian of the faith, (to coelestine agreeing with the council,) one coelestine, one cyril one faith of the council,' (one faith of the whole world.) "these acclamations, then, of catholic unity being heard, philip, the legate, thus answers:--'we return thanks to your holy and venerable council, because, by your holy voices, as holy members, you have joined yourselves to a holy head; for your blessedness is not ignorant that the blessed peter is the head of the whole faith, or even of the apostles.' this, therefore, is the supreme authority--the supreme power--that the members be joined with each other, and to the roman pontiff, as their head. because the force of an ecclesiastical judgment is made invincible by consent. "finally, coelestine himself, after the conclusion of the whole matter, sends a letter to the holy council of ephesus, which he thus begins; 'at length we must rejoice at the conclusion of evils.' the learned reader understands where he recognises the _conclusion_; that is, after the condemnation of nestorius by the infallible authority of an ecumenical council, _viz._ of the whole catholic church. he proceeds: 'we see, that you, with us, have executed this matter so faithfully transacted.' all decree, and all execute, that is, by giving a common judgment. whence coelestine adds, 'we have been informed of a just deposition, and a still juster exaltation:' the deposition of nestorius, begun, indeed, by the roman see, but brought to a conclusion by the sentence of the council; to a full and complete settlement, as we have seen above: the exaltation of maximianus, immediately after the ephesine decrees substituted in place of nestorius: this is the conclusion of the question. even coelestine himself recognises this conclusion to lie not in his own examination and judgment, but in that of an ecumenical council. "and this was done in that council in which it is admitted that the authority of the apostolic see was most clearly set forth, not only by words, but by deeds, of any since the birth of christ. at least the holy council gives credence to philip uttering these true and magnificent encomiums, 'concerning the dignity of the apostolic see, and peter the head and pillar of the faith, and foundation of the catholic church, and by christ's authority administering the keys, who to this very time lives ever, and exercises judgment in his successors.' this he says, after having seen all the acts of the council itself, which we have mentioned, so that we may indeed understand, that all these privileges of peter and the apostolic see entirely agree with the decrees of the council, and the judgment entered into afresh, and deliberation upon matter of faith held after the apostolic see." the letter of pope coelestine, received with all honour as that of the first bishop in the world, recognises likewise the authority of his brethren. it began thus: "the assembly of priests is the visible display of the presence of the holy ghost. he who cannot lie has said, 'where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am i in the midst of them:' much more will he be present in so large a crowd of holy men; for the council is indeed holy in a peculiar sense,--it claims veneration as the representative of that most holy synod of apostles which we read of. their master, whom they were commanded to preach, never forsakes them. it was he who taught them, it was he who instructed them, what they should teach others; and he has assured the world, that in the person of his apostles they hear him. this charge of teaching has descended equally upon all bishops. we are all engaged in it by an hereditary right; all we, who having come in their stead, preach the name of our lord to all the countries of the world, according to what was said to them, 'go ye and teach all nations.' you are to observe, my brethren, that the order we have received is a general order, and that he intended that we should all execute it, when he charged them with it as a duty devolving equally upon all. we ought all to enter into the labours of those whom we have all succeeded in dignity." "thus pope coelestine acknowledged that it was christ himself who established bishops in the persons of his apostles, as the teachers of his church: he places himself in their rank, and declares that they ought all to concur in the preservation of the sacred deposit of apostolical doctrine."[59] the importance of this testimony will be felt by those who remember that bellarmine specifically denies that the government of the church resides in bishops generally; and that in this he is at least borne out by the last three centuries of roman practice. bossuet proceeds to remark as follows:--"from this doctrine of st. coelestine we draw many conclusions: first, this,--that bishops in the apostles were appointed teachers by christ himself, not at all by peter, or peter's successors. nor does a pontiff, seated in so eminent a place, think it unworthy to mix himself with the rest of the bishops. 'we all,' he says, 'in the stead of the apostles preach the name of the lord: we all have succeeded them in honour.' whence it is the more evident that authority to teach was transmitted from christ, as well to coelestine himself, as to the rest of the bishops. hence that the deposit of sacred doctrine is committed to all, the defence of which lies with all; and so the faith is to be settled by common care and consent; nor will the protection of christ, the true master, be wanting to the masters of churches. this coelestine lays down equally respecting himself and all bishops, successors of the apostles. then what agrees with it: that as the apostles, assembled on the question concerning legal rites, put forth their sentence as being at once that of the holy spirit and their own, so too shall it be in other most important controversies; and the council of the apostles will live again in the councils of bishops. which indeed shows us, that authority and the settlement of the question lies not in the sentence of peter alone, or of peter's successors, but in the agreement of all. "nor, therefore, does coelestine infringe on his own privilege in reckoning himself with the other successors of the apostles; for as the other bishops were made successors to the other apostles, so he, being made by christ successor to peter their chief, everywhere takes precedence of all by authority of peter, as we read set forth and acted on in the same council. "thus in the third holy general council, and in those first ages, we both prove against heretics, that the power of the apostolical see everywhere takes precedence and leads all, and, what is of the most importance, in the name of peter, and so as instituted by christ. not less do we show to catholics, that the final and infallible force of an ecclesiastical judgment is seated there, where to the authority of peter, that is, of the pope, is added the authority and agreement of bishops also, who are throughout the whole world in the stead of apostles; which alone the church of france demands,"[60]--and, we may add, the church of england. again; compare the spirit of st. coelestine's words with the spirit that dictated the following to de maistre, whom we might leave alone, if he were not the exponent of a theory now in the greatest vogue in the roman church;--a theory, indeed, which those must accept, who leave us, without any chance of modification; for it is not bossuet's most catholic doctrine, but bellarmine's, which is acted on and taught now. "i do not affect to cast the least doubt upon the infallibility of a general council. i merely say, that it only holds this high privilege from its head, to whom the promises have been made. we know well that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. but why? on account of peter, on whom she is founded. take away this foundation, how would she be infallible, since she exists no longer? unless i am deceived, in order to be something, one must first exist."[61] again: "we see that for two centuries and a half religion has done very well without them (general councils), and i do not think that any one thinks of them, in spite of the extraordinary needs of the church, for which the pope will provide much better than a general council, if only people knew how to avail themselves of his power."[62] it must not be forgotten that this same council of ephesus, which allows none but heretics to refuse to the blessed virgin the title and the honour of 'mother of god,' confirms by its eighth canon the episcopal and patriarchal system, and bears the strongest testimony against the roman. it runs thus: "the most beloved of god and our fellow-bishop rheginus, and zeno and evagrius, the most religious bishops of the province of cyprus, have declared unto us an innovation which has been introduced contrary to the laws of the church, and the canons of the holy fathers, and which affects the liberty of all. wherefore since evils which affect the community require more attention, inasmuch as they cause greater hurt; and especially since the bishop of antioch has not so much as followed an ancient custom in performing ordinations in cyprus, as those most religious persons who have come to the holy synod have informed us, by writing and by word of mouth; we declare that they who preside over the holy churches which are in cyprus, shall preserve, without gainsaying or opposition, their right of performing by themselves the ordinations of the most religious bishops, according to the canons of the holy fathers and the ancient custom. the same rule shall be observed in all the other dioceses, and in the provinces everywhere, so that none of the most religious bishops shall invade any other province, which has not heretofore from the beginning been under the hands of himself or his predecessors. but if any one has so invaded a province and brought it by force under himself, he shall restore it, that the canons of the fathers may not be transgressed, nor the pride of secular dominion be privily introduced under the appearance of a sacred office, nor we lose by little the freedom which our lord jesus christ, the deliverer of all men, has given us by his own blood. the holy and ecumenical synod has therefore decreed, that the rights which have heretofore, and from the beginning, belonged to each province, shall be preserved to it pure and without restraint, according to the custom which has prevailed of old, each metropolitan having permission to take a copy of the things now transacted for his own security. but if any one shall introduce any regulation contrary to what has been now defined, the whole holy and ecumenical synod has decreed that it shall be of no effect."[63] it must be allowed that de maistre has very good reasons for disliking general councils. nine years after this council, st. leo the great became pope, whose long and able pontificate will afford us the best means of judging what the legitimate power of the roman see was, and how it tended to the preservation and unity of the whole church. he lived at an important crisis, when the barbarous tribes of the north were about to burst over the empire and the church; the system of which, had it not been consolidated by himself, his immediate predecessors and successors, might have been dissolved and broken up into fragments. i will first show, by a few quotations, that st. leo had no slight sense of his own duty and dignity among his brother bishops. we will then see how his actions, and the way in which they were received by others, supported his words. in a sermon on the anniversary of his consecration, after noticing with pleasure the number of bishops present, he continues, "nor, as i trust, is the most blessed apostle peter, in his kind condescendence and faithful love, absent from this assembly, nor does he disregard your devotion, reverence for whom has drawn you together. and so he at once rejoices at your affection, and welcomes the observance of the lord's institution in those who share his honour; approving that most orderly charity of the whole church, which in peter's see receives peter, and slackens not in love to so great a shepherd, even in the person of so unworthy an heir." on a like occasion,--"although, then, beloved, our partaking in that gift be a great subject for common joy, yet it were a better and more excellent course of rejoicing, if ye rest not in the consideration of our humility: more profitable and more worthy by far it is to raise the mind's eye unto the contemplation of the most blessed apostle peter's glory, and to celebrate this day chiefly in the honour of him who was watered with streams so copious from the very fountain of all graces, that while nothing has passed to others without his participation, yet he received many special privileges of his own. the word made flesh already dwelt in us, and christ had given up himself whole to restore the race of man. wisdom had left nothing unordered; power left nothing difficult. elements were obeying, spirits ministering, angels serving; it was impossible that mystery could fail of its effect in which the unity and the trinity of the godhead itself was at once working. _and yet out of the whole world, peter alone is chosen to preside over the calling of all the gentiles, and over all the apostles, and the collected fathers of the church: so that though there be among the people of god many priests and many shepherds, yet peter rules all by personal commission_ (propriè), _whom christ also rules by sovereign power. beloved, it is a great and wonderful participation of his own power which the divine condescendance gave to this man: and if he willed that other rulers should enjoy ought together with him, yet never did he give, save through him, what he denied not to others._ in fine, the lord asks all the apostles what men think of him; and they answer in common so long as they set forth the doubtfulness of human ignorance. but when what the disciples think is required, he who is first in apostolic dignity is first also in confession of the lord. and when he had said, 'thou art christ, the son of the living god,' jesus answered him, 'blessed art thou, simon bar-jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my father, which is in heaven:' that is, thou art blessed, because my father hath taught thee; nor opinion which is of the earth deceived thee, but heavenly inspiration instructed thee; and not flesh and blood hath shown me to thee, but he, whose only-begotten son i am. and i, saith he, say unto thee, that is, as my father hath manifested to thee my godhead, so i, too, make known to thee thine own pre-eminence. for thou art peter; that is, whilst i am the immutable rock, i, the cornerstone, who make both one, i, the foundation beside which no one can lay another; _yet thou also art a rock, because by my virtue thou art established, so that whatever is mine by sovereign power, is to thee by participation common with me_. and upon this rock i will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it: on this strength, saith he, i will build an eternal temple, and my church, which in its height shall reach the heaven, shall rise upon the firmness of this faith. this confession the gates of hell shall not restrain, nor the chains of death fetter; for that voice is the voice of life. and as it raises those who confess it unto heavenly places, so it plunges those who deny it into hell. wherefore it is said to most blessed peter, 'i will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' the privilege of this power did indeed pass to the other apostles, and the order of this decree reached to all the rulers of the church, but not without purpose what is intended for all is put into the hands of one. for therefore is this entrusted to peter singly, because all the rulers of the church are invested with the figure of peter. the privilege, therefore, of peter remaineth, wheresoever judgment is passed according to his equity. nor can severity or indulgence be excessive, where nothing is bound, nothing loosed, save what blessed peter either bindeth or looseth. but at the approach of his passion, which would disturb the firmness of his disciples, the lord saith, 'simon, simon, behold satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but i have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren, that ye enter not into temptation.' the danger from the temptation of fear was common to all the apostles, and they equally needed the help of divine protection, since the devil desired to dismay, to make a wreck of all: and yet the lord takes care of peter in particular, and asks specially for the faith of peter, as if the state of the rest would be more certain, if the mind of their chief were not overcome. _so then in peter the strength of all is protected, and the help of divine grace is so ordered, that the stability, which through christ is given to peter, through peter is conveyed to the apostles._ "since, therefore, beloved, we see such a protection divinely granted to us, reasonably and justly do we rejoice in the merits and dignity of our chief, rendering thanks to the eternal king, our redeemer, the lord jesus christ, for having given so great a power to him whom he made chief of the whole church, that if anything, even in our time, by us be rightly done and rightly ordered, it is to be ascribed to his working, to his guidance, unto whom it was said,--'and thou, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren:' and to whom the lord, after his resurrection, in answer to the triple profession of eternal love, thrice said with mystical intent, 'feed my sheep.' and this, beyond a doubt, the pious shepherd doth even now, and fulfils the charge of his lord; strengthening us with his exhortations, and not ceasing to pray for us, that we may be overcome by no temptation. but if, as we must believe, he everywhere discharges this affectionate guardianship to all the people of god, how much more will he condescend to grant his help unto us his children, among whom on the sacred couch of his blessed repose he resteth in the same flesh in which he ruled. to him, therefore, let us ascribe this anniversary day of us his servant, and this festival, by whose advocacy we have been thought worthy to share his seat itself, the grace of our lord jesus christ helping us in all things, who liveth and reigneth with god the father and the holy spirit for ever and ever." i have before me similar passages in abundance; but these are enough to show how far the teaching of st. leo, as to his own office, agreed with, how far went beyond, that of st. augustin. the combination of the patriarch's, and still more of the universal primate's, power with that of the bishop, is a nice point. if this be pushed too far, it issues in a monarchy; if the other alone be allowed, it converts the one kingdom of jesus christ into an unlimited number of petty republics. on the one hand there is danger pregnant to the high priesthood of the church; on the other hand, to the sacrament of unity. the one-sided development of st. leo's teaching has produced the papacy, in which the bishops, who represent the apostles, are no longer the brethren, co-ordinate in authority, but the delegates, of st. peter's successor: but the one-sided development of st. cyprian's teaching has rent into pieces the seamless robe of christ. yet this need not be so: in the bright days of the church of christ it was not so. surely the first six centuries of her existence are not a dream; and that beautiful image of st. augustin not an imagination, but what he saw before his eyes: "to sit on our watch-towers, and guard the flock, belongs in common to all of us who have episcopal functions, although the hill on which you stand is more conspicuous than the rest." a pontiff so deeply and religiously impressed with the prerogatives of st. peter's successor was likely to be energetic in discharging his duties. in truth we behold st. leo set on a watch-tower, and directing his gaze over the whole church: over his own west more especially, but over the east too, if need be. he can judge alexandria, antioch, and constantinople, as well as eugubium, and is as ready too. wherever canons are broken, ancient custom disregarded, encroachments attempted, where bishops are neglectful, or metropolitans tyrannical, where heresy is imputed to patriarchs, in short, wherever a stone in the whole sacred building is being loosened, or threatens to fall, there is he at hand to repair and restore, to warn, to protect, or to punish. but still they are brethren, they are equals, they are fellow-apostles, with whom he has to act, over whom he presides. if peter was reproved by paul, and yet the glorious apostles laboured, witnessed, fought together, and together rest in roman earth, then may the successors of the twelve remonstrate with, nay, reprove and resist the successor of the chief of the twelve. if he is vicar of christ, so are they. we have already seen examples of this, we shall find others, without schism. it had become the custom of the roman pontiffs, at least as early as st. damasus, (366--384,) and st. siricius, (384--398,) to charge some one prelate, in each province where their influence extended, to represent the roman church; to report any infractions of discipline, or innovations on the faith; to announce the election and consecration of bishops. thus anastasius of thessalonica presided over the ten metropolitans of illyricum in pope leo's name. the primate of arles represented him in southern gaul; and others in spain; and so on. it is even said that all the primacies of western europe were in their origin derivations thus made from the primacy of st. peter. an authority, which was exercised on the whole for the good of all, seems to have been generally submitted to by the bishops of the different provinces: doubtless every bishop felt his hands strengthened in his particular diocese, and had an additional security against any infraction of his rights by his brethren, when he was able to throw himself back on the unbiassed and impartial authority of the bishop of rome. an authority, however, which in its commencement professed to be the especial guardian of the canons, and to protect and maintain all in their proper place, was very liable to abuse, and had an inherent tendency to increase, and to absorb the power of the local bishops and metropolitans in the indefinite pretensions of the patriarch. we have seen the resistance offered to the pope in the case of the wretched apiarius by the african church, and now the church of gaul furnishes a defender of the rights of metropolitans against pope leo in one of the holiest and most apostolical of its ancient bishops. st. hilary of arles, of noble birth, of splendid ability, having in the world the highest prospects, was converted to god by the prayers of st. honoratus. thereupon he sold his large possessions, and bestowed them on the poor, and retired to the desert of lerins. his friend, st. honoratus, was shortly after made bishop of arles, but he could not persuade st. hilary to remain there with him. within three years he died, and st. hilary, who was attending him in his sickness, hastened, as soon as all was over, to return to his monastery. but it was in vain: he was pursued, brought back by force, and ordained, in spite of himself, metropolitan of the first see in gaul, at the age of twenty-nine years. at forty-eight he died, worn out with the severe labours and ascetic life he had imposed on himself. the nineteen years of his episcopate were devoted to the most incessant exertions as bishop and metropolitan. unwearied in energy, unbounded in charity, gifted with extraordinary eloquence, a severe defender of discipline, yet winning others to follow where he was ready to go before himself, he becomes the soul of the three or four provinces over which the see of arles then presided. he is connected in some degree with ourselves, as having probably held one of the chief places in that great council of the gauls in the year 429, which sent st. germanus and st. lupus into britain to resist the pelagians. he belonged to the same monastery as st. vincent of lerins, and at the same time. it is certain, also, that he was a great friend of st. germanus, and often conferred with him. on one of these occasions great complaints were brought to the two saints against celidonius, bishop of besançon, for having formerly married a widow, and for having condemned persons to death. st. hilary judged celidonius in a provincial council, which declared that, having been husband of a widow, he could not keep his bishopric, and that he ought voluntarily to quit a dignity which the rules of scripture permitted him not to hold. he was accordingly deposed. "celidonius,[64] finding himself deposed, had recourse to rome, where he complained that he had been unjustly condemned. it seems that st. leo, without further examination, at once admitted him to his communion, in which he may have followed what zosimus and coelestinus did in respect of the miserable apiarius, priest of africa. but i know not what canon or what rule of the church justifies such a proceeding. st. hilary learnt this at the severest time of winter. nevertheless, all the discomforts and dangers of this season gave way to the ardour of his zeal and faith. he undertook to pass the alps, and to go on foot to rome; and this he accomplished, without having even a horse either to ride or to carry baggage. being come to rome, he first visited the relics of the apostles and martyrs. next he waited on st. leo; and having paid him the greatest respect, he besought him very humbly to please to order what respected the state of the churches according to immemorial practice. persons were seen attending at rome on the holy altar who had been juridically and justly deposed in gaul: he was obliged to address to him his complaints of this; and, if they were found correct, besought the pope at least to stop by a secret order this violation of the canons. if not, he would not trouble him further, not being come to rome to bring an action, and make accusations, but to pay to him his respects, to declare to him the state of things, and to beseech him to maintain the rules of discipline. there is reason to believe that st. hilary maintained that st. leo had no right at all to take cognizance of this cause as judge, meaning, doubtless, that the church of france was in the same condition as that of africa, and had the same power to terminate causes which arose there, without an appeal elsewhere being allowed. st. leo even sufficiently assures us that this was st. hilary's view; and he takes occasion from it to accuse him of unwillingness to be subject to st. peter, and to recognise the primacy of the roman church: which would prove that all the holy bishops of africa did not recognise it, and give heretics a great advantage. st. leo, on the other hand, maintained not only that the churches of the gauls had often consulted that of rome in various difficulties--which had nothing to do with the matter in question--but, also, that they had often appealed to the holy see, which had either altered or confirmed judgments pronounced by them. if we may be allowed to regard the depositions of st. leo and st. hilary as the claims of different parties, and to examine the matter to the bottom, according to the light which history sheds on it, we may say that we do not find that the gallican church had hitherto admitted, up to that time, any appeal to the holy see; and that zosimus, having wished to claim the right of judging proculus, bishop of marseilles, proculus always maintained himself, in spite of all the efforts of this pope. meanwhile, as st. leo, sufficiently jealous of the greatness of his see, found himself opposed by st. hilary in a point of this importance, it is not surprising that he was susceptible of the bad impression given him of the conduct of this great saint, as we shall see hereafter. 'i dare not examine,' says the historian of st. hilary, 'the judgment and the conduct of two men so great, especially now that god has called them to the possession of his glory. i confine myself to saying, that hilary singly opposed this great number of adversaries; that he was not shaken by their menaces; that he laid the truth before those who would listen to it; that he prevailed over those who would dispute with him; that he yielded not to the powerful; in short, that he preferred running the risk of losing his life to admitting to his communion him whom he had deposed together with so many great bishops.' "had st. leo only required to have the affair reheard in the gauls, agreeably to the canons of sardica, the only ones which the church had hitherto made in favour of appeals to the pope, st. hilary would, perhaps, have consented; that is, if he were better acquainted with this council than they were in africa. but it is not apparent that such a rehearing was mentioned. and as to suffering the matter to be judged at rome, st. hilary, besides the other reasons which he might have, considered, doubtless, with st. cyprian, that the proofs of the facts on which judgment must be made cannot be transported thither. so the gallican church has always maintained itself in the right, that appeals made to rome be referred back to the spot. though st. hilary had protested that he was not come to engage in any dispute, nevertheless he did not refuse to take part in a conference, in which st. leo heard him, together with celidonius. several bishops were there. notes were made of all that was said. st. leo says that st. hilary had nothing reasonable to answer; his passion carried him away to say things that a layman would not have dared to utter, and that the bishops could not listen to. he adds that this haughty pride touched him to the quick, and that, nevertheless, he had used no other remedy than patience, not wishing to sharpen and increase the wounds which this insolent language caused in the soul of him who held it: that moreover, having received him at first as his brother, he only thought of soothing rather than vexing and paining him; and that indeed he did this to himself sufficiently by the confusion into which the weakness of his answers threw him. it is clear that st. hilary would not answer on the main point of celidonius's affair, because he maintained that st. leo could not be judge of it. and we must not be surprised that the romans found much insolence in the inflexible firmness with which he maintained it. doubtless it was this pretended insolence which caused him even to be put under guard, which may surprise us in the case of a bishop, and in an affair purely ecclesiastical. among the insolent and rash expressions of which st. leo in general complains, he remarks, in particular, that st. hilary had often demanded to be condemned, if he had condemned celidonius contrary to the rules of the canons. he wished, then, that we should judge others by the rule which fully justifies st. hilary. the saint, seeing that his reasons were not listened to, would not wait st. leo's sentence. he preferred withdrawing secretly, while this affair was still being examined. so he escaped from his guards, and though it was still winter, left rome, and returned to arles, perhaps in february (445): so that when they sought for him to speak further on this matter, it was found that he was gone. st. leo failed not to proceed, reversed the judgment delivered against celidonius, declared him absolved and acquitted of the accusation of having married a widow, and restored him to his rank of bishop, which he had already done at first, without having examined the affair." there were other accusations made against st. hilary, into which we need not enter. st. leo wrote a very severe letter about him to the bishops of gaul: he accused him "of raising himself against st. peter, and being unwilling to recognise his primacy, as if all those who believe that a successor of st. peter passes the bounds of the canons were enemies of the primacy of the holy see. that would be to arm against the popes in favour of heretics a great number of fathers, of saints, and of councils."[65] the result was that he took away from st. hilary his rights of metropolitan, and conferred them on the bishop of vienne, who had claims upon them. but this measure was so disliked by the suffragans of arles, that he restored the see of arles to most of its privileges under ravennius, the successor of st. hilary. however, this matter had even more important consequences. we will let the roman catholic historian, as before, describe them. "st. leo apparently feared that the bishops of the gauls would not be sufficiently submissive to what he had ordered. and though he had made it a charge against st. hilary that he had employed an armed force in affairs of the church, for all that he recurred himself to the imperial power against him. he represented him to the emperor valentinian the third as one who rebelled both against the authority of the apostolic see, and the majesty of the empire, and obtained of this prince, who was then at rome, a celebrated rescript, addressed to the patrician aetius, general of the armies of the empire, by which, under pretext of maintaining the peace of the church, he forbids undertaking any thing whatever without the authority of the apostolic see, or resisting its orders, which, says he, had always been observed inviolably up to hilarius. he orders all bishops to hold as law all that the authority of the pope establishes, and all magistrates to compel by force to appear before the tribunal of the bishop of rome all persons cited thither, if they refused to go. it may be seen by what happened about this time to atticus, metropolitan of nicopolis, in epirus, how scandalous this employment of force was, and how opposed, according to st. leo himself, to the gentleness of the church. valentinian adds, that the sentence given by st. leo against st. hilary, had no need of any one to be executed in the gauls, since the authority of so great a pontiff has a right to give any order to the churches. he goes so far as to make it a charge against st. hilary, to have deposed and ordained bishops without consulting the pope. he even names him a criminal of state on the score of his being charged with having employed the force of arms to establish bishops, and to place them on a throne where they had only to preach peace. this law is dated the 6th of june, 445, and it is this which fixes the time of all this history. it is undoubtedly very proper, as says baronius, to show that the emperors have greatly contributed to establish the greatness and authority of the popes. this is not the place to make other reflections upon it; but we cannot forbear saying that, in the mind of those who have any love for the liberty of the church, and any knowledge of its discipline, this law will always as little honour him whom it praises as it will injure him whom it condemns. pope hilary quotes this law, and avails himself of the authority it attributes to the decisions of rome."[66] it would be presumptuous to add a word to the judgment of one who has made the first centuries of the church his especial study. st. hilary, on his return to arles, made many attempts to reconcile the pope to him, but all were fruitless, as he would not give up the point in dispute. "it seems," says tillemont, "that he continued resolved to do nothing in prejudice of the rights he believed to belong to his church, but that seeing the two great powers of church and state united against him, he remained quiet and silent, occupied only in the work of his salvation, and that of his people." during the four years he survived, he redoubled his austerities and good works: he died in the odour of sanctity; and after his death, "st. leo, though still persuaded that he was a presumptuous spirit, calls him 'of holy memory.' yet, we have neither proof nor probability that he had restored him to his communion, from which he had cut him off."[67] his name occurs in the roman martyrology. thus an encroachment, which had failed in africa, succeeded through a conjuncture of circumstances, especially the intervention of the civil power, in gaul. of course it was made the stepping-stone to further advances. this one specimen may give us a notion how the lawful power of the patriarch and the recognised pre-eminence of the one apostolic see of the west had a continual tendency to develop, and won, by degrees, unlimited control over the original and acknowledged rights of the bishops and metropolitans. still, even in the hands of st. leo, this was merely an extraordinary interference. ravennius, the successor of this very st. hilary, was elected and consecrated by the bishops of his province, who then announced it to pope leo, and received a congratulatory answer.[68] he says himself to the bishops of the province of vienne, "it is not for ourselves that we defend the ordinations of your provinces, which perhaps hilarius may, according to his wont, falsely state to you, to render disaffected the mind of your holiness; but it is for you we claim them through our solicitude." and again: "decreeing this, that if any one of our brethren in any province die, he who is known to be the metropolitan of that province, should claim to himself the ordination of the priest."[69] so long as the election and consecration of bishops and metropolitans were thus free and canonical, the greatness of the central see could never depress and extinguish the essential equality of the episcopate. let it be remembered that st. leo, with all his power and influence, consecrated no other bishops than those of southern italy, sicily, and sardinia, which were the bounds of his proper patriarchate; there his authority was direct and immediate; but in africa, the gauls, spain, illyricum, and the west generally, it was only properly exercised in matters beyond the range of the bishops and metropolitans. we suppose it is impossible to define a power which was to correct and restore in emergencies. the bishops of the province of aries afterwards besought pope leo to restore the primacy to arles, and render, a.d. 450, this undoubted testimony to the primacy of the roman church, and to the connexion between the rights of the metropolitan and the patriarch:-"by the priest of this church (arles) it is certain that our predecessors, as well as ourselves, have been consecrated to the high priesthood by the gift of the lord; in which, following antiquity, the predecessors of your holiness confirmed by their published letters this which old custom had handed down concerning the privileges of the church of arles, (as the records of the apostolical see doubtless prove;) believing it to be full of reason and justice, that as through the most blessed peter, prince of the apostles, the holy roman church holds primacy over all the churches of the whole world, so also within the gauls the church of arles, which had been thought worthy to receive for its priest st. trophimus, sent by the apostles, should claim the right of ordaining to the high priesthood."[70] the view on which st. leo acted in these proceedings against st. hilary is very plainly set forth in certain of his letters. thus, "to our most beloved brethren, all the bishops throughout the province of vienne, leo bishop of rome.... the lord hath willed that the mystery of this gift (of announcing the gospel) should belong to the office of all the apostles, on the condition of its being chiefly seated in the most blessed peter, first of all the apostles; and from him, as it were from the head, it is his pleasure that his gifts should flow into the whole body, that whoever dares to recede from the rock of peter may know that he has no part in the divine mystery. for him hath he assumed into the participation of his indivisible unity, and willed that he should be named what he himself is, saying, 'thou art peter, and upon this rock i will build my church:' that the rearing of the eternal temple by the wonderful gift of the grace of god might consist in the solidity of peter, strengthening with this firmness his church, that neither the rashness of man might attempt it, nor the gates of hell prevail against it."[71] so to his vicar the bishop of thessalonica, whom he was erecting into an exarch over the ten metropolitans of eastern illyricum: "as my predecessors to your predecessors, so have i, following the example of those gone before, committed to your affection my charge of government; that you imitating our gentleness might relieve the care _which we in virtue of our headship_ (principaliter), _by divine institution, owe to all churches_, and might, in some degree, discharge our personal visitation to provinces far distant from us; since you can readily ascertain, by near and convenient inspection, what in every matter you might either by your own zeal arrange, or reserve to our judgment." "for we have entrusted your affection to represent us on this condition, that you are called to a part of our solicitude, but not to the fulness of our power.... but if in a matter which you believe fit to be considered and decided on with your brethren," (the bishops of the province,) "their sentence differs from yours, let every thing be referred to us on the authority of the acts, that all doubtfulness may be removed, and we may decree what pleaseth god. for to this we direct all our solicitude and care, that the unity of mutual agreement and the maintenance of discipline be broken by no dissension, nor neglected by any slothfulness.... for the compactness of our unity cannot remain firm, unless the bond of charity bind us into an inseparable whole; because, 'as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in christ, and every one members one of another.' for it is the joining together which makes one soundness, and one beauty in the whole body: and this joining together, as it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord among priests. for though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an equal jurisdiction; (_quibus cum dignitas sit communis, non est tamen ordo generalis_;) since even amongst the most blessed apostles, as there was a likeness of honour, so was there a certain distinction of power; and the election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one. from which type (_forma_) the distinction between bishops also has arisen, and it was provided by an important arrangement that all should not claim to themselves power over all, but that in every province there should be one, whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren; and others again seated in the greater cities should undertake a larger care, through whom the direction of the universal church should converge to the one see of peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head."[72] i think it fair to admit that the germ of something very like the present papal system, without, however, such a wonderful concentration and absorption of all power, is discernible in these words. i shall give further on, bossuet's interpretation of their most remarkable expression. but it is also certain that such is not the view of the church's government set before us by st. cyprian, st. augustin, st. vincent of lerins, and the fathers generally, nor the one supported by the acts of the ancient church. there is a very distinct tone in the teaching and acts of st. leo, and the other popes generally, from that of the contemporary bishops and fathers who had not succeeded to st. peter's own see. it consists in dwelling on the primacy so strongly, as quite to throw out of view the apostolic powers of other bishops; whereas these latter dwell upon the apostolic powers of the episcopate generally; and, while they admit st. peter's primacy and that of the roman see, place the government of the church in the harmonious agreement of all. st. leo's view, rigorously carried out, as it has been by the later roman church, substitutes st. peter singly, for st. peter and his brethren; and this usurpation, i repeat, we have to admit afresh, or else be accounted heretics and schismatics. now, as to the government of which st. leo had the ideal before him, i must first remark that it was _new_. he says himself to the bishop of thessalonica: "the government of churches in illyricum, which we commit in our stead to your affection, following the example of siricius of blessed memory, who to your predecessor anysius of holy memory _then first committed with a certain charge_ the supporting of the churches of that province, which he desired to be maintained in discipline."[73] that is, it was scarcely sixty years since pope siricius had selected the bishop of the metropolis to keep a watch over the maintenance of the canons. and now pope leo was already requiring the metropolitans to consecrate no bishop without first consulting the bishop of thessalonica as his vicar. secondly, this proceeding on the part of the popes was not submitted to generally, even throughout the west. the "codex ecclesiæ africanæ" is full of prohibitions against even appealing to "bishops beyond the sea," _i.e._ the pope. in st. augustin's time, as we have seen, they positively forbad the pope's interference with their internal government, and only submitted to it after they had been enfeebled by the irruption of the vandals. thirdly, this power was set up very much indeed by help of the imperial authority. the process, in fact, of centralizing in the church, ran completely parallel with that in the state. the law of valentinian, above mentioned, is a strong proof of this. of course the object of the emperors was to control the action of the church through one bishop made the chief. but it is somewhat remarkable that that church which maintains a standing protest against the interference of the state with spiritual matters, (a protest for which she is worthy of all respect and admiration,) should owe to the support of the state, in different periods of her history, very much more of her power than any other church. it may be that god rewards the fearless maintenance of spiritual rights by the grant of that very temporal power which threatens them with destruction. now as we have had st. jerome in a noted place appealing to rome, and acknowledging her primacy, let us take another passage of his which, i think, implicitly denies st. leo's view. arguing then against the pride of the roman deacons, in which city, as they were only seven in number, the office was in higher estimation than even the priesthood, which was numerous, he observes, "nor is the church of the roman city to be considered one, and that of the whole world another. both the gauls, and the britains, and africa, and persia, and the east, and india, and all barbarous nations, adore one christ, observe one rule of truth. if you require authority, _the world is greater than the city_. wherever a bishop is, be it at rome, or eugubium, or constantinople, or rhegium, or alexandria, or tanæ, he is of the same rank, the same priesthood. the power of riches, and the humility of poverty, make a bishop neither higher nor lower. but all are successors of the apostles. but you say, how is it that at rome a priest is ordained upon the testimony of a deacon? why allege to me _the custom of a single city_? why defend against the laws of the church a fewness of number, which is the source of their pride?"[74] the very force of st. leo's view lies in the exact contradictory of st. jerome's words: viz. _the city is greater than the world_, and this alone justifies and bears out the present claim of the roman see, and its attitude both to those within, and to those without, its pale. but fourthly, had this government, as imaged out by st. leo, been submitted to not only in gaul, spain, africa, and illyricum, but throughout the west generally, all this would still be nothing for its catholicity, and therefore its binding effect, unless it had been allowed by the east. now we have the strongest proof that it never was so allowed. this interference, and much more, the centralization pointed at, as it never would have been tolerated, so neither was it attempted, in the patriarchates of the east. there was far less danger of the patriarchal power becoming excessive, when it was possessed by five, who were a check to each other. st. leo's influence and authority in the west were balanced by the exercise of like influence and authority in the east, originally by the sees of alexandria and antioch, and at this and later times still more by that of constantinople. and though throughout the east the bishop of rome was reckoned the first of these in rank, yet the easterns were governed entirely by their own patriarchs. so far from there being any authority delegated by rome to the eastern patriarchs, there was no appeal from them to rome, that is to say, in a matter belonging to their particular government; for as to the general faith of the church, in any peculiar emergency or violation of the usual order of procedure, there was an appeal, if not lawful, at least exercised, to any of the patriarchs. thus theodoret of cyrus, unjustly deposed by dioscorus of alexandria in the latrocinium of ephesus, flies "to the apostolic throne" of st. leo; "for in all things it is becoming that you should have the primacy. for your throne is adorned with many advantages. it has the sepulchres of our common fathers and teachers of the truth, peter and paul. these have made your throne exceedingly illustrious. this is the height of your blessings."[75] though a supplicant, he addresses him only as first bishop of the church, not as monarch. it is a virtual denial of the present papal authority, because a silence, where it would have been put forward, had it been known. so the heretic eutyches, before the council of his own patriarch, "when his deposition was read, appealed to the holy synod of the most holy bishop of rome, and alexandria, and jerusalem, and thessalonica."[76] thus st. isidore of spain, in the sixth century, says: "the order of bishops is fourfold; that is, patriarchs, archbishops, metropolitans, and bishops. in greek a patriarch is called the first of the fathers, because he holds the first, that is, the apostolic place, and therefore, because he holds the highest rank, he has such an appellation, as the roman, the antiochene, and the alexandrine."[77] accordingly gieseler says, "at the end of this period," (a.d. 451,) the four patriarchs of the east "were held in their patriarchates for ecclesiastical centres, to which the other bishops had to attach themselves for maintenance of ecclesiastical unity; and in conjunction with their patriarchal synod they formed the highest tribunal of appeal in all ecclesiastical matters of the patriarchate; whilst, on the other hand, they were treated as the highest representatives of the church, who, through mutual communication with each other, were to maintain the unity of the universal church, and without whose concurrence no decrees concerning the whole church could be made."[78] but no more certain proof of the independence of the eastern church can be given than the synodical epistle of the council of constantinople to the pope and the western bishops. this was a synod of purely eastern bishops, held in 381, which afterwards, by the consent of the western church, became ecumenical. this council "arranged, without any reference to the west, the affairs of the oriental church, and was even quite openly on the side of the party of meletius, rejected by the westerns; just so the interference attempted by the italian bishops in the matter of maximus, the counter-bishop of constantinople, remained quite disregarded."[79] they write thus: "to our most honoured lords and pious brethren and fellow-ministers, damasus," of rome, "ambrosius," of milan, "britton, valerianus, ascholius, anemius, basilius, and the other holy bishops assembled in the great city of rome, the holy synod of orthodox bishops assembled in the great city of constantinople greeting in the lord."[80] then after informing them what they had decreed concerning the highest matters of the faith, they go on--"but as to the management of particular matters in the churches, both an ancient fundamental principle, ([greek: thesmos],) as ye know, hath prevailed, and the rule of the holy fathers at nicea, that in each province those of the province," _i.e._ the bishops, "and if they be willing, their neighbours also, should make the elections according as they judge meet. in accordance with which know ye both that the rest of the churches are administered by us, and that priests of the most distinguished churches have been appointed. whence in the, so to say, newly-founded church of constantinople, which by the mercy of god we have snatched as it were out of the jaws of the lion, from subjection to the blasphemy of the heretics, we have elected bishop the most reverend and pious nectarius, in an ecumenical[81] council, with common agreement, in the sight both of the most religious emperor theodosius, and with the consent of all the clergy and the whole city. and those," the bishops, "both of the province and of the diocese[82] of the east, being canonically assembled, the whole accordant church as with one voice honouring the man, have elected the most reverend and religious bishop flavian to the most ancient and truly apostolical church of antioch in syria, where first the venerable name of christian became known: which legitimate election the whole synod hath received." (and this notwithstanding the bishop paulinus, who was received by rome and the west, had survived st. meletius, and was then alive. so that they would not, even when such an opportunity occurred, accept the bishop in communion with rome--a fact on the one side, which i suppose may weigh against those words of st. jerome on the other, "i know not vitalis; meletius i reject; i am ignorant of paulinus." quoted, p. 26. it seems that though the test of communion with rome satisfied st. jerome, it did not satisfy an ecumenical council.) "but of the church in jerusalem, _the mother of all churches_, we declare that the most reverend and religious cyril is bishop, both as long since canonically elected by those of his province, and as having struggled much against the arians in different places. whom, as being lawfully and canonically established by us, we invite your piety also to congratulate, through spiritual love, and the fear of the lord, which represses all human affection, and accounts the edification of the churches more precious than sympathy with, or favour of, individuals. for thus, by agreement in the word of faith, and by the establishment of christian love in us, we shall cease to say what the apostle has condemned--i am of paul, and i of apollos, and i of cephas. for all being shown to be christ's, who in us is not divided, by the help of god we shall keep the body of the church unrent, and shall stand with confidence before the tribunal of the lord." here is the whole east, in the year 381, long before the schism, announcing to the bishops of rome, milan, aquilea, and the west, the election of its patriarchs, and exercising as an ancient incontestable right that liberty of self-government, according to the canons, for continuing to do which very thing, and for nothing else, the latin church accounts both the greek and english church schismatic. now the eastern church, as its own rituals to this day declare, always acknowledged st. peter's primacy, and that his primacy was inherited by the bishop of rome; but it is apparent at once that it never received, nay most strongly abhorred, that system of centralization of all power in rome, which st. leo seems to have had before his eyes. its most holy and illustrious fathers never submitted to this domination. st. basil had already complained of the western pride, ([greek: dutikê ophrus].)[83] st. gregory of nazianzum is that very archbishop by whose voluntary cession and advice nectarius is elected. st. gregory of nyssa, and peter, brothers of st. basil, are in this council, and so st. cyril of jerusalem. and yet bellarmine will have it that bishops who so wrote and so acted received their jurisdiction from rome; and what is far more important, if they did not, the present papal theory falls to the ground. when gieseler speaks of "the principle of the mutual independence of the western and eastern church being firmly held in the east generally,"[84] of course it must be understood that there can be no independence, strictly so called, in the church and body of christ. independence annihilates membership and coherence. accordingly, i am fully prepared to admit that the primacy of the roman see, even among the patriarchs, was a real thing; not a mere title of honour. the power of the first see was really exerted in difficult conjunctures to keep the whole body together. i am quite aware that the bishop of rome could do, what the bishop of alexandria, or of antioch, or of constantinople, or of jerusalem, could not do. even merely as standing at the head of the whole west he counterbalanced all the four. but i accept _bona fide_ what socrates and sozomen tell us. i believe they had before them neither the papal empire of st. gregory the seventh, nor the maxims of the reformation. they are unbiassed witnesses. sozomen then tells us, that when st. athanasius, unjustly deposed, fled to rome for justice, together with paul of constantinople, marcellus of ancyra, and asclepas of gaza, "the bishop of the romans, having inquired into the accusations against each, when he found them all agreeing with the doctrine of the nicene synod, admitted them to communion as agreeing with him. _and inasmuch as the care of all belonged to him on account of the rank of his see, he restored to each his church_. and he wrote to the bishops throughout the east, &c., which they took very ill;"[85] so ill, indeed, that they afterwards pronounced a sentence of deposition against the pope himself. again, pope julius "wrote to them, accusing them of secretly undermining the doctrine of the nicene synod, and that, contrary to the laws of the church, they had not called him to their council. _for that it was an hierarchical law to declare null what was done against the sentence of the bishop of the romans._"[86] that is, in matters concerning the state of the whole church, as was this cause of athanasius. so socrates says, in reference to the same matter, that pope julius asserted to the bishops of the east, that "they were breaking the canons in not having called him to their council, _the ecclesiastical canon ordering that the churches should not make canons contrary to the sentence of the bishop of rome_."[87] these passages mark the prerogative of the first see: yet are they quite compatible with the general self-government of the eastern church. no doubt, when the patriarchs of the east were at variance, all would look for support to him who was both the first of their number, and stood alone with the whole west to back him. and thus again in st. leo's time a very extraordinary emergency arose, which still further raised the credit of the roman patriarch. dioscorus of alexandria, supporting the heretic eutyches, had, by help of the emperor, deposed and murdered st. flavian of constantinople: juvenal of jerusalem was greatly involved in this transaction. dioscorus had then consecrated anatolius to be the successor of st. flavian, and anatolius had consecrated maximus to antioch, instead of domnus, who, too, had been irregularly deposed after st. flavian. now, had dioscorus been otherwise blameless, his consecrating anatolius, of his own authority, to constantinople, and anatolius then consecrating maximus to antioch, without the participation of rome, was an infringement of the just rights of the primacy; as a patriarch could not be deposed without the concurrence of the first see. thus the whole east was in confusion. a heretic had been absolved; one patriarch murdered, two deposed; and of the other two, one was chief agent, and the other not clear, in these transactions. no wonder that at the council of chalcedon, the bishop of rome appeared at the head of the west, both to vindicate his own violated rights, for dioscorus had even deposed him, and as the restorer of true doctrine, and the deliverer of the church. but i must now quote, at considerable length, the argument of bossuet, and his statement as to where the sovereign power in the church resides. we have already seen what he has said respecting the council of ephesus; and his observations on that of chalcedon and the four succeeding councils are equally important. his argument, which was intended for the justification of the gallican church, really reaches to that of the greek and english church also; and it is of the very utmost value, as it rests upon authorities which are sacrosanct in the eyes of every catholic--the proceedings and decrees of ecumenical councils. let it only be remembered, that i quote no german rationalist, no one who denies either the doctrine or hierarchy of the church; but a catholic prelate, the most strenuous defender of the faith, and one who, in the great assembly of his brethren, cried out, "if i forget thee, church of rome, may i forget myself; may my tongue dry, and remain motionless in my mouth, if thou art not always the first in my remembrance, if i place thee not at the beginning of all my songs of joy."[88] the question then at issue is, whether the bishop of rome be the first of the patriarchs, and first bishop of the whole world, the head of the apostolic college, and holding among them the place which peter held, all which i freely acknowledge, as the testimony of antiquity; or whether he be, further, not only this, but the source of all jurisdiction, uniting in his single person all those powers which belonged to peter and the apostles collectively: an idea which, however extravagant, is actually maintained at present in the church of rome, is moreover absolutely necessary to justify its acts, and to condemn the position of the greek and english church. bossuet, who fought for the gallican liberties, fought for the anglican likewise. "let[89] us now review the acts of the general council of chalcedon. the previous facts were these. the two natures of christ were confounded by eutyches, an archimandrite and abbot of constantinople, an old man no less obstinate than out of his senses. he then was condemned by his own bishop, st. flavian of constantinople, and appealed to all the patriarchs, but chiefly to the roman pontiff. leo writes to flavian, and 'orders everything to be laid before him.' flavian answers and requests of leo 'that, making his own the common cause and the discipline of the holy churches, he should, at the same time, decree that the condemnation of eutyches was regularly passed, and by his own words should strengthen the faith of the emperor.' he added, 'for the cause only needs your support and definition; and you should, by your own determination, bring it to peace.' this means, it is plain and clear, it has yet few followers, and those obscure, and of no great name. he ends, 'for so the heresy which has arisen will be most easily destroyed, by the cooperation of god, through your letters; and the council, of which there are rumours, be given up, that the holy churches be not disturbed.' this, too, is in accordance with discipline, for heresies to be immediately suppressed, first by the bishop's care, then by that of the apostolic see: nor is it forthwith necessary that an universal council be assembled, and the peace of all churches troubled. "after the proceedings had been sent to leo, he writes to flavian, most fully and clearly setting forth the mystery of the lord's incarnation, as he says himself, and as all churches bear witness; at the same time he praises the acts of flavian, and condemns eutyches, yet with the grant of indulgence, should he make amends. this is that noble and divine letter which was afterwards so warmly celebrated through the whole church, and which i wish to be understood so often as i name simply leo's letter. "and here the question might have been terminated, but for those incidents which induced the emperor theodosius the younger to call the synod of ephesus. he was the same who had appointed the first council of ephesus, under coelestine and cyril. "of this synod st. leo writes to theodosius, at first, 'that the matter was so evident, that for reasonable causes the calling of a synod should be abstained from.' and flavian likewise seemed to have been against this. but after the emperor, with good intentions, had convoked the synod, leo gives his consent, and sends the letter to the synod, in which he praises the emperor for being willing to hold an assembly of bishops, 'that by a fuller judgment all error may be done away with.' he mentions that he had sent legates, who, says he, 'in my stead shall be present at the sacred assembly of your brotherhood, and determine, by a joint sentence with you, what shall please the lord.' "here are three points: first, that in questions of faith it is not always necessary for an ecumenical council to be assembled. secondly, that leo, great pontiff as he was, did not decline a judgment, if the cause required it, after the matter had been judged by himself. thirdly, that, if a synod were held, it behoved that all error should be done away with by a fuller judgment, and the question be terminated by the apostolic see, by a joint sentence with the bishops, in which he acknowledges that full force of consent, so often mentioned by me. "but after dioscorus, bishop of alexandria, the protector of eutyches, had done every thing with violence and crime, and not a council, but an assembly of robbers downright, had been held at ephesus, then, when the episcopal order had been divided, and the whole church thrown into confusion, under the name of the second ecumenical council of ephesus, leo himself admits that a new general council must be held, which should either remove or mitigate all offences, so that there should no longer be either any doubt as to faith, or division in charity. therefore he perceived that schisms, and such a fluctuation of minds respecting the faith itself, could not be sufficiently removed by his own judgment. and the pontiff, no less wise and good than resolute, demanded a fuller, firmer, greater judgment, by the authority of a general council, by which, that is, all doubt might be removed. "but the emperor theodosius would not hear of a new council, so long as he thought that due order had been preserved at ephesus. 'for the matter was settled at ephesus by the deposition of those who deserved it; and a decision having been once passed, nothing else can be determined after it.' here the difference between the judgments of roman pontiffs and of general councils is very evident; the judgment of the roman pontiff being reconsidered in a council, whereas after a council, so long as it is held a lawful one, nothing can be reconsidered, nothing heard. "but as theodosius shortly afterwards died, the emperor marcian, upon understanding that the ephesine assembly had used violence, and acted otherwise against the canons, and was therefore refused the name and authority of an ecumenical council by most bishops, but chiefly by the roman pontiff, could not deny the calling of a new council to leo's request. so the council of chalcedon took place, and all admitted that there were certain dissensions on matter of faith so grave, that they can only be settled by the authority of an ecumenical council. "all know that more than six hundred bishops assembled at chalcedon. the bishops paschasinus and lucentius presided over the holy council in leo's stead. magistrates were assigned by the emperor to direct the proceedings, and restrain disorder; but to leave the question of faith and all ecclesiastical matters to the power and judgment of the council. "but in this council two things make for us: first, the deposition of dioscorus; secondly, the sentence of the council respecting the approval of leo's letter. "with dioscorus they thus proceeded: when, upon being cited, he refused to present himself to judgment, and his crimes were notorious to all, paschasinus, legate of the apostolic see, asks the fathers,--'we desire to know what your holiness determines:' the holy synod replied, 'what the canons order.' the bishop lucentius said, 'certain proceedings took place in the holy council of ephesus by our most blessed father cyril; look into their form, and assign what form you determine on.' the bishop paschasinus said, 'does your piety command us to use ecclesiastical punishment? do you consent?' the holy council said, 'we all consent.' the bishop paschasinus said, 'again i ask, what is the pleasure of your blessedness?' maximus, bishop of the great city of antioch, said, 'we are conformable to whatever seems good to your holiness.' thus the initiative, and form, as it was called, was to be given by the apostolic see. and so the legates, after recounting the crimes of dioscorus, thus pronounced: 'wherefore, holy leo, by us and this present council, together with the most blessed apostle peter, who is the rock and ground of the church, and the foundation of the right faith, hath declared him cut off from all sacerdotal power.' anatolius, bishop of constantinople, said, 'as our most blessed archbishop and father leo, so anatolius.' the rest to the same effect: 'i agree; i am of the same mind; i agree to the condemnation made by the council; i declare, i decree the same:' and the subscription, 'i, paschasinus, declare and subscribe;' 'i, anatolius, declare and subscribe;' and so the rest. "thus from peter the head and source of unity the sentence began, and then became of full force by common agreement of the bishops, just as that first council of the apostles is always represented. "by this is understood the letter of the emperor valentinian to the emperor theodosius: 'we ought to defend with all devotion, and preserve in our times uninjured, the dignity of the veneration due to the blessed apostle peter: so that the most blessed bishop of the roman city may have power to judge concerning the faith and bishops.' not, however, alone, but with the condition added by the emperor, 'that the aforesaid bishop,' at least, in those causes which touch the faith and the universal state of the church, 'may give sentence after assembling the priests from the whole world.' that is, by a common decree, as both leo himself had demanded, and as we have seen done in the council itself. "with the same view, the empress pulcheria writes to leo concerning assembling the bishops, 'who,' she says, 'when the council is made, shall decree, at your instance, concerning the catholic confession, and concerning bishops.' "the emperors valentinian and marcian write the same to leo: that, 'by the council to be held,' every thing should be done at his instance: first laying this down, that he 'possessed the first rank in the episcopate, as to faith.' "hence it is very plainly evident, that, in the usual order, both the pope should have the initiative, and the bishops sitting with him should be judges; and that the force of an irreversible decree lies in agreement: the very thing to which the empress pulcheria bears witness, in her letter to strategus the consular, who was ordered to protect the council from all violence: 'that the holy council, holding its sittings with all discipline, what has been revealed by the lord christ should be confirmed in common by all, without any disturbance, and with agreement.' "meanwhile, it is evident that proceedings are at the instance of the pontiff, yet so that the force of the decree lies, not in the sole authority of the pontiff, which no one then imagined, but in the consent itself and approval of the council: and that the fathers and the council decree together, judge together, and the sentence of the council is the sentence of the pope; which, when the consent of the churches is added, is then held to be irreversible and final, which is all i demand. "another important point treated in the council of chalcedon, that is, the establishing of the faith, and the approval of leo's letter, is as follows. already almost the whole west, and most of the easterns, with anatolius himself, bishop of constantinople, had gone so far as to confirm by subscription that letter, before the council took place; and in the council itself the fathers had often cried out, 'we believe, as leo: peter hath spoken by leo: we have all subscribed the letter: what has been set forth is sufficient for the faith: no other exposition may be made.' things went so far, that they would hardly permit a definition to be made by the council. but neither subscriptions privately made before the council, nor these vehement cries of the fathers in the council, were thought sufficient to tranquillize minds in so unsettled a state of the church, for fear that a matter so important might seem determined rather by outcries than by fair and legitimate discussion. and the clergy of constantinople exclaimed, 'it is a few who cry out, not the whole council which speaks.' so it was determined that the letter of leo should be lawfully examined by the council, and a definition of faith be written by the synod itself. so the acts of foregoing councils being previously read, the magistrates proposed concerning leo's letter, 'as the gospels lie before you, let every one of the most reverend bishops declare whether the exposition of the 318 fathers, and, after that, of the 150 fathers, agrees with the letter of holy leo.' "since the question as to examining the letter of leo was put in this form, it will be worth while to weigh the sentences, and, as they are called, the votes of the fathers, in order to understand from the beginning why they approved of the letter; why they afterwards defended it with so much zeal; why, finally, it was ratified after so exact an examination of the council. anatolius first gives his sentence. 'the letter of the most holy leo agrees with the creed of the 318 and the 150 fathers; as also with what was done at ephesus under coelestine and cyril; therefore i agree and willingly subscribe to it.' these are the words of one plainly deliberating, not blindly subscribing out of mere obedience. the rest say to the same effect: 'it agrees, and i subscribe.' many plainly and expressly, 'it agrees, and i therefore subscribe.' some add, 'it agrees, and i subscribe, as it is correct.' others, 'i am sure that it agrees.' others, 'as it is concordant, and has the same aim, we embrace it, and subscribe.' others, 'this is the faith we have long held: this we hold: in this we were baptized: in this we baptize.' others, and a great part, 'as i see, as i feel, as i have proved, as i find that it agrees, i subscribe.' others, 'as i am persuaded, instructed, informed, that all agrees, i subscribe.' many set forth their difficulties, mostly arising from a foreign language; others from the subject matter, saying, that they had heard the letter, 'and in very many points were assured it was right: some few words stood in their way, which seemed to point at a certain division in the person of christ.' they add, that they had been informed by paschasinus and the legates 'that there is no division, but one christ; therefore,' they say, 'we agree and subscribe.' others, after mentioning what paschasinus and lucentius had said, thus conclude: 'by this we have been satisfied, and, considering that it agrees in all things with the holy fathers, we agree and subscribe.' where the illyrian bishops, and others who before that examination had expressed their acclamations to the letter, again cry out, 'we all say the same thing, and agree with this.' so that, indeed, it is evident that, in the council itself, and before it, their agreement is based on this, that, after weighing the matter, they considered, they judged, they were persuaded, that all agreed with the fathers, and perceived that the common faith of all and each had been set forth by leo. "this was done at chalcedon; but likewise before that council our gallic bishops, at a synod held in gaul, wrote thus to leo himself, concerning receiving his letter: 'many in that letter of leo to flavian with joy and exultation have recognised what their faith was assured of, and are with reason delighted that, by tradition from their fathers, they have always held just what your apostleship has set forth. some rendered more careful, congratulate themselves every way on being instructed by receiving the admonition of your blessedness, and rejoice that an occasion is given them, in which they may speak out freely and confidently, and each one assert what he believes, supported by the authority of the apostolic see.' "the italian (bishops) agree, at the instance of eusebius, bishop of milan, 'for it was evident that that (letter of leo to flavian) had the full and vigorous simplicity of the faith; was illuminated likewise by statements from the prophets, by authorities from the gospels, and by testimonies of apostolic teaching, and in every point agreed with what the holy ambrose, moved by the holy spirit, put in his books concerning the mystery of the lord's incarnation. and inasmuch as all the statements agree with the faith of our ancestors delivered down to us from antiquity, all determined that whoever hold impious opinions concerning the mystery of the lord's incarnation, are to be visited with fitting condemnation, as they themselves agree, according to the sentence of your authority.' "see here an authoritative sentence in the roman pontiff; and also the agreement of the bishops to the instance of the roman pontiff, and that granted after inquiry into the truth. on these terms they gave their approval, and their subscription, and decreed that a letter, agreeing with the apprehensions of their common faith, and found and judged to be such by them, was of universal authority by the union of their sentences with the apostolic see. which wonderfully accords with what we have just read in the sentences of the fathers of chalcedon. "this is that examination of leo's letter, synodically made at chalcedon, and placed among the acts; of which examination leo himself thus writes to theodoret: 'what god had before set forth by our ministry, he hath confirmed by the irreversible assent of the whole brotherhood, to show that what was first put forth in form by the first see of all, and then received by the judgment of the whole christian world, really proceeded from himself (that in this too the members might agree with the head.)'[90] "he proceeds: 'for in order that the consent of other sees to that which the lord appointed to preside over all the rest should not appear flattery, or any other adverse suspicion creep in, persons were found who doubted concerning our judgment.... the truth, likewise, itself is both more clearly conspicuous, and more strongly maintained, when after-examination confirms what previous faith had taught.' here he speaks distinctly of examination, and that most free. 'in fine, the merit of the priestly office shines forth very brightly, when the authority of the highest is preserved, without the liberty of the lower seeming to be at all infringed. and the end of the examination profits to the greater glory of god, when it has confidence enough to exert itself so far as to prevail over the opposite opinion. so that what is in itself proved to be heterodox may not seem overcome, merely because it is passed over in silence,' lastly, 'the letter of the apostolic see, confirmed by the assent of the whole holy council'[91] is proposed as a most certain and perfect rule of faith, not again to be reconsidered. here is what leo considered to be irrevocable, or rather not to be mended, which no one can be blamed for holding together with the world and the fathers of chalcedon: the form is set forth by the apostolic see; yet it is to be examined, and that freely, and every bishop, the highest and the lowest, to pronounce judgment in a body concerning decreeing it. "they conceived no other way of removing all doubt; for after the conclusion of the synod, the emperor thus proclaims: 'let then all profane contention cease, for he is indeed impious and sacrilegious, who, after the sentence of so many priests, leaves any thing for his own opinion to consider.' he then prohibits all discussion concerning religion; for, says he, 'he does an injury to the judgment of the most religious council, who endeavours to open afresh, and publicly discuss what has been once judged, and rightly ordered.' "here in the condemnation of eutyches is the order of ecclesiastical judgments in questions of faith. he is judged by his proper bishop flavian: the cause is reheard, reconsidered by the pope st. leo;" (let it be remembered that eutyches likewise appealed to alexandria, jerusalem, and thessalonica;) "it is decided by a declaration of the apostolic see: after that declaration follows the examination, inquiry, judgment of the fathers or bishops, in a general council: after the declaration has been approved by the judgment of the fathers no place is any longer left for doubt or discussion. "to the same effect leo: 'for no longer is any refuge or excuse allowable to any, on plea of ignorance, or difficulty of understanding, inasmuch as for this very purpose the council of about six hundred of our brethren and fellow-bishops met together hath permitted no skill in reasoning, no flow of eloquence, to breathe against the faith built on a divine foundation. since, through the endeavours of our brethren and representatives, by the help of god's grace, (their devotion in every procedure being most entire,) it hath been fully and evidently made manifest, not only to the priests of christ, but to princes also, and christian powers, and to all ranks of the clergy and people, that this is the truly apostolic and catholic faith, flowing from the fountain of divine goodness, which we preach, and now with the agreement of the whole world defend pure and clean from all pollution of error.'[92] "thus at length supreme and infallible force is given to an apostolic decree, after that it is strengthened by universal inquiry, examination, discussion, and thereupon consent and testimony." [93]"we add a third point, important to our cause, respecting the restitution of theodoret to his see. after, then, by order of the bishops, he had openly anathematized nestorius, 'the most illustrious magistrates said, all doubt respecting theodoret is now removed; for he hath both anathematized nestorius before you, and has been received by leo, most holy archbishop of old rome, and has willingly accepted the definition of faith set forth by your piety, and moreover hath subscribed the epistle of the aforesaid most holy archbishop leo. it is fitting, therefore, that sentence be pronounced by your most acceptable holiness, that he may recover his church, as the most holy archbishop leo has judged.' all the most reverend bishops cried out, 'theodoret is worthy of his see. leo hath judged after god.' so then the judgment put forth by leo concerning his restoration to his see would have profited theodoret nothing, unless, after the matter had been brought before the council, he had both approved his faith to the council, and the judgment of leo been confirmed by the same council. this was done in the presence of the legates of the apostolic see, who afterwards pronounced that sentence on confirming leo's judgment, which the whole synod approved." let any one of candour consider these acts of the council of chalcedon, and then say, which of these two views agrees with them, viz. that st. leo was first bishop of the church, looked up to with great reverence as the special successor of st. peter, and representative of the whole west; or that he was beside this the only vicar of christ, the source and origin of the episcopate, from whom his brethren received their jurisdiction, which is the papal idea of the middle ages. for on the truth of this latter view depends the charge, that the church of england is in schism. what follows may perhaps assist our solution of the question. at this very council of 630 bishops, the largest ever held in ancient times, and where the credit of the roman pontiff was so great, a very celebrated canon was enacted concerning the rank of the bishop of constantinople. the pope's legates attempted, by absenting themselves, to prevent its being enacted, but that only led to its being confirmed the next day, in spite of their opposition. the circumstances were as follows, and they seem to deserve our most stedfast consideration, from their bearing upon the great subject we are considering, the papal supremacy. "on the same day, being the last of october, the fifteenth session was held, at which neither the magistrates nor legates were present: for after the formula of faith had been agreed to, and the private business brought before the council had been despatched, the clergy of constantinople asked the legates to join them in discussing an affair concerning their church. this they refused, saying, that they had received no instructions about it. they made the same proposal to the magistrates, and these referred the matter to the council. when the magistrates and legates therefore had retired, the rest of the council made a canon respecting the prerogatives of the church of constantinople."[94] to make the scope of this clear we must observe, that the see of constantinople had been now for at least seventy years the chief see of the east: at the second ecumenical council, held in 381, at constantinople, it is declared in the third canon, that "the bishop of constantinople shall have the primacy of honour after the bishop of rome, because that constantinople is new rome." it seems that in the interval that bishop had not only taken precedence of alexandria and antioch, and reduced under him the exarchs of pontus, thrace, and asia, but that his authority was very great throughout all the east. theodoret says,[95] that st. chrysostom governed twenty-eight provinces. accordingly, in its famous 28th canon, the council of chalcedon only confirmed an authority to the bishop of constantinople which he had long enjoyed and often exceeded. it ran thus: "we, following in all things the decisions of the holy fathers, and acknowledging the canon of the 150 most religious bishops which has just been read, do also determine and decree the same things respecting the privileges of the most holy city of constantinople, new rome. for the fathers properly gave the primacy to the throne of the elder rome, because that was the imperial city. and the 150 most religious bishops, being moved with the same intention, gave equal privileges to the most holy throne of new rome, judging with reason, that the city which was honoured with the sovereignty and senate, and which enjoyed equal privileges with the elder royal rome, should also be magnified like her in ecclesiastical matters, being the second after her. and (we also decree) that the metropolitans only of the pontic, and asian, and thracian dioceses, and, moreover, the bishops of the aforesaid dioceses who are amongst the barbarians, shall be ordained by the above-mentioned most holy throne of the most holy church of constantinople; each metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses ordaining the bishops of the province, as has been declared by the divine canons; but the metropolitans themselves of the said dioceses shall, as has been said, be ordained by the bishop of constantinople, the proper elections being made according to custom, and reported to him." "the legates,[96] being informed of what had passed, demanded that the council should assemble again, and the magistrates be present. on the morrow, therefore, being thursday, the 1st november, the twelfth sitting[97] was held. the magistrates were there with the legates, and the bishops of illyria, and all the rest. after they had taken their seats, paschasinus spoke, having asked permission of the magistrates, and said, that he was astonished that so many things had been done the day before in their absence, which were contrary to the canons and the peace of the church, for which the emperor was labouring with so much application and zeal. he demanded the reading of what had passed the day before. and aetius, (archdeacon of constantinople,) having said that it was the legates themselves who had refused to be present at the deliberation, presented the canon which had been drawn up with the signatures of the bishops. after the signatures had been read, lucentius said the bishops had been surprised, and compelled to sign. this is what st. leo repeated often in the letter which he wrote concerning this twenty-eighth canon, accusing anatolius of having extorted the signatures of the bishops, or of having surprised them by his artifices. nevertheless, upon the reproach of lucentius, all the bishops cried out that no one had been forced. they protested again afterwards, both all in common, and the principal by themselves, that they had signed it of their full consent. anatolius also maintains to st. leo, that the bishops took this resolution of their own accord. "the legates continued to oppose the canon, and showed that they had an express order of the pope to do so. they alleged that the canon was contrary to the council of nicea, of which they read the sixth canon, with the celebrated heading--'the roman church has always had the primacy,' which is also found added in the ancient roman code. the same canon was afterwards read as it is in the original greek, and the canon of the second ecumenical council, to which the legates answered nothing. "the magistrates having next begged the bishops who had not signed the day before, to give their opinion, eusebius, of ancyra, represented with much gentleness and modesty, that it was better for the church that ordinations should be made upon the spot by the council of the province. thalassius then spoke a single word, but i know not his meaning." thereupon "the magistrates[98] said,--'it appears, from the depositions, first of all, that the primacy and precedency of honour ([greek: ta prôteia, kai tên exaireton timên]) should be preserved according to the canons for the archbishop of old rome, but that the archbishop of constantinople ought to enjoy the same privileges, ([greek: tôn autôn presbeiôn tês timês],) and that he has a right to ordain the metropolitans of the dioceses of asia, pontus, and thrace, in the manner following. in each metropolis, the clergy, the proprietors of lands, and the gentry, with all the bishops of the province, or the greater part of them, shall issue a decree for the election of one whom they shall deem worthy of being made a bishop of the metropolis. they shall all make a report of it to the archbishop of constantinople, and it shall be at his option either to enjoin the bishop elect to come thither for ordination, or to allow him to be ordained in the province. as to the bishops of particular cities, they shall be ordained by all, or the greater part, of the comprovincial bishops, under the authority of the metropolitan, according to the canons, the archbishop of constantinople taking no part in such ordination. these are our views, let the council state theirs.' the bishops shouted, 'this is a just proposal: we all say the same: we all assent to it, we pray you dismiss us:' with other similar acclamations. lucentius, the legate, said,--'the apostolic see ought not to be degraded in our presence; we, therefore, desire that yesterday's proceedings, which violate the canons, may be rescinded; otherwise let our opposition be inserted in the acts, that we may know what we are to report to the pope, and that he may declare his opinion of this contempt of his see, and subversion of the canons.' the magistrates said,--'the whole council approves of what we said.' such was the last session of the council of chalcedon." the remarks of tillemont on this canon are significant, and worth transcribing.[99] "it seems," he says, "to recognise no particular authority in the church of rome, save what the fathers had granted it, as the seat of the empire. and it attributes in plain words as much to constantinople as to rome, with the exception of the first place. _nevertheless i do not observe that the popes took up a thing so injurious to their dignity, and of so dangerous a consequence to the whole church._ for what lupus quotes of st. leo's 78th (104th) letter, refers rather to alexandria and to antioch, than to rome. st. leo is contented to destroy the foundation on which they built the elevation of constantinople, maintaining that a thing so entirely ecclesiastical as the episcopate ought not to be regulated by the temporal dignity of cities, which, nevertheless, has been almost always followed in the establishment of the metropolis, according to the council of nicea. "st. leo also complains that the council of chalcedon broke the decrees of the council of nicea, the practice of antiquity, and the rights of metropolitans. certainly it was an odious innovation to see a bishop made the chief, not of one department, but of three; for which no example could be found save in the authority which the popes took over illyricum, where, however, they did not claim the power to ordain any bishop." now i suppose any roman catholic would observe that this canon is entirely opposed to the present papal theory: he would say that st. leo and the west for that very reason refused to receive it. the opposition, beyond all question, is such, that it is quite impossible to reconcile them. let any one, then, read through the 104th letter of st. leo to the emperor mauricius, the 105th to the empress pulcheria, and the 106th to anatolius himself, and he will see that st. leo bases his opposition to it throughout on its being a violation of the nicene canons: there is not a word in all the three letters about any violation of the rights of st. peter. may we not quote, alas! st. leo's words, in these letters, to st. leo's successor. "he[100] loses his own, who lusts after what is not his due.... for the privileges of the churches, instituted by the canons of the holy fathers, and fixed by the decrees of the venerable nicene synod, cannot be plucked up by any wickedness, or changed by any innovation. in the faithful execution of which work, by the help of christ, i am bound to show persevering service; since the dispensation has been entrusted to me, and it tends to my guilt, if the rules of the fathers' sanctions, which were made in the nicene council for the government of the whole church, by the teaching of god's spirit, be violated, which god forbid, by my connivance; and if the desire of one brother be of more weight with me than the common good of the whole house of the lord." this to the emperor. to the empress, thus:--"since no one is allowed to attempt[101] anything against the statutes of the fathers' canons, which many years ago were based on spiritual decrees in the city of nicea; so that if any one desires to decree anything against them, he will rather lessen himself than injure them. _and if these are kept uninjured, as it behoves, by all pontiffs, there will be tranquil peace and firm concord through all the churches. there will be no dissensions concerning the degree of honours; no contests about ordinations; no doubts about privileges; no conflicts about the usurpation of another's right; but under the equal law of charity, both men's minds and duties will be kept in the due order_; and he will be truly great, who shall be alien from all ambition, according to the lord's words, 'whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, &c.'" but to anatolius, thus:--"those[102] holy and venerable fathers, who in the nicene city established laws of ecclesiastical canons, _which are to last to the end of the world_, when the sacrilegious arius with his impiety was condemned, live both with us and in the whole world by their constitutions; and if anything anywhere is presumed upon contrary to what they appointed, it is without delay annulled, &c." but _what_ the violation was he likewise states: it is not any wrong done to his own see personally. he says to the empress: "but[103] what doth the prelate of the church of constantinople desire more than he hath obtained? or what will satisfy him, if the magnificence and glory of so great a city satisfy him not? it is too proud and immoderate to go beyond one's own limits, and, trampling on antiquity, to wish to seize on another's right. and, in order to increase the dignity of one, to impugn the primacy of so many metropolitans; and to carry a new war of disturbance into quiet provinces, settled long ago by the moderation of the holy nicene council," &c. to anatolius himself he says: "i grieve--that you attempt to infringe the most sacred constitutions of the nicene canons; as if this were a favourable opportunity presented to you, when the see of alexandria may lose the privilege of the second rank, and the church of antioch its possession of the third dignity; so that when these places have been brought under your jurisdiction, all metropolitan bishops may be deprived of their proper honour."[104] "i oppose you, that with wiser purpose you may refrain from throwing into confusion the whole church. let not the rights of provincial primacies be torn away, nor metropolitan bishops be deprived of their privileges in force from old time. let no part of that dignity perish to the see of alexandria, which it was thought worthy to obtain through the holy evangelist mark, the disciple of blessed peter; nor, though dioscorus falls through the obstinacy of his own impiety, let the splendour of so great a church be obscured by another's disgrace. let also the church of antioch, in which first, at the preaching of the blessed apostle peter, the name of christian arose, remain in the order of its hereditary degree, and being placed in the third rank never sink below itself." so then it was not st. peter's primacy, nor his own proper authority in the church, which st. leo conceived to be attacked by this canon; but he refused to be a party to "treading under foot the constitution of the fathers"--to disturbing "the state of the universal church, protected of old by a most wholesome and upright administration."[105] so the emperor marcian, anatolius, julian of cos, beseech leo to grant this, without so much as imagining that they are injuring _his_ rank by asking it. i see not how it is possible to avoid the conclusion, that the power of the first see, even as its most zealous occupant viewed it, was quite different from that power which was set up in the middle ages. this is only one of a vast number of proofs which distinguish the primacy from the present supremacy. and it is the more valuable, because st. leo certainly carries his notion of his own rights as universal primate further than any father of his time. i shall have occasion to make a like remark presently in the matter of st. gregory's protest. but, indeed, such a canon as this being passed in the most numerous ecumenical synod, in spite of the opposition of the pope's legates, speaks for itself. i am well aware that st. leo refused to receive it, that, "by the authority of the blessed peter, he annulled it by a general declaration, as contrary to the holy canons of nicea."[106] accordingly it was not received in the west; but it nevertheless always prevailed in the east, and the popes ultimately conceded the point it enacted. and[107] from the hour it was enacted to this, it has remained the law of the eastern church; and the patriarchal power, which in the western church has developed into the papal, has remained attached to the throne of constantinople in the other great division of christ's kingdom. the ninth canon of chalcedon also says:--"if a clergyman has any matter against his own bishop or another, let him plead his cause before the council of the province. but if either a bishop or clergyman have a controversy against the metropolitan of the same province, let him have recourse either to the exarch of the diocese, or to the throne of the imperial city of constantinople, and plead his cause before it." i remark this, because it is a far greater power of hearing appeals granted to the bishop of constantinople, than was granted to the bishop of rome a hundred years before at the council of sardica. now, let us be fair and even-handed. if the great influence and authority exercised at the council of chalcedon by st. leo is to be acknowledged as witnessing the roman primacy, let us also grant, that unless the acts and the canons of the first four ecumenical councils are to be swept away as waste paper before the omnipotence of papal prerogative, then the ancient decrees of nicea, constantinople, ephesus, and chalcedon, offer an insurmountable barrier to the present claims of rome. but concerning the canons of nicea, st. leo, at least, says:--"i hold all ecclesiastical rules to be dissolved, if any part of that sacrosanct constitution of the fathers be violated."[108] st. gregory repeats:--"i receive the four councils of the holy universal church as the four books of the holy gospel."[109] mr. newman says, "that the definition passed at chalcedon is the apostolic truth once delivered to the saints, is most firmly to be received from faith in that overruling providence, which is by special promise extended over the acts of the church."[110] does it not equally follow that the church government recognised as immemorial, and enforced at nicea, constantinople, ephesus, and chalcedon, _and the doctrine which is involved therein_, are likewise to be maintained, and that none who appeal to them with truth, as practised by themselves, whatever else they may fall into, can be guilty of schism? the hundred and thirty years between the death of st. leo and the accession of st. gregory, were years of trouble, confusion, and disaster: "the stars fell from heaven, and the powers of the heavens were shaken." the western empire was overthrown; barbarians and heretics obtained the mastery in italy, and generally in the west; there was but one fixed and central authority to which the eyes of churchmen could turn with hope and confidence in the whole west, that of the roman pontiff. i select the following points as bearing on our subject:-in the year 536 we have one of those rare instances in which the primacy of rome is seen acting on the eastern church, but in perfect accordance with the canons and the patriarchal system. the pope agapetus had been compelled by theodatus, king of the goths, to proceed to constantinople, in order that he might, if possible, prevail upon justinian not to attempt the recovery of italy. not having wherewith to pay the expenses of his journey, he had been compelled to borrow money on the sacred vessels of st. peter's church. on arriving at constantinople he refused to see the new patriarch anthimus, or to receive him to his communion, both because he was suspected of heresy, and had been translated from the see of trebisond. anthimus refused to appear in the council that the pope held at constantinople to judge him; so he was deposed, and returned his pallium to the emperor. mennas was elected in his stead by the emperor, with the approbation of all the clergy and the people, and the pope consecrated him in the church of st. mary. "pope agapetus wrote a synodal letter to peter, patriarch of jerusalem, to acquaint him with what he had done in this council. 'when we arrived,' said he, 'at the court of the emperor, we found the see of constantinople usurped, contrary to the canons, by anthimus bishop of trebisond. he even refused to quit the error of eutyches. therefore, after having waited for his repentance, we declare him unworthy of the name of catholic and bishop, until he fully receive the doctrine of the fathers. you ought likewise to reject the rest whom the holy see has condemned. we are astonished that you approved this injury done to the see of constantinople, instead of informing us of it; and we have repaired it by the ordination of mennas, who is the first of the eastern church ordained by the hands of our see.'"[111] i find this pope presently called by the easterns, 'father of fathers,' 'archbishop of ancient rome,' 'ecumenical patriarch.' this latter title is also given to mennas. i shall have more to say about it hereafter; but it is remarkable that it was first given, so far as we have any record, to dioscorus,[112] by a bishop in some complaint made to him at the latrocinium of ephesus; but justinian gives to the patriarch of constantinople the title, "to the most holy and blessed archbishop of this royal city, and ecumenical patriarch."[113] the pope shortly after dies at constantinople, and a council is held, at which the patriarch mennas presides, the bishops who had accompanied the defunct pope taking rank after him. he writes to the patriarch peter of jerusalem, and informs him of the acts of this council. peter assembles his council at jerusalem: the procedure which took place at constantinople was there found canonical, and the deposition of anthimus was confirmed. here the same facts which prove the pope's primacy refute his supremacy: and this is not an isolated incident, but one link in a vast and uninterrupted chain of evidence. i find in the laws of the emperor justinian just at the same time, looking at them merely as facts, a full confirmation and recognition of the episcopal and patriarchal constitution of the church. in 538, the emperor, in an edict, addressing the patriarch mennas, says, "wherefore we exhort you to assemble all the bishops who are in this imperial city ... and oblige them all to anathematize by writing the impious origen ... that your blessedness send copies of what you do on this subject to all the other bishops, and to all the superiors of monasteries.... we have written as much to pope vigilius and the other patriarchs".... "the patriarch mennas, and the bishops who were at constantinople, subscribed to this: it was then sent to pope vigilius, to zoilus, patriarch of alexandria, to ephrem of antioch, and to peter of jerusalem, who all subscribed to it".... "there are three great laws of the year 511, of which the first regulates ordinations:" those of the bishops were still in the hands of the several clergy, laity, and metropolitans.... "the second law of the 18th march enacts, that the four general councils shall have the force of law, that the pope of rome is the first of all the bishops, and after him the bishop of constantinople."--"bishops cannot be called to appear against their will before secular judges for any cause whatsoever. if bishops of the same province have a difference together, they shall be judged by the metropolitan, accompanied by the other bishops of the province, _and may appeal to the patriarch, but not beyond_. likewise if an individual, clerk or lay, has a matter against his bishop. the metropolitan can only be tried before the patriarch."--"simony is forbidden ... still it is allowed to give for consecrations, according to ancient customs, in the following proportion. the pope and the four patriarchs of constantinople, alexandria, antioch and jerusalem, may give to the bishops and the clergy according to custom, provided that it exceed not twenty pounds of gold. the metropolitans and the other bishops may give a hundred gold solidi for their enthronement," &c.[114] so, again: "therefore let the most holy patriarchs of each diocese propose these things to the most holy churches under them, and make known to the metropolitans, most beloved of god, what we have ratified. let these again set it forth in the most holy metropolitan church, and notify it to the bishops under them. but let each of these propose it in his own church, that no one in our commonwealth be ignorant of it."[115] "we charge the most blessed archbishops and patriarchs, that is, of elder rome, and constantinople, and alexandria, and theopolis and jerusalem."[116] but pope pelagius i. himself says: "as often as any doubt ariseth to any concerning an universal council, in order to receive account of what they do not understand--let them recur to the apostolical sees.--whosoever then is divided from the apostolical sees, there is no doubt that he is in schism."[117] st. augustin had said long before, "what hath the see of the roman church done to thee, in which peter sat, in which anastasius sitteth now: or of the church of jerusalem, in which james sat, and where now john sitteth: with which we are joined in catholic unity, and from which ye in impious fury have separated."[118] we now come to the dark and sad history of pope vigilius. and here i am glad that another can speak for me. bossuet says: "the acts of the second council of constantinople, the fifth general, under pope vigilius and the emperor justinian, will prove that the decrees of the third and fourth councils were understood in the same sense by the fifth as we have understood them. and this council received the account of them near at hand, and transmitted it to us."[119] "the three chapters were the point in question; that is, respecting theodore of mopsuestia, theodoret's writings against cyril, and the letter of ibas of edessa to maris the persian. the question was whether that letter had been approved in the council of chalcedon. so much was admitted that it had been read there, and that ibas, after anathematizing nestorius, had been received by the council. some contended that his person only was spared; others that his letter also was approved. thus inquiry was made at the fifth council how writings on the faith were wont to be approved in former councils. the acts of the third and fourth council, those which we have mentioned above respecting the letter of st. cyril and of st. leo, were set forth. then the holy council declared--'it is plain, from what has been recited, in what manner the holy councils are wont to approve what is brought before them. for, great as was the dignity of those holy men who wrote the letters recited, yet they did not approve their letters simply or without inquiry, nor without taking cognisance that they were in all things agreeable to the exposition and doctrine of the holy fathers, with which they were compared.' but the acts proved that this course was not pursued in the case of the letter of ibas; they inferred, therefore, most justly, that that letter had not been approved. so, then, it is certain, from the third and fourth councils, the fifth so declaring and understanding it, that letters approved by the apostolic see, such as was that of cyril, or even proceeding from it, as that of leo, were received by the holy councils not simply, nor without inquiry." pope vigilius afterwards, when consenting to this council, "acknowledges that the letter of st. leo was not approved at the council of chalcedon until it had been examined and found conformable to the faith of the three preceding councils; and this avowal is the more important in the mouth of a pope."[120] "again, in the same fifth council the acts against the letter of nestorius are read, in which the fathers of ephesus plainly pronounce, 'that the letter of nestorius is in no respect agreeable to the faith which was set forth at nicea.' so this letter also was rejected, not simply, but, as was equitable, after examination; and ibas condemned, who stated that nestorius had been rejected by the council of ephesus without examination and inquiry. "the holy fathers proceed to do what the bishops at chalcedon would have done, had they undertaken the examination of ibas' letter. they compare the letters with the acts of ephesus and chalcedon. the holy council declared--'the comparison made proves, beyond a doubt, that the letter which ibas is said to have written is, in all respects, opposed to the definition of the right faith, which the council of chalcedon set forth. all the bishops cried out, 'we all say this; the letter is heretical.' thus, therefore, is it proved by the fifth council that our holy fathers in ecumenical councils pronounce the letters read, whether of catholics or heretics, or even of roman pontiffs, to be orthodox or heretical, according to the same procedure, after legitimate cognisance, the truth being inquired into, and then cleared up; and upon these premises judgment given. "what! you will say, with no distinction, and with minds equally inclined to both parties? indeed we have said, and shall often repeat, that there was a presumption in favour of the decrees of orthodox pontiffs; but in ecumenical councils, where judgment is to be passed in matter of faith, that they were bound no longer to act upon presumption, but on the truth clearly and thoroughly ascertained. "such were the acts of the fifth council. this it learnt from the third and fourth councils, and approved; and in this argument we have brought at once in favour of our opinion the decrees of the ecumenical councils of ephesus, chalcedon, and the second constantinopolitan."[121] the point here taken up by bossuet, and proved upon indisputable authority, is of the greatest importance, viz. that the decree of a roman pontiff, _de fide_, and he, perhaps, the greatest of the whole number, was judged by a general council, and only admitted when it was found conformable to antiquity. it settles, in fact, the whole question, that the bishop of rome is indeed possessed of the first see, and primate of all christendom; but that he is not the sole depository of christ's power in the church, which is, in truth, the papal idea, laid down by st. gregory the seventh, and acted upon since. the difference between these two ideas is the difference between the church of the fathers and the present latin communion in the matter of church government, in which they are wide as the poles asunder. the history of pope vigilius further confirms the truth of what we have said. bossuet proceeds: "in the same fifth council the following acts support our cause. "the emperor justinian desired that the question concerning the above-mentioned three chapters should be considered in the church. he therefore sent for pope vigilius to constantinople. there he not long after assembled a council. the orientals thought it of great moment that these chapters should be condemned, against the nestorians, who were raising their heads to defend them; vigilius, with the occidentals, feared lest thus occasion should be taken to destroy the authority of the council of chalcedon; because it was admitted that theodoret and ibas had been received in that council, whilst theodore, though named, was let go without any mark of censure. though then both parties easily agreed as to the substance of the faith, yet the question had entirely respect to the faith, it being feared by the one party lest the nestorian, by the other lest the eutychean, enemies of the council of chalcedon should prevail. "from this struggle many accusations have been brought against vigilius, which have nothing to do with us. i am persuaded that everything was done by vigilius with the best intent, the westerns not enduring the condemnation of the chapters, and things tending to a schism." the facts here alluded to, but for obvious reasons avoided by bossuet, are as follows, very briefly. vigilius on the 11th of april, 548, issues his 'judicatum' against the three chapters, saving the authority of the council of chalcedon. thereupon the bishops of africa, illyria, and dalmatia, with two of his own confidential deacons, withdraw from his communion. in the year 551, the bishops of africa, assembled in council, excommunicate him, for having condemned the three chapters. at length the pope publicly withdraws his 'judicatum.' while the council is sitting at constantinople he publishes his 'constitutum,' in which he condemns certain propositions of theodore, but spares his person; the same respecting theodoret; but with respect to ibas, he declares his letter was pronounced orthodox by the council of chalcedon. bossuet goes on: "however this may be, so much is clear that vigilius, though invited, declined being present at the council; that nevertheless the council was held without him; that he published a 'constitutum' in which he disapproved of what theodore, theodoret, and ibas were said to have written against the faith; but decreed that their name should be spared, because they were considered to have been received by the fourth council, or to have died in the communion of the church, and to be reserved to the judgment of god. concerning the letter of ibas, he published the following, that, understood in the best and most pious sense, it was blameless; and concerning the three chapters generally, he ordered that after his present declaration ecclesiastics should move no further question. "such was the decree of vigilius, issued upon the authority with which he was invested. and the council, after his constitution, both raised a question about the three chapters, and decided that question was properly raised concerning the dead, and that the letter of ibas was manifestly heretical and nestorian, and contrary in all things to the faith of chalcedon, and that they were altogether accursed, who defended the impious theodore of mopsuestia, or the writings of theodoret against cyril, or the impious letter of ibas defending the tenets of nestorius; and who did not anathematize it, but said it was correct. "in these latter words they seemed not even to spare vigilius, although they did not mention his name. and it is certain their decree was confirmed by pelagius the second, gregory the great, and other roman pontiffs.... these things prove, that in a matter of the utmost importance, disturbing the whole church, and seeming to belong to the faith, the decrees of sacred councils prevailed over the decrees of pontiffs, and that the letter of ibas, though defended by a judgment of the roman pontiff, could nevertheless be proscribed as heretical." compare with this history the following remark of de maistre, "that bishops separated from the pope, and in contradiction with him, are superior to him, is a proposition to which one does all the honour possible in calling it only extravagance."[122] after all this fleury says: "at last the pope vigilius resigned himself to the advice of the council, and six months afterwards wrote a letter to the patriarch eutychius, wherein he confesses that he has been wanting in charity in dividing from his brethren. he adds, that one ought not to be ashamed to retract, when one recognises the truth, and brings forward the example of st. augustin. he says, that, after having better examined the matter of the three chapters, he finds them worthy of condemnation. 'we recognise for our brethren and colleagues all those who have condemned them, and annul by this writing all that has been done by us or by others for the defence of the three chapters.'"[123] nor can i think it a point of little moment that bishops of rome were at different times deposed or excommunicated by other bishops. as in the second century the eastern bishops disregard st. victor's excommunication respecting easter; and in the third st. firmilian in asia, and st. cyprian in africa, disregard st. stephen's excommunication in the matter of rebaptizing heretics; so when the bishops of the patriarchate of antioch found that pope julius had received to communion st. athanasius, and others whom they had deposed, they proceeded to depose him, with hosius and the rest.[124] this was in the fourth century. in the fifth, dioscorus, at the latrocinium of ephesus, attempts to excommunicate st. leo. in the sixth, as we have just seen, the bishops of africa, illyria, and dalmatia, all of the west, separate pope vigilius from their communion, and the former afterwards solemnly excommunicate him. it matters not that in all these cases the bishops were wrong; i quote these acts merely to prove that they esteemed the bishop of rome the first of all bishops indeed, yet subject to the canons like themselves, and only of equal rank. for on the present papal theory, such an act, as we have seen le père lacordaire affirm, would be merely suicidal,--pure insanity. it is in utter contradiction to the notion of an ecclesiastical monarchy. in like manner we find portions of the church, as that of constantinople, again and again out of communion with the roman pontiff, but they do not therefore cease to be parts of the true church. so gieseler states that in consequence of jealousies about the condemning the three chapters the archbishops of aquileia, with their bishops, were out of communion with rome from a.d. 568 to 698.[125] a reconciliation takes place, and communion is renewed. facts of the same nature, and applying closely to our own position, are mentioned by bossuet;[126] viz. that the spanish bishops, not having been present at, nor invited to, the sixth general council, did not receive it as ecumenical, though invited to do so by the pope of the day, until they had themselves examined its acts, and found them accordant with previous councils. and as to the second nicene, or seventh general council, the gallic bishops, with charlemagne at their head, long refused to receive it, though supported by the pope, because neither they nor other occidentals were present at it. "nor were they in the mean time held as heretical or schismatical, though they differed on a point of the greatest moment, that is, the interpretation of the precepts of the first table, because they seemed to inquire into the matter with a good intention, not with obstinate party spirit."[127] yet pope adrian had himself written against them. now all these various facts, from the first nicene council, converge towards one view, for which, i think, there is as full evidence as for most facts of history,--that the pope, to the time of st. gregory the great, and indeed long afterwards, was but the first of the patriarchs, who, in their own patriarchates, enjoyed a co-ordinate and equal authority with his in the west. i suppose de maistre acknowledges as much in his own way, when he says, "the pope is invested with five very distinct characters; for he is bishop of rome, metropolitan of the suburbican churches, primate of italy, patriarch of the west, and, lastly, sovereign pontiff. the pope has never exercised over the other patriarchates any powers save those resulting from this last; so that except in some affair of high importance, some striking abuse, or some appeal in the greater causes, the sovereign pontiffs mixed little in the ecclesiastical administration of the eastern churches. and this was a great misfortune, not only for them, but for the states where they were established. it may be said that the greek church, from its origin, carried in its bosom a germ of division, which only completely developed itself at the end of twelve centuries, but which always existed under forms less striking, less decisive, and so endurable."[128] the confession of one who travesties antiquity so outrageously as de maistre is curious at least:--and now let us proceed to the testimony of st. gregory. and, assuredly, if there was any pontiff who, like st. leo, held the most strong and deeply-rooted convictions as to the prerogatives of the roman see, it was st. gregory. his voluminous correspondence with bishops, and the most notable persons throughout the world, represents him to us as guarding and superintending the affairs of the whole church from the watch-tower of st. peter, the loftiest of all. let one assertion of his prove this. writing to natalis, bishop of salona in dalmatia, he says, "after the letters of my predecessor and my own, in the matter of honoratus the archdeacon, were sent to your holiness, in despite of the sentence of us both, the above-mentioned honoratus was deprived of his rank. _had either of the four patriarchs done this, so great an act of contumacy could not have been passed over without the most grievous scandal._ however, as your brotherhood has since returned to your duty, i take notice neither of the injury done to me, nor of that to my predecessor."[129] the following words in another letter will elucidate his meaning here. "as to what he says, that he (a bishop) is subject to the apostolical see, _i know not what bishop is not subject to it, if any fault be found in bishops. but when no fault requires it, all are equal according to the estimation of humility._"[130] and again, writing to his own defensor in sicily, a part of the church most under his own control, "i am informed that if any one has a cause against any clerks, you throw a slight upon their bishops, and cause them to appear in your own court. if this be so, we expressly order you to presume to do so no more, because beyond doubt it is very unseemly. for if his own jurisdiction is not preserved to each bishop, what else results but that the order of the church is thrown into confusion by us, who ought to guard it."[131] gieseler says: "they (the roman bishops) maintained, that not only the right of the highest ecclesiastical tribunal in the west belonged to them, but the supervision of orthodoxy, and maintenance of the church's laws, in the whole church; and they based these claims, still, it is true, at times, upon imperial edicts, and decrees of councils, but most commonly upon the privileges granted to peter by the lord."[132] and i suppose if the primacy of christendom has any real meaning, it must mean this, that in case of necessity, such as infraction of the canons, an appeal may be made to it. so undoubtedly st. gregory understood his own rights. what his ordinary jurisdiction was, fleury thus tells us:--"the popes ordained clergy only for the roman (local) church, but they gave bishops to the greater part of the churches of italy."[133] "st. gregory entered into this detail only for the churches which specially depended on the holy see, and for that reason were named suburbican; that is, those of the southern part of italy, where he was sole archbishop, those of sicily, and the other islands, though they had metropolitans. but it will not be found that he exercised the same immediate power in the provinces depending on milan and aquileia, nor in spain and the gauls. it is true that in the gauls he had his vicar, who was the bishop of arles, as was likewise the bishop of thessalonica for western illyricum. the pope further took care of the churches of africa, that councils should be held there, and the canons maintained; but we do not find that he exercised particular jurisdiction over any that belonged to the eastern empire, that is to say, upon the four patriarchates of alexandria, antioch, jerusalem, and constantinople. he was in communion and interchange of letters with all these patriarchs, without entering into the particular management of the churches depending on them, except it were in some extraordinary case. the multitude of st. gregory's letters gives us opportunity to remark all these distinctions, in order not to extend indifferently rights which he only exercised over certain churches."[134] now in st. gregory's time a discussion arose, which served to draw forth statements on his part most remarkably bearing on the present claims of the see of rome. in the year 589 gregory, patriarch of antioch, accused of a grievous crime, appealed to the emperor and his council. he accordingly went to constantinople, and was tried. all the patriarchs of the east in person, or by their deputies, attended this trial, the senate likewise, and many metropolitans; and the cause having been examined in several sittings, gregory was absolved, and the accuser flogged through the city and banished. at this council john the faster, patriarch of constantinople, took the title of universal bishop. immediately the roman pontiff pelagius heard of it, he sent letters by which, of st. peter's authority, he annulled the acts of this council, save as to the absolution of gregory, and ordered his deacon, the nuncio, not to attend the mass with john. but he left the contest about the name ecumenical, or universal, bishop or patriarch, to his successor gregory. we have many letters of gregory on the subject, of which i will give extracts. the pope foresaw the great danger there was that the patriarch of constantinople would reduce completely under him the other three eastern patriarchs, and perhaps attempt to gain the primacy of the whole church; for this, among other reasons, neither st. leo, nor any of his successors, had ever allowed in the west the 28th canon of chalcedon, giving him the next place to rome. and now this title of ecumenical, combined with the fact that the bishop of that see was, from his position, the intermediary between all the bishops of the east and the imperial power, seemed to point directly to such a consummation. he was the natural president of a council continually sitting at constantinople, which might be said to lead and give the initiative to the whole east. accordingly st. gregory appears in this matter the great defender of the patriarchal equilibrium. "gregory to eulogius, bishop of alexandria, and anastasius, bishop of antioch."