Full text of "Church and state : their relations historically developed"

See other formats

Google

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at|http: //books .google .com/I

CHUECH AND STATE

VOL. I.

)

LOIDOars PRUTTKD BT

BPOmSWOOOB ASD 00.« BKW-8TBBST SQUABB

▲HD PABI.I4MBBT 8TBBIT

CHUECH MD STATE

THEIR RELATIONS HISTORICALLY DEVELOPED

HEINEICH GEFFCKEN

PB0FB8S0B or INTBBNATIONAL LAW AT THX UNIVBBSITT OF 8TRA8BUBO
LATE HAK8BATI0 lOiriBTER BS8IDENT AT THS OOUST OF ST. JAJCBS'S

TRANSLATED AND EDITED WITH THE ASSISTAJTCE OF THE AUTHOR-
BY

EDWARD FAIBFAX TAYLOB

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.

LONDON

LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO.

1877

C /cu'/?. 77./.

^HARVARD

iiRRARY
^'^V 9 t965

USt'/c23

TEANSLATOE'S NOTE.

In introducing this work to the English public it is
proper to observe that its contents have undergone con-
siderable revision since its first appearance in German.
The author, by whose permission these pages have been
translated, and the advantage of whose kind assistance I
have enjoyed throughout, has added materially to the
original text, more especially in the later chapters.
With regard to my own task as translator, I should men-
tion that the indulgence of the author has allowed me to
make some additions to those portions of the work which
refer directly to the relations of Church and State in
England. These additions, which I mention in order to
take my proper share of responsibility to criticism, I have
introduced only where it seemed appropriate, with the
author's concurrence, to illustrate further the course of
argimient by historical fact, — ^not fi"om any desire to
intrude opinions of my own. For this reason I have
limited myself in these added portions to statements of
feet without entering into controversies or argumentation.
I have to ofier my best thanks to those who have
assisted me in the progress of this translation.

E. F. T.

Wbtbbidoe:

December, 1876,

AUTHOE'S PEEFACE

■ Qt

Thb great struggle about the relations between Church
and State, which in recent times has so strikingly re-
asserted its importance, is as old as civilisation itself,
and will last until civilisation ceases to exist. * Nothing
but the utter exhaustion and sterility of Church life,
which followed the battle for the Eeformation, will
suffice to explain the mistaken supposition that Philo-
sophy could be invoked with success to take the place of
Beligion, and to ring in the golden age of the worship
of Hiunanity. In proportion as the Church recovered
fix)m that exhaustion, while the philosophical systems, on
the other hand, which men had looked to for salvation,
superseded each other in rapid succession, the real powers
of a positive religious faith reappeared with increasing
energy and strength. Catholicism and Protestantism
simultaneously gathered their forces together, to shake off
the influence of a Eationahsm which was disintegrating
both alike, and to recall to life the innate conditions of
vitality peculiar to each. Both endeavoured to raise the
Church once more into an independent power ; and with
the progress of this movement, the question of the rela-
tions of Church and State necessarily again became one
of paramount and urgent interest.

VUl AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

Considering the importance of this question at the
present time, it appeared to me well worth the labour to
retrace the stages through which this grand historical pro-
cess has run ; and from this outline and endeavour the
present work has grown. Its object -is ecclesiastico-
poUtical — ^to present, in short, an historical guide-book
for the problems of the present day. I am fully aware
that the attempt to compress within a small compass a
subject so vast and multifarious can be nothing more than
an attempt ; and I shall be grateful to criticism for every
kind of correction and supplementary material.

The nature of the subject rendered it imperative that
I should examine, in conclusion, our own position in
Germany. 1 have considered the resolution of the
Prussian Government to regulate anew the relations of
Church and State to be not only right but necessary.
But from the first moment when that resolution came to
be executed, my convictions led me to perceive a fatal
mistake in the manner in which this was done. The
reasons for this conviction I have endeavoured to state in
the last section.

I know that these opinions will draw upon me con-
siderable blame. It is said to be a patriotic duty to stand
by the Government, even when they have mistaken their
path, since they cannot recede fix)m their position. I
cannot in any way accept this argument as sound or valid.
Of course, when the question at issue is a foreign war, it
is the duty of the individual to silence his personal con-
victions, and to exert all his energies in support of the
Government, when the honour of the flag is at stake.
But it cannot be asserted that the present struggle, in
which a third part of the population is ranked with the

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. ix

opposition, is in any sense a foreign pne. With regard to
home questions, on the contrary, the demand of silent
acquiescence is only entitled to obedience when it is
possible to agree with the Government in the essentials of
its policy. It was none other than the Liberal party who,
during the Constitutional conflict, maintained that they
were fulfilling a patriotic duty by their opposition ; nor
indeed, putting aside the question whether their conduct
was poUtically right, can one designate it as wrong in
princU 7%a/ opposition only was Wamewo^^
which, in the face of an inevitable war with Austria,
held firm to absolute resistance. Moreover, to assert
that the Government mitst enforce their policy, pre-
supposes that they can. A Protestant who is persuaded
of the contrary, and beheves that the course of action
they have pursued tends only to increase the power of
Ultramontanism, while it injures the only antidote against
Ultramontanism, the Evangelical faith, will feel it his
patriotic duly to raise his warning voice against the con-
tinuance of the struggle so long as it is conducted on
principles which he cannot but consider as erroneous.

The contents of these volumes will protect me against
the suspicion of any sympathy with the Ultramontanes.

CONTENTS

THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER L

THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS GOMMUNITT.

Religious Fellowship always organised — Organisation of the State —
Relations of Religion to Law — Theocracy and Hierarchy — Union
of the Religious Community and the State— Counter-principle of
Separation— Objections to State Indifferentism to Religious Societies
— Necessity of Religion to the State — A well-regulated Union
desirable — Difficulty of defining Separate Spheres of Action — The
State must determine its own Sphere — Limits of State Authority
— Principles of Proper Union — Relations determined by Circum-
stances PAGE 16

CHAPTER n.

THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITT IN HEATHEN

ANTIQUITY.

India — PrimitiTe Worship of Nature and Later Mythology — The
Brahmanic Caste of Priests — ^Relations of the Priesthood to the
Monarchy — Buddhism. The Priest-Caste and the Monarchy in
Egypt — In Asia — Priests in Greece not a Separate Caste, but
Servants of the State — Religious Character of Greek Nationality
— System of State Worship-— Civil and Religious Decay — State
Religion of the Romans — The Patricians and Plebs — National
Character of Heathen Religions ....... 38

Xll CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER III.

THB JEWISH THEOGRACT.

Monotheistic Miadon of Israel — Judaism not purely National — The
Messianic Idea— The Jewish Theocracy— The Moral Law and Cove-
nant— The Law of Ceremonial — The Jewish Priesthood — The
Monarchy — The Prophets — Usurpation of the High-Priesthood
— Jewish Colonies preparing Christianity . . tagb 58

CHAPTER IV.

THE STATE AND CHBISTIAKITY.

Denationalising Effect of Christianity upon Religion — ^The luTisible
Kingdom of God — ^The Church its Visible Counterpart — Destined
Unity of the Visible Church — ^The Christian Conception of State
Obedience — Political Hatred of the Jews against Rome and against
Christ — Christ's Answer as to Payment of Tribute — Apostolic
Doctrine of State Obedience — Conditions of Passive Resistance —
The Scriptural Command of Obedience a General Moral Sanction —
Silence of Scripture as to PoHtical and Social Relations — Christian
Principles of Church and State inferred — Fundamental Law of
Church Liberty — A Christian State 76

CHAPTER V.

THE CHUBGH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

External History of the Chvrch during the First Three Centuries--
Jewbh Persecutions of Early Christians — ^Equitable Attitude of
Roman Authorities — Origin of Conflict between Christianity and
Rome — ^Deification of the Emperors — Christian Persecutions under
Nero and Domitian — Final Severance of Christianity from Judidsm
— Christian Proselytism among the Heathen — Trajan's Instructions
to Pliny — State-jealousy of the Church as a Corporation — Unlawful
Sodetiee — ^Trajan's Policy continued by Hadrian — Persecutions by
Late Emperors — ^Decline of Imperial State-Religion — Christianity
favoured by Cosmopolitanism — Final Struggle with Heathenism
— Edict of Toleration by Galerius — Internal History of the Church
—Its Primitive Constitution— Development after the First Century
— Preadential Authority of Bishops— The Clergy distinguished
from the Lwty— Inferior Orders of the Clergy— Growth of the
Hierarchy — Theory of Apostolic Succession — Dioceses — Coimcils
— Ori^ of Metropolitans — Elaboration of Doctrine — Rites and
Ceremonies — Progress of Church Discipline and Jurisdiction —
Theoretical Unity of the Holy Catholic Church — Differences

CONTENTS OF THE FIHST VOLUME. xm

between Ewt and West — Antioch, Alexandrift, and Rome — General
StAt« of tiu) Church in the Fourth Century— Sjmptoma of Later
Ofttfaolimm PioB 100

CHAPTER VI.

THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATBONAGE.

PartitJOD of the Empire by Diocletian — Oonetantine arms ngainat
Maxentiua — Uia VUion of tbe Crose — Grants Reli^oiu Liberty
— Solo Empcior — HoUownesfl of his Obriatianity — Ilifl Political
Sagacity — His cautious System of Christian Legislation— Inunu-
Dities of tho Clergy — Endowment of tlie Church — Her Criminal
and Civil Juriadiclion — Demoralising Effects of Stat«-Patranage —
Conetantine asserts his Supremacy in Reli^n-~ Schism uf the
Dooatists— The Allans and Athanaaus — Council of Nictoa — Ita
Decidon rerersed by the Council of Tyre— Theory of Infallibility of
General Coundls— Councils of Ntctea and Tyre not Q^umenical —
Conatantine's System of Byiantinism — Progress of Monacliism —
Growth of Hierarchicallndependence — Augustine's Theory of Church
ajid State — His Doctrines of Catholic Unity and Sacerdotalism —
Separatism of the Donatists — Views of Religious Compultdon —
Outward Prosperity of the Church after the Death of Julian — Her
Spritual Decay— Transfer of Power to the West . . . .130

CHAPTER Vll.

THX PAPAL FBIMATE.

Patriarchates— Tradition of Apostolic Origin of Roman Church — The
Pseudo-Clementinio — Potro-Pnuline Controversy — Theory of Joint
Foundation — Alleged Episcopate of St. Peter — Pre-eminence of
Boman Church, not Bishop^Rome paramount in the West— She
taliea precedence of Bytantium — Her Spiritual Itovival in the Fifth
OBntury — Political Furtherance of Eccleaiasticism — Disruplion of
Koman Empire — Growing Independence of the Roman ^Mshop^
Estrangement of Rome fnim tlie East—Traditions of her Supre-
macy Developed — Leo 1. — Bold Attitude of Iiia Succeasors —
Qngarj the Oreat— His Use of Monachisro— Spread of lalamism —
Oonversion of the Dermans IB

CHAPTER VIH.

THE FRASKIBH HONAECBI AND THE CHCBCH — EMPIRE AND PAPACT.

CluistiaDity in Gaul — Fuu^n of Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority —
Enrichment of the Church — Her Relations with the State — Terri-
torial Power of the Bishops — Spiritual Decline — Degeneracy of

<•

XIV CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME,

FraoMsh Eiogs — The Hierarchy reduced by Charles Martel —
Reforms of Boni&ce — Spoliation of Church Property — Popes
and Byzantium — Leo HI, and Image-worship — Gregory III.
appeals to Charles Martel — Pepin — Forged Donation of Constantine
— Empire and Church united by Charlemagne — Tithes — Church
Government of Charlemagne — Papal Election and Oath of Alle-
giance— Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction — Sources of Canon Law — False
Decretals — Climax of Episcopal Power in Tenth Century — Otho
the Great compared with Charlemagne — Roman Imperialism and
German Royalty — Medieeval Theory of Empire and Papacy —
Zenith of Imperialism under Henry III page 189

CHAPTER IX.

TBITJHPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

Territorial Independence of the Bishops — Intellectual Power of the
Clergy — Eccledastical Election of Popes — Pope Nicholas II. —
Alexander H. — Gregory VH. — Celibacy of the Clergy — Prohibition
of Lay Investiture — Quarrel between Gregory and Henry IV. —
Concordat of Worms — ^Papacy supported by the Crusades — And
Monastic Orders — Corruptions of Canonists — Encroachments of
Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction — The Church as an Universal Monarchy
— Frederick I. — Innocent HI. — His Foreign Aggression — Perse-
cution of Heresy — The Waldenses — The Albigensee — Origin of
the Inquisition — ^Mendicant Orders — Fourth Lateran Council, 1215
— Frederick H. — Final Struggle of the Empire — Episcopal Election
— Boniface VHI. — Retrospect of the Papal System . . 238

CHAPTER X.

DECLINE OF THE MEDIJSVAL CHURCH.

Rise of Independent Nationalities— The Anglo-Saxon Church — Her
National Character as an Establishment— Changes at the Norman
Conquest — Separation of Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction —
Constitutions of Clarendon — Magna Charta — Resistance to Papal
Usurpations in England — in Sicily — in Upper Italy — in France —
Pragmatic Sanction of Louis IX. — Systematic Exactions of the
Papacy — Contest of Philip the Fair with Boniface VHI, — and of
Louis of Bavaria with John XXII. — Electoral Union of Reuse — Anti-
papal Writers — Dante — ^William of Ockham — Marsilius of Padua —
Suppression of the Templars — Removal of Papal Court to Avignon
— Schism in the Papacy — Council of Constance — Martin V. — Council
of Basle — Church Councils and the Papacy — National Concordats —
German Pragmatic Sanction — Concordat of Vienna — French Prag^
matic Sanction of Bourges — Church Reform in Spain — Concordat

rONTENTS OF TIIIC FIR-ST VOLUME. ?

of H82— Efforts at Relijnoua Revival— The MystiM— Precuwor* of
the Reformation— Wieliffe — HiiM — Sdvooaroln— D^pwliilion of the
PftjMcy— Sjnritunl DscUiie of the Church— The Way preparod for
the Reformutiou paob 2

CHAPTKR XI.

■iiaK«lical Tendency of the Age— MiRTis Lctkxr— His Cardinal
Doctrine of JuHtificatiou by Faith — His View of Scriptural Authority
— Ilie Oonceptiiin of the Church — Hia Principles IrrecoiicUahle with
those of Rome — Ilis ConceplioQ of the Stiita — Separation of Civil
and Spiritual .Vuthority — Protest against Canon Law — Vindication
of Liberty of Oonscieoce — National Chamctor of LiithsTaniBin — The
Refonuation not a Political Movement — Permanent Nature of the
Struggle with Rome 31

CHAPTKR Xir.

PROGBESS OF THE RBFORMATION,

ristility of Charles V, to the Reformation — His Alliance with the Pope
—Edictof Worms— Diet of Spire— Zwingli— Calvin— Luther"a View
of the Priestly Uffice — Reformation supported by the EvaogelicBl
Princee of flennany— Ci^ercive Tendencies of the Reforoiers— UDioa
of Civil and Spiritual Authority in the Princes — Church weakened
by Stato-Patronage — Eatablishroent of Consiatories^Religioufl Peace
■t Augsburg — The Ju» Reformnndi — Territorial Principles in
Religion — Zwingli'a State Reli^on — Calvin's Religions Stale —
Prot«6tant Chureh In France — Confesision de Foy— Synodal Con-
stitution 3-

CHAPTER XIII,

THE BTRDfiOtKS OF TIIK REKIKMATtON.

of Adrian VI.— Fruitless Alteniptd at Compromiee by Rome —
Gootest of Charles V, with tlie Protentants^Reactionary Policy of
the Vatican- Order of the Jesuiln — Their Services utilised by Roma
— Council of Trent — Question of Episcopal Infallibility — Advan-
tages gained by Rome^ Ferdinand I. and the Pope — Suppremon of
Protestantism in Italy — In Spain— In the Netherlands — In Franca

— The Huguenots— Oallican Reaction under Henry IV Views of

Church and State — Mariana — Protestantism in Germany — Counter-
Moremenl of the Jesuits — Protestant Sympathies of Maximilian II.
— itoaction under Rudolf II, — Degeneracy of the Lutheran Churcli
— Episcopal pciwer of the Sovereign — Formula of Concord — Pro-
VOL. I. il'

xvi CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

teetant Disumon — The Heformation in England — ^Anglican Ohurch
of Elizabeth — ^Ecclesiastical Legislation — Dissenters — Anti-Oatholic
Policy of the Queen — War of Independence in the Netherlands —
William the Silent — The Reformation in Scotland — Knox's First
Covenant — Popery abolished by Parliament — First and Second
Books of Discipline— Settlement of 1602 . . page 404

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CONTESTS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Religious State of Europe in 1600 — Catholic Victories — Dogmatic
Theology of the Lutheran Church — Her Moral Deterioration —
Secessions to the Reformed Church — Evangelical Union against
the Catholics — Protestantism deserted by Saxony — Peace of West-
phalia— Religious Policy of Richelieu — Absolutism of Louis XIV. —
His Quarrel with Rome about the Regale — Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes — Suppression of Jansenism — DecUnratio Cleri Oallicani —
The Contest with Rome renewed — ^The Dutch Catholics and Jesuits
— Church and State in England under the Stuarts — Rise of the
Independents — Cromwell's Religious Policy — Views of Milton —
Declaration of Indulgence — William III. — Enactments of Papists —
Schism between the Arminians and Gomarists — Synod of Dort —
The Church in the North-American Colonies — Charter of Rhode
Island — Protestant Illiberality in (Germany — Toleration Edict of the
Great Elector 455

CHAPTER XV.

THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT.

Doctrines of State Supremacy— Grotius — Hobbes — Spinoza — ^Locke —
Germany: Religious Revival under Spener — Territorial System of
Thomasius and Bohmer — State Oiganisation of the Church in Prussia
— CoUegial System of Church and State — Secession of Frederick
Augustus of Saxony to Catholicism — Frederick the Great — Political
Decline of the Papacy — ^France : Growth of Rationalism — Persecution
of French Protestants — Corruption of the higher Clergy — ^Montes-
quieu— Voltaire — ^Rousseau — Clement XIV. abolishes the Order of the
Jesuits — ^Progress of Enlightenment in Germany — Episcopal Theory
of Febronins — The Coblentz Articles — Punctations of Ems — Asser-
tion of State Sovereignty in Bavaria — lu Austria under Maria Theieea
— Absolutist Policy of Joseph II. — His Church Reforms — His Tole-
n^tion Edict in Belgium — Causes of his Failure — Religious Liberty
in America 503

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. XVll

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GHUBCH AND THE FSENCH BEYOLUTION.

Toleradon Edict by the Assembly of Notables — States-General —
National Assembly. Sitting of 4th Augiist — Suppression of Tithes
— Confiscation of Church Property — Measures against Monastic
Orders — Declaration of Rights of Man — Catholicism rejected as
the State Religion — Civil Piovision for the Clergy — Civil Constitu-
tion of the Church — Conflict between the Assembly and Clergy —
Oath imposed on the Clergy — Religious Disorders — Persecutions of
Cleigy by the Convention — Freedom of Worship enacted — ^Bonaparte
concludes the Treaty of Tolentino — Election of Pius VII. — Bona-
parte *8 Church Policy — Negotiations with Consalvi — Concordat of
1801 — Constitutional and Non-juring Bishops — The Organic Articles
— I^aw of 8th April, 1802 — Bonaparte crowned by the Pope — He
dissolves the Pope's Temporal Sovereignty — Dispute respecting
Canonical Institution — Negotiations with the Pope at Savona —
Episcopal Council at Paris — Concordat of 1813---Abdication of
Bonaparte— General Reflections PAes 653

Erratum,

Pngc 476. line 16, /or • powerful and penetrating * read « powerless to pmctrate.'

THE

RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE.

••o»<

CHAPTEK I.

THE STATE AND THE EELiaiOUS COMMUNITY.

Religious Fellowship always organised — Organisation of the State — ^Relations
of Religion to Law — Tlieocracy and Hierarchy — Union of the Religious
Community and the State — Counter-principle of Separation — Objections
to State Indifferentism to Religious Societies — ^Necessity of Religion to the
State — A well-regulated Union desirable — Difficulty of defining Separate
Spheres of Action — ^The State must determine its own Sphere — ^limits of
State Authority — Principles of Proper Union— Jtelationa determined by
Circumstances.

With Christianity, and not till then, appears the Church —
in other words, the community of that rehgion which
claims to be the universal because it is the only true one. feuJ^^p
Fellowship of religion, indeed, we find everywhere, for it ^JSSed.
is the necessary product of the religious tendency of the
human mind. Keligion is the consciousness of a Divine
Being, and the connexion with that Being as manifested
in Divine worship and in obedience to Divine commands.
The deeper the foundations of religious belief in man, to
an extent that the sense of participation therein forms the
* closest spiritual bond of human brotherhood, the more in-
evitably, according to all human experience, must that
consciousness of belief work out its inner strength into a
form, and develope itself into a consciousness of active

VOL. I. B

t THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY.

CHAP. . fellowship. And in proportion as it is certain that religion
does not consist merely in the knowledge of Divine things,

but above all in the practical attestation of such know-
ledge in daily life, the less can that rehgious fellowship
dispense with an organisation, through which it assumes
at once a concrete existence, and thereby comes in contact
with the dominion of the State,
^^f^^g The State is a moral, but a purely earthly, community,
stite. |3y means of which human society maintains its stabiUty
and order. Man, from a necessity of his nature, unites
with his fellows to form a society or brotherhood, by
means of which he seeks to accomphsh that for which his
single strength does not suffice. Hence the family, the
tribe, and the nation, developed finally, but with fixed
boundaries of dominion, into that organised unity which
is termed the State, whose duty it is, in its more perfect
form, to promote, as far as possible, the collective civi-
lisation of all its members, and unconditionally to maintain
and control the administration of the law alone.
Law. Law is the absolute barrier against the license of

personal will. The natural instincts of selfishness are
to satisfy its aims without regard to others; reason and
morality oppose their injimctions, but are not always
powerful enough ^to prevail. Certain insurmoimtable
limits, however, must be prescribed to individual aggres-
sion, to prevent society from perishing through the tyranny
of brute force. These limits the law provides, and with
them the guarantee of social order. That which is law
io single cases may, and in fact must, be changed in
the course of time and according to the circumstances of
different States ; but all existing systems of law possess
this attribute in common, that they are absolutely binding
upon all subjects of the realm. Hence the law must
assert itself as the representative of pubHc order and of
the sovereignty of the State, which has the right and

BELI6I0N AND THE LAW. i

the power to overcome the resistance of the individual chap.
will . -^,

Into this province of civil jurisdiction, which defines Relations
the external relations of men, Eehgion also enters, in totheSiw.
its outward embodiment as a community ; and on this
ground, if on no other, the State cannot treat it with
indifference. Nor yet for another reason more deep-
seated, inasmuch as the State itself is a moral community,
and morahty always, in its ultimate resort, rests upon
religious behef — an axiom clearly demonstrated by the
law itself, the most important instrument of State power.
Certainly, not all moral injunctions are statutes of law,
since tlie former address themselves to the disposition
of the mind, which God alone can know, while the
latter are restricted to outward acts, albeit proceeding
from the mind. The law cannot require that a man
should love his neighbour as himself, or should not covet
his neighbour's goods ; but in checking violent injury to
person or property — offences which the law alone can
determine and punish — it is dealing beyond dispute with
the sentiments of hatred and envy in their final effect
The essence of Law, therefore, rests upon Morality, which
itself has its roots in Eeligion, and which in no way forbids
the pursuit of pleasure or utility, but assigns to each
definite Umits, traced according to a higher rule. Eight,
or fas, supported by the sanction of religion, is everywhere
older and more powerful than jics, the creature of choice
and of the will. Wherever fas becomes powerless,
whether through the selfish usurpation of privileged estates,
protected by the^w^, over the majority of the people, or
through the tyranny of religious unbelief, there the State
itself is on the road to ruin, nor can the brittle props of
a Btill outwardly existing system of law arrest its decline.

To this axiom, that a State, which is deprived of its
foundations of religion and morality, has lost its intrinsic

»\

4 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY.

CHAF» substance and support, Plutarch gave this striking expres-
'^ — , — ' sion, that a city might sooner exist without house or

ground than a State without behef in the gods.^
Theocracy The particular relations, however, of the State to the
archj-. religious community may differ very substantially. The
State may conceive the profession of religion to be a duty
of its own, so that the civil and reUgious communities
unite in one. In this case, the State either appears as the
mere corporate embodiment of religious thought, as in
Theocracy and Hierarchy, or dominates the rehgious life
and regulates it from its own points of view. Theocracy
we meet with in Judaism and Islamism — in the former
as a temporary and transitory phase in the realisation of
the Divine plan for the redemption of mankind ; in the
latter as a fixed and permanent institution. The Caliphate^
or Vicariate, of the Prophet represents the union of civil
and religious authority. Its holder is at once the ruler
and the defender of the faith ; his subjects and the faith-
ful are one and the same ; the laws are identical with the
commands of religion ; the Koran regulates the rights of
inheritance and of war, as well as the duties of religious
worship and morahty. Hierarchy^ or the poUtical and
social organisation of the State, in the name of the Deity,
by a religious body, acting as mediators between God and
the people, appears in Eastern nations, such as India and
Egypt, in the Cathohcism of the Middle Ages, in the
Jesuit State of Paraguay, and in modern times, until the
present, in the States of the Church. The control of
religion by the State, on the contrary, is seen consistently
developed in the republics of classical antiquity, and, to a
certain extent, in the State Churches of Christendom,

^ &XXa TToXcc 6,v fiot ^OKEi fioWov ifd<l>ovQ xufplg {jj iroXcreia rfjc
wepl dewy Io^tjs vipaipe^elffriQ irayrcnracn avaraffiv Xaftiiv tf Xafiovtra
rfipfjaat. (^Plut, adv. Colotm* c. xxxi, p. 1125, ed. Francof.)

UNION OP THE TWO POWERS. 6

the principle remaining in each instance the same — namely, chap.
that the State, as solely, or at least peculiarly, entitled to ^ — r — ^
a definite expression of rehgious belief, recognises and
supports it accordingly, while, at the same time, she ex-
ercises more or less control over the privileged religious
communities, appoints and pays their ministers like other
officers of the State, and watches over the maintenance
of their creed.

The union of the religious community and the State, Union of
in whatever form it may be realised, is unquestionably a ugious
great source of national strength, provided it is based on munuyand
genuine conviction. Among the citizens of Sparta and
Home irrehgion was also a pohtical crime ; and the cry of
'There is one God, and Mahomet is His Prophet ' esta-
blished the dominion of Islam. To the religious belief of
the Middle Ages the man who was outside the pale of the
Catholic Church was regarded as devoid of civil rights ;
and there was a time when even Protestantism, from the
general conviction of its adherents, could make the con-
fession of the Christian faith a condition of fitness for
civil and pohtical rights. But this source of strength
becomes a source of weakness and dissension as soon as
a considerable number of the members of the State
secede, firom motives of conviction, from the dominant
faith ; and history shows that this has happened sooner
or later with all State religions or rehgious States. The
State and the religious community are based on mental
foundations, alike, indeed, in kind, but difiering in their
development, and to make the two identical must inevit-
ably lead to a rigidity which conflicts more and more with
the law of development. All official religion loses itself
in externals and becomes a burdensome yoke; for the
varying aspects of belief cannot develope themselves under
a stereotyped form ; and tlie very conflict, which is in-
tended to be avoided by a union of the two powers,

0 THE STATE AKD TlIE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY.

CHAP, becomes finally all the keener and more sharply pointed.

^ — r — ' In these days, moreover, when the incessant interfiision
of mankind discovers varieties of behef in all countries,
the identification of the State with the religious commu-
nity becomes daily the more impracticable, inasmuch as
the legitimate demands of civil equality no longer allow
political qualifications to depend on the expression of
religious belief.
Conntef- The principle directly opposite to the above is that,

wpira^ion. according to which the State and the rehgious commu-
nity, although composed of the same men, lose entirely
the elements of mutual cohesion from the divergence of
their respective aims. The State leaves the religious
bodies to pursue their objects by all the means at the
disposal of each individual, so long, that is to say, as they
ofiend not against the law or morality ; but, at the same
time, it treats them as mere associations of subjects,
amenable, like any other non-privileged society, to civil
authority and jurisdiction. They enjoy full hberty of
private action, but beyond this have no recognised posi-
tion in the State, which pays no regard to them either in
its institutions or its legislation. This idea of separate
civil and rehgious communities has, at first sight, much
that is attractive. Eehgious belief is something that is
absolutely from within : the State cannot decide which is
the true faith ; that religion is the true one in proportion
only to the power which its spiritual vitahty exerts over
its behevers, whose duty it is, and not tliat of the State,
to provide for its requirements. In this separation of the
two powers each enjoys full liberty of action within its
own sphere. The Church claims no privileges which
might expose her to odium, and no support from the
State. She reposes in her own strength, and operates
according as she is alive in her members. On the other
hand, she is in no way fettered in her movements so

STATE INDIFFERENTISM TO RELIGION. Y

long as she keeps within the limits of the common chap;
law. ' — ; — >

But to this theory there is the conclusive objection
that although the State and the religious community have
different spheres of activity, they are nevertheless com-
posed of the same men. Although the individual embraces
two worlds, the one of mental conviction, the other of
action, still it is the mind that guides the arm. From
the first dawning of a thought up to the act which gives
it ultimate effect, the mental process is continued without
interruption ; and hence it is the mind that constitutes
the unity of personality, as distinguished from the organs
through which the individual acts. Now, religious belief
is such a powerful factor in the mental constitution that,
where genuinely entertained at all, it is usually predo-
minant. Those, therefore, who adhere to a religious
community by conviction will use their utmost endea-
vours to propagate their form of belief, which endea-
vours no free State can prohibit. And history abimdantly
proves, that religious oppression rarely, if ever, attains its
end, or at least has only attained it with purely mischie-
vous results.

In the case of smaller sects the State may ignore the objecticn
necessity of proselytLsm, which underlies the very essence different- "
of religion ; but large, organised religious communities Sugious
are too important a power in society for the State to ^'^^
regard them with indifference. And the less can it do so
in proportion to the influence over the Government which
representative institutions confer upon the majority of
the people. The Constitution of the United States, for
example, takes no cognisance of the relations of Church
and State ; and, under the protection of religious liberty,
Homan Catholicism in that country has grown into a con-
siderable power. Yet no one will indulge the illusion
that the Catholics, should they ever obtain a majority in

8 THE STATE AND TllE RELIGIOUS COMZilUNITY.

CHAP. Congress, would extend to the Protestants the same tole-
^— -1^ — ' ration which they themselves now enjoy ; for the very
principle of the Catholic Church is to persecute, as soon
as she can do so, that which she conceives to be error.
If, therefore, Cathohc ascendency were threatened, tlie
people would be forced, in spite of the silence of the Con-
stitution, to occupy themselves with Church questions.
This further consideration remains, that, whenever reh-
gious bodies are entirely self-supporting, the maintenance
of their system of worship depends on the goodwill of
their members ; and their ministers very frequently will
not have the courage to oppose that which runs counter
to the interests of those who contribute to their support.
Not a clergyman, for example, was to be found in any of
the Southern States of America who would have ventured
to condemn slavery, while many, on the contrary, did
not hesitate to justify it from the Biljjie.
Necessity An attitude, however, of mutual indifference between

?oSe*^ the State and the religious community can never be
desirable, even supposing it to be possible, because both
concur on the most important points of contact in human
society. Men may try, for the sake of avoiding collision,
to reduce to a minimum these points of contact with the
law ; but the State can never dispense with religion for
the moral education of its subjects, since there in no true
morahty without religion. The example of individuals
who, having broken with religious belief, still conform to
morality, proves nothing to the contrary ; for men, such
as these, regulate their conduct, however unconsciously,
by the civih'sation of the nation to which they belong,
and which in turn is saturated with religious elements.
The enormous majority will never attain to moral firm-
ness of character by themselves. History proves beyond
refutation the vanity of the attempt to supply by philo-
sophy and abstract morality the want of rehgion. ThQ

Sute.

RELIGION NECESSARY TO THE STATE. 9

civilisation of all States alike is based, in the first instance, chap.
upon religion ; and where the latter is obliterated, as ^ — r —

during the later period of the Eoman , Eepublic, or in
France under Louis XV., there discipline and moral
rectitude rapidly decline ; the foundations of the State
itself have become rotten, and give warnings of impending
ruin. A purely negative relation between Church and
State, such as would completely isolate the latter from
religion, would, therefore, if such were possible, be
disastrous to the nation.

On the other hand, the Church cannot entirely re-
nounce her influence over the State, and withdraw her-
self to the sphere of the mind, inasmuch as religious
interests, from their very nature, are involved especially
in the most important afiairs of life. As a matter of
feet, then, a really perfect separation of the State
and the religious community, to say nothing of the
possibility of the experiment, has never yet been at-
tempted.^ The demand for it chiefly proceeds, in part
from those who regard religion with indifierence or
hostility, and therefore resent any recognition of it on
the part of the State ; in part from extreme sections in
the Church, who see religion enslaved by any relation
with the State. The former forget that without religion
there is no true morality ; the latter, in their blindness
to the real fects, expect the return of an ideal Apostolic
Chm^ch by the loosening of every tie between religion
and the State.

Every consideration, therefore, points to a regulated a wcU-
union of both powers, precisely because within the spheres union desir-
of each lie the common elements of social prosperity.
Thus we arrive at the third and last alternative, the funda-
mental proposition of which is, that Church and State
constitute kindred, and yet divergent spheres of action,

I Not even In America, as will bo shown iurdier on.

10 TIIE STATE ANB THE BEUGIOUS COMMUNITY.

CHAP, whose functions neither entirely coincide nor divide ; that
^- » -^ in certain respects they unite, while in others they deviate :
so that, in the latter case, each of the two powers has
to pursue its own course independently ; while, for the
former, there is need of organised co-operation. Such a
union of liberty and reciprocal activity is eminently suited
to civilised Christian States, since it affords scope for the
greatest variety, according to circumstances, in the mutual
relations of both powers.

At the same time, however, it is clear that the diffi-
JMcfinSg culty lies in determining which are to be the common,
J3IS5?of ^^^ which the independent spheres ; and where a decision
acdon. 13 jq bc lookcd for in case of conflict. It sounds veiy
simple to say the State is to rule in the civil sphere
over all that relates to person and property, and all that
is external upon earth ; while the religious community is
to regulate the spiritual sphere. But is not the State
entitled to influence the spiritual improvement of its
subjects, on which, in fact, its own welfare and progress
depend ? And is not religion entitled to examine into
the conduct of her professors, which forms a test of their
belief? Here again it is evident that the provinces of
both powers diverge as widely as, in other cases, they
closely coincide. Undoubtedly a clear definition of their
respective spheres of action is most desirable for both ;
but it is one most difficult to arrive at, since it presup-
poses the unreserved recognition, on each part, of the
principle of their primary independence — a recognition
which either is only too prone to refuse, according as it
is prone to increase its competence with its strength.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that when-
ever one of the two powers prescribes, independently,
the limits of its sphere of action, it de facto rules the
other. The proof of this lies in the fundamental position
of the Catholic Church, She does not deny the indc-

IIELATIVE SniEBES OF ACTION. 11

■_ -■

pendence of the civil power ; she claims only the same inde- char
pendence for her ecclesiastical dominion ; but she claims, ^
at the same time, the right to determine the extent of
that dominion, and, in those questions where she comes
in contact with the civil power, to decide what are eccle-
siastical matters amenable to her cognition. But he who
himself determines the limits of his own sovereignty, by
so doing determines those of any other. Now if, on the
one hand, it is beyond dispute that where the State has
usurped to itself the right of determining those hmits it
has frequently done injury to liberty of conscience and
the legitimate autonomy of religious bodies ; nevertheless,
since a choice must be made, to the State only can the The sute
right be conceded of determining its competence. For mine its

1 ^^ . ^ T • • . own sphere*

experience shows that wherever a religious community
has exercised this right, it has arrogated permanent and
absolute pohtical authority to an extent incompatible
with the independence of the law ; while, on the con-
trary, the unauthorised encroachments of the State upon
Church life have had a comparatively less mischievous
effect — for this reason, that the injury caused thereby to
the State itself soon became so manifest as to necessitate
a change. Moreover, the persecution of a religious body
by the State is almost always evoked at the instigation
of another hostile party. The State itself is merely the
instrument : its hand is often rough and heavy, but the
history of its penal procedure offers nothing that could
be compared to the terrors of the Inquisition.

It is, therefore, only Ultramontane fanaticism or the
naivete of Doctrinaires that can call it a violation of the
liberty of the Church, or of her members, when the State
seeks to secure itself against a power which regards the
assertion of civil independence in matters, the control of
which the State cannot surrender without surrendering
itself; as a desertion from the true religion, to be tolerated

12 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS CJOMMUNITT.

CHAP, by the Church only so long as she is powerless to prevent
>- — r — ' it. It is true, of course, that all hinges on this, that the
Stote State should have the wisdom to keep within its sphere,
^' and administer the law, to which it subjects the religious
community, with due regard to the nature of the latter.
That would assuredly be a very distorted pohcy which
should welcome every means to crush and humble a dan-
gerous opponent ; which, for instance, should not content
itself with repelling the encroachments of religious bodies,
but persecute them in return. Eeligious persecution
serves only to strengthen resistance when it stops short
of annihilation, and even in not doing so it is heavily
avenged.

Matters would grow still more pregnant with disaster
did men not scruple to summon the fanaticism of unbelief
against that of superstition. Such an anti-reUgious passion
would in turn make men forget how inseparably the moral
and religious feelings of a people are blended, and that
when the State attacks religion it destroys thereby the
growth of every deeper moral conviction. The man who
would subdue superstition by unbelief resembles one
who, in his zeal to destroy the weeds, not only uproots
therewith the good corn, but tears away the earth as well,
and lays bare the naked rock, which no longer yields any
sustenance for a single little blade. In proportion as a
nation loses its belief in religion, the worship of force and
of gold most surely becomes omnipotent.

But finally, it would also be a grievous error if the
State, in order to subdue the excesses of particular reli-
gious bodies, were to attempt to crush the internal indepen-
dence of all, and subject them to its exclusive dominion.
The danger of such a perverted policy attaches peculiarly
to the present day, since the tendency of thought among
the influential and cultivated is to conceive the State aa
the ultimate md sole expression of all national as well a^

LIMITS OF STATE AUTHORITY.

general interests of civilieation,* This tendency, especially chap,
in Germany, must be explained as the reaction against ■ — .^— '
the former state of political destitution, and that school of

political economy which, by appealing to the so-called J

natural harmony of interests, conceives the proper duty I
of the Slate to consist in making itself as superfluous as , ■

possible. This reaction was legitimate, and has led to a I

fiiller and broader conception of the State. Persons have M

learned to understand that a State, so called, wliich is I

limited to the maintenance of law, is, in our present con- I

dition, a barren abstraction of that doctrine which I

emanated from the hatred of bureaucratic absolutism. I

The law does not exist for its own sake, but simply as a I

means, at once the most obvious and necessary, for I

furthering the common purposes of Ufe. The duties of I

the State are infinite and complex ; they change and grow I

with the people and their civiUsation : the richer the life fl

of the individual becomes, the more iiTcsistibly he feels I

himself bound up with and supported by the State. But I

although the State is the organised nation, it does not I

necessarily absorb the collective life of the people ; when- I

ever it attempts to do this the result is State despotism. I

Absolutism, founded on civil dominion, is justifiable when I

the object is to reinfusc hfe, by means of the strict exercise I

of Slate discipline, into a society disordered by class con- I

tests. But every attempt to make the State paramount I

in the sphere of mind and religion must lead to oppres- I

sioa and persecution, and result in the ruin of the State I

itself, no matter whether such despotism be exercised by I

' Tbia idea baa found its moat tugged, and yet very obscure, ox- ■

jmreantm in Rotbe's doctrine of the absorption of ibe Cburcb in the Stats. I

Anjone who BtudaeB ibis author iraportially will agree as little with I

hia ittcmpted vindication, on theological grounds, of tbia Hegelianised I

tbeoiy B8 the practical etatosmaa will concur ia hia extravagant fl

aotiMts of the iStaM. H

14 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY.

CHAP, a monarch like Louis XTV. or in the Convention by the
<*— r^^ — ' disciples of Eousseau. At the same time, it is unquestion-
ably the duty of the State to further the advancement of
mental and religious interests, for her prosperity is based
alone on true culture and morality. She prospers, how-
ever, in the first instance, by giving free scope for action ;
when she controls, she also hinders development. The
interference of civil authorities in the purely internal
economy of religious communities is wholly incompatible
with that greatest benefit which religion bestows, the
education for moral freedom. However remote the idea
of abridging the liberty of conscience may have been, at
first, from the executive power, still such a pohcy of in-
terference, in its ultimate consequences, would inevitably
produce that result; while the attempt to convert religious
communities into mere organs of the State would at once,
if successful, deprive them of their spiritual dignity, and
degrade them to the level of institutions of mere intellec-
tual police. Such institutions may be convenient for the
State, but they can never become fitted for those duties
which are of immeasurable importance to national life, but
which the State, from its very nature, must remain in-
capable to fulfil,
ofmo^ The difficulty is therefore so to regulate the relations

«"<»• between the State tod the religious communities as to
give the latter, on the one hand, full freedom of develop-
ment within the limits of morality and a general system
of law ; and, on the other, to unite with those communi-
ties for moral objects, which are of such vital importance
to national life. To achieve this, there cannot exist, as
everyone will understand, any abstract formula; the
mode of regulating these relations must be guided by the
pecuUar circimastances of the country or the people.

In the first place, the numerical strength of a religious
body is an element of great weight. The case is,

PKWCrPLES OF PEOPER UNION.

obviously, very different where, as in Spain, Portugal,
Italy, and Belgium, the Government confronts a nation -
almost exelusiveiy Catholic, from that in wliich a not d
inconsiderable minority of Protestants coexists with a »
largely preponderating majority of Catholics, as in France,
and conversely in England. The ease differs when, as
in the German Empire, the CathoUcs compose about a
third, and the Protestants two-thirds, of the population,
and when, as in Scotland and the Scandinavian States, the
Bation is almost exclusively Protestant. The power and
importance of the rehgious bodies, stamped as it will be
on their institutions and resom-ees, mil vaiy according as
one or the other of these relations exists. An ancient and
powerful community will demand more scrutiny and super-
vision, but at the same time more consideration, than a
new and unimportant sect.

A further circumstance of importance is the fiinda-
position which the religious society occupies in
of the State. If the State, on the one hand, is to

il to all societies equal liberty and equal rights with
Btrict justice, it cannot nevertheless shut its eyes when a
religious community impugns the right of the State to in-
dependence, and openly condemns the principles on which
the civil constitution is based. In like manner the State,
in its dealings with religious bodies, is bound to consider
their internal organi.sation, their worshij), and their disci-
pline. It makes a great difference to the State whether
she has to deal with independent societies, democratically
constituted, or with the Catholic CIuuxJi, which recog-
nises a foreign potentate as her absolute head. A govern-
ment which should neglect to adopt meastu-es of precaution
in this respect woidd only e.\poso itself to embarrassment
and defeat.

Filially, there are to be considered the historical develop-
ment, the institutions, and the state of civilisation peculiar

Id THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY.

CHAP, to each country. A nation which enjoys a high d^ree
^— T — ' of culture, and feels that culture assured by liberal insti-
tutions, can tolerate religious conflicts which in others
must lead to anarchy. CathoUcism wears a difierent form
in Italy and Poland from that in Belgium or France- In
the South American Kepublics, where, among a population
divided between the Latin race and the Indians, Ca-
tholicism represents the only spiritual power, its civilising
functions assume a totally different complexion from those
in England, Germany, or the United States, where it con-
fronts a Protestant world of culture.

Thus the adjustment of the relations between the
State and the religious commimity will depend on a
quantity of the most various conditions ; and in order to
form a correct estimate of these a survey of their his-
torical development will afford the best guidance.

CHAPTER II.

THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMCNITr IN

HEATHEN ANTIQUITY.

India — ^Primitive Worship of Nature and Later Mythology — The Brahmanic
Oaste of Priests — Relations of the Priesthood to the Monarchy — ^Buddhism.
The Priest-Caste and the Monarchy in Egypt — In Asia — Priests in Greece
not a Separate Caste, but Servants of the State — Religious Character of
Greek Nationality — System of State Worship— Civil and Religious
Decay — State Religion of the Romans — The Patricians and Plebe —
National Character of Heathen Religions.

In endeavouring, in the first place, by a rapid sketch, to chap.
trace the relations between the State and the pre-Christian — ^ —
religions of Heathendom, we find in India, the extreme india.
member of the Indo-Germanic family of nations, a people
who regarded themselves and their institutions not only
as autochthonous and sprung fi'om the soil, but as situated
outside the field of historical development This idea, of
course, did not correspond with reality : it may be taken
as proved that the inhabitants of India, no less than their
neighbours the Bactrians, the Medes, and the Persians,
were immigrants from the Iran highlands, and, Uke the
latter, called themselves Arya^ or noble. In the Vedas,
their oldest memorials in writing, no mention occurs
of Caste, that pecuhar institution which afterwards per-
meated and controlled all the relations of Indian life.
We hear only of the conquering Vaisyas^ the dominant
fair-complexioned people and brethren of the same race,
as opposed to the conquered dark natives, or Mlechchhaa.
The Vedas, in hke manner, know nothing of the later
VOL. I. c

18 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

CHAP, world of gods : the cosmic conception of Nature pre-
^ dominates throughout. Indra is the god of the heaven-

worehip'^of bcrn, creative, and hfe-giving light, which dispels the
Nature. night and frightens away the dark spirits and beasts of
prey. The cooling winds are his companions ; his adver-
sary is the demon Yritra^ who rises up in blackness over
the heavens to hide the light and withhold the fertilising
waters from the earth, and whom Indra strikes with light-
ning to make the clouds dissolve in rain.

Next to him are Varuna^ the god of the all-embracing
Firmament and of the Sea, the nourishing and moving
power of the fluid elements ; and Agni^ the consuming
and purifying fire of sacrifice and of the hearth, in
which matter reascends luminous to heaven, and unites
Later with the Gods. In the later system of gods, as met
%«)^ny. with in the great epic poems, allusions to the moral
nature of man predominate. Brahma — a word applied
in the Vedas in a neuter sense only to prayer and
devotion — ^becomes the pure To Be, the indivisible, self-
existent Essence, the primordial Soul of all things, devoid
of destination and personaUty, and finally developed into
the Universe. So exalted is this abstraction that He
is seldom worshipped in any temple, and for the most
part only by the educated in prayer. To the people His
place is suppUed by the active government of subordi-
nate deities, especially by Vishnu^ the preserver and ruler
of the world, who sanctifies and redeems it by a series of
incarnations. Opposed to Vishnu, probably under the
influence of the worship of demons and nature by the ab-
original natives, is Siva^ the god of death and destruction.
To this triune system of deities (each of which has a
goddess for his wife, who completes the active male ele-
ment in passive abstractions) is attached a large multitude
of inferior gods, with locally varying forms of worship
and a diversified order of rank. But the fundamental

THE BRAHMANIC PRIEST-CASTE, 19

idea of Indian mythology is pantheistic, the Deity being chap.
absorbed in the universe, and then returning again to His * — '<- — -
original unity, so that creation is only a varied form of
the Divine substance.

This order of rank, however, is far more sharply de- The Bmh-
fined on earth in the system of Caste. Among every caste of
people, with the progressive division of labour appears a
separation of the different branches of occupation. Classes
are formed, with their distinctions more or less strongly
marked, according to property or employment ; and the
mere feet that the son succeeds in regular course to the
occupation, as to the property of his father, naturally
leads to heredity and social exclusiveness. This exclu-
siveness becomes a caste as soon as the Umits, once pre-
scribed, are regarded, as is the case alike in India and Egypt,
as immutable. Peculiar, however, to India is the belief
that this classification of society is ordained from the very
first by the Deity Himself, is protected by His sanction,
and for that reason remains unchangeable. And in India,
therefore, to violate this Divine institution is not merely a
political crime, but an act of heresy. That belief, indeed,
is as baseless in reality as the notion that the inhabitants
of India are indigenous ; on the contrary, we have distinct
traces of the struggles it has cost to carry out the system
in question. At the conquest of India, that part of the
aboriginal population which submitted voluntarily re-
mained free, but became a menial class {SMra) ; those
who maintained an obstinate defence in marshes and
mountains were outlawed, and declared reprobate and
impure. From the mass of the Aryan Vaisyas arose, first
of all, the warrior-class, or Kshatriyas ; but in proportion
as their martial organisation lost in importance in the
peaceful life that followed the priestly class gained the
ascendency. The priesthood, from its nature, is occupied
at all times with those functions which, earlier than any

c 2

20 THE STATE AND TILE RELIGIOUS COMMUNTTT, ETC.

Other, require especial culture. Natural religion, from
the first, demanded the observation of physical pheno-
mena, of the stars and the elements of creation ; but, in
addition to that, the need of learning, conformable to
their position, became the more imperative to the priests,
when, later on, they came to deal with a system of worship
growing more and more complex in its prayers, its cere-
monies, and its rites, all of which were indispensable in
order to mediate for the favour of the Deity.

Hence we see that in most nations, notwithstanding
the absence, perhaps, of a universal division of labour,
the priesthood separates itself into a class, which becomes
more and more exclusive with the consciousness of higher
dignity and of the mental superiority acquired by the
habit of thought. Thus we find, not only among the
Egyptians, but in nations imacquainted with a division of
caste, such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and
Jews, besides the Gauls, the Mexican Aztecs, and the
Incas of Peru, an isolated and, for the most part, here-
ditary priesthood, whose members devote themselves
entirely to the task of serving the Deity and reconciling
Him to the people, by whom, in turn, they are main-
tained. Nowhere, however, is this organisation so sharply
defined as in the Hindu caste of the Brahmans. The
development of a system of rehgious belief, by means of
which the idea of sin and atonement found its fiill expres-
sion in an endless maze of purifications, mortifications,
and punishments ; the knowledge of worship and ritual ;
and the possession of the sacred writings and language —
all combined to separate the priesthood more and more
from the laity. As mediators between God and man, the
former claimed and acquired the highest position in society.
In this system in its perfection, such as the Laws of Manu
describe it, the priests are gods upon earth ; they are
able to work miracles ; their persons are sacred and in-

THE BRAHMANIC PRIEST-avSTE. 21

violable ; to strike a Brahman with only a blade of chap.
grass would bring damnation on the offender ; they alone — ^ — '
keep the sacred writings, understand how to perform the
sacrifices, and devote their lives to the contemplation of
the Divine, culminating in the perception of the vanity of
a sensuous existence. In secular matters, moreover, they
occupy a prominent position. They are the advisers* of
the king, the judges, the physicians ; they conduct the
education of the young. On their part, in return, they
are strictly bound lo observe a multitude of external rites
and ceremonies, the violation of which involves heavy
punishment ; and they have to undergo a long course of
priestly instruction. The second caste, which has fur-
nished most of the princes, are the warriors ; the third
consists of those who follow different crafts or trades.
These three castes are united by a common origin, de-
noted by the outward symbol of the girdle of the
sacred thread. The fourth caste, or Sudras^ occupies the
lowest position of subjection. Outside all caste are the
wretched dark-coloiu'ed aborigines, or Chandalds^ who
are not allowed a settled home, and mere contact with
whom is defilement. Of coiu^e this separation of castes
could not be effected as strictly as the theory demanded.
As the Brahmans, who, unUke other priesthoods, did not
practise ceUbacy, and whose position rested far more on
the principle of descent, increased considerably in num-
bers, they could not all restrict themselves to merely
priestly duties, but were obliged, and therefore also em-
powered, to exercise certain other industrial occupations
of other castes, and not considered unclean. But no
member of an inferior caste was ever allowed to usuq3
the occupation of a higher one ; nor was marriage per-
mitted between members of different castes. The mixed
offspring of such a union was degraded for ever to a
lower social rank.

22 THE STATE AND TIIE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

This system is, unquestionably, the most matured and
elaborate of any priestly l^slature ; and it was girt round
in India with such indissoluble bonds as in no other nation
of antiquity. Its dark sides are evident ; but it is just
because this rigid isolation of classes is merely the cari-
cature of the principle of a necessary division of society
that the system of caste in earher times was not without
its bright aspect. The legislators sought for culture in
religiousness, morality, gentleness, and a high develop-
ment of art and industry ; the Brahmans themselves were
of simple manners, and devoted themselves zealously to the
instruction of youth and the advancement of the people
to a rich maturity. In spite, even, of the subsequent
degeneracy of the hierarchy, Caste was able to prevent the
monarchical despotism of the rest of Asia from becoming
paramount in India, simply because the rights of all classes
ahke were inviolably established. In principle, indeed,
the Hindu monarchy appears absolute ; the king is revered
as the image and embodiment of the Deity, married in
human form to the country which he rules; neverthe-
less he is wholly subject to the duties of his own caste,
and dares not trench upon those of others. Manu remem-
bers with wrath the king Vena, who attempted to confuse
the boundaries of the different castes, and lost his reason
as a punishment. Further, the education of the princes
is regulated by law, and is in the hands of the Brahmans,
tlie most learned of whom are their councillors, the High-
Priest occupying an exalted position. While the Brahman
is responsible for a life of hoUness first to the Deity and
then to himself, the duties of the king are represented as
towards his subjects.
Beiations And inasmuch as the monarchy was regarded as an

priesthood institution based on the Divine economy of the world,
momuchx. ^^^ therefore encountered no opposition, the regimen
could be patriarchally mild and conformable to the law.

THE PRIESTHOOD AND THE MONARCHY. 23

The village and town communities administered their chap.
own affairs ; a number of communities formed a ' circle,' ' — * — -^
from five to ten circles a district, ten districts a depart-
ment, each of these three divisions being under officers
appointed by the king, who constituted a succession of
courts of appeal. The Brahmans, on the other hand,
could not by their constitution lay claim to any secular
authority. They never attempted to possess the throne ;
they influenced the temporal power merely by their teach-
ing and advice, the obedience required from the king
being limited to the priestly law; they were declared
eligible to political posts by preference, but not to the
exclusion of the two other castes. When they took part
in the government, they did so only by royal commis-
sion, not in virtue of any right of their own. Thus, then,
the organisation of society was hierarchical only in so far
as the priestly element was uppermost and resisted the
influence of that warlike restlessness in politics which
stamped its aggressive character upon the other Asiatic
kingdoms. Eehgious thought, as well as the classification
of society, are equally primitive, and act alternately upon
each other.

Social Ufe in India, from the period of its complete Buddhignu
consolidation down to our own time, has experienced only
one great cataclysm, and that was through Buddhism. That
religion, in its view of the nothingness of the world and
of the destined absorption of man into the blessed rest of
annihilation (Nirvdna)^ which, nevertheless, is considered
as the fulness of all reality and the all-embracing prin-
ciple, exhibits no essential distinction from the pantheism
of the Brahmanic Sages, who, by a complete seclusion
from the outer world and an absolute mental self-absorp-
tion, ascribed to the soul the power of comprehending
the Divine. Buddha, however, drew from this self-con-
templation the practical consequence that even priestly

24 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

CHAP, doctrines and the system of caste are of indifferent
' — ^ — ' moment, that it is a holiness of the mind and of life

which alone can enable everyone, by strict asceticism
and irrespective of his birth, to participate in this libe-
ration from sorrow and passion. The idea of the equality
of all mankind, in contrast to the barrier of nationality
and of caste, appears here for the first time, albeit only
to claim for all an equality of misery. Such a religion
opposed an irreconcilable contrast to Hinduism. It was
expelled; but after the expedition of Alexander to
India had shaken the Brahmaiiic world, a Sudra, Chan-
dragupta, conquered Hindustan, and his grandson
As6ka went over to Buddhism and raised it to the
religion of the State. Thenceforth it spread southward
to the Deccan, Ceylon, &c., and northward to Cashmere
and Cabulistan. It assumed a hierarchical form gra-
dually more definitely marked, and lost entirely its
original purity by its alliance with the worst element of
Brahmanism, the worship of Siva. In this form it came
to Tibet, and there, by the alliance of its high-priest with
the secular power, it became Lamaism, which, after the
conversion of Chubilai, the grandson of Genghis-Khan,
attained its monarchical zenith in the Dalai-Lama, whose
perpetuity was maintained by an uninterrupted series of
incarnations. This system, by supporting itself on the old
Buddhist doctrine of the migration of souls, was intended
to unite the advantages of hereditary succession and
election in order to preserve the authority and unity of
the hierarchy, which afterwards petrified itself more and
more into the caricature of the Tibetan Church-State. -
The^pnest- While Hindu life inclined strongly to contemplation,
the mo- in Egypt the natural conditions of existence pointed
Egypt rather to the outer world, as her innumerable wars with
the neighbouring nations and the colossal buildings in
the interior serve to testify. India restricted herself to

THE PRIEST-CASTE IN EGYPT. 25

her own limits ; Egypt exercised a wide-spread influence ciiAr.
abroad. This tendency, as regards the latter, is reflected — ^ — '
even in her reUgion. In remote antiquity, indeed, we
find in that country deities of a speculative-cosmic kind.
Thence originated the ingeniously elaborated doctrines
of the migration of souls and of the dominion of the
dead ; but later on a rude worship of animals, oracles,
sorcery, and a rigid system of formahties prevail, and
control all the relations of life. There, in like manner,
we find the system of caste developed under the influ-
ence of a priesthood, separated in the first instance
from the people, and surviving the extinction of other
castes ; the priests themselves being again divided into
strictly isolated classes, and their offices, from the prophet
and high-priest to the servants of the temple, being
throughout hereditary. As in India, the Priest-Caste
was the sole bearer of all intellectual activity. All
inventions, arts, and sciences bore a priestly character, as,
for instance, the picture-writing of hieroglyphics, the
science of medicine, mechanics, chemistry, and astronomy,
as well as astrology, alchymy, and the art of soothsaying.
The great point of difference from India is that the castes
were not determined by Divine sanction, but only by social
custom. This was the more easy to achieve since Egypt
formed one compact kingdom, and the system exliibited
simply the coercive despotism of a corporation, consis-
tently developed to its utmost extreme. For this reason,
also, the number and extent of the castes are diflerently
stated. This much only we may take as certain, that
priests and warriors ranked as the ecclesiastical and lay
nobility above the other classes, who were excluded from
all share in political fife. The king, as the natural head
of the warrior-caste, formed the pinnacle of the State.
Politically he was absolute ; he was expressly entitled
God ; but the priesthood which surrounded liim exercised

26 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNirY, ETC.

CHAP, large influence. He was assisted by a consulting college
^^ — ^ — ' of priests ; the supreme court of justice was composed of
the representatives of the three great divisions of the
priesthood ; his whole life was regulated, down to the
minutest detail, by sacerdotal precepts ; his servants had to
be the sons of priests, who exercised a narrow surveillance
over him in the interest of their caste. * At the public
sacrifice the priests said the prayer for him, in which they
were to enumerate his Virtues, and hence enjoyed an
opportunity for a tacit but yet effective censure. Even
after his death they sat in judgment upon him ; and
since they alone were the transmitters of history, his
posthumous fame was also in their hands. Only a few
kings ever attempted to shake off these bonds, in return
for which obedience the influence of the priests secured
to them glory and the affection of their people.' ^
Priesthood Whilst the two caste-States, India and Egypt, were
Sy in Asia] enabled by their geographical position to entrench them-
selves in their pecuhar form of civilisation, the rest of the
Asiatic kingdoms were engaged in continual warfare with
each other, and with various alternations of supremacy.
The necessity of constant wars will cause existing classes
to be tolerated, but will not create any immutable divi-
sions of society. In the Zend-Avesta we find four classes —
the Priests, Warriors, Agriculturists, and Artisans. The
Priests — the Magi of the Medes and Persians — form a here-
ditary caste ; but strangers are received into their ranks.
A priesthood, however, which had not the authority of other
castes to support its own pretensions could not, therefore,
assert, in the face of royalty invested with a religious
sanction, so independent a power as was possible in States
where caste prevailed. In the prophet Daniel we see
Nebuchadnezzar treating with the utmost arbitrariness and
rigour the Chaldsean priests, who reduced astrology to a

' Schnaase, Oeschichte der hildenden Kunste, vol. i. p. 288.

PRIESTHOOD IN GREECE. 27

system. What history reveals of the political life of chap.
Asia is the absolute character of Asiatic despotism. The - — ^ — -
king represents the Deity ; his palace is also the temple.
Of an independent administration of law and justice, such
as in Caste-States is exercised by the priests, no traces
exist.

A different atmosphere surrounds us the moment we Priesthood
enter the region of classical antiquity. Like all the
heathen religions, the Greek bore originally the character
of a polytheistic deification of Nature. But the plastic
precision of the Hellenes, and their sense of the beautiful,
moulded these personifications of Nature into free, divine
beings, who move within, but also overstep, a sphere of
their own ; who busy themselves more with man than
with nature ; who share the form, the passions, the im-
perfections, of mankind, and for this very reason are
drawn into the range of sensuous perceptions, and conform
to a purely human standard of conduct. The absence
among the Greeks of any priesthood, in the Oriental
meaning of the word, corresponds with their sense of
political liberty, and of the importance of the State. In
earlier times the princes and heads of tribes are invested
with priestly attributes, and perform rehgious services for
tlieir people, like every father of a household for his
family. Besides those, we find, as early as the heroic
period, priests set apart for those branches of worship
which require a peculiar qualification, in addition to
augurs and soothsayers. From these elements arose a
special priesthood, when the temples and other sanctuaries
dedicated to the gods demanded a numerous body of
servants ; but the political sense of the Greeks was too
matured to allow them to become an entirely separate
caste. Much as the priests were honoured, they were
regarded, nevertheless, as the servants of the State. The
worship of the gods itself had, with few exceptions.

28 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

the character of a national celebration, held publicly and

in common.

Religious j^i the same time the social and political condition of

of Greek the Grecks was mtimately connected with the worship of

national- •' - _ *■ ^

ity. the Deity, which, in fact, closely concerned the State for

this reason, that the State itself was regarded as an insti-
tution of the gods, whose wrath as well as favour extended
over the whole community. This idea is expressed in
the worship of Hestia (Vesta), as the goddess of the com-
munity of the State, who guards the sacred fire of the
public hearth. But the relations of the State in Greece
towards religion were confined to mere externals, to the
form in which the national consciousness sought to
embody religious ideas. Eeligious worship was to the
Hellenes the necessary element of nationality, and the
State, accordingly, on its part used its influence to preserve
it and to give it form, not only extending to it civil pro-
tection, but taking part in it by erecting temples, and by
means of sacrifices and festivals. No pubUc act of im-
portance in their dehberative assemblies, in the conduct
of official matters, and the administration of justice was
performed without religious ceremonies. At the foot of
their citadel, the Acropolis, which enclosed the most
ancient and most sacred kind of worship, stood the
market-place, where their political assemblies were held.
Common religious services and the common celebration
of festivals were substantial bonds of union to knit
together single communities of the same State like
separate States of the same race.^ The State questioned
the oracle on its afiairs ; it deposited the national
treasures in the temples ; the first dawning notions of the
Law of Nations were put forward under the protection of
religion, and clothed with the sanctity of its forms. But

* A Greek equivalent for fellow- citizens was eyairoycot, or fellow-
worshippers of the same divinity.

I«JATIONAL SYSTEM OF WORSHIP. 29

it was only the external side of religion, the outward chap.
homage to the gods recognised by the laws, which en- ^ — ^ — -
gaged the notice of the State. As, according to Greek
ideas, piety consisted only in the customary and legally-
established worship of the gods, so also the devotional
expression of worship was regarded simply as an outward
and due observance, which the deity had a right to
enforce, and which dared not be withheld without giving
to other sections of society the dangerous example of a
violation of the law. While, therefore, the State did
not concern itself in any way with the religious beUef of
its subjects, it punished every neglect of the lawful and
due worship of the gods, whether such neglect were mani-
fested by actually injuring the holy places dedicated to
their service, or by insulting or otherwise attacking the
national belief. Everyone was free for himself to beheve
in the gods or not, but directly he declared his unbelief
in pubUc, and communicated it to others, then the State
authorities stepped in to punish, because the consequence
of such principles is to make the worship itself appear
unnecessary, and thereby draw down upon the State the
Avrath of the gods. Thus Protagoras was banished, and
his works pubhcly burnt, because he declared that no one
could know whether there were gods or not. Thus
Socrates was condemned to drink the poisonous cup of
hemlock, because he repudiated the gods of the State,
and attempted to introduce new ones. True it is that
the ridicule heaped in Greek comedy upon the gods
stands in strange contrast to this principle ; but in the
first place this occurs at a later period, and even then its
toleration by those who were otherwise staunch Conser-
vatives, may be explained by the fact that they antici-
pated no danger to reUgion from such representations of
burlesque.

Every State now arranged in its own peculiar manner

30 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

CHAP, the worship of its recognised gods ; for although the
chief divinities of the national belief were universal, still

slate" ° the attributes and importance of each were by no means
worahip. ^j^^ same in different places. A god who in one Stat^
was the chief object of veneration occupied in another only
an inferior position. Thus Athens had her Pallas, Sparta
her Apollo and Athene, the Achaian cities Poseidon;
OljTTipia had Zeus, Argos Hera, and Boeotia Dionysos.

These deities, thus chosen by each State for its pecu-
liar care, were also the especial objects of the formal,
official worship which, in contrast to domestic and private
ministrations, embraced the whole field of public religion
as well as all religious acts undertaken in the name and
according to the regulations of the State. Such acts were
the prayers and sacrifices in the assemblies and courts of
justice, the ratification of peace, treaties, and more es-
pecially the great festivals and mysteries celebrated by
the State in honour of the chief divinities of a particular
district, as the Dionysiae, Eleusinia3, Panathenas, and
Thesmophoriae.

Innovations in the system of worship were forbidden
in more ancient times imder threat of punishment ; the
introduction of foreign gods resembled the smuggling
in of foreigners to the citizenship. But as the latter
privilege could be granted to foreigners by law, so
the State could by legislation admit foreign modes of
worship by the side of the native one ; and in doing
so it attempted to effect a fusion, as far as possible,
between the old and new systems, by associating and
connecting the new god with localities of the old home.
The introduction of new kinds of worship was usually a
consequence either of the migration of the tribes to new
habitations, or of a union, peaceful or forcible, between
several previously separate comraimitics, each with its
own peculiar worship, into a State. But it also owed

DEGENERACY OF STATE RELIGION. 31

its origin to the fact that foreign but private forms of chap.
worship, being tolerated, so far as they did not aim at ^ — ^ — '
supplanting the native gods, among foreigners resident
in the country, were gradually admitted into the public
religion of the State. From these counteracting influences
arose in time, and to an extent which corresponded with
the vari^ated richness of the entire culture of Greece
and the constitution of her States, numerous varieties in
the worship of the gods, new foims of mythology, and
institutions of religion.

The religion, however, of Hellas, like her civilisation, civiiand
contained the germs of decay. With the growing de- dtJ^-^la
mands of public worship, which at Athens, for instance, ^^
led to a sixth part of the year being set apart as festival
days, the true significance of just the most time-hallowed
and sacred customs — called, in fact, Trdrpm^ or inherited —
which were short and simple, fell gradually into oblivion,
while the newly-recognised festivals (fT/9«Toi), at once
long and brilliant, displayed vast pomp with little genuine
religion. The entire system of worship soon degenerated,
partly into a perfunctory compliance with custom, partly
into a pretext for mere sensuality and an inordinate
desire for enjoyment. This result was hastened by a
series of philosophical sects, following each other in quick
succession, and each more inclined to materialism ; as
well as by the invasion of new-fangled kinds of worship
of foreign, and mostly Oriental, origin, celebrated with a
pomp which became the mere exhibition of a foolish
emulation in extravagance, frivolity, and sensuality, ex-
hausting the resources of the State, and rapidly lowering
the morality of the people. In this way the authority of
the ancient religion was deprived of its local and national
bases, the roots of its original vitality and strength ; and
direcrtly the protection of the State deserted her, she
sank inevitably into a rapid and complete extinction.

32 THE STATE AXD THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

CHAP. The Eomans felt even more deeply than the Greeks

^ — ' — ' the power of religious belief. ' Nostri majores, religiosis-
rionofthe simi mortales,' says Salliist. The fear of the gods was
omans. considered the firm bond of union, which held together
all the classes of the commonwealth. Each femily had
its own domestic gods, and participated in the common
rites of tlie'gcns,' through these, in the rights of the 'Curia,'
and finally in the worship of the State. In contrast to the
rich variety, the exquisite sense of the beautiful, and the
poetic splendour of the Hellenic mythology, in the re-
ligious system of the Eomans all was in unity, earnest,
national, practical, and arranged with the closest reference
to the State. As in Eome the omnipotence of the State
finds its clearest expression, so religion was there a State-
religion in the full sense of the term. ' The State was a
community of kindred race, intimately bound together
by their worship.'^ Eeligion was nurtured by the State
not only because the gods favoured the prosperity and
greatness of Eome, but also in order that their will might
be done both within and by the State. The State, there-
fore, from the very beginning, assumed the direction of
public worship. The kings, in their time, were at once
judges and high-priests : they personally performed the
sacrifices ofiered in the name of the State ; they super-
intended all religious ceremonies. After the three tribes
of the Eamnes, Titles, and Luceres had been consolidated
into the Eoman people, and the rule of the kings had
reached its end, the State-religion was so regulated that
the public services were properly performed and the
reverence justly due to the gods maintained. Fifteen
priests, or Jlamines^ administered the worship of par-
ticular divinities. The knowledge and preservation of
divine law was entrusted to a priestly brotherhood, con-

* Becker : Marquardt, Rdm. Alterth,^ vol. iv, p. 62.

PATMCIANS AND PLEBS. 83

sisting of four pontiffs and a Foniifex Maximus^ who took chap.
care that no Roman should serve foreign gods, that to — ^ — '
the gods should be given their due, tliat nothing of
importance should be undertaken by the State without
previously ascertaining from auspices their will, and then
only on days pleasing to them ; that festivals should be
kept, that international rules should be observed towards
other nations, that no one should touch things conse-
crated and set apart, besides a multitude of other and
similar duties. The power of this fraternity was all
the greater from being practically uncontrolled in the
interpretation of this divine law. They punished the
transgressor with a kind of excommunication, which
excluded him alike from all rehgious and political
fellowship.

The administration of the State-religion, like the exer- PatHcian
cise of pohtical rights, was limited to the patricians. As ^' *
they alone could conclude a perfectly valid marriage, as
they alone enjoyed the right of voting and of occupying
Ix)Htical posts of honour, so they only were qualified for
priestly functions and spiritual dignities comprehended
under the Jus Sacrorum. The plebs were excluded from
all active share in such matters ; their authority ceased
with the limits of the family ; their purely local divisions,
the tribes, had no religious service in common like the
patrician curice. They achieved their sacerdotal to-
gether with their political rights. With the Consulate Growth of
they obtained admission to the Decemvirate, and soon * ^ ^ *
afterwards to the colleges of pontiffs and augurs ; but it
was not until the second Punic war that the election of
the Poniifex Maximus was vested in the whole body of
the people. Thenceforth the same persons filled the
highest priestly and political offices, the rex sacnjiculus
alone being always chosen from the patricians ; and with
this restoration of the unity of the State, as rcgnrds

VOL. L D

34 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

CHAP, spiritual and secular government, began the most brilliant
— r^ — ' epoch in Eoman history. The different provinces and

cities, like the State itself, had their peculiar systems of
religion, in wliich they worshipped their tutelary deities,
and wliich were closely interwoven with their political
constitution. The Eoman State, in other respects so rigidly
centraHsed, respected religious liberty : she practised iu
these matters perfect tolerance towards all nations subject
to her rule, and was careful not to violate the belief of
the conquered, thereby mitigating the pressure of her
yoke. Eome proper, on the other hand, as opposed to
the State, was for a long time intolerant of foreign modes
of worship. The circle of tlie national deities was only
slowly and under exceptional circumstances enlarged;
and stress was laid on the condition that the new modes
of worship should not injure or prejudice the old ; since
the introduction of new cults, no less than the adoption
of foreign customs, easily weakened the bonds which
preserved the unity of the State. Hence the admission of
foreign gods remained exclusively dependent on the State.
Admission As it was uot pocts and prophets, but kings who had
deities. established the original religion of the State, so the latter
in after times regulated the reception of new religious
usages, rejected all that conflicted with customary
morality, and secured to every part of the population its
share in the pubUc worship, which contributed, by its
external support, to the satisfying of a religious want.
Magistrates, as well as priests, were subject to the decrees
of the Senate and the people. With the growing size of the
Eoman Empire, and the increasing intercourse with other
nations, conceptions of foreign deities began to operate
upon the religion of Eome ; and it is remarkable that the
same foreign worship, that of the Asiatic Cybele, which,
as the worship of the mother of the gods (iu^yjrijp Sscov),
first broke through the circle of native deities in Greece,

POLITICAL RELIGION OF ROME. 35

found an entrance at Eome under the name of Magna chap.

Mater. To this were added the representations of the ^ — J^i "

Greek mythology, but with the colouring of a period intenwt*uai
when the sceptic philosophy of the Greeks had long since J^Sf'*^*"*
undermined the faith in their native gods. This in- Greece,
fluence, feared already by Cato, could affect Eome only
in the sense of a rupture between the higher and more
educated classes of society, in whose hands virtually
rested the government of the State and the national
religion. Cicero and Caesar had publicly in the Senate
declared their unbelief; and their opinions found their
most rugged expression in Lucretius, who scoffs at all
religion as the offspring of fear and the imagination, in
order to substitute Materialism in its place. Nevertheless
a long time elapsed before this scepticism effectually sub-
verted the ancestral faith. The mass of the people,
which in matters of religion is always thoroughly con-
servative, held fast to the dii patrii^ with whose worship
their whole Hfe was so intimately interwoven ; and in
this adherence they were eagerly supported by the
Government. 'As the Grecian world still required the
gods for the purposes of art long after men had ceased
to believe in them, so Eome required her gods for the
purposes of the State. In everything, moreover, which
constituted the role of each particular nationaUty in the
history of the world, national religion for centuries still
found its sure support.' ^

The Eoman statesmen, who themselves were addicted
to the tenets of Epicurus or the Stoa, freely recognised
the importance of religious behef for the masses. Eeli- Political
gion remained in their eyes a valuable instniment of JeH^u^
power, which the State could not dispense with without ^™^
endangering its safety. The most significant example of

un in

' Hiindeslmgen.
D 2

36 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

II.
>i ■

CHAP, this view is offered by Terentius Varro, the contemporary
- of Pompey and Ctesar. His sober temperament revolted
from tlie sensuous tendencies, as well as the philosophy of
tlie Greeks, which promoted the contempt for a hereditary
faitli, witliout securing anything better in its stead. He
himself sought from physical causes an explanation of the
old Eomaii religion, but he was far too practical a states-
man to beUeve that any such explanation could satisfy
the people. He did not wish to delude them, but, like
Cicero, he desired to see them encouraged in their ancient
belief, because he considered such belief essential to the
poUtical welfare of Eome. The emperors pursued the
same policy. Augustus tried hard to strengthen the
State-religion by legislation and by his own personal
example. Nero offered abundant sacrifices to the gods ;
and the aristocracy retained a personal share in the public
worship by their membership of the superior priestly col-
leges. But scepticism, nevertheless, spread in ever- widen-
ing circles. Although Polybius reckoned it among the
advantages of the Eoman State that its entire economy
was based upon belief in the gods, yet his opinion was
that this had been done from the very first for the sake
of the masses, who being frivolous by disposition, are in-
clined to sudden anger and excesses, and can only be
restrained by invisible objects of terror. And still more
f)\ankly did Strabo declare that the multitude could not
be brought to practise piety and virtue by means of philo-
sophy, but only by superstition, by fables and mai^vellous
fictions ; and that of such-hke elements the whole of
mythology was composed.

In the course of time this became the general opinion,
which Plutarch, who himself adhered firmly to the an-
cient belief in the gods, thus roughly epitomises : — * We
pretend prayers and worship from fear of the multi-
tude, and pronounce words which rebel against our own

NATIONAL CHARACTER OF HEATHEN RELIGIONS. 37

convictions. In the very act of sacrifice the priest wlio chap.
slaughters the victim appears only like a cook.' But s,-^|' — >
this purely outward worship was devoid of all inward
support, and the people gradually learned to feel that
the participation of the higher classes therein was a studied
hypocrisy. As it was intended to assist in maintaining
the stability of Eome, so its conditions presupposed the
stability of the Eoman State. When the latter, apart
from the progress of religious scepticism, was hastening
irresistibly to its dissolution, the sole remaining import
and meaning of the religious system were naturally bound
to disappear. This, in fact, had already occurred before
Christianity came into a more serious conflict with the Un-
gering State-religion, which custom alone preserved.

Among all the nations, therefore, which in ancient
times appeared as the chief guardians of civilisation, we
find the closest alliance between religion and the State,
because all of them recognised clearly the power of reli-
gious belief over the minds of men. It is clear that
whenever the religious element is wanting, which mani-
fests itself in loyalty and faith, in moral discipline and
rectitude, and in self-devotion to others, the Stiite cannot
prosper. Of all these moral forces which cement the
community, the foundations, as well as the support, are
found in religion. But with all the nations we have men-
tioned rehgion was purely national. As a Natural Eeli- National
gion it had the natural spirit of the people as its basis, of heathen
Only the member of this special particular national com- ^ ^^^^^
munity could enjoy intercourse with, and expect any favour
from, the national gods. Identity of worship constituted
the unity of the State : it was forbidden to the Eoman
citizen to honour foreign deities.^ Foreign nations might
have their gods and keep them ; no one wished to disturb
them in that respect ; but, politically as well as religiously,

' Soparatim nemo liabcssit decs, neve novos. Cic. de Leg. ii. c. 8.

38 THE STATE AND THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, ETC.

CHAP, the barriers of national isolation were maintained so long
^— ^'- — ' as neither poUtical considerations nor indifference prepared
the way for the admission of foreign cults. Finally, more-
over, as Hundeshagen pointedly remarks, all alike agreed
in confessing that sense of dependence upon the Divine,
wherein rehgion consists, in the twofold expression of the
power of the gods and the fear of that power by man. The
gods, it is true, were revered as the guardians of justice and
the avengers of evil, of all blood-guiltiness, of perjury, and
of similar crimes ; the laws were under their protection, and
praiseworthy practices were sanctified by their commands.
But man invariably associated them with the conflicts in
which his life was passed. Preaching moral idealism for
its own sake was no concern of the ancient religions ;
wherever we meet with this, it is in the philosophy of
single exalted intellects, which were not satisfied with the
popular conception. On all these points we find the exact
converse in Christianity ; but, before we proceed to ex-
amine the principle of the relations of the latter with the
State, we have still to cast a rapid glance at its prede-
cessor, Judaism, which also presented such a marked
contrast to all heathen religions.

CHAPTER m.

THE JEWISH THEOCRACY.

Monotheistic Mission of Israel — Judaism not purely National — The Messianic
Idea — ^The Jewish Theocracy — The Moral Law and Covenant — ^The Law
of Ceremonial — ^The Jewish Priesthood — The Monarchy — The Prophets
— Usurpation of the Iligh-Priesthood — Jewish Colonies preparing Chris-
tianity.

The destiny of the Jewish nation in the history of the chap.
world was to preserve, in the midst of Heathendom, the * — r^— ^
principle of Monotheism, or the belief in the One True ti|!^^2ion
God, until the time was fulfilled when this belief was to ^^^■^^
receive its consummation by the advent of Christ. This
exclusively religious mission of the nation demanded, as
a necessary condition, a theocratic constitution. The
Caste-States of the East and the Catholic Church of the
Middle Ages both present to us the picture of a Hierarchy ;
the Dalai-Lamas, who assert that God continually em-
bodies Himself in them, are impostors self-deceived.
Israel is the only true theocracy which has lasted, the
only example in history of a community built entirely on
a religious foundation. God Himself, and He alone, is the
tnie King and Kuler of the nation ; the earthly kings,
judges, and priests are only His representatives, and their
government, therefore, exhibits a manifold series of changes.
It was only such a penetration of all social and political
institutions by the one leading religious idea wliich was
able to realise the providential mission of the nation.

This view, however, is disputed by modem criticism.
It has been pointed- out that other nations had likewise a

40 THE JEWISH THEOCRACY.

Hi.

CHAP. Supreme God — Indra, Bramah, Kneph, and Zeus — that
Moses, initiated into the mysteries of the Egyptian priest-
hood, had been merely the superior mmd, who elevated
this idea of a Supreme God to that of the only One, and
had the boldness to make Monotheism the basis of the
religion of an entire nation, by preaching to the people
Jehovah, in contrast to the Egyptian gods, as the forgotten
God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in their
ancient home, which had to be regained. He had then,
it is said, instituted the priesthood as a hereditary class,
who held a position precisely analogous to, though more
important, than that hi the caste-States, and, being more
enhghtened than the priests of India and Egypt, pro-
moted the fiill development of the nation from a definite
religious point of view. When these priests showed them-
selves no longer equal to the task, Samuel founded the
School of Prophets ; and it was the Propliets who, even in
periods of decline, preserved the monotheistic idea in all
its purity. It was a necessary part of this scheme, in its
correct interpretation, that ultimately the belief in One
God should break througli all bamers of nationaUty ; but
Jehovah had been to tlie Jews a God quite as exclu-
sively national as Bramah to the Hindus, or Zeus to the
Greeks. Not until under the pressure of the Babylonian
Captivity had the idea arisen of regarding this God as the
God of other nations as well. The longing for release
from exile had matured the hope of a dehverer, and
not till then did the idea originate of a Messiah. The
Prophets had only hoped for an earthly king, who
should lead the people out of captivity to a renovation of
national power and glory.

If this theory is the correct one, then of course the
whole idea of a Theocracy falls to the gi'ound, and the
history of Israel becomes that of a Hierarchy. But its
correctness I deny, not however, because I contest the right

THE HIERARCinCAL THEORY. 41

of criticising the books of the Old Testament, a right chap.
which, on the contrary, I acknowledge to the full. The
idea of a mechanical inspiration, according to which the
Holy Writ is literally and absolutely dictated by God, is
untenable and inconsistent with the undoubted contradic-
tions between the different writers in matters of detail.
The origin and composition of the books of the Old
Testament according to time, place, and authorsliip, is a
matter of historical examination and scientific proof ; the
behef in the Divine contents of Scripture, transmitted in
human form, is entitled to full authority only when those
writings have stood the fiery ordeal of criticism, and
poor indeed would be the intrinsic worth of those
immortal records, if that ordeal were more than they
could endure. No mere arbitrary assertion that such a
critical examination is presumptuous will suffice to
disarm it, and the less since it is well known that the
most eminent Fathers of the Church, such as Origen,
Clement of Alexandria, Jerome, and others, did not take
their stand on such ground — did not, for instance, believe
that the five books of Moses, in which the death of Moses
himself is narrated, were written by Moses in the form
in which they lie before us, but that the Mosaic records,
undoubtedly contained therein, were supplemented at a
later time. But a criticism of the sources of this kind
does not affect in the slightest degree the great, pervading,
fundamental truths of the Old Covenant ; as Uttle, indeed,
as the character of the Christian Kevelation can be injured,
w^hen, by an examination of the oldest manuscripts, the
result is arrived at that the last verses of the Gospel of
St. John are not the genuine writing of that Apostle. A
truly hberal, but also strictly historical and comprehensive
criticism, which does not stick singly to details, which
does not lose sight of the forest on account of the trees,
but steadily surveys the whole field of development, can

42 THE JEWISH THEOCRACY.

CHAP, never arrive at such conclusions as we have sketched.
III.
' — r^ — ' It is only a criticism which aims at dissolving the whole

history into legend, on account of the imperfections of the
human form in which all revelation must be clothed, that
can so comprehend the Biblical exposition of the Old
Covenant. No one handles Koman and Greek history in
this fashion, neither must Jewish history be so treated.
This is not the place, however, to enter into all the
details of this argument : I only put forward a few of
the most important points.

The step from a Supreme God, who stands above
others, to a single God involves a distinction not of degree,
'but of kind. In Polytheism a graduated order of rank
apphed to the gods is as natural as the classification of
human society upon earth ; and accordingly we find it
everywhere repeated even in the pantheistic religions of
Brahma and Buddlia. But this hierarchy of the gods is
no necessary step to Monotheism ; on the contrary, the
latter existed nowhere in the whole heathen world. Even
among the greatest philosophers of antiquity the idea of
one God was only hazy and undefined ; and it is precisely
on this account that all the classical writers, who other-
wise despise the Jews, dwell prominently upon their
worship of one invisible God, whom so little do they com-
prehend as usually to designate Him Heaven or Kosmos.
Then, as to the knowledge of this One God, not a word
is told us anywhere about Moses having been initiated
into the mysteries of the Egyptian priesthood; it is
merely mentioned that the daughter of Pharaoh had
brought him up as her son. In this way he might acquire
a learned education, but assuredly he could never attain
among the Egyptians to the knowledge of the One Super-
natural, Universal God. Whatever may have been the
Egyptian education of Moses, the national character is
stamped conspicuously upon him from the very begin-

MONOTHEISM. 43

III.

ning. He assists Lis countrymen a:gainst the Egyptians ; chap.
he appears as a simple herdsman, who, so far from spon- '^
taneously preaching the One God, actually resists the
call ; his whole personality as well as legislation exhibits,
it is true, power and wisdom of execution, but by no
means such an initiative genius as is ascribed to Zoroaster,
Solon, or Confucius. The qualities which enabled him
to carry out his task, once undertaken, are the same
which distinguished the Apostles — namely, religious
enthusiasm, an entire devotion to the cause, and inflexible
energy. For this very reason he was the fit instrument
of God, although his own knowledge of God could only
come to him from without. Just as little were the people
to whom he preached this One God qualified by their
disposition to form this conception of Him intuitively.
They possessed at that time but a low degree of civili-
sation. They were a pastoral people, reduced by a long
course of foreign oppression ; they had nothing to bring
to their deliverer but that receptiveness for the preaching
of salvation which sufiering had matured. They exhi-
bited, moreover, the same inclination to idolatry as the
surrounding nations. How can one derive the Monotheism
of the Sinaitic legislation from the noble aspirations of
a youthful people ? How can it be asserted that they
imbibed the doctiine of the unity of God from the com-
manding impulses of the mind and heart,^ while this
same people fall down and worship the golden calf
immediately after having solemnly made their covenant
with Jehovah ? Do they not again in later times, and up
to the period of the Captivity, relapse repeatedly into
the disgraceful idolatry of Baal, Moloch, and Astarte, in
spite of their having the continual preaching of the One
God and experiencing so richly His benefits ? The desert
is monotheistic, says Kenan ; but the Arabians in the desert

* Kenan, Uistoire dee Langiies seinitiqueSf p. 6,

14 THE JEWISH THEOCRACY.

^?n.^* remained idolaters up to the time of Mohammed. Even in
their later and higher state of development the Jews appear
by no means to have been richly endowed. They were
no people of culture in the sense attaching to the Greeks
and Eomans, if by culture we understand the general and
perfect training of the intellectual powers and their domi-
nation over the natural world. They never advanced
beyond agriculture and the constitution of their tribes :
they dwelt beneath their vines and fig-trees ; they deve-
loped no political institutions ; they left behind them no
statues and temples of their own, for Phoenicians had to
come for the building of their temple. Their sole
achievement in art is their religious poetry ; and this
again is to be explained by their monotheistic revelation,
for its imperishable value rests far less upon its literary
art than upon its truthfulness and knowledge of the
human heart. That tliis people, so narrow in intellect
and so stubborn — a people * impudent and stiff-hearted,'
as Ezekiel calls them — should have conceived of their
own accord the principle of Monotheism, or have accepted
it upon the sole authority of Moses, and afterwards, in spite
of all their apostasy and backslidings, should again and
again have reverted to a religious idea which the loftiest
culture of classicid antiquity had only dimly imagined, is
a theory contradicted by all the laws of history, the
more so when we consider that this One God is an invi-
sible and spiritual Being, of whom, contrary to what is
found in all systems of mythology, no graven image may
be made ; that He is without sex, the One Absolute,
All-encompassing God, while all the supreme deities of
Heathendom have a female complement.

If, further, it is represented as a peculiar mark of
wisdom in Moses that he should have preached this God-
as the ancient God of their national ancestors, we must
then ask. Why did this preaching take root among the

JUDAISM NOT PURELY NATIONAL. 45

people ? Evidently only for this reason, that the tradition chap.
of the One God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still lived > — r^-^
in their minds, and had grown indissolubly into the
history of their race. Moses taught nothing about Divine
things, but what was a necessary development of the know-
ledge of God as revealed to Abraham.

Again, when it is said that the Jews had regarded J^f'^^^JI^
their God simply as a National God, as other nations had national.
done, the statement must be described as a misconception.
The One God appears in two different characters, which
are reflected in the two names given to Him. As Elohim
He is the Creator of the world, the Fulness and Fountain
of life, invested with the attributes of unlimited power
of development, who preserves what He has created, or
suffers it to perish if it rebels against His purpose. As
the Creator, Preserver, and Judge, God is also the God
of the heathen, and He is expressly called so. If the
ruling deities of the heathen, by whom the Jews felt them-
selves embarrassed, appeared as real beings to the Jews,
this was the result of the polytheism which surrounded
Israel ; just as the Fathers of the Christian Church often
regarded the same deities as real evil spirits. These
deities, however, are distinguished from Elohim by the
name of Elilim, or false sods. As Jehovah, God is that
God who, out of free mercy, condescends to yet another
relation with mankind besides those of Creator and
Preserver of His creatures — namely, that of Bedeemer or
Saviour. As such He is, of course, in the first place the
national God of the Israelites, and as such He reveals Him-
self to them, while the heathen, who have no wish to ac-
knowledge Him, have no part in Him accordingly. But
this national barrier denotes merely a period of transition.
Jehovah could not be King of Israel in a special sense,
were He not also the God of the whole world. In all
heathen systems of worship, as we have seen, religion and

THE JE^\^Sn THEOCRACY.

CHAP.
III.

TJnirer-
fla'itv of
the Mosaic
Laif.

nationality coincide; they rise and perish together; but in
the Old Covenant the union of God with one people is
only entered into from the very first with a view to its
being ultimately proclaimed to all nations. As the belief
in One God was first established in a single family — that of
Abraham — in order to implant a new germ of life in the
w^orld of polytheism, so, in its destined progress, Mono-
theism was first to become the basis of national life to
one people, in order to communicate its influence to
others. Moses exalted the knowledge of God, which
Abraham had made the distinctive token of his race, into
the State-law of the whole Jewish nation ; but the Jews
were in so far only an especial object of Divine attention,
as all nations were to be blessed through them. Their
election was the guarantee of the future re-admission of
all peoples; and the national character oi the reli-
gion of Jehovah contained accordingly from its origin the
seeds of a universal destiny. A religion which, as her
consummation in Christianity has sho^vn, can loosen her-
self from her native soil of nationality, in order to gather
round her the most various peoples of the earth, cannot
be affected by the reproach that she remained confined to
Israel. To maintain tliat this tendency to universality,
to the recognition of Jehovah as the God of all nations as
well as to the Messianic idea, should, in general terms, owe
its origin to the period of oppression during the Captivity,
is a pure assumption. Even critics who do not believe
in revelation, but are competent judges of historical fact,
place the composition of the first four books of the Penta-
teucli at the beginning of the time of the Kings, while the
materials themselves must liave been transmitted from a
very ancient period. But in the narrative of the life of
Abraham the universal character of Monotheism is dis-
tinctly contemplated in the choice of a father of the race —
'In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' The

THE MESSIANIC IDEA. 47

nucleus and essence of the Mosaic legislation is by no chap.
means specially Judaic, but thoroughly universal in its ^ — t^-^
adaptation. The Ten Commandments will hold good for
all ages ; the idea of holiness demanded from the people
is the first and latest tendency of all reUgions. We can
willingly, then, admit that many passages in the Psalms
and Prophets, which formerly were looked upon as Mes-
sianic, cannot properly be referred to the Messiah ; but
assuredly there remains enough in the writings of those
prophets who undoubtedly hved before the Exile, which
cannot be interpreted otherwise than as referring to the
Messianic idea ; while the embodiment of that idea in the The Me«-
wri tings before and after the Exile is in no way that of a "*°'^ ^ ^'
victorious king who will lead his people back to their
native country by the strength of anns. On the contrary,
we have throughout the whole of the Old Testament a
continuous chain of the most precise prophecies, as a
preparation for Christianity, which are barely veiled in
the garb of Jewish nationahty. Whilst we find, among
the heathen poets and philosophers, the better times not
placed in the future, but in the past of a bygone golden
«ge, we have here a predesigned, gradual progress, a
picture of the future which unfolds itself, from the first
outlines revealed to Abraham, into the finished panorama
of Isaiah, and which the greatest artist in the world would
never have succeeded in constructing backward. And
what else but the idea of a Messiah, which pervades the
entire history of Israel, has been able to preserve this
wonderful nation up to the present day, in spite of its
dispersion over the whole earth, in a position of obstinate
and unyielding isolation ? Such a result cannot spring
from a temporary national oppression. As the bank-
ruptcy of religious life among all civihsed nations serves
to sliow, the world required an absolute and direct in-
terference of God, in order to establish anew a rehgious

48 THE JEWISH THEOCRACY.

CHAP, principle, pure in character and capable of resistance.

— r^ — ' Tliis could only be done in a community in which religion
was not the means, but the end, which therefore did not
possess a State-religion like Kome, but, like Israel, was a
rehgious State.

Tho Jewish WTg i^QQ^ not hcrc enter farther into an examination

rheocracy. ... • i i

of the pnmitive period, the patriarchal age of the Old
Testament, when the breach between God and man was
repaired. The history of the Jewish Theocracy begins with
the exodus of the nation from Egypt and the promulgation
of the Law on Mount Sinai. These events are not Jewish
legends, but history perfectly authenticated ; the narrative
of the sojourn of the Israelites in the Land of Goshen,
their oppression by the Egyptians, the Exodus under the
guidance of Moses, are confirmed to their minutest details
by the most recent researches and the discoveries of
Egyptian monuments and hieroglyphic records. We find
the picture-tablets where the Israelites, beaten by the
task-masters, are made to help in the building of the
temple of Ammon ; an inscription confirms the statement
that Pharaoh Memephtah lost his eldest son, &c.^ The
gist of the story is as follows : — The tribe of Jacob, forced
by scarcity, had turned their steps towards Egypt, and, in
consideration for the meritorious services rendered by
Joseph, a member of the tribe, had been allowed to settle
in the borderland of Syria. There they grow into a
nation ; their numbers excite the fears of the Pharaohs
lest in a war they might side with the enemies of the
country, and they are reduced once more to a rigorous
state of bondage. Moses, prepai'ed by a long course of
training, undertakes, at the command of God, to deliver
them from this servitude. The hard heart of the Egyptian
monarch is moved by a series of heavy visitations ; the

* Compare Ebers, Durch Gosen zum Sinai\ p. 77 sqq. ; La Sortie
des Hehreux d'Egypte, par H. Brugsch-Bey, Alexandria, 1874.

SPIRITUAL ATTRIBUTES OF JEHOVAH. 49

people go forth from Egypt and are led by Moses to their chap.
new-appointed home. They receive, in the first place, an — r-^— '
external organisation by being divided into twelve tribes,
each of which is presided over by a chief, surrounded by
the elders of the tribal societies, who, in concert under
Moses, form the supreme council of the nation. This,
however, was only incidental to the religious legislation
on Mount Sinai. The God of Abraham, whom the sons
of Jacob served, when they went down into Egypt,
api^ears in the plenitude of His power as the God who
led them forth from the house of bondage, as Jehovah
the Deliverer. He reveals Himself to Moses as the One
God, who allows no other Gods but Himself; Him alone
shall the people worship, as there is only one truth. But
this One God is at the same time a purely spiritual God, 2f^bnto«
who as the Creator is eternally above all His creatures, of Jehova^.
and all the more, therefore, above all things made by man.
No image devised by man can correspond with His reality ;
tlie manifestations through which He reveals Himself
directly to mankind are never His own Personality, but
only indications of His nearness. While polytheism,
which degrades the gods to the level of humanity, neces-
sarily leads to the worship of idols, the purely spiritual
God allows no image, a fact confirmed by the additional
testimony of all the classical writers.^ This One God is
lioly — that is to say, absolutely good. As such He cannot
tolemte, but must punish evil, and He does punish it in
those who hate Him ; but at the same time He is full of
mercy, long-suflering, plenteous in truth and grace, and
prompt to pardon sin. He is therefore a punishing and a
loving God at once ; but love is the absorbing attribute
of the two, since He punishes only out of love, and thus

* See IlecAtaus, Strabo, and Tacitus. The Roman soldiers at the
conqueKt of Jerusalem found the Holy of Holies in the Temple en-
tirely empty. Tac. IJiaU v. 9.

VOL. I. K

Uw.

50 TIIE JEWISH THEOCRACY.

CHAP, comprises in one those twofold characteristics which axe
exhibited in all that is Divine, and which in Heathendom
always are separated. But the idea of such a One, Spiri-
tual, Holy God enters with such difficulty into the mind
of the natural man, and especially of a people siurounded
by idolatry, that His exclusive worship can only be en-
forced by a positive command or law. This injunction

The moral docs uot extinguish inward liberty ; the Divine law is not
the judicial command 'thou must,' but the moral precept
' thou shalt,* w^iich appeals to the disposition of the mind,
and has its foundations in the spiritual nature of man,
reasoning with himself by the light of his own under-
standing. No judicial law can demand that the subject
shoidd not coiiet his neighbour's property, that he shoidd
honour his parents, that he sliould love his neighbour as
himself and God above all : this the moral law alone can
require, whose Author sees into the hearts of men ; the
former must confine itself to outward and perceptible acts.
But the sanction of this moral law does not rest solely
upon the human mind which recognises its authority ; it
is positive, and it was acknowledged by the Jews because
Jehovah, the God* whose power Israel had experienced,
had proclaimed it. So difficult, however, is it for the
natural man thoroughly to comprehend this moral law,
that even its essence and central precept, the worship of
the One God, did not succeed until after a long struggle,
and repeated relapses into idolatry, in grafting itself into
the national life, and being recognised by the people as
the condition of their eternal welfare.

The Cove- Tlie form in which the law was given w^as that of a

Covenant, made by Jehovah with the people of Israel.
A covenant is a contract founded on reciprocity ; and in
this case, at its solemn conclusion, the question was thrice
put to the people whether they would carry out the
Divine command, and after they liad thrice answered in

nant

THE COVENANT. 51

the affirmative, the promise followed that God, on His ^^^^*
part, would continue to manifest Himself to Israel as — « —
Jehovah, the Eedeemer. It was therefore a covenant
of freedom, which contained the clearest recognition of
the dignity of the human personality, but which carried
with it the condition, ' If ye obey my voice.* God will
be their King, but a spiritual, not an earthly King ; they
are to be His people, a people of priests, and God alone
is to be regarded as their Head. He will dwell among
them — in other words, be ever present in their midst —
and His presence is to be symbolised by the Ark, and
afterwards by the Temple. Their worldly rulers are
only His representatives ; all human authority is in the
Old Testament merely the effluence of Divine Power ; the
law b declared in the name of God ; to appear before a
court of justice is called to appear before Him. God,
indeed, is the Fountain of law throughout all legislation.
Solon and Confucius concurred in deriving their laws not
from arbitrary notions of justice, but from their rational
faculty, which distinguished right from wrong; but for
Israel Jehovah is not only the Fountain, but the immediate
Authority of their law. * For I, thy God, have said so.'
And because the executive power acts only by Divine
commission, its forms change, and the people have now a
repubhcan, now a monarchical constitution. The latter
is as compatible with Theocracy as the former ; Theo-
cracy, in fact, is not opposed to human government at
all, but merely to an independent form of government,
resting on the assertion of its own right. It cannot be
pretended that the Sinaitic legislation embraces every-
thing that was considered as law in Israel ; it lays down
very few rules on questions of civil law, and yet this
people, Uke every other nation, during the period of
their advancement must have had laws relating to buying
and selling. Those matters alone are determined which

E 2

52 THE JEWISH THEOCHACY.

CHAP, cannot be left to the process of natural development.

^ — r-^— God punishes only the disobedience to His own law,
because the entiie fabric of the law is designed for the
preservation of Monotheism, which was the mission of
Israel in the history of the world. The punishment for
apostasy is frequently far more severe than that inflicted
on the heathens, for the latter have only the law of
nature, not the positive law of God, and the measure of
the chastisement always corresponds to that of the offence.
It is the very prerogative of Israel to know by direct reve-
lation the will of God, and by His laws accordingly the
imperfections of natural reason are dispensed with, and
the. fundamental basis of morality established for all
times.

The Law of It has bccu alleged acrainst this character of the

Ceremo- o o

nwJ. Siuaitic legislation that the Law of Ceremonial was put on

the same level with the sublime and eternal laws of
morahty, and that the observance of these outward pre-
cepts was exacted with the same scrupulous preciseness
as the exclusive worship of God and the love of one's
neighboiu*. But the obligation of the Law of Ceremonial
in no way involved the consequence that its observance
should exhaust the entire field of duty. This notion
was the Pharisaical perversion of the Law, which kept
clean the outside of the platter, and thought to have
satisfied the Law by fasting and sacrifice. Nevertheless,
the outward law of forms and ceremonies became neces-
sary as a safeguard against the polytheism which sur-
rounded Israel ; and for this reason it is called a hedge
round the Law. It was the * taskmaster for liberty ' to a
people still prone, from their sensuality and selfishness,
to the worsliip of Nature. To the mind of the Oriental
the inward essence is so intimately allied to the expression
and symbol he finds in the outward form, that >vhere
these are wanting, the former easily escapes him as well.

THE PRIESTHOOD. . 53

On tliis account alone is such stress laid on the outward ^?|4^*
form, though it remains distinctly subordinate to the — r— -^
inward essence to which it gives expression. * To obey is
better than sacrifice/ it is written ; and in Isaiah Jehovah
exclaims, *To what piupose is the multitude of your
sacrifices unto me. . . . Bring no more vain oblations ;
your incense is an abomhiation unto me ; * and again,
* This people draw near me with their mouth, and with
tlieir lips do honour me, but have removed their heart
fjir from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the
precept of men.' The Ten Commandments alone were
deposited in the Ark as the sum of the fundamental and
eternal moral law of mankind. For this very reason the
Law of Ceremonial did not remain unchanged, but
adjusted itself to the circumstances of the nation. A
code of regulations which were only intended for a settled
people could not be applied to their wanderings in the
desert ; and with the fulfilment of the mission of Israel
that perishable hedge round the Law collapsed, in order
to let merely its eternal essence remain.

In order to secure the maintenance of the Law, prit.th^!*
Jehovah instituted the priestly order. The latter pos-
sessed no secular authority, and occupied no political
position ; it was no hierarchy, but simply a religious
corporation. . * The priests' lips should keep knowledge,
and tliey should seek the law at His mouth ' — in tliese
words MaLichi describes the duty of their order. The
priest was to perform pre-eminently that which was de-
manded of all — namely, to lead a holy life, to devote
himself to the service of God, and to know the Law.
lie was to be, as Ewald pithily expresses it, an Israel,
its it were, in Israel, to stand, as Moses and Aaron stood,
the inviolable head of the community, though the rest of
the j)eople might fall. The order was hereditary, because,
however simple the fundiunental truths of the L.iw, their

bi THE JEWISH THEOCRA.CY.

CHAP, full execution would necessitate a long struggle to form
* — ^ — ' the character of the people, and because the intricate
nature of the law of ritual required the hereditary trans-
mission of its knowledge, and a systematic education for
tlie priesthood. It was hereditary in one tribe — ^that of
Levi — because in the tribal classification of the nation the
aggregate of the families which composed that tribe was
the most capable of performing such duties. At the head
of the entire order was the High-Priest. Its separation
was not absolute ; the sons of David were priests, and
judges and kings executed priestly functions. Israel itself,
in conformity with her essentially religious character,
preserved her unity, at the earhest times, in the oflSice of
High-Priest alone. . In like manner as, for the conquest
of Canaan, Joshua, as the successor of Moses, assiuned the
leadership of the nation ; so also, in later and critical
times, persons of pre-eminence came forward as mihtary
leaders and judges, without laying claim to any worldly
dignity. Gideon declines the proffered rule ; Abimelech,
his degenerate son, who witshes to usurp it, falls. But
when, later on, the dignity of the High-Priesthood is
disgraced by the degenerate sons of Eli, when the worship
of Syrian divinities effects an inroad, and leads to internal
discord, of which the foreign enemies of Israel take ad-
vantage, then the necessity for order requires a different
and more stable constitution, in order to re-establish the
unity of the national life,
'^e ^ The people, by demanding a king such as the surround-

ing heathens possessed, declared at once their incapacity for
the purest form of Theocracy, in which the one sole King
is invisible. On that account their demand is granted
by Jehovali with some unwillingness, yet granted never-
theless, because an earthly kingdom does not in itself
contradict Theocracy ; and He now selects the kings as
instruments for bis scheme of salvation. In David the

THE MONARCHY. — THE PROPHETS. 55

kingly dignity reaches its full consummation. He is the chap.
type of a ruler after God's own heart ; a true king, who ^ — r^— '
does not, however, exalt himself above his brethren, but
recognises their equality of rights by entering into a com-
pact with the elders of the nation. He is warrior and
minstrel ; he defeats the enemies of Israel, and gives to
the priestly and hturgical service a new and more settled
constitution. Sprung from the ranks of the people, and
yet a priest; not without his faults, but even after his
grievous fall still obalient to the chastising voice of God,
he endeavours to subject his will into harmony with the
will of his Creator. And as David shows himself the
true king of Jehovah, his people accordingly feel them-
selves under him to be the people of Jehovah, with a
purer conviction than they had ever experienced before.
The nation finds itself once more represented in its king,
who secures for it its natural centre by founding Jeru-
salem. With his son Solomon, who completes this work
by the building of the Temple, begins already the de-
cline, which is soon followed by the disruption of the
people into two parts.

Prophecy now assumes a prominent place, a phe- jhe
nomenon quite pecuhar to Israel, and one which becomes ^'^p'*®'^
all the more important as the moral strength of the
people declines. It presents the most direct contrast to
the oracles, which were invoked for temporary objects,
and which spoke in language purposely obscure and
never without respect to the person. The Prophets, on
the other hand, who came forward without any external
means of power, appear as the supreme exponents of
the spiritual import of tlie religion of Jehovah, in
contrast to the priesthood, who are restricted to the ad-
ministration of outward worship. They address them-
Fclves to royalty, tlie image of human authority, unasked;
fearlessly they denounce national sin, whether it presents

56 THE JEWISH THEOCRACY.

CHAP itself in the tyranny of the king, the corruption of the
priests, or the blind passions of the people. They vindi-
cate the behef in the One God against the apostasy of
idol-worship, and the rights of national independence
against foreign oppression ; but at the same time the earnest
of that future is vouchsafed, which is to fulfil what Jehovah
has promised to His people. While preaching repentance
to the people and calling them back to the faith of their
forefathers, they reveal to Israel the prospect of deliver-
ance and regeneration ; and connecting this prospect with
the recorded conditions of history, they look forward to
a grand but gradually-unfolded consummation ; they are,
in short, the Unks between Moses and the Messiah. We
meet with them already at an early period : Samuel insti-
tutes the free-schools of the prophets when the priesthood
are no longer competent for their duties ; prophets appear
likewise under David, but prophecy does not attain its
zenith until the real decline of tlie nation. The prophets,
who were neither priests nor monks, arise from the most
various ranks and families of the people by the free call
of God. The revelation vouchsafed to them operates, of
course, as an overmastering Divine influence, but, so far
from destroying their human individuality, it gives scope
and exercise to its loftiest endowments. It was their
mission to reconcile once more the people to the will of
God, and to prepare them for the fulfilment of His com-
mand. For this purpose they were permitted an insight
into the Divine decree and its future operation. Speech
is the highest faculty of the individual ; the most exalted
speaker is he who declares the will of God, and accord-
ingly they are called Nabi^ or interpreters. As Aaron is
called the prophet of Moses, because he interprets the
words of his brother to Pharaoh, so the prophets are the
interpreters of the will of Johovah. But as human
creatures they can only clothe Divine Truth in an earthly

USURPATIONS OF THE IIIGII-PIUESTHOOD. 57

garb, and naturally are restricted to the circle of ideas ^?j^^-
peculiar to their time and surroundings. - — »-^— '

With the return from the Babylonian Captivity pro-
phecy had fulfilled its appointed task. A large portion
of. the people had come back to their native homes, but
the sim of national independence had set, and heathen
supremacy continued with brief interruptions. With re-
doubled energy the people rallied round that faith which
they had learned to know as their special Charisma imder
the pressure of captivity and in the midst of the heathen.
Henceforward we hear no more of apostasy to poly-
theism ; the nation clung with the most fervent attach-
ment to the saved writings of the Old Testament, which
were gradually embodied into a canon, and interpreted
and considered in all their aspects.

But while the nation, now independent, concentrated Usurpation

1.. ,, i*i*. 1** of the High-

its energies upon religion, it secularised its religious Prie»thood.

organisation. The High-Priesthood became its head,
and to attain that object a series of contests followed, as
Avitli other nations, for the throne. The struggle of the
Macciibees for freedom was only a momentary gleam of
light in this dark period ; they were unable to prevent
the High-Priesthood from gradually usurping the posi-
tion of a secular princedom, who.se first object was to
iiiono|)olise the reins of power. The people split into
theological and political factions. The Sadducees, as TheSad-
friends of the Hellenizing Court party, endeavoured to* phariseea.
adjust the peculiar position of Israel in harmony with
the Greek civilisation which surrounded tliera, but by so
doing they degenerated into an Epicurean worldliness of
mind. The Pharisees, on the other hand, as the friends
of the people, strove zealously for the religious traditions
of the nation, and preserved by their endeavours the
purity of the religions law through the means of human
ordinances and ceremonies. The latter were conservative

58 THE JEWISH THEOCRACY.

CHAP, demagogues ; but both sides made capital out of religion
* — r^ — in the interest of their party, and increased the general
confusion till it brought about the complete dissolution
of society,
j^h The only task still left to the people was to pave the

preparing way for the preaching of the Apostles by the extension of
tiani^. Jcwish colonics in those countries which surround the
Mediterranean. Ever since the Babylonian Captivity
there had been a Jewish Diaspora^ which was rapidly
increased by war, imprisonment, and emigration. Strabo
narrates that in almost every city a Jewish colony had
been planted. These colonies had their centre in the
synagogue ; the collapse of the ancient world brought
them numerous proselytes ; and here were formed tlie
headquarters for the proclamation of the new doctrine.
As to the Jewish nation itself, j udgment overtook them,
after their rejection of the Messiah, in the form of their
dispersion ; but when the High- Priest in despair stabbed
himself upon the ruins of Jerusalem, a firm foundation
had already been built for the new community, which
was destined to give new youth to the old world now
decayed away.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STATE AND CHRISTIANITY.

Denationalising Effect of Christianity upon Religion — The Invisible Kingdom
of God — The Church its Visible Counterpart — Destined Unity of the
Visible Church — The Christian Conception of State Obedience — Political
Hatred of the Jews against Home and against Christ — Christ*s Answer as
to Payment of Tribute — Apostolic Doctrine of State Obedience— Condi-
tions of Passive Resistance — The Scriptural Command of Obedience a
General Moral Sanction — Silence of Scripture as to Political and Social
Relations — Christian Principles of Church and State inferred — Funda-
mental Law of Church Liberty — A Christian State.

Throughout antiquity we find the essence of religion chap.
associated with nationality. The religious community is ^- — r^
contained in the political community of the State ; the
jus sacrum is part of \X\e jus publicum. In the religious
State of Ismel a people was singled out as the depositories
of belief in the One True God, in the prospect of and the
constant preparation for the time when the barriers of
nationality should fall down. But with the fidfilment of
this mission the sole sufficing reason for Theocracy had
disappeared. As an earthly institution it had become
obsolete and lost its object since the time when Christ pro-
claimed the God of Israel as the God of all nations ; for now
it is no longer the citizen of the State approaching the gods
of his forefethers, or the Israelite his Jehovah, who led
him out of Egypt, but Man face to face with his God, his
Creator, Father, and Eedeemer. In Christianity, as there
is ' neither bond nor free,' so also there is ' neitlier Jew
nor Greek.' ^ lleligion severs itself from nationality, and

» Galal. ill. 28,

THE STATE AND CHRISTLVNITY.

CHAP.
IV.

Beligion
denatiana-
lisHl by
Chria-
tlaziitj.