[135]... "as your venerable holiness is aware, this name universal was offered by the holy synod of chalcedon to the pontiff of the apostolic see, a post which by god's providence i fill. but no one of my predecessors ever consented to use so profane a term, because plainly, if a single _patriarch is called universal, the name of patriarch is taken from the rest_. but far, far be this from the mind of a christian, that any one should wish to claim to himself that by which the honour of his brethren may seem to be in any degree diminished. since, therefore, we are unwilling to receive this honour when offered to us, consider how shameful it is that any one has wished violently to usurp it to himself. wherefore let your holiness in your letters _never call any one universal, lest in offering undue honour to another you should deprive yourself of that which is your due_.... let us, therefore, render thanks to him, who, dissolving enmities, hath caused in his flesh, that in the whole world there should be one flock and one fold under himself the one shepherd.... for because he is near of whom it is written, 'he is king over all the children of pride,' what i cannot utter without great grief, our brother and fellow-bishop john, despising the apostolic precepts, the rules of the fathers, endeavours by this appellation to go before him in pride.... so that he endeavours to claim the whole to himself, and aims by the pride of this pompous language _to subjugate to himself all the members of christ, which are joined together to the one sole head, that is, christ_.... by the favour of the lord we must strive with all our strength, and take care lest by one poisonous sentence the living members of christ's body be destroyed. for if this is allowed to be said freely, _the honour of all the patriarchs is denied_. and when, perchance, he who is termed universal perishes in error, presently no bishop is found to have remained in the state of truth. wherefore it is your duty firmly, and without prejudice, to preserve the churches as you received them, and let this attempt of diabolic usurpation find nothing of its own in you. stand firm, stand fearless; _presume not ever either to give or receive letters with this false title of universal_. keep from the pollution of this pride all the bishops subject to your care, that the whole church may recognise you for patriarchs, not only by good works, but by your genuine authority. but if perchance adversity follow, persisting with one mind, we are bound to show, even by dying, that we love not any special gain of our own to the general loss." so, likewise to the bishops of illyricum he says--"because as the end of this world is approaching, the enemy of the human race hath appeared in anticipation, to have for his precursors through this name of pride, those very priests who ought by a good and humble life to resist him; i therefore exhort and advise that no one of you ever give countenance to this name, ever agree to it, ever write it, ever receive a writing wherein it is contained, or add his subscription; but, as it behoves ministers of almighty god, keep himself clean from such-like poisonous infection, and give no place within him to the crafty lier-in-wait; _since this is done to the injury and disruption of the whole church, and, as we have said, in contempt of all of you. for if, as he thinks, one is universal, it remains that you are not bishops_."[136] to sabinianus, then his deacon, afterwards his successor--"for to consent to this nefarious name, is nothing else but to lose our faith."[137] "gregory to the emperor mauricius"[138]... "concerning which matter, my lord's affection has enjoined me in his commands, saying that scandal ought not to grow between us, for the term of a frivolous name. but i beg your imperial piety to consider, that some frivolities are very harmless, some highly injurious. when antichrist at his coming calls himself god, will it not be very frivolous, but yet cause great destruction? if we look at the amount of what is said, it is but two syllables, (_deum_,) if at the weight of iniquity, it is universal destruction. _but i confidently affirm that whoever calls himself, or desires to be called, universal priest, in his pride goes before antichrist_; because through pride he prefers himself to the rest. and he is led into error by no dissimilar pride, because like that perverse one, he wishes to appear god over all men; so, _whoever he is who desires to be called sole priest_, he lifts up himself above all other priests. but since the truth says, 'every one who exalteth himself shall be abased,' i know that the more any pride inflates itself, the sooner it bursts." "gregory to the emperor mauritius."[139] ... "but since it is not my cause, but god's, and since not i only, but the whole church, is thrown into confusion, since sacred laws, since venerable synods, since the very commands even of our lord jesus christ are disturbed by the invention of this haughty and pompous language, let the most pious emperor lance the wound, &c.... _for to all who know the gospel, it is manifest that the charge of the whole church was entrusted by the voice of the lord to the holy apostle peter, chief of all the apostles._ for to him is said, peter, lovest thou me? feed my sheep. to him is said, behold, satan hath desired to sift you, &c. to him is said, thou art peter, &c. _lo he hath received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power of binding and loosing is given to him, the care of the whole church is committed to him, and the primacy, and yet he is not called universal apostle._ and that holy man, my fellow-priest, john, endeavours to be called universal bishop.... do i, in this matter, most pious lord, defend my own cause? is it a private injury that i pursue? the cause of almighty god, the cause of the universal church. who is he, who, in violation of the statutes of the gospel, in violation of the decrees of canons, presumes to usurp a new name to himself? _would that he who desires to be called universal may exist himself without diminution to others!_... if, then, any one claims to himself that name in that church, as in the judgment of all good men he has done, the whole church (which god forbid!) falls from its place, when he who is called universal falls. but far from christian hearts be that blasphemous name, in which the honour of all priests is taken away, while it is madly arrogated by one to himself! certainly, to do honour to the blessed peter, chief of the apostles, this was offered to the roman pontiff by the venerable synod of chalcedon. but no one of them ever consented to use this singular appellation, that all priests might not be deprived of their due honour by something peculiar being given to one. how is it, then, that we seek not the glory of this name, though offered us, yet another presumes to claim it, though not offered?" john had been succeeded by cyriacus at constantinople: and he writes further,[140] "gregory to anastasius, bishop of antioch.... i thought it not worth while on account of a profane appellation to delay receiving the synodical letter of our brother and fellow-priest cyriacus, that i might not disturb the unity of the holy church: nevertheless, i have made a point of admonishing him respecting that same superstitious and haughty appellation, saying that he could not have peace with me unless he corrected the pride of the aforesaid expression, _which the first apostate invented_. but you should not call this cause of no importance; because, if we bear this patiently, we corrupt the faith of the whole church. for you know how many, not only heretics, but even heresiarchs, have come forth from the church of constantinople. and, not to speak of the injury done to your honour, if one bishop be called universal, the whole church tumbles to pieces, if that one, being universal, falls.[141] but far be such folly, far be such trifling, from my ears. but i trust in the almighty lord, that what he hath promised, he will quickly perform: every one that exalteth himself shall be abased." in another most interesting letter he communicates to the bishop of alexandria, that "while the nation of the english, placed in a corner of the world, was remaining up to this time in unbelief, worshipping stocks and stones, by the help of your prayers i determined that i ought to send over to it a monk of my monastery, by the blessing of god, to preach there. after permission from me, he has been made a bishop by the bishops of germany, and, assisted by their kindness, reached the aforesaid nation at the end of the world; and even at this present moment i have received accounts of his safety and labours; for either he, or those who have gone over with him, are distinguished among that nation by so great miracles, that they seem to imitate the powers of apostles by the signs which they show forth. on this last feast of the lord's nativity more than ten thousand english are reported to have been baptized by this our brother and fellow-bishop, which i mention that you may know what you are doing among the people of alexandria by your voice, and in the ends of the world by your prayers."[142]--"your blessedness has also taken pains to tell me that you no longer write to certain persons those proud names, which have sprung from the root of vanity, and you address me, saying, _as you commanded_, which word _command_ i beg you to remove from my ears, because i know who i am, and who you are. for in rank you are my brother, in character my father. i did not, therefore, command, but took pains to point out what i thought advantageous. i do not, however, find that your blessedness was willing altogether to observe the very thing i pressed upon you. for i said that you should not write any such thing _either to me or to any one else_, and lo! in the heading of your letter, directed to me, the very person who forbad it, you set that haughty appellation, _calling me universal pope_. which i beg your holiness, who are most agreeable to me, to do no more, because _whatever is given to another more than reason requires is so much taken away from yourself_. it is not in appellations, but in character, that i wish to advance. nor do i consider that an honour by which i acknowledge that my brethren lose their own. for my honour is the honour of the universal church. my honour is the unimpaired vigour of my brethren. then am i truly honoured, when the true honour is not denied to each one in his degree. _for if your holiness calls me universal pope, you deny that you are yourself what you admit me to be, universal._ but this god forbid. away with words which inflate vanity, and wound charity. indeed, in the holy synod of chalcedon, and by the fathers subsequently, your holiness knows this was offered to my predecessors. yet none of them chose ever to use this term; that, while in this world they entertained affection for the honour of all priests, in the hands of almighty god they might guard their own." as to what gregory says about the council of chalcedon offering this title, thomassin says,[143] "it authorized at least by its silence the title of ecumenical (patriarch), which was given to pope leo in several requests there read." it appears these requests really were the complaints of two alexandrian deacons against dioscorus.[144] how very different it was to pass over without reprobating a title bestowed in documents which came before it, from itself conferring that title, is plain at once. in just the same way it had been given at the latrocinium to dioscorus. however, the title ecumenical has been constantly since, and is now, borne by the patriarch of constantinople; no doubt a very innocent meaning may be given to it. the remarkable thing is, that gregory has pointed out in such precise unmistakeable language a certain power and claim, which he inferred, rightly or wrongly, would be set up on this title ecumenical, and which he pronounces to be a corruption of the whole constitution of the church. perhaps, however, the most remarkable passage remains yet to be quoted. it is in a letter to the patriarch john himself. "consider, i pray you, that by this rash presumption the peace of the whole church is disturbed, and the grace, poured out upon all in common, contradicted. and in this, indeed, you yourself will be able to increase just so much as you purpose in your own mind; and become so much the greater, as you restrain yourself from usurping a proud and foolish name. and you profit in the degree that you do not study to arrogate to yourself by derogating from your brethren. therefore, most dear brother, with all your heart love humility, by which the harmony of all the brethren and the unity of the holy universal church, may be preserved. surely the apostle paul, hearing some say, i am of paul, i of apollos, i of cephas, exclaimed, in exceeding horror at this rending of the lord's body, by which his members attached themselves, as it were, to other heads, saying, was paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of paul? if he then rejected the members of the lord's body being subjected to certain heads, as it were, besides christ, and that even to apostles themselves, as leaders of parts, what will you say to christ, _who is, as you know, the head of the universal church, in the examination of the last judgement_,--_you, who endeavour to subject to yourself under the name of universal, all his members_? who, i say, in this perverse name, is set forth for imitation but he, who despised the legions of angels joined as companions to himself, and endeavoured to rise to a height unapproached by all, that he might seem to be subject to none, and be alone superior to all. who also said, 'i will ascend into heaven: i will exalt my throne above the stars of god: i will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, on the sides of the north. i will ascend above the height of the clouds: i will be like the most high.' "for what are all your brethren, the bishops of the universal church, but the stars of heaven? whose life and language together shine amid the sins and errors of men, as among the shades of night. and while you seek to set yourself over these by a proud term, and to tread under foot their name, in comparison with your own, what else do you say, but 'i will ascend into the heaven. i will exalt my throne above the stars of god.' are not all the bishops clouds, who rain down the words of their preaching, and shine with the light of good works? and while your brotherhood despises them, and endeavours to put them under you, what else do you say but this, which is said by the old enemy: 'i will ascend above the heights of the clouds?' and when i see all these things with sorrow, and fear the secret judgments of god, my tears increase, my heart contains not my groans, that that most holy man, the lord john, of such abstinence and humility, seduced the persuasion of those about him, hath proceeded to such pride, that in longing after a perverse name, he endeavours to be like him, who, desiring in his pride to be as god, lost even the grace of that likeness to god which had been given him; and so forfeited true blessedness, because he sought false glory. _surely peter, the first of the apostles, a member of the holy universal church, paul, andrew, john, what else are they but the heads of particular communities? and yet all are members under one head._ and to comprehend all in one brief expression, the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints under grace, all these making up the body of the lord, are disposed among members of the church, and no one ever wished to be called universal. let, then, your holiness acknowledge how great is your pride, who seek to be called by that name, by which no one has presumed to be called who was really holy."[145] now had these passages occurred in the writings of some ancient saint, who was generally opposed to the authority of the roman see, had they belonged to a patriarch of antioch, or constantinople, jealous of his own rights, they would surely have had their weight, as testimonies to a fact, not mere opinions of the speaker. they would have borne witness to no such thing as they reprobate having, till then, been allowed or thought of. or, had they been isolated statements, not borne out by contemporaneous or antecedent documents, but standing alone, uncontradicted indeed, but unsupported, they would still have told. how, then, are we to express their weight, or the full assurance of faith which they give us, as being the deliberate, oft-repeated, official statements of a pope, than whom there never was one more vigorous in defending or in exercising the rights of his see? as being supported and borne out, and in every possible way corroborated by the facts of history, the decrees of councils, the innumerable testimonies of all parts of the world, the everyday life of the living, breathing church for six hundred years? in an early work, mr. newman had said, "what there is not the shadow of a reason for saying that the fathers held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a catholic truth, is this, that st. peter, and his successors, were and are universal bishops; that they have the whole of christendom for their own diocese, in a way in which other apostles and bishops had and have not." in his last work he has retracted, saying, "most true, if, in order that a doctrine be considered catholic, it must be formally stated by the fathers generally from the very first: but, on the same understanding, the doctrine also of the apostolic succession in the episcopal order has not the faintest pretensions of being a catholic truth."[146] now these words of mr. newman seem to imply that the expressions of fathers, or the decrees of councils, look towards this presumed catholic truth, tend to it, and finally admit it, as a truth which they had been all along implicitly holding, or unconsciously living upon, and at last recognised and expressed. on the contrary, to my apprehension, they hold another view about the see of rome, and express it again and again. it is not a point on which there is variation or inconsistency among them. i have as clear a conviction as one can well have that st. augustine did _not_ hold the papal theory. i think the words that i have quoted from him prove this. moreover, the fathers generally express a view about other bishops which is utterly incompatible with this theory as now received, which by no process of development can be made to agree with it. and i confess that i am unable to understand the meaning of words, if this so-called "catholic truth" of the pope being the universal bishop, is not distinctly considered in these passages of st. gregory, formally repudiated for himself as well as for others, and the very notion declared to be, in any case whatsoever, _that of the pope being specially named_, blasphemous and antichristian. could heretics say any thing of the kind against the doctrine of the apostolical succession, out of the first six centuries, they would have an advantage against the church, which, thank god, they are far from possessing. and it is of no small importance that we have here speaking a pope, one to whom twelve centuries have given the name of great, one who, with st. leo, stands forth out of the ancient line of st. peter's heirs as an especially legislative mind. every catholic is bound to take his words without suspicion. now st. gregory asserts, as we have seen, the right of his see to call _any_ bishop to account, even the four patriarchs, in case of a violation of the canons; declaring at the same time that, when the canons are kept, the meanest bishop is his equal in the estimation of humility. even while arguing against this title he says, "to all who know the gospel is manifest that the charge of the whole church was entrusted by the voice of the lord to the holy apostle peter,"--"and yet he is not called universal apostle;" but this title, he asserts, and the theory implied in it, is devilish, an imitation of satan, an anticipation of antichrist. what else can we conclude but that which so many other documents prove, that this primacy over the whole church, the ancient and undoubted privilege of the bishop of rome, was something quite different from what he is here reprobating? for st. gregory, least of all men, was so blind as to use arguments which might be retorted with full force against himself. and yet, any one reading these words of his, and not knowing whence they came, would suppose they were written by a professed opponent of the present papal claims. for in these letters st. gregory acknowledges all the patriarchs as co-ordinate with himself, acknowledges our lord to be sole head of the church, declares the title of universal bishop blasphemous and antichristian, expressly on the ground that it is a wrong done to the universal church, to every bishop and priest: "if one is universal, it remains that you are not bishops;" declares, moreover, that st. peter himself is only a member of the universal church, as st. paul, st. john, st. andrew, were other members, the heads of different communities. this may be said to be the precise logical contradictory of de maistre's assertion, that "the pope" is "the church," in which he assuredly only expresses the papal idea. rarely, indeed, is it that any controversy, appealing to ancient times, can have a testimony on all its details so distinct, and specific, and authoritative as this: and yet it may be said no more than to crown the testimony of the six centuries going before it. that during this period the bishop of rome was recognised to be first bishop of the whole church, of very great influence, successor of st. peter, and standing in the same relation to his brethren the bishops that st. peter stood in to his brother apostles; this, on the whole, i believe to be the testimony of the first six centuries, such as a person, not wilfully blind, and who was not content to take the witness of a father when it suited his purpose and pass it by when it did not, would draw from ecclesiastical documents. i have set it forth to the best of my ability, as well where it seemed to tell against the present position of the church of england, as in those many points in which it supports her. what then is our defence on her part against the charge of schism? it is simply this. that no one can now be in the communion of rome without admitting this very thing which pope gregory declares to be blasphemous and anti-christian, and derogatory to the honour of every priest. this is the very head and front of our offending, that we refuse to allow that the pope is universal bishop. if the charge were that we refuse to stand in the same relation to the pope that st. augustin of canterbury stood in to this very st. gregory, that we refuse to regard and honour the successor of st. gregory with the same honour with which our archbishops, as soon as they were seated in the government of their church, and were no longer merely missionaries but primates, regarded the occupant of st. peter's see, i think both the separation three hundred years ago, and the present continuance of it on our part, would, so far as this question of schism is concerned, be utterly indefensible. but this is _not_ the point. it may indeed be, and frequently is, so stated by unfair opponents. the real point is, that, during the nine hundred years which elapsed between 596 and 1534 the power of the pope, and his relation to the bishops in his communion, had essentially altered: had been, in fact, placed upon another basis. that from being first bishop of the church, and patriarch, originally of the ten provinces under the præfectus prætorii of italy, then of france, spain, africa, and the west generally, he had claimed to be the source and channel of grace to all bishops, the fountain-head of jurisdiction to the whole world, east as well as west; in fact, the 'solus sacerdos,' the 'universus episcopus,' contemplated by st. gregory. there is a worldwide difference between the ancient signature of the popes, 'episcopus catholicæ ecclesiæ urbis romæ,' and that of pope pius at the council of trent, 'ego pius catholicæ ecclesiæ episcopus.' it has been no longer left in the choice of any to accept his _primacy_, without accepting his _monarchy_, which those who profess to follow antiquity must believe that the bishops of nicea, constantinople, ephesus, and chalcedon, augustin and chrysostom, the west and the east, would have rejected with the horror shown by st. gregory at the first dawning of such an idea. and, whereas holy scripture and antiquity present us with one accordant view of the universal church governed by st. peter and the apostolic college, and, during the first six centuries at least, as the bishop of rome is seen to exercise the primacy of st. peter, so his brother-bishops stand to him as the college of apostles stood to st. peter: instead of this, which is the church's divine hierarchy, instituted by christ himself, the actual roman church is governed by one bishop who has an apostolical independent power, whilst all the rest, who should be his brethren, are merely his delegates, receiving from his hand the investiture of such privileges as they still retain. if st. gregory did not mean this by the terms 'solus sacerdos,' 'universus episcopus,' what did he mean? that the pope should be the only priest who offered sacrifice, or the only bishop who ordained, confirmed, &c. is physically impossible. nor did the title of the bishops of constantinople tend to this: but to claim to themselves jurisdiction over the co-ordinate patriarchs of the east, as the popes have since done over the bishops of the whole world. we have no need to consider what is the amount of this difficulty to roman catholics themselves: the same providence which has placed them under that obedience, has placed us outside of it. our cause, indeed, cannot be different now from what it was at the commencement of the separation. if inherently indefensible then, it is so now. but if then 'severe but just,' the lapse of three centuries in our separate state may materially affect our relative duties. i affirm my conviction, that it is better to endure almost any degree of usurpation, provided only it be not anti-christian, than to make a schism: for the state of schism is a frustration of the purposes of the lord's incarnation; and through this, not only the english, and the eastern church, but the roman also, lies fettered and powerless before the might of the world, and bleeding internally at every pore. how shall a divided church meet and overcome the philosophical unbelief of these last times? or, the one condition to which victory is attached being broken, crush the deadliest attack of the old enemy? but the schism is made; let those answer for it before christ's tribunal who made it. now that it is made, i see not how a system, which is not a true development of the ancient patriarchal constitution, but its antagonist, according to st. gregory's words, can be forced upon us, on pain of our salvation, who have the original succession of the ancient bishops of this realm, if any such there be, and the old patriarchal constitution, 'sua tantum si bona norint.' i ground our present position simply on the appeal to tradition and the first six centuries. not that there is any abrupt break in the testimony of history there; but it is necessary to put a limit somewhere. otherwise the seventh century supplies us with the remarkable fact of pope honorius condemned, by the sixth ecumenical council in 681, as having connived at and favoured the monothelite heresy, condemned more than forty years after his death; a fact which utterly destroys the new dogma of the infallibility of the one roman pontiff by himself; and which bellarmine and baronius can only meet by attempting to prove that the acts of the sixth council have been falsified, though they had been received for genuine by the seventh and eighth councils, and for nine hundred years; and the letter of st. leo, immediately after that council, falsified also, in which he condemns the monothelites, and amongst them honorius, "who did not adorn this apostolical see with the doctrine handed down from the apostles, but endeavoured to subvert the undefiled faith by a profane tradition." the condemnation of the council runs as follows:--"having examined the letters of sergius of constantinople to cyrus, and the answer of honorius to sergius, and having found them to be repugnant to the doctrine of the apostles, and to the opinion of all the fathers, in execrating their impious dogmas, we judge that their very names ought to be banished from the holy church of god; we declare them to be smitten with anathema; and, together with them, we judge that honorius, formerly pope of ancient rome, be anathematized, since we find, in his letter to sergius, that he follows in all respects his error, and authorizes his impious doctrine."[147] it appears, likewise, that as the letter of st. cyril was read and approved in the third council, and that of pope st. leo in the fourth, so that of pope st. agathon was read and approved in the sixth, and that of pope adrian the first in the seventh, a.d. 787. but here it may be well to give bossuet's summary. "this tradition" (_i.e._ that the supreme authority in the church resides in the consent of the bishops) "we have seen to come down from the apostles, and descend to the first eight general councils; which eight general councils are the foundation of the whole christian doctrine and discipline, of which the church venerates the first four, in st. gregory's words, no less than the four gospels. nor is less reverence due to the rest, as, guided by the same spirit, they have a like authority. which eight councils, with a great and unanimous consent, have placed the final power of giving decisions in nothing else but in the consent of the fathers. of which the six last have legitimately examined the sentence of the roman pontiff even given upon faith, and that with the approval of the apostolic see, the question being put in this form, as we read in the acts--'are these decrees right, or not?' "but we have seen that the judgment of a general council never was so reconsidered, but that all immediately yielded obedience to it. nor was a new inquiry ever granted to anyone after that examination, but punishment threatened. thus acted constantine; thus marcian; thus coelestine; thus leo; thus all the rest, as we have seen in the acts. the christian world hath acknowledged this to be certain and indubitable. "to this we may add the testimony of the admirable pope st. gelasius: 'a good and truly christian council once held, neither can nor ought to be unsettled by the repetition of a new council.' and again: 'there is no cause why a good council should be reconsidered by another council, lest the mere reconsideration should detract from the strength of its decrees.' thus what has received the final and certain judgment of the church, is not to be reconsidered; for that judgment of the holy spirit is reversed, whenever it is reconsidered by a fresh judgment. but the judgment put forth by a roman pontiff is such, that it has been reconsidered. it is not therefore that ultimate and final judgment of the church. "nor is that sentence of gregory the great less clear, comparing the four general councils to the four gospels, with the reason given; 'because being decreed by universal consent, whoever presumes either to loose what they bind, or bind what they loose, destroys not them but himself.' "so then our question is terminated by the tradition of the ancient councils and fathers. all should consent to the power of the roman pontiff, as explained according to the decree of the council of florence, after the practice of general councils. the vast difference between the judgment of a council and of a pontiff is evident, since after that of the council no question remains, but only the obedience of the mind brought into captivity; but that of the pontiff is upon examination approved, room being given to object,--which was to be proved."[148] here the real question at issue is, whether the bishop of rome be first bishop, or monarch, of the church. now, i have endeavoured to delineate, from the fathers and from councils, what the true primacy of the roman see is. what is now required from us to admit as terms of communion is--"that the ordinary jurisdiction of bishops descends immediately from the pope;" "the government of the church is monarchical, therefore all authority resides in one, and from him is derived unto the rest;" "there is a great difference between the succession to peter and that to the rest of the apostles; for the roman pontiff properly succeeds peter not as apostle, but as ordinary pastor of the whole church; and therefore the roman pontiff has jurisdiction from him from whom peter had it: but bishops do not properly succeed the apostles, as the apostles were not ordinary, but extraordinary, and, as it were, delegated pastors, to whom there is no succession. bishops, however, are said to succeed the apostles, not properly in that manner in which one bishop succeeds another, and one king another, but in another way, which is two-fold. first, in respect of the holy order of the episcopate; secondly, from a certain resemblance and proportion: that is, as when christ lived on earth, the twelve apostles were the first under christ, then the seventy-two disciples: so now the bishops are first under the roman pontiff, after them priests, then deacons, &c. but it is proved that bishops succeed to the apostles so, and not otherwise; for they have no part of the true apostolic authority. apostles could preach in the whole world, and found churches ... this cannot bishops." ... "bishops succeed to the apostles in the same manner as priests to the seventy-two disciples."[149] again: "but, if the supreme pontiff be compared with the rest of the bishops, he is deservedly said to possess the plenitude of power, because the rest have fixed regions over which they preside, and also a fixed power; but he is set over the whole christian world, and possesses, in its completeness and plenitude, that power which christ left on earth for the good of the church."[150] he proceeds to prove this by those passages of scripture:--'thou art peter,' &c.; 'feed my sheep,' &c.; which we have seen st. augustin explaining as said to st. peter in the person of the church, while he expressly denies that they are said to him merely as an individual. "these keys not one man but the unity of the church received:" "he was not the only one among the disciples who was thought worthy to feed the lord's sheep," &c. what bellarmine here says, is, assuredly, both the true roman view, and moreover _absolutely necessary to justify that church in the attitude she assumes and the measures she authorizes towards other parts of the church. and if it be the ancient catholic doctrine, it does justify her_. that it is _not_ the ancient doctrine, i think i have already shown; but let us hear what bossuet says of it. "one objection of theirs remains to be explained, that bishops borrow their power and jurisdiction from the roman pontiff, and therefore, although united with him in an ecumenical council, can do nothing against the root and source of their own authority, but are only present as his counsellors; and that the force of the decree, as well in matters of faith as in other matters, lies in the power of the roman pontiff. which fiction falls of itself to the ground, even from this, that it was unheard of in the early ages, and began to be introduced into theology in the thirteenth century; that is, after men preferred generally to act upon philosophical reasonings, and those very bad, before consulting the fathers.[151] "but to this innovation is opposed, first, what is related in the acts of the apostles respecting that council of apostles, which the letter of st. coelestine to the council of ephesus, and the proceedings of the fifth ecumenical council, proved to be as it were repeated and represented in all other councils. but if any one says that, in this council, the apostles were not set by christ to be true judges, but to be the counsellors of peter, he is too ridiculous.[152] "secondly, is opposed that fact which we have proved, that the decrees and judgments of roman pontiffs _de fide_ were suspended by the convocation of an ecumenical council, were reconsidered by its authority, and were only approved and confirmed after examination made and judgment given. which things undoubtedly prove that they sat there not as counsellors of the pope, but as judges of papal decrees. "and they must indeed be legitimately called together, that they may not meet tumultuously; but, when once called together, they judge by the authority of the holy spirit, not of the pope: they pronounce anathemas, not by authority of the pope, but of christ; and we have seen this so often pressed upon us by the acts, that we are weary of repeating it. "add to this that expression of the first council of arles to st. sylvester: 'had you judged together with us, our assembly had exulted with greater joy:' and in the very heading of the council to the same sylvester: 'what we have decreed with common consent, we signify to your charity.' relying then on this authority of their priesthood, they judge concerning most important matters; that is, the observation of the lord's passover, that it may be kept on one day all over the world: concerning the non-iteration of baptism, and the discipline of the churches. instances of this kind occur everywhere. but it is a known fact, that even by particular councils, where the pope presided, his decrees, even when present, were examined and confirmed by consent; the fathers equally with him judged, decreed, defined, and we have seen this a thousand times written on the acts. "but in a matter so clear, they have only one thing to object drawn out of antiquity, the saying of st. innocent, 'that peter is the author of the episcopal name and honour.'[153] and again,[154] 'whence the episcopate itself and all the authority of that name sprung.' and of st. leo,[155] 'if he willed that anything should be enjoyed by the other heads (that is, the apostles) in common with him (peter), he never gave save through peter whatever he denied not to the rest.' and elsewhere also, 'that christ granted to the rest of the apostles the ministry of preaching on this condition, that he poured into them, as into the whole body, his gifts from peter, as from the head.'[156] whence also came that expression of optatus of milevi: 'for the good of unity, the blessed peter was thought worthy to be preferred to all the apostles, and alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to be imparted to the rest,'[157]--and that of gregory of nyssa, 'through peter he gave to the bishops the keys of heavenly honours.'[158] and that of st. cæsarius of arles to pope symmachus: 'as from the person of the blessed apostle peter the episcopate takes its beginning, so is it necessary that by suitable rules of discipline your holiness should plainly show to every church what they ought to observe.'[159] "if they push these and such like expressions to the utmost, they will come to assert that the apostles were appointed by peter, not by christ, or by christ through peter, but not by him immediately and in person: as if any other but christ called the apostles, sent them, and endued them with heavenly power by the infusion of his spirit; and peter and not christ said: 'go ye, teach, preach, baptize, receive, and, as my father sent me, even so send i you.' "i am aware that john of turrecremata, and a few others, thinking that the words now quoted of st. leo and others cannot be defended by them sufficiently, unless the apostles also received their jurisdiction from st. peter, have been hurried away even into this folly, against the most manifest truth of the gospel. which fiction bellarmine himself has confuted. "but this being the greatest absurdity, it will appear that what follows is the teaching of the fathers quoted. "first; the episcopal authority and jurisdiction is contained in the keys, and in the power of binding and loosing, which is clear of itself. "secondly; it is evident from the gospel history that peter was the first in whom that power was shown forth and appointed. for, although christ said to all the apostles, 'receive the holy ghost,' (john xx. 22,) and 'whatsoever ye bind,' &c., 'whatsoever ye loose,' &c. (matt, xviii. 18); yet, what he said to peter had gone before, 'i will give to thee the keys,' &c. (matt. xvi. 19). "thirdly; both these two, that is, both what was said to peter and what was said to the apostles, proceed equally from christ: for he who said to peter, 'i will give to thee,' and 'whatsoever thou shalt bind,' said also to the apostles, 'receive ye,' and 'whatsoever ye shall bind.' "fourthly; that is therefore true which optatus says of peter: 'for the good of unity, he alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to be imparted to the rest.' for, in truth, these which were given to peter in the 16th matt. were to be imparted afterwards to the apostles, matt. 18th, and john 20th, but to be imparted not by peter, but by christ, as is clear. "fifthly; that also is true which cæsarius says, 'the episcopate takes its beginning from peter:' he being the first in whom, through the ministry of binding and loosing, the episcopal power was shown forth, begun, entrusted.' "sixthly; hence, also, is true what innocent says,--'that the episcopate, and all the authority of that name, sprung from peter,' because he, first of all, was appointed or set forth as bishop. "seventhly; for this cause, peter is called by the same innocent the author of the episcopate; not that he instituted it,--not that the apostles received the power of binding and loosing from him,--for the scriptures everywhere exclaim against this; but that from him was made the beginning of establishing that power among men, and of appointing or marking out the episcopate. "eighthly; to make this clearer, and that it may be easily perceived what means that expression, 'through peter,' which we read in leo, we must review the tradition of the ancient church, drawn from the scriptures themselves. "it is plain, then, that when the lord asked the apostles, 'whom say men that i, the son of man, am?' peter, the chief of all, answered in the person of all, 'thou art the christ:' and afterwards christ said to peter, thus representing them, 'i will give to thee,'--'whatsoever thou shalt bind:' by which it appears that in these words, not peter only, but in peter, their chief, and answering for all, all the apostles and their successors were endued with the episcopal power and jurisdiction. "all which augustin includes when he writes, 'all being asked, peter alone answered, thou art christ, and to him is said, i will give to thee, &c., as if he alone received the power of binding and loosing, the case really being, that he said that singly for all, and received this together with all, as representing unity.'[160] than which nothing can be clearer." he then quotes passages from st. cyprian and st. augustin, which i have already brought; adding, "in peter, therefore, singly, cyprian acknowledges that all bishops were instituted, and not without reason; the episcopate, as he everywhere attests, being one in the whole world, was instituted in one. and this was done to establish 'the origin of unity beginning from one,' as he says. "but most of all does augustin set forth and inculcate the common tradition. for, not content with having said that once in the place above mentioned, he is very full in setting forth this view of that doctrine. hence he says, 'in peter was the sacrament of the church;'" and other passages i have already quoted. "whence, everywhere in his books against the donatists, he says, 'the keys are given to unity.' "the sum, then, is this. the apostles and pastors of churches being both one and many,--one, in ecclesiastical communion, as they feed one flock; many, being distributed through the whole world, and having allotted to them each their own part of the one flock; therefore, power was given to them by a two-fold ratification of christ: first, that they may be one, in peter their chief, bearing the figure and the person of unity, to which has reference that saying in the singular number, 'i will give to thee,' and 'whatsoever thou shall bind,' &c.: secondly, that they may be many, to which that has reference in the plural number, 'receive ye,' and 'whatsoever ye shall bind:' but both, personally and immediately from christ; since he who said, 'i will give to thee,' as to one, also said, 'receive ye,' as to many: nevertheless, that saying came first, in which power is given to all, in that they are one: because christ willed that unity, most of all, should be recommended in his church. "by this all is made clear; not only bishops, but also apostles, have received the keys and the power from christ, in peter, and, in their manner, through peter, who, in the name of all, received that for all, as bearing the figure and the person of all." he then shows that this tradition had gone down even to his own times: "this holy and apostolic doctrine of the episcopal jurisdiction and power proceeding immediately from, and instituted by, christ, the gallic church hath most zealously retained." "therefore,[161] that very late invention, that bishops receive their jurisdiction from the pope, and are, as it were, vicars of him, ought to be banished from christian schools, as unheard of for twelve centuries." it is precisely "this very late invention" which is urged against the church of england. unless this be true, her position in itself, supposing her to be clear of heresy, with which, at present, i have nothing to do, is impregnable. such is the most catholic interpretation by which bossuet sets in harmony with the teaching of all antiquity a few expressions, which are all that i have been able to find that are even capable of being forced into accordance with the present papal system, and which, as soon as they are so forced, contradict the whole history of councils, and the whole life of the most illustrious fathers. now there is no doubt that bellarmine's doctrine is the true logical development of the papal theory; it alone has consistency and completeness; it alone is the adequate expression of that prodigious power which was allowed to enthrone itself in the church during the middle ages; it would fain account for it and justify it. grant but its postulate, that the pope is the sole vicar of christ, and all which it requires must follow. on the other hand, that school which ranks bossuet at its head, and which sought to limit, in some degree, by the canons the power of the roman pontiff, and maintained that bishops were, _jure divino_, successors of the apostles, in a real, not in a fictitious sense, however well-founded in what it maintained on the one side, was certainly inconsistent. it gave either too much or too little to the roman see;--too much, if its own declarations about the succession of bishops and the authority of general councils be true, and founded in antiquity, as we believe; too little, if the pope be indeed the only vicar of christ on earth, and the supreme ruler of his church; for then these maxims put their partisans very nearly into the position of rebels, and, in truth, brought the gallican church to the brink of a schism, in 1682. however this may be, that school is extinct; the ultramontane theory alone has now life and vigour in the roman church. it seems to absorb into itself all earnest and self-denying minds, while the other is left to that treacherous conservatism which would use the church of christ as a system of police, for the security of worldly interests. what the ultramontane theory is, we see from bellarmine. it proclaims that the government of the church is a monarchy, concentrating in one person all the powers bestowed by christ upon the apostles. in this the student of history is bound to declare that it stands in point-blank contradiction to the decrees of general councils, to the sentiments of the fathers, and the whole practice of the church for the first six hundred years; for much longer indeed than this, but this is enough. well may bossuet ask, "if the infallible authority of the roman pontiff is of force by itself before the consent of the church,--to what purpose was it that bishops should be summoned from the farthest regions of the earth, at the cost of such fatigues and expense, and churches be deprived of their pastors, if the whole power resided in the roman pontiff? if what he believed or taught was immediately the supreme and irrevocable law, why did he not himself pronounce sentence? or if he pronounced it, why are bishops called together and wearied out, to do again what is already done, and to pass a judgment on the supreme judgment of the church? would not this be fruitless? but all christians have imbibed with their faith the conviction, that, in important dissensions, the whole church ought to be convoked and heard. all therefore understand that the certain, deliberate, and complete declaration of the truth is seated not in the pope alone, but in the church spread everywhere."[162] "this too is certain, that when general councils have been holden, the sentence of the roman pontiff has generally preceded them; for undoubtedly celestine, leo, agatho, gregory the second, adrian the first, had pronounced sentence, when the third, fourth, sixth, seventh councils were held. what was desired therefore was, not a council for the pontiff about to give judgment, but, after he had given judgment, the force of a certain and insuperable authority." in fact, on this theory, as we have seen above, st. cyprian, st. firmilian, st. hilary of arles, the african bishops in 426, the fathers of chalcedon in 451, in passing their famous 28th canon, the fathers of ephesus in 431, in passing their 8th, the fathers of constantinople in 381, in passing their 2d and 3d canons, and in the synodal letter addressed to the pope and the western bishops, the fathers of nicea, in passing their 6th, nay, all ancient councils whatever, in all their form and mode of proceeding, were the most audacious of rebels. but what are we to say about the language of st. gregory? did he then betray those rights of st. peter, which he held dearer than his life? when he wrote to eulogius of alexandria, "if your holiness calls me universal pope, you deny that you are yourself what you admit me to be--universal. but this god forbid:" are we to receive thomassin's explanation, that he meant, as patriarch, he was not universal, but, as pope, he was, all the time? or when he says to the same, "in rank you are my brother, in character my father," was eulogius at the same time, as bellarmine will have it, merely his deputy? "in the beginning, peter set up the patriarch of alexandria, and of antioch, who, receiving authority from the pontiff (of rome), presided over almost all asia and africa, and could create archbishops, who could afterwards create bishops."[163] and this, it appears, is the key which is to be applied to the whole history of the early church. those bishops, metropolitans, exarchs, and patriarchs, throughout the east, who had such a conviction of the apostolic authority residing in themselves as governors of the church, who showed it in every council in which they sat, who expressed it so freely in their writings and letters: st. augustin, again, in the west, himself a host, who speaks of a cause decided by the roman pontiff being reheard, of "the wholesome authority of general councils," who assents to st. cyprian's proposition, that "every bishop can no more be judged by another, than he himself can judge another," with the single limitation, "certainly, i imagine, in those questions which have not yet been thoroughly and completely settled;" who, in a question of disputed succession, which more than any other required such a tribunal as the papal, had it existed, appeals not to the authority of the roman see, but to the testimony of the whole church spread everywhere, not mentioning that see pre-eminently; or when he does mention "the see of peter, in which anastasius now sits," mentioning likewise "the see of james, in which john now sits:"--all these were nothing more, at the same time, than the pope's delegates, and received through him their jurisdiction. can a claim be true which is driven to shifts such as this for its maintenance? or can the truth of christianity and the unity of the church rest upon a falsehood? is infidelity itself in such "a hopeful position,"[164] as regards christianity, that it is really come to this, that we must either receive a plain and manifest usurpation, or be cast out of the house and kingdom of god? that we must reject the witness and history of the first six hundred years of the church's life on the one hand, or be plunged into the abyss of infidelity on the other? if it be true that the pope is monarch of the church, which is the present papal theory, the church of england is in schism. if it be not true, she is at least clear of that fatal mark. all that is required for her position is the maintenance of that nicene constitution which we have heard st. leo solemnly declare was to last to the end of the world, viz. that every province of the church be governed by its own bishops under its own metropolitan. and who then but will desire that the successor of st. peter should hold st. peter's place? will the patriarch of constantinople, or the archbishop of moscow, or the primate of canterbury, so much as think of assuming it? be this our answer when we are accused of not really holding that article of the creed "one catholic and apostolic church." let the bishop of rome require of us that honour and power which he possessed at the synod of chalcedon, _that, and not a totally different one under the same name_, and we shall be in schism when we do not yield it. at present we have no farther separated from him than to fall back on the constitution of the church of the martyrs and the fathers. but, it may be said, is the catholic church unanimous on the one hand, and the anglican communion, restricted to one small province, left alone in her protest on the other? did not she, whom they would call "the already decrepit rebel of three hundred years," submit from 596 to 1534 to that very authority which she now denies? it would be quite beyond my present limits to trace, as i had first purposed, the roman bishop's power from that point at which it stood when st. gregory sent our apostle augustin into england, to that point which it had reached in the thirteenth century, and which it strove to maintain in the sixteenth. i can only now very briefly point out a few of the steps in that most wonderful rise. the two centuries, then, which succeeded st. gregory, were even more favourable to this growth than those which went before. while the confusion and violence of secular governments by the breaking in and settlement of the various northern tribes were greater than ever,--while the ecclesiastical constitution was all that yet held together the scattered portions of the shattered western empire--the single apostolical see of the west, whose bishop was in constant correspondence with the spiritual rulers of these various countries, whose voice was ever and anon heard striving to win and soften into mercy and justice those temporal rulers, would be, as it were, "a light shining in a dark place." the bishops, everywhere miserably afflicted by their own sovereigns, found a stay and support in one beyond the reach of the feudal lord's violence. the benefit they thus derived from the roman patriarch was so great, that they would be disposed to overlook the gradual change which was ensuing in the relation between themselves and him, the deference which was deepening into subjection. or, if here and there, what leo would have called "a presumptuous spirit," such as hincmar of rheims, or our own grossetête, in after times, set himself against the stream, it would all be in vain. however good his cause might be, if he did not yield, he would be beaten down like st. hilary of arles. moreover, as the great heresy of mahomet invaded and hemmed in three of the patriarchal sees of the east, their counterpoise to the originally great influence of the roman see was removed. political separation from the east, and the difficulty of communication, would of themselves greatly tend to this result. to this must be added the great increase of power which the house of charlemagne, for their own political purposes, bestowed on the roman see; it was worth while building up a popedom for an imperial crown. de maistre says, "the popes reign since the ninth century at least."[165] but it is a somewhat naïve confession, "the french had the singular honour, one of which they have not been at all sufficiently proud, of having set up, humanly, the catholic church in the world, by raising its august head to the rank indispensably due to his divine functions; and without which he would only have been a patriarch of constantinople, miserable puppet of christian sultans, and musulman autocrats." just, too, when it was most difficult to detect imposture, and to refer to the acts of ancient councils, that singular counterfeit of the false decretals made its appearance, which so wonderfully helped the roman patriarchs in consolidating the manifold structure of their authority. this, indeed, assailed the bishops of the west by their most reverential feelings, and added to the force of a great present authority, almost always beneficially exercised, the weight of what seemed an apostolical tradition. besides these causes, the popes found in the several monastic orders throughout europe the most unceasing and energetic pioneers of their power. from the very first there appears to have existed a desire to exchange the present superintendence of the local bishop for the distant authority of the pope. the great orders, indeed, were themselves so many suspensions of the episcopal system. with reason do the statues of their founders adorn the nave of st. peter's, not only as witnesses of the church's exuberant life, but as those whose hands, more than any others, have helped to rear that colossal central power, of which that fane is the visible symbol. thus the papal structure was so gradually built upon the patriarchal, that no one age could accurately mark where the one ended and the other began, but all may see the finished work. it requires no microscopic eye to distinguish the authority of st. leo or st. gregory from that of st. innocent the third. the poet spake of a phantom what is true of a great reality:- "mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo, ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit." that power, for which the heroic and saintly hildebrand died in exile,[166] if exile there could be to him who received the heathen for his inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession; for which our own st. anselm, forced against his will to the primacy, stood unquailing in the path of the red king, most furious, if not the worst, of that savage race, whose demon wrath seemed to justify the fable of their origin; for which st. bernard, the last of the fathers in age, but equal to the first in glory, wrote and laboured, and wore himself out with vigils, and wrought miracles; for which our own st. thomas shed that noble blood, which sanctifies yet our primatial church, an earnest of restoration and freedom to come; that power, for which st. francis, the spouse of holy poverty, so long neglected since her first husband ascended up on high, and st. dominic- l' amoroso drudo della fede cristiana, il santo atleta, benigno a' suoi, ed a' nemici crudo;[167] and one greater yet, the warrior saint, ignatius, raised their myriads of every age and of both sexes, armed in that triple mail of poverty, chastity, and obedience, "of whom the world was not worthy;"--that power, to which have borne witness so many saintly bishops, poor in the midst of poverty, and humble in the exercise of more than royal power,--so many scholars, marvellously learned,--so many, prodigal of labour and blood, who are now counted among the noble army of martyrs,--so many holy women, who have hidden themselves under the robe of the first of all saints, and followed the virgin of virgins in their degree;--that power is, indeed, the most wondrous creation which history can record, and one to which i am not ashamed to confess that i should bow with unmingled reverence, had not truth a yet stronger claim upon me, and did not the voice of the early church, its fathers, councils, and martyrs, sound distinctly in my ears another language. still, human and divine, ambition and providence, are so mingled there, that i would not utter a word more than truth requires. i should even be compelled to give up the strongest individual conviction, acknowledging the weakness and liability to err of any private judgment; acknowledging, moreover, that a single province of the church, if opposed to all the rest, is certain to be in error, were it not that, besides the voice of antiquity, we have witnesses the most legitimate, the most time-honoured, the most unswerving in their testimony,--witnesses who take away from our opponents their proudest claim,--nay, a claim which, if real, would be irresistible,--that of being, by themselves, the catholic church. let it never, then, be forgotten, that any argument which would prove the church of england to be in schism would condemn likewise the eastern and russian church. it is not the catholic church against a revolted province, as our adversaries would have us believe; it is the one patriarch of the west, with his bishops, against the four patriarchs of the east, with theirs, and that great and, as yet, unbroken phalanx of the north, which constantinople won to the faith of old, and which now promises to beat back the tide of heresy and infidelity from the beleaguered sees of the east. on this point of schism, at least, they bear witness with us. the causes, adverted to above, which were so influential in exalting the great fabric of roman power in the west, did not act upon the east,--nay, acted in the inverse direction. the see of constantinople still remains where the council of chalcedon placed it, where the emperor justinian recognised it to be, the second see of the world: and it has ever since refused to admit that rome was _first_ in any sense in which itself was not _second_. this may serve to set in a clear light the vast difference between the legitimate power of the first see, and the claim to give jurisdiction to all bishops. the systems, of which these are expressions, are in truth antagonistic. constantinople maintains still that constitution of the whole church which st. gregory accused its bishops of undermining. the evil which he foresaw has come from his own successors: "the cause of almighty god, the cause of the universal church," the privileges and rights of bishops and priests, as against one "universal pope," are borne witness to now, as they have ever been, by the immutable east. here, at least, are no sympathies with the heresiarchs of the sixteenth century: the synod of bethlehem has anathematised luther and calvin as decidedly as the council of trent. here was no henry the eighth fixing his supremacy on a reluctant church by the axe, the gibbet, the stake, and laws of premunire and forfeiture: no state using that church as a cat's-paw for three hundred years, and ready now to offer it up a holocaust to the demon of liberalism. here is the ancient patriarchal system, the thrones of constantinople, alexandria, antioch, and jerusalem, subsisting still. here is the same body of doctrine, the same seven sacraments, the same real presence, the same mighty sacramental and sacerdotal system, which latitudinarian and evangelical, statesman and heretic, dread while they hate, as being indeed the visible presence of christ in a fallen world,--the residence of a spiritual power which controls and torments the worldling, while it disproves and falsifies the heretic. here is all that the roman catholic claims as tokens of the truth for himself: but there is one thing more, the same protest that we make against the monarchical, as distinct from the patriarchal, power, the same appeal back to early councils, and the unambiguous voice of those who cannot be silenced or corrupted, the fathers of the church. in the fathers of the undivided church, the east and the north and the west, so long severed, meet: we are not alone, who have with us, on the very point which divides us from our mother church, the still unbroken line of successors from st. athanasius and st. chrysostom. there is no break in the descent or in the doctrine of the eastern churches. there is the same dogmatic, the same hierarchical fabric, subsisting now as when st. gregory addressed anastasius of antioch, and eulogius of alexandria. it may suit the purposes of unfair roman controversialists to brand them as schismatics, and overcome, by calling them a name, their own most formidable opponents: but history cannot be so overcome. they have _never_ admitted the papal sway, any more than the fathers who passed the 28th canon of chalcedon: they have, indeed, admitted the roman _primacy_, as those same fathers admitted it; for the very system, for which they are witnesses, is not complete without the bishop of rome stands at the head of it: the _due_ honour of rome is involved in the due honour of constantinople; and, we may add, the due honour of canterbury: the same temper, the same persons, who reject the one, hate the other. what we say they never have admitted is, that which has really worked the disunion of the universal church, as st. gregory foretold it would, the doctrine which is the centre of the present papal system, which alone makes all its parts cohere, and justifies all its acts, and triumphs over all appeal to argument, and all testimonies of antiquity, viz., that, "the pope is set over the whole christian world, and possesses in its completeness and plenitude that power which christ left on earth for the good of the church."[168] they have never for a moment admitted that the bishops of the universal church were the pope's delegates, and received their jurisdiction from him. _we_ fight, it must be admitted, at some disadvantage with our opponents. the long subjection which our church yielded to rome, the manifold obligations under which we lie to her, the complete unsettling of the ecclesiastical and doctrinal system in the sixteenth century, the horrible vices of those who effected the change, the connection with those whose doctrine has now worked itself out into socinianism, infidelity, and anarchy, the inability we have ever since been under of shaking ourselves completely clear of them, the thoroughly unsatisfactory position of the state towards us, as a church, at present,--all these things are against us,--all these things tell on the mind which really lives and dwells on antiquity, and looks to the pure apostolic church. still, though they weaken, they do not overcome our cause. but from all these objections the witness of the eastern churches is free. they were never subject to rome, but to their own patriarchs; they derived not their christianity from her: the priesthood, and the pure unbloody sacrifice, and the power to bind and to loose, remain undisputed among them: the eastern mind cannot conceive a church without them. they have received no reformation from those whose lives were a scandal to all christian men: they are not mixed up with the lutheran or calvinistic heresy: nor has erastianism eaten out their life. yet, if we are schismatics, so are they, and on the same ground. moreover the roman church has again and again treated with them as parts of the true church. it is only in comparatively modern times, that as the hope of re-union became fainter, the line of denying their being members of the one body has been taken up. i have seen even so late as the time of clement the eighth a letter of that pope to the czar, in which he treats him as already belonging to the church. moreover the eastern church has put forth the best and most convincing sign of catholicity, _life_: to her, _since her separation from rome_, and to this particular attention must be claimed, is due the most remarkable conversion of a great nation to the faith which has taken place in the last eight hundred years--russia with her bishops, her clergy, her monasteries, her convents, her christian people, her ancient discipline, her completely organised church system, her whole country won from paganism by the preaching of monks and missionary bishops, is a witness to the greek church (which who shall gainsay?) that she is a true member of the one body. the patriarch of constantinople exercised that charge which the council of chalcedon gave him, and ordained bishops among the barbarians, and the spirit of god blessed their labours, and the whole north became his spiritual offspring. rome cannot show, since she has been divided from the east, a conversion on so large a scale, so complete, so permanent. and on that great mass she has hitherto made no impression. it is a complete refutation of her claim to be _by herself_ catholic, that there exists out of her communion a body of apostolic descent and government, with the same doctrinal system as her own, with the ascetic principle as strongly developed, with the same claim to miracles,--with all, in fact, which characterises a church; a body, moreover, so large, that, supposing the non-existence of the roman communion, the promises of god in scripture to his church might be supposed to be fulfilled in that body.[169] and this body, like ourselves, denies that particular roman claim, for which rome would have us and them to be schismatic. and it has denied it not merely for three hundred years, but from the time that it has been advanced. truly all that was deficient on our side seems made up by the greek church. and this living and continuous witness of a thousand years is to be added to that most decisive and unambiguous voice of the whole undivided ancient church. i have, throughout these remarks, considered the church of christ to be what, at the councils of nicea, ephesus, and chalcedon, she so manifestly appeared, one organic whole; a body, with one head, and many members; as st. gregory says, peter, and paul, and andrew, and john; a kingdom with one sovereign, and rulers, an apostolic college appointed by that head, with a direct commission from himself. i believe that no other idea about the church prevailed up to st. gregory's time. it follows that all so-called national churches, unless they be subordinate to the law of this kingdom, are so many infringements of the great primary law of unity, in that they set up a member instead of the body. st. paul, in the 12th chapter of the 1st epistle to the corinthians, has clearly set forth such, and no less, to be the unity of christ's body. certainly it is a difficulty, that we must admit this essential law to be at present broken. but i do not think it fair to argue against a provisional and temporary state, such as that of the church of england is confessed to be--which, too, has been forced upon her--as if it were a normal state, one that we have chosen, a theory of unity that we put forth over against the ancient theory, or the present roman one. nay, thousands and ten thousands feel, the whole rising mind of the church feels, that we are torn "from faith's ancient home," that we groan within ourselves, waiting until god in his good time restore a visible unity to his church, till the east and the west and the south be one again in the mind of christ. who but must view it as a token of that future blessing, that public prayers have been offered up in france and italy for such a consummation? let us begin to pray for each other, and we must end by being one. let _us_, too, pray that the clouds of error and prejudice, the intense blind jealousy on one side, the cruel and disingenuous temper on the other, may be subdued by the spirit of god, who in some great and blessed pentecost shall draw long alienated hearts together, and mould them into a union closer than has ever been, against an attack the last and most terrible of the foretold enemy, the tokens of whose coming are at hand. but the roman catholic, who seems to escape this difficulty, and points to his communion as one organic whole, falls into another. grant that it is one, but it is at the expense of ceasing to be catholic: it has lost all the east and the north, and part of the west. thus, in this choice between difficulties, it seems the least to suppose that the unity of christendom may be for a time suspended, during which the several parts of christ's body retain communion with the one head, and thence derive life, though active communion with each other is suspended. a less difficulty, i say, than to cut off, not merely our own church, but the seventy millions of the eastern church, having a complete inward identity with the roman, from the covenant of salvation, merely because that intercommunion is prevented by a claim to spiritual monarchy, which was unknown in the best ages of the church, and has been resisted ever since it was set up. if this view be true, we should expect that the several parts, though living, would yet be languishing, and far from that healthy vigour which they ought to possess; that the great head would give manifold warnings of the injury done to his body. now, it is very remarkable that the circumstances, no less of the latin than of the eastern and the anglican church, exactly agree to this expectation. i need not speak on this point of the second and third; but i cannot help thinking that they who have suffered themselves to be driven by fearful scandals out of our bosom, who have brooded over acknowledged but unrelieved wants, till the duty of patient long-suffering has been forgotten, close their eyes to the state of france, spain, and italy, under what they have now learnt to call _by itself_ the "catholic" church. yet are there tokens abroad which men of less spiritual discernment might lay to heart. does the "obscene rout" of ronge and czerski, bursting forth from the bosom of the roman church, awake no misgiving? fearful, when viewed by scripture and antiquity, as the state of england is, (an argument which is now being used against our communion with such effect on tender and loving minds,) he must be bold who would venture to say that the relation of the french church to the french nation in the last century, or its relation even now, greatly as the present french church is to be admired and sympathised with, does not offer as much ground for fearful apprehension, as much reason to dread, lest the terms on which victory is promised to the church over the world have been essentially broken. i fear there is no doubt that two-thirds of the french capital are not _christian_, in any sense of the word; and probably the proportion is as great in the larger towns. how did this state of things arise? how has nearly the whole intellect of that country become infidel? from the french revolution, it will be answered. but how could that great satanical outburst have ever taken place, had the church of christ, free from corruption, as those who have left us believe, and throned in the possession of sixteen hundred years, with its numberless religious houses, its unmarried clergy, and great episcopate, been discharging its functions, i do not say aright, but with any moderate efficiency? surely the acts of the states general were as bad as those of henry the eighth; yet its members were catholics, in full communion with the roman see. surely the ecclesiastical legislation of napoleon was as uncatholic as that of a house of commons; yet it was sanctioned by concordat with the pope. but if manifold corruptions did not unchurch the gallican communion in the last century,--if the mass of a great nation, which the church once completely possessed, but has now surrendered to active unbelief, does not invalidate her claim to be a pure communion at present, why are such things alleged as so fatal a mark against us? god forbid that one should mention such things without the deepest sorrow; but when our troubles, and difficulties, and relations with the state, and the alienated hearts of our people, and the absence of external discipline and inward guidance, and the misery of our divisions, are alleged to prove that we are out of the pale of the church, these things ought to be weighed on the other side. there ought not to be different measures on different sides of the channel. i forbear to speak of the state of spain, portugal, and much of italy; but i imagine that the worst deeds of the reformation were at least paralleled by what the church has had to endure there from the hands of her own children. i believe that our own most sad corruptions have, too, their counterpart among churches in communion with the apostolic see. but to conclude. as our defence against the charge of schism rests upon the witness of the ancient church, thus fully corroborated by the eastern communion, so our whole safety lies in maintaining the clear indubitable doctrine of that church. i have avoided the whole question of _doctrine_ in these remarks, both as leading me into a wider field than that which i am obliged to traverse so cursorily at present, and as distinct from the question of schism, though very closely connected with it. no one can deny that it is not sufficient for our safety to repel one single charge: but this charge was the most pressing, the most specious, and one which requires to be disposed of before the mind can with equanimity enter upon any other. my conclusion is, that upon the strictest church principles,--in other words, upon those principles which all christendom, in its undivided state, recognised for six hundred years, which may be seen in the canons and decrees of ecumenical councils, our present position is tenable at least till the convocation of a really ecumenical council. the church of england has never rejected the communion of the western, and still less that of the eastern church: neither has the eastern church pronounced against her. she has only exercised the right of being governed by her own bishops and metropolitans. there is, indeed, much peril of her being forced from this, her true position,--a peril lately pointed out by the author of "the real danger of the church of england." i need say little where he has said so much, in language so well-timed, so moderate, and from a position which cannot be misrepresented. i will only add, that i cannot conceive any course which would so thoroughly quench the awakened hopes of the church's most faithful children, as that her rulers, which i am loth even to imagine, at a crisis like the present, should seek support, not in the rock of the ancient church, in which andrewes, laud, and ken, took refuge of old,--not in the unbroken tradition of the east and west, by which, if at all, the church of christ must be restored,--not in that great system which first subdued and then impregnated with fresh life the old roman empire, delaying a fall which nothing could avert, and which lastly built up out of these misshapen ruins all the christian polities of europe,--not in that time-honoured and universal fabric of doctrine to which our own prayer-book bears witness, but in the wild, inconsistent, treacherous sympathies of a protestantism, which the history of three hundred years in many various countries has proved to be dead to the heart's core. farewell, indeed, to any true defence of the church of england, any hope of her being built up once more to an apostolical beauty and glory, of recovering her lost discipline and intercommunion with christendom, if she is by any act of her rulers, or any decree of her own, to be mixed up with the followers of luther, calvin, or zuingle: with those who have neither love, nor unity, nor dogmatic truth, nor sacraments, nor a visible church among themselves: who, never consistent but in the depth of error, and the secret instinct of heresy, deny regeneration in baptism, and the gift of the holy spirit in confirmation and orders, and the power of the keys in absolution, and the lord's body in the eucharist. that is the way of death: who is so mad as to enter on it? when protestantism lies throughout europe and america a great disjointed mass, in all the putridity of dissolution, "monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, _cui lumen ademptum_," judicially blinded, so that it cannot perceive christ dwelling in his church, while she grows to the measure of the stature of the perfect man, and making her members and ministers his organs--who would think of joining to it a living church? have we gone through so much experience in vain? have we seen it develop into socinianism at geneva, and utter unbelief in germany, and a host of sects in england and america, whose name is legion, and who seem to be agreed in nothing else but in the denial of sacramental grace, and visible unity; and all this at the last hour, in the very turning point of our destiny, to seek alliance with those who have no other point of union but common resistance to the tabernacle of god among men? a persuasion that nothing short of the very existence of the church of england is at stake, that one step into the wrong will fix her character and her prospects for ever, compels one to say that certain acts and tendencies of late have struck dismay into those who desire above all things to love and respect their spiritual mother. if the jerusalem bishopric, promoted, (at the instance of a foreign minister, not in communion with our church,[170] and who has recorded in the strongest terms his objection to _her_ apostolical episcopacy,) by two bishops on their private responsibility, without any authority from the church of which they are indeed most honoured, but only individual rulers, be the commencement of a course of amalgamation with the lutheran or calvinistic heresy, who that values the authority of the ancient undivided church, will not feel his allegiance to our own branch fearfully shaken? the time for silence is past. there is such a thing as "propter vitam vivendi perdere causas." it must be said publicly that such a course will lead infallibly to a schism, which will bury the church of england in its ruins. if she is to become a mere lurking-place for omnigenous latitudinarianism; if first principles of the faith, such as baptismal regeneration, and priestly absolution, may be indifferently held or denied within her pale,--though, if not god's very truths, they are most fearful blasphemies,--the sooner she is swept away the better. there is no mean between her being "a wall daubed with untempered mortar," or the city of the living god. i speak as one who has every thing commonly valuable to man depending on this decision; moreover, as a priest in that communion, whose constitution, violently suspended by an enemy for one hundred and thirty years, yet requires that every one of her acts, which bind her as a whole, should be assented to by her priesthood in representation, as well as by her episcopacy. if the grace of the sacraments may be publicly denied by ministers of the church, nay, by a bishop ex cathedrâ, with impunity, in direct violation of the most solemn forms to which they have sworn obedience, while the assertion of christ's real presence in the eucharist draws down censure on the most devoted head, the communion which endures such iniquity requires the constant uninterrupted intercession of her worthier children, that she be not finally forsaken of god, and perish at the first attack of antichrist. * * * * * r. clay, printer, bread street hill. * * * * * notes [1] bellarmin. de rom. pont. lib. iv. 25; iv. 24; i. 9. [2] de maistre, du pape. liv. i. ch. i. [3] s. cyprian de unit. ecc. 12. [4] "development," &c. p. 22. [5] thomassin, part i. lib. i. ch. 4. de l'ancienne discipline de l'eglise. [6] st. cypr. de unit. 4. oxford tr. [7] quoted by thomassin, _ut sup._ [8] ibid. [9] s. aug. tom. v. 706, b. [10] s. chrys. tom. ii. 594, b. [11] st. jerome, tom. ii. 279, vallarsi. [12] development, p. 279. [13] the words in italics are left out by mr. n. [14] thomassin, part i. liv. i. ch. iii. [15] of a passage in this letter, de maistre says (du pape, liv. i. ch. 6): "resuming the order of the most marked testimonies which present themselves to me on the general question, i find, first, st. cyprian declare, in the middle of the third century, that heresies and schisms only existed in the church because all eyes were not turned towards the priest of god, towards the pontiff who judges in the church _in the place of jesus christ_." a pretty strong testimony, indeed, and one which would go far to convince me of the fact. pity it is, that when one refers to the original, one finds that st. cyprian is actually speaking of himself, and of the consequences of any where setting up in a see a schismatical bishop against the true one. after this, who will trust de maistre's facts without testing them? the truth is, he had taken the quotation at second hand, and never looked to see to whom it was applied. it suited the pope so admirably that it must have been meant for him. but i recommend no one to change their faith upon the authority of quotations which they do not test. [16] epist. 67. de marciano arelatensi. [17] s. cyp. ep. 29. [18] ep. 73. [19] ep. 74. [20] de unit. ecc. oxf. tr. [21] op. st. cypr. p. 329. ed. baluz. [22] tom. ix. p. 110. [23] s. cyp. ep. 75. [24] liv. vii. sec. 32. [25] tom. ix. 97. g. [26] tom. ii. 96. f. [27] tom. ii. 299. c. [28] fleury, liv. vii. 23. [29] ep. 68. s. cypriani. [30] liv. i. ch. 2, sect. 5. [31] liv. i. ch. 3, sect. 8. [32] fleury, liv. xii. xxix. conc. sard. can. 3, 4, 7. [33] thomassin, part i. liv. i. ch. 40. sect. 2. [34] idem, ut supra. [35] st. aug. tom. v. 1097. b. [36] tom. iv. 1215. e. [37] tom. v. 240. f. [38] tom. v. 1194. e. [39] tom. v. 1195. e. [40] tom. iii. part ii. 800. g. [41] he allows that peter _may_ be called the rock. tom. i. 32, e. [42] fleury 23, 30. oxf. tr. [43] st. aug. tom. ii. 618. b. [44] st. aug. tom. ii. 635. f. [45] tom. ii. 639. b. [46] quoted by fleury, 23, 32. oxford tr. [47] fleury, liv. 24, 35. oxf. tr. see the original: codex eccl. afric. 138. [48] chillingworth, quoted by mr. newman, "developement," p. 4. [49] tom. ix. 372. f. [50] tom. ix. 340. a. [51] tom. v. 1199. d. 1202. f. [52] def. cleri. gall. pars ii. lib. xii. ch. 5. [53] def. cleri. gall. pars ii. lib. xii. ch. 7. [54] ibid. lib. xiii. ch. 19. [55] st. chrys. tom. ix. 757. a. [56] lacordaire, sur le saint siège. [57] st. aug. tom. x. 412. b. quoted in fleury, oxf. tr. 3. 93. [58] def. clerc. gall. pars ii. lib. xii. c. 10. [59] fleury, 25-47. oxf. trans. [60] ut sup. ch. 14. [61] du pape, liv. i. ch. 2. [62] id. liv. i. ch. 4. [63] hammond's translation. [64] tillemont, tom. xv. p. 72. [65] tillemont, tom. xv. p. 81. [66] tillemont, tom. xv. p. 83. [67] tillemont, tom. xv. p. 89. [68] st. leo. ep. 40. [69] st. leo. ep. 10. edit. ball. [70] ib. ep. 65. [71] ep. 10. [72] st. leo. ep. 14, cap. i. xi. [73] s. leon. ep 6, cap. 2. [74] st. jerome, ep. 146. vallarsi. [75] theodoret, ep. in epist. s. leonis, 52. [76] mansi, 6, 817, quoted by gieseler, tom. i. part ii. p. 192. [77] isidorus, hisp. etymol. 7, 12, quoted by gieseler, ut sup. p. 406. [78] gieseler, tom. i. part ii. pp. 191, 192. [79] gieseler, tom. i. part ii. p. 205. [80] theodoret. hist. eccl. lib. v. ch. 9. [81] observe this council so called by the greeks before it was received by the west. [82] it must be remembered that diocese, in the language of this time, means the several provinces comprehended in a patriarchate. it was the civil term. [83] s. bas. m. ep. 239. [84] gieseler, tom. i. part ii. p. 202. [85] sozomen, hist. iii. ch. 8. [86] ibid. hist. iii. ch. 10. [87] socrates, hist. ii. ch. 17. [88] bossuet, sermon sur l'unité de l'eglise. [89] bossuet, def. cleri gall. pars ii. lib. xii. ch, 15, 16, 17. [90] s. leon. ep. 120. [91] ib. c. 4. [92] s. leon. ep. 102. [93] ch. 18, ibid. [94] fleury, liv. xxviii. 29. oxf. tr. [95] theod. lib. v. ch. 28, quoted by tillemont. [96] tillemont, tom. xv. p. 711. [97] the sittings are variously counted. [98] fleury, liv. xxviii. xxx. oxf. tr. [99] tillemont, tom. xv. p. 707. [100] s. leon. ep. 104, cap. 3. [101] s. leon. ep. 105. [102] ep. 106, cap. 4. [103] ep. 105, cap. 2. [104] ep. 106, cap. 2-5. [105] ep. 107. [106] ep. 105, cap. 3. [107] tillemont, tom. xv. p. 731. [108] s. leon. ep. 107. [109] s. greg. ep. lib. iii. 10. [110] on development, p. 307. [111] fleury, liv. xxxii. 54. [112] gieseler, vol. i. part. ii. p. 192. [113] nov. i. 1-7, quoted by gieseler. [114] fleury, liv. xxxiii. 4, 5, 6. [115] nov. vi. epilogus. [116] nov. cxxiii. c. 3. [117] ad valerianum, mansi, ix. 732. [118] contra litt. petiliani, ii. 51, all quoted by gieseler. [119] bossuet, def. cleri gall. pars ii. lib. xii. cap. 19. [120] fleury, liv. xxxiii. 52. [121] bossuet, _ut sup._ [122] du pape, liv. i. ch. 3. [123] fleury, liv. xxxiii. 52. [124] sozomen, lib. iii. ch. 11. [125] tom. i. part ii. 410. [126] def. cleri gall. pars ii. lib. xii. cap. 29. [127] id. cap. 31. [128] du pape, liv. iii. ch. 7. [129] s. greg. ep. lib. ii. 52. [130] lib. ix. 59, gieseler. [131] lib. xi. 37, gieseler. [132] gieseler, tom. i. part ii. 401. [133] liv. xxxiv. 60. [134] liv. xxxv. 19. [135] ep. s. greg. lib. v. 43. [136] lib. ix. 68. [137] lib. v. 19. [138] lib. vii. 33. [139] lib. v. ep. 20. [140] lib. vii. 27. [141] i cannot but consider st. gregory's words to contain one of the most remarkable prophecies to be found in history; for this assuming the title and exercising the power of universal pope has actually led not only to the concentration of all executive power in the roman see, but to the conviction, among its warmest partisans, that the whole existence of the church depends on the single see of rome. take the following from de maistre: "christianity rests entirely upon the sovereign pontiff."--"without the sovereign pontiff the whole edifice of christianity is undermined, and only waits, for a complete falling in, the development of certain circumstances which shall be put in their full light."--"what remains incontestable is, that if the bishops, assembled without the pope, may call themselves the church, and claim any other power but that of certifying the person of the pope in those infinitely rare moments when it might be doubtful, unity exists no longer, and the visible church disappears."--"the sovereign pontiff is the necessary, only, and exclusive foundation of christianity. to him belong the promises, with him disappears unity, that is, the church."--"the supremacy of the pope being the capital dogma without which christianity cannot subsist, all the churches, which reject this dogma, the importance of which they conceal from themselves, are agreed even without knowing it: all the rest is but accessory, and thence comes their affinity, of which they know not the cause."--du pape, discours préliminaire; liv. i. ch. 13; liv. iv. ch. 5. could we have any stronger witness to the antagonism between the papal and patriarchal or episcopal system? or can any words be spoken more opposed in tone than these to the writings of fathers and decrees of ancient councils? or are they who say such things wise defenders of the church or promoters of unity? [142] lib. viii. 30. [143] part i. liv. i. ch. 11. [144] mansi, vi. 1006. 1012, quoted by gieseler. [145] lib. v. 18. [146] proph. office, p. 221. development, p. 10. [147] sect. 13. march 28, 681, translated in landon's councils. [148] bossuet, def. cler. gall. pars ii. lib. xii. cap. 34. [149] bellarmin de pont. rom. lib. iv. cap. 24, 25. [150] bellarmin de pont. rom. lib. i. cap. 9. [151] def. cleri. gall. pars ii. lib. xiii. cap. 11. [152] bossuet is very moderate. st. chrysostom says, (on acts, hom. 33,) "james was bishop in jerusalem, and so speaks last;" and presently, "there was no pride in the church, but much good order. and see, after peter, paul speaketh, and no one rebukes him: james waits and starts not out of his place, for _he was entrusted with the government_." what would st. chrysostom say to bellarmine's doctrine? [153] ep. s. innoc.; in op. s. aug. tom. ii. 618; see above, p. 59. [154] ibid, quoted above, p. 60. [155] st. leo. serm. in anniver. assumpt. quoted above. [156] ep. 10. [157] optat. l. ix. contra parmen. [158] greg. nyss. t. 2. 746. [159] cæsar. arel. epist. ad symm. [160] quoted above, p. 58. [161] cap. xiv. lib. xiii. pars 2. [162] bossuet, def. &c. pars ii. lib. xiii. cap. 20. [163] de rom. pont. lib. iv. cap. 26. [164] developement, p. 28. [165] du pape, liv. ii. ch. 6; and discourse préliminaire. [166] see the account of his death in bowden's life. [167] dante, paradiso, xii. 55. [168] bellarmine, quoted above. [169] i owe this observation to a friend who has had great opportunities of judging about the state of the russian church. [170] "introduction to die zukunft kirche. the work advocates the introduction of episcopacy into the german church, but not the apostolical episcopacy of the english church, which m. bunsen condemns in terms as strong as any which have been used by any opponent of the bishopric. 'if ever and at any time the episcopate, in the sense of anglicanism, should be raised into a distinctive mark of churchdom among us, not constitutionally and nationally (?) it would, in my opinion, be striking the death-blow to the innermost germ of life in the church.' he will exert every energy, and shed the last drop of his blood in order to preserve the church of the german nation against such an episcopacy,"--_english churchman_, april 30, 1846. there are solemn words, which have found an echo in many hearts, "may that measure utterly fail, and come to nought, and be as though it had never been!" _by joseph mccabe_ peter abélard st. augustine and his age a candid history of the jesuits crises in the history of the papacy crises in the history of the papacy a study of twenty famous popes whose careers and whose influence were important in the development of the church and in the history of the world by joseph mccabe author of "peter abélard," "life of saint augustine," etc. g.p. putnam's sons new york and london the knickerbocker press 1916 copyright, 1916 by joseph mccabe the knickerbocker press, new york preface probably no religious institution in the world has had so remarkable a history, and assuredly none has attracted so large and varied a literature, as the papacy. the successive dynasties of the priests of ancient egypt were, by comparison, parochial in their power and ephemeral in their duration. the priests of buddha, rising to an autocracy in the isolation of thibet or mingling with the crowd in the more genial atmosphere of china or cherishing severe mysticisms in japan, offer no analogy to the papacy's consistent growth and homogeneous dominion. the religious leaders of the jews, scattered through the world, yet hardened in their type by centuries of persecution, may surpass it in conservative antiquity, but they do not remotely approach it in power and in historical importance. it influences the history of europe more conspicuously than emperors have ever done, stretches a more than imperial power over lands beyond the most fevered dreams of alexander or cæsar, and may well seem to have made "eternal rome" something more than the idle boast of a patriot. yet this conservative endurance has not been favoured by such a stability of environment as has sheltered the lamas of thibet or the secular priests of the old chinese religion. the papacy has lived through fifteen centuries of portentous change, though it seemed in each phase to have connected itself indissolubly with the dominant institutions and ideas of that phase. the popes have witnessed, and have survived, three mighty transformations of the face of europe. they had hardly issued from their early obscurity and lodged themselves in the fabric of the old roman civilization when this fell into ruins; but they held firmly, amidst the ruins, the sceptre they had inherited. one by one the stately institutions of the older world--the schools, the law-courts, the guilds of craftsmen, the military system, the municipal forms and commercial routes--disappeared in the flood of barbarism which poured over europe, but this institution, which seemed the least firmly established, was hardly shaken and was quickly accepted by the strange new world. a new polity was created, partly under the direction of the popes, and it was so entirely saturated by their influence that religion gave it its most characteristic name. then christendom, as it was called, passed in turn through a critical development, culminating in the reformation; and the papacy begot a counter-reformation and secured millions beyond the seas to replace the millions it had lost. the third and last convulsion began with the work of voltaire and rousseau and mirabeau, and has grievously shaken the political theory with which the papacy was allied and the older religious views which it had stereotyped. yet today it has some 35,000,000 followers in the three greatest protestant countries, the lands of luther, of henry viii., and of the puritan fathers. it must seem a futile design to attempt to tell, with any intelligent satisfaction, within the limits of a small volume the extraordinary story of this institution. no serious historian now tries to command more than a section of the record of the papacy, and he usually finds a dozen volumes required for the adequate presentment of that section. yet there is something to be said for such a sketch as i propose to give. if we take four of the more important recent histories of the papacy--those of father grisar, dr. mann, dr. pastor, and dr. creighton--we find that the joint thirty volumes do not cover the whole period of papal history even to the sixteenth century; and the careful student will not omit to include in his reading the still valuable volumes of milman and of dr. langer. in other words, he must study more than fifty volumes if he would have an incomplete account of the development of the papacy up to the time of the reformation, and more than that number if he would follow accurately the fortunes of the papacy since the days of paul iii. the history of the papacy is very largely the history of europe, and this voluminous expansion is inevitable. on the other hand, the general student of the history of europe and the general reader who seeks intellectual pleasure in "the storied page" are not only repelled by such an array of tomes, but they have no interest in a vast proportion of the matter which it is incumbent on the ecclesiastical historian to record. one wants a view of the papacy in the essential lines of its development, and they are usually lost, or not easily recognized, in the conscientiously full chronicles. is it possible to give a useful and informing account of the _essential_ history of the papacy in a small volume? the rare attempts to do this that have been made have failed from one or other of two causes: they have either been written with a controversial aim and therefore have given only the higher lights or darker shades of the picture, or they have been mere summaries of the larger works, mingling what is relevant and what is not relevant from the developmental point of view. the design which occurs to me is to write a study of the papacy by taking a score of the outstanding popes--which means, in effect, a score of the more significant or critical stages in the development of the papacy--and giving an adequate account of the work and personality of each. the evolution of the papacy has not, like the evolution of life in general, been continuous. it has had periods of stagnation and moments of rapid progress or decay. of the first hundred popes, scarcely a dozen contributed materially to the making of the papacy: the others maintained or marred the work of the great popes. it is the same with the environment of the papacy, which has influenced its fortunes as profoundly as changes of environment have affected the advance of terrestrial life. there have been long drowsy summers closed by something like ice ages; there have been convulsions and strange invasions, stimulating advance by their stem and exacting pressure. i propose to select these more significant periods or personalities of papal history, and trust that the resultant view of the papacy will have interest and usefulness. the periods which lie between the various pontificates which i select will be compressed into a brief account of their essential characters and more prominent representatives, so that the work will form a continuous study of the papacy. in the selection of a score of popes out of more than two hundred and fifty there is room for difference of judgment. the principle on which i have proceeded is plain from the general aim i have indicated. the story of the papacy may fitly be divided into two parts: a period of making and a period of unmaking. taking the terms somewhat liberally, one may say that the first period reaches from the second to the fourteenth century, and that the subsequent centuries have witnessed an increasing loss of authority, especially in the catastrophic movements (from the papal point of view) of the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. a selection of significant popes must, therefore, include the great makers of the papacy, the men whose vice or incompetence brought destructive criticism upon it, and the men who have, with varying fortune, sought to defend it against the inroads of that criticism during the last four centuries. one must make a selection neither of good popes nor bad popes, but of the popes who, in either direction, chiefly influenced the fortunes of the institution; and, in order that no important phase may be omitted, a few men of no very pronounced personality must be included. regarded from this point of view, the history of the papacy may be compressed within limits which rather accentuate than obscure its interest, and, at the same time, a very ample account may be given of some of its more instructive phases. the first phase, before the bishop of rome became a pope, in the distinctive sense of the word, is best illustrated by taking the bishopric of callistus at the beginning of the third century. the roman bishopric was then one of several "apostolic sees," rarely claiming authority over other bishoprics, and still more rarely finding such a claim acknowledged: thrown somewhat into the shade by the vastly greater strength of the eastern churches, yet having an immense and as yet undeveloped resource in the tradition, which was now generally accepted, that it had been founded by the two princes of the apostles. there was, however, in three hundred years, no roman bishop sufficiently endowed to develop this resource, and the fourth century still found the roman see so little elevated that its african neighbours disdainfully rejected its claim of authority. then the far-reaching change which followed the conversion of constantine bestowed on it a material splendour and a secular authority which gave it a distinctive place in christendom, and a study of the life of bishop damasus shows us the extension of its prestige and the exploitation of its tradition; while the founding of a rival imperial city in the east and the obliteration of all other apostolic sees withdrew half of christendom from roman influence before its ecumenic claim was fully developed. the fall of the western roman empire enfeebles the once powerful and independent provincial bishops and gives a more spiritual outlook to the successors of peter who sit among the ruins of rome. the life of leo the great illustrates this concentration on religious power amidst the autumnal decay of the more material power and of the wealth which had inflated and secularized some of his predecessors. the life of gregory the great marks the culmination of this development. the material world seems to be nearing dissolution and the old roman spirit of organization, which is strong in gregory i., is directed to the creation of a moral and religious dictatorship. there are still flickers of independence in remote bishoprics, and the east is irrecoverably removed, but the disordered state of christendom cries for a master. europe is young again, with a vicious impulsive youth, and the rod of rome falls healthily on its shoulders; and the paralysis of civic government and land-tenure in italy inevitably casts secular functions and large possessions upon the one effective power that survives. an elementary royalty begins to attach to the papacy: the function of ultimate tribunal in that violent world is imposed on it almost by public needs: and, though gregory is personally disdainful of culture, the church, and the monastic refuges it consecrates, preserve for a wiser age to come some proportion of the wisdom of the dead age. with hadrian i. a new phase opens. the possession and administration of "patrimonies," or bequeathed estates, give place to the definite political control of whole provinces, under the protection of a powerful and conveniently remote king of the franks. in the ninth century, nicholas i. consolidates and extends the new power, both as temporal and spiritual ruler. the vice and violence of europe still justify or promote the growth of a great spiritual autocracy, and the illiteracy of europe--for culture has touched its lowest depth--permits the imposition on it (in the "false decretals," etc.) of an impressive and fictitious version of the bases of papal claims. then rome, which has hitherto had singularly few unworthy men in the chair of peter, becomes gradually degraded to the level of its age, and the papacy passes into the darkness of the age of iron: which is fitly illustrated by the pontificate of john x. gregory vii. shows its restoration to spiritual ideals and the union of monastic severity with the papal tradition; and this steady creation of a machinery for dominating the vice and violence of europe is perfected in the extraordinary work of innocent iii., who would, for its moral correction, make europe the united states of the church and treat its greatest monarchs as satraps of the papacy. after innocent, the papacy degenerates. a renewed school-life, the influence of the moors, the evolution of civic life and prosperity, and the rise of powerful kingdoms stimulate the intelligence of europe, while the political connexions in which the temporal power entangles the papacy lead to a degeneration which cannot escape the more alert mind of the laity. during a long exile at avignon the papal court learns soft ways and corrupt devices--illustrated by the life of john xxii.--and the great schism which follows the return to rome causes a moral paralysis which permits the pontificate of an unscrupulous adventurer like john xxiii. the prosperous sensuality of the new europe infects an immense proportion of the clergy: war, luxury, and display entail a vast expenditure, and the more thoughtful clergy and laity deplore the increasing sale by the popes of sacred offices and spiritual privileges. the body of lay scholars and lawyers grows larger and more critical, while the papal court sinks lower and lower. the papacy is fiercely criticized throughout europe, and the resentment of its moral complexion leads to a discussion of the bases of its power. the earlier forgeries are discovered and the true story of its human growth is dimly apprehended. the successive pontificates of alexander vi., julius ii., and leo x. exhibit this dramatic development: a flat defiance by the papal court of the increasing moral sentiment and critical intelligence of europe. men are still so dominated by religious tradition that, apart from an occasional heresy, they generally think only of "reform" and reforming councils. when luther strikes a deeper note of rebellion, the echo is portentous, and neither reform, nor violence, nor persuasion succeeds in averting the disruption of christendom. in paul iii., we have the last representative of the papacy of the renaissance wavering between the grim menace of germany and the unpleasantness of reform. in sixtus v. and benedict xiv. we study two of the great efforts of the new papacy to preserve the remaining half of its territory. in pius vii., pius ix., and leo xiii. we see the papacy meeting the successive waves of the modern revolution. * * * * * in composing this sketch of papal history, or, rather, study of its critical phases, i have gratefully used the larger modern histories to which i have referred. dr. ludwig pastor's _history of the popes from the close of the middle ages_[1] is, for the period it covers (1300-1550), the most valuable of all papal histories. the catholic author is not less courageous than scholarly, even if we must recognize some inevitable bias of affection, and he has enriched our knowledge by a most judicious and candid use of unpublished documents in the secret archives of the vatican. dr. h.k. mann's _lives of the popes in the middle ages_,[2] which covers the ground from gregory i. to innocent iii., is based upon an ample knowledge of the original authorities, but is much less candid and reliable, and seems to be intended only for controversial purposes. dr. creighton's learned and judicious _history of the papacy from the great schism to the sack of rome_[3] must be corrected at times by the documents in pastor. father h. grisar's incomplete _history of rome and the popes in the middle ages_[4] is a learned and moderate partisan study of the papacy in the first four centuries. the older works of dr. j. langer,[5] dean milman,[6] gregorovius,[7] and ranke are by no means superfluous to the student, though more recent research or judgment often corrects them. less extensive works will be noted in the course of each chapter, and i owe much to industrious older authorities like baronius, tillemont, raynaldus, mansi, etc. i have, however, had the original authorities before me throughout. the earlier chapters are, indeed, based almost entirely on the latin or greek sources, and, in the later chapters, at every point which seemed to inspire differences of judgment i have carefully weighed the original texts. for the later mediæval period, however, creighton, pastor, and gregorovius have so generously strengthened their works with quotations and references that, except at a few points, i may direct the reader to their more comprehensive studies. the narrow limits which are imposed by the particular purpose of this work forbid either the constant quoting of passages or the design of enlarging on some of the remarkable scenes to which it at times refers. the severe condensation, after the first few chapters, has entailed a labour only second to that of research, and i can only trust that the abundance of fact will afford some compensation for the lack of elegance. happily the earlier controversial method of writing papal history has so far yielded to candid research that the points in dispute--as far as fact is concerned--are comparatively few. where they occur--where grave and accepted historians of any school dissent--the evidence is more liberally put before the reader. j.m. christmas, 1915. footnotes: [footnote 1: english trans., 1891, etc.] [footnote 2: ten vols., 1902-1914.] [footnote 3: six vols., 2d ed., 1897.] [footnote 4: english trans., 1911, etc.] [footnote 5: _geschichte der römischen kirche_, 1881, etc.] [footnote 6: _history of latin christianity._] [footnote 7: _the city of rome in the middle ages_, english trans., 1900, etc.] contents page preface iii chapter i.--st. callistus and the early struggle 1 ii.--st. damasus and the triumph 19 iii.--leo the great, the last pope of imperial rome 38 iv.--gregory the great, the first mediæval pope 55 v.--hadrian i. and the temporal power 78 vi.--nicholas i. and the false decretals 101 vii.--john x. and the iron century 124 viii.--hildebrand 141 ix.--innocent iii.: the papal zenith 171 x.--john xxii.: the court at avignon 202 xi.--john xxiii. and the great schism 221 xii.--alexander vi.: the borgia-pope 240 xiii.--julius ii.: the fighting pope 267 xiv.--leo x. and the dance of death 285 xv.--paul iii. and the counter-reformation 310 xvi.--sixtus v. and the new church 330 xvii.--benedict xiv.: the scholar-pope 351 xviii.--pius vii. and the revolution 368 xix.--pius ix. 391 xx.--leo xiii. 414 list of the popes 443 index 451 crises in the history of the papacy crises in the history of the papacy chapter i st. callistus and the early struggle at the close of the second century after the birth of christ the christian community at rome still saw no human prospect of that spiritual mastery of the world which they trusted some day to attain. they lived, for the most part, in the transtiberina, the last and least reputable section of the great city, beyond the shelter of its walls. in that squalid and crowded district between the janiculus and the tiber dwelt the fishers and tanners and other poor workers; and the jews, and others who shunned the light, found refuge among their lowly tenements. near that early ghetto, from which they had issued, most of the christians lingered. still they were a small community, and still the might of rome bade them crouch trembling at the gates, lost among the tombs and gardens of the vatican or the dense poverty at the foot of the janiculus. across the river they would see, above the fringe of wharves and warehouses, the spreading line of the roman people's palaces, from the theatre of pompey to the great circus: perhaps they would hear the roar of the lions which might at any time taste christian flesh. beyond these was the seething popular quarter of the velabrum, sending up to heaven at night a confused murmur and a blaze of light at which the christians would cross themselves; and on either side of the velabrum, the stern guardians of its superstition, were the hills which bore the gold-roofed temple of jupiter and the marble city of the cæsars. more than one hundred and fifty years had passed since the death of christ, yet his followers waited without the gates, little heeded by the million citizens of rome. the old gods were dying, it is true. in many a cool _atrium_ there must have been some such discussion about the successor of jupiter as has been finely imagined by anatole france; but assuredly not the weirdest of the syrian visionaries who abounded would have said that, in a few centuries, those neglected fields beside the neronian circus at the foot of the vatican would become the centre of the world, and that men and women would come from the farthest limits of the empire to kiss the bones of those obscure christians. men talked of the progress of the cult of mithra, which spread even to distant eboracum, or the success of the priests of isis or of cybele, but few thought about the priests of christ. earlier in the century, pliny had written to court to say that he had found, spreading over his province, a sect named the christians, whose beliefs seemed to him "an immoderate superstition"; though they had, he said, under pressure, abandoned their god in crowds; and he had little doubt that he would extinguish the sect. few even of the christians can have imagined that within two centuries their cross would be raised above the proudest monuments of rome, and that the eagles of jove and the rams of mithra would lie in the dust. toward the end of the second century the roman christians can hardly have numbered twenty thousand. dr. döllinger estimates their number at fifty thousand, but the letter of bishop cornelius, on which he relies, belongs to a later date and is not accurately quoted by him.[8] the bishop says that, in his time, the roman church had forty-four priests, fourteen deacons and subdeacons, and ninety-four clerics in minor orders. the crowd of acolytes and exorcists must not be regarded in a modern sense; most of them would never be priests. at that time, there was not a single public chapel in rome and it would be an anachronism to regard each of the thirty or forty priests of rome as a rector in charge of more than a thousand souls. the christians gathered stealthily in the houses of their better-endowed brethren to receive the sacred elements from poor glass vessels, and tertullian blushes to learn that they are found among the panders and gamblers who have to bribe the officials to overlook their illegal ways.[9] the fact that they supported fifteen hundred poor, sick, and widows need not surprise us when we remember what an age of parasitism it was. at least a fourth of the citizens of rome lived on free rations and had free medical service. there were, in fine, thirty years of development between the time of cornelius and the time of callistus.[10] yet, it was nearly a century and a half, tradition said, since peter and paul had baptized crowds on the banks of the tiber. one cannot today add anything to the discussion of that tradition and i will very briefly state the evidence. the first epistle of peter--which is not undisputed--says[11]: "the church that is in babylon saluteth you," and babylon is very plausibly understood to mean rome. next, about the year 96, clement of rome, writing to the corinthians, speaks vaguely of a "martyrdom" of peter and paul, and seems to imply that it took place at rome.[12] about the middle of the following century, we find it believed in remote parts of the church--by papias in hierapolis and dionysius at corinth--that peter had preached the gospel at rome.[13] ignatius of antioch also seems to imply that peter and paul founded the roman community.[14] irenæus and tertullian and later writers know even more about it--the later the writer, the more he knows--but the historian must hesitate to use their works. there is a respectable early tradition that peter and paul preached the gospel at rome and suffered there some kind of martyrdom, during or after the neronian persecution. peter is not called "bishop" of rome by any writer earlier than the third century, and the belief that he ruled the roman church for twenty-five years seems to be merely the outcome of some fanciful calculations of anti-pope hippolytus. of the earlier bishops, linus and anacletus (or anencletus), we know only the names.[15] then a faint light is thrown on the metropolitan church by the letter of clement, its third bishop. we find an ordered community, with bishop, priests, and deacons; perhaps we conceive it more accurately if we say, with overseer, elders, and servants. then the mists thicken again and a line of undistinguished names is all that we can discern until the consecration of bishop victor in the year 189. one would like to know more about bishop victor. he seems to have been the first pope, in the familiar sense of the word. "pope" was, we know, a common title of bishops until the sixth century, but victor is one of the makers of a distinctive papacy. we shall, presently, find tertullian speaking, with his heaviest irony, of "the bishop of bishops, the supreme pontiff," and, although he is probably referring to callistus, he is echoing the words of some other bishop. history points to victor, who peremptorily cut off the eastern churches from communion because they would not celebrate easter when he did. they were not much concerned, but victor's premature assertion of leadership marks the beginning of the papacy. the roman church was wealthier than those of the east, or had a few wealthy members in the city. it sent sums of money to more needy communities and received flattering requests for advice. it was, however, singularly lacking in intellectual distinction, and it produced no scholar to refute the subtle gnostics and fiery montanists who came to it. the waves of heresy which raged over the east broke harmlessly on the italian shore of christendom. one must not imagine that it was isolated from the east by difference of tongue. until the end of the third century, it was wholly greek: more isolated from rome than from corinth. nor is it less inaccurate to say that the latins were more interested in administration than in speculation. there is little trace of organization until the days of callistus. one is more disposed to conceive the roman church shivering in poverty amid the wealth and culture of the metropolis. the disdainful language of the intellectuals and the wonderful success of stoicism in the second century excluded it from the educated world; while its secrecy, its stern abstinence from games and festivals, its scorn of the gods, and the shadow of deadly illegality which brooded over it, made it less successful in appealing to the people than the other eastern religions. if, however, the roman see made little impression in rome, it made some progress in the church. as the fragments of papias and dionysius show, christians were saying, far away in the east, that it had been founded by peter; and the gospels plainly made peter the chief of the apostles. the roman see did not yet speak of having inherited the primacy of peter, and it had very little share in the prestige of rome. it must rise higher in the eyes of men, and at the end of the second century it was rising. marcia, the robust ex-slave who shared the brutal pleasures of commodus and was mistress of his harem of three hundred concubines, had a grateful recollection of earlier christian kindness, and she secured peace and favour for the church. here it is that, for the first time, a clear light falls upon the christian community at rome and upon its bishops. in the year 217 (or 218), bishop callistus succeeded bishop zephyrin, who had followed victor. from the fourth century he has been counted one of the greatest of the early popes. two of the historic cemeteries bore his name, and there were a church of st. callistus (or calixtus, as the latins sometimes misspell it) and a square of st. callistus in the trastevere district. martyrologies honoured him as a witness to the faith, and (probably from the seventh century) the _acta_ of his martyrdom, including a most impressive account of his virtues and miracles, might be consulted in the archives of sta. maria in trastevere. from these materials, moretti composed an eloquent biography of the saint, and even the bollandists, more discreetly, and with disturbing hints that christian scholars were saying naughty things about the _acta s. callisti_, set their learned seal upon his diploma of sanctity and martyrdom. contemporary with callistus, the saint and martyr, was hippolytus, the scholar and saint and martyr. they were the two shining jewels of the roman church. the many works of hippolytus had strangely disappeared, and tradition was not even sure of which town he had been bishop; but there was evidence enough to connect him with the roman church and to justify the claim that he was the origen of the west. when, in 1551, a broken marble statue of hippolytus was discovered at rome, it was devoutly restored and set up in the lateran museum. and just three hundred years afterwards, in 1851, there was given to the world a lost work of the saintly scholar, from which it is plain that he was the first anti-pope, and that the pope whom he opposed and reviled was callistus. the first book of this work, the _refutation of all heresies_ (sometimes called the _philosophoumena_), had long been known; the manuscript copy of books iv. to x. was found in a monastery on mount athos in 1842. now that the true character of hippolytus is known, some doubt has been cast upon his scholarship, but it was considerable for his age and environment. he was one of the very few scholars of the roman church during several centuries, and one chapter of his work throws an interesting light on the person of callistus and on a remarkable phase of the development of the papacy. the controversy about the authorship of the book and about the charges against callistus has brought to bear upon that period all the available light; and the modern student will probably find the truth somewhere between the extremes held by the contending historians of the nineteenth century.[16] de rossi himself, indeed, while pretending to support, entirely discredits the arguments with which döllinger, in his years of orthodoxy, sought to defend the impeccability of the popes and to prove the moral obliquity of all who opposed them. the italian archæologist, it is true, imputes to hippolytus a malice which goes ill with _his_ reputation for sanctity, but perhaps we shall be able to extricate ourselves from this painful dilemma without grave detriment to the character of either saint. callistus was, in the days of commodus, a slave of the christian carpophorus, according to the _liber pontificalis_.[17] he was the son of a certain domitius who lived in the transtiberina. the master entrusted the slave with money to open a bank, and the faithful put their savings into it, but it became known after a time that callistus had--to quote the text literally--"brought all the money to naught and was in difficulties." he fled to the port of rome, whence, after leaping into the sea in despair, he was brought back to the house of carpophorus and put in the _pistrinum_, the domestic mill in which slaves expiated their crimes. the faithful, prompted by callistus, begged his release on the ground that he had money on loan and could repay. he had no money, however, and he could think of nothing better than to make a disturbance in the synagogue on the sabbath, for which the jews took him before the prefect fuscianus[18] and described him as a christian. he was scourged and was sent to the silver or iron mines of sardinia--the siberia of the empire--from which few returned. but, shortly afterwards, marcia obtained the release of the christians, and although bishop victor had not included the name of callistus in the list, callistus persuaded the eunuch to insert it. victor, however, reflecting on the hostility of his victims, sent him to live, on a pension provided by the church, at antium. this narrative has been subjected to the most meticulous criticism, as if it were something novel or important to accuse a pope of having committed certain indiscretions in his youth. it suffices to say that, while döllinger is, in the end, reduced to claiming that hippolytus was probably not in rome at the time, the more learned de rossi is so impressed by the minuteness and (as far as it can be checked) the accuracy of the account that he believes hippolytus to have been a deacon of the church at the time and so to have had official knowledge of the facts. the single point of any importance is open to a humane interpretation. did or did not callistus embezzle the money? if he did, how came he to be elected bishop? if he did not, how comes his sainted rival to call him, as he does, a fraud and impostor? we may remember that financial troubles of this kind are peculiarly open to opposite interpretations. hippolytus, victor, and carpophorus, it seems, took the less charitable view; but it would not be unnatural for others to persuade themselves, or be persuaded by callistus, that he was merely the victim of circumstances. victor died in 198 and was succeeded by zephyrin, "an ignorant and illiterate man," says hippolytus. callistus, who had ceased to be a slave when he was sentenced to penal servitude, was recalled to rome and, apparently, made first deacon (now called archdeacon) of the church. he was put in charge of a cemetery in the appian way which the community had just secured, and this cemetery bears his name to this day. hippolytus, who was indignant, charges callistus with ambition, and says that zephyrin was avaricious and open to bribes; which we may humanely construe to mean that the able administration of callistus enabled the bishop to live in some comfort. nor need we despair of finding a genial interpretation of his further charge, that the deacon induced zephyrin to meddle with questions of dogma, and then, behind the bishop's back, diplomatically sympathized with both the contending parties. the truth is that the latins were sorely puzzled by the subtleties with which the greeks were slowly and fiercely shaping the dogma that the father and son were one nature, yet two persons, and both zephyrin and callistus stumbled. callistus is further described as assisting zephyrin in the "coercion," or, as others translate, the "organization" of the clergy, and this point is of greater interest. as far as one can construe the barbarous latin of the _liber pontificalis_, zephyrin decreed that the priests were not to consecrate the communion for the people. the sacred elements were to be brought to them, on glass patens, from the altar at which the bishop said mass. probably this is the "coercion" to which hippolytus refers, as the aim was, plainly, to emphasize the subordination of the clergy. i would further venture to suggest, against the learned father grisar, that this was also the occasion when the sphere of the roman bishop was divided into twenty-five _tituli_ (or parishes). the _liber pontificalis_ describes how urban i., the successor of callistus, substituted silver for glass vessels at the altar, and expressly speaks of "twenty-five patens." we must conclude that callistus was able as well as persuasive, and we are not surprised to learn that, when zephyrin died in 217 (or, according to another account, 218) he was chosen bishop. it was customary, until long afterwards, to choose the bishop from the body of deacons, but hippolytus and his friends were indignant at the election of the ex-slave, and a schism occurred. hippolytus had the support of the minority of precisians and correct believers: callistus was the favourite of the majority. epithets of which the modern mind can hardly appreciate the gravity were hurled from camp to camp. "patripassian," thundered hippolytus; "ditheist" retorted callistus. it is quite clear that the scholar set up a rival see at rome. he says that callistus, when he was elected, "thought" that he had attained his ambition, and this must mean that he claimed himself to be the true bishop of rome. later tradition, concealing the ugly schism, left the bishopric of hippolytus in the air, or placed it at the port of rome, twenty miles away. but this picture of daily combats implies that both bishops were in rome, and the little flock was rent and agitated by the first papal schism. the dogmatic issue between the rivals cannot profitably be discussed here. the church was then in an early phase of the great trinitarian controversy, and, under victor and zephyrin, the roman clergy had favoured the simpler, or unitarian, view. sabellius, who has given his name to one form of unitarianism, was in rome and was supported by the deacon callistus: indeed, his rival says that it was callistus who seduced sabellius. however that may be, callistus shrewdly perceived he could not meet his learned opponent on that ground. he disowned sabellius, and soon lost himself in a maze of technical theology into which i will not venture to follow him. to theologians i leave also the discussion of the charge that callistus favoured the rebaptizing of converted heretics. it is the charges of a practical or disciplinary nature which best illustrate the character of callistus and make his pontificate a milestone in the history of the papacy. when we have made every possible allowance for exaggeration, they show that callistus infused a remarkable spirit of liberalism into the christian discipline and made smooth for the tender feet of the romans the rough ways of his church. the first charge is that callistus admitted grave sinners to communion, if they did penance. the ancient discipline is well known. those who committed one "mortal" sin after baptism could never again be admitted to communion. they were the pariahs of the community, bearing in the eyes of all the ineffaceable brand of their sin. there was as yet no central power to define mortal sins, but sins of the flesh were, beyond doubt, in that category, and, as such were not uncommon at rome, a rigorous insistence on the old discipline hampered the growth of the church. callistus, with princely liberality, abolished it. "i hear," says tertullian, "that an edict has gone forth. the supreme pontiff, that is to say, the bishop of bishops, announces: i will absolve even those who are guilty of adultery and fornication, if they do penance."