The

invirible
kingdom
of God.

through the conviction of its being the only true one, is to
embrace within its folds the whole of mankind, the whole
of the inhabited earth {olxovfjiivri). In Heathendom,
through the deification of tlie material world, religion was
absorbed in the State ; but this confusion of the two laid
the germs of dissolution in each. In contrast thereto the
words of Christ, ' My kingdom is not of this world,' mark
a crisis in history, the birth of a new movement which
was to assign to each of the two powers, the State as well
as the religious community, their separate province.
While in Heathendom as well as Judaism the communities
of the State and of religion intermingle, Christ opposes to
the world — that is to say, to the aggregate of human de-
velopment, as effected by Nature without revelation — the
kingdom of God, of which He is the Founder, as an inde-
pendent and purely spiritual community, Unked together
by a common belief. Christ Himself is its King, avowing
Himself such before the Sanhedrin, whilst He holds aloof
from the Jews, who wish to make him an earthly monarch.
His Kingdom does not come with outward show ; it is not
defended against its enemies by the sword or with worldly
instruments of power, although it is destined to triumph
over all the hostile powers of the earth, and manifests
from the very first the fiill assurance of its victory. It5
weapons are purely spiritual, the strength of faith and of
prayer. It is founded upon a community of the heart,
and therefore will admit none who does not turn towards
it of his own free choice and detennination. It demands
from its adherents an unequivocal declaration of faith,
but a spontaneous declaration ; it rejects all external
compulsion, without which the State cannot exist. It
abstains entirely from prescribing a law for civil life :
Christ declines to pronounce a decision in controversies
on legil points.^ It demands, indeed, of its members far

* Luke xii. 14.

THE IX^-ISntLE KINGDOM AND niE fllURCII.

more tliaii the most rigorous law ciin lay (.■iiiim to, but it
Us^s for obedience to its comroanila only from free love. ■

strives to change the heart of man, and knows tliat
wlien this change has been efreeted, the new spirit wLidi
It brings will fulfil by its own action all the provinces of
life. It will in no way destroy those foundations of
Jocicty "wliieh originate and coincide with human nature,
but for its own objects it recognises neither more nor less
ileged generations, classes, or nations. Even in its
enemies, as Augustine says, it sees ita future subjects ; in
It there is ' neither male nor female,' no diflei'cnce
between high and low, rich and poor, for there is a
liversity of gifts, but mie s|)irit is to rule them all. In
ntiquity the relations of man to the Deity were enii-
itly those of membership of a national community for
'orship. Cliristianily deals only with the individual ; it
pecogiiises no priestly order which by its own authority
absolve from sin and obtain merry by mediation.
new creature alone avails, the regeneration of man
jroiighl about by failh in the Eedemplion.

This Kingdom of God, the community of all believers,
fIio acknowledge Christ as their Head, since from Him
ley receive life, nurture, and growth, must necessarily,
> complete its destined education of man for the loftiest
urposes of his calling, assume the form of an outward
nd visible institution, in conformity with the law of all
lat is earthly, and because no community here on eai-th,
however spiritual it may be, can exist for any length of
time without a settled order and constitution, or work
'without earthly instruments and means.' This visible, ^

' Christ therefore speaks constantly of the Kingdom of Goi\ (liaoiXtia ■"

■ov Korpoc, ruy nopai'ir'), but only twice of its future vimble
iniHition, thu Church (EuXq^ia). First in Miitt. xvj, 19, wliea He
Wii that He will found Hia future community on the rock of P. ter
Mjt., OD tii« oonfoMioo that He, Chriat, i« the Son of Uie living God ;

^Chnnh

]

62 TIIE STATE AND CnRlSTIANITY.

CHAP, universal manifestation of Christianity is the Church, an
• — * — idea essentially and solely Christian, in contrast to the
purely national State-religions and religious States. But
this visible Church, which first entered into life when her
Founder departed from earth and poured His Spirit on
the disciples assembled in His name, has her foundations
in the Invisible Church, the Kingdom of God ; for in like
manner as faith constitutes the community of Christians
— a faith which is capable of avowal and of practical
illustration, but whose inmost characteristics are with-
drawn from every human eye, and discernible only to
God — so the truly faithful alone can form that invisible
community, which corresponds to the idea of its Foimder.
Accordingly, the external community owes its ground of
continuance to its inward and spiritual prototype. From
the latter it derives its energies for an ever-increasing
growth and development, and pines away when the
affluence of these common soiu'ces of strength is dried up.
Both belong inseparably to each other, though on earth
they will never fully coincide and coalesce ; their union is
deferred till that future consummation when the invisible,
universal Church, the Kingdom of God, will perfect itself
^tv°^ into the promised Kingdom of Peace. The visible Church
tiie visible contains indeed the promise of future unity, even as the
invisible Church is now actually one; but as a human
organisation she is in reality exposed to error and dis-
imion. Nevertheless, however much she may have erred
and mistaken her proper sphere, she must occupy clearly,
by virtue of her destiny^ a totally difierent position
towards the State from that of any other religious com-
munity. Moreover, she desires as little to be incor-
porated in, as to be the determining factor in, the State ;

and again in Matt, xviii. 18, when lie gives to the Apostles the power
to bind and to loose. The formation of this visible community He
leaves to the Apostles and their followers.

CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH CONCEPTIONS OF THE STATE. 63

she seeks to establish a kingdom of a peculiar kind, which chap.
must indeed be in, but which does not wish to be of this " — r^ — '
world. For this reason slie can never merge herself in
the State any more than the State can merge itself in
her ; for the aims of the State are purely earthly, those
of the Church purely spiritual. She recognises in herself
merely an institution for the education of mankind for
the supermundane Kingdom of God, into which she her-
self is to be dissolved at the end of time. She restores
thus to what is Divine its independent significance and
freedom, while delivering the State from the thraldom of
purely national systems of worship.

Thus, according to the Christian conception, the State Christian
and the religious community occupy for the first time two ©? sSte-***^
opposite and distinct territories. The question is not ®^*^*®'*^
whether the State is to control the religious community,
as in heathen antiquity, nor whether religion is to rule
the State, as in the religious State of Israel, but what
kind of relations are to subsist between the two powers
here in the world ; and with this problem a new path is
opened for the State as well as for rehgion and her com-
munity. Fii-st of all we shall have to ask. What attitude
did the Founder of the Church and His immediate dis-
ciples, the Apostles, assume towards the State .^ The
State, they found, was a heathen one, the Eoman universal
Empire, founded on conquest and the forcible subjugation
of various nationalities. Nevertheless Christ and the
Apostles did not regard this State as antagonistic in itself
to the spiritual kingdom they were to found ; on the con-
trary, they deemed the principle of obedience to the State-
authority of this heathen monarchy perfectly consistent
with the duties of a member of the Kingdom of God. The Political
Jews of those days saw in the subjection of their country the Jews
and people a usurpation of power, and expected from the Rome,
Messiah that He would break down this dominion, re-

64 THE STATE AND CimiSTLVNITY.

ciTAP. establish their national independence, and make their own
* — r-i — ' State, with its peculiar impress of rehgion moulded by
the Law, paramount and supreme. The measures which
had evoked the most violent resistance, after the final
subjugation of Judaea by the Eomans, were the census
of the people and the survey of the country for the
assessment of the imperial taxes. The Jewish Law knew
only of taxes for religious purposes. Each field contri-
buted its share to the support of public worship — namely,
the Temple-tribute. That a Roman emperor should claim
the same tribute for himself was regarded ais an outrage,
to resist which was an imperative command ; and it was
only after a bloody contest that the Eomans succeeded
in establishing their system of taxation. Just before the
birth of Christ, Judas, the Galilean, with the priest Sadduk,
had raised the standard of insurrection against the census,
ordained by Augustus, as the token of the annihilation and
enslavement of Israel. Even then the opposition con-
tinued, and on this ground essentially rests the Jews'
contempt for the Publicans, who assisted Eome to levy
the tribute so obnoxious to their religious law. The
most punctilious exponents of this system, the zealots for
the external ordinances of religion — namely, the Pharisees
— in their exasperation that Christ treated this law as some-
thing superseded, took counsel ' how they might enUmgle
Him in His talk ' ^ — that is to say, by a question as well as
and against by the auswcr He might return. They came to Christ
not officially, but as representatives of their party ; not
alone, however, but with some representatives of another
party, the Herodians, or adherents of Herod's family.
The latter were in other respects their rooted enemies, the
Pharisees wishing for the re-establishment of the Jewish
Theocracy, or rather of their Hierarchy ; the Herodians,
on the other hand, supporting the Eoman rule, because

» Matth. xxii. 15-21.

CHRIST^S ANSWER AS TO PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 65

it had helped to found the dynasty of Herod, whose repre- ^^y.^'
sentatives, Herod Antipas and Philip, were the creatures ' — ' — '
of the Roman emperors. But both parties were united
in their hatred against Christ. To both He appeared
equally dangerous — to the Pharisees because, in His cha-
racter as Messiah, He disappointed their expectations of
an earthly king ; to the Herodians because, from any
Messiah whatever, they feared the endangerment of the
Soman rule. The Pharisees accordingly send some
of their representatives — St. Luke calls them * spies ' —
together with some Herodians, in order to put to Christ the
captious, ensnaring question, How are the Jews to conduct
themselves towards the Eoman Government ? in the hope 2?^'e?a8
that, by recognising its authority. He would contradict the *?gJJ^*
idea of a Messiah and lose His credit in the eyes of the
people ; while, on the other hand, if He were to designate
it, as they themselves did secretly, as a usurpation, He
would draw down upon His head the punishment of the
civil power. After a hypocritical preface that they know
that He is true, ' teaching the way of God in truth, neither
caring for any man nor regarding the person of men,'
they ask Him whether it is lawful — that is, conformable to
the Divine Law — to give tribute unto Caesar or not ; this
* or not ' meaning whether, in the contrary event, they
may acknowledge Jehovah alone as King, according to
the theocratic principle, and assert the independence of
His chosen people by all possible means, such as had been
attempted by the Jews when they resisted the converj?ion
of Judaja into a Eoman province. But Jesus, wlio at
once perceives their wickedness,' rebukes them witli these
words : * Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites ? ' He asks
to see the tribute-money, or the coin in which the tribute
is paid, and says to them, when they bring Him a penny,
' Whose is this image and superscription ? Tliey answer,
'Cajsar's' — KoiVapo^, from the Latin Caesar, tlie family

VOL. I. F

66 THE STATE AND CHRISTIANITY.

CHAP, name from which originated the Eoman title of ruler.

* — r^ — ' Thereupon He gives His decision in accordance with their

own answer. Because the coin comes from Caesar, and

belongs to him as the sovereign of the country, therefore

* render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and
unto God the things that are God's.' In this expression,

* the things which are Caesar's/ is contained a profound
and pregnant thouglit, conveyed in the most concrete
form. Applied, for the purposes of illustration, to tlie
impress of the coin then lying before them, these words
include not merely the tribute-money, but all that belongs
to worldly authority. The duty of the individual is de-
duced from the general relations between the government
and the governed. The simple fact that by the dispen-
sation of God the Jewish nation is subjected to the Eoman
rule, proves that obedience to that rule in earthly matters
cannot be contrary to the will of God. By this answer,
then, Christ directly contradicts that view which main-
tained that the pa}Tnent of tribute to a heathen govern-
ment was opposed to the commands of religion, just as in
another place He designates it as quite consonant with
Divine order that the kings and the great ones of the
earth should exercise lordship and be honoured. But
along with this injunction there is another, to * render unto
God the things that are God's ; ' not to deny, therefore,
the one, only God of their fathers, out of subservience, it
might be, to the Eomans. That Christ has no fear of
worldly rulers, when they unlawftdly overstep their pro-
vince of power, is shown by His prefacing His message
to Herod, the sovereign, with these words : * Go ye, and
tell that fox,' and by His demeanour before the High-
Priest and Pilate. But under this reply to the Pharisees
and Hcrodians lies the inteiTOgative rebuke addressed to
both parties — namely, whether they really do what He
desires. Thus each party finds itself disappointed, in

AVOffrOUC DOOTBINE OF OBEDIENCE TO THE STATE.

diflereiil senses, by tlie answer of Christ. They canuot ^"^''■
convict Him either as a rebel or a ilenier of the idea of a ' — ■- —
Messiah, and therefore it is also recorded, ' when tliey
heard these words they marvelled, aud left Him, and
went their way." This narrative of St. Matthew is in no
way contradicted by the previous one of the same Apos-
tle, according to which' Christ declares, when the tax-
gatherers demand tribute-money from Peter, that His
followers are not properly bound to i>ay tribute, and the
payment Ls merely made for the reason then expressed —
•lest we shoidd offend them' — the tribute demanded in
this case being not, as one might understand from Luther's
translation, the * tribute-penny ' {Zinsgroschen), or genenil
tax levied by the Goveriiment, but the Jewish Temple-tax
(3»5^;^f*ov), to which Jesus, as the Finisher of the faith,
does not feel Himself properiy liable, and which in the
course of the nan-ative is expressly opposed to the secular
itnposta, toll and tribute.

The Apostles also take their stand upon precisely the ^p?J||°"*'
same ground. St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans,* ^^'*"
prescribes the attitude of Christians towards the secular
authorities. The community he was addressing might
easily incur the temptation of regarding the Roman State-
power in the same light as did the numerous Jews at
Rome, who were thoroughly imbued with the notion that
it vian not befitLing the chosen people to obey a heathen
government. St. Paul is concerned to preserve the Chris-
tian community from this error, lest tliey may be hurried
into attempts at rebellion. He seeks to show them that
Christians have to recognise in the Roman Government,
not a hostile power, opposed to God, but rather an organ
of the Divine government of the world in all earthly
matters. Everyone is to be 'subject unto the higher
powers, for there is no power but of God.' Accordingly

■ Matih. xvii. 21. * Komnns xiii. 1-7.

68 THE STATE AND CHRISTIANITY.

IV.

CHAP, the existing, and therefore heathen, government is to be
traced back to the will of God : it executes in its active
operation a Divine commission, that of maintaining ex-
ternal order. * Whosoever, therefore, resisteth that power
resisteth the ordinance of God,' ^nd therefore the obe-
dience to be rendered is not to be merely from compulsion
and the fear of punishment, but voluntary and in a spirit
of goodwill, for conscience sake, extending even, as the
Apostle writes to Timothy, to prayer and intercession on
its behalf. This duty of obedience St. Paul endeavours
to convert into a conscious moral obligation, by pointing
to the salutary mission of the government, and showing
that the rulers are the ministers of God in two ways —
praising and rewarding good works, and punishing evil-
doing. * Wilt thou, then, not be afraid of the power ?
Do that which is good,' and thou wilt experience that the
ruler is * a minister of God to thee for good ; ' but if thou
do that which is evil, then thou wilt find that he ' beareth
not the sword in vain,' but is a * revenger to execute
wrath upon him that doeth evil.' But as a government
must be maintained, so it is also a duty to contribute the
money for its maintenance. * Eender, therefore, to all
their dues — tribute to whom tribute is due ; custom to
whom custom ; fear to whom fear ; honour to whom
honour.' St. Paul thus demands obedience to the govern-
ment— which in this case was the heathen one, which later
on was keeping the Apostle unjustly in prison — as the
universal duty of man, for this very reason, that, without the
State and its authority, no protection is possible, nor any
furtherance of the moral aims of hfe. We find the same
doctrine expressed by St. Peter.' ^ He likewise exhorts his
hearers to ' submit themselves to every ordinance of man'
— and therefore also to the heathen — ' for the Lord's sake,'
because Christ has so commanded ; ' whether it be to the

» I. Peter ii. 13-14.

coNDinojrs of dkobedience to tiie state. 69

king, as supreme ; or unto governors, as unto them that chap.

are sent by him for tlie punishment of evildoers, and for ' — '^ — •
the praise of them that do well.' In this manner, lie

adds, with welldoing you will 'put to silence the ignorance ^B

of foolish men,' who accuse the Christians of being evil- H

doers and rebels, and wiU show that you do not ' use your ](
liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants
of God,' in moral conformity with the Law.

On the other hand, the Apostles refuse obedience not ^"^'"^

merely to the heathen, but likewise to their national ntuta<.<x

T ■ 1 1 ■ ■ 1 . 1 to civil

Jewish authorities, whenever its commands run counter "athwity.

to the precepts of Christ. When the High-Priest forbids ^

them to teach in the name of Jesus, St. Peter and St. ^M

John answer, ' Whether it be right in the sight of God to ^M

hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye;' and ^M

later on St. Peter replies to the same command, ' We H

ought to obey Gotl rather than man." And they prove H

tthe strength of their convictions by not suffering them- H

wives to be deterred from preaching Christ by any H

danger or punishment, or even torture unto death. This ^M

difference of conduct does not involve any real contra- ^|

diction. In the exercise of human liberty there hes the ^M

possibility that the State, as well as the individual, may ^|

use for evil the power granted to it by God. lu such ^|

cases Christianity requires indeed its behevers to forbear ^f

pm all attempts to overthrow by violent means the ^|

iting order of society, since active resistance not only ^M

mtravenes the particular law, but endangers the whole ^M

ibility of public authority. But the duty of actual ^M

'obedience ceases so soon as the Slate encroaches on the ^H

dominion of conscience and ftiilh, and, as Luther ex^jresses ^H

it, arrogates the right of legislating for the soul. Ilere ^H

pa.'wive resistance b not only permitted, but positively ^|

jenjoinal — a resistance consisting in this, that the indi- ^M

Tidual voluntarily takes upon himself the consequences ^M

70 , THE STATE AND CHRISTIANITY^

CHAP, which the Law has afiixed to its transgression. In this

' — r^ — ' spirit the Apostles and martyrB have acted, not indeed by
stirring up the Christians to resistance against the State,
but by refiising to be faithless to the command of God,
and to their belief, from any fear of State-power. Christ
and the Apostles, in taking up this position towards the
heathen government of their time, and drawing no dis-
tinction of value between that government and a Christian
one, show clearly that they do not regard the organisa-
tion of the State as something first revealed or brought
into recognition by Christ, but as the universal and ne-
cessary condition of a prosperous society. Of course the
form, whatever it may be, of this organisation is the work
of man. The government may be either monarchical or
republican ; but the form, which changes, must be dis-
tinguished from the essence, which is embedded in all
The Scrip- governments alike. The very word — i^ova-ia — ^which St.
mind^oT" Paul uses, shows that he is speaking of orders, not of per-
Mioe purely SOUS ; and Luthcr also, in commenting upon this passage,
*^®"^ dwells with emphasis on the fact that not the individual,
this man or that, but the office is intended. The object of
government is order; and a State-power resting merely
upon the momentary right of the stronger, which creates
no order, but rather, as in the French Convention, anarchy
and crime, would never have earned from the Apostles the
name of government ; for God is not a God of disorder,
but the sole soiurce and ultimate resort of all genuine
order and law. The shape and pattern, however, in which
this principle of order is to be embodied is left to each in-
dividual community, as its peculiar^ circumstances may
determine. Accordingly, in the teaching of Christ and the
Apostles, we look in vain for any nearer explanation of the
functions of the State and of society, because aU that relates
thereto has no concern with the Kingdom which they
preach. They merely give reasons why it is a duty of

SILENT ON POLITICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE.

ODscience generally to obey the government, and state
within what limits that obedience ia to be exercised. How *
this government shall be constituted is a question which
does not occupy them at all. Government does not signify
a single person, but that authority which in a particular
case possesses lawful power ; the CEesar. the King, the
Governors, are called so merely to tyjiity the sovereign
rulers. This order is purely human, and all endeavours
to establish a definite form of State or of society upon
words of Scripture are futile and perverae, as indeed the
results sufficiently demonstrate. Bossuet attempted to
justify Absohitisni by passages from the Bible ; just as the
Puritan dissenters justified the deposition and execution
of Charles I. by quotations from the Old Testament. No
form of government, short of an acrtual despotism which
conflicts with God's will, is intrinsically opposed to Chris-
^Jianity. Each may enjoy, under given conditions, a com-
Haiete moral sanction ; and accordingly tlie Church is not
HpiDowed to declare herself absolutely for any one in par-
^Tieular, in the sense of rejecting all others. Christianity s
keeps in principle so far aloof from the province of I
politics and socijil science, that not a word is found in the "
New Testament against slavery, an institution of that '
time, whicli assuredly is more than any other opposed to
^jt3 spirit. Before God, and therefore also in the Christian
^Mpmm unity, there were neither freemen nor slaves,
^Beither master nor servant ; ' and assuredly no sharper
contradiction coidd be found to such a doctrine than that
certain men should Ije refused tlieir personality and trans-
ferred hke chattels to the power of another. Neverthe-
~' it did not ot^cur to the Apostles to demand the

"ohtion of slav

cry—

. measure which could only have

iccomplished by violence, and whicli, if accom-
lished, would have produced a social chaos — or even to
' 1 Corinthians xU. 13.

72 THE STATE AND CHRISTIANITY.

onAP assist the slaves to run away.^ On the contrary, they
^^}^' .^ laid it down as the duty of everyone to remain in that
station to which he was called ; and they exhorted there-
fore the slaves to obedience, and the masters to fairness.^
The reason of this is that inward, and not outward, liberty
was the chief thing to aspire to : the converted slave
might be inwardly free, the unconverted master might be
a slave to sin. But the master, when really converted,
could not any longer treat his slave as a property to be
disposed of unconditionally or at caprice ; he must recog-
nise in him a brother redeemed like himself, a member
of the same Church and entitled to equal rights. The
emancipation of the body must follow that of the heart,
and in this manner has Christianity, without openly attack-
ing slavery, deprived it in time of its basis and support.
Cpmmn Further, it would be a great mistake to see in that

goods. possession of goods in common, which existed in the first
community of Christians, any definite injunction to that
effect by Christianity. Therein was merely expressed, for
the first time and in its highest form, the idea that the
possessors of property are nothing but stewards of the
goods granted to them by God. That a community of
property is not demanded is shown by the words of Peter
to Ananias, * Whilst it [the land] remained, was it not thine
own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power ?'
It cannot, therefore, be said that Christianity is in-
difierent to the State, since it has been the first to bestow
the true sanction on its moral order, and to liberate it from
the previous constraint of a rigidly national system of wor-
ship. It recognises, however, both the State and society as
purely earthly systems of human fellowship and inter-

^ St. Paul sends back the fugitive slave Onesimus to his master
Philemon, with a letter in which he only sues for mercy. (Philemon
10-16.)

^ Colossians iii. 22 ; Ephesians vi. 5-10 \ 1 Peter ii. 18.

THE SPinmjAL AOT) THE EAHTHLY KINGDOMS.

Ourse. It destroys none of its linlcs — marriage, family,
Keudsbip, or love of country — art and science are to con-
nue as before ; but it renovates all institutions of life,
!cause it makes the individual inwardly a new man.

From this we may infer ou what basis, according to
liristian principles, the relations between CInirch and
! should be founded. The State can naturally ouly
ne in contact with the visible Church, as organised by
In the Church, as in the State, we find distinctions
I more or less according to its peculiar constitution,
I founded on divergencies of human nature. But they
e not, on that account, two identical communities. The
ai^ion of the State is a merely earthly one, though at the
' time unquestionably absolute; the maintenance of
the law, and the promotion of the legitimate interests of its
members, are objects which must be fully achieved. The
nission of the visible Church, on the contrary, is super-
Jimau; her constitution, her outward institutions, are
oly meftus to assist in striving to perfect ever more the
alisatiou of the Kingdom of Gixl. The aim of the State
I selfish ; its task is exhausted wlien it has obtained the
jsible organisation of the people and the country.
Ihc visible Church is merely an institution demanded by
ike nature of what is earthly. The State cannot exist with-
out having the power of compelling those who oppose its
JDS, to surrender their will to the law. The Church is
i kingdom of moral liberty, which must use no force,
ut to exclude those who do not wisli to belong to her.
per order, indeed, like that of any other community,
iquires subordination ; but the obedience which she
exacts is free. She has no judicial system armed with
compulsory powers ; her laws apply merely to those who
■ct themselves thereto, for the real bond which knits
memlx'rs together is not her law, but

ClirlelUn
priuciplia
of Church

rit and belief.

:hip C

74 THE STATE AND CHRISTIANITY.

CHAP. On the recognition of the peculiar nature of these

' — ^ — ' two kingdoms, the earthly and the spiritual, depend the
correct relations between Church and State ; from their
misconception ensue collision and deviations from the
special and Divinely appointed tasks of each. The State,
which denies the spiritual functions of the Church, or
even meets her in a spirit of hostility, will never, indeed,
in the long run, make its will prevail, because the exercise
of those functions rests upon a peremptory craving of
the human soul, which scorns all oppression ; but, by so
acting, it robs itself of its richest moral strength and sup-
port, and confuses the consciences of its members. Again,
the State which, while recognising, indeed, those functions
of the Church, nevertheless claims for itself the guidance
in their reaUsation, and consequently persists in applying
the compulsion of the civil law to spiritual relations,
paralyses that legitimate and original strength of the
Church, which consists in spontaneity and freedom in the
execution of her task.
Fimdamen- On the othcr hand, the Church which forgets this her
chilJdL-^^ fundamental law of liberty, and either arrogates to herself
uberty. ^^ compulsory powers of the State, or invokes the secular
arm to exercise this compulsion, be it by enforcing the
adherence of reluctant members, or by subjecting her
members to external restraint, must inevitably miss her
true office as the teacher and trainer of mankind for the
Kingdom of God. The weaker her religious faith, the
stronger will be the impulse to enforce its recognition by
worldly melius ; the more lively that faith, the less dis-
posed will she be to alienate it to the State. Again, a
Church which forgets that she is only the instrument for
a loftier purpose, which, out of the pride generated by
this misapprehension, sees in her visible and defective
form the realisation already of the invisible Church ; and
refuses to render to Cassar the things that are Ccesar's, will

UnSAKIXO OF A 'CrrRISTTAN STATE. 75
justly cspericQce in herself t!ie lawful compulsion of the ^^}d^-

grasping firmly in mind the pecuhar nature of ACKrUtUn

I these two kingdome, we shall arrive also at a correct con- ■

ception of that term so variously misunderstood, a Chris- H

tian State. It is impossible for the State to be Christian H

in the same sense as the Church, which calls herself so H

"because she is founded by Clirist. Without Christ the H

ktter could never have existed, whereas the State existed ■

thousands of years before her. Chriatiauity, therefore, H

can never be said to constitute the original essence of the H

State, and nowhere, therefore, in Scripture is a Christian ■

State demanded. The Stiite can be Christian only in as H

far as its members are so, who are at the same time alao H

members of the Church. And as moral hberty is the H

fundamental law of the Church, and consequently only H

those truly belong to her who belong from conviction, it fol- H

,low8 further that, even in a relative sense, that State alone H

can be called Christian wliose members are Christians from H

firee conviction. If this is the case, then the State may H

aminge its institutions accordingly, provided that, in so H

doing, it does not lose sight of tlie fact that what one is H

wont to call a Christian State does not rest in reaUty upon H

Divine ordinance, but is purely the result of historical H

development ; and for this reason the State encroaches, H

without any title, upon the liberty of conscience, when it H

punbbcs a non-Christian from conviction by depriving him H

of his civil rights. The title vested in Theocracy, of H

making the enjoyment of civil rights a condition of reli- H

gious commimion, has ceased for ever thi'ough the Church H

lierself. The prctensious of any Government which asserts H

a special direct commission from God, in order to enforce H

■ definite system of rule upon the State, are founded on H

jmcrc usurpation or imposture. H

III saying llib, however, it la by no means intended ^M

76 THE STATE AND CHRISTIANITY.

^ r^.^* that the State, when a portion of its subjects are not
' ' ' "^ members of the Church, is to treat the latter altogether
with indifference. Even where, as, for instance, at the
present day, minorities of considerable numbers have se-
ceded from the Church, the collective civilisation of the
nation, nurtured as it is on Christian soil, remains
thoroughly imbued with Christian culture, and in so far
as that is the case the State would, rightly be called
Christian; nay, even when the State is legally discon-
nected from the Church ; the latter has ever been the
teacher of the people ; and the State will have to ask
itself whether, judging from experience, other agencies
would undertake with equal success this education of its
subjects for moral freedom. It will have to consider
that, in proportion as its subjects adhere to the Christian
Church from conviction, this adherence cannot possibly
continue without influencing their relations as members
of the State, simply because the man is an individual
unit, and Christianity, where it deserves the name, em-
braces the whole individual.

Nevertheless, the truth remains that the two spheres
are different in principle, and must recognise each other's
legitimate rights. They touch each other, because they
are both moral kingdoms, and for this very reason they
must unite for certain objects in common ; but they fulfil
that duty in a true sense only when they preserve in
that union their independence.

Having thus endeavoured to fix the fimdamental
position of Church and State, let us examine how the re-
lations of both have developed themselves in history.

CHAPTEK V.

THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

External History of the Church during the First Three Centuries — Jewish Per-
secutioiis of Early Ohristians — Equitable Attitude of Roman Authorities
— Origin of Conflict between Christianity and Home — Deification of the
Emperors — Christian Persecutions under Nero and Domitian — Final
Severance of Christianity from Judaism— Christian Proselytism among
the Heathen — Trajan's Instructions to Pliny— State-jealousy of the Church
as a Corporation — Unlawful Societies — Trajan*s Policy continued by
Hadrian — Persecutions by Late Emperors— Decline of Imperial State-
Religion — Christianity favoured by Cosmopolitanism — Final Struggle
with Heathenism — Edict of Toleration by Galerius — Internal History of
the Church — Its Primitive Constitution — ^Development after the First
Century— Presidential Authority of Bishops — ^The Clergy distinguished
from the Laity — Inferior Orders of the Clergy — Growth of the
Hierarchy — Theory of Apostolic Succession — Dioceses — Councils —
Origin of Metropolitans — Elaboration of Doctrine — Rites and Cere-
monies— Progress of Church Discipline and Jurisdiction — Theoretical
Unity of the Holy Catholic Church — Differences between East and
West — Antioch, Alexandria^ and Rome — General State of the Church
in the Fourth Century — Symptoms of Later Catholicism.

The first three centuries of the Christian Church are the chap.
most important of her whole history, and the key to it, ' — ^^ — '
because during that period her inner hfe unfolded its histo^of
richest and most independent energies, under the most ^®^^"^
unfavourable external relations.

The Church stood confronted with the Eoman State,
but in her earliest infancy did not come into conflict with
that State, the contest being essentially and singly with
Judaism. The struggle of the latter with Eome did not
arise from the oppression of the Jewish religion, towards
which, on the contr^iry, the principle of toleration, ex-

78 THE CHURcn and the heathen state.

CHAP, tended to national systems of worship, was so fully ob-

- — r^^ — ' served, that the Roman legions who entered Jerusalem
were ordered to leave behind them their military insignia,
in order that they might not appear to be introducing tlie
images of idols into a city sacred to the Jews. But as
Eome extended no consideration to foreign religions when
they conflicted with those State objects which exclusively
regulated her policy, the resistance of the Jewish Theo-
cracy, which denied the universal duty of paying tribute —
nay, even stigmatised that duty as a crime, had to be
crushed without compunction or regard. This very mo-
tive to resistance was absent from the Christians, who
willingly paid tribute, according to their Master's injunc-
tions, and yielded obedience to the Government in all
temporal matters. About the teaching of the Apostles
the Eoman rulers troubled themselves no further than was
rendered necessary by the persecution of the Christians
by the Jews, who accused the former in their presence of
doing * contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there
is another king, one Jesus.' ^ Herein we see the Eomans
pursuing consistently a policy of equity. So far from
becoming the mere tools of Jewish fanaticism, they let
the Apostles answer for themselves, and for the most
part find no case against them. Either they treat the
quarrel altogether with contempt, like Festus in his report
to Agrippa — * But they had certain questions against him
[Paul] of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which
Equitable was dead, whom Paul aflirmed to be alive '^ — or they hold
Romin an- thcmsclvcs whoUy and impartially aloof, like Gallio, the
^ deputy of Achaia, who replies to the accusations of the
Jews agixinst Paul, that he will be no judge of questions
of words and names,' and of the Jewish law.^ Of the
chief men of Ephesus it is even said that they had
been favourably inclined to Paul. In every case the

> Acts xviL 7. « Ibid. xxv. 19. » Ibid. xviu. 15.

JEWISH PERSECUTION OF THE CHIIISTIANS. 79

Eomans protect the Apostles against the fury of the Jews, chap.
who wish to take their life. Thus the chief captain, Clau- ^ — r — '
dius Lysias, summons the whole of his armed power to
frustrate the designs of the Jewish mob against Paul.
Thus the town-clerk of Ephesus defends the Apostles
against the uproar of the people, and refers their charges
to the court of justice ; nay, even when Paul comes to
Kome as a prisoner, full liberty is left him to preach the
Gospel in that city.^ The Christians, on their part, did
not consider the Eomans as unclean, but held intercourse
with them, even though the tradition of Jewish exclusive-
ness produced in many different ways its after effects.

Thus, then, the Christian Church, during this first stage
of its existence, came in conflict solely with the Jews, in
so far as the latter still enjoyed authority. Once more Jewish per-
was given to Israel, by the preaching of the Apostles, J^e"cTr2h
the opportunity for conversion and the acceptance of **"^
Divine mercy. But the great mass of the people re-
jected it ; the reception of the Gospel would have been
an acknowledgment of their wrong towards Christ. Here
again it is the ecclesiastical heads, partly the same persons
who condemned Christ, who are foremost in the persecu-
tion ; the Sadducees, who filled the highest places, took a
more active part than the rest, simply because the preach-
ing of the risen Clu'ist was peculiarly offensive to their
denial of a resurrection. This persecution by the Jews
begins with the stoning of Stephen ; it never relaxes ; it
takes advantage of every favourable circumstance. James
falls a victim to it when, after the death of Caligula,
Herod Agrippa, the friend of Claudius, re-estabUshes for a
short time Theocracy. It terminates only with the de-
struction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jewish
nation.

About this time, however, the conflict of Christianity

' Ibid, xxviii. 31.

THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP.
V.

Oririn of
conflict
between
Christi-
anity and
Borne.

Deification
of the
Emperore

with the universalEmpire of Eome had already begun ; for,
with all the obedience of its disciples towards the Govern-
ment, some things yet remained in which they could not
conform to the civil law. Hitherto the Eomans had freely
allowed Christianity, as a variety of Jewish superstition, to
work its will in Palestine and the numerous colonies of the
Diaspora. But proselytism was a necessity of its natm^e.
A religion which claimed to be the only true one, and
therefore to become universal, could not, like a purely
national system of worship, restrict itself to a country or
nation. The Eoman State only tolerated the introduction
of new religions under the sanction of the law. The
Christians, on the contrary, did not wait for permission to
preach their faith even to the Romans themselves ; they
followed the command of their Master to 'teach all
nations.' But the spread of a monotheistic religion, which
treated the gods of Eome as creatures of superstition, could
not be regarded as a matter of indifference by the Eoman
power.

Moreover, the Eoman State-system, according to
which the individual was absorbed in the State, clung, not-
withstanding all its toleration towards conquered nations,
most tenaciously to the doctrine, that the religious life is
part of the political one. It seemed, therefore, inadmissible
to the Eomans that anyone should refuse to submit to a law
once proclaimed for the sake of his religion — ^namely, his
conscience. Now, as the worship of Jupiter Capitolinus,
as the supreme god of the State, typified the honour
due to the invisible head of the Eepublic, so, in the
transition to a monarchy, they came by a perfectly
natural process to worship the genius of the ruler who
was at the head of the State, and on whom its weal or
woe depended. Augustus still practised a certain modesty
or reserve, but he allowed the Eoma Dea to be associated
with his name, and Ovid declared that Jupiter was the

DEIFICATION OF THE ROMAN EMPERORS. 81

lord of heaven, Augustus that of earth. Tiberius orga-
nised the worship of his predecessor as a constituent part '
of the State-rehgion, but temples were erected to his own
genius as well, and the Asiatic cities vied with each other
to become the centre of this worship. Under Caligula it
rose to a phrensy of Caesarism, since, as ruler of the uni-
verse, to whom were transferred the attributes of Jupiter,
that emperor conceived himself to be no longer a human,
but a supernatural being. By this adoration of the
supreme head of the State a new State-religion was
developed, whose overgrowth stifled all other forms of
worship, and became the common religion of the whole
Eoman world. Everywhere temples were built to the
emperors ; their worship was demanded from all the
citizens, and a refusal was construed iuto an attack upon
the State itself.

Against this demand both Jew^ as well as Christians
were bound to rebel, for the fupdamental law of their
religion forbade them to pay/divine honours to man.
Accordingly the persecution of the Jews, as the better
known and more numerous body, had already commenced
in the provinces before the destruction of Jerusalem,
the emperors perceiving in their opposition merely a
sign of that universal rebellious spirit which sought
for satisfaction in Oriental forms of worship. And this
view was not wholly unfounded. The Jewish world at Pereecu-
that time was in a state of great ferment. After their jew^
rejection of the true Messiah their impatience increased
for such an One as should break the Eoman yoke ; and
this restlessness was communicated from Jerusalem to the
synagogues of the Diaspora. For this reason Claudius
expelled the Jews from Eome soon after the outbreak of the
great Jewish war, but even the destruction of Jerusalem
failecl to terminate the persecution ; it continued throughout
the second half of the first centurj^ until Hadrian destroyed

VOL. I. G

82 THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, even a resettlement of Jews on the site of Jerusalem,
^ — ^ — ' forbade them to appi^oach its precincts, and built on
Mount Sion a new city, -zEha Capitolina.

As for the Christians, meanwhile, they were exposed
to danger as much by the resemblance of their belief to
Judaism as by its difference therefrom. Hitherto the
Eomans had regarded them as a Jewish sect, from their
worsliip, like the Jews, of the One Invisible God.
Gradually, however, as the Christians were assailed, on
the one hand, with increasing violence by the Jews, while
the Church, on the other hand, under the powerful influ-
ence of St. Paul, grew daily in power and released itself
from the constraint of the Jewish national religion, the
Eomans learned to distinguish the Christians from the
Jews.^ It was owing precisely to the great success that
attended the activity of St. Paul, Avho, in spite of his im-
prisonment, became the centre of the rapidly growing
community of Christians at Eome, as well as to the fear-
less denunciation of a degenerate people, who, to adopt
an expression of Tacitus, had concentrated in themselves
the iniquity of the whole w^orld, that the preaching of
Christianity excited the exasperation of that people against
the Christians, who were accused of hatred to all human-
kind. This hostile spirit became the cause of the first.
First Chris- Or Ncrouiau, persecution of the Christians. It did not
secution Originate with the emperor himself, but it was in order
to silence the growing rumour which charged him with
having occasioned the burning of Eome, that he substi-
tuted the Christians as the guilty persons and invented
in their horrible tortures a new spectacle for himself and
for the populace. It was then undoubtedly that St. Paul
met his death. Neveilheless, this fearful outbreak of the

* This happened first at Antioch, where the disciples received from
their heathen neighbours the name of Christians (X/txarcaro/). Acts
Tiii. 26.

uuderXero,

aiRISTL\N PROSELYTISM AND PERSECUTION. 83

natural animosity of the Heathendom of that age to the chap.

Christians was only an isolated sacrifice to indulge the • — ^ — '
fury of the populace, not any systematic attempt to sup-
press Christianity itself. Even the persecution of Domi- under
tian, called forth essentially by cupidity and cruelty, made ^""^ ^^
no distinction between Jews and Christians.

Persecution first became a principle and a general Final
practice after Christianity had completely severed itself Sf cShTu-
fix)m Judaism with the destruction of Jerusalem, and had julfai/m.™
entered upon its own independent existence. With the
dispersion of the Jewish nation the last link was broken
which bound the Jewish Christians to their former com-
munity ; and with the severance of that tie the con-
troversy as to their relations with the Mosaic system
reached its natural termination. Justification by faith
formed ho longer the keystone of their teaching and
vindication, but the incarnation of the Godhead in Christ, chriatian
The Church now directed her preaching exclusively to the f/^^^'^
heathen, and the more that preaching spread among them,
the more suspiciously was it regarded by the Roman
Government, including even the better emperors, such as
Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius, who were en-
deavouring to anchor the shipwrecked vessel of society by
the re-establishment of the ancient national rehgion.
Trajan, the friend of Pliny and Tacitus, Avas not only a
statesman and a general, but a philosopher, gifted with a
noble mind. He had no idea of persecuting a religion
from the vulgar motives of a Nero or a Domitian. He
himself no longer beheved in the national gods, but he
considered it an imperative duty of public policy to
protect their worship, and therefore to punish those who
endangered it. Pliny, who had gone to Bithynia as
proconsul, himself alarmed at the rapid progress of
Christianity, reports to Trajan that ' the superstition has
penetrated all ranks and ages. Not only the cities, but

o2 I

84 THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, the villages are infected with it. The temples are almost
•w-r^ — ' deserted ; the sacred rites are interrupted ; no sacred
Trajan'sin- victims are any longer purchased.' ^ The Emperor, in his
to'^piiij" answer, recommends to him the utmost possible leniency
— to apply persuasion and not to listen to anonymous
charges. He acknowledges that the previous accusations
against the Christians of surrendering themselves to de-
bauchery under the pretext of their religion were pure
calumnies ; but to his principle he inflexibly adheres :
whoever refuses to sacrifice to the gods shall be punished
with death. By this mixture of mildness and severity
he hoped to conquer the superstition. But just on that
point the Christians could not yield. They woidd have
surrendered their existence, had they denied the One Only
God and burnt incense before the statues of the deities or
Emperor, before wliich they were led. Many, indeed, de-
serted their faith in the face of impending death, but the
majority sealed it with their blood. They were willing
to pray for the Emperor, but not to the Emperor. * Yes,'
says Justin Martyr in his Apology, * we are atheists, if, in
order to escape atheism, one must acknowledge your
gods, which are only demons. We acknowledge you as
our princes and emperors, and beg that the unlimited
power with which you are clothed may be tempered
with wisdom ; but we worship God alone, and are con-
vinced that your conduct towards us is prompted by un-
clean devils, who demand sacrifices and homage from
those who have renounced reason.'
state- Another fact contributed to make the Christians seem

jea]oii9v of J 1 r« 1 1 1

the Church daugerous to the State ; they had a corporate organisa-
ution?^'**^^* tion, the Church, and corporate bodies, as such, were

regarded with suspicion by the emperors, because they

appeared as an iniperium in impeno.

Associations of that kind {erai^Ut) had existed al-

> Pliny, X. Ep. 97.

THE CHURCn AS A CORPORATE ASSOCIATION. 85

ready in classical times in Greece for the joint worship of chap.
some deity, principally of Bacchus (fliWoi) ; and clubs ^— r^ — '
and friendly-societies had been formed for social and
political objects (?pavo«), whose members assembled in
common localities and chose a president by lot (xXt)^cuto/).
From Greece they were transplanted to Eome, but there
they excited, as early as the Eepublic, the displeasure of
the Government, which regulated them within narrow
bounds, limited the number of their members, prescribed
special permission for each separate association, and pro-
hibited above all the formation of a common fund. The
new monarchy lookol upon these societies {collegia et
sodalitia) with a still more unfavourable eye. Caesar and
Augustus constantly endeavoured to restrict the number of
those then existing, and to prevent the formation of new
ones. Augustus finally prohibited them altogether, with
the exception of burial- clubs, which were only allowed
to occupy themselves with the burial of their members
and to meet once in every month. But, in spite of the
most careful surveillance on the part of the authorities,
these associations continued steadily to spread, especially
among the lower classes, who did not possess, hke families
of rank, their sacra gentilitia and family sepulchres. This christian
restriction of associations to burial-clubs explains why the tions first

^,1 . . .^. 111 1 ',1 • tolerated as

Christian communities were regarded also as such withm bunai-
the confines of the Eoman State. Tlie Christians, accord- " *'
ing to their principles, formed only one family ; their
dead also were buried therefore in one spot ; a certain
worship, or rather reverence, soon attached to the graves
of martyrs, the leaders of the community. Moreover,
since, according to the Eoman law, all burial-places en-
joyed the privilege of a certain inviolability. Divine service
was held there when persecution rendered it impossible
in populous places ; and thus originated the catacombs
of Rome, Naples, and Syracuse. But inasmuch as the

86 TIIE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP. Christians refused to sacrifice to the gods, or to the genius
— ^^^ — ' of Caesar, their society came to be regarded as one which
wwtSits went beyond the object of burial, and therefore had
SSltetbL^ to be prohibited as unlawful. It was none other than
Trajan who reissued a stringent decree against all secret
societies {collegia iUicita). The Christians could as little
surrender their common Church and common worship as
their general profession of faith ; but for this very reason
they appeared liable to punishment, although their con-
duct sufficiently testified that aU political agitation was
foreign to their thoughts. ' Very far from wishing,' says
TertuUian, ' to compass the destruction of the Eoman Em -
pi re, we pray, on the contrary, for its continuance, because
the end of the world is inseparably bound up with its
dissolution.' ^ This policy of Trajan was continued by
Trajan»8 Hadrian, his successor, who did homage to foreign modes
tiSuedby" of worship, wlio had himself been initiated at Athens
Hadrian. -^^^^ Elcusinian mysteries, and had argued with the philo-
sophers at Alexandria. While he, too, recommended
clemency, and prohibited all summary proceedings as un-
lawful, yet he confirmed Trajan's decree, which made the
prosecution of those convicted of being Christians belong
to the criminal jurisdiction of the Empire. Even when
the throne was occupied by a philosopher like Marcus
Marcus Aurclius, whosc reign Gibbon celebrates as one of the
ureiua. j^r^ppiggi^ epochs of history, the persecution of the

Christians still continued. The virtuous but fatalistic
Stoic, who believed only in the genius within himself,
could find no comfort in Christianity. The doctrine
of sin and its forgivenesss could not but repel the
proud philosopher, who despised the vulgar crowd, but
permitted the excesses of his nearest relations. He
regarded the Christians as a contemptible sect, who
were refractory against the laws of the State, which

^ Apofog, 42.

FUTILITY OF PERSECUTION. 87

reason commanded men to obey in the interests and for citap.
the welfare of all; and accordingly the blood of the ^

martyrs flowal in torrents during his reign. Through- progrwsof
out this entire period the storm of persecution never tumT^""
ceased, though occasionally, as under Antoninus Pius,
the Christians enjoyed intervals of comparative tranquillity.
Not even the most irreproachable conduct sufficed to
protect them, for the whole life of those times was so en-
tangled with heathen observances, that constant conflict
was unavoidable. Their religion forbade them to exercise
any vocation connected with the heathen worship ; they
were not allowed to attend its festivals, nor to swear by
the gods. They could not, therefore, plead before the law ;
they could fill scarcely any office, for in war as in peace
there were always sacrifices and oaths. In vain did the
Christian soldier display the loftiest valour in the service
of the Emperor, since he was obhged to refuse to sacrifice
to his honour. The confession ' I am a Christian ' was
sufficient to condemn him to death, exile, or labour in the
mines. Persecution redoubled its fury and extent, when-
ever some public calamity, baffling all human energies,
occurred, as, for instai^pe, floods, drought, pestilence, or
famine. At such seasons the heathen priests excited
the people against the Christians, whose violation of the
native faith was represented as having angered the gods ;
and the depraved populace, to whom the ideal character
of the new religion was necessarily unintelligible, broke
out into the cry, * The Christians to the lions ! '

Persecution, nevertheless, was as powerless to prevent Decline of
the dissemination of the new faith as the artificial restor- slat^l^
ation of the ancient Roman worship to bolster up the **^*^"'
tottering civilisation of Eome. The most influential
opponents of Christianity derided in their own hearts the
heathen deities. They were philosophers, sceptics. Stoics,
Epicureans, in the best case Neo-Platonists ; but that

88 THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, philosophy, which could do much to destroy the ancient

*- — ^ — ' worship of the State, was unable to satisfy the religious
requirements of the people. In vain did they seek that
satisfaction in the Oriental worship of Cybele, of Astarte,
and of Mithras, in astrology and magic. In vain did
State-legislation attempt to recruit the worship of the
national gods by adding that of the Csesars. The vital
strength of polytheism was as much exhausted as that of
the Eoman State ; the rule of Hellenism and of Eastern
philosophy had influenced each only to hasten its dissolu-
tion. Ancient Rome had offered to her citizens a fatherland
and institutions whose greatness might inspire them with
enthusiasm. The Eoinan Empire, which embraced the
most different nations of the earth, which was constantly
extending the privilege of Eoman citizenship, which ad-
mitted provincials to the highest oflices — nay, even raised
them to the throne — ^but exposed all its subjects to the
caprice of a despot, was now no longer a fatherland. Its
citizens sought to indemnify themselves for this loss by
closer bonds of unity, but the State prohibited such
associations, because it would not tolerate within itself
any corporate life. Was it to be wondered at that, in
the disconsolateness of despair at such a condition, the
yearnings of the better sort turned to the new religion,
which enlisted those as brethren who could no longer feel
themselves fellow-citizens, and the purity and spirituaUty
of which offered such a shining contrast to the depravity
Chriati- of contemporary Heathendom ? The same cosmopoHtan
f^wMed current of thought which was dissolving the ancient State-
poiiunbm. fabric of nationaUty, prepared the way for the extension
of Christianity. The more humane development of the
law, which limited the paternal power and extended pro-
tection to women and children — nay, even to slaves^ — laid

' The Roman jurists of that time favoured the slaves in every pos-
sible manner, and gave them the benefit of doubtful points of law (cf.

ULTIMATE TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY. 89

the foundation for the principles of that religion which chap.
asserted the equality of all men before God, and exalted ^-^ i'---^
marriage into a compact between the two sexes, each en-
dowed with equal rights; and for this reason, among
others, women and slaves, on whom chiefly devolved the
education of children, became the most zealous adherents
of the new doctrine. During the interval of comparative
repose, which the Church enjoyed from the death of
Commodus to the reign of Philip, the Arab, the number
of Christians multiplied very rapidly. Already they
counted more members than any single one of those sects
of worshippers which subdivided the heathen world. In the
towns especially they occupied a leading position. Their
conduct and their mode of worship, the more the latter
dared to show itself, refuted the accusations levelled
against them : people already were asking, whether the
pLigues which visited the Empire were not after all a
judgment of the God of the Christians to avenge the tor-
turing of His faithful. And in the same measure the
confidence of Christiana in their victory rises into a chal-
lenge to the heathen State, which is represented as the
impersonation of ungodliness. 'Your gods,' exclaims
TertuUian, ' are like the wickal in hell.' Cyprian forbids
all Christians to pollute themselves by a connexion with
an already dying world ; ^ and Lactantius pohits to the
judgment of God in the miserable death of the persecuting
emperors. Once more Eoman Heathendom gathered to-
gether all its strength to annihilate the dreaded adversary. Final
The persecution which overtook the Christians under the wiS^Selth-
soklier emperors Decius, Valerian, Diocletian, and Galerius ^

1. 24, § 6, Dig. xl. tit. 50; 1. 5, § 2, Dig. i. tit. 5.) A law of the year
294 forbade creditors to make slaves of inwlvent debtors (1. 12,
Cod. iv. tir. 10). Manumission was facilit;ir<'d as much as jwssiblc.

* Ut nemo 4uid(|iiam do sa'culo jam moriente desiderct, (Ay>. Cf/pr,
liii. 2.)

90 THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, was more universal and more barbarous than all former
' — r — ' ones, but it merely served to purify the Church from
apathy and indifference, which had crept in during
periods of comparative tranquillity. In this instance also
the famous saying of TertuUian was confirmed, that the
blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Despite
the most terrible oppression, she waxed in irresistible
strength, and forced the Eoman Government to confess its
impotence against the new spiritual kingdom.
EiUctof From his death-bed Galerius issued in 311 an edict,^

byGaierius, declaring that it had been his intention to reclaim the
A J). 811. Christians to the religion of their fathers. Since, however,
the greater part of them persisted in their way of think-
ing, and since it was better that they should pray for the
welfare of the State in some manner or other, he would
allow them to do so in their own manner, on condition that
they refrained from acting in opposition to the established
laws and government.

Those first three centuries of Christianity are the heroic
age of the Church, equalled only by the first decennium
of the Eeformation, for during that period of her persecu-
tion she was able to develope her rich energies in jfreedom
and independence. That development was manifested
first, as was natural, in her doctrine ; but this subject I
forbear from examining in detail, and merely dwell on
the main points of Church-organisation.
inurmd Christ had not founded a Theocracy in the Mosaic

^ clmh. sense of the term ; but the Apostles, trained as they had
been in the strictly legal school of Judaism, understood
• . very well that, in spite of all the governing power of the
live con- Spirit, no ideal amorphism or absence of order could be
allowed to prevail in the community ; that the latter,

* This Edict is given in Latin in Lactantius, De Mortibus Perse-
cutonim, cap. xxxiv. For the Greek version see Eusebius; Eccles.
Hist. lib. yiii. cap. 17%

CONSTITUTION OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 91

placed in the midst of a hostile world, must assimie an chap.
external organisation, by embodying its belief into a ^^ — r — '
creed, and by entrusting the teaching of its doctrines .
and the conduct of its worship, as well as all other
affairs of the community, to those who, from their
endowments, were peculiarly fitted for the task. The
constitution of the primitive Church was naturally ex-
tremely eimple ; it was merely that of any ordinary
community, and the Church of each community governed
itself. The Apostles, as the immediate disciples of Christ, ApoaUes.
exercised an authority freely conceded to them, but one
which they soon shared with those of their followers, who
distinguished themselves by their spiritual abiUties, and
either founded or directed similar communities. The
personal influence of both prevented any need of perfected
institutions, irrespective of the fact that their activity was
not confined to any fixed locahty, the sole but stronger
bond of union between the Churches of the different
societies being the unity of faith. In accordance with the
principle of a universal priesthood, the call to an active
share in the functions of the community was universal ;
but this call, so far from excluding special offices or
ministries, rendered them necessary for the purposes of
order and stability, for without offices there is no
organism. The conception of ' office,' accordingly, in
the Apostolic community, was a sphere of activity, in-
vested with special responsibility, and created for purposes
in common. It denotes no dominion over the com-
munity, and still less, as has been maintained in later
times, the assertion of any spiritual incapacity on the part
of other members for the administration of Church affairs.
Just as little, however, does it represent the mere execu-
tive power of the community at large. DeiooM
Following the precedent of the Synagogue, the Apos- J°j/"J^
tolic age recognised only two offices, those of the deacons blshopa.

92 THE CiroRCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, and the presbyters. That of the deacons was the elder of
* — r — the two, because the process of development was such
- that first the minor duties, including the care of the poor
and sick, as well as assistance in the ministration of wor-
ship, and afterwards tlie more important functions of
directing the community itself, were delegated to others
by the Apostles. The presbyters^ or elders (7rpg<r3uTspoi),
received the additional title, and that for the first time
in Greek-speaking communities, of bishops^ or overseers
(sTiVxoTToi). No trace, however, is found of any distinc-
tion at that period between these two latter appellations.
The assertion that the bishops had originally occupied a
higher position is wholly destitute of proof, and is refuted,
if anything, by the epistle of Clemens Romanus, who uses
both expressions as synonymous, and distinguishes only
the deacons from the heads of the community, while
St. Jerome further says expressly, * The presbyter is the
same as the bishop.' ^ For the same reason we find
mention of several bishops in one community, the latter
being presided over not by a single individual, but by a
college of co-ordinate presbyters. The Apostolic over-
seers (exiVxoToi, which Luther translates by the word
* bishop ') were therefore something wholly different from
the bishops of later times, who govern a territorial district
of the Church. Peter, in exhorting the elders, speaks of
himself as being ' also an elder,' and calls Christ ' the
Shepherd and Bishop (sTrltrKOTrov) of souls.' '^ The office of
president was neither a priestly office nor one of power ;
it required only a certain age and pre-eminent moral
dignity ; it conferred upon its holders the control and
direction of the assembhes of the community, the authority

* Idem est presbyter qui episcopus, et antequam diaboli instinctu
studia in religione fierent, commimi presbyterum consilio ecclesije gu-
bernabantur (In Cap. I., Ep. ad Tit,)

' 1 Peter V. 1 ; ii. 25.

DEVELOPMENT OF CHURCH CONSTITUTION. 93

to collect the sentiments and to execute the resolutions of chap.
those assemblies, and the superintendence of religious wor-

ship. They were not called upon, in the first instance, to
teach, that duty being performed by the Apostles and
their disciples ; but they were in no wise precluded from
so doing ; on the contrary, St. Paul demands as one of
the qudifications of a bishop that he should be * apt to
teach.' ^ It is not stated anywhere that they were elected
by the people,*^ but it is certain that the community had
a voice in their installation, and that no one was chosen
as president by the Apostles whose character and creden-
tials were not irreproachable. They were the trusted
oflScers of the community, and enjoyed by virtue of their
functions a superior, but stUl a purely moral, authority.

The constitution of the Christian Church preserved Develop

■■• ment after

these simple relations up to the close of the first century, the fimt
but it fortified its position. Until the destruction of
Jerusalem the Christians, and even the Apostles, had
expected the second advent of Christ and the end of the
world to be near at hand. They had not sufficiently dis-
tinguished the prophecies of the fall of that city from
those of the last judgment ; but this confusion was no
longer possible when Judaism had lost its centre and
stabiUty. When now, on the one hand, the storm of i^er-
secution began, and, on the other hand, with the death of
the Aix)stles, those great champions disappeared in whom
inspiration had found such powerful organs, and who
from that very fact had ensured essential concord in the
separate societies, and compensated for the want of that
Church-unity which is embodied in fixed institutions —
then the need of a more fully developed constitution began
to appear. The decline of extraordinary gifts of the Spirit

> 1 Timothy iii. 2 ; Titus i. 9.

* Acts vi. 5 speaks only of the deacons, whoso office made it natural
to give the right of electing them to the community.

94 THE CIIURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, made te<aching all the more important. Those primitive

« — ^ — days were gone by, when all were still of the same mind.
Doubts and diversities of opinion asserted themselves ;
these demanded a decision, and thus instruction in the
right doctrine became necessary, a task which called for
speciiil abilities. Those of the presbyters, on whom had
been conferred the office of teachers on account of their
superior measure of intellectual talents, attained in conse-
quence a peculiar degree of respect, and became the pre-
sidents of the college, although perfect equaUty as to
rights still prevailed among its members. The germ of
this presidential authority is found already in the later
time of the Apostles, emerging from the circle of the
presbyters ; for the * angels' of the seven Chm'ches in the
Apocalypse cannot be understood as spirits, but simply
as actual men, the chief shepherds of the community.
And this development was natural, for in proportion as
the personal direction of the Apostles and their immediate
disciples ceased, the more difficult it became to govern the
communities, especially the more numerous ones, through
the college of presbyters. It was, therefore, but a short
step to entrust the particular functions of government to
a man specially fitted for the task, assisted by the pres-
Growth of byters as advisers. * In order to prevent dissensions,' says
SJSlorit^ St Jerome, *one of the presbyters was set over the
ofbUhopa. others.' ^ To a president of this kind, directing the com-
munity, the name of bishop was in time exclusively
apphed. Persecution increased the tendency to concen-
trate spiritual authority in the episcopal office, and the
genuine letters of Ignatius show most clearly the intention
to secure, by such means, the unity of the Christian
society. This endeavour met a real requirement ; the
* scattered flock found themselves reunited in the person of
their shepherd, and the latter acquitted themselves through-

* Ep. 101 ad Evang.

THE CLERGY DISTINGUISHED FROM THE LAITY. 95

out as representatives with quite as much wisdom as
courage and self-denial. Fearlessly they maintained tlie
faith in the midst of universal servitude, and in some of
them the voice of truth rises to the most commanding
eloquence.

In this union of the offices of teacher and president in
the single person of the bishop, as the head of the com-
munity, there was nothing as yet which contradicted the
principle of a general priesthood. So far from these rela-
tions being founded upon Apostolic ordinance, they were
the natural outgrowth and development of the need for a
more coherent organisation of the constitution. In this
sense, and not as the result of internal progress, it was
regarded by unprejudiced minds, such as by St. Jerome
in the words just quoted, and by the author of the ' Shep-
herd of Hernias,' who says, ' The Church reposes on the
chair of the bishop, just as every patient sits down on
account of his weakness.'

A period, pregnant with fate for the whole develop- The clergy
ment of the Church, was ushered in with the idea, sug- K«i^hed
gested by the analogy of the priesthood in the Old mty.
Testament, that the bearers of ecclesiastical office consti-
tuted a class appointed by God to the government
of the Church, who were the exclusive possessors of
the requisite gifts, and were specially ordained by conse-
cration. To this class, designated at first by the term
ordo — a word borrowed from politics — and afterwards by
that of cleruSy or the one chosen by God for His service,
were opposed the other members of the community, as
the people, plebs^ Xao^, or laity.

As yet, however, this was no formally constituted
hierarchy. The community, whether collectively or
through its representatives [seniores plehis)^ still enjoyed,
in common with the * clerus,' the choice of a bishop,
whose election was conducted and ratified by the

THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP.
V.

Inferior
orders of
the clergy.

Increase
of episcopal
power.

Theory of

Apostolic

nieoeasion.

bishops in neighbouring parts. It co-operated in the
disciphne of the Church ; it exercised singly the right of de-
ciding upon the expulsion or readmission of its menibei's ;
its voice commanded attention on all questions of impor-
tance, especially on those which concerned the property
of the community, for the ' clerus ' depended for main-
tenance on its oblations, voluntary in the first instance,
but afterwards expressly claimed. Above all, there was
not yet any supreme head of the Church for the different
communities, though, indeed, the foundation was laid for
such a future supremacy when, with the development of
a priesthood on the pattern of the Old Testament, a human
mediatorial office between God and the community was
re-established. With the growing extent of the com-
munities themselves the duties of the clerici increased,
and it became necessary to distribute them among various
ministerial offices. Besides the deacons there were the
sub-deacons, readers, acolytes to assist in the performance
of Divine worship, the exorcists for the healing of those
possessed with evil spirits, the ostiarii^ or door-keepers,
and sacristans. The bishops, presbyters, and deacons
formed the higher clergy [clerus major) ; the inferior
clergy {clerus minor) consisted of the rest.

The bishop became the centre of the whole Church-
organisation, his authority now resting not merely on his
constitutional position, but on a distinction of spiritual
rank, which separated him from the body of the clergy.
His supremacy, it is true, was not absolute at first, but sub-
ject on many points to the assent of the presbyters. Never-
theless, that which elevated him above all the rest was the
ijotion, now growing into a doctrine of tlie Church, that
the bishops were in fact the sole immediate successors of
the Apostles, the bearers of the Apostolate instituted by
Christ to the end of lime, for whom were reserved defi-
nite and spiritual functions, such as the ordination of

DEVELOPMENT OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 97

priests and confirmation, whilst the subordinate clergy chap.
became gradually their mere assistants, appointed and ' — ^ —
accredited by them alone. In the conflict with en-
croaching heresies, especially Montanism and Gnosticism,
this theory was still further expanded. To combat the
false Gnosis it was important to secure purity of doc-
trine. To deprive the fanatical rigour of Montanism of
its vantage-ground of attack, the reins of Church-disci-
pline had to be tightened. Both of these conditions could
only be enforced through the bishop, and both of neces-
sity increased his influence and authority. Christianity,
meanwhile, which had found its first firm footing in the
larger cities, such as Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Athens,
Ephesus, Eome, and afterwards in the smaller towns, now
gradually spread to the country, which hitherto had ad-
hered to heathenism.^ The rural communities requested
the bishop of their parent community in the city to send
them a presbyter for the direction of their worship.
But these nural presbyters remained subordinate to the
bishop, who accordingly, from his position as the head of
an urban community, rose to that of the governor of an
ecclesiastical district, composed of a plurality of societies
nestling round the mother Church ; and this district, the
diocese^ thenceforth formed the local groundwork of the Fonnation
constitution of the Church. The bishops of a province natu- ^^ ^'^*^^*'^
rally maintained a mutual and varied intercourse ; and gradu-
ally their deliberations on matters of common interest took
the form of regular meetings, called Synods by the Greeks,
and Councils [concilia) by the Latins, which represented
the provincial Church.* Attempts have been made to

^ Hence the name paganism, as the religion of the peasants,
or dwellers in villages (pagani).

• That the correct conception of the Scriptural word Church was
Btill for a long while maintained is shown by the definition of Irenaeus —
• Eoclesia, hoc est, ii qui undique sunt fideles.' (Contra Hcet\ iii. 3.)

VOL. 1. II

TIIE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, trace back these councils tx) the meeting of the heads of

the Apostolic community at Jerusalem, in which the
question ^yas discussed and decided whether, and to what
Provincial extcut, baptised heathens were bound to observe the

sjnods or , *

connciia. Mosaic law and ceremonial. Nothing can be more erro-
neous ; the supposed Apostolic council was a voluntary
conference of the members of only a single community,
not a meeting of delegates from a number of confederate
Churches, and if Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and James were
the only speakers, still the letter containing their reso-
lutions was drawn up in the name of all. * We, the
Apostles, and elders, and brethren send greeting,' &c.^
Such an assembly had nothing in common with the later
institution of Synods, and for that reason also it was not
repeated. The Synods, on the contrary, did not originate
until the latter half of the second century, in consequence
of the necessity of determining controversies of doctrine,
for which purpose the bishops of neighbouring Churches
met together for common deliberation. The first of the
assemblies of which we possess liistorical evidence were
held in Asia Minor.^ Tertullian, who wrote in the
beginning of the third century, speaks of them as an
estabhshed institution in Greece,^ and in the course of
that century they became universal, were held regularly
once or twice a year, and were regarded as the supreme
representative organs of the Church. Each provincial
bishop possessed a seat and a vote, and a similar, but
exceptional, privilege was granted to presbyters and con-

' Acts XV. 23.

• Viz., the councils concerninp; the Montanists, ad. 170 or 173,
and those which deliberated on the Easier question. All these councils
are placed by Eusebius under the reign of Commodus, A.n. 180-192.

' 'Aguntur praeterca per Gnecia?, ilia certis in locis Concilia ex
universis ecclesiin, per quae et aJtiora qvcegtte in commune tractantur
et ipsa repnesentatio totius nominis Christiani magna celebratione
tractatur.' (Tertullian, De JejuniiSj c. xiii. p. 711.)

FXABORATION OF DOCTRINE. 99

feasors — a name applied to those wlio liad endured torture cuap.

or imprisonment by confessing Christ before the magis- — ^ — '
trates. These assemblies were public ; their decrees, which
were styled Canons, were accepted in their integrity, but
only within the limits of the province. The laity who
were present (plebs assistefis) made their voice also beard;
there was no question of any infallibility of Synods.

The influence of tliese councils cave rise in turn to ^»^»«»« ^,
distmctions in the Episcopate, smce upon the bishops of tans,
the principal cities, as tlie natural centres of the various
provinces, devolved the duties of convening and presiding
over the Jissemblies. These bishops received the title of
Metropolitans, and soon acquired the riglit of supervision
over their provincial brethren. They conducted their
election ; tliey confirmed and consecrated them when
elected, and notified their appointment to the other
Churches.

With this establishment of the constitution of the
Church corresponds the internal development of her
creed, her worship, and her discipline. The Church is
essentially a community of confession ; all who have been ei iiK)ra.
received into her by baptism made a previous declaration d^uLe.
of their belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost.^ This Trinitarian condition of baptism, enjoined
by Christ, assumed gradually, and through the conflict
with heretical doctrines, a more elaborate form, aca>rding
as the pecuhar attributes of the Three Persons of the
Godhead were more closely determined. One by one,
and in a manner varying with the exigencies of defence
against the heresy of the day, were revealed, already in
the immediate post-Apostolic times, the essential features of
the later Apostolic Creed (Symbolum). God was designated
as the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth ; in (Jlirist

* Matth. xxviii. 19.
n '2

100 THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, were illustrated the supernatural origin and the chief
' — ^ — ' acts of the work of Eedemption ; to the confession of
the Holy Ghost were added' that of belief in the forgive-
ness of sin, in the resurrection of the body, in the life
everlasting, and in the Holy Cathohc Church. Contrasted
with this general confession, the rules of faith, prescribed
by the individual Fathers of the Giurch, were only free
deductions, adapted for tlie most part to certain definite
occasions. Next to these appeared the science of Apolo-
getics, opposed to Heathendom equally as to the heresies,
and which laid tlie first foundations of Christian Theo-
logy.
Rites and The primitive community of Christians edified them-

oeremouies. ^ ^^ ^ . i r.

selves, like their prototype the Synagogue, by prayers and
hymns, by the reading aloud of chapters from the Old
Testament, especially fi'om the Prophets, and by the
preaching of the Gospel. To this was added the reading
of the Apostolic Epistles, then of passages from tlie
Gospels ; and at the conclusion the bread was broken and
the blessed cup administered. The same order of service
was preserved in after times, with these exceptions — that
with the extension of the communities the Love-Feasts
(Agapce) were omitted, the Lord's Supper was partaken
of at a table specially devoted to that purpose, called
an altar after the end of the second century, and a
raised place was set apart for preaching. Sunday was
celebrated as a universal festival to commemorate the
resurrection of the Lord ; Easter Day and Whit Sunday
were also high, feasts, the former being preceded by a
fast of some length, the latter by the Quadragesima.
In&nt baptism was generally practised, and sponsors
{sponsores) invited as witnesses of the sacred rite, in the
case of adults to act as sureties for their faith, with chil-
dren to secure for them a Christian education. The ab-
juration of idolatry led in time to the association of

PROGKESS OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 101

exorcism with the ceremony of baptism. Candidates for chap.
admission into the Church (catechumens) received their ' — ^ — '
full Christian citizenship for the first time through bap-
tism and confirmation, after a careful course of examina-
tion, in gradually ascending degrees of instruction. All
those who exercised sinful callings, such as slave-dealers,
pirates, and others, had to renoimce them before they
were received into the Christian community. The manu-
mission of slaves, it is true, was not made obligatory by
the laws of the Church, but it was counselled, and very
frequently practised. The relations of slavery, at any
rate, had become mild, and a slave was even eligible for
office in the Church. Marriages were solemnised in the
face of the community ; and the rite was refused when-
ever grounds of objection existed founded on Scriptural
commands.^ The dead were interred with Church so-
lemnities, and the Jewish custom of burial was universally
adopted instead of the heathen system of cremation.

No society can maintain its stability without discipline, Jj^[^®'
and the need of such discipline is especially felt in an diacipiine.
institution intended to educate man to Christian perfec-
tion. The practice in the Apostolic community was first
to admonish the erring member, after which all intercourse
with him was withdrawn by the community, who were
charged, however, to regard him still as a brother, not as
an enemy. The heretic, or obstinate teacher of error, was
to be shunned, as a person who had been often admo-
nished. The heaviest punishment of the Church was the
Anathema^ or ban of excommimication, imposed upon the
most sc^andalous sinners, and which St. Paul, for example,
pronounced against the instigators of unnatural vices in
the community at Corinth.^ It was inflicted in the belief
that the pimishment of God would follow, * for the de-

* Lev. xviii. 6; Mattli. xiv. 4 ; 1 Cur. v. 1. '1 Cur. v. 5.

102 THE CHURCH AND Tlffi HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP, stnictioii of the flesh/ and open a patli of mercy for
- — r — ' the returning penitent. Common crimes committed
by Christians were visited of course by the State ; but
the Church also inflicted upon such crimiaals her spii-itual
punishments, and the same were pronounced against tliose
who merely violated her regulations. So long as the
position of the Church was not legally recognised, her
jurisdiction remained restricted to those means of punish-
ment which resulted from her constitution, such as
acts of expiation, the exclusion, more or less entire,
according to the nature of the offence, from all share
in religious worship, and eventually complete expulsion
from the community. These punishments naturally
operated with different eflfect upon the clergy and
laity, because the former might be suspended or de-
prived of their spuitual offices, whilst the Church was
unable to compel the latter to submission, in cjise they
refused to yield to the threat of excommunication. A
question which, during the period of the persecutions,
provoked great controversies was whether, and under
what conditions, apostates should be readmitted to the
Church. The Montanists and Novatians shut the gates
of reconciliation for ever against those who had lapsed
into mortal sin. The Confessors went to the opposite
extreme of inadmissible lenity, arbitrarily interfering, to
the dissolution of all Church-discii)line. The bishops had
to contend with both parties alike, and they adhered
firmly to this principle, tjiat readmission must be possible
Penancea. to the siuccre penitent, but that proof must be given of
his sincerity. This was done by a series of penances,
determined according to the grievousness of the fall ; the
principle remaining that in all serious questions of disci-
pline, especially in those relating to the expulsion or re-
admission of members, the decision rested with the com-
munity, although the bishop, from his position, made his
influence felt in their deliberations.

JURISDICTION OF THE CIIUllCII. 103

It was uot, however, merely on Cliurch-questions that chap.

the organs of the community had to decide. The Chris- ' — A-
tians were to r^ard themselves as one family. Their
Master Himself had directed them : * K thy brother shall jariBdic-
trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee *'®"'
and him alone ; .... if he will not hear thee, then take
with thee one or two more ; .... if he shall neglect to
liear them, tell it unto the Church.' ^ Paul, in like man-
ner, blames the Corinthians for bringing their quarrels
before heathen tribunals.*^ On this command was based
the custom m the primitive Chiurch of deciding within
her own bosom any matters of dispute between her mem-
bers, a custom strengthened by the fact that, the judges
of the State being heathens, all judicial transactions, es-
pecially the oaths of witnesses, were connected with such
ceremonies as the Christians were not allowed to take
part in. Still more strictly were ecclesiastics forbidden
to take the law from secular courts ; they were to submit
in all things to the judgment of their superiors. For the
laity, on the other hand, the decision of the Church-
organs in civil differences was merely that of an arbitra-
tor, since the requisite coercion was wanting to enforce
the sentence ; but the power of the spiritual authority, in
those days of Christian severity, was quite as strong as
that of the constituted judge.

It was a natural consequence, again, that with the
development of the Hierarchy this jurisdiction of the
Church should fall to the bishop, who was resorted to in
the first instance. If the bishop himself was the accused
party, then his colk^agues gave judgment in assembled
Synod. On the bishop also primarily devolved the ad-
ministration of the pro|)erty of the Church, which, from
the extension of the commimities and the increase of
donations, grew daily more considerable.

» Mattli. xviii. 15-17. « 1 Cor. vi. 1.

104 THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN STATE.

CHAP. Iii tliis manner, by the end of the third century, the

^- T* . Church had built up her fabric into a united institution,

endowed with a firm constitution, and received accordinf:;ly
Supposed the title of Catholic, or universal (catholica). To belon<r

unity of the . , ,: . n ^ ^ \ i-^i . • • /.

H0I7 to her was the condition or bclongmg to Uhnstianity, for
Church. * in her,' as Irenceus says, * the Apostles have deposited,
as in a rich treasure-house, and in their fullest perfection,
all that belongs to truth. She is the gateway into life,
and man must dihgently receive her doctrines.' The
most striking expression of this theory is found in Cyprian,
Bishop of Carthage, who lived about the middle of the
third centmy. He devotes his whole energies to the idea
that the Church is to be governed, under her Divine Head,
as a single State, by bishops appointed by God. * There is
only one Chiurch,' he says in his treatise * De Unitate Ec-
clesiae,' * as there is only one sun. He who deserts her is
a stranger, an unholy man, and an enemy ; he who has
not the Church for his mother can Ukewise not have God
for his Father.'

This unity of the holy Catholic Church, which was
coined into a special article of the Christian creed, did
not indeed prevent the separate provincial Churches from
differing mutually in language, customs, and theological
Diflferences views. Tlicsc differences, generally speaking, prevailed
Rati end chicfly between the East and West. The centre of the
former, after the disintegration of Jewish Christianity, was
Antioch. Hellenistic Christians had founded there the
first community of heathen converts, which soon rose to
importance imder the direction of Barnabas, and princi-
chnrch of pally of St. Paul.^ It became the metropolis not only of
the Greek Church of the surrounding districts, but of the
Syrian Christians of the province. The majority of the
latter were Jewish Christians, and this circumstance
stamped a pecuUar character upon the Syrian Church,

' Acts xi. 20. IgnAtius and ChrjBOBtom were eminent among its
bifihop9»

West.

THE CHURCHES IN THE FOURTH CENTURY. 105

since she received a larger admixture ot Mosaic elements chap.
than the others, and differed in tliat respect especially • — ^ — '
from the Greek. It was here also, about the middle of
the second centiury, that the Scriptures were first trans-
lated into the vernacular for use in Divine service. The of Aiexan-
E^yptian Church, with her metropolis Alexandria, assumed ^^^
a different form. In this city, as in the focus of Hellenism,
converged almost all the schools of Grecian philosophy,
which was strongly tinctured with the mysticism of the East.
Here were the headquarters of the Gnostics and of those
strangely variegated sects which were combated by the
Christian School, founded in the middle of the second
century. Here the two illustrious teachers of that school,
Clemens Alcxandrinus and Origen, strove to discover in
philosophy a basis for Christianity. Without lapsing into
Neo-Platonism and the mysticism of the East, this cele-
brated school sought to engraft upon itself the wisdom of
classical antiquity, to introduce the cultivated among the
heathen into the sanctuary of the Church, and to show to
them that the germs of truth contained in heathenism
liad found their fulfilment in the Logos, Along with this
movement, as a champion of which Origen in particular
exercised a wide and active influence, there prevailed in
the Egyptian Church a gloomy, ascetic severity, inherited
from the ancient national character, and which subse-
quently gave rise to the self-mortifications of the hermits
and saints of the desert.

In contrast to the speculative tendency of the Church of AWca,
of Alexandria, the African Church exhibited, under the
influence of Tertullian and Cyprian, a character of practical
asceticism, which threw all its energies into the development
of Church discipline and constitution through the medium
of congenial legislation. Finally, the Church at Rome *^^^®"••
acquired its peculiar importance by establishing in the
heart of the political capital the ecclesiastical metropolis
of the West, and gained, in consequence, the reputation of

106

'ty

rilE CIIUllCII AM) THE UEATIIEN STATE.

CHAP.
V.

Gener.il
state of the
Church in
the fourth
centur/.

Symptoms
of later
Catholi-
cism.

having preserved in its greatest purity the tradition of the
Apostolic faith.

So stood the Church in all her fair proportions when
the storm of persecution ceased, and the State, her former
adversary, began first to tolerate, 'then to fovour her, and
ended by making her supreme. At this point she enters
upon an entirely new phase of her development. She no
longer rests upon her own strength and prowess, which
she has to prove in her conflict with a hostile world ; she
leans now upon the secular arm and becomes the Church
of the State. It is true that this transition was not efiected
inwardly without interposition. It is an error to repre-
sent the whole period of the first three centuries as the
golden age of the Church, and to date her sudden decline
from the reign of Constantine. Admirable as seemed the
fabric of the Episcopal Church, as consummated about
the middle of the third century, still, compared with
Apostolic times, her internal structure revealed the
ravages of decay. Already the undisputed Apostolic
Fathers Clemens Eomanus, Ignatius, and Polycarp ex-
hibited a marked decline from the spiritual ascendency
of their teachers. The yearning for martyrdom, as the
stepping-stone to salvation, the subjection to ecclesiastical
superiors, the importance attached to almsgiving, the
recommendation of poverty, the performance of public
penance, the idea of an objective, miraculous efficacy
of the Sacraments, all faintly revealed the first germ of
that later Catholicism which expanded afterwards into
righteousness by works, the pre-eminence of the priest-
hood over a laity who were treated as minors, and a
hierarchy constJiiited on the doctrine of a single visible
Church, which alone was supposed to possess the keys of
heaven. When once the pressure of restraint was re-
moved from a Church built up in that manner, she was
bound to become likewise an outwardly ruling power in
the State, albeit at the price of her internal freedom.

107

CHAPTER VI.
THE CHURCH u.vder state-patronage.

Partition of the Empire by Diocletian — Oonstantine arms against Maxentius
— His Vision of the Cross — Grants Religious Liberty — Sole Ilmperor —
Hollowness of his Chrifitianity — His Political Sagacity — His cautious
System of Christian Ijegislation — Immunities of the Clergy — Endowment
of the Church — Her Criminal and Civil Jurisdiction — Demoralising
Effects of State-Patronage — Constantine asserts his Supremacy in
Keligion — Schism of the Donatists — The ^Vrians and Athanasius — Council
of Nictea — Its Decision reversed by the Council of Tyre — Theory of
Infallibility of General Councils — Councils of Niciea and Tyre not
(Ecumenical — Constantine s System of Byzantinism — Progress of Mona-
chism — Growth of Hierarchical Independence — Augustine*s Theory of
Church and State — His Doctrines of Catholic Unity and Sacerdotalism —
Separatism of the Donatists — ^Views of Religious Compulsion — Outward
Prosperity of the Church after the Death of Julian — ^Her Spiritual Decay
— Transfer of Power to the West.

Diocletian liad endeavoured to prevent, by means of chap.

a peculiar institution, the constant usurpations, by ambi- ^ ^S^^Ji— '

tious generals, of the imperial power. Despairing of f^J^**'^"^^
establishing a hereditary djmasty, he resolved to divide p«^ai
his honours with co-regents. Henceforth there were Diocletian,
always to be two Augusti^ one of them invested with
sovereign power, and two Ccesars^ adopted by the empe-
rors. The supreme Augustus was to direct the helm for
a limited period — twenty years — his colleague was then to
succeed him, and the elder Caesar to become the second
Augustus. By thus conferring upon Ihc Caesars a sure
]>rospect of the throne, he hoped to introduce stability
into the succession. But this system, which rested upon
the subordination of the Ca3sars to the Augusti, and
of all to the ruhng Augustus of the day, was too

108 THE CHUKCII UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

CHAP, artificial to last. In the second generation already the
' — *^ — ' four princes reigned independently within their own de-
partments, Licinius and Maximin in the East, Maxen-
tins and Constantine in the West. Such a state of things
Conatan- could not contiuuc ; a conflict between these partners
againbt was inevitable, and Constantine, by far the most distin-
guished among them, in his character of general as well as
statesman, was the first to arm against his rival in the West.
So paramount, however, by this time had the religious
question become, that every politician was obliged to
adopt a definite position in regard to it. Constantius
Chlorus, the father of Constantine, had been the only co-
regent of Diocletian, who distinctly refused to take part
in the persecution of the Christians. While their blood
was flowing in the East, in Africa and Italy, the commu-
nities of Gaul, Britain, and Spain enjoyed undisturbed
repose ; they were naturally, therefore, grateful to their
protector, and transferred those feelings of gratitude to
his son, who thus in a manner inherited the patronage of
Christendom. His opponent Maxentius, far superior to
him in power, was a passionate champion of official
Heathendom, and Constantine accordingly cherished the
idea of invoking the aid of that God whose worship
should bring Heathendom to an end. At this point steps
in the narrative of the miraculous vision of the Cross,
5 uie^*^° which Constantine declared to have seen at sunset with
^^^' the inscription * By this conquer ! ' That this tradition is
an untenable legend is obvious, although Eusebius ^ pro-
fesses to have received it from the Emperor himself. It
may have been a dream, in which Constantine's thoughts
were reflected ; at all events he announced himself, in the
face of the enemy, the official champion of Christianity
by giving to his army the Labarum^ or standard of the
Cross. Under that ensign he annihilated his adversary.

^ De Vit& Const. mt. lib. l,cap. xxyii.-xxxi.

CONST AXTIXE SOLE EMPEROR. 109

His victory was followed, early in the year 313, by the chap.
celebrated Edict of Milan, in which he ascribes his success

to the favour of the God of the Christians. He does not, n«5Paiite

' religious

however, immediately proclaim the worship of their God ^^^^7*^
as the reUgion of the State. He begins by extending the
tolerating edict of Galerius into one of religious liberty ;
every person shall be free to attach himself to the religion
he acknowledges to be true. But, from the position of
affairs, this could only be a stage of transition. Eeligious
liberty, still defended with such energy by Tertullian and
Origen, was not congenial to the spirit of the age. The
issue was one of supremacy, a prize which the Church
strove to conquer and Heathendom as obstinately to retain.
To Constantine the chief object of concern was the further
consolidation of his power. Of his two remaining
opponents Maximin was the less important and the more
distinctively heathen. Against him the Emperor de-
spatched Licinius, who effected his defeat, and who now
alone stood opposed to his master. Licinius in turn was consun-
overthrown, and Constantine was now sole Emperor. EmpSw,
Through streams of blood he had waded to the throne. ^'^' ^^^'
He had ordered the execution first of Maximian, his
father-in-law, and co-regent of Diocletian. The widow
of Maximin, whose husband took poison after his de-
feat, was murdered, together with her children; and the
widow and two children of Diocletian shared their fate.
His brother-in-law Licinius, whom, at the entreaties of his
sister, he at first permitted to live in Thessalonica, was
strangled a few months after by his orders.

In the face of such atrocities the exaltation of Con- Hoiiownen
stantine, even in modern times, as a Christian hero can chriMi-
only excite sentiments of humiliation. Certainly he was *"*^^*
no ordinary hypocrite ; he believed undoubtedly in the
truth and future triumph of Christianity, but that faith
was to him what Catholicism was to Louis XIV., a sum of

110 THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATROXAO i:.

CHAP, formulas, dogmas, and ceremonies, to be accepted out-
' — '-— ' wardly like the worship of Jupiter or Mithras. He him-
self narrates tliat he meditated many times, before the
battle with Maxentius, which God he should appeal to for
assistance. He seeks the aid of the God of the Christians ;
the experiment is successful, and that God accordingly
he accepts. The Church had become so strong that a
clever politician gained more by conciliating her respect
than by incurring her hostiHty. But this change of reli-
gion had no influence upon tlie personal morals or conduct
of Constantine. While he is giving Christian banners to his
armies, while he erects a statue of Christ with the Labarum
at Eome, has his helmet studded with the pretended nails
of the Cross, in order to assure victory in battle, and his
statue inlaid with fragments of the Sacred Tree ; while he
is building splendid churches, institutes the celebration of
Sunday, addresses the bishops as beloved brethren, and
discourses on Christianity to the people, he himself
remains unbaptised. He retains the dignity of Pontifex
JUaanmus^ and the official epithet of divus^ as appropriate
emblems of his divinity ; he has coins struck with the
image of the Sun-God and rears a multitude of heathen
temples. Nay, more than this, his Christianity does not
prevent him from murdering his son Crispus and his wife
Fausta, as twelve years before he had murdered his father-
in-law and licinius. His personal attitude towards reli-
gion remained, as Burckhardt concisely expresses it, * the
barren deism of a conqueror, who stands in need of a
God, in order to be able to appeal to some authority
besides himself in support of all his acts of despotism.'
His Contemptible, however, as a Christian, as a statesman

wgadtj. he was conspicuous. He saw that political life could no
longer subsist upon the old foundations, and cautiously
prepared the way for the transition to a new order of
things by establishing Christianity as the second religion

HIS CIURACTER AND LEOLSLATIOX. Ill

of the State. Wliolesale as was the subsequent conversion ^^^|^-
of the masses, the State itself was not yet Christianised ; ' — ' — '
heathenism remained a power which no statesman dared
undertake to displace by violent measures. Not only
was the ancient national religion a general object of
Imperial solicitude, but heathen officials of high rank
sat at his table by the side of bishops, and the sol-
diers were permitted to greet him with the acclamation
*May the gods preserve thee.' When his palace was
struck by lightning he sent to consult the sacred entrails.
The basreliefs on his triumphal arch represented heathen
sacrifices; the Goddess of Victory appears by the side of
the Labarum. Nevertheless, by a gradual exercise of ijMcau-
partiality in favour of Christianity, the Emperor en- system of
deavoured to assure its future pre-eminence. He saw that legislation.
Rome with her aristocracy, as well as Italy with her
peasantry, clung tenaciously to the ancient faith ; and he
founded in the East a new capital, which, free from the
fetters of national tradition, might become the metropoHs
of a Christian empire. A succession of enactments intro-
duced Christian principles into the life of politics. The
punishments of crucifixion and branding were abolished ;
the sexes were separated in the prisons; Sunday was
declared to be a holy day, during which all pubhc busi-
ness, all lawsuits, and even the games of the circus were
suspended. During Lent no penal sentence was passed, and
criminals were no longer to be condemned to the gladia-
torial shows. The conditions of slaverj'^ were largely
mitigated, and were no longer allowed to entail the
disniption of families ; Jews, heathens, and heretics
were forbidden to have Christian bondsmen. A hea-
then convert obtained his liberty, and a fugitive slave
who had remained for three years iu a monastery
acquired his freedom, by taking the vow. Manumission
was encouraged in every way ; the ceremony itself was
placed under the official patronage of the bishops, and

112 THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

CHAP, took place on Sundays and festivals before the assembled
' — r^ — ' congregation. The laws of marriage were reformed in
harmony with Christian principles. The Lex Papia et
Julia^ which denied to the unmarried the power of execut-
ing a will, was repealed. The ecclesiastical restrictions
upon marriage gained an influence over legislation. Thus,
with respect to prohibited degrees of kindred, all mar-
riages between Christians and Jews were forbidden under
pain of death, whilst alliances with heathens were less
severely judged, because in such cases the danger of
apostasy was less probable and the conversion of the
heathen consort might be more confidently expected.
Adultery was treated as a capital crime. Those who
compelled their daughters or female slaves to a life of
public infamy were punished with confiscation and con-
demned to labour in the mines. Second marriages,
though not absolutely forbidden, were regarded with
disfavour, and excluded the contracting parties from office
in the Church. The exposure and sale of children were
interdicted ; if the parents wdre unable to maintain them
they were assisted from the public purse.

Besides these measures, so thoroughly beneficial for
the morality of the people, there were others which
increased the corporate power of the Church. The
bureaucratic administration of the revenue weighed

'G'

immanities terribly at that rime upon the population. The citizens
cLr^. cf the different towns, united in town-council (curiales)^
were responsible for the levying of taxes within their
district, and were forced to cover any deficiency from
their own private property. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that municipal honours were regarded as an in-
tolerable burden. Constantine released the clergy, as the
heathen priests had been released before, from this un-
welcome dignity. The ministers as well as the property of
the Church were exempted from the ordinary taxes, or

ENDOWMENT OF THE CHURCH. 113

required to pay them only when their possessions were chap.

large. Even then they were absolved from extraordinary — li -

demands, such as the compulsory billeting of soldiers,
the requisition of relays of horses or supplies. Finally,
he introduced a direct tax on natural products to be
devoted to the benefit of the ecclesiastical order.^

By these privileges, the clergy, who had already
assumed a conscious superiority over the laity, became
distinguished from the civil orders, and were not to be
diverted from their loftier duties by the burdens incident
to common life. The emperor, moreover, liberally en- Kndow-
dowed the Church. In the first place, the lands and church,
houses, which had been confiscated during the times of
persecution, were restored, and their purchasers compen-
sated from the public treasury. Heathen temples, in
which immoral rites of worship had been celebrated,
were assigned with their revenues to the new religion.
A multitude of magnificent basilicas was raised at the
expense of the State ; and if the public exchequer was at
ita lowest ebb, the tide of bounty flowed in undiminished
profusion for all objects of the Church. A law was
published granting to all persons capable of making a a.d.321.
will the permission of bequeathing their property to the
holy Catholic Church.^ The latter, on her part, prohibited
ecclesiastics to ahenate, by their last testament, the
fortunes which they had amassed from Church revenues,
and which were to revert to the Church. They were
allowed to dispose of inherited property, but in case they
died intestate, that property hkewise devolved upon the

' Publicum certumque vectigal ecclefdis provincialibus cleroque
distribuit. Caraiod. c. ix. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. x. 6.

' Habeat unusquisqne licentiam ftanctissimflB Catholicse ecclesise
Tenerabilique concilio bonorum quod optaverit reliuquere. Cod. Theod.
lib. xvi., tit. ii. leg. 4. As Gibbon pertinently observes, this law was
passed at a time when Constantine might foresee the probability of a
rupture with the Emppr(»r of the East.

VOL. I. I

114 THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

CHAP. Church ; and a bishop who ignored or rejected the claims
' — A — ' of his co-religionists was punished with excommunication.
SSIiin"*" ^® jurisdiction of the Church was widely enlarged.

eniargeiL j^ ^\ ecclcsiastical matters it was absolute ; and the
official misdemeanours, no less than the lighter and
purely secular irregularities of the clergy, were submitted
to its cognisance. Their actual crimes,^ as well as all
offences of the laity, were arraigned before secular judges,
whilst, independently of this, the Church interfered with
her ecclesiastical correction. But the union of Church
and State led to heresy and schism being punished as
secular offences, while, on the other hand, excommunica-
tion entailed civil disabilities.

In civil disputes Constantine recognised the binding
character of episcopal arbitration, and decreed that the
parties should be allowed to appeal jointly to the tribunal
of the bishop, even when the secular judge had been
invoked and had commenced the hearing of the cause.
A subsequent decree of a.d. 331 went so far as to provide
that even where only one of the litigants had appealed
(provocare) to the episcopal tribunal, the latter should
determine the cause, and its verdict should be valid, and
executed by all secular magistrates.^
DeniOTaHs- With such privileges it can easily be understood that the
of sute pursuit of ecclesiastical employment became so keen and

patronage. *■ '• *^ .

* Cod. Theod. xvi. tit. 2. de Episc. According to the later law of
Justinian, Nov. 123, c. xxi. s. 1, ^e proceedings were as follows: —
The ecclesiastical judge, when one of the clergy was accused and found
guilty before him, pronounced his deposition, and the secular judge
then proceeded to punishment. In the reverse case, the secular judge,
after proof of guilt was established, transferred the cause to the bishop
for ecclesiastical punishment, whereupon he afterwards pronounced his
sentence.

s CkmstiL Conct. ad Ablavium. Novellae Const, ed. Ha^nel, p. 475.
Later on the episcopal jurisdiction was restricted once more to cases of
voluntary compromise between the two parties. VII. Cod. Just. i. 4.

CONSTANTINFS SUPREMACY O^'ER THE CHURCH. 115

the candidates so numerous, that special laws were framed chap.
to check the competition. All those, for example, were ^- — r^ — -
excluded whose fortunes enabled them to support the
burdens of municipal oflSce,^ and no priest was to be
ordained imless a vacancy had occurred by death. *^ But
in spite of these restrictions, the worldly advantages so
suddenly lavished upon the once persecuted, but now
triumphant Church had a most pernicious effect upon
her character. Among those who had outwardly espoused
Christianity as a passport to imperial favour there were
many who aspired to ecclesiastical offices simply because
they were lucrative. Contentions arose among the rival
candidates for a bishopric, who outvied each other in the
arts of bribery and adulation, and even in open violence. .
In this manner the prizes fell frequently to the most
unworthy recipients,^ who filled the lower oflices as
scandalously with their creatiures, until the Church lost
in inward vigour and dignity what she had gained in
extent and power. Add to this that the partiality of the
emperor did not go the length of granting complete
liberty to the Church. Just as he had organised the tin^iSitii
administration of the State bureaucracy, and broken the ro"4?f^'
power of the ancient legions by mixed levies drawn from "^"p^"-
the most various nations of the empire, in order that he
might rule alone; so the State Chiurch also was to be
subject to Ins control, and to depend for supreme guidance
upon hi8 single hand.

The first occasion for asserting this supremacy arose ^e SJiii.
with the controversy kindled in Africa by the Donatists. 3^^ ^'^'

* Cod. Tbeod. xvi. 2, de episc. et cler. I. 3.

' Cod. Theod. 1. 6. Nee temere et citra modum populi Clericis con-
nectantur, sed cum defunctus fuerit clericus ad vicem defunct! alius
alligetur.

' Basil writes (876; ep. 239, ad Euseb. Samosat.) : ' Ad miserrs
homines, vemarum vcrna», dcvenit nunc episcopates nomen/

I '2

116 THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

CHAP. The quarrel originated in a double election to the see of
w ■/ — ' Carthage. After the death of Mensurius, who had blamed
the extravagant veneration shown to the Confessors, his
party elected Caecihan to the vacant bishopric. The Nu-
midian prelates, headed by Donatus, the bishop of Casas
Nigrae, and his namesake * the Great,' opposed the election
of Caecilian on two grounds. They accused him of having
shown cruelty to the victims of the late persecution under
Diocletian. They urged, in particular, that the bishop who
had performed his ordination, Felix of Aptunga, was a
traditor — ^in other words, had been guilty of deUvering the
Holy Scriptures to an officer of the heathen emperor ; and,
moved with indignation at the recent niunber of apos-
tasies, refused to admit such traitors within the Chiurch.
They carried the rigour of discipline to the uttermost, and
confined their communion to the elect They declined,
therefore, to acknowledge Caecilian, elected Majorinus in
his place, and,after his death, Donatus (313), and addressed
themselves to the imperial proconsul, in order to obtain
his assistance against Caecilian. Constantine referred the
matter for decision to a commission, composed of nineteen
bishops, who met at Eome in 31 3, under the presidency
of Mekhiades, the Eoman bishop, and acquitted Caecilian.
The charges against the bishop who had ordained him
were examined and dismissed by -^han, the proconsul
for Africa. The Donatists, aggrieved by this reversion
of the solemn sentence of seventy Numidian bishops,
demanded a larger tribunal. The emperor, after some
hesitation, gave way, and summoned in 314 the Council
of Aries. Here again the Donatists lost their cause, and
appealed to Constantine himself. They were heard before
him in 816 at Milan ; but the verdict was once more
against them. Stung with defeat, they accused Constan-
tine of partiality, whereupon the emperor, indignant at
these insinuations, enacted rigoro^is penalties against

THE AHIAS CONTROVERSY.— COUNCIL OF N1C.«A. 117

lem, aod declared, when they persisted in their oppo- ^^^^■
ition, that no appeal was admissible from a council. - — ■ — '

Very different in importance was the controversy that Th« ahm
broke out at Alexandria, the chief seat of the metaphy- "ersy.
|rical speculations of Eastern Christianity, on the nature of
Christ. In opposition to the doctrine of Origea, that the
Logos had emanated since all eternity from the essence of
the Father, and therefore was ecjual to Him, a presbyter
of that city, named Arius, asserted that the Son, though
ibegotten before all worlds, was created by God ; that there-
ire He was rightly called God, but was dependent on
the Father. Influenced, or instigated by Athanasius, a
youthful ecclesiastic, the bishop of Alexandria cited Arius
to appear before a synod. He was deposed and excom-
municated. But the people and a large number of
Eastern bishops supported his cause : they divided for
and against him ; and a schism in the Church was im-
minent. The controversy came inopportunely for Con-
stantine. After having vainly exhorted the disputants to
abandon a dbcussion futile according to his conception of
the age, he sent Hosiiis of Cordova, his court prelate, to
Alexandria, to examine the matter, who gave his decision
against Arius. The emperor now commanded the heretic
to submit, imposed upon him and his adherents a capi-
tation tax of tenfold the usual amount, and stripped him
of his ecclesiastical privileges. But Arius, who had won
over Euscbius of Nicomedia and his namesake of Cajsarea,
the two most influential spiritual advisers of Constantine,
repaired at once to Constantinople, and shook the opinions
of the imperial theologian, who, in order to re-establish
unity, resolved at last to address himself to the entire
Church, and to assemble all the bbhops from every
quarter of the earth.

Thus, for the first time in history, appeared the idea ^
of an (Ecumenical Council. It was the untural develop.- «><"•*

118

TIIE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

CHAP.
VI.

Council of

Nic»a,Aj>.

825.

inent of the doctrine that the succession of the Apostles
was resolved on in the Episcopacy. If the bishops were
the exclusive recipients of the illuminating agency of the
Holy Spirit, then, in their collective representation of the
Church, they must be competent to determine, against all
opposition or attack, the true doctrine of the Christian faith.
Constantine, who, in summoning the Council of Nicaea,
merely drew from the episcopal system its practical eflfect,
was therefore fully justified, from his point of view, when
he aflBrmed that the doctrine upon which three hundred
bishops had agreed must be the doctrine of God.

The real head of this ecclesiastical parliament was the
emperor, who had convened it and opened it with great
pomp. Neither Arius nor his opponents commanded the
real suffrages of the assembly, which rather recoiled from
extreme definitions. But Constantine was won over by
Hosius, as the latter had been won over by Athanasius,
whose party, stimulated by the compliance of the Arians,
proceeded gradually to sharper interpretations, and
finally asserted the thesis, that the Son was * consubstantial'
with the Father (no warp) ofjLooutrios). This article the
Arians repudiated. The mediating party, under the
guidance of Eusebius, had previously condemned this
formula ; but now they also yielded their assent, partly
for the sake of peace and unity, — reserving, however,
the liberty to interpret it in their own fashion — but still
more from fear of the powerful hand which directed it
behind the Council. Only two Egyptian bishops refused
to subscribe, and were banished with Arius to Ulyricura.
Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was willing to sign the Creed
but not the anathema against Arius, was deprived of his
episcopal see. The emperor was satisfied, for he had
achieved his object. Over the Church, as over the State,
he was now de facto supreme. The bishops were
favoured with high honours and loaded with gift^, and a

TRIUMPH AND FALL OF ATHANASmS.

[ courtly prelate, as was Eusebius of Csesarea, liad the

audacity, notwithstanding the defeat of his own opinions, '
[ to designate as a prototype of the kingdom of Christ, the
banquet at whicli the unbaptised emperor, stained with
the blootl of liis nearest relatives, entertained the members
' of the Council, 'between whom he had estabUshed peace.'
But Coustantine performed with all earuestnesij his aelf-
appoiuted part before the Council. Hedeclaretl, on the
publication of its decrees, that he had examined them
I with the bishops. He ordered the writings of Arius to "
I be burnt, aud no longer read under jienalty of death ;
I and tlie followers of the heretic were persecuted with
energy. The triumph of Athanasius was complete. The
I simple deacon rose suddenly to be Metropolitan of Alex-
I andria. The idol of the Egyptian people, the terror of
[ the clergy, he had become the most important dignitary
I in the Church. But the same emperor who had permitted
I his triumph had also the power to accomplish his reverse.
I His sister Conatantia, under the influence of both bishops
I Eusebius, persuaded Iiim that injustice had been done to
I the Ariana. He recalled them from exile, reinstated
L them in their bishoprics, sent for Arius, declared himself
I satisfied with his statement, and commanded Athanasius
I to reinstall him. The latter refused, notwithstjinding
I all menaces, to execute the imperial mandate. Con-
I Blantitie summoned in 334 a council at Ciesarea, and f
\ in the next year at Tyre, before which Athanasius was d
I citetl. After a long delay he appeared, accompanied by »
I iurty bisho()a. He was accused of acts of violence, and
I £ven of murder, in the removal of the Arian clergy. He
I exposed, however, the hollowness of these charges ; and
I under the pressure of the imperial delegate, a commission
I of enquiry was sent to Egypt, while Athanasius hastened
I to Constantinople, and prevailed so far with the emperor, ,,
I that the Council was suinmoned to meet in that city. But

120 IHE CHUKCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGK

CHAP, the summons came too late. Just before the commission

VI.

' — r^ — ' had issued a most partial report, on the strength of which
the Council condemned Athanasius and ordered the resto-
ration of Arius, a deputation delivered this resolution to
the emperor, who banished Athanasius to Treves, In spite,
liowever, of Council and emperor, Arius was not reinstated
at Alexandria, where the populace rose in tumult against
liim. Constantine then commanded the bishop of Constan-
tinople to administer to him the sacrament, in token of
re-communion, when Arius suddenly expired. Eusebius of
Nicomedia resumed the leadership of his party, which had
the real majority at Nicaea, and now taught that the Logos
was created of the essence of the Father from all eternity,
and was therefore co-essential with (oju-oiowerio^), but inferior
to the Father. Constantius, however, the son of Constan-
tine, in spite of all his exertions to obtain the acceptance
of this formula, was unable to heal the schism. The
Arians themselves rejected it, and expanded their dogma
into a denial of the divinity of Christ ; and for centuries
the two parties stood irreconcilably opposed.^
SnppoMd This single example of the two Councils of Nicaea and

o/K«»ei»i^ Tyre, which within the space of ten years absolutely con-
tradicted each other, should suffice to restore to its proper
value the theory of the Episcopalists as to the infallibility
of a universal (Ecumenical Council. The doctrine of the
Catholic Church acknowledges that of Nicaea, because it
condemned Arianism, and rejects that of Tyre, which
condemned Athanasius ; but why were the same bishops
wrong at Tyre who were right at Nicasa, more especially
since Athanasius appeared at Tyre with forty of his most
devoted adherents P It is said that at Nicasa, but not at

* The final victory of the Nlcsean formula was decided by the
Second Council of Constantinople, 381, and completed by the Fifth
and Sixth (Ecumenical Councils, 533 and 680, by acknowledging a
double volition in the one Divine perEonality.

conndla.

COUNCILS OF NIC^EA AND TYRE NOT (ECUMENICAL. 121

Tyre, there was a representative of the Pope. But this c^^^-
difference cannot determine the validity of a council ; for ' — ^ — '
apart from the fact that the Eoman bishop occupied at
that time no prominent position in such assemblies, the
See of Eome was not represented at all at the Council of
Constantinople in 381, the authority of which is recog-
nised by the Catholic Chiu-ch. It is attempted to evade
this difficulty by asserting that the decrees of a.d. 381
have been made valid by the universal assent of the
Church. But in that case they were not valid by
themselves, and the Council itself was simply a delibe-
rative Commission of bishops. Equally arbitrary is the
notion of (Ecumenicity. In all those early councils the c<miicii»of
East had an overwhelming majority. At Nica?A there Tywnof
were only five or six bishops from Italy and Spain to ST'"'"*"-
nearly three hundred from Asia. At Constantinople the
assembly was composed of a hundred and fifty prelates
chosen at will, who were to legalise the forcible ex-
pulsion of the Arians from all the churches of the
East, and only one Latin bishop was found among them.
So far from any such idea being tenable, the testi-
mony of contemporary historians leaves no room for
doubt that at the Council of Nicaea, as at that of Tyre,
the will of Constantine alone prescribed the rule to
their decrees ; that at Nicaea the majority, who deemed
indeed the conclusions of Athanasius overstrained, bowed
solely to the emperor ; and that at Tyre, in like manner,
it was only through the pressure of the imperial repre-
sentative that the unjust condemnation of Athanasius
was secured.

Constantine died shortly afterwards. He deferred his Death of
baptism till his deathbed, and this delay is in complete une,
ac(X)rdance with his general views of reUgion. He be- ^'^'^^'
licved in Christianity, but he shared the current opinion
of the time, that baptism was a purely objective remedy.

122 THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

CHAP, designed to wash away sin, and as an instrument of salva-
' — r^— ' tion, and accordingly he postponed its apphcation till the
last moment, in order to be certain of dying purified fiom
all the guilt contracted during his life.

His reign was undoubtedly one of the most
momentous epochs for the Church. To do him personal
justice, it must be confessed that he foresaw correctly
that the future would belong to Christianity. Heathenism,
still powerful, he indulged, because, though moribund, its
importance yet survived ; and his sons, who endeavoured
to suppress it, called forth the last heathen reaction in the
reign of Juhan. We must further acknowledge that the
idea of a separation of the State from a religious com-
munity, to which the former was not hostilely opposed,
was entirely foreign to the age. As in the Jewish theo-
cracy, the two powers were blended in one, so in this
case spiritual supremacy was inseparably connected with
imperial power. With the acceptance of Christianity the
object only of religion was changed ; the principle re-
mained, that thejiLS sacrum was a part of the jus publi-
cum. And no one in the Church opposed this principle.
No one doubted the competency of Constantine on
questions of rehgion ; the Donatists as well as the ortho-
dox party appealed to his authority. It is true that the
Church emerged from the period of persecution with a
constitution already so perfected, that the emperor could
Bymantin- HO longer transform her as he pleased. But he ruled her,
^ded by nevertheless. In Church and State he was the founder of
CoMtan- Byzantinism, of that mechanically well-regulated, but
hfeless system of administration, barren of individual
hberty, of that union of Church and State under the
government of the State. At first, a certain balance
appeared to be preserved between Sacerdotalism and that
Imperialism into which the ancient unity of the State
was doomed to be dissolved; but the latter gradually

RISE AND PROGRESS OF MONACHISM. 123

usurped the govemment of religion, until at last it chap.
appeared no longer as the powerful patron, but as the " — * — '
chief magistrate of the Church. If Constantine was
content to conduct the proceedings of the Councils, his
son Constantius commands in plain terms the Council of
Milan in 335 to accept the semi-Arian doctrine, because
such is his will and pleasure (on-ip iyw 0owXoju.ai).^ The
decrees of the later emperors r^ulated no less the inner-
most economy of religion than the manifold phases of
civil life.*

In spite, however, of this secularisation of the official
Church, Christianity undoubtedly evinced its enormous
spiritual power through that reaction of inward vitality and
ascetic spirit which was exhibited in Monachism. In that Monach-
movement some have seen, but very erroneously, a decay
of life in the Church. In reality it is the most important
phenomenon throughout the long period from the fourth
century to the Eeformation, and has exercised almost more
influence upon religion and civihsation than the papacy and
the secular clergy. The more the hierarchy developed
itself, and the more closely the State, on the other side, en-
folded the Church, the more strenuously did her leading
minds endeavour to win back her lost independence by with-
drawing all their energies from the world, first by adopting
the life of hermits, and afterwards, to avoid the rocks of
such a life, by consorting in regulated fraternities. The
voluntary renunciation of all the pleasiures of the world,
mortifications of the body, and rigid vows took the place of
former persecution. The monasteries became the centres
of theological culture, of learning, of the exercise of
charity and benevolence — above all, of missionary enter-

' In 448 the Council of Constantinople received the decrees of the

£m))eror with the cry * voWa ra crij r^ iLpxupii ftacrtXtl,^

' Cod. I. tit. 1. De Sumrn^ Trinitate ; tit. 2. De sacrosanctis eccle-

siis ; tit. 3. De clcricis ; tit. 5. De hieretici^. Novclle iii. v. vi. vii.

124

THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

CHAP.

VI.

Growth of
hierarchi-
cal inde-
pendence.

Angna-

tine^i

•CiTitaf

prise among the heathen. The arbitrary violence of
secular power beat in vain and was broken against those
peaceful walls. Within these havens all who thirsted for
knowledge found their longing satisfied, and those who
were weary of life, repose. Thence issued all the great
religious movements up to the time of Luther, the
Augustine friar. It is true that, apart from these monastic
influences, this period of the Church had her great charac-
ters, especially in the West. It was Hilary of Poictiers who
courageously resisted Constantius when the latter wished
to force him to sign the sentence against Athanasius. It
was Martin of Tours who in 384 opposed the condemna-
tion and cruel punishment of the Prisdllianists by the
Synod of Treves, and refused to hold communication
with their episcopal miurderers. It was Ambrose of
Milan, a native of Gaul, who excluded Theodosius
from the communion of the Church, when stained
with the slaughter of the Thessalonicans. It was Basil
of Caesarea who repUed to Modestus, the prefect of the
Emperor Valens, when declaring, after a sharp reprimand
from the bishop, that he had never met with such arro-
gance before, 'just because thou hast never yet met a
bishop (quia nunquam in episcopum inddisti).

But this attitude of independence towards the State
assumed further, among the most influential Fathers of
that time, an hierarchical character, which vindicated to
the Chiurch her supremacy over the State. * The emperor,'
says Chrysostom, ' governs the body, the priest governs
the mind ; therefore the emperor must bow his head under
the hand of the priest.' This theory is estabhshed in
detail in Augustine's work on the ' City of Gkxi,' wherein
he contrasts the Church, as the civ'ttds Dei^ with the State,
as a purely human society (hominum muUitado aliquo
societaiis vinculo coUigata). Christians are to obey the
State, but only so long as the latter remains within its

AUGUSTINE'S 'CIVITAS DEI/ 125

proper sphere, and abstains from hindering the true reli- chap.
gion ; the heathen State, which oversteps these limits, ^— ■ — ^
is a cimtas diaboli. The State must understand that,
singly and unassisted, it cannot fulfil its purposes. It
requires justice; but this quality it cannot generate
alone, since justice can only exist with the true worship
of God. It must therefore devote its instruments of
power to the service of the true God, who reveals Him-
self in the Church. The State does not receive its true
mission and consecration until it has submitted its allegi-
ance to the Church. Although, therefore, it continues to
receive the obedience of the Church in all matters of
purely temporal concern, on the other hand, whenever
it refuses to obey her in spiritual matters, it accom-
plishes its own destruction ; and as to what are spiritual
matters, the Church can alone decide. This theory de-
notes already a wide interval from the doctrine of Christ
and the Apostles, who recognised the heathen State as
entitled to full authority within its own sphere, because,
as an institution, it is based entirely on the divine economy,
but separated it completely from the Church. The latter
is to preserve her full independence ; and the State, while
not intermeddhng unduly in her afiairs, is to exert its
activity on her behalf. The weapons of State-power are of
most service to the Church, when she is in difficulty with
schism or heresy, the suppression of which is incumbent
on the State : not because they disturb civil order, but
because heresy itself is a crime which the State must inter-
dict, as it had properly interdicted heathen sacrifices.
Augustine admits, it is true, that no one can be forced to
become a Christian; but he deems compulsion to be
salutary, because it brings back fanatics to their senses,
and awakes the indolent and apathetic. Compulsion in
itself he considers not objectionable ; everything depends
upon the direction and object. Many persons are afterwards

126 THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

<3HAP. grateful when they have been compelled to do what is

VI.