[19] so the narrow gates were opened a little wider to the warm-blooded romans, and the church grew. but, while modern sentiment will genially applaud this act of the first liberal pope, the fifth charge in the indictment, which i take up next, seems graver. the greek text of hippolytus is here particularly corrupt and ambiguous, but the translation given by the rev. j.m. macmahon in the _ante-nicene library_ is generally faithful: for even also he permitted females, if they were unwedded and burned with passion at an age at all events unbecoming [more probably, at a seasonable age], or [and] if they were not disposed to overturn their dignity through a legal marriage, that they might have whomsoever they would choose as a bedfellow, whether a slave or free [freedman], and that they, though not legally married, might consider such an one as a husband.[20] the bishop goes on to describe in technical language, which need not be reproduced here, how the practice of abortion spread among christian ladies as a result of this license. the apparent gravity of the charge has, however, so far disappeared since the days of döllinger that we are now asked to admire the bold and exalted charity of callistus. he is, of course, referring to the roman law which forbade the widow or daughter of a senator, under pain of losing her dignity of _clarissima_, to marry a free-born man of lower condition; a slave or freedman she could not validly marry. there cannot have been very many ladies of senatorial rank in the church at that time, seeing that, seventy years after the conversion of constantine, st. augustine found "nearly the whole of the nobility" still pagan.[21] there were, however, some, as the inscriptions in the catacombs show, and their position was painful. they must either mate with a christian slave or freedman, and be regarded by the law and their neighbours as living in concubinage: or marry a free-born christian of low degree and thus forfeit their rank: or devote their virginity or their widowhood to god. the church was concerned that they should not marry pagan senators, who would scoff at their superstitions and would dissipate their fortunes. callistus told them that he would recognize as valid in conscience unions with slaves or freedmen which the state did not countenance. the number of ladies to whom the license extended must have been small, and hippolytus evidently exaggerates the occasional scandals which followed. the impartial historian, however, will hardly regard the action of callistus as a humanitarian protest against caste-distinctions. such distinctions were maintained by the church for centuries afterwards in its legislation about the clergy, and, on the other hand, the measure was profitable to the church. in practice, indeed, these secret marriages would easily lead to disorder. a christian lady would, if she were to keep her union secret, merely choose a "husband" among her slaves or freedmen, and would be tempted to use illicit means when her "marriage" threatened to be exposed too plainly to pagan eyes. the other charges against callistus show a general policy of liberality. he decreed that a bishop who was convicted of mortal sin was not necessarily to be deposed: he permitted men who had been twice or thrice married to become deacons or priests: he directed that "men in orders" must not be disturbed if they married. some writers think that, in the latter case, he was referring only to men in minor orders, but that would not have been a daring innovation. hippolytus, in fact, makes his policy and his character clearer by telling us, indignantly, how callistus searched the scriptures for proof that the church must be wide enough to embrace both saints and sinners. there had been clean and unclean animals in the ark: christ had said that the tares must grow up with the wheat: and so on. his reputation for liberality spread so far in the church that, while tertullian grumbled in africa, a quaint syrian charlatan named alcibiades was attracted from the east to rome. he brought a mystic work, given to him by two angels of the imposing height of ninety-six miles each, and he proclaimed that his new form of baptism absolved even from certain gross sins which he very freely and suggestively described. the church grew during these years of peace, of able organization, and of humanization. callistus "made a _basilica_ beyond the tiber"--the _liber pontificalis_ says--and there is an interesting passage in the _historia augusta_ which seems to refer to this first christian chapel at rome. the biographer of alexander severus says (c. xliii.) that the emperor wished to give the christians the right to have public chapels, but his officials protested that "the temples would be deserted--all rome would become christian." this is obviously a piece of later christian fiction. in a more plausible paragraph, however, lampridius tells us that the christians occupied a "public place," to which the innkeepers laid claim, and the emperor decided that "it was better for god to be worshipped there in some form than for the innkeepers to have it." it is probable enough that this inn is the _taverna meritoria_ (wine shop and restaurant) referred to by dio cassius[22]: among the portents which accompanied the struggles of octavian a stream of oil had burst forth in this hostel in the transtiberina. we know from orosius[23] that the christians claimed the occurrence in later years as a presage of the coming of christ. the age, if not the disputed ownership, of the place suggests a dilapidated, if not deserted, building; and if we may in one detail trust that interesting romance, the _acta s. callisti_, we have a picture of the christians of the third century meeting at last, under their enterprising bishop, in the upper or dining room of this humble old inn in the despised transtiberina. this was the high-water mark of a century and a half of progress. only one other act is authentically recorded of the brief rule of bishop callistus: he directed his people to fast on three sabbaths in the year. this may seem inconsistent with his genial policy, but we must remember that rigorists abounded at rome and demanded sterner ways. callistus, apparently, merely sanctioned some slight traditional observance and thus virtually relieved the faithful of others. it may be fascinating to conjecture what so enterprising a pope would have done with the ecclesiastical system if he had lived long enough, but callistus died, according to the best authorities, in the year 222, four or five years after his consecration. he did not die a martyr. in opening his account of the career of callistus, the rival bishop says: "this man suffered martyrdom when fuscianus was prefect, and this was the sort of martyrdom he suffered." it is inconceivable that hippolytus should use such language in rome after the death of callistus if the pope had really suffered for the faith. no christian was executed at rome under alexander severus. we must suppose that after his death, if not during his life, callistus was applauded as a martyr because of his banishment to sardinia, and probably this gave rise to the legend of his martyrdom, which first appears, as a bald statement, in the fourth century. the _acta s. callisti_ may be traced to about the seventh century, and may be a pious contribution to the rejoicing of the faithful at the transfer of his bones to sta. maria in trastevere.[24] the recklessness with which the writer describes the gentle and friendly alexander severus as a truculent enemy of the christians was noted even by mediæval historians, and the narrative is now regarded as, in the words of döllinger, "a piece of fiction from beginning to end." yet father grisar[25] describes callistus as a martyr. hippolytus maintained his little schism under urban i. and pontianus, while the orthodox community prospered in the sun of imperial favour. then the grim maximinus succeeded alexander on the throne, and the clouds gather again over christendom. we just discern pope and anti-pope, pontianus and hippolytus, passing together to the deadly mines of sardinia. later legend generously reconciled the rivals and gave to both of them the martyr's crown; but the authority is late and worthless. in whatever manner he ended his career, rome was too proud of its one scholar to darken his memory, and the names of hippolytus and callistus shone together in ecclesiastical literature until that fateful discovery among the dusty parchments of the monks of mount athos. footnotes: [footnote 8: it is preserved in eusebius, _ecclesiastical history_, vi., 43.] [footnote 9: _de fuga a persecutione_, xiii.] [footnote 10: the number of interments in the catacombs cannot very well be regarded as evidence. archæologists differ by millions in estimating the number, and the populous church after constantine still buried in the catacombs, at least until the pontificate of damasus.] [footnote 11: v., 13.] [footnote 12: _epistle_, v.] [footnote 13: see eusebius, ii., 15, and iii., 40, for the words of papias, and ii., 25, for the testimony of dionysius.] [footnote 14: _letter to romans_, iv.] [footnote 15: even the names and order are given differently in early writers. i follow, as is now usual, the order given by epiphanius (xxvii., 6) and irenæus.] [footnote 16: bunsen's four-volume _hippolytus and his age_ (1852) was sharply attacked by döllinger (_hippolytus and callistus_, english translation, 1876) and more judiciously handled by g.b. de rossi in his _bulletino di archeologia cristiana_ (1866, pp. 1-33). milman (_history of latin christianity_, vol. i.) and ch. wordsworth (_st. hippolytus and the church of rome_, 1853) supported bunsen. the work itself is translated in _the ante-nicene library_, vol. vi.] [footnote 17: this anonymous catalogue of the popes, which i must often quote, is a quaint mixture of accurate archives and inaccurate rumours. the first part seems to have been written in the sixth century, and it was continued as a semi-official record. see the introduction to duchesne's edition.] [footnote 18: fuscianus was prefect between the years 186 and 189, so that we have an approximate date of these events.] [footnote 19: _de pudicitia_, i. döllinger, on no apparent ground, and against all probability, refers this to zephyrin, and some older writers think that the indignant puritan is quoting an african bishop. we must agree with de rossi that tertullian has callistus in mind, especially when we find hippolytus saying that he was "the first" to do this. an earlier attempt of an eastern bishop might easily have escaped hippolytus.] [footnote 20: vol. vi., p. 346. this is a fair, if inelegant, rendering of the greek text given by duncker and schneidewin in their edition of the _refutation_, and it corresponds with the latin translation given by those editors and with de rossi. döllinger is alone in his interpretation.] [footnote 21: _confessions_, viii., 2.] [footnote 22: xlviii.] [footnote 23: vi., 18.] [footnote 24: neither this church nor the basilica s. callisti can have been the original meeting-place, though the latter may have been founded on it.] [footnote 25: _history of rome and the popes in the early middle ages_, i,. 313.] chapter ii st. damasus and the triumph in the year 355, the christians of the imperial city startled their neighbours by a series of violent and threatening demonstrations. armed crowds of them filled the streets, and monks and sacred virgins hid themselves from the riot. an inquiring pagan would have learned that the emperor constantius, who had waded to supremacy through a stream of blood, was attempting to force on their bishop and themselves the damnable heresy of arius. a few weeks before, constantius had sent his eunuch with rich presents to liberius, suavely asking him to condemn a certain fiery athanasius who resisted the heresy. liberius had courageously refused, and, when the eunuch had cunningly left the gifts beside the tomb of st. peter, the bishop had had them cast out of the church. when the exasperated eunuch had returned to the emperor at milan, the christian community had prepared for drastic action, and it was presently known that the civic officials at rome had received orders to seize the bishop and send him to milan. the christians threatened resistance, and for a few days the city was enlivened by their turbulence. at last, liberius was dragged from his house at night and taken to milan; and, since he bravely resisted the emperor to his face, he was sent on to remote and inhospitable thrace. then the clergy, and as many of the faithful as could enter, gathered in their handsome new _basilica_ on the site of the laterani palace and swore a great oath that they would know no other bishop as long as liberius lived. one, at least, of the clergy set out--no doubt amidst the cheers of the people--to accompany his bishop into exile; this was the deacon damasus, who was destined to be the next pope of prominence in the roman calendar. the scene reminds us forcibly of the dramatic transformation which had taken place since, a century before, pope and anti-pope had been sent in chains to the mines. for fifty years after that date the _liber pontificalis_ is a necrology, a chronicle of gloomy life in the catacombs. eleven popes out of the thirteen who followed urban i. are--most of them wrongly--described as martyrs, and the record of their actions shrinks to a few lines. at last, with bishop eusebius, the chronicle brightens and lengthens; and then, under the name of silvester, it swells to thirty pages and glows with tokens of imperial generosity. the darkest hour of the church has suddenly changed into a dazzling splendour. the historical revolution reflected in this early chronicle of the popes is well known. for eighty years after the death of callistus, the hope of the faithful was painfully strained. the decian persecution (249-251) sent some to the heroic death of the martyr, many to the corrupt officials who sold false certificates of apostasy, and very many back to the pagan temples. then another schism and another anti-pope appeared; and the alliance with st. cyprian and the african bishops, which had at first promised aid against the schismatics, ended in a contemptuous repudiation by the african bishops of rome's claim to jurisdiction. the valerian persecution dissolved the feud in blood, and, then, forty years of peace enabled the roman christians to recover and to extend their domain. two or three small _basilicæ_ were erected or adapted. but, in the year 303, the new hope was chilled by the dreaded summons of the persecutor, and, for the last time, stern-set men and gentle maidens set out to face the headsman. rome did not suffer much in the next seven years of persecution, but one can imagine the feelings of the faithful when they saw century thus succeed century without bringing any larger hope even of a free place in the sun. and then, in rapid succession, came the triumph of constantine, the issue of their charter of liberty (the edict of milan, 313), the imperial profession of christianity, the grant to the christian clergy of the privileges of roman priests, and the building of large _basilicæ_ and scattering of gold and silver over their marble altars. even the transfer of the court to constantinople hardly dimmed the new hope. it remained "a new form of ambition to desert the altars," the pagans murmured, and no one dare thwart the zeal of the clergy. so, by the year 355, when deacon damasus makes an inglorious entrance into history, rome had a large christian community and at least half a dozen churches. but christendom was now overcast by the triumph of arianism and an arian emperor, and the struggle put an insupportable strain on the character of the faithful. at first, the prospect at rome was brave and inspiring. they would all be true to their martyr-bishop; with that thrilling cry in his ears the deacon set out for thrace. in a very short time, he was back in rome, having changed his mind: "fired with ambition," his critics said. and, in another short time, the chief deacon felix, who also had taken the oath, listened to the arian court and became bishop of rome; and damasus and most of the clergy transferred their loyalty to him. then, in two or three years, liberius grew tired of thrace, and signed some sort of heretical formula, and came back to rome; and the bloody struggle of pope and anti-pope led to a train of sorrows which darken the life of st. damasus. he had been born, probably at rome, though his father is said to have been a spaniard, about the year 304.[26] the father had been a priest in the service of the little _basilica_ of st. lawrence in the city--i am not impressed by marucchi's contention that he was a bishop--and had brought up damasus in the same service. the mother laurentia was pious: the sister irene consecrated her virginity to god. damasus became, and remained, a deacon, and was at least in his fiftieth year when he turned his back upon the heroic road to thrace. he was popular in the new christian rome, which jerome describes so darkly; envious folk called him "the tickler of matrons' ears," and even worse. but we lose sight of him again for ten years after his first appearance.[27] the events of those ten years are, however, important for the understanding of damasus and his church, and must be briefly reviewed. that the clergy had, in the presence of the people, sworn to be true to liberius, and that the majority of them broke their oath, is confirmed by st. jerome in his chronicle. jerome, a decisive authority, tells also of the fall of liberius, and this is also recorded by athanasius, who writes the whole story. when felix consented to be made bishop, the people were so infuriated that he had to be consecrated by the emperor's arian bishops in the palace: a group of eunuchs nominally representing the people, who raged without. most of the clergy accepted felix, but a minority, with the mass of the people, refused to do so, and, for two years, he gave his blessing to very thin congregations, or to empty benches. then the emperor came to rome, and an imposing deputation of noble christian ladies prevailed on him to recall liberius. the great circus provided a new sensation for its 400,000 idlers when an imperial messenger announced that henceforward liberius and felix would rule their respective flocks side by side in rome. "two circus-factions, so two bishops," the pagan majority ironically replied: but the christian laity ominously thundered, "one god, one christ, one bishop." so when liberius, "overcome by the weariness of exile and embracing the heretical perversity" (says st. jerome in his chronicle), returned to rome, he was received "as a conqueror." his loyal flock, finely indifferent to the way in which he had purchased his return, lined the route as men had done to welcome a triumphing general in the old days. this must have been about the end of 357 or the beginning of 358, and we shall not dwell on the scenes which followed. felix and his followers were driven out of the city. getting reinforcements, apparently, they returned and took possession of the basilica julii in the transtiberina; but the mass of the faithful, led by christian senators or officers, took the church by storm, and again swept them out of rome. the _liber pontificalis_ records that a number of the clergy were slain in the battle, and, becoming hopelessly confused between pope and anti-pope, it awards these followers of felix the palm of martyrdom. but it appears that the felicians were strong, and for six years held several of the smaller churches; rival clerics and laymen could not meet in the baths and streets without violent results. however, felix died in 365, and liberius wisely adopted his clerical supporters.[28] damasus remains in decent obscurity during these years, and we may assume that he repented his mistake, and renewed his allegiance to liberius. but liberius followed his rival in the next year (366) and the real career of damasus opened. a well-known passage in the _res gestæ_ of the contemporary pagan ammianus marcellinus[29] tells how, by that time, the bishop of rome scoured the city in a gorgeous chariot, gave banquets which excelled those of the emperor, and received the smiles and rich presents of all the fine ladies of rome; and the querulous old soldier is not surprised, he says, that damasus and his rival ursicinus (as the name runs in official documents) were "swollen with ambition" for the seat, and stirred up riots so fierce that the prefect was driven out of rome, and, after one fight, a hundred and thirty-seven corpses were left on the floor of one of the "christian conventicles." jerome,[30] rufinus,[31] and other ecclesiastical writers of the time place the fatal rioting beyond question, and we may therefore, with a prudent reserve, follow the closer description given in the _libellus_. as soon as the death of liberius became known, in september, 366, the remnant of his original supporters met in the basilica julii, across the river, and elected the deacon ursicinus, who was at once consecrated by a provincial bishop. it was an act of defiance to damasus, the popular candidate, whom they were determined to exclude. then, say these writers, damasus gathered and bribed a mob, armed with staves, and for three days there was a bloody fight for the possession of the basilica. a week after the death of liberius (or on october 1st), damasus marched with his mob, now effectively reinforced by gladiators, to the lateran basilica, and was consecrated there. after this, he bribed the prefect viventius to expel seven priests of the rival party, but the people rescued them and conducted them to the basilica liberii, or basilica sicinini (now sta. maria maggiore), in the poor quarter across the river. in this chapel the rebels were at worship in the early morning of october 26th when a crowd of gladiators, charioteers, diggers (or guardians of the catacombs), and other ruffians (in the pay of damasus, of course) fell on them with staves, swords, and axes, and an historic fight ensued. the damasians stormed the barricaded door, fired the sacred building, mounted the roof, and flung tiles on the ursicinians. in the end the corpses of one hundred and sixty--ammianus was too modest--followers of ursicinus, of both sexes, lay on the floor of the blood-splashed chapel, and ursicinus and his chief supporters were sent into exile. such is the tale of woe of the priests faustinus and marcellinus, and there is no doubt whatever that for months the most savage encounters desecrated the chapels and catacombs of rome. as to whether damasus was or was not elected in his church of st. lawrence in the city _before_ the election of ursicinus the authorities are not agreed; and it must be left to the decision of the reader whether those who secured his triumph were really a hired mob of gladiators and diggers or a troop of pious and indignant admirers. jerome, whose modern biographer, amédée thierry,[32] plausibly contends that he was studying in rome at the time, expressly says that the followers of his patron damasus were the aggressors, and that many men and women were slain. rufinus is more favourable to the cause of damasus, but he admits that the churches were "filled with blood." the emperor seems not to have been convinced by the report of the triumphant faction, and in the following year he permitted ursicinus and his followers to return to rome. but the trouble was renewed, and the anti-pope was again banished. his obstinate admirers then met in the catacombs, and another fierce and fatal fight occurred in the cemetery of st. agnes, where the servants of damasus surprised them. it is clear that damasus had the support of the wealthy and the favour of the pagan officials, but his rival must have controlled a very large, if not the larger, part of the people. the forces engaged, and the growth of the christian body, may be estimated from the fact that, as ammianus says, the prefect viventius was compelled to retire to the suburbs. he was promptly replaced, in the attempt to control the rioters, by the ruthless and impartial maximinus, the prefect of the food-distribution; and clerics and laymen were indiscriminately put to the torture and punished. at length, in 368, one of the last of the sober old roman patricians, prætextatus, became prefect, and put an end to the riots. the reflections of prætextatus and symmachus and other cultivated pagans are not recorded, but we are told by st. jerome that, when damasus endeavoured to convert the prefect, he mischievously replied: "make me bishop of rome and i will be a christian." ursicinus went to din his grievances into the ears of provincial bishops, and there seems to be good ground for the statement in the _libellus_ that some of these were indignant with damasus. it is at least clear that damasus went on to obtain from the emperor a concession of the most far-reaching character. the imperial rescript making this concession--one of the really important steps in the history of the papacy and of the church--has strangely disappeared, but we find the bishops of a later roman synod (in 378 or 379) writing to gratian and valentinian that, when ursicinus was banished, the emperors had decreed that "the roman bishop should have power to inquire into the conduct of the other priests of the churches, and that affairs of religion should be judged by the pontiff of religion with his colleagues."[33] a later rescript of gratian indicates that the bishop of rome was to have five or seven colleagues with him in these inquiries[34]; and further light is thrown on the matter by st. ambrose who observes[35] that, by a decree of valentinian, a defendant in a religious dispute was to have a judge of a fitting character (a cleric) and of at least equal rank. possibly the truculent impartiality of maximinus was the immediate occasion for asking this privilege, and valentinian would not find it unseemly that bishops should adjudicate on these new types of quarrels. but we have in this last document the germ of great historical developments. the clergy were virtually withdrawn from secular jurisdiction; the spiritual court was set up in face of the secular. moreover, if defendants were to be judged only by their equals, who was to judge the bishop of rome? damasus at once used his powers. he convoked a synod at rome, and we may realize the enormous progress that the church had made in fifty years when we learn that ninety-three italian bishops responded to his summons. on a charge of favouring arianism, which seems to cloak a real charge of favouring ursicinus, the bishops of parma and puteoli were deposed by the synod, and they appealed in vain to the court. henceforward bishops--under the presidency of the bishop of rome--were to judge bishops. the cultivated and courtly auxentius of milan was next condemned, but he was too secure in the favour of the empress to do more than smile. neither he nor his great successor, st. ambrose, acknowledged any authority over them on the part of the roman bishop. from this synod, moreover, the bishops wrote to the emperor to ask that secular officials should be instructed to enforce their jurisdiction and sentences, and we shall hardly be unjust if we suspect the direct or indirect suggestion of damasus in their further requests. they asked that bishops might be tried _either_ by the bishop of rome _or_ by a council of fifteen bishops, and that the bishop of rome himself might, "if his case were not laid before an (episcopal) council," defend himself before the imperial council.[36] this bold attempt of the roman bishop to judge all bishops, yet be judged by none, seems to have displeased the emperor, who may have consulted the bishop of milan. we have, at least, no indication that the privilege was granted. but the other points were granted, and instructions were issued to the secular officers, in gaul as well as in italy, apprising them of the juridical autonomy of the church and of their duty to enforce its decisions. out of his troubles damasus had won a most important step in the making of the papacy. unfriendly critics might suggest that damasus paid a price for these powers. a curious passage in the historian socrates[37] tells us that, in the year 370, valentinian decreed that every man might henceforward marry two wives. the statement is often rejected as preposterous, but we know that valentinian had, shortly before, divorced his wife, severa, in favour of the more comely justina, and it is probable enough that he passed a law of divorce. the learned tillemont blushes when he finds no ecclesiastical protest at the time against this flagrant return to pagan morals. however that may be, damasus, from his palace by the lateran basilica, continued to strengthen his new authority and to regulate the disordered church. rome still harboured numbers of rebels, and they seem to have caused him serious annoyance by a persistent charge that, in earlier years, he had sinned with a roman matron. a converted and relapsed jew was put forward as the chief witness to the charge, and, when the young emperor gratian had failed to impress rome by his personal assurance that damasus was innocent, a roman synod of forty-four bishops professed to investigate and dismiss the accusation. ursicinus was now, however, living at milan, and it is not implausibly suggested that his insistence made some impression on the puritanical young emperor. the case was submitted to the council of aquileia in 380, at which st. ambrose presided, and the bishops declared the innocence of damasus and demanded the secular punishment of his accusers, who were now scattered over europe. the roman rebels then masked their hostility by joining an eccentric, though orthodox, sect in the capital whose ascetic leader bore the name of lucifer. on these luciferians in turn the hand of damasus fell with ruthless severity. their renowned macarius, the champion faster of the time outside the egyptian desert, was physically dragged into court and banished, and the "police" pursued them from one secret meeting-place to another. it is at this time that faustinus and marcellinus, who had joined the rigorous sect, addressed their _libellus_ to the emperors. over the remainder of italy and over gaul damasus did not press the virtual primacy which he had won from the imperial authorities, and the later language of leo and gregory makes it advisable for us to grasp clearly the situation in the fourth century. there was no question of papal supremacy. no important decision was reached by damasus apart from a synod, and the see of milan was not regarded as subordinate in authority to that of rome; though st. ambrose naturally expressed a peculiar respect for the doctrinal tradition of a church that had been founded by the great apostles. when the spanish priscillianists applied to italy for aid, they appealed, says sulpicius severus, "to the _two_ bishops who had the highest authority at that time." when the great struggle with the pagan senators over the statue of victory took place in 382, it was ambrose who championed christianity, damasus merely sending to him the roman petition. but damasus knew the theoretical strength of his position, and knew, as a rule, when to enforce it. in 378, the emperors severed illyricum (greece, epirus, thessaly, and macedonia) from the western empire. damasus at once contrived that its bishops should look not to the eastern churches but to himself for direction and support, and from that time onward the bishop of thessalonica became the "vicar" of the bishop of rome. we must leave this vague and imperfect primacy in the west, with its secular foundations, and turn to the more interesting and adventurous course of the diplomacy of damasus in the east. the narrow limits within which each of these sketches must be confined forbid me to attempt to depict the extraordinary confusion of the eastern church. it must suffice to say, in few words, that the struggle against paganism was almost lost in the fiery struggle against heresy, and that the hand of the arian valens smote the orthodox as violently and persistently as the hand of any pagan emperor had done. the various refinements of the arian heresy, the lingering traces of old heresies, and the vigorous beginnings of new heresies, rent each church into factions as violent as those of rome, and made each important see the theatre of a truculent rivalry. constantinople, or new rome as it loved to call itself, was the natural centre of the eastern religious world, but it was overshadowed by the arian court and its growing pretensions were watched by the apostolic churches of antioch and alexandria almost as jealously as by old rome. the triumph over paganism had, before it was half completed, given place to a dark and sanguinary confusion, from the shores of the euxine to the sands of the thebaid. in 371 st. basil appealed to damasus for assistance. he sent the deacon dorotheus with a letter[38] asking the italians to send to the east visitors who might report to them the condition of the churches. damasus, not flattered by the lowliness of the embassy or by the smallness of the request, and still much occupied in the west, merely sent his deacon sabinus. to a further impassioned appeal from basil he gave no clearer promise of aid, and basil indignantly observed that it was useless to appeal to "a proud and haughty man who sits on a lofty throne and cannot hear those who tell him the truth on the ground below."[39] basil made further futile appeals to the west, though not to damasus, and at length, in 381, the eastern bishops met in the council of constantinople, discussed their own affairs, and, in a famous canon, awarded the see of constantinople a primacy in the east. shortly afterwards a synod was held in italy, under ambrose, and it sent to the emperor theodosius a letter in which the concern of the italians was plainly expressed.[40] the bishops ask theodosius to assist in convoking an ecumenical council at rome, and say that "it seems not unworthy that they [the eastern bishops] should submit to the bishop of rome and the other italian bishops"; though they "do not claim any prerogative of judgment." it is interesting to note at this stage how the bishop of rome does not yet stand apart from the other italian bishops or claim jurisdiction over the east. in a letter written by damasus somewhere about this time to certain oriental bishops, there is question of "reverence for the apostolic see" and of the foundation of that see by peter, but such language is rare and premature, and is not implausibly ascribed to st. jerome, who was then at rome.[41] to the eastern emperor and to the eastern patriarchs it is not addressed. theodosius ignored the request, and sanctioned the holding of another council at constantinople. the westerns had, in the meantime, announced an ecumenical council at rome for the summer of 382, and invited their eastern brethren. from one cause or other, the proceedings at rome were delayed, and, while the italians still anxiously awaited the response to their invitation, a letter came with the message that the eastern bishops had settled the questions in dispute, and they regretted that they had not "the wings of a dove" in order that they might fly from "the great city of constantinople" to "the great city of rome." the letter is a model of polite and exquisite irony.[42] the statesmanship of damasus had hopelessly miscarried, and the eastern and western branches of christendom were farther than ever from uniting under his presidency. a more intimate aspect of the character of damasus is disclosed when we consider the condition of the roman clergy during his pontificate. it almost suffices to recall that an imperial rescript of the year 370 forbade priests and monks to visit the houses of widows and orphans, and declared that legacies to them were invalid. st. jerome himself deplores that there were solid reasons for thus depriving the clergy of a privilege which every gladiator enjoyed, and that the law was shamefully frustrated by donations.[43] indeed, in 372, the law was extended to nuns and bishops, and for nearly a hundred years the roman clergy bore the stigma which was implied by such a prohibition. jerome's letters ruthlessly depict the condition of the roman community. fresh from his austerities in the desert of chalcidia, the impulsive monk was as ready to denounce vice as to encourage virtue, and evidences of singular laxity mingle with heroic virtue in his vivid pages. on the one hand he directed, in the sobered palace of marcella on the aventine, a group of noble dames in the practice of the most rigorous piety and the cultivation of sacred letters. the populace even threatened to fling him into the river, when the lovely and high-born blesilla terminated her austerities by a premature death, and even christian writers fiercely contested this introduction into rome of the ideals of the egyptian desert. but, on the other hand, jerome's directions to his pupils incidentally betray that, beyond his little school of virtue and learning, he saw nothing but sin and worldliness. in plain and crude speech he warns his pupils to shun their christian neighbours and distrust the priests. sombre as are many of the letters which seneca wrote in the days of nero, not one of them can compare with jerome's lengthy letter to the gentle maiden eustochium.[44] he fills her virgin mind with a comprehensive picture of frailty and frivolity, and tells her that she may regard, not as a christian, but as a manichæan, any austere-looking woman whom she may meet on the streets of rome. he denounces "the new genus of concubines," the "spiritual brothers and sisters," who share the same house, even the same bed, and, if you protest, complain that you are evil-minded. eustochium is to avoid gatherings of christian women, and must never be alone with these clerics, who, exquisitely dressed, their hair curled and oiled, their fingers glittering with rings, spend the livelong day wheedling presents out of their wealthy admirers. i omit the graver details given in this and other letters of the outraged monk. the impartial historian cannot regard with reserve the criticisms which ammianus passed on his pagan fellows and then literally accept jerome's more severe strictures on his fellow-christians. there is exaggeration on both sides. yet no one now questions that the christian community at rome, lay and clerical, had in the days of damasus fallen far below its ideals, and it is not pleasant that we find little or no trace of an episcopal struggle against this corruption. it is sometimes said that the rescript which prevented priests from inheriting was passed at the request of the pope. for this statement there is no historical ground whatever, and it is in the highest degree improbable. it is clear that prosperity had lowered the character of the church, from its bishop down to its grave-diggers; and the laments of st. ambrose at milan, of st. chrysostom at antioch and constantinople, and of st. augustine in africa, indicate a general relaxation. the roman world must pass through another severe and searching trial before men like leo i. and gregory i. arise in it. this conception of damasus as a courtly and lenient prelate is not materially modified when we regard his more strictly religious work. he restored the church of st. lawrence, in which he and his father had served: he built a tiny _basilica_--little more than a princely tomb for himself, marucchi believes--on the via ardeatina: he erected a new baptistery at st. peter's. these are not exceptionally impressive works of piety in so prosperous an age. damasus was an artist: not--if we judge him by his _epigrams_--a man of much inspiration, but one who perceived the value of art in the service of religion. jerome tells us that he wrote in prose and verse on the beauty of virginity, but we know his very modest poetical talent only from the surviving fifty or sixty inscriptions with which he adorned the graves of the martyrs or the chapels.[45] he had a genuine passion for the adornment and popularization of the catacombs. they were already falling into decay, and damasus cleared the galleries, made new air-shafts, and decorated the more important chambers with marble slabs and silver rails. no doubt he did this in part with a view to attracting the pagans, but there can be little doubt that he had a strong personal sentiment for the work. with the assistance of jerome, he also endeavoured to improve the literary standard of the church. jerome revised the "old italian" translation of the bible; and it seems probable that the canon of the scriptures which has until recently been regarded as part of a "gelasian decree" was composed by jerome, under the authority of damasus, and promulgated by a roman synod. the canon can hardly be due to the pen which wrote the rambling and uncultivated list of books which follows it; probably a later hand united the two and ascribed them to gelasius.[46] the eighteen years' pontificate of damasus came to a close in 384. he is not in the line of heroic popes. he was, at his elevation, in his seventh decade of life and his remaining energy was largely spent in struggling against the disastrous consequences of his election. he succeeded rather by geniality of temper and the services of others than by strong personal exertion. but he was lucky in his opportunities. he had control of the new wealth of the papacy, and the emperors with whom he had to deal were the indifferent or undiscerning valentinian and the pious and youthful gratian. hence he added materially to the foundations of the mediæval papacy. one might almost venture to say that the dogmatic roman conception of a primacy inherited from peter dates from the scriptural discussions of damasus and jerome. they were not the authors of that conception, but it would henceforward form the essential part of the papal attitude. footnotes: [footnote 26: his latest biographer, the learned father marucchi, says 305, but st. jerome does not say that he was "eighty years old" at death (in 384); he says, "nearly eighty." see father marucchi's _il papa damaso_ (1907) and _christian epigraphy_ (english trans. 1912), m. rade's _damasus, bischof von rom_ (1882) is a little more critical.] [footnote 27: the less flattering statements about damasus are generally taken from a certain _libellus precum_, or petition, which was presented to the emperors by two hostile, though esteemed and orthodox, priests about the year 384. the attack on damasus is, however, in a preface to the petition, which was probably not put before the emperors. we must make allowance for bitter hostility, but we shall find some of their strangest statements confirmed by the highest authorities. the _libellus_ is reproduced in migne's _patrologia latina_, vol. iii.] [footnote 28: the _liber pontificalis_, which gives these events, first lets the schismatic felix die in peace, and then introduces into the series of pontiffs a felix ii., saint and martyr! to this day the fortunate felix bears these honours in the liturgy. it was discovered, in 1582, that the anti-pope felix had been confused with a real saint and martyr of that name, and the question of displacing him was debated at rome. but the miraculous discovery of an inscription in his favour put an end to criticism. the genuine authorities are agreed that felix died comfortably in his house on the road to the port of rome.] [footnote 29: xxvii., 3.] [footnote 30: year 369.] [footnote 31: ii., 10.] [footnote 32: _saint jerome_, 1867.] [footnote 33: mansi, _sacrorum conciliorum collectio_, iii., 625.] [footnote 34: mansi, iii., 628.] [footnote 35: _ep._, xxi.] [footnote 36: mansi, iii., 624.] [footnote 37: iv., 26.] [footnote 38: _ep._, lxx.] [footnote 39: _ep._, ccxv.; see also _ep._, ccxxxix. and cclxvi., for violent language. all the letters of the popes, up to innocent iii., are in this work quoted from the migne edition.] [footnote 40: mansi, iii., 631.] [footnote 41: the letter is in theodoret, _ecclesiastical history_, v., 10.] [footnote 42: theodoret, v., 9.] [footnote 43: _ep._, lii.] [footnote 44: _ep._, xxii.] [footnote 45: the best collection is ihm's _damasi epigrammata_ (1895).] [footnote 46: there is a third part of this "gelasian decree," which assigns to the papacy an absolute primacy derived from peter. it is improbable that this was due to damasus. a letter hitherto ascribed to pope sirianus (_ep._, x. in migne) has lately been claimed for damasus (babut, _la plus ancienne décrétale_, 1904), but there is not enough evidence to date it. it is a series of directions, better known as _canons of the romans to the bishops of gaul_, on the subject of clerical celibacy, fallen virgins, etc.] chapter iii leo the great, the last pope of imperial rome during the half-century which followed the death of damasus occurred two of the decisive events in the transformation of the roman empire into christian europe. paganism was destroyed, and the empire was shattered. jerome had, with rhetorical inaccuracy, described the great temple of jupiter as squalid and deserted in the days of damasus. now it was in truth deserted, for the imperial seal was set on its closed doors; and the same seal guarded the door of the temples of isis and mithra. the homeless gods had sheltered for a time in the schools and in patrician mansions, but these also had fallen with the empire. the southern half of europe became a disordered, semi-christian world, over which poured from the northern forests fresh armies of barbarians. the city of man was wrecked; and it was not unnatural that the papacy should aspire to make its old metropolis the centre of the new city of god. two popes of weak ability had followed damasus, and witnessed, rather than accomplished, the ruin of the old religion. it was ambrose who had directed the convenient youth of gratian and valentinian ii., and had dislodged the pagans and other rivals at the point of the spear. innocent i. (402-417) was a greater man: an upright priest, an able statesman, a zealous believer in the divine right of popes. milman has finely drawn him serenely holding his sceptre at rome while the emperor cowered behind the fortifications at ravenna. while rome tumbled in ruins about him, he continued calmly to tell the bishops of gaul and spain and italy what the "apostolic see" directed them to do. his puny yet bombastic successor, zosimus, maintained the solitary blunder, without the redeeming personality, of innocent, and might have wrecked the papacy if he had not died within a year or so. the worthier boniface and still worthier celestine restored roman prestige in some measure, and, in 440, after the edifying but undistinguished pontificate of sixtus iii., leo the great entered the chronicle. leo, a roman of tuscan extraction, was the chief deacon of the roman church, and corresponded with cyril of alexandria on eastern affairs. it was probably at his instigation that the learned cassianus wrote his treatise _on the incarnation of christ_. in 440, leo was sent by the emperor to reconcile the generals aetius and albinus, who quarrelled while the empire perished. sixtus died in his absence, and leo was unanimously elected to the papacy. toward the close of september he returned to rome, and glanced about the troubled world which he had now to rule. the dogmatic papal conception, which we find dawning in the mind of damasus and see very clear in the mind of innocent i. and his successors, reached its full development, on the spiritual side, in the mind of leo the great. this development was inevitable. there were eastern, and even some western, bishops who maintained, against leo, that the prestige of the roman see was merely the prestige of rome, but the answer of the papacy was easy and effective. in the gospels which europe now treasured, peter was the "rock" on which the church was built, and to him alone had been given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. had the church lost its foundation when peter died? were the keys buried beside the bones of peter in that marble tomb at the foot of the vatican? there was, from the clerical point of view, logic in the roman bishop's claim to have inherited the princedom. leo from the first hour of his pontificate was sincerely convinced of it. his sermons are full of it. to him is committed "the care of all the churches": a phrase which he bequeaths to his successors. he is the new type of roman, blending the ideas of jerome and augustine. the wreck of the city of man matters little. what matters is that these arian goths and vandals are trampling on the city of god: that the churches of gaul and spain and italy and africa and the east are in disorder, and the successor of peter must restore their discipline. he is so absorbed in his divine duty that he does not notice how the circumstances favour him. every other lofty head in the empire is bowed, and from the seething and impoverished provinces hundreds are looking to the strong man at rome. his early letters are the letters of a supreme pontiff. the african bishops, he hears, suffer dreadful disorders in their churches. elections to church-dignities are bought and sold: even laymen and twice-married clerics become bishops. with serene indifference to the earlier history of the african church and its tradition of independence, he peremptorily recalls the canons and insists on their observance.[47] fortunately for him, the long struggle against the donatists and the devastating onset of the vandals have enfeebled, almost annihilated, the african church, and there is none to question his authority. he hears that anatolius has been made bishop of thessalonica, and writes[48] to remind him that he is the "vicar" of the roman bishop, the successor of peter, "on the solidity of which foundation the church is established." when, at a later date, anatolius uses his power harshly, he sternly rebukes him. and it is interesting to notice what the discipline is on which he insists in this letter.[49] even subdeacons shall not marry, or, if they are married, shall not know their wives. we are very far away from callistus. another aspect of leo's character appears in his treatment of the manichæans at rome: an interesting illustration of how he kept the strength and serenity of the old roman though lacking his culture. leo had a terribly sombre idea of the manichæans. they lingered in obscure corners of the metropolis, and met stealthily, just as christians had done two centuries earlier; and of them were told, as had been told of the obscure christians, dreadful stories. leo conducted a great inquisition in 444, and brought the manichæan bishop, with his "elect," to a solemn judgment before the clergy and nobles of rome. there, he says,[50] they all confessed that the violation of a girl of ten years was part of their ritual. he called down upon them the secular arm, and crushed them in rome and italy. what sort of a judicial process was employed to elicit this extraordinary confession--so utterly at variance with all that we know of the ascetic manichæans--we are not told. but we are painfully reminded of a similar declaration of augustine in his old age.[51] in gaul, the pope encountered one of the last opponents of papal aims in the west. the province was completely demoralized by the triumphant barbarians and by the arrival of lax clergy from africa. in a letter of uncertain date,[52] leo gives us a dark picture of the state of things in the southern provinces, and this is more than confirmed in the work of the marseilles priest salvianus, _de gubernatione dei_. laymen pose as bishops, leo says: priests sleep with their wives, and marry their daughters to men who keep concubines: monks serve in the army, or marry: and so on. from this disordered world men were ever ready to appeal to the authority of rome, and, in 445, a bishop celidonius came to complain of the harshness of his metropolitan, the austere and saintly hilary of arles. hilary followed his bishop to rome, and, when leo decided against him, the saint made use, says leo,[53] of "language which no layman even should dare to use and no priest to hear," and then "fled disgracefully" from rome. again we are in a dilemma between two saints, and we must weigh as best we can the letters of leo against the biography of hilary. it will be found a general truth of early papal history that the man who _appeals_ to rome is heard more indulgently than the opponent who did not appeal. hilary, who had deposed the bishop in plain accordance with the rules, resented leo's conduct, and scoffed at his supposed supremacy. he then apprehended violence, and stealthily left rome for gaul. leo thereupon--or after hearing new charges against hilary--wrote to the bishops of vienne[54] that they were released from obedience to hilary, who was thenceforward to confine himself to arles. whether hilary ever submitted or no we have no certain knowledge, but the affair had an important sequel. in the same year (449), an imperial rescript,[55] confessedly obtained by leo, confirmed the sentence, and added: we lay down this for ever, that neither the bishops of gaul nor those of any other province shall attempt anything contrary to ancient usage, without the authority of the venerable man, the pope of the eternal city. even in the height of this quarrel other provinces were not neglected, as a few letters of the year 447 amply show. the letter to the spanish bishop turribius of astorga[56] is notable as the first explicit papal approval of the execution of a heretic. it is usual to point out that the errors of priscillian, the heretic in question, were believed to include magical practices (then a legal and social crime) as well as manichæan and gnostic tenets. but we must recognize one of the most terrible principles of the middle ages, and something far more than social zeal, in the following words of leo: although ecclesiastical mildness shrinks from blood-punishments, yet it is aided by the severe decrees of christian princes, since they who fear corporal suffering will have recourse to spiritual remedies. here is no reference to legal or social crimes, but to an error which concerns the ecclesiastic. similar letters, enforcing discipline in the accents of an undisputed head of the church, were sent to the bishops of sicily,[57] the bishop of beneventum,[58] and the bishop of aquileia. these quotations from the letters and sermons of leo will suffice, not only to show the untiring energy and lofty aim of the man, but to convince us that the primacy of rome in the west is now won. west of the adriatic, st. hilary is the last great rebel against the roman conception. it is true that this spiritual supremacy is still, in part, reliant on "the severe decrees of christian princes," but the imperial authority is fast fading into nothing, and in another generation the papal autocracy will stand alone. leo was not ambitious. something of the instinctive masterliness of the older roman may be detected in his actions, but he was a profoundly religious man, seeking neither wealth nor honours of earth, convinced at once that he discharged a divine duty and exerted an authority of the most beneficent value to that disordered christendom. the calamities of europe had changed the empty glories of a damasus into a power second only to that of octavian. when we turn to the east we have not only a most valuable indication of the evolution of christendom into two independent and hostile churches, but an even more interesting revelation of subtle and unexpected shades in the character of leo. the great pope, aided by the very calamities of the time, fastens his primacy on europe; and, with even mightier exertions and the most tense use of all his resources, he proves that an extension of that primacy to the east is for ever impossible. his friendly correspondence with cyril of alexandria was resumed in the year 444, and, in the adjustment of their differences, leo made concessions. in the same year, cyril died, and his successor dioscorus was addressed with the same recognition of equality. there are differences in points of discipline, but leo is content to say[59]: "since the blessed peter was made chief of the apostles by the lord, and the roman church abides by his instructions, it is impossible to suppose that his holy disciple mark, who first ruled the church of alexandria, gave it other regulations." five years later, however, leo received from the east an appeal against the bishop of constantinople, and a notable conflict began. in the unending struggle in the east over the nature of christ, the monks, a fierce and turbulent rabble living on the fringes of the great cities, had been the most effective champions of orthodoxy, and great was their excitement when the archimandrite (or abbot) of one of their large monasteries outside constantinople was accused of heresy. the heresy is really diagnosed as such by the proper authorities, but it is not superfluous for the historian to observe that the monk eutyches was godson of the most powerful eunuch at the court, and this eunuch was detested by the virtuous empress pulcheria and by flavian, the bishop of constantinople. eutyches was condemned by a synod in 448, and he appealed to leo. i have observed that the appealer--especially from a province where roman authority was disputed--always had a gracious hearing at the lateran. in february, 449, leo wrote to flavian[60] to express his surprise that he had not sent a report of the proceedings to rome and that he had disregarded the appeal which the monk had made from his sentence to rome. however, since appeal _has_ been made to leo, "we want to know the reasons of your action, and we desire a full account to be communicated to us." flavian's reply[61] curtly described the heresy and trusted that leo would see the justice of the sentence. in the early summer, the emperors of east and west issued a joint summons to the bishops of christendom to assemble in council at ephesus, and leo's letters indicate a feverish activity. his chief work was to write a long dogmatic letter[62] on the nature of christ--a very able theological essay--to be read by his legates at the council. dioscorus of alexandria presided over this imposing assembly of 360 bishops and representative clergy, in the presence of two imperial commissioners, the papal legates, and the patriarchs of antioch and jerusalem, yet it has passed into western ecclesiastical history under the opprobrious title, given to it by leo,[63] of "the robbers' meeting." it is quite true that the sittings dissolved in brawls, and monks and soldiers brandished their ominous weapons over the heads of the bishops, but that was not unprecedented. the main fact was that dioscorus contemptuously refused to hear the roman legates, as leo says, and induced the council to restore eutyches and depose flavian. deacon hilary, one of the legates, fled in terror of his life, and unfolded these enormities to leo, whose correspondence now became intense and indignant. for a few months, leo made strenuous efforts to redeem the prestige of his see. we know, since 1882, that flavian in turn appealed to rome, but leo needed no new incentive. he wrote repeatedly to the pious pulcheria, to theodosius, to his "vicar" in thessalonica, and to the monks, priests, and people of constantinople. he knew the situation well. alexandria had defied constantinople, but the case of constantinople was weakened by the division of court-factions and the monkish support of eutyches. it seemed an admirable occasion for rome to adjudicate, and leo pressed theodosius and pulcheria[64] to summon an ecumenical council at rome. in the thick of the struggle (february, 450), valentinian iii. visited rome with the court, and leo, with tears in his eyes, besought the empress galla placidia to work for the roman council. galla placidia knew no more than the monks about theology, and was more concerned about her wayward daughter honoria, but she urged pulcheria to ensure the holding of the council at rome. presently there came from constantinople the news that theodosius was dead, pulcheria was mistress of the court, the eunuch-godfather had been executed, the monk exiled, and the archbishop flavian restored to his see. but the more agreeable aspect of this situation was soon darkened by a report that the people of constantinople had compelled pulcheria to contract a virginal marriage with marcian, and the new emperor had summoned an ecumenical council in the east. leo, for reasons which we may understand presently, now made every effort to prevent the holding of a council,[65] but the emperor would not endanger his position by flouting the eastern church, and, on october 8th, some six hundred bishops gathered at chalcedon. four legates represented leo, and were awarded a kind of presidency of the council. leo's great doctrinal letter was received with thunders of applause, and, when it was speedily decided to condemn dioscorus (who had gone the length of excommunicating leo), it was one of the papal legates who pronounced the sonorous sentence. but all knew that these compliments were the prelude to a very serious struggle. after the fourteenth session, the papal legates and imperial commissioners affected to believe that the business of the day was over. later in the day, however, a fifteenth session was held, and the two hundred bishops present framed the famous twenty-eighth canon of the council of chalcedon. it runs: as in all things we follow the ordinances of the holy fathers and know the recently read canon of the hundred and fifty bishops [of the council of constantinople], so do we decree the same in regard to the privileges of the most holy church of constantinople. rightly have the fathers conceded to the see of old rome its privileges on account of its character as the imperial city, and, moved by the same considerations, the one hundred and fifty bishops have awarded the like privileges to the most holy see of new rome.[66] this drastic restriction of the roman bishop to the west, and disdainful assurance that the prestige of the city of rome was the only basis of his primacy, was read in the next session, and the papal legates were gravely disturbed. there can be very little doubt that, as hefele says, the legates had abstained from the fifteenth session because they knew that this canon would be discussed and passed. there was no secrecy about it, and there was much in previous sessions that led to it. indeed, it is clear that leo himself knew of the design, and this probably explains his resistance, which has puzzled many, to the holding of the council. in the heat of the discussion, the roman legate, boniface, produced this instruction from leo: "if any, taking their stand on the importance of their cities, should endeavour to arrogate anything to themselves, resist them with all decision."[67] bishop eusebius of dorylæum (the accuser of eutyches) then said that he had read the third canon of constantinople to leo at rome some time before the council, and that leo had assented to it. leo afterwards denied this, but we must assume that he merely denied having consented, not the reading of the canon to him. it is quite clear that leo prepared his legates for this discussion. it implies no reflection whatever on the character of leo that he should instruct his legates diplomatically to obstruct the passing of a canon which he regarded as contrary to a divine ordination. but the next act of his legates is more serious. bishop paschasinus, the chief legate, produced and read, in latin, the sixth canon of the famous council of nicæa, and the greeks were amazed to learn, when it was translated, that it awarded the primacy to rome. there is now no doubt that this was a spurious or adulterated canon, and the feelings of the greeks, when they consulted the genuine canon, can be imagined. the session closed in a weak compromise. the legates were allowed to protest that the twenty-eighth canon was passed in their absence, and was injurious to the rights of their bishop, "who presided over the whole church." the greeks politely registered their protest, endorsed the canon, and proceeded to indite a very greek letter to the roman bishop. they express to leo[68] their deep joy at the successful congress, their entire respect for "the voice of peter," their loving gratitude that, through his legates, he had presided over them "as the head over the members"; but they admit that one of their canons did not commend itself to his legates and they trust that he will at once gratify their emperor by endorsing it! christendom was divided into two parts. the sequel matters little. the legates returned and declared that the signatures to the canon had been extorted (as leo afterwards wrote), though this point had been raised in their presence by the imperial commissioners, and its falsity put beyond dispute. to marcian, to pulcheria, and to the new bishop of constantinople, anatolius, leo wrote acrid letters, denouncing the miserable vanity and ambition of anatolius and the violation of the (spurious) canons of nicæa. marcian curtly requested him--almost ordered him[69]--to confirm the results of the council without delay, and leo signed the doctrinal decisions. there the matter ended. rome affected to treat the famous canon as invalid, and the east genially ignored the absence of leo's signature.[70] in the midst of his feverish efforts to defeat this eastern rebellion, leo was summoned to meet the terrible king of the huns, and the memory of his triumph, gathering volume from age to age, has completely obliterated his failure to dominate the greeks. italy, painfully enfeebled by the goths, now saw "the scourge of god" slowly descend its northern slopes and prepare for a raid on the south. leo and a group of roman officials met attila on the banks of the mincio, and the ferocious king and his dreaded huns meekly turned their backs on italy and retired to the east. pen and brush and legend have embellished that wonderful deliverance until it has become a mystery and a miracle, but it was neither mystery nor miracle to the men who first made a scanty record of it. jornandes[71] following the older historian priscus, says that attila was hesitating whether to advance on rome or no at the moment when leo and his companions arrived; his officers were trying to dissuade him, and were appealing to his superstition with a reminder of the fate of alaric after he had sacked rome. prosper merely says in his _chronicle_ that leo was well received, and succeeded. idatius, bishop of aquæ flaviæ at the time, does not even mention leo in his _chronicle_. the huns, he says, were severely stricken by war, by famine, and by some epidemic, and, "being in this plight, they made peace with the romans and departed."[72] but rome at the time knew nothing of these fortunate circumstances, and, in the delirious joy of its deliverance, imagined the savage hun shrinking in awe before its venerable bishop: kept on imagining, indeed, until some pious fancy of the eighth century believed that the holy apostles had appeared beside the pope. when, a few years later (455) a fresh invasion threatened rome--when the vicious incompetence of the court amid all its desolation set afoot another feud and brought the vandals from africa--leo went out once more to plead for the impoverished city. genseric was not a savage; the vandals are libelled by the grosser implication we associate with their name today. yet he altered not one step of his onward course at the petitions or the threats of the venerable pontiff. to say that he consented to refrain from slaying or torturing those who submitted, and from firing the city, is merely to say that leo failed to wring any concession from the largely civilized vandal. the aged pontiff sadly returned with his clergy, and for a whole fortnight had to listen in the lateran palace to the shrieks of the women who were dragged from their homes, and to receive accounts of the plundering of his churches. the church of st. peter and, probably, the lateran church alone were spared. and when the vandal ships had sailed away with their thousands of noble captives, including the empress eudoxia, and their mounds of silver, bronze, and marble, leo had to melt down the larger vessels of the great _basilicas_ to find the necessary chalices for his priests. ancestral feelings must have stirred unconsciously in the mind of leo when he beheld this second ravage of the city of his fathers, but he at once resumed his pontifical rule. on his return from the north of italy, he had found occasion to act once more in the east as if the canon of the last council were forgotten. now the monks of palestine had asserted their unyielding zeal, had driven the patriarch of jerusalem from his seat, and had won to their cause the romantic empress eudoxia (of the eastern court) whose suspected amours had brought on her a polite sentence of exile. leo at once, somewhat superfluously, called the pious marcian's attention to the ecclesiastical disorders in his kingdom, and, apparently at that emperor's request, wrote paternal admonitions to eudoxia and to the monks. it was gratifying to be able to report presently that the disorders were at an end. later (in 453) the monks of cappadocia gave trouble; and the monks and other supporters of the deposed dioscorus at alexandria entered upon a far graver agitation, and murdered their new archbishop. the pious marcian, to make matters worse, died (457), and, by one of those strange intrigues which disgraced the eastern court, leo the isaurian, an astute peasant, mounted the golden throne. on this man leo's diplomatic mixture of courtly language and high sacerdotal pretensions made little impression. in spite of leo's protests[73] he called another general council, and leo had to be content to send legates to inform the assembled bishops what is "the rule of apostolic faith"; which he again set forth in a long dogmatic epistle.[74] to the last year, leo maintained, serenely and unswervingly, his calm assumption of jurisdiction over the east. whether he wrote to the patriarch of antioch,[75] or the patriarch of constantinople,[76] or the patriarchs of jerusalem and alexandria, he spoke as if his sovereignty had never been questioned. "the care of all the churches" lies on his shoulders. he disdains diplomacy and argument. his tone is arrogant and dogmatic in the highest degree, yet no man can read reflectively those long and imperious epistles and not realize that he spoke, not as the individual leo, demanding personal prestige, but as the successor of peter, obeying a command which, he sincerely believed, christ had laid upon him. so the papacy was built up. leo went his way on november 10, 461, and was buried, fitly, in the vestibule of st. peter's. he had formulated for all time the papal conception that the successor of peter had the care of all the churches of the world. a bishop shall not buy his seat in numidia: a rabble of monks shall not rebel in syria: a prelate shall not harshly treat his clergy in gaul, but the bishop of rome must see to it. how that gaunt frame of duty was perfected in the next two centuries, and how the prosperity of later times hid the austere frame under a garment of flesh, is the next great chapter in the evolution of the roman pontificate. footnotes: [footnote 47: _ep._, xii.] [footnote 48: _ep._, vi.] [footnote 49: _ep._, xiv.] [footnote 50: sermon xvi.] [footnote 51: see the author's _saint augustine and his age_, p. 409.] [footnote 52: _ep._, clxvii.] [footnote 53: _ep._, x., 3.] [footnote 54: _ep._, x.] [footnote 55: _ep._, xi., in migne.] [footnote 56: _ep._, xv.] [footnote 57: xvi. and xvii.] [footnote 58: xix.] [footnote 59: _ep._, ix.] [footnote 60: _ep._, xxiii.] [footnote 61: _ep._, xxvi.] [footnote 62: the "tome of leo," _ep._, xxviii.] [footnote 63: _ep._, xcv.] [footnote 64: _ep._, xliii. and xlv.] [footnote 65: _ep._, lxxxii. and lxxxiii.] [footnote 66: hefele's _history of the councils of the church_, iii., 411.] [footnote 67: hefele, iii., 425.] [footnote 68: _ep._, xcviii.] [footnote 69: _ep._, cx.] [footnote 70: in a letter which he wrote about the time (_ep._, ciii.) to the bishops of gaul, leo tells them that dioscorus has been condemned, and says that he encloses a copy of the sentence. the copy appended to the letter is spurious, for it contains an allusion to "the holy and most blessed pope, head of the universal church, leo ... the foundation and rock of faith." but i do not think one can say confidently that this is the actual document sent by leo.] [footnote 71: _de rebus geticis_, xlii.] [footnote 72: the chronicles of prosper and idatius are in migne, vol. li. idatius adds that attila was threatened (in his rear) by the troops of marcian, though we cannot trace such a movement of the eastern troops. it was enough that attila believed it.] [footnote 73: _ep._, clxii.] [footnote 74: clxv.] [footnote 75: cxlix.] [footnote 76: clxx.] chapter iv gregory the great, the first mediæval pope seventeen pontiffs successively ruled in the lateran palace during the hundred and thirty years which separate the death of leo i. and the accession of gregory i. the first seven were not unworthy to succeed leo, although one of them, anastasius (496-498), is unjustly committed to dante's hell for his liberality.[77] during their tenure of office the arian ostrogoth theodoric set up his promising kingdom in italy, and the stricken country partly recovered. but the succeeding popes were smaller-minded men, looking darkly on the heresy of theodoric and longing to see him displaced by the catholic eastern emperor. their unfortunate policy was crowned by a betrayal of rome to the troops of justinian; and its fruit was the establishment on the throne of peter, by the unscrupulous theodora, of the sorriest adventurer that had yet defiled it (pope vigilius), the reduction of italy to the state of a province of the corrupt and extortionate east, and a lamentable dependence of the see of rome on the whim of the byzantine autocrat. seeing its increasing feebleness, a new and fiercer tribe of the barbarians, the lombards, poured over italy; and it was a city of ruins, a kingdom of desolation, a continent of anarchy, which gregory i. was, in the year 590, forced to undertake to control. at rome the monuments of what was shudderingly called a pagan age were falling, year by year, into the soil which would preserve them for a more appreciative race. in gregory's day, across the tiber from the old quarter, there were to be seen only the mouldering crowns of the theatres and amphitheatres, the grass-girt ruins on the capitol and on the palatine, and the charred skeletons of thousands of patrician mansions on the more distant hills. forty thousand romans now trembled where a million had once boasted their eternal empire. and, as one sees in some fallen forest, a new life was springing up on the ruins. beside the decaying neronian circus rose the basilica of st. peter's, to which strange types of pilgrims made their way under the modest colonnade leading from the river. from the heart of the old laterani palace towered the great basilica of the saviour (later of st. john) and the mansion of the new rulers of the world. the temples were still closed, and tumbling into ruins; for no one yet proposed to convert into churches those abodes of evil spirits, which one passed hurriedly at night. but on all sides churches had been built out of the fallen stones, and monks and nuns trod the dismantled fora, and new processions filed along the decaying streets. if you mounted the hills, you would see the once prosperous campagna a poisonous marsh, sending death into the city every few years; and you would learn that such was the condition of much of italy, where the lombard now completed the work of goth and greek, and that from the gates of constantinople to the forests of albion this incomprehensible brood of barbarians was treading under foot what remained of roman civilization. the book of what we call ancient history was closed: the middle age was beginning. gregory was peculiarly adapted to impress the world at this stage of transition. his father, gordianus, had been a wealthy patrician, with large estates in sicily and a fine mansion on the cælian hill. de rossi would make him a descendant of the great family of the anicii, but the deduction is strained. gregory's mother was a saint. he inherited vigour and administrative ability, and was reared in the most pious and most credulous spirit of the time. he was put to letters, and we are told that he excelled all others in every branch of culture. let us say, from his works, that--probably using the writings of the latin fathers as models--he learned to write a latin which jerome would almost have pronounced barbarous, but which people of the sixth century would think excellent, at times elegant. there was very little culture left in rome in gregory's days.[78] about the time when gregory came into the world (540), cassiodorus was quitting it to found a monastic community on his estate, and he had the happy idea of rescuing some elements of roman culture from the deluge; though to him culture meant donatus and martianus capella rather than the classics. he succeeded, too, in engaging the industry of the benedictine monks, to some extent, in copying manuscripts. culture was, happily, not suffered to die. in rome, however, it sank very low, and, for centuries, the latin of the papal clerks or the popes is generally atrocious. gregory, in 573, was prefect of rome when it was beset by the lombards. the desolation which ensued may have finally convinced him that the end of the world approached: a belief which occurs repeatedly in his letters and sermons. in the following year, he sold his possessions, built six monasteries in sicily, converted his roman mansion into the monastery of st. andrew, and, after giving the rest of his fortune to the poor, began a life of stern asceticism and meditation on the scriptures. one day he saw some anglo-saxon slaves in the market, and he set off to convert these fair, blue-eyed islanders to the faith. but pope benedict recalled him and found an outlet for his great energy in secretarial duties at the lateran. pelagius, who in 578 succeeded benedict, sent gregory to constantinople, to ask imperial troops for italy, and he remained there, caring for papal interests, for about eight years. on its pretentious culture he looked with so much disdain that he never learned greek,[79] while the general corruption of clerics and laymen, and the fierce dogmatic discussions, did not modify his belief in a coming dissolution. he maintained his monastic life in the placidia palace, and began the writing of that portentous commentary on the book of job which is known as his _magna moralia_: a monumental illustration of his piety, his imagination, and his lack of culture, occupying about two thousand columns of migne's quarto edition of his works. he returned to rome about the year 586, without troops, but with the immeasurably greater treasure of an arm of st. andrew and the head of st. luke. amid the plagues and famines of italy, he returned to his terrible fasts and dark meditations, and awaited the blast of the archangel's trumpet. an anecdote, told by himself, depicts his attitude. one of his monks appropriated a few crowns, violating his vow of poverty. gregory refused the dying man the sacraments, and buried him in a dunghill. he completed his commentary on job, and collected endless stories of devils and angels, saints and sinners, visions and miracles; until one day, in 590, the romans broke into the austere monastery with the news that pelagius was dead and gregory was to be his successor. he fled from rome in horror, but he was the ablest man in italy, and all united to make him pope. if these things do not suffice to show that gregory was the first mediæval pope, read his _dialogues_, completed a few years later; no theologian in the world to-day would accept that phantasmagoria of devils and angels and miracles. it is a precious monument of gregory's world: the early mediæval world. there is the same morbid, brooding imagination in his commentary on the prophecies of ezekiel, which he found congenial; and in many passages of the forty sermons in which, disdaining flowers of rhetoric and rules of grammar, he tells his people the deep-felt, awful truths of his creed. characteristic also is the incident which occurred during his temporary guidance of the church--while he awaited an answer to the letter in which he had begged the emperor to release him. a fearful epidemic raged at rome. without a glance at the marshes beyond, from which it came, gregory ordered processions of all the faithful, storming the heavens with hymns and litanies. the figure over the old tomb of hadrian (or the castle of sant' angelo) at rome tells all time how an angel appeared in the skies on that occasion, and the pestilence ceased. but the writers who are nearest to the time tell us that eighty of the processionists fell dead on the streets in an hour, and the pestilence went its slow course. yet when we turn from these other-worldly meditations and other-worldly plans to the eight hundred and fifty letters of the great pope, we seem to find an entirely different man. we seem to go back some centuries, along that precarious line of the anicii, and confront one of the abler of the old patricians. instead of credulity, we find a business capacity which, in spite of the appalling means of communication, organizes and controls, down to minute details, an estate which is worth millions sterling and is scattered over half a continent. instead of self-effacement, we find a man who talks to archbishops and governors of provinces as if they were acolytes of his church, and, at least on one occasion, tells the eastern autocrat, before whom courtiers shade their eyes, that he will not obey him. instead of holy simplicity, we find a diplomacy which treats with hostile kings in defiance of the civil government, showers pretty compliments on the fiery brunichildis or the brutal phocas, and spends years in combating the pretensions of constantinople. instead of angelic meekness, we find a warm resentment of vilification, an occasional flash of temper which cows his opponent, a sense of dignity which rebukes his steward for sending him "a sorry nag" or a "good ass" to ride on. we have, in short, a man whose shrewd light-brown eyes miss no opportunity for intervention in that disorderly world, from angle-land to jerusalem; who has in every part of it spies and informers in the service of virtue and religion, and who for fourteen years does the work of three men. and all the time he is gregory the monk, ruining his body by disdainful treatment, writing commentaries on ezekiel: a medium-sized, swarthy man, with large bald head and straggling tawny beard, with thick red lips and roman nose and chin, racked by indigestion and then by gout--but a prodigious worker. to compress his work into a chapter is impossible; one can only give imperfect summaries and a few significant details. he had secretaries, of course, and we are apt to forget that the art of shorthand writing, which was perfectly developed by the romans, had not yet been lost in the night of the middle ages. yet every letter has the stamp of gregory's personality, and we recognize a mind of wonderful range and power. his episcopal work in rome alone might have contented another man. soon after his election he wrote a long letter on the duties and qualifications of a bishop, which, in the shape of a treatise entitled _the book of pastoral rule_, inspired for centuries the better bishops of europe. his palace was monastic in its severity. he discharged from his service, in rome and abroad, the hosts of laymen his predecessors had employed, and replaced them with monks and clerics: incidentally turning into monks and clerics many men who did not adorn the holy state. he said mass daily, and used at times to go on horseback to some appointed chapel in the city, where the people gathered to hear his sermons on the gospels or on ezekiel. every shade of simony, every pretext for ordination, except religious zeal, he sternly suppressed. when he found that men were made deacons for their fine voices, he forbade deacons to sing any part of the mass except the gospel, and he made other changes in the liturgy and encouraged the improvement of the chant. modern criticism does not admit the _sacramentary_ and the _antiphonary_ which later ages ascribed to him, but he seems to have given such impulse to reform that the perfected liturgy and chant of a later date were attributed to him.[80] his motive in these reforms was purely religious; those who would persuade us that gregory i. had some regard for profane culture, at least as ancillary to religious, forget his belief is an approaching dissolution, and overlook the nature of profane culture. it was indissolubly connected with paganism, and gregory would willingly have seen every latin classic submerged in the tiber; while his disdain of greek confirmed the already prevalent ignorance which shut the greek classics out of europe, to its grave disadvantage, for many centuries. happily, many monks and bishops were in this respect less unworldly than gregory, and the greater roman writers were copied and preserved. gregory's attitude toward these men is well known. he hears that bishop desiderius of vienne, a very worthy prelate, is lecturing on "grammar" (latin literature), and he writes to tell desiderius that he is filled with "mourning and sorrow" that a bishop should be occupied with so "horrible" (_nefandum_) a pursuit.[81] it has been frivolously suggested that perhaps desiderius had been lecturing on the classics in church, but gregory is quite plain: the reading of the pagan writers is an unfit occupation even for "a religious layman."[82] in the preface to his _magna moralia_ he scorns "the rules of donatus"; and so sore a memory of his attitude remained among the friends of latin letters that christian tradition charged him with having burned the libraries of the capitol and of the palatine and with having mutilated the statues and monuments of older rome.[83] the work of gregory in rome, however, was not confined to liturgy and discipline. the tradition of parasitism at rome was not dead, and, as there was now no _præfectus annonæ_ to distribute corn to the citizens, it fell to the church to feed them; and the romans were now augmented by destitute refugees from all parts. gregory had to find food and clothing for masses of people, to make constant grants to their churches and to the monasteries, to meet a periodical famine, and to render what miserable aid the ignorance of the time afforded during the periodical pestilence. occasionally he had even to control the movements of troops and the dispatch of supplies; at least, in his impatience of the apparent helplessness of the imperial government and his determination to hold catholic towns against the lombards, he undertook these and other secular functions. the control of the vast papal income and expenditure might alone have sufficed to employ a vigorous man. in sicily, there were immense estates belonging to the papacy, and other "patrimonies," as they were called, were scattered over italy and the islands, or lay as far away as gaul, dalmatia, africa, and the east. clerical agents usually managed these estates, but we find gregory talking about their mules and mares and cornfields, and the wages and grievances of their slaves and serfs, as familiarly as if he had visited each of them. it has been estimated, rather precariously, that the papacy already owned from 1400 to 1800 square miles of land, and drew from it an annual income of from £300,000 to £400,000. not a domestic squabble seems to have happened in this enormous field but gregory intervened, and his rigid sense of justice and general shrewdness of decision command respect. then, there was the equally heavy task of distributing the income, for the episcopal establishment cost little, and nothing was hoarded. in sums of ten, twenty, or fifty gold pieces, in bales of clothing and galleys of corn, in altar-vessels and the ransom of captives, the stream percolated yearly throughout the christian world, as far as the villages of syria. monks and nuns were especially favoured. within a few years, there spread over the world so great a repute of gregory's charity and equity that petitions rained upon rome. here a guild of soap-boilers asks his intervention in some dispute: there a woman who, in a fit of temper at the supposed infidelity of her husband, has rushed to a nunnery and now wants to return home, asks his indulgence, and receives it. from all sides are cries of oppression, simony, or other scandal, and gregory is aroused. jews appeal to him frequently against the injustice of their christian neighbours, and they invariably get such justice as the law allows. the zealots who have seized their synagogues (if of long standing--they were forbidden by law to build new ones) must restore them, or pay for them[84]; impatient priests who would coerce them into "believing" are rebuked. there is only one weakness--a not unamiable weakness--in his treatment of the jews. those who abandon their creed are to have their rents reduced: to encourage the others, he says cheerfully.[85] for the pagans, however, he has no mercy, as we shall see. he sanctions compulsion and persecution with mediæval frankness. it should be noted, too, that, while he approved the manumission of slaves, he never condemned the institution as such. vast regiments of slaves worked the papal estates, though the ease, if not advantage, of converting them into serfs must have been apparent. still no slave could enter the clergy--lest, as leo the great had declared, his "vileness" should "pollute" the sacred order--and a special probation was imposed on slaves if they wished to enter monasteries: a wise regulation this, for many thought it an easy way to freedom. still no slave could contract marriage with a free christian, as gregory expressly reaffirms.[86] these details of his work will, however, be more apparent if we pass from rome to the provinces which he controlled, and observe the success or failure of his intervention. it will at once be understood that his intervention almost invariably means that there is an abuse to correct, and, therefore, the world which we find reflected in gregory's letters is fearfully corrupt. the restless movements and destructive ways of the barbarians had almost obliterated the older culture, and no new system either of education or polity had yet been devised. the influence of the east had been just as pernicious. the venality and corruption of its officers had infected the higher clergy, and simony prevailed from gaul to palestine. over and over again gregory writes, in just the same words, to prelates of widely separated countries: "i hear that no one can obtain orders in your province without paying for them." the clergy was thus tainted at its source. ambitious laymen passed, almost at a bound, to bishoprics, and then maintained a luxurious or vicious life by extorting illegal fees. the people, who had been generally literate under the romans, were now wholly illiterate and helpless. but gregory has his informants (generally the agents in charge of the patrimonies) everywhere, and the better clergy and the oppressed and the disappointed appeal to him; and a sad procession of vice and crime passes before our eyes when we read his letters. this anarchic world needed a supreme court more than ever; the papacy throve on its very disorders. italy was demoralized by the settlement of the arian lombards over the greater part of the country, and by their murderous raids in all directions. parts which remained catholic were often so isolated from rome that a spirit of defiance was encouraged, and gregory had grave trouble. milan, for instance, was in the hands of the lombards, but the catholic clergy had fled to genoa with their archbishop, and they retained something of the independence of the church of st. ambrose. we see that they must now have their selection of a bishop approved by gregory, and that the pope often quietly reproves the prelate for his indiscretions; but we find also that when, on a more serious occasion, gregory proposes to have archbishop constantius tried at rome, the latter acridly refuses. ravenna, the seat of the eastern exarch, who is generally hostile to gregory, occasions some of his least saintly letters. he hears that archbishop john wears his pallium on forbidden occasions, and he reproves john with an air of unquestioned authority.[87] john partly disputes the facts, and partly pleads special privileges of ravenna, but gregory finds no trace of such privileges and orders him to conform.[88] then he hears that john and the fine folk of the court are poking fun at him, and his honest anger overflows[89]: "thank god the lombards are between me and the city of ravenna, or i might have had to show how strict i can be." john dies, and we see that the clergy of ravenna must submit the names of two candidates to gregory. he rejects the exarch's man, and chooses an old fellow-monk and friend, marinianus. but the new archbishop is forced to maintain the defence of the supposed privileges of ravenna, and the dispute seems to reach no conclusion during the life of gregory. in the isolated peninsula of istria, the spirit of independence has gone the length of flat defiance, or schism, because the papacy has acquiesced in the endorsement by the eastern bishops of the three chapters: three chapters of a certain decree of justinian. the schism is of long standing, and when gregory is made bishop he sends a troop of soldiers to the patriarch of aquileia, commanding that prelate and his chief supporters to appear at rome forthwith, "according to the orders of the most christian and most serene lord of all." the use of the emperor's name seems to have been, to put it politely, not strictly accurate, for when bishop severus appealed to maurice, the emperor curtly ordered gregory to desist. we have another indication of the mediæval aspect of gregory's ideas when, in the following year, he refused to contribute to the relief-fund for the victims of a great fire at aquileia. his monies were "not for the enemies of the church," he said. he went on to weaken the schism by other means, partly by bribes, and when maurice died in 602 and a friendly exarch was appointed, he at once urged physical force.[90] "the defence of the soul is more precious in the sight of god than the defence of the body," he enacted. he was legislating for the middle ages. his relations with the lombards and the civil power reveal another side of his character. small catholic towns, and even rome, were constantly threatened by the lombards, yet constantinople was unable to send troops, and the exarch remained inactive behind the marshes and walls of ravenna. gregory indignantly turned soldier and diplomatist. he appointed a military governor of nepi, and later of naples; and many of his letters are to military men, stirring them to action and telling of the dispatch of troops or supplies. in 592, the lombards appeared before rome, and gregory fell ill with work and anxiety. he then purchased a separate peace from the lombards[91] and there was great anger at ravenna and constantinople. gregory's sentiment was hardly one of patriotism, which would not be consistent with his philosophy; he was concerned for religion, as he was bound to be since the lombards were arians. on the other hand, he acknowledges that if he makes a separate peace with the lombards, it will be disastrous for other parts of the empire[92]; and it is clear from the sequel that the exarch had a policy and was not idly drifting. a later legend, which some modern writers strangely regard as credible,[93] makes gregory meet the lombard king outside rome, and strike a bargain. a bargain was certainly struck, but the angry exarch issued from ravenna with his troops and cut his way to rome, where his conversation with the pope cannot have been amiable. the lombards were back in 593, but were either bribed, or found rome too strong to be taken. they returned again in 595. gregory now wrote to a friend in ravenna[94] that he proposed again to purchase peace, and the emperor maurice seems to have written him a scalding letter. from gregory's indignant reply[95] we gather that maurice called him "a fool," and hinted that he was a liar and traitor. the government idea evidently was that gregory was a simple-minded victim of the cunning lombards, as is very probable; but we must take account of his sincere concern for religion and his longing for peace. his policy of bribes would have been disastrous. at ravenna, some person posted on the walls a sarcastic "libel" about his statesmanship, and another fiery letter appears in gregory's register. in other parts of italy, he had grave ecclesiastical abuses to correct, and some strange bishops are immortalized in his letters. in 599, he had to issue a circular letter,[96] forbidding bishops to have women in their houses, and ordering priests, deacons, and subdeacons to separate from their wives. sicily, controlled by his agents, gave him little trouble, but his informers reported that in sardinia and corsica the clergy and monks were very corrupt, and the pagans, who were numerous, bribed the officials to overlook the practice of their cult. the metropolitan at cagliari was an intemperate and avaricious man, and gregory, after repeated warnings, summoned him to rome; but there is a curious mixture of indulgence and sternness in the pope's letters, and januarius did not go to rome or alter his wicked ways. as to the pagans, gregory, at first, merely urged the archbishop to raise the rents and taxes of those who would not abandon the gods.[97] when this proved insufficient, he ordered physical persecution. if they were slaves, they were to be punished with "blows and tortures"; if they were free tenants, they were to be imprisoned. "in order," he says, in entirely mediæval language, "that they who disdain to hear the saving words of health may at least be brought to the desired sanity of mind by torture of the body."[98] with other provinces of the old empire, his correspondence is mainly directed to the correction of grave abuses. his letters to spain show that papal authority was fully recognized there, and it is of interest to find a spanish bishop bemoaning, when gregory urges that only literate men shall be promoted to the priesthood, that they are too few in number. africa virtually defied his efforts to reform the church. the province had recovered a little under byzantine rule, but its bishops and civic officials took bribes from the donatists.[99] they refused to persecute the schismatics, when gregory ordered them to do so, and they defeated his attempt to break up their system of local primacies.[100] he was compelled to leave them in their perverse ways. the same condition of simony and clerical laxity prevailed generally throughout the roman-teutonic world, and gregory could do little more than press for the election of good men to vacant bishoprics. the diplomatic side of his character appears in his relations with gaul, where the fiery and wilful brunichildis was his chief correspondent.[101] it is true that her graver crimes were committed after gregory's death, but he was particularly well informed, and one cannot admire his references to her "devout mind" or appreciate his belief that she was "filled with the piety of heavenly grace." when, in 599, she asked the pallium for her obsequious bishop syagrius of autun, gregory granted it: on condition that syagrius convoked a synod for the correction of abuses and that brunichildis attacked paganism more vigorously. when, on the other hand, the learned and devout bishop desiderius of vienne, who was hated by brunichildis for his courage in rebuking her, asked the pallium, gregory found that there was no precedent and refused. it is true that brunichildis was generous to the clergy and, in her way, pious; but gregory must have known the real character of the woman whose influence he sought to win. his sacrifice, moreover, was futile. a few synods were held, but there is no trace of any diminution of simony, drunkenness, and vice among the frankish priests and monks. his interest in the neighbouring island of angle-land is well known. he began, early in his pontificate, to buy anglo-saxon youths and train them for missionary work, but, in 596, he found a speedier way to convert the islanders. the all-powerful ethelbert was married to the christian bertha, and gregory's friendly relations with gaul opened the way to his court. he sent the historic mission of monks under augustine, and, in a few years, had the converted king transforming the pagan temples into churches and driving his people into them. it was gregory who planned the first english hierarchy. the monks, who ought to have been gregory's firmest allies in the reform of christendom, had already become an ignorant and sensual body, sustaining the ideal of benedict only in a few isolated communities, and gregory's efforts to improve them were not wholly judicious. he insisted that they should not undertake priestly or parochial work, and he forbade the bishops to interfere with their temporal concerns. there can be little doubt that this tendency to free them from episcopal control made for greater degeneration. here again, also, we find a curious illustration of his diplomatic liberality. as a rule he was very severe with apostate monks, yet we find him maintaining through life a friendly correspondence with a renegade monk of syracuse. venantius had returned to his position of wealthy noble in the world, and had married a noble dame. gregory, it is true, urged him to return to his monastery, but the amiability of his language is only explained by the position and influence of the man. the last phase of this part of gregory's correspondence is singular. venantius died, and left his daughters to the guardianship of the pope; and we find gregory assuring these children of sin that he will discharge "the debt we owe to the goodness of your parents."[102] we have already seen that gregory's relations with the eastern emperor were painful, and another episode must be related before we approach eastern affairs more closely. the archbishop of salona, who was one of the typical lax prelates of the age and who had smiled at gregory's admonitions and threats, was removed by death, and the pope endeavoured to secure the election of the archdeacon, a rigorous priest who had been the pope's chief informer. neither clergy nor laity, however, desired a change in the morals of the episcopal palace, and they secured from constantinople an imperial order for the election of their own favourite. gregory alleged bribery and excommunicated the new archbishop. when the emperor ordered him to desist, he flatly refused, and a compromise had to be admitted. in another town of the same frontier province, prima justiniana, the emperor proposed to replace an invalid bishop with a more vigorous man, and gregory refused to consent.[103] a graver conflict had arisen in the east. constantinople, with its million citizens and its superb imperial palace, naturally regarded its archbishop as too elevated to submit to rome, and its ruling prelate, john the faster,--a priest who rivalled gregory in virtue and austerity,--assumed the title of "ecumenical bishop." gregory protested, but the emperor maurice, with his customary bluntness, ordered the pope to be silent. a few years later, however, some aggrieved eastern priests appealed to rome, and gregory wrote, in entirely papal language, to ask john for a report on their case. when john lightly, or disdainfully, answered that he knew nothing about it, the pope lost his temper. he told his ascetic brother that it would be a much less evil to eat meat than to tell lies: that he had better get rid of that licentious young secretary of his and attend to business: that he must at once take back the aggrieved priests: and that, although he seeks no quarrel, he will not flinch if it is forced on him.[104] john made a malicious retort, by inducing the empress constantina to make a request for relics which gregory was bound to refuse. the priests were eventually tried at rome. whether gregory's sentence was ever carried out in the east, we do not know, but john took the revenge of styling himself "ecumenical bishop" in his correspondence with gregory, and the pope then tried to form a league with the patriarchs of the apostolic sees of antioch and alexandria against the ambitious john. in his eagerness to defeat john, he went very near to sharing the papacy with his allies. peter, he said, had been at antioch before rome, and mark was a disciple of peter; therefore the three were in a sense "one see."[105] he added that rome was so far from aspiring to the odious title that, although it had actually been offered to the popes by the council of chalcedon, neither leo nor any of his successors had used it.[106] to john himself gregory sent a withering rebuke of his pride. to the emperor maurice he described john as "a wolf in sheep's clothing," a man who claimed a "blasphemous title" which "ought to be far from the hearts of all christians"! john may "stiffen his neck against the almighty," he says, but "he will not bend mine even with swords."[107] he assured the empress constantina that john's ambition was a sure sign of the coming of anti-christ.[108] gregory's peculiar diplomacy only excited the disdain of the subtler greeks. his position is, in fact, so false--repudiating as "blasphemous" a title which, the whole world knew, he himself claimed in substance--that it has been suggested that he thought the term "ecumenical bishop" meant "sole bishop." such a suggestion implies extraordinary ignorance at rome, but there is no need to entertain it. to his friends anastasius of antioch and eulogius of alexandria, gregory complained that the phrase was an affront, not to _all_ bishops, but merely to the leading patriarchs, and the whole correspondence shows that there was no misunderstanding. gregory lacked self-control. anastasius of antioch, though very friendly, ignored his letters; eulogius advised him to be quiet, and hinted that people might suggest envy; the emperor treated him with silent disdain. john died, but his successor cyriacus actually used the offensive title in telling gregory of his appointment. there was another outburst, and maurice impatiently begged the pope not to make so much fuss about "an idle name." eulogius of alexandria, who had some sense of humour, addressed gregory as "universal pope," saying gravely that he would obey his "commands" and not again call any man "universal bishop." possibly eulogius knew that gregory had, a few years before, written to john of syracuse: "as to the church of constantinople, who doubts that it is subject to the apostolic see?"[109] gregory protested in vain until the close of his life. the greeks retained their "blasphemous" title: the latins continued to assert their authority even over the greek bishops. toward the close of the year 602, the emperor maurice, now a stricken old man of sixty-three, was driven from his throne by the brutal phocas; his five boys were murdered before his eyes and he was himself executed. phocas sent messengers to apprise gregory of his accession. we may assume that these messengers would give a discreet account of what had happened and, possibly, bring an assurance of the new emperor's orthodoxy; and we do not know whether gregory's assiduous servants at constantinople sent him any independent account. yet, when we have made every possible allowance, gregory's letters to phocas are painful. the first letter[110] begins, "glory be to god on high," and sings a chant of victory culminating in, "let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad." the bloody and unscrupulous adventurer must have been himself surprised. two months later, gregory wrote again, hailing the dawn of "the day of liberty" after the night of tyranny.[111] in another letter he[112] saluted leontia, the new empress,--a fit consort of phocas,--as "a second pulcheria"; and he commended the church of st. peter's to her generosity. these two letters were written seven months after the murders, and it is impossible to suppose that no independent report had reached gregory by that time. nor do we find that, though he lived for a year afterwards, he ever undid those lamentable letters. it is the most ominous presage of the middle ages. gregory died on march 12, 604. the racking pains of gout had been added to his maladies, and plague and famine and lombards continued to enfeeble italy he had striven heroically to secure respect for ideals--for religion, justice, and honour--in that dark world on which his last thoughts lingered. he had planted many a good man in the bishoprics of europe. he had immensely strengthened the papacy, and a strong central power might do vast service in that anarchic europe. yet the historian must recognize that the world was too strong even for his personality; simony and corruption still spread from gaul to africa, and the ideas which gregory most surely contributed to the mind of europe were those more lamentable or more casuistic deductions from his creed which we have noticed. within a year or so--to make the best we can of a rumour which has got into the chronicles--the romans themselves grumbled that his prodigal charity had lessened _their_ share of the patrimonies, and we saw that more bitter complaints against him were current in the middle ages. yet he was a great pope: not great in intellect, not perfect in character, but, in an age of confusion, corruption, and cowardice, a mighty protagonist of high ideals. footnotes: [footnote 77: another of them, gelasius (492-496), is, or was until recently, regarded as the author of the first canon of scriptures and the first list of prohibited books. but this so-called "gelasian decree" does not bear the name of gelasius in some of the older manuscripts, and is now much disputed. father grisar thinks that "we may take it as certain that it did not emanate from him" (_history of rome and the popes_, iii., 236). the canon is probably due to damasus (see p. 36) and the rather loosely written list of books which follows it is ascribed to the later age of hormisdas (514-523). gelasius was an able and vigorous pope, and would hardly issue so poor a decree.] [footnote 78: lives of gregory must be read with discretion. the best and most ample source of knowledge is the stout volume of his letters, but there are early biographies by paul the deacon and john the deacon. paul wrote about 780, but his fairly sober sketch--into which miracles have been interpolated--does not help us much. john wrote about a century after this, and his fantastic and utterly undiscriminating work is almost useless. the best biography of gregory is the learned and generally candid work of w.f.h. dudden (_gregory the great_, 2 vols., 1905).] [footnote 79: _ep._, ix., 69.] [footnote 80: see dudden's _gregory the great_, i., 264-276.] [footnote 81: _ep._, vi., 54.] [footnote 82: dr. h.a. mann (_the lives of the popes in the early middle ages_, 1902, etc.) would show that gregory had a regard for culture by quoting much praise of secular learning from the _commentary on the first book of kings_. this is not a work of gregory at all. even the benedictine editors of the migne edition claim only that it was written by an admirer who took notes of gregory's homilies, and they admit that it frequently departs from gregory's ideas.] [footnote 83: see john of salisbury, _polycraticus_, ii., 26. it is difficult to conceive that so unflattering a tradition was entirely an invention.] [footnote 84: _ep._, ix., 6, etc.] [footnote 85: _ep._, ii., 32.] [footnote 86: _ep._, vii., 1.] [footnote 87: iii., 56.] [footnote 88: v., 11.] [footnote 89: v., 15.] [footnote 90: xiii., 33.] [footnote 91: ii., 46; v., 36.] [footnote 92: v., 36.] [footnote 93: it is first found in the unreliable continuer of prosper's _chronicle_, and seems to be founded on the meeting of leo and attila. neither gregory nor paul, the deacon speaks of a meeting with the lombard king.] [footnote 94: v., 36.] [footnote 95: v., 40.] [footnote 96: ix., ii.] [footnote 97: iv., 26.] [footnote 98: ix., 65.] [footnote 99: i., 84.] [footnote 100: i., 74.] [footnote 101: see _ep._, vii., 5, 50, 59 etc.] [footnote 102: xi., 35.] [footnote 103: xi., 47.] [footnote 104: iii., 53.] [footnote 105: v., 43.] [footnote 106: it is not true that the council offered the title to leo i. it occurs only in petitions which two eastern priests directed to the pope and the council (mansi, vi., 1006 and 1012), and the council, as we saw, decreed precisely the opposite. the only other place in which we find it in some form is the spurious latin version of the sentence on dioscorus to which i referred on p. 50.] [footnote 107: v., 20.] [footnote 108: v., 21.] [footnote 109: ix., 12.] [footnote 110: xiii., 31.] [footnote 111: xiii., 38.] [footnote 112: xiii., 39.] chapter v hadrian i. and the temporal power two centuries after the death of gregory the great we still find an occasional prelate of rare piety, such as alcuin, scanning the horizon for signs of the approaching dissolution. vice and violence had so far triumphed that it seemed as if god must soon lower the curtain on the human tragedy. but the successors of gregory in the chair of peter were far from entertaining such feelings. from the heart of the threatening north, another constantine had come to espouse their cause, to confound their enemies, and to invest the papacy with a power that it had never known before. the story of the popes as temporal sovereigns had begun. once more we must say that the development was an almost inevitable issue of the circumstances. the byzantine rule in italy had never been strong enough to restrain the lombards, and the rise of the mohammedans in the farther east now made constantinople less competent than ever to administer and to defend its trans-adriatic province. first the city, then the duchy, of rome fell under the care of the popes, from sheer lack of other administrators and defenders. we saw this in the pontificate of gregory. beyond the roman duchy were the scattered patrimonies, the estates given or bequeathed to the papacy, and these were often towns, or included towns. here again the lack of secular authority put all government in the hands of the pope's agents. then the eastern court successively adopted two heresies, monothelitism and iconoclasm, and the dwindling respect of rome for the greeks passed into bitter hostility. imperial troops sacked the lateran, dragged a pope (martin i.) ignominiously to the east, and induced another pope (honorius i.) to "subvert the immaculate faith" or, at least, to "allow the immaculate to be stained."[113] on the whole, however, the pontiffs who succeeded gregory were firm and worthy men. rome began to shudder between the fierce lombard and the heretical greek, and there slowly grew in the lateran palace the design of winning independence of the erratic counsels of kings. at this juncture, the name of charles martel blazed through the christian world, and gregory iii. and the people of rome implored him to take them under his protection. the lombards were, however, auxiliaries of charles, and, as duchesne suggests, charles probably resented gregory's interference in secular affairs; the pope had recently encouraged the lombard dukes who were in rebellion against their king, and liutprand had, in revenge, seized four frontier towns of the roman duchy. gregory failed, but his amiable and diplomatic successor, pope zachary, changed the roman policy and made progress. he lent liutprand the use of the little papal army to aid in suppressing his dukes, and received the four towns and other "patrimonies." a little later, the exarch and the archbishop of ravenna asked zachary to intercede for them, and the genial pope again saw and disarmed the lombard. the language of the _liber pontificalis_ is, at this important stage, so barbarous--a sad reflection of roman culture, for it must have been written in the lateran--that one often despairs of catching its exact meaning, but it seems to me clear that it represents liutprand as giving the district of cesena to the papacy, and restoring the exarchate of ravenna to the city of ravenna. presently, however, we shall find the popes claiming the exarchate. the next step was the famous intervention of rome in the affairs of the franks. pippin, mayor of the palace, aspired to the throne of childeric iii., and consulted the papacy as to the moral aspect of his design. the astute pontiff went far beyond the terms of the request, and "ordered" the franks to make pippin their monarch: an act which founded the lucrative claim of rome that she had conferred the kingdom on the father of charlemagne. zachary's successor, stephen ii.,[114] completed the work. he was hard pressed by the lombard king aistulph, and, after a fruitless appeal to constantinople, he went to france in 753 and implored pippin to "take up the cause of the blessed peter and the republic of the romans." this broke the last link with the east, and stephen secured the gratitude of pippin and his dynasty by anointing the king and his sons and pronouncing a dire anathema--which he had assuredly no right to pronounce--on any who should ever dare to displace the family of pippin from the throne. and so pippin swore a mighty oath that he would take up the cause of the blessed peter, but what he precisely engaged to do is one of the great controversies of history. it is clear that pippin was made "patrician" of rome. this had long been the official title of the byzantine exarch in italy, and it has no definite meaning when it is transferred to pippin and charlemagne. probably this vagueness was part of the roman plan. the pope wanted pippin's army without his suzerainty. moreover, in conferring on pippin the title which had belonged to the exarch, it was probably implied that the exarchate became part of "the cause of the blessed peter." in point of fact, the _liber pontificalis_ goes on to say that pippin swore to win for rome "the exarchate of ravenna" as well as other "rights and territories of the republic." later, in recording the life of hadrian i., the _liber pontificalis_ says that stephen asked for "divers cities and territories of the province of italy, and the grant of them to the blessed peter and his vicars for ever." this part of the work is, it is true, under grave suspicion of interpolation, but the sentence i have quoted may pass. pippin swore to secure for the popes, not only the roman duchy, and "divers cities and territories" which they claimed as "patrimonies," but also the exarchate of ravenna, to which they had no right whatever. as hadrian i. repeatedly refers, in his letters to charlemagne, to this "donation of pippin," and in one letter (xcviii.) says that it was put into writing, it is idle to contest it.[115] pippin crossed the alps and forced aistulph to yield, but as soon as the franks returned to their country the lombard refused to fulfil his obligations and again devastated italy. no answer to the pope's desperate appeals for aid came from france and, in 756, when rome was gravely threatened, stephen sent a very curious letter to pippin.[116] it is written in the name of st. peter, and historians are divided in opinion as to whether or no the pope wished to impose on the superstition of the french monarch and to induce him to think that it was a miraculous appeal from the apostle himself. there is grave reason to think that this was stephen's design. the letter does not identify the pope with peter, as apologists suggest; it speaks of stephen as a personality distinct from the apostolic writer, insists that it is the disembodied spirit of peter in heaven that addresses the king, and threatens him with eternal damnation unless he comes to rome and saves "my body" and "my church" and "its bishop." as pippin, who had ignored the pope's appeals so long, at once hurried to italy on receiving this letter, we may assume that he regarded it as miraculous. however that may be, he crushed aistulph and forced him to sign a deed abandoning twenty-three cities--the exarchate, the adjacent pentapolis, comacchio, and narni--to the roman see.[117] the representatives of the eastern court had hurried to italy and had claimed this territory, but pippin bluntly told them that he had taken the trouble to crush aistulph only "on behalf of the blessed peter." byzantine rule in italy was henceforth confined to calabria in the south and venetia and istria in the north. the pope succeeded the eastern emperor by right of gift from pippin; and pippin would, no doubt, claim that the provinces were his to give by right of the sword. in point of fact, however, the papacy had claimed the exarchate on some previous title, and that title is unsound. we may now pass speedily to the pontificate of hadrian. aistulph died in 756; stephen iii. in 757. the ten years' pontificate of paul i. was absorbed in a tiresome effort to wring the new rights of rome from the new lombard king, didier, and the struggle led to the severance of the romans into frank and lombard factions: one of the gravest and most enduring results of the secular policy of the papacy. when paul died, the lombard faction, under two high papal officials named christopher and sergius, led lombard troops upon the opposing faction (who had elected a pope), crushed them in a brutal and bloody struggle, and elected stephen iv. stephen was, however, not the lombard king's candidate, and didier intrigued at rome against the power of christopher and sergius. he bribed the papal chamberlain, paul afiarta, and it is enough to say that before long christopher and sergius were put in prison and deprived of their eyes. this was done at the pope's command; it was the price of the restoration by didier of the cities he still withheld.[118] rome was still under the shadow of this brutal quarrel when, in the year 772, hadrian became pope. he came of a noble roman family, and, having been left an orphan in tender years, he had been reared by a pious uncle. culture at rome in the eighth century had sunk to its lowest depth, and the letters of hadrian, like all documents of the time, are full of the grossest grammatical errors. in the school of virtue and asceticism, however, he was a willing pupil. his fasts and his hair-shirt attracted attention in his youth, and he was so favourably known to all at the time of stephen's death that he was at once and unanimously elected. didier pressed for the new pope's friendship. charlemagne had already tired of his daughter, or no longer needed her dowry (the lombard alliance), and had ignominiously restored her to her father's court and ventured upon a third matrimonial experiment. we do not find hadrian rebuking the frank king, but he sent his chamberlain afiarta to the lombard court, to arrange for the restoration of the cities ceded to rome and, presumably form an alliance with didier. while afiarta was away, however, two things occurred which caused him to change his policy. carlomann died in france, and his share of the kingdom was annexed by charlemagne. carlomann's widow then fled to the lombard court, and didier pressed hadrian to anoint her sons in defiance of charlemagne. when hadrian hesitated, didier invaded the papal territory and took several towns; while afiarta, the pope heard, was boasting that he would bring hadrian to pavia with a rope round his neck. meantime, however, afiarta's rivals at rome informed the pope that afiarta had had the blind prisoner sergius murdered, and hadrian was shocked. he ordered the arrest of his chamberlain, and, in defiance of his more lenient instructions, afiarta was delivered to the secular authorities at ravenna and executed. didier now set his forces in motion. hadrian, hurriedly gathering his troops for the defence of the duchy, appealed to charlemagne and threatened didier with excommunication. it seems also that he made efforts to secure other parts of italy for the papacy. some professed representatives of spoleto, which was subject to didier, came to rome to ask that their duchy might be incorporated in the papal territory, and their long lombard hair was solemnly cropped in roman fashion. we shall find grave reason to doubt whether these men had an authentic right to represent spoleto, but from that moment the popes claimed it as part of their temporal dominion, didier seems to have underrated the power of the young french monarch. both hadrian and charlemagne (who offered didier 14,000 gold _solidi_ if he would yield the disputed cities) endeavoured to negotiate peacefully with him, but he refused all overtures, and the franks crossed the alps and besieged him in pavia. charlemagne remained before pavia throughout the winter of 773-774, and, when holy week came round, he went to rome for the celebration of easter. hadrian hurriedly arranged to meet his guest with honour, though the account of his ceremonies makes us smile when we recall how imperial rome would have received such a monarch. thirty miles from rome the civic and military officials, with the standards of the roman militia, met the conqueror; a mile from the city the various "schools" of the militia, and groups of children with branches of palm and olive, streamed out to meet the franks, and accompanied them to st. peter's. the awe with which charlemagne approached the old capital of the world, and the feeling of the romans when they gazed on the gigantic young frank, in his short silver-bordered tunic and blue cloak, with a shower of golden curls falling over his broad shoulders, are left to our imagination by the chronicler.