" good. Christ drove the money-changers from the temple
by force ; and heretics have only their own blindness to
blame when they draw down upon their heads the pimish-
ment of the Church, or of her commissioned agent, the
State. But that commission the Church could only confer
by possessing, as Augustine would have her possess, the
authority to impose her laws. The true Church is the one
universal Church,and unitymust therefore be re-established
by all the means at her disposal. The individual stands in
the relation of a minor. He is to believe in her authority :
he cannot be saved without her. It is therefore a matter
of primary concern that he should belong to her com-
munion, in what particular manner is a question of
secondary importance : at any rate, it is better by com-
pulsion than not at all.
His doc- This theory is explained by the circumstance that

CatboUc Augustine concentrates all importance on the visible
Unity Church. The grand historical fact that, in spite of perse-
cution, she has conquered and christianised the Boman
empire of the world, makes him insist exclusively on the
preservation of her unity — in other words, her Cathohcity,
wherein he perceives the secret of her success. He admits,
indeed, that unholy men exist within her communion, and
that to that extent she is a corpus permixtum ; but these
unholy members cannot, from his point of view, prejudice
the holiness of the community, for the CTiurch is holy,
not because all her members are so, but because, as a cor-
porate body and an institution, she is founded by God.
For this reason he dwells with special emphasis upon her
•nd of organisation. The ceremony of ordination, bv which
lism. episcopacy receives, continues, and translates to other

priests the Apostolic office, receives with Augustine an
essentially sacramental character, which is entirely inde-
pendent of the worthiness of the individual. In his eyes

HIS HOSTILITY TO THE DONATISTS. 127

the clergy are a class separated for ever from the laity, chap.
and entrusted with the mediation between God and man. " — r^ — '

Augustine's advancement of such high prerogatives
for the Church was provoked by his struggle with the
Donatists, who, in defiance of imperial penal edicts, and
supported by the rural population of Numidia and Mauri-
tania, maintained an obstinate conflict with the Eoman
empire and the Cathohc Church. In opposition to her separmtism
principle of Unity they represented that of Separatism, DonttiBts.
which recognises only a communion of the elect, but
whose, error consists in believing that fallible men can
discriminate who is elect and holy. The Donatists con-
founded the idea of the Church, as the communion of
saints, with the Church after her visible appearance on
earth, and required from the latter that which the in-
visible Church alone can give. In contrast to their sub-
jective idealism, which anticipated the future perfection
of the Church, and attempted to separate here already the
kingdom of God from the world, in a manner conflicting
with the necessary development of that kingdom within the
Church, Augustine insisted on her character as an objective
divine institution, whose duty it is to penetrate all nations
with the leaven of the Gospel. This position his principles
fairly entitled him to assume, and thereby he triumphantly
asserted the mission of the Church against the Puritan
Separatists of his day. At the same time, it cannot fail
to be observed, that the principles of the Donatists, in
demanding a complete separation of Church and State,
were only the natural reaction against the State-Church,
no less than against the gradually encroaching pretensions
of the hierarchy. But it was the passionate zeal of Augus-
tine against the sect, which was thus destroying the unity
of the Church, that urged him to demand religious com-
pulsion, and to invoke the power of the State to extirpate
a heresy which was a desertion at once from apostolic

128

THE CHURCH UNDER STATE-PATRONAGE.

CHAP.
VI.

Views of
reiigiouB
oompul-
sion.

Ontward
prosperity
of the

doctrine and from the teaching of TertuUian and Cyprian.
' TertuUian in particular, with all his violent invectives
against heretics, upholds, in the most eloquent terms, in
his letter to the proconsul Scapula, the hberty of con-
science and of rehgious conviction, on the ground that
the soul is born a Christian one, and that the impulse to
what is divine appears stronger in proportion as it is more
direct. * If religion,' he says, * is exercised by compulsion,
its fruits are no longer religion.' ^ Even Athanasius ac-
quiesced at first in the violent measures of Constantine
against the Arians, but when the situation was reversed,
the objectionable features of religious compulsion first
dawned upon his view. The practice encountered his
strenuous opposition, and he recognised excommunication,
or exclusion from the community of the Church, as the
sole admissible punishment against heretics. Augustine
defends their persecution on principle, just as we find in
him in general, notwithstanding all his distinguished
qualities, the germ of those Church principles which pre-
vailed in the middle ages. He regards Nature, the
individual, the family, the nation, and the State as things
comparatively indifferent, and subordinates all to the
visible, universal Church, outside of which there is no
salvation. He makes the authority of her tradition equal
to that of Scripture, and insists on the sacramental charac-
ter of ordination and the priesthood. And if he placed
still the representation of the Church in the aristocracy
of the bishops, it was merely a step, after once a separate
class of Levites had been established, towards giving the
latter also a High-priest, as the centre of unityin the Church.
From this time unquestionably the Church con-
tinued to extend her power. The attempt of Julian — the

' ' Human! juris et n&turalis potestatis est unicuique quod putaverit
colere, nee alii obest aut prodest alterius religio. Sed nee religionia
est cogere rcligionem.' c. ii.

DECLINE OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 129

* romancer/ as Strauss calls him, on the * throne of the chap.

Caesars,' — to effect an ideal restoration of the ancient reli- ^ — r^— '

gion, speedily collapsed. Gratian stripped Paganism in church
382 of all its privileges and emoluments, and confiscated death of
the estates of the temples. A few years later a decree of
Theodosius exalted Christianity into the exclusive religion
of the State, and the sole form of worship permitted to
his subjects. Heathens were excluded from all appoint-
ments in the administration and the army, and their reli-
gion lingered only in remote communities in the country,
in aristocratic families, and in the schools of philosophy.
But although the Church beciime dominant, the purity
and spiritual vigour which, in spite of her deviation from her §piri-
Apostolic tradition, she had proved during the ordeal " *^*^'
of persecution, were irretrievably lost. On all sides we
find evidence of the curse which afflicts a religion that
seeks to rule by worldly means. From a persecuted,
she becomes a persecuting Church. The Christian rabble,
inflamed by fanatical monks, destroy the temples and
the statues, and massacre the heathen priests and
philosophers. To such an outbreak at Alexandria the
noble Hypatia fell a victim. The first blood of here-
tics begins to flow ; the worship of the Virgin, of the
angels, of the saints, and of relics becomes gradually
more prominent: in a word, heathenism and Judaism
insinuate themselves deeper and deeper into the Church,
while orthodoxy elaborates dogma into a connected
system.

I forbear, at this point, to pursue further the for- Decline of
tunes of the Eastern Church, because she presents, church™
during the next three centuries, no principles that are
new. But in like measure as she fell under the govern-
ment of the State, and her patriarch became a mere
puppet of the Court, while, on the other side, the
political power of eastern Rome declined, the spiritual

VOL. I. K

130 THE CHURcaa under state-patronage.

CHAP, leadership of the Church passed over to the western

^- — ^ — ' half of the empire, where, untrammelled by the gilded

fetters of the Oriental clergy, the dominion of the

bishop of Bome expands itself into the primacy of the

Pope.

131

CHAPTER Vn.

THE PAPAL PRIMATE.

Patriarchates— Tradition of Apostolic Origin of Roman Church — The Pseudo-
Clementinse — Petro-Pauline Controversy — Theory of Joint Foundation
— Alleged Episcopate of St. Peter — Pre-eminence of Roman Church, not
bishop — Rome paramount in the West — She takes precedence of Byzan-
tium— Her Spiritual Revival in the Fifth Century — Political furtherance
of Ecdesiasticism — Disruption of Roman Empire— Growing Independence
of the Roman Bishop — Estrangement of Rome from the East — Traditions
of her Supremacy Developed — Leo I. — Bold Attitude of his Successors^
Gregory the Great — His use of Monachism — Spread of Islamism —
Conversion of the Germans.

We have seen how, under the influence of the Councils, ^yn^'
the metropoUtans rose from the ranks of the episcopate, ' — • —
since upon the bishops of the capital cities, as the natural
nurseries and centres of Christianity, devolved the guid-
ance of the ecclesiastical aflairs of the province, and the
superintendence of the other bishops within its limits.
Among these metropolitans, some again attained, in the
course of time, to a higher rank, that of patriarchs,
through the superior importance of their sees. At first p*^-
these patriarchates were only three — those of Alexandria for
Afinica, of Antioch for Asia, of Rome for Europe ; but
afterwards Constantinople and Jenisalem were added to
their number. The conquests of Islam swept away, in
later times, the patriarchates of the East, with the solitary
exception of Constantinople ; in the West, however, that
dignity never became a permanent step in the hierarchical
system, because there the process of development strove

K 2

132 THE PAPAL PRIMATE.

CHAP, to secure a monarchical head in the primacy of the bishop
* — r-^ of Rome.

The Roman Church enjoyed ab-eady in early times, and
to an eminent degree, the respect of all the communities
founded by the Apostles themselves. Tradition, indeed,
marked her as the only Apostolic Church in the West
which was founded by Peter and Paul.
Traditioii This tradition, however, is not only unsupported by

origin^ any historical evidence, but is contradicted by all known
Church. testimony. Pompey, after the conquest of Judaea, had
brought a multitude of captives to Rome. They estab-
lished there, as freedmen, a Jewish community, which was
joined by many heathen proselytes. With this society
Paul entered into connection on his visit to Rome ; it was
St Paul's expelled in the reign of Claudius. The Epistle of Paul to
with Rome, the Romaus is evidently addressed to a community, which
he himself had not founded, whose importance and doctrine
he acknowledges, but to which he wishes to communicate
his peculiar spiritual gifts. And with what success he
accomplished this is shown by the circumstance that when
brought as prisoner to Rome, the members of the brother-
hood hastened to meet him as far as the Forum Appii and
the Tres Tabernse. But neither he nor any other witness
mentions who first preached the Gospel to that community.
That Paul was not the man is testified not only by his
silence on the subject in the Epistle to the Romans
— the solitary allusion being to the ' Church ' in the house
of Priscilla and Aquila ^ — but more especially by the fact
that he made it a rule in his Apostolic ministry never to
* build upon another man's foundation,' ^agreeing rather, as
he did, with Peter, James, and John, that they should
preach the Gospel to the Jews, and he himself to the
Gentiles. ^ For this reason, the Roman Church to which

» Rom. xvi. 5. « lb. xv. 20. ^ Gal. ii. 9.

PETER'S ALLEGED CONNECTION WITH ROME. 133

Paul addressed his Epistle, cannot have been Jewish- ^SA^-
Christian.^ — * — '

Again, the assertion that Peter came a second time to ^V^®^'*
Bome, and from thence directed his Epistles to the Asiatic wjoum and
communities — the Babylon which he mentions at the con- dom/
elusion being taken to signify Eome — is just as pure a
conjecture as the hypothesis that Peter suffered martyr-
dom with Paul in the persecution of the Cliristians under
Nero. He cannot have been in Eome at the same time
as Paul, since the last verses of the Acts of the Apostles,
which describe the wide-spread ministry of the latter in
that city, make no meution whatever of Peter. After the
disappearance of his name from the Acts, we know only,
from the Epistle to the Galatians, that he had had a dis-
pute with Paul at Antioch, and that, as the latter mentions
incidentally, he travelled with his wife, preaching the Gos-
pel. When and where he met with his death is altogether
unknown/-^ Moreover, the next authentic witness from
the community at Eome, the letter of Clement (90-99)
to the Corinthians, makes no mention whatever of the
foundation of that Church by Peter, or even of his sojourn
and martyrdom at Eome. It places him on a footing of
equality with Paul, but speaks of the latter in far more
precise terms, and adopts exactly his doctrine ; a proof
how lively still was the influence of Paul's preaching in the
Eoman Church.

^ The allusion in the Greek Chronicon of Eusebius, which mentions
the second year of Claudius — Htrpoc, 6 Kopvipaioc rt)v iv 'Airioxci^
xpwrijr /icX(u»<rfcc cnxXijirtu k, ci'c * Pa»/iv}K awtiffi Ktipvrruy to ebayyiXtoy
— bears so visibly the stamp of a later view, that it can no more be
regarded as historical evidence than the rest of the constructive hypo-
theses, which seek to prove why Peter, after his expulsion from Jeru-
salem, turned to Rome. Thus Thiersch, Die Kirche im Apoatel'
Zeitalter, p. 97, aqq,

' That Renan, in spite of the labours of Protestant criticism, could
revive in his * Antichrist ' the traditions of Peter's activity at Rome,
gives but an un&vourable proof of the historical value of that work.

134 THE PAPAL PRIMATE.

CHAP. On the other hand, at the beginning of the second

-r-'-^ century there issued from the Jewish-Christian party a

Pfcirdo. work obviously designed to glorify Peter as the true
^J^^ Apostle, at the expense of Paul. In order to estimate
this book aright, it is necessary to revert to the contro-
versy which arose in the Apostolic time concerning the
behavioiu* of the heathen Cliristians to the Jewish law.
Some Jewish Christians had come into the community
founded by Paul at Antioch, who maintained the neces-
sity of circumcision for heathen proselytes ; in other words,
of their submission to the whole Mosaic law. To terminate
the dispute thus engendered, Paul and Barnabas went to
Jerusalem, where the question was searchingly examined
in an assembly of the Apostles and elders. Against the
opinion of some Pharisaic converts, who wished to see the
obligation of the ancient law unreservedly acknowledged,
it was decided, chiefly upon the advice of Peter and
James, to impose no further burden upon Gentile converts
than the avoidance of some of the practices peculiarly
offensive to the Jews, as, for example, the eating of blood.
This decision was far from concluding the general dispute ;
on the contrary, the strict Judaizing party held so firmly
to their opinions, that Peter, though opposed to them
himself, separated himself on his arrival at Antioch from
the Gentile converts, through fear of ' those who were of the
circumcision ; ' an act of timidity for which Paul rebuked
him in public. We are not told that a formal reconciliation
took place between the two Apostles ; although Peter had
only denied, through weakness, his better convictions, so
warmly expressed at Jerusalem ; and his vacillation at
Antioch fully corresponds with his character, wavering,
as that did, between weakness and courage in the faith. At
all events, the dispute continued, as we see from the later
epistles of Paul, and he himself, during his last sojourn at
Jerusalem, encountered the strongest prejudice on the part

PETRO-PAULTNE CONTROVERSY. 135

of the Jewish Christians, who accused him of teaching ^^{^^^
their brethren who dwelt among the Gentiles, ' to forsake ' — ■ — '
Moses/ ^

After the death of St. Paul, the opposition grew still Jj^^^
stronger. The Jewish Christians represented him as an contro-

vcrsv.

intruder, who had proclaimed a doctrine different from
that of the older apostles, the immediate disciples of
Christ. They declared that among these, the Lord Him-
self had called Peter to the leadership of the Church, that
apostle who had come forward as the guiding head of the
community at Jerusalem, and who, at Antioch, from his
compliance with Judaizing views, was stamped as their
representative. But, as the noble missionary activity of
Paul among the heathen could not be gainsayed or denied,
it was attempted, on ihe one side, to explain those suc-
cesses by the theory, that, by rejecting the law of Moses,
he had made Christianity more acceptable to heathen con-
verts ; and on the other side, to maintain the precedence
of the Jewish apostle by ascribing to him also the conduct
of great missionary journeys among the heathen, during
which he is everywhere made to vanquish a certain false
teacher, named Simon, who is in fact intended for Paul,
In connection with the tradition, then forming, of the
residence of Peter at Bome, it was but a short step to
transfer the last scene of this controversy to that capital
where Peter gained a decisive triumph over Simon, but
was himself supposed to be crucified.

Such are the leading outlines of the party-pamphlet
mentioned above, which can still be recognised, in its much
later, but revised, form, preserved to us in the Pseudo-
Clementinas. ^ This Jewish exclusiveness, indeed, it be-
came the more impossible to maintain in the face of the
powerful impression which the Church had received

> Acts xxi. 15. aqq.

* See Lipsius, Die Qaellen der romischen Petrissage. Kiel, 1872.

136 THE PAPAL PRIMATE.

^^j^^- from the ministry of Paul, as Jewish Christianity itself
' — ' — ' became more and more disintegrated by the dispersion of
the nation. Under the influence of the ideas concerning the
w^iUJ. Apostolic succession, which were gradually being deve-
dation of loDed at this time, a compromise was so far effected in the
Church, course of the second century that both apostles were
accepted as common founders of the community at Rome.
The oldest testimony, however, proves that this interpre-
tation of the tradition is unsupported by historical &ct.
In a letter, for example, of Dionysius, bishop of Corinth,
to Soter, Bishop of Rome, written about the year 175, it is
stated that Peter and Paul, after having jointly founded the
community at Corinth, journeyed together to Italy, and
there established, in hke manner, the Church of Rome. But
this statement, transmitted by Eusebius,^ is false in every
part ; for we know that the Church at Corinth owed its
origin to Paul alone ; that the latter did not go voluntarily
to Italy, but was taken to Rome as a prisoner ; and that,
finally, when he made his first visit to that city, he found
there the Church already in existence. The next witness
in point of date, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, who wrote
towards the end of the second centuiy, mentions, but with-
out any comment, that the Roman Church was founded by
the two glorious apostles, Peter and Paul.^ Henceforth, the
tradition remained unchallenged until the fourth century.
In all the pictorial representations of that epoch, both
apostles figure together as equals. Neither on the beau-
tiful relief in bronze, contained in the Christian Museum
of the Vatican Library, nor on the gilt glasses, where
Christ is represented as giving the crown to both apostles,
is there any evidence of precedence conferred on Peter.
On the sarcophagi of the catacombs, which may be as-
cribed to the fourth century, Peter is never distinguished
from the circle of the apostles surrounding Christ, but, on

» Hi»t. Eccl. ii. 25. » Adv. Har. iii. 3.

LEGEND OF PETER'S EPISCOPATE. 137

the contrary, his denial is the favourite subject of por- chap.
trayal. > — ,-1-^

In the meantime, the legend of Peter's residence at Alleged
Home became gradually more embellished. The Pseudo- ^st^jKter.
ClementincB of the latter half of the second century, the
spuriousness of which was first acknowledged in the
fifth, circulated the report of his episcopate at Eome.
Jewish-Christian traditions co-operated with the efibrts
of the brotherhood at Eome to exalt their Church
above all others, by representing, as their original head,
that apostle who had presided over the first community
at Jerusalem. Notwithstanding the historical emptiness
of this tradition, it was accepted, together with the legend
of Peter's crucifixion, by other fathers of the Church, and
passed current as genuine after the fourth century. Peter
is next said to have consecrated Linus as his successor,
who, in reahty, is no more an historical personage than
his immediate followers, with the sohtary exception of
Clement.

These traditions, worthless as they are, naturally sue- pre-emi-
ceeded in exalting the position of the Roman Church. ^^^
Irenffius calls it the greatest and most ancient, and gives it ^^^^^
precedence (potentiarem principalitatem) above all others. bUhop.
Cyprian goes so far as to declare that as Peter represents
the unity of the Apostolate, so through him the commu-
nity at Rome is the source and centre of the Catholic
Church. But only to the community, not to its bishop,
is this precedence ascribed. Irenasus, who gives such
glory to that community, rejects a decision of its
president with the remark that the right of giving
judgment did not belong to any one bishop in particular.
The African Church refuses submission to such episcopal
decisions at Rome in terms peculiarly emphatic. Tertul-
lian boasts of having forced the Roman bishop to retmct
the toleration granted by him to a doctrine combated

138 THE PAPAL PRIMATE.

CHAP, as heretical. Cyprian, the champion of episcopal equality,
* — ri— . replies to Stephen, bishop of Rome, in his famous contro-
versy concerning baptism performed by heretics, that
truth is not to' be settled by precedent, but by reason ;
that no province has the right to dictate laws to others ;
and that the difierence of usages does not impair the unity
of the Church, which is represented only by the whole
body of the bishops. The Council which met at Carthage
in 256, and agreed to condemn heretical baptism, unani-
mously rejected the pretensions of Rome.^ Equally
unsuccessful were the endeavours of the Roman Church to
enforce her views concerning the time of keeping Easter
and the imposition of penance by the Church. With
respect to the former, the attempt of Bishop Victor to
compel the Churches of Asia, by excluding them from
his Church and commimion, to adopt the Roman cus-
tom, met with signal defeat, and evoked in a.d. 196
the unanimous protest of the most influential teachers of
the Church. Witli regard to Church penance, decrees
were issued by provincial synods up to the foiuth century,
differing entirely from the Roman view. Nor is anything
to be found in the writings of the fathers at that time con-
cerning the later papal interpretation of the familiar words
of Christ, ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock ^ will I build
my Church.' Origen explains this passage by declaring
that every apostle, every disciple of Christ is a rock.
Chrysostom affirms that the * Rock ' signifies the belief of
the faithful. Cyprian remarks that Peter was the first to
receive the power of the keys, simply because Christ desired

* Cyprian's words at the Council were * Neque enim quisquam nos-
trum episcopum se esse episcopomm constituit, aut tjrannico terrore
ad obsequendi necesaitatem coUegas sues adigit, quando habeat omnis
episcopus pro licenti& libertatis et potestatis suas arbitrium proprium,
tamque judicari ab alio non possit, quam nee ipse potest altenim
judicare.*

« Matt. xvi. 18.

PRE-EMINENCE OF ROMAN CHURCH, NOT BISHOP. 139

the unity of the Church ; that what was granted to him ^^^^•
in the first place, as a symbol of unity, was granted later ^ — - — '
to all the apostles; that Peter had never arrogated to
himself any primacy ; ^ that Paul had o^penly withstood
him at Antioch ; and that Peter had then yielded because
his fellow-apostle was in the right.

The Eoman Church of that time numbered many
saints, who sealed their faith by martyrdom, but few men
of eminence. Her corporate importance was great, and
her authority highly esteemed, since she was regarded as
pre-eminently the guardian of apostolic tradition, while,
as the Church of the capital of the empire, she enjoyed a
peculiar prestige. But nowhere do we find any excep-
tional deference paid to her head as such. On the con-
trary, the other bishops regarded the bishop of Eome as
their equal, and addressed him as brother and colleague
Apart from the questions of minor importance above-men-
tioned, Eome took no share whatever in the great doctrinal
conflicts of the second and third centuries against Mon tan-
ism and the Gnostics, or in the Christological controversy
of Paul of Samosata. In the Arian contest, which continued
so long, and stirred the Church so profoundly, the Roman
bishop maintained for a long time a policy of cautious
procrastination. Liberius purchased his return from exile
by his condemnation of Athanasius and by subscribing to
an Arian creed, which was commonly regarded as heresy.
In the Pelagian dispute Zosimus approved of the ' Con-
fession ' of Caelestius, who, openly rejecting the doctrine
of original sin, had appealed to him, but he was sub-
sequently compelled to join in the condemnation of that
heresy by the council at Carthage (418). Accordingly, the
bishops of Rome played no part whatever in the sjmods of
that time, which decided questions of dogma, and were

' ' Nam nee Petms vindicavit sibi aliquid insolenter, aut arroganter
fUKumpeit ra primatum tenere.' Ep. Ixxiii.

140 THE PAPAL PKIMATE.

VII.

CHAP, all held in the East. During the first eight councils they
were not present in person at all ; at some they were repre-
sented by legates, but not, for instance, at the important
Council of Constantinople in 381. The decrees were
communicated to the Eoman, just as to all the other
Churches, not, indeed, for confiraiation, but simj)ly for
acceptance. In the first dogmatic decision of a Boman
pontiff*, the condemnation of the Eutychians by Leo the
Great, the latter himself acknowledged that, in order to
make his rescript a rule of faith, it required to be ratified
by the assembled bishops, which was accordingly done at
Chalcedon. The Emperor convoked, postponed, opened,
adjourned, and closed the assemblies ; and to him, there-
fore, the Eoman bishop had to apply, if he thought a
synod necessary. With regard to the post of president, it
is maintained indeed by Catholic writers that Eoman
legates occupied it at Chalcedon in 451, and at Constan-
tinople in 680 ; but no historical proof of this statement
can be adduced.

In proportion as Byzantium became the centre towards
which all imperial interests gravitated, the dignity and
independence of the Eoman bishop increased in the West.
His position as patriarch became the more prominent, as
he alone was invested with this dignity in the western half
of the empire ; and, consequently, when the precedence of
the patriarchs, hitherto one of honour, was converted into
a precedence of right, the change was pregnant with
peculiar importance for Eome. The privileges of the
bishoprics of Alexandria, Antioch, and Eome were first
acknowledged at the Council of Nicaea, as founded on the
large extent of their dioceses and ancient custom (ap;ga«a
edtj)} At the Council of Constantinople in 381, the

^ The extent of the Roman diocese was, perhaps intentionally, not
clearly defined ; but it appears from the ancient Latin translation of the
Canons of Nicaea, the Prisca, that it comprised only the ten suburbicarian
pvovinces.

GRADUAX, PRECEDENCE OF ROMAN PATRTARCH. 141

bishop of that imperial see was raised to the same position ^yn^'
of authority ; and the second rank, after that of Eome, ' '
was conferred upon him.^ This was confirmed by the
Council of Chalcedon in 451,^ notwithstanding the protest
of the Koman legates. The dioceses of Pontus, Asia
Proconsularis, and Thracia were definitely subordinated
to the bishop of Constantinople. The bishop of Jerusalem,
hitherto dependent on the see of Antioch, obtained, as
fifth in rank, the same position for Palestine ; and at the
same time it was enacted that the title of Patriarch should
be confined to those bishops whose supremacy extended
over several provinces. The patriarchs henceforth stood
at the head of the hierarchy. The metropolitans were
subject to them, as the bishops again were subject to the
metropolitans. They confirmed the election and con-
ducted the ordination of the metropolitans ; they had the
right of convoking and presiding over synods of more
than one province. And as these privileges became
obviously more important, according to the extent of the
district subordinated to the patriarch, the spiritual power
of the Roman bishop rose correspondingly with the ex-
tension of his authority in the West. Undoubtedly
all these relations at that epoch were fluctuating, since
the patriarchs formed no pentarchy and it was recog-
nised, on the contrary, that although the organisation
of the hierarchy into bishops, metropolitans, and patri-
archs was necessary for the order of Church govern-
ment, still the real representation of the Church was
centred in the collective body of the bishops. On
this account, the two patnarchs of Rome and Constanti-
nople exercised merely a de facto superiority, founded
principally on illegal usurpation ; and the recognised

' Can 3. Tec -KpEftfilia r^c r«/i^c l^^'''^^ tov r^c Put/irjQ iifitTKonor^ hia
70 tiiat avTrjy I'iav Put^triy.
« Can 28.

142 THE PAPAL PRIMATE.

CHAP, precedence of honour enjoyed by Eome gave no sort of
' — r^ — ' right to interfere in the ecclesiastical government of the
East. For a long time Eome was unsuccessful, even in
the West, in establishing, on the theory of her exalted
position, a supreme central power or primacy, endowed
with a settled legal constitution, and in destrojdng thereby
the old notion of the essential equality of all bishops.
The adjacent and powerfiil metropolitans of Milan, Ea-
venna, and Aquileia resisted all such attempts, and the third
canon of the party synod of the Athanasians at Sardica
in 343, concerning the appeal of condemned bishops to
the Eoman pontiff, did not confer upon Julius— the then
bishop — any formal right of ultimate jurisdiction, but simply
conceded to him the position of arbitrator, as a personal
privilege,^ a concession, moreover, which was flatly rejected
by the other parties. So little, indeed, could the prece-
dence of the Eoman bishop, as such, be established at that
time, that even in 424 the African Church expressly for-
bade all appeal to Eome.

While now the Eastern Church, during the latter half
of the fifth century, was gradually becoming the Church
of the State, the bishops, as functionaries and creatures of
the emperor, were perpetually being drawn into the
intrigues of the corrupt and voluptuous Court, and weak-
ening their authority by mutual dissensions. At Eome
the progress of development was very different. In the
fourth century the ancient capital of the world was still
essentially, as well as externally, heathen. The great
edifices of the third century were still dedicated exclu-
sively to the worship of heathen deities, or the perform-

^ Even if this statemeDt is disputed from the literal wording of tlie
decree (can. 3-5), it is certain that the privilege was not sanctioned by
any ancient right or custom, but introduced an innovation, resting simply
on voluntary agreement, which never obtained any real validity in the
East.

EASTERN AND WESTERN CHURCHES. 143

ance of public plays ; and the mass of the people had vn. *
carried the partem ei circenses to their liighest pitch. The ' '
mob demanded constant largesses of bread, wine, oil and
meat, and tlursted insatiably for spectacles of the most
revolting cruelty. In the midst of this society was the
Christian community, already numerous, but whose
condition has been depicted by contemporary writers in
very unfavourable coloiuis. Through the want of a strong
civil government, and with the still inconsiderable power
of the Eoman bishop, the clergy fell into the universal
immorality of society, against which even so influential a
champion of asceticism as Jerome could not prevail. In Her
the fifth century, on the contrary, the Eoman See could revTAstu
produce a succession of really eminent men, who com- ^°*°'^'-
bated the internal corruption with success, according as
they turned to account, with great consistency and skill,
every opportunity of increasing their personal influence.
Of prominent importance, towards the same object, was
the juridical tincture of the poUtical system of Home.
K the great teachers of the Greek Church were philoso-
phers, those of the Latin Church were jiu'ists. * There,'
says Thiersch, * Greek philosophy has become Christian
speculation ; here Roman law is recoined into Christian
legislation.' The poUtical struggle for an ecclesiastical Political

1 -1 ^1 T • x/» A^ furtherance

empire was even keener than the religious. It the course of ecciea-
of Byzantine development tended towards a State-Church, ** *^""*
in Rome at an early period the Church-State was con-
ceived to be the surest basis of apostolic government.
The Church, even then, had been largely enriched by the
donations made from time to time to the Roman See —
the Patrimonia Sanctorum or Petri — in honour of her
apostolic founder. From these resources aid was granted to
other Churches^ — a hberality which added to the influence
of Rome ; and as the property consisted chiefly of land
within the city and suburbs, its possession conferred a

144 TIIE PAPAL PRIMATE.

CHAP, right of participating in civil and political afiairs. But

VII.

the great historical events of the times contributed chiefly
to strengthen tlie Roman bishops in their struggle for
temporal independence. If the removal of the capital
to Constantinople had already helped to that end, still
more was gained when, after the disruption of the empire,
the mock emperors of the West sought to obtain the
support of the spiritual power, and adopted accordingly
a policy of servile complaisance.
iHnniption The rcvolutiou caused by the great migration of the
empire. natious, wliich put an end to the western empire, shook
the fabric of ancient civiHsation to its foundations, devas-
tated the city of Home, and thus completely altered her
character, exercised proportionately little effect upon the
Church. Before her the barbarians stayed their hands in
reverential awe. She mediated between the conquerors
and the conquered ; and the Eoman bishop boldly raised
his head amidst the universal ruin. While, amidst the
confused and rapid changes of temporal potentates, his
power alone maintained its character of stability, the
thought very naturally arose of releasing himself alto-
Growing gether from the supremacy of the State. He could not
Snceofthe regard himself as a subject either of the heathen or of
bishop. the Arianist German monarchs, atill less of the munici-
pality of Eome ; while, at the same time, his legitimate
ruler, the emperor at Byzantium, as whose nominal re-
presentative Odoacer and Theodoric governed at Rome,
was equally powerless to protect or to punish. While
now the seat of the only permanent empire of that time —
to speak comparatively — namely, that of the Ostro-goths,
was transferred to Ravenna, the Roman patriarch eman-
cipated himself almost entii'ely from the city and its sur-
rounding district ; nor could even the re-conquest of Italy
by Belisarius arrest this further progress of pontifical
liberty, since the viceroy of the Byzantine Court, the
Exarch, likewise dwelt at Ravenna, and his power was

GROWING INDEPENDENCE ON ROMAN BISHOP. 145

kept in check by the Langobards, favoured as they were ^ynf"
at that time by the patriarch of Kome. " — ^^

This progress of events could not fail to influence,
through its external as well as its internal consequences,
the Church of Eome. Externally speaking, in the first
placte, by the increasing estrangement of her relations ttmna^
with the Eastern Church. Eome had already strenuously Same from
resisted the reception of Constantinople among the pa- ***• '*'**'•
triarchates ; and when those efforts failed, contended at
least for the independence of the other patriarchates of
the East, which Constantinople and her Court wished to
subject to their own. In like manner, during the doc-
trinal controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries, Rome
invariably sided against the views represented by Con-
stantinople, and generally carried through her own
opinions at the councils. Felix III. cited the bishops of
Alexandria and Constantinople as Monophysites to Rome,
and excommunicated the latter prelate, Acacius. This
sentence, coupled with the exaltation of the patriarch of
Constantinople above his Eastern brethren, led to a rup-
ture, which, though temporarily healed, laid nevertheless
the first step towards the subsequent complete separation
of the Western from tlie Eastern Church. Towards the
Roman emperors of the East, in like manner, the pa-
triarchs of Rome adopted a very altered tone. Gelasius,
as early as 494, in a letter addressed to Anastasius, gives
quite the theory of the middle ages on the relations
between Church and State. ' By two powers, illustrious
emperor,' he writes, 'in preference to all others, this
world is governed ; by the holy power of the pontiffs
(poniijlcum) and by that of royalty ; the authority of the
former being the more weighty, as they will have to give
an account also for the kings of the earth before the
judgment seat of God.'^ The emperors on their part

^ Ep. ad Anast, viii., Corpiis. Jur. Can. c. 10, Diet xcvi.
VOL. I. L

146 THE PAPAL PRIMATE,

CHAP, observed towards Rome a very respectful demeanour.
' — .-^— ' Justinian announces his accession to Hormisdas, the

Roman bishop, with an expression of deference, and
receives John I., whom Theodoric had compelled to
interfere against the emi>eror's oppression of the Arians,
with a welcome not only friendly but magnificent,
^ditions With the growing ecclesiastical importance of Rome,

preinacy the traditions of her internal life assumed by degrees a
more definite shape. On the sculpture of the fourth and
fifth centuries is represented the delivery of the keys ;
and Moses is symbolised as the head of the new Church,
in the act of striking water from the rock, with the cir-
cumscription ' Petros.' The Roman Church now asserts,
as an undoubted fact, that Peter had been her founder
and first bishop, and accordingly designates herself in
plain terms the See of St. Peter. It is self-evident, how-
ever, that this assertion that Peter was the Apostolic pri-
mate, and the founder and head of the Roman Church,
could not fail, as indeed it was intended, to apply retro-
actively to the rank of his successors. From the personal
primacy of Peter was inferred the official primacy of the
Roman Church ; what her authority had settled should be
law. Innocent I. (402-17) claimed, on the authority of
the canons of Sardica, the right of deciding in all eccle-
siastical causes of importance {causce graviores or majores).
Zosimus (417-18) maintained that the Fathers had granted
to the Roman See the privilege that its judgment should
be final and conclusive. At the Council of Ephesus in
431 the Roman lesrates declared tliat Peter, to whom
Christ had given the power to loose and to bind, lives
and exercises judgment perpetually in the persons of his
Leo I., A.D. successors. Leo I. drew the same inference, only in still

440-465. "^ .

more decided terms. Remarkable no less as primate
than as teacher of the Church, he kept in view, with all
the clearness of conviction, the futiu'e of the Roman* See.

TRADITION OF PETER'S PRIMACY DEVELOPED. 147

To his eyes the Church of Eome, by virtue of the succes- chap.
sion of St. Peter, was the rock on which the whole ' — r-^—
Church rested; the Eoman bishop, by divine appoint-
ment, was her head, who was entrusted with her care.
During his dispute with Hilary, metropolitan of Aries,
he induced Valentinian III., the Eoman emperor of the
West, to publish an edict in 445, which plainly acknow- Bold atti-
ledged the Eoman primate, contirmed the decrees of the iJ^l^^^Jf
Council of Sardica respecting appeals to Eome, declared
tlie judgments of the Eoman bishop to be valid even
without the imperial sanction, and stigmatised disobedience
to them as criminal breaches of the reverence due to the
emperor.^ This law was binding, indeed, only in the
West, and was carried out but slowly ; but the course of
future action was marked out, and the disturbances in the
Dlyrian, GalHciin, and African Churches, fomented by
Arianism, gave occasion to draw them into the diocese of
the Eoman patriarchate. Gelasius (492-496) accordingly
declared that * the See of St. Peter has the right to decide
and judge in all matters concerning the faith ; no one dare
criticise its judgment ; as the canons determine that persons
from all parts of the world can appeal to it, no one, on
the other hand, can appeal against it.' And Symmachus
(498-514) writes to the Emperor Anastasius II., whom
he excommunicated, * Wilt thou, perchance, because thou
art emperor, strive against the power of St Peter ? Even
if we are to compare the dignity of the emperor with
that of the supreme ])ontiS (pontijicis), we find this great

' Nov. Valentin, iii. Tunc enim demum ecclesiarum pax ubique
servabitur, si rectorem suum agnoscat univerMtas. — Et erat quidcm
ipsa sententia per Gallias etiam sine imperial! sanctione valitura. Quid
enim tanti pontificis auctoritate in ecclesiis non liceret ? — Sed nostram
quoque prfeceptionem haec ratio provocavit, nee ulterius liceat ecclesi-
asticis rebus arma miscere aut preeceptis Roman! antistitis obviare.
Ausibus enim talibus fides et reverentia nostri violatur imperii.

L 2

148 THE PAPAL PRIMATE.

CHAP, difference, that the former has the care of human, the

VII

— r-^ latter of divine things.' In the process of law which
was instituted against him, his party put forward for the
first time the proposition that the successor of Peter can
EcdesUs- only be judged by God. Pai'allel with these growing
g^w!^^ pretensions increased that system of denying or falsifying
historical facts which was to minister to the glorification
of Rome and the power of her bishop. The decrees of
the first Council of Nicaea were inteq^olafced : the story
was fabricated of the conversion and baptism of Constan-
tius by Sylvester ; and forged writings hke the Constitu-
turn Sylvestri^ the Gesta Liberiiy and others, were circu-
lated, in order to prove the inviolable supremacy of the
See of Eomcv
GKffory The pontificate of Gregory the Great was peculiarly

a1 m-* momentous in its results. Supported by the rising Lango-
^^ bardian kingdom, he made himself more and more inde-

pendent of the restored imperial power. He greatly
enlarged the possessions of tlie Eoman See, and caused its
patrimonia to be administered directly by his confidants,
who controlled at the same time the provincial clergy ;
and he called the bishops to account whenever ecclesiastics
or laymen complained of them. Without directly infring-
ing the right of the clergy and community to elect their
bishops, he procured an influence over their election by
sending special commissioners, who attended as his vicars.
Himself a former inmate of the cloister, he was fore-
most to recognise the powerful lever which monachism
His use of offered for the aggrandisement of the Eoman See. He
tern. removed the monastic clergy from the jurisdiction of the

bishops, and made them independent of the secular
clergy by placing them directly under the Eoman See,
and giving them the right to choose their abbots without
constraint. While, as recently as 550, the African pre-
lates had not hesitated to excommuniaite their Eoman

PONTIFICATE OF GREGORY THE GREAT. 149

colleague Vigilius, Gregory succeeded, through the aid of ^^,^^-

the exarch Gennadius, in procuring a recognition, first ^-^

of his mediation, and afterwards of his decision, in the
disordered relations of the African Church, the result of
which was to allow appeals to Rome. He sought, further,
to perfect the Church in the unity of faith, discipline, and
worship. The services were conducted with mysterious
splendour ; church singing was cultivated ; bells and
organs were introduced ; the costume of the clergy was
varied according to the different grades and solemnities ;
numerous festivals were instituted ; the worship of angels,
saints, and martyrs was duly regulated. Above all,
the celibacy of the priests became rapidly more general.
It had already been proposed at the Council of Nica^a,
but, after the eloquent defence of marriage by the monk
Paphnutius, the proposal was rejected. The Council of
Trullo, in 691, sanctioned the right of the clergy to cohabit
with a wife, espoused as a virgin before ordination, but
enjoined the bishops to separate from their wives.^

And yet the position of the Eoman patriarch was
certainly very far from that of the Pope in the middle ages.
The question of his actual government of the Church was
not yet mooted ; for that purpose there was wanting en-
tirely the necessary machinery, such as the authorities of
the later airia provided : the Eoman clergy was constituted
in fact precisely like any other. No one thought of being
released by the Eoman bishop from the execution of
ecclesiastical commands. No one paid taxes to him ; he
could not exclude any member from the Catholic Church ;
if he excommunicated single bishops or provincial churches,

' This Synod legislated only for the East. In the West the practice
differed ; the popes, however, usually urging the cause of abstinence.
Leo 1. forbade marriage to subdeacons, but celibacy was far from being
a general rule. Pelagius I. (555-60) permitted the ordination of a
married priest as bishop of Syracuse.

150 THE PAPAL PRIMATE.

VII.

CHAP, his sentence had no judicial effect on their relations with
• other bishops or churches. In spite of the growing
authority of the Roman See, the Churches of Armenia, of
Syria, of -/Ethiopia, of Ireland, and of ancient Britain
maintained for centuries their autonomy. Even a man
like Gregory I. never dreamed of interfering in the eccle-
siastical districts of other patriarchs, metropolitans, or
bishops. He rejected with indignation the title of univer-
sal pontiff, which even the Apostle, who was charged with
the care of the whole Church, had never borne ; ' for,' said
he, * it is evident, and was well understood by all earlier
Eoman bishops, that directly a bishop assumes the name
of universal, and has the misfortune to fall into error, the
whole Church is in danger of collapsing ; and that, conse-
quently, the assent to the use of such a word is a real
blasphemy and denial of the faith.* ^ Accordingly, he de-
nounced its adoption by the Court patriarch of Constan-
tinople as the usurpation of a profane and senseless title.^
The position of the Eoman patriarch, who was called,
after the sixth century, as his brother at Alexandria had
been called still earlier, par excellence Pope,^ was that of
a * primus inter pares.' As late as 631, Isidor of Seville,
in describing the various offices in the Church, divides
the episcopal order into four classes — ^viz., patriarchs,
archbishops, metropolitans, and bishops; and again, in
789, the Spanish abbot Beatus represents the hierarchy
in a similar manner, and recognises the patriarchs
alone as the supreme dignitaries of the Church, naming
the Eoman as the first among his equals.*

^ Epp. ad Eulogium, ad Joannem, etc.

' Yocabulum stiiltum, superbum, pestiferum, profanum, scelestum,
imitatio Antichristi et usurpatio diabolica.

' At a Synod at Rome in 1074, it was first determinod by law, ' ut
Papae nomen unicum esset in universe orbe Christiano, nee liceret
alicui, se ipsum vel alium eo nomine appellare.*

* The Pope and the Council of Janus. Leipzig, 1869, p. 96.

EXTERNAL ADVANCEMENT OF THE PAPACY. 151

During the seventh century two events occurred chap.

. . VII

which decided, in their consequences, the further develop-

ment of the papal primacy. These were the spread of spre«i of
Islamism and the conversion of the German races to
Catholic Christianity. The former gradually annihilated
the Churches of Africa and Asia ; but this loss to Chris-
tianity was a gain to Rome, because the centres were
thus destroyed which had previously maintained more
or less their independence ugainst her. And at the same
time, by the missionary efforts of Eome, Christianity was
diffused among the Germans ; while that See, with the convewiai
keen political insight which ecclesiastical Eome had GemuuM.
received as a heritage from the Eome of heathen an-
tiquity, recognised in the barbarians who overthrew the
tottering empire, their peculiar receptiveness for Chris-
tianity, and enlisted their ripening strength in her service.
But those people received, together with the Gospel,
the doctrine that the Pope, as the successor of Peter,
was the divinely-appointed head of the Church, and
that he alone was a member of that Church who sub-
mitted himself to the papal authority. Thus Eome
advanced to the centre of the Christian world, while the
Byzantine Church fell rapidly into stagnation and decay ;
and the way was now prepared for those events which
were to confer the sole supremacy in the West upon
the Eoman Catholic Church.

162 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FRANKISH MONARCHY AND THE CHURCH — EMPIRE

AND PAPACY.

Christianity in Gaul — Fusion of Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority — ^Enrich-
ment of the Church — Her Relations with the State — Territorial Power of
the Bishops — Spiritual Decline — Degeneracy of Prankish Kings — ^The
Hierarchy reduced by Charles Martel — Reforms of Boniface — Spoliation
of Church Property — Popes and Byzantium — ^Leo the Third and Image-
worship — Gregory III. appeals to Charles Martel — Pepin — Forged Do-
nation of Constantine — Empire and Church united by Charlemagne —
Tithes — Church GoTemment of Charlemagne— Papal Election and Oath
of Allegiance — Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction — Sources of Canon Law —
False Decretals — Climax of Episcopal Power in Tenth Century — Otho
the Great compared with Charlemagne — Roman Imperialism and German
Royalty — ^MedisBval Theory of Empire and Papacy — 2^nith of Im-
perialism under Henry III.

CHAP. The German races which overthrew the Eoman empire
^^^^' of the West, founded upon its ruins a number of king-

doms, all of which together were of comparatively short
duration, and in which the German conquerors soon
blended into new nationalities with the conquered Latin
races. It was now a circumstance of the most far-
reaching importance that the Franks, the strongest of the
Si^ German tribes, and who had hitherto not come into con-
^•**- tact with Eome and Christianity, succeeded in establishing,
under the leadership of their king, Clovis, and his succes-
sors, a kingdom which reached from the Bay of Biscay to
the Inn and the Saal ; while at the same time they adopted
that Catholic Christianity to which Eoman Gaul, up to
that time divided into two parts, was attached. Chris-
tianity had taken root in Gaul at a comparatively early

THE EARLY GALLICAN CHURCH. 168

period. The druidical religion in that country was in its chap.
dechne, and the worship of tlie victorious gods of Eonie - — r-^
not yet adopted, when in Massilia, which from time
immemorial had cultivated close relations with Asia Minor,
the first Christian community was founded. The new
faith spread rapidly from the valley of the Rhone into the
interior of the country. The conquerors found a nation
exhausted by the storms which had followed the great
migration of the tribes. One class alone, the clergy, had
gained strength during the decay of civil order; the
more feeble the secular the firmer had become the ecclesi-
astical community. In the bishops the people had found
the sole champions in their need against the rapidly
changing nilers. They belongol to the people, and were
chosen by them and by the clergy ; they were the sole
bearers of civihsation in that age of barbarism. Thus to
the Franks also they appeared as the representatives at
once of the Latin population and of the Christian com-
munity. The zealous adherence of new converts to this
community promoted the spread of the Frankish dominion,
while, on the other hand, it was of unmixed advantage to
the bishops. These were the only persons whose position
was not afiected by the overthrow of the Eoman empire,
but, on the contrary, grew in importance. The Gallican
bishops had been among the first to acknowledge the right
of supremacy in the bishop of Bome, and even remained
faithful to him, when, at the establishment of the kingdoms
of the Visigoths and Burgundians, who took possession of
two-thirds of the country, they were forced to submit to
the temporal domination of the Arians. Thenceforth, in
the North they obtained i)rotection from the Catholic
Merovingians against the earlier threatening invasion of
heathenism*; while in the South, by the repulse of the
Visigoths across the Garonne and the subjugation of the
Burgundians, they were freed from the heretical Arians.

154 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP. Thus Pope Anastasius 11. coiild well hail with joy the new
^ — r-^ order of things. The Frankish kings became the beloved
sons of their mother, the Eoman Church, and were called
her pillars of iron. Closely, therefore, as the interests of
the newdjTiasty and the Church were interwoven, it cannot
be wondered at that the latter, which already had acquired
under Eoman rule no inconsiderable possessions, was
richly endowed by the kings. The violation of the persons
or property of ecclesiastics was punished with especial
severity. The large amount of weregild which the
laws imposed in favour of the clergy, is a proof of
their growing estimation. The observance of Sunday
was enforced by law, and the privilege of sanctuary
in churches was largely extended. This pohcy of in-
Fusionof dulgence fell far short indeed of granting autonomy
ecciesiaa- to the Churcli. Ou the contrary, as her dignitaries
thorityl' constituted also a power in the temporal sphere, so
the secular potentates exercised a similar authority in
spiritual matters. Thus the mutual interfusion of the
ecclesiastical and political elements of society became a
characteristic of that age. The convocation of synods
was dependent on the consent of the king, and their
decrees were submitted to his scrutiny and sanction.
Later on, in the place of the synods came the concilia
mixta^ at which the bishops and the temporal grandees
assembled, to deliberate in common on the laws for the
State as well as the Church. So long as the bishops
were drawn from the population of lloman Gaul, the
canonical method of their election by the clergy and com-
m^aity, under the co-operation of the neighbouring
bishops of the province, was maintained, and the kings
continued to confirm the choice. In proportion, then, as
Franks of high position applied for episcopal sees, the
monarch exercised a direct influence upon the election.
By a Capitulary of 614, Clothaire III. reserved to himself

HER JURISDICTION. 155

the right of appointing learned and worthy members of ^,^,4?-
his Court clergy, and soon the electoral prerogative passed ' — '— -*
entirely into the hands of the king, who granted bishoprics
like secular offices. In a similar manner the landed pro-
prietors exercised the right of appointing priests to the
churches which they had built and endowed, and which
for the most part remained in their possession.

As regards jurisdiction, the Church was absolute in all Kcciemas-
ecclesiastical affairs, and maintained discipline over the civiijuru-
clergy, as well as over the laity, by diocesan visitations,
and by their pecuhar institution of synodal judicature.
In all criminal offences of the clergy the competency of the
secular magistrate was an established principle ; but the
bishops were so far privileged that, although summoned on
indictment to appear before a secular tribunal for trial, the
sentence could be pronounced only by the Synod, which
limited its punishment, according to ecclesiastical law, to
deposition from office, excommunication, and confinement
in a cloister. With regard to the inferior clergy, the Church
obtained merely the assurance that they should be judicially
punished in conformity with canonical law, to the exclusion,
therefore, of torture, and their cases tried by their eccle-
siastical superiors. In civil causes, if both parties, or even
the defendant alone, belonged to the clergy, as also in all
mixed questions, the Church had the right of instituting
in the first place an arbitration before the episcopal tri-
bimal {audientia episcopi). If this proved ineffectual,
then the secular magistrate decided. The latter also
determined such disputes as those relating to diocesan
boundaries, in so far as they involved immovable pro-
perty ; questions of tithes, as real rights of usufruct ; and
the deposition of a priest by his bishop, as a quarrel
between the landed proprietor and his vassal. There
were civil laws also of mheritance and of marriage, in
addition to the canonical regulations on such matters.

156 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP. The State did not prevent the Church from putting her
^ — r-^ own ordinances into execution, so far as she could do so
by ecclesiastical means, and if the parties agreed thereto ;
but when these conditions were wanting, then the State
asserted its competency. The Church had therefore no
tribunal in the sense of a pubhc constitution ; but she
certainly enjoyed at that period considerable privileges,
the more so, because lier spiritual punishments not only
possessed a great deterrent influence in themselves, but
entailed, moreover, a multiplicity of temporal disadvan-
tages, such as exile and confiscation of property, which
ment^of the ^'^Wowcd upou excommuuication. But, besides this, the
Church. Church exercised upon her own territory the same
supreme jurisdiction as all other landed proprietors, and
her territorial possessions, to which a legal sanction had
been affixed in 313 by the Edict of Milan, were increased
by the liberality of the kings, and still more by the
charitable foundations and gifts of private persons, whose
zeal or repentance the clergy well understood to turn to
profitable account.^ By legacy-hunting, moreover, and by
forgeries of charters, they had enlarged their estates so
far, that their extent at the end of the seventh century
may be computed at one-third of the entire landed property
in Gaul.
Her reia- All this, however, effected a material change in the

thTsute? relations of the Church to the State and the civil com-

* As crimes were compounded for by weregild, so sins were atoned
for by oblations to the Church, since the priests taught that whatever
was given to the Church was given to God Himself. Thus Eligius,
bishop of Noyon (639), declares that only donations to the Church and
the poor are to be r^arded as inalienable property. ' Quod si obser-
vaveritis securi in die judicii ante tribunal asterni judicis venientes
dicetis : Da Domine, quia dedimus.' Here, then, we find the principle
of simple piurchase set up, whereas previously this condition at least
was affixed, that the gifts of charity muht be offered with a contrite
heart, in order to be of any avail. Salvianus ad Ecclesiam, circa 480.

TERRITORIAL POWER OP THE BISHOM. 157

munity. As regards the latter, the bishop was not only the chap.
ecclesiastical head of his diocese and of those clergy who ^ — r-^
were entirely dependent upon him, but also the wealthiest
person of his district, and lord of the Church property
within those limits, as well as over all who lived upon it.
But with respect to the position of the Church towards
the State, we must remember that in the Frankish mon-
archy the exercise of State power was virtually compre-
hended in the supreme direction of war and the adminis-
tration of justice. All objects outside those functions
the State left to those autonomous associations, the corpor-
ations of the commujiey of boundaries, and of trades. Among Territorial
these corporations, the Church, from her increasing terri- KrbUhops.
torial possessions and her immunities, had become by far the
most powerful, and enjoyed absolute self-government and
the unrestricted exercise of her rights. The concentration
of an enormous landed property in the hands of a corpor-
ation, endowed in other respects with large privileges,
constituted a State within the State. The concentration
of the Church property of a diocese presented a compact
entirety to the civil power. The bishops became the
more independent as they were the sole subjects of the
realm who were judged only by their equals, and were
responsible only to the ecclesiastical tribunal of the synod.
But the consequences of this exceptional position, no less
than of the increasing opulence of the superior clergy,
were momentous for the internal relations of the Church.
The bishop certainly had to defray from the proceeds of
the Church property the maintenance of ecclesiastical
fabrics and of the inferior clergy, but the latter were
placed by that means completely under his power ; they
dared not leave the diocese without his permission ; they
could be degraded by him ; ^ and were subject to his

* The docttine of the character indelibilis belongs only to a later
time.

158 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP, power of punishment. Of course they could appeal to
^ — r-^— metropolitans and to synods, but the bishop was only
subordinate to the metropolitan in matters of external
policy, and the synods could not exercise any permanent
supervision. If ever they did interfere against the bishop,
they adopted the mildest possible measures, in order not to
undermine spiritual authority. In this manner little by
little the discipline of the Church went completely to ruin.
Although, therefore, in the Frankish kingdom, where the
d^^e.*^ ancient traditions of heathenism were still struggling with
Christian teaching, and the various nationalities were torn
with mutual feuds, and where the corruption of the Latin-
Celts was mixed with the rudeness of the German con-
querors, the Church remained the great civilising power,
nevertheless, in spite of her preaching clemency towards
prisoners and bondsmen, caring for the sick and needy,
protecting the widow and the orphan, and striving to curb,
by means of ecclesiastical discipline, the grandees who
oppressed the poor, she herself did not escape the growth
of worldliness and the ravages of moral decay. In the
universal scramble for riches and lucrative benefices, the
grossest immorality prevailed and spread, and Gregory of
Tours had good reason to lament that the tares of the
devil flourished among the bishops of the Lord.

The danger thus arising to the State was all the more
formidable, because on the one side the Merovingian
dynasty was being distracted by horrors only equalled by
the crimes of Atreus, while the sceptre of the once
i>««ener- powcrful Fraukish kings fell into the hands of decrepit
F^rankiah wcaklings ; and, on the other side, because the stability
of the State itself was seriously threatened from without.
From the North-east were pressing forward the tribes of
the Saxons and Frisians who had remained imconverted
and unsubdued ; while in the South swelled the mightier
torrent of victorious Islamism, which overthrew the king-

raERARCHY REDUCED BY CHARLES MARTEL. 159

dom of the Visigoths in Spain and poured its deluge over ^yiii'
the Pyrenees into the kingdom of the Franks. The ' — ' — '
danger was imminent, that heathenism and Mahomedan-
ism should decide the destiny of Western Europe, and
annihilate the scarcely settled fabric of Christian civilisa-
tion.

It was a circumstance, therefore, equally opportune
and important, that in the chief officers of the Merovin-
gians, the administrators of the domains of the crown,
or mayors of the palace, a power arose which prevented JJ*'JJ^[^?J
the declining kingdom from faUing to pieces. Hitherto,
there had been generally three mayors for the three great
divisions of the kingdom, Austrasia, Neustria, and Bur-
gundy. Pepin Heristal, by his victory at Testri in 687,
made himself sole mayor (Major donius^ diix et princeps
Francorum), and employed his power, thus usurped, to
repulse the attacks of the Frisians and Saxons. Still
more extensive was the restless activity of his famous
son, Charles Martel. He saw that the ever-increasing J^« ^

..",.•• T /.I ., . . hierarchy

territorial mdependence of the bishops was imperilling redncedby
the stability of the State power, the more so, since Mirtei.
many of the royal officers, counts, and dukes were also
aspiring to a similar position. A kingdom thus disin-
tegrated into smaller principalities, could not resist the
threatening irruption of the Saracens. Charles broke the
power of these territorial prelates and nobility, by con-
verting the secular potentates once more into officers of the
crown, and by reducing the bishops so far to dependence
on the government, that he claimed the exclusive right of
appointing, and even of deposing them, according as
political considerations might dictate. He treated them,
therefore, as mere functionaries of the State, without
regard either to canonical law or to those judicial prero-
gatives which had been regarded till then as inviolable.
Having thus reconsolidated the power of the State, he

160 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

^vitr ^^^ve back for ever the Saracens across the Pyrenees by
"• — ' — ^ the decisive battles of Tours and Narbonne.