[119] his one aim is to show how the famous donation of temporal power was the natural culmination of the piety of the frankish monarch. he tells us how charlemagne walked on foot the last mile to st. peter's: how, when he reached the great church on holy saturday, he went on his knees and kissed each step before he embraced the delighted pope: how frank bishops and warriors mingled with the romans, and how the vast crowd was thrilled by the emotions of that historic occasion. he describes how charlemagne humbly asked permission to enter rome, and spent three days in paying reverence at its many shrines; and how, on the wednesday, pope and king met in the presence of the body of peter to discuss the question of the papal territory. in a famous passage, which has inspired a small library of controversial writing, this writer of the life of hadrian in the _liber pontificalis_ affirms that charlemagne assigned to st. peter and his successors for ever the greater part of italy: in modern terms, the whole of italy except lombardy in the north, which was left to the lombards, and naples and calabria in the south, where the greeks still lingered. the duchies of beneventum and spoleto, the provinces of venetia and istria, and the island of corsica, which were not at the disposal of charlemagne, are expressly included; and it is said that one copy of the deed, signed by charlemagne and his nobles and bishops, was put into the tomb of st. peter, and another copy was taken to france. this is the basis of the claim of later popes to the greater part of italy. but the suspicions of historians are naturally awakened when they learn that both copies of this priceless document have disappeared: that the only description of its terms is this passage of the _liber pontificalis_, which was presumably written in the papal chancellery: and that the art of forging documents was extensively cultivated in the eighth century. the famous "donation of constantine," a document which makes the first christian emperor, when he leaves rome, entrust the whole western empire to pope silvester, is a flagrant forgery of the time; indeed, most historians now conclude that it was fabricated at rome during the pontificate of hadrian. certainly the pope seems to refer to it when, in 777, he writes to charlemagne: "just as in the time of the blessed silvester, bishop of rome, the holy catholic and apostolic roman church was elevated and exalted by the most pious emperor constantine the great, of holy memory, and _he deigned to bestow on it power in these western regions_."[120] the equally mendacious _acta s. silvestri_ was certainly known to hadrian, and we do not trace it earlier; and it is probable enough that one or both of these documents were shown to charlemagne. some historians believe that the "fantuzzian fragment" (a similarly false account of the donation of pippin) belongs to the same inventive period, and this is not unlikely. it cannot be questioned that charlemagne renewed and enlarged his father's donation, since hadrian's letters to him repeatedly affirm this. immediately after his return to france, hadrian reminds him that he has confirmed pippin's gift of the exarchate,[121] and, a little later, he recalls that, when he was in rome, he granted the duchy of spoleto to the blessed peter.[122] spoleto did not, in point of fact, pass under papal rule, but we must conclude from the pope's words that charlemagne in some way approved the action of hadrian in annexing the duchy, and in this sense enlarged the donation made by his father. beyond this single instance of spoleto, however, the letters of hadrian do not confirm the writer of his life in the _liber pontificalis_ in his description of the extent of charlemagne's gift,[123] and their silence supports the critical view. while he complains of outrages in istria and venetia, while he occupies himself in a long series of letters with the affairs of beneventum, he makes no claim that these provinces were given to him by charlemagne. the whole story of the papacy during the life of charlemagne is inconsistent with any but the more modest estimate of the donation: that it was a vague sanction of the spoletan proceeding, in addition to confirming the donation of pippin. the learned editor of the _liber pontificalis_, duchesne, is convinced that the first part of the life of hadrian, which culminates in this donation, was written by a contemporary cleric and must be regarded as genuine. he suggests that, when hadrian perceived the impracticability of charlemagne winning two thirds of italy for the roman see, he released the monarch from his oath. this is inconsistent alike with the character of hadrian and the terms of his correspondence, and recent historians generally regard the range ascribed to charlemagne's donation in the _liber pontificalis_ as either fictitious or enlarged by later interpolations. the first part of duchesne's study--the proof that the early chapters of the life of hadrian were written by a contemporary--is convincing: the second part--that the pope sacrificed five or six great provinces because it was difficult at the time to get them--has not even the most feeble documentary basis and is unlikely in the last degree, to judge by the known facts. either some later writer during the pontificate of leo iii. (or later) rounded the narrative of the early years of hadrian with this grandiose forgery, or the passage which specifies the extent of the donation was interpolated in the narrative. for either supposition we have ample analogy in the life of the eighth century: for a papal surrender of whole provinces we have no analogy whatever, and there is not the faintest allusion to it in hadrian's forty-five extant letters to charlemagne.[124] the life of hadrian in the _liber pontificalis_ consists, as will already have been realized, of two very distinct parts. the first is a consecutive and circumstantial narrative of events up to the departure of charlemagne from rome in the spring of 774. this seems to have been written by an eye-witness, possibly a clerk in the papal service; and it seems equally probable that this contemporary narrative was rounded by a later hand with a fictitious account of charlemagne's conduct on the wednesday. immediately afterwards, charlemagne returned to pavia, conquered didier, and carried him off to a french monastery. this occurred in the second year of hadrian's pontificate, yet in the _liber pontificalis_, the remaining twenty years are crushed into a few chaotic paragraphs, and these are chiefly concerned with his lavish decoration of the roman churches. we turn to his letters, and from these we can construct a satisfactory narrative and can obtain a good idea of the writer's personality. of the fifty-five extant letters of hadrian no less than forty-five are addressed to charlemagne, and they are overwhelmingly concerned with his temporal possessions. he is rather a king-pope than a pope-king. for twenty years he assails charlemagne with querulous, petulant, or violent petitions to protect the rights of the blessed peter, and it is not illiberally suspected that the lost replies of charlemagne contained expressions of impatience. the pope's letters, with their unceasing references to the blessed peter and all that he has done for charlemagne, are not pleasant reading, and the frank king, whose italian policy seems to baffle his biographers, must have realized that his position as suzerain of the blessed peter was delicate and difficult. hadrian on the other hand, found that the temporal rights of his see left comparatively little time for spiritual duties and laid a strain on his piety. once in a few years he smites a heretic or arraigns some delinquent prelate, but the almost unvarying theme of his letters is a complaint that the blessed peter is defrauded of his rights, and he is at times drawn into political intrigues which do not adorn his character. we may recognize that his ambition was as impersonal as that of gregory the great, yet the spectacle of his plaints and manoeuvres is not one on which we can dwell with admiration. charlemagne had scarcely returned to france when he received from hadrian a bitter complaint that leo, archbishop of ravenna, had seized the cities of the exarchate and was endeavouring to win those of the pentapolis.[125] charlemagne did not respond; indeed leo went in person to the frank court, and it is significant that after his return he was, hadrian says, more insolent and ambitious than ever. he cast out the officials sent from rome and, by the aid of his troops, took over the rule of the exarchate. charlemagne was busy with his saxon war, and he paid no attention to the pope's piteous appeals.[126] leo died in 777, however, and his successor seems to have submitted to rome. charlemagne had meantime visited italy and may have intervened. the business which brought charlemagne to italy in 776 was more serious. arichis, duke of beneventum, one of the ablest and most cultivated of the lombards, who was married to a daughter of didier, was an independent sovereign. hildeprand, duke of spoleto, who had--in spite of the supposed annexation of spoleto--chosen to regard charlemagne rather than hadrian as his suzerain, was on good terms with arichis, and the pope looked on their friendship with gloomy suspicion. he reported to charlemagne that they were conspiring against his authority. charlemagne's envoys were due at rome, and hadrian bitterly complained to him that they had gone first to spoleto and had "greatly increased the insolence of the spoletans," and had then, in spite of all the pope's protests, proceeded to beneventum.[127] it is clear that there was in italy a strong feeling against the papal expansion, and that the occasional appeals for incorporation in the roman territory came from clerics. spoleto remained independent, in spite of hadrian's claim that it had been promised to him; in fact, it was clearly the policy of charlemagne to leave these matters to local option, and he can scarcely have made a definite promise to include spoleto in his "donation." in the following year, hadrian sent more alarming news. adelchis, a son of didier, had fled to the greeks and was pressing them to assist in overthrowing the frank-roman system. hadrian said that arichis and hildeprand, as well as hrodgaud of friuli and reginald of clusium, had conspired with the greeks, and he implored the king "by the living god" to come at once. charlemagne came, and chastised hrodgaud, but he does not seem to have found serious ground for the charges against the dukes of spoleto and beneventum. presently, however, hadrian was able to announce more definitely a conspiracy against his rule; the beneventans and greeks had captured some of his campanian towns, and tassilo, duke of bavaria (son-in-law of didier), had joined them. it is true that charlemagne was, at the time, busy in saxony, but it is equally clear that he was angry with the pope and resented his efforts to secure the two duchies. in 777, hadrian wrote that he rejoiced to hear that charlemagne was at length coming; he sent him a long list, from the roman archives, of all the territories to which rome laid claim, and invited the frank to be a second constantine.[128] but charlemagne came not, and in his next letter hadrian has to lament that the frank has committed the "unprecedented act" of arresting the papal legate for insolence, and the lombards are openly exulting in his humiliation.[129] there seems then to have been a long period without correspondence between the two courts, or else it has not been thought judicious to preserve the letters. in 781, however, charlemagne came to rome. tassilo was disarmed, and, as charlemagne's daughter was betrothed to the son of the eastern empress irene, the greeks must have been pacified. the six years of peace which followed were, no doubt, used by hadrian in that princely decoration of the roman churches of which i will speak later and in some attention to ecclesiastical affairs. we find him writing, in 785, to the bishops of spain; though he seems to have had little influence on the spanish heresy which he denounced, and it was left to the more vigorous attacks of charlemagne.[130] in 786 he extended his pastoral care to england, which had not seen a roman envoy since the days of gregory. his legates were received with honour, but they reported that the english church was in a deplorable condition.[131] king offa made a princely gift for the maintenance of lamps in st. peter's (a euphemism of the roman court) and for the poor, and it is curious to read that hadrian consented, at the king's request, to make lichfield a metropolitan see. the peace was broken in 787 by an active alliance of arichis, tassilo, and the greeks, and charlemagne again set out for italy. arichis was forced to pay the franks a heavy annual tribute and give his sons as hostages. the elder son and arichis himself died soon afterwards, and hadrian again made lamentable efforts to secure the duchy. the accomplished widow of arichis, adelperga, besought charlemagne to bestow it on her younger son, romwald, and hadrian begged him not to comply. he trusted charlemagne would not suspect him of coveting the duchy himself[132]; but he refrained from suggesting an alternative to the son of arichis, and at length he boldly warned charlemagne not to "prefer romwald to the blessed peter."[133] other indications of the building of the temporal power are not more edifying. we read that representative inhabitants of capua and other beneventan cities have sought incorporation in the roman "republic"; and then we read that the cities have been handed over to the papacy without inhabitants--a clear sign of the wishes of the majority--and that romwald is assuring his subjects, on the authority of charlemagne, that they need not pass under the authority of rome unless they will. charlemagne again ignored the pope's efforts, and soon had the spoletan and beneventan troops co-operating with his own against the greeks. hadrian obtained no control over spoleto and beneventum, and the fact that he does not charge charlemagne with failing to keep faith with the blessed peter casts further discredit on the supposed donation. in venetia and istria he had no influence whatever, and his agents were barbarously treated.[134] corsica never enters his correspondence. his power was confined to the roman duchy, the exarchate, and the pentapolis; and even there it was much assailed. it is true that in an hour of resolution he forbade charlemagne to interfere in an ecclesiastical election at ravenna, and it was as master of ravenna that he gave charlemagne the marbles and mosaics of the old palace. but he complained bitterly that charlemagne listened to his critics in ravenna,[135] and he had repeatedly to appeal to frank authority to enforce his sentences. to the end his letters to charlemagne were querulous and exacting. a few years before his death he heard that offa of england was proposing to charlemagne to depose him, and he protested, with more petulance than dignity, that he had been elected, not by men, but by jesus christ.[136] this demoralizing concern for his temporal rights seems to have warped hadrian's religious temperament and to have left him little time for purely spiritual duties. a single lengthy letter to spain and a legation to england are all that we have as yet related, and there is little to add. his third exercise of jurisdiction was unfortunate. irene had restored the worship of images in the east and was eager for a reconciliation with western christendom. she invited hadrian to preside at an ecumenical council. his reply was admirable in doctrinal respects, but he annoyed the greeks by at once claiming all his patrimonies in the east and protesting against the title used by archbishop tarasius. they retorted by suppressing part of his letter to the council of nicæa (787), at which his legates presided, and ignored both his requests. this, however, was only the beginning of fresh and grave trouble with charlemagne. the greeks had annoyed him by cancelling the betrothal of constantine with his daughter rotrud, and there is reason to suspect that he already contemplated assuming the title of emperor. there was, at all events, a sore feeling in france, and when the findings of the council of nicæa reached that country, they were treated with disdain and insult. hadrian had, in his annoyance with the greeks, refused to give a formal sanction to their findings, but he had so far accepted them as to issue from the papal chancellery a latin translation of the _acta_ of the council. we can readily believe that the translation would be crude and inaccurate, but the quarrel was not based on these fine shades of meaning. the french conception of the use of images differed not only from that of the greeks, but from that of hadrian. the northern prelates held that images were to be regarded only as ornaments and as reminders of the saints they represented. in this sense charlemagne issued, in his own name (though we justly suspect the authorship of alcuin), the large work which is commonly known as _the caroline books_. it scathingly attacked the greek canons which had been accepted by the pope; it took no notice of hadrian's doctrinal letter to the council; and, in defiance of the familiar roman custom, it denounced as sinful the practice of burning lights before statues or paying them any kind or degree of worship. it contained assurances of its loyalty to the apostolic see, but hadrian must have felt, when at length some version or other of the work was sent to him (three or four years after its publication), that it was an outrage on his spiritual authority. but the book bore the name of charlemagne, and in his lengthy reply hadrian prudently concealed his annoyance.[137] in the same year (794) the frank bishops held a synod at frankfort and resolutely maintained their position. whether this synod followed or preceded hadrian's letter we cannot say, but the franks continued for years to reject the roman doctrine.[138] hadrian's biographer discreetly ignores these failures of his attempts to assert his authority, and almost confines himself to the record of his work in rome itself. he restored and extended the walls, and added no less than four hundred towers to their defences. he repaired four aqueducts, and rebuilt, on a grander scale, the colonnade which ran from the tiber to st. peter's. the interior of st. peter's he decorated with a splendour that must have seemed to the degenerate romans imperial. the choir was adorned with silver-plated doors, and, in part, a silver pavement; while a great silver chandelier, of 1345 lights, was suspended from its ceiling. large statues of gold and silver were placed on the altars, and the walls were enriched with purple hangings and mosaics. vestments of the finest silk, shining with gold and precious stones, were provided for the clergy. to other churches, also, hadrian made liberal gifts of gold and silver statues, tyrian curtains, gorgeous vestments, and mosaics. the long hostility to images and image-makers in the east had driven large numbers of greek artists to italy, and the vast sums which the new temporal dominions sent to rome enabled hadrian to employ them. after a long and profound degeneration "the fine arts began slowly to revive."[139] for literary culture, however, hadrian did nothing; the attempt of some writers to associate him with charlemagne's efforts to relieve the gross illiteracy of europe is without foundation. in charity, too, the pope was distinguished. he founded new deaconries for the care of the poor, and at times of flood and fire he was one of the first to visit and relieve the sufferers. but both his artistic and his philanthropic work was almost restricted to rome. he added a few farms to those which his predecessors had planted on the desolate campagna, but the great and increasing resources of the papacy were chiefly used in laying the foundations of the material splendour which would one day daze the eyes of europe, and in paying soldiers to protect it against his political rivals. it must be added that he was one of the early founders of the roman tradition of nepotism. he appointed his nephew paschalis to one of the chief papal offices, and the brutality of the man, which will appear presently, shows that the promotion was not made on the ground of merit. his long pontificate came to an end on december 25th (or 26th) in the year 795, and it is an indication of the new position of the papacy that his successor at once sent to charlemagne the keys of rome and of the tomb of st. peter. we have the assurance of eginhard that the frank monarch wept as one weeps who has lost a dear son or brother, and he afterwards sent to rome a most honouring epitaph of hadrian, cut in gold letters on black marble. the character of charlemagne and his inmost attitude toward the new papacy he had created do not seem to me to be sufficiently elucidated by any of his biographers, but with that we are not concerned. he had deep regard for hadrian, in spite of the pope's failings. the new royal state was too heavy a burden for hadrian i. to bear with dignity. one cannot doubt the sincerity of his religion, his humanity, and his impersonal devotion to what he conceived to be his duty. but it is equally plain that in the first pope-king the cares of earthly dominion enfeebled the sense of spiritual duty and at times warped his character. it needed a great man to pass without scathe through such a transformation. hadrian i. was not a great man. footnotes: [footnote 113: so the successor of honorius, leo ii., wrote to the emperor. _ep._, iii.] [footnote 114: stephen i., who was chosen at the death of zachary, died before consecration, and some historians decline to insert him in the series.] [footnote 115: pippin repeated his oath at quiercey, and the bargain is sometimes described as the "quiercey donation." the "fantuzzian fragment," an ancient document which professes to give the precise extent of the donation, is full of errors and anachronisms, and is not now trusted by any serious historian.] [footnote 116: _ep._, v.] [footnote 117: this is sometimes called the "donation of aistulph," but is really the completed donation of pippin. on this point the _liber pontificalis_ is confirmed by the _annals_ of eginhard, in which we read that pippin gave the roman see "ravenna and the pentapolis and the whole exarchate belonging to ravenna" (year 756), and by the later letters of hadrian i.] [footnote 118: writers who say merely that stephen was "suspected of complicity" must have overlooked the testimony of hadrian himself in the _liber pontificalis_. he tells the lombard envoys that stephen assured him that, on didier promising to return the cities, the pope "caused the eyes of christopher and sergius to be put out." stephen's character is further illustrated by his letter to the sons of pippin (_ep._, iv.), when it was proposed that one of them should marry didier's daughter hermingard. they were both married, but the pope says very little about the sin of divorce; it is the infamy of alliance with the lombards which he chiefly denounces. in point of fact, charlemagne divorced his wife and married hermingard, and not a word further was heard from rome about this or any other of his peculiar domestic arrangements.] [footnote 119: the visit is described very fully in the _liber pontificalis_.] [footnote 120: _ep._, lx. some writers hold that this is merely an allusion to the _acta s. silvestri_, another forgery of the time, but the words which i have italicized point more clearly to the "donation of constantine." for the literature of the controversy see dr. a. solmi's _stato e chiesa_ (1901), pp. 12-13. it is now the general belief that the "donation" was fabricated at rome, and probably in the lateran, between 750 and 781. dr. hodgkin (_italy and her invaders_, vi.) has charitably suggested that perhaps the document was playfully composed by some papal clerk in his leisure hours and taken seriously by a later generation, but apologists do not seem to grasp at this straw.] [footnote 121: _ep._, lii.] [footnote 122: _ep._, lvii.] [footnote 123: dr. mann (vol. i., part ii., p. 423) finds some confirmation in "a passage of hadrian's letter to constantine and irene, read in the second session of the seventh general council." this part of hadrian's letter was not read in the council. it is not included in the letter in the migne edition (vol. xcvi.), and in mansi (xii., 1072) it is explained that the latter part of hadrian's letter, in which the passage occurs, was not read to the greeks. in any case, the passage merely affirms that charlemagne gave the roman see "provinces and cities and other territories," and this is quite consistent with the more modest estimate of his donation. a letter written by leo iii. to charlemagne thirty years afterwards (when the papal description of the donation certainly existed), speaking of his gift of the island of corsica, is not conclusive.] [footnote 124: see the dissertation appended to vol. vi. of dr. hodgkin's _italy and her invaders_, where the author contends that a late writer used the contemporary account of hadrian's early years to lead up to this fictitious donation. the hypothesis of interpolation in a genuine narrative is urged by dr. w. martens in his _die römische frage_ (1881) and _beleuchtung der neuesten controversen über die r. frage_ (1898). professor th. lindner (_die sogenannten schenkungen pippins, karls des grossen, und otto's i. an die päpste_, 1896) suggests that charlemagne intended only to secure the patrimonies in the provinces named in the donation, but this is not consistent with the language of the _liber pontificalis_, though it may very well represent the actual intention of charlemagne.] [footnote 125: _ep._, lii.] [footnote 126: _ep._, liii., liv., lv.] [footnote 127: _ep._, lvii.] [footnote 128: _ep._, lx.] [footnote 129: _ep._, lxii.] [footnote 130: _ep._, lxxxiii.] [footnote 131: see the interesting letter of bishop george, one of hadrian's legates, in jaffe's _bibliotheca rerum germanicarum_, vi., 155, and compare _the saxon chronicle_.] [footnote 132: _ep._, xc.] [footnote 133: _ep._, xciii.] [footnote 134: _ep._, lxxxii.] [footnote 135: _ep._, xcviii.] [footnote 136: _ep._, xcvi.] [footnote 137: migne, vol. xcviii., col. 1247.] [footnote 138: alcuin afterwards wrote a very abject letter to the pope (_ep._, xviii.), and this is sometimes represented as an expression of regret, but he does not mention the image-question and plainly refers to his general unworthiness. the franks were convinced that the pope was wrong. see the _acta_ of the frankfort council in mansi, xiii., 864.] [footnote 139: r. cattaneo, _architecture in italy from the sixth to the eleventh century_ (1896).] chapter vi nicholas i. and the false decretals the coronation of charlemagne by the pope in the year 800 was also the crowning of the new papal system. the ambition for temporal power had already disclosed the grave dangers which it brought. soon after the death of hadrian i. the horrible spectacle was witnessed at rome of high papal officials--one a nephew of the late pope--attempting, on the floor of a church, to cut out the eyes of their pontiff; and the record tells us that the romans were so little moved by the charges brought against him that they left it to a provincial noble to rescue leo iii. grave charges were also made against his successor, stephen v., and charlemagne came to rome to judge him. he politely acquitted stephen, and, on that historic christmas morning of the year 800, he was surprised and disconcerted by the pope suddenly producing an imperial crown and placing it on his head. it is well known that charlemagne regarded this coronation with distrust. the gifts of the blessed peter had a way of conferring more power on the giver than on the receiver. in point of fact, when the strong hand of the first emperor was removed, and a brood of weaker men came to squabble over the imperial heritage, rome gained considerably. the kingdoms of france, germany, and italy were carved out of the empire, but the spiritual realm was not exposed to any hereditary division. it merely awaited the coming of another strong man to make clear its power, and this revelation was reserved for nicholas i. of the eight popes who preceded him, only one, leo iv., made a reputable mark on history, and that rather as a strong and honest than as a spiritual personality. most of them were, like most of the popes, men of mediocre but respectable character. there is, however, some degeneration in the papal calendar--which is, until the end of the ninth century, a more edifying record than many imagine--since two out of the eight remain under suspicion of grave misconduct, and one was a gouty _gourmand_; while occasional outbreaks of a violence not far removed from barbarism betray that the new prosperity is not elevating the character of the romans. nicholas, whose life in the _liber pontificalis_ was probably written by his accomplished librarian anastasius, was the son of a cultivated roman notary, and was carefully trained in letters. these official panegyrics will not, however, impress the serious historian. the pope's letters show that the extent of his profane culture was merely a stricter observance of the elementary rules of grammar than some of his predecessors had displayed. in 853, a few years before nicholas began his pontificate, leo iv. had ordered the opening of schools in each of the twenty parishes of rome, but he complained that teachers of the liberal arts were rare. the instruction given was mainly religious, and it seems that on the ecclesiastical side the pope's culture was considerable. he had grown up in the devout service of the church, and successive popes had promoted and loved him; so that, when benedict iii. died, nicholas was unanimously chosen to succeed him. in the presence of the emperor, louis ii., nicholas, who had to be dragged from a hiding-place in st. peter's, was, on sunday, april 24th, consecrated and conducted by joyous crowds along the laurel-crowned streets to the lateran. two days afterwards the emperor entertained him at dinner, and they were very cordial. when louis set out for france, nicholas followed and had another festive dinner with him at his first camp. then the pope, after kissing and embracing the emperor, returned to the lateran and gravely mounted the papal throne. within the next few years men learned that a new type of pontiff ruled the church, or the world. nicholas i. conceived himself, in deepest sincerity, to be the representative of god on earth: fancied himself sitting on a throne so elevated that from its level all men--kings and beggars, patriarchs and monks--were of the same size. he believed that he was responsible to god for every immoral or irreligious movement in "every part of the world," as he often said. he was convinced that his words were "divinely inspired,"[140] and that disobedience to him was disobedience to god. he was, by divine appointment, "prince over all the earth."[141] kings received their swords from him,[142] and were as humbly subject as their serfs were to his moral and religious authority. the most powerful prelates must obey his orders at once or be deposed.[143] not a council must be held in europe without his approval[144]: not a church must be built "without the commands of the pope"[145]: not a book of any importance must be published without his authorization.[146] nicholas was conscientious in small duties: he kept lists of the blind and ailing poor to whom food had to be sent. but his great feature was his treatment of the mighty. he lived on a cloud-wrapt height, sending out the thunders of excommunication, on gentle and simple, as no pope had ever dared to do before. he left to louis the petty position of "emperor of men's bodies": _he_ occupied the position of jupiter. europe was cowed by the impersonal arrogance of his language. he was the greatest maker of the mediæval papacy.[147] nicholas did a greater work than hildebrand because the times permitted him. he had to deal with the degenerate descendants of charlemagne, not with a powerful ruler. on the other hand, court-favour and prosperity had made the leading prelates a feudal aristocracy, often arrogant and avaricious; and the monks they threatened and the priests they oppressed turned eagerly from them to the roman court of appeal. princes chafed at the independence of their spiritual vassals, and would depose them: bishops chafed at the interference of their suzerains, and would assert the independence of the church. a thousand voices appealed to rome. the fact that the _forged decretals_ were not made at rome or in the interest of rome, but by the provincial clergy in their own interest, gives us the measure of the age. and the fact that such forgeries were at once received reminds us of another favourable circumstance: the dense ignorance of the time. there was culture in places, as the contemporary work of scotus erigena reminds us, but to check these papal claims one needed a knowledge of history, and the true story of the development of the church and the papacy, as we know it, was buried under a dense growth of legends and forgeries. hence the dogmatic papal conception, partly based on such documents as the _donation of constantine_ and the _forged decretals_, sank almost unchallenged into the mind of europe, and the pope was now enabled to dispense with the swords of princes and rely on religious threats. the letters of nicholas splutter anathemas from beginning to end. his first extant letter gives the archbishop of sens and his colleagues a stern lesson on the prestige of the papacy, as understood by nicholas i. the sixth letter peremptorily orders the great hincmar of rheims and his colleagues, in language of the simplest arrogance, to excommunicate at once, as he had directed, the countess ingeltrude. but within a few years nicholas was involved in such a mesh of correspondence with offending princes and prelates that we must consider the chief causes in succession. the eastern empire was then ruled by michael the drunkard, his mistress eudocia, and the emperor's tutor in vice, his uncle bardas. this pretty trio deposed the saintly ignatius from the see of constantinople, and put in his place the imperial secretary photius, one of the most accomplished scholars and least scrupulous courtiers of the east. the better clergy protested, and the court sought the support of the pope. a glittering captain of the guards presented himself at rome with a set of jewelled altar-vessels and, no doubt, a diplomatic account of the situation. but nicholas at once rebuked the emperor for his "presumptuous temerity" in deposing ignatius without the assent of rome, and sent legates to inquire into the matter; and he took prompt occasion to demand the restoration of papal rights and patrimonies in the east.[148] the eastern court must have gasped at this language. however, the pope's legates were suborned, and a council held at constantinople (may, 861) confirmed the election of photius. nicholas was not satisfied,[149] and at length he heard the truth from ignatius. he called a council at rome, ordered michael to restore ignatius,[150] and threatened photius with all the anathemas in the papal arsenal if he did not retire. photius kept his place, and in 865 michael wrote an abusive and threatening letter to the pope. we gather from the pope's reply that it expressed the greatest contempt and threatened that greek troops would come and make an end of them all. the lengthy reply of nicholas has some fine passages, but it argues too much where silence would have been more dignified, and is at times petty and petulant in hurling back the emperor's foolish insults.[151] it received no answer, and in november, 866, nicholas wrote again. he was, he said, sending legates to judge the case at constantinople and would remind michael of the terrible things in store for those who disobeyed him; as to that abusive letter, he says, if michael does not take it back, he will "commit it to eternal perdition, in a great fire, and so bring the emperor into contempt with all nations." he also sent a very threatening letter to photius. but the letters never reached constantinople. the legates were turned back at the frontier, and photius went on to publish a virulent tirade on the errors and heresies of the latins. this seems to have been beyond the resources of the lateran, and the scholars of france were entrusted with the defence of the west. ignatius was eventually restored, but nicholas did not live to see the issue, and the eastern church again drifted far away from the western. the anathema had proved ineffectual in the east, but nicholas had meantime begun to employ it with happier results in europe. in spite of the puritanism of louis i., the loose tradition of charlemagne's court lingered in france and nicholas soon found it necessary to rebuke aristocratic sinners. i have mentioned that in 860 he threatened the countess ingeltrude with excommunication if she did not abandon her gay vagabondage and return to her husband, the count of burgundy. her son hucbert had claimed the attention of benedict iii., who tells us that this high-born young abbot went about france with a lively troop of actresses and courtesans, corrupted the most venerable nunneries, and filled monasteries with his hawks and dogs and licentious ladies.[152] hucbert's sister, theutberga, was wedded to lothair of lorraine, brother of the emperor louis, who accused her of incest with hucbert before her marriage and proposed to divorce her and marry his fascinating mistress waldrada. whether she was guilty or not we cannot tell, as no proper trial was ever held. she claimed the hot-water ordeal, and her champion was unscathed. then lothair won the support of the chief prelates of his kingdom, and they obtained or extorted from her a confession of guilt. they committed her to a nunnery and, in 862, granted lothair a divorce. theutberga appealed to rome, and nicholas ordered that a general synod should meet at metz. in his most lordly manner the pope directed charles the bald and louis of germany (uncles of lothair) to send bishops to this synod, but they left the field to their nephew and, as he bribed the pope's legates, he secured a confirmation of the divorce (june, 863). nicholas set his lips with more than their usual sternness when the archbishops of cologne and trèves arrived with this decision. summoning his own bishops to a council, he bluntly described the metz synod as "a brothel," annulled its decision, and excommunicated the two archbishops. in language more imperious than any that had yet issued from the lateran, he declared that this was the decision of the vicar of christ, and any man--he seems to refer pointedly to the royal families--who ventured to dissent from this or any other papal pronouncement would incur the direst anathemas. günther, the archbishop of cologne, fled in anger to the court of the emperor, and before long louis was marching on rome at the head of his troops.[153] it was a critical moment for the papal conception. nicholas ordered fasts and processions, and one of these processions, headed by the large gold crucifix which was believed to contain a part of the true cross, went out to st. peter's, near which the imperial troops were encamped. to the horror of the romans, the soldiers fell on the procession with their swords, and flung the precious cross into the mud. nicholas crossed the river secretly and remained in prayer in st. peter's, for forty-eight hours, without food. this was the world's reply to his first tremendous assertion of authority, and the history of europe might have been altered if the imperial sword had on that occasion prevailed over his spiritual threats. but the papacy was saved by one of those accidents which so deeply impressed the mediæval imagination. the man who had insulted the cross died suddenly, and louis himself became seriously ill. the empress hurried to the pope, and in a short time the troops were marching northward. from that day anathema becomes a mighty weapon in the hands of the popes. archbishop günther was not so easily intimidated. he wrote a fierce diatribe against nicholas--this new "emperor of the whole world,"--had a copy flung upon the tomb of the apostle, and departed for lorraine. but nicholas now knew his power. he scolded charles and louis like lackeys for not sending bishops to metz; they held their swords from st. peter, and they must listen to a pope who speaks from direct divine revelation.[154] the two kings persuaded lothair to disown günther and submit, and the legate arsenius was sent to france. this legate arsenius, an arrogant and worldly bishop, whose career ended in grave scandal, delivered the pope's orders at the courts of charles, louis, and lothair with a haughtiness even greater and less respectable than that of nicholas. he was obeyed at once, says hincmar, who shudders at the facile scattering of anathemas.[155] he then conducted theutberga to her husband and made the prince and his nobles swear on the most sacred relics to respect her; and, after a final shower of "unheard-of maledictions" (says hincmar), he set out for rome with the siren waldrada. there is grave reason to believe that the arrogant bishop was bribed, or otherwise corrupted, by waldrada. she "escaped" in northern italy and returned to lorraine; and the unhappy theutberga now appealed to nicholas to release her and let lothair marry waldrada. to this noble appeal nicholas could have but one answer; for the claims of the human heart he had no ear. she must remain in her husband's bed if it means martyrdom. lothair shall never marry that "whore" even if theutberga dies. there death compelled nicholas to leave the romantic situation of lothair; and one reads, almost with a smile, that his successor, hadrian ii., accepted lothair's sworn declaration (supported by many presents) that he had had no relations with waldrada since the prohibition, and admitted him and the archbishop of cologne to the holy table. one must respect the great pope's insistence on what he believed to be a divine ordination, but the historians who represent him as the champion of the human rights of an injured woman forget the final martyrdom of theutberga. one seems at first to find a more human note in the pope's indulgence toward baldwin of flanders. judith, daughter of charles the bald, had been put under restraint by her father for misconduct, and in 860 she eloped with the young count of flanders. baldwin asked the pope's mediation, and he won from charles forgiveness for the erring couple. if, however, one reads his letter (_xxii._) carefully, one finds no ground for the claim that he was "tender toward the penitent." he plainly says that baldwin had threatened to throw in his lot with the norman pirates if charles persists in his threat of vengeance. there is a nearer approach to sentiment in the pope's effort to secure the property of the widowed helletrude, which had been seized by lothair; but we do not know the issue of his intervention in that case. if the new language of the papacy fell with uncertain effect upon the ears of kings and sinners, it did at least win a triumph among the great prelates of europe and raised the roman see immeasurably above them. the conflict with hincmar of rheims was the most notable and successful struggle in which nicholas engaged. hincmar was the most distinguished and one of the more worthy of the prelate-nobles who had risen to wealth and power with the settlement of europe. he was a man of imperious temper and great ability, yet of sincere religious feeling and concern for the prestige of the gallic church. one of his suffragans, rothrad of soissons, incurred his dislike, and, when this bishop suspended one of his priests, who had been caught in adultery and ignominiously mutilated by his parishioners, hincmar reinstated the man. when rothrad not unnaturally remonstrated, he was deposed by hincmar and a jury of five bishops,[156] and he appealed to rome. in order to frustrate this appeal, hincmar took a weak and improper advantage of a letter written by rothrad, saying that in this letter the bishop abandoned his appeal, and induced the king to forbid him to go to rome. then, in a synod which met at soissons, he had the deposition confirmed and rothrad sentenced to live in a monastery. nicholas at once, in 863, wrote a severe letter to hincmar, harshly rebuking him for his want of respect for the roman see and claiming that the case ought to have been remitted to rome whether rothrad had appealed or no.[157] in a second letter written shortly afterwards, he threatened to depose hincmar if he did not obey, or come to justify his conduct at rome, within thirty days.[158] he wrote in the same harshly autocratic language to the king and to the other french prelates; if his orders were not at once obeyed, he would punish everybody severely. the greatest prelate-noble in europe and the king himself submitted almost without a struggle, and rothrad went to rome. hincmar, it is true, disdained to send witnesses and attempted in his letter to defend his action, but the pope went on his way as calmly and inexorably as if he were dealing with a few refractory monks. on christmas eve, 864, he preached a sermon on the case and announced that he had reinstated rothrad. the legate arsenius was then about to set out for france on the mission i have already described, and he took rothrad with him to the court of charles. he took also a letter to hincmar which began: "if thou hadst any respect for the canons of the fathers or the apostolic see, thou wouldst not have attempted to depose rothrad without our knowledge." i will consider later this covert reference to the _forged decretals_. rothrad was reinstated; and the language in which the _bertinian annals_ describe the pope's procedure shows the bitter resentment it provoked in france. an incident that occurred in the course of the dispute shows--if proof were necessary--that nicholas acted on a sincere conviction of right. in 863 lothair appointed archbishop günther's brother, hildwin, to the see of cambrai, and hincmar rightly protested that the man was unworthy. he appealed to nicholas, and, although his appeal reached the pope at a time when he was threatening to depose hincmar, and that prelate still evaded his orders, nicholas at once discharged a shower of his menacing letters[159] in support of hincmar and did not rest until lothair abandoned hildwin. warped as it was, at times, by a too exalted conception of the authority of his see, nicholas had, nevertheless, a rigid sentiment of justice, and it was his supreme aim to make that anarchic world bow to moral no less than ecclesiastical law. he had not yet reached the end of his conflict with the great representative of the prelate-nobles. hincmar's predecessor, ebbo, had conferred orders after he had been deposed, and a council held at soissons in 853 had suspended these clerics from the exercise of their functions. benedict iii. and nicholas himself had expressed a qualified approval of this council, but the _forged decretals_ were now circulating in france, and one of the suspended clerics, wulfad,--possibly encouraged by the success of rothrad,--appealed to rome. once more nicholas curtly ordered hincmar either to reinstate the clerics or to summon a new council, to which the pope would send legates, at soissons. the council was held, and the french bishops endeavoured by means of a compromise to save their own dignity yet avoid a quarrel: they decided to reinstate the clerics as an act of grace. this evasion drew from the pope some of the sorriest letters in his register. not only in a most harsh and offensive letter to the archbishop,[160] but even in a letter to the bishops,[161] he accused hincmar of fraud, insisted that the _acta_ of the earlier soissons council had been submitted in a dishonest form to his "divinely inspired" predecessor and himself, and, on the pretext that hincmar was wearing his pallium on improper occasions, threatened to punish his "pride" and "vainglory" by a withdrawal of that distinction. he ordered them to hold a new council. nicholas died before the report of this council reached rome, and his indulgent successor exculpated hincmar. but the meekness with which those terrible letters were received is a measure of the advance of the papacy. a story that is told at length in the _liber pontificalis_ affords another instance of this assertion of spiritual autocracy and its encouragement by appeals from the provinces. the pope was informed that john of ravenna abused his power; bishops complained that he quartered himself and his expensive retinue on them for unreasonable periods and made other exacting demands. when john received letters of remonstrance and legates from rome, he forbade his subjects to appeal to the pope, and strengthened his authority by falsifying the documents in his archives: a crime at which the roman anastasius expresses the most naïve surprise and indignation. when nicholas summoned him to appear before a roman synod, john "boasted" that he was not subject to the bishop of rome, and, when the synod excommunicated him, he appealed to the emperor. he then went, with the support of imperial legates, to beard nicholas in the lateran, but the pope astutely detached the legates from him and he returned in concern to ravenna. in this case the prelate was unpopular and unjust, so that nicholas had a good local base for his authority. he went in person to ravenna, and before long men pointed the finger of scorn or of horror at their proud archbishop as he rode through the streets. the emperor abandoned him, and in a few months we find john at rome, humbly submitting to the rod, placing the written record of his penitence on the holy sandals of the saviour. a remarkable extension of this authority is attempted in a letter which nicholas addressed to king charles in 867. the dispute about predestination which then agitated clerical europe, and gave some fallacious promise of a revival of intellect, had been submitted to nicholas in the early days of his pontificate. nicholas was, like all the great popes, a statesman and canonist, not a theologian. he prudently remained silent, and let franks and germans belabour each other with theological epithets. when, however, he heard that charles had invited the famous john scotus erigena, the subtlest thinker of the early middle ages, to translate a supposed work of denis the areopagite (_de divinis nominibus_), he reproved the king for issuing so important a book without having submitted it to rome.[162] we do not find that charles took any notice of his claim of censorship, or sent him a copy of the book. it is a good illustration of the attitude of rome that a thinker like scotus erigena, in whose works we plainly recognize the most advanced heresy that arose in europe before the eighteenth century, incurred so little censure. nicholas merely complains that the learned irishman is rumoured to be not entirely sound in theology. still bolder is the claim made in a letter in which nicholas sought to control the conversion of the danes. no new national church must be founded without his authority, he says, since "according to the sacred decrees even a new _basilica_ cannot be built without the command of the pope."[163] in this he outran not only the genuine, but the forged, decretals. he had in mind, no doubt, a decree of gelasius on the subject of church-building, but this merely forbade the erection of a church, without authority, in the roman diocese itself. at the other extremity of europe nicholas made elaborate efforts to bring the bulgarians under his authority. he sent legates to king boris, and wrote a very long and curious reply to a large number of questions--ranging from the most exalted points of faith to the wearing of trousers by women--which the bulgarians submitted to him. he did not live to see the relapse of the deceitful and ambitious slavs. these are the outstanding features of the voluminous correspondence of nicholas the great. they bring before us the portrait of a man who is raised above the disorder of his time, not so much by strength of personality as by the exaltation of his sacerdotal creed. in a more orderly christendom nicholas might have seemed an exemplary and not greatly distinguished bishop, but chaos has ever been the native element of such creative genius as he possessed. since all men now bowed in theory to the christian ideal, their very disorders lent authority to the pope's anathemas. he hears that a set of young bishops are devoted to hunting and even to less reputable pastimes, and his scorn is irresistible.[164] he hears that the sons of charles the bald have quarrelled with their royal father, and, though they are now reconciled, "we direct that you present yourselves humbly at a synod to be held in a place appointed by us, to which we will send legates of the apostolic authority."[165] he has little time or inclination for the material decoration of rome. he restores st. peter's and the trajan aqueduct; he organizes the distribution of charity; but his life-work is the consolidation of the spiritual supremacy of the popes. he is, pre-eminently, the smiter of the powerful; and, in smiting them, he strengthens the papal arm. fortunately for him and the papacy, he has to deal with a degenerate, ignorant, and superstitious generation: the night of the dark age is drawing in--a night which is not disproved by showing, as maitland does, that there was a little lamp here and there. and when we contemplate that world of murder, incest, rape, spoliation, and monastic and priestly corruption which is reflected in the pope's letters, we feel that it was well for europe to have such a master. on the other hand, we do assuredly find nicholas, and each succeeding great pope, yielding to that most natural temptation of the moralist and priest in face of grave disorder--acting on the unformulated principle that the end sanctifies the means. the question whether nicholas relied on the _forged decretals_ has now been so fully discussed that it is possible to give a precise answer; at least when we consider certain passages in his letters which have been overlooked. on the origin and spread of the decretals i need only summarize accepted results.[166] the collection originated in france about the year 850, though it is still disputed whether it was composed in the diocese of tours or (as seems more probable) that of rheims. it follows from this origin that the forgery was perpetrated, not in the interest of the papacy, but of the bishops and lower clergy, to whom it gave the right of appeal to a central authority against the (often unjust) sentences of higher prelates and the aggression of lay nobles. the book, however, is not merely concerned with questions of jurisdiction and appeal. it is further agreed that, though the successor of nicholas, hadrian ii., certainly used the _forged decretals_, they were little used by the popes before the middle of the eleventh century; but it is equally agreed that they were of immense service to the papacy in spreading a conviction of the antiquity of its most advanced claims and in promoting the practice of appeal to it. the chief point in dispute is whether nicholas knew and employed the forgery, and with this i may deal more fully. the first letter in the pope's register is a reply to wenilo, archbishop of sens, in regard to the deposition of a bishop. servatus lupus, the learned abbot of ferrières, had written on behalf of wenilo--the letter is fortunately preserved--to say that men were quoting a certain decretal of pope melchiades which reserved to the papacy the deposition of bishops.[167] this was evidently a quotation from the _forged decretals_, yet in his reply nicholas completely ignores the supposed decretal on which his opinion was expressly asked. whether or no we may infer from this silence that nicholas was ignorant of the source of the quotation, we may surely conclude that so industrious a canonist would make immediate inquiries about this remarkable document, if he were not already acquainted with it. since, however, he made no reply to the question whether the deposition of a bishop was reserved to the papacy, i infer that he was unaware of the existence of the decretals; and this is strongly confirmed by a letter which he wrote in 862. he tells king solomon of brittany that a bishop may be deposed by twelve bishops, on the evidence of seventy-two witnesses, and he refers to pope silvester as the authority for this mythical ordinance.[168] in this he relies on a spurious document, but a document _not_ contained in the isidorean collection. the main point is that he allows the local deposition of bishops, and enjoins recourse to rome only in case of dispute. he does not yet seem to know the _decretals_, but, as hincmar had used them in 857 (possibly in 853), we can hardly imagine such a pope as nicholas remaining long unaware of the existence in france of this strong foundation of his authority; especially when, as i said, his attention had been plainly drawn to it by servatus lupus. then came the case of rothrad,[169] and nicholas, as we saw, wrote to hincmar that the case ought to have been remitted to rome whether rothrad had appealed or no[170]; but it is clear that he is speaking of a vague duty imposed by general respect for the apostolic see, not of a duty enforced by canonical obligation. if, he says, hincmar were "not disposed" to send the case to rome (_si id agere noluisses_), he ought at least to have respected rothrad's actual appeal. but when we come to 865, and the famous letter (lxxv.) which the pope wrote to hincmar and his colleagues, nicholas is quite clear. "even if," he says, "he [rothrad] had not appealed to the apostolic see, you had no right to run counter to so many and such important decretal statutes and depose a bishop without consulting us."[171] the french prelates had complained that such decretals were not found in their collection: the dionysian collection given to charlemagne by hadrian in 774. it does not matter, nicholas replies, whether they have them or not; all decretals approved at rome are to be respected. and he makes it perfectly clear that he is referring, not to genuine decretals which may not be in the dionysian collection, but to the isidorean. they make use of these decretals themselves, he says, when it suits their purpose; we know that hincmar had done so, and possibly nicholas had learned this from rothrad. but he makes it still plainer that he is not referring to decretals in the roman archives, but to the isidorean forgeries, when he says that he is thinking of the decretals of "ancient" (_prisci_) pontiffs, not merely those of gregory and leo; and he leaves no room whatever for doubt when he includes letters written by the popes in "the times of the pagan persecutions." we must not, however, exaggerate the pope's reliance on this imposture. m. roy has made a careful analysis of the letters of nicholas, and he maintains that only four of his quotations are from spurious decretals: that three of these are not in the isidorean collection: and that the one which is common to nicholas and pseudo-isidore had already been in circulation before the imposture was published.[172] father de smedt further points out that nicholas made no use of isidorean decretals which would, especially in his conflict with photius, have been useful to him, and that, when he does use documents which are in the isidorean collection, he gives their genuine words or assigns them to their real authors. these are generally valid claims, but they do not conflict with my conclusion. nicholas plainly endeavoured to use the _forged decretals_, but he had a learned and acute antagonist in hincmar and he dare not quote them individually or in their crude isidorean form. one is almost reminded of the smiles of roman augurs when one considers these two great ecclesiastical statesmen, using a forged document or watching with complacency the use of it, yet checking each other when it affects their own interests. there is no answer to milman's sober charge that nicholas saw the spread of the work and did not protest. he knew well the contents of the roman archives--he had a number of scribes studying them--and he must have known as well as we do that there were no genuine decretals before the time of gelasius. the analysis made by m. roy must be supplemented by that of j. richterich,[173] from which it appears beyond question that nicholas made a very extensive use of spurious documents; as we have found roman officials doing from the fourth century. father de smedt[174] "does not altogether deny" that, as hinschius says, nicholas sometimes, in quoting genuine decretals, alters their meaning in accordance with the isidorean. roy himself has to admit that nicholas goes far beyond the words and meaning of gelasius in saying that no church may be built without the pope's permission.[175] he goes equally beyond genuine precedent in claiming that no bishop can be deposed without his authority; hitherto there had been only the vague understanding that "grave cases" were reserved to the pope. he advances equally beyond precedent in claiming that no council can be held without his sanction. roy[176] calls this "a pseudo-isidorean principle," and says that nicholas nowhere asserted it. but nicholas plainly asserts it in _ep._, xii., and is just as plainly straining a vague early claim of pope gelasius.[177] we must conclude that, however beneficent may have been the spiritual centralization which nicholas so ably elaborated, and however impersonal and religious his aim may have been, he proceeded at times on principles which no cause can sanctify: principles which it was dangerous to bequeath to less spiritual successors. he died in 867, after nine and a half years of heroic work for his ideal: a type of ecclesiastical statesman that it needs a peculiarly balanced judgment to appreciate. the pleasures and thrills of the world he despised, and it would be a deep injustice to conceive him as other than entirely indifferent to the personal prestige of his position. his personality was entirely merged in his office: he was, indeed, not a personality, but the vicar of a greater personality. the phrase which too often in hadrian's letters is a mere artifice for obtaining wealth and power--"the blessed peter"--was to him the expression of a living and awful reality. if the papacy did not tower above all the other thrones in christendom, the intention of christ was made void. nicholas would have it realized. in that spirit he added strength to the frame of the papal system. the historian must do justice to his aim and to the salutary tendency of his moral control of europe; he must be no less candid in denouncing the sentiment that the end justifies the means. footnotes: [footnote 140: _ep._, lxxxiii., xcii., and cviii.] [footnote 141: _ep._, lxv.] [footnote 142: _ep._, lxxix.] [footnote 143: _ep._, vi.] [footnote 144: _ep._, xii.] [footnote 145: _ep._, cxxxv.] [footnote 146: _ep._, cxv.] [footnote 147: an excellent analysis of his ideas is given in dr. a. greinacher's _die anschaungen des papstes nikolaus i. über das verhältniss von staat und kirche_ (1909).] [footnote 148: _ep._, iv.] [footnote 149: _ep._, xii. and xiii.] [footnote 150: _ep._, xlvi.] [footnote 151: _ep._, lxxxvi.] [footnote 152: _ep._, ii.] [footnote 153: the best account is in the _annals of st. berlin_, in the _monumenta germaniæ historica_, vol. i.] [footnote 154: _ep._, lxxxiii.] [footnote 155: it is, at least, generally believed that hincmar wrote this part of the _bertinian annals_.] [footnote 156: _bertinian annals_, year 865.] [footnote 157: _ep._, xxxiii.] [footnote 158: _ep._, xxxiv.] [footnote 159: xli., xlii., and xliii.] [footnote 160: cviii.] [footnote 161: cvii.] [footnote 162: _ep._, cxv.] [footnote 163: _ep._, cxxxv.] [footnote 164: _ep._, cxxvii.] [footnote 165: _ep._, xxxix.] [footnote 166: the famous collection which bears the name of isidorus mercator contains about sixty spurious decretals in the first part, covering the first three centuries, and about thirty in the third part; the second part contains the canons of councils. the author makes an adroit use of older documents, and his work is largely a mosaic of genuine fragments (of papal letters, chronicles, etc.) so pieced together and ante-dated as to father later developments of papal authority on the earlier popes. the best edition is that of p. hinschius (1863), and the best survey of recent study is the article "pseudoisidor" in herzog's _real-encyclopädie für protestantische theologie_. there is a useful chapter in _the age of charlemagne_ (1898), by c.l. wells. the ablest catholic study of the relation of nicholas to the collection is jules roy's _saint nicholas_ (1901). see also _les fausses décrétales_ (1879), of father ch. de smedt. on the general question of the pope's use of spurious documents see the able old catholic work of j. richterich, _papst nikolaus i._ (1903).] [footnote 167: see _ep._, cxxx., of servatus lupus.] [footnote 168: _ep._, xxv.] [footnote 169: it is not easy to regard rothrad as the author of the forgery, as he was not deposed until 862. a more probable source of origin is the group of clerics ordained by ebbo and suspended by hincmar in 853. even this seems too late, however, as such a compilation was not the work of a day. but it is very probable that rothrad took the book to rome, if it were not already there.] [footnote 170: _ep._, xxxiii.] [footnote 171: the modern writers who have contended that these _tot et talia decretalia statuta_ are not the isidorean decretals seem not to have read the whole letter.] [footnote 172: _saint nicholas_, appendix ii. (followed by dr. mann, vol. iii.). see also f. rocquain's _la papauté au moyen âge_ (1881). hefele (bd. iv., p. 292) admits that nicholas relied on the forgery.] [footnote 173: _papst nikolaus i._ (1903).] [footnote 174: p. 116.] [footnote 175: _epp._, lxxxii. and cxxxv.] [footnote 176: p. 131.] [footnote 177: _ep._, lxv.] chapter vii john x. and the iron century the next great stride in the development of the papacy is taken by gregory vii., the true successor of nicholas i. and gregory i. europe seemed, indeed, entirely prepared for that last development of the papal system which we connect with the name of hildebrand, and a student of its essential growth may be tempted to pass at once from the ninth to the eleventh century. but to do so would be to omit one of the most singular phases of the story of the papacy and leave in greater obscurity than ever one of its most interesting problems. how comes it that a century of iron, as baronius has for ever branded the tenth century, falls between the work of nicholas and the still greater work of gregory? may we trust those modern writers who contend that the devout father of ecclesiastical history was gravely unjust to the papacy, and that we may detect the play of a romantic or a malicious imagination in the familiar picture of theodora and marozia controlling the chair of peter and investing their lovers or sons with the robes of the vicar of christ? some consideration must be given to this phase, and it will be convenient to take john x. as its outstanding and characteristic figure. i have already observed that few really unworthy men sat in the chair of peter until the close of the ninth century. among the hundred popes who preceded nicholas i. there had been, it is true, few men of commanding personality, but there had been still less men of ignoble character. they had been, on the whole, men whose real mediocrity is not obscured by the fulsome praises of their official panegyrists, yet, for the most part, men of blameless life. in the ninth century we see a gradual deterioration. hadrian ii. tries, with equal sincerity though less personality, to play the great part of nicholas, and it is from no fault of character that he fails to coerce princes and prelates. john viii. plays a not ignoble human part during the calamitous decade of his pontificate, though there is more soldierly ardour than religious idealism in his defence of the papacy. after him, in quick succession, come five popes of little-known character, and then we have that famous stephen vi. who digs the half-putrid body of a predecessor, formosus, from its grave and treats it with appalling outrage. in the gloom which now descends on rome, we follow with difficulty the passionate movements of the rival parties, but we know that after formosus there were nine popes in eight years (896-904). with sergius iii. (904-911), the century of iron fitly opens, and his name and that of john x., who became pope in 914, are chiefly associated with the names of theodora and marozia. the general causes of this deterioration are easily assigned. in that age of violent character, uncontrolled by culture, a multiplication of small princedoms was sure to lead to bloody rivalries. to this the dissolution of the empire of charlemagne and the feebleness of his descendants had led, especially in italy, where the weakness of a sacerdocracy--that is to say, its liability, if not obligation, to use temporal resources for religious rather than military and civic purposes--soon became apparent. the papacy had the further weakness that, being nominally independent yet unable to defend itself, it was ever on the watch for another pippin--a monarch who would protect it and not govern it--and it dangled its tawdry imperial crown before the eyes of the kings of italy, france, and germany, to say nothing of the smaller princes of italy. hence arose the factions which rent a degraded rome. we must remember, too, that this was a fresh period of invasion and devastation: the waves of saracen advance lapped the walls of rome from the south and the fierce hungarians reached it from the north. these general causes of decay are substantial, yet we must not be too easily contented with them. some day a subtler or more candid science will tell the whole story of the making of the middle ages. i need note only that the disorder existed in rome, and often burst its bonds, long before the time of stephen vi. even under hadrian i. we saw relatives and friends of the pope promoted to high office, yet in the end betraying characters of revolting brutality. we remember also a certain legate of nicholas i., bishop arsenius, who handled anathemas with such consummate ease. this man's nephew abducted the daughter of pope hadrian ii., and, when he was pursued, murdered her and the pope's wife. there was some taint in the blood--or the brain--of this new roman aristocracy which gathered round the lateran. under john viii., the strongest successor of nicholas, they broke into appalling disorders. "their swinish lust," says one of the most conservative and most reticent of recent writers on the popes, speaking of the leading papal officials of the time, "was only second to their cruelty and avarice."[178] hadrian ii. had the widow of one of these officials whipped naked through the streets of rome, and had another official blinded. under stephen vi. and sergius iii. these corrupt roman families come into clearer light, and the domination of theodora and marozia is merely one episode in this lamentable development, which has been recorded more fully because of the piquancy of this feminine ascendancy in a nominal theocracy. the period with which we are concerned really opens with pope formosus, a not unworthy man, who looked for support to arnulph of germany. the italian faction, which looked to guido of spoleto and adalbert of tuscany, regarded this "treachery" with the bitterest rancour and imprisoned the pope. one of the leaders of this section was the deacon (later pope) sergius. arnulph came to rome, and swept the tuscan-spoletan faction, including sergius, out of the city. formosus died in 896, his gouty successor followed him within a fortnight, and stephen vi. was elected. as soon as arnulph had left rome, the pope surrendered to the italian faction, and the lateran witnessed that ghastly outrage of the trial of the mouldering corpse of formosus: on the nominal charge of having exercised his functions after being deposed and having passed from another bishopric to that of rome. there seems to be some lack of sense of moral proportion in historians who, knowing these far graver things, make elaborate efforts to disprove the love-affairs of one or two popes of the period. three not unworthy popes filled, and soon quitted, the roman see after stephen. the last of these, leo v., was dethroned and imprisoned by the cardinal-priest christopher, who seized the papacy. sergius and his friends in exile now entered into correspondence with the dissatisfied romans, mastered the city with an army, and threw christopher in turn into a dungeon. this was the rise to power of sergius iii.; the beginning of what has been called, with more vigour than accuracy, the pornocracy.[179] with the weakening of the empire, the roman nobles had wrested from the popes the political control of the city, and we gather from the titles assigned to them that there was a debased restoration of the old republican forms. the head of one of the leading families, theophylactus, is described as master of the papal wardrobe, master of the troops, consul, and senator. his wife, theodora, called herself the senatrix: their elder and more famous daughter marozia is named the patricia. the family belonged, of course, to the tuscan-spoletan faction which triumphed with sergius. culture had now fallen so low at rome that there is no writer of the time able or willing to leave us a portrait of these remarkable ladies; the nearest authority, the monk benedict of soracte, is so far from artistic feeling that it would be literally impossible to write a grosser and more barbarous latin than he does. from some documents of the time it appears that there were ladies of this great family who could not write their names, and we may presume that this was their common condition. but it is uniformly stated that they were women of great beauty and ambition: it is certain that marozia was the mother of john xi., and that she put him on the papal throne: and it is claimed that sergius was the father of john xi., and that john x. was the lover of theodora. these stories of amorous relations would not in themselves deserve a severe historical inquiry, but they have been made a test of the accuracy or inaccuracy of our authorities. the older ecclesiastical historians admitted them without demur. in the pages of baronius theodora is "that most powerful, most noble, and most shameless whore" and sergius is the lover of that "shameless whore" theodora. pagi and mansi reproduce these words, and they are complacently prefixed to the collection of john's letters in the migne edition.[180] more recent writers like duchesne and dr. w. barry admit the charge against sergius; but the learned muratori boldly questioned the whole tradition, and various modern italian writers have attempted to support his case.[181] the claim that we have discovered, since the days of baronius, new documents which materially alter the evidence, must at once be set aside. of the formosian writers of the time whose pamphlets have been recovered, the priest auxilius throws no light on this subject and the grammarian vulgarius is unreliable. we have letters and poems in which vulgarius hails pope sergius as "the glory of the world" and "the pillar of all virtue," and professes a profound regard for the matchless virtue and the "immaculate bed" of theodora.[182] the fact is that vulgarius had previously indicted sergius in lurid terms and had been significantly summoned to rome by that vigorous pontiff. his charges of murder and outrage then changed into the most fulsome flattery, to which we cannot pay the slightest regard. his earlier charges are more serious, as, writing only six years after the events, he appeals to the still fresh recollection in the minds of the romans that sergius had had his two predecessors murdered in prison.[183] we have no serious reason to differ from baronius. liutprand, bishop of cremona, is the chief accuser. as servant of the court of berengar ii. and then of otto i., he often visited rome in the first half of the tenth century, and he knew the city well during the pontificate of john xi., the son of marozia. he says that theodora, "a shameless whore," was all-powerful at rome: that she was the mistress of john x., whom she promoted to the see of ravenna and then to that of rome: that her daughters marozia and theodora were more shameless than she: and that john xi. was the son of sergius and marozia.[184] liutprand would hardly scruple to reproduce gossip, and he is often wrong, so that one reads him with caution. yet his statement about sergius is so far confirmed that so careful a writer on the popes as duchesne is compelled to accept it.[185] benedict of soracte, a very meagre and confused chronicler, gives marozia a dark character in his _chronicle_.[186] her son alberic was, he says, born out of wedlock: presumably before she married the father, alberic i. flodoard, the most respectable chronicler of the time, tells us in his _annals_ (year 933) that john xi. was the son of marozia and the brother of alberic ii.; but neither there nor elsewhere does he mention the father, and the omission is significant. flodoard, a deeply religious monk, under personal obligations to the papacy, was not the man to repeat scandalous roman gossip; yet in his long poetic history of the papacy he brands marozia as an incestuous woman united to an adulterer, and he describes john xi., whom he disdains, as so puny a thing that we can scarcely conceive him as a son of the vigorous alberic.[187] lastly, the one-line notice of john xi. in the _liber pontificalis_ says that he was "the son of sergius iii." we do not know when or by whom this was written, but recent attempts to represent it as an echo of liutprand have failed. we must agree with duchesne that it is a distinct testimony and "more authoritative" than that of liutprand. i have analyzed afresh the original evidence on this not very important point merely in order to show the futility of recent attempts to rehabilitate the age of john x. pope sergius, the chief ecclesiastic of the italian faction to which john belonged, was a violent and unscrupulous man. he resigned a bishopric, and returned to the rank of deacon, in order that he might have a better chance of the papacy. he was anti-pope to john ix. in 898, and was excommunicated and driven from rome; and he forced his way back at the point of the sword. the charge that he was responsible for the death of his two predecessors cannot be disregarded, and he certainly dealt violently with his opponents. the charge of loose conduct is not more serious than these things, and it rests on strong evidence. to this party john x. belonged. his early career is not very plain, but he appears first as a deacon at bologna. he was chosen to succeed bishop peter of that city, but, before he was consecrated, archbishop kailo of ravenna died, and john passed to ravenna and occupied its see. nine years later, in 914, he was elected bishop of rome. it was scarcely thirty years since his party had foully treated the body of formosus, partly on the charge of passing from another bishopric to that of rome. one naturally suspects ambition in john and powerful influence in his favour at rome. we know, in fact, that he was on excellent terms with theophylactus and theodora,[188] and no one now doubts that they secured his election. we are therefore not wholly surprised, considering the age, when liutprand assures us that he was a charming man, and that theodora, meeting him during one of his missions to rome, conceived a passion for him. it is neither possible nor profitable to linger over the subject, and the impartial student will probably neither assent to nor dissent from this unconfirmed statement of the bishop of cremona. liverani ridicules it on the ground that theodora must have been far from young, since her daughter marozia married albert of camerino about the year 915. it is curious to find a native of italy, where girls are often mature at twelve, and were in the old days often mothers at thirteen, raising such an objection. theodora may quite well have been still in her thirties in 915. i would, however, rather call attention to the moral condition of europe at the time. the pious bishop of verona, ratherius, gives us an extraordinary picture of the life of some of his episcopal colleagues.[189] they rush through their mass in the morning, don gorgeous dresses and gold belts, and ride out to hunt on horses with golden bridles: they return at night to rich banquets, with massive goblets of good wine, and dancing girls for company, and dice to follow: and they retire, too often with their companions, to beds that are inlaid with gold and silver and spread with covers and pillows of silk. bishop atto of vercelli gives us a corresponding picture of the lives of the lower clergy and their wives and mistresses.[190] the proceedings of the council of troslé, in the year 909, confirm and enlarge this remarkable picture.[191] assuredly no historian who knows the tenth century will find the charges against sergius and john implausible. whatever may be their value, john was no idle voluptuary. he found the saracens still devastating southern italy and he helped, in 915, to form a great league against them. when the duke of capua led out his troops, and the spoletans and beneventans fell into line at last, and even the greeks sent a fleet, the roman militia was marshalled, and john rode at their head beside the fiery young alberic of camerino. he was not the first of the many fighting popes: john viii. had built a papal navy and dealt the saracens some shrewd blows. but john x. was the first pope to take the field in person, and we lament that the wretched scribes of the time have left us no portrait of the consecrated warrior. we know from his letters that he exposed himself on the field, and from the chronicles that he fired the troops. the saracens were at last pinned in their camp on a hill near the mouth of the garigliano, and, after a long blockade, were annihilated. john and the marquis alberic enjoyed a splendid ovation at rome, and it was probably at this date that the hand of marozia was bestowed on alberic. but the victory had its price. john had to surrender some of his patrimonies to the duke of gaeta and to confer the imperial crown on king berengar for his assistance. when berengar came to rome, and promised to maintain all the rights and properties of the papacy as other emperors had done, and received the crown from the hand of the pope, it must have seemed that a brighter day had dawned at last on italy. but the restless factions murmured, and in a few years rudolph ii. of burgundy was invited to come and seize the crown. berengar brought the half-civilized hungarians to his aid, and a fresh trail of blood and fire marred the face of italy. he lost, and was assassinated (924); but rudolph, who won only the crown of italy, was not left long in peaceful possession of it, and the next movement of italian politics shows john in a singular situation at rome. an earlier chapter of this history was enlivened by the amours of lothair of lorraine and waldrada. they left behind them an illegitimate daughter, bertha, who had all the spirit and more than the ambition of her mother. there were many women of commanding personality (and, usually, little scruple) in the early middle ages, and the story of theodora and marozia must not be regarded as very exceptional. bertha made vigorous efforts to win italy for her favourite son, hugh of provence, and, when she died in 925, his sister, irmengard, a fascinating woman who maintained the domestic tradition, won the bishops and nobles of lombardy for him by an unsparing use of her charms. he was presently invited to come and drive the burgundians out of italy. john x. joined in the invitation and went to mantua to meet him. it is recorded that the pope made some obscure bargain with him at mantua, and there can be little doubt that he asked hugh's aid against marozia. theophylactus and theodora were dead, and marozia was at deadly feud with the pope. her first husband seems to have died about 925, and she had married guido of tuscany. whether her quarrel with john began before her marriage we do not know, but liutprand tells us that she and guido wanted to depose the pope. both liutprand and benedict[192] make the cause of the quarrel clear. john had called his brother peter to his side at rome, and the power he gave to his brother, and therefore withdrew from the lay nobles, infuriated his earlier supporters. he turned, as so many popes had done, to a distant prince, and his career soon came to a close. the chronicle is crude and meagre, but it suggests elementary and unbridled passions. "the marquis peter," says benedict, "so infuriated the romans that he was compelled to leave the city." he fortified himself in horta and summoned the dreaded hungarians to his aid: than which there could hardly be a graver crime in an italian of the time. they came in large numbers and trod the life out of the roman province. when peter concluded that his opponents were sufficiently weakened, he returned to rome and gathered troops about him. there must have been sombre days in the city in that year 928. one day, however, when it was observed that few of peter's men had accompanied him to the lateran, a band of marozia's followers burst into the palace and laid him dead at the pope's feet. john himself was taken from the palace and imprisoned, and he died in prison in the following year (929). whether he was murdered or died a natural death is uncertain.[193] such was the not unnatural termination of one of the longest pontificates in the history of rome, and we have no reason to suppose that, if we had fuller narratives than those i have quoted, they would redeem the character of john x. his desertion of bologna for ravenna, and his transfer to rome within twenty years of the time when his party had foully treated a dead man for just such an irregularity: his alliance with the unscrupulous house of theophylactus: his quite superfluous appearance on the battlefield: his easy distribution of royal and imperial crowns: and, above all, the maintenance of his unprincipled brother in the teeth of deadly hostility, sufficiently indicate his character. he was an accomplished adventurer. he writes a very good latin for the period, and may well have been a charming and handsome and brave man. it is recorded that he richly decorated the lateran palace. but he was a child of his age, and the historian finds it easier to respect the sad and sincere reflection of the older ecclesiastical writers--that christ then slumbered in the tossing barque of peter--than the strained efforts of a few modern writers to convince us that the chosen pope of an aristocracy which they depict in the darkest colours was merely the victim of calumny. the little pontifical work which john did during his fourteen years as pope does not dispose us to alter this estimate. the score of his letters which survive generally relate to privileges of abbeys or prelates which he was asked to grant or confirm. he gave support to the monks of fulda,[194] of st. gall,[195] and of cluny.[196] he sent legates on a vague mission to spain and granted a pallium to the bishop of hamburg, who was converting the far north. he intervened in the religious troubles of dalmatia, at the invitation of the local prelates, and wrote them many letters[197] for the regulation (or romanization) of their slav liturgy and discipline. even to constantinople, which had one of its rare moods of affection for rome, he sent legates to assist the greeks in obliterating the effects of their latest quarrel. his work in bulgaria is not wholly clear, or it might be interesting. king simeon quarrelled with the eastern church and turned to rome, and john naturally encouraged him. he sent legates to bulgaria, and we learn from a letter of innocent iii., long afterwards, that they presented simeon with a golden crown from john. it looks as if the pope gave simeon some kind of imperial rank, but he did not secure the adhesion to rome of the bulgarian church. a few letters to france and germany are hardly more instructive. heribert of vermandois seized the person of charles the simple, and, when he was threatened with excommunication, hoodwinked the pope. heribert then, in 925, conferred the rich see of rheims on his five-year-old son, and john--either in order to secure the release of the king or dreading worse things--acquiesced.[198] in germany john sent his brother to assist in the restoration of discipline at the synod of altheim (916). a few years later he summoned herimann, archbishop of cologne, and hilduin and richer, rival bishops of liège, to the bar of rome. but in this apparent assertion of authority he was really acting under pressure of the emperor berengar, and the sequel is not flattering. there was a complicated quarrel about the bishopric of liège, and, when the litigants refused to come to rome, john laid down a principle which would have seemed to nicholas i. or gregory vii. an outrage. he rebuked herimann on the ground of "an ancient custom that none save the king, to whom the sceptre is divinely committed, shall confer a bishopric on any cleric." these letters, a poor record of official work for so long a pontificate and in so disordered a world, do not alter our impression of john. rome shared the gloom which lay over europe, and it is foolish to suppose that the degenerate nobles who ruled the papacy would put on its throne a man who would rebuke their vices or resent their domination. indeed, it will be useful to follow the lamentable story a little further, as an introduction to the revival which culminates in gregory vii. marozia crowned her adventurous life in 932 by marrying the step-brother of her late husband--the licentious hugh of provence whom john had helped to put on the throne of italy. in the preceding year she had put in the chair of peter her son, john xi., a mere shadow of a pope. but the disgusted romans flew to arms, imprisoned john and marozia, and sent the brutal hugh flying for his life. alberic ii. then controlled the city and the papacy for twenty years, and a series of obscure, though apparently not unworthy, men were appointed to discharge the scanty spiritual duties which popes could or would perform in that darkest of the dark ages. alberic bequeathed his power to his illegitimate son octavian, and compelled the nobles and clergy to swear to make him pope at the next vacancy. john xii., as he called himself, proved the worst pope yet recorded: more at home in the helmet than the tiara, and more expert in the cultivation than in the suppression of vice. when his own sword proved incapable of securing his rights, he summoned otto i., with the customary bribe of the imperial crown. otto at length deposed him, after six years of scandalous abuse of the papacy, and he disappears from history in a singular legend; he died, it was said, of a blow on the temples given him by the devil--possibly in the person of the injured husband--during one of his amorous adventures. ten popes and anti-popes, generally men of no distinction either in vice or virtue, succeeded each other in the next thirty years. the factions at rome became more and more violent, and europe sank deeper and deeper into the corruption from which gregory vii. would endeavour to rouse it. the iron century closed, oddly enough, with the appearance on the papal throne of one of the first scholars of christian europe, the famous gerbert (silvester ii.), but his brief and premature pontificate made no impression on that dark age. under sergius iv. the roman faction was at length destroyed, but the counts of tusculum now dragged the unhappy papacy to a lower depth. two sons of the first count, benedict viii. and john xiii., successively purchased the votes of the electors, and, by their venality and violence, added fresh stains to the papal chronicle. the third son of the count then placed his own youthful offspring in the chair of peter, and, under the name of benedict ix., this youth degraded it with crimes and vices so well authenticated that even the most resolute apologist cannot challenge the indictment. pope victor iii., a few years later, shudders to mention the "murders and robberies and nameless vices" of benedict,[199] and his vague charges, supported by raoul glaber and other authorities, suggest that the lateran palace must have recalled to the mind of any sufficiently informed roman some of the scenes which had been witnessed in nero's golden house in the lowest days of paganism. at length, after being twice expelled from rome, he wearied of the papacy--one authority says that he wished to marry--and sold it to his uncle john gratian for one or two thousand pounds of gold. by this time there was a certain young hildebrand studying in the lateran school, and the story of his life will tell us the sequel of this extraordinary chapter of papal history. footnotes: [footnote 178: dr. mann, iii., 285.] [footnote 179: inaccurate because, however many lovers theodora and marozia may have had, they were certainly not courtesans.] [footnote 180: see baronius, year 912, and mansi, xviii., 314 and 316.] [footnote 181: barry's _papal monarchy_ (1902), pp. 146 and 150. for criticism of the tradition see f. liverani's study of john x. in vol. ii. of his _opere_ (1858) and p. fedele's "ricerche per la storia da roma e del papato nel secolo x." in the _archivi della r. società romana di storia patria_ (vols. xxxiii. and following). dr. mann follows these critics in his chapters on sergius and john (vol. iv.).] [footnote 182: published by e. dümmler in his _auxilius und vulgarius_ (1866), pp. 139-146. dr. mann (iv., 139 and 141) thinks it incredible that if theodora were a vicious woman any man should write thus; but two pages later he recollects that vulgarius has accused pope sergius of murdering his two predecessors, and he advises us to place no reliance on the word of such a "wretched sycophant."] [footnote 183: _de causa formosiana_, c. 14.] [footnote 184: _antapodosis_, ii., 48.] [footnote 185: in the notes to his edition of the _liber pontificalis_.] [footnote 186: c. 29.] [footnote 187: _de christi triumphis apud italiami_, xii., 7.] [footnote 188: see a letter from him at ravenna to them in liverani, _opere_, iv., 7.] [footnote 189: _præloquia_, v., 7.] [footnote 190: _ep._, ix.] [footnote 191: mansi, xviii., 263.] [footnote 192: _antapodosis_, iii., 43; _chronicon_, c. 29.] [footnote 193: benedict merely records his death. flodoard (_annals_, year 929) says that "some attributed his death to violence, but the majority to grief." liutprand (iii., 43) affirms that he was smothered with a pillow.] [footnote 194: _ep._, ii.] [footnote 195: _ep._, iv.] [footnote 196: _ep._, xiv.] [footnote 197: published by liverani, iv., 76-79.] [footnote 198: flodoard, _ecclesiæ remensis historia_, iv., 20.] [footnote 199: _dialogues_, bk. iii.] chapter viii hildebrand the historian might almost venture to say that the papacy was not evolved, but created. it has assuredly, in its varying fortunes, reflected as faithfully as any other institution the changes of its human environment, yet for each new adaptation to favouring circumstances it has had to await the advent of a great pope. seven men, one might say, created the papacy: gelasius i., leo i., gregory i., hadrian i., nicholas i., gregory vii., and innocent iii. each one of these deepened the foundations and enlarged the fabric of the great religious principality. they have had illustrious successors, and, in some respects, the frame of the papacy has been further strengthened; but, on the whole, the last five hundred years have been filled with a mighty and unavailing struggle against disintegration. of the seven men i have enumerated gregory vii., or hildebrand as historians still like to call him, was the most romantic and the most singularly creative. he was born about the year 1025, of humble parents, in a tuscan village near sovana. an uncle of his was abbot of a monastery on the aventine at rome, and young hildebrand was at an early date sent to be educated under his direction. we recognize in this accident the chief clue to the personality and achievements of gregory vii. a century earlier a group of monks at cluny had reformed their ways, and their stricter ideas had slowly spread from one isolated monastery to another. the monastery of st. mary on the aventine was one of these rare centres of sincere asceticism, and in it the boy would hear talk of the appalling degradation which had come over the church of christ. it seems, however, very doubtful whether he ever made the vows of a monk. he certainly wore the monk's habit, and no epithet is more common on the lips of his opponents than "vagabond monk"; while, on the other hand, his admirers accept the monastic title, and justify the "vagabondage," by various unreliable stories about his connexion with the benedictines. but he never describes himself as a monk, and he is not so described in the most reliable documents. the point is of slight importance, since hildebrand certainly adopted the sentiments of the monastic reformers, and i will not linger over the extensive and conflicting evidence.[200] gregory's fiery and aggressive nature would not suffer him to contemplate the triumph of evil from the remote impotence of a monastery, but he learned his lesson from monks and would rely on them throughout life. he went also to the lateran school, where john gratian, whom we described in the last chapter as buying the papacy from his nephew benedict ix., was a teacher. gratian marked the ecclesiastical promise of the dark and ill-favoured little tuscan, and, when he bought the title of gregory vi., made him one of his _capellani_: at that time a body of lay officials. the work suited hildebrand, who was even more of a soldier than a monk. the road to rome was lamentably beset by brigands; the houses of many of the nobles in the city itself were, in fact, little better than the fortified dens of wealthy banditti, and the crowds of pilgrims might have their gifts torn from their hands at the very steps of peter's altar. so hildebrand organized a militia and made some impression on the robbers. gregory vi. was a more religious man than his purchase of the see would suggest. he was conspicuous for chastity at a time when, a caustic contemporary said, it was regarded at rome as an angelic virtue. there is every reason to believe that he bought the roman see with the best of intentions. unhappily, benedict ix. exhausted his treasury and returned to claim his dignity; while another faction of the romans set up a pretender under the name of silvester ii. gregory ruled his flock--there was very little papal ruling of the _world_ in those days--from sta. maria maggiore: silvester controlled st. peter's and the papal mansion on the vatican: benedict held the lateran. this squalid spectacle must have sunk deep into the soul of the young reformer. but there were religious men in rome, and the virtuous henry iii. was summoned from germany. the remedy was almost as humiliating as the disorder. henry scattered the rivals and, observing that there was no member of the roman clergy fit to occupy the see, he put into it one of his german bishops, with the title of clement ii. hildebrand went with his patron, in the king's train, to germany, but the more rigorous climate soon made an end of john gratian. it is said, but is by no means certain, that hildebrand then went to cluny for a time. it is at all events certain that in 1049, the roman climate having killed two german popes in two years, hildebrand returned to italy in the train of bishop bruno. under the name of leo ix. this handsome, stately, and deeply religious pontiff spent the next six years in a devoted effort to reform the church. the magnitude of his task may be measured by that appalling indictment of clerical and monastic vice, the _book of gomorrha_, which peter damiani wrote under leo ix., and with his cordial approval. leo visited the chief countries of europe, but he could make little impression on that stubborn age and he died almost broken-hearted. under him hildebrand served his apprenticeship. he became a cardinal-subdeacon, a guardian of st. peter's, and rector of the monastery of st. paul: in which, to his fine disgust, he found women serving the monks. he went also as legate to france, where he dealt leniently with and learned to esteem the chief heretic of the age, bérenger. hildebrand had little insight into character and less into speculative theology. to the end of his life he befriended bérenger. leo died in 1055, and hildebrand was sent to ask henry iii. to choose a successor. henry in turn died in 1056, and, as the roman see was again vacant in the following year and the romans were emboldened to choose their own pope, hildebrand was sent to conciliate the empress agnes. we must not exaggerate his influence at this time, but undoubtedly the new pope, stephen x., and his fanatical cardinal, peter damiani--both monks of the reforming school,--regarded him as one of their most ardent lieutenants. indeed from that time we trace the adoption at rome of a policy which is clearly due to hildebrand. the papacy began to look to the normans, who had conquered southern italy, to save it from the overlordship of the german court, and to wage a stern war against simony and clerical incontinence. hildebrand, who had a strange fascination for pious women, easily won the empress agnes, but she was surrounded or controlled by simoniacal prelates and nobles. rome must once more change its suzerain, or its sword-bearer. in the campaign for enforcing celibacy on the clergy the monastic reforming school provided fresh allies. there was in the city of milan a young priest named anselm of baggio, who had studied under lanfranc at bec. this enthusiast for the new ideas began a notable campaign against clerical marriage, and, when his archbishop genially transferred him to the remote bishopric of lucca, he left his gospel in charge of two other enthusiasts named ariald and landulph. it must be recollected that clerics did not at that time take any vow of chastity, and there were only a few disciplinary decrees of earlier popes to curtail their liberty. most of the priests of every country were legally married, though in some places the law of celibacy was enforced and they simply had mistresses. against both wives and mistresses a furious campaign was now directed by the patarenes.[201] the vilest names were showered on the unhappy wives and children: the priests, who said that they would rather desert their orders than their wives, were torn from the altars: the most lamentable excesses in the cause of virtue were committed in the churches. hildebrand, and afterwards damiani, were sent to enforce what is described as the "pacifying policy" of rome, and we read that milan approached the verge of civil war. while hildebrand was still inflaming the enthusiasts of the north, stephen x. died, and the party opposed to the puritans at rome at once elected a pope of their own school. the young subdeacon now plainly showed his character and masterfulness. he persuaded the virtuous archbishop of florence to accept the title of nicholas ii., begged a small army from the duke of tuscany, entered rome at the head of his soldiers, and swept "benedict x." and his supporters out of the city. the cause of virtue was to be sustained, at whatever cost: the key-note of his life was sounded. we may also confidently see the action of hildebrand in a very important decision of a lateran synod held under nicholas that year (1059). in future the choice of a pope was to be confined to the cardinal-bishops, who would submit their decision to the cardinal-priests and deacons.[202] the rest of the clergy and the people were merely to signify their assent by acclamation, and the decree contains a vague expression of respect for "the rights of the emperor." a sonorous anathema was laid on any who departed from this decree; and i may add at once that hildebrand, who was probably its author, entirely ignored it in making the next pope and in his own election. it was the first phase in the struggle with the empire. the german court was distracted by the intrigues of rival prelates to secure the control of the empress and her son, while the papacy now had the support of the norman richard of capua (whom hildebrand induced to swear fealty to the papacy), the troops of tuscany, and the staves of the patarenes. the german court replied by refusing to acknowledge nicholas ii. hildebrand rose to the rank of deacon, then of archdeacon: the straightest path to the papacy. had he willed, he could have become pope in 1061, when nicholas died, but the time was not ripe for his colossal design. the anti-puritans now sought alliance with the german court against him, but he summoned a band of normans and, with the aid of their spears, put anselm of lucca on the papal throne: completely ignoring the decree of 1059. the anti-puritans of rome and lombardy now united with the imperialists, and bishop cadalus of parma was made anti-pope. the war of words which followed was disdainfully left by hildebrand to damiani, who, in a page of almost indescribable invective, assures us that cadalus was "the stench of the globe, the filth of the age, the shame of the universe," and that his episcopal supporters were better judges of pretty faces than of papal candidates. the imperialist bishop benzo of albi, a genial epicure who united an equal power of invective with a more polished culture, retorted heavily on the "vagabond monks" (damiani and hildebrand). at last it came to blows, and hildebrand acted. cadalus descended on rome with german and lombard troops: hildebrand summoned the normans, and a fierce battle was waged for the tiara under the very shadow of st. peter's. then godfrey of tuscany appeared on the scene with his army, and the decision was remitted to a synod at augsburg. hildebrand was content, for a revolution had occurred at the german court, and damiani was sent to win the verdict at augsburg by the ingenious expedient of being himself counsel for both sides. the way was now rapidly prepared for the pontificate of hildebrand. godfrey of tuscany died, and his pious widow beatrice and still more impressionable daughter mathilda were prepared to put their last soldier at his disposal. the patarenes were reinforced by the knight herlembald (whose lady-love had been seduced by a priest), and were dragging the married priests from their churches and destroying their homes in many parts of north italy. at florence the monks of vallombrosa lent their fiery aid, even against the troops, and one of their number passed unscathed through the ordeal of fire before an immense concourse of people. in the south robert guiscard was expelling the last remnants of the saracens and founding a powerful norman kingdom. all these forces marched under banners blessed and presented by the pope. one banner advanced by the side of the ferocious herlembald: one shone at the head of the norman troops in calabria: one was seen in the ranks of william of normandy when he made his successful raid upon england.[203] alexander closed his short and earnest pontificate on april 21, 1073. hildebrand, in his capacity of archdeacon, took stringent measures for the preservation of order, or the coercion of the imperialist faction; yet, when the voice of the people demanded that _he_ should be pope, his troops made no effort to secure an election according to the decree of 1059. he was conducting the funeral service over the remains of alexander, on april 22d, when the cry, "hildebrand bishop," was raised. he protested, but cardinal hugh candidus, one of the most versatile clerical politicians of the time and afterwards the pope's deadly enemy, stood forth and insisted that the cry was just. hildebrand was seized and conducted, almost carried, to the church of st. peter in chains, where he was enthroned, as he afterwards wrote to abbot didier,[204] by "popular tumult." it is not certain, but is entirely probable, that he sought the imperial ratification. we may conclude that he did this, since, when he was consecrated on june 30th, the empress agnes and the imperial representative in italy were present. in the letters which gregory issued to his friends throughout europe immediately after his election he observes that the strain and anxiety have made him ill. we can well believe that when the hour arrived for him to mount the throne of peter, instead of standing behind it, he felt a grave foreboding. no man had ever yet ascended that throne with so portentous an idea of its prestige and responsibility, and no pope had ever confronted a more disordered christendom. there had been good men at the lateran for thirty years, yet in the eyes of hildebrand they must have seemed idle, timid, and ineffective. a pope must wear out his body and lay down his life in the struggle with triumphant evil: must smite king or prelate or peasant without a moment's hesitation: must use every weapon that the times afforded--excommunication or imprecation, the spear of the norman or the sword of the dane, the staff of the ignorant fanatic or the tender devotion of woman. "the blessed peter on earth," as hildebrand called himself, had a right to implicit obedience from every man on earth, on temporal no less than on spiritual matters. kings were of less consequence than the meanest priests. if kings and dukes resisted his grand plan of making the whole of christendom "pure and obedient," why not make their kingdoms and duchies fiefs of the holy see, to be bestowed on virtuous men? why not make europe the united states of the church, governed despotically by the one man on earth who was "inspired by god"? if anathemas failed, there were swords enough in europe to carry out his plan. that, literally, was the vision which filled the feverish imagination of gregory vii. when he looked down from his throne over the world. it was the dream of a soldier-monk, unchecked by understanding of men or accurate knowledge of history. such reformers as cardinal damiani and abbot didier resented gregory's aims and procedure: they were most appreciated by women like the countess mathilda. hildebrand is said to have been a learned man, but we have cause to take with reserve mediæval compliments of this kind. he knew the bible well, and was steeped in the congenial atmosphere of the old testament. he knew church-history and law well: as they were told at the lateran. döllinger has shown that his principal lieutenants in the work of reform--bishop anselm of lucca (a second anselm), bishop bonitho, and cardinal deusdedit--were unscrupulous in their use of historical and canonical documents, and that gregory relied on these as well as on the older forgeries.[205] i am, however, chiefly concerned with the limitations of his knowledge, and will observe only that his letters, written in robust and inelegant latin, give no indication of culture beyond this close acquaintance with very dubious history and law. the arab civilization had by this time enkindled some intellectual life in europe: men were not far from the age of abélard. but in this new speculative life gregory had no share. if we find him, with apparent liberality, acquitting bérenger in 1049 and 1079, we must ascribe it rather to incapacity and disinclination for speculative matters. this restriction and inaccuracy of culture strengthened gregory in his peculiar ideal, and it was much the same with his poor judgment of character, which brought many a disaster on him. probably men like hildebrand and damiani enjoyed a physical debility in regard to sex-life, and sincerely failed to realize that the abolition of clerical marriage would inevitably lead to worse evils. the ideal they worked for--the establishment of a spiritual army dead to every human affection, and therefore incorruptible--was magnificent but impossible. similarly, in the campaign against simony, gregory never realized the roots of the evil. bishops were politicians, the supporters or thwarters of the counsels of princes; intellectual culture was, in fact, almost confined to bishops and abbots, and their advice was (apart from their wealth, their troops, and their feudal duties) needed as much as that of unlettered soldiers. hence princes had a real and deep interest in their appointment. the intrigue for political power at that very time of the great prelates of germany was notorious. if gregory had at least confined his strictures to simony in the strict sense, he might have had some prospect of success, for his cause was obviously just. but by his attack on "investiture"[206] he would take away from princes the control of some of their most powerful, and often most mischievous, vassals. yet, instead of seeking to deprive bishops and abbots of wealth and troops and political influence, hildebrand wanted them to have more. he encouraged anselm of lucca to lead the tuscan troops; he proposed in person to lead the christian armies against the turks. throughout life he called for more men and more money, and he never hesitated an instant to set swords flying if he could gain his religious aim by that means. he was as warlike as a full-blooded norman. bishop mathew calls him "truculent," and reminds us how, before he became pope, abbot didier wanted to punish an abbot, who had gouged out the eyes of some of his monks for their sins, but hildebrand protected the man and afterwards made him a bishop. didier and damiani were equally shocked at his political activity. he scorned the distinction between spiritual and temporal things--except when he was endeavouring to keep laymen in their proper place--and argued repeatedly that, if a pope had supreme power in matters of religion, he very clearly had it in the less important concerns of earth: if a pope could open and close the gates of heaven, he could most assuredly open and close the gates of earthly kingdoms. he went so far as to say that "all worldly things, be they honours, empires, kingdoms, principalities, or duchies," he could bestow on whomsoever he wished.[207] on this ground he, as we shall see, grasped the flimsiest pretexts for claiming a kingdom as a fief of the roman see, relying often on forged or perverted texts, and he quite clearly aimed at bringing all the countries in christendom under the feudal lordship of the papacy, to be bestowed for "obedience" and withdrawn for "disobedience" at the will of the pope. i do not admit that he was ambitious, even ambitious for his see. he believed that this sacerdocracy was willed by god and was the only means of maintaining religion and morality in europe. but there were human aspects of these questions which gregory ignored, and his bitter and numerous opponents retorted that he was a fool or a fanatic. this ideal did not merely grow in gregory's mind in the heat of his combats. it is seen in his earliest letters. before he was consecrated he wrote to remind "the princes of spain" that that country belonged to the roman see; that the popes had never abandoned their right to it, even when it was held by the moors: and that the kings who were now wresting it from the moors held their kingdoms "on behalf of st. peter" (_ex parte s. petri_) and on condition that they rendered feudal military service when summoned to do so.[208] a few weeks later he wrote to duke godfrey, referring to henry iv.: "if he returns hatred for love, and shows contempt for almighty god for the honour conferred on him, the imprecation which runs, 'cursed is he that refraineth his sword from blood,' will not, with god's help, fall on _us_."[209] in june he told beatrice and mathilda that he would resist the king, if necessary, "to the shedding of blood."[210] in the same month he compelled landulph of benevento and richard of capua to swear fealty to the roman see. in november he told lanfranc, the greatest prelate of england, that he was astounded at his "audacity" (_frons_) in neglecting papal orders.[211] in december he wrote to a french bishop that if king philip did not amend his ways he would smite the french people with "the sword of a general anathema" and they would "refuse to obey him further."[212] a remarkable record for the first nine months of his pontificate. i shall not in the least misrepresent his work if i dismiss other matters briefly and enlarge on his attempts to realize his sacerdocratic ideal: especially his struggle with henry iv. his campaign against simony and clerical incontinence fills the whole period of his pontificate, but cannot be described in detail. year by year his handful of italian bishops--remoter bishops generally ignored his drastic orders to come to rome--met in lenten synods at rome, held their lighted candles while he read the ever-lengthening list of the excommunicated, and shuddered at his vigorous imprecations. then his legates went out over europe, but few prelates were willing or able to promulgate the decrees they brought, and the campaign succeeded only where it could rely on the staves of the patarenes or the swords of the pope's allies. other episcopal functions, such as settlements of jurisdiction, occupy a relatively small part of his correspondence. it is enough to say that his eye ranged from lincoln to constantinople, from stockholm to carthage. in italy, his chief concern was to concentrate the southern states under his lead and form a military bulwark against the northerners. the roman militia was strengthened: the petty princes of benevento and capua were persuaded that their shrunken territories were safer from the aggressions of robert guiscard if they paid allegiance to st. peter: mathilda of tuscany did not even need to be persuaded to hold her troops at his disposal. it would be safe to say that italy alone would have wrecked gregory's policy but for the lucky accident of tuscany passing to the pious mathilda. she clung to gregory so tenaciously that his opponents affected to see a scandal in the association. the chief thorn in his side was robert guiscard, who had founded a kingdom in southern italy and refused to do homage. he laid waste the territory of the pope's allies, and smiled at the anathema put on him. gregory, as usual, turned to the sword. the eastern emperor had asked aid against the turks, and gregory summoned all christian princes to contribute troops. he would lead the army in person, he said: supported by the aged beatrice and the tender mathilda. the northern princes smiled, and the plan of a crusade came to naught. but it was not merely concern for constantinople which made gregory dangerously ill when his plan miscarried. historians generally overlook his letter to william of burgundy,[213] in which he plainly states that he wants the troops for the purpose of intimidating--if not conquering--robert: "perhaps," he says, they may afterwards proceed to the east. he was still more irritated when robert himself entered into an alliance with constantinople. gregory angrily wrote to ask the king of denmark to send his son with an army and wrest the south of italy from the "vile heretics" who held it.[214] he was similarly thwarted in nearly every country in europe, and his anathemas were terrible to hear. i have already referred to his haughty language to lanfranc, yet the english bishops continued, year after year, to ignore the imperious summons to attend his roman synods. in 1079 gregory wrote to lanfranc that he understood that the king prevented them from coming, and was surprised that the "superstitious love" or fear of any man should come between him and his duty.[215] lanfranc still evaded, almost fooled, him, and, when gregory threatened to suspend him, affected to be engaged in examining the claims of an anti-pope whom henry iv. had set up. with william himself gregory was bitterly disappointed. when, in 1080, he ordered the king to collect the arrears of peter's pence and acknowledge his feudal obligations to rome, william somewhat contemptuously replied that he would forward the money, but would pay allegiance to no man. gregory was so angry that he told his legates that the money was no use without the "honour."[216] the bishops of france were equally deaf to his annual summons to his lenten synods and his orders that they should punish their king. he threatened, not only to pronounce an interdict, but that he would "endeavour _in every way_ to take the kingdom of france from him."[217] a similar threat of military action was sent to spain. king alphonso of leon married a relative, and gregory wrote to the abbot of cluny that if the king did not obey his orders and dismiss her he would "not think it too great a trouble to go ourselves to spain and concert severe and painful action [evidently military action] against him."[218] this policy of promoting or blessing invasions and usurpations was carried out in the case of smaller kingdoms. king solomon was ejected from hungary and appealed to rome. gregory blessed the usurper (who craftily promised to be a good son of the church) and told solomon that he had deserved the calamity by receiving his kingdom, which had been given to st. peter by the earlier king stephen, at the hand of henry iv.[219] then ladislaus of hungary seized dalmatia and sought to strengthen his position by paying fealty to the pope for it; so that, when the dalmatians attempted to recover their independence, gregory denounced them as "rebels against the blessed peter."[220] lastly, when the russian king was displaced by his brothers, and promised to acknowledge the feudal supremacy of rome if he were restored, gregory induced boleslaus of poland to restore him. if this kind of procedure incurred the censure of gregory's great friend and successor, abbot didier, we can easily understand the violent language of his opponents. these are usually writers of the lombard-german faction, and we must now endeavour to disentangle from the contradictory narratives of the partisan writers the truth about his relations with henry iv. the facts i have hitherto given are taken from the authentic letters of gregory. henry iv. was a boy at the time of his father's death, and it is beyond dispute that the prelates and nobles who quarrelled for power shamefully neglected, or consciously misdirected, his education. when he came to the throne he was a wilful, loose-living, and imperious young man, forced into marriage with a woman whom he disliked. exhortations to abandon simony and avoid evil companions fell lightly on such ears, and, as we saw, gregory's early letters threatened war. five of henry's favourites were under sentence of excommunication, yet the young king would not part with them. gregory turned to the bishops, but they flatly refused to allow his legates to call a synod in germany, and his excommunication of the archbishop of hamburg only embittered them. suddenly, however, before the end of 1073, gregory was delighted to receive a most humble and submissive letter from henry, and legates were sent to absolve him. the cause of this action of the imperious young king gives us at once a most important clue to what is called the later triumph of gregory at canossa. the popular impression that that famous scene represented a triumph of spiritual power over the passions of man is wholly wrong. it was an episode in a political struggle. henry's kingdom embraced saxony and swabia; and the saxons cherished a sombre memory of their recent incorporation, while rudolph of swabia had a mind to make profit by the troubles of his suzerain and astutely courted the favour of the pope. gregory could not fail to grasp the situation, and his struggle against henry is a series of attempts by the pope to foment and take advantage of henry's difficulties with his vassals, ending in the complete triumph of the king. henry's submission in 1074 meant that there was a dangerous rebellion in saxony. the king did not, in fact, part entirely with his excommunicated favourites, and the anathema on them was renewed at the synod of 1075, which also laid a heavy censure on "any emperor, duke, marquis, count, or any temporal lord, or any secular person whatsoever," who claimed the right of investiture. henry remained friendly: the saxon war dragged on. in october henry was sending legates to rome to confer with the pope, who had hinted at compromise on the subject of investitures. but the saxon rebellion suddenly came to an end, and three legates were now sent with a less pleasant message: probably a peremptory claim of the imperial crown. henry had not only a united germany, but a strong party in lombardy. herlembald was killed, and the patarenes held in check. moreover, the recalcitrant bishops were now joined by the archbishop of ravenna (who had been hastily excommunicated by gregory for not attending the lenten synod) and cardinal hugh candidus. elated with this support, the young king acted wilfully. he sent one of his excommunicated nobles to lombardy, crushed the patarenes, and set up a third archbishop of milan, tedald.[221] gregory was alarmed at this combination and at first temporized. he invited tedald to come to rome for a polite discussion of his claims; he sent henry a "doubtful blessing" and would compromise on investitures and consider his further demands, if he abandoned the excommunicated nobles.[222] but he gave henry's envoys, to whom he handed the letter, a verbal message of a more drastic nature. he threatened to depose henry for his "horrible crimes," and there is good reason to suppose that these "crimes" were, in part at least, the slanderous fictions of henry's enemies.[223] both were men of fiery and indiscreet impulses, and this impolitic act of gregory kindled the conflagration. meantime a remarkable experience befell gregory at rome, and it is not unlikely that he held henry responsible for it; though it is practically certain that henry was wholly innocent. the increasing difficulties of the pope encouraged the anti-puritans at rome, and one of them, cenci, a notorious bandit, burst into the church of sta. maria on the esquiline while gregory was saying midnight mass there on christmas day (1075). his men scattered the attendants, and one of them struck the pope with a sword, causing a wound on the forehead. gregory was stripped of his sacerdotal robes, thrust on a horse behind one of the soldiers, and hurried to cenci's fortified tower. some noble matron was taken with him--one of the strangest circumstances of the whole mysterious episode--and she bound his wounds as he lay in the tower, while cenci threatened to kill him unless he handed over the keys of the papal treasury. it is fairly clear that the motive was robbery. meantime the bells and trumpets had spread the alarm through rome, and the militia beset the tower and relieved the pope. this remarkable picture of a winter's night in the capital of christendom ends with gregory, who cannot have been severely wounded, calmly returning to the altar and finishing his mass. henry's envoys had left rome before christmas, and it is therefore a mistake to suppose that the message they brought from gregory had any reference to the violence of cenci. they reached the court at goslar on january 1, 1076, and we can easily believe that they would not moderate the offensiveness of the oral message. gregory had a deliberate policy of preferring oral to written messages. there may at times have been an advantage in this, but in the present instance it was gravely imprudent. henry's friends urged him to avenge the insult, and three weeks later a synod of twenty-six german bishops, with a large number of abbots, met at worms and declared gregory deposed. the irregularity of his election, the despotism of his conduct, and what was described as his scandalous association with women, were the chief reasons assigned for this action. the decree was sent to the insurgent bishops of north italy, who met in council and endorsed it, and a priest of the church of parma volunteered to serve the sentence on gregory. he reached rome at a moment when gregory was presiding at a large synod in the lateran palace, and boldly read the sentence to the assembled bishops. lay nobles drew their swords upon the audacious priest, but gregory restrained them and bade them hear the words of henry. his intemperate and insulting letter--so intemperate that the pope could easily remain calm and dignified--could receive only one reply. the king and all his supporters were excommunicated, and gregory issued a not unworthy letter "to all christians"[224] informing them that the subjects of king henry of germany were released from their allegiance. there can be no doubt that henry iv. had merited a sentence of excommunication, and it is a nice point whether a king could continue to rule his territory when he was thus cut off from communication with his subjects. we may, at all events, gravely question whether the pope was either politic or just in going on formally to depose the king, and, as the news of this unprecedented action spread through christendom, even religious prelates shook their heads. throughout the rest of his life gregory had repeatedly to defend his conduct, not against the partisans of henry, but against some of his own supporters. his chief apology is contained in a letter to the bishop of metz[225] and is invalid and illogical. he relies on a forged letter of st. peter, and he appeals to the excommunication of theodosius by st. ambrose and the "deposition" of childeric by pope zachary in 753; the former was in no sense a precedent, and in the latter case the pope merely confirmed the design of pippin and the franks. there was no precedent whatever for deposition, and gregory is severely censured even by modern writers for not observing the canonical forms in his excommunication of henry.[226] gregory at once prepared for war. the duchess beatrice died in april, and the devoted mathilda, who was so pointedly insulted, though not named, in her royal cousin's manifesto, put the troops of tuscany at the pope's disposal. gregory also tried to reconcile the normans with each other and weld them into a common army for the defence of rome. but his chief reliance was on the germans themselves. he knew well, when he excommunicated henry, that the embittered saxons would leap with joy at the fresh pretext of rebellion, and the intriguing swabians would secretly welcome the censure. henry found himself very soon on the road to canossa. he summoned two councils in rapid succession, but their defiance of the pope brought him little pleasure when he noted the small number of his supporters. saxony threw off his yoke at once, and prelates and nobles began to fall away from his cause. gregory pressed his advantage with fiery energy, showering letters upon the german clergy and people, and in the middle of october a large body of the nobles and prelates (chiefly saxon and swabian) met at tribur, near darmstadt, to consider the position of the kingdom. two papal legates and rudolph of swabia presided, and henry watched the proceedings from the other side of the river. from this stage onward we are compelled to consult the contemporary chroniclers, and it is almost impossible to disentangle the truth from their contradictory and mendacious statements. it is clear that for seven days the diet held long debate on the situation. undoubtedly they wished to depose henry, but, apparently, they were unwilling to recognize in the pope this dangerous power of deposing kings, and the diet seems to have ended with an injunction to henry to make peace with the pope. according to the monk lambert of hersfeld, who seems to have gathered into his _chronicle_ all the wild cloister-gossip of the time, the diet decided that, according to the "laws of the palace,"--there were no such laws at that time,--henry forfeited his crown if he remained excommunicated a year and a day, and commanded him to retire into private life at spires until gregory should come to germany and decide the case. the gregorian writer, bishop bonitho,[227] contrives in this instance to improve on lambert; he tells us that, if henry submitted, the nobles would accompany him to rome, where he would receive the imperial crown, and they would then sweep the normans out of south italy. one suspects that in this the bishop of sutri is betraying a design of gregory which was certainly not endorsed by the diet. the most authentic evidence is the _promissio_ (or letter of apology) which, at the dictation of the diet, henry submitted to the pope.[228] he expressed regret for any affront he may have put on the dignity of the pope, promised obedience on spiritual matters, and declared that on certain other grave matters he would vindicate his innocence. when this short and dry letter was eventually handed to the pope by one of the chief prelates of germany, gregory was outraged to find that its concluding sentence ran: "but it befitteth thy holiness not to ignore the things repeated about thee which bring scandal on the church, but to remove this scruple from the public conscience and provide in thy wisdom for the tranquillity of the church and the kingdom." gregorian writers insist that this was added by henry to the draft approved by the diet, but this is by no means certain. henry was not a broken man. he had a considerable force with him, and rudolph of swabia evidently found that it would be no easy task to displace him. the edict which henry published at the same time, declaring that he had been misled when he obtained a censure of the pope, gives one the same impression. he had still a powerful following, and it was agreed to avert civil war by reconciliation and by inviting gregory to preside at a diet at augsburg. gregory, in spite of the advice of his friends (except mathilda, who spurred him on), at once set out for the north. his impetuous journey was, however, arrested in the north of italy by the news that the german nobles had failed to send an escort for him, and that henry himself was crossing the alps with a large army. mathilda persuaded him to retire to her impregnable fortress of canossa, and there, about the end of january, henry enacted his historic part of penitent. here the chroniclers are hopelessly discordant, and the full picturesque narrative of lambert of hersfeld, on which some historians still implicitly rely, has been riddled by modern critics.[229] it is clear that henry wished to keep the pope out of germany, and he there-fore hastily crossed the alps in the depth of winter. it is clear that a "vast army" (in the words of lambert himself) gathered about him in rebellious lombardy, but he pushed on with a few followers (incidentally admitted by lambert) to canossa. it is clear that gregory, on the other hand, was desperately bent on presiding over a council in germany, and shocked his friends by his obstinacy in refusing to be reconciled[230]; he had condemned henry without trial, but he would not absolve him without trial. and, obviously inaccurate as the narrative of lambert is,[231] it seems to me certain that henry went through the form of penance on the icy platform before the gate of canossa. in the letter written immediately afterwards to the nobles and prelates of germany,[232] gregory describes henry as doing penance for three days, in bare feet and woollen robe, before the gates. however impolitic and irritating it was for gregory to write such a letter, dr. dammann seems to me to fail to impeach its genuineness. indeed in his great speech to the roman synod of 1080, when he excommunicated henry a second time, gregory says that in 1076 henry came to him "in confusion and humiliation" at canossa to ask absolution. thus the scene which has ever since impressed the imagination of europe is in substance authentic; though we are by no means compelled to think that henry literally stood in the snow for three whole days. but the common interpretation of the scene is quite false. it was not a spiritual triumph, but a political pseudo-triumph. in reality, it was henry who triumphed; and one can imagine him jesting merrily afterwards about his bare feet and coarse robe of penitence. he promised to amend his ways, and then proceeded to make a tour of italy in light-hearted confidence and with all his old wilfulness. he refused to interfere when a papal legate was thrown into prison at piacenza; and he refused to provide gregory with an escort when the germans invited the pope to come and preside at their new diet.[233] gregory soon realized that the war had merely passed into a new and more difficult phase, and we must follow it swiftly to its tragic end in the utter defeat of the pope. gregory sent two legates to the diet of forchheim on march 13th, where, with their consent, rudolph of swabia was declared king of germany. the papal legates exacted that he should not claim the succession for his family--apparently germany was to be the next fief of the roman see--and should abandon investiture. when henry pressed the pope to excommunicate rudolph, he replied that he had not yet heard rudolph's case--an "unworthy subterfuge," bishop mathew justly remarks--and henry set out for germany. in the three-years struggle which followed, the pope adopted a policy which few historians hesitate to condemn. he sent legates repeatedly, claiming that he alone was the judge: that "if the see of the blessed peter decides and judges heavenly and spiritual things, how much the more shall it judge things earthly and secular."[234] he even promised the crown to whichever of the combatants should respect his legates: a remarkable test of the justice he promised to administer. he evidently hoped that rudolph would win, but feared that the victory _might_ fall to henry; and, above all, he desired to judge the princes of the earth. at last the saxons in turn began to abuse him. his legates, they said, were offering his verdict to the highest bidder--assuredly without his knowledge--and his policy was unintelligible. bishops were saying that the papacy had become "the tail of the church." at the lenten synod of the year 1080 representatives of both princes came before gregory and his bishops, and the great decision was taken. henry was found guilty of "disobedience," and, after a long and eloquent speech, gregory excommunicated him once more and confirmed rudolph in the kingdom of germany. bishop bonitho[235] tells us that henry had sent an ultimatum: if gregory did not at once condemn rudolph he would appoint another pope. this is, apparently, the real inspiration of the synod and of gregory's fiery speech.[236] henry's partisans retorted by excommunicating gregory and consecrating guibert of ravenna as anti-pope, and, as rudolph fell in battle in october, the gregorian cause was in a lamentable plight. gregory had, in his extremity, overlooked all the crimes of robert guiscard--"for the present" he quaintly said in the treaty--and made an alliance with him, but robert was still engaged in the east, and henry's troops made great havoc in mathilda's dominions. yet gregory repeated his excommunication of the king, and wrote letters all over europe to defend his action and obtain money and troops. several years passed in this indecisive warfare, henry wearing down the tuscan troops and cutting off supplies from rome. at length, toward the end of march, 1084, the romans, weary of the long siege, opened their gates to henry, and gregory shut himself in the impregnable fortress of sant' angelo. from the windows, for two dreary months, gregory had to watch the progress of the victorious imperialists and the triumph of the anti-pope, clement iii. in may he was elated by the message that henry had fled and robert guiscard was marching to rome with a large force. but his joy was brief. a brawl with the romans let loose the half-barbaric normans, and the city was visited with one of the most pitiless raids in its eventful history. thousands of the romans were sold into slavery: sacred virgins and matrons were savagely raped: large districts of the city were burned to the ground. for this the infuriated romans cast the whole blame on the pope, and he was forced to retire with robert. in penury and impotence he rode into the abbey of monte cassino, where abbot didier would hardly fail to remind him that they who appeal to the sword are apt to perish by the sword, and then on to salerno. surrounded by the shrunken remains of his supporters he made a last appeal to the christian world to espouse his cause, and he feebly cast forth his last anathemas. but the fight was lost, and he wearily drew his last breath on may 25, 1085. "i have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore i die in exile," he said. it was not wholly true. he was exiled by the people of rome, whose devastated homes made them heap curses on his iron policy. history honours the purity of his ultimate aim, the heroism with which he pursued it, the greatness, with all its defects, of his character; it sternly condemns the means he employed, the tortuous and dangerous character of his reasoning, the appalling claim that kingdoms were toys in his hand. he failed; but he had, in reality, so strengthened the frame of the papacy that it would take an earthquake to shake it. footnotes: [footnote 200: the two ablest recent writers on hildebrand, the right reverend dr. a.h. mathew (_the life and times of hildebrand_, 1910) and dr. w. martens (_war gregor vii. mönch?_, 1891, and _gregor vii._, 2 vols. 1894--an invaluable study), hold that he never took the vows. the chief biography of hildebrand on the catholic side is now the abbé o. delarc's _grégoire vii. et la réforme de l'église au xi siècle_ (3 vols., 1889). slight but excellent sketches will be found in f. roquain's _la papauté au moyen âge_ (1881) and _hildebrand and his times_ (1888) by w.r.w. stephens. older writers like voigt, gfrörer, villemain, and bowden are now of little use. the original authorities are as numerous as they are unreliable. the partisans of gregory (chiefly bonitho and donizo) are scarcely more scrupulous than the partisans of henry (benzo, benno, guido, etc.), or those of rudolph (lambert, berthold, bruno, etc.). fortunately we have a large number of gregory's letters, and, as usual, i rely chiefly on these.] [footnote 201: the reformers of milan worked chiefly among the poor, especially in the "old-clothes quarter," or _pataria_. hence the name of the party.] [footnote 202: the word "cardinal" occurs occasionally in early ecclesiastical literature in its literal meaning of "important," and is applied to clerics of various orders. after the fifth century it is restricted at rome to the first priests of each of the _tituli_ (quasi-parishes) into which the city was divided. they numbered twenty-eight in the eleventh century. in the course of time the name was also given to the seventeen leading deacons of rome and the seven suburbicarian bishops.] [footnote 203: in this last case we have the assurance of hildebrand himself that he dictated the papal policy. years afterwards he wrote to william (_ep._, vii., 23) that, when the norman envoys came to ask papal approval of his design, it was generally censured as an unjustifiable raid, and hildebrand alone induced pope alexander to send the normans a banner: on condition, he adds, that william secured the payment of peter's pence by the reluctant english and in other ways promoted the interests of rome. but even william did not dream that his acceptance of the banner made england, in hildebrand's opinion, a fief of the roman see!] [footnote 204: _ep._, i., 1.] [footnote 205: _das papstthum_ (1892), ch. ii., § 2. see also f. roquain's _la papauté au moyen âge_. roquain observes, leniently, that gregory was "not entirely exempt from reproach in the use of means to attain his ends" (p. 127) and fell into "excesses unworthy of his great soul" (p. 131). in his famous letter to the bishop of metz (viii., 21) gregory omits an essential part of a passage which he quotes from gelasius and materially alters its meaning. when we further find him writing (ix., 2) that "even a lie that is told for a good purpose in the cause of peace is not _wholly_ free from blame," we fear that he was not far from the maxim that the end justifies the means.] [footnote 206: the secular ruler had long been accustomed to bestow the crozier and ring on his nominee for a bishopric, and this was known as "investiture." the practice undoubtedly led to much simony and to the appointment of unworthy men, but, as the event proved, a compromise was possible.] [footnote 207: speech to the roman synod of the year 1080 (migne, vol. cxlviii., col. 816). compare _ep._, viii., 21.] [footnote 208: _ep._, i., 7.] [footnote 209: _ep._, i., 9.] [footnote 210: i., 11.] [footnote 211: i., 31.] [footnote 212: i., 35.] [footnote 213: i., 46.] [footnote 214: ii., 51.] [footnote 215: vi., 30.] [footnote 216: vii., 1.] [footnote 217: ii., 5 and 32.] [footnote 218: viii., 2.] [footnote 219: in both statements of fact gregory was wrong. stephen had merely accepted a consecrated banner from the anti-pope silvester ii.; and solomon had voluntarily chosen henry as his suzerain.] [footnote 220: viii., 4.] [footnote 221: there was a gregorian archbishop in exile. the actual prelate may not have been zealous enough for henry.] [footnote 222: iii., 10.] [footnote 223: a good deal of controversy has been expended on the question whether gregory did or did not threaten at this stage to depose henry. gregory's letter xxvi. (not in his register, but of undoubted authenticity) to "the german people" expressly admits, or boasts, that he did. for further evidence see dr. martens, _gregor vii._, i., 86-91.] [footnote 224: iii., 6.] [footnote 225: viii., 21.] [footnote 226: see c. mirbt's special study of the conflict, _die absetzung heinrichs iv._ (1888), p. 103.] [footnote 227: _liber ad amicum_, 1. viii.] [footnote 228: a translation may be read in delarc, iii., 252.] [footnote 229: one recent student, dr. albert dammann (_der sieg heinrichs iv. in kanossa_, 1907 and 1909), goes to the other extreme, and concludes that henry blockaded canossa with a large army and compelled the pope to withdraw his censure, without a single act of penance.] [footnote 230: _ep._, iv., 12.] [footnote 231: for instance he describes a dramatic scene in which henry shrinks from receiving the sacred host, whereas gregory says (_ep._, iv., 12) that he admitted henry to communion. his story is full of contradictions.] [footnote 232: iv., 12.] [footnote 233: gregorian writers said afterwards that henry's royal dignity was not restored at canossa. in point of fact he actually signed his promise of reform as "king" and he refused to take an oath on the express ground that the word of a king of germany sufficed. gregory made no complaint on this score until years afterwards, though henry resumed his royal character the moment he left canossa.] [footnote 234: iv., 24.] [footnote 235: bk. ix.] [footnote 236: it may be read in migne, vol. cxlviii., col. 816. it includes the imprecation on henry, "may he gain no victory as long as he lives," and again asserts that all honours and powers are at the disposal of the pope.] chapter ix innocent iii.: the papal zenith that papal policy or ideal of which we have traced the development in the minds of the greater popes attains its fullest expansion during the pontificate of innocent iii. historians usually assign the year 1300 as the date of the culmination of the papal system, but it had in reality attained its full stature under innocent iii. it did indeed make its last impressive display of world-power under boniface viii., but there had been no material contribution to its frame since the death of innocent, and the thirteenth century had fostered the growth of the influences which were destined to undo it. in the fourteenth century came the demoralizing residence in avignon and the great schism: in the fifteenth century the renaissance of culture and development of civic life, which enfeebled the popes and strengthened their subjects, were completed: in the sixteenth century luther and calvin smote the colossus. innocent iii. is the last great maker of the papacy. the work of the eighteen popes who occupied the throne between the death of gregory vii. and the election of innocent might not ineptly be described in a line: they sought, and failed, to wield the heavy weapons of hildebrand. in virtue of the falsified letters, canons, charters, and chronicles which were now accepted throughout europe, they proclaimed that they had the disposal of earthly kingdoms no less than of seats in heaven, and they thus brought on themselves a century of strife in which only the stronger men could find much time for strictly pontifical duties. they were men of sober life and, generally, high character, yet the very nature of their ideal involved such struggles that the papacy had to await a fortunate conjunction of circumstances before the ideal could be realized. the conflict with henry iv. continued until, his two sons having been persuaded to rebel against him and his second wife encouraged to besmirch his reputation, before the assembled prelates of christendom, with charges as foul as they were feeble in evidence, he, in 1097, quitted italy for ever. then urban ii., who was responsible for this gross travesty of spiritual justice, cleared rome by means of norman swords and rallied christendom about him by a declaration of the first crusade. but so tainted a legacy of peace could not last. henry v. proved more exacting than his father, and another prolonged struggle absorbed the energy of the popes until the fifty years' war over investiture was settled by a compromise at worms in 1122.[237] bernard of clairvaux, rather than the successive popes, was the spiritual master of europe in the comparative peace after worms. during nearly the whole of the second half of the twelfth century the papacy was distracted by the incessant revolts of the romans. the streets, even the churches, of rome were stained with blood, year after year, and the popes repeatedly fled. the rise of frederic barbarossa complicated the struggle, and the popes had little opportunity to exercise the powers they had won, without thinking of any extension of their claims. at last, in 1198, the papacy once more fell to a man of commanding personality and was lifted to the zenith of its power. lothario de'conti di segni was born about the year 1160. his father was count trasimondo of segni: his mother belonged to the noble roman family of the scotti, which included several cardinals of the anti-imperialist school. after receiving an elementary education at rome, he was sent to paris for theology, and to bologna for law. the scholastic movement was now stimulating europe and creating great schools; indeed pope alexander iii. had, though not from cultural motives, fostered the movement by favouring the activity of free teachers. profane letters were, however, still little cultivated. lothario took a degree in the liberal arts, but he was soon wholly absorbed in theology and canon law; the correct and virile latin of his letters is very far from the classical models. under the pontificate of his maternal uncle, clement iii., he returned to rome a young man of the most ascetic character and most finished ecclesiastical culture. he was made a canon of st. peter's, and, in his twenty-ninth year, a cardinal of the roman church. the pontificate of clement ended, apparently, the long struggle of the popes and the romans. the roman nobles were as turbulent as ever, but one finds a more respectable element of dissension in the city at this time. the democratic ideas of that brilliant and too little appreciated thinker, arnold of brescia, had taken root in rome, and a republic, with a senate of fifty-six members, had been established in the capitol. hadrian iv. had blighted this premature experiment by an interdict in 1155, but the struggle continued and the popes lived little in the capital until the year 1188. clement, a courtly and diplomatic roman, made peace with his countrymen, and damped the democratic ardour by a shower of gold and of ecclesiastical favours. the papacy resumed the government of the city, and the nominal power of the senate was allowed to pass into the hands of one man, "the senator." clement died in 1190, and, as his successor, celestine iii., was a member of the orsini family, which was bitterly hostile to the scotti, there was no room in the lateran for lothario conti. nepotism was now so far accepted in the papal palace that we shall find innocent himself following the tradition. the leisure was fortunate in one respect, as lothario used it for the purpose of writing a book, _on contempt of the world_, which gives us a most interesting revelation of his innermost thoughts at the time when he became pope. the book is a distillation of the extreme monastic views of the time; it is full of fables, and it depicts man as the very vilest thing in a world which was made solely for the disdain of the ascetic. it was from this morbidly tinted sanctuary that lothario conti surveyed the life of his time, which he was soon summoned to rule. in september, 1197, henry vi., who had duly incurred the imperial legacy of excommunication, died and left his kingdom to his baby-boy frederic: and on january 8, 1198, lothario conti, in the prime of life and the most sombre stage of his meditations, became innocent iii. although he occupied the papal throne only eighteen years, we have more than five thousand letters, or parts of letters, dispatched by him to all parts of christendom: more than five hundred of them were written in the first year of his pontificate. their range stretches from ireland and scandinavia to cairo and armenia. in that vast territory nothing of importance happened in which he did not intervene; and there was hardly a prince or baron whom he did not excommunicate, or any leading country which he did not place under interdict. his ideal was that of gregory vii.: the papal states of europe--he wanted to add nearer asia--trembling under the roman rod. writing to the emperor of constantinople he elaborated his famous conception of earthly empire as the moon, shining faintly by light borrowed from the spiritual power. the papal theory had reached its culmination, and we may proceed at once to attempt to compress the portentous activity of innocent iii. into a few compartments.[238] one naturally inquires first how this spiritual autocrat confronted the democratic faction at rome. at the outset he showed a little of the accommodating temper which he always held in reserve behind his profession of rigour. his attendants flung showers of coin on the greedy people when he first passed between them, and, reluctantly, and on the lowest known scale, he distributed the backsheesh with which each incoming pope had to win the smiles of every official in the palace and the city. there were murmurs, and they increased when he proceeded to compel the prefect (who was understood to represent the empire) and the senator (who represented the romans) to take oaths of allegiance to himself. by this stroke he expelled the last bit of reality out of the "free commune" of rome, and cast off the last trace of an imperial yoke. he abolished the noble guard and the lay officials of the palace: he deposed the judges appointed by the senator and appointed less corrupt men: he drove the money-changers and merchants out of the lateran courtyard, stamped on the parasites who fed on foreign pilgrims, and drew up a strict tariff of fees for the papal services. he was by no means indifferent to money, as his fighting policy demanded enormous sums. no pope could be keener on peter's pence, and no abbot or bishop dare approach him with a gift not proportionate to his wealth. but it is almost superfluous to say that he was a man of the most rigorous sentiment of justice, and, as long as he lived, the more selfish kind of rapacity at rome was repressed. the nobles who led the democratic party, chiefly giovanni pierleone and giovanni capocci, looked with concern on his tendency and, when he put a papal governor over the maremma and the sabina, instead of the one appointed by the senate, they pressed the romans to see that their privileges were being stolen. in 1200 innocent extricated himself from a difficult situation. vitorchiano was threatened by viterbo and declared itself a papal fief. as viterbo also was part of the patrimony, and the romans hated it, innocent was perplexed. the romans took the field in spite of him, and won; but, as he happened to be saying mass at the time of the victory, it was ingeniously ascribed to his prayers. in the following year, however, there was more serious trouble. two small provincial nobles took possession of some estates on the campagna, and, when innocent ordered them to restore, they said that they held them of the democratic leaders, pierleone and capocci. there was an outcry, but innocent sent his troops to lay waste the properties of the two nobles in the grimmest mediæval manner, and, in an eloquent speech at rome, completely vanquished his critics. then in 1202, during his customary summer absence, the feud of the scotti and the orsini broke out with frightful violence, and in the following year the antagonism to the pope reached its height. innocent had, for his own protection, greatly enriched his brother ricardo, and ricardo had purchased the mortgages on the estates of one of the democrats, oddo poli. as far as we can see, ricardo acted with legal correctness, but rome was soon aroused by the sight of poli and his friends coming naked to church, as a symbol of the "spoliation," and democratic rhetoric rose to white heat. there was a popular rising; ricardo's towering mansion was burned, and innocent himself had to fly to ferentino (may, 1203). the romans restored their senate, and swore to have no more of this papal nepotism and despotism, but from his retreat innocent fostered the intestine quarrels of the victorious people, and before long the city was in a state of murderous anarchy. the two hundred mansions of its wealthier citizens were, and had been for ages, real fortresses, and during the whole summer of 1203 their castellated walls were lined with archers, and bands issued forth, with all the engines of war, to assault and burn the fortress of some neighbour. it still remains for some historian of the papacy to explain this chronic violence and vice in the centre of christendom during so many centuries. the trouble ended in the pope resuming the government of the city, and his rule was further disturbed only by one of these popular revolts, in 1208. we do not fully appreciate the strength of innocent unless we realize how, while his eyes wandered over the globe, rome itself demanded so much attention. but he was not merely concerned with its misconduct. he organized the work of charity in the city and did something to promote its commerce. he built a foundling hospital, trusting to reduce the infanticide which he found so common at rome, and was very generous to the churches and the clergy. from his time the popes began to use more and more the palace beside st. peter's, which he enlarged and fortified, and he spent large sums in adorning other churches and enhancing the splendour of the worship. but these and the other roman reforms i have mentioned are the mere incidents of his domestic life, so to say. his work was the ruling of the world, and assuredly we must recognize a mind of high quality and prodigious energy when we read the volumes of letters that poured from the lateran during those eighteen years, and imagine the vast crowds that came from every part of the world to do homage, to ask counsel, and to report the minutest circumstances of their abbeys or bishoprics or principalities. italy alone might have absorbed a weaker man during his earlier years. papal rule was acknowledged--in the manner we have seen--only in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. over the south and sicily the widow of henry vi. ruled in the name of her child: in the north were the leagues of free cities, and the isolated free cities, which had won independence: and the whole country apart from these was falling into the hands of the german generals whom henry vi. had left there at his death. innocent, like all the popes after hadrian, believed in the donation of constantine, to say nothing of the donations of pippin and charlemagne and otto and mathilda. italy belonged almost entirely to the papacy, and must be recovered. some historians hail innocent as a great apostle of the "italia una" ideal, and he sometimes presses on particular towns "the interests of the whole of italy." it is, however, absurd to associate his feeling with the later ideal of italian unity. he cared for the unity of italy only in the sense that the pope was to be its unique ruler. those germans--he scorns them--must be driven out. those free cities, always at war with each other, must be persuaded that the papal seal will be their best protection. even that kingdom of naples and sicily must somehow pass under rome; in spite of the fact that innocent had solemnly accepted the guardianship of the young king. it is commonly said that the german generals in italy, like markwald of anweiler, were ferocious adventurers eager only to carve little principalities for themselves out of the helpless country. this is the partisan version left us by innocent's anonymous biographer. they were, with german troops, guarding the empire for the successor of henry vi.; they acknowledged philip of swabia; and innocent was at a later date "warned" by an influential group of german prelates and nobles not to interfere with them. but innocent had several advantages. henry vi. had treated italy with barbarity, and numbers of cities threw off the german yoke when he died; on the other hand, markwald and his colleagues were under standing sentence of excommunication for occupying papal fiefs like tuscany. innocent began by sending men and money to the revolted cities, and inviting them to put themselves under rome's sacred banner. he travelled through central italy in 1198, and received the allegiance of many towns. markwald, the chief enemy, was driven to the south, and innocent pressed the southerners to rise against him. here the pope had the familiar advantage of papal policy--a woman on the throne--and he made a use of it that cannot very well be defended. henry's norman widow, constance, was not unwilling to break her connection with germany, and she seems to have had little appreciation of the political meaning of making sicily a fief of the roman see. she was very ill and distracted, and no doubt felt that she was consulting the interest of her son in putting him and the kingdom (of sicily and naples) under papal charge. she did indeed hesitate when innocent told her the price of his protection. sicily was to sacrifice all the privileges which william i. had wrung from the papacy, to pay an annual tribute to rome, and to render feudal service whenever required.[239] but constance was forced to yield, and she died soon afterwards (november 27, 1198), appointing innocent the guardian of her son and allotting him an annual fee of thirty thousand gold pieces. innocent accepted the guardianship of frederic, and historians comment severely on his next step. in spite of all his fiery letters to the southern clergy and people--even to the saracens[240]--inciting them to resist the germans, markwald made considerable progress. then there came to rome a certain french adventurer named walter de brienne, who had married a daughter of tancred of sicily. tancred had, on resigning sicily, retained lecce and tarentum, and walter claimed these as his wife's inheritance. whether or no innocent had actually promoted the marriage and invited walter to italy[241] we cannot confidently say, but it was assuredly dangerous to let such a man get a footing in southern italy; it was probable enough that he would eventually claim the whole kingdom taken from tancred. however innocent blessed and financed his enterprise, on the formal condition that he would respect the rights of frederic, and soon had a french troop waging more effective war upon the germans. the struggle ceased with the death of markwald in 1202, and of walter in 1205, and innocent then pressed a design of marrying the young frederic to constanza of aragon. for the time frederic's rights were respected, but there can be no doubt that these early years spent amidst intrigue and treachery contributed to the development of his anti-clerical spirit. there was, in fact, a good deal of anti-clericalism growing in italy. the development of civic and communal life and the comparative enlightenment which was spreading turned many critical eyes on the roman system. heresy descended the alps and found favour in the free cities; even, at times, in papal cities. i have described how viterbo was crushed by the roman troops. innocent intervened in its favour, after its defeat, and he was then outraged to learn that viterbo was, like many other cities, appointing heretics (the cathari) to high places. he spent the summer of 1207 in viterbo, and enforced very stringent rules for the repression of heresy. these laws were extended to all the papal dominions, but we shall see the pope's attitude more clearly when we deal with the crusade against the albigensians. innocent was not less emphatic in denouncing the incessant wars of the rival cities, and his correspondence is largely occupied with his endeavours to secure their feudal allegiance to rome. a graver problem, in the solution of which his character is often obscured, was presented by the struggle of ghibellines (or followers of philip of swabia) and guelphs (supporters of otto of brunswick) for the imperial crown. frederic, the son and heir of henry, being still a boy of tender years, his uncle duke philip of swabia desired to keep the crown securely in the hohenstauffen family by wearing it himself. otto of brunswick also made a fantastic claim to it, got himself proclaimed emperor at cologne in 1198, and sought the support of the pope. innocent undoubtedly favoured from the start the baseless claim of otto. the papacy had come to regard the hohenstauffens almost as hereditary foes, and philip actually lay under sentence of excommunication for holding the territory bequeathed by mathilda to the papacy; while otto flattered the pope by professions of loyalty and docility. but philip had the better prospect, if there was an appeal to the sword, and innocent refused for some years to commit himself. he summoned philip to surrender the italian prisoners and the papal provinces taken by henry, and sent the bishop of sutri to absolve him if he complied. to his extreme annoyance the not very clear-headed bishop gave philip an unconditional absolution--for which innocent promptly imprisoned the bishop for life in a monastery--and thus surrendered the pope's chance of profiting by the situation. the rivals appealed to the sword, and innocent bitterly complained that philip did not ask his arbitration.[242] he alone, he declared to the princes and prelates of germany, was the judge of such high causes: to which the princes and prelates replied, in very firm and dignified language, that they would have no papal interference in the secular concerns of germany.[243] as the war proceeded, innocent made it clear that he favoured otto. he warned the german prelates not to choose an emperor on whom he could not bestow the crown, and in a letter to the eastern emperor he afterwards boasted that he alone kept philip from the throne. but the war went in favour of philip, and even when, in 1200, both men sent representatives to rome, innocent would not commit himself to more than an eloquent proof that priests were exalted above kings.[244] at the beginning of the following year, however, he declared openly for otto. he sent cardinal pierleone to germany with the bull _interest apostolicæ sedis_, in which he drew up a violent and unjust indictment of philip and awarded the crown to the loyal and virtuous otto. the bull is painfully casuistic, and would have been better if it had stopped at the bold declaration that the papacy had created the empire and could bestow it according to its pleasure. while, for instance, it charges philip with treachery to the interests of his young nephew, it exonerates all others from the oath of fidelity to henry's son on the ground that an oath to an unbaptized infant was invalid.[245] the imperial crown was, in plain terms, allotted in the interests of the church, in defiance of the wishes of the majority of the german nation. otto hastened to swear that he would defend the papal possessions (including sicily), and was proclaimed by a papal legate in cologne cathedral on july 3, 1201. innocent now sent out a flood of letters on behalf of his candidate, but the result was irritating. philip of france roughly refused to recognize otto; and a letter signed by two german archbishops, ten bishops, and other clerics and nobles, sternly rebuked the pope for his "audacity" in meddling with things which did not concern him.[246] innocent's legates vainly scattered threats of excommunication in germany. hardly a single prelate recognized otto, and, after seven years of the most brutal civil warfare, he was driven out of the country. we are not impressed by the pope's feverish protests that he was not responsible for this desolation. in 1208, however, philip, who had been reconciled with rome in the previous year, was assassinated, and otto, with innocent's approval, mounted the throne. to the intense indignation of the pope, the new emperor at once cast his oaths of fidelity to the wind and told innocent to confine himself to spiritual matters. he annexed tuscany and spoleto, in spite of all the pope's entreaties and threats, and was about to march against naples and apulia when innocent launched against him a sentence of excommunication and deposition. otto was, for the time, an excellent ruler: he had been educated in the english ideas of government. but he had refused to be subservient to the clergy, and the german prelates now summoned frederic from sicily. innocent approved the election of frederic as easily as he had approved that of philip and of otto, but he did not live to see how that emperor in turn defied the papacy and scorned its political pretensions.[247] next in interest and importance were innocent's relations with england. with richard the lion-heart the pope maintained a friendly correspondence, nor did he annoy the english prelates by any inconvenient censure of the condition of the english church. in 1199 john lackland succeeded his brother, and innocent was even more indulgent to that barbarous and unscrupulous monarch. into the death of prince arthur he made no indiscreet inquiry; he confirmed the dissolution of john's marriage, and, for his shameful theft of the love of the betrothed of the count de la marche, imposed on him only the light and useful penance of a general confession and the equipment of a hundred knights for palestinian service. during the war which followed he made earnest efforts to mediate, though even these were at times marred by his temporizing policy and his determination not to alienate the kings. when the bishops of normandy, after the capture of that province by philip, asked him how they were to adjust their allegiance, he weakly replied that philip seemed to rely on some claim which he could not understand and they must judge for themselves.[248] at length a famous quarrel about the archbishopric of canterbury drew him into a stern and triumphant conflict with john. the archbishop, a worldly-minded courtier of the familiar type, died in 1205, and the canterbury monks, who claimed the right of nomination, met hastily, by night, without awaiting the royal license to proceed to an election, and nominated their sub-prior reginald. they sent reginald at once to rome, enjoining on him the strictest secrecy until he was consecrated, but the monk made a parade of his high condition as soon as he reached the continent and there was great indignation in england. the chapter, which disputed the arrogant claim of the monks, elected the bishop of norwich, and many of the monks, alarmed at their action or disgusted with their sub-prior, joined in the election. sixteen monks accompanied the second deputation to rome, and they supported the declaration of the court and the church that reginald's election was invalid. as, however, the bishop of norwich was one of the indulgent prelates, innocent casuistically annulled both elections and imposed stephen langton on the english. john furiously protested that the pope had insulted his state and threatened to withdraw the english church from his jurisdiction; shrewdly reminding the pope that he received more money from england than from any other country. john seems to have misunderstood the earlier complaisance of the pope. innocent was not the man to yield to a threat of financial loss, and he at once consecrated langton and laid england under an interdict. for some years the affrighted people saw the doors of their churches closed against them and imagined the jaws of a mediæval hell gaping wide for their souls. there was no christian marriage for their sons and daughters, no christian burial for their aged; and only to dying persons could the consoling sacrament be administered. in his fury john drove priests and prelates out of his kingdom, but his cruel and extortionate government had lost him the compensating strength of the affection of his people. in 1211 he was forced to seek terms, and a papal legate reached england. between the arrogance of legate pandolpho and the passion of the king the negotiation failed, and john was deposed by the pope. england, rome repeated, had been a fief of the apostolic see since william the conqueror; it was now open to any christian monarch to invade and possess it. this was a direct invitation to philip of france to renew those horrors of warfare which innocent had so eloquently denounced,[249] and, to the intense mortification of the french king, john abjectly submitted (1213). he even handed to the proud legate a solemn declaration that england and ireland were fiefs of the apostolic see, and that he would pay a thousand marks a year for vassalage. the clergy were recalled and compensated, the interdict was raised, and legate pandolpho stalked the land with the insufferable air of a conqueror. if, however, this conflict gives an honourable prominence to the sterner qualities of innocent, its sequel no less illustrates the weakness which seemed inseparable from the papal policy, even when it was embodied in a lofty character. pandolpho behaved so wantonly in resettling the clergy that he presently fell foul of the high-minded langton: john behaved with a ferocity which drove nobles and commoners to the step of rebellion. yet innocent maintained his mischievous legate against langton, and laid a papal malediction on the just aspirations of the people. he rebuked the barons for their "nefarious presumption" in taking arms against a vassal of the roman see; he denounced magna charta as a devil-inspired document, and forbade "his vassal" to accede to its unjust demands. he excommunicated the barons when they refused to lay down their arms, and suspended langton when that prelate refused, on the ground that it was dictated by false representations, to promulgate his sentence. when the barons offered the crown to louis, son of philip of france, he issued an anathema against louis; and in 1216 he issued a sentence of excommunication against philip himself for encouraging his son. he died before his sombre use of his spiritual weapons, in a carnal cause, was completed. he had, within ten years, raised papal power in england to its supreme height and then dealt it a blow from which it would never recover. it is futile to plead that he was ill informed on the situation. he knew john, and he knew langton; he ought to have known pandolpho. in point of fact, there is no reason to think that he was radically misinformed. his whole action is plainly inspired by the interest, as he conceived it, of the papacy.[250] i must dismiss very briefly his relations with other christian countries. philip of france had, like john of england, discarded his wife and married a woman he loved. but the papal microscope refused, in his case, to discover the remote affinity which, philip said, made his first marriage void, and an interdict was laid on his kingdom. the terrified priests and people tore philip from the arms of agnes de meran, the mother of three of his children, and forced him to submit. only under the later pressure of his conflicts with otto and john did innocent discover that there was sufficient _prima facie_ evidence to spend several years in negotiation about a divorce, and, by an extraordinary use of his high powers, he declared the children of agnes legitimate. in spain and portugal, innocent found irregular marriages almost as numerous as regular, and his interventions show the same unedifying mixture of priestly rigour and political compromise. sacerdotal legislation had by this time surrounded marriage with a portentous series of obstacles--forbidden degrees of spiritual and carnal affinity--which sacerdotal power alone could remove, yet the isolated princes of the peninsula were compelled to marry constantly into each other's families and did not always ask the costly blessing of the papacy. that this legislation did not improve the sex-morals of europe, which were at least no better than they had been in pagan times, is well known. spain was particularly lax, having contracted the gaiety of neighbouring provence, and her kings may have felt that where unwedded love was so genially tolerated, these academic restraints on wedded love might be disregarded. innocent placed the kingdoms of leon and castile under an interdict because the king of leon had married his cousin, berengaria of castile, and, when the court of leon ignored his censures, he predicted that there would be a horrible issue of the unhallowed union. its first fruit was st. ferdinand; but berengaria nervously retired after a few years and left the king to bear his excommunication with spanish dignity. the king of castile soon obtained the removal of the interdict, on the ground that it favoured the growth of heresy, but he was then threatened with excommunication because he permitted the jews to become rich while the church was poor. pedro of aragon was more fortunate. in the course of a journey to rome he married the wife of the count de comminges, and the pope at once accepted her assurance that the count had two wives living when he married her, and blessed the union. pedro, it should be added, swore fealty and an annual subsidy of two hundred gold pieces to the pope. the king of navarre incurred an interdict for allying himself with the moors. all that one can seriously put to the credit of innocent is that he greatly aided the unification of spain by spurring its kings to a common crusade against the moors; if we may assume that the crusade favoured the progress of civilization in the country. sancho of portugal also felt, and disdained, the touch of the papal whip. when innocent complained of his oppression of the clergy, he threatened--in a letter which innocent describes as the most insolent ever written to a pope--to strip his corrupt priests of all their wealth. innocent at once temporized, but a dangerous illness and fit of repentance soon put sancho and the kingdom of portugal at his feet. at his death sancho left the kingdom wholly subject to rome and the clergy, though it was not many years before the quarrels of his children again drew upon it the spiritual blight of an interdict. it would be tedious to describe in detail all the similar interventions of the pope in other countries. he refused to let marie of brabant marry the emperor otto, and refused to dissolve the marriage of the king of bohemia; indeed, he sternly rebuked the king of bohemia for receiving his crown at the hands of philip of swabia. in hungary he scolded prince endre for rebelling against his brother, and he raised bulgaria to the rank of a kingdom, on condition that it recognized roman supremacy. he claimed, in a word, to be the king of kings, the temporal as well as religious master of europe. but we shall more clearly appreciate the qualities of his character and shades of his standard of action if we examine more fully his connection with the fourth crusade and the crusade against heresy. tripoli, antioch, and a few small palestinian towns were all that remained of the european conquests from the saracen, and innocent's constant correspondence with the christian prelates who lingered in the east made him eager, from the beginning of his pontificate, to inspire europe to make one more grand attempt to rescue the holy places. for several years he sought, by letters and legates, to fire the christian princes, to divert the swords of france and england to the breast of the mohammedan, and to melt the cold calculations of venice. but the memory of the last colossal failure--of all the blood and treasure that had been expended on the stubborn task--was too fresh in europe. in vain he promised, to all who took the cross, a sure entry into paradise, and hinted not obscurely at the damnation which awaited those who refused. thin bands of zealots responded to the call, and a larger multitude were induced to take the cross by innocent's princely declaration that the earthly debts of all who joined the crusade would be cancelled, and the jews would be forced to forswear their legitimate interest. the knights of europe, to his fiery indignation, still wasted their spears on each other, or continued the more pleasant pastimes of the chase and the tournament. innocent, in a flood of eloquent letters, taxed the clergy, confiscated the funds of erratic monks, and forbade the lay nobles to wear costly furs or eat costly dinners or indulge in tournaments. there were murmurs that the christians of the east needed no aid, since they were on excellent terms with the saracens, as the pope was painfully aware; and that the only sure effect of crusades was to increase the power and the wealth of the papacy which organized them. even the clergy and the monks refused the subsidies he demanded, and he was compelled to sanction a practice which would in time prove the most terrible and destructive abuse of the mediæval papacy: the penance imposed on confessing sinners was to take the form of a money-contribution. to this day the indulgences which are sold in spain trace their origin to the crusades, as the printed _bula_ declares. at length, in the year 1200, baldwin of flanders and a few bishops and nobles formed the nucleus of a crusade, and the astute venetians were invited to provide for the transport of an army. in the spring of 1202 the streams of soldiers and priests converged upon venice, and an army of 23,000 assembled for the fourth assault on the saracens. but the pope's joy was soon overcast, and the crusade proved to be the second most lamentable occurrence of his pontificate. when the army assembled near venice, it was discovered that neither the soldiers nor the pope had money enough to pay their passage to the east. venice had by that time fully developed its hard commercial spirit, and its famous blind doge proposed to remit the debt if the crusaders would, on their way, retake zara (in dalmatia) from the hungarians for the venetians. innocent made the most violent opposition, but the venetians, disdaining his threats, compelled the impoverished soldiers to consent, and on october 8th they set sail, under threat of excommunication, to begin their crusade by the shedding of christian blood. they took zara, and incurred excommunication; but innocent could not reconcile himself to the complete failure of his grand plan. he withdrew the censures they had so flagrantly defied, and admitted, or stated, that they had acted under "a sort of necessity." they were to make some vague "satisfaction" for their misdeed, and push on, with clean souls, to the east. the venetians alone were not relieved of the censure, but, though knights of a more tender conscience were painfully perplexed to find themselves in the same galleys with excommunicated men, the venetians showed no concern. they had another check in reserve for the pope. before they left italy, alexis comnenus had arrived from constantinople to ask their aid in restoring his father to the throne he had just lost, and they were disposed to assist him. one could not, of course, expect the pope to show the same concern for the blood of schismatics as for the blood of the hungarians, yet his consent to this fatal and lamentable enterprise is a stain on his record. the sordid squabble of the comneni family did not deserve the sacrifice of a single knight, and the part of isaac comnenus was espoused by the crusaders and the pope only because the young alexis promised money and provisions to the troops and the subjection of the greek church to the lateran. the issue is well known. the crusaders took constantinople, sacked the city, and desecrated the churches with a brutality that must have shocked the saracens; and they then settled down to divide its territory between themselves and the venetians. the letters which innocent sent, as the successive news arrived, are painful reading. he must blame their excesses, he says at first, but, after all, these outrages had been merited by the sins of the greeks; let the crusaders inform him that the submission of the greek church has been secured. at last they send him, for his confirmation, a treaty from which he learns that they have arranged all the affairs, spiritual as well as secular, of the new empire without consulting him, and he writes more warmly. to the outrage they have committed he is still almost insensible; it is their audacity in ruling the new church--in permitting the hated venetians to select a patriarch--which excites his anger. the last phase of the enterprise caused him grave distress. instead of proceeding to the east, the latins set up an empire and several petty princedoms, and the greeks disdainfully watched their quarrels and awaited their own opportunity. monks and priests were summoned from france, but the people were secretly wedded to their old religion and the new church was a hollow sham. for years innocent had to maintain a fretful correspondence, settling quarrels about jurisdiction and property, and scolding his crusaders for their oppression and spoliation of the clergy. but it is needless to recount all the details of that historic failure. the weariness of innocent may be appreciated from the fact that in 1213 he naïvely wrote to the khalipha himself, beseeching him "in all humility" to restore to the christians the land which they had not the courage or the interest to win by the sword. the crusade against the albigensians was more successful, and even more lamentable, and i need do no more here than elucidate innocent's relation to that monstrous crime. the degradation of morals and of religious practice, the corruption of the clergy, and the stupendous claims of the papacy, had already provoked in europe the beginnings of protest. a somewhat modified form of christianity's old rival, manichæism, had lingered in the east and had in time mingled with the austere christianity of the pauline epistles. from the eastern empire it had spread to bulgaria, and from there, in the thirteenth century, it passed rapidly over europe, assimilating all the anti-clerical and anti-ritualist feeling which the corruption of the time inspired. in one or other form it obtained considerable strength in switzerland, piedmont, and the south of france, and it was fast gathering recruits in italy and spain. the light-living princes of languedoc had little inclination to persecute; nor would they think that, if one might sing ribald contempt of the ecclesiastical system in the tavern and the monastery, this disdain was less respectable in the mouths of a generally sincere and upright body of fanatics. in the first year of his pontificate innocent sent two cistercian monks, guy and renier, to convert the heretics and incite the civil and religious authorities to enforce the law. of corporal persecution he assuredly did not dream at that time, and indeed his letters made it clear that he preferred persuasion to coercion of any kind. the monks failed either to convert the heretics or to induce the bishops and princes of the south of france to persecute (by confiscation and exile), and they were replaced by the more vigorous monk-legates, pierre de castelnau and raoul, to whom the resolute abbot arnold of citeaux was afterwards added. their powers set aside all ordinary episcopal jurisdiction, and, in pursuance of their policy of displacing lax and reluctant prelates, they put the fanatical foulques of marseilles in the bishopric of toulouse. for eight years these energetic apostles worked almost in vain among the heretics. apparently at the suggestion of st. dominic, who was just entering the history of europe, the pope directed them to raise a corps of cistercian monks who should live and preach on the model of the coming mendicant friars, but even this device made little impression on the heretics or the light-living catholics. arnold and foulques, in particular, became desperate, and the lamentable policy of persecution began to grow in their minds and that of the pope. the principle of persecution had, as we saw, been established in the lateran centuries before, and the only thing that restrained innocent from applying it, in its bloodless form, was the refusal of the secular rulers to co-operate. raymond of toulouse was too healthily epicurean to favour either the sombre creed of the heretics or the more sombre creed of the persecutor. apologetic writers speak with horror of the number of his wives and fair friends, but we do not find that his conduct in this regard, or the similar conduct of other princes and prelates, attracted the attention of the pope. when, however, he slighted a sentence of excommunication and still refused to persecute his excellent but unorthodox subjects, he received a withering letter.[251] "who does he think he is?" the pope asks scornfully, to disobey one before whom the greatest monarchs of the earth bow. let him cease to "feed on corpses like a vulture"--to break a lance with his neighbours--and obey the legates, or the pope will invite a more powerful prince to displace him. as early as november 17, 1207, innocent bade the king of france, the duke of burgundy, and other nobles, prepare for an expedition to toulouse; and the privileges of crusaders were promised to all who joined it. raymond was more moved by the political threat than by the spiritual censures, but there was sullen anger amongst his followers, and on january 15, 1208, the legate pierre de castelnau was assassinated. there is not a tittle of evidence to incriminate raymond, and it is in the highest degree improbable that he would thus open the gates to his greedy neighbours, but innocent chose to believe that he had directed the murder. without trial, he declared that raymond had forfeited the allegiance of his subjects, and his dominions might be seized by any christian prince. he spurred philip of france--who must have been flattered to find himself now described as "exalted amongst all others by god"--to the attack.[252] he addressed a fiery summons to "all the nobles and people of france" to "avenge this terrible insult to god."[253] philip wanted toulouse, but he overreached himself in making terms and he dreaded england. there were, however, plenty of nobles willing to lead their men to the plunder of prosperous provence, and the clergy had become seriously alarmed at the spread of the heresy in france. a vast army, joyous at the rich prospect of loot, converged upon the southern state. innocent iii. knew better than we know the forces he had set in motion. the end sanctified the means. the next phase was pitiful: the issue is one of the most horrible pages of mediæval history. raymond sent representatives to rome to offer submission, and the pope and his legates were embarrassed and behaved abominably. when raymond justly complained of the bitterness of arnold of citeaux, the pope sent a peaceful notary from the lateran; giving the man secret instructions to take no step without the directions of arnold, who was to be in the background, and writing to arnold that this legate milo is to be only "the bait to conceal the hook of thy sagacity." arnold, meanwhile, went to organize the crusade, for they intended to impose on raymond terms which seemed impossible. the helpless raymond licked the dust: he was stripped and scourged, he had to surrender seven of his chief castles as hostages, and he was forced to promise to lead the troops against his own subjects. innocent sank deeper into his awful policy. in an amazing letter to his legates[254] he reminded them of the words of paul (ii. corinthians, xii., 16); "being crafty, i caught you with guile." they were to affect to regard the repentance of raymond as sincere, and, "deceiving him by prudent dissimulation, pass to the extirpation of the other heretics." in other words, they were to crush raymond's chief nobles and then, if he winced, crush him. raymond did not wince, yet the army, with abbot arnold as captain general, moved southward to that historic butchery of the albigensians. the modern plea that innocent could not arrest the avalanche is as wanton as the idea that he was moved by "social considerations." a sentence of excommunication, promulgated by arnold of citeaux, would have reduced the army to impotent proportions. innocent would not disappoint arnold and foulques, and those who had responded to his summons; and he felt more sure of success this way. after the first two months of butchery and seizure of cities, he sent his blessing to the ambitious de montfort. he was, however, superior to his legates. the ferocious arnold made every effort to goad raymond to rebellion, and at last excommunicated him again on the plea that he had not fulfilled his promises. innocent tried--rather tamely--to restrain arnold, refused to confiscate raymond's castles (as arnold demanded) until he had a just trial, and received him courteously at rome. at last, utterly revolted by the baseness of the legates, raymond winced. he was denounced to rome, was confronted with terms which no man with a spark of honour could accept, and, when he refused, was excommunicated: the pope confirming the sentence. raymond's dominions were transferred to "the blessed peter," and de montfort was to levy an annual tax--on which innocent is painfully insistent--for the papacy. two years butchery of men, women, and children had not yet broken the spirit of the albigensians, and at the beginning of 1213, the legates and simon were dismayed to hear from innocent that the crusade was over, and the troops had better proceed against the saracens; that raymond had not yet been legally convicted of heresy and murder, and had not therefore forfeited his fief; that, in any case, raymond's sons, rather than simon de montfort, were his natural successors. two bulls (january 17 and 18, 1213) and four letters in quick succession apprised the miserable group that innocent--largely owing to the intervention of pedro of aragon--at length appreciated their misconduct or had the courage to consult his better feelings. unhappily, his courage did not last long. they stormed rome with their remonstrances, and innocent yielded. as, moreover, the king of aragon failed in his attempt to reduce them by arms, the cause of raymond was utterly lost and his territory was made over to rome. to the end innocent wavered between his more humane feeling and the policy he had so long countenanced. he refused to confirm the appointment of simon as sovereign (under rome) of the whole territory, and when arnold (who was now archbishop of narbonne) quarrelled with simon over the title of duke of narbonne, he supported arnold. at the lateran council, which was to decide the issue, he made a plea for leniency to raymond and justice to his heirs, but he yielded to the truculent priests, and the unhappy prince was cast aside with an annual pension of four hundred marks. innocent did not live to see the arrogant arnold excommunicate de montfort, and the two raymonds return and win back much of their estate. _causa causæ est causa causati_, the schoolmen used to say. the pope who maintained arnold of citeaux, foulques of marseilles, and simon de montfort in their positions when their characters were fully revealed, and the whole of europe knew the atrocities they committed, bears the guilt of the massacre of the albigensians. the fourth lateran council was his last work, and one of the most important councils of the middle ages. he summoned all the bishops, abbots, and priors of christendom to come, on november 1, 1215, to discuss the reform of the church, the suppression of heresy, and the recovery of palestine. a vast audience listened to his opening sermon on november 11th, and for nineteen days they framed laws against heretics, jews, and schismatics: vainly thundered against the vice, sensuality, and rapacity of the clergy: reduced the forbidden degrees of kindred (in marriage) to four--since there were only four humours in the body: imposed on all christians a duty of confessing at least once a year: and fixed the next crusade for june 1, 1216. but innocent, if he marked with pride the contrast of that gorgeous assemblage to the little group of christians who had met in an inn in the transtiberina a thousand years earlier, cannot have been content. not a single greek had responded to his summons: grave murmurs at his hard policy and despotic action arose in the council itself: half the prelates, at least, were unfit to impose reforming measures on their priests: and the ghastly mockery of his last crusade gave little hope for the future. he did not even appreciate the new forces for good which were rising. he had coldly received, if not actually discouraged, dominic and francis. his ideal was power: of love he knew nothing. he flung himself ardently into the preparation for the new war on the saracens, and died, on june 16, 1216, with the call to arms on his lips. he sacrificed himself nobly in the interest of his high ideal, and was one of the greatest makers of the papacy, but he sacrificed also much that men inalienably prize, and he began the unmaking of the papacy. footnotes: [footnote 237: the clergy were to be free to elect their bishop, though in germany the election had to take place in the presence of the emperor or his representatives; this was a virtual retention of the imperial veto. investiture with ring and crozier was replaced by a touch with the royal sceptre.] [footnote 238: fortunately, his work is little complicated by dispute, since his letters are so abundant. there is a contemporary life or panegyric (_gesta innocentii tertii_), but it must be read with caution. of modern biographies the great work of achille luchaire (6 vols., 1904-8) has superseded all others; though, as it scarcely ever indicates its authorities, the less discriminating work of hurter is still useful. in english there is a good, but rather affected, sketch by c.h.c. pirie-gordon, _innocent the great_ (1907). milman is particularly good on innocent iii.] [footnote 239: _ep._, i., 410.] [footnote 240: ii., 226.] [footnote 241: this is affirmed in the contemporary _chronique d'ernoul et de bernard le trésorier_, ch. xxx.] [footnote 242: _ep._, ii., in the register, "on the affairs of the empire": migne, col. ccxvi.] [footnote 243: _ep._, xiv.] [footnote 244: xviii.] [footnote 245: the _deliberatio_, or essential part of the bull, is given in migne's "register of imperial concerns," no. xxix. see also the decretal _venerabilem fratrem_, no. lxii.] [footnote 246: lxi.] [footnote 247: see r. schwemer, _innocenz iii. und die deutsche kirche während des thronstreites von 1198-1208_ (1882), and e. englemann, _phillip von schwaben und innocenz iii._ (1896).] [footnote 248: _ep._, viii., 7.] [footnote 249: _ep._, vi., 163.] [footnote 250: see e. gütschow, _innocenz iii. und england_ (1904).] [footnote 251: x., 69.] [footnote 252: xi., 28.] [footnote 253: xi., 29.] [footnote 254: xi., 232.] chapter x john xxii.: the court at avignon in maintaining that the power of the papacy waned after the pontificate of innocent iii., i do not mean that there was such visible decay as even the most acute contemporary observer might have detected. the thirteenth century must have seemed to the statesmen of the time to strengthen the papacy. the dominican and franciscan friars, quickly recognized by innocent's successors, impressed on europe the duty of implicit obedience. the great canonists began to make an imposing body of law out of the decrees of the popes. art developed in close association with religious sentiment. the hereditary feud with the hohenstauffens ended, fifty years after the death of innocent, with the complete overthrow of the son and grandson of frederic ii. yet most historians now recognize that the thirteenth century was, for the papacy, a period of slow and subtle decay. the mighty struggle with frederic, manfred, and conradin exhausted the high-minded, but not heroic, successors of innocent, and it ended only when, by summoning philip of anjou, they substituted french for german predominance and inaugurated another exacting period of conflict. the alternative was a period of comparative impotence and flabby parasitism. into this the papacy passed; and, unfortunately for it, the degeneration occurred just when the eyes of europe were growing sharper. it was the date of the early renaissance of culture, inspired by the moors: it was a rich period of civic development and prosperity: it was the time when castes of keen-eyed lay lawyers and scholars were growing. arms were yielding to togas in the work of restricting the growth of the papacy. boniface viii. (1294-1303) is the last great representative of the papal ideal in its earlier and more austere mediæval form. his bull _clericis laicos_ (1296) which declared all clerical and monastic property in the world to be under his protection and sternly bade secular rulers respect it, was one of the last olympic fulminations; and it was defeated by england and france. then, in 1300, he declared the jubilee; and some historians see in that prostration of christendom at the feet of the papacy the last notable expression of its world-power. men said at the time--i am not pressing it as fact--that boniface was so exalted by the spectacle that he put on the imperial crown and sandals. no one questions that the papacy decayed from that year. under the banner of papal absolutism boniface made war on the great ghibelline family of the colonnas, and on philip the fair and his lawyers, and he ignominiously fell. the blameless and gentle dominican, benedict xi., who succeeded him, could not sustain for more than a few months the struggle he had inherited, and the gascon clement v. then inaugurated what has been too forcibly called "the babylonian captivity." after a secret compact with philip, after a complete sacrifice of his ideals, and after the distribution of much french gold among the cardinals, he obtained the tiara (1305). in 1309 he settled at avignon, basely surrendered the templars (after an appalling travesty of justice) to the cupidity of the king, and settled down, in the company of his sister and niece and dear friend the countess of talleyrand-périgord, to a life of sensuous luxury and the accumulation of wealth. he died on march 12, 1314, leaving 1,078,800 florins (about £500,000) nearly the whole of which went to his family and friends, and the cardinals gathered anxiously to choose his successor. clement had died near carpentras, about fifteen miles from avignon, and the cardinals met in the episcopal palace of that town. the austere gregory x. had decreed in 1274 that the cardinal electors should be walled into their chamber (or conclave) until they had chosen a pope, and the twenty-three princes of the church prepared for a desperate encounter in their isolated quarters. there were six italians, eager to tell a pitiful story of the ruin of rome and the patrimonies because of the absence of the pope from italy. but there were nine gascons--three of them nephews of clement, all creatures of clement--and, as two of the eight french cardinals supported the gascons, they made a formidable majority and demanded an avignon pope: in fact, a gascon pope. day followed day in angry discussion, and the cries of the infuriated followers of the gascon cardinals without grew louder and louder. at last, on july 23d, there came a thundering on the doors, and the terrified cardinals, breaking through the wall, fled from the town and dispersed. for two years, to the grave scandal of christendom, they refused to agree on a place of meeting, until at last philip of valois enticed them to lyons, entrapped them into a monastery, and told them that they were prisoners until they made a pope. under these auspices jacques de cahors, cardinal of porto, became john xxii. he was a little, dry, bilious old man of seventy-two: but an able lawyer and administrator, and a man of wonderful vigour for his age. in his case the more careful research of modern times and the opening of the vatican archives have tended to give him, in some respects, a more honourable position in history than he had hitherto occupied. the reader will hardly find him morally and spiritually attractive, but he had a remarkable and powerful personality, and he achieved more than has been supposed. his "register" in the vatican archives contains 65,000 letters. most of these are very brief notes written by the papal clerks, but there are many of interest and they enable us at times to correct the anecdotists of his age. he had virulent enemies, and they must be read with reserve.[255] jacques d'euse, of cahors, is said by unfriendly writers of the time to have been the son of a cobbler (or, according to others, a tailor). as he had relatives in good positions, and received a good schooling, this is probably a legend. but his early life is obscure. he studied under the dominicans of cahors, and then attended the lectures at montpellier and at paris. the story of ferretti di vicenza, that he went with a trading uncle to naples and became tutor to the sons of charles ii., does not harmonize with these facts, and we must therefore reject the further charge that he obtained his bishopric by forging a letter in the name of charles. he seems rather to have taught civil law for a long period at cahors, and then at toulouse, where he earned the friendship of the bishop, st. louis, and was thus brought to the notice and favour of the bishop's father, the king of naples. charles secured the bishopric of fréjus for him in 1300, and made him his chancellor in 1307. when charles died, his son robert continued the patronage and got for him the bishopric of avignon. clement v. found him a useful man and pliant lawyer. it was he who did the most accommodating research for clement in the suppression of the templars, and he was rewarded with a red hat in 1312. he was a sober man, liking good solid fare and regular ways, and kept his energy and ambition in his eighth decade of life. robert of naples pressed his candidature for the papacy when clement died, and the gascons adopted him. he won the vote of cardinal orsini--this statement of his critics is confirmed by later events--by professing a most determined intention to transfer the papacy to rome. the anecdotists say that he swore never to mount a horse until he was established at the lateran; and, after a gorgeous coronation-ceremony at lyons on september 5th, he at once proceeded _by boat_ to avignon. the italian cardinals left him in disgust, and he promptly promoted ten new cardinals, of whom nine were french (and three, including his nephew, from cahors). of his later seventeen cardinals, thirteen were french, three italian, and one spanish. the papacy was fixed at avignon. the little town which clement had chosen as the seat of the papacy had the advantage, in john's eyes, of being separated from philip's territory by the rhone and being under the suzerainty of robert of naples. it was still a small, poorly built town. clement had found the dominican monastery large enough for his epicurean establishment. john returned at first to his old episcopal palace, but the great rock on which the papal palace now stands soon inspired his ambition and he began assiduously to nurse the papal income. much of clement's money had been removed and stored by his clever and unscrupulous nephew, the viscount bertrand de goth, who would not easily disgorge it. after a time john asserted his spiritual power, and summoned the viscount to present an account. three times the noble ignored his summons, and then, when john was about to proceed against him, he judiciously distributed some of the money among the cardinals and had the case postponed. at length he rode boldly into avignon to give his account. he had, he explained, with a most insolent air of simplicity and candour, received 300,000 florins from his uncle. this sum was destined to be used in the next crusade, and he had sworn on the gospels not to yield it for any other purpose. john was baulked and was compelled to compromise. they agreed to divide the money, and a receipt preserved at the vatican shows that 150,000 florins were all he obtained of clement's huge fortune. clement had left only 70,000 florins directly to his successor, and half of this had to go to the cardinals. all the rest clement regarded as private fortune and distributed among his friends and servants. john turned to the organization of the papal income, and his success in this direction is notorious. villani says in his _florentine history_[256] that at his death john left a fortune of 25,000,000 florins[257] in coin and jewels. villani is hostile, but he affirms that he had this information from his brother, who was one of the bankers appointed to appraise the sum. other chroniclers give different figures. it happens, however, that john's ledgers are still preserved in the vatican archives, and as in this case they completely refute the anti-papal chroniclers--a point certainly to be carefully noted by the historian--they have been published.[258] some of the ledgers are "missing," but there are general statements (tallying with the separate ledgers), and from these it appears that the entire income of the papacy during the eighteen years of john's pontificate was about four and a half million florins (or about £120,000 a year), and that the greater part of this was spent on the italian war. there is an expenditure of nearly three millions under the humorous heading of "wax, and certain extraordinary expenses," and the items show that the italian campaign to recover the papal estates absorbed most of this. at the same time the ledgers do not quite confirm the edifying tradition of john's sober and simple life. his table and cellar cost (in modern terms) nearly £3000 a year; his "wardrobe" nearly £4000 a year: and his officials and staff about £15,000 a year. immense sums seem to have been given to relatives--there is one item of 72,000 florins paid to his brother peter for certain estates--and we know that in 1339 he began to build the famous papal palace. in sum, the editors of john's accounts conclude that the papal treasury would, at his death, have shown a deficit of 90,000 florins but for a loan of half a million from his private purse; and that the total amount left behind by him (besides his valuable library of 1028 volumes, his collection of 329 jewelled rings, etc.) was only about 800,000 florins. it is true that, in spite of the businesslike appearance of the ledgers, we must not take this as a statement of the pope's entire estate. vast sums were collected which did not pass through avignon, but went straight to the legate in italy (and possibly elsewhere). moreover, the "private purse" of the pope is an interesting and obscure part of his system. it was discovered at his death that he had a secret "little chamber," over one of the corridors, into which a large part of the income went. there are historical indications that he diverted to his private account large sums for military and special political purposes. he did not foresee how clement vi. would genially dissipate it, with the words: "my predecessors did not know how to live." this account was not entered in books, and we have to be content with the assurance that he left at his death rather less than a million florins in all. yet an income of--if we make allowance for the unrecorded sums--something like £200,000 a year, at a time when the patrimonies were mostly alienated, was enormous, and there is no reason to doubt the statement of all historians that it came largely from tainted sources. john's fiscal policy is a stage in the degeneration of the papacy. clement iv. had, in 1267, reserved to the pope the income of the benefices of clerks who died at rome, and boniface viii. had enlarged this by including all who died within a two days' journey of rome. john extended the law throughout the church and demanded three years' revenue for each that fell vacant. by his bull _execrabilis_ he ordered all clerks (except his cardinals) who held several benefices to select one and surrender the rest to the apostolic see. he created bishoprics--he made six out of the bishopric of toulouse--by subdividing actual sees (on the plea, of course, that the duties would be better discharged), and by an astute system of promotions he, when a see fell vacant, contrived to move several men and secure the "first fruits" on their appointments: a vacant archbishopric, for instance, would be filled by a higher bishop, the higher bishopric by a lower bishop, and so on. it was possible to put a complexion of reform on all these measures, but clergy and laity muttered a charge of avarice. then there were the incomes from kingdoms and duchies (england, aragon, portugal, naples, sicily, corsica, sardinia, and spoleto) which owed an annual tribute, the yield of the surviving patrimonies, the taxes on dispensations and grants, and a certain beginning of the sale of indulgences which, unfortunately, we cannot closely ascertain. john was not wholly immersed in finance and insensible of higher duties. he created universities at cahors and perugia, regulated the studies at oxford, cambridge, and paris, and even (as we shall see) concerned himself with the state of the east. but the only council we trace under his control (held at st. ruf, in 1326) was almost entirely concerned with ecclesiastical property and immunities, and his correspondence is, in effect, almost wholly fiscal and political. he greatly enlarged the rota (or legal and business part of the curia), and filled it with a cosmopolitan staff of clerks, to deal with this large and lucrative side of his affairs. it is pleaded that the papacy could not discharge its duties without this wealth and power; and it must seem unfortunate that the acquisition and maintenance of the wealth and power left so little time for the duties they were to enable the pope to discharge. watered by this stream of gold, avignon flourished. john was generous to his family and his cardinals: palaces began to rise above the lowly roofs of the town: a gay and coloured life filled its streets. a papal household costing £25,000 a year would of itself make an impression. we know avignon best in the later and even richer days of benedict xii. and clement vi. who followed john. not far away, even in the days of john, dwelt a writer who was destined to immortality, and he passed scathing criticisms on avignon. petrarch is a rhetorician and poet, as well as a fierce opponent of the avignon papacy, but one cannot lightly disregard his assurance that papal avignon was "babylon," "a living hell," and "the sink of all vices."[259] he is chiefly describing avignon under clement vi., but he says that it is only a change "from bad to worse" since john's days. an episode that occurred soon after john's elevation is, perhaps, more convincing than petrarch's fiery rhetoric, since its features were determined in a legal process. hugues géraud, a favourite of clement v., had obtained from that pope the bishopric of cahors, paying the papal tax of a thousand florins for it. he proceeded to make his possession as lucrative as possible and live comfortably on the revenue his clerks extorted for him. john's townsfolk appealed to him, as soon as he settled in avignon, and he summoned the bishop to his court. hugues géraud sealed the lips of his priests by an oath of silence, but, of course, a pope could undo that seal, and the inquiry revealed enormities on the part of the bishop. toward the close of the inquiry certain men were arrested bringing mysterious packages into the town. they had with them various poisons and certain little wax images concealed in loaves. the bishop and his chief clerks were at once arrested, and, although the papal officials used torture to open their lips, the substance of their story seems reliable. fearful of the issue, hugues géraud had applied to a jew at toulouse, and to others, for these poisons and wax images. it was proved in court that members of the papal household, including a cardinal, were bribed to facilitate the poisoning, and that the wax images, which were not effective without the blessing of some prelate, were actually blessed by the archbishop of toulouse. the archbishop pleaded that he had no suspicion of the awful purpose of these images--familiar as they were in the middle ages--but he soon fled from toulouse, and it is conjectured that he had hoped that the death of the pope would save his diocese (and income) from the threatened dismemberment.[260] some of these images had already been smuggled into avignon and the bishop and his archpriest had, in the well-known mediæval manner, set up one of them as representative of the pope's nephew, cardinal jacques de via, and stabbed it in the belly and legs with silver styles, while the wicked jew repeated the suitable imprecations. john xxii. fully shared the views of his age in regard to these magical practices, and we can imagine how he and others were confirmed in that belief when, in the course of the trial, jacques de via sickened and died. the trial came to a speedy conclusion. the bishop of cahors was dragged by horses through the town and burned at the stake: his numerous clerical and lay accomplices were adequately punished: and john spurred the inquisitors to a deadly campaign against magicians throughout the country. some of the cardinals were involved in this or a similar plot, but john shrewdly disarmed them with gold rather than make powerful enemies. these details will suffice to make clear the state of the clergy and laity at the close of a century which some writers appraise as one of profound inspiration, and we must go on to consider the large policy which john's wealth was intended to support. the central theme is, once more, the political struggle with the emperor--the undying curse which temporal power had brought with it--but we cannot understand this aright unless we first regard a spiritual struggle of great interest. the followers of francis of assisi had branched into the customary parties of rigourists and liberals. on the one hand were the great body of the friars, living in large comfortable monasteries, raising a stupendously rich church over the bones of their ascetic founder. on the other hand were the faithful minority, the genuinely ascetic, casting withering reproaches on the liberals, assimilating much of the mystic and--we may justly say--protestant feeling which was growing in europe. there were bloody conflicts as well as highly seasoned arguments. the "spirituals" and "fratricelli" could not but regard the wealth and sensuality of the higher clergy as an apostasy from the christian ideal, and they had become one of the most pronounced "protestant" sects of the time and were anathematized repeatedly by the popes. during the papal vacancy the spirituals had prospered and become more strident. christendom had apostatized, and they were the heralds of a new religion, revealed to francis of assisi. this arrogant papacy and priesthood must disappear before true religion can flourish. in the spring of 1317 john condemned them, and, when they still preached revolt, summoned about sixty of them to avignon. they used very plain speech and received a very plain reply. the papacy had now discovered that persistent or "contumacious" disobedience amounted to heresy, and the inquisitors belonged to the rival dominican order. so several sons of st. francis were burned at the stake--four were burned at marseilles on may 7, 1318--and many were cast into prison. but john went too far. he ordered the franciscan authorities to consider whether absolute poverty was the genuine basis of their rule, and they decided that it was: in the sense of a bull (_exiit qui seminat_) of nicholas iii., which allowed them "the use" of things without the actual "ownership." john revoked the bull, and in a decretal of december 8, 1322 (_ad conditorem_), declared that this was impossible nonsense. when the friars retorted that such poverty had actually been practised by christ and his apostles, john consulted the learned doctors of paris and, in the decretal _cum inter nonnullos_ (november 12, 1323), pronounced this thesis heretical. the "spirituals" were now reinforced by abler men, who fled to italy and joined the anti-papal campaign of louis of bavaria. michael de cesena, the general of the order, nailed to the door of pisa cathedral a document in which he impeached john for heresy. william of ockham, the english friar, one of the most acute of the later schoolmen, and others, discharged a shower of invectives which would have made the fortune of a sixteenth-century reformer. john was "anti-christ," the "dragon with seven heads," and so on. they induced louis of bavaria to declare john's decretals heretical, and fought shoulder to shoulder with the learned paris doctors, marsiglio of padua and jean of jandun, whose _defensor pacis_ (1324) was a crushing indictment of the papal pretensions and vindication of the secular power. all over italy and germany there was a fierce scrutiny of the bases of the papal claims. the reformation was commencing, two centuries before luther. the spiritual struggle had thus merged in the political struggle, owing to the common opposition to john xxii., and this must now be considered. frederic of austria and louis of bavaria were both chosen king of the romans, and, as neither had had the full number of votes, there was the not unfamiliar struggle for recognition. they disregarded john's summons to his tribunal, took to the sword, and frederic was beaten and imprisoned in 1322. john coldly acknowledged louis's letter announcing his victory; unquestionably he from the first wanted the imperial crown to pass to france and the imperial rule to vanish from italy. then louis invaded italy, and john declared war. italy already gave the pope concern. the ghibellines, or imperialists, had grown powerful in the pope's absence, and their chief leader, matteo visconti of milan, a ruthless and exacting ruler, was "imperial vicar" in the country. when visconti, in defiance of the pope's commands, gave aid to the ghibellines of genoa, john, who claimed to represent the empire during the "vacancy," withdrew his title of vicar and awarded it to robert of naples. robert went to consult john at avignon, and a campaign followed. cardinal bertrand de poyet--who was, says petrarch, so much like john "in face and ferocity"[261] that one could easily credit the rumour that he was john's son--was sent to direct the papal cause and to denounce the viscontis to the inquisition. matteo was found guilty of heresy (or contumacious refusal to abandon the title of vicar), and he and his son were charged with oppression of the clergy (which is plausible enough) and with a quaint and amusing mixture of magic and other devilry.[262] possibly john relied more confidently on the troops of philip of valois and henry of austria, whom he successively summoned to italy; but they retired almost without a blow. matteo repented and died, but his sons and their associates continued the war. at this juncture louis conquered frederic and sent word to the legate to keep his troops out of imperial territory. when the legate refused, he joined the ghibellines and drew from john a vigorous denunciation. he was to abandon the "heretics" and come to avignon for the examination of his claim to the empire. louis, retorting (under the inspiration of the friars) that there were heretics at avignon as well as in italy, went his way, and john turned to france. charles the fair, the new king, had discovered that, when clement v. had authorized his marriage with blanche of burgundy, a remote godmothership had been overlooked, and he was in the painful position of living with one to whom he was not validly married. john declared the marriage void, allowed charles to marry another lady, and was soon in conference with charles and with robert of naples. germany took alarm at this plain hint of an intention to make charles emperor; the italian spiritual war upon the pope was vigorously repeated in that country, and the diet of ratisbon rejected john's authority and called for a general council. louis, in 1326, became reconciled with frederic of austria and was recognized in germany as sole emperor, but john had gone too far to withdraw, or was too deeply involved with charles of france and robert of naples. in alliance with the ghibellines, louis made a triumphant tour over italy, and on april 18, 1328, to the immense joy of his throng of rebel supporters, solemnly declared, in st. peter's, that "james of cahors" was guilty of heresy and treason.[263] friar peter of corbara was substituted for him, with the name of nicholas v., and rome exulted in the restoration of the papacy. but the drama ended as it had often ended before. louis oppressed the country and alienated his supporters; and before the end of the year friar peter was, with a halter round his neck, at the pope's feet in avignon and louis was back in germany. john refused to compromise honourably with louis, and the agitation against the papacy in germany, whither all the rebels had now gone, was more bitter than ever. the next phase of the struggle is not wholly clear. john of bohemia intervened and overran italy. it seems probable that the pope had nothing to do with this invasion, and at first suspected that john was in league with louis; but that, as john made progress and had friendly communication with avignon, the pope began to hope that the new development offered him a stronger king of italy (under papal suzerainty) than robert and a less oppressive protector than philip vi. of france.[264] philip and john visited the pope at avignon, and it was announced that john was to be recognized as king of part of italy. the curious alliance of the three reveals some miscalculation. philip must have trusted that john of bohemia would work for him, but the pope had assuredly no idea of abandoning his claim to italy. the issue was singular. the italians, in face of this alliance, united under robert of naples and overcame the papal and bohemian troops. john had, as part of the campaign, announced his intention of transferring the papal court to bologna, and the legate actually began to erect a palace for him. when the bolognese realized that john had no serious intention of coming, they joined the imperialists and cast out the legate and his troops. it is said that the collapse of his costly italian campaign weighed so heavily on the pope that he did not leave his palace during the year of life which still remained. john's relations with other countries are not of great interest. he was almost the master, rather than the slave, of the three french monarchs who ruled during his pontificate, and some of his letters paternally chide them for such defects as talking in church. in letters to edward of england he tried to reconcile that monarch with robert bruce, and he begged more humane treatment of the irish, who had appealed for his intervention. in poland he excommunicated the teutonic knights for taking danzig and pomerania from king ladislas. his eye wandered even farther afield. he was genuinely interested in the fate of christians in the east, and sent a mission to the sultan, who sharply dismissed it. no pope had, in a sense, a wider horizon, for john not only sent friars to preach in armenia and persia, but actually appointed a legate for india, china, and thibet. yet his ruling of the christian world was singularly slender in comparison with that of his great predecessors. his energy was absorbed in fiscal and political matters. in co-operation with philip he sent a fleet against the saracens, and it won a victory, but the crusade he announced on july 26, 1333, never went beyond that naval success. on the other hand, when the pastoureaux, a wild rabble, marched over france proclaiming a popular crusade, john excommunicated them for taking the cross without his permission; of their appalling treatment of the jews he made no complaint, nor did he move when the lepers of france were brutally persecuted on some superstitious charge of the time. he was oppressive to the jews, and ordered the burning of the talmud. he has, in fine, the distinction of putting forward a doctrine which his church condemns as heretical. preaching on all saints' day in 1331, he suggested that probably the saints did not enjoy the direct vision (or beatific vision) of god in heaven, and would not do so until after the day of judgment. there is no doubt whatever that he held this as an opinion, though he made no effort to impose it on others; beyond a certain liberality in bestowing benefices on clerics who supported him. there was a violent agitation in france. the dominican friars and the universities strongly opposed the view, and, when the general of the franciscan order thought it advantageous to support the pope, the king of france swore that he would not have his realm sullied by the heresy. this agitation, and john's correspondence with philip vi., make it quite clear that the pope held the heresy, as an opinion. a few days before he died, however, he wrote a bull--at least, such a bull was published by his successor--endorsing the received doctrine and declaring that he had put forward his theory only "by way of conference." he died on december 4, 1334, bowed with age and saddened by the failure of his work. a more complete study of his letters than has yet been made may in some measure enlarge our knowledge of his properly pontifical action, but there can be little doubt that money and politics chiefly engrossed his attention. the chief interest of his pontificate is the light it throws on the preparation for the reformation. john's fiscal policy, however much open to censure, was unselfish; but he opened to his even less religious successors the road to disaster. footnotes: [footnote 255: for the letters see _lettres de jean xxii._ (2 vols., 1908 and 1912), edited by arnold fayen: a selection of 3653 letters, generally business notes of little importance. various short lives of john are given in baluze's _vitæ paparum avenionensium_, vol. ii., and there are censorious allusions to him in g. villani's _historie florentine_: a contemporary but biassed work. bertrandy's _recherches sur l'origine, l'élection, et le couronnement de jean xxii._ (1854) is valuable for his early years, as well as dr. j. asal's _die wahl johann's xxii._ (1910). v. verlaque's _jean xxii._ (1883), is foolishly partisan, and declares john "one of the greatest successors of st. peter." sectional studies will be noticed in the course of the chapter.] [footnote 256: xi., 20.] [footnote 257: the gold florin is estimated at about ten shillings of english money.] [footnote 258: _die einnahmen der apostolischer kammer unter johann xxii._ (1910), by dr. emil göller, and _die ausgaben der apostolischer kammer unter johann xxii._ (1911), by k.h. shäfer.] [footnote 259: see, especially, the book of his letters "sine titulo," most of which contain appalling invectives on the popes and cardinals and clergy. _epistola_ xviii, is a classical picture of vice, even among the elderly clergy. its chief defect is to associate the name of tolerably respectable babylon with such a picture.] [footnote 260: see a full (and conservative) analysis of the evidence in e. abbe's _hugues géraud_ (1904). i am entirely ignoring the gossipy chroniclers of the time, whom milman too frequently follows.] [footnote 261: _ep._ xvii. of the book "sine titulo."] [footnote 262: see michel, "le procès de matteo et de galeazzo visconti," in _mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire_, xxix. (1909), and h. otto, "zur italienischen politik johanns xxii.," in _quellen und forschungen aus italienischen archiven und bibliotheken_, bd. xix. (1911).] [footnote 263: baluze, ii., 512; and a later indictment, p. 522.] [footnote 264: see the essay on john's policy, by h. otto, quoted above.] chapter xi john xxiii. and the great schism the next important stage in the devolution of the papacy is the great schism, the spectacle of which moved the increasing body of cultivated laymen and the better clergy to examine critically the bases of the papal claims and seek an authority which should control the wanton conduct of the popes. the essential mischief of the long stay of the papal court at avignon is obscured when it is called a babylonian captivity. few of the popes were servile to france, and it was not france that detained them on the banks of the rhone. the gravest consequences of their voluntary exile were, that the isolation from their italian estates led them to pursue a corrupt and intolerable fiscal policy: that the college of cardinals degenerated and became less scrupulous in the choice of a pope: and, especially, that the rival ambition of french and italian cardinals to control the papacy led to an appalling schism. this phase will be best illustrated by an account of the antecedents and the remarkable pontificate of john xxiii. the return of the papal court to rome was mainly due to political causes. clement vi. (1342-1352), whose voluptuous indolence ignobly crowned the fiscal system of john xxii., was followed by three popes who at least desired reform. the third of these, gregory xi., was too weak or resourceless to curb the ruthless action of his legates in italy, and the sight of wild breton mercenaries and hardly less wild english adventurers (of hawkwood's infamous company) spreading rape and rapine under the papal banner, disgusted the cities and states of the peninsula. under the lead of florence, they proceeded to affirm and establish the independence of italy. it was this threat, rather than the romantic rebukes of a young nun (catherine of siena), which drew gregory xi., in 1376, from the safe and luxurious palace-fortress at avignon. a month after his arrival at rome the breton hirelings under cardinal robert of geneva committed a frightful massacre at cesena, and gregory was almost driven back to avignon by the storm which ensued. but he died on march 27, 1378, and the cardinals met nervously at rome to choose a successor. the din of the bloody encounter of gascon, breton, and roman troops in the streets reached the cardinals in the privacy of the conclave. one day, indeed, the armed romans burst into the sacred chamber, and brandished their weapons before the eyes of the terrified french cardinals. yet it is generally agreed that there was not such compulsion as to invalidate the election, and urban vi. became the legitimate head of the church. in the circumstances a delicate and tactful policy was required, and the austere neapolitan, of humble birth, who secured the tiara was in this respect the least fitted of the cardinals. he violently and vituperatively denounced the wealth and luxury of his colleagues, and he alienated italians no less than french by the grossness of his manners. within a few months the french cardinals retired to fondi, discovered that the election was invalid on account of intimidation, and set up robert of geneva, a ruthless soldier and entirely worldly-minded priest, as anti-pope, with the title of clement vii. so the schism began, and christendom split into two bitterly hostile "obediences." clement retired to avignon, and preyed on france more avariciously than john xxii. had done: urban's impetuous rudeness wrapped italy in a flame of war once more. in 1389 another neapolitan, boniface ix., succeeded urban, and it is during his pontificate that there came upon the scene baldassare cossa, the unscrupulous adventurer who became john xxiii. cossa was a neapolitan, and is said by his hostile contemporary dietrich von nieheim to have been a pirate in his youth.[265] many recent historians reject this statement, but as it is certain and admitted that cossa's two brothers were condemned to death for piracy by ladislaus of naples, and it is clear that in his youth cossa took some part in the angevin-neapolitan war, it is not improbable that baldassare was himself engaged in raiding the neapolitan commerce. he was born about 1368, of a noble but impoverished neapolitan house, and he seems to have been known to the neapolitan pope. in his early twenties he forsook the army or the sea, for which alone he was qualified, and went to study law at bologna. in 1392 boniface made him archdeacon at bologna: in 1396 he was summoned to the office of private chamberlain at rome, and his career began. he was a typical neapolitan--dark-eyed, keen-witted, of very robust frame and very frail moral instincts--and the pope needed such men. during the first seven years of his pontificate boniface was kept in check by the older cardinals, but, as they died, he sought money by fair or foul means for the recovery of italy. france and spain sent their gifts to avignon, and england and germany were not generous. benefices, from the highest to the lowest, were sold daily, and the "first fruits" were demanded in advance. as the system developed, spies were employed over italy and germany to report on the health of aged beneficiaries, and there was a sordid traffic in "expectations." baldassare cossa, the chief instrument of this gross simony, had various scales of payment, and the purchaser of the "expectation" of a benefice might find it sold over him to a higher bidder for a "preference." a jubilee had been announced for the year 1390, and boniface got the fruits of it, but this did not deter him from reaping another golden harvest from a jubilee in 1400. as, moreover, many pilgrims, especially in germany and scandinavia, were deterred from coming to rome by the bands of robbers and ravishers who infested the papal estates, boniface generously enacted that germans might obtain the same pardon by visiting certain shrines nearer home and paying to papal agents the cost of a journey to rome. these simoniacal practices are established and admitted, quite apart from the testimony of dietrich. we must, indeed, admit the evidence of dietrich when he tells us that he saw these papal agents spread their silk curtains and unfold their papal banners in the churches of germany, and heard them declare to the ignorant people that st. peter himself had not greater power than they. we may also easily believe his assurance that many of the german clergy denounced this traffic in indulgences[266] and that it brought enormous sums to the papacy. but the precise sums, and the romantic stories, which dietrich gives on hearsay, especially in regard to cossa, must be regarded with reserve. he says that cossa, when legate at bologna, arrested one of these monk-agents returning to rome with his bags of gold and relieved him; and that the monk hanged himself in despair. these are fragments of foolish rumour. we cannot deal so summarily with his statement that the chamberlain had his percentage of the profits and let it grow in the hands of the usurers; and that he extorted money from prelates by mendaciously representing that boniface was angry with them and offering to mediate. all that we can say with confidence is that cossa was the chief instrument of the pope's nefarious system, and that, although he had no private means, he amassed an enormous fortune. the council of constance established this charge against him, as we shall see. in 1402, cossa became cardinal-deacon of st. eustace--the council of constance found that he bought that dignity--and in the following year he was made legate at bologna. we cannot control dietrich's statement that the pope wished to put an end to a scandalous _liaison_ of cossa's at rome. it is not improbable, and would not be very unusual at rome, but the fact is that he knew bologna and was a soldier, and boniface needed a soldier-legate in the north. in a very short time cossa won bologna from the milanese troops and made it a prosperous and profitable papal possession. he fortified it and restored its institutions, even establishing a university of a very liberal character. but he ruled it with an iron hand and ground it with taxes. even its gamblers and prostitutes had to pay the tithe of their earnings, and the grumblers who constantly revolted or attempted to assassinate cossa were mercilessly punished. dietrich boldly accuses him of violating two hundred maids and matrons of the city, but we can do no more than suspect that there must have been some foundation for so large a repute. again the council of constance sustains the substance of the charge. boniface died on september 29, 1404, and cossa was not present at the conclave. he had constantly to lead his troops against external as well as internal enemies. the new pope, innocent vii., spent two futile years in dreams of peace, and in november, 1406, the see again fell vacant. christendom now clamoured for an end of the scandalous schism, and, when gregory xii., an ascetic and worn old cardinal, assumed the tiara, he was greeted as "an angel of light." he thanked god, with tears in his eyes, that he was chosen to end the schism; if he could not get mules or galleys, he would go on foot to meet benedict xiii. (who had succeeded clement at avignon) and resign together with him. and within a few months christendom witnessed the still more odious spectacle of the two popes, both men of advanced years and great piety, straining every nerve to avoid each other and evade resignation. they were to meet at savona, but, as leonardo quaintly says, "whenever there was question of their meeting, one would, as if he were a land animal, not approach the coast, and the other, as if he were an aquatic animal, would not leave the sea." benedict reached savona; gregory could not be driven beyond lucca. the best that can be said for him is that he was ruled by greedy relatives. at last, on a pretext provided by his supporter ladislaus of naples, gregory fled back to rome and refused to listen to any further counsel of resignation. christendom, in disgust, now called for a general council. france disowned benedict and, when he excommunicated the king, tore his bull in halves and ordered his arrest. he fled to perpignan and gregory to venice, and the cardinals began to negotiate with the princes for the holding of the council of pisa. cardinal cossa, who had disdainfully taken down the arms of gregory xii. at bologna, and who was in league with florence against naples, took the lead in the new movement. when gregory excommunicated him, he burned the bull in the market-place. when ladislaus of naples advanced against pisa, he united his troops to those of florence and scattered the southerners. when benedict's representatives asked for a safe-conduct through italy, he said: "if you come to bologna, with or without a safe-conduct, i'll burn you." so the council met at pisa, deposed benedict and gregory, and, in effect, set up a third pope, alexander v. the situation being without precedent, there was no canonical basis for such a council, and no executive to enforce the council's decisions. benedict and gregory--the one under the protection of spain and the other with the support of naples, rimini, and part of germany--continued to fulminate against each other, and a third discharge of anathemas only distracted christendom the more. cardinal cossa set out once more at the head of his troops, and, with the aid of louis of anjou and the florentines, swept the neapolitan troops southward and opened rome for alexander. but that feeble and aged anti-pope never reached the lateran. he died at bologna on may 4, 1410, and louis of anjou (representing the french influence) and the florentines urged on the cardinals the election of cossa himself. at midnight on may 17th, the expectant crowd at bologna was informed that the cardinals had come to an agreement, and an hour later baldassare cossa, or john xxiii., stepped forth in the scarlet mitre and spotless robes of a vicar of christ. there are chroniclers who say that he had bribed the electors, and chroniclers who say that he had bullied them. the first charge is not unlikely, as bribery was now becoming common enough on the eve of or during a conclave, but we cannot check these rumours. dietrich von nieheim admits that cossa nominated another cardinal for the tiara, and the council of constance did not impeach the regularity of his election. he was chosen because of his vigour and military ability. such was the condition of the papacy that none seemed to care that he was "a complete failure and worthless in spiritual matters." he must have been at that time about forty-three years old: a tall, spare, soldierly-looking man, with large nose and piercing dark grey eyes under bushy eyebrows. after devoting a few days to the customary festivities, he set about the work of enabling louis of anjou to displace ladislaus on the throne of naples and thus destroy gregory's main support. it may have been in deference to the feeling of some of the cardinals that he first summoned benedict and gregory to resign and asked his bitter enemy ladislaus--the man who had condemned his brothers--to pay the arrears of sixty thousand ducats which he owed to the roman see. all three contemptuously refused to recognize him, and, as ladislaus presently destroyed the fleet of louis of anjou and advanced against the papal troops, the prospect was uncertain. john feverishly sought allies and funds. he conciliated england, where the call for a real ecumenical council to depose the three popes was already heard, by suppressing an obnoxious bull of boniface ix. and by other graces, and he contrived--after the blunders of his legates had roused fierce opposition--to get a good deal of money from france. spain still supported benedict. the uncertain element was germany, where, at the time, the outstanding figure was sigismund of hungary. sigismund had stood aloof from the council of pisa. for some years he had diverted all money from the papal agents to his own pockets, because boniface had recognized ladislaus, and he detested the french, who had had much to do with the council at pisa. his support was of material importance to john, as owing to the death of rupert the day after john's election, he became the chief candidate for the empire. to john's delight, sigismund now sent ambassadors to do homage, and an agreement was reached. the pope was to validate the appropriation by sigismund of church-moneys and influence the electors in his favour, and sigismund would support john against ladislaus.[267] but there was still an element of danger and uncertainty. sigismund had sworn to end the papal schism, and he was known to be favourable to the summoning of another and more weighty council. moreover, john, who was a poor diplomatist, made a serious blunder. the elected monarch became, by law of the empire, king of the romans without any papal confirmation; the _imperial_ crown and title alone were given by the pope. yet john, seeking to magnify his authority, persisted in addressing sigismund until the anxious days of the council of constance, as "elected to be king." i may tell very briefly the sequence of events in italy. after a year at bologna, john proceeded to rome and flung his troops upon the neapolitans. they won the important battle of rocca secca, but, owing to the incompetence of the papal legate who held supreme command, they failed to follow up the success and ladislaus recovered. in the next few months john heard with increasing alarm that louis of anjou had returned in despair to france: that the ablest papal commander, sforza, had transferred his services to naples: that malatesta of rimini, the only other supporter of gregory, was winning success in the north: and that the neapolitans were marching against rome. he levied taxes on the churches and citizens of rome until they became restless. he petulantly had an effigy of sforza hanged on a gallows at rome. he pressed the sale of indulgences so flagrantly, and by such repellent agents, that the reformers of bohemia burned his bull in the streets. he excommunicated ladislaus and proclaimed a crusade against him; and not a prince in europe stirred. now seriously concerned, john offered to recognize ladislaus as king of naples if he would abandon gregory, and that monarch at once basely deserted his pope. he ordered the stubborn old man to quit gaeta, and it is said that the people of gaeta, who had grown fond of him, had to pay his passage to his last refuge, the lands of the lord of rimini. ladislaus was made gonfaloniere of the church, and the pope promised him 120,000 ducats. but so onerous a peace could not endure. after some mutual charges in the spring of 1413 the neapolitan troops approached rome. the romans assured john that they would eat their children rather than surrender, but, when they saw the pope and cardinals secure their own position by crossing the river, they opened the gates and admitted the neapolitans. their warrior-pope, surrounded by cardinals who wept for the treasures they had abandoned in rome, fled to the north, and at length reached florence. even here the citizens were afraid to admit him. they assigned him the bishop's palace outside the walls, and from this lowly centre john continued his sale of benefices and indulgences. one other event will complete the record of john's pontificate, before we begin the story of his undoing. the abuses of the roman curia had excited, or encouraged, various hostile movements. there were lollards in england, and followers of hus and jerome of prague in bohemia. these vague and unimportant movements--from the papal point of view--were left to local prelates, but the growing christian demand for another general council was disquieting. the council of pisa had put itself above the popes, and grave doctors at many universities argued that a council must effect that reform of the church which popes refused to effect. probably john xxiii. did not appreciate the full significance of this conciliar movement, but he did see that there was grave danger that a council would depose him, as well as benedict and gregory, unless he controlled it. he, therefore, in 1412, announced that a general council would be held at rome, and he reminded prelates that the council of pisa had enjoined this. but only a few french and italian prelates responded to his summons, and a strange accident increased his uneasiness. one day, when all were assembled in st. peter's, a screech owl issued from a dark corner and perched opposite the pope. john reddened and perspired, as he gazed into the uncanny eyes of the bird, and at last he left his seat and broke up the sitting. it was there again at the next sitting, and was killed only after a great commotion. a strange form for the holy ghost, the mockers said; a dreadful omen for the pope, said others. reforms were promised, and the works of wyclif were condemned, but the council was too small to have effect and it was prorogued until december 1, 1413. meantime john was driven to the north, and from florence he appealed to sigismund. many eyes were turned to sigismund from various parts of europe, and that singular monarch took quite seriously the high function which was thrust upon him of saving and reforming christendom. he was a man of considerable ability, though it was apt to take the form of cunning rather than statesmanship, but his narrow cupidity, his notorious license in morals, and his general indifference to principle made him an incongruous instrument for the reform of the church. he at once informed john that the state of the church was to be submitted to a general council, and a struggle ensued between the two as to whether it should be held south or north of the alps. we have the reliable assurance of leonardo, john's secretary at the time, that the pope proposed to send two cardinals with full powers to treat, which they were to show to sigismund, and with secret instructions restricting them. john told this design, with great complacency, to his secretary,[268] though he did not carry it out. the papal legates met sigismund at como in the autumn and were pleased to think that they made an impression on him, but john was dismayed to learn that, on october 30th, the king of the romans issued a proclamation to the effect that a general council would be held, under his presidency, at constance, on all saints' day, 1414. john is described as stricken with fear and grief at the prospect of a council outside italy, but sigismund was inflexible. they spent two months together at piacenza and lodi, and the pope must have penetrated the king's design. he already leaned to the plan of deposing the three popes and electing another. john was compelled, on december 9th, to issue a bull convoking the council, and he then went to bologna to await the attack of the neapolitans. there, about the middle of august, he received the welcome news that ladislaus had been poisoned by the father of one of his mistresses. he proposed to break faith with sigismund and disavow the council, but the cardinals restrained him from taking this wild step, and on october 1st he set out for the north, sadly, with a troop of six hundred horse. he had for some time wavered between gloomy apprehensions of a mysterious fate which pursued him and buoyant confidence in his wealth and power. the last words of his friends at bologna must have recurred to him again and again as he passed up the autumnal valley of the adige and entered the snows of the tirol. he would not return a pope, they said. in the arlberg pass his carriage was overturned, and he exclaimed, as he lay in the snow: "here i lie, in the name of the devil, and i would have done much better to stop at bologna." he remained for some days at meran with duke friedrich, whom he made captain-general of the papal troops, with a salary of six thousand ducats a year. it was well to make a friend of this powerful and discontented vassal of sigismund. at last, on october 27th, his troops turned the crest of the last low hills before constance, and he gazed down on the hollow between the guardian mountains. "a trap for foxes," he is said to have muttered. on the following day he rode into constance, on his richly harnessed white horse, under a canopy of cloth of gold, and occupied the episcopal palace. for three weeks the snowy roads down the mountain-sides from all directions discharged gay streams of princes and prelates, bishops and abbots, theologians and lawyers, thieves and prostitutes, bankers and acrobats, upon the sleepy old town, until it seemed to burst with a ravening multitude. something between fifty and a hundred thousand visitors had to be housed and entertained, and it is reported by grave observers that more than a thousand prostitutes flocked to constance in the days of the council.[269] there were, in the course of time, twenty-nine cardinals, thirty-three archbishops, a hundred and fifty bishops, a hundred and thirty-four abbots, and a hundred doctors of law and divinity: among the latter a certain pale and thin man, master john hus, who did not suspect that he had come to be tried on a capital charge. but the emperor was late--he was crowned at aachen on november 8th--so the first sitting of the council, on november 5th, was adjourned to the 16th, and then until the new year. meantime the thousands of entertainers did their duty, and the city rang day and night with revelry, and a crowd speaking thirty different languages filled the streets and overflowed on to the roofs and into the sheds and even the empty tubs of constance. on christmas morning, two hours after midnight, emperor sigismund made a stately entrance from the lake and a vast crowd attended john's midnight mass. then the struggle began. john's money circulated freely, yet the view that he must be deposed with the other two was gaining ground. he was gouty and his vigour was prematurely undermined, but he fought for his tiara. envoys came to represent benedict and gregory, and he objected to their being received with honour; he was overruled. he held that none less in rank than a bishop or abbot should vote, and that the voting should be by heads, not nations; and again he was overruled, and his italian prelates would be outvoted. then some anonymous italian put into circulation a memoir on his crimes and vices, and he was greatly alarmed. to avoid scandal, however,--for john admitted some of the accusations,--it was suppressed, but it was decided that he must abdicate. after some evasive correspondence, he promised to abdicate "if and when peter de luna and angelo corario" did the same, and on march 7th he was compelled to embody the formula in a bull. he became ill and desperate, and there were rumours that he was about to fly. sigismund put guards at all the gates, but refused to imprison him as the english, headed by the fiery bishop of salisbury, demanded. on march 20th, duke friedrich of tirol drew all constance to a grand tournament outside the city, and in the midst of it he was noticed to receive a message and leave the ground. presently it was learned that the pope, disguised as a groom, had slipped out of the gate on a poor horse, with two companions, and friedrich had joined them at schaffhausen. sigismund sternly forbade the dissolution of the council, laid a heavy punishment on his vassal, and sent some of the cardinals to see john. the pope declared that he had left solely on account of his illness; he would abdicate and not interfere with the council, but the cardinals must join him at once or be excommunicated. the council, now led by the great gerson and other strong french doctors, ignored the pope, and declared that it had, direct from christ, a power to which popes must bow. as sigismund's troops were after them, john and friedrich fled farther, and at last john quarrelled with his supporter and fled in disguise across the black forest to freiburg. he arrived within reach of burgundy, whose duke was friendly, and he demanded better terms. he would resign on condition that he was appointed perpetual legate for the whole of italy, with a pension of 30,000 florins; the alternative in his mind seems to have been a court at avignon under the protection of the duke of burgundy. the end of his adventures is well known. the burghers of freiburg refused to protect him and he fled to breisar, where the envoys of the council came to press for his resignation. he put on his rough disguise once more, and made off with a troop of austrian cavalry, but friedrich, to obtain a mitigation of his own sentence, betrayed him. for several days he miserably resisted the pressure of the envoys, weeping and wailing piteously, and on may 2d the council summoned him to appear before it within nine days to answer charges of heresy, schism, simony, and immorality. on the seventh day a troop of horse came for him, but he was ill and irresolute. on may 14th the patience of the council was exhausted; it suspended him from office and ordered the public trial of the charges which had already been examined and on which a mass of evidence had been taken. two days later the great assembly of prelates and doctors drew up the appalling indictment, in seventy-two articles, of baldassare cossa. in the main the charges referred to those acts of simony, bribery, corruption, and tyranny which i have recounted, but it should be added that he was described as "addicted to the flesh, the dregs of vice, a mirror of infamy" (art. 6), and "guilty of poisoning, murder, and persistent addiction to vices of the flesh" (art 29). the worst charges of dietrich were solemnly endorsed by the gravest lawyers and priests of europe. john lay, prostrate and in tears, in an inn at rudolphzell. he wished to submit a defence, but a few friendly cardinals advised him to submit, and when, on may 26th, he heard that the council had endorsed the indictment, he made no further resistance. he was deposed on the 29th and accepted the sentence with words of humility and repentance. a few days later the wretched man was consigned to the castle of gottlieben, and then to a castle at mannheim. there was, in the following year, a futile attempt to rescue him, and he was confined in the castle of heidelberg, where he remained three years, with a cook and two chaplains of his once magnificent establishment, composing verses on the vanity of earthly things. the hollow words of his consecration-ceremony, _sic transit gloria mundi_, had for him assumed a terrible reality. how gregory resigned, and benedict retired with his tawdry court to a rocky fortress of his, and the council burned john hus and appointed a new pope, may be read in history.