The prominent position which he secured by this
triumph was soon brought to bear upon other territory.
In Germany, as far as the Eoman rule extended, bishop-
rics had been founded along the Ehine and the Danube.
Under the influence of the Franks, Christianity had
advanced as far as the Saal, but without any ecclesiastical
system, and tinctured with heathenism. On the Maine
and in Suabia the British missionaries Elian, Fridolin,
and Columban, had preached the Gospel, but this mission
was regarded with jealousy by the Eoman Church, be-
cause, in common with a large portion of the British
Church at that period, it denied the right of the Pope to
pronounce final decisions. As a counterpoise to these
proselytising efforts, Gregory II. in 7 13 sent the English friar
^^BinUkL Wi^fri^^5 better known as St. Boniface^whom, as he writes,
toGer- • * we have consecrated bishop, whose faith and morals we
have approved, and whom we have instructed in the precepts
of our ApostoHc See' — to 'proclaim the Word of God to the
German people eastward of the Ehine, who are still im-
prisoned in the darkness of heathenism.' Boniface, there-
fore, whom Charles Martel, at the request of the Pope,
provided with a letter of protection to all temporal and
spiritual dignitaries, was an apostle of the Germans, not in
the sense of having been the first to preach the Gospel to
them, but because he brought about the overthrow of
heathenism, and organised the German Church, assimilating
her system to the Eoman hierarchy. The bishops of Eatis-
bon, Salzburg, Passau, Freisingen, Wurzburg, and Eichstadt,
recently appointed by him when archbishop (he was nomi-
nated by Gregory III. in 732), had to promise, with all the
other Austrasian prelates, at the * Concilium Gernianicum '
in 742, to submit themselves to the discipline of the Eoman
Catholic Church, under its guardian and protector, the

BONIFACES MISSION TO GERMANY. 161

Pope, and to request the pallium at his hands, in token of chap.
subjection.^ Two years later the clergy of Neustria, at the -» » '-'
Synod of Soissons, bound themselves to obey the Papal
See. But it must be considered that Boniface, with all
his devotion to the papacy, in no way entertained the
later theory of the absolute power of the popes, accord-
ing to which the bishops appear only as their delegate?.
His conception of the hierarchy was that which Rome
herself at that time had not pushed further than himself,
and according to which every superior grade controlled the
one below it, but each was entitled to equal rights within
its own limits. As the metropoHtans were over the
bishops, so the Pope, as the keystone of the hierarchy,
was the head of the whole Church ; he decided only in
the last resort, and administered the order and govern-
ment of the Church in conformity with her laws. Boniface
opposed the interference of the popes with the privi-
leges of subordinate dignitaries of the Church; as, for
instance, when Stephen, during a visit to France, conse-
crated a bishop of Metz, a duty which, according to the
canons, belonged to the metropohtan.^ K, therefore, it
must be admitted that Boniface, by his active interference,
interrupted the independent development of the German
Church, and facilitated her union with the Papal See, we
must emphatically remark, on the other hand, that it was
hopeless to look to the internal vitality of the Prankish
clergy for a regeneration from their demoralised condition.
When Charles Martel found himself compelled to break
the territorial independence of the bishops, he could not
arrest the internal decay of the Church : he even hastened

' Decrevimus in nostro synodali conventu, et confessi sumus fidem
Catbolicam, et unitateiu et subjectionem Komanae ecclesise fine tenus
servare, S. Petro et vicar io ejus velle snbjici, metropolitanos pallia ab
illu sede quserero, ct per omnia pr8ecei)ta S. Petri canonice sequi.

* Rettherg, Deutsche Kirchengeachichte^ i. p. 413.

VOL. I. M

162 MONARCinr and church— empire and papacy.

CHAP, that decay by appointing men to bishoprics who had no
*• — r-^-" other claim than that of devotion to his person, and who
were frequently quite unworthy of their ecclesiastical
position. Only a strict hierarchical discipline could re-
store order in the Frankish Church, and Boniface devoted
all his energies to its regeneration in this respect. As no
council had been held in the Australian Church for more
than eighty years, stringent decrees were passed at the
ConciUum Germanicum above-mentioned, for the revival
of Church discipline, for the holding of annual synods, for
the subordination of the clergy as well as the monasteries
to the bishop, for regulating the duties of the parochial
clergy, and for the suppression of heresy as well as the
lingering remains of heathenism.^ Similar regulations
were prescribed for the Neustrian Church at the Council
of Soissons, and the decrees of both councils were em-
bodied in the Frankish laws of the kingdom. The
nomination of bishops by the State was not touched upon.
At the Concilium Germanicum, Carloman confirmed the
election of bishops nominated by Boniface, as well as the
elevation of the latter to the archbishopric, in the form
of an independent nomination ; ^ only the granting of
bishoprics from motives of worldly interest was prohi-
bited by the regulations then issued. But although
Carloman and Pepin, under the influence of Boniface,
renounced this latter practice, both of them fastened upon
another but equally decisive measure to control the pro-

' Can. V. Decreviinus ut secundum canones unusquisque episcopus in
SU& parochia sollicitudinem adhibeat, adjuvante gravione qui defensor
ecclesiae est, ut populus Dei paganias non faciat, sed ut onines spurci-
tias gentilitatis abjiciat et respuat. — Walter Pontes, Jar. Eccl. Vol. I.
p. 19.

' Ordinavimus per civitates episcopos, et constituimus super eos
archiepiscopum Bonifacium, qui est missus Sancti Petri. — Ibid, p. 18.
Not Cologne, as he and the pope wished, but Mentz was assigned to
him in 745 as his see.—* Rcttberg,' I. p. 356.

PRANKISH SPOLIATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 163

perty of the Church. Akeady under Charles Martel, the chap.
bishops appointed by him had shown their gratitude by ^ — r-l-^
granting leases of Church lands, usually for life, to lay- o/c'h"ureh
men, under the name of precancer as having been obtained P«»p<*ty-
originally at the prayer of the grantee. The laity, on the
other hand, appropriated in various ways by force large
ecclesiastical possessions. It was now determined, that
in order to satisfy the growing exigencies of the State,^ those
domains should continue in the hands of their present posses-
sors. The latter, in return, were bound to render to the
sovereign additional service in war, and to give to the
churches, on the other side, an acknowledgment wherein
they declared that they had received the property as life-
tenures in fief, precaria verba regis^ and promised to pay
a certain rent to the Church, to enable her to supply her
necessities. After the death of the feofiee, the estate
reverted to the Church, who, however, eventually (' si
necessitas cogat ei princeps juheat') was required to
alienate it again. In this measure the clergy acquiesced,
through the pressure of the times, and when Boniface
complained of it to Pope Zacharias, the latter referred him
to the impoverished condition of the kingdom, and
remarked that they must be content with what rent they
could get, and postpone any further claims to a more
favourable turn of afiairs. The Church submitted, in spite
of the resistance of Boniface, because at Home this com-
promise was by no means regarded as a simple surrender,
but as the price for the incorporation of the Prankish
Church into the Eoman hierarchy, and because, at the
same time, the pope, by his pliable conduct on this point,
established all the stronger claim on the protection of Pepin
for his temporal independence, then so hardly pressed.

' Propter imminentia bella ct persocutiones ceterarum gentium qua;
in circuitu nostro sunt, in adjutorium exercitfts nostri. Capit. of C-ar-
loman, a.d. 743. Baron. Ann. Eccl. xii. 191.

M 2

1G4 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

ciTAP. Formerly no pope, after his election by the people

— r-^ and the clergy, could obtain consecration without the
MdByJlS- sanction of the emperor. The proceedings of the elec-
tium. iJqjj were scrutinised at Byzantium, and the imperial con-
firmation had to be waited for, before the new pontiff
could consider himself as the legitimate successor of St.
Peter. Indeed the election of the Eoman bishop differed
so little from tliat of other bishops of the empire, that
the imperial lieutenant at Eavenna Avas generally com-
missioned to examine and to confirm the election. But a
new era now began. While the general confusion caused
by the great migration more and more profoundly agitated
Italy, the Eoman Church alone had augmented her power
and her possessions. Irrespective of her wealthy estates in
other parts of Italy, the Eoman bishop, by the removal
from Eome first of the emperors, and then of the Gothic
kings, had gradually, but in the strictest sense, become the
supreme head of the city, as of the adjacent patrimony of
St. Peter. Although the popes were not in a position
to refuse obedience to the existing sovereigns, who, even
if, like Odoacer or Theodoric, they were Arians, exercised
the right of the Eoman emperors to confirm their election
as bishops of the empire, still they understood dexterously
to steer a middle course between the contending powers,
and to push themselves forward between them into a
position of greater freedom. Under Theodoric they in-
clined to the side of the Byzantine emperors ; after the
latter had re-established their dominion in Italy, to that of
the Lombards, who had founded a kingdom in the north
of Italy in 568, had embraced the CathoUc faith, and
rapidly coalesced with the provincials into a new nation-
ality. The bishops of Eome had invariably taken the
opposite side to Byzantium in questions of dogma, and
the Monothelite dispute in 649 had served to embitter the
old antagonism. A new religious controversy now offered

LEO TIIE ICONOCLAST AND THE LOMBARDS. 165

to them an opportunity to shake off entirely the imperial chap.
yoke, Leo the Isaurian had resolved to abolish the wor- ^ — r-^-
ship of images, which seemed to him to darken the i^S image
spiritual atmosphere of Christianity, and accordingly ^o^»p-
issued an edict in 726, prohibiting their adoration as
idolatrous. This decree, which was regarded as an inno-
vation, excited tumults even in the Eastern empire,
and in Italy produced a general rising of the people.
At Ravenna the exarch Paul was killol ; and Gregory,
yielding to the popular current, convoked a synod of
Latin bishops at Eome, excommunicated the emperor
himself as a heretic, and suspended the payment of the
customary vectigalia to the imperial treasury. Liutprand,
the Lombard king, taking advantage of these disorders,
noAV came forward as the champion of orthodoxy and the
Church, invaded the exarchate, seized Ravenna,* and
claimed the dominion, vacant by the death of the exarch,
for himself. Thence he pushed his rule gradually
farther into Italy, and seemed to be upon the point of
expelling the Byzantines, who hitherto still maintained
their position in the south and east of the peninsula. Italy
would thus have obtained her political unity, but that
this very consummation was regarded, not unnaturally,
by the pope, as a serious danger to his spiritual primacy,
which could only be enforced with the support of his
temporal independence. He had raised himself in propor-
tion as this had increased : if the Roman bishops became
subjects of the kings of Italy, as they had hitherto un-
doubtedly been subjects of the Roman emperors, their
supremacy in the Church was at once imperilled. In
face of this impending danger, Gregory 11. had already cregoiy
persuaded Ursus, the imperial governor, to undertake the ti cKiS?*
recovery of Ravenna, and sought to conciliate the schis- J^'Swi th«
matic emperor by opposing the designs of the Ravenna- ^"»^»'**«'
tines to set up an emperor of their own. His successor.

166 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP. Gregory lH., alarmed at the advance of Liutprand upon
^ — r-^ Rome, sent bishop Anastasius in 740 to Charles Martel,
who, after the death of the phantom monarch Theodoric
IV., governed alone as regent. The papal ambassador
delivered to him the keys of the shrine of St. Peter, as
a symbol of sovereignty,^ and entreated him to deliver
Rome from the power of the Lombards, adding the secret
promise that, in this case, he would renounce, with the
Roman people, his allegiance to the Byzantine emperor,
place himself under the protection of Charles, and confer
upon his protector the titl of patrician of Rome, which,
shortly after the restoration of the Byzantine rule in
Italy, had been bestowed on the Exarch of Ravenna as
lieutenant of the emperor. Little right had the pope,
indeed, thus to dispose of an office established by his
legitimate suzerain ; but besides this, the political relations
between the Frankish and Lombard kings were not such
as to provoke their mutual hostility. Both, on the con-
trary, had previously been on excellent terms. Liutprand
was the friend of Charles, and the extension of his rule over
the whole of Italy could never endanger the vastly superior
power of the latter ; while the Franks, on their part, had
never interfered in the relations of the Lombards with
Italy. Charles, accordingly, declined the papal offer, how-
ever flattering the mission was to him. The pope, however,
understood so artfully to make his peace with Liutprand,
that the invader not only withdrew from Rome, but
was ready to give the town of Sutri ' to the holy
apostles Peter and Paul,' in the person of the Roman
bishop, a gift which he, as conqueror, might be entitled
to bestow, but which Gregory III. was certainly wrong
in accepting, it being the property of his sovereign, the

* * Conjuro te . . . per sacratissimas claves confeasionia Beati Petri,
quas vobia ad regnum direximus.' Anast. ap. Baron, ad. aim. 740.
Ano^ier reading gives * ad rogum.'

PEPIN ASSISTS TIIE POPE. 167

Byzantine emperor. His successor, Zacharias, obtained chap.
still more important donations from Liutprand, and under- ^ — r-i-'

stood to keep on good terms with him.

So fiar the popes, by a timely reconciliation with the
Lombards, had been able to preserve an artificial balance
of power in Italy. But matters assumed a difierent com-
plexion, when Astolph revived the project of uniting the
peninsula under one sceptre, recaptured Kavenna, and as
successor of the exarch, demanded the submission of Eome
and the Eoman duchy. Once more and with better
success, the Pope applied abroad for aid, this time to the
son of Charles Martel, who already, with his concurrence,
if not at his command,^ had dismissed Chilperic, the last
of the Merovingians, into a convent, and usurped the
Frankish crown. According to the law of the Franks, Pep". 762-
the Merovingians were the only nobileSj and only such an
one could be king. Pepin's family, the Arnulfingians, were
not of noble origin, and he felt the necessity of supplying
this defect by obtaining the sanction of the Church. This
sanction the pope Zacharias wilhngly bestowed, declaring
that it would be better that he who possessed the power
should also bear the title of king.* His successor, Stephen
ni., against whom Astolph renewed his oppression, now
resolved to invoke the aid of Pepin in person. He
hastened to the monastery of St Maurice,' and was
received with great honour by the Frankish king at his
palace at Pontyon, who promised to restore the exarchate
of Ravenna and all the privileges of the Eoman republic.
The next year (754) Pepin, finding his remonstrances to

* ' Juflsu Romani pontificis dei)0sitU8 ac detonsus est.* Eglnhard
Vit. Car. Mag. c. 1.

* * Ut melius esset ilium rcgem vocari, qui potestatem haberet, quam
ilium, qui sine regali potestate manebat, ut non conturbaretur ordo.'
Annal. Franc, ap. Duchesne.

' Anast. ap. Baron.

168 MONARCHY AND CHURCn— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP. Astolph rejected, summoned his nobles to meet him at
•^ — r-^ Braine, near Soissons ; and finally, at a diet convoked at
Quiercy ^ durmg the Easter festivities, solemnly renewed
his promises to the pope, and undertook to reinstate him
in the territory, which had been wrested from him by the
Lombards. Stephen, in return, commanded the Franks,
under pain of excommunication, to choose in future no
sovereign from any other family than the Carlo vingian,^
and invested Pepin with the title of patrician of Eome,
a dignity which, of course, he had as little right to bestow
as his predecessor had to ofier it to Charles Martel.
Pepin promised to Stephen the restitution of Eavenna and
of the exarchate.
The forged This word restitution (restitutio) first becomes in-
constan- telUgiblc whcu connected with the fictitious donation
of Constantine, manufactured at Eome. According to
the legend, Constantine was healed of the leprosy by
the pope Silvester ; and out of gratitude, granted to the
Eoman see the supremacy over all the churches of the
earth, and in particular over the patriarchates of the
East ; not only the palace of the Lateran and the imperial
insignia, but the sovereignty of Eome, Italy, and the pro-
vinces of the West — that is to say, Lombardo-Venetia and
Istria. The object of this fiction was to give an historical
colouring to the ' restitution ' of Pepin, as the Prankish
monarch would hardly have resolved upon a rupture with
the Byzantine emperor, had the pope not understood
how to convince him that the restitution was simply that
of an old donation to Eome. Hitherto Eome and the
Eoman duchy had been considered part of the territory
of the exarch ; now, since the expulsion of the latter by
the Lombards, Eome was placed in the centre, and the

^ * Ad locum qui Carisiacus appellatur.' Anast. Hadriani I.
* ClauBul. de Peppini in Franc, regem consecr. ap. Bouquet, vol.
V. p. 9.

THE POPE BECOMES A TEMPORAL POWER. 169

exarchate included in her possessions, while the pope was chap.
made to occupy the position of his imperial suzerain.

Astolph, routed by the Frankish troops at Pavia, yielded J^^^^ *
to the menacing power of the conqueror, but no sooner p®^*'-
had Pepin withdrawn his forces, than he broke his pro-
mises of peace, and marching upon Eome, demanded the
surrender of the pope. The entreaties of Stephen
brought Pepin himself to Italy ; and the final overthrow
of the Lombards was followed by the establishment of
the pope in the promised exarchate. While thus the
papacy not merely freed itself ecclesiastically from the
efiete Byzantine empire, whose ambassadors vainly de-
manded the restitution of Kavenna, but entered definitely
into the circle of the temporal powers, the first germs
were introduced of those intestine divisions which origi-
nated from the concentration in a single person of the
temporal and spiritual sovereignty ; and the disintegra-
tion of Italy was sealed for a thousand years, since
the papal policy had henceforth to be directed in such a
manner as to keep the peninsula so divided that the
mutual jealousy of the difierent rulers should ensure the
independence of the pope.

The work thus begun was completed by Pepin's son, Charie-
Charlemagne. At first, indeed, it appeared once more as ttSsh
if Lombards and Franks, by a double alliance between
the two dynasties, would be united ; for, in spite of the
protest of Stephen III., who denounced this union, by
which the * glorious people of the Franks would be defiled
by the perfidious and foetid Lombards,^ as a * truly
diabolical suggestion and a marriage of the most shameful
kind,' Charlemagne persisted in espousing the daughter of

' * Perfidy quod absit, et foetentissim^ Lfangobardarum gente, quas
in numero gentium nequaquam computatur, de cujus natione et lepro-
Borum genns oriri certnm est.* Cod. Carol, ep. xlv., ap. Murat. III.
part ii. p. 179.

170 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

^vitr I^^i^^rius, the Lombard king. Scarcely, however, had

' — ^-— ' twelve months elapsed when he repudiated her, with the
exulting approval of the pope ; and three years later he had
broken the power of the Lombards, adorned himself at Pavia
with the iron crown, and made Northern Italy a part of the

A.D. 774 kingdom of the Franks. As regarded the papal territory,
a forged document was laid before him by Adrian at Eome,
which purported to be a donation made by his father.
Charlemagne renewed it, just as it was shown to him^
and therewith gave away whole tracts of territory — in-
cluding Corsica, Venetia, Istria, Parma, Eeggio, and others,
none of which were in his possession ; adding, however, a
later stipulation to the gift, that Eome should first prove
distinctly the legality of her title. With regard, however,
to the election of popes, he was not content, as his father
had been, with asserting his right of confirmation as one
which he had inherited from the exarch,^ but he claimed
a feudal suzerainty over Eome, which was not formally
included in any of the donations, as well as over the
entire temporalities of the Curia. But the pope needed
such a supreme protector against the refractory nobles
of the Campagna. Leo HI., the successor of Adrian,
was compelled, in 799, to fly from a conspiracy among
them, and to appeal for assistance to the patrician Charle-
magne, at Paderbom, who conducted him back to Eome,

Crowned ^^d was crowucd by him Eoman emperor on Christmas

IS^m Day, 800.''

* Lorenz, in bis instructive work, Papstwahl und Katserthum,
draws attention to the &ct, that the letter in which Paul I. begged for
the assent of Pepin to his election is the same formulary as that in
which the sanction of the exarchs of Ravenna was requested.

* Three distinct theories, none of them entirely correct, were put
forward, in later times, concerning Charlemagne*s coronation. The
Swabian emperors ascribed his title to the right of Conquest; the
Roman party to his election by the senate and people of Rome ; the
popes asserted that he owed his dignity to the Holy See. Bryce, * Holy
Roman Empire,' p. 57.

CHARLEMAGNE CROWNED EMPEROR. 171

This event was an epoch, in the highest sense chap.
of the term, in the history of the world ; for it ^ — r-^
decided for centuries the fate of Western Christendom.
The majesty of the Eoman empire, moreover, made a
profound impression upon the German nations, who had
overthrown its supremacy in Western Europe. Their
princes were proud of the titles which they received
from the emperor. Athanaric, the Gothic chief, during
his visit to Constantinople in 381, exclaimed, * Surely
the Emperor must be a god on earth,' ^ and the chief
ambition of Ataiilf was to restore the Eoman name by the
power of Gothic arms.^ The Eoman population of Italy,
on their part, esteemed these military monarch s as imperial
lieutenants, even after Byzantium had lost all real power
in the peninsula ; and when Belisarius re-conquered Italy,
he wa5 regarded by the people simply as the restorer of
legitimate order. The transfer of the title of emperor to
Charlemagne, which it was speciously attempted to justify,
on the ground that the Byzantine rulers had incurred the
guilt of heresy by suppressing the worship of images, and
that the imperial throne could not be occupied by a
woman, Irene, who had taken possession of it after the
dethronement and blinding of her son, was therefore
imdoubtedly a revolution, the far-reaching consequences
of which were soon brought to bear on all sides. The
powerful man of German blood who was anointed
emperor, the successor of those great commanders who had
victoriously defended Christianity against heathenism and

1 Dens, iDquit, sine dubio terrenus est Imperator, et qiiisquis
adversuB eum manum moverit, ipse sui sanguinis reus exsistit. Jor-
nandes de Reb. Get. cap. 28.

^ Referre solitus est elegisse se saltern ut gloriam sibi de restituendo
in int^Tum augendoque Romano nomine Gothorum viribus qusrcret,
habereturque apud posteros Romans, restitutionis auctor, postquam esse
non potuerat immutator. Orosius de Arb. Lib. c. xliil«

172 MONARCHY AND CnimCH-EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP. Islam, would now no longer reign as the king of the
' — r-^ Franks, but claimed the sovereignty of the world, as the
same had been exercised by the ancient Eoman emperors,
and accordingly he made all his subjects who had already
sworn allegiance to him as king take a new oath to him as
Aiiiince of cmpcror. And, what was more important, the Western
and'pope. world rccogniscd this claim, notwithstanding that the line
of Byzantine successors of Augustus still continued, and pos-
sessed a part of Italy. Though Charlemagne, by his new
dignity, acquiied not an inch of ground or jot of material
power, yet it gave him a moral grandeur which raised him
also in the eye of the law above all the princes of the West.
In the dominium mundi of the new Boman Emperor,
Catholic Christendom found its craving satisfied for a
general international pohty based on law, such as was
presented by the unity of the Church in the papacy. The
union of both powers gave a counterpoise to the ever-
threatening power of Islam. While the feeble Byzantines
paid a shameful tribute to the Cahphs, the Frankish
Emperor, as supreme head of Christendom, received the
keys of the Holy Sepulchre from the patriarch of Jeni-
salem. Of course this nominally restored empire had but
little in common with the ancient one. It had neither
the centralised authority nor the absolute power of the
CsBsars ; on the contrary, its principle was the dependence
of the Emperor upon the Pope, since the former could
only attain to his dignity through the position of the
Eoman pontiff. So long, however, as the latter, from the
condition of Italy, so urgently required protection, both
powers directed their energies to the task of mutual
support. The newly-elected pope, acknowledged by the
emperor, promised loyalty to his secular protector : the
emperor received from the pope the consecration and
blessing of the Church, and promised his protection, as
her guardian, to the temporal as well as to the spiritual

*T,LIANCE OP EMPEROB AND POPE.

VIII.
-~^

power of Rome, just as Constantine and Justinian had
granted that protection before him. With the extension of
his empire from the Ebro to the Eider, followed the subjec-
tion of those territoriea to ecclesiastical rule : Frankish
conquest and Christianising were synonymous. Thus
Charlemagne writes to Leo III. : ' It is our office to defend Pemonai
the Church everywhere with arms against the irruption chMto-°
I of the heathen and the ravages of infidels from without,
. and to strengthen her bnlwixrks by the recognition of the
Cathohc faith. Your prudence and authority shall take
care that she remains faithful to the canonical laws, and
adheres unswervingly to the precepts of the holy Fathers.'
And inasmuch as the discipline of tlie graduated hierarchy
of the Church was necessary, at that time, for the civilisa-
tion of the great masses of the people, the reign of
\ Charlemagne became the union of all elements of culture
in the West, the renewal of Eoman Imperialism in the
spirit of German Christianity. In order to appreciate
correctly the origin of these relations between Empire and
I Papacy, we must not limit our conception to a modern point
of view, which is involuntarily affected by the later contest
between the two powei's, resulting, on the one side, in the
national dismemberment of Germany and Italy, and, on
the other, in the secularisation and corruption of the Church
through the victory of the papacy. It is easy to deraon-
, strate, as Sybel, for example, has done in his ' Deutsche
' Nation und das Kaiserreicli,' that the imi)erial dignity
I brought no lasting advantage to the people of the Prankish
I and German kingdoms, but rather a fatal dowry in the
aspiration for universal dominion. But the course of history
I 18 not determined by what people, if they could penetrate
I the future, would have thought, but by what they actually
I did think and feel. The Western world, as it was consti-
1 tuted in the time of Charlemagne, appeared to all con-
1 temporary witnesses, liy this tmion of the empire with the

174 MONARCHY AND CIIURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP, visible and united Church, as the sole condition of society

VIII ... . .

* — r-^ under which Christianity could obtain the protection of a

stable system of law ; and it was precisely because the
puissant personality of Charlemagne was considered the
sole guarantee of this protection against anarchy, bar-
barism, Islamism, and heathenism, that he formed the
starting point and author of a new era.

The powerful position of Charlemagne, on the one
side, and, on the other, the need of the pope for protec-
tion against his enemies in Italy, prevented any conflict
from arising between two powers so closely allied. The
tiOTw w?th emperor, with all his veneration for the pope, was by no
'*'^' means disposed to resign to him the ecclesiastical su-
premacy within his empire, but, on the contrary, deduced
from his obligation to protect the Church, very definite
rights of control. His position towards her was no longer
that of his father, such as Boniface had created it. According
to his theocratic conception of the newly-acquired empire,
* the State itself amalgamated with the Church, and had
to solve, under its supreme head, the Emperor, the highest
problems in worldly matters to the glory of God.' ^ Cer-
tainly, Charlemagne interpreted these problems in the most
benevolent manner for the Church. He not only exalted
the canons and decrees, according to the Dionysian Codex,
into laws of the empire, but even deferred to the wishes
of pope and clergy regarding the relations of Church
government. He secured to the metropolitans all rights
which they were entitled to by the ancient laws of the
Church, especially the right of consecrating bishops, the
regular jurisdiction in complaints against bishops, and in
appeals from judgments of episcopal tribunals, the right
of inspecting the administration of ecclesiastical affairs in
the provinces, of superintending the observance of Church
laws, and of convoking, for that purpose, the provincial

> * Rettbei-g I./ p. 432.

HAELEMAONES GOVERNMENT OF TIIE CHURCH.

I' prelates to synods. As regards the position of the bishops, chap.

' the extent of their official authority remained unchanged,
while its exercise was so fiir modified, that the numerous
details of their business were systematically appor-
tioned among the episcopal assistants, who gradually ■■
associated together in one building — the monastery — and '
lived according to monastic rules, but were alloweil,
nevertheless, to possess property.^ We have already
observed that the landed proprietors of churches which
they had founded and endowed, claimed, for the most
part, the right of appointing the njinister. The gross
abuses to which this pnictlce led, provoked in the eighth
century the attempt to subject the exercise of this lay-
patronage to the Jissent of the bishop. Li the nest century
this assent was made an imperative condition of nomination,

[ while the landlords (patrmit, smiores) retained merely the
right of nominating a minister to the bishop, in whom was
vested the option of appointment.* But the emperor gave to
the Church its most material basis, not only by restoring
many of the estates which had been confiscated by liis

' Monaxtiu institutiona were of high antiipity, but their discipline

I bad fallen into diarepnte. An intermediate class between the regular

and aeculai' clergy — tlie/rafrw Dotiiintci, afterwarda called canonici —

vaa inatiluted in the eighth century, according to the rule commonly

micribed to Chroilegang, bishop of Melz. Waller. Pontes Jur. Ecd.

j. 20 tqq. Cliarlemagne endeavoured fre(]ueDtly, but in vain, lo revive

■ scheme of St. Augustine, by which the clergy were to Lve in

I commun, under the canonical control of the bishop. ' Qui ad clerica-

L turn occedunt, quod nos nominamiis caconicam vitaiu, volumuB ut

>ruaj regat vitam." Cap. 789. ' Canonici in domo epia-

etiam in monaaterio. . . . secundum canonicam vilain

latur.' Cop. 81)2.

* Statutum est, ut nullus ex loicis presbytenun rel diaconum, seu
f clericnn:, sccum habere prtesumat, vel ad ecdeeiaB suae ordinare absque
a sen cxaminatione cpiacopi sui.' Cap. Carol. M. a.d. 802, c. 13
I ftp- Pertz in. p. 10(3. ' Ut aine auctoritato vel consensu episcoporum,
I pre»>byleri in qnibiudibet ecclesiia nee eonstituantur nee cspcliantur.'
I Cup. A<|uiBgr. Ludovic, aj). 817, c. 9, ibid. p. 207.

176 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

^y\ii' father, but by enforcing and perpetuating the existing obli-
gation to pay a Church tax on all landed property, the

Compul-

aory enact- tithcs, a measuTC which created the utmost discontent, and
SSss. repeatedly gave rise to disturbances among the newly-
conquered nations, who regarded the payment of such a
tribute as a degradation to free men> On the other hand,
Charlemagne was in no way blind to the faults of the
clergy, and their immorality, avarice, and simony became
the frequent subjects of stringent penal enactments.
Church go- In thus rcgulatiug by his capitularies the administra-
of chftTie- tion and discipline of the Church, down to the minutest
uiagne. (j^tails, and interfering even in questions of doctrine,* he
asserted his right to the government of the Chiu'ch. He
convoked the synods, which acknowledged his ecclesias-
tical supremacy, and awaited his confirmation of their
decrees. He appointed and deposed bishops, in the same
manner as his counts, and subjected both to his itinerant
judges or plenipotentiaries extraordinary (missi regii)y
an oflSce to which ecclesiastical dignitaries also were
appointed. The latter, moreover, by virtue of their
landed possessions, assisted with the temporal grandees in
the deliberative assemblies of the nation ; and the spiritual,
no less than the temporal, seignors were obliged to fiirnish
their contingent to the Heriban.
Disruption Charlemagne's universal empire fell to pieces after his
empire. death ; and under his feeble successors the position of the
Church towards the State was materially altered. The

^ Their division was regulated into three parts ; one for the bishop
and clergy ; a second for the poor ; and a third for the support of the
fabric of the Church.

^ He forbade', for example, the introduction of new angels into the
liturgy, and gave the cleigy to understand that they must be content
with Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. He declared, in opposition to the
second Nicene council of 787, that to possess images and to worship
them are two different things ; that worship belongs only to God, but
to images merely a reverence suited to the time.

IMPERIAL CONFIRMATION OF POPES. 177

relations, indeed, of Emperor and Pope still remained on 9^,^f •
their footing of reciprocity, but they shifted with the vary-

ing exigencies of the moment. Undoubtedly the dignity J^'J^*^.
of the emperor depended upon his papal consecration. ^^^^

. . . popes.

Thus Louis II. writes, in 871, to the Greek emperor, Basil
I. : ' Unctione et consecratione per summi pontificis manus
impositionem divinitus sumus ad hoc culmen provecti.*
But could a Pope be elected without the sanction of the
Emperor? No treaty had been concluded between Leo
and Charlemagne, and the latter died before a new
election occurred. Under the feeble Louis the Debonair
(814-840), Stephen IV. and Paschal I. neglected to
apply for this ratification; but when Eugene 11. pro-
ceeded to imitate this example, Lothaire I., the son and
co-regent of Louis, hastened to Rome and restored the
imperial authority. The pope and the Eomans were
compelled to promise that no pope should receive con-
secration in future until he had taken, before the imperial
ambassador, the oath of allegiance to the emperor as his p»pjJ «^^
lord and suzerain.^ And for future times as well, the g**nce.
essence of these relations remained unchanged, although
the form and importance of the co-operation of the tem-
poral power in papal elections were subject, as we have
seen, to fluctuations. Theoretical arguments, of course, are
met with, even at this early period, asserting the precedence
of the papacy, on the ground that the kings were only
exalted to the supreme dignity by the papal anointing,

* It has been frequently denied by later popes that any such pro-
mise was given, but we possess the formula of the oath, taken by

the Romans. ' Promitto, etc et quod non consentiam,

ut aliter in hac sede Komanft fiat electio pontificis, nisi canonice et
juste, secundum vires et intellectum meum ; et ille qui electus fuerit,
me consentiente, consecratus pontifex non fiat, priusquam tale sacra-
mentum faciat, in praesentift missi domni imperatoris et populi, cum
juramento, quale domnus Eugenius prpa sponte pro conaervatione
omnium factum habet per scriptum.'

VOL. I. N

178 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP, while the popes could not be consecrated by the kings.^
'^^ — '-^ But the conflict, which was first provoked by the dualism
of Empire and Papacy, did not result, at that early period,
in an open outbreak of hostility, because the various nation-
alities, which were held together by the centralisation of
the two great powers, acted as a double counterpoise to
each.
Growing The cfTorts of the bishops to make themselves more

power of , 1 1 1 •/• 1

the bishops, independent of Eome corresponded to the centrifugal
efforts of the temporal nobility against imperialism.
The bishops, in the quarrels of the emperors with the
popes, openly sided against the papacy, though, cer-
tainly, only to restrain an authority which was irksome
to themselves. Since, on the other hand, they had
nothing now to fear from the feeble Carlovingians, they
usiu-ped to .themselves the power which they contested
with the popes ; and in process of time, by the growing
emancipation of their authority, formed themselves into
a spiritual aristocracy.
riScaj^*^ Especially important in its consequences was the
juriadiction extcusion of the judicial prerogatives of the clergy. The
nities. Church had enjoyed, indeed, in earlier times, not merely
a spiritual jurisdiction in general, and one equally su-
preme upon her fiefs as that of all other landed proprie-
tors, but also a variety of special privileges. Neverthe-
less, the secular power invariably imposed certain limits on
her authoritv. She could dictate no rules of conduct to
the State ; her canonical decrees were not in themselves
public law, except so far as they were made so by
imperial l^islation.'^ This last restriction, however, was
modified under the later Carlovingians, and the contest
turned on the immunity already mentioned, of the

* Provincial Synod of Rheima, a.d. 881.

* Cf. Sohm ' Die geistliche Gerichtsbarkeit im fninkisclien Reiche.'
Zeitschrift f. Kirchenrecht v. Dove u. Friedberg. Vol. IX. p. 193.

IMMUNITIES OF THE CLERGY. 179

bishops from secular jurisdiction, a privilege which was chap,
now extended to the whole body of the clergy. The ^ — r-^-^
Germanic State treated every subject according to the law
of his race, which for the clergy was the Eoman law ;
* but while, for punishable offences, the latter were now
transferred to purely ecclesiastical tribunals, which gave
judgment according to the canons, they became exempted
at the same time, from their former own special law. And as
the proceedings, so also the punishment was ecclesiastical.
The confiscation of property which took place on the
dep<3sition of a clerk was the consequence not of a
secular but of a spiritual judgment.^ But after the
State, in this province of jurisdiction, had once surren-
dered the principle that an autonomous society should not
be allowed to violate civil independence, the Church soon
pushed the consequences of this step, at the decline of
the Carlovingian power. She denied to the civil power,
not only in mixed, but in purely civil causes, the right
of regulating, by an appeal to secular legislation, her
relations with the State. She maintained that the clergy
generally were not bound to vindicate themselves before
the secular tribunals, and that consequently the canon
law, as the special law of the clergy, was alone obligatory
upon them.

At this time, moreover, originated the greatest scarce* of
ecclesiastical fraud of which history knows, the fabrica- ^"*^|*^-
tion of the pseudo-decretals of Isidore. The com-
pilation of Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century had

* It is true that the claim of the clergy to exemption from temporal
jurisdiction in criminal cased presented a different aspect then from
what it would offer at present, when we reflect on the horrible
punishments which the secular judges inflicted oflen for the most
trivial offences, while in the bishop*s court imprisonment and Etripes
were the severest penalties. Moreover, this privilege did not remain
confined to the ecclesiastical order, but soon embraced a laige number
of persons who were least able to defend themselves.

■1

180 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP, hitherto been consulted as the principal source of canon
_^"^' law, and a copy of it was presented to Charlemagne by-

Pope Adrian I. in 774. This collection was propagated
through the Frankish kingdom, where, at the beginning
of the ninth century, it seems to have been formally
received as the Codex Canonum. Another collection
originated in Spain, which was falsely, but generally,
Pieado- ascribed to St. Isidore of Seville, and is to be r^arded as the
decreuu. depository of the special rights of the Spanish Church.
This code now made its appearance in France — about a.d.
845 — in a very peculiar form ; being interlarded with a
series of fictitious documents, decretals, and rescripts or
decrees of the early bishops of Bome, resolutions of councils,
imperial constitutions, and miscellaneous treatises. Com-
posed in this patchwork fashion, and of the most hetero-
geneous materials, it was nevertheless cast in one mould,
and was obviously suggested by the design to establish,
as traditions of the ancient Church, the absolute inde-
pendence of the hierarchy and its entire emancipation
from all lay influence. The forgery, it is true, did not
proceed from Kome. It originated in the diocese of
Rheims, and its real object was to secure the position of
the suffragans against their metropolitans and the secular
power. But this object could only be attained by the
advancement and extension of the papal jurisdiction,
since it was only by establishing a final appeal to the
pope, in episcopal cases, from even ecclesiastical tribunals,
that the emancipation of the bishops from their metro-
politans and the State was to be effected ; and on this
account the Curia likewise hailed the imposture with
delight. Leo IV., in an epistle, in 850, to the bishops of
Brittany had acknowledged the Adrian Codex as the sole
fountain of ecclesiastical law.^ Nicholas I. met the doubts
concerning the genuineness of the pseudo-Isidore, with

' Manai, Baron. XIV. p. 443.

SPURIOUS SOURCES OF CANON LAW. 181

the assurance, conveyed in a letter to Hincmar, arch- ^vhl'
bishop of Rheims (6 December, 866), that the Roman ' ' '
see had for a long time possessed all those decretals
among her archives.^ He therefore encountered the op-
position which the forgery had provoked, with an open
falsehood, because that course was the most convenient
to the Roman see ; and accordingly all his papal succes-
sors up to Pius Vii. in 1789, have relied on the same
source of authority, which they could not possibly have
known to be anything but spurious and corrupt.^

A long time elapsed, it is true, before the seed thus
sown bore its full fruit, but the hierarchical idea had
found its legal formulary in those false decretals. Almost coUectioo
contemporary therewith, appeared the collection of Bene- Lviu.
diet Levita at Mentz (840-47), which contained pre-
tended Carlovingian capitularies, but only an insignificant
portion of which was obtained from genuine Prankish
laws. It was a compilation, like that of the pseudo-
Isidore, containing a mixture of genuine and spurious
documents, by which the author wished to vindicate the
independence of the episcopal order. The doubts con-
cerning the genuineness of the decretals became less and
less discussed inside the Church, while out*?ide of her the
profound historical ignorance during the middle ages
disturbed itself very little with questions of that kind.

It is needless here to follow the confusion of those
anarchical times, when the popes, exalted to, as they were
degraded from, the throne by violence and crime, were
the mere creatures of notorious courtezans and of turbu-
lent factions of the nobility, who strove to convert the

* Only three years before, in his first letter to Hincmar, he knew
of no older collection than that of Dionysius.

^ This fraud, as Maassen has proved, was first perpetrated, in a
sweeping manner, by Nicholas I., the successor of Adrian II., in an
Allocution in 869. Berichte derK, Oesterr, Acad, Vol. LXXII. 521, 8qq,

182 MONARCHY AND CHUllCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP, papacy into their temporal and hereditary principality,
.-^V^' ^ while the imperial crown was transferred from the Lo-

tharingian to the Burgundian portion of the former
empire. This period exhibits the contemporary prostra-
tion of the empire by feudal rule, and of the papacy by
episcopal power. The bishops usurped the entire control
over ecclesiastical life. They decided in their synods all
matters of dispute without asking the consent of the Roman
Chancery, and even rejected its protests, on the ground
that the priesthood could not submit themselves to a man
aimM of of vicious character. The tenth century is the noonday of
Sowere episcopal independence. While the papacy was exhaust-
olntury. iug all its Strength in maintaining its temi)oral independ-
ence amid the feudal anarchy of Italy, and in preventing
the formation of a united state, the archbishops of Milan
and Eavenna were rather rivals than subjects of the
popes, and in politics frequently played a more important
part. Henry I., the first German king, who, after long
disorders, restored a regular government, was too much
engrossed in his secular affairs to go to Eome and
interfere in the domestic struggles in Italy. But the
power of the German empire, thus restored by him,
offered to his son the means of reviving the ascendency
of its rule, and uniting it durably under his crown. The
anarchy which distracted Italy and oppressed the Roman
otho the see, induced Pope John XII. to offer to Otho the Great
crowned the imperial title and dignity, on condition that he would
rS^*^ protect him against his enemies; and Otho, who had
assured Christian civilisation against the Slavonians and
Magyars, and had once before established order in Italy,
repassed the Alps, and was crowned Roman emperor in
962. So far he followed the precedent of Charlemagne ;
but in this revival of the empire of Rome in the German
nation there was an essential difference from the act of his
predecessor. Charlemagne, equally a German king, did not

OTUO CROWNED EMPEROK. 183

receive his coronation on that account alone, but as the ^^?A^-

sole Christian king on the Continent. This qualification
Otho no longer possessed ; by his side were the Christian
sovereigns of France and Burgundy ; and it was, there-
fore, something entirely new, when he united the title of
Augustus with that of Qemian king, in such a manner,
that the latter, by his election, enjoyed a corresponding
simultaneous right to the imperial crown. Although no
longer the only, he was undoubtedly the most mighty
jK)tentate of the West, who had preserved Christian
civilisation from the invasions of the Hungarians, and
who alone could afford protection against anarchy and
heathenism. But, hke Charlemagne, he also asserted with c<»ni|Mred
vigour his imperial rights against the Curia. When John Slnagiie!^
XII. revolted against him, he hastily returned to Rome,
and deposed him, exacting at the same time an oath from
the Eomans that they would elect no pope without his
imperial consent,^ a condition which was sanctioned by
the Lateran synod convoked by him in 964.^ Otho's
relations to the Church were less active than those of
Charlemagne. He conducted himself, certainly, as de-
fender of the true faith, and in the train of his victorious
army, the. Gospel was preached to the Slavonians, but
his wars were not undertaken with the object of conver-
sion. He neither convoked any councils hke Charle-
magne, nor mixed in theological disputes ; and with his
consecration by the Church he connected only the idea
of a right to universal rule and supremacy over Eome
and the pope. But if his two immediate successors were
equally tenacious of this right, they lost more and more,
in their ambition for an universal supremacy of empire,

' Gives firm iter jurantes, nunquani se papam electuros praster con--
eensum et electioneni imperatoris Ottonis Gssarid Augusti filiique ipsius
regis OttoniH. Liutpr. de reb. gest Ott c. viii. Pertz, iii. 342.

^ Lorenz, p. 69, rqq.

184

MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND PAPACY.

perialism
Mid

Geiman
royalty.

CHAP, that national power and vigour of the German kingdom
^"^* which was the sole material basis of the imperial throne.
It was but of little avail to the emperor that he occupied,
undisputed, the first position among all princes, that he
was esteemed the supreme magistrate, and that from the
splendour of his throne, in the words of a mediaeval
writer, emanated all other dignities, like rays of light
from the sun,^ if, with all that, he was not master in liis
own dominions, but gradually had to sul)mit to tlie inde-
pendence of his hereditary dukedoms, and the loss, to
Denmark and Poland, of large provinces scarcely yet
Roman im- acquired. In the union of the German king and Roman
emperor in the same person, a momentous contradiction was
involved. The Empire, according to the exalted idea of
imperialism, should unite the supreme power of Christen-
dom in the hands of an irresponsible monarch. The
German kingdom, on the contrary, which sliould wield
the sword for this idea, became more and more weakened
by a powerful aristocracy. The absence, and consequent
estrangement, of the kings from their home, through the
perpetual contests in Italy, in which they exhausted their
strength, gave to the grandees of the kingdom the oppor-
tunity to extend their power, and to exalt themselves into
territorial potentates, who, extremely independent in
themselves, exercised an increasing influence over the
affairs of the nation. The emperors wished to govern as
emperors, because imperialism in tlieir eyes was superior
to royalty ; but de facto they governed as emperors,
because the empire was felt to be a political power of a
far less practical character than the kingdom. The
Eoman emperor was paramount lord of the Christian
world ; why should he enjoy more rights in Germany and

* * And no nobility or dignity,' he continues, * is considered of any
value, which does not originate from the Holy Roman empire, as from
the fountain of all that is noble.'

ROMAN IMPERIALISM AKD GERMAN RQYALTY. 185

Italy than in France or Denmark? The larger the chap.
empire was in theory, the weaker it became in fact ; and — r-^
nothing contributed more than the idea of imperiaUsm to
prevent the German kingship from becoming hereditary.
From Otho I., the election to the royal throne of Germany
was valued merely as the step to the imperial dignity of
Home, until at length even the name of German was lost,
and the chosen candidate received the title of King of the
Eomans. In this manner the national and real power of
German royalty was crushed under the cosmopohtan in-
cubus of imperialism. But although we cannot disguise
from ourselves the fact that through this policy the unity of
Germany, which under Heniy I. had made much farther
progress than that of the neighbouring states, was des-
troyed for centuries ; although we are willing to award
to the valiant Saxon the glory of practical statesmanship,^
still we must not overlook what a consciousness of might
and power the empire, in its days of prosperity, gave to
the German people ; what rich germs of development
were brought to them by those very struggles, and by the
manifold alliances to which they led. Apart, moreover,
from this, it would be wrong to regard Otho and all the
emperors who pursued this idea of imperialism, as ftmtastic
visionaries who hunt after a chimera. No such fiction
as that would have been able to rule the mind of cen-
turies.^ During the middle ages the sentiments of feu-
dalism predominated : the distinctions of nationality were
scarcely formed. No one felt it a wound to the national
pride of France, that the king of England possessed large

* Henry, moreover, by no means abandoned the idea of the im-
perial title, as appears from the statement of Widukind, i. 40, Perdo-
mitis itaque cunctis circuinquaquam gentibus, postremo Komam profi-
cisci statuit. sed infirmitate correptus iter intcrmisit.

* Even Maximilian I., for exjimple, in his Edict *in Blasphemos,'
simply refers to Justinian as his predecessor — * Quonium Dei precep-
tum et dicti prcedecessoris nostri Justiniani/ etc.

186 MONARCHY AND CHURCH— EMPIRE AND TAPACY.

CHAP, provinces in that country. No one disputed in principle the
^ — «--^ right of the Roman emperor to the iron crown of Lombardy .
A general Italian patriotism was then unknown; the
contest was simply about the extent of imperial rights ;
the struggle of the towns and princes against the emperor
was no national one, but was directed to the conquest of
municipal and territorial independence. And precisely
because the national sentiment was, even at that time,
feeble and inchoate, that of imperiahsm was powerful and
MediidvAi far-reaching. As the Middle Ages could only contemplate
^7ira^d the Church as the visible, united Church of Rome, in like
p«p*cy. manner they were unable to comprehend a brotherhood
of men, in temporal affairs, without the external bond of
a universal empire.^ As the pope, commissioned by God,
governs the souls of mankind, so the emperor is His vice-
gerent upon earth ; and because both are only seiTants
of one Master, the unity of Church and State involves
the infallibility of this united power. It is therefore quite
as incumbent on the temporal authorities to suppress
heresy and opposition to the doctrine of the Church as to
punish civil rebellion. It would be easy, from the modern
point of view, to prove the groundlessness of this theory
of the two swords, placed by God upon earth to protect
Christianity ; but to the mediaeval mind, it was as indis-
putable a truth as the title of all independent states to
equal rights and liberty of conscience is to us. The
supremacy of the emperor was so generally recognised ^

' Una est sola respublica totius popiili Christiani, ergo de necessi-
tate erit et unus solus princeps et rex illius reipublicie, statutus et sta-
bilitus ad ipsius fidei et populi Christiani dilatationem et defensionera.
In this sentence (Engelbert, abbot of Admont, in Upper Austria, circa
1331, (fe ortu, progressUy etfine Romani imperii) is summed up the theory
of the Middle Ages.

^ Of Richard Coeur de Lion, for example, it is said : * Ricardus, rex
Anglis, in captlone Henrici imperatoris detentus, ut captionem illam

ZENITH OF IMPERIALISM. 187

that even the dedine of his power did not injure his chap.
authority. Even in later times, the most zealous cham- ^ ^^j^- -
pions of the independence of single states insisted merely
on an exemption from the central sovereignty of impe-
rialism, in order to secure for their rulers an equahty of
power within fixed territorial limits.

Naturally, however, this theory of the unity and infal-
libility of the two. powers was realised only in a few
extreme and exceptionally brilliant instances in history,
either where powerful personages, like Charlemagne and
Otho the Great, possessed the temporal means and power
to guard their rights of imperial supremacy, together with
the defence of the Papal primate, or where the emperors
surrendered themselves to the idea of Eoman imperialism,
like Otho III., who aspired to make Kome once more the
centre of temporal domination. The reign of Henry III. zenithof
forms the last brilliant episode of this undisputed supre- i«m nnder
macy of the emperor. While promoting the advancement ^^^
of his kingdom, both internally and externally, to a height
of prosperity scarcely known before, he obtained the power
of interfering in ecclesiastical affairs in a far more decisive
manner than even Otho I. The papal see, after the
death of Otho III., had become once more the plaything
of the Eoman partisans among the nobility. The popes,
raised and deposed by their will, sold the offices in the
Church to the highest bidder, and very frequently to
laymen, and abandoned themselves, without shame or
scruple, to every conceivable vice.^ Out of the depth of
their immorality the Church of Rome could only be saved

evaderet, consilio Alienor matriB sua?, dcposuit se de regno Angliae et
tradiditilhid Imp«ratori, sicut universoruni domino.* Roger de Hoveden,
Annal. ed. 1870, iii. 202.

* Bonizo Sutr. Ep lib. ad Amicuin. * Tusculani per patriciatus
inania noniina Romanam vastabant ccclettiara, ita ut quodam hereditario
iure viderentur sibi possidere Poutificatum. — Vero ipso lupo facto cua-
tode, quia starct pro ovibus ? '

188 MONARCHY AND CnURCII— EMIPRE AND PAPACY.

CHAP, by a strontT arm from without. Henry III. crossed the

VIII •/ o J ^

^^ .'-- Alps in 1046, convoked a Synod at Sutri, which deposed
the three contending popes, and on the ground that no
Boman ecclesiastic could be found who was not disqualified
either as illiterate, or tainted with simony, or living in con-
cubinage, nominated the bishop of Bamberg as Pope
Clement 11.^ The Romans had to renew the oath never to
proceed to an election without the consent of the emperor ;
and such was their fear of his heavy hand, that three times
in nine years, at the vacancy of the papal see, their envoys
came to him with the request to appoint a new pontifi* to the
chair ; and three German prelates, those of Brixen, Toul,
and Eichstiidt, filled it in succession. But Henry was not
content with terminating the disgraceful struggle for the
central power. He sought generally to purify the Church,
by endeavouring to re-establish a settled order of the
hierarchy and of Church discipline, and by publishing
severe prohibitions against all simoniacal practices, thus
renouncing a considerable source of private revenue, since
almost invariably the occupation of an episcopal see was
made conditional on the payment of a goodly sum.
Numerous decrees of council to tiie same effect were
issued by him and by the j^opes devoted to his cause.
Even the mamage of the clergy was condemned in 1049/^

' Ann. Wirtburg. ad 1046. *Henricu8 Papas tres non dignoR con-
Btitutos synodaliter deposuit et Suiggcrum Papam constituit.' Pertz, ii.
244. The Roman party, who regarded the plea of unworthiness as a
mere pretext, urged the prior claims of tlieir clergy to the appoint-
ment;— ' neminemad Romanum debere ascendere pontiBcatum, qui in
e&dem ecclesi^ presbyter vel diaconus non fuerit ordinatus.*

^ ^ Sub anathemate interdictum est. . . . ut sacerdotes et Levitce
et subdiaconi cum uxoribus non coeant, quae res magnum vetemosum
serpentem concitavit in iram. Quod audientes episcopi primo quidem,
veritati non valentes resistere, tacuere ; postea vero, suadente humani
generis inimico, inobedienter celavere.' Bonizo ap CEfilium, p. 803.
The gross immorality of the clei^y led Damiani to extend his strictures

DEATH OF HENRY UI. ' 189

and under liis protection the Eoman legates travelled chap.
through all countries to superintend the execution of these ^ ^^"- .
decrees. Once more the dominion of the univei'sal
empire appeared to be established. Never since Charle-
magne had its holder exercised such power in the empire
and the Church. But a position so lofty required a
man like Henry to fill it. When an early death removed
him, and the crown passed to an infant of four years of
age, this ascent to the pinnacle of imperial power was
followed by a downfall so much the more sudden and
precipitous.

against the concubinage to the marriage of priests. Under the Carlo-
vingianSy the celibacy of the clergy appears to have been a matter of
propriety rather than of law. ' Castimoniam inviolati corporis perpetus
consenrare studeant (clerici), aut certe unius matrimonii vinculo
fcederentur.* Capit. lib. vii., c 452.

i. ■

190

CHAPTER IX.

CHAP.
IX.

Territorial
indepen-
dence of the
bishops.

TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OP THE PAPACY.

Territorial Independence of the Bishops — Intellectual Power of the Olergry —
Ecclesiastical Election of Popes — ^Pope Nicholas 11. — Alexander II. —
Gregory VII. — Oelihacy of the Olergy — Prohibition of Lay Investiture^
Quarrel between Gregory and Henry IV. — Concordat of Worms — Papacy
supported by the Crusades — And Monastic Orders — Corruptions of Ca-
m mists — Encroachments of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction — The Church as an
Universal Monarchy — Frederick I. — Innocent III. — His Foreign Aggres-
sion— Persecution of Heresy — The Waldenses — ^The Albigensee — Origin
of the Inquisition — Mendicant Orders — Fourth Lateran Council, 1216 —
Frederick H. — Final Struggle of the Empire — Episcopal Election — Boni-
face VIII. — Retrospect of the Papal System.

The degradation and weakness of the papacy during a
period of nearly two centuries in no way coincided with
a decay of the power of the Church itself, which rather
was strengthened and extended during that interval.
Not only did she continue to acquire from the heathen, in
the east and north, new territorial possessions, but her
importance increased in a twofold manner within the
kingdoms already Christianised. The episcopal power,
now virtually emancipated from the supremacy of the
papal see, acquired in temporal matters also a constantly
increasiug independence. The very development of poli-
tical relations contributed to hasten this process. The
estates belonging to the difterent churches lay scattered
among other fiefs, which were subject to the jurisdiction
of the provincial governors. Hence resulted perpetual
collisions, which became all the more serious, as those
officers of the crown gradually usurped the position of

TERRITORIAL INDEPENDENCE OF THE BISHOPS. 191

hereditary territorial potentates. In order to- escape from chap.
their oppression, the bishops endeavoured, and with *- — r^ — '
success, to fence off their estates by means of royal
privileges, and to obtain the jurisdiction over all their
tenants. Whole counties in some cases were bestowed on
them as fiefs by the kings of Germany, who found it
useful to balance in this way the overgrown power of the
nobles.^ To this administration of law and police were
added the rights of market tolls, customs, excise, and
coinage, privileges which were the more important because
the episcopal sees were usually in the larger towns, the
centres of commerce at that time. The bishop, therefore,
became the virtual lord of the town ; he exercised absolute
sway over his own vassals as well as over the handicrafts-
men who were his feudatories ; and the burghers possess-
ing land or engaged in industry were subject to his
jurisdiction. All these rights, it is true, were simply
usufructuary, and granted by the king to the occupier,
for the time being, of the bishopric for his lifetime ; but
as they were invariably renewed, the episcopal power
itself acquired an independence which placed it on a level
with that of the temporal magnates. Not merely on
secular territory, however, did the Church embrace many
spheres of life which as yet were incapable of indepen-
dent development : slie united in her bosom those elements
of spiritual culture which were destined to occupy in the
future each a distinct and prominent position. Her schools {"i["!^er
were the sole avenues to knowledge ; her members alone ^{^^^
were versed in literature and science, and on that account
were the advisers of kings and nobles, the historians of
their time. , The general use of the Latin language pro-
pagated to the most remote districts every work of im-
portance. The equality of education among the clergy

* Thus Otho I. invested his brother Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne,
with the dukedom of Lorraine.