[270] martin left cossa in heidelberg, but in the spring of 1419 his keeper was heavily bribed and he was allowed to escape to italy. it must have moved many when, as martin officiated at the altar in florence cathedral, the familiar figure of baldassare cossa broke from the throng and knelt humbly at his feet. he was restored to the rank of cardinal, and, apart from a foolish attempt, a few months later, to form a lombard league against the emperor, he lived peacefully in the house of cosmo de' medici until his death in december (1419). he was buried with pomp by the republic, and the fine monument which cosmo raised in the baptistery shows that some appreciable qualities must have been united with his undisputed vices. footnotes: [footnote 265: _historia de vita papæ joannis xxiii._, which must be cited with reserve, as the author had a bitter quarrel with john and is often inaccurate. see c. hunger, _zur geschichte papst johanns xxiii._ (1876). more reliable are the references in the _commentarii rerum suo tempore in italia gestarum_ (in muratori, _rerum italicarum scriptores_, xix.), of leonardo of arezzo, at one time john's secretary. leonardo's temperate verdict, that john was "a great man in temporal things, but a complete failure and unworthy in spiritual things," is endorsed by all. exhaustive bibliographies will be found in e.j. kitto's excellent works, _in the days of the councils_ (1908), and _pope john the twenty-third and master john hus of bohemia_ (1910).] [footnote 266: as in modern spain, the word "traffic" or "sale" would be resented. the theory is that you give an alms to the church and the church grants the indulgence. the amount of the alms is fixed according to the grace required: there are four different _bulas_ in spain today. it is hardly necessary to add that the agents did not officially sell the pardon of sins, but the remission of the punishment due in purgatory for such sins as were confessed. nevertheless we have the official assurance of the council of constance (art. 20) that john xxiii. "sold absolution both from punishment and guilt," and there are other indications of this grave abuse.] [footnote 267: we learn from later letters of the pope that he worked for sigismund in germany, especially when a rival "king of the romans" was elected. see the evidence in dr. j. schwerdfeger's _papst johann xxiii. und die wahl sigismunds zum römischen könig_ (1895).] [footnote 268: _commentarii_, p. 928.] [footnote 269: the clergy had, of course, large troops of lay followers, and numbers of lay doctors attended the council, but we have seen often enough the moral state of the clergy themselves in the middle ages. a picturesque summary of the chroniclers is given by kitto, _pope john the twenty-third and master john hus of bohemia_. see also h. blumenthal's _die vorgeschichte des constanzer concils_ (1897) and, for the proceedings, h. finke's _acta concilii constantiensis_ (1896), and h. von der hardt's _magnum oecumenicum constantiense concilium_ (1696, etc.).] [footnote 270: i have not dwelt on hus, as the pope had little to do with him. for some time, thinking to please the emperor, john protected hus from his rabid opponents. the shameful ensnarement of hus seems to have been done without john's approval, and he was deposed before the trial of hus began.] chapter xii alexander vi., the borgia-pope three grave issues had been laid before the council of constance: the repression of heresy, the ending of the schism, and the reform of the church "in head and members." in the third year of their labours the prelates and doctors put an end to the schism and elected martin v.; and the new pope soon put an end to the council before it could reform the church. martin was a colonna of high ideals and considerable ability; but he was not well disposed to this democratic method of reform by council, nor was he strong enough to sacrifice papal revenue by suppressing the worst disorder, the papal fiscal system. he returned to rome, and the task of restoring the city and the papal estates demanded such resources that he dare not abandon the corrupt practices of the curia. two worthy and able pontiffs followed martin, and equally failed to bring about a reform. eugenius iv., an austere, though harsh and autocratic, venetian, found that his attempts to recover papal territory and curb the conciliar party would not permit him to reform the financial system. the reformers forced on him the council of basle in 1431, but its renewal of the schism and creation of a last anti-pope, when he resisted its proposals, discredited the conciliar movement. reform must come from without: popes and cardinals could not effect it, and in the prevailing creed there was no canonical basis for the action of a council in defiance of them. nicholas v., a quiet man of letters, crowned the financial and political work of his two predecessors with a great artistic restoration. he left politics to æneas sylvius and opened the gates of rome to the fairer form of the renaissance. greek artists and scholars were now pouring into italy--constantinople fell to the turks during this pontificate (1453)--and fostering the growth of the humanist movement. rome began to assume its rich mantle of mediæval art, and the papacy seemed to smile once more on a docile and prosperous christendom. but the restoration had been accomplished by an evasion of reform, and the new culture was sharpening the pens of critics. one of these inquisitive scholars, lorenzo valla, was actually declaring that the "donation of constantine" was a forgery. many denounced, in fiery prose or with the cold cynicism of the epigram, the luxury and vice of the higher clergy. heresy hardened in bohemia, and, among the stricter ranks of the faithful, men like nicholas of cusa, john capistrano, and savonarola were raising ideals which, if they rebuked the laity, far more solemnly rebuked the clergy. and just at this critical period the papacy entered upon a development which ended in the enthronement of alexander vi., julius ii., and leo x.; the reformation inevitably followed. at the death of nicholas v., the orsini and colonna cardinals came to a deadlock in their struggle for the papacy, and a neutral and innocuous alternative was sought in alfonso borgia (or, in spanish style, borja), a spanish canonist of some scholarly distinction. calixtus iii., as he named himself, was a gouty valetudinarian who lay abed most of the day in pious conversation with friars. he very properly disdained the new art and culture, and saved the papal funds to meet the advancing turks. he had, however, one weakness, which was destined to prove very costly to the papacy. there was a tradition of nepotism at rome, and calixtus had nephews. while he was bishop of valencia, his sister isabella had come to him from xativa, their native place, with her two sons, pedro luis and rodrigo. when, in 1455, he became pope, he sent rodrigo to study at bologna and enriched him with benefices. pedro luis was reserved for a lay career, and juan luis mila, son of another sister, was sent with rodrigo to bologna. at this time rodrigo borgia was in his twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year: an exceptionally handsome young spaniard, with the most charming spanish manners, and with rich sensuous lips and an eye for maidens which escaped his uncle's notice. he and his cousin were, within a year, made cardinals. in december (1456) he was appointed legate for the march of ancona, and in the following may he was, in spite of the murmurs of the cardinals, promoted to the highest and most lucrative office at the court, the vice-chancellorship. his elder brother became duke of spoleto, gonfaloniere of the papal army, and (in 1457) prefect of rome. other needy spaniards came over the sea in droves, and the disgusted romans were soon ousted from the best positions. in 1458, however, calixtus fell ill, and was reported to be dead; and the romans chased the "catalans" out of the city. rodrigo at first retired with his more hated brother, but he courageously returned on august 6th, just in time to witness the actual death of his uncle. æneas sylvius mounted the throne, under the name of pius ii., but the humanists looked in vain for favour to that genial diplomatist, traveller, and _littérateur_. he had reached a gouty and repentant age, and his one pre-occupation was to stir a lethargic christendom to a crusade against the turks. cardinal rodrigo had been useful to him, reserving a vacant benefice for him now and again, so he kept his place and continued to win for himself wealthy bishoprics and abbeys. for a moment, in 1460, rodrigo trembled. pius had sent him to direct the building of a cathedral at siena, and the pope startled his vice-chancellor with a stern letter. rodrigo and another cardinal, the pope heard, had entertained a number of very frivolous young ladies for five hours in a private garden. they had excluded the parents of these girls, and there had been "dances of the most licentious character" and other things which "modesty forbids to recount." it was the talk of the town.[271] from the kind of dances and women which alexander had in the vatican long afterwards we can imagine the things which startled siena. rodrigo urged that there had been exaggeration, but the pope, while admitting the possibility of this, again sternly bade him mind his behaviour. the long discussion of the morals of alexander vi. has, in fact, now ended in entire agreement that by the year 1460, at least, he was openly immoral. the papal and other documents relating to his children--at least six in number--which have been found in the vatican archives and in the private archives of the duke of ossuna show an extraordinary laxity at rome. there is a bull of sixtus iv., dated november 5, 1481, legitimizing the birth of pedro luis borgia, "son of a cardinal-deacon and an unmarried woman"; he is described as "a young man," and was probably born about 1460. there is the marriage contract of girolama borgia, dated 1482, which refers to the "paternal love" of the vice-chancellor; she must then have been at least thirteen years old. there is a document, dated october 1, 1480, dispensing from the bar of illegitimacy cæsar borgia, "son of a cardinal-bishop and a married woman"; and he is described as in his sixth year, or born about 1475. there is a deed of gift of rodrigo to juan borgia, "his carnal son," whose birth must fall either in 1474 or 1476. there are documents referring to the celebrated lucrezia, whose birth is generally put in 1478, and to jofre borgia, who was born about 1480; and there are documents from which we have--as we shall see later--the gravest reason to conclude that the pope had a son in 1497 or 1498, when he approached his seventieth year. except that a few hesitate, in face of the strongest evidence, to admit the last child, no serious historian of any school now questions these facts, and the evidence need not be examined in detail.[272] at least four of these children were born of vannozza (or giovannozza) dei catanei, a roman lady who was the cardinal's mistress from about 1460 to 1486. the story that she was an orphan entrusted to his care and seduced by him is not reliable. nothing is confidently known about her early years, but her epitaph has been discovered, and it honours her, not only for her "signal probity and great piety," but because she was the mother of cæsar, juan, jofre, and lucrezia borgia. pedro luis and girolama may have been born of an earlier mistress, but it is not at all certain. vannozza, who married three times, is constantly mentioned, by the ambassadors, as borgia's mistress. she had a handsome mansion near the cardinal's palace and the vatican, and she entertained there and in her country house long after borgia became pope and replaced her by a younger mistress. these monuments of parentage are almost the only evidences of the existence of cardinal borgia under pius ii. and paul ii. in 1471 a pious and learned franciscan friar, sixtus iv., assumed the tiara, and it is an indication of the strange temper of the times that under such a man the papal court became more corrupt than ever.[273] sixtus vigorously restored the secular rule of the papacy and encouraged the artistic and cultural development, but his nepotism was shameless and profoundly harmful. one of the nephews whom he drew from the obscurity of a franciscan monastery and made a prince of the church was pietro riario, who spent 260,000 ducats,[274] and within two years of his promotion wore out his life in the most flagrant dissipation. his immense palace, with its magnificent treasures, its five hundred servants in scarlet silk, and its prodigious banquets, was the home of every species of vice; and it is said that his chief mistress, tiresia, flaunted eight hundred ducats' worth of pearls on her embroidered slippers. another nephew was the sterner, though also immoral, cardinal giuliano della rovere--also brought from a monastery--whom we shall know as julius ii. other cardinals promoted by the friar-pope were equally notorious for their indulgence and for the unscrupulous quest of money to sustain it. from the bulls of sixtus which i have quoted, it is clear that he was acquainted with the vices of borgia, yet he sent him as legate to spain, to excite interest in the crusade, in the spring of 1472. in spite of some compliments, it does not appear that borgia did more than impress his countrymen with his display and gallantry, and he returned toward the close of 1473 and built one of the most stately palaces in the rich quarter which was now rising round the vatican. when sixtus died, in 1484, he made a resolute effort to get the tiara. the dispatches of the ambassadors who now represented the northern states at the vatican afford us a valuable means of checking the chroniclers, and they put it beyond question that borgia and giuliano della rovere entered upon a corrupt rivalry for the papacy. giuliano was now a tall, serious-looking man of forty: reserved in speech and brusque in manners, a good soldier and most ambitious courtier. although he was known to have children, he kept a comparatively sober household and reserved his wealth for special occasions of display and for bribery. borgia was his senior by thirteen years, but he had the buoyancy, gaiety, and sensuality of a young man. he, too, kept a moderate table and gambled little, but his amours were notorious and one could not please him better than by providing a ballet of handsome women. to these wealthy "up-starts" the haughty orsini and colonna were bitterly opposed, and the announcement of the death of sixtus let loose a flood of passion. the splendid mansion of count riario, another nephew of the late pope, was sacked, the orsini entrenched themselves on monte giordano, and the other cardinals filled their halls with armed men. in the conclave it was soon apparent that neither rodrigo nor giuliano could command the necessary two thirds of the votes, and they agreed to adopt cardinal cibò, a genoese noble who had outburned the passions of youth before he entered the service of the church. during the night of august 28-29, when the supporters of cardinal barbo (who seemed to be sure of election) had confidently retired to their cells, rodrigo and giuliano, by intrigue and bribery, secured a majority for cibò.[275] he became innocent viii. the next morning, and during the eight years of his amiable and futile pontificate the college of cardinals steadily sank. innocent's natural son was drawn from his decent obscurity and made one of the richest and fastest nobles of rome; and women were hardly safe even in their own homes when franceschetto cibò roamed the streets at night, with his cut-throats, in one of his wine-flushed moods. he took so ardently to the new cardinalitial pastime of gambling that in one night he lost 100,000 ducats to cardinal riario. cardinal la balue left at his death a fortune of 100,000 ducats. cardinal ascanio sforza, brother of the ruler of milan, was the leading sportsman of roman society. cardinal lorenzo cibò owed his red hat to the fortunate circumstance that he was an illegitimate son of the pope's brother. cardinal giovanni de' medici, who was one day to be leo x., had received the tonsure in his eighth year and the title of cardinal in his fourteenth. cardinals savelli, sclafenati, and sanseverino were members of the fast and luxurious group. each cardinal maintained a large palace, with hundreds of gay-liveried servants and ready swordsmen, and the wealthier seem to have studied with care the pages in which macrobius describes the exquisite or colossal banquets of the older pagans. each--apart from the minority of grave and virtuous cardinals--had his faction in the city, and, as carnival time approached, they were engrossed for weeks in the preparation of the superb cars and brilliant troops of horse by which each sought to prove his superior fitness for the chair of gregory i. and gregory vii. innocent viii. smiled; and the thunders gathered beyond the alps. the state of rome was in accord with the state of the sacred college. we may hesitate to believe infessura when he tells us that, if criminals were by some chance arrested, they bought their liberty at the vatican; but we have in burchard's diary a sombre, incidental indication of the condition of rome. there is in modern literature some tendency to look with indulgent eye on the coloured gaiety of late mediæval rome, but--to say nothing of the ideals which the cardinals professed--the insecurity of life and property and the widespread brutality show that this license was far removed from genuine humanism. some years later, when rodrigo's son juan was murdered, a boatman said, when they asked why he had not reported seeing a body cast into the river, that it was not customary to have any inquiry made into a nightly occurrence of that kind. rodrigo borgia, the vice-chancellor, paid no heed to this condition of the city. he added year by year to the long list of his bishoprics and emoluments, and prepared to renew the struggle for the tiara. he lost, or discarded, vannozza when she married her third husband in 1486 and entered upon a more sordid and equally notorious _liaison_. his cousin, adriana orsini, had charge of a young orphan, giulia farnese, a very beautiful, golden-haired girl. she married adriana's son, orso orsini, in 1489--her fifteenth year--and at the same time became the cardinal's mistress. adriana was rewarded with a considerable influence and the charge of the young lucrezia borgia.[276] the death of innocent on july 25, 1492, led to fierce intrigue and passionate encounters. there were more than two hundred murders in rome during the fourteen days before the conclave, for which twenty-two cardinals were, on august 6th, immured in the sistine chapel. giuliano della rovere had spoiled his prospect by too patent a use of his influence on innocent viii., and borgia set himself to win the next most important rival, ascanio sforza. historians sometimes smile at the statement of infessura, that four mule-loads of silver passed from borgia's palace to that of sforza, but it is not improbable. for some centuries there had been a custom (abolished a few years later by leo x.) of sacking the palace of the cardinal who was elected pope, and it was not unusual to take precautions. borgia may have sent the silver on this pretext, as infessura suggests, and he would hardly expect it to be returned. it is, in fact, now certain that sforza was bribed with gifts far more valuable than borgia's table silver; borgia offered, and afterwards gave him, his splendid palace, the vice-chancellorship, the bishopric of erlan (worth 10,000 ducats a year), and other appointments. the sober cardinal colonna accepted the abbey of subiaco (or 2000 ducats a year). eleven cardinals seem to have sold their votes, and borgia already had three supporters and his own vote. he secured his majority and hastily retired behind the altar, where papal vestments of three sizes were laid out, and the genial romans presently roared their greetings to alexander vi.[277] rome and italy then sustained their parts in the comedy. alexander, although now sixty years old, was a vigorous and capable man, and some advantage would be expected from his pontificate. but one's sense of humour is excited when one reads in burchard's diary, or in the letter (reproduced by thuasne) written by the general of the camaldolite monks, the description of the rejoicings at rome. after the coronation at st. peter's on august 27th, alexander received, on the steps of the great church, the greetings of the orators who represented the northern cities. one wonders what was the countenance of the massed prelates and nobles when the genoese orator read: "thou art so adorned with the glory of virtue, the merit of discipline, the holiness of thy life ... that we must hesitate to say whether it is more proper to offer thee to the pontificate or to offer that most sacred and glorious dignity to thee." and, as alexander passed in stately procession to the lateran, he read on the triumphal arches which adorned the route, such maxims as "chastity and charity," and "great was rome under cæsar, now is she most great. alexander the sixth reigns: cæsar was a man, this is a god." i make no apology for inserting these apparently trivial details in so condensed a narrative. they, most of all, illumine the next momentous phase of the history of the papacy. in that year, 1492, a little german boy, named martin luther, sat at his books in the remote town of mansfeld. infessura records that alexander opened his pontificate with large promises and small instalments of reform. he was going to improve the condition of rome and the church, to pacify italy, and to check the turks; he would remove his children from rome and reduce the number of sinecures at the curia. he did, in fact, make a drastic beginning of the administration of justice, and even appointed certain hours during which he would himself hear grievances. possibly he had a sincere mood of reform; though we are not disposed to be charitable when we recall the appalling levity with which, a few years later, after the murder of his son, he returned to vicious ways. whatever his initial mood was, he soon entered upon courses which made his pontificate one of the most degraded in the annals of the papacy. modern research has discredited some of the most romantic crimes attributed to him, but it leaves on his memory an indictment which no eager search for good qualities can materially lessen. he sustained the scandal of his personal conduct until the end of his life, and i will dismiss it briefly. during the first four years of his pontificate, the youthful giulia orsini was his chief _favorita_--others are occasionally mentioned with that title by the ambassadors--and she was known to the wits of rome as "the spouse of christ." she and adriana orsini and girolama (the pope's elder daughter) are described as "the heart and eyes of alexander," and suitors had to seek their favour. when giulia's brother alexander received the red hat (sept. 20, 1493), rome gave the future pope--who was by no means without personal merit--the name of "the petticoat cardinal." when her daughter laura was born in 1497, the pope was generally believed to be the father; though that remains a mere rumour. pucci, in one of his dispatches, gives us a quaint picture. giulia lived in lucrezia's palace, apart from her husband, and, when the ambassador called one day in 1493, she dressed her long golden hair in his presence, and insisted that he must see the baby; and he remarks that the baby was "so very like the pope that one can readily believe he was the father." giulia was an almost indispensable figure for some years at the domestic (and even greater than domestic) festivities in the vatican, laughing with the cardinals at the prurient comedies and still more prurient dances which enlivened the sacred palace.[278] the last child attributed to him, though not accepted by all the authorities, seems to have been born in 1496 (his sixty-sixth year). there is a document dated september 1, 1501, legitimizing a certain juan borgia, but there are two versions of this document.[279] the first version describes him as the child of cæsar borgia: the second says that he was born "not of the said duke, but of us [alexander] and the said married woman." creighton made the singular suggestion that possibly alexander was giving prestige to an illegitimate offspring of his son, but it is now agreed that the second version is the more authentic; it was to be kept in reserve for some grave dispute of his rights. the distinguished venetian senator sanuto tells us[280] that, according to letters received from the venetian ambassador at rome and from private persons, the pope had, about this time, a child by a married roman lady, with the connivance of her father, and that the angry husband slew his father-in-law and stuck his head on a pole, with the inscription: "head of my father-in-law, who prostituted his daughter to the pope." these concurrent testimonies are grave. most historians now rightly reject the charge that alexander was intimate with his daughter lucrezia, since it rests only on bitterly hostile neapolitan gossip; but we cannot so easily set aside the persistent statements of the ambassadors that a new _favorita_ appears at the vatican from time to time. these were sometimes ladies of lucrezia's suite. lucrezia, a merry, childish-looking, golden-haired girl, with her father's high spirits and constant smile, is not likely to have remained virtuous in such surroundings, but there is no serious evidence of incest. before her father's election she was betrothed to a spanish youth of moderate family, but her father cancelled the espousals and married her, at the vatican, in 1493, to giovanni sforza. she was then, it is calculated, fifteen years old. twelve cardinals and a hundred and fifty of the great ladies of rome attended the wedding; and some of the prettier ladies remained to sup with the pope and cardinals, and applaud the loose comedies he provided. giulia and lucrezia were present. when the pope's policy estranged him from milan, he forced lucrezia's husband to swear that the marriage had not been consummated, and dissolved it. it seems probable that giovanni, in revenge, then put into circulation the suggestion of incest. lucrezia married alfonso of naples, who was murdered by her brother in 1500. she then married the son of the duke of ferrara: and there is perhaps no more terrible indictment of the papal court under alexander than the fact that, when his daughter was removed from it to ferrara, she earned, and kept until her death, a just repute for virtue and benevolence. these marriages introduce us to alexander's political activity, on which some recent historians have passed a somewhat lenient judgment. apart, however, from the treachery and brutality with which his aims were often enforced, we shall find that at his death he left the papacy almost landless and impoverished, and we must conclude that his chief objects were his personal security and the aggrandizement of his children. at the time of alexander's accession, the duchy of milan was improperly held by lodovico sforza, brother of the cardinal ascanio, who sought to convert his temporary regency into a permanent sovereignty. in this ambition he had the support of france, while ferrante of naples endeavoured to enforce the claim of the rightful duke, giovanni galeazzo. alexander's indebtedness to ascanio bound him at once to the sforzas, and the imprudence of ferrante in helping his commander, virginio orsini, to purchase from the nephew of the late pope certain towns which alexander regarded as papal fiefs, gave him an occasion for animosity. cardinal giuliano della rovere was implicated in this sale, and when the pope angrily rebuked him, he fled to ostia and fortified that commanding town. alarmed at this cohesion of his enemies and the support of their designs by florence, alexander entered into a counter-league with milan, venice, siena, ferrara, and mantua, and married his daughter to giovanni sforza. ferrante, however, appealed to spain, submitting (with the support of cardinal della rovere) that the corrupt election and profligate life of alexander demanded the attention of a general council, and the pope sought a compromise. the matter of the towns in romagna was adjusted, alexander's son jofre was betrothed to an illegitimate daughter of alfonso of calabria, and his younger son, juan, duke of gandia, was wedded to a spanish princess. cæsar was destined for the church and was made a cardinal on september 20, 1493. as alexander had sworn before his election not to create new cardinals, and now calmly absolved himself from his promise and promoted several, the hostile cardinals again angrily deserted him. ferrante died on january 27, 1494, and the pope had to confront a delicate problem. france, instigated by milan, pressed a claim to the kingdom of naples, and alfonso ii. demanded the investiture in succession to ferrante. charles of france refused to be consoled with the golden rose which alexander sent him in refusing to recognize his claim to naples, and he threatened a general council or a separation of the french church. when alexander proceeded to take ostia by force, driving cardinal giuliano to france, and sent cæsar to crown alfonso at naples, the french monarch announced that he would lead his army into italy in order to recover naples, to reform the church, and to conquer the turks. the latter purpose furnished the pope with a pretext for a disgraceful move. djem, the brother of the sultan bajazet, had been enjoying the dissipations of rome since 1489, and bajazet paid the papacy 40,000 ducats a year to keep his younger brother in this gilded captivity. since alexander's accession, bajazet had refused to pay the fee, and the pope now wrote to the sultan to say that the king of france was coming to seize djem and make him the pretext for a war on the turks; bajazet must at once send 40,000 ducats to enable him to resist the french. the sultan sent the money, but his and the pope's envoy were captured by cardinal della rovere's brother, and were relieved of the money and the sultan's letter. when this letter was published, christendom learned with horror that the sultan had offered its pope 300,000 ducats if he would have djem assassinated.[281] of the war which followed little need be said. as the victorious french advanced, alexander tremblingly vacillated. at one moment he imprisoned the pro-french cardinals, and then released them; and at another moment he packed his treasures for flight, and then decided to meet the french king. alfonso bewailed that the pope's arm was too weak or too cowardly to launch an anathema against the invader. in the end the pope met and disarmed charles. to the intense disgust of giuliano della rovere, who had come with the king in expectation of the tiara, he persuaded charles that an italian, even in the chair of peter, could hardly be expected to lead a saintly life; and to the equal indignation of alfonso he, while refusing to recognize charles's claim to the throne of naples, abandoned the neapolitan alliance and gave his son cæsar as a hostage of his good behaviour. with similar treachery to the sultan he abandoned djem to charles, yet stipulated that the yearly 40,000 ducats should still go to the papal treasury.[282] charles took naples, and soon learned that the versatile pope had, behind his back, entered into a league against him with maximilian of germany, ferdinand of spain, venice, and lodovico sforza. alexander prudently quitted rome when the french king returned, and flung after him a feeble threat of anathema, as he was cutting his way through the allies. but by the aggrandizement of his family he made an evil use of the peace which followed. cæsar was made legate for naples and his nephew juan legate for perugia; and to his favourite son juan, duke of gandia, he assigned the important papal fief of the duchy of benevento, to be held by him and his heirs for ever. even loyal cardinals grumbled at the scandal, while the outspoken and more distant critics spread in every country the story of his private life. alexander, delivered from the menace both of france and naples, cast aside all restraint. but his gaiety was soon darkened by a grave tragedy, and it is, perhaps, the most precise and most damning characterization of the man to record that even this appalling catastrophe, occurring near the close of his seventh decade of life, did not disturb for more than a few months the licentious course of his conduct. on june 14, 1497, vannozza gave a banquet to her sons and a few friends in the suburbs. cæsar and juan returned to the city together, and were joined by a masked man who had for some weeks been seen in communication with the young duke. juan left his brother with a light hint that he had an assignation, and the same night he was murdered and his body thrown into the tiber. we are as far as contemporaries were from identifying the murderer. that it was cæsar borgia few serious historians now believe. that suggestion did not arise until nine months after the murder, and the motives alleged are not convincing. it is more plausibly claimed that the sforzas and the orsini adopted this means of striking at the heart of the pontiff, but it is equally possible that juan incurred the penalty of some dangerous seduction. i am concerned only with alexander. appalled by this sudden clouding of his prosperity, the pope summoned his cardinals and announced with tears that he would remove his children from rome and abandon his corrupt ways. six cardinals were at once appointed to draw up a scheme of church-reform, and the draft of a bull, which is still to be seen in the vatican archives, shows with what devotion cardinals costa and caraffa and their colleagues applied themselves to the long-desired task. but before the end of the year alexander had returned to his vices and abandoned the idea of reform. he informed the cardinals that he wished to release cæsar from membership of their college, in order that he might be free to contract an exalted marriage and pursue his ambition; and it was then (december, 1497) that he brought about the shameless divorce of lucrezia from giovanni sforza. the vatican chambers resumed their nightly gaiety. the orsini and the colonna now buried their ancient and deadly feud and united with naples, and the demand for a general council was ominously echoed in germany and spain. alexander sought at first a counterpoise in naples, and wished to marry cæsar and lucrezia into the family of alfonso. after some hesitation, and with marked reluctance, alfonso ii. gave his natural son alfonso to lucrezia, but he refused, in spite of the political advantage, to degrade his daughter carlotta by a marriage with cæsar. it is not immaterial to observe that cæsar had, like four other cardinals of the church, contracted the "french disease" which was then so fiercely punishing the vice of italy. it happened that at that time louis xii. sought a divorce, and, at first in the hope of bringing pressure on naples, cæsar, after resigning the cardinalate on august 17th, was sent to gratify and impress the french court. even giuliano della rovere, who lived quietly at avignon, was induced to enter the intrigue. carlotta and her father still disdained the connexion, but louis offered cæsar his young and beautiful niece, charlotte d'albret, and the counties of valentinois and diois. they were married on may 22d (1499), and the papal policy entered upon a new phase. the papacy and venice, preferring their selfish interests to the welfare of italy, allied themselves with france, and for the hundredth time an invading army descended upon the plains of lombardy. spain and portugal were now angrily threatening to have the pope--who, with equal warmth, accused isabella herself of unchastity--tried by a general council for his scandalous actions, and he and cæsar formed the design of establishing, with the aid of the french, a strong principality for cæsar in central italy. the neapolitan alliance was discarded, and bulls were issued to the effect that the lords of rimini, pesaro, imola, faenza, forli, urbino, and camerino had failed to discharge their feudal duties to the papacy and had forfeited their fiefs. the victorious progress of cæsar in these territories was checked for a time by a revolt at milan, but that city was retaken by the french in 1500. the successful jubilee of 1500, which at one time drew 100,000 pilgrims to rome, filled the coffers and helped to exalt the spirit of the pope. his character, indeed, seemed to become more buoyant and defiant as his age advanced. during that year he had a narrow escape from death, owing to the fall of the roof of the sala de' pape, and lucrezia's husband was cut to pieces in his chamber by the soldiers, and at the command, of cæsar. these events hardly dimmed the joy of the pope. cæsar received the golden rose and was made gonfaloniere of the church; and he was permitted to appropriate a large share of the jubilee funds and to exact large sums from the cardinals whom the pope promoted in 1500. meantime, the ambassadors relate, giulia orsini retained her influence over the seventy-year old pope, and other _favorite_ made a transient appearance at the vatican. the next two years were employed in the establishment of cæsar's power in romagna and the reduction of the pope's personal enemies. louis of france and ferdinand of spain drew up their famous, or infamous, scheme for the partition of naples, and alexander conveniently discovered for them, and proclaimed in a bull, that federigo of naples had, by an alliance with the turks, become a traitor to christendom. the fall of naples involved the ruin of the colonna, and they and the savelli were condemned to lose their estates for rebellion against the holy see. from part of these estates the pope formed the duchy of sermoneta for lucrezia's two-year-old son, rodrigo, and the duchy of nepi was bestowed on his own infant son juan. alexander next turned his attention to ferrara, and, when venice and florence forbade him to attack it, he arranged a marriage of the widowed lucrezia with the duke's son alfonso: overcoming the abhorrence of the proud este family by the influence of louis xii. and by a grant to the duke of all church-dues in ferrara for three years. from ferrara, when it fell to his sister, cæsar would have a comparatively easy march on bologna, if not florence. so the year 1501 ended in such rejoicings as the fortune of the borgia family inspired. at the date october 11, 1501, burchard dispassionately notes in his diary that the pope was unable to attend to his spiritual duties, but was not prevented from enjoying, in the vatican, a "chestnut dance" and other performances of fifty nude courtesans whom cæsar introduced.[283] lucrezia, whose purity some recent writers are eager to vindicate, was present with her father and brother. on december 30th she was married. alexander gave her the finest set of pearls in europe and 100,000 ducats; and for a week rome enjoyed such spectacles and bull-fights as had not been seen for years. within the vatican such comedies as the _menæchmi_ of plautus were enacted before the pope and his family and cardinals. even tolerant italy now broke into caustic criticisms, and cæsar replied vigorously by the daggers of his followers. the pope genially urged him to let men talk. the last phase is, in its way, not less repulsive. by heartless treachery and brilliant fighting cæsar spread his sway over central italy and alexander watched and spurred his progress. the pope's attendants had to endure unaccustomed fits of anger and abuse when his son did not advance rapidly enough. he treacherously arrested cardinal orsini; and the cardinal's aged mother, who was ejected from her palace, had to send to the pope (by orsini's mistress) a magnificent pearl which alexander coveted before she was allowed to provide her son with decent food. cardinal orsini died, and his property was confiscated. cardinal michiel died, and his fortune of 150,000 ducats was appropriated. the college of cardinals trembled and the famous legend of the borgia poison spread over italy.[284] nine new cardinals, mostly of unworthy character, were created and are said to have paid 130,000 ducats for the dignity, and 64,000 ducats were raised by inventing new offices in the curia. alexander, although seventy-two years old, was in robust health, and looked forward to years of pleasure under the protection of his victorious son. and one night in the unhealthy heat of august (the 5th or 6th) he and cæsar sat late at supper with cardinal adriano da corneto. romance has it that the poisoned wine they intended for their host was served to them: modern history is content with the known malaria of an autumn night.[285] on august 18th alexander died, and both cæsar and cardinal adriano were seriously ill. of other actions of alexander his connexion with savonarola alone demands some consideration, and it must be treated briefly. on july 25, 1495, alexander, in friendly terms, summoned savonarola to rome to give an account of the prophetic gifts he claimed. alexander was very tolerant of criticisms of his vices, except where they might provoke kings to summon a council, and it is probable that he wished to silence the politician rather than the preacher; savonarola vigorously supported the idea of an alliance of florence with france, which the pope opposed. savonarola evaded the summons to rome, and the pope suspended him from preaching and endeavoured to destroy his authority by joining the san marco convent to the lombard congregation. savonarola defeated the pope on the latter point, and on february 11, 1496, he returned to his pulpit, in defiance of the pope's order and at the command of the signoria of florence. in explanation of his act he urged that alexander's brief was based on false information and invalid, and he denounced roman corruption more freely than ever. alexander, in november, directed that a new congregation should be formed out of the roman and tuscan convents,[286] and when savonarola and his monks again defeated the project, the pope had recourse to secular measures. a mind like that of the exalted and feverish preacher was not likely to escape error and exaggeration in such circumstances, and his opponents in florence made progress. alexander now offered the coveted possession of pisa to the signoria if they would desert savonarola and the idea of a french alliance. the monk was forbidden by the authorities to preach, and his defiance of the signoria as well as the papacy led to disorders of which the pope took advantage to publish a sentence of excommunication (june 18, 1497). alexander had meantime again listened to entreaties of delay and inquiry, but when he heard that the monk defied his anathema he said that the sentence must take its course. up to this point the pope had, in view of the very strong support which savonarola had at florence, proceeded with moderation, though we may resent the insincerity of his attack; it was not the prophecies, but the policy and the puritanism, of savonarola which interested him. he complained bitterly to the florentine ambassadors of savonarola's attacks on himself and the cardinals, and was, as always, alarmed by the monk's demand of a general council. however, the monk, not realizing the progress made by his enemies, struck a louder note of defiance, and on the plea of the public disorders to which he gave rise, he was arrested and put on trial. alexander willingly granted the authorities a tithe on the ecclesiastical property at florence when they announced the arrest. the sensitive monk was, by torture, driven into some vague disavowal of his supernatural pretensions, and he and two other friars were, on may 23, 1498, hanged by the florentine authorities as "heretics, schismatics, and contemners of the holy see." the sentence, however corruptly obtained, was technically just, since in the legislation of the time contumacious defiance of the papacy implied heresy; but the respective positions of savonarola and alexander vi. in the history of religious progress are a sufficient monument to the bravery and inflexibility of the great florentine puritan. there are few good deeds to be put in the scale against the crimes and vices of alexander vi. he made a considerable, though futile, effort to rouse christendom against the advancing turks. he fortified sant' angelo, and engaged pinturicchio to decorate the vatican apartments. he pressed the propagation of the faith in the new world, ordered the examination and authorization of printed books, endeavoured to check heresy in bohemia, and vigorously defended the rights of the church in the netherlands. these things cannot alter our estimate of his character. he was a selfish voluptuary of--in view of his position--the most ignoble type; he countenanced and employed fraud, treachery, and crime; and the condition in which we shall soon find the papacy will show that his policy had not the redeeming merit of effecting the security of the institution over which he ignominiously presided. footnotes: [footnote 271: the letter is given in raynaldus, _annales ecclesiastici_, year 1460, n. 31, and is translated in bishop mathew's _life and times of rodrigo borgia_ (1912), p. 35. it is misrepresented in baron corvo's _chronicles of the house of borgia_ (1901, p. 64). the chief apologist for alexander, a. leonetti (_papa alessandro vi._, 1880), made the easy suggestion that the letter was a forgery, but cardinal hergenroether found the original in the vatican archives. see the able essay by comte h. de l'épinois (another catholic writer) in the _revue des questions historiques_ (april 1, 1881), p. 367. he shows, by the use of original documents, that the apologetic efforts of ollivier, leonetti, and a few others, are futile. of these efforts the leading catholic historian of the papacy, dr. l. pastor, observes: "in the face of such a perversion of the truth, it is the duty of the historian to show that the evidence against rodrigo is so strong as to render it impossible to restore his reputation" (_the history of the popes_, ii., 542).] [footnote 272: the decisive documents, from the archives of the duke of ossuna, are published by thuasne in his edition of burchard's _diarium_ (appendix to vol. iii.). dr. pastor (ii., 453) has a good summary of them, and there is other evidence in the _lucrezia borgia_ of gregorovius. see also the essay of comte h. de l'épinois, quoted above, and "don rodrigo de borja und seine söhne," by c.r. von höfler, in the _denkschriften der kaiserlichen akademie der wissenschaften_, bd. 73. the chief original authorities are j. burchard (_diarium_, edited by thuasne, 3 vols., 1884) and s. infessura (_diario_, in muratori, iii.), and the despatches of the italian ambassadors at rome. burchard and infessura are gossipy and hostile, and must be controlled. recent works on the borgias are too apt to reproduce lightly the romantic statements of later italian historians or contemporary neapolitan enemies. the work of bishop mathew, to which i have referred, is less judicious than his volume on hildebrand. bishop creighton's _history of the papacy_ is rather too indulgent to alexander and needs supplementing by the documents in pastor and thuasne.] [footnote 273: m. brosch, the scholarly author of a study of julius ii. (_papst julius ii._, 1878), observes that research in the rovere archives has discovered no trace of the paolo riario who is assigned as the father of sixtus's nephews, and concludes that they were his natural sons. but paolo riario is expressly mentioned in the funeral oration on cardinal pietro riario, and is more fully described in leone cobelli's _cronache forlivesi_. there is no sound reason to impeach the chastity of this pope, as even creighton does.] [footnote 274: the gold ducat is estimated at about ten shillings of english money, but probably this does not express its full purchasing power.] [footnote 275: see the dispatches quoted in thuasne's burchard, vol. ii.] [footnote 276: i may repeat that i am not reproducing disputed statements, or relying on uncertain chronicles, in these chapters. the evidence may be examined in thuasne, pastor, l'épinois, creighton, gregorovius, and von reumont (_geschichte der stadt rom_, 3 vols., 1867-8).] [footnote 277: see the evidence in thuasne (ii., 610), l'épinois (pp. 389-91), and pastor (v., 382). a writer in the _american catholic quarterly review_ (1900, p. 262) observes: "that borgia secured his election through the rankest simony is a fact too well authenticated to admit a doubt."] [footnote 278: again i may refer to the convenient summaries of the evidence in pastor (v., 417), l'épinois (398), gregorovius (appendix, no. 11, etc.), and creighton (iv., 203).] [footnote 279: there are copies, reproduced by gregorovius, in the archives at the vatican, at modena, and at ossuna.] [footnote 280: _diarii_ (ed. f. stefani), i., 369.] [footnote 281: alexander said that the letter published was a forgery, and some historians have sought to prove this by internal evidence. it is the general feeling of recent authorities that the letter is, at least in substance, genuine. see creighton (iv., appendix 9) and pastor (v., 429).] [footnote 282: djem died shortly afterwards, and it was rumoured that alexander had earned the 300,000 ducats by administering a slow poison before he left rome. but the better authorities tell us that the weakened and dissolute youth contracted a chill and died of bronchitis.] [footnote 283: _diarium_, iii., 167. the details of this dance, which burchard describes, and of the orgy which followed, may not be translated. it is absurd to question burchard's evidence on this matter; he was then master of ceremonies at the papal court and describes every move of the pope. the papal servants took part in the performance, and he could easily learn the details. the florentine and other ambassadors speak of cæsar repeatedly introducing these women into the vatican at night.] [footnote 284: there is, as pastor and creighton admit, grave reason to think that orsini and michiel were poisoned, but charges of this kind are difficult to check, and certainly there is a good deal of romance in the borgia legend. the death-rate of cardinals under alexander was not more than normal. see baron corvo's _chronicles of the house of borgia_ (1901), and r. sabatini's _life of cesare borgia_ (1911).] [footnote 285: the poison theory is not mentioned by burchard or the chief ambassadors, and is positively advanced only by neapolitan or later writers. no historian seems now to entertain it. alexander's illness, which lasted thirteen days, followed a course more consistent with malaria, and the very rapid decomposition of his body, which seems to have impressed lord acton, is not inexplicable at that season.] [footnote 286: savonarola was head of the tuscan congregation of the dominican order, and these proposals--which were inspired by jealous colleagues at rome--aimed at putting him under a new and hostile jurisdiction.] chapter xiii julius ii.: the fighting pope the single merit which sober historians award to alexander vi. is that, in forming a powerful principality for his son in central italy, he was re-establishing the states of the church and ensuring the protection of the papacy. the course of events after his death prevents us from acknowledging this claim, and alexander himself must have been well aware that cæsar borgia would, if his state endured, protect the papacy only on condition that he might continue to dominate it. he told machiavelli that he had made ample preparation to secure his position at the death of his father, but his own illness wrecked his plans. this is untrue. he was quite able to direct his servants and at his father's death they began to enforce his blustering policy. some forced their way, at the point of the dagger, to the papal treasury, and carried off the money and plate left by the pope: leaving his enormous debts to his successor. others sought to intimidate the cardinals. but cæsar's power in the north at once began to crumble, his enemies gathered in force from all sides, and he was defeated. the cardinals would not assemble until his troops, and those of france, spain, and venice, withdrew from rome. the chief contest in the conclave, which began on september 16th, lay between the french cardinal d'amboise and giuliano della rovere, who returned from avignon. neither could secure the necessary majority, and cardinal piccolomini, nephew of pius ii., was chosen to occupy the throne until a stronger man could prevail. the more luxurious cardinals may have smiled at the rejoicing with which reformers greeted the aged and virtuous pius iii., for they knew that he suffered from an incurable malady. he died, in fact, ten days after his coronation, or on october 18th, and the struggle was renewed. giuliano della rovere now pushed his ambition with equal energy and unscrupulousness. he promised cæsar borgia, who controlled the extensive spanish vote, that he would respect his possessions and make him gonfaloniere of the church[287]; he distributed money among the cardinal-voters; he agreed to the capitulation that whoever was elected should summon a council for the purpose of reform within two years, and should not make war on any power without the consent of two thirds of the cardinals. he worked so well that the conclave, which met on october 31st, was one of the shortest in the history of the papacy. within three hours the sealed window was broken open and the election of julius ii. was announced. we have in the last chapter followed the romantic early career of giuliano della rovere. he was born on december 5, 1443, at albizzola, near savona, of a poor and obscure family. his uncle, being first a professor and then general of the franciscan order, sent him to be educated in one of the monasteries of that order. some historians strangely doubt whether he actually took the religious vows, but it was assuredly not the custom of the friars to keep young men in their monasteries to the age of twenty-eight unless they were members of the fraternity. at that age (in 1471) fra giuliano and his cousin fra pietro heard that their uncle had become sixtus iv., and they were raised to the cardinalate. giuliano did not emulate the vices which carried off his younger cousin within two years. he "lived much as the other prelates of that day did," says guicciardini, in a sober estimate of his character, and his three known daughters confirm the great historian of the time; but he kept a comparatively moderate palace and spent money on a refined patronage of art and culture. he displayed some military talent when he commanded the papal troops in umbria in 1474, and afterwards served as legate in france (1476) and the netherlands (1480). he, as we saw, maintained his position after his uncle's death by corruptly ensuring the election of innocent viii. and exercising a paramount influence over that pontiff. his power inflamed the animosity of his rivals, and at the accession of alexander vi. he was driven from italy. from his quiet retreat in avignon he instigated the french monarch to invade italy and depose alexander, and, when alexander gracefully disarmed charles, giuliano returned in disgust to avignon. it is true that in 1499 he rendered some service to alexander, in connexion with cæsar's marriage, but he felt it safer to remain in avignon until the announcement of alexander's death recalled his many enemies to rome.[288] in 1503, at the date of his election, julius ii. had long outlived his early irregularities, and had no personal vices beyond a fiery temper and a taste for wine which his enemies magnified into a scandal. the familiar portrait by raphael brings him closer to us than any of the pontiffs whom we have yet considered. he was then in his sixtieth year, with a scanty sprinkling of grey locks on his massive head, and with an aspect of energy and determination which must have been lessened by the long white beard he grew in later life. though troubled--like most of the popes of this period--with gout, he was still erect and dignified, and the cardinals, who had hardly seen him for ten years, can have had little suspicion of the volcanic fires which were concealed by his habitual silence and quiet enjoyment of culture. they soon learned that they had created a master, and they lamented that he united the manners of a peasant with the vigour of a soldier. he consulted none, and he lavished epithets on those who lingered in the execution of his commands. yet this brusque and abusive soldier was destined, not merely to place the papal states on a surer foundation than ever, but to do far more even than leo x. for the artistic enhancement of rome. the supreme aim which julius held in view from the beginning of his pontificate was the restoration of the papal possessions, but i may dismiss first the actions or events which have a more personal relation. he heard or said mass daily, and paid a strict regard to his ecclesiastical duties. he reorganized the administration of the city and the campagna, suppressed disorder, purified the tribunals, reformed the coinage, and in many other respects corrected the vices of his predecessor, whom he had loathed. these _marañas_ (half-converted spanish jews), as he called the borgias, had fouled italy with their presence. he improved the papal table, which had been singularly poor under alexander, but the vicious parasites whom alexander had encouraged now shrank from the vatican. at first he indulged the characteristic papal weakness, nepotism. at his first consistory (november 29, 1503) two of the four cardinals promoted were members of his family--his uncle and nephew--and two years later he married his natural daughter felicia to one of the orsini, his niece lucrezia to one of the colonna, and his nephew niccolò della rovere to giulia orsini's daughter laura. one cannot say, as some historians do, that he was no nepotist; though one may admit that, in the words of guicciardini, "he did not carry nepotism beyond due bounds." to the obligations he had contracted in bargaining for the papacy he was quite unscrupulously blind, and, although he issued a drastic bull against simony in 1505 (january 14th), his grand plans imposed on him such an expenditure that he even increased the sale of offices and indulgences until the annual income of the papacy rose to 350,000 ducats. julius at once made it plain that he was not only determined to recover the papal states, but would override any moral obligation or sentimental prejudice in the pursuit of his object. the treasury was empty, and he had contracted, at the price of several spanish votes, to respect the person and possessions of cæsar borgia. but venice had encouraged the petty lords of romagna to recover the places which cæsar had wrested from them, and itself had designs on some of the towns. grasping the pretext that the whole of romagna was thus in danger, julius summoned cæsar to surrender the remaining strongholds to the church. when cæsar refused, he found himself a prisoner of the pope, instead of gonfaloniere of his troops, and he seems to have been dazed by the sudden collapse of his brilliant fortune. spain withdrew the spanish mercenaries from cæsar's service, venice occupied faenza and rimini, and most of his towns cast off their enforced allegiance. after a futile struggle with the pope the fallen prince surrendered to julius his three remaining towns--cesena, forli, and bertinoro--and was allowed to retire to naples. there, at the treacherous instigation of the pope,[289] he was arrested and sent to spain. he escaped from spain two years afterwards, and died in 1507, fighting in a petty war on a foreign soil. venice, now at the height of her power and flushed with wealth and conquest, paid little heed when, in the winter of 1503-4, julius made repeated demands for the restoration of the places she had seized in romagna. she had, she said, not taken them from the church, and the church would, if she restored them, hand them to some other "nephew." the venetian ambassador at rome seems to have miscalculated entirely the energy of the pope, and venice probably thought that her support of his candidature and his lack of troops and resources promised a profitable compromise; nor can we wonder if statesmen failed at times to see the justice of the roman contention, that seizure by the sword was a legitimate title in princes who gave cities to the church but wholly invalid in princes who took them from the church. venice offered to pay tribute for the towns which had been papal fiefs. this julius sharply refused, and he appealed to france, spain, and the emperor to assist him. toward the close of the year (september 22, 1504) louis and maximilian concluded an agreement at blois to join julius against venice, but a quarrel destroyed the compact, and julius had again to deal with venice. the venetians surrendered all but faenza and rimini, and julius, with a protest that the retention of these towns was unjustified, resumed amicable relations with them. the pope's next move has won the admiration of many historians, though it has prompted so liberal a judge as creighton to exclaim that "his cynical consciousness of political wrong-doing" is "as revolting as the frank unscrupulousness of alexander vi." during the period of disintegration of the papal states the baglioni had mastered perugia and the bentivogli had taken possession of bologna. julius had at his accession confirmed the position at bologna, but in the spring of 1506 he resolved to recover both cities. france and spain hesitated to lend their aid for this project, and on august 26th he impetuously ended the slow negotiations by sending a peremptory order to france to assist him and setting out at the head of his troops. with only five hundred horse--though he had sent on an envoy to engage swiss mercenaries--julius and nine of his cardinals set out on the long march to perugia. at orvieto his anxiety found some relief. giampaolo baglione, realizing the force which the pope would eventually command, came to surrender perugia, and at the beginning of september julius sang a solemn mass in the franciscan convent at perugia which had once been his home. his energy was now fully aroused, in spite of the discouragement of the word sent by louis xii. it is said that he already talked of leading his valiant troops against the turks when he had settled the affairs of italy. he crossed the hills, in bleak early-winter weather, in spite of gout, at the head of his 2500 men, and boldly sent on to bentivoglio a sentence of excommunication and interdict. bentivoglio--more deeply moved by the approach of 4000 french soldiers--fled, and, again without striking a blow, the pope entered bologna in triumph on november 11th.[290] after spending five months in the reorganization of government he returned to rome on march 28th (1507) and enjoyed a magnificent ovation. it may give a juster idea of his mental power to add that he had already (on april 18, 1506) laid the first stone of the new st. peter's designed on so vast a scale by bramante. three months after his return to rome julius had fresh and grave reason for anxiety. france and spain had composed their differences, and in june of that year ferdinand was to sail from naples to meet the french king at savona. julius moved down to ostia to greet him, and must have been profoundly disturbed when the galley conveying ferdinand and his young french wife passed the port without a word. he would hear that the two kings held long and secret conferences at savona, and that among the five cardinals with them was d'amboise, louis's chief minister, who still hungered for the tiara of which julius had robbed him. there had for some time been bad news from france. louis was reported as saying: "the rovere are a peasant family; nothing but the stick on his back will keep the pope in order." julius sent cardinal pallavicino to savona, but he was not admitted to the counsels of the monarchs. it was rumoured that they meditated the reform of the church: which meant a council and an inquiry into the election of julius ii. papal diplomacy, which, when papal interests were endangered, never considered "italian independence," for a moment now dictated an alliance with the emperor-elect, maximilian, who had himself proposed to come to rome for his coronation. there are vague indications that that dreamy monarch already entertained the idea of uniting the tiara with the imperial crown on his own head.[291] however that may be, julius sent cardinal carvajal to dissuade him from coming to rome, to bring about an alliance of the christian powers against the turks (which would disarm ferdinand and louis as regards julius), and to enter into a special alliance with france and germany against venice. the papal envoy aretini told the venetian envoy that, when the danger to italy from an alliance of louis and maximilian was pointed out, julius exclaimed: "perish the whole of italy provided i get my way."[292] the proposal was, at all events, treacherous; for both julius and maximilian had treaties of peace with venice. but the age of which machiavelli has codified the guiding principles was insensible to considerations of political honesty. maximilian attacked venice and was defeated, because she had the support of france. then france was poisoned against the prosperous republic, and the league of cambrai was formed on december 10, 1508: maximilian, louis, and ferdinand entered into a secret alliance for the destruction of venice, and the pope, as well as the kings of england and hungary, were invited to join in the act of brigandage. it is clear that julius hesitated for some months to join the league; though his hesitation was probably due to some anxiety at the prospect of seeing the victorious armies of france and germany in italy once more. he tried to induce the venetians to restore faenza and rimini to him and merit his protection. when they refused, he joined the league (march 23d) and put his spiritual censure on the venetians. the campaign occupied only a few weeks, and the vast territory of the republic was divided among the conquerors, the pope receiving ravenna and cervia as well as faenza and rimini. but the ill fortune and anxiety of venice promised him further gains if he would break faith with his allies and deal separately with the republic. to preserve the remnants of their territory the venetians approached the pope. at first he exacted formidable sacrifices, and, when they refused and importuned him, he went to his palace at civita vecchia to enjoy the rest, if not the pleasures, which roman gossip so darkly misrepresented.[293] he perceived, however, that the annihilation of venice would endanger his own security, and in time he accepted the evacuation of romagna and the abandonment of the venetian exercise of authority over the clergy. louis xii. learned with great indignation in the summer of 1509 that julius had not only withdrawn from the league of cambrai, but was now endeavouring to form a league with venice, ferdinand, maximilian, and henry viii. against himself. henry and maximilian refused to join, but julius engaged fifteen thousand swiss and added these to the papal and venetian troops. as the duke of ferrara was leagued with the french against venice, and refused to follow the pope's political example, julius issued against him an anathema which a writer of the time describes as making his hair stand on end, and resolved to add ferrara to the growing papal states. in august he set out once more, dressed in simple rochet, with the troops, and made the tiring march to bologna. there his great plans nearly came to a premature end. the swiss failed him, and the french appeared in force before bologna, where he lay seriously ill and greatly disedifying his attendants by the vehemence of his rage. no doubt his threats of suicide, which are recorded, were merely vague and rhetorical expressions of his despair. he saved himself, however, by a deceptive negotiation with the french commander until his reinforcements arrived, and, as his health recovered, his vigorous resolution became almost ferocious. the long white beard in raphael's portrait of him reminds us how, at this time, he swore that he would not shave again until he had driven the french from italy. louis was now taking practical steps toward the summoning of a general council, and the temper of the pope was terrible to witness. in the depth of winter, not yet wholly recovered from his long fever, he rejoined the troops, sharing the hardships of camp-life and stormily scolding his generals for their slowness. he never led troops on the field, but he interfered in the placing of artillery and more than once exposed himself to fire. at the capitulation of mirandola he shocked his cardinals by ordering that any foreign soldiers found in the town should be put to the sword. he spent some months thus passing from town to town, infusing his fiery energy into the troops, but his successes and his personal conduct of the war inflamed the indignation of the french king. louis not only sent reinforcements to his army, but he, with his adherent cardinals, arranged for the holding of a general council on italian soil. _perdam babylonis nomen_ ("i will erase the very name of babylon") was the terrible motto he now placed on his medals. in quick succession the pope learned that the bentivogli had recovered bologna and derisively broken into fragments the magnificent statue of julius which michael angelo had erected: that his favourite cardinal alidosi had been assassinated by his (the pope's) nephew and commander the duke of urbino; and that louis and maximilian, with the seceded cardinals, had announced a general council of the church at pisa and summoned julius ii. to appear before it. the attendants who marched by the pope's closed litter, as he returned to rome on june 26, 1511, concluded from his unrestrained sobs and groans that his power, if not his life, approached its end. his health was ruined and his troops were scattered. but there was an energy mightier than that of hildebrand in his worn frame, and with some improvement in his condition he raised his head once more. he had in the spring created eight new cardinals, to replace the seceders, and he now announced that a _real_ ecumenical council would assemble at the lateran on april 19, 1512. that was his answer to pisa, and to the papal aspirations of the cardinal of rouen and the emperor-elect. he again fell dangerously ill--so ill that his death was confidently expected. election-intrigue filled the corridors of the vatican, and a band of democrats held a meeting in the capitol and decided, at his death, to restore the republican liberty of rome. in a few weeks the terrible old man rose from his bed, thin and white but with unbroken energy, and scattered the intriguers. he anathematized the schismatical cardinals, and announced (october 4th) that he had formed a holy league with ferdinand of spain and venice for the defence of the church; maximilian was presently induced to join the league, and before the end of 1511 henry viii. was persuaded, by a promise of assistance in his designs on france, to give it his adhesion. only three months before julius had apparently lain at the point of death, his new possessions utterly ruined. now he once more commanded the situation. the schismatical council of pisa, which opened on november 1st, turned out a puny french _conciliabulum_, with fourteen bishops and five abbots to represent the universal church. the campaign which began in january need not be followed in detail. after a series of varying engagements the french won a crushing victory at ravenna, and there was panic at rome. the cardinals demanded peace with france, but giulio de' medici, cousin of cardinal giovanni, who had been captured by the french, now came to describe the exhausted condition of the french army, and julius resolved to prosecute the war. he opened his general council at the lateran on may 3rd, and had at least the satisfaction of seeing seventy italian bishops respond to his summons. then, covering his preparations by a pretence of considering the terms which louis xii. offered him, he engaged further troops, fired his commanders, and induced maximilian to withdraw the four thousand tirolese mercenaries from the french ranks. in a few weeks the french were driven out of italy, the schismatics were forced to transfer their discredited council to french soil, and the pope found himself master of bologna, ravenna, rimini, cesena, parma, piacenza, and reggio. in appraising julius as founder of the papal states one must bear in mind the history of this remarkable period. in october, 1511, julius was stricken and apparently ruined; by the summer of 1512 he was master of the richest provinces of italy. but he had not left rome, and his personal action at this juncture was slight in comparison with those tremendous earlier exertions which had ended in disastrous failure. julius was far from satisfied, and his conduct in the hour of victory was at the low political level of the time. he assisted the medici to impose themselves again on florence, and the sforza to recover milan. he then made a lamentable effort to secure ferrara. the duke came to rome, under a safe-conduct of the papal general fabrizio colonna, and of the spanish ambassador, to plead that he had acted only in honourable discharge of his engagements to france, julius had approved the safe-conduct, but when the duke refused to surrender his territory to the church, the pope affected to discover that he had committed crimes not covered by the safe-conduct and detained him. the colonna redeemed the credit of italy by cutting their way through the papal guards and restoring alfonso, after romantic adventures, to his duchy. when the poet ariosto was afterwards sent by alfonso to make peace with the pope, he had to fly for his life; julius, in one of his now frequent outbursts of violence, threatened to have him thrown into the sea. to the end julius pursued his tortuous diplomacy. neither spain nor germany wished to see any increase of his power, and he was forced to abandon his designs on ferrara. he then disrupted his holy league, and made a fresh alliance with maximilian against venice and to the disadvantage of spain. julius was concerned about the growing power of spain in italy; and we shall hardly be unjust if we suspect that, as alexander vi. had done, he dreamed of adding naples to the papal dominion. but he never entirely recovered his health, and his great schemes were closed by death on february 20, 1513. he was neither a great soldier nor a great statesman. there is no indication that his interference in the military operations was useful, and, as i pointed out, the one permanently successful campaign was fought while he directed an ecclesiastical council at rome. in the sphere of politics and diplomacy he relied on cunning and deceit rather than statesmanship, and, if he had not represented a spiritual power to which the nations were bound to return in the end, he would have been mercilessly crushed. he had, also, little ability to organize such possessions as he obtained, and his career is marred by violent outbursts and acts of treachery and cruelty. it is sometimes said that he was the greatest pope since innocent iii. one imagines the shade of that great spiritual ruler shuddering; and one is disposed to agree with guicciardini that, if julius was great, a new meaning must be put on the word. he had wonderful energy, and by good fortune his aim was finally attained. in view of this strenuous campaign for the recovery of the papal states, we can expect only a slender record of strictly pontifical work. julius attended to the propagation of the faith in the new lands beyond the seas, and he impelled the inquisitors to check the spread of heresy. that he restrained the spanish inquisition, and supported its exclusion from naples, was not due to humane feeling, but to its exorbitant claims of independent authority. he forbade duelling, and endowed a college of singing for the maintenance of the papal choir. his lateran council was, of course, a political expedient, but there is evidence that when death closed his career julius was turning more seriously to plans of reform. in spite of his own bull against simony, the curia remained as corrupt as ever, and money was raised in all the evil ways known to it. it is, however, curious and creditable to have to place one great reform to the merit of julius. he passed so drastic a decree against corruption at papal elections that the rivals who gathered in rome after his death did not dare to employ bribery. julius is probably most deserving of esteem for his artistic work. the literary parasites who swarmed about his successor have associated the glory of late mediæval rome with the name of leo x., but discriminating research is convincing historians that leo did not even sustain the great work of his predecessor. the bold scheme which julius adopted was due to his artists rather than to his own inspiration, yet he has the distinction--no mean distinction for one immersed, as he was, in an exacting policy--of reflecting at once the vast ideas which were put before him. the new st. peter's which he was compelled to think of building was not intended at first to be of great dimensions, but he accepted bramante's design of a church far larger even than the st. peter's of today, and, in spite of his costly wars, he enabled the architect to employ 2500 workers. he accepted bramante's designs for a new vatican and for the cortile di damaso. he engaged michael angelo to carve a princely marble tomb for himself--his one great luxury--and, when his interest was transferred to the less selfish task of building st. peter's, he set the artist to the execution of his immortal work on the roof of the sistine chapel. michael angelo made also, as i have noted, a great statue of julius at bologna, but this was destroyed at the return of the bentivogli. there were many quarrels between the two men, but michael angelo found in julius a manliness and a greatness of conception, if not a feeling for art, the lack of which he bitterly criticized in leo x. cristoforo romano, sansovino, perugino, signorelli, pinturicchio, and other great artists were enlisted in the work of making the ecclesiastical quarter of rome the artistic centre of the world. some of the finest of the old greek sculptures which were then being sought in the rubbish of mediæval italy were bought for the belvidere, and painters of distinction were richly encouraged. new frescoes and new tombs were ordered in the churches of rome; the walls and aqueducts were repaired; handsome new streets were laid out; and the cardinals and wealthier citizens were moved to co-operate with the pontiff in his plans for the exaltation of rome. we may deplore that the money for these plans was largely obtained by the sale of spiritual offices and indulgences, and we must resent the fact that money obtained by these means was diverted to the purposes of war. but the magnificence of the design and the generosity with which julius prosecuted it as long as he lived seem to be a more solid and enduring merit than his good fortune--for in the decisive stage it was little more--in recovering a rich dominion which would but serve to enhance the frivolity of his successor. footnotes: [footnote 287: burchard, _diarium_, iii., 293.] [footnote 288: guicciardini's _storia d'italia_ and burchard's _diarium_ are the chief authorities, supplemented by the dispatches of the italian ambassadors. there is a slight and somewhat antiquated biography by m.a.j. dumesnil (_histoire de jules ii._, 1873) and an abler study by m. brosch (_papst julius ii._, 1878). j.f. loughlin has a candid account, chiefly based on brosch, of his early career in _the american catholic quarterly review_. special treatises will be noticed in the course of the chapter, but there is little dispute about the facts i give. full references will be found in the very ample, if somewhat lenient, study of dr. pastor (vi.), and in the works of creighton, gregorovius, and von reumont.] [footnote 289: pastor (vi., 244) quotes from the vatican archives a letter in which julius urges the spanish commander at naples to arrest cæsar.] [footnote 290: the date was fixed by the astrologers, but burchard says that, in order to show his contempt for their science, julius unceremoniously entered the town on the previous day. he acted more probably from sheer impatience. more than one event during his pontificate, including his coronation on november 26, 1503, was arranged by the astrologers.] [footnote 291: see a. schulte, _kaiser maximilian i. als kandidat für den papstlichen stuhl_ (1906). the point is disputed.] [footnote 292: quoted by brosch, p. 333.] [footnote 293: priuli (_diario_, ii., 102) says that romans spoke of his "ganymedes."] chapter xiv leo x. and the dance of death when julius ii. made his last survey of the world in which he had played so vigorous a part, he must have concluded that he had placed the papacy on a foundation more solid than any that had yet supported it. the conciliar movement, its most threatening enemy in the mind of the popes, had been discredited by the failure of its latest effort and by the naked ambitions of those who supported it. the princes of the world had proved less stubborn than in the days of the early emperors, and the papacy had now a broad and strong base of secular power. the new culture had been, to a great extent, wooed and won by the pope's princely patronage of art and embellishment of rome; and the inquisition, in one form or other, could silence the intractable. there was still, among the dour and distant northerners, much cavilling at the avarice and luxury of rome, but, if the succeeding popes used the lateran council to ensure some measure of reform, it would diminish; it had, in any case, not yet proved dangerous. neither julius nor any other had the least suspicion that the papacy was within five years of the beginning of an appalling catastrophe. we have, however, seen that the opinions which were to bring about that catastrophe had long been diffused in europe, and a particular conjunction of circumstances might at any time convert them into rebellious action. for more than a century, there had been a critical scrutiny of the bases of papal power, and to a large extent the papacy had escaped the consequences by a greater liberality toward rulers and by sharing with them the wealth it extracted from the people. france maintained the pragmatic sanction, which rome detested, and other countries gave rather the impression of federation than of abject submission to a spiritual autocracy. moreover, while the pressure of the central power was eased, doctrinal rebellion seemed to make little progress. lollardism was extinct, hussitism confined to a sect, savonarolism murdered. yet the reformation was coming, and we see now that luther was but the instrument of its deliverance. it is impossible here to discuss all the causes of the reformation, and a few considerations will suffice for my purpose. printing had been invented and printed sheets were being circulated. men were now reading--which provokes independent reflection--rather than sitting at the feet of oracular schoolmen. among the books which poured out from the press, moreover, the bible--in spite of a popular fallacy on that subject--occupied an important place, even in the vernacular. further--and this was most important of all--the last great extension of the papal fiscal system, the granting of indulgences for money, was in one important respect based on a novel speculation of the schoolmen and was not supported by biblical christianity. the realization of this stimulated men to get behind the fences of decretals and scholastic speculations, and to claim a reform which should be something more than the substitution of a good pope for a bad pope. finally the renewed corruption of the papal court under leo x. set this psychological machinery in conscious motion. twenty-five cardinals were enclosed in the sistine chapel on march 4th for the election of the new pope. wealth was now of no direct avail, for all accepted the bull of julius condemning bribery. some of the poorer cardinals, knowing that their votes were not marketable, had tried to secure the treasure (about 300,000 ducats) left by julius, but the keeper of sant' angelo had been incorruptible. yet we must not emphasize the absence of bribery: there is such a thing as gratitude for favours to come. for nearly a week the enclosed cardinals discussed and negotiated. it is confidently stated that, while the older cardinals were, as usual, divided in allegiance to several of their body, the younger cardinals stood aloof and were secretly resolved to elect giovanni de' medici. cardinal giovanni lay abed in his little cell--imagine the sistine chapel containing thirty-one bedrooms--suffering from fistula. a surgeon was with him in the conclave, and his condition was unpleasantly felt in the sealed room. a close friend of his, bernardo dovizo, or bibbiena as he was commonly called, canvassed for him, and assured the cardinals of his liberal and grateful disposition, his high origin, and his peaceful intentions. he was only thirty-seven years of age, but the older cardinals may have concluded that his malady compensated for his youth. at the first scrutiny, on march 10th, he was elected, and he took the name of leo x. the earlier life of leo x. has been told in the previous chapters. the second son of lorenzo the magnificent, born on december 11, 1475, he was thrust into the ranks of the clergy at the age of seven, he received the title of cardinal at the age of fourteen, and he was openly admitted to the sacred college two years later. he had received a stimulating education from the humanist scholars of florence, and amidst the dissipations of rome he remained a sober and diligent scholar. he retired to florence under alexander vi., and, when his family were driven from power and repeatedly failed to recover it, he travelled in germany, the netherlands, and france. under julius ii., he found some favour and became legate for bologna and romagna. he was captured by the french at the fatal battle of ravenna, but he made his escape on their retreat from italy, and soon afterwards became the chief representative of his house on their restoration to florence. his public record was, therefore, slight, and his time had been mainly devoted to the cultivation of letters and the enjoyment of art, especially music. his interests were so well known that on one of the triumphal arches erected for his coronation it was boldly announced that venus (alexander) and mars (julius) had now made way for minerva; which a more discerning neighbour had modified by erecting an assurance that venus lived for ever. it was, and is, believed that his life before he became pope was free from irregularity. in spite of three fasts a week and a strenuous devotion to the chase, he was an abnormally fat man, and his pale, puffy face was not improved by his large myopic eyes, which saw little without the aid of a glass. but his unfailing smile, his charming manners, his ready wit, his prodigal generosity, and his unalterable love of peace and sunshine promised a genial contrast to the reign of his predecessor, and rome gave him a princely welcome. there are three chief aspects of the pontificate of leo x. which it is material to consider, and, although it is difficult entirely to separate them, it is convenient to attempt this. there is his political--or more correctly his diplomatic--action, which, though, in that machiavellian age, it seemed only a degree worse than was customary, impresses the modern mind as almost revolting in its studied duplicity. there is his personal life, which inspired the reformers with volumes of vituperation, while modern writers seem able to regard it without much sentiment. and there is the pontifical activity which culminates in the struggle with luther. his relation to mediæval art is less important than is commonly supposed. mediæval italy was no place for a prince of peace, and leo soon found that, if he were to avoid the sword, he must follow a crooked course. he sincerely loathed the clash of swords. he loved jewels and music and comedies and books; he wanted to spend the papal treasury in surrounding himself with pretty things and flashes of wit--and he thus spent the whole of julius's 300,000 ducats in two years. but france and venice thirsted for revenge and sought his support; while the envoys of milan, spain, england, and the empire claimed his blessing, and his ducats, for the opposite side. while, however, in the actual condition of italy, the papal states were safe, a victory of france and venice would bring perils. leo secretly joined the holy league against france, and secretly paid for the service of 45,000 swiss mercenaries. the policy turned out well. france was driven back, and the leaders of the schismatical cardinals, carvajal and sanseverino, came to rome, and humbly accepted leo's obedience. france repudiated the schism, and venice, after a desultory struggle, was pacified. leo found some time for domestic matters, of which two may be noted here. on september 23d (1513) he created four cardinals, of whom three were relatives and one a literary friend. bernardo bibbiena (or dovizo) had, as i said, promoted his interest in the conclave, and at earlier times, and was an accomplished literary man; he was also entirely devoid of moral sentiment, composed the most indecent comedy that was enacted at the vatican, and was a genius at organizing festivities. innocenzo cibò, son of innocent viii.'s natural son franceschetto and leo's sister maddalena, was a youth who seemed eager to emulate the scandalous repute of his father. giulio de' medici, cousin of the pope, had already received a papal dispensation from illegitimacy, and the quiet and delicate youth was advanced a little nearer to the papacy. lorenzo pucci, lastly, was quite a distinguished canonist, and a relative of leo; he was also expert in pushing the sale of indulgences and very solicitous about his own commission. leo then regarded the fortunes of the chief lay members of his family. his brother giuliano, a highly cultivated man of thirty-four, was too much softened by vice and indulgence to carry out the medici policy at florence. this policy, embodied in a paper of instructions which there is good reason to ascribe to leo himself, was entrusted to the pope's nephew lorenzo, a vigorous young sportsman. giuliano was made a baron of rome and commander of the papal army--leo remarking that he trusted there would be no demand upon his military talent--and it was so confidently rumoured that the pope proposed to make him king of naples that ferdinand was alarmed and had to be reassured. it is still disputed whether leo really had this intention, or whether he merely proposed to make a small principality in central italy for his worthless brother; nor, in view of the secrecy and duplicity of the pope's methods, is the point ever likely to be settled on a documentary basis. it seems consistent both with the course of events and with leo's character to suppose that he kept both alternatives in mind, but that nepotism was not the _first_ principle of his policy: his fundamental idea was the maintenance of his own luxurious security.[294] in this pleasant promotion of his friends and relatives and their innumerable followers, in the prodigal encouragement of the artists, musicians, poets, and jewellers who flocked to rome from all parts, leo spent two years which were only slightly clouded by the rapid exhaustion of the papal treasury. meantime, however, the political situation had once more claimed his impatient attention, and we may for the moment confine ourselves to that interesting aspect of his work. louis, disgusted with the papacy, approached ferdinand of spain and was prepared to abandon to him his claims on milan, genoa, and naples. this prospect of the enclosure of papal territory in a spanish vice threw the pope into a fit of diplomatic activity. he secretly negotiated with venice and florence and ferrara, and sent a legate to england to help to reconcile henry viii with louis. he trusted to induce these powers to form a league with him for the purpose of driving the spaniards out of italy, and aimed at securing naples for his brother.[295] in october the french king married mary tudor, and the spanish spectre was laid. but, with the unvarying logic of papal politics, the fear of spain was succeeded by a fear of france, and the pope had recourse to the kind of diplomacy which is characteristic of him, and in which, we are assured, he took great pleasure. he made a secret treaty with spain for the defence of italy, and a secret treaty of alliance with louis against spain.[296] he encouraged louis, who held out to him the prospect of naples, to attack italy, and secretly promised to assist milan and the emperor against the french if louis did attack italy, which he thought improbable. he thus, he thought, secured a principality for giuliano, whichever side won. "when you have made a league with one man," he used to say, "there is no reason why you should cease to negotiate with his opponent." this policy, it is recorded, cost leo sleepless nights, though not on account of moral scruples. louis pressed him for a definite alliance against milan, and he tried to evade it by pleading that it was not meet for christian princes to engage in warfare while the turk threatened europe. the death of louis in january (1515) made matters worse, as his successor, francis i., determined with all the vigour and ambition of youth to press the french claims. leo kept a legate negotiating with francis, and we learn from the legate's letters that he offered an alliance on condition that naples should be surrendered to giuliano. in the meantime (february 1st), he secretly approved of the league of germany, spain, switzerland, milan, and genoa against france, and stipulated that he should have parma, piacenza, modena, and reggio; he would pay 60,000 ducats a month to the league, and would induce henry viii.--partly by making wolsey a cardinal--to join it. in july he secretly signed the league, yet continued his deceptive correspondence with france. we have still the document in which leo, after joining the league, offered an alliance to francis on condition that he renounced his claim to parma and piacenza, made peace with spain with a view to meeting the turks, and surrendered his claim to naples "in favour of the holy see or of a third person approved by the holy see."[297] during the campaign which followed, leo wavered according to the news he received. when the french took milan, he made peace with them; they were to respect the position of the medici at florence, and leo was to renounce the papal claim to parma and piacenza. he had, however, a more creditable object in view than the interest of his family. he met francis at bologna, and there can be no doubt that they then agreed to substitute a concordat for the pragmatic sanction of 1438. for the promise of a tithe on his clergy, francis surrendered their gallican privileges, and became, as he thought, the real ally of the pope. leo ordered the swiss to refrain from attacking the french in milan, and listened approvingly to the king's designs on naples. within three months, however, the emperor maximilian led a body of swiss troops, in the pay of henry viii., to an attack on milan, and leo was summoned by francis to dispatch troops in accordance with their agreement. carefully retarding the levy of his troops so that they should not arrive in time, and keeping a legate by the side of maximilian, leo awaited the result. the expedition failed, and he sought favour with the exasperated francis by revealing to him that henry viii. had secretly paid the swiss, and by sending once more an insincere command that the swiss must not dare to attack an ally of the papacy. he sought to retain the favour of maximilian by reminding him that he had sent him two hundred papal horse under mark antonio colonna; and to francis he protested that colonna had acted without permission. he then assured francis that he had sent a legate to induce maximilian to make peace with france, and he gave secret instructions to the legate that such a peace would not be to the interest of the papacy. this is the admitted framework of that diplomacy which roscoe contrives to dress in such opulent phrases, and it was a policy that leo never altered. his next step was to seize the duchy of urbino for his nephew lorenzo: a step which, after all his apologies, dr. pastor admits to have "something repulsive about it." the duke of urbino (nephew of julius ii.) had, in spite of his feudal obligations, refused to attack the french at the command of the pope, and seems to have discussed with francis the duplicity of the pope's procedure. yet his liberality to the medici in the days of misfortune had been such that giuliano earnestly joined with francis i. in imploring leo to overlook his conduct. leo harshly refused, and, to the disgust of many, the duchy was subdued and given to lorenzo. i may conclude this matter by recounting that in 1517 the exiled duke recovered his territory, and the long struggle for his ejection cost the papal treasury, according to guicciardini, 800,000 ducats. a fresh anxiety clouded the pope's pleasures when he heard that france, spain, germany, and switzerland had formed an alliance, and that francis i. and charles v. (who succeeded ferdinand on january 23d) were virtually to divide northern and central italy between them. this project was abandoned, but in the following year an even more serious event alarmed the pope. the younger cardinals who had pressed his election were generally aggrieved. fast and luxurious as most of them were, they had expected a larger pecuniary gratitude on leo's part, and they observed with annoyance that his relatives and his literary admirers secured the greater part of his lavish gifts. in 1517, one of these worldly young cardinals, petrucci, conceived a particular animosity against leo, on account of some injustice done to his brother, and there is little room for doubt that he spoke and thought of having the pope assassinated. whether or no we trust the romantic story told by guicciardini and giovio, that the surgeon who attended the pope was to poison his wound, we can hardly accept the opposite rumour, that the whole conspiracy was invented by the pope or his brother in order to secure money. petrucci was not offered the option of a fine; and cardinals riario and sauli confessed that they knew of the plot. after a dramatic period of inquiry and incrimination petrucci was, in spite of the protests of cardinals and ambassadors, strangled in his prison, and the flesh of his guilty servants was torn from their bones with red-hot pincers. cardinal riario paid 150,000 ducats for his release, and the less wealthy cardinal sauli 25,000. cardinals soderini and castellesi fled, when they were impeached, and their property and that of cardinal petrucci was seized. these events caused the gravest scandal throughout christendom. cardinal riario was the dean of the sacred college, and many preferred to think that the plot was an invention for the purpose of securing funds rather than that the cardinals had sunk so low. the dilemma was painful, but we can have little doubt that leo, at least, was convinced of the reality of the plot. instead of proceeding with greater caution, however, he went on to give a fresh ground of criticism. in a consistory which he held on june 26th, he told the cardinals that he was going to add no less than twenty-seven members to their college. their stormy protests increased his determination, and on july 1st he promoted thirty-one cardinals. the rumour at once spread through christendom, and is in substance undoubted, that most of the new cardinals paid large sums of money for the dignity; sanuto makes individual payments rise as high as 30,000 ducats. some of them were men of low character, and others were either related to, or had lent money to, the pope. we may, however, conclude the political consideration before we discuss these domestic matters. maximilian induced the diet of augsburg to elect his grandson charles as his successor to the imperial title, and, as a bull of julius ii. enacted that the investiture of the kingdom of naples reverted to the papacy if its holder became king of rome, the pope was pressed to give a dispensation from this bull. leo pleaded that his "honour" was at stake; but he secretly negotiated with francis (who bitterly opposed the dispensation) and with charles, and bargained shamelessly for his refusal or consent. in the end francis (out of funds raised in the name of a crusade) gave lorenzo de' medici 100,000 ducats "for services rendered," and promised a further sum of 100,000 to the pope. it is an equally undisputed fact that on january 20, 1519, leo, lorenzo, and francis entered into an alliance; the pope and his nephew were to promote the interests of francis, and the french king was to protect the papal states and the estates of the medici family, and to admit the claims of the church at milan. it is, perhaps, the choicest example of leo's diplomacy--"unparalleled double-dealing," dr. pastor calls it--that he secretly drew up a similar treaty with spain and signed it a fortnight after he had signed the preceding (february 6th). in the meantime leo heard that maximilian had died on january 12th, and he confronted, or evaded, the situation in his distinctive way. he informed his german legate that charles was already too powerful, and that either frederic of saxony (whom he wished to induce to surrender luther) or joachim of brandenburg (a docile noble) ought to have the imperial title. hearing, however, that these candidates had no prospect, he adopted francis i. and urged him to defeat charles. his policy at this stage is not wholly clear, and it is possible that at first he pitted francis against charles in the hope of making profit from one or the other. in time he seems seriously to have adopted francis. he, on march 12th, offered the red hat to the electors of trèves and cologne, and proposed (on the 14th) to make the archbishop of mayence (a disreputable prelate) permanent legate for germany; and he then, on may 4th, issued a brief to the effect that if three electors agreed in their choice the election should be valid. his schemes were shaken for a moment by the premature death of lorenzo, which moved him, in a nervous hour, to exclaim that henceforward he belonged, "not to the house of medici, but to the house of god." but his associates were not kept long in suspense. he attempted to incorporate urbino in the papal states, and, when francis objected that urbino belonged to lorenzo's surviving child (and her french mother), the pope began to abandon france. he was just in time to approve charles and promise a dispensation in regard to naples before that prince was elected to be emperor. but the consciousness of his long opposition to charles weighed upon him, and in september he again made a secret treaty with francis i.; he would refuse the crown of naples to charles and would promote french interests by secular and spiritual weapons in return for the french king's aid against charles and against "insubordinate vassals." vassals of leo x. cannot easily have kept pace with the remarkable policy of their feudal lord, but we are hardly reconciled to the pope's mingled greed and nepotism. he secured perugia and some of the smaller places in ancona and umbria, and made an unsuccessful attempt to get ferrara. during all this time, he listened amiably to german proposals for an alliance, and in the first months of 1521 he again duped the two monarchs. in january--and it was repeated in march and april--he gave the representatives of charles a written assurance that he had no engagements to the disadvantage of that monarch and would not incur any within three months; in the same month (january) he agreed to secure for francis, for the purpose of an attack on naples, a free passage through the swiss lines, and to receive in return ferrara and a strip of neapolitan territory. by this time, however, the shadow of luther had fallen on the papal court. the magnitude of the danger in germany was by no means appreciated, but leo was eager to get luther to rome and must conciliate the emperor. in may, hearing that the french were approaching the swiss and the duke of ferrara, he formed an alliance with charles and prepared to use all his forces to drive his former ally out of italy. the campaign opened successfully, but leo did not live to see the issue and profit by it. he caught a chill as he sat at an open window in november watching the popular rejoicing, and died on december 1st, at the age of forty-two. both the leading authorities, giovio and guicciardini, accept the current belief that either the duke of ferrara or the late duke of urbino had had him poisoned, but it is now generally recognized that the recorded symptoms of his seven days' illness point rather to malaria. this admitted career of duplicity will not dispose us to expect a domestic atmosphere of virtue and piety at the vatican, and it is singular that any historian has affected to find such. that leo heard or said mass daily, and was attentive to his ceremonious obligations, is not, in that age, inconsistent with impropriety of conduct. his lavish charity was a becoming part of his habitual liberality, and his weekly fasts were rather intended to reduce the flesh than to subdue it. on the other hand, some of the frivolous remarks attributed to him have not the least authority. when the venetian ambassador ascribes to him the saying, "let us enjoy the papacy now that god has given it to us," we may or may not have a mere popular rumour, though the phrase is at least a correct expression of leo's ideal; but that the pope ever mockingly attributed his good fortune to "the fable about jesus christ" is not stated until long after his death, and then only by an english controversialist, the ex-carmelite bale. whether leo was or was not addicted to sins of the flesh is not a grave matter of historical inquiry, but the evidence seems to me conclusive that, at least in his pontifical days, he was irregular.[298] the character of life at the vatican and in rome under leo x. was, indeed, such as to prevent us from imputing any moral scruples to the pope. leo spent, on the lowest estimate, five million ducats in eight years, and left debts which are variously estimated at from half a million to a million ducats. he must have spent nearly £300,000 per year, and in order to make his official income of about 400,000 ducats meet this strain he created and sold superfluous offices--they were estimated at 2150 at this death,--pressed the sale of indulgences and the exaction of fees and first-fruits, and borrowed large sums at exorbitant rates of usury; several of his bankers and friends were ruined at his death. a very large proportion of this money went in gifts to literary men and scholars. leo was a royal spendthrift of the most benevolent and thoughtless nature. all the scribblers of italy flocked to rome, and money was poured out without discrimination as long as it lasted. yet letters and scholarship actually decayed owing to the recklessness of the payments. "the splendour of the leonine age, so often and so much belauded, is in many respects more apparent than real," says dr. pastor, who has several valuable chapters on leo's relation to letters and art. the roman university, which the pope at first supported with great liberality, was suffered to decay, and great artists were not always encouraged. ariosto was treated harshly, and, while rafael and his pupils were richly employed, michael angelo was little used. leo did not adequately appreciate sculpture or architecture, and even the building of st. peter's made very little progress during his pontificate. it is true that the state of the papal finances was the chief reason for the neglect of the great architectural and educational plans of his predecessors. the check to the sale of indulgences--brought about by cardinal ximenes in spain as well as by luther in germany--was felt severely at rome.[299] but we read that to the end leo spent prodigious sums on musicians, decorators, goldsmiths, and jewellers. an inventory in the vatican archives values at 204,655 ducats the jewels he left behind. it was, in fact, not so much the discriminating promotion of art and culture as a princely luxuriousness that absorbed leo's funds. he was temperate at table. the cardinals and wealthier romans continued to enjoy the senselessly rich banquets which they seem to have copied from the most decadent pages of roman history. cardinal cornaro is noted as giving a dinner of sixty-five courses on silver dishes. banker chigi, a useful friend of leo, had his valuable plate thrown into the river after one choice banquet; and on the occasion of his marriage with his mistress (whose finger was held by leo to receive the ring) he brought luxuries, even live fish, from the ends of europe. banker strozzi gave rival banquets, at which cardinals fraternized with courtesans. leo approved, and sometimes attended, these banquets (at chigi's palace), but was personally temperate. he had only one meal each day, and fasting fare on three days in each week, but he spent immense sums on musicians and trinket-makers, and many of his pleasures were in the grossest taste of the time. men of prodigious appetite--one of them a dominican friar--were brought to his table to amuse him and his guests by their incredible gluttony. the pope bandied verses with half-drunken poetasters and patronized the coarsest buffoons as well as the keenest wits. when he went to his country house at magliana for a few weeks' hunting--in which he displayed extraordinary vigour--he took a troop of his poets, buffoons, musicians, and other parasites. at carnival time he entered into the wild gaiety of rome; and comedies of the most licentious character were staged before him. ariosto's _suppositi_ (in which cardinal cibò took a part), machiavelli's _mandragola_, and bibbiena's _calandria_ alternated with terence and plautus. the _calandria_, written by cardinal bibbiena, leo's chief favourite, the frescoes of whose bathroom seem to have been like those on certain rooms in pompeii today, is a comedy of thin wit and unrestrained license; the pope had it presented in the vatican for the entertainment of isabella d'este. such was the pope who presided over the lateran council for the reform of the church, and the historian will hardly be expected to enlarge at any length on its labours. julius had initiated the council in order to checkmate france and the schismatical cardinals, and it continued its thinly attended sittings, at wide intervals, for four years. some seventy or eighty italian bishops attended, and they issued some admirable counsels to the clergy to improve their lives, condemned heretical writings, and voiced the sincere wish that some christian prince would arrest the advance of the turks. a committee of the council drew up a stringent and comprehensive scheme for the reform of church-abuses, but this was lost amid the vehement wrangles of monks, bishops, and cardinals. in the end (1514) a very slender reform-bill was issued; nor were the clergy disposed to comply with this when they noticed that, in the following year, leo himself bestowed a bishopric, and soon afterwards the cardinalate, upon the boy-son of emmanuel of portugal, and granted to the father a large share of the proceeds of the issue of indulgences. the council also forbade the printing of books without approbation, and encouraged the spread of banks or pawn-shops (monti di pietà) for the poor. on march 16, 1517, leo, in spite of the murmurs of the reformers and the revolt in germany, brought to a close his almost futile council. he had no desire whatever for reform, and even the measures which were passed were not enforced. the reforming prelates were deeply saddened by his levity, and, before the close of the council, gianfrancesco pico della mirandola drew up in their name an appalling indictment of the state of the church and predicted that the refusal to remedy it would bring on them a heavy judgment. the one work of the council in which the pope took a lively interest was the granting of a concordat to france. the gallican sentiments of the french prelates and doctors had been embodied in the pragmatic sanction (1438), and rome had not ceased to protest against this cession to local councils of the powers it claimed. by the concordat of 1516 the king and the pope virtually divided these powers between them; the king had the right of nomination to bishoprics and abbeys, the pope received the "first-fruits" (annates). the concordat was signed by leo on september 16, 1516, but was not published until 1518, when it caused fierce indignation at the universities and among the clergy. leo had dismissed the reformers of the lateran council, and in the spring of 1517, the very year in which martin luther nailed his challenge on the door of the castle-church at wittenberg, turned with relief to his corrupt court. there had, as we saw, long been an outcry in germany against the corruption of a very large proportion of the clergy and against the papal fiscal system, yet leo had light-heartedly maintained the disorders. in 1514 he had, in order to secure the votes of two electors, conferred the archbishopric of mayence upon a young and worldly noble, albert of brandenburg, and had (for a payment of 24,000 ducats) permitted him still to retain the sees of magdeburg and halberstadt. in order to recover the 24,000 ducats, which he had borrowed on the security of a share in the sale of indulgences, the unscrupulous prelate pressed the traffic eagerly, and some of the more enlightened german clergy protested. there were already princes, such as the elector of saxony, who refused to allow the papal envoys in their dominions, and there were writers, like ulrich von hutten, who violently assailed their procedure. leo, however, failed to appreciate the gravity of the situation and proposed to raise large sums, ostensibly for the building of st. peter's, by granting indulgences. i have already explained that, though john xxiii. undoubtedly sold absolution "from guilt and from penalty," as the council of constance established, the indulgence was, properly speaking, a remission of the punishment due to sins which had been duly confessed. in earlier papal practice, the indulgence was the commutation into a money-payment of the penance for sin imposed by the church, but, as the doctrine of purgatory developed, the indulgence came to be regarded as a remission of the punishment due in purgatory. two questions had then arisen on which the schoolmen had exercised their ingenuity: on what ground could the church claim to remit this punishment, and whether the indulgence could be extended to the dead who were actually suffering in purgatory? the schoolmen found a satisfactory answer to both questions. then boniface ix. decreed that an indulgence might be earned by a payment of money to the church (the price of a voyage to rome), and the way was opened for the later abuse. in their commercial zeal the papal envoys and preachers undoubtedly represented that souls were delivered from the fire of purgatory when the coin rang in their collecting boxes. the dominican monk tetzel, who in 1517 was sent to preach the indulgence as albert of brandenburg's sub-commissary, was more zealous than scrupulous in his representations, and people of wittenberg, who had crossed the frontier in order to profit by the indulgence, came home with unedifying reports of his sermons. martin luther, then a professor at the wittenberg university, heard these reports with disdain. there was no defined doctrine of the church on the subject, and more than one divine had felt, like luther, that this apparent traffic was as enervating to real piety as it was in itself distasteful. a man of intense and stormy spiritual experience, he sternly combated all that seemed to encourage "sloth" in religious life; his was the more arduous religion of st. paul and st. augustine. conscious, therefore, that the whole practice was based on comparatively recent speculations of the schoolmen, which he had a right to dispute, he challenged tetzel to justify his "lying fables and empty promises." a war of pamphlets ensued, and, as his opponents naturally appealed to the language in which the popes had announced indulgences, luther was compelled to slight the words of the popes and appeal to the declarations of councils and the teaching of scripture. he was still orthodox; the language he used had been heard in the church for two centuries, and in that age one would as soon have thought of claiming impeccability as infallibility for the popes. at the beginning of 1518 it was reported to rome that the agitation raised by the robust professor was seriously interfering with the indulgences, and leo, encouraged by the angry dominicans, directed his superiors to restrain him. when they failed, he summoned luther to rome. the monk, knowing how such trials ended at rome, appealed to the elector of saxony and to maximilian. the appeal to the emperor, however, fell at a time when the papal favour was sought for charles, and maximilian encouraged the pope to take action. leo ordered luther to present himself at once before the papal legate and prepare for trial at rome. on the other hand frederic of saxony insisted that luther should be examined in germany, and the pope dreaded to irritate an elector on the eve of an imperial election. legate cajetan was therefore empowered to see the rebel at augsburg, and a series of futile conferences took place on october 12th-14th. luther wished to argue and justify his thesis: cajetan was instructed merely to demand his submission. luther insisted that he should be tried by the learned doctors of basle, freiburg, louvain, and paris: the legate was charged to assert the papal authority. on october 18th luther departed in disgust for wittenberg; and his temper was not improved by the discovery that leo had, on august 23d, directed the legate, in case of obstinacy, to declare him heretical. he appealed to a general council. luther was still within the limits of orthodox sentiment and practice, and the protection of the elector embarrassed the pope. a more diplomatic envoy, karl von militz, a papal chamberlain, was sent to germany, and some months were spent in amiable correspondence. luther promised to be silent if his opponents would keep silence, and wrote a respectful letter to the pope; to which leo made a gracious reply. but the truce was little more than a diplomatic regard for papal interests during the period of the imperial election, and the policy of silence soon proved impossible for both sides. ulrich von hutten and other critics encouraged luther to assail the papal authority, and the exaggerations of his opponents reacted on the growth of his mind. by the end of 1519 he seems to have concluded, with some firmness, that the papal system was an unwarranted addition to primitive christianity, and a formidable movement supported his ideas. in january (1520) luther's case was submitted to a commission of theologians at rome, and the elector was summoned to compel him to retract. frederic refused, and in june leo signed the bull _exsurge domine_; luther was to be excommunicated if he did not submit within sixty days, and the secular authorities would incur an interdict if they did not surrender him. it is not of material interest to quarrel with the pope's procedure: to point out that the disappointed cajetan was one of the heads of the commission of inquiry, and that luther's vehement opponent eck was one of the two legates entrusted with the publication of the bull. rome demanded submission; and, if luther had submitted, some other german would before long have instituted the reformation. europe was ripe for schism, and it may be doubted whether even a reform of the church would have long prevented the growth of a body of men holding the reformers' view of the bases of papal authority. on december 10th (1520) luther publicly burned the bull. even this act was not without orthodox precedent, but luther was constantly advancing. he was summoned before the diet of worms in april (1521), and he then stated that the word of neither popes nor councils would condemn him; he must be judged by reason and scripture. but the political situation, which casts its shadow throughout on the development, was now modified. charles obtained his wish of an alliance with the papacy against france. this alliance was signed on may 8th: on the 12th the diet issued the edict of worms. luther was, in accordance with the pope's second bull,[300] declared a heretic. he retreated to the wartburg under the protection of frederic, and the gravest phase of the struggle opened.[301] leo died in december, as i have stated, leaving to his successor the terrible legacy of his frivolity in face of a grave calamity. in his last two years he apprehended, to some extent, the magnitude of the german trouble, but he plainly proposed to answer the just demand of reform only by the burning of a few heretics. his entirely dishonourable diplomacy and his costly indulgence of tastes which ill befitted a successor of leo i. imposed the last unendurable burden on the patience of europe. for him the papacy was a principality, and the religious nature of its financial sources makes more contemptible the use to which he put his wealth. even that artistic splendour which casts a glow over the papacy before the breaking of the great storm owed to him comparatively little. the middle or secular phase of the development of the papacy came to an end in the tawdry luxuries and unscrupulous measures of a pope who has been treated with singular favour at the bar of catholic history. footnote: [footnote 294: f. nitti, _leo x. e la sua politica_ (1892), seeks to defend leo against the charge of excessive nepotism. he strains the evidence at times, and quite admits that duplicity was the essential feature of the pope's policy. see also his _documenti ed osservazioni riguardanti la politica di leone x._ (1893). a biography of leo was written by the contemporary bishop of nocera, paolo giovio, but this _vita leonis x._ is the work of a courtier. guicciardini (_storia d'italia_), sanuto (_diarii_), and bembo (_opere_) are more critical, and the letters of the roman ambassadors are valuable. p. de grassis, master of ceremonies at the papal court under julius and leo, wrote a _diary of leo x._, but there seems to be some reluctance to publish it. the work published by armellini (_il diario di leone x._, 1884) is merely a discreet compendium of it. fabroni's _leonis x. vita_ is too ancient (1797), and _the medici popes_ (1908) by h.m. vaughan, is an excellent popular work. roscoe's stately _life and pontificate of leo x._ (1805) is too flattering to its hero and is discredited in places by more recent research.] [footnote 295: sanuto, _diarii_, xviii.] [footnote 296: guicciardini, xii. there is a copy of his spanish treaty in the state archives at florence.] [footnote 297: the instruction is reproduced by nitti, p. 61. as the document adds that leo will not allow any prince, "even were it his own brother," to hold "both the head and the tail of italy" (milan and naples), nitti and pastor claim that it shows that nepotism was not the key-note of leo's policy. it seems strange that, in view of all his admitted duplicity, they can take seriously this phrase of the pope's. we may admit, however, that the security of the papal states was the pope's first consideration.] [footnote 298: dr. pastor (viii., 81) is here less candid than usual. he says that "giovio passes over the whole truth of the accusations brought against the moral conduct of leo x.," whereas the bishop of nocera devotes several very curious pages to the subject (lib. iv., pp. 96-99 in the 1551 edition of the _vita leonis x._) and ends with a reminder that we can never be quite sure about the secrets of the chamber and an assurance that leo was at all events less guilty than other italian princes. the courtly writer seems to me convinced that leo was addicted to unnatural vice. vaughan, on the other hand, is wrong in saying that giovio alone mentioned these vices. guicciardini (lib. xvi., c.v., p. 254, in the 1832 edition of the _storia d'italia_), in the course of a sober characterization of leo, says that he was generally believed to be chaste before his election, but he was "afterwards found to be excessively devoted to pleasures which cannot be called decent."] [footnote 299: it is sometimes pointed out, rather in the way of merit, that leo received less than some of his predecessors by the issue of indulgences. it was not from want of will on his part.] [footnote 300: _in coena domini_, march 28th.] [footnote 301: the situation in england does not call for consideration in this chapter. henry viii. wrote against luther and, in presenting his book to the pope, requested a title analogous to that of "the most catholic king." by a bull of october 26, 1521, henry received the title of "defender of the faith," which his successors retain.] chapter xv paul iii. and the counter-reformation the period immediately following the death of leo x. is known as that of the counter-reformation. the name which has clung to the great religious schism of the sixteenth century still indicates how essentially it was, in its origin, a protest against the corruption of the mediæval church. the reform of dogma was an afterthought; and the reformation would probably have proved one more futile and academic criticism of the mediæval growth of doctrine if it had not primarily appealed to the very general resentment against the practices of the curia and contempt for the unworthy lives of so large a proportion of the clergy and regulars. the situation, indeed, offers a romantic aspect to the historian. if a strong and entirely religious man, like cardinal carafa, had succeeded leo x., it might have been possible, by a notable improvement in practice, to disarm a very effective proportion of the followers of the reformers and thus to put back for a century or two the doctrinal revision. unhappily for the papacy, leo x. had filled the sacred college with men of his own disposition, and thirty years were wasted in fruitless efforts at compromise. in those thirty years, the hesitating criticisms of luther crystallized into a settled creed which no persuasion could dissolve and no persecution could obliterate. hadrian vi., who followed leo, spent two unhappy years (1521-3) in a pitiable and wholly vain attempt to save the authority of the popes in northern europe. sprung from a pious working-class family of the low-lands, and retaining his simple tastes and stern religious idealism in the evil atmosphere of the higher clergy, he sincerely resented the vices and frivolity of the cardinals. rome itself now ridiculed so fiercely the contrast between their pretensions and their lives that the worldly cardinals were unable to put into power a man like leo x., and the learned, venerable, and more or less disdained hadrian vi. shuddered to find himself at the helm on so stormy a sea. he was not the type of man to save the church. with simple fidelity, he at once made it clear that the debased policy of his predecessor was abandoned; but he had not the strength to control the crowd of discontented cardinals and prelates, or to frame and carry through a consistent scheme of reform. he was concerned, too, about the financial loss which would be caused by a thorough reform, and the traffic in benefices and indulgences was merely moderated instead of being abolished. the curtailment was in itself a confession that the system was corrupt, and the reformers scoffed at hadrian's invitation to return on such a basis, while orthodox catholics deplored the candour of the admission. between these antagonistic and weighty forces the slender energy of the well meaning pontiff was exhausted in two years. the pontificate of clement vii. (1523-34) was a compromise; he was a medicean pope (giulio de' medici), a patron of art and letters, but a man of sober taste and regular life. it was a compromise, too, between a keen intelligence and a flabby will--a sagacious perception of the danger and a complete lack of the virility needed to avert it--and eleven further years of impotence permitted the reformation to take deep and indestructible root in germany. clement vii. was, in fact, largely absorbed in the unending political struggle. after some vacillation he allied himself with france against charles v., and charles won. rome had to endure one of the most cruel and most prolonged pillages in its history, and the pope was for seven months imprisoned in sant' angelo. he made peace with charles, but he had little satisfaction in contemplating the imperial shadow which lay over fallen italy, while the turks came ever nearer and no christian monarch would advance against them. in these circumstances, protestantism became a creed and spread over the north. henry viii. married anne boleyn and became the "defender" of a new faith; and the revolt spread to switzerland and scandinavia. the scanty measures of reform passed by clement were regarded with disdain by the dissenters, and the artistic renaissance itself never recovered from the sack of rome and the overrunning of italy. it was left to the founders of new religious congregations, especially the oratorians, theatines, and barnabites, and to the reformers of the older orders, to lay the foundations of the counter-reformation. clement died on september 25, 1534, and the college of cardinals, which had almost become the curse of the church, met to elect a successor. few of these cardinals, even now, grasped with any intelligence the grave situation of their church. it was, indeed, feared that, while the reform was spreading rapidly in the north, the conclave would be wrecked by the conflict of the french and imperialist partisans. the struggle was so menacing that a politically neutral cardinal was forced upon the college, and the graver need of the church--the need of a pontiff of the most sincere and spontaneous religion, as well as of large mind and inflexible will--was almost unnoticed. alessandro farnese, who now became paul iii.,[302] was a man of high intelligence, fine culture, and great will-power; but he had neither the immaculate record and deep piety which were needed to impress the reformers nor the political decision which might have compensated for these defects. however much the historian may appreciate the difficulties of the papacy, he cannot but recognize that the idea of compromising with the reformers had at least since 1520 been futile. paul iii. had, it is true, no idea of compromise: the dissenters were to surrender every doctrinal and disciplinary claim, or to be extinguished. the great european schism could now have been remedied by no man. but a reform of the church on other than doctrinal matters might have done much to arrest the spread of protestantism, and on this paul compromised. his policy was a reflection of his personality; he was a son of the renaissance church, and feebly--in spite of his admitted strength of will--he endeavoured to retain certain pleasant features of the vicious _ancien régime_ with which to soften the asperity of the new ideal which was forced upon him. he was in a sense a papal louis xviii. we remember paul as the brother of alexander vi's doll-like mistress, giulia farnese. born on february 29, 1468, he had received early instruction in the new culture from pomponio leto at rome, and had spent his youth in that seminary of the humanists, the splendid palace of lorenzo de' medici at florence, and then at pisa university. his wealth was far inferior to the nobility of his descent, and it was not until his young sister had attracted the eye of the voluptuous pope that he was promoted to the cardinalate (september 20, 1493). in 1502, he was appointed legate for the march of ancona, and the more comfortable establishment he could now afford to maintain included a mistress. four children--pier luigi, paolo, costanza, and ranuccio--were born in his palace between 1502 and 1509; and the eldest son and costanza were familiar figures in roman society during his later pontificate. the more minute inquirer will find the documents transcribed from the vatican archives, relating to these children, in pastor.[303] his mistress died at an early age in 1513, and alessandro (now forty-five years old) is described as moderating his irregularities and as devoting some attention to his bishopric of parma. papal historians observe with pride that his irregularities entirely ceased in 1519, when he was ordained priest. the friend of his youth, leo x., cordially included him in his generous patronage, and he was able to build the farnese palace and to cultivate ambition. in 1523, he made an effort to secure the tiara, but at the conclave the cardinals had not the courage to present to the reformers as pontiff the father of four children. he stifled his lament that clement vii. had "robbed him of ten years of the papacy," and became as amiable a friend of that pope as he had been of his five predecessors; and amidst the fierce clash of political passion he retained a diplomatic neutrality. he shared clement's bitter days in sant' angelo, yet did not quarrel with the imperialists. these characteristics marked alessandro for the throne; and they at the same time ensured that his struggle with protestantism would be entirely futile. he was now sixty-seven years old, and we easily picture him from titian's wonderful portrait; frail and worn in flesh and stooping with age; yet his penetrating eyes and large bald dome of a forehead indicated a great energy of will and force of intellect. he was essentially a diplomat, and the cardinals, absorbed for the most part in the political troubles, did not reflect that the rapier of diplomacy was the last weapon with which to meet the stout staves of the northerners. he was an excellent listener, a sparing and deliberate talker, a most skilful postponer of crucial decisions; a "_vas dilationis_," the roman wits said, parodying the description of a greater paul. dr. pastor thinks that the reforming cardinals--of whom there were now many--had much confidence in his disposition to reform. if they had, their trust is in the main another tribute to his diplomatic skill. he had no idea of reforming the curia and the church further than might be exacted of him by unpleasant circumstances. shrewd observers must quickly have observed that paul iii. remained at heart a farnese. his son, pier luigi, visited him in rome soon after his election. pier luigi had become a military adventurer, a feeble emulator of cæsar borgia, and by taking arms in the imperialist service, had incurred excommunication under clement. paul is said to have received his son in secret and directed him to keep away from rome. there was to be no open nepotism. but in a few weeks pier luigi was back in rome and was observed to have plenty of money. paul was crowned on november 3d (1534) and announced his intention to reform the church. on, december 18th he bestowed the cardinalate on two of his nephews, guido sforza and alessandro farnese. sforza was a youth of seventeen; alessandro was a fourteen-year old pupil at bologna, yet he received, besides the red hat, the governorship of spoleto and such a number of profitable benefices that he was soon able to outshine some of the more ostentatious cardinals; and in the next year he was made vice-chancellor. both he and sforza were notoriously immoral. pier luigi was made gonfaloniere, commander of the papal troops, and duke of castro; and proportionate benefits were showered on all friends and connexions of the farnese family. it would not be history to dwell on the "obstinacy" of the reformers and to fail to emphasize these very pertinent and entirely undisputed facts; but i will dismiss in few words this aspect of paul's character. nepotism was one of his most persistent traits, and we shall repeatedly find his direction of papal policy perverted by a care for the worldly advancement of his family. he was equally unable and unwilling to break with the gayer tradition of the borgia-medici court. he loved pageantry and comedy, encouraged the merry riot of the carnival, favoured astrologers, buffoons, and pseudo-classical poets, and liked to dine with fair women. it is, perhaps, not much to say that his private life--at the age of seventy--was irreproachable; but it is not immaterial to observe that he gave an indulgent eye to the conduct of the looser cardinals. instead of sternly attempting to crush that large body of loose and luxurious cardinals to whom, in the first place, we may trace the catastrophe of the church, he added, at each promotion, a few to their number. of the seventy-one cardinals he promoted during his pontificate the great majority were good men; but a few were of such a character that their election was, in the actual situation of the church, unpardonable. these little personal details must be considered first if we are to understand aright the attitude of paul iii. toward reform and the reforming council. from the first he assured his visitors that he intended to reform the church. before the end of 1534, he appointed two reform commissions--one on morals and the other on church offices; though he chilled the zeal of the more ardent cardinals by enjoining them to take into account the circumstances. in the spring of 1535, he prosecuted cardinal accolti for grave abuse of his position of legate, but compromised for a fine of 59,000 scudi. the reformers of germany had from the first appealed to a council, and paul declared himself in favour of a council; but he insisted that it must be summoned by him, presided over by his legates, and held in italy; and this not only the princes of the schmalkaldic league but the three monarchs concerned emphatically refused. charles v. saw that such a council would be--as paul iii. well knew--utterly useless as an instrument of reconciliation; francis i. did not want reconciliation at all, since it would give to charles command of a united germany; and henry viii., who accepted the title of head of the english church in 1534, and in the following year initiated his policy of bloody persecution, had done with rome. in fact, instead of giving all the negotiations about a council, i would point out that there never was the slightest hope by such a means of ending the schism. each side was absolutely convinced of the truth of its formulas, and very few, least of all the pope, thought that compromise was possible or desirable. luther was quite willing to attend a council, even in italy; but merely in order to convince the church of its errors and abominations. the pope wanted a council merely in order to formulate catholic doctrine in clear official terms and thus to provide a standard for the condemnation and extermination of the heretics. no pope could think otherwise. paul at length ventured to announce "to the city and the world" that a general council would be held at mantua on the 23d of may, 1537; but when the duke of mantua directed the pope to send an army to protect his council, the design was abandoned. a bull next announced that the council would meet at vicenza on may 1, 1538; but as only five prelates had arrived there when, on may 12th, the three papal legates made their imposing entry--after waiting in nervous hope some distance away--that project, also, was abandoned. i would not agree that paul did not sincerely want a council, but during the first ten years the council he wanted was an impossibility. meantime, the idea of reform by commissions was sustaining the half-desperate hopes of the better cardinals at rome. in february, 1537, the commission drew up so sound and true and large a scheme of reform that the anti-reformers successfully pleaded that it would injure the church to publish it, and it remains "a scrap of paper" in the vatican archives. after much discussion, paul decided to begin with the reform of the dataria (an office of the court which yielded more than 50,000 ducats a year, nearly half the entire income, to the papal exchequer in connexion with the issue of graces, privileges, dispensations, etc.), and a further long discussion ensued. the discussion lasted some three years, without practical issue, and it was not until the end of 1540 that a few obvious reforms could be carried in some of the departments of the curia. characteristic is the story of one of these reforms. pressed by the sterner cardinals, who wrote grave letters to each other on the pope's conduct, to put an end to the scandal of non-resident prelates (absentee landlords), paul summoned eighty of them, who were living in comfort at rome, to return to their dioceses. there was terrible alarm. but they successfully pleaded that they could not live on the mere incomes of their sees, and they remained in rome. paul had to be content with discharging a few officials, directing the clergy to reform their lives and their sermons, and encouraging the new religious congregations: among which was a certain very small community, calling itself the "company of jesus," which seemed to him, when it first appeared in rome, eccentric and of very doubtful value to the church. in the meantime, paul had successfully maintained the political neutrality which he had from the first contemplated. francis and charles both sought alliance with him, and he tried instead to reconcile them and avert war. it is to his credit that when charles, perceiving his weakness, offered, as the price of alliance, the marquisate of novara to pier luigi and a principality in naples to pier's son ottavio, paul still refused. but the fact that in 1536 he received charles with great pomp at rome irritated francis, and war broke out.[304] in view of the advances of the turks, paul went in person to nice, in the spring of 1538, and reconciled the two monarchs, but his nepotism again mars the merit of this work. he arranged that his grandson ottavio, a boy of thirteen, should marry the emperor's natural daughter, margaret of austria, a girl-widow of sixteen, who hated the boy; and their connubial arrangements added, for many years, to the scandal or the gaiety of rome. paul was also severely blamed for the unscrupulous way in which he wrested the duchy of camerino from the varani and gave it to ottavio. when francis violently objected to this virtual alliance, paul married his granddaughter vittoria to a french prince. nor were the reformers pleased when they learned that, in return for the emperor's natural daughter, the pope had granted to charles the right to publish indulgences in spain, and had given him other privileges which would yield him a million ducats a year of church money; and that neither francis nor charles would help italy to face the turks. the unchecked advance of the turk had, indirectly, another grave disadvantage for the papacy. charles needed the united forces of his dominions to meet the turks, and the protestants profited by his need. whatever may be said about the amiable intentions of paul iii., at an earlier date, he now plainly designed to crush the followers of the reformers in the field. he sent his grandson, cardinal alessandro farnese, to the courts of francis and of charles, and the instructions which he gave him, as well as the letters of the cardinal himself, show that he sought, not only their support of his italian council, but the co-operation of the monarchs against the turks and the protestants.[305] both refused, and charles, in spite of the pope's vehement objections, consented to the holding of another conference or discussion with the representatives of the protestants. the conference took place at hagenau on june 12th, and had, of course, no result, but a fresh attempt was made at worms in january 1541, and paul sent bishop campeggio and four theologians to meet the protestant divines. it is needless to discuss the colloquy in detail, since such experiments never had the least prospect of success, but the next conference is of some interest. some of the german princes, like the duke of bavaria, had no wish to see a religious reconciliation, since their ambition had a larger chance of success in a disunited empire; and francis i. was only too eager to support these princes.[306] other vassals of the emperor were irreconcilable protestants. but there were on both sides a few men of a moderate disposition, who believed that a round-table conference might still secure religious peace, if not the old unity. charles v. was of this opinion, and he made it a test of the pope's sincerity that he should co-operate in a last attempt. cardinal contarini, a man of impressive character and considerable ability, was sent as legate, and for some time before the opening of the diet of ratisbon, he zealously endeavoured to find the dogmatic formulæ which had some prospect of common acceptance. charles had begged the pope to confer large powers of concession on his legate, but we now know that paul gave him but slender authority, couched in the vaguest of language.[307] if any attempt were made to settle important points of doctrine, he was to protest and leave the diet. in a later instruction, he warned contarini not to allow the emperor to suspect that rome favoured the use of force rather than persuasion, and to say, in regard to the proposal that the papacy should send 50,000 scudi for the purpose of bribing influential protestants, that such a design seemed neither decent nor safe, but that the 50,000 scudi would be sent "for distribution," if, and when, a reconciliation was effected.[308] it is plain that paul foresaw the complete failure of the colloquy--we must remember that success depended entirely on _concession_ and no pope could make a concession on doctrine--and intended to make the failure a ground for an appeal to arms. the diet opened on april 27, 1541, and in a few weeks contarini and his friends announced with sincere joy that they had reached a common formula on so delicate a topic as justification. this agreement had been reached by the papal legate accepting a semi-heretical formula, which rome afterwards rejected. but the futility of the proceedings soon became apparent. when they went on to discuss transubstantiation and penance, priestly celibacy and monastic vows, the antagonism became acute, and the colloquy ended in disorder. the pope rejected all the formulas approved by his legate, and wrote him, on june 10th, that he was sending the 50,000 scudi, and would send a larger sum if the catholics found it necessary to draw the sword against the heretics. some of the stricter cardinals at rome, such as carafa and toledo, were now convinced that force was necessary. in september (1541) the pope met the emperor at lucca. charles insisted that the council, whatever form it took, must be held in germany, but paul pleaded that he wished to preside in person and that his age forbade so lengthy a journey. we shall hardly be unjust if we regard these pleas as pretexts. the forthcoming council was, in the pope's view,--an inevitable view,--to be a canonical gathering for the stricter definition of the doctrines already rejected by the reformers; when that council had formulated the faith, the secular powers must deal with any who dissented from it. paul still fought for the holding of the council in italy, where he could overwhelm the protestant envoys, but as it became entirely certain that not a single protestant would come to italy, he spoke of cambrai, metz, and other alternatives, and at length consented to trent. still there was much friction, and many were not yet convinced that the pope sincerely desired a reform-council. francis i. angrily exclaimed that this council seemed to be an imperial concern, and he refused to publish the bull of convocation. charles, on the other side, was annoyed to find that in the bull he was put on a level with that perfidious ally of the infidel, francis i., and he threatened to keep his german prelates from going to trent. but the pope energetically overbore all opposition, and the historic council of trent was announced for november 1st. in the meantime (july, 1542), the pope reconstituted the inquisition in italy and put it under the control of the more fanatical cardinals like carafa. it was empowered to imprison heretics, confiscate their goods, and (with the use of the secular arm) to put them to death. dr. pastor deplores that the vatican authorities still refuse to allow access to the records of the roman inquisition, so that we are very imperfectly acquainted with its work. the papal legates arrived at trent with great pomp, on november 22d, three weeks after the appointed date, yet not a single bishop had appeared. six weeks later the arrival of two bishops gave them a slender satisfaction, but by the end of march not more than a dozen bishops--and these mostly italians--had reached the seat of the council. neither germans nor french would come, and the italians thought it prudent not to arrive in a body so as to give to the council a national complexion. in the summer, paul went to confer with charles at parma, but the issue of their conference was a bitter disappointment for the catholic reformers. paul proposed to suspend the opening of the council and to transfer it from trent, and begged the emperor to bring about a compromise with france, by yielding milan to the pope's nephew, ottavio. charles refused to assent, and paul, on his own account, suspended the council and began to look to francis i. for the aggrandizement of his family. the events which followed make the historian wonder that any have attempted to clear the character of paul iii. of disgraceful nepotism and insincerity. charles v. sought alliance with henry viii., and paul sent his nephew, cardinal farnese, to the court of francis i. in that grave crisis of the church's fortunes, we have the catholic emperor in alliance with henry viii., the most catholic king in alliance with the turks, and the pope seeking, with a notoriety which gave great scandal, the enrichment of his illegitimate children and other relatives. vittoria farnese, the pope's granddaughter, was betrothed to the duke of orleans, and the pope promised her, from the patrimony of st. peter, the duchies of parma and piacenza as her dowry. charles angrily threatened to invade rome, and the spanish and german envoys at the vatican used language which had rarely been heard in the papal chambers. it is put to the credit of the pope only that he refused still to disown or condemn charles, as francis demanded, and that he earnestly sought to reconcile the monarchs. in september, his efforts bore fruit in the peace of crespy. yet we must recall that, as all acknowledge, paul was in part concerned for the security of his family in refusing to incur the hostility of charles; and we know that a secret clause of the treaty of crespy compelled francis and charles to unite for the purpose of destroying the protestants as well as the turks. it was also stipulated at crespy that the council should at last begin its labours, and paul announced that it would open at trent on march 25, 1545. but the attempt was again abortive, and only two bishops greeted the papal legates on the appointed date. the catholic monarchs did not believe that the pope was sincere, and the protestants were violently opposed to a council on the orthodox catholic lines. cardinal farnese was sent to induce the emperor to send his german bishops, and we now find charles leaning more decidedly to the plan of coercion and war. cardinal farnese writes in high spirits to his uncle that charles is, in alliance with the papacy, about to make war on the protestants; and it is unhappily characteristic that he adds that this alliance may turn to the great profit of the farnese family.[309] in fact, the cardinal returned to rome with all speed, in disguise, and paul promised 100,000 ducats and 12,000 men for the war, besides granting charles a half-year's income of the spanish church and permission to raise 500,000 ducats by the sale of monastic property. the eagerness of the pope at this adoption of a design he had so long cherished may be judged from the fact that his courier to charles left rome on june 16th and reached worms by the 23d. charles, however, had begun to waver in his brave resolution, and the war was postponed; but the advancement of the farnesi was not forgotten. the duchies of parma and piacenza were now given to pier luigi, and the pope met the violent protests of the cardinals with a statistical "proof" that the duchies were of less value than a few small places which his son surrendered to the holy see. the annoyance of the reforming prelates was complete when the pope issued a medal representing a naked ganymede leaning on an eagle and watering the lily which was the emblem of the farnese family.[310] charles would not consent to the removal of the council to bologna, and it was at length opened at trent on december 13, 1545, with an attendance of four archbishops and twenty-one bishops. the first session was purely formal, and the second session (january 7th) was occupied by a violent discussion on procedure. the emperor feared that a formulation of catholic doctrines would close the door of the church definitively against the germans, and he insisted that the reform of morals and discipline must come first. paul feared that, if the question of reform came first, the council would almost resolve itself into a trial of the papacy; and there is good ground to think that, on the other hand, he wanted the doctrines in dispute formulated as a preliminary step to the more drastic condemnation of the reformers. the conflict ended in compromise: each sitting of the council was to consider both doctrine and reform. the correspondence of the legates with the pope[311] shows how vehemently paul fought for his plan, and it was only at their very grave and emphatic assurance that reform must proceed--that deeds, not bulls, were wanted, as they put it--that he agreed to the compromise. the fathers of the council, who, at the end of june, had risen in number to about sixty, had held two further sessions, and had discussed only a few dogmas and measures of reform when their labours were again suspended by the outbreak of the religious war. the protestants had naturally refused to attend the papal council, and had continued to spread their faith in the north. paul, therefore, urged charles to carry out his design of repressing them by arms, and in june (1546) a secret treaty was signed by charles v., the duke of bavaria, ferdinand i., and the pope uniting their forces for an attack upon the schmalkaldic dissenters. in order to prevent charles from again losing his resolution, the pope dishonourably communicated this treaty to the protestants, nor was charles less angry with paul for representing to france, poland, and venice that the impending struggle was a religious crusade in which any catholic people might assist. it was the policy of charles to place his enterprise on purely secular grounds. there was again grave friction between charles and the pope, and the farnesi mingled with the graver issues a petulant complaint that charles had done so little for them. the protestants, however, were badly organized and were soon defeated. paul bitterly complained that charles would not follow up his victory by initiating a policy of persecution in south germany, and would not, when henry viii. died (1547), join forces with francis i. for the invasion of england; and another fiery quarrel ensued. the prelates at trent conceived that they were menaced by the distant and subdued protestants, and paul quickly availed himself of the apprehension to demand a removal to italy. charles went so far as to threaten to confiscate the whole of the property of the church in germany, but a convenient epidemic broke out at trent and paul removed the council to bologna. another year was spent in discussion as to the validity of the transfer, and the rumour that the pope secretly desired to frustrate the work of reform once more gained ground. this is, as i explained, a half-truth. but so little reform was actually achieved during the life of paul that i need not deal further here with the council of trent. the year 1648 was filled with the acrid conflict of pope and emperor. paul drew nearer to france, and rome, believing that at length the pope was about to abandon his policy of neutrality, prepared once more for invasion. charles made no descent on italy, but he now took a step which seemed to the pope almost as scandalous an outrage. he issued his famous interrim: a document which enacted that, until the points in dispute were settled by a council, priests might marry, the laity might communicate from the chalice, and vague and conciliatory interpretations might be put on the doctrines of the church. in spite of the intrigues of france, paul wearily maintained his negotiations with charles, and, to the last, pressed the ambitions of his family. in october (1549), however, his favourite grandson rebelled against his decision in regard to parma, and the aged pope abandoned the unhappy struggle. he died on november 10th of that year. in spite of the efforts of some recent historians, the character of paul does not stand out with distinction in the papal chronicle. his lamentable nepotism mars his whole career, and his real reluctance to press the work of reform did grave injury to his church. he belonged essentially to the earlier phase of the papacy, and it is apparent that, if he could have extirpated protestantism by the sword, the papacy would have returned to the more decent levities of the days of leo x. as it was, he did comparatively little for either culture or religion. he very cordially employed michael angelo and sangallo, and showed a concern for the antiquities and the monuments of rome. he had ability, power, and taste; but he had not that fiery will for reform and that deep religious faith which were needed in that hour of danger. footnotes: [footnote 302: for the valuable letters of the italian ambassadors at the time of the conclave see _l'elezione del papa paolo iii._ (1907) by p. accame. an almost contemporary biography of paul is given in the _vitæ et res gestæ romanorum pontificum_ of ciaconius.] [footnote 303: xi., 19-20.] [footnote 304: see, for this aspect of paul's pontificate, an article by l. cardauns, "paul iii., karl v., und franz i.," in _quellen und forschungen aus italienischen archiven_, bd. xi., heft i., pp. 147-244. the writer holds that an alliance with charles was advisable with a view to crush protestantism. there is certainly much evidence that paul wished to discover which of the rival monarchs would do most for his children, yet he assuredly had a sincere desire for neutrality.] [footnote 305: see _nuntiaturberichte aus deutschland_, edited by w. friedensberg, v. 140 and 59. many useful documents will also be found in h. loemmer's _monumenta vaticana historiam ecclesiasticam sæculi xvi. illustrantia_, 1861.] [footnote 306: see the report of the venetian ambassador in _le relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti_, edited by c. alberi, 1st series.] [footnote 307: e. dietrich, _kardinal contarini_ (1885), p. 565.] [footnote 308: this curious side-light on the history of the reformation is given, in a document reproduced from the secret archives of the vatican, by dr. pastor (xi., 431).] [footnote 309: farnese's letter to the pope is reproduced by a. von druffel, _karl v. und die römische kurie_, ii., 57.] [footnote 310: it is described in a. armand, _les médailleurs italiens_, i., 172.] [footnote 311: see pallavicini's _istoria del consilio di trento_, bks. vi. and vii.] chapter xvi sixtus v. and the new church the council of trent, which had been convoked with the formal aim of healing the great schism of christendom, hardened that schism and made it irremediable. i have already observed how natural it was that the papacy should refuse to make open confession of its decay, and in some degree surrender its authority, by permitting the church to reform, not only its members, but its head. the inevitable conception of the popes was to retain the work of reform in their own hands and to use the council, if council there must be,--we have seen that popes had reason to look with suspicion on councils,--to secure an agreement on doctrinal standards by which the inquisitors might judge, and secular princes might exterminate, heretics. they miscalculated the power of the northern rebels and the chances of an unselfish cohesion of the catholic princes against them. nearly half of europe adopted a new version of the christian faith, and, when the thirty years' war finally proved the indestructibility of that creed, the task of the papacy was narrowed to the ruling and reforming of southern europe and the spiritual conquest of the new worlds which had appeared beyond the seas. for this fourth phase of papal development--the period from the consolidation of the reformation to the first outbreak of modernism in the french revolution--the pontificates of sixtus v. and benedict xiv. are the most illuminating and significant. even the failure of paul iii. did not entirely banish from the vatican the levity which had been the immediate cause of its disaster. julius iii. (1550-1555) at first resumed, somewhat reluctantly, the sittings of the council of trent, but he again suspended its work in 1552 and entered upon a period of luxurious ease and frivolous enjoyment which deeply shocked the graver cardinals. at his death the fiery neapolitan reformer, cardinal carafa, who had dictated the more severe decisions of paul iii., received the tiara, and he spent four energetic years (1555-1559) in a relentless attack upon heresy in catholic lands. he made vigorous use of the inquisition, which paul iii. had (largely at the instigation of st. ignatius) set up in rome, and he published a complete index of prohibited books.[312] but his reforms, his heresy-hunts, and his hostility to spain were enforced with such harshness that the romans almost cursed his memory when his short pontificate came to an end. it is a singular illustration of the tenacity of abuses at rome that even the austere carafa was a nepotist, and the nephews he favoured were of so unworthy a character that they were executed--though one of them was a cardinal--by his successor. pius iv. (1559-65) was a more persuasive reformer: a milanese of lowly origin but of some distinction in canonical scholarship. he guided to their close the labours of the council of trent,[313] and on january 26, 1564, put the papal seal on the precise formulation of the roman creed. pius v. (1565-72) brought to the papal throne the austere ideals of a sincere dominican monk. he was not content with persecuting the italians who criticized the papacy; he did much to reform the papal court and the city. gregory xiii. (1572-85), a scholarly pope, mingled in strange proportion the virtues and vices of his predecessors. his name survives honourably in the gregorian calendar, and he did more than any other pope to encourage the spread of that network of jesuit colleges throughout southern europe which proved so effective a hindrance to the advance of protestantism; but the _te deum_ he sang over the foul "st. bartholomew massacre" (1572) and the condition of infuriated rebellion in which he left the papal states at his death betray his defects. the papal income had fallen considerably since the loss of england and north germany and scandinavia, yet gregory wished to pay heavy subsidies to the militant catholic princes. he imposed such taxes, and aroused such fierce anger by seizing estates after disputing the title-deeds of the owners, that italy almost slew him with its hatred. in these circumstances the famous sixtus v. mounted the papal throne. felice peretti had been born at grottamare, in the march of ancona, on december 13, 1521. the unwonted vigour of his character is traced by some to the dalmatian blood of his ancestors, who, in the preceding century, had fled before the turks to italy. they had preserved their robust health, and attained no fortune, by work on the soil, and there is not the least improbability in the tradition--which some recent writers resent--that felice at one time tended his father's swine.[314] but at the age of nine he was sent to the friary at montalto, where he had an uncle, and he proved a good student. he became so excellent a preacher that he was summoned to give the lenten sermons at rome in 1552, and he attracted the notice of st. ignatius and st. philip neri, and of some of the graver cardinals. after presiding over one or two convents of his order, he was put in charge of the friary at venice in 1556, and was in the next year made counsellor to the inquisition. his ardent nature and strict ideals caused him to use his powers with such harshness that both his brethren and the venetian government attacked him. he was forced several times to retire, and in 1560 rome was definitively compelled to withdraw him. the fact that he had been thwarted by lax brethren and by an (from the roman point of view) irreligious government commended the fiery monk still further to his reformer-friends. he received a chair at the sapienza (roman university) and was made counsellor to the holy office. in 1565 cardinal buoncompagni was sent on a mission to spain, and, apparently to the cardinal's disgust, the learned friar was included in his train. the sincerely religious temper of sixtus v. makes it difficult for some of his biographers to understand his very original character. in spite of his virtue he was quite clearly ambitious,--one must live in the ecclesiastical world to realize how the ambition of power and the ambition to do good fuse with each other in the clerical mind,--he had an atrocious temper, and he retained what higher-born prelates would call the rudeness of a peasant. he quarrelled with buoncompagni, and, as the mission was never really discharged, he had no opportunity to distinguish himself. however, the new pope (for whose election buoncompagni returned prematurely to rome) was the friendly dominican colleague, pius v. padre montalto was made vicar apostolic over the franciscan order--the general having died--and he made a drastic effort to reform the reluctant friars and nuns (1566-1568). for this he received the red hat (1570) and was entrusted with the task of editing the works of st. ambrose. unhappily for the ambitious cardinal-monk, pius v. died in 1572, and cardinal buoncompagni ascended the throne and took the name of gregory xiii. he withdrew the pension which pius had assigned to felice, and for the next thirteen years the cardinal had to live in retirement and comparative poverty. in this again the very original character of peretti reveals itself. one might expect that so stern a monastic reformer would retire to a friary when the papal court no longer required his presence, but he retired, instead, to his very comfortable palace and garden on the esquiline. he had brought his sister camilla and her son francesco to live in this palace, and even romance and tragedy entered the friar's home. francesco had married a beautiful and light-minded roman girl, and her brother, paolo orsini, murdered francesco in order to set her free for a nobler lover. the uncle could get no redress under gregory xiii. he curbed his anger, quietly bent over his books, and watched the rising storm in italy which was to close gregory's reign. gregory died on april 10, 1585, and cardinal montalto was enclosed with his colleagues in the sistine chapel on april 21st for the making of a new pope. he was in his sixty-fourth year, and his more malicious biographer would have us believe that he disguised his robustness under a pretence of decrepit age in order to deceive the cardinals. the fact seems to be that he waited quietly, and without taking sides, in his cell until the factions had worn themselves out and the hour had come for choosing a man who had not been regarded as _papabile_. most assuredly he deceived the cardinals, though not by any dishonest artifice. for three days the medici and colonna and farnese, and the french and spanish factions, fought their traditional battle, and not one of the aspirants could get a majority. then one or two cardinals bethought themselves of this quiet cardinal montalto, who had lived away on the esquiline with his rustic sister for so many years, and who would surely be grateful to any for elevating him to the throne. they visited montalto and found him humbly and gratefully disposed: they intrigued nervously and rapidly in the little colony: and presently cardinals rushed to do homage to the former swineherd and applaud the pontificate of sixtus v. he was duly grateful, for a few days. lucrative appointments were at once divided amongst his friends and supporters; though some fear seized men when one of the cardinals ventured to bring before the new pope the murderer of his nephew, and sixtus, in sombre and terrible accents, bade the orsini go and rid himself of his cut-throats. he was crowned on may 1st, and he lost little time in applying himself to the drastic schemes of reform which he had, apparently, matured in his peaceful garden on the esquiline. yet the first act of the reformer betrays a defect and compels us to deal at once with the chief irregularity of his conduct. after the unhappy nepotism of paul iv., that ancient and disreputable practice had been severely condemned, yet we find it flagrantly and immediately revived by sixtus himself. it was, as we shall see, an essential part of his scheme to reform the college of cardinals, and he would presently enact that no one should be raised to the cardinalate under the age of twenty-one, and no man with a son or grandson should attain the dignity. yet within a fortnight of his coronation he announced that his grand-nephew, alexander peretti, a boy of thirteen, would be raised to the sacred college, and another young grand-nephew was appointed governor of the borgo of st. peter's and captain of the papal guard. their sisters were similarly enriched by noble alliances in later years. this grave impropriety is not excused by references to the ambition and determination of the pope's sister camilla; indeed, the wealth which that lady now obtained, and the notoriety with which she invested it in rome, rather increased the pope's guilt. he was assuredly not less strong of will than she. the defect shows how deeply rooted the evil was at rome, when so resolute a reformer yields to it within a few years of the protestant convulsion of europe. with this single concession to the older traditions, however, sixtus turned energetically to the work of reform. the condition of the papal states under gregory xiii. had become scandalous. the leading officials sold the lesser offices to corrupt men, and these in turn recovered their money by receiving bribes to overlook crime. brigandage of the most licentious character spread over italy, and even roman nobles supported bands of swordsmen who would with impunity rid them of an inconvenient husband, force the doors of a virtuous woman's house, or relieve the pilgrim of his money. a law prohibiting the use of firearms had been passed, but it had become the fashion to ignore law and police. the picture which sixtus himself gives us in his early bulls is amazing when we recall that, only a few years before, the future of the church had depended in no small measure on the morals of rome and italy. sixtus had no cause to spare the memory of his predecessor, and he turned with truculence to the remedy of this disorder. before the end of april he had four young men belonging to high roman families hanged on gibbets, like common murderers, for carrying firearms in spite of the decree. at the carnival he erected two gibbets, one at each end of the corso, to intimidate roysterers from the use of the knife. on april 30th he, in his bull _hoc nostri_, enacted the most drastic punishment for brigands and all who should support or tolerate them; and on june 1st he caused the roman government to put a price on their heads. the nobles of rome, who had included these picturesque criminals in their suites, were ordered, under the direst penalties, to yield or dismiss them, and even cardinals were threatened with imprisonment if they retained servants of that character. such was the amazement of rome that the wits are said to have dressed the statue of st. peter for a journey and put into its mouth the reply, when st. paul was supposed to ask the meaning of his travelling costume, that he feared that sixtus was about to prosecute him for cutting off the ear of the high-priest's servant. from rome the terror spread throughout the papal states. thousands--including renegade monks and mothers who prostituted their daughters--were executed or slain, and the bands fled to neutral territory. thither the merciless hand of the pope pursued them, and a few liberal concessions to the other italian powers induced them to fling back the banditti upon the arms of the papal troops or the knives of those who sought blood-money. that sixtus pursued this very necessary campaign with absolute truculence and a disdain of delicacy in the use of means cannot be questioned, but, though the fact does not adorn his character, we know too well the licentious condition of italy to waste our sympathy on his victims. the most stubborn and audacious outlaws fell in a few years before his attack. at bologna, for instance, the pepoli and the malvezzi had for years sustained one of those terrible feuds which had so long disgraced the central state of christendom. they laughed at papal injunctions. sixtus had count pepoli treacherously seized, tried (in his absence) at rome, and decapitated. his followers, and those of the malvezzi, scattered in alarm, and bologna was not merely relieved of oppressive criminals, but was adorned with new buildings and enriched with educational institutions by the triumphant pope. later, in order to extinguish the embers of animosity, he promoted one of the pepoli to the cardinalate. the feuds of the gaetani, the colonna, and other old families were similarly trodden out, or healed by marriages with grand-nieces of the pope, and italy became more sober and more prosperous than it had been for ages. unhappily, the reform died with sixtus and anarchy returned. this campaign occupied a few years, but it had no sooner been launched than sixtus produced other of the plans he had prepared in his secluded palace. i have shown how deeply the corruption of the college of cardinals affected the religious history of europe, and sixtus began very quickly to reform it. it was, perhaps, not his misunderstood promise of gratitude to the cardinals who had elected him, but some feeling of incongruity with his own conduct in promoting his boy-nephews, which restrained him for a time. however that may be, he turned to the problem in the second year of his pontificate, and his bull _postquam verus_[315] laid down severe rules for the sustained improvement of the college. the number of cardinals was restricted to seventy (as is still the rule); illegitimates, and men who had sons and grandsons to favour, were excluded; and a cleric must have attained an age of at least twenty-two years before he could be promoted. in order to distribute and expedite the work of administration, he further divided the cardinals into fifteen "congregations" (some of which already existed), such as those of the inquisition, of public works, of the vatican press, and so on. we can hardly doubt that in this division he had an ulterior aim. the earlier procedure had been for the pope to lay a question before the whole body of the cardinals and discuss it with them. sixtus continued to do this, but the cardinals soon found that, although he desired discussion, he turned fiery eyes, and even showered rough and offensive epithets, on any who opposed his plans. he was essentially an autocrat, and the impetuosity which was inseparable from so robust a character made him an unpleasant autocrat. the advantage to him of splitting the cardinals into small groups was that, on any grave question, he had merely to take account of the consultative opinion of a few cardinals. his more admiring biographers record that he rarely dissented from the conclusions of his congregations; in point of fact, he decided grave issues before consulting them, or made his will unmistakably clear to them. his own promotions were generally sound, though he at times strained his regulations in favour of a friend. but he greatly improved the college of cardinals, and made an admirable effort to exclude from it nationalist influences. we must not, on the other hand, suppose that these congregations of cardinals count in any degree--except as the mere executive of his will--in the great work of his pontificate. his own teeming brain and iron will are the sole sources of the mighty achievements of those five years. he had studied the papal problem on all sides and was prepared at once to remedy a disorder or design a new structure. agriculture and industry were feeble and unprosperous throughout the papal states. ruinous taxation, lawless oppression, and the ease with which one obtained one's bread at the innumerable monasteries, had demoralized the country and ruined the papal treasury. sixtus had some of the qualities of an economist--we still possess the careful account book he kept in his days of monastic authority--and he was especially concerned to nurse the papal income in view of certain grandiose plans which he seems to have held in reserve, so that he applied himself zealously to this problem. it is generally agreed that his work here is a singular compound of shrewdness and blundering. by his restoration of public security he lifted a burden from agriculture, and he made special efforts to encourage the woollen industry and the silk industry.[316] he, at great cost, brought a good supply of water, from an estate twenty miles away, to rome, and by this means and by the cutting of new roads re-established some population on the hills, which had long been almost deserted. we find camilla speculating profitably in this extension of the city, but the more important point is that the population of rome rose in five years from 70,000 to 100,000; still, however, only one tenth of the population of imperial rome. the pope also gave a water-supply to civita vecchia and drained its marshes; and he spent--with very little result in this case--200,000 ducats in draining the marshes at terracina, which he personally inspected in 1588. yet the admiration which his biographers bestow on his finance is misplaced. it seems to have been chiefly in his native march of ancona that he granted relief from the heavy taxes and imposts of his predecessor; the papal states generally were still ruinously taxed, even in the necessaries of life. his hoarding of specie, partly for excellent but partly for visionary purposes, injured commerce; and such measures as his prohibition of the sale of landed property to foreigners were short-sighted. the rise of the papal income, which enabled him to store 4,500,000 scudi (about 8,000,000 dollars) in five years, besides spending large sums on public works, was chiefly due to deplorable methods. the income from the issue of indulgences had now fallen very low--it had not wholly ceased, as some say, since they are still issued in spain--and little money came from spain or france. the fixed papal income had fallen to 200,000 scudi a year, and in the expenditure of this the friar-pope made an economy of 140,000 scudi a year by reducing table-charges, dismissing superfluous servants, and (as is often forgotten) giving to other servants church-benefices so that they needed no salary. the result was still far too small for the creation of a fund, and sixtus sold honours and offices as flagrantly as any pope had done since boniface ix. he sold positions which had never been sold before, and he created new marketable titles. he debased the coinage and imposed a tax on money-lenders. he carried to a remarkable extent the new papal system of _monti_.[317] he withdrew offices which gregory xiii. had sold, and transferred them to higher bidders; and he must have known how the officials would recoup themselves. by these means he raised his hoard, which seems to have been gathered for some visionary grand campaign against the protestants and the turks. we at once recall julius ii., but it is a comparison which the work of sixtus v. cannot sustain; he was not so great a ruler as julius, and he fell on less prosperous times. i must add, however, that part of his reserve fund was destined for practical uses. in 1586 famine and turks and pirates caused grave distress in italy. sixtus did not even then abolish his heavy taxes on the necessaries of life and the means of distributing them, but he bought 100,000 crowns' worth of corn in sicily, fixed the price of flour and punished unjust dealers, and set about collecting a fund of a million scudi to meet such emergencies. he was not economist enough to see the roots of the evil, and fair, fertile italy continued to suffer under the unhappy papal system. the pope's tenderness to the jews was part of his crude financial policy. a portuguese jew, who had fled from the inquisition, was his chief fiscal adviser, and sixtus interpreted in the most genial manner the current teaching of theologians, that, since the jews were irreparably damned on a greater count, they might lend money at interest, and the papacy might tax their wealth. baron huebner, in a moment of unusual candour, corrects some of the less discriminating biographers: sixtus, he says, "protected the jews in order to exploit them."[318] pius v. had expelled the jews from all parts of the papal states except rome and the march of ancona, and sixtus, by his constitution _hebræorum gens_, cancelled the restriction and ordered christians to treat the jews and their synagogues with respect. we feel that interest led sixtus on to a more human feeling. he dispensed the unhappy jews from wearing the odious yellow dress which christian princes and prelates imposed on them, and for a few years, in that one corner of europe, they enjoyed the life of human beings. sixtus was less lenient to the jesuits than to the jews. the primitive fervour of the society was already dimmed by prosperity or perverted by casuistry, and complaints came to rome from all parts. having been a franciscan monk, sixtus was not well disposed toward the new congregation, which had aroused the hostility of the older religious bodies. he used to observe, in his grim, meditative way: "who are these men who make us bow our heads at the mention of their name?" he referred to the catholic practice of inclining the head at the mention of the name of jesus, but he disliked the whole constitution of the society and resented the privileges it had won from his predecessors. a prolonged quarrel of the worldly and degenerate jesuits of spain with general acquaviva gave him an opportunity to intervene, and he ordered an inquiry into their rules. in 1590 he announced that he would alter the name and the constitutions of the society. acquaviva stirred such catholic monarchs as were docile to his brethren to petition the pope in their favour, but sixtus was not prepared to listen to the suggestions, in ecclesiastical affairs, of worldly princes. acquaviva then persuaded cardinal carafa, to whom the inquiry had been entrusted, to prolong his inquiry, and it became a race between the failing energy of the pope and the intrigues of the jesuits. rome witnessed the contest with the interest it had once bestowed on the chariot-races of the blues and the greens. the inquiry was transferred to other prelates, and, when these also were suborned, sixtus peremptorily ordered acquaviva to request that the name of the society should be changed. the petition was reluctantly made, the bull authorizing the change of name was drafted and--sixtus v. died before he put his name to it. in the circumstances it was inevitably whispered that jesuit poison had ended the pope's life, but the legend was as superfluous as it was familiar.[319] the rest of the pope's administrative work must be briefly recorded before we pass to the consideration of his political activity. he attempted to restrict the prodigality of the romans in dress, food, funeral and wedding expenses, etc., but this sumptuary legislation[320] was not enforced. he found general and disgraceful laxity in the convents of nuns, and enacted a death-penalty against offenders: the same penalty he, with his habitual truculence, imposed for cheating at cards or dice. he directed the police to cleanse rome of prostitutes and astrologers, reformed the prisons,[321] made provision for widows and orphans, pressed the redemption of captives,[322] and constructed ten galleys for the defence of the italian coast against the turks and pirates. he cleared of debt the roman university (sapienza) and restored it to its full activity. he engaged fontana to crown st. peter's with its long-deferred cupola, and threw such energy into the work that he almost completed in twenty-two months a task which the builders expected to occupy ten years. he, with equal vigour, set up the obelisks in front of st. peter's, reconstructed the lateran palace in part, and restored the columns of trajan and antoninus; though, in a naïve desire to express the triumph of christianity over paganism, he put statues of peter and paul on the ancient roman pedestals.[323] he also set up a press in the vatican library, which he restored and decorated, and from this he issued the latin version of the bible which the council of trent had ordered, as well as the works of st. ambrose and st. bonaventure. the magnitude of this domestic program and the vigour of the sexagenarian pope are enhanced when we further learn that his brief pontificate was, as usual, occupied with grave political problems. with german affairs the papacy had now little concern, but we must record that sixtus permitted some of the catholic bishops to allow the laity to communicate in both kinds. to england he devoted more attention, though his violent and undiplomatic methods only made worse the position of the catholics in that country. mary stuart contrived to write to him, after she had been condemned, and he spoke of elizabeth to the cardinals as "the english jezabel." he urged henry iii. to intercede for mary and himself wrote a defence of her. when she was executed, he spurred philip i. in his designs against england and promised him 500,000 florins when his fleet reached england and a further half million when the spaniards occupied london. when an english spy was detected at rome, sixtus ordered his tongue to be cut out and his hand struck off before he was beheaded. in defiance of his own decree he bestowed the cardinalate on william allen, and he directed allen to translate (for distribution in england) the bull in which he enumerated the dark crimes of elizabeth, renewed the sentence of excommunication against her, and declared her subjects released from their allegiance. these measures, which only increased the sufferings of the catholics, betray again the limitation of the pope's vigorous intelligence, and, when the armada sank, he turned from spain to france and realized the futility of his policy. the chief political problem was, however, the attitude of rome toward the rival catholic powers, spain and france, and the less important action of sixtus in venice (which, as a bulwark against the protestant north, he sought, in spite of his old grievances, to conciliate), savoy (where he compelled the duke to refrain from appointing bishops), besançon (where he forced upon the reluctant chapter a friar-friend whom he had made archbishop), belgium (where he demanded a truce between the university and the jesuits), and switzerland (where he attempted in vain to restrain the secular authorities), need not be considered at length. the french problem, complicated by the ambition of spain, might have given anxious hours to a more astute statesman than sixtus, and we shall hardly expect a man with so little subtlety to reach a distinguished solution of it. the ineptness of catherine de' medici and the folly and profligacy of her diseased son, henry iii., had brought france to a dangerous pass. henry of guise coveted the throne, under a pretence of zeal for the church: henry of navarre grimly awaited his natural succession to it: and philip of spain dreamed of annexing france, as well as england, to his swollen dominion. the spanish representative at rome, count olivarez, who nourished a secret disdain of the peasant-pope, urged sixtus to eliminate henry of navarre from the competition by excommunication, for having relapsed to the protestant creed, and, on september 5, 1585, sixtus issued against him and the prince of condé the bull _ab immenso_. henry of navarre retorted cheerfully that the pope was himself a heretic, and henry iii. angrily drove the pope's new nuncio from france; to which sixtus retorted by expelling from rome henry's representative, the marquis pisani. to the great delight of philip and the catholic league, henry iii., feeble and distracted, humbly submitted, and was compelled to put pressure on the remaining protestants. sixtus, in fact, promised henry a spanish army from the netherlands to assist in coercing the huguenots, and urged him to co-operate with philip and with the league (under guise). in his exclusive, and entirely natural, concern for the orthodoxy of the country, sixtus failed to understand in any degree its peculiar political condition or the utterly selfish designs of guise and of philip. he was impelling the country toward civil war. in 1587 the germans invaded france, and henry of navarre in turn confronted the troops of the league. some small initial victories of the league led the pope to congratulate the duke of guise in the most extravagant language, and it was only the fear of exasperating philip that restrained him from bestowing on the duke's son the hand of one of his grand-nieces. one cannot suppose that sixtus failed to see that guise had ambition, but he showed little penetration of character in admonishing the duke to recover paris for henry iii. and to assist that monarch to set up the inquisition in france and exterminate heresy. the nuncio's letters show that he was, under the pope's instructions, absorbed in a futile effort to reconcile the duke and the king, and it is said that sixtus angrily advised the effeminate monarch either to make a friend of guise or to destroy him. even henry iii. showed more appreciation of the political situation. sixtus turned impatiently toward spain and encouraged the designs of philip. on july 15, 1588, he signed a treaty with the league and spain, and the new alliance promised the complete eradication of heresy from france. the failure of the armada and the pope's habitual distrust of philip clouded the alliance for a time, but henry iii. was not willing to accept the pope's terms for a transfer of his affections. sixtus was especially eager to have the decrees of the council of trent published in france. to this the gallican clergy objected, and henry himself declared that he would publish them only "salvis juribus regis et regni": a phrase which sixtus, to use his own words, "cursed." even when, to the pope's extreme anger, henry had the duke and the cardinal of guise assassinated, sixtus remained too irresolute to derive advantage from the king's remorse or apprehension, though the spaniards and the league gained ground at rome. henry iii., indeed, entered into alliance with the protestant henry against the league, and sixtus was content to issue a fresh threat of excommunication against the huguenot. but the assassination of the king in august (1589) simplified the situation, and sixtus definitely allied himself with spain and the league against henry iv.: a very natural, but equally impolitic, decision. venice recognized henry, and the pope at first recalled his nuncio from venice and then, hearing the success of the new king, ordered him to return. sixtus was beginning to appreciate the situation, and, when the duke of luxemburg came to rome to tell of henry's willingness to reconsider his religious position, he was amiably received. the spaniards made a last violent struggle, and even threatened to arraign the pope for heresy before a general council, but sixtus now saw his way clearly. throughout the year 1590 he braved the threats of the spaniards and watched the progress of henry iv., but the struggle against spaniards and jesuits was too exacting for a man of his years and he succumbed to fever on august 24th. sixtus must unhesitatingly be included among the great popes, but it is perplexing to read, as one often does, that he was "one of the greatest of the popes." the work he accomplished in five years is far greater than most of the popes achieved, or would have achieved, in twenty years, and at least the greater part of his reform-work in rome and italy was of considerable value. yet even here we must not overlook his defects: he transgressed his own regulations when he would gratify his affections, he enforced reforms with harshness and violence, and he greatly lessened the value of his economic work by hoarding a vast sum for the purpose (apparently) of conducting a visionary grand campaign against turks and heretics. his political attitude was, as i have shown, injudicious and irresolute. both in character and statesmanship he falls far short of the greater popes, and it is, perhaps, some indication of the evil plight of the church that sixtus v. should be the ablest man it could produce in a century of grave and persistent danger. footnotes: [footnote 312: see dr. g.h. putnam's _censorship of the church of rome_ (2 vols., 1907), i., 168.] [footnote 313: see, besides the work of pallavicini already quoted, paolo sarpi's _istoria del concilio tridentino_.] [footnote 314: it is, however, true that the hostile italian biographer, gregorio leti (_vita di sisto quinto_, 3 vols., 1693), who tells this must be read with discretion; and we must use equal discretion in reading tempesti's _storia della vita e geste di sisto v._ (1754), which is inspired by a contrary determination to praise sixtus. i need recommend only the full and generally judicious biography of sixtus which we owe to baron de hübner (_sixte quint_, 3 vols., 1870), remarking that in it the panegyrical tendency is more conspicuous than the critical. for a smaller biography m.a.j. dumesnil's _histoire de sixte-quint_ (1869) is excellent.] [footnote 315: december 5, 1586.] [footnote 316: bull _quum sicut_, may 28, 1586. bull _quum alias_, december 17, 1585.] [footnote 317: recent popes had established what was, in effect, a system of life assurance. a large money-payment secured an income for life out of the proceeds of certain taxes. sixtus multiplied these _monti_ (as the funds were called) in order to obtain a large sum of money at once, and he thus mortgaged the resources of the holy see. ranke, whose chapters on sixtus are amongst his best, heavily censures the pope's finance.] [footnote 318: i., 349.] [footnote 319: see the author's _candid history of the jesuits_ (1913), pp. 110-113.] [footnote 320: bull _cum unoquoque_, january 1, 1586.] [footnote 321: bull _qugæ ordini_, 1589.] [footnote 322: bull _cum benigno_, 1585.] [footnote 323: this edifying mood of the pope might have been fatal to the ancient roman remains if he had enjoyed a lengthy pontificate. when the cardinals timidly curbed his iconoclasm, he replied that he would destroy the uglier of the pagan monuments and restore the remainder. among these "uglier" monuments were the septizonium of severus, the surviving part of which he actually demolished, and the tomb of cæcilia metella!] chapter xvii benedict xiv.: the scholar-pope the seventeen popes who occupied the vatican between sixtus v. and benedict xiv. do not call for individual notice. with common integrity of life and general mediocrity of intelligence they guarded and administered their lessened inheritance. a few fragments of the lost provinces were regained--ferrara and urbino were reunited to the papal states, and protestantism was crushed in southern germany and poland--but the general situation was unchanged. the papal conception of european life, the conviction that heresy must and would be only a temporary diversion of the minds of men, was definitely overthrown, and the church of rome became one of various flourishing branches of the christian church. the interest of the historian passes from the personalities of the popes to the movements of thought which herald or prepare the next great revolution. in regard to that specific development of european thought which we call the birth of science we are, perhaps, apt to misread its earlier stages because we find it in its final stage so destructive of old traditions. the popes of the seventeenth century are too much flattered when they are credited with a distinct perception of the menace of science and a resolute opposition to it. properly speaking, they had no attitude toward "science," but, as the history of science and the fortune of such men as giordano bruno, galilei, and vesalius show, they resented and hampered departures from the stock of traditional learning.[324] on the other hand, the period we are considering was marked by the phenomenal material success and the moral degeneration of the greatest force the counter-reformation had produced--the society of jesus. the jesuits did far more than the papacy to arrest the advance of protestantism and to conquer new lands for the church, but the diplomatic principles inherited from their founder and the desperate exigencies of a stubborn war led them into a pernicious casuistry, while prosperity led to such relaxation as it had produced in the old religious bodies. in politics the new age was characterized by the decay of spain and "the empire," and the rise of france, and the increased power of france led to a revival of the old gallic defiance, within orthodox limits, of the papacy, culminating in the famous "declaration of the gallican clergy" (1682), and to the powerful lay movements which gathered round pascal and the jansenists or voltaire and the philosophers. benedict xiv. mounted the papal throne in the height of these developments, and his attitude of compromise makes him one of the most singular and interesting popes of the new era. prospero lorenzo lambertini was born at bologna, of good family, on march 31, 1675. at the age of thirteen he entered the clementine college at rome, and with the advance of years he became a very industrious student of law--canon and civil--and history. he took degrees in theology and law, and was incorporated in the roman system as consultor to the holy office, canon of st. peter's, and prelate of the roman court. successive popes made the indefatigable scholar archbishop of theodosia _in partibus_, archbishop of ancona and cardinal (1728), and archbishop of bologna (1731). lambertini was a rare type of prelate. he did not, as so many high-born prelates did, relieve the tedium of the clerical estate with the hunt, the banquet, and the mistress. his episcopal duties were discharged with the most rigorous fidelity, his clergy were sedulously exhorted to cultivate learning and virtue, and his leisure was devoted to the composition of erudite treatises on _the beatification of the servants of god_, _the sacrifice of the mass_, _the festivals of our lord jesus christ_, and _canonical questions_. yet the cardinal-archbishop was no ascetic in spirit, and there was much gossip about his conversation. he loved tasso and ariosto as much as juridical writings. he liked witty society, and his good stories circulated beyond the little group of his scholarly friends. president de brosses visited him at bologna in 1739, the year before he became pope, and wrote of him: a good fellow, without any airs, who told us some very good stories about women (_filles_) or about the roman court. i took care to commit some of them to memory and will find them useful. he especially liked to tell or to hear stories about the regent and his confidant cardinal dubois. he used to say, "tell me something about this cardinal del bosco." i ransacked my memory, and told him all the tales i knew. his conversation is very pleasant: he is a clever man, full of gaiety and well read. in his speech he makes use of certain expletive particles which are not cardinalitial. in that and other things he is like cardinal camus; for he is otherwise irreproachable in conduct, very charitable, and very devoted to his archiepiscopal duties. but the first and most essential of his duties is to go three times a week to the opera.[325] lambertini's liberty and joviality of speech did not, in spite of his strict virtue and most zealous administration, commend him to the more severe cardinals, and when clement xii. died, on february 6, 1740, he was not regarded as a candidate for the papacy. but the struggle of french, spanish, and austrian partisans continued for six months without prospect of a settlement, and in the intolerable heat of the summer the cardinals cast about, as usual, for an outsider. lambertini had humorously recommended himself from time to time. he used to say, president de brosses reports: "if you want a good fellow (_coglione_--a particularly gross word) choose me."[326] the emperor joseph ii., who did not want an inflexible pope, supported his candidature, and he was assuredly the most distinguished of the cardinals to whom the wearied voters now looked. he was elected on august 17th, and he took the name of benedict xiv. he was now sixty-five years old: a round, full-faced, merry little man, with piercing small eyes and an obstinate resolution to live at peace with the world. a few years later,[327] he describes his daily life to his friend cardinal tencin. he rises early and takes a cup of chocolate and a crust. at midday he has a soup, an entrée, a roast, and a pear: on "fast" days he reduces himself to a _pot-au-feu_ and a pear, but it does not agree with him to observe the law of abstinence from meat, and he advises the cardinals to follow his example. in the evening he takes only a glass of water with a little cinnamon, and he retires very late. he works hard all day and feels that he is justified in seeking relief in sprightly conversation. indeed, when one surveys the vast published series of benedict's bulls (some of which are lengthy and severe treatises), rescripts, works, and letters, one realizes that his industry was phenomenal. when he had to condemn some volume of the new sceptical literature which was springing up in europe, he read it himself three times and reflected long on it. his interest ranged from england, whose political affairs he followed closely, to the mountains of syria and the missions of china. every branch of papal administration had his personal attention. he thought little of the cardinals, and often pours genial irony on them in his innumerable letters. of his two predecessors, benedict xiii. "had not the least idea of government," and clement xii. "passed his life in conversation," and "it is with the oxen from this stable [the cardinals promoted by them] that we have to work today."[328] in finance, politics, administration, liturgy, and all other respects he had inherited a formidable task, and he discharged it in such wise that he died at peace with all except his roman reactionaries. the catholic rulers deeply appreciated him. frederick of prussia had a genial regard for him. horace walpole celebrated his virtues in latin verse, and one of the pitts treasured a bust of him. voltaire, through cardinal acquaviva, presented his _mahomet_ to him in 1746, and the amiable pope, quite innocent of the satire on christianity, wrote to tell voltaire how he had successfully defended his latin verses.[329] benedict's immediate predecessor, clement xii., an elderly disciplinarian whose strength was not equal to his pretensions, had left the internal and foreign affairs of the quirinal--the popes now dwelt chiefly in that palace--in a condition of strain and disorder, nor was benedict's secretary of state, cardinal valenti, the man to relieve the pope of the work of reform. choiseul, who was then the french representative at rome, describes valenti as very able but very lazy: a man of great charm, especially to ladies, and easy morals. yet the treasury was empty, and the finances were shockingly disorganized. although clement xii. had introduced the lottery to support his extravagant expenditure, the papal income in 1739 fell short of the expenses by 200,000 crowns a year, and the camera owed between fifty and sixty million crowns--president de brosses says 380,000,000 francs--to the _monti_, or funds out of which the popes paid life-incomes. smuggling was so general, even among ambassadors and cardinals, that half the papal revenue was lost. cardinals acquaviva and albani each granted immunity from excise to four thousand traders: so benedict wrote to tencin in 1743. a third of the population of rome consisted of ecclesiastics who lived on the papal system, and a third were foreigners of no greater financial value; while the natives could so easily obtain food at the innumerable monasteries, or by begging, that there was little incentive to industry. benedict xiv. had no financial capacity, but the desperate and ever worsening condition of the treasury spurred him to work. he restricted the immunities from excise, cut down the extravagant payment of the troops, and severely curtailed the number of his servants. in a few years he had a surplus, which he divided among the impoverished nobles. he then reduced the taxes, had new factories built, and encouraged the introduction of new methods into agriculture. his zeal in suppressing "usury" was not so fortunate, but he restored the papal finances to such a degree that he could at length indulge his cultural tastes. sandini gives a list of the monuments he restored at rome--including the new façade with which he disfigured sta. maria maggiore--and we know from his letters that he was assiduous in collecting classical statues and fine books for the roman galleries and libraries. he founded four academies at rome--for the study of roman history and antiquities, christian history and antiquities, the history of the councils, and liturgy--and once in each week presided, at the quirinal, over a sitting of each academy. to the roman university (sapienza) he added chairs of chemistry, mathematics, and art, and he pressed in every way the higher education of the clergy. in 1750 he appointed a woman teacher, maria gaetana d'agnesi, of mathematics at bologna university, and wrote her a gracious letter commending the ambition of her sex. jansenists and philosophers were now fiercely exposing the weaknesses of papal culture, and benedict, who freely criticized the errors of his predecessors, attempted some revision of the mass of legends which had been accepted by the church. in 1741 he appointed a commission to revise the breviary, but the extensive alterations they proposed to make in the lives of the saints alarmed the reactionaries. on april 26, 1743, we find benedict wearily complaining to tencin of the difficulty of reform: "there is now all over the world such a disdain of the holy see that--i will not say the protest of a bishop, a city, or a nation--but the opposition of a single monk is enough to thwart the most salutary and most pious designs."[330] the french clergy had been compelled in 1680 and 1736 to issue more critical editions of the breviary, and benedict wished to provide one for the universal church. but the bigots were too strong for the pope and the scheme of reform lies in the dust of the vatican archives, while the roman breviary still contains legends of the most remarkable character. in reforming the martyrology (1748) the pope was more successful, and he published a new ceremonial for bishops (1752). he also published an indult permitting any diocese that cared to reduce the number of church-festivals. the number of days on which men rested from work had become a scandal, and many complaints had reached the holy see. benedict's indult was gradually adopted by entire nations. of far greater interest is benedict's attitude toward what we may call foreign affairs, and in this we discover again the more genial side of his character. those who had known the different aspects of the pope's personality--the punctilious learning of the ecclesiastic and the _bonhomie_ of the man--must have wondered how he would confront the hereditary problems of the papacy. benedict at once made it plain that his policy would be one of deliberate and judicious compromise. anxious though he was, especially in view of the italian ambitions of maria theresa, about his temporal possessions, he placed his spiritual power and responsibility in the foreground, and on temporal matters he made more concessions than any pope of equal wit and will had ever made. he was, he told tencin, "the mortal enemy of secrets and useless mysticism." for disguised jesuits and intriguing nuncii he had no employment. he took court after court, with which his predecessor had embroiled the papacy, and came to an agreement which almost invariably satisfied them; and in the war of the spanish succession, when spanish and austrian troops in turn violated his territory, he remained strictly neutral. the chief problem in france was the conflict of the jesuits and the jansenists, which was complicated by a revival of the gallican spirit that put difficulties in the way of papal interference. the bull _unigenitus_, with which clement xi. had sought to extinguish the controversy, had increased the disorder, and the zealots pressed the pope to intervene. parlement would have resented his interference, and it was not until 1755, when the assembly of the clergy failed to find a solution, that louis xv. asked the pope to make a further declaration. the credit of his moderate encyclical[331] is not wholly due to him. the french asked him to refrain from pressing the _unigenitus_ as a standard of faith and merely to demand external respect for it. this agreed with the pope's moderate disposition, but the jesuits and other zealots at rome were enraged, and choiseul--without benedict's knowledge, of course--made extensive use of bribery to win the college of cardinals. benedict's letters reflect his weariness between the antagonistic parties and frequently express that he is willing to respect gallican susceptibilities to any extent short of a surrender of the faith. a draft of the encyclical was submitted to the french court before it was published. both the jesuits and the lawyers attacked it, but the parlement was won to the king by an attempt on his life and the jesuits soon found all their energy needed to defend their existence. with spain the pope concluded one of the most remarkable concordats in papal history. there had gradually been established a custom by which the papacy appointed to all benefices which fell vacant during eight months of the year, and the bishops and their chapters appointed to vacant benefices during the remaining third of the year. the court had the right of appointment only to benefices in granada and the indies. as a natural result, spanish ecclesiastics crowded to rome, and it was estimated that the dataria derived from them about 250,000 crowns a year. spain resented the arrangement, but the clerical population of rome clung tenaciously to it. benedict in 1751 entered into secret negotiations with spain, and contrived to keep them secret until 1753, when he startled and irritated rome by publishing his famous concordat. by this he granted the spanish king the right to nominate to all except fifty-two benefices in spain and america. the cardinals bitterly complained that they had not been consulted, while the officials deplored the abandonment of papal prestige and the cessation of so much profitable employment. benedict had, however, made a shrewd bargain with ferdinand vi. the king had to pay a capital sum of 1,143,330 crowns, which, at an interest of three per cent., would cover the yearly loss to the curia. at a later date the pope released the spanish infanta from the dignity of cardinal, yet permitted him to retain a large part of his clerical income. a similar agreement ended the long friction with portugal and (in 1740) gave john v. the right to present to all the episcopal sees and abbeys in his dominions; and in 1748 the pope further gratified the king with the title of _fidelissimus_. the king of sardinia received, soon after benedict's succession, the title of vicar of all the papal fiefs in his dominions and the right, for an annual payment of 2000 crowns, to gather their revenues. naples, in turn, was pacified, after many years of dangerous friction. there had been stern quarrels about jurisdiction over the clergy, and by a concordat of the year 1741 benedict consented to the creation of a supreme court, with an equal number of clerical and lay judges and an ecclesiastical president, for the trial of such cases. with venice the pope was less successful. the decaying republic had a standing quarrel with austria about the patriarchate of aquileia; austria, which possessed part of the territory, would not acknowledge the authority of the venetian patriarch. benedict appointed a vicar for the austrian section, and venice, ever ready to flout papal orders, drove the nuncio from the city. the pope thereupon divided the province into two archbishoprics, but venice still angrily protested and the dispute remained unsettled at benedict's death. austria gave the pope his most anxious hours. the joy of rome at the fidelity of southern germany was in the eighteenth century clouded by the growth of a spirit akin to gallicanism: the spirit which would presently be known as febronianism. charles vi. had in 1740 left the empire to his elder daughter, maria theresa, and spain had contested the succession in the hope of winning for itself the provinces of lombardy and tuscany. in the war which followed benedict took no side, but the conflicting armies devastated his territory and approached very near to rome. his letters to tencin reflect his distress and anxiety, no less than his helplessness. when the war was over, he sent a representative to the conference at aix-la-chapelle, where his rights were endangered by the contest of the two ambitious queens; elizabeth of spain was the last of the farnese and was disposed to claim for her son the principality which paul iii. had wantonly conferred on his son pier luigi. the chief question that interested the papacy was whether don philip should receive the investiture of parma and piacenza from rome or the empress, and benedict had the satisfaction of seeing it virtually settled in favour of rome. on paul iii. himself, and other nepotist popes, benedict passes a very severe judgment in his letters. for his part he severely excluded his relatives from rome, and when a young son of his nephew came to study at the clementine college, he took care that the boy should receive no particular favour. it is one of the remarkable features of benedict's pontificate that he won considerable respect even in the protestant lands. englishmen, perhaps, did not know, as we know from the pope's letters, how deeply he sympathized with the exiled stuarts. "james iii." lived for some time at rome on a pension provided by france, spain, and the papacy, and benedict had often to relieve the financial embarrassment of the foolish and extravagant prince. his second son became cardinal york, and, in conferring the dignity on him, benedict declared that he would be pleased to withdraw it if ever providence recalled him to the throne of his fathers. in spite of these amiable sympathies, benedict was much appreciated by cultivated englishmen, and in 1753 he reconstituted and enlarged the english hierarchy. with frederic of prussia, also, he had friendly relations. he was the first pope to recognize the title of "king of prussia" assumed in 1701 by the electors of brandenburg, and in this again he overruled the opposition of the cardinals. in 1744 frederic begged the pope to make scatfgoch, a breslau canon whom the king liked, coadjutor to the bishop of breslau. scatfgoch talked with scandalous license about religion and morals; it was said at rome that he dipped his crucifix into his wine to give the saviour the first drink. benedict, to frederic's anger, refused; but three years later, when the bishop died, and the nuncio reported the conversion of the canon, the pope gratified frederic by making him bishop. frederic permitted the erection of a catholic chapel at berlin. the new catholic world beyond the seas made more than one claim on the untiring pope. immediately after his election we find him sending a vicar apostolic to settle the troubles of the maronites of syria, and in 1744 he reconciled and regulated the affairs of the greek melchites of antioch. in the farther east a fierce controversy still raged, both in china and india, regarding the heathen rites and practices which the jesuit missionaries permitted their native converts to retain. clement xi., innocent xiii., and benedict xiii. had successively employed him, when he was an official of the curia, to prepare a verdict on these "chinese and malabar rites," but it was reported that the jesuits still defied the orders of the popes. in his private letters to tencin, benedict sternly condemns the "tergiversations" of the jesuit missionaries, but in his papal pronouncements he is more cautious. his bulls _ex quo singulari_,[332] which puts an end to the trouble in china, and _omnium solicitudinum_,[333] which condemns the practices in malabar (india), are scholarly and severe treatises. they hardly mention the jesuits, but they leave no loophole for those casuistic missionaries. from the other side of the globe benedict received complaints that christians were still enslaving the american natives, on the pretext of converting them, and he renewed the prohibition issued by paul iii. and urban viii. from all quarters of the globe benedict received heated complaints about the jesuits. they permitted the worship of ancestors in china, and closed their eyes to hindu charms and amulets in india. they conducted great commercial enterprises in north and south america, and struggled bitterly against the bishops in england. france accused them of intensifying the domestic strife of its church, and spain and portugal brought grave charges against them. but benedict xiv. seems to have dreaded the overweening and doomed society. even his private letters are singularly free from direct allusions to them, and more than one jesuit scholar was employed by him on tasks of importance. his friend cardinal passionei, a worldly cardinal, of easy ways, who spent his days in luxurious ease at frascati, often urged him to reform the society, but it was not until the last year of his life that he took any step in that direction. portugal was now approaching its great struggle with the jesuits, and benedict, on april 1, 1758, directed cardinal saldanha to inspect and report upon the condition of the jesuit houses and colleges in that country. he died a month later, unconscious of the great revolution which the catholic powers were preparing to force on the papacy. of the isolated ecclesiastical acts of benedict it is impossible to give here even a summary. no pope since the great pontiffs of the early middle ages had enriched his church with so much (from the papal point of view) sound legislation: none had had so scientific a command of ecclesiastical affairs or united with it so indefatigable an industry. his bull _magnæ nobis admirationis_[334] prescribes, in the case of mixed marriages, the rules which are enforced in the church today. he forbade monks to practise surgery or dispense drugs; though europe would have been more completely indebted to him in this respect if he had not made an exception in favour of the atrocious drug known as "theriac" and the foolish compound which went by the name of "apoplectic balsam." he condemned freemasonry,[335] though his decree was not enforced. but one must glance over the thirteen volumes of his _bullarium_ and the seventeen volumes of his religious and liturgical works if one would realize his massive industry and devotion to his duties. in the spring of 1758 his robust constitution yielded to the ravages of gout, labour, and anxiety, and he died on may 3d. he was not, as some say, "the idol of rome." the cardinals felt the disdain of them which he often expresses in his letters, and many of the clergy regarded him as too severe on them and too pliant to the laity. neither was he a genius. clearness of mind, immense industry, and sober ways are the sources of his output. his works are not read today even by ecclesiastics, and it is ludicrous to represent them as his title to immortality. yet benedict xiv. was a great pope: a wise ruler of the church at a time when once more, unconsciously, it approached a world-crisis. the magnitude of the change which was taking place in europe he never perceived, but his policy was wise in the measure of his perception, and his geniality of temperament, united to so wholehearted a devotion to his duty, won some respect for the name of pope in lands where it had been for two hundred years a thing of contempt. footnotes: [footnote 324: modern research has easily settled that galilei was not physically ill-treated, and that there was probably no intention to carry out the formal threat of torture. but this refutation of the excesses of the older anti-papal historians leaves the serious part of the indictment intact. galilei was forbidden by the holy office in 1616 to advance as a positive discovery his view of the earth's position. in 1632, to the great indignation of urban viii., he disregarded this prohibition, which he thought a dead letter, and was condemned by the inquisition as "vehemently suspected of heresy." the crime against culture is not materially lessened by the fact that the inquisition lodged the astronomer in its most comfortable rooms.] [footnote 325: _lettres familières_ (1858), i., 250-1. the president was in rome during the conclave in the following year and repeated that lambertini was "licentious in speech but exemplary in conduct" (ii., 399). on a later page (439) he frankly describes the pope as "indecent in speech." there is a passage in one of the pope's later letters to cardinal tencin which may illustrate his censure. benedict tells the cardinal that he has bought a nude venus for his collection, and finds that the prince and princess of württemberg have, with a diamond ring, scratched their names on a part of the statue which one may not particularize as plainly as the pope does (_correspondance de benoît xiv._, ii., 268).] [footnote 326: _lettres familières_, ii., 439.] [footnote 327: september 29, 1745.] [footnote 328: letter to tencin august 1, 1753 (ii., 282).] [footnote 329: the correspondence is reproduced in artaud de montor's _histoire des souverains pontifes_ (1849), vii., 79. benedict was severely censured by the pious, and he declared to cardinal tencin that he "did not find it clear that voltaire was a stranger to the faith" (i., 246). the biography of benedict, one of the most interesting of the popes, is still to be written. f.x. kraus, in his edition of benedict's letters, reproduces fragments of a pretentious latin biography by a contemporary, scarselli, and m. guarnacci has a sketch in his _vitæ pontificum romanorum_ (1751, vol. ii., col. 487-94). these relate only to his earlier years. a. sandini (_vitæ pontificum romanorum_, 1754) has only three pages on benedict, and the anonymous _vie du pape benoît xiv._ (1783--really written by cardinal caraccioli) is not critical. the biographical sketches in artaud de montor and ranke are quite inadequate. but the biographer has now a rich material in benedict's bulls (complete _bullarium_, 13 vols., 1826 and 1827), works (chief edition, 17 vols., 1839-1846, and three further works edited by heiner in 1904), and letters. of the latter the best editions are those of f.x. kraus (_briefe benedicts xiv. an den canonicus pier francesco peggi_, 1884), morani ("lettere di benedetto xiv. all' arcidiacono innocenzo storani" in the _archivio storico per le marche e per l'umbria_, 1885), fresco ("lettere inedite di benedetto xiv. al cardinale angelo maria querini" in the _nuovo archivio veneto_, 1909, tomo xviii., pp. 5-93, and xix., pp. 159-215), "lettere inedite di benedetto xiv. al cardinale f. tamburini" in the _archivio della r. società romana di storia patria_, vol. xxxiv. (1911), pp. 35-73, and e. de heeckeren (_correspondance de benoît xiv._, 2 vols., 1912).] [footnote 330: i., 49.] [footnote 331: _ex omnibus christiani orbis_, oct. 16, 1756. it prescribes silence on the disputed issues and leaves it to confessors to determine whether their penitents are so wilfully rebellious against the bull _unigenitus_ as to be excluded from the sacraments.] [footnote 332: july 1, 1742.] [footnote 333: september 12, 1744.] [footnote 334: june 29, 1748.] [footnote 335: march 18, 1751.] chapter xviii pius vii. and the revolution benedict xiv. had maintained papal power and prestige in his catholic world by prudent concessions to a european spirit which he recognized as having definitely emerged from its mediæval phase. his successors for many decades lacked his penetration; though one may wonder if, without sacrificing essential principles of the papal scheme, they could have advanced farther along the path of concession to a more and more exacting age. however that may be, they generally clung to the autocratic principles of the papacy, and as a consequence they ceased to be the leaders of their age and became little more than corks tossed on heaving waters. not until leo xiii. do we find a pope with a human quality of statesmanship. in the intervening pontificates the barque of peter drifted on the wild and swollen waters, pathetically bearing still a flag which bore the legend of ruler of the waves. clement xiii. (1758-1769) and clement xiv. (1769-1774) were occupied with the problem of the jesuits. one by one the catholic powers--portugal, france, naples, and spain--swept the jesuits from their territory, with a flood of obloquy, and then made a collective demand on the pope for the suppression of the society. clement xiii. had made a futile effort to assert the old dictatorial power; and catholic nations had retorted by seizing part of the diminished papal states. france had occupied avignon and vennaissin, and naples had taken benevento and pontecorvo. the bewildered pope found peace in the grave, and the powers ensured the election of a man who did not regard the suppression of the society as an impossibility. for four years ganganelli, clement xiv., resisted or restrained the pressure of the catholic powers, but in 1773 the famous bull _dominus ac redemptor noster_ disbanded the most effective force of the counter-reformation, plainly endorsing the charge against it of corruption.[336] pius vi. (1775-1798) came vaguely to realize that there was some deep malady in the world which, in bewildering impotence, he contemplated. the hostility to the jesuits had been a symptom; nor was the symptom more intelligible to so unskilful a physician when the protestant rulers of russia and prussia protected the jesuits, while the catholic powers sternly restrained his wish to restore the society. vaguely, also, he realized that there was a deeper infidelity in the world; that the "philosophers" of france and spain and italy and the "illumined ones" of germany were a new thing under the sun; and that the traditions of the papacy did not help in dealing with such "catholic" statesmen as pombal, aranda, tanucci, and choiseul. he had not even the traditional remedy of finding support in the "roman empire." under joseph ii. and kaunitz, austria had developed a rebellious spirit which rivalled the most defiant phases of gallicanism.[337] pius visited vienna, and trusted that his handsome and engaging presence would reconcile the emperor to his large pretensions, but the visit was fruitless and the vanity of the pope was bruised. at least the mass of the people were faithful, pius thought. then there came the terrible disillusion of the french revolution, and resounding echoes of its fiery language in italy and spain. pius made his last blunder--though the most natural course for him to take--by allying himself with austria and england against the revolution, and the shadow of napoleon fell over italy. napoleon shattered the austrian forces and compelled the pope to sacrifice avignon and venaissin, to lose the three legations (bologna, ferrara, and romagna), and to pay out of his scanty income 30,000,000 lire. in the following year, 1798, the french inspired a rebellion at rome. the romans set up once more feeble images of their ancient "consuls" and "ædiles," and the aged pope was dragged from point to point by the french dragoons until he expired at valence on august 29, 1798. general bonaparte had said, contemptuously, that the papacy was breaking up. there were those who asked if pius vi. was the last pope. but a new act of the strange european drama was opening. bonaparte was in egypt, brooding over iridescent dreams of empire, and the treaty of campo formio which he had concluded before leaving had given venice (as well as istria and dalmatia) to austria. to venice, accordingly, forty-six of the scattered and impoverished cardinals made their way, for the purpose of electing a new pope, and the conclave was lodged in the abbey of san giorgio on november 30th. the history of the papal conclaves has inspired a romantic and caustic narrative,[338] and the account of the conclave of 1798-1799 is not one of the least interesting. austria, which had occupied the northern papal provinces, and naples, which had succeeded the french in the south and was now "guarding" rome, did not desire the election of a pope who would claim his full temporal dominion. against them was the solid nucleus of conservative and rigid cardinals, and on the fringe of the struggle were the unattached cardinals, some of whom had a lively concern about this general bonaparte who had just returned from egypt. the statesman of the college was cardinal consalvi, a very able and accomplished son of a noble pisan family. consalvi, as a good noble and churchman, loathed the revolution, but, when the struggle of voters had lasted three or four months and the two chief parties had reached a deadlock, he listened to the suggestion of cardinal maury that the mild "jacobin" cardinal chiaramonti would be the best man to elect. bonaparte had spoken well of chiaramonti, and austria would not resent the election of a lowly-minded benedictine monk. whether or no consalvi suspected that maury was (at least in part) working for a personal reward, he took up the intrigue, and on march 24th chiaramonti became pius vii. they had put an aged and timid monk at the helm on such a sea. barnaba luigi chiaramonti was born at cesena, of a small-noble family, on august 14, 1742. he entered the benedictine order at the age of sixteen and distinguished himself in his studies. as he was distantly related to pius vi., who was a flagrant nepotist, he easily earned promotion at rome. he taught theology and was titular abbot of san callisto. in time he became bishop of tivoli, then bishop of imola and cardinal. he was administering his diocese with due zeal, and more than ordinary gentleness, when the storm of the french invasion broke upon italy. he was not a politician. he advised his people to submit to the cisalpine republic set up by the french, and mediated for them with general augereau when some of them rebelled. but, when the austrians came in turn, he advised the people to submit to their "liberators," and, when the french returned, the magistrates of imola charged him with treachery and he had to plead on his own behalf. however, his colleagues affected to regard him as a jacobin, and his easy attitude toward the french and the temporal power won him the tiara. he was crowned in san giorgio on march 21st. austria had refused the use of san marco for the ceremony, because it was nervously anxious to discourage ideas of royalty in the new pope, and its representative in the sacred college, cardinal hrzan, urged pius to go from venice to vienna, and to make cardinal flangini (a venetian) his secretary of state. pius quietly refused, and chose consalvi. in quick succession the austrian ambassador offered him the territory they had taken from lombardy, without the legations, and then two out of the three legations (they keeping romagna), but consalvi prompted him to refuse, and he set out for rome. the austrians would not suffer him to pass through the papal territory they held, and he had to proceed by boat to pesaro. but the news that the neapolitans had retired from rome, and that the austrians (chastened by napoleon) now offered him the three legations they were unable to keep, cheered the pontiff on his journey and he entered rome in triumph.[339] consalvi, whose firm hand guides that of the pope during most of his pontificate, began at once to put in order the chaotic affairs of the papacy. the treasury was empty, though the four resplendent tiaras had been stripped of their jewels, the taxes were insupportable, and the coinage was shamefully debased. consalvi removed some of the taxes--though he was forced to restore them at a later date--and, at a cost of 1,500,000 scudi, called in the adulterated coin. he turned with vigour to the affairs of germany, where the princes who were dispossessed of their territory on the left bank of the rhine by the treaty of lunéville[340] proposed to recoup themselves from the ecclesiastical estates on the right bank.[341] but every other interest was soon overshadowed by the relations of napoleon to rome, and the story of pius vii. is almost entirely the story of those singular and tragic relations. napoleon had re-entered italy, and won marengo, before pius reached rome. but experience in the east and consideration of his growing ambition had made voltaireanism seem to him impolitic, and he now sent a representative to treat with the new pope as respectfully as if he commanded 200,000 men. they would co-operate in restoring religion in france. pius timidly expressed some concern at the mohammedan sentiments bonaparte had so recently uttered in egypt, but he and the cardinals assented to the proposal, and archbishop spina was sent to paris in november (1800). in view of napoleon's demands--that the old hierarchy of 158 bishops should be reduced to sixty, that a certain proportion of the republican (constitutional) bishops should be elected together with a proportion of the emigrant royalists, that no alienated church-property should be restored, and that christianity should not be established as "the religion of france"--spina found that his powers were inadequate, and napoleon sent cacault to rome with the draft of a concordat (march, 1501). pius and his cardinals shrank from so formidable a sacrifice, and would negotiate, in time-honoured roman fashion. but ancient customs did not impress bonaparte. cacault reported in may that the concordat was to be signed in five days, whether it killed the bewildered pope or no (as consalvi said it would), or france would set up its church without his aid. as a compromise, cacault suggested that consalvi should accompany him to paris, and the quirinal had faith in its great diplomatist. even consalvi, however, was nervous and almost powerless before the studied violence of napoleon, and his diplomatic movements were constantly met with a brusque declaration that napoleon would detach france, if not catholic europe, from the papacy if the concordat were not quickly signed.[342] the attitude of napoleon was not merely despotic. although france was still overwhelmingly catholic, as writers on the revolutionary excesses often forget, an important minority, including most of napoleon's higher officers, were bitterly anti-clerical and opposed any attempt to restore the church. napoleon, who felt that the religious sentiment of the majority must be dissociated from the emigrants and bound up once more with a national church, would have preferred to dispense with rome and proceed on extreme gallican principles. but catholic sentiment would not acquiesce in so violent a procedure, and napoleon realized the vast gain it would be to him to win the cosmopolitan influence of the pope. this feeble and timid monk, he thought, needed intimidation, and of that art napoleon was a master. after a final twenty-four hours' sitting on july 13th-14th, the draft was passed by consalvi. after a further struggle, and some further modification, it satisfied both parties, and consalvi sent it, with some satisfaction, to rome for the pope's signature. the new bishops were to be nominated by napoleon and instituted by the pope, and the catholic faith was to be declared "the religion of the majority." freethinkers resented the whole negotiation: gallicans deplored that the power of the clergy had been divided between the pope and the consul: royalists abroad protested bitterly against the required resignation of the old bishops. pius felt that this miraculous restoration of the church was worth the price. he signed the concordat and blessed the restorer of the faith. but the pope and consalvi obtained a further insight into napoleon's character when the concordat was made public on easter sunday (1802). with it were associated, as if they were part of the agreement, certain "organic articles" of the most gallican description. no bull or other document from rome could be published in france, no nuncio or legate exercise his functions, and no council be held, without the authorization of the secular authorities. all seminary-teachers were to subscribe to the famous principles of 1682, and in case the higher clergy violated those or the laws of the republic the council of state might sit in judgment on them. pius made a futile protest, when he read the seventy-six lamentable articles, but napoleon soon had the pope smiling over a gift of two frigates to the papal navy; and pius laicised talleyrand and raised five french bishops, including napoleon's half-uncle fesch, to the cardinalate. a similar concordat was forced by napoleon on the cisalpine republic in 1803, and naples was compelled to return benevento and pontecorvo. the first phase ended in smiles. cardinal caprara was sent as legate to paris, and his experiences moderated the pope's satisfaction. he was quite unable to resist the election of the constitutional bishops (the clergy who had adhered to the republican constitution, which rome severely and naturally condemned) and he could not wring from them a formal acknowledgment of their errors. but these matters were soon thrust out of mind by fresh events in france. on may 18, 1804, napoleon was elected emperor, and he invited pius to come to paris to crown him. there was a natural hesitation at rome to flout the bourbons and their allies by such a recognition of napoleon, but the long delay was not in substance due to that political scruple; nor was it in any serious degree due, as some writers say, to the recent execution of the duc d'enghien, which appears little in papal documents. consalvi persuaded the pope to bargain with napoleon: to stipulate for the abolition of the organic articles, the punishment of the constitutional clergy, and the return of the three legations. as before, the diplomacy of consalvi was boisterously swept aside by napoleon, and on november 2d the aged pope set out for paris. not a single definite promise had been made, and it seems, from later language of the pope, that either he or consalvi regarded the journey with grave distrust. pius left behind him a document authorizing the cardinals to choose a successor, in case napoleon violently detained him in france. we may ascribe this foresight to consalvi, as throughout these earlier years pius appears to be merely the agent of the wishes of the cardinals. napoleon must have noted with satisfaction the ease with which his constant trickery escaped the pope's eye. on november 25th he, in hunting dress, with studied casualness, met the pope on the open road at fontainebleau, arranged that he should himself sit on the right in their joint carriage, and drove him into paris by night. every detail had been carefully planned with a view to the avoidance of paying unnecessary honour to the pope. pius noticed nothing, and wrote enthusiastically to italy of napoleon's goodness and zeal for religion; and indeed the enthusiasm of the faithful catholics of paris, when they found a venerable pope blessing them from the balconies of the tuileries, might well seem to him to indicate a triumph after the dark decade that had passed. disillusion came slowly. josephine, who now knew that she was threatened with divorce, confided to the pope that there had been no church-celebration of her marriage with napoleon, and pius refused to crown them until it took place. napoleon thundered, but the pope had a clear principle and the difficulty was met by trickery. cardinal fesch was permitted by the pope to marry them without witnesses, and napoleon pointed out to friends that he was taking part in the ceremony without internal consent. on the following day, december 2d, the coronation took place at notre dame, and napoleon at one stroke annihilated the prestige of the pope by crowning himself and josephine with his own hands. another wave of disdain of the pope passed through foreign lands: "a puppet of no importance," said even joseph de maistre. pius remained gentle and patient. he had still to win the reward of his sacrifices: to induce the emperor to restore the papal states, to modify the organic articles, to abolish the law of divorce, enforce the observance of sunday, and reintroduce the monastic orders. the cardinals had drawn up a pretty program. napoleon suavely refused every proposition, and sent one of his officers to suggest that pius would do well to settle at avignon, and have a palace at paris. pius, now thoroughly alarmed, refused emphatically to stay in france, and disclosed that he had arranged to give him a successor if he were detained. and pius returned to give the cardinals a roseate account of the resurrection of religion in france and the goodness of the emperor. when he refused, shortly afterwards, to crown napoleon king of italy at milan, there were those who admired his firmness. it is more likely that he acted on the advice of the disappointed cardinals. up to this point pius vii. had given no indication of personality. one must, of course, appreciate that the restoration of the church in france would seem to him an achievement worth large sacrifices, yet his childlike joy in napoleon's insincere caresses, his utter failure to detect the true aims and the trickery of the emperor, and the entire lack of plan or efficacy in his protests, must have convinced napoleon, as they convinced hostile royalists, that he was a mere puppet. he cannot possibly have had the measure of ability with which cardinal wiseman would endow him. the same conclusion is forced on us by a consideration of the second part of his relations with napoleon. isolated from his abler cardinals, he, like a child, bemoans his inability to form his judgment, and stumbles from error to error. but ten years of defeat have taught him that he is dealing with an enemy of religion, and he reveals a certain greatness of character in his resistance. in the spring of 1805 the emperor asked the pope to dissolve, or declare null, the marriage which his brother jerome had contracted in america with a miss paterson, a protestant. pius was eager to do so, if ecclesiastical principles yielded the slightest ground for such an act, but, after a long examination, he was obliged to refuse. napoleon began to speak of him as a fool. the summer brought war with austria once more, and in october the french troops marched through the papal states on their way to naples, and occupied ancona. when pius protested (november 13, 1805), the emperor scornfully replied--after an interval of two months--that if its papal owners were not able or willing to fortify ancona, he must occupy it: that the pope and the cardinals prostituted religion by their friendly relations with english and russian enemies of france: and that he would respect the pope's spiritual sovereignty, and expected from him respect for the emperor's political sovereignty.[343] on february 13, (1806) napoleon wrote more explicitly. the pope must close his harbours against the english, expel from rome all representatives of the enemies of france, get rid of his bad counsellors (consalvi), and remember that napoleon is emperor of rome.[344] pius, after consulting the cardinals, replied that the "roman emperor" was at vienna, and that the papacy would not be drawn into a war between france and england. to the french representative in rome the pope used a very firm language; he would die rather than yield on what he conceived as a matter of principle. when, some time afterwards, napoleon annexed naples, and the papacy protested that it was a papal fief, napoleon rightly gave consalvi the credit for the opposition and forced him to resign. he had in 1802 restored benevento and pontecorvo to rome: he now gave the former to talleyrand and the latter to bernadotte. it must seem an idle practice to seek apologies for napoleon's conduct, but we do well to conceive that each man was justified in his procedure. napoleon was wrong only in his pretexts and his methods. he was no orthodox catholic, and had no illusions about the sacred origin of the temporal power. if the pope chose to be a king, he submitted to the laws of kings. the papacy undoubtedly thwarted the work of the emperor in italy and aided his enemies. cardinal pacca says in his memoirs that pius wrote him that he "risked everything for the english."[345] common opposition to napoleon brought about a remarkable approach of rome and england, and the quirinal had hopes of advantage for the church in england. the papal ports were of great service to the english fleet, and therefore of great disservice to the french. pius vii. seems never to have realized the elementary fact that napoleon was not a christian. he relied too long on the orthodox fiction that, because the pope was the successor of peter in spiritual matters, any _temporal_ power taken from him was taken from "the blessed peter." napoleon did not share that illusion, and it is singular that he waited so long before consolidating his italian kingdom by absorbing the papal states. the year 1807, when napoleon was busy with prussia, passed in recriminations. pius would, he said, show them that the substitution of cardinal casoni as his secretary of state for consalvi made no difference. he seemed to be finding his personality, but there were fiery cardinals like pacca still with him. in january, 1808, napoleon ordered general miollis to occupy rome, and presently he expelled from rome all cardinals who were not subjects of the papal states. pius, during the night, had a protesting poster fixed on the walls. on april 2d napoleon annexed urbino, ancona, macerata, and camerino: on the foolish pretext (among others) that charlemagne had bestowed those provinces on the papacy for the good of catholicism, not for the profit of its enemies. pius sent a long and dignified protest to all bishops in his dominions and broke off diplomatic relations with france. gabrielli had succeeded casoni in counselling pius, and the french now made the singular mistake of arresting gabrielli and substituting pacca--a fiery and inflexible opponent of napoleon. in august pacca came into violent collision with the french and they went to arrest him. he summoned the pope, and pius personally conducted him to the protection of the quirinal. in the solitude of the quirinal they prepared for the last step and drafted an excommunication of napoleon.[346] at length on june 10, 1809, they received napoleon's declaration that the papal states were incorporated in his empire, and the bull of excommunication (_quum memoranda_) was issued. it did not name napoleon, and it was at once suppressed by the french, but general miollis considered that a conditional order for the arrest of the pope, which napoleon had sent, now came into force. at three in the morning of july 6th the troops broke into the quirinal. when general radet and his officers reached the audience chamber, they found the pope sitting gravely at a table, with a group of cardinals on either side. for several minutes the two groups gazed on each other in tense silence, and at length radet announced that the pope must abdicate or go into exile. taking only his breviary and crucifix, the pope entered the carriage at four o'clock, and he and pacca were swiftly driven through the silent streets, and on the long road to savona. they found that they had between them only the sum of twenty-two cents, and they laughed. pius reached savona on august 16th (1809), and was lodged in the episcopal palace. he refused the 50,000 francs a year and the carriages offered by napoleon. he refused to walk in savona, and spent the day in a little room overlooking the walls, or walking in the scanty garden of the house. he had no secretary and his aged hands trembled, but pious catholics conspired to defeat his guardians (or corrupt his guardians) and his letters and directions went out stealthily over europe. his cardinals were removed to paris, and when napoleon divorced josephine and married marie louise (april 1, 1810), only thirteen out of the twenty-seven cardinals refused to attend the ceremony. pius still declined to enter into napoleon's plans. metternich sent an austrian representative to argue with him, but the pope would not yield his temporal power, and he demanded his cardinals. cardinals spina and caselli, of the moderate party, were sent to persuade him, but the mission was fruitless. napoleon, who was sorely harassed by the pope's refusal to institute the new bishops, tried to act without him, and made maury archbishop of paris. pius sent a secret letter to the vicar capitular of paris, declaring that the appointment was null, and napoleon angrily ordered a search of his rooms and the removal of books, ink, paper, and personal attendants. at last, in june, 1811, the strategy of napoleon succeeded. the archbishop of tours and three other bishops presented themselves at savona with the terrible news that napoleon had summoned a general council at paris and expected the bishops to remedy the desperate condition of the french church--there were twenty-seven bishops awaiting institution--independently of the pope. pius still refused to submit, but day after day the prelates and the count de chabrol harrowed him with descriptions of the appalling results of his obstinacy, and on the tenth day they hastened to paris with the news that pius had consented on the main point: he would institute the bishops within six months, or, if he failed to do so, the archbishop would have power to institute them. what really happened at savona is the only serious controversy in the life of pius vii., and this controversy is based entirely on the reluctance of catholic writers to admit that the pope erred. the usual theory, based on the work of d'haussonville,[347] is that pius fell into so grave a condition, mentally and physically, that he can hardly be regarded as responsible. recent and authoritative catholic writers have given a different defence. h. welschinger[348] seems to suggest that pius was drugged by his medical attendant, but he goes on to make this fantastic suggestion superfluous by claiming that pius did not consent at all, either orally or in writing. father rinieri, on the other hand, scorns the theory of temporary insanity, holds that the pope deliberately assented, and claims that the consent was perfectly justified because it was conditional; the pope agreed _if_, as the bishops said, his concession would lead to peace and his restoration to liberty. these theories destroy each other, and are severally inadmissible. welschinger, to exonerate the pope from weakness, assumes that the archbishop of tours lied; for that prelate wrote at once to paris that they had "drawn up a note in his holiness's room, and he had accepted it," and on his duplicate of the note he wrote: "this note, drawn up in his holiness's room, and in a sense under his directions, was approved and agreed to."