192

TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY,

CHAP.
IX.

Ecdesiaf-
tical elec-
tioD of
popes.

allowed them to move in "a common intellectual atmo-
' sphere ; and yet, owing to tlieir connection with all classes
of the laity, tliey were in no way excluded from the
movements of the age or of the nation. On the contrary,
tliese influences are vividly reflected in the works of
ecclesiastical writers, although coloured, as was natural,
by individual views.

Tiie groundwork, on the one hand, of temporal power,
and, on the other, the internal unification of the Church,
at a time when all other public institutions were still in pro-
cess of formation, oflbred, therefore, a definite organisation,
which was the most powerful element in social life, and
wliich, during the weakness of the papacy, only wanted
its monarchical liead. And it was precisely the imperial
power which prepared the way for the establishment of
such a head. The work of purifying and strengthening
the Church, by which Henry III. had raised her from her
degradation, was destined to turn against his successor.
The inwardly invigorated Church of Eome, feeling herself
once more mistress in her house, and having restored, in
a measure, episcopal obedience by means of the apostolic
legate and vicars, so zealously protected by Henry,
esteemed it a disgrace to receive her primate from the
hand of the emperor. The party, at whose head w^as
the archdeacon Hildebrand, was resolved to shake off*
altogether the supremacy of the temporal power, and con-
vert the Church into an independent hierarchy. So long
as the strong arm of the emperor ruled, and his disin-
terested zeal labom-ed for the restoration of ecclesiastical
discipline, it would have been unwise and unpractical to
dispute his rights ; and even after his death it was not
deemed advisable openly to break with the empire, since
Eome needed its protection against the Nonnans. The
Roman party, accordingly, began by adopting the tactics
of delay, and a whole year was suffered to elapse before

PAPAL ELECTION USURPED BY THE CLERGY, 198

the inauguration of Victor 11. By thus delaying the sue- chap.
cession to the papal chair hitherto conferred by the act of '^ — r^ — '
election, and reasserting the canonical right of initiative,
it was sought to confuse and embarrass the legal relation
of the electors, and pave the way for the later exclusion
of the emperor. When the sudden death of Victor,
twelve months after that of Henry III., led to the election
of Stephen IX. (Frederick of Lorraine) without the usual
preliminaries, the omission of the Romans to wait for
the imperial nomination was excused by the pressure
of circumstances, and subsequently the consent of the
empress-regent was obtained. But her weakness em-
boldened the next pope, Nicholas II., under the guidance ^^^
of Hildebrand, now raised to a cardinal, to reduce the j^^jlSS.
imperial nomination once more by the decree In nomine
Domini (13th April, 1059), to a vague and barren right
of approbation. The actual election of the Pope was
vested solely in the superior clergy. The cardinal bishops
enjoyed the right of initiative : their choice required the
assent first of the cardinal priests and deacons, then of
the laity, and finally of the Emperor.^ An equivocal
form of words was purposely employed in order that
eventually the pontifi* might be able to invoke the assist-
ance of the emperor, in case the Roman nobles should
be tempted to fresh encroachments on the freedom of
election. With a view, however, to break their power
for the future, Nicholas entered into an alhance with the
Norman duke, Eobert Guiscard, by which the latter was
invested in the dukedoms of Apulia and Calabria, which
he had conquered, and of Sicily, which he was to recover
from the Saracens. Robert, on his part, besides promising

* * Cardinalcs Episcopi, cum religiosis clericis, Catliolicisque laicis,
licet pauciSy jus potestatis obtincant eligero Apostolica3 eedis pontificem,
ubi cum rege congruentius judicaverunt.* PtTtz. Leges ii. App. p. 177.
See alflo Murat. ii. part 2, p. G45.

VOL. I. O

194 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, an annual tribute, undertook the protection of the Roman
>- — r^ — ' see,^ and proceeded accordingly to demolish the castles of
the nobles at Eome. Secure on this side, Alexander IL,
the successor of Nicholas, on the refusal of the empress-
regent to confirm his election, received consecration with-
out it. His rival, Honorius II., the imperial nominee,
failed, after a long struggle, to establish his claim, and
ultimately the Council of Mantua, convoked in 1067 at the
instigation of Hanno of Cologne, declared Alexander 11.
the legitimate head of the Church. Thus the path was
smoothed for the hierarchical idea of the election of popes
ecclesiastics alone ; an object for which Hildebrand had
laboured unremittingly.* It is true that a long contest
between the different ecclesiastical orders was yet to ensue ;
it was not until 1189, a century later, that the co-operation
of the inferior clergy was dispensed with, and the right of
election limited by Alexander III. to the cardinals ; ^ and
throughout that period the people of Eome repeatedly
asserted their influence. But the practical intervention
of the emperor was abolished, and although Hildebrand,
vii^78 ^^ ^^^ ^^^ elevation to the papacy in 1073 as Gregory
Vll., applied to Henry IV. for his assent, he merely
did so to fulfil a promise he had sworn to Henry III.,

' His two oaths are given in Baron, ad ann. 1059.

' ' Firmissime tene,* he writes in 1064, ' et nnllatenus dubites, quod
in electione Romanorum pontificum juxta S. Petri canonicaa sano-
tiones regibus prorsus nihil est concessum et permissuni.*

' Originally the ecclesiastic appointed to a principal church was
called cardinalis incardtnatus ] there were therefore some in other
towns besides Borne. The Roman cardinals were the priests of the
principal Roman churches, and took part with the other clergy in the
election of the pontiff. Together with the deacons entrusted with the
care of the poor and sick (diaconi regionarii\ in the seven ecclesiastical
districts of the town, and ihe bishops of the neighbouring churches,
who were admitted as coadjutors, after the ninth century, they formed
the PrtBhyterium^ or Permanent Senate of the pope. Pius V. first limited
the title of Cardinal, in 15G7, to those of Rome.

OREGORT VIi;S SUBJUGATION OF THE CLERGY. 195

never to accept the papal dignity without the imperial chap.
sanction. On the other hand, this conduct, on his part, * — r-^— ^
was an act of political sagacity. In the first place he
knew very well that Henry could not refuse hb sanction,
and it enabled him later on to appeal to the fact that
Henry had recognised him as the legitimate pontiff. But
Gregory's keen vision discerned clearly enough that the per-
manent emancipation of the Holy See from the temporal
power c^uld only be achieved by a recognition of her spi-
ritual supremacy, and of the rightfulness of this supremacy
he was firmly convinced. Thus he writes to the bishop
Hermann of Metz : ^ * When Christ said to Peter, " Feed my
sheep," did he make an exception for kings ? The bishop
is as superior to the king as gold is to lead. Constantine
knew that well when he took the lowest place among the
bishops.* He even maintained that the power of princes
came originally from the devil, and must first be purged
from sin by that of the priesthood, a theory which, we are
fain to admit, was quite conceivable in the face of the
coarseness and demoralisation of the temporal magnates of
that age. He now fixed his eye upon two means to
accomplish his object — the enforcement of celibacy and
the prohibition of investiture by laymen.

The Catholic Church has at different times derived Cfiib^cyof

the clergy.

great advantage from the principle, that all ecclesiastics
within her pale are equally qualified for all dignities. The
recognition of this democratic principle has not only con-
tributed powerfully to her own nationality, but has been
employed by her to assert her unity against aristocratically
organised national churches, while supporting herself upon
the lower clergy, and especially upon the monks, against
the oligarchy of the prelates. Those very legates, who
with the assistance of the emperor were formed into a per-
manent institution to reclaim the bishops to the discipline

* C. 9, Diss. xcvi.
o 2

196 TRIUMPH AND MERIBIAN OF THE PAPACY.

^ rjL^* of Home, were chiefly chosen from the monastic orders.
"■'— ^^ — ' As such, Hildebrand himself, the son of a carpenter, had
travelled through Christendom; and they became liis
most efficient instruments in the struggle which he com-
menced, to conform the whole body of the clergy so far
to monasticism, by severing them from the tender ties of
domestic Hfe, as to bring them into sole dependence on
the Church. His view was that the Church could not be
freed from the bondage of the laity unless the clergy
were dehvered from the fetters of matrimony. For cen-
turies the Church had laboured at the celibacy of the
ecclesiastical orders, but all resolutions of synods and laws
regarding the lower clergy were rendered nugatory by
the prevalence of the practice. Gregory's energy first
succeeded in overcoming this opposition, because he
understood so to mould the moral conscience of the clergy
in this matter that celibacy came to be regarded as a duty,
not only enforced by command, but resting on conviction.
This triumph, naturally, was only achieved at the cost
of a severe struggle, the more severe in proportion to
the purity of family life ; and the decrees of German
synods at Erftirth and Mentz denounced the command
as an intolerable and unreasonable burden.^ But Gregory
carried his scheme : a bull of 1074 pronounced excom-
munication against every layman who should receive the
sacrament from the hand of a married priest ; and the
rabble, urged on by the monks, drove away those priests
who refused to be torn from their wives and children.
Prohibition Gregory's prohibition of lay investiture produced a
Tertituw. far more obstinate series of contests. In order to estimate
correctly the significance of the struggle thus originated,
it is necessary to figure to ourselves the development

^ An assembly at Paris declared likewise against the edict. See
Mansi Suppl. Concil. ii. p. 5. The disturbances created in England
are described by William of Paris Hist. Major i. p. 7.

PROHIBITION OF LAY INVESTITUEE. 197

which the property of the Church had assumed.^ The chap.
Franks, at the conquest of tlie bishoprics and monasteries, ' — r-— '
found a multitude of persons of adequate legal knowledge,
and capable of administrating property according to Soman
law. The bishops were chosen by the people and clergy,
the abbots by the monks. This, however, in no way
hindered the Frankish kings from intermeddling, in both
cases, with the rapidly accumulating property of the
Church, ller estates, as we have seen, were absorbed by
them, and her bishoprics filled with their nominees ; the
latter practice became a rule under Charlemagne. Against
this disposal of ecclesiastical offices by laymen the Church
was bound to contend, and she consistently directed her
efforts to the election of bishops by the cathedral chapter,^
consisting of the members of the episcopal presbytery,
and of the remaining clergy entered in the matricula of
the cathedral. She failed, however, even at that period,
to establish this claim ; for the more her secular posses-
sions increased — so that, in fact, the dignitaries of the
Church became territorial suzerains during life — the more
strenuously was her claim opposed, to vest theh' election
in a definite ecclesiastical corporation. Their vassals as
well as their dependents, and the burgesses who were
steadily asserting their freedom, maint^iined, therefore,
a share in the elections, and frequently compelled
bishops, chosen by the chapters without their consent, to
resign. But, besides this, there still remained the right
of the landlords to grant to the bishop elected or
nominated the personal usufruct for his life. This grant
was conferred according to feudal law, by investiture,

* CJompare the instructive treatise of Ficker, * Ubcr das Eigcnthum
des Keichs am Bcichskirchengute,* (Berichte dor Kaiserl., Akademie
der Wissenschafleii), Vol. LXXII. p. 55, 379.

* The attempt of Louis the Pious to re-establihh the old right of
election (Cap. Aquisgr., a.d. 817, c. 2. Pertz. III. p. 206) remained
barren of success.

IX.

198 TRIUMPH AND MERIDLVN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, the right of actual possession and enjoyment being con-
^ veyed to the head of the endowment by means of some
object symbolising the property of the Church. The in-
vestiture could be granted by any proprietor of lands,
and numerous abbeys at that time belonged to temporal
magnates. But for the most important abbacies, and for
almost all bishoprics,^ the king himself conferred the
investiture; and in these cases the ring and staff, or
crosier, had become the customary tokens of conveyance
-the fomor «pre«„ti.g .he marriage of the celibate
bishop with his Church, the latter the rights of the pastor
over his flock. These tokens signified, not that the king
conferred the episcopal office itself, as Charles Martel and
Charlemagne had done, but that he granted during life
to the person so invested the material basis of his dignity,
the estates and royalties attached to the endowment.
It was because ecclesiastical office excluded the power
of inheritance, and the investiture conferred the right of
usufruct only for life, that the German kings thought
it safe to endow the bishoprics so richly with Lind and
seignorial rights. By so doing they merely transferred
the property of the empire into the hands of the bishops
for administration, and endeavoured thus to counter-
balance once more the independence of the temporal
princes by placing in the highest positions persons de-
pendent on the favour of the Crown, and on whose
submissiveness they were able to rely. Moreover, at a
time when the secular orders of the State were only too
prone to refuse their service, and the revenues of their
own household were insufficient for their political purposes,
the sovereigns derived a most substantial support from the
important services which these imperial Churches were
bound to renderiftk In the first place, on a bishopric

* In Burgundj some bishoprics, and in France a considerable
number, were in the hands of temporal magnates. Ficker, 91.

PROHIBITION OF LAY INVESTITURE. 199

falling vacant, the king drew its revenues until its re- ^^^'
occupation. This right (regale) was a consequence of the '^

general principle of feudalism, but its establishment was BegaU,
due to the need of an effective protection for the Church
at a time when her property had no regular adminis-
trators. To this was added the right of taking the per-
sonaUty, extant at the death of the last tenant (jus spolii) ;
for since, according to canonical principles, a priest could
not make a testamentary disposition of his property, all
the revenues which he acquired from the estates of the
Church were considered as appertaining to the usufruct
granted to him for life. The king, as lord paramount,
claimed for himself all movables which were found at
the death of the last tenant. To this extraordinary
source of income were added the fee which was paid
at investiture, and the numerous mortgages on Church
property. But even after the invested person was
in possession, his feudal superior in no wise renounced
all enjoyment of the benefice. The occupier had to pay
an annual tribute in money or natural products (servi-
tium\ and to furnisli men for a notified campaign, who
had to maintain themselves until their assembling under
the king's banner, and for whose equipment the trades
had to provide a fixed amount ; while, in the event of
this compulsory military service not being performed, the
bishop had to redeem it by a heavy fine. If the king came
on an appointed day to hold a royal court in the town
of the bishopric, all juiisdiction, toll, and rights of coinage
were administered, for the time being, to his profit. If
we take into consideration the enormous extent of the
Church property of the empire, it will easily be under-
stood how it came to be expressly declared that the vast
services which their possession entailed were indispensable
to the existence of the empire.

In the meantime the whole of these relations were

200 TRIUMPH AND MERIDLVN OF TIIE TAPACY.

CHAP, fraught with difficulties. In the first place, the bishops, by
^'— t — ' virtue of their appointed offices, were dignitaries of the
Church, and as such could never be wholly withdrawn from
their dependence on the supreme spiritual power. On the
other side, it was evident that the kings, in their selection
of candidates, looked principally to their personal devotion
and their capacity to administer ably the property of the
Church. The temptation was thus especially strong,
whether from the want of money or from other worldly
motives, to grant the investiture to that candidate who
showed himself peculiarly grateful to his royal patron ;
so that, in fact, the fee paid at the investitiu'e became
a purchase price, and the bishopric repeatedly fell to
the highest bidder, without regard to his ecclesiastical
merits. It is true that tlie complaints of the hierarchical
party were certainly exaggerated. The term Simony was
never well defined, and was used in a very elastic manner,
not only of those who had actually bought their spiritual
offices, but also of those who had paid the fees, of con-
siderable amount, which were a customary part of the
whole feudal system, and not the least at the Court of
Eome. At a Synod at Mentz in 1071 an episcopal nomi-
nation of Henry TV. was impugned by the Papal legates
as simoniacal. The Emperor solemnly declared that he
had derived no personal benefit from the transaction, but
did not deny that fees might have been paid to his ex-
chequer * propter opem intercessionis.' But even taking
into account this circumstance, it is undeniable that the
Edict of abuse was frequent and notorious ; and Gregory applied
2Sfi^6. the lever of his authority to remove it, because, as he
said, experience showed that so long as lay investiture
continued, simony was ineradicable. Accordingly, at a
Council held at Rome in 1075 he abolished altogether by
one decree the right of investiture by the laity.^

1 Si quia delnceps Episcopatum vel Abbatiam de manu alicujus laicie
perBone susceperit, nullatenus mt<;r Episcopos vel Abbates habeatur, nee

PROHIBITION OF LAY IN^^ESTH^URE. 201

There would have been nothing to say against chap.
this edict had he confined himself to temporal reasons • — r^— '
against those abuses which had become so common at
investitures, for although the kings did not themselves
determine the actual disposal of the spiritual functions,
nevertheless, since the investiture with the Church
property was a necessary condition of episcopal office,
the appointment virtually rested with the crown. The
ecclesiastical authority could, indeed, in case of simony,
refuse consecration, but this was a tolerably illusory
right ; for if the king refused to invest any other nominee
than his own, either the chapter had to yield or the see
remain vacant, in which case all revenues accrued to the
temporal power. Had Gregory merely contemplated the
restriction of these elections to the clergy, he would
have been obliged, from motives of consistency, to resign
for the Church — as, indeed, one of his successors was
ready to do — her vast territorial acquisitions. But
Gregory was far from adopting such a coui'se. The
bishoprics and monasteries were to remain in possession
of their property and their seignorial rights. The investi-
ture should devolve upon the archbishops, and these in
turn were to be dependent on the Iloly See, for which
he claimed, on the authority of the false decretals of
Isidore, the disposal of all the secular possessions of the
Church. His demand, therefore, in no wise corresponded
with the earlier opposition of the Church to the nomi-
nation of bishops by laymen. His aim was to dissolve

uUa ei ut Episcopo aut Abbati audientia-concedatur. Ingupcr ei gratiam
bcati. Petri, et introitura ecclesiaj interdicimua, quoad usque locum,
qucni 8ub crimiiie tani ambitionis quam inobedicntia?, quod est scelua
idololatriie, dcscrucrit. Similiter etiam de inferioribus ecclesiasticia
dignitatibus constitiiimus. Item si quia Imperatorum, Ducum, Mar-
cliionum, Comitum, vel quilibet scecularium potcstatum, aut persona-
rum, investituram Episcopatfts vel alicujus ecclesinstico; dignitatis daro
pnrsumpserit, ejusdem sentcntia; vinculo se adstrictum Bciat. Synod of
February 20, 1075. Labbe. Coucil , p. 342.

202 TRIUMPH AND MEKIDIAN OF TIIE PAPACY.

CHAP, the feudal relations existing between the sovereign and

' — . — ' the superior spiritual dignitaries by virtue of their
temporal possessions, and to make the pope himself the
liege lord of all the churches of the empire.^
straggle Such a schcmc, if successful, would have created, by

Uemyand the sldc of the princcs, now gradually becoming more
^^' independent, a multitude of ecclesiastical landlords, wholly
released from obligations to the king, and subject to the
pope alone. This bold pretension to found a hierarchy
of that kind within the State led, as was inevitable, to a
death-struggle with the monarchy. Henry IV. accepted the
challenge in the name of all the temporal powers ; but
his mode of action was hasty and impohtic. After be-
having with extreme submissivencss to the Court of Rome,
so long as he had to wrestle with the revolt of the
Saxons, he veered round, after the conquest of the
insurgents and the decree of Gregory against lay investi-
ture, and abruptly shifted liis policy. Irritated by a
Oregoj letter from Gregory, citing him to appear at Rome to
the Synod auswcr for his offences, the king convoked in haste a Synod
Aj>. lOTel' at Worms. The German prelates were far from favour-
ing the papal pretensions. The emperor, if they opposed
him, could retaliate by withholding the regale; they
preferred, therefore, to be dependent on him to whom
they owed their estates. The abolition of lay investiture,
on the other hand, would have placed them under abso-
lute subjection to the pope, who assuredly would have
lost no time in removing them as guilty of simony. The
Synod therefore declared Gregory to have forfeited the
papal dignity, and renounced all allegiance to him. A

^ It is significant, also^ of the hierarchical idea of Gregory, that he
in no way prohibited the sub-investiture, which ecclesiastics, as well
as laymen, received from bishops, and at which simony likewise was
practised. • Such a step would have reacted in its consequences against
the Holy See itself, which granted numerous fiefs.

HENRY IV. EXCOMMUNICATED BY GREGORY. 203

letter from Henry to the Pope, couched in the most chap.
peremptory and insulting terms, and addressed *to ^ — ^-^

Hildebrand, no longer Pope, but the false monk,' com-
manded Gregory to quit the apostolic throne.^ But
the latter had laid his plans for the contest with the
genius of a superior mind. Southern Italy was in the
hands of Robert Guiscard, a Norman, entirely devoted
to his cause ; the Duke of Tuscany was his intimate ally ;
and the pope inflamed the fanaticism of the lower orders
against the imperialist and worldly prelates of Lom-
bardy. In Germany he leaned principally upon the
territorial potentates, who had emerged again into im-
portance during the minority of the emperor, and by a
dexterous manoeuvre he turned their services to account
against Henry, without allowing them to become inde-
pendent. He retorted to the imperial missive by a
sentence, not of deposition, but of suspension. As the
whole of Christendom was given over to St. Peter, so
obedience was due to his representative; and in this
capacity God had given to him, the pope, the power to
loose and to bind, in heaven and on earth. Besting on
this assumption, he interdicted King Henry, who with H6«com-
such unheard of audacity had rebelled against the uSo^iv.
Church, from the government of Germany and Italy.
* I absolve all Cliristians,' he declared, in his invocation
to St. Peter, ' from the oaths which they have sworn, or
may swear to him, and forbid all obedience to him as
King. For it is just that he who impugns the honour of
tlie Church should himself forfeit all the honour which
he seems to have ; and because he has scorned the
obedience of a CJiristian, and, despising the admonitions
which I have given him for liis salvation, has sepa-
rated himself from the Church by creating schism, I

^ ' Deaccncle, desccnde, per ssecula dumnando.' Harduin Concil.
torn. vi. p. 15G3.

204

TRroMPII AND MERIDIAN OF THE P/VPACY.

CHAP.
IX.

IJcnn' IV.
tubuiit«,
A.D. 1077.

A.D. 1085.

Contest of
the ioves-
tnres
xenewed.

bind him, therefore, in thy name, in the bonds of thy
anathema.'

Here we find the full consequences of the pseudo-
Isidorian tlieory of the papal power. So completely,
however, did the Church ride the moral and intellectual
life of the State, that no one contestal her right to cen-
sure even the highest dignitaries. And accordingly, so
deeply had the view penetrated of the incapacity of an
excommunicated monarch to perform the functions of
sovereignty, that after Gregorj^'s sentence the desertion
from Henry became general, the revolt in Saxony broke
out afresh, and the king found himself placed in a situa-
tion in wliich it appeared to him most prudent to make
his peace with the pope. He crossed the Alps, and the
courtyard of the fortress of Canossa saw the sovereign
lord of the world standing three days in the snow, with
naked feet, and clothed in sackcloth, doing penance, until
the haughty priest admitted him and absolved him from
the ban. This act, by the drastic impression it created,
was enough to mark indelibly the humihation of the
empire ; at the same time, it is obvious that Gregory in this
case overstrained the bow, and allowed himself rather to
be carried away by the pride of seeing his rival humbled
than guided by reasons of genuine pohcy. The king,
thus deeply afironted, shortly recommenced the struggle,
which ended in Gregory's expulsion from Eome and his
death in exile.

His next successors in the pontificate were equally
unable to terminate the contest about investitures, in
the sense and manner in which Gregory had taken it
up ; and the quarrel lasted nearly fifty years. Once there
appeared the possibiUty of the only genuine solution, when
Paschal II. consented, under pressiu-e, to resign to the
emperor, at his coronation in 1112, the temporalities
of the Church, and Henry V. agreed on those terms to

CONCORDAT OF WORMS. 205

part with the right of investiture. But with regard to chap.

IX.

this treaty, which was framed, wliether purposely or not,
in the best interests of the Church, the pope, an unwilling
party from the first, stood quite alone. The bishops
would not hear of the siurender of their possessions and
privileges, and no sooner was Paschal free from the power
of the new emperor, than he disavowed his extorted con-
cessions, and the struggle recommenced. As the Court of
Rome could not enforce the pretensions of Gregory,
while king, bishops, and princes, from various motives,
resisted ; a circuitous compromise was at length effected,
which changed the form of investiture, but left its
essence untouched, and thereby virtually retracted the
absolute prohibition of Gregory. The emperor was
given to understand, as the king of France had been
assured before, that not lay investiture itself, but the
investiture with the symbols of ecclesiastical dignity, the
ring and staff, was inadmissible: there could be no
objection to grants of Church property by the token of
temporal dignity, the sceptre. Thus w^as concluded be- a oom-
tw^een Henry V. and Calixtus II., in 1122, the Concordat J^Jdby
of Worms, which was confirmed three years later by the datot*"*^
first Lateran Council.^ According to this compact, the Y^i2%
elections of bisliops and abbots were to take place, accord-
ing to canonical precept, in the presence of the emperor,
but without bribery or violence, and with an appeal, in

* Transactio inter Calixtum II. et Henricum V. (Pcrte, Leges, ii,
p. 75) : ' Ego Hcnricus . . . dimitto omnem investituram per annulum ct
baculum, et concedo omnibus ecclesiis . . . canonicam fieri electionem et

liberam consecrationcm Ego Calixtus . . concedo electiones

epiflcoporum et abbatum Teutonici Regni, qui ad regnum pertinent, in
prssentia tua fieri absque simonia ct aliqua violcntia. Et si qua inter
partes discord ia emerserit, Metropolitani et Comprovincialium consilio
judicio leniori parti assensum et anxilium prrobeas. Electus autem re-
galia per sceptrum a te rccipiat, et quaj ex his jure tibi debeat, cxccptis
omnibus quo; ad Komanam ccclesiam ^^rtincre noscuntur.*

206 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, cases of contested elections, to the metropolitan and pro-
w ,'»^ vincial bishops. The investiture, however, with the
regalia by the sceptre was to precede the consecration.
By this provision the dependence of the higher clergy
was secured tp the emperor. If he refused investiture,
the elected candidate could not lawfully proceed to the
exercise of his office ; and the chapters had therefore to
take care not to elect any person whom the emperor
would reject. Moreover, since the latter thus preserved
his feudal relations towards the ecclesiastical aristocracy,
his surrender of investiture by the ring and staff was so
much the more a mere form, as he had never pretended
to the right of conferring the spiritual office. Accord-
ing to this treaty, three points are to be distinguished in
ecclesiastical appointments ; namely, the election, the in-
vestiture with the regalia^ and the consecration. Of these,
the first and the third belonged to the spiritual, the second
to the secular power. And these three constituent acts
differed in importance according to pohtical circumstances.
The Concordat stipulated the presence of the emperor or
his delegate at the election by the Chapters, and the con-
secration was not to take place before the investiture ; but
the last ceremony might give an opportunity to the pope
to lodge fresh complaints about simony and to withhold
the consecration. The chapters, on their part, strove to
obtain absolute freedom of election. Although the hier-
archy, therefore, had suffered in the Concordat a defeat
which waa scarcely concealed by the change in the outward
symbols of sovereignty, yet the quarrel was by no means
finally decided. A clause was added to the Concordat
which contained the germ of a new controversy, by
allowing, indeed, the person elected to fulfil his feudal
obligations to the emperor arising out of his investiture
with the temporalities, but making this reservation —
* except in all things which are acknowledged to belong

TIIE CRUSADES. 207

to the Roman Church.' What volumos did that sen- ^^^^•

tence contain ! The compact was only a truce. The '
more impossible did it become for the two rulers to stand
side by side on the narrow pinnacle of supreme power,
inasmuch as the progress of events favoured the papal
ambition for supremacy.

Foremost among these events, and most inopportune The
for the emperor, was the great movement of Christianity Bupport«d
against Islam, the Crusades, which commenced at this c'mades
time. From a purely military point of view, their im-
portance is small : they could scarcely have affected the
balance of power between the East and West; but so
much the greater, from that fact, were their consequences
to the Church and society. Whatever may have been
their dark features, this enthusiasm for an idea, albeit
a mistaken one, was something undeniably grand.

Nothing would have corresponded better with the
idea of the empire than' to take the lead in such a
struggle against the most dangerous enemies of the
Christian faith, and thus to identify itself in an heroic
fashion with the traditions of the Carlovingian dynasty.
Henry III. would have done this without scruple or
reserve, and thus have regained, in all probability, a
position such as Charlemagne had occupied before him.
But of his son, the excommunicated monarch, in a
chronic state of warfare with the Holy See, no one even
spoke at the beginning of the first crusade, an enterprise,
moreover, in which Germany took but a slender share.
Had he attempted to take the leadership, the other sover-
eigns and princes would have refused to range themselves
under his banner. It was the spiritual head of Christen-
dom, Pope Urban II., who undertook the direction of the
movement, and obtained the proclamation of the first
crusade at the Council of Clermont. At the second,
when the eloquence of Bernard of Clairvaux induced

208 TRIUMPH AND MEIUDLVN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP. Conrad HI. to take the cross, the emperor in no way

' appeared as leader, but the pope exercised undisputed
authority. In the third, the part of leader fell, indeed,
to Barbarossa, but he perished at the beginning of the
campaign.

The crusades served fiirther to enhance the power
of the papacy, as the knights who previously had been
the foremost to seek honour in the service of the em-
peror, now found it in the service of the Church, militant
against the infidel. The ecclesiastical orders of chivalry,
the knights of St. John, the Templars, the Teutonic
order, the Brethren of the Sword, received their authority
from the popes, who thus exercised, with respect to these
warriors, a right of investiture, that of the sword with the
Cross. The military orders regarded themselves as subject
to Eome, but acknowledged no allegiance to the emperor.
•ndMonas- The samc obj6ct, namely, that of papal supremacy,
was promoted by the monastic orders, which originated
at this time, and formed such a remarkable pendant to
the hierarchy in the universal Church. Such were the
Cistercians, the Carmelites, the Carthusians, and the
Premonstratenses. Originally, every monastery constituted
a microcosm in itself. Under the immediate control of its
abbot or prior, it was subject, as regards the Church, to
the superintendence of the bishop of the diocese, unless
privileged with exemption by the pope. But pious enthu-
siasts now united in erecting fraternities of monks, each with
a hierarchical organisation, and subject to a common rule.
Hence the notion of a separate order insinuated itself into
the Church, and therewith her relations with the monas-
teries were changed. Each convent became now a member
of a commimity, and consequently, although remaining self-
governing with respect to its property and endowments, was
drawn into the common sphere of the monastic interests
belonging to the order, whose aim and object — the inde-

THE MONASTIC ORDERS. 209

pendence of episcopal control — was gained by immediate ^^x^^*
subjection to the pope. But in another manner also these ^ - - -'
institutions supported the papal power. Whilst, of their
own free resolve, they not only reahsed in practice that
contempt for the world which Gregory VII. had demanded
ftx)m all servants of the Church, but even exceeded his
requirements in point of self-denial and asceticism, the ideas
of that pontiff assumed a personal shape, and that no less in
powerful corporate bodies than in individuals. Had these
corporations asserted themselves as independent sects they
would undoubtedly have led to the dissolution of the Church,
who, indeed, persecuted with reckless severity all attempts
of that kind — as in the case of Peter of Brueys, Arnold of
Brescia, and others. As brotherhoods, however, full of
unqualified devotion to the papacy, and entirely subject
to the direction of Rome, ready to appear everywhere as
delegates of the pope and agents of the Curia, while
remaining independent of the local clergy, they unsettled
the ancient constitution of the Chiu-ch, which rested upon
the orders of the bishops, presbyters, and priests, and
beciime a most effective instrument for the development
of the papal power.

The popes, even at that period, pretty generally as- Growth of
serted the right of inspecting, through their legates, and uSo^T"
amending the condition of the Church, of convoking uStfchy.
alone the different councils, besides making the validity of
those synodical decrees dependent on their sanction, of
consecrating the bishops in like manner as the arch-
bishops had done, and of granting dispensations like the
bishops within their dioceses. They claimed the supreme
judicial power over the episcopate, the right of legislation
— in a word, the complete sovereignty of the Church ;
and accordingly all ecclesiastics were to be merely their
representatives and assistants (in partem soUicitudinis
evocati)y in whose sphere of activity they might interfere

VOL. I. P

210 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY,

CHAP, at will, while reserving to themselves an unlimited

' — r^— ' variety of privil^es.

Corruptions The canon law also was framed, at Gregory's instiga*

canonists. tioH, in a similar sense and spirit. Anselm, bishop of Lucca,
the nephew of Pope Alexander II., had written a work,
compiling everything serviceable to the monarchical
claims of the papacy from the collections previously made
— ^particularly from the pseudo-Isidorian — and had en-
larged it by adding a series of new fictions and falsifications
suited to the requirements of the Gregorian policy. In a
similar fashion the cardinal Deusdedit proceeded with his
work, maintaining, for example, that according to the
Council of Nicaea, no synod could be held without the
assent of the pope, that the African Church had always
been subject and obedient to that of Eome, and other
propositions of equal pretension. The self-imposed task
of these authors, namely to demonstrate the existing system
of the Curia as confirmed by the whole range of history,
caused them to make statements in which it is often
difficult to affirm where ignorance of history ceases and
conscious deception begins. One false assertion was
heaped upon another, and a stock of myths was soon
fabricated which could be turned to any purpose whatever.
In this respect the collection published about the
middle of the twelfth century by the Bolognese monk

Gratian's Gratiau, and known as the Decretum GratianL marked
an epoch by itself. Intended originally as an epitome
for the instruction of youth in the schools, it shortly
superseded all older compilations of canon law ; and,
although swarming with false statements and inaccu-
racies, exercised the most far-reaching influence. In
it genuine canons were mixed with spurious decretals,
the Gregorian fictions, numerous extracts from sources of
Eoman law, from the writings of the Fathers and of
theologians, and, finally, with the scholastic deductions

CORRUPTION OF THE CANON LAW. 211

of the compiler himself. The keystone and leading idea, ^?^^-
which gave unity and cohesion to so many unconnected and - « "'
often contradictory decisions, was to exalt the Church above
all the powers of the earth, and to make the pope her
sovereign. *As Christ upon earth,' says Gratian, ^was
subject to the law, but in reality was supreme over the
law, so the pope is high above all laws of the Chiurch, and
can deal with them freely, inasmuch as he alone gave
power and efficacy, in the first instance, to every law.' ^
Although this Decretum was a purely private compilation,
destitute, as a whole, of all legal authority whatever *^ — and
consequently each portion of the extracts must be judged
by its intrinsic merits, irrespective of its admission into the
collection — still, the work rapidly circulated throughout the
West, and formed, as a sort of Pandects of the canon law, an
almost universally recognised source of public and private
jurisprudence as late as the sixteenth centiuy. It became
in particular the fountain of ecclesiastical jurisdiction,, the
importance of which we have repeatedly dwelt upon.
* By means of her new jiu-isprudence,' remarks Hallam,
*Eome acquired in every country a powerful body of
advocates, who, though many of them were laymen,
would, with the usual bigotry of lawyers, defend every
pretension or abuse, to which their received standard of
authority gave sanction.' *

The judicial prerogatives of spiritual tribunals were progi«M of
about this time so incontestably established, that the State ^ j^lil?"

diction.

' c 16, C. xxY. qu. 1. and c. 11. Anathema ait quicunque

Begum, seu Episcoporum vel potentum deinceps Romanorum Pontifi-
cum decretorum censuram in quocunque crediderit vel permiserit vio-
landam.

' Herein lies the difference between the Decretum itself and other
portions embodied in the Corpus Juris Canoniciy such as the Decretalia
of Gregory IX., and the Liher Sextus of Boniface YIILi which are
formal laws of the Church.

> Middle Ages, ii. 202.

p 2

212 TRIUMPH AND MERIDL\N OF THE TAPACY.

c^j^P- forbade even, on pain of forfeiting the right of complaint,
'^ — * — ' that an action should be brought against ecclesiastics before
secular courts. On the other hand, the purview of lay
causes cognisable by an ecclesiastical judge became more
and more comprehensive. The Church claimed the
right of jurisdiction not only in all purely spiritual
matters, but even in such secular ones as were in any
way connected with her interests. According to that
demand, all disputes involving ecclesiastical relations of
law — those, therefore, relating to benefices, their estab-
lishment, alienation, or grant; parochial privil^es and
rights of patronage ; Church property ; tithes ; all ques-
tions concerning the fulfilment of vows; all matters
incident to the nuptial contract (marriage being con-
sidered as a sacrament) — came before the cognisance of
the ecclesiastical judge. To these were added all civil
litigation, connected in a certain manner with rehgion ;
all complaints of the poor, of orphans, widows, and
others, the protection of whom, as persons in distress
(miserabiles personce), was especially enjoined upon the
Church ; all disputes relating to wills, — since the execu-
tion of testamentary dispositions was regarded as a duty
of conscience, — ^and all questions of personal trust, such
as alleged breaches of contract, — since an oath, the ad-
juration to God to attest the truth of an affirmation, lay
within the competence of the Church, who declared,
further, that one which endangered her welfare was not
only invalid, but could be punished as perjury.^ Finally,
the spiritual jurisdiction embraced all such purely
civil disputes as occurred collaterally with an ecclesias-
tical question ; as, for example, the determination of
dower or alimony in a matrimonial cause, or those
whose decision affected the spiritual matter of action.

' c. 27, X. ii. 24. Quia non juramenta, sed perjuria potius sunt
dioenda, qute contra utilitatem ecclesiaaticani attentantur.

THE POPE AS UNIVERSAL MOXARCH. 213

The Church pretended even a right to adjudge all civil chap.
lawsuits whatsoever, in case the temporal judge refused or ^ — . — '
delayed justice. It need scarcely be remarked that the
development of this ecclesiastical jurisdiction was ex-
tremely slow, inasmuch as, during this period of the
increasing power of the Roman hierarchy, it encountered
various opposition from the secular authorities, the princes
as well as the powerful municipal corporations. But it is
evident that this general aggrandisement, which gave the
Church a voice in all secular affairs, so immeasurably
increased her power that she nearly succeeded in rending
the State asunder.

If we look at all these motive powers which co-
operated to exalt the Eoman hierarchy to such a pinnacle
of power, we shall be able to understand that the papacy
began to strive with increasing vigour for a universal
temporal sway. This object Gregory VII. had not ac-
complished. According to his theory, Christendom was
to form a vast monarchy, with settled order, whose body
was the laity and whose soul was the Church ; each with
ftmctions properly distributed— the laity under princes and
kings, with the emperor as their head ; the ecclesiastical
hierarchy, rising from the lowest priest up to the supreme
Pontiff, and governed by the law of inviolable obedience
to their spiritual monarch. Gregory, indeed, admitted that
the State was only the dark planet which was first illumi-
nated and warmed by the sun of the Church, and that the
pope's decision superseded all secular authority. But
while thus arrogating to himself the supremacy upon earth
and the right of deciding all questions in dispute, nay,
while endeavouring to strain the temporal authority of the
Eoman Church to its utmost, he recognised, nevertheless,
an independent temporal order of civil society. But among TheChnwh
his successors the thcorj^was more and more prommently vewai
advanced, that God had given to the pope the supreme "^"*"^ ^'

214 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, authority and rule, not merely in spiritual, but in all
temporal affairs, and that the latter therefore was lord
paramount of the whole earth. They interfered in all
political questions, and gave away kingdoms, as Ireland
to England,^ Prussia and Livonia to the knightly orders.

Certainly, warning voices of devoted adherents of the
Church were not wanting against this ambition for a
universal monarchy. Foremost among these was Bernard
of Clairvaux, the preacher of the second crusade, and
one of the most conspicuous characters of his time. He
was convinced of the divine institution of the papacy,
and stoutly resisted all opponents. But he demanded
that the 0(5cupant of the papal chair should be a real
follower of St. Peter, a truly apostolical man ; and for this
reason he wished that the pope should renounce all
claims to worldly dominion and confine himself to the
government of the Church. In this spirit he wrote to
his former pupil and friend, Eugenius III. : — * Try only
to imite both characters ; as ruler, to be the successor of
the apostle, or as successor of the apostle, to wish to rule.
You will find that one or the other you must renoimce ; if
you aspire to both at the same time, you will lose both.'
But these warnings died away unheard.

The progress of the contest with the Empire, was
destined now to be decisive for the establishment of the papal
claims. At first the empire had decidedly the advantage.

* Adrian IV., in giving permission to Henry II. to conquer Ireland,
writes to him : — * Sane Hiberniam et omnes insulas, quibus Sol justitise
Jesu Christi illuxit et quae documenta fidei Christiance susceperunt, ad
jus Beati Petri et eacrosanctee Romanse ecclesise (quod tua et nobilitas
recognoscit) non est dubium pertinere. Significasti siquidem nobis,
fili in Christo carissime, te Hiberniam insulam, ad subdendum ilium
populum legibus et vitionun plantaria inde exstirpanda, velle intrare
et de singulis domibus annuam unius denarii Beato Petro velle solvere
pensionem et jura ecclesiarum illius terrae illibata et integra conservare.'
(Bullarium Romanum. Romae, 1739, ii. p. 351.)

FREDERICK BARBAROSSA. 215

Eugenius m. was driven away by the Komans, and chap.
Arnold of Brescia assumed the leadership of the movement, — *- — '

which aimed at divesting the Church of temporal power.
It was a moment which, if skilfully used, would have
broken the power of the papacy. But Conrad III.,
although he maintained his imperial rights with firmness
against the Church, was not the man for the occasion.
He preferred to take up the cross, and died shortly
after his return from the crusade. With Frederick Bar- Fredenoki.
barossa imperialism appeared once more in the plenitude of
its power. As he exalted the external prestige of the em-
pire, so he understood also resolutely to guard the rights
secured by the Concordat of Worms. The papal legates,
who sought to protest against the election and investiture
of the archbishop of Magdeburg, were banished by him
fix)m the empire, and the cathedral chapters, perplexed
with divided opinions, actually begged for a bishop
firom the king. In principle Frederick favoured the
independence of capitular election, because he con-
sidered the chapters as the best safeguard against the
Court of Rome ; a belief, indeed, which was destined to
be grievously disappointed, the independence of the
bishops being strong against the secular power, but unable
to resist the encroachments of Eome. But the most fatal
error, which Frederick, like so many of his predecessors,
committed, was to undervalue the importance of real
kingship. The centre of his policy lay in Italy, but there
his position was very different from that of his predecessors
in the days of Astolph and Desiderius. He came, not
hke Otho I. and Henry IH., to put an end to anarchy ;
on the contrary, he found a league of powerful, almost
sovereign, cities. Over these he sought to establish the The Lom-
imperial prerogatives, and in this struggle he consumed his ^^^
best energies and strength. The papacy, to whom he
had delivered up its enemy, Arnold of Brescia, instead

216

TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP.
IX.

of making use of him against its pretensions,^ allied itself
with the Lombards, and at the critical moment, on the
field of Legnano, the failure of a great vassal to join his
banner, whom he himself had raised to, a position of
virtual sovereignty, overthrew the whole edifice of his
policy. After the peace of Constance he was forced not
only to acknowledge as the rightful pontiff the man who
had been the leading spirit among his adversaries, but to
humble himself before him at Venice. The most potent
sovereign who for a long time had occupied the imperial
throne was greeted by the pope as a prodigal son, and
confessed that tlie majesty of his imperial title had not
protected him from being wrapped, through the counsel
of wicked men, in the darkness of ignorance ; that he had
fought against and nearly destroyed the Chiu'ch, which
he thought to defend and exalt ; that by his wrong-doing
the seamless vesture of Christ was rent, and defiled with
heresy and schism ; and that, forasmuch as in his treat-
ment of the Chiu*ch he had striven more for power than
for justice, he had deservedly fallen into error.^

Still more favourably did circumstances shape them-
selves for Rome, when the papal throne was ascended by
one of the most powerful personages, born to rule, that
the whole course of history has produced. Innocent III.,
an Italian of noble family, and educated at Paris and
iifJYiiw- Bologna, was elected while still in the prime of manhood,

' Arnold unquestionablj mistook Lis time, and did not understand
how to associate his schemes with a great Power of that age. Instead
of making every effort to gain the Emperor, he was enthusiastic for a
defunct ideal, the restoration of the old republic of people and senate.
Had Frederick, however, at that time learned from experience that he
must choose between absolute obedience or uncompromising resistance
to the pope, he would never have seen in Arnold the mere rebel, but
would have employed his services successfully against the Roman See,
and thus obviated the danger to his own greatness.

* Conventus Venetus. Oratio Imperatoris. Pertz, Leges, ii. 155.

Papal
autocracy
under
Innocent

INNOCENT III. AND GERMANY. 217

and in the midst of all the distractions of Italy. He ^?x^-
entered upon his office with many protestations of hiimi- ' — '- — '
lity and personal unworthiness, but in his inauguration
sermon to the clergy and people he manifested his full
consciousness of the position he had attained. 'The
vicegerent of Christ/ he said, ' stands between God and
man ; he is less than God and more than man : he judges
all men and is judged by none.' ^ In this spirit he com-
menced his task, and he began by restoring the supremacy
of the papal government in Eome. Frederick I. had him-
self helped to overthrow, the efforts of the citizens for a
certain limited independence. Innocent, immediately after
his election, caused the oath of allegiance to be sworn to
him by the imperial prefect of the city, and substituted
his own judges for those appointed by the senate. After
that, he proceeded to cast his eyes abroad. The attempt
of Henry VI. to make the crown hereditary was frustrated
at his death in 1197. Germany, in the anxiety to esaipe
the dangers of a long minority, was divided between two
competitors for the throne — Philip of Swabiaand Otho of
Brunswick, each of whom invoked the support of the
pope. Innocent, thus raised for the first time by circum- hu inter-
stances to the position of arbitrator, announced plainly, GS^y.
before expressing his sentiments on the choice, that it
belonged to the Holy See to determine the election of an
Emperor ; firstly, because by her aid the Empire had been
transferred from the Greeks to the Franks; secondly,
because the Emperor receives the final confirmation of
his dignity from the pope, being consecrated, crowned,
and invested by him alone. With instinctive hatred he

* In consecratione Sermo — Vicarius Jesu Christi, successor Petri,
inter dcum et homincm medius constitutus, citra Deum sed ultra homi-
ncm, minor Deo sed major homine, qui de omnibus judicat et a nemine
judicatur ; Apostoli voce pronuncians, qui me judical, Dominus est.
(Innocent. 0pp. i. p. 189, Venet. 1578.)

218

TRIUMPH AND \IERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP.
IX.

Otho IV.,

emperur,

1208-1212.

took part against the Hohenstaufen, but he demanded
from Otho the most positive oath of submission to Rome.
Philip, however, notwithstanding this support of his rival,
continued to gain ground in Germany, insomuch that even
Innocent found it prudent to cultivate his friendship.
Scarcely had these negotiations been concluded, when
Philip was murdered. The pope now turned again to
Otho, who finally was crowned Emperor at Kome, but
immediately afterwards fell into a lively quarrel with his
papal protector. The princes of Germany could only
have effectually resisted this interference of the pontiff
by unreservedly supporting the empire ; but just they,
who had been enriched in part by the Hohenstaufen
through the destruction of the Guelf power, thought only
how to make the fatal contest for the crown serve to
strengthen their independence. Meanwhile, each of the
rival claimants to the empire had bid for their support.
Philip had given away the gi'eater part of the Hohen-
staufen family property in fiefs ; Otho, as client of the pope,
had promised his patron to renounce the regalia and jus
spolii ; ^ to allow appeals to Rome and the free election of
bishops by the chapters ; not to intermeddle in any way
in ecclesiastical affairs, and to devote all his efforts to the
extirpation of heresy. Thus, between these bidders
for papal favour, the Concordat of Worms, without being
formally abrogated, lost more and more its real essence
and importance. And while the cities emancipated them-
selves from episcopal control, and grew, under the general
expansion of commerce, into powerful communities, the
unity of the empire was weakened no less by their inde-
pendence thon by that of the princes. The empire itself
became more and more a multipartite federation ; the
imperial power more and more shadowy. Innocent had
therefore nothing to fear from Germany.

> See p. 199.

Ills CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 219

In Northern Italy, the league of the Lombard cities, chap.
enlarged by the admission of the towns of Tuscany, - — r^ — '

acxjuired through his protection a closer organisation
against the Germans. In the South he succeeded in
making himself absolute master. Constant ia, the widow of innocent
Henry VI., and heiress of the Norman throne in Sicily, sISiS^
had, with incomprehensible blindness, placed her infant
son, the future Frederick II., under the guardianship of
the pope, hoping thereby to disarm his hostility against
the Hohenstaufen. But Innocent made use of this trust
only to plunder his ward. He produced from the
baggage of the defeated Markwald, a will, evidently felsi-
fied, purporting to be that of Henry VI., in which that
violent enemy of Kome was represented as commanding
his son to accept Sicily, on his majority, as a fief from
the Holy See.^ Supported by this document. Innocent
took possession of the Southern kingdom.

But his restless spirit meditated even greater con-
quests. As the continuance of the Eoman empire in the
East, which persistently refused to recognise the prece-
dence of the Western potentate, was a stumbUng-block to
the principle of the empire as a universal monarchy, so
the existence of an independent Eastern Chiu'ch was a
perpetual and practical protest against the whole system
of the united Catholic Church, which aspired to have her
only centre at Eome. Eome might now condemn the
Greeks as schismatics, and the mass of the people know
nothing about them : the fact remained that there was a
Christian Church which owned no allegiance to the pope.
Innocent III., on mounting the apostolic throne, had at
once conceived the scheme of extending the dominion of
Eome over the East. His instruments for this purpose
were the Crusaders ; and at his instigation they conquered
Constantinople for a pretender to the crown, who laid his

^ Gesta xxvii.

220 TIUUMPII AND MERIDLVN OF THE P.VPACY.

CHAP, sceptre as well as his church at the feet of the Roman
* — ^ — • pontiff. A Venetian priest was nominated by him to the
qaertrf"" patriarchate, and all episcopal sees were filled with Latins.
J;^^"**" Although this empire lasted only fifty-seven years, still
A.D.1204. jjjg event itself, which restored the unity of the Church,
and made even the temporal power at Constantinople
dependent on the pope, raised Innocent to a position
weUnigh all powerful. The kings of Bulgaria and Wal-
lachia, of Hungary, Bohemia, Aragon, nay, even of Eng-
land, acknowledged themselves his vassals, and received
their countries from him as fiefs,^ the pope assuring them,
that by so doing, they possessed their kingdoms on a far
more exalted and permanent tenure than before, since the
latter had now become, in accordance with Scripture,
sacerdotal monarchies. His principle was to allow no
quarrel to pass without his interference ; usually deciding
in favour of the party which first brought the matter
before him, and thus acknowledged its obedience to the
lloman See. He forced the haughty Philip Augustus of
France to submission by the then fearful weapon of the
interdict, which put a stop to all public worship in the
country thus afflicted, while so serious was the disturbance
of social life through the powerful influence at that time
of religious service, that the exasperation of the people
compelled the sovereign who had caused the interdict to
succumb. Thus it can be understood that Innocent, in
the intoxication of this incomparable power, soared to
the assertion that God had given to Peter the dominion
not only over the whote Church, but over the whole
universe.*^

' These rights of liege lord Innocent aranmed in full earnestness.
In annulling the Magna Charta he declared to the English barons, ' Cum
ejusdem regni dominium ad Romanam ecclesiam pertineret, ipse (rex)
non poterat nee debebat quicquam de illo in nostrum praejudicium im-
mutare.' Rymer, Foedera I. p. 136.

* Innocent III. Epp. Lib. II. Ep. 209 (ad Patriar. Constant.) ed.

PERSECUTION OF HERESY. 221

But internally, also, the pontificate of Innocent marked chap.

an epoch in history. The persecution of heresy became ' — ^
now completely organised. The Crusades had served to u^t^'
popularise the maxim that the Infidel was the enemy of ^"**^'
God, and therefore of all His servants. The Church now
applied this maxim, with double severity, against erring
believers — the faithless among the faithful — whose
heresy was the more odious as being aggravated by the
guilt of treason. Every crime but theirs was an offence
against man. Apostasy from the true faith was a crime
against God, for which no punishment could be too
severe. As for Jews and Islamites, no persecution
awaited them ; for both were aliens from the Church.
They were strangers; they were enemies, no doubt,
against whom it was lawful to wage warfare — against the
Jews by a system of legislation which assigned to them a
position of degradation ; against the Islamites by the sword ;
but neither of them were liable to be treated as criminals
on account of their belief. The heretic, on the contrary,
was a traitor in his own house. He was a revolted sub-
ject, who had denied his membership of the true Church,
who had abjured his birthright, derived from God, as a
Catholic Christian ; and who must therefore be punished
as a political rebel. Precisely on these grounds had the
Church already, in earlier times, opposed comparatively

Baluz. i. 47. Cum inquit ad exim : * Tu vocaberis Cephas,' quod etsi
Petrus intcrpretetur, caput tamen exponitur, ut sicut caput inter csetera
membra corporis, velut in quo viget plenitudo sensuuni, obtinet princi-
patum, sic et Petrus inter Apostolos et successores ipsius inter universoa
ecclesiarum prselatos, prsrogativa prsecellerent dignitatis ; vocatis sic
cieteris in partem sollicitudinis, ut nihil de potestatis plenitudine deper-
iret. Huic Dominus oves suas pascendas commisit, ut alienus a grege
dominico censeatur, qui cum etiam in successoribus suis noluerit habere
pastorem. Non enim inter has et illas oves distinxit, sed simpliciter
inquit : ' Pasce oves meas,' ut omnes omnino intelligantur ei esse com-
missi. Jacobus enim, frater Domini, Petro non solum universam
ecclesiam sed totum roliquit ssculum gubcmandum.

222 TRIUMPH AND MERIDUN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, innocent sects with fire and sword. Ever since the over-

'^ — r^— ^ throw of Arianism through the Franks and Mussulmans,
Boman orthodoxy had exercised undisputed sway. But
with the twelfth century counter-tendencies began to
manifest themselves ; and since the whole fabric of society
was based on the principle of subjection to the clergy,
the first note of opposition was sounded against their
ambition, corruption, and extravagant wealth. As mona-
chism, whose primary object had been to save the
demoralised Church by the voluntary abnegation of all
worldly pleasures, had oflered the first organised protest
against hierarchical Christianity — ^in other words, against
the inordinate luxury and worldUness of the regular
clergy, so, with all the strange varieties of heresy among
the sectaries of tUis age, we find them all concurring in
a common revolt against the patent abuses of sacerdotalism.
The opposition, it is true, took diflerent forms. There
were the simple Anti-Sacerdotalists, of more or less
speculative views, like the followers of Peter de Brueys
and Tauchelin of Antwerp, whose strength lay chiefly in
the personal influence of their leaders. There were
others, hke the Manichaeans, of a more eccentric cast,
who, while revolting equally against the prevalent mate-
rialism of religion, sought to graft the old doctrines of the
East on a severe and mystic — nay, a semi-rationalistic
form of asceticism. There were those, finally, whose
opposition to sacerdotalism, if less speculative, professed
to be purely scriptural.

To this last class belonged the Waldenses — a sect all
the more important, as their heresy assumed the more
practical form of hostility to the pretensions of the clergy.
Eejecting the claims of traditional reUgion, they appealed
solely to the fundamental authority of Scripture. The
purity of their lives, which even their enemies could not
deny, lent a lustre to their teaching, and the number of

THE WALDENSES. 223

their adherents rapidly increased in France, Burgundy chap.
and Italy. like many other sects, they did not con- « — , — •
template secession at first, and they are not found in-
cluded in the Hst of heretics condemned by the third
Lateran Council under Alexander ELI. But the prohibi-
tion of lay preaching, by the Archbishop of Lyons,
brought them into open conflict with Kome, and they
were solemnly anathematised by Lucius IH. at the Council
of Verona. After this, their divergencies of doctrine
became more decided. They repudiated the whole
hierarchical system and the priesthood. They rejected
auricular confession, the worship of saints and rehcs,
prayers for the dead, purgatory, indulgences, and the
mass. Absolution was invaUdated by the unworthiness
of the priest, but could be performed by.a worthy layman.
Of the sacraments, they retained only baptism and the
Eucharist. The latter was taken in both forms, and a
modified theory of transubstantiation was introduced, by
making it take place, not in the hand of the priest but in
the mouth of the believer. Their government was con-
fined to bishops (majorales), presbyters, and deacons.
The laity were dividal into the ' Perfect,' who gave up all
property and led a Ufe of strict mortification ; and the
' Imperfect,' who, while renouncing all luxury, Uved hke
others in society. The rupture of the Waldenses with
Home was rendered all the more inevitable, as they began
to translate and circulate the Bible in the vulgar tongue.
Innocent, indeed, acknowledged Scripture as the source
of revelation, but he maintained, in the true spirit of the
hierarchy, that only the priests could understand it, and
therefore alone could interpret it to the people.^ Still
less would he allow the laity the right of rebuking
the priests for their sins by an appeal to Scripture. Sharply

' See hi8 letters to the diocese of Metz. Opera Innocent III. p. 468,
5C7.