[349] indeed, when welschinger himself quotes the pope saying, in his fit of repentance, "luckily i _signed_ nothing," we gather that pius _orally_ assented. rinieri, on the other hand, is wrong in making the pope's assent strictly conditional; the last clause of the note merely states that the pope is assured that good results will follow. and both writers are at fault when they lay stress on the fact that the note was a mere draft of an agreement. unless the four bishops lied, pius vii., under great importunity and predictions of disaster, and in a very poor state of health, consented to a principle which was utterly inconsistent with papal teaching. later events put this beyond question, and make all these speculations ridiculous. it is unquestioned that when, on the following morning, pius asked for the bishops and learned that they had gone, he fell into a fit of remorse and despair which brought him near to the brink of madness. it is equally unquestioned that napoleon's council drew up a decree in the sense of the famous savona note and that on september 20th pius signed it. napoleon had been dissatisfied with the pope's _oral_ consent and his retractation (which the emperor concealed), and had tried to bully the council into a declaration independently of the papacy. when he failed, he assured them of the pope's consent and they passed the decree. eight bishops and five cardinals took it to savona, and the pope subscribed to it. the only plausible defence of pius is that he _granted_ or delegated the power to the archbishops, instead of merely declaring that the archbishops possessed it. but the pope's acute remorse shows that he had not deliberately meant this. napoleon, however, saw that his scheme had failed in this respect, and he kept the pope at savona while he set out on the russian campaign. after a time the emperor, alleging that british ships hovered about savona, ordered the removal of the pope to fontainebleau, and he was transferred with such secrecy and discomfort that he almost died in crossing mont cenis. at fontainebleau he maintained his quiet, ascetic life: even afforded the spectacle of a pope mending his own shirts. the thirteen "black" cardinals--the men who opposed napoleon and were stripped of their red robes and sent into exile--could not approach him, and he paid little attention to napoleon's courtiers. in december (1812) napoleon was back from his terrible failure, but he still sought to bluff the aged pope. in a genial new-year letter he proposed that pius should settle at paris and have two million francs a year: that he would in future permit the catholic rulers to nominate two thirds of the cardinals: and that the thirteen black cardinals should be censured by the pope and gracefully pardoned by the emperor. pius hesitated; and on the evening of january 18th, when napoleon suddenly burst into his room and embraced him, the old tears of childlike joy stood in his eyes once more. napoleon remained and put before him a new concordat, sacrificing the demands he had made in his letter, but demanding the abdication of the temporal power and six months' limit for the papal institution of bishops. harrowing pictures of the pope's condition and the pressure put on him by napoleonic prelates are drawn by pious pens. but the fact is not disputed that on january 25th the "martyr-pope" signed the concordat and sacrificed the temporal power. when pacca and consalvi and the black cardinals, who were now set at liberty, arrived at fontainebleau, they shuddered at his surrender, but they could not upbraid the pale, worn, distracted pontiff. he acknowledged his "sin," as he called it, and asked their advice. by one vote--fourteen against thirteen--the stalwarts decided that he must retract and defy napoleon, and a remarkable week followed. they drafted a new concordat, and the pope wrote a few lines each day, which were taken away in pacca's pocket to the rooms of cardinal pignatelli, who lived outside. the emperor's spies were defeated, and he had a last burst of rage when the new concordat was put before him. but the allies were closing round the doomed adventurer. as they approached, he offered pius half the papal states, and made other futile proposals. in january, 1814, pius was conveyed to savona: on march 17th he was informed that he was free. napoleon had fallen. consalvi was dispatched to join in the counsels of the allies, and pacca, who took his place, set himself joyously to obliterate every trace of the revolution and napoleon. monasteries were re-opened, schools and administrative offices restored to the clergy, the inquisition re-established, the jews thrust back into the ghetto: even these new french practices of lighting streets at night and vaccinating people were abolished. above all things the society of jesus must be restored. pius had in 1801 recognised the society in russia[350] and in 1804 he granted it canonical existence in the two sicilies. the appalling experience of the last twenty-five years had now swept the last trace of liberalism out of the minds of catholic monarchs, and on august 17, 1814, the bull _sollicitudo omnium_ restored the society throughout the world; though portugal rejected it and france dared not carry it out. a few months later rome trembled anew, when it heard that napoleon had left elba and murat marched across the papal states to support him. pius fled from rome, rejecting all the overtures of napoleon and murat, but the hundred days were soon over and reaction reigned supreme. pius never lost his quaint appreciation of napoleon. mme. letitia, the brothers lucien and louis, and fesch lived in honour at rome, and, when the mother complained that the english were killing her son at st. helena, pius earnestly begged consalvi to intercede for him. at napoleon's death in 1821 he directed fesch to conduct a memorial service. meantime consalvi had won back the papal states (except avignon and venaissin and a strip of ferrara) at the vienna congress, and had returned to moderate the excesses of the reactionary pacca. consalvi had no liberal sentiments, but he had intelligence. at least half of the educated italians were freethinkers, and the secret society of the _carbonari_ spread over the country, ferociously combatted by the orthodox _sanfedisti_. italy entered on what the wits called the long struggle of the "cats" and the "dogs": a rife period for brigands. consalvi, in spite of pacca and the _zelanti_, compromised. he retained many of the napoleonic reforms, though, when the spanish revolution of 1820 had its revolutionary echoes all over italy, he drew nearer to the holy alliance for the bloody extirpation of liberalism. rome prospered once more, and artists and princes flocked to it, but pius vii. must have felt in his last years that the soil of europe still heaved and shuddered. the relations of the quirinal[351] with other countries were restored in some measure, in face of stern opposition. a new concordat with france was signed in 1817, but the legislative assembly refused to pass it and it did not come into force before the death of pius. spain set up a régime of truculent orthodoxy under the sanguinary rule of ferdinand, and the revolution of 1820 was crushed for him by the french. austria made no new concordat and retained much of the febronian temper. prussia signed a favourable concordat in 1821. bavaria came to an agreement in 1817, but the liberals defeated it; and naples and sardinia were ruled in the spirit of the holy alliance. william i. sought a concordat for the netherlands, though without result: england endeavoured to bring about an agreement in regard to the irish bishops, which was defeated by the irish: and the dioceses of boston, new york, philadelphia, charleston, richmond, and cincinnati were set up in america. i do not enter into closer detail, as we recognize in all this work the hand of consalvi rather than of pius. the aged pope continued to rejoice over every symptom, or apparent symptom, of religious recovery, and to miscalculate his age. even the revolution of 1820 failed to shake orthodox security and led only to a more truculent persecution of the new spirit. pius had now passed his eightieth year and could not be expected to see what neither metternich nor consalvi could see. in the summer of 1823 he fell into his last illness. as he sank, men noticed that he was murmuring "savona, fontainebleau," but he died praying quietly on august 17th. it was a strange fate that put barnaba luigi chiaramonti on a throne in such an age. whatever church-lore he may have had, he confronted the problems of his age with dim and feeble intelligence, and he was at times, when there was no pacca or consalvi to guide him, induced to make concessions which are not consistent with the fond title of "martyr-pope." he was a good bishop of imola. footnotes: [footnote 336: it is not true that clement abstained from passing judgment on the society; nor, on the other hand, need we regard seriously the statement that he was poisoned by the ex-jesuits. see the author's _candid history of the jesuits_, pp. 355 and 368.] [footnote 337: in austria the movement was called febronianism, as it had begun with a work (_de statu ecclesiæ_) published in 1763 by johann von hontheim under the pseudonym of "febronius." hontheim had learned gallican sentiments at louvain. joseph ii. had wisely and firmly adopted the chief principles of the school: religious toleration, restriction of the interference of the popes, and control of ecclesiastical property.] [footnote 338: petrucelli della gattina's _histoire diplomatique des conclaves_, 4 vols., 1864-6.] [footnote 339: the chief source of our knowledge of the earlier years of pius is the sketch of his life by artaud de montor. cardinal wiseman (another eulogist) covers the ground in the early chapters of his _recollections of the last four popes_ (1858). dr. e.l.t. henke's _papst pius vii._ (1860) is an excellent impartial study, while d. bertolotti's _vita di papa pio vii._ (1881) is less scholarly, and mary allies' _pius the seventh_ is rather a tract than an historical study. the pope's relations with napoleon (after the coronation) are minutely, though far from impartially, studied in h. welschinger's _le pape et l'empereur_ (1905) and father ilario rinieri's _napoleone e pio vii._ (2 vols., 1906): both make some use of unpublished documents. see also f. rinieri's _il concordato tra pio vii. e il primo console_ (1902). the pope's bulls are in the _bullarii romani continuatio_ (ed. barberi, vols. xi.-xv). contemporary documents abound, and one need mention only the memoirs of consalvi, pacca, and talleyrand, and the _correspondance de napoleon i._ special studies will be quoted later. dr. f. nielsen's _history of the papacy in the nineteenth century_ (2 vols., 1906) is the best recent study of the period of pius vii. to pius ix.; it is scholarly and impartial.] [footnote 340: february 9, 1801.] [footnote 341: this pius entirely failed to prevent. see father leo koenig's _pius vii.: die sakularisation und das reichskonkordat_ (1904).] [footnote 342: consalvi's memoirs are naturally prejudiced, and not reliable. theiner's _histoire des deux concordats_ (1869) and séché's _les origines du concordat_ (1894) are carefully documented.] [footnote 343: _correspondance de napoleon i._, xi., 642.] [footnote 344: _ibid._, xii., 477.] [footnote 345: _memorie_, i., 68.] [footnote 346: pacca relates that the english sent a friar to say that they had a frigate ready to take away the pope and his secretary. such were the relations of rome and england.] [footnote 347: _l'église romaine et le premier empire_, 5 vols., 1868-1870.] [footnote 348: _le pape et l'empereur_ (1905), pp. 177-196.] [footnote 349: _see_ rinieri, pp. 165 and 166.] [footnote 350: by the brief _catholicæ fidei_, march 7, 1801.] [footnote 351: almost the only mention of the vatican at this period is that in 1807 pius had it prepared for the reception of napoleon!] chapter xix pius ix. in spite of the grave condition of the catholic world, the ill-concealed spread of liberal ideas among the educated, and the spurts of rebellion throughout europe, the cardinals met the new danger with as little wisdom as their predecessors had confronted the reformation. the three conclaves which were held within eight years of the death of pius vii. were marred by the old wrangles of parties and ambitions of individuals, and they issued in the election of entirely unsuitable popes. the papacy allied itself with the monarchs in an effort to stifle the growing modern spirit, and imitated their unscrupulous methods. leo xii. and gregory xvi., at least, left behind them records at which modern sentiment shudders. yet they showed as little appreciation as louis xviii. or charles x. of the irresistible development through which europe was passing, and there seem to be whole centuries of evolution between their acts and announcements and those of leo xiii. cardinal della ganga, who became leo xii. at the death of pius, was a deeply religious and narrow-minded man who achieved much moral and social reform in his dominions, yet his death in 1829 was, says baron bunsen, hailed at rome "with indecent joy." his despotic puritan measures angered his subjects, and his gross injustice to the jews and fierce persecution of the carbonari and liberals fed the growing italian hatred of the papacy. pius viii. (1829-30) was a milder _zelante_ and had won--a singular distinction for a pope in such a crisis--some repute in canon law and numismatics. he was nearly seventy years old, and his secretary of state, the disreputable albani, was over eighty. the revolutionary movement of 1830 completed his afflictions, and a roman wag proposed as his epitaph: "he was born: he wept: he died."[352] then came the longer pontificate of gregory xvi., the chief events of which will pass before us as we review the earlier career of pius ix. gregory was a pious, narrow-minded camaldulese monk. like his predecessor, he was well versed in canon law and as ill fitted as a man could be to rule in the nineteenth century. he left the repression of the rebels to his secretary of state lambruschini, and said his beads, and ate sweetmeats at merry little gatherings of cardinals, while young italy marched nobly to the scaffold and its brilliant writers opened the eyes of the world to the foul condition of the papal states. gregory died on june 1, 1846, dimly foreseeing an age of revolution, and reform was now the great issue before the conclave. the late pope's supporters put forward the truculent lambruschini, but from the first cardinal mastai-ferretti was conspicuous in the voting, and on the second day of the conclave he was elected by thirty-seven out of fifty votes. it was useless any longer to ignore that appalling indictment of abuses, corruption, and incompetence which the italian writers were circulating throughout europe. the cardinals chose a reformer: a man who was at times described even as a liberal. giovanni maria gianbattista pietro pellegrino isidoro mastai-ferretti--the name reflects the piety of his mother--was then fifty-four years old. he had been born at sinigaglia on may 13, 1792, of parents who belonged to the small provincial nobility. he was sent to school at volterra, and he is variously described by fellow-pupils who took opposite sides in the fierce conflict of his later years as a pale, pure little angel of marvellous industry, and as a sickly, epileptic little idler with the reputation, trollope says, of being "the biggest liar in the school."[353] he seems to have been a delicate, handsome, undistinguished pupil of proper character. his virtuous mother wished him to become a priest, and he received the tonsure at volterra in 1809. in october he was sent to continue his studies at rome, and for some months he lived in the quirinal, in charge of an uncle who was a canon of st. peter's. they were related to pius vii. and were favoured. the french invasion of 1810 drove them back to sinigaglia, and giovanni was summoned for service in the noble guard of the viceroy of italy. his epileptic tendency was successfully pleaded for exemption, and he returned to rome in 1814. it seems, however, that he was not deeply religious, and he applied for service in the papal guard rather than for orders.[354] his fits closed the military service of the pope against him, and, on the letter of the law, should equally exclude him from the clergy. he became very depressed and morose, but pius vii. strained the regulations in favour of his young relative. he was to receive ordination on condition that he never said mass without an assistant. in 1819 he became a priest, and made the small progress which a distant relative of the pope might expect. in 1823 he accompanied a papal representative to chile, and the voyage probably strengthened his constitution. pius vii. died during his absence from rome, but as giovanni's protector, cardinal della ganga, became pope, he returned to favour at rome. he received a canonry, the administration of the hospital of st. michael, and (in 1827) the archbishopric of spoleto. it is clear that the young archbishop did excellent work at spoleto, and we must read with discretion the statements of his less temperate critics. his predecessor had been idle and worthless, and mastai-ferretti applied himself with zeal, judgment, and success to the reform of clergy and laity. in 1829 leo xii., his patron, died, and pius viii. entered upon his short and futile pontificate. gregory xvi., who succeeded him, at once met the blasts of the revolution of 1830. the outbreak at rome was suppressed, but the revolutionaries captured bologna and brought about a dangerous agitation throughout italy. mastai-ferretti is said to have been compelled to fly from spoleto, but his actions and attitude at this time are not wholly clear. austrian troops suppressed the revolution, and gregory entered upon that truculent crusade against the liberals and their claims which diverted england from its new alliance with the papacy and even shocked metternich. when the austrians compelled him to take the secretaryship of state from cardinal bernetti, he bestowed it on the more intemperate cardinal lambruschini, and the struggle with the carbonari and the young italians continued. in his encyclical _mirari vos_ (august 15, 1832) gregory pledged the papacy to a stern refusal of the democratic reforms which the new europe demanded. mastai-ferretti had meantime (february 16, 1832) been removed to the bishopric of imola: a more profitable see and a recognized path to higher honours. his amiable and conciliatory character inclined him to meet the more moderate liberals with ease, though he does not seem to have made any profound study of the political development of his time. when cardinal lambruschini condemned scientific associations, the bishop of imola is reported to have commented that he saw no inconsistency between science and religion. on these safe and innocuous expressions the bishop won a repute for "liberalism" among the more reactionary members of the curia, and gregory xvi. long hesitated to raise him to the cardinalate. he was an exemplary bishop, and in the reform of education and of philanthropic institutions he performed no slight social service, which may have attracted the esteem of the more moderate liberals. he was admitted to the sacred college on december 14, 1840, and continued for six years to direct his diocese and encourage those temperate reforms which most of his colleagues were too indolent or too prejudiced to favour. the condition of the church was again becoming critical. the carbonari were weakened and dispersed in italy, but mazzini had begun to lead "the youth of italy" to a more open and more heretical attack on austria and the papacy, while high-minded and humanitarian priests like gioberti, ventura, and rosmini in italy, and lamennais in france, were, in varying degrees, looking to a catholic liberalism to ease the pressure of the growing popular revolt. gregory xvi. and his advisers regarded the entire liberal movement, in every shade, as a sinful and temporary aberration. they passed the most drastic laws for its suppression: the prisons of italy were distended with their victims: yet their orthodox militia, the sanfedisti, had to wage a perpetual and bitter struggle against the spreading revolt. we who look back on this painful travail of the birth of democracy are at times unduly impatient with idealists who failed to recognize its promise at the time. not merely ecclesiastical statesmen, but heterodox observers and sons of the people like carlyle, looked upon the new movement as an emanation from the pit, a menace to society. but most biographers pass to the opposite extreme when they conceive pius ix. as judiciously studying the demands of the age, realizing that a moderate measure of democracy and liberty was just and inevitable, and then renouncing his liberal faith when he saw the excesses of the democrats. for this there is no documentary support. pius was amiable, accessible, and anxious to please all: he was neither a statesman nor an economist, and had not a firm judgment of the european situation. he was disposed to see justice in the semi-liberalism of gioberti or ventura, and disposed the next day to listen to the mephistophelean counsels of metternich. europe was to him a world in which a large number of thoughtful people demanded reforms which were consistent with the political and religious supremacy of the papacy, and he was disposed to favour and indulge them. he failed to realize, until 1848, that the firm and consistent demands of the new age were inconsistent with papal supremacy. but he clearly disliked the mediæval policy of the curia and he was regarded with hope by the reformers within the fold. it was they who greeted his election in june, 1846. the more radical italians did not want a reforming pope, because they did not want a papacy. pius was crowned on june 21st, and at once turned to what he would regard as "democratic" measures. he gave dowries to a thousand poor girls, and decreed that all pledges in the monte di pietà which were less in value than two lire should be returned to their owners. on july 16th he declared a general amnesty of political prisoners, and the romans flocked to the quirinal to cheer their handsome and courageous pope, and demonstrations of joy resounded throughout italy. the amnesty was in reality conditional: the released prisoners and returning exiles were to promise not again to "disturb the public order." however, there was at the time no severe application of the condition, and pius continued in his reforming mood. that he had no serious leaning to liberalism he made abundantly clear to the more thoughtful before the end of the year. on november 9th he issued an encyclical in which he condemned bible societies, secret political societies, critics of the church, license of the press, and so on.[355] the radicals still mingled with the crowds below his balcony and flattered him. some, no doubt, had the idea that he might be induced to go farther; but mazzini and others have revealed that they astutely used these demonstrations to educate the people in larger demands and provoke a more serious revolt. pius threw open his garden to the public on certain days, opened night schools and sunday schools, re-opened the accademia dei lincei (for the promotion of science), and discussed plans of railways for italy. he was in a patriarchal mood which came near to social idealism. journals multiplied, and clubs became active: especially the circolo romano, which gradually came under the influence of a prosperous and very radical publican from the trastevere, angelo brunetti, nicknamed "little cicero" (ciceruacchio) for his demagogic eloquence. the dreamy christian liberals, gioberti and ventura, gave the not very penetrating pope the idea that he was going to make a model state of papal italy and, through it, to lead the world on the new upward path. the radicals encouraged the clouds of incense which obscured the pope's vision, and he listened gravely to the requests for representative government. on april 19, 1847, he proposed a consulto di stato: a council composed of laymen from the various provinces--all carefully selected by the clergy and gravely reminded that their business was merely to offer suggestions. in july he formed a civic guard for rome: in november he inaugurated a scheme of municipal administration for rome: and at the close of december he formed a ministry--of cardinals and other clerical dignitaries. by this time, however, pius had become perplexed and suspicious. cardinal gizzi, his secretary of state, resigned, the gregorian cardinals frowned, and the austrians complained of his concessions. there was a banquet in rome to cobden, and there was a very noisy and triumphant banquet to ciceruacchio. the pope forbade popular demonstrations, yet he perceived daily that his concessions did nothing to appease the popular appetite. the italians demanded elected, lay officers. to make matters worse for the pope the austrians advanced against the papal states. the difference was adjusted, but from the summer of 1847 hostility to austria increased rapidly, and the people demanded an efficient papal army to resist them. when, on february 8th, the news came of the third french revolution, the agitators, who had now complete influence, became bolder. ciceruacchio himself, supported by the liberal princes corsini and borghese, saw the pope, and demanded war on austria and democratic institutions. at sight of the massive and resolute crowds which supported them, the pope promised a lay ministry and a more efficient army; but on the following day he, addressing the crowd in patriarchal terms, complained of the excessive demands of a "minority" among them and protested that the papacy needed no war on austria, as the catholic powers would protect it. the radical leaders saw his weakness, and under their steady pressure he began to make his famous concessions to democracy. a new ministry, with lay nobles in most of the positions, was formed in march, the jesuits were advised to leave rome, the ancient walls and restrictions of the ghetto were abolished, and a constitution was granted. the members of the lower chamber were to be elected, but the college of cardinals would have a veto on the proceedings of both houses, and they could not discuss ecclesiastical or "mixed" affairs: a very grave restriction in a theocratic state. the radicals now concentrated the people on the cry of war with austria, and on that issue the pope fell. the papal troops had crossed the frontier in support of the sardinians, and, as pius refused to declare war, the austrians treated them as brigands. the meetings in rome became more and more violent, the new ministry resigned, and, as pius still refused to declare war, a second ministry handed in its resignation. the summer and autumn of 1848 passed in this struggle. pius insisted that war was not consistent with his religious character, and all rome united in opposing him. in november, at the suggestion of rosmini, the pope ordered pellegrino rossi to form a new ministry. rossi, a friend of napoleon iii., was hated by the radicals, and his dream of a union of italian princes under the pope's direction conflicted with their plan of a united and free italy. he was assassinated on november 15th, and on the following day a vast crowd, partly armed, marched to the quirinal and peremptorily laid down their claims. in the confusion a prelate at one of the windows was shot, and the pope, seeing the roman guard mingling with the crowd, abjectly surrendered, and retired to disavow his concession and prepare for flight. the situation was very grave, and the action of the pope was far from heroic. it is not a maxim of the higher morality that you may evade an angry crowd by making promises that you do not intend to fulfil, or that you may afterwards discover that such promises were void. the sequel is well-known. with the assistance of the foreign ambassadors the pope, disguised as a simple priest, fled to gaeta. so great was his concern that when the king of naples, warned of his flight, came the next day and inquired for the pope, the officials at gaeta were quite unaware that pius had been amongst them for twenty-four hours. the cardinals gathered about him, and he appealed to the catholic powers to restore his authority and suppress the rebels. it is not an entirely accurate analysis to say that the pope's "liberalism" now ended, and he became a reactionary. he had been duped by the radicals and had never understood his subjects. a feeble and carefully controlled lay representation, with neither legislative nor executive power, was not a part of the liberal creed. pius ix. was never a liberal. he was from the first unwilling to surrender the absolute authority of the clergy, to grant freedom of discussion, to abolish the monstrous growth of clerical officialdom, or to apply a fitting proportion of the income of the papal states to their effective military defence. when he saw that even moderate liberals demanded these things, he recognized that he had never been in agreement with them, and that his own half-measures were of no value. he now further recognized that the advanced liberals had captured his people, and he turned, quite logically, to a policy of oppression. there was no material change of his political faith. from gaeta he appointed a "governing commission" (under a cardinal) for rome, and, when the people refused it and set up a republic, he placidly entrusted his case to france, spain, naples, and sardinia, and devoted himself to the preparation of the dogma of the immaculate conception of mary. rosmini was still with him, urging compromise with the democrats, but the somewhat unscrupulous cardinal antonelli, who now became secretary of state, astutely destroyed the influence of the reformer, and confirmed pius in his attitude of defiance and repression. even when the french troops--apparently thinking that they could seduce the romans to admit them in peace and could then compel the pope to adopt a conciliatory policy--crushed the roman republic, and re-opened the gates to the pope, pius did not hasten to return. on september 4th he left gaeta for portici, and it was not until april 12, 1850, that he returned to the quirinal. the crowd ironically applauded _pio nono secondo_. the pope had replied to the french appeals for a promise of reform that it was not consistent with his dignity to make promises under apparent pressure, but he had consented to the creation of new political institutions. from portici he promised a new consiglio di stato, a consiglio dei ministri, and a consulta di stato. these were wholly under clerical control, and the elections for the district councils, the only bodies which were to have free popular representatives, were soon suppressed. but there is little need to dwell on the second phase of papal government under pius ix. cardinal antonelli and the jesuits had a paramount influence, and the dream of enlightenment and self-government was roughly dissipated. between 1850 and 1855 the roman council alone passed ninety sentences of death, and the prisons were again thickly populated; while the disorders of finance and administration, and the appalling illiteracy of the people in an age of advancing education, were scrupulously maintained. the scandal which in later years followed the death of antonelli--the spectacle of his natural daughter struggling for his vast fortune, though he was a son of the people--sufficiently disclosed the character of that able and indelicate minister, while the jesuits were not unmindful that the first act of the revolution had been to expel them. they had sent some of their abler representatives to gaeta, and from that time they had a deep influence on the ecclesiastical policy of the pope, while antonelli ruled the papal states and offered what lord clarendon called a "scandal to europe." within little over a year of the pope's return there were more than 8000 political prisoners in the papal jails, while the ignorant people were oppressed by heavy taxes and an army of clerical officials. it is probable that pius ix. had no clearer perception of the state of europe and italy after the revolution of 1849 than he had had in the earlier years. he devoted his attention to spiritual matters and listened, in temporal concerns, to the suave assurances of antonelli. this pacified europe was to be weaned from its bad dreams by a cult of the sacred heart, devotion to the immaculate conception of mary, and so on. his first important act (september 29, 1850) was to re-establish the hierarchy in england, to the great alarm and anger of the english protestants. england had quickly lost its passing sympathy with the papacy, and english travellers took home dreadful accounts of the condition of the papal states. the pope does not seem to have been acquainted either with the disgust of the english at the state of his dominion or with the fact that the apparent restoration of the old faith in england meant little more than a vast immigration from famine-stricken ireland. he then applied himself to securing the dogma of the immaculate conception of mary. from gaeta in 1849, while mazzini and his colleagues ruled rome and antonelli struggled with the representatives of the rival catholic powers for his restoration, pius had sent out some five hundred letters to the bishops of the world, inviting their opinion on the doctrine. it had long passed the stage of being a disputed academic thesis, and most of the replies were favourable. the jesuits, who had become the special protagonists of the doctrine, fostered the native piety of the pope, and on december 8, 1854, it became a dogma of the church.[356] in 1857 made a tour of the italian provinces. his chief purpose was to visit the holy house of loretto, but the intriguers of the quirinal used the opportunity to enhance the pope's illusion that only a few negligible fanatics quarrelled with the papal government. in the previous year the diplomatists assembled at the congress of paris had censured that government in the most violent terms and demanded reform. it is hardly likely that their comments were put before the pope, and care was taken that his reception in the provinces should flatter his genial love of popularity. inconvenient petitioners were refused access to him, and the clergy and more devout laity greeted him with applause. gregorovius, who was then in rome, notes in his _diary_ that pius returned to the quirinal full of joy; and a few years later the inhabitants of these provinces would vote, by an overwhelming majority, for the abolition of the papal government. in the following year the graver development of italian politics began. napoleon iii., whose protection of the corrupt papal system had infuriated the liberals, met cavour secretly at plombières and agreed, in case of attack by austria, to help the king of sardinia in his ambition; his reward would be the provinces of nice and savoy. the attempt by orsini in the following january to assassinate napoleon did not help the diplomatists of the vatican, as cavour plausibly urged that the tyranny of the papal states was responsible for the rebels who were scattered over europe, and the struggle for the unity of italy went on from year to year. the war between sardinia and austria broke out in the spring of 1859, and austria was defeated at magenta and retired from the legations. these provinces were resolutely opposed to a return of clerical government, and cavour, whose monarch was not yet prepared for war on the papacy, sent one representative after another to persuade the pope to permit the appointment of lay rulers of parma, modena, tuscany, and romagna, under his suzerainty. antonelli and pius refused to make the least concession to the rebels, nor were the provincials disposed to assent to such a settlement. after some months of insurgence and bloody repression, a plebiscite was organized in the legations (march 11, 1860) and an overwhelming majority voted for incorporation in the kingdom of sardinia. in spite of the pope's fulminations, sardinia accepted the vote, and napoleon received nice and savoy as the price of his acquiescence. dismayed and perplexed by the futility of his appeals to the catholic powers and of the spiritual censures at his disposal, the pope now invited volunteers, and crowds of undisciplined irish and french catholics came to swell the little papal army and fall with truculent piety on the rebellious districts. garibaldi, on the other hand, forced the halting designs of cavour, and, with the cry of "rome or death," flung his irregular troops into the struggle. after a vain effort at peaceful settlement, cavour, "in the interest of humanity," sent the sardinian regulars into the papal states, and the pope's forces were destroyed in september at castel fidardo (in sight of the holy house of loretto) and ancona. a plebiscite was organized in umbria and the marches, and there is no serious ground to question that the figures published express the sentiment of the provinces. in umbria 99,075 voted for victor emmanuel and 380 for the pope: in the marches 133,783 voted for sardinia and 1212 for rome. a large allowance for abstentions does not alter the significance of these figures. pius still protected, by a conviction that the plebiscite had been fraudulent, his illusion that only a disreputable minority resented his beneficent government, and the diplomacy of the quirinal during the next ten years was the least enlightened that could have been devised for securing the slender remaining territory. many cardinals, and even antonelli, came to see that a recognition of victor emmanuel as king of italy would be the wiser course, but pius, supported by the jesuits (who had founded their _civiltà cattolica_, as an organ of papal sentiment, in 1850), obstinately refused to temporize. he would have no negotiation with "the robbers," the excommunicated rebels against god. he retained--or the french troops still retained for him--only rome and the roman district, and proclaimed that he relied on catholic europe to restore his full rights. years were spent in vain efforts to induce him to surrender his temporal power, or to recognize victor emmanuel as his "vicar" in the kingdom of italy, and in the meantime the italian aspiration for rome as a capital grew stronger, and the pope's obstinate retention of his temporal possessions was easily represented in an unfavourable light throughout europe. the cardinals were not indifferent to the offer of 10,000 scudi a year and seats in the italian senate; and antonelli was won by a promise of 3,000,000 scudi and rich gifts for his family. there can be little doubt that the rapid development of anti-clericalism in italy during the sixties, and the growing disdain of rome in england and france, would have been materially checked if the pope had been more sagacious. he dreamed that the catholic world still shared the crusading fervour of the middle ages, and he was insensible of the selfish motives of france, naples, and austria. in the midst of the negotiations he committed the grave blunder of issuing his encyclical _quanta cura_ (december 8, 1864) with the famous accompanying syllabus, or list of eighty condemned propositions. there is no need to analyze here that mediæval indictment of the modern spirit. many of the propositions are now commonplaces in the mind of every educated catholic, and it is precisely their boast that--to use some of the condemned words--the catholic church may be reconciled with "progress, liberty, and the new civilization." the pages of the _civiltà cattolica_ sufficiently indicate who were the pope's unhappy inspirers. in brief, the document convinced europe that rome insisted on being driven off the path of progress at the point of the bayonet, and in 1866 the french evacuated rome, leaving the pope only 2000 mercenary soldiers, who were to don his uniform. when garibaldi made his third impulsive inroad--the second, in 1862, had been arrested by the piedmontese--in october, 1867, the french arrested him, but the war of 1870 gave italy its opportunity. on september 20, 1870, the italian troops entered the breach in the roman walls, and the long and romantic story of the temporal power of the popes was over. by the law of guarantees (may 15, 1871) italy granted the pope sovereign rights, with an annual income of 3,250,000 lire and an extension of extraterritorial rights to certain roman palaces. by a final error pius refused to acknowledge his position, set up the melodramatic fiction of "the prisoner of the vatican," and, by forbidding catholics to take part in the elections of the new kingdom, allowed italy to drift farther and farther away from his spiritual control.[357] meantime the famous vatican council had crowned his more purely ecclesiastical work. the idea of summoning the whole christian world to a second and greater trent, of healing religious dissensions and uniting religious forces against modernism, had dazzled the imagination of the pope at gaeta. his advisers encouraged him, and in 1865 he appointed a commission to discuss the subject. in 1867, when his heart was uplifted by the great gathering at rome for the celebration of the (supposed) eighteenth centenary of the martyrdom of st. peter, he announced the council, and in the following year (june 28, 1868) the bull _æterni patris_ invited all christians--heretic and schismatic, as well as orthodox--to the vatican council of 1869. it was opened on december 8th, when 719 members assembled from the catholic world. the great issue--the one issue that may be discussed here--was the question of defining the infallibility of the pope. here again the jesuits ardently supported the wish of pius ix., and a struggle had taken place in the catholic world for some years. it was known that such devout and influential priests as newman in england, bishop dupanloup and archbishop darboy in france, and bishop ketteler and cardinal schwarzenberg and döllinger in germany, opposed the definition, and the greatest care was taken in selecting members of the council whose position did not make them entitled to sit in it. when newman was proposed from england, manning (an enthusiastic supporter of the papal policy) and the jesuits defeated the project, as purcell has since established in his life of manning. when, however, the seven hundred members of the council had assembled, it was realized that between one hundred and fifty and two hundred voters regarded a definition of infallibility as inopportune, and the procedure and control of the council were diplomatically arranged. what newman called "the aggressive, insolent faction" of the infallibilists strained every nerve to destroy the opposition. they drew up a petition to the pope, and pius was deeply annoyed to find that little over four hundred names appeared at its foot; and of the signatories the majority were prelates who lived at rome in dependence on the quirinal. but the familiar story need not be told again in detail. the debates were prolonged into the broiling summer, in spite of the remonstrances of the northerners, and the pope's indignation at the minority was freely expressed. when, on july 13th, the vote was taken, 451 voted "aye," 62 voted a qualified "aye" (_placet juxta modum_), and 88 voted in opposition. pius wavered, and was disposed to listen to counsels of compromise, but the majority pressed, and the stormy debate continued. the inopportunists were reduced to silence, and at the final vote, on july 18th, only two voted against the project; though many abstained from voting. time has thrown a strange light on that historic struggle. on the one hand, it has transpired that the definition was drawn up in such terms that the controversialist could plausibly accommodate it with the known blunders of earlier popes, and few followed the spirited revolt of döllinger: on the other hand, the papacy has from that day to this made no use of its infallibility, in an age of perplexing doubts, and the ardour of the infallibilists has cooled. during the following years the pope sank once more into depression as the situation in italy engendered grave troubles. bible societies and protestant churches appeared in italy, even in rome, and pius vainly denounced the monstrosity. bishops dare not apply to the italian government for their appointments, and had to remain without incomes and palaces. the jesuits were expelled, and in 1872 a law of dissolution menaced the 8151 members of religious houses in rome and the provinces. bavaria refused to publish the bull _pastor æternus_, and its struggle with the church extended to prussia and culminated in the long and bitter kulturkampf (1872-1887). in france the anti-clerical liberals gained from year to year on the catholic reaction which had followed the commune of 1871, and gambetta's battle-cry rallied the old forces in alarming numbers. in 1876 (november 6th) antonelli died, and the grave scandal which disclosed his irregularities gave joy to the enemies of the papacy. a last gleam of consolation came to the pope in 1877, when the catholic world held a magnificent celebration, on june 3d, of his episcopal jubilee. but the aged pope saw no retreat of the disastrous forces he had encountered, and, after the longest and most calamitous rule in papal history, he died on february 7, 1878. little need be added in regard to his relations with other countries than france and italy. the record is one of both successes and failures which were misunderstood at rome: to the modern historian it is the record of the lapse of millions from the roman allegiance. in the united states forty-four new dioceses were established between 1847 and 1877, yet the american prelates of the time bitterly lament the loss of hundreds of thousands of scattered catholic immigrants. in england the romeward movement within the english church came to an end long before the death of pius, and the church made no numerical progress in excess of births and immigration. in holland the hierarchy was peacefully restored, but in switzerland there was such tension that the internuncio was expelled in 1874. russia severed relations with rome in 1860: württemberg (1861) and baden (1859) signed concordats with rome, but found it impossible to maintain them: and the new german empire was, as i said previously, involved by bismarck and falk in a bitter struggle with rome. the relations with catholic countries were little more satisfactory. sardinia had mortally offended the quirinal long before the struggle for italian unity began: by a long series of anti-clerical measures it abolished tithes, laicised education and marriage, expelled the religious orders and confiscated their property, gave freedom of worship to protestants, and dealt summarily with hostile bishops. austria had signed in 1855 (august 18th) a concordat which was favourable to the church, but the young francis joseph, whose education had been carefully directed in the clerical interest, was forced by the storm of opposition to deviate from it. it was abolished in 1870, and four years later laws were passed which the vatican regarded as anti-clerical. spain maintained, through its various revolutions, a consistent docility, and was the only country on which the dying eyes of the pope could dwell with satisfaction. it contracted a favourable concordat on march 16, 1851, which was supplemented in 1859. portugal signed a favourable concordat in 1857. in latin america on the other hand, the church suffered grave reverses. costa rica and guatemala (1852), haiti (1860), nicaragua (1861), and san salvador, honduras, venezuela, and ecuador (1862) signed satisfactory concordats, but colombia, mexico, brazil, uruguay, and argentina entered upon anti-clerical ways, and the spirit of revolt against the clergy was spreading throughout southern and central america. not since the days of leo x. had the church suffered such grave and widespread defection. in estimating the character of pius ix. and his relation to these losses the modern historian has little difficulty. the exaggerations of both his critics and his panegyrists are patent. he was a sincerely religious and zealous man, but the hope once entertained of his canonization (or, at least, beatification) was as absurd as the malevolent attacks on his character from the other side. his intellectual quality must be similarly judged: he had little penetration, no breadth of mind, no power to read aright the symptoms of his age. in considering the fatal obstinacy with which he refused all accommodation in regard to his temporal power, we must carefully bear in mind his religious views, and not merely dwell on his slight capacity for diplomacy or statesmanship. so grave a surrender could not be commended by a few years of revolution except to a man of greater insight and foresight than pius ix. in sum, he would in years of peace and piety have made an excellent and undistinguished steward of the papal heritage, but he was very far from having the greatness of mind which the circumstances of the church required, and the vast organization over which he so long presided emerged still further weakened from its second historical crisis. it had fought protestantism and lost: it had fought democracy and progress and lost. it remained for a wiser pope to initiate the policy of accommodation. footnotes: [footnote 352: during his twenty-months' pontificate, in 1829, catholic emancipation was carried in england. but the quirinal's share was confined to rejoicing. consalvi, however, had "worked incessantly" for it, and had been much aided by the duchess of devonshire. see his words in artaud's _histoire du pape léon xii._, i., 171.] [footnote 353: the contradiction is characteristic of the literature on pius ix. most of it was written before or just after his death and is fiercely partisan. petruccelli della gattina's _pie ix._ (1866) is the chief and least reliable of the hostile biographies: t.a. trollope's _story of the life of pius ix._ (2 vols., 1877) is one of the most temperate of the anti-papal works and still has some use: f. hitchman's _pius the ninth_ (1878) is slighter but equally moderate. such studies as those of shea, maguire, dawson, wappmannsperger (2 vols.), stepischnegg (2 vols.), pougeois (6 vols.), and freiherr von helfert are equally prejudiced on the catholic side. the best study of the character and work of pius is dr. f. nielsen's _papacy in the nineteenth century_ (2 vols., 1906), a temperate (perhaps not sufficiently critical) and scholarly work. bishop g.s. pelczar's _pio ix. e il suo pontificato_ (3 vols., italian translation 1909) is learned but fulsome and undiscriminating. father r. ballerini's incomplete study (published as _les premières pages du pontificat du pape pie ix._, 1909) has no distinction. for special aspects see d. silvagni, _la corte e la società romana_ (1885), and count von hoensbroech's _rom und das zentrum_ (1910), and works quoted hereafter.] [footnote 354: ballerini and helfert deny this but pelczar and nielsen make it clear. the graver statement of the hostile biographers--that he spent his youth in dissipation--rests on no respectable evidence.] [footnote 355: _lettres apostoliques de pie ix._, p. 177.] [footnote 356: the original documents relating to the pope's actions will be found in the _acta pii noni_, _acta sanctæ sedis_, and _discorsi del summo pontefice pio ix_. (1872-8).] [footnote 357: in the plebiscite which was taken in the city of rome 40,785 voted for incorporation and forty-six for the pope: in the city and province 133,681 voted for incorporation and 1507 against. naturally, the minority is not fully represented, as many refused to vote.] chapter xx leo xiii. when leo xiii. mounted the pontifical throne, the papacy had had three quarters of a century of disastrous experience of the reactionary policy. the restoration of 1815 had seemed to inaugurate for rome a new period of prosperity. the touching experiences of pius vii. and the widely recognized need of combating by religious influence the new spirit of revolt disposed the monarchs of europe, and a large part of their subjects, to regard the successor of peter with respect. he had been their ally in resisting napoleon: he was their ally in restoring feudalism. england moderated its rude tradition of "the scarlet woman." the tsar of the russias felt that romanism was a large element in the spiritual renaissance he contemplated. louis xviii. remembered how altar and throne had fallen together. ferdinand of spain drowned the revolt in blood. austria reconsidered its febronianism. italy seemed incapable of rebellion. but the revolutionary wave had retired only to come back with greater effect, and from 1830 to 1850 the face of europe was transformed. the popes almost alone defied the spirit to which monarchs bowed, and they stood almost alone amid their ruins. england returned to its disdain: russia and switzerland angrily broke off relations with the vatican: germany was engaged in what the vatican regarded as a formidable effort to crush catholicism in the new empire. austria was sullen and weakened. france was rapidly passing into its third and final revolt against catholicism. spain was forced into an alliance with the growing liberals against the carlists. italy was overwhelmingly opposed to the papacy on what the papacy declared to be a sacred and vital issue, and was honeycombed with rationalism. belgium was almost dominated by a liberal middle class. the south american republics were falling away in succession. the two most profoundly catholic peoples, ireland and poland, were ruined, and their children were scattered and seduced. thus would any penetrating cardinal have interpreted the situation of the church in 1878; yet, if his penetration were great enough, he would see that there was a tendency among this liberal middle class, which now dominated europe, to seek once more an alliance with religion against the deeper social heresies which were appearing. would the new pope prove subtle enough to grasp that opportunity and save the church? his "infallibility" would avail little: he would be unwise to emphasize it. he must be a diplomatist and a rhetorician. the new pope, leo xiii., was nearly sixty-eight years old, and had had a better education in the history of the nineteenth century than most of the italian cardinals had. gioacchino vincenzo raffaele luigi pecci was born on march 2, 1810, at carpineto. his first lesson, in the country mansion, would be to hear his father. colonel pecci, and his very pious mother, a tertiary of the franciscan order, talk of the napoleonic nightmare that had just passed away. from the age of eight to fourteen he was under the care of the jesuits at viterbo, and, as it was represented to him that the younger sons in so large a family had to look to the church for their income, after some hesitation, he allowed them to tonsure him, at the age of eleven.[358] in 1824 his mother died, and he went to study, still under the jesuits, at the collegio romano at rome. he had conspicuous ability and high character, and besides improving his latin--he already wrote latin poems--he studied philosophy, mathematics, chemistry, and astronomy. he attracted attention, as clever boys attract the attention of the clergy, and was directed toward the clerical career. he must enter the "academy for noble ecclesiastics," said one prelate; and, with the aid of his brothers, he drew up a genealogical tree to prove that his father, the easy-going colonel of carpineto, was descended from the mediæval pecci of siena. the academy did not pronounce his proof valid--the connexion is probable enough--but, on his merits, and in view of his important patrons, admitted him among the nobles of anagni (1831). joachim--he had called himself vincenzo until 1832--took a degree in theology, and told his brothers that he was going to illumine their ancient family. he still loved to take a flintlock musket over the hills during his holidays, but he indulged in no dissipations and became pale and thin over the books which were to help his ambition. his father died in 1836, and it is in his naïve letters to his brothers that we discover the human elements ignored by his eloquent biographers.[359] he begins to follow politics, in the most ardent papal spirit. cardinal pacca, the intransigeant, recommended the pale, slim young cleric to gregory xvi., and in 1837 he was appointed domestic prelate. cardinal sala also befriended the young monsignore, and he went from one small office to another. sala pointed out that for further advancement he must become a priest, and he became a priest (december 31, 1837); but his letters make it clear that he entered the priesthood in a mood of such exalted piety that sala feared he was about to quit the world and become a jesuit. about a month after his ordination (february 2, 1838) he was appointed apostolic delegate (civil governor) of benevento, where the brigandage which disgraced the papal states was particularly rabid. in three years, with the aid of a skilful chief of police, he almost suppressed brigandage and smuggling, and did much for the province. his progress was not so heroically triumphant as the biographers represent. in his letters to his brothers he complains that his predecessor has robbed the treasury and they must help him: that his ninety-seven ducats a month do not enable him to have the fine horses and carriage he needs: and, later (in 1839), that the clerics at rome are plotting to cheat him of the higher promotion which he deserves. in 1841 the pope transferred him to perugia, and he did good work in reforming education, founding a bank for small traders, and so on. in january, 1843, his real education began. he was appointed nuncio at brussels and was made titular archbishop of damietta. able as he was, the promotion to so important an office was premature. of french (or any languages but latin and italian) he knew not a syllable until he set out, and with the modern thought which was then current in brussels he was acquainted only by means of the version of it given by pius ix. in the syllabus, of which he fully approved. his handsome presence and amiable ways carried him far. there is an almost boyish expression on his face at this period: on the long, thin, smiling face and bright eyes and soft sensuous mouth. king leopold, a protestant, liked him, and allowed the young archbishop to attract him to religious functions and persuade him of the importance of religion in appeasing social ambitions. pecci, in turn, could not contemplate the gas-lit streets, the railways, the postal system, etc., of belgium, without realizing that the papal states would have to admit _something_ of this modern thought. but he was for a safe modernism, consistent with the _quanta cura_ and the syllabus. he was suave to all: even to the rebellious gioberti, who was then giving italian lessons in brussels. to this period of his career belongs the good story of a naughty liberal marquis, who ventured to offer him a pinch of snuff from a box which was adorned with a nude venus, and the archbishop is said to have taken it and asked: "madame la marquise?" secretly, however, he urged the catholics to organize a struggle against the liberals. the liberals wanted a compromise on the school-question, and, when the nuncio assisted in defeating it, the premier deschamps wrote contemptuously to rome that they would like a nuncio who was a "statesman." as, about the same time, the bishopric of perugia fell vacant and the perugians asked for their former delegate, gregory recalled pecci. his disappointment--which he plainly expresses in his letters--was softened only by the pope's assurance that the transfer would be regarded as "equal to promotion to a nunciature of the first class"; in other words, he remained on the path to the cardinalate, as he desired.[360] from brussels he brought a warm testimonial written by king leopold, and he spent a month in london (where he had an interview with the queen) and some weeks in paris. he reached rome in may (1846), to find gregory dying, and he witnessed the election of pius ix., and, at perugia, applauded the early "liberalism" of the pope. perugia had a large share of the advanced thinkers who now overran italy, and the bishop would assuredly become more closely acquainted with their ideas. from his later encyclicals, however, one must suppose that he never made a profound study of their claims, either on the intellectual or the social side. of philosophy he had only the mediæval version given him in the collegio romano and the sapienza, and of economics or sociology he knew nothing. such science as he knew--the elements of chemistry and astronomy--was easily reconcilable with religion, and this gave him an apparently liberal attitude toward science. on the other hand, he had genuine sympathies and he felt that the new aspirations of the working class were not to be met with a sheer rebuff.[361] the ideas of gioberti and ventura appealed to him. even when gioberti had fallen out of favour at the quirinal, archbishop pecci, when he passed through perugia in 1848, gave him hospitality in his palace. henri des houx affirms that he heard on good authority that for this pius ix. suspended the archbishop from pontifical duties for several weeks. later, he incurred suspicion by permitting a memorial service at the death of cavour. it is admitted by the leading catholic biographers that he was in bad odour at the quirinal. the promised cardinal's hat was withheld for eight years[362] and his great ability was wasted on a provincial bishopric. the slight is ascribed to the jealousy of cardinal antonelli, and his advance after the secretary's death confirms the suspicion. it is, however, plain that pecci was a most excellent bishop, and that he was no more "liberal" than pius ix. in his first year. he strictly organized the work and education of the clergy, restored the seminary and built a college of st. thomas, founded many schools, churches, and hospitals, brought brothers of mercy and nuns from belgium, and opened a branch of the st. vincent de paul society. he left a fine record of religious-social work, and the orthodox poor loved him. yet we must set aside the exaggerations of biographers. pecci cherished the purely papal ideal and was out of touch with the majority of his people. in 1859, when a group of rebels set up a "provisional government" at perugia, he nervously shut himself in his palace for two days and, without a protest, allowed the ferocious swiss guard sent by antonelli to wear themselves out in an orgy of slaughter and pillage. a few months later sardinia expelled the papal troops, and, when a plebiscite was taken, 97,000 voted for incorporation in the kingdom of sardinia, and only 386 voted against. the archbishop protested emphatically and consistently against the seizure of the pope's temporal power, and, when the hated laws of sardinia were successively applied to perugia (on civil marriage, the suppression of the religious orders, military service for clerics, etc.), he continued to protest in the warmest language. in 1862 he suspended three priests who adopted the italian cause, and was cited before the civil tribunal; but the case was allowed to lapse. we know that he was carefully watched from the quirinal, and that he had an informant of his own at the curia,[363] but his pronouncements and letters make it abundantly clear that he never swerved from the strict papal conception of contemporary thought and politics. antonelli died in december, 1876, and (as is ignored by most of his biographers) pecci very shortly went to live at rome--long before he was appointed chamberlain. he had an able coadjutor in the bishopric, and he pleaded his age and increasing weakness. he lived in the modest falconieri palace, and trusted to get a suburbicarian bishopric. to his annoyance, two which fell vacant in the next few weeks were given by pius to others, but at length, in august, the pope appointed him camerlengo (chamberlain). in that capacity he had, the following february, to tap the dead pope on the forehead with a hammer and to arrange the conclave. he was not widely known at rome, and few foresaw his elevation to the throne. it is, in fact, probable that pius ix. had made him camerlengo, not in order to exclude him from the papacy, but because he was not likely to be required for it. since alexander vi. no chamberlain had been elected pope. there were, however, shrewd observers who predicted his rise, and little surprise was expressed when, after the third scrutiny, on february 20th, he secured forty-four out of the sixty-one votes. we may set aside romantic speculations about the conclave. a few cardinals perceived that the church needed in its ruler just such a combination of clear intelligence, broad knowledge, and diplomatic temper as cardinal pecci possessed, and he was sufficiently sound on papal politics to disarm the more conservative. it is not impossible that waverers reflected as they gazed on the worn white frame of the cardinal, that, whatever policy he adopted, leo xiii. would not long rule the church. the liberal press had recalled his friendship with gioberti and his permission of a service in memory of cavour, but leo quickly reassured the more rigid cardinals. the crowd gathered in the great square to receive the blessing of the new pope, yet hour followed hour without his making an appearance. r. de cesare shows that the italian government was prepared, not only to preserve order, but to render military honours if he appeared on the balcony. the intransigeant cardinals opposed it, and four hours later he gave the blessing inside st. peter's. similarly with his coronation. it is untrue that the italian government refused to take measures to preserve order if he were, as was usual, crowned in st. peter's. on the advice of the more conservative cardinals he chose to be crowned in semi-privacy in the sistine chapel on march 3d.[364] indeed when, on february 22d, he had been compelled to go to his late palace for his papers, he crossed rome in the utmost secrecy. he would, like pius, have "no truck with the robbers." to the kaiser, the tsar, and the swiss president he had written on the day of his election to say that he looked forward to more friendly relations, but in his first consistory, on march 28th, he assured the cardinals that there would be no reconciliation with italy, and on april 28th he issued his first encyclical, _inscrutabile_, in which, besides asserting the claim of the temporal power, he described europe, in more graceful terms than pius, yet in the same spirit, as filled with a "pestilential virus" and nearing death unless it speedily took the antidote of papal obedience. there was to be no truck with "the new civilization" also. yet leo xiii. has passed into contemporary history as the great "reconciler of differences," in carlyle's phrase: the man who, by a superb diplomacy and a fortunate conjunction of character and genius, rescued the church from the dangerous position in which pius ix. had left it and raised it to a higher level of prestige and power. the historian must make allowance for contemporary enthusiasm. probably most rulers of ability and character have left that impression among the generation which witnessed their death. leo, moreover, as befitted a temperate and high-minded man, excited no bitter opposition. all the current biographies of him are from catholic pens: few of them even pretend to have the candour and balance of historical writers. leo's story is still to be written. it suffices here to remark that the forces he most fiercely combated--socialism and rationalism--made during his pontificate a progress out of all proportion to the increase of population: that the church of rome actually decreased, if we take account of the growth of population: and that "modernism" within the church became the customary attitude of cultivated catholics. among the most potent facts of his pontificate are the facts that france, to retain which he made grave sacrifices, was entirely lost to the church: that italy, which he defied, has established its position with absolute security and abandoned its creed to a remarkable extent: that portugal, spain, and spanish-america have witnessed a similar spread of revolt: that in england, germany, and america there has been no progress other than increase by births and immigration: that leo's effort to check socialism by a christian social zeal failed and was almost abandoned by him in his later years: and that his attempt to impose st. thomas of aquinas on modern thought and his design of directing modern scriptural research have only embarrassed the scholars of his church. he was one of the great men of his great age, the ablest pope in three hundred years: but he failed. he made no impression whatever on what he called the "diseases" of modern thought and life, and he left his church numerically weaker--in proportion to the increase of population--than he found it.[365] his policy in italy is almost invariably described as being conciliatory without sacrificing the papal claim. we cannot regard as entirely amiable a policy of reminding the italian monarchy and statesmen, every few years, that they are sacrilegious and excommunicated thieves, and it is surely now clear that leo erred in maintaining the attitude of pius and forbidding catholics to take part in the elections. the _catholic encyclopædia_ imputes to him the remarkable expectation that the revolutionary elements in italy would, if not checked by the catholic vote, win power at the polls and the government would seek the aid of the vatican; and the writer describes this as a miscalculation which pius x. was obliged to correct.[366] indeed the one wise move on the part of leo xiii. in regard to italy is either suppressed or discussed with strained scepticism by catholic writers. during the first few years after his coronation leo continued to protest against the wickedness of the world in general and of italy in particular. in 1881 he had a singular and unpleasant proof of the resentment of rome. on july 13th the remains of pius ix. were transferred to the church of st. lawrence, where he wished to be buried, and, the government feeling that a public ceremony would lead to disorder, the translation was to be secret and nocturnal. but the "secret" was carefully divulged before the hour, and a vast crowd of the faithful assembled to do homage to the papa-re. the rougher anti-clericals were thus stimulated to make an unseemly protest, and leo took occasion again to protest to the catholic powers that his position was intolerable. on april 24, 1881, the pope urged the catholic associations to enter the field of municipal politics, and in the following year he, in the encyclical _etsi nos_ (february 5th), and on the occasion of the death of garibaldi (june 2d), again made severe attacks upon italy. the friction increased. in july (1882) leo had to protest that bishops, not recognizing the government, received no incomes or palaces, and that monks and nuns who endeavoured to evade the law of suppression were hardly treated. then a dismissed employee of the vatican brought an action against the pope in the italian court, and though the action was dismissed, the court claimed jurisdiction, and leo made a heated protest to france and austria. in 1884 the propaganda was compelled to invest its money in italian funds, and the pope, after the customary protest, set up a number of procurators in foreign countries to whom the faithful might send their offerings. in 1886 the anti-clerical campaign became more violent; tithes were abolished, and many italian catholics began to desire reconciliation. italy entered into the triple alliance with austria and germany, and henceforward appeals to the "catholic" powers were obviously futile. france itself had by this time an anti-clerical government and majority, and german and austrian catholics bitterly resented the italian attack on the triple alliance. in february, 1887, cardinal jacobini, the secretary of state, died, and cardinal rampolla entered upon his famous career. leo openly directed the new secretary to insist on the restoration of the temporal power, and ordered that the rosary be recited nightly in the churches of rome. but in the course of that year there was a change in the vatican policy, though, since it was unsuccessful, it is usually concealed or called into question. crispi himself revealed, a few years later, that there were negotiations for a settlement between the vatican and the quirinal, and that france, irritated by the triple alliance, threatened to put greater pressure on its church unless the pope withdrew from the negotiations.[367] mgr. de t'serclaes virtually admits the fact, and conjectures that crispi wanted italy to have a share in the approaching celebration of the pope's jubilee. we have no right to question crispi's assurance that france intervened, and that the vatican was willing to hear of compromise. the papal authorities, however, concealed the unsuccessful offer and returned to the earlier attitude. the pope's sacerdotal jubilee was celebrated in 1888 with immense rejoicings, and the anti-clericals retorted with fresh legislation. in 1889 a statue of giordano bruno was erected at rome. it is said that leo xiii. spent the hours of the demonstration in tears at the foot of the altar, and that he had some idea of leaving rome. the gates of the vatican were carefully watched, and there was great excitement in rome when it was announced that he had actually passed over a few yards of roman territory--to visit the studio of a sculptor near the vatican. but the pope clung to his theory of being imprisoned in the vatican, and the remaining years were like the earlier: anathema on one side, disdain and defiance on the other. when he died, the laity of rome itself had become so largely anti-clerical that catholic deputies to the chamber did not care to be seen going to mass, and in the north socialism was advancing at a remarkable pace. in germany, on the other hand, leo won considerable success, though his biographers describe it inaccurately. the _kulturkampf_ was at its height when leo was elected, and he at once wrote a firm and courteous letter to the emperor, trusting that peace would be restored. in his cold and ironical reply (evidently written by bismarck) the emperor observed that there would be peace when the pope directed the clergy to obey the laws, and leo retorted (april 17, 1878) that the laws were inconsistent with the catholic conscience. but circumstances favoured the pope. two attempts were made to assassinate the emperor, and he directed bismarck to see that rebellious impulses in the young were checked by religious education. it seems clear that the emperor had begun to dislike the struggle with the church, and by this time bismarck himself must have seen that persecution had led only to the better organization and greater energy of the catholics, while his policy was threatened from another side by the rapid advance of social democracy. the papal nuncio at munich, mgr. aloisi-masella, was invited to berlin. he was instructed from rome to decline the invitation, and bismarck arranged a "wayside inn" meeting at kissingen. as bismarck insisted on the government retaining a veto on all ecclesiastical appointments, the negotiations broke down, and little progress was made when they were resumed by the vienna nuncio and prince von reuss. in the following year falk, the framer of the famous may laws, resigned, and the vatican resumed its efforts. on february 24, 1880, the pope informed the archbishop of cologne that the government might have a restricted veto on the ordinations of priests if it would grant an amnesty--eight out of twelve bishops were still in exile or prison--and modify the laws. bismarck refused, but there was some relaxation of the laws. in 1881 several bishops were appointed, and in 1882 bismarck voted funds for a german representative at the vatican. it was, however, at once discovered that the bargain put the pope in a dilemma. bismarck demanded that leo should direct the alsatian clergy to submit, but, though the pope promised that he would "see to it," he dared not interfere. in 1884 diplomatic relations were formally restored. several bishops returned from exile, and episcopal incomes were restored; but the amnesty was not extended to the archbishop of cologne and the archbishop of gnesen and posen, and catholic students were not allowed to go to louvain, rome, or innspruck. in 1885 bismarck made a further step by inviting the pope to mediate between germany and spain in their quarrel for the possession of the caroline islands. it is said that bismarck was entrapped into this by a catholic journalist announcing that spain was about to make the invitation. however that may be, the invitation flattered the vatican, and the two rebellious archbishops were "persuaded" by the pope to resign. the german catholics were now beginning to murmur against the pope, and the negotiations proceeded slowly, but in 1886 bismarck bluntly denounced the may laws, and it was proposed to modify them. shortly afterwards, however, it appeared that the pope had conveyed an impression that he would pay a high price (besides the veto on priests) for the surrender. the centre party opposed bismarck's new law of military service, and he appealed to rome. rampolla, through the bavarian nuncio, directed the catholic members to desist, but, to the equal dismay of the chancellor and the pope, they refused to obey and caused a dissolution of the reichstag. their leader, baron frankenstein, replied to the bavarian nuncio that they took orders from rome only in ecclesiastical matters.[368] bismarck, in his anger, got copies of the letters and published them. what followed we can only gather from the sequel. the centre withdrew its opposition, the military law was passed, and the may laws were modified. german liberals beheld the strange spectacle of the iron chancellor, in the reichstag, indignantly denying that the pope was a "foreign power," who ought not to intervene in german affairs. no further concessions were won from germany--the jesuits are still excluded--but since 1887 the church in that country has enjoyed comparative peace and prosperity. william ii. acceded to the throne in 1888, and from the first he insisted on friendly relations with rome. on three occasions (1888, 1893, and 1903) he visited leo at the vatican. bismarck retired in 1890, after a final defeat by the centre party. the money due to the bishops (whose incomes had been suspended) now amounted to more than £400,000, and bismarck invited the pope to compromise in regard to it. leo refused; the government must settle the matter with the catholics of germany, he said. in the later debate in the reichstag the minister of worship heatedly denounced the pope for duplicity, but the centre had its way and the whole sum was restored to the bishops. it is further claimed, though without documentary evidence, that the emperor's visit to the vatican in 1893 was for the purpose of urging the pope to order the members of the centre to support the new military laws. in the sequel the catholic members were divided and the laws passed. but documents on these recent events will not reach the eye of this generation, and we cannot be sure how far the _kulturkampf_ was abandoned as a reward for papal support of germany's military policy. on the other hand, the alliance in hostility to socialism has proved a failure. the catholic vote at the polls fell, during leo's pontificate, from 27.9 per cent. of the total vote to 19.7 (in 1903): the social democratic vote increased nearly tenfold.[369] in france the policy of the pope was correct and particularly unsuccessful. a few years after the fall of the papal states the number of professing catholics in france arose to about thirty millions in a nation of thirty-six millions; and the sincerity of a very large proportion may be judged from the fact that nearly two thirds of the papal income from peter's pence (which rose to nearly half a million sterling a year) came from french catholics. yet when leo died, the professing catholics had fallen to about six millions in a population of thirty-nine millions. we must beware of ascribing this failure to leo xiii., though undoubtedly he never exhibited a sound knowledge or statesmanlike grasp of the situation in france. that country was developing along anti-clerical lines, and no pope or prelate could have diverted it. leo was absorbed in the superficial struggle of royalists and republicans until the serious development had proceeded too far. in the later seventies the anti-clericals began to assert their rapidly growing power and influence legislation. the jesuits were again expelled, and education further withdrawn from catholic control. the pope followed the development in helpless concern until october 22, 1880, when, at the demand of the french faithful, he passed his censure. the republican authorities paid no heed and in 1883 leo sent a protest to president grévy. in a cold and indifferent reply the president pointed out that the catholic clergy could expect little favour from a republican institution which they constantly attacked, and the pope's attention was forcibly drawn to the royalist agitation which divided the church and fed the anti-clerical campaign against it. we must conclude that leo, like so many catholics, miscalculated the recuperating power of royalism, besides fearing to offend a powerful section of the clergy and laity, as he still hesitated to direct catholics to submit to the republic. for a time he trusted that the democratic movement headed by the comte de mun would bring relief, but it increased the confusion, and on february 16, 1892, leo issued his famous encyclical, urging the french catholics to submit to the republic and assail only its anti-clerical laws. the royalists sulked: in one diocese the peter's pence offerings fell from £60,000 to £35,000. even the panama scandal in 1893 failed to yield any advantage, and the church completed its series of blunders by adopting the crusade against dreyfus. in his later years leo could but helplessly look on while waldeck-rousseau and combes disestablished and debilitated the church. even within the church he was compelled to witness an immense advance of the "americanism" which he detested.[370] in belgium the political circumstances were more favourable to the plans of the vatican. in the summer of 1879 the liberals passed a law for the secularization of the elementary schools, and the catholics complained that the pope, who blamed the violence of their language, failed to discharge his office with due severity. in point of fact, leo was working so diplomatically, assuring the king that the clergy must respect the civil authority and separately encouraging the clergy to resist "iniquitous" laws, that the government at length publicly taxed him with duplicity and withdrew its representative from rome. in 1885, however, the catholics returned to power, and, enjoying the advantage of a division of the hostile forces (liberals and socialists), established a lasting influence in the country. austria, on the other hand, proved unsatisfactory to the vatican. from the day of its alliance with italy the roman officials looked with annoyance on austria, and the consistent tone of mgr. de t'serclaes' references to it reflect the vatican attitude. a letter which the pope wrote to the bishops of hungary in 1886, urging them to resist the new and unecclesiastical laws in regard to marriage and education, was construed as a wish to cause trouble in austria, or between austria and italy, and the same murmurs arose when leo urged the austrian clergy to resist further liberal laws in 1890. the laws were carried, and the protests of the pope were disregarded. in spain the pope was more fortunate, as he curbed the disposition of the clergy to adopt the ill-fated carlist cause.[371] portugal remained outwardly faithful, and a concordat granted by the king in 1886 permitted the pope to effect a much needed reform in the ecclesiastical administration of india. some advantages were won, also, in switzerland, where the older hostility was checked, and the church prospered. the relations of the vatican with russia were singular, and gave rise to bitter complaint among the catholic subjects of the tsar. to the amiable letter in which leo announced his election the tsar gave a cold and discouraging reply. in 1879, however, the attempt on the tsar's life gave leo an opportunity to insinuate his belief that only catholic influence could curb these criminal impulses; and when alexander ii was assassinated in 1883, he approached his successor with more success. in the succeeding years of diplomatic intercourse the repression of the catholic poles was partly relieved; but no concession was made when the pope presented to the tsar the petition of the ruthenian catholics in 1884, or when he deprecated the exile of the bishop of wilna in 1885. in 1888, however, russia approached the vatican through vienna, and the negotiations have given rise to acute controversy. the poles murmured that the pope was disposed to betray their national interests in order to please france by obliging its virtual ally, russia. how far the pope was preparing to enforce on the poles the russian demands--for a more extensive use of the russian language in poland and for a surrender of the offspring of mixed marriages--and to what extent he realized the true designs of russia, cannot be confidently determined. it is clear only that he meditated concession, and the suspicion that he thus sought a political advantage in france is not implausible. a similar complaint arose among that other shattered catholic nation, the irish. the parnellite movement of the eighties, it was said, was used by him as a means of accommodating and conciliating england; and there is little room for doubt that this design influenced his policy. it was one of the general lines of his campaign in europe to persuade rulers that the power of his church would be their greatest guarantee of docility. in 1881 he warned archbishop mccabe that the disturbances of public order in ireland were not to be favoured, and he made the hint more explicit in the following year. in 1883 he gravely disturbed the irish catholics by issuing a drastic condemnation of the parnell testimonial fund and forbidding the clergy to work for it; while errington was amiably received at the vatican. the disturbance became graver, and in 1885 leo summoned the irish bishops to rome. even their representations failed to disturb his policy, and on april 13, 1888 (after a roman envoy, mgr. persico, had been sent on the quaint mission of studying the situation in ireland), a decree of the holy office condemned the "plan of campaign." so loud were the murmurs at this invasion of the political rights of the irish that an encyclical (_sæpe nos_) had to be dispatched on june 24 to secure the submission of the bishops. we may at least discover some penetration in the pope's confidence that ireland would not permanently resent the abuse of his authority. the advantage gained in england was slight. the broad stream of immigration from ireland since 1840, which had given the illusion of a rapid growth of catholicism, and the more slender stream which is associated with the oxford movement, had materially lessened, and a period of loss had begun (in proportion to the increase of population). for nearly two decades the pope was content with domestic measures like the regulation of the conflicts between monks and bishops (may 8, 1881) and the establishment of an hierarchy in india. on april 20, 1895, he took a bolder step, and in the encyclical _ad anglos_ invited the english people to renew their ancient allegiance to rome. undismayed by the absence of a response, he, on september 13, 1896, issued the famous encyclical _apostolicæ curæ_, in which he assailed the validity of orders in the english church. the brisk controversy which ensued does not concern us; but we may assume that, from the figures at the disposal of the vatican, the pope would sadly realize, when the century drew to a close, that the catholic church in england had not increased, beyond the natural growth by births and immigration, during his long and laborious pontificate. in the united states leo had a thorny task. with his keen scent for socialistic insurgence against constituted authority, he proposed, in 1887, to condemn the 730,000 american catholic workers who were incorporated in the "knights of labour." cardinal gibbon defended them, and a grudging toleration was issued from rome. in 1893 the pope sought to improve his relations with the republic by taking a handsome part in the fourth centenary of the discovery of america, but by that time a grave struggle had begun to rend the cosmopolitan church in the states. americans naturally resented the germanism of the german catholic schools, and in 1892 archbishop ireland consented to hand over to the school board some of these elementary schools, on condition that the catholic teachers were retained and hours were assigned for religious instruction. the germans and the ultramontanes raised the cry that ireland and gibbon were favouring the "godless schools" of the republic, and denounced the plan to rome. again the cardinal and the archbishop won a grudging _tolerari posse_ ("may be tolerated in the circumstances") but a fierce agitation went on in the american church, and the pope's representative, mgr. satolli, was vigorously opposed by the more american prelates. in 1896 it was believed that satolli was instrumental in securing the removal of mgr. keane from the rectorship of the catholic university at washington, and when an intriguing german professor was dismissed by the university authorities and rome demanded his restoration. cardinal gibbon forced the pope to withdraw the demand. the ultras then--with the persistent aid of the jesuits and their _civiltà cattolica_ at rome--attacked a biography of father hecker, of which an american translation had been published with warm recommendations from ireland and gibbon. a roman prelate authorized the printing of a scathing attack on the book, and, although rampolla protested that neither he nor the pope was involved in the authorization, the american prelates took up a menacing attitude. at this juncture leo, whose repeated counsels to lay the strife had been disregarded, wrote his famous letter on americanism to cardinal gibbon (january 22d, 1899). piquant stories are told of the sentiments expressed by the american prelates, but these the historian cannot as yet control. the struggle ended in a compromise. the book was not condemned, but quietly withdrawn, and the american prelates generally disavowed the principles to which the pope gave the name of americanism. these are but feeble summaries of the vast diplomatic activity which absorbed the long days of the venerable pontiff, and one must leave almost unnoticed other important actions. in 1885 he negotiated with the chinese government for the representative of the celestial empire at rome, but the french, rightly suspecting an intrigue on the part of germany to strengthen its influence in the far east, forced him to desist. he had the satisfaction of closing a schism in the armenian church (1878), and secured favourable measures in some of the balkan states and a few of the south american republics. he restored the borgia rooms in the vatican (1897), created a modern observatory out of the old gregorian observatory of the sixteenth century (1888), formed a reference library of 30,000 volumes at the vatican, and opened the vatican archives to scholars (1883).[372] frail, worn to a pale shade of his former self, the devoted pope maintained to the end his formidable struggle against a seceding world. rising at six in the morning--often having summoned his secretary to the bedside during the night--he said his mass and heard a mass said by his chaplain. then after a cup of chocolate or goat's milk, he began the long day's work with rampolla, or impressed his innumerable visitors with his piercing dark eyes and translucent features. at two he dined--soup, eggs (rarely meat), and a little claret--and then, after a nap or a drive in the gardens, returned to work until his simple supper at ten. after that the journals of the world, carefully marked, were read to him; and the burning lamp told of his ceaseless thinking and praying until after midnight. fortunately he did not, like so many popes, lack financial resources. the papal income before 1870 had been about £130,000, and the italian government had offered to pay this. when pius ix. refused the offer, his income was swollen by voluntary gifts to £400,000 a year, and he left nearly a million and a quarter sterling to his successor. in addition to this large income leo received vast sums on the occasion of his sacerdotal jubilee in 1888 and his episcopal jubilee in 1893: the presents (besides peter's pence) in 1888 were valued at £2,000,000 by the vatican authorities, and in 1893 the money offered amounted to £1,600,000. the chief means by which the pope created in his followers the illusion of triumphant statesmanship was the encyclical. a most assiduous student of latin from his boyhood, he raised the ecclesiastical tongue to a level it had rarely touched and impressed the world with his literary scholarship. a roman prelate once described to me how he would linger over the composition, toying with his pen and saying to his secretary: "what _is_ that word that sallust uses?" his style was an attempt to combine the graceful lucidity of sallust and the opulence of cicero. the literary merit of his encyclicals was so great that even generally informed men at times overlooked the inadequacy of their content: an inadequacy which is seen at once when we reflect that the great encyclicals which dealt with the socio-political questions of the hour are not consulted by any non-catholic authority on such questions. the attack upon socialism which runs through his writings provoked only the smiles of his opponents and did not check the large secessions of french, german, and italian catholics to socialism. a second principal theme was the duty of submission to authority, and the pope's analysis of authority, on the basis of st. thomas, belongs to the pre-scientific stage of sociology. a third general theme is that catholicism made the civilization of europe, and that that civilization is perishing because of its apostasy. in this argument the pope not only gravely misunderstood the age in which he lived, but betrayed an historical conception of the social evolution of europe which belongs essentially to the more backward seminaries.[373] the chief encyclicals, which were at one time claimed as masterly expositions of eternal principles, have already passed out of even catholic circulation. _quod apostolici_ (december 28, 1878) is a vigorous attack on socialism, on familiar lines. _æterni patris_ (august 4, 1879) imposed the philosophy of st. thomas, the opportunist character of which the pope never perceived, on the modern catholic world.[374] _arcanum_ (february 14, 1880) asserted the strict catholic ideal of indissoluble marriage, and had no influence on the increasing concession of divorce. _diuturnum_ (june 29, 1881), written after the assassination of the tsar, argued that these outrages naturally followed the abandonment of the true faith; it did not include an examination of the cruelties of the russian authorities. _humanum genus_ (april 20, 1884) condemned freemasonry. _immortale dei_ (november 19, 1885) dealt, in scholastic vein, with the constitution of states and the foundations of authority, and is a fine exposition of mediæval thought on the subject. _in plurimis_ (may 8, 1888) condemned slavery in europe. _libertas_ (june 20, 1888) is another scholastic dissertation on liberty, leading to an attack on the modern claims of freedom of thought, worship, and expression. _rerum novarum_ (may 15, 1891) is the most famous of the pope's utterances on social questions. the organization of the catholic workers in italy, france, and america, and the concern about the condition of the workers (really about the growth of socialism) which bismarck and william ii. had hypocritically conveyed to the pope, moved him to formulate his views on social questions. the only points of relative importance are that a pope at last consented to bless the efforts of the workers to obtain better conditions (with strict regard to private property and submission to authority), and that he pleaded for a "sufficient wage"; but the seeming boldness of this latter truism was undone a few weeks later, when the archbishop of malines wrote to ask if an employer sinned against justice in giving a wage which would support the worker but not his family, and the pope nervously directed cardinal zigliara to reply (anonymously) that such an employer would not sin against justice, though "possibly against charity and natural equity."[375] _providentissimus deus_ (november 18, 1893), which sought to promote biblical studies, caused catholic scholars to groan in despair; it proclaimed the inerrancy of the old testament.[376] _apostolicæ curæ_ (september 13, 1896) condemned anglican orders, and led to a prolonged controversy in england. _graves de communi_ (january 18, 1901) shows the later enfeeblement of the pope's social zeal. he still approves christian democracy, and demands justice in the industrial world, but he stresses alms-giving as a social solution and urges particular concentration on religious effort.[377] the great pope struggled on until his ninth decade of life had opened. he died on july 20, 1903, leaving his sternly contested inheritance to less skilful hands, marking, with his dying eyes, the onward progress of all the forces he had hailed as disastrous and the advance of "americanism" (or modernism) within the church. his failure must not blind us to the greatness of his personality. he united intellectual breadth and penetration with a high character and a lofty devotion to his work. his weakness was the antiquated and restricted nature of his knowledge and his inheritance of an untenable position. the concessions he made to his age were too tardy, too grudging, and often too obviously opportunist. with equal readiness he wrote a letter of recommendation of a work of canon law (by marianus de luca) which advocated the execution of heretics, and he blessed the republics of france and america. but the great theme of his life was that civilization was perishing because it had shaken off the allegiance of rome, and he lived to see the world "rounding onward to the light" and departing ever farther from its old traditions. footnotes: [footnote 358: in a letter to his brother charles, july 3, 1837, he remarks that he has entered the clergy "in order to carry out the wishes of his father." catholic lives of leo xiii., which abound, must be read with discretion. they are even more tendentious than lives of pius ix., and the best of them--by mgr. de t'serclacs (2 vols., 1894), l.k. goetz (1899), j. de narfon (1899), mgr. b. o'reilly (1903), and p.j. o'byrne (1903)--are very unreliable. mr. justin mccarthy's short _pope leo xiii._ (1896) is a summary of these, and shares their defects. with them should be read _joachim pecci_ (1900) by henri des houx, for the period before his election, and _le conclave de léon xiii._ (1887) by raphael de cesare: both catholic writers, but more candid and discriminating. see also boyer d'agen, _la jeunesse de léon xiii._ (1896) and _monsignor joachim pecci_ (1910) and works to be mentioned hereafter.] [footnote 359: these are chiefly reproduced in the works of boyer d'agen.] [footnote 360: see the documents in henri des houx, pp. 166-7, and mgr. de t'serclaes, vol. i., pp. 127-132. most biographers grossly misrepresent his "promotion." rome plainly decided that he was not suitable for a nunciature.] [footnote 361: his episcopal pronouncements are given in _scelta di atti episcopali del cardinale g. pecci_ (1879).] [footnote 362: he was made cardinal on december 19, 1853.] [footnote 363: mgr. cataldi, whom he afterwards made his master of ceremonies. h. des houx (p. 329) observes that, when cataldi died, his papers were put under seal by leo's orders and his letters have never been published.] [footnote 364: see de cesare, pp. 138-144.] [footnote 365: the losses of the church are analyzed by the author, and catholic authority is quoted in most cases, in _the decay of the church of rome_ (2d ed. 1910). in france alone the loss was about 25,000,000. his papal pronouncements are collected in _leonis xiii. p.m. acta_ (17 vols., 1881-1898), _ss. d.n. leonis xiii. allocutiones_, etc. (8 vols., 1887-1910), and _discorsi del summo pontefice leone xiii._ (1882).] [footnote 366: article "leo xiii."] [footnote 367: _contemporary review_, 1891 (vol. lx., 161).] [footnote 368: see the documents relating to the episode in t'serclaes, i., 425.] [footnote 369: on the relations of rome and the centre compare count von hoensbroech's _rom und das zentrum_ (1910). there are also curious details in the same writer's _fourteen years a jesuit_ (engl. trans. 1911).] [footnote 370: see e. barbier, _le progrès du libéralisme catholique en france sous le pape léon xiii._ (1907) and a. houtin, _histoire du modernisme catholique_ (1913).] [footnote 371: see m. tirado y rojas, _leon xiii. y españa_ (1903), for details in regard to spain.] [footnote 372: we have on earlier pages seen that parts of the archives are still reserved, even from ecclesiastics. on the general question see g. buschdell, _das vatikanische archiv und die bedeutung seiner erschliessung durch papst leo xiii._ (1903).] [footnote 373: an english translation of the chief encyclicals has been issued by wynne in america (1902). for other work see _poems, charades, inscriptions of leo xiii._ (1902, ed. henry).] [footnote 374: the injunction was not, of course, literally obeyed. at louvain university, where leo believed that he had established thomism in its purest form, mgr. (now cardinal) mercier gave us little of st. thomas, and not one priest in a thousand ever opens the pages of aquinas. at rome leo set up a thomist academy at a cost of £12,000 to himself.] [footnote 375: see mgr. de t'serclaes, ii., 107-111.] [footnote 376: i speak from personal recollection, being a professor in a seminary at the time. leo went on to form a biblical commission, of which my liberal professor, fr. david fleming, became secretary. the first decision it was his duty to sign was that moses was the author of the pentateuch! for the later doubts and despair of leo see the very interesting details in a. houtin's _la question biblique au xix. siècle_ (2d ed., 1902) and _la question biblique au xx. siècle_ (2d ed., 1906).] [footnote 377: in the _encyclopædia britannica_ ("leo xiii.") it is said that the pope in 1902 advises the workers to turn aside from social zeal and concentrate on the interests of the papacy. this seems to be inaccurate. his pronouncements of that year are of the same tenor as the encyclical _graves de communi_. see _sanctissimi d.n. leonis xiii. allocutiones_, etc., vol. viii., pp. 65-78 and 181-2. the americans have issued an english translation of the chief encyclicals.] list of the popes[378] peter 67 linus 67-79 anacletus 79-90 clement 90-99 evaristus 99-107 alexander i. 107-116 sixtus i. 116-125 telesphorus 125-136 hyginus 136-140 pius i. 140-154 anicetus 154-165 soter 165-174 eleutherius 174-189 victor 189-198 zephyrinus 198-217 callistus i. 217-222 urban i. 222-230 pontianus 230-235 anterus 235-236 fabian 236-250 cornelius 251-253 lucius i. 253-254 stephen i. 254-257 sixtus ii. 257-258 dionysius 259-268 felix i. 269-274 eutychian 275-283 caius 283-296 marcellinus 296-304 marcellus 308-309 eusebius 309 melchiades 311-314 silvester i. 314-335 marcus 336 julius i. 337-352 liberius 352-366 damasus i. 366-384 siricius 384-398 anastasius i. 398-401 innocent i. 402-417 zozimus 417-418 boniface i. 418-422 celestine i. 422-432 sixtus iii. 432-440 leo i. 440-461 hilarius 461-468 simplicius 468-483 felix ii. 483-492 galasius i. 492-496 anastasius ii. 496-498 symmachus 498-514 hormisdas 514-523 john i. 523-526 felix iii. 526-530 boniface ii. 530-532 john ii. 533-535 agapetus i. 535-536 silverius 536-538 vigilius 538-555 pelagius i. 556-561 john iii. 561-574 benedict i. 575-579 pelagius ii. 579-590 gregory i. 590-604 sabinianus 604-606 boniface iii. 607 boniface iv. 608-615 deusdedit 615-618 boniface v. 619-625 honorius i. 625-638 severinus 638-640 john iv. 640-642 theodore i. 642-649 martin i. 649-655 eugene i. 654-657 vitalian 657-672 adeodatus 672-676 donus 676-678 agatho 678-681 leo ii. 682-683 benedict ii. 684-685 john v. 685-686 conon 686-687 sergius i. 687-701 john vi. 701-705 john vii. 705-707 sisinnius 708 constantine 708-715 gregory ii. 715-731 gregory iii. 731-741 zachary 741-752 stephen ii. 752 stephen ii. (iii.) 752-757 paul i. 757-767 stephen iii. (iv.) 768-772 hadrian i. 772-795 leo iii. 795-816 stephen iv. (v.) 816-817 paschal i. 817-824 eugene ii. 824-827 valentine 827 gregory iv. 827-844 sergius ii. 844-847 leo iv. 847-855 benedict iii. 855-858 nicholas i. 858-867 hadrian ii. 867-872 john viii. 872-882 marinus i. (or martin ii.) 882-884 hadrian iii. 884-885 stephen v. (vi.) 885-891 formosus 891-896 boniface vi. 896 stephen vi. (vii.) 896-897 romanus 897 theodore ii. 897 john ix. 898-900 benedict iv. 900-903 leo v. 903 christopher 903-904 sergius iii. 904-911 anastasius iii. 911-913 lando 913-914 john x. 914-928 leo vi. 928 stephen vii. (viii.) 928-931 john xi. 931-936 leo vii. 936-939 stephen viii. (ix.) 939-942 marinus ii. (martin iii.) 942-946 agapetus ii. 946-955 john xii. 955-964 leo viii. 963-965 benedict v. 964-965 john xiii. 965-972 benedict vi. 973-974 benedict vii. 974-983 john xiv. 983-984 boniface vii. 984-985 john xv. 985-986 gregory v. 986-996 john xvi. 997-998 silvester ii. 999-1003 john xvii. 1003 john xviii. 1003-1009 sergius iv. 1009-1012 benedict viii. 1012-1024 john xix. 1024-1032 benedict ix. 1032-1045 gregory vi. 1045-1046 clement ii. 1046-1047 damasus ii. 1048 leo ix. 1049-1054 victor ii. 1055-1057 stephen ix. (x.) 1057-1058 benedict x. 1058-1059 nicholas ii. 1059-1061 alexander ii. 1061-1073 gregory vii. 1073-1085 victor iii. 1087 urban ii. 1088-1099 paschal ii. 1099-1118 gelasius ii. 1118-1119 callistus ii. 1119-1124 honorius ii. 1124-1130 innocent ii. 1130-1143 celestine ii. 1143-1144 lucius ii. 1144-1145 eugene iii. 1145-1153 anastasius iv. 1153-1154 hadrian iv. 1154-1159 alexander iii. 1159-1181 lucius iii. 1181-1185 urban iii. 1185-1187 gregory viii. 1187 clement iii. 1187-1191 celestine iii. 1191-1198 innocent iii. 1198-1216 honorius iii. 1216-1227 gregory ix. 1227-1241 celestine iv. 1241 innocent iv. 1243-1254 alexander iv. 1254-1261 urban iv. 1261-1264 clement iv. 1265-1268 gregory x. 1271-1276 innocent v. 1276 hadrian v. 1276 john xxi.[379] 1276-1277 nicholas iii. 1277-1280 martin iv. 1281-1285 honorius iv. 1285-1287 nicholas iv. 1288-1292 celestine v. 1294 boniface viii. 1294-1303 benedict xi. 1303-1304 clement v. 1305-1314 john xxii. 1316-1334 benedict xii. 1334-1342 clement vi. 1342-1352 innocent vi. 1352-1362 urban v. 1362-1370 gregory xi. 1370-1378 urban vi. 1378-1389 [clement vii. 1378-1394] boniface ix. 1389-1404 [benedict xiii. 1394-1424] innocent vii. 1404-1406 gregory xii. 1406-1415 alexander v. 1409-1410 john xxiii. 1410-1415 martin v. 1417-1431 eugene iv. 1431-1447 nicholas v. 1447-1455 callistus iii. 1455-1458 pius ii. 1458-1464 paul ii. 1464-1471 sixtus iv. 1471-1484 innocent viii. 1484-1492 alexander vi. 1492-1503 pius iii. 1503 julius ii. 1503-1513 leo x. 1513-1521 hadrian vi. 1522-1523 clement vii. 1523-1534 paul iii. 1534-1549 julius iii. 1550-1555 marcellus ii. 1555 paul iv. 1555-1559 pius iv. 1559-1565 pius v. 1566-1572 gregory xiii. 1572-1585 sixtus v. 1585-1590 urban vii. 1590 gregory xiv. 1590-1591 innocent ix. 1591 clement viii. 1592-1605 leo xi. 1605 paul v. 1605-1621 gregory xv. 1621-1623 urban viii. 1623-1644 innocent x. 1644-1655 alexander vii. 1655-1667 clement ix. 1667-1669 clement x. 1670-1676 innocent xi. 1676-1689 alexander viii. 1689-1691 innocent xii. 1691-1700 clement xi. 1700-1721 innocent xiii. 1721-1724 benedict xiii. 1724-1730 clement xii. 1730-1740 benedict xiv. 1740-1758 clement xiii. 1758-1769 clement xiv. 1769-1774 pius vi. 1775-1799 pius vii. 1800-1823 leo xii. 1823-1829 pius viii. 1829-1830 gregory xvi. 1831-1846 pius ix. 1846-1878 leo xiii. 1878-1903 pius x. 1903-1914 benedict xv. 1914footnotes: [footnote 378: i include peter, as is usual, though it must be recalled that no writer calls him "bishop" of rome until the third century, and it cannot be regarded as _proved_ that he ever visited rome. the date of his death, and the succeeding dates until the third century, and many later, are conjectural and disputed.] [footnote 379: on account of some confusion in mediæval chronicles, a spurious "john xv." was inserted in the list of popes. hence john xxi. was really john xx., but the names of the later popes are so fixed that it seems better, as is usually the case, to skip from john xix. to john xx.] index a accolti, cardinal, 317 acquaviva, cardinal, 356, 357 acquaviva, general, 344 _acta s. callisti_, 7, 17 _acta s. silvestri_, 87, 88 _ad anglos_, 435 adelchis, 93 adelperga, 94 adriano da corneto, 263 æneas, sylvius, 241, 243 _æterni patris_, 408, 440 afiarta, paul, 83, 84 african church, rome and the, 20, 40, 70 agnes, the empress, 145, 147, 150 agnes de meran, 188 aistulph, 80-3 albani, cardinal, 357, 392 alberic of camerino, 131, 133, 139 albert of brandenburg, 304 albigensians, massacre of the, 194-200 alcuin, 78, 97 alexander, ii., 147, 149 alexander, iii., 173 alexander v., 228 alexander vi., 242-66 alexander severus, 16 alexis, comnenus, 193 alfonso of leon, 157 alfonso ii. of naples, 254, 256, 259 alidosi, cardinal, 278 allen, cardinal, 246 altheim, synod of, 138 ambrose, st., 30, 31, 35, 38 america, the papacy and, 389, 411, 412, 436 americanism, 432, 437 ammianus marcellinus, 24 anastasius, 75, 102 anatolius of thessalonica, 41 anselm of baggio, 145 anselm of lucca, 147, 150, 152 _antiphonary_, the, 62 antonelli, cardinal, 402-3, 407, 410 _apostolicæ curæ_, 436 aretini, 275 ariald, 145 arianism, 19, 21, 31 arichis, 92, 93, 94 ariosto, 281, 301, 302 arnold of brescia, 174 arnold of citeaux, 195, 198, 199 arnulph, 127 arsenius, legate, 109, 112, 126 art in mediæval rome, 266, 282-4 astrology at rome, 274 attila, 50-1 atto of vercelli, 133 austria expelled from italy, 399, 405 auxentius, 28, 37 auxilius, 129 avignon, the popes at, 203-22 b baglione, g., 274 bajazet, the sultan, 256 baldwin of flanders, 110, 192 baluze, s., 205 barbarossa, frederic, 173 barry, dr. w., 129 basil, st., 32 basilica julii, 24, 25 basilica liberii, 25 basilica sicinini, 25 basle, council of, 240 beatific vision, john xxii. and the, 219 beatrice of tuscany, 148, 163 benedict iii., 103, 107, 113 benedict ix., 140, 143 benedict x., 146 benedict xi., 203 benedict xiii., 227, 238 benedict xiv., 353-67 benedict of soracte, 128, 130, 135 benedictines, the, and the classics, 58 bentivoglio, 274, 278 benzo, bishop, 142, 147 berengar, king, 130, 134 berengaria of castile, 189 bérenger, 144 bernard, of clairvaux, 172 bernetti, cardinal, 395 bertha of lorraine, 134 _bertinian annals_, the, 112 bertrand de goth, 207 bertrand de poyet, 216 bibbiena, cardinal, 287, 290, 303 bible, early translation of the, 36 bismarck and leo xiii., 428-30 bonaparte, jerome, 379 boniface i., 39 boniface viii., 203, 209 boniface ix., 223, 224 bonitho, bishop, 142, 151, 164, 168 _book of gomorrha_, 144 _book of pastoral rule_, 61 borgia, cæsar, 244, 258, 260, 263, 267, 272 borgia, jofre, 244, 256 borgia, juan, 244, 256, 258 borgia, lucretia, 244, 250, 254, 255, 260, 262 borgia, pedro luis, 244 borgia, rodrigo, 261 borgia family, the, 242 borgia rooms, the, 438 boris, king, 116 bramante, 283 breviary, reform of the, 358-9 brosch, m., 246, 269 brosses, president de, 353, 354 bruce, robert, 219 brunetti, a., 398 brunichildis, gregory and, 71 brussels, leo xiii. at, 418-9 bulgaria and the papacy, 137, 191 buoncompagni, cardinal, 333, 334 burchard, j., 245, 249, 262 c cacault, 374 cadalus, bishop, 147 cajetan, legate, 307 _calandria_, the, 303 calixtus iii., 242 callistus, pope, 6-18 cambrai, league of, 276, 277 canon of scripture, early, 36, 55 canossa, henry iv. at, 163, 165-7 capocci, giovanni, 176, 177 caprara, cardinal, 376 caraffa, cardinal, 259 carbonari, the, 388, 395 cardinal, the title, 146 cardinalate, reform of the, 339 cardinals in the fifteenth century, 248 carlism, the vatican, 433 carlomann, 84 _caroline books_, the, 97 caroline islands, the, 429 carpophorus, 8 carvajal, cardinal, 275, 289 cassiodorus, 58 catacombs, the, 3, 26, 36 cataldi, mgr., 421 cathari, the, 182 catherine of siena, 222 cavour, 405, 406 celestine i., 39 celestine iii., 174 celibacy of the clergy, 145-6, 152, 155 celidonius, 42 cenci, 160 censorship, early claims of, 55, 115 cesena, massacre of, 222 chabrol, count de, 384 chalcedon, council of, 47-9, 74 charlemagne, 84, 85-6, 90-97, 99, 101 charles martel, 79 charles the bald, 108, 109, 115, 116 charles the simple, 137 charles ii., 206 charles v., 295, 297, 298, 307, 319-28 charles vi., 362 charles viii., 256-8 chigi, the banker, 302 china, jesuits in, 364 china, leo xiii., and, 457 choiseul, 357, 360 christianity, early condition of, 1-3 christopher, pope, 128 cibò, franceschetto, 248 cibò, innocenzo, 290 _civiltà cattolica_, the, 406 clement i., 4, 5 clement iii., 169, 173 clement iv., 209 clement v., 203, 206, 217 clement vi., 209, 221 clement vii., 223, 311-2 clement xi., 360 clement xii., 354, 355, 357 clement xiii., 368 clement xiv., 368, 369 colonna, m.a., 294 _commentary on the first book of kings_, 63 comminges, count de, 190 conciliar movement, the, 227, 232, 240 concordat with napoleon, 374-6, 387 conradin, 202 consalvi, cardinal, 371, 372, 375, 377, 387-9 constance, council of, 234-8, 240 constance of sicily, 180 constantine, 21 constantinople, council of, 32, 33, 48, 49 constantinople, fall of, 241 constantinople taken by the latins, 193, 194 constantius, 19, 23 constanza of aragon, 181 contarini, cardinal, 322 conti family, the, 173 conti, ricardo, 177 cornaro, cardinal 302 cornelius, pope, 3 costa, cardinal, 259 counter-reformation, the, 310 crespy, peace of, 325 crispi, 426 crusade, the fourth, 191-4 culture, early decay of, 57, 62-3, 84 cyprian, st., 20 cyriacus, 75 cyril of alexandria, 39, 44 d d'agnesi, maria gaetana, 358 damasus, 21-37 d'amboise, cardinal, 268, 275 damiani, peter, 144, 145, 147, 151 dammann, dr. a., 165 declaration of the gallican clergy, 352 delarc, o., 142 desiderius of vienne, 62, 71 deusdedit, cardinal, 151 _dialogues_ of gregory the great, 59 didier, abbot, 149, 153, 169 didier, king, 83-5, 90 dietrich von nieheim, 223, 225 dio cassius, 16 dionysian decretals, the, 120 dioscorus of alexandria, 44-6 discipline of the early church, 13 divorce in the early church, 29 djem, prince, 256, 257 döllinger, dr., 3, 8, 9, 13, 151, 409 dominic st., 196, 201 _dominus ac redemptor noster_, 369 donation of constantine, 87, 241 dovizo, bernardo, 287, 290 duchesne, mgr., 89, 130, 131 dümmler, e., 129 dupanloup, 409 e eastern church, rome and the, 31-3, 44-50, 73-6, 105-6 ebbo of rheims, 113, 119 edict of milan, 21 eginhard, 82, 99 elizabeth of spain, 363 encyclicals of leo xiii., 439, 440 endre, prince, of hungary, 190 england and the papacy, 58, 71, 94, 148, 185-8, 219, 229, 309, 312, 346, 363, 381, 411, 435-6 ephesus, council of, 46 _epigrams of damasus_, 36 erigena, john scotus, 115 ethelbert, 72 _etsi nos_, 425 eudocia, 105 eudoxia, the empress, 52 eugenius iv., 240 eulogius, 75 eusebius, pope, 20 eusebius of dorylæum, 48 eustochium, jerome's letter to, 34-5 eutyches, 45, 46 _ex quo singulari_, 365 _execrabilis_, 210 _exsurge, domine_, 308 f fantuzzian fragment, the, 81, 88 farnese, alessandro, 316, 321, 325, 326 farnese, giulia, 249, 252, 253, 254 farnese, vittoria, 325 febronianism, 362, 370 fedele, p., 129 felicia, daughter of julius ii., 271 felix, anti-pope, 23, 24 ferdinand of spain, 275, 276, 291 ferdinand vi., 361 ferrante of naples, 255 ferrara and julius ii., 281 fesch, cardinal, 378 flavian, 45-7 flodoard, 131, 136 fontana, 345 _forged decretals_, the, 104, 105, 117-22 forgeries of middle ages, 87, 88 formosus, 125, 127, 132 foulques of marseilles, 196, 198 france and the papacy, 42, 71, 79-87, 97, 157, 188, 194-200, 219, 256-8, 276-8, 289, 304, 347, 360-1, 400-2, 431-2 france, anatole, 2 francis i., 292, 293, 295, 297, 317 francis, st., 201, 202 francis joseph i., 412 frankenstein, baron, 429 frankfort, synod of, 97 fratricelli, the, 214 frederic the great, 356, 364 frederic of saxony, 307, 308 frederic of sicily, 180, 182, 185 freemasonry, benedict xiv. and, 366 friedrich of tirol, 234, 236, 237 fuscianus, 9 g gabrielli, cardinal, 382 gaeta, flight to, 401 galilei, galileo, 352 galla placidia, 47 garibaldi, 405, 406, 407 gattina, petrucelli della, 371, 393 "gelasian decree," the, 36, 37, 55 gelasius i., 37, 55, 115 gerbert, 139 germany and the papacy, 108-9, 158-69, 182-5, 215-8, 229, 411, 427-30 gfrörer, 142 ghibellines, the, 182, 216 gibbon, cardinal, 436, 437 gioberti, 397, 418, 420 giovio, paolo, 291, 300 gizzo, cardinal, 399 glaber, raoul, 140 godfrey of tuscany 148 grassis, p. de, 291 gratian, the emperor, 27, 38 gratian, john, 140, 143 great schism, the, 221-3 gregory i., 57-77 gregory iii., 79 gregory vii., 141-70 gregory x., 204 gregory xi., 222 gregory xii., 226, 227, 231 gregory xiii., 332, 334 gregory xvi., 392, 395, 396 grévy, president, 432 grisar, father, 11, 18 guelphs, the, 182 guibert of ravenna, 168 guido of spoleto, 127 guiscard, robert, 148, 155, 168, 169 guise, duke of, 347, 348, 349 günther, 108, 109 guy, the cistercian, 195 h hadrian i., 81, 83, 84-100 hadrian ii., 110, 118, 125, 126, 127 hadrian iv., 174 hadrian vi., 311 hecker, father, 437 helletrude, 111 henry iii. (germany), 143, 144 henry iv. (germany), 154, 158-69 henry v. (germany), 172 henry vi. (germany), 178, 179 henry iii. (france), 346, 347, 349 henry iv. (france), 347, 348, 349, 350 henry viii. (england), 277, 279, 292, 293, 294, 309 heribert of vermandois, 137, 138 herimann of cologne, 138 herlembald, 148, 159 hermingard, 84 hilary, st., and the papacy, 42 hildebrand. _see_ gregory vii. hildeprand, 92, 93 hildwin, 112 hincmar of rheims, 105, 111-13, 119, 120 hippolytus, 7, 8, 11, 12, 17 _historia augusta_, the, 16 hodgkin, dr., 88, 90 hohenstauffens, the, 182, 202 honorius i., 79 hontheim, johann von, 370 hormisdas, 55 hrodgaud, 93 hrzan, cardinal, 372 hübner, baron de, 333, 343 hucbert, 107 hugh candidus, cardinal, 149, 159 hugh of provence, 138, 139 hugues géraud, 211, 212 hungarians in italy, the, 135 huns, st. leo and the, 50 hus, john, 232, 235, 238 hutten, ulrich von, 305, 308 i ignatius of antioch, 4 ignatius of constantinople, 105-7 ignatius of loyola, 331, 333 image-worship, quarrel about, 97 immaculate conception, the, 403-4 index of prohibited books, the first, 55 indulgences, origin of the spanish, 192 indulgences, traffic in, 225, 231, 284, 301, 305 infallibility, struggle over, 409-10 infessura, s., 245, 250 ingeltrude, 107 innocent i., 38, 39 innocent iii., 137, 141, 171-201 innocent vii., 226 inquisition, the, at rome, 324, 331 _inscrutabile_, 423 _interest apostolicæ sedis_, 183 investiture-struggle, the, 152, 172 ireland, archbishop, 436 ireland, leo xiii. and, 434-5 irene, the empress, 94, 96 irmengard, 135 isaac comnenus, 193 italy, unification of, 405-7 j jacobini, cardinal, 426 jacques de via, 213 james iii., 363 jansenists, the, 360-1 jean of jandun, 215 jerome, st., 22, 23, 27, 34, 36 jerome of prague, 232 jesuits, the, 343, 352, 360, 364, 365, 369, 387-8, 399, 402-3 jews, john xxii. and the, 219 jews, the papacy and the, 65 jews, sixtus v. and the, 343 john viii., 125, 126, 133 john ix., 131 john x., 126-38 john xi., 128, 130, 131, 138 john xii., 139 john xxii., 205-20 john xxiii., 221-39 john of bohemia, 218 john capistrano, 241 john the faster, 73-4 john lackland and the papacy, 185-8 john of ravenna, 114 joseph ii., 355, 369, 370 josephine, divorce of, 378, 383 judith, 110 julius ii., 246, 247, 250, 255, 257, 268-84 julius iii., 331 k kailo of ravenna, 132 keane, mgr., 437 kitto, e.j., 223, 235 knights of labour, the, 436 kulturkampf, the, 427-30 l la balue, cardinal, 248 ladislaus of hungary, 157 ladislaus of naples, 223, 227 lambert of hersfeld, 164, 166 lambruschini, cardinal, 392 landulph, 145 lanfranc, 154, 156 langton, stephen, 186-7, 188 languedoc, heresy in, 195 lateran basilica, the, 20, 25, 56 lateran council, the fourth, 200 lateran council, the fifth, 280, 282, 303 league, the catholic, 347, 348 leo i., 39-54 leo ii., 79 leo iii., 101 leo iv., 102 leo v., 127 leo ix., 144 leo x., 248, 250, 287-309 leo xii., 391 leo xiii., 415-42 leo the isaurian, 53 leonardo of arezzo, 223, 227 leonetti, a., 243 leontia, the empress, 76 l'épinois, h. de, 243, 245 leti, gregorio, 333 _liber pontificalis_, the, 8, 11, 24, 80, 87-9 liberius, 19, 22, 23 liverani, p., 129, 132 lollards, the, 232 lombards, the, in italy, 56, 66, 68, 79, 92-3 lothair of lorraine, 107, 109, 110 lottery, the papal, 357 louis of anjou, 228, 229, 230 louis of bavaria, 215, 216, 217 louis ii., 103, 107-9 louis viii., 188 louis xii., 260, 261, 274, 277-8, 291 louis xviii., 414 luchaire, achille, 175 luciferians, the, 30 luitprand, bishop, 130, 132, 136 luitprand, king, 79 lunéville, treaty of, 374 luther, martin, 252, 299, 306-9 m macarius, 30 magic, john xxii. and, 212 magna charta denounced by innocent iii., 188 _magna maralia_, 59, 63 malabar rites, the, 364 malatesta of rimini, 230 _mandragola_, 303 manfred, 202 manichæans, the, 41, 43 manichæism, 195 manning, cardinal, 409 marcia, 6 marcian, 47, 50 maria theresa, 362 marie of brabant, 190 markwald of anweiler, 179, 180, 181 marozia, 128-32, 135-6, 138, 139 marriage, the papacy and, 188, 189, 190 marsiglio of padua, 215 martens, dr. w., 142, 160 martin i., 79 martin v., 240 martyrology, reform of the, 359 mary stuart, 346 mathew, dr., a.h., 142, 153, 167, 243 mathilda of tuscany, 148, 150, 155, 163, 165 matteo visconti, 216 maurice, the emperor, 68, 69, 73-6 maury, cardinal, 371 maximilian, the emperor, 273, 275, 276, 277, 294 maximinus, 27 may laws, the, 428, 429 mazzini, 396, 398, 404 medici, catherine de', 347 medici, cosmo de', 239 medici, giuliano de', 290, 292 medici, giulio de', 290 medici, lorenzo de' (nephew of leo x.), 290, 297, 298 melchiades, 118 _menæchmi_, the, 262 mercier, cardinal, 440 michael, angelo, 283, 301, 329 michael de cesena, 215 michael the drunkard, 105, 106 michiel, cardinal, 263 militz, karl von, 307 milo, the legate, 198 miollis, general, 381 mirandola, g.p. della, 304 modernism, 432, 437, 442 montfort, simon de, 199, 200 monti di pietà, 303 morality in the early church, 33-5, 66 n napoleon i. and the papacy, 370, 374-88 napoleon iii., 400, 405 nepotism at the vatican, 174, 244-60, 271, 290, 291, 315, 316, 320, 331 newman, cardinal, 409 nicæa, council of, 96 nicholas i., 102-23 nicholas ii., 146, 147 nicholas v., 217, 241 nicholas of cusa, 241 nielsen, dr. f., 373, 393 normans and the papacy, 145, 147, 169 o ockham, william of, 215 offa, 94, 96 olivarez, count, 347 organic articles, the, 376, 377 orsini, the, 174, 177 orsini, adriana, 249, 252 orsini, cardinal b., 263 orsini, giulia, 249, 252, 253, 254 orsini, laura, 253, 271 orsini, paolo, 334 orsini, virginio, 255 otto i., 139 otto of brunswick, 182, 183, 184 oxford movement, the, 435 p pacca, cardinal, 381-2, 387 pagi, 129 pallavicino, cardinal, 275 pandolpho, the legate, 187, 188 papal supremacy, evolution of, 5, 30-1, 37, 39, 44, 48, 53, 67, 74-6, 103 parnellism 434-5 paschasinus, 49 _pastor æternus_, 410 pastoureaux, the, 219 patarenes, the, 145, 148, 159 patrimonies, the papal, 64, 79 paul at rome, 4 paul i., 83 paul ii., 246 paul iii., 252, 313-29, 363 paul iv., 331 pedro of aragon, 190, 199 pelagius, pope, 58 pepoli, count, 338 peretti, alexander, 336 peretti, camilla, 334, 341 peretti, francesco, 334 persecution, the papacy and, 43, 70, 196 persico, mgr., 435 perugino, 283 peter at rome, 4 peter, brother of john x., 135 peter of carbara, 217 petrarch, 211, 216 petrucci, cardinal, 295 philip ii., 186, 187, 188, 198 philip iii., 203, 207 philip vi., 217, 220 philip of anjou, 202 philip neri, st., 333 philip of suabia, 179, 182-4 phocas, the emperor, 76 photius, 105, 106 pierleone, cardinal, 183 pierleone, giovanni, 176, 177 pierre de castelnau, 195, 197 pignatelli, cardinal, 387 pinturicchio, 266, 283 pippin, donation of, 80-3 pirie-gordon, c.h.c., 175 pisa, council of, 228, 229 pisa, second council of, 278, 279 pius ii., 243 pius iii., 268 pius iv., 331 pius v., 332, 334 pius vi., 369, 372 pius vii., 371-90 pius viii., 392 pius ix., 393-413, 425 plebiscites in italy, 405, 406, 408 pliny, 2 poles, the vatican, the, 434 poli, oddo, 177 pontianus, 18 pragmatic sanction, the, 286, 294, 304 primacy, idea of the, 6, 30, 37, 39, 40, 48 priscillianists, the, 31 pucci, lorenzo, 290 pulcheria, 46, 47 q _quanta cura_, 407 quiercey donation, the, 81 r rampolla, cardinal, 426, 429 raphael, 301 ratherius, bishop, 133 ratisbon, diet of, 322 ravenna and the papacy, 67, 68 raymond of toulouse, 196-9 raynaldus, 243 reformation, the, 286, 304-9, 312, 317-30 reformation, foregleams of the, 215, 232, 241, 286 reginald of canterbury, 186 renaissance, the, 241 renier, the cistercian, 195 _rerum novarum_, 441 revolution, the french, 370, 372 riario, cardinal, 296 riario, pietro, 246 richard the lion-heart, 185 robert of geneva, 222, 223 robert of naples, 216, 217 romwald, 94-5 roquain, f., 142, 151 roscoe, w., 291 rosmini, a., 400, 402 rossi, g.b. de, 8, 9, 13 rossi, pellegrino, 400 rothrad of soissons, 111-12, 119 rotrud, 96 roy, jules, 120, 121 rudolph ii., of burgundy, 134 rudolph of suabia, 159, 163, 165, 167, 168 s sabellius, 12 _sacramentary_, the, 62 st. bartholomew, massacre of, 332 sta. maria maggiore, 25 st. peter's, building of, 274, 283 sala, cardinal, 417 saldanha, cardinal, 365 sancho of portugal, 190 sanfedisti, the, 388, 396 sangallo, 329 sanseverino, cardinal, 289 sant' angelo, castle of, 60 sanuto, m., 253, 291 satolli, mgr., 437 sauli, cardinal, 296 savona, pius vii. at, 383-5 savonarola and alexander vi., 264-5 scatfgoch, bishop, 364 schmalkaldic league, the, 327, 328 schwemer, r., 185 sergius iii., 125, 127, 128, 129, 131 sergius iv., 139 servatus lupus, 118 severus, bishop, 68 sforza, cardinal ascanio, 248, 250 sforza, giovanni, 254, 259 sforza, lodovico, 255, 258 sigismund of hungary, 229-30, 232-8 silvester i., 20 silvester ii., 139, 143, 157 simeon of bulgaria, 137 simony at rome, 210, 224-5, 250, 268, 301 sirianus, pope, 37 sixtus iii., 39 sixtus iv., 244, 246 sixtus v., 332-50 slaves, the papacy and the, 65 socialism and the vatican, 424, 427, 428, 431, 441 _sollicitudo omnium_, 388 solomon of brittany, 119 solomon of hungary, 157 spain and the papacy, 70, 154, 157, 189-90, 260, 347-9, 361 spina, archbishop, 374 spirituals, the, 214 stephen i., 80 stephen ii., 80-2 stephen iii., 83 stephen iv., 83 stephen v., 101 stephen vi., 125, 126, 127 stephen x., 145, 146 stephens, w.r.w., 142 strozzi, the banker, 302 stuarts, the vatican and the, 363 sulpicius severus, 31 syagrius, bishop, 71 syllabus, the, 407 t talleyrand, 376, 380 talleyrand-périgord, countess, 204 talmud, condemnation of the, 219 tancred of sicily, 181 tarasius, 96 tassilo, 93 tedald, 160 templars, suppression of the, 203 temporal power, beginning of the, 78-83, 86-90, 95 tencin, cardinal, 354, 355 tertullian, 5, 13 tetzel, 306 teutonic knights, the, 219 theodora of rome, 128, 129-32 theodora, the empress, 56 theodoric, 55 theodosius, 32, 33 theophylactus, 128, 132 theutberga, 107, 110 thomas aquinas, philosophy of, 440 three chapters, the, 67 transtiberina, the, 1, 16 trent, council of, 323-8, 330, 331-2 troslé, council of, 133 turribius of astorga, 43 u _unigenitus_, 360 urban i., 11, 18 urban ii., 172 urban vi., 222 urban viii., 352 urbino, duchy of, 294, 295, 298 ursicinus, anti-pope, 25-7 v valens, 31 valenti, cardinal, 357 valentinian i., 27, 29, 37 valentinian ii., 38 valla, lorenzo, 241 vandals, leo and the, 51-2 vannozza dei catanei, 245 vatican, the, 178 vatican council, the, 408-10 vatican, early state of the, 1, 2 vatican library, the, 438 venantius and gregory the great, 72 venice and the papacy, 272-3, 275-6 ventura, p., 397 victor i., 5, 9 victor iii., 140 victor emmanuel i., 406 vienna congress, the, 388 villani, 208 viventius, 25, 27 voltaire, 356 vulgarius, 129, 130 w waldeck-rousseau, 432 waldrada, 107, 109, 110 walpole, horace, 356 walter de brienne, 181 wenilo of sens, 118 william ii. and the papacy, 430 william of burgundy, 156 william the conqueror, 148, 156 wiseman, cardinal, 379 worms, diet of, 308 wulfad, 113 wyclif, 232 x ximenes, cardinal, 301 y york, cardinal, 363 young italians, the, 395, 396 z zachary i., 79, 80 zara, the taking of, 192, 193 zelanti, the, 388 zephyrin, pope, 6, 10 zigliara, cardinal, 441 zosimus, 39 the censorship _of_ the church _of_ rome and its influence upon the production and the distribution _of_ literature _a study of the history of the prohibitory and expurgatory indexes, together with some consideration of the effects of protestant censorship and of censorship by the state_ by geo. haven putnam, litt.d. _author of "authors and their public in ancient times," "books and their makers in the middle ages," "the question of copyright," etc._ two volumes, 8vo, cloth net, $5.00 this treatise presents a schedule of the indexes issued by the church, together with a list of the more important of the decrees, edicts, prohibitions, and briefs having to do with the prohibition of specific books, from the time of gelasius i., 567 a.d., to the issue in 1900 of the latest index of the church under leo xiii. "the work impresses me as admirable. i wish to congratulate you upon the singular wisdom, breadth, and thoroughness with which you have accomplished a delicate and difficult task."--_from bishop potter of new york._ "i have read this treatise with the deepest pleasure.... it is a work of remarkable erudition, and so far as i have perused its pages, i find it to have been written with rare large-mindedness and historic impartiality.... the difficult task has been accomplished in a most masterly manner."--_from archbishop ireland of st. paul._ "dr. putnam is one of the most wonderful men in america. he was a soldier in the civil war. he has been a leading publisher for more than a generation. to him more than any other man is due the measure of american copyright that we now enjoy. the marvel is that with all his business and public work, dr. putnam has found time to make himself a most thorough and accurate scholar. the present volume treats of a subject that is largely misunderstood, and that is of first importance in the history of literature and of the church. the author writes in an entirely dispassionate spirit."--_london chronicle._ _send for descriptive circular_ g.p. putnam's sons new york london a candid history of the jesuits by joseph mccabe author of "twelve years in a monastery," "modern rationalism" _8o. $3.50_ it is curious that no writer addressing english-speaking readers, has ever attempted a systematic history of the jesuits. probably no religious body ever had so romantic a history, or inspired such deadly hatred. on the other hand, histories of the famous society are almost always too prejudiced, either for or against, to be reliable. mr. mccabe has attempted in this book to give the facts impartially, and to enable the inquirer to form an intelligent idea of the history and character of the jesuits from their foundation to the present day. every phase of their remarkable story--including the activity of political jesuits and their singular behavior on the foreign missions--is carefully studied, and the record of the jesuits in england is very fully examined. g.p. putnam's sons new york london 