224 TIUUMPn AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, as he himself censured the worldliness of the clergy, he
^ — r^ — ' would only have them punished by their ecclesiastical

superiors.
The Aibi- Still more threatening appeared the heresy of the Al-

***"**' bigenses,^ because these attacked directly the Eoman
Church and her authority, nay, even designated her an
idolatrous institution — the Babylon of the Apocalypse.
Languedoc and Provence, at that time politically indepen-
dent, belonged to the richest and most fertile districts of
Europe. The brisk commercial intercourse with the
Spanish Moors and the East had imbued the people
with a spirit of freedom and toleration which rebelled
against the religious despotism of Eome and the corruption
of the clergy. Partly through the after-effects of Arian-
ism, partly by alliances with the Eastern Catharists, a sect
was formed here, based essentially on the dualistic principle
of theManichoeans, but which, in partial connection with the
doctrines of the Waldenses, rejected the cardinal points of
orthodox tradition, and sought to establish their faith upon
Scripture. Above all, the Albigenses would hear nothing
of priest-rule and hierarchy, but admitted only bishops and
deacons according to the Apostolic model. They divided
themselves into the simple behevers {croyants\ and the
good and perfect men {hons et par/aits hommes\ who lived
in a state of celibacy, poverty, and mortification ; who re-
ceived consecration by a form of spiritual baptism called
consolamentum ; and from whom the bishops and deacons
were chosen. About the middle of the twelfth century
this sect had spread over Southern France, Burgimdy,
Italy, Champagne, Flanders, and the cities of Treves, Li^ge,
and Cologne. In 1167 they held a council, which es-
tablished their form of worship and constitution. Through
a bishop, Nicetas, from Constantinople, they formed an

1 C. Schmidt, 'Histoire et Doctrine de la Secte des Catarrhes ou Al-
bigeoi«; 2 vols. Paris, 1849.

THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE. 225

alliance with the Eastern Catharists, and numbered among chap.
their adherents not only, like the Waldenses, the lower ^ — r^ — '
orders of the people, but the wealthy and educated no-
bility of Southern France. Such a movement could not
fail to excite all the wrath of such a pope as Innocent m.
Immediately on his ascending the papal throne, he pub-
lished a crusade against the pest of the Albigensian
heresy. A powerful army, drawn from the territories of
all princes and potentates, especially from France, and
allured by the prospect of indulgences and booty,
was gathered together, and changed that smihng country
to a desert. On the refusal of the city of B^ziers to
surrender, the papal legate, Amaud, exclaimed : * Well,
then, not a stone shall remain in its place ; not a life shall
be spared ; ' and when asked by the soldiers how to dis-
tinguish the orthodox from the heretics, replied : ' Kill
them all! God will know his own.'^ The order was
literally obeyed, and more than 20,000 persons were put to
the sword — 7 ,000 in the Church of St. Mary Magdalen alone,
— and afterwards, when not a Uving soul was left, the town
was plundered and burned, as a signal example of divine
punishment.^

' The historical credibility of these words is proved by Schmidt, i.
p. 229. Even Innocent^s apologist, Uurter, does not venture to deny
them. (' Life of Innocent,' ii. 331 .)

^ Report of the Legates : ' Capta est civitas Biterrensis, nostrique
non parcentes ordini, sexui vel stati, fere viginti millia hominum in
ore gladii peremerunt, factaque hostium strage permaxima ; spoliata est
tota civitas et succensa, ultione divina in eam mirabiliter seviente.'
(Innoc. Ep. Lib. XILEp. 108, Ed. Baluzius, p. 374.) Albericus'Chroni-
con,' ii. 450, ed. Leibnitz, says that 60,000 were killed; others even more.
Innocent, however, did not survive the end of the war, which was first
brought about by Louis IX. incorporating the province of Languedoc
into France. Louis, justly celebrated in other respects as the ideal of a
Christian king, nevertheless worshipped, in matters of religion, the spirit
of persecution, and held the opinion that every layman, when the true&itli
was gainsayed or disputed, should reply only ' k bonne ^p^ tranchante.'

VOL. I. Q

226 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP. But the Albigensian cnisade has its peculiar sigai-

' — .-^ — ' ficance. It gave birth to the Inquisition, which, acting
on the principle that the visible Church is in exclusive
* possession of the truth, imposed, by an organised system
of persecution, the tyranny of ecclesiastical dominion
upon the consciences of mankind. After this general
suppression of the heresy. Innocent appointed a special
commission of ecclesiastical delegates to extinguish its
secretly smouldering remains. Once a year each bishop,
either in person or by his archdeacon, was to institute
enquiries among all communities which were reputed to be
heretical. The rigorous commands of Innocent HI. were
confirmed and amphfied by the fourth Lateran Council in
1215, which converted the inquisitorial power of the
bishops mto a standing institution. The machinery of
this engine of persecution — the Inquisition — was per-
fected in 1229 by the famous Council of Toulouse, which
gave the death-blow to religious liberty, just as, in the
same year, Eaymond VII. signed away his pohtical inde-

Coundi of pendence by the Treaty of Paris. In every village or town
one clerical and two or more lay inquisitors were appointed,
to hunt out heretics. All persons guilty of harbouring
them were reduced to a state of slavery, and forfeited
for ever their property. Every house in which a heretic
was found was to be razed to the ground.^ Suspected
persons were to be incapable of holding office, of practis-
ing medicine, or of nursing the sick. The proceedings
were to be secret ; without witnesses or any defence being
allowed to the accused. The Church did not actually
stain her hands with blood, but she delivered up the guilty
to the secular arm, and compelled the latter to execute her
sentences. At the same time an express prohibition was
issued against the reading of Scripture. The laity were
forbidden to possess the books of the Old and New

* Goncil. Tolos. ap. Mansi XXIII. capp. i, iv, vi.

THE MENDICANT ORDERS. 227

Testaments, with the exception of the Psalms — the Horae chap.
of the Blessed Virgin were permitted, but even these might ^ — , — »
not be translated into the vernacular.^ The Eoman hier-
archy could not, according to its principles, tolerate any
free development of religious life;^ each particular
association of behevers, who were not in the immediate
service of the Church, must be rigorously suppressed.

The zenith of papal power thus attained by Innocent
III., was aptly characterised by the establishment of the
two most important orders of the middle ages — the men-
dicant fraternities of the Dominicans and Franciscans, both Domini-
of whom carried to a pitch the theories of self-abnega- vnm^
tion and of absolute obedience to the papacy. Impressed ^*^
with the conviction that all worldly possessions were a
hindrance to rehgious life, each made the vow of poverty
obligatory upon the order, and enjoined its members to
live by alms alone. And whereas the earlier orders had
seen their supreme authority vested in a chapter, con-
sisting of their leading abbots, the constitution of the
Dominicans and Franciscans was strictly monarchical : each
of these fraternities was under a General, who was obliged to
live at Eome, in order to be in constant readiness for the
service of the pope. They were further distinguished from
their predecessors by the fact that their sphere of activity
was not hmited to the convent, but was calculated rather
for intercoiu-se with the world. The Franciscans directed
their chief energies to the practical care of souls ; the Domini

* Prohibemus etiam, ne libros veteris testamenti aut novi laici per-
mittantur habere, nisi forte psalterium vel breyiarium pro divinia officiis
aut boras B. Marise aliquis ex devotione habere Telit. Sed ne pnemissos
libros habeant in vulgari translatos, arctissime inhibemus. Cone. Tolos.
c. 14, Mansi XXIII. 197.

^ Item firmiter inhibemus, ne cuiquam laics persons liceat pub! ice
vel privatim de fide catholica disputare, qui vero contra fecerit excom-
municationis iaqueo innodetur (Gregor. IX. * Contra Patarenos,' 1231,
ManHi XXIII. 74).

228 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, cans to the defence and perfecting of the orthodox faith.

— . — ' The latter were the militia of the Inquisition, the first
champion of which, their founder Dominicus, had himself
been one of the Albigensian crusaders. Both orders in-
fused new life into the ruined system of monachism ; but
they contributed also, by their privilege of preaching
everywhere without the consent even of the priests and
bishops, of receiving confessions, and so on, to weaken
the importance of the parochial clergy.

Fourth The fourth Lateran Council in 1215 concludes the

Latenin

ckwndi. active career of Innocent That council appeared so far
to deserve the epithet of oecumenical, as the Eastern Church
was for the first time again represented. It was, moreover,
perhaps the grandest ecclesiastical assembly of all. There
were present no less than 3 patriarchs, 71 archbishops and
primate, 412 bishops, 900 abbots and priors, besides the
ambassadors of the principal sovereigns and republics.^
Home appeared in a splendour hitherto unequalled.* The
Council began by defining the orthodox Cathohc feith ;
Transubstantiation being now for the first time declared
to be a dogma.^ It decided a great many questions
and controversies, and issued a variety of instructions ;

^ Praef. ad deer. Concil. ed. Venet. 1578. The contemporary
writer, quoted by Manai XXII. 955, differs somewhat as to the Qum-
bers.

' Non est profecto concilium aliud celebrius ullum &cile indicare.
(Pnefatio ad deer. Cone. Lat. Jun. 0pp. I. p. 460, Venet. 1578.)

' The theory was first formulated by the monk Paschasius Radber-
tus in the ninth century (see Veter. Script, collectio by Martene and
Durand, vol. ix. p. 367, sqq,\ but contradicted then by the most eminent
divines. In the eleventh century Berengarius of Tours sought in vain to
defend the figurative meaning of the sacrament. It was now declared,
' In qu& (ecclesia) ipse sacerdos, et sacrificium Jesu Christi, cujua corpus
et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter
continentur, transubstantiatis, pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem,
potestate diyin&, ut ad perficiendum mysterium unitatis accipiamus ipsi
de suo, quod accepit ipse de nostro.* Concil. Lateran. ap. Mansi XXII.
p. 954, cap. L

FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL, AD. 1215. 229

but its two most pregnant resolutions were the obliga- chap.
tion of auricular confession for every adult,^ and the ^ — r^ — '
duty of extirpating heresy, of which the third chapter
treats in great detail. All who impugn the holy, ortho-
dox, and Catholic faith as defined by the Council, shall be
considered heretics — however variously denominated * —
and be damned accordingly. They shall then be deUvered
up to the secular powers, to suffer due punishment — the
clergy are first to be degraded from their order — and
their property shall be confiscated. Persons suspected
of heresy shall be required to exculpate themselves
from the charge ; if they fail to do so, they shall be
excommunicated, and, after a year, condemned as heretics.
All secular powers shall swear to purge, in good faith and
to the utmost of their abiUty, the lands subject to their
jurisdiction of all heretics denounced as such by the
Church. If any temporal lord shall prove negligent in
this respect he shall be excommunicated ; and if he has
liOt given satisfaction within a year, the pope will absolve
his vassals from their allegiance, and give his estates to
other Catholics, who, after having exterminated the
heretics, shall enjoy undisputed possession of the country.
All who have taken part in a crusade against heretics
shall receive the same absolution as is promised to those
who have done battle with the Saracens. The protectors
of heretics shall be excommunicat3d, and if they fail to
repent within a year, shall be declared infamous and in-
capable of any right or office. The bishops shall once a
year at least visit all the parishes in which heretics are
said to exist, and shall compel three trustworthy inhabi-
tant*?, or, if necessary, the whole neighbourhood, to swear

' Cap. 21.

^ * CoDdemnantes uniyersos hereticos, quibuscnnque nominibus
ceDseantur, fades quidem habentes diversas, sed caudas ad invicem
colligatas/ en p. 3.

230 TMUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, that they will denounce to them any heretics, or such as
' — . — ' frequent secret conventicles, or dissent from the habits of

the faithfiil. K they refuse to swear, they shall be con-
sidered as heretics ; and if a bishop is proved to be remiss
in his duty of purging his diocese of heretical wicked-
ness, he shall lose his see.

By these resolutions the Inquisition was raised to a
general institution, and spread with terrible rapidity over
the Catholic world. Thousands of innocent persons per-
ished through false accusations, and when the arch-
persecutor of Germany, Conrad of Marburg, was killed in
1233, even Gregory IX. wondered that the Germans had
stood this tyranny so long.^

The Council which framed these stringent and search-
• ing resolutions lasted only nineteen days. Its members
did not discuss — they simply accepted — the proposals,
each already formulated into a decree, of the powerful
dictator who personified the Church.* The decrees ran
thus : ' Sacra universali synodo approbante sancimus.' A
Death of few mouths after the close of the assembly, Innocent died,
III. while busily engaged in promoting a new crusade. Unit-

ing gifts of the very first order with profound learning and
inflexible energy, he raised the papacy to the highest
pinnacle of its power. Assisted by a marvellous conjunc-

' It is scarcely credible that the Inquisition was justified by appeal-
ing to the words of Christ (St. John, xv. 6) : * If a man abide not in me,
he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and men gather them, and
cast them into the fire, and they are burned.* A Spanish author (Paramo,
Dt origine etprogressu officii Sanctoe Inquisitionis, 1598) declares God to
be the first inquisitor, when he interrogates Adam and Eve. And even
at the present day, Bishop Martin of Paderbom writes, in his ' Compen-
dium of the Catholic Religion ' : * This tribimal of faith, however much
mistaken and misxmderstood at various times, has everywhere proved
its extreme utility where it has been conducted in the spirit and accord-
ing to the precepts of the Church.*

' Fuerunt quidem haec decreta in eo concilio constituta, verumtamen
ab ipso papa Innocentio in banc redacta sunt formam. Prsefat. ad deer.

FREDERICK n."S CONTEST WITH ROME.

231

tore of favourable eveuts, as was shown particularly by chap.
the circumstance that uo rival of equal talent opposed - — r^ — ■
him, he realised the idea, so far as it was possible to do
so, of a universal spiritual monarchy. If he shrank from
no means to c<impa'i9 this end, history must still testify on
his behalf that he made his va^t meutal tuleuts ' and re-
snurces of power entirely subservient to that one idea
which he pursued with such full personal conviction.
Nowhere, in his whole career, do we find the lea.st doubt
on lib part of bis absolute right and title to the position
which he occupied as head of Christendom. It is easily
intelligible that the papal system, thus grandly realised,
penetrated also the literature of that age. The Sachsen-
spiegel (1215-18), while placing the spiritual and tem-
poral swords side by side, with equal rights,* assigns to
the pope alone certain privileges of honour, and obliges
the emperor to obtain for him, by the power of the secular
arm, that obedience which he cannot extort by secular
law. The Schwabenspiegel, composed under ecclesiastical
influence, represents both swords as given to Peter, of
which the pope lends the temporal one to the emperor.

Once more, and in a remarkable manner, the Empire
essayed the contest with the Hierarchy, this time in the
person of Frederick II., the pupil of Innocent, At first, Ftederiik

it is true, he showed himself an obcthent son of the im

Church. Having renewed once, in 1213, "as king of the
Eoraaiis, all the promises made by Otho to Innocent, he

' An idea wilt be formed of the activity with which he cumpreh ended
tlm weightiest lu well as the Braollest inatlera, in his government of urii-
TBTBal Christendom, if we look through ihe 5,30(1 niinibers, which only
refer to his rule of eighteen years, in tlie pipol registerH. And with
ftll this, he found time for literary studies.

* Fgr ihnt very reuam, Gregory XI. in 1374 condemned, under the
pressure of the Aitgunlinian monk Klenkok, the precepts of the Sach-
•enspiegel as execriibic, because ihcy contravened the pretcnuiona of the
pope, the ulergy, und the cunon law.

232 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, repeated them in 1215 before his coronation as emperor,
' — r^— ' and swore humbly to obey and vigorously to protect his

spiritual mother and instructress, the Church. These pro-
mises he confirmed and extended in the following year
by the constitution establishing the rights of the spiritual
princes. No one, under pretext of protecting his baihwick,
should be allowed to injure a church; if he did so, the
damage eventually should be doubly repaired, and a hun-
dred marks paid as a fine. No strange buildings, castles,
or towns should be built upon ecclesiastical estates ; and
as the temporal sword is wielded for the support of the
spiritual one, so persons excommunicated should forfeit
their claim to the law {persona standi in judicio)^ and in
case they were not freed from the ban within a certain
time, should become outlaws from the empu*e.^ In 1224
he commanded all estates and magistrates of the empire
to give free power and every assistance to the Dominicans
in their persecution of heretics, to enquire in person
whether heretics were to be found within their jurisdic-
tion, to deUver them up to the ecclesiastical judge, and to
execute the punishment pronounced upon them.

All this, however, was insufficient to satisfy the claims of
the hierarchy, which was bent upon maintaining the union
of the political with the spiritual supremacy. Frederick had
only the alternative of becoming its obedient instrument
Final or of renewing the old conflict. His lofty and aspiring
theEmpire. schcme, to Complete the system of his rule by the sub-
jugation of Upper Italy, soon brought him into conflict
with Eome as well as with the Lombard cities; and
in this struggle, which ended only with his hfe, was un-
folded his highly-gifted but contradictory nature. Whilst
exerting his best efforts in Sicily to the organisation ot
the kingdom, he sought to gain the warlike powers of

' Promissio Innocenti III. Pertz, Leges II. p. 224. Proxniasio Honorio
m. Confcederatio cum principibus ecclesiasticis, p. 236.

FALL OF THE EATPIRE. 233

Germany by continually making new concessions to the chap.
independence of the princes. Himself a crusader, not only ^ — r^ — '
did he grant complete toleration to the Saracens in his
empire, but he leaned on their support. An excom-
municate, and personally a free-thinker, he persecuted
heretics without mercy, and recognised the undivided
jurisdiction of the Church over the clergy. Cruel and a
voluptuary, he contended nevertheless for the highest
interests of the Church. In the middle ages, he appears
in the light of a modern statesman, who meets die
papacy with appeals to public opinion, by attacking un-
sparingly, in his manifestoes and controversial writings, its
crimes and iniquities. In this great and final struggle
there were vicissitudes, indeed, and alternations of victory ;
and more than once it seemed that the Emperor would
prove the conqueror. The causes of his ultimate defeat
were twofold. He might vanquish the pope personally :
he could never crush the system on which the Mediaeval
Church was based, and which refused all compromise with
the claims of the secular power to independence. How-
ever bad the times might be, the Curia had never bated
in principle one jot from its pretensions ; and no sooner
was the stress of adverse circumstances removed, than it
rose again and resumed those pretensions with marvellous
elasticity. The second reason of Frederick's failure was
this, that he appreciated, still less than Frederick I., the
power of those national and constitutional forces, which —
as the example of England proves — alone were able to
oppose the cosmopolitan power of Home. Instead of
fortifying German royalty, he freely gave away what
remained of the substantial rights of the Crown, in order
to secure the assistance of the princes in his Italian
struggle. The whole fate of Imperialism depended on
keeping the pope in subjection, both at Rome and in Italy.
Having staked all upon this issue, the imperial power

234 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

broke down iu Germany, as soon as it Wiis worsted in
Italy. Frederick 11. was not only the last king oF Jeru-
salem, but also the last emperor, in the mediaeval sense
of the word ; and with his death the imperial power in
Italy was doomed. His sons in vain attempted to assert
their power in Southern Italy, and with his grandson
Conradin ends the great drama of the contest between
Empire and Papacy. When Eudolph of Hapsburg put an
end to the anarchy of the Great Interregnum, the strength
of imperialism, as he founded it, was purely dynastic.
Throughout the body of the empire the sovereignty of the
spiritual and temporal princes was firmly established, and
the feudal obligations of the former, for their ecclesiastical
domains, were reduced once more to the duties of a vassal
to his lord.

Ep^p«i With regard to the election of bishops, the empire exer-

cised as yet scarcely any appreciable influence. Frederick I.
had already favoured so far the freedom of capitular elec-
tion as to allow the old form of investiture by the sceptre
to fall almost entirely into abeyance. But although the
German episcopate then strove quite as much for indepen-
dence of the pope as of the emperor, in course of time the
freedom of election and autonomy of the Church became
merely a handle for the Eoman See to interfere in every con-
tested election, to fill vacant churches by papal provision, to
estabUsh numerous rights of reservation, and thus to con-
vert the occupation of ecclesiastical offices into a lucrative
source of revenue. In this manner were established the
same relations which Henry IIL and Gregory Vil. had so
strenuously opposed — with this difierence only, that the
Curia drew the identical revenues which it had branded
as simony, so long as they were in the hands of the
empire.

Bonifiuse In Bouifacc Vin., for the last time, we see the papacy

VIIL 12S4 . ...

-laos.* on the pinnacle to which Innocent had raised it. This

BONIFACE VIU. 235

pontiflf advanced the theory of his great predecessor to chap.
its highest pitch. In his famous Bull 'Unam Sanctam — . — ^
Ecclesiam/ of November 18, 1302, he declares that
the Church can only have one head, not two, like a
monster. Having afterwards, by a truly incredible per-
version of the passage in St. Luke, * They (the Apostles)
said. Lord, behold, here are two swords,* interpreted from
the Bible the mediaeval theory of the two swords, he
explains that the spiritual sword of Peter, which the
Church herself wields, included also the temporal sword,
which the king wielded for her, but by the licence and
the will of the pope {ad nutum et patientiam sacerdotis).
' He, therefore, who resists this power, thus instituted by
God, resists the ordinance of God ; and we declare that
every human creature, at the peril of his eternal salvation,
must be subject to the Roman pontiff.' ^ Starting with
these principles, he could well exclaim to the crowd of
pilgrims at the great Jubilee of 1300, seated upon his
papal throne, and girt with the sword and adorned with
the tiara, * Am I not the High Priest ? Is not this the
chair of St. Peter ? Can I not protect the rights of the
empire? I am Caesar: I am emperor.'

If now, from this last pinnacle of the mediaeval hier- 5*^^^***
archy, we cast a retrospective glance u})on its construction w*i
and completion, it is impossible, with an unbiassed survey,
to misapprehend it. As the Church, viewed simply as a
visible, firmly-compacted edifice, was strong enough to
resist unshaken the storms which followed the great mi-
gration of the nations, so the youthful and vigorous, but
undeveloped races of the West, while still deeply sunk
in heathenism, needed for their education a strong eccle-
siastical organisation, with an immutable judicial pro-

' Porro subesse Romano ponti6ci omnem humanam creaturam de-
claramus, dicimus, definimud et pronunciamus oninino esse de necessitate
salutis.

236 TRIUMPH AND MERIDLVN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP, cedure, a system of worship which impressed the senses,
- — r^— ' and a strict code of discipline which naturally strove after
a monarchical head as the supreme authority. It must also
be acknowledged that the system which Gregory and
Innocent realised is, perhaps, the grandest phenomenon in
the whole history of the world. The empire of ancient
Home rested upon the forcible subjugation of nations by
the. sword: that of modern Home upon the weapons of
spiritual warfare. Undoubtedly, the papacy scrupled not
to employ for its rule all and even the worst instruments
of temporal power ; but it had not these weapons at
its own command. The power which set them in
motion was purely spiritual, resting solely upon the
consent of the people and princes. That this consent
was given was due no doubt to superstition and
ignorance; but even these are also spiritual weapons.
Interdicts, excommunications. Inquisition, indulgences,
crusades, coronations and depositions were powerful in-
struments in the hands of the popes, simply and solely
because the people believed in their absolute power
to use them — believed that they possessed, not only
for this world, but for that to come, the power to
bind and to loose. But in the nature of these weapons
lay also the reason why the institution which depended
upon their aid could not endure. They presented
an irreconcilable contrast and contradiction to the real
character of the Christian faith. Christianity had entered
the world as a spiritual power, and had won its way
simply with the weapons of the spirit and of martyrdom.
It will lead the world, as has been strikingly said, to
the obedience of the faith, not to the faith of obedience.
And this was the fiindamental error of the hierarchy,
that it sought to enforce faith in the ideal, as an external
law. Thence it naturally advanced to the proposition,
that adherence to the external and definitely constituted

THE PAPAL SYSTEM COMPLETED.

Church, and obedience to her alone, is the condition
of salvation ; that she is holy, not merely because •
she contains the saving power of sanctification, but as
forming by herself an institution which is the exclusive
depository of those objective and miraculous means of
grace, the sacraments, the participation in wliich guaran-
teea salvation to the individual, wholly irrespective of his
personal position towards God. Tlieuce the indissoluble
union of doctrine and constitution which gives to the
Catholic Church, as an earthly institution, her stability
and compactness ; but thence also the impossibility of her
reform, so long as that very fundamental principle of the
whole oi^aiiism b so tenaciously adhered to. Since the
Roman Church, which had succeeded in establishing, with
all the resources and appliances of State wisdom, tlie
primacy of the Pope, in whom her power culminated,
usurped to herself that which is promised only to the con-
summation of the kingdom of God ; all further inferences
from that usurpation were bound of necessity to follow. If
the Pope was really the representative of Christ on earth,
then his power umst be .superior to all temporal powers.
He was the natural feudal lord over all princes, and could
claim not only the final decision in disputes, but the func-
tions of supreme government. But with these last conse-
quences the contradiction of the papacy to the genuine
essence of Christianity is pushed to the uttermost. A
second world is planted amid the realities of earthly
life, of the times and of nations, which dominates and
pretends to animate men with religious hfe, but which,
in its essence, is altogether earthly, which strives only
after power and dominion, exhausts itself in questions
of law and precedence, and differs only so far from
the temporal power, that it employs the reUgious ideas
implanted by Christianity to found a pretended visible
kingdom of God. With perfect coherence of logic

.238 TRIUMPH AND MERIDIAN OF THE PAPACY.

CHAP. 18 tlus system of dogma developed : with marvellous art
' — . — ' are the institutions of this organism, which supports that
system, completed. The hierarchy, which mediates sal-
vation on earth, is subdivided into ranks and orders,
from the priest to the pope, corresponding to the heavenly
hierarcJiy of the saints, martyrs, patriarchs, prophets and
apostles, which culminates in the Mother of God. But
this Church stands in glaring opposition to the Church of
the Apostles. What has she in common with that society,
whose Founder said, ' My kingdom is not of this world' ?
What has the head of this kingdom, who asserts that God
has entrusted him with the dominion of the whole earth,
in common with Him, whose vicegerent he asserts to be,
and who could say of Himself, ' The foxes have holes,
and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man
hath not where to lay his head ' ?

This contradiction was bound to assert its importance
when the papal system had grown to a complete reality.
Immediately thereupon began the decline ; and its fur-
ther history affords another proof that the imiversal mo-
narchy, spiritual no less than temporal, forms only a stage
of transition, and can never become the permanent con-
dition of mankind.

DECLINK OF THE MEDIEVAL tllL'RCU.

Rise of Independent N«lioDttlitieB — The Anglo-Saxon Ohurch — Her Xalional
Character ea an Es1«Ii]Ubiueiit^CbnDges at the NaimoD Conquest —
Separation of Oivil anil Eccleaiastical Jiiriedktion — ConBtitutiona of
Olarendon — Magna Obarta — ResiBtance tfl Papal UaurpaliuDS in Ei^land
— in Sicily— in Upper Italy — in Fmnce^Praguiatic Sanction of Ixmia IX.
— SjBtematic Exactions of the Fapscj— €onteat of Philip the Pair
with Boniface VIII. — and of Louis of Bararia with John XXII. —
Electoral Union of lieoae — Anti-papal writers — Dante — William of
Ockham — Maniliua of Padua — Suppreaidon of the Teui plan—Removal of
Papal Court trt Avignon — Schism in the Pajiacy — Council of Constance
—Martin V. — Council of IBasle — Ohurch Coiiacila and the Papacy —
Katiooal Concnrdata — German Pragmatic Sanction — Concordat of Vienna
— French Prajfmatic Sanction of Bourgea — Ohurch Reform in Spain —
Concordat of 1482— EfforU at Religious HeviTal— The Mystics— Pre-
runors of the Reformation — Widiife — Ilusa — Savonarola — Degradation
of the Papacy — Spiritual Decline of the Ohurch — The way prepared for
the Reformation.

The history of those natious which stand forth as the
bearera of civilidation is determined by two opposite ideas *■
— the right of each separately organised people to form
an independent whole, and the endeavour to reduce this
plurality of fonns to a higher unity of design. The
mode, however, in which this latter object could be
permanently attained — namely by a family of independent
states, protected by a gradually perfected system of inter-
national law — was unknown alike to antiquity and to tlie
middle ages. Antiquity understood only to effect the
unity of several states by the subjection of all to one : the
middle ages sought for unity in the united supremacy of
Empire and Papacy. This duality involved the necessity
of reciprocal hostility. The defeat of Frederick 11. decided
the triumph of the pope ; the attempts of Henry VII.

K the t

240 THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH.

CHAP, to revive the Ghibelline policy were a fiitile ana-

" chronism, and resulted in utter failure. The papacy, on
the other hand, by endeavouring to extend its power
without limit or restraint, provoked once more the
counter-assertion, in a novel and more successful form, of
that principle of civil independence which had been
RJMof crushed in the Hohenstaufen. On the ruins of the fallen

indepen-
dent empire arose the newly independent nationalities. As

ities. early as the thirteenth century the life of the middle

ages had overpassed its zenith. Under the shadow of
the great powers, in which its salient features had been
represented, that process of political chemistry had been
gradually completed by which Anglo-Saxons and Nor-
mans were fused into Englishmen ; Franks, Celts, and
Latins into Frenchmen ; Visigoths and Latins into
Spaniards. On the foundation of these self -asserting
nationalities, and supported by the ambition of the
middle classes, now emerging into power, as well as by
the free-born spirit of learning and enquiry, was built the
independence of those states, which first emancipated
themselves from the empire, and then strove to maintain
their civil freedom against the spiritual supremacy of
Bome. While the popes, however, combated this legiti-
mate ambition, as a rebellion against divinely-ordained
authority, their opposition served only to strengthen the
resistance, until the latter erelong went beyond the mere
attitude of defence against papal encroachments, and ended
by imperilling the pohtical sovereignty of the Church.
TiM Anglo- This happened first in England, whose Church from
ChMch. the beginning reflected the peculiar character of the
nation. The Anglo-Saxon conquest had swept away the
whole fabric of British - Koman civilisation, and had
founded a purely Germanic rule. One by one the king-
doms of the Heptarchy became converted by different
missions, and accepted Christianity through decrees of

THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH. 241

the king and his Witana-gem6t. Here, therefore, were chap,
entirely wanting those peculiar relations which were -^ — r^-^
formed on the (Continent by the fusion of the Germans
with a provincial population of Latin Christians. The
Anglo - Saxon Church remained, in consequence, more
free than any other from the imposition of foreign regu-
lations, and developed herself in accordance with her
peculiar requirements. Whereas the bishoprics at first
had coincided generally with the different kingdoms — the
conversion of a king having usually been followed by the
establishment of a see — there appeared already at an
early period, and while those kingdoms still enjoyed a
separate existence, a central organisation of the Church,
inasmuch as, before the close of the seventh century,
England was divided into sixteen bishoprics, under
Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury.^ ^-d- ^^

The Church therefore prepared the way for the preptwt
unity of the nation. The Anglo-Saxons became for the thenrntioi^
first time conscious of that unity as fellow-Christians; ^'^'^^*
and the subsequent foundation of the monarchy reacted
only so far upon the constitution of the now established
Church, as gradually to remedy the anomalies in the
formation of diocesan districts. Accordingly, the es-
tablishment of parish churches, whether by missionary
prelates, or, as was usually the case, by private land-
owners, corresponded with the requirements of the
secular community ; the parish itself is the ancient town*

^ ' Isque primus erat in archiepiscopis, cui omnis Anglorom eocleaia
xnanusdare consentiret ' (Bcda, //. E. iv. 2.) York, after having received
an archbishop in the person of Paulinus, remained for nearly a century
after his death under a bishop only, and in spite of the struggle of
Wilfrith for the primacy, never succeeded in obtaining the dignity of
its rival metropolitan see. The intention of Gregory, which was frus-
trated by political events, had been to appoint two metropolitans, each
with twelve suffragan binhops: one at London, the other at York.
K(*mble's ' Saxons in England,' ii. 359.

VOL. I. E

242 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL dlURCH.

-L

CHAP, ship regarded ecclesiastically. The first missionary
-^ bishops were replaced by Saxons of noble birth, thus
associating the Church with the State through the
medium of the national aristocracy. The ecclesiastical
body belonged, with few exceptions, to native famiUes,
and were drawn from all classes of society; and as
the greater . part of the secular clergy were married, the
Church preserved the closest connection with the laity of
the nation. Tithes were levied, as on the Continent, for
the support of the clergy and the poor ; and their pay-
ment, first encouraged as voluntary offerings, then de-
manded as compulsory, by the Church, was finally
imposed as a legal right by the State.^ In addition to
this, every parish church was endowed with a hide of
land {mansus ecclesiasticu8\ which was exempt from
public burdens.*^ All other Church property, increased
continually by donations and charitable foundations, was
subject, on the contrary, to the same dues, and enjoyed
the same rights, as that of the laity. The parish priests
were members of the parochial assembly ; the bishop and
the ealdorman, or duke, presided jointly at the shiremote,

^ The earliest introduction of tithes is unknown, but the custom
undoubtedly preceded, and probably facilitated the enactment of the
legal right In England, their payment, which had been urged by
Augustine (Wilkins, * Cone' i. 107), was enjoined by the clergy at the
Cotmcil of Calcuith in 787. Offa's grant in 794 to the Mercians, and
CEthelwulfs charter of 855, extended to the whole kingdom, have been
cited as the legal origin of tithing, but recent authorities reject both
hypotheses. Kemble quotes, as the first legislative enactment on the
subject, a law of Athelstan in the early part of the tenth century.
(* Saxons in England,' ii. 480.) On the Continent, the provincial
Synod of Tours (567) and the Council of Macon (585) enjoined pay-
ment of tithes; but the ecclesiastical injunction does not appear to
have been confirmed by law until the Capitulary of Charlemagne in 779.

* This immunity is questioned by Kemble {ihid.j ii. 486). A capitu-
lary of Louis in 816 enacts (cap. 10) * ut unicuique ecclesise imus
mansus integer absque uUo ser^itio attribuatur.* Montag's ' Gesch. d.
deutsch. staatsblii^. Freiheit.'

ITS NATIONAL CHARACTER. 243

or county court ; the prelates, nominated by the king, chap.
with or without his council,^ sat with the secular thanes ^
at the Witana-gem6t. The Church law of the Anglo-
Saxons was essentially a national law.^ The decrees of
the synods, which wisely refrained from interference in
secular affairs, were subject to the approbation of the
king, and whenever they involved changes in the external
regulations of the Church, or concerned the rights of the
laity, to that of the Witana-gem6t also. The bishops
exercised disciplinary powers over the laity, and decided
in matters affecting the internal government of the
Church ; but beyond this, the clergy remained subject to
the temporal administration and jurisdiction, and, in their
disputes with laymen, had to sue for their rights at the
ordinary civil tribunals. In this manner the living con-
sciousness of common interests and common rights was
preserved among all subjects, lay and ecclesiastical, by a
social as well as a national bond of union. This national
organisation of the Anglo-Saxon Chm^ch, which was
manifested farther by the preservation of tlie national
language in the liturgy and prayers, allowed the Boman
See to obtain but small influence in England. Her relar
tions towards Eome, intimate as they were,® were rather
those of piety and affection than of dependence de jure
on a higher authority ; and when Boniface, himself an
Englishman, and the champion of papal traditions, com-

' Some uncertainty prevails on this point. Dunstan was made
archbishop in 959, 'consilio sapientum.' ('Flor. Wig.'ii. 222.) But the
appointment of so many royal chaplains to bishoprics is certainly, ai
Kemble remarks, significant.

' Lappenberg (e<l. Thorpe, i. 200) ascribes the great number of
Anglo-Saxon eclesiastical laws to the slight r^ard paid to the papal
canons.

' A foreign writer of the ninth century speaks of the English ai
'maxime familiares apostolic® sedis.* 'Gest. Abb. Fontanellena.'
Pertz. ii. 289.

ii2

244 DECLINE OF THE MEDIAEVAL CnURCH.

CHAP, plained that no Church lay in more abject bondage than
** — . — - the English, his lament was only a testimony to her

national character as well as the vigour of the State. ^
Cbangesat All this, bcyoud doubt, was essentially changed at
CaiquMt ° the Norman Conquest. By the aid and support of the
papal court, which was friendly to his cause, William
obtained the English throne. He immediately demanded
the submission of the clergy, and, to secure that object,
made extensive concessions to Rome. The lavish endow-
ments of the Church were not only maintained but
enlarged. The payment of Peter's pence, which Gregory
Vli. complained had been suffered to fall into arrear,
was sanctioned by the Crown ; the Eoman litui^y was
adopted ; and the celibacy of the clergy, though not
actually practised till the twelfth century, was enjoined.
8«|wration But it was mainly in the customary province of the
ecciesiasti- cauou law that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was separated,
diciioii.'' externally speaking, from that of the secular tribimals, the
execution of its judgments being assigned to the sheriffs,
as functionaries of the Crown. No cause relating to the
government or discipline of the Church was to be brought
before the civil magistrate, and laymen were forbidden to
intermeddle with episcopal jurisdiction.^ Lastly, when
the excitement of victory had subsided, the Conqueror
ordered a restitution of the lands of bishoprics and abbeys
which had been seized by his Norman followers.
RtsiBtanoe But although William made all these concessions to
archil purchase the support of Rome, he was far too clear-sighted
***'*"''**^ a statesman to allow a second sovereign power to rale in
his kingdom uncontrolled. Not only did he refuse the

1 Wilkins, * Cone* i. p. 98.

* Ut ntdlus episoopus vel archidiaconus de legibus episcopalibua
amplioB in Hundret placita teneant, nee causam, qiue ad regimen
animanim pertinet, ad judicium scecularium hominum adducant.
Wilkins, ' Leges Anglo-Saxon/ 230.

homage demanded by Gregory, on the grounds that he
had made no promise of that kind, and that no such oath
had been taken by any of his predecessors,' but he
secured for himself the uomluation of bishops and abbots,^
and made the royal placet the condition of validity for all
resolutions of councils or papal decrees. No pope could
be recognised, no vassal of the Crown could be excom-
municated— no bishop could leave the kingdom without
a warrant from the king. All appeals to Rome were
forbidden, even for caitsce majores. The lands of the
bishoprica and great abbeys, which had formerly been
exempt from all burdens due to the Crown, were regis-
tered in a court-roll and put mider the tenure of knights-
service. The entire landed property of the Church re-
mained subject to military service and taxation,

Tliese rights of the Crown as against the clergy were
stoutly maintained in their essential points by his succes-
sors. Henry I. extorted from Paschal II. the promise
never to send a papal legate to England without a warrant
from the king. Henry II., it is true, wiEingly allowed
himself to be authorised by tlie pope to conquer Ireland ;
but when the Archbishop of Canterbiu-y, Thomas k Becket,
attempted to introduce Ids ideas of hierarchical indepen-
dence and irresponsibility into England, he summoned
the great vassals of the Crown and the prelates to the
iamous Council of Clarendon, which established, in sixteen
Articles, the rights of the Cmwn in relation to the Church.
Those Constitutions reaffirmed the submission of the clergy
and of their property to the jurisdiction of the Crown and

' Fidtlilatcm facero nolui, nee volo, quia nee ego promisi, neo
aiitocfSMores meos anteccssoribua Hiia id leuiBse cuiuporio. Lanrranc,
0pp. Ep. X. in Stubb'B ' Const. Hist.' i. 285.

* William eooa found that the influence of tlie epiBcopate waa bo
powcrrul that he thonglit it neceeanry to remove a number of the
native bisliupa and abb<;tt(, and replace ihem hy laa Nomum adbGrci:

246 DECLINE OF THE MEDLE\^AL CllUIlCn.

to all incidents of feudality, and subjected all clerical
offenders once more to the punishment of the secular
arm.^

The rights of the Crown in respect of appointments to
vacant bishoprics and abbeys, which had become doubtful
under William II. and Henry I., were so far determined
that tlie revenues of unoccupied sees were to go to the
royal exchequer, as if they were the demesne lands of
the Crown. The election by the chapter was to take
place with the consent of the king, and by the advice of
his deputies, and the person elected was to take an oath
of homage and fealty, before consecration, to the king, as
his Uege lord and suzerain. Finally, the Crown retained,
through the archbishop, its supreme appellate jurisdiction,
on Enghsh ground, in all ecclesiastical causes, and no
appeal to Home was allowed without special permission.^
With King John, however, came a change. Hitherto,
Crown and barons had held together in resistance to the
encroachments of Eome ; but John's arbitrary rule pro-
voked the opposition not only of the Vatican but of the
country. The pope pronounced liis deposition,^ and the
miserable king, to avoid being forced to yield to his

* Art. xL Archiepiscopi, episcopi, et universal personaj regni, qui de
rege tenent in capitc, habent possessiones suae de domino rege sicut
baroniam, ct inde respondent justiciariis et ministris regis, et sequuntur
et faciunt omnes rectitudines et consuetudines regias, et, sicut barones
cssteri, debent interesse judiciis curiae domini regis cum baronibus,
usque perveniatur in judicio, ad diminutionem membrorum vel mortem.'
Cottonian MS. in * Lyttleton's Hist, of Hen. H.' App. to B. iii. No. 2.

* This point the king was ultimately compelled to abandon in 1174,
and to permit bondjide appeals to the Roman See.

^ 1212. Papa sententialiter definivit, ut Kex Anglorum Joannes
a solio regni deponeretur, et alius, PapH procurante, succederct, qui
dignior haberetur. Ad hujus quoque sententias ezecutionem scripsit
Dominus Papa potentissimo regi Francorum, quatenus in remissionem
omnium suorum peccaminum hunc laborem assumeret. ' Matth. Paris,'
ed. 1874, ii. p. 536.

JOHN SUBMITS TO THE POPE. 247

barons, humbled himself before Rome, and did homage chap.

as a vassal to the papal legate (May 15, 1213) for the - — r-
crowns of England and Ireland.^ But this shameful sur-
render served only to exasperate the English barons, whose
opposition, encouraged and aided by Stephen Langton,
archbishop of Canterbury, the personal friend and no-
minee of Innocent m., broke out into open hostility. The
result of this contest was the glorious Magna Charta, the Magna
foundation of the Enghsh Constitution. As regarded the June 19,
Church, this instrument confirmed the long-disputed free-
dom of capitular election, subject to the condition that
every time previous to the election the permission of the
king, and, after it, his ratification should be obtained,
neither of which, however, were to be refused without
well-grounded cause. The prelates remained bound to
apply for investiture in their lands and territorial rights,
and to take the oath of allegiance demanded from secular
vassals to the king. It can easily be understood that
Innocent denounced the Magna Charta as a 'low, ill-
favoured, and disgraceful compact,'^ the authors of which

^ * The legate of the pope hath been with me,
And I have made a happy peace with him.

Bast O inglorious league 1 *

Shakspearc, King John^ v. 1.

^ In his Bull, dated Anagni, August 4, 1215, Innocent ascribes the
revolt of the barons, afler John^s reconciliation with the Church, to the
machinations of the enemy of mankind. ' Humani generis inimicus,
qui sem|)er consuerit bonis actibus inviderc suis callidis artibus, ad-
versus cum barones Anglian concitavit, ita, ut ordine perverso, in ilium
iuHurgant post<|uam conversus ecclesifc satisfecerit, (|ui assistebat eidem
quando ecclesiam offendebat .... Unde compulsus est per vim et
mctum, compositionem inire cum ipsis, non solum vilem et turpem, sed
etiam illiciUim ct iniquam, in nimiam diminutionem et derogationem
Bui juris paritcr et honoris. Quia vero nobis a Domino dictum est in
Proi)hetA, " Constitui te super gentes et regna, ut cvcllas et destruas,
ut (edifices et plantes; " itemquc peralium, "Dissolve colligationes im-
pit'tatid, solve fasciculus deprimeutes ; " uos, tante malignitatis audaciam

248 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, were worse than the Saracens: for the Great Charta
' — ^ — ' breathes throughout a spirit of defiance to Eome ; and in
the circle of those English barons at Eunnymede were
first pronounced those memorable words, which acquired
such significance throughout the whole later liistory of
the nation — *Non pertinet ad papam ordinatio rerum
laicarum.' Although John, as well as his successor, Henry
m., consented to be absolved by Eome from the oaths
with which they had solemnly ratified the Magna Charta,^
the barons stoutly maintained their newly-won hberties
against the league of the king and the pope — a league
which they declared would grind England as between
two millstones — and at the Parliament of Merton (January
1266) they answered the attempt of the bishops to intro-
duce a proposition of canon law upon the civil province
with the proud words, ' Nolumus leges Anglifie mutari.'
The judges of the king's courts, hitherto ecclesiastics,
were replaced by common lawyers, whose restrictions on
the abuse of spiritual jurisdiction were confirmed under
Edward I. by the statute ' Circumspecte agatis.' An
effectual check was placed, in the same reign, upon the
making over of lands to religious persons or societies, by
the passing of what is commonly known as the first statute

diadmulare nolentes, compositionem hujusmodi reprobamus penitus et
damnamus, sub iniimatione anathematis prohibentes, ne dictus Rex
earn observare praesumat, aut barones cum complicibus suis ipsam
ezigant observari ; tarn cartam, quam obligatdones seu cautioues, quoe-
cumque pro ips& vel de ipsH sunt factce, irritantes penitus et cas^antes.*
'Rymer,' i. p. 136, ed. 1816.

> Alexander IV., Henrico III., regi Anglise (April 13, 1261), ab-
Bolving him of ' qusedam statuta, ordinationes, et colligationes, quse iptd
(ac. magnates), sub prsetextu reformandi statum ejusdem regni, tuo
nomine fecisse dicimtur (* Rymer,' i p. 405), and ordering the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and the bishops of Norwich and Ely, to absolve
each other and the nobles, 'cum juramenti religio — qutl fides con-
firmari debet et Veritas — fieri non debeat pravitatis et perfidio; firmamen-
tum.' {Ihid. p. 406.)

RESISTANCE TO PAPAL USURPATIONS. 249

of Mortmain ; ^ and a later Act prohibited the payment chap.
of any money by the clergy to their superiors beyond the - — ^ — '
sea. Penal laws were enacted under Edward HI. against
provisors, forbidding the Court of Eome to present to any
bishopric or benefice in England. The donation of King
John was solemnly repudiated by Parliament ; and finally
the statutes of Praemunire, in a series of enactments, pro-
tested against the aggressions of the Church.

In a similar manner, the Norman-Sicilian princes, while The i»|Muy
holding their land in fief from the pope, endeavoured to siS^ **
acquire a relation of independence, by turning to their
purpose, as neighbours, the embarrassments of the papal
court, and especially the disputed elections of pontiffs, in
order to extort concessions to themselves. Urban EL
and Paschal 11. promised the Counts Eobert and Roger
to appoint no permanent legates in Sicily, and to allow
only a legate a latere to act under their permission and
with their agreement. The bishops received their sees
as regalia from the king. They assisted at the coronation
at Palermo of Manfred (1298), who had been excommu-
nicated by Urban IV. ; and in defiance of excommunica-
tion and interdict, ranged themselves on the side of the
kings in the contests of the Aragon dynasty.

The Eepubhc of Venice adhered from the first, with in Upper
great firmness and energy, to the rights of the temporal ^'
power towards the Church. This was all the easier to
do, because the relations of that Republic were not com-
plicated, like those of feudal States, by the possession
of landed property by the clergy. The latter were sala-
ried by the State : they were chosen by the people and
tlieir fellow-ecclesiastics, and the choice was confirmed
by the Government. In like manner, Genoa and the
other cities of Upper Italy were enabled to defend their
civil rights.

» 7Edw. I.,A.D. 1279.

250 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP. Not SO early and definitely, but still by gradual degrees,
^ — J- — ' the royal power in France also acquired a position of
greater independence towards the Church. For a long
period the real hmits of territorial power enjoyed by the
in France, housc of Capet extended but httle beyond Isle de France
and Orleannais. The great vassals of Aquitaine, Cham-
pagne, Flanders, Normandy, Bretagne, and Toulouse were
more independent of the French crown than the dukes
of Bavaria or Saxony were of the German ; and, more-
over, a considerable number of these important fiefs were
in the hands of the kings of England. In order, there-
fore, on the one side, to bend the great barons under the
power of a real State, and, on the other, to emancipate
themselves from the supremacy of the empire, the kings
had sought, first of all, to conciliate by concessions the
friendship of the Church — an attempt wliich was feasible,
inasmuch as they aspired only to national sovereignty,
and did not pretend to a supremacy over the whole of
Christendom like the emperors, whose pretensions ended,
as was inevitable, in a conflict with those of the papacy.
No sooner, however, had the monarchy firmly established
its power at home, than it strove further to secure
its independence of Eome ; and it was Louis IX., the
saint and Crusader, a humble and devout Catholic, the
peaceful prince of the middle ages, who first succeeded
in rejecting with triumph the papal pretensions, and gave
to the Church of France, in opposition to Eome, a firm
Prmpnatic and durable basis of law, by the Pragmatic Sanction of
Lwiwix., 1269. This edict provided, firstly, that the prelates,
patrons, and ordinary collators to benefices in France
should have fiill enjoyment of their rights and jurisdic-
tion ; secondly, that the cathedral and other churches of
the realm should exercise their rights of election, freely
of the papal see, but subject to the conge cPelire of the
king; thirdly, that all simoniacal practices should be

1269.

FRANCE RESISTS THE PAPACY. 251

abolished ; fourthly, that all promotions, collations, pro- chap.

visions, and dispositions of the prelacies, dignities, bene- >
fices, and whatsoever of the ecclesiastical offices should be
r^ulated according to the ordinances of the common
law, the Councils of the Church, and the ancient institu-
tions of the Holy See ; and fifthly, that no payment
or assessment of money to the pope should be levied in
France, unless the cause be reasonable, pious, most urgent,
of unavoidable necessity, and recognised by the express
consent of the king and of the Gallicau Church.^ It is
plain that these provisions amply sufficed to preserve the
customary feudal rights of the Crown, according to which
every dignitary of the Church was bound, within a fixed
time and before his consecration, to apply for investiture
in his estates and royalties by the king, and afterwards
to take the oath of allegiance (homagium ligii). This
famous edict, the starting-point of those relations of inde-
pendence which henceforth France maintained towards
the papacy, was in no way dictated by a spirit of hostility
to the Chm'ch. Louis IX., on the contrary, was conspi-
cuous for his devotion to the papacy, and it is not un-
likely that this fact accounts for the absence of any
counter-protestation, at the time, from Eome. Although
the Pragmatic Sanction was published on the day before
his departiu'e for the Crusade, it was intended simply as
a precautionary measure of defence, to be employed, in
case of need, against the ' intolerable exactions of the
Coiu-t of Home ' — so runs the language of the edict — * by
which our realm has been miserably impoverished.'

To suck the resources of different countries had be- Paoai ex-
come, in fiict, at tliis time a principal object of the papal d?ri*^th«
policy. The payment of Peter's-pence had originally ^''*~^*^
been rather a symbolical act of subjection on the part of .

> * Ordoiinaiiccs dcs Rois,* cd. 1723, vol. i. p. 97.

252 DECIJNE OF THE MEDIAEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, the countries under the ecclesiastical supremacy of Rome
than an appreciable and permanent source of revenue. This
was changed, however, during the Crusades. As every war
requires money, so with every exhortation to take the cross,
fresh pecuniary demands were made, and to those who
contributed to the expenses of the Crusade absolution was
granted in the same manner as to those who joined it in
person. But, besides this, a large number of Crusadera
were compelled, for the sake of raising funds for their
enterprise, to pledge, mortgage, or otherwise alienate
their possessions ; and tliis was principally done to digni-
taries of the Chm^ch, as the largest holders of money.
Thus Godfrey of Bouillon sold part of his estates to the
Church of Verdun, and mortgaged another portion to the
Bishop of Liege.^ While now the impoverishment of the
feudal nobles, thus accomplished by the Crusades, made
it easier for the Crown to bend them to its authority, the
Church continued to enrich herself; and it can easily
be inferred that, by this process, the pope himself, who
directed the whole movement, did not come off empty-
handed. But the age of the Crusades passed by ; and
the most fiery exhortations for new enterprises of that
kind remained unheeded and ineffectual. The Latin em-
pire at Constantinople collapsed, and with it fell the papal
domination, which had been restored by Innocent, over
the Eastern Church. The later attempts to effect a union
with the Greeks remained without any practical result.
Palestine and Syria were also lost, and in 1291, Acco,
the last stronghold of the Christians, was taken possession
of by the Egyptian forces.

^ A further source of clerical wealth accrued from contracts with
the smaller lay-proprietors, who, to escape the burdens incident on
their positioUi adopted the expedient of holding their lands in copyhold
from the clergy. Montagus 'Gesch. der deutschen StaatsbUrgerl.
Freiheit,* ii. 655 aqq.

SYSTEMATIC EXACTIONS OF ROME. 253

On the other hand, the close of the struggle between chap.
Empire and Papacy deprived the latter of an important - — ^ — ^
weapon of contention. So long as the principal efforts
of the empire were directed against the pretensions of
Kome, the pope was able to count on the support of other
states which had an independent interest in the non-exercise
of the imperial power in Italy. But when the empire ex-
pressly renounced this claim ; when Eudolph of Hapsburg,
although still asserting in form the right of the emperor
to confirm the election of the pope, solemnly promised,
through his ambassadors, at the ratification of his own
election as king of the Bomans, to confirm all the dona-
tions of his imperial predecessors to the papal see, to
accept no ofiice or dignity in papal territories without
the pope's consent, and not to disturb nor permit the
House of Anjou to be disturbed in the possession of
Naples and Sicily, which they held as fiefs from the Eoman
see, then, with the object of the conflict, the possibiUty
was also removed of setting in motion the former engines
of power.

Nevertheless, the pope did not remain sole master of
the position in Italy. He had the Lombard republics
and Naples for his neighbours ; he had come to an under-
standing with the Komans themselves respecting the go-
vernment of the ecclesiastical State. He could not, as
supreme head of the Church, summon the nations of
Christendom against these powers at home. On the con-
trary, he could only occupy towards them the relations
of a temporal prince ; and to fiirther his objects in this
direction he required the same instruments as all other
governments, namely, an army and finances. Hence we
find the whole policy of the popes at this period directed
to the obtaining of money, and this could only be done by
fleecing nations in every possible way by the pallium

254 DECLINE OF THE MEDIAEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, money/ by indulgences, and dispensations, and by the con-
^- — r^— ' stant extension and abuse of their jurisdiction in cases

of first resort Nowhere, however, does their pohcy of
rapacity appear more shameless than in their conduct
with regard to the election of bishops. Notwithstanding
that tliey themselves but a short time before had used
every endeavour to withdraw all episcopal appointments
from secular influence by asserting the absolute freedom
of capitular election, they now not only claimed for them-
selves the exclusive right of disposing of all vacant dignities
in the Church, but announced their readiness to exercise
this assumed right in every case, on consideration of
payment, in conformity with the wishes of the secular
princes.

This systematic rapacity of the Court of Rome reached
its climax under Boniface Vlli. But even he, the very
pontiff who stretched to its utmost the theory of papal
omnipotence, in matters temporal as well as spiritual, by
his bull Unam Sanctam^ was doomed to suffer the most
galling discomfiture at the hands of a successor of Louis
IX., who had been the first to resist the exactions of the
Conteat papacy. While Louis, however, had been nm^tured in the
Phmpthe ideas of mediaeval Christianity, in Philip the Fair the
Bonifiuso independence of the Crown was the one paramount con-
^^^ sideration. For his war against England he had imposed
a heavy tax on the ecclesiastical order. Bonifiice, smart-
ing under some previous grievances, issued his bull
Clericis laicoSj forbidding the clergy of every kingdom,
mider penalty of excommunication, to pay tribute to the

^ Innocent IH., at the Lateran Council of 1215, made the 'pall'
necessary for episcopal or archiepiscopal ofEce, and even for the tnuisla-
tion of an archbishop from one see to another. Every archbishop was
to be buried in his pall, and his successor had to apply to the pope for
another.

PHILIP THE FAm AND BONIFACE VUI. 255

government without his leave. Philip retaliated by a pro- ciup.
hibition to export money from the realm, thus depriving ^
the pope of all revenues from France. The imprisonment
of the papal nimcio by Philip, on the charge of treasonable
language, brought about a violent quarrel, which ended
in Boniface being insulted to his face by an envoy of the
king, arrested at Anagnia, and dying, after his release,
of a fever, brought on by rage and excitement.^ The
conduct of Philip throughout this dispute met with the
full concurrence of his subjects, the expression of which
he took care to elicit by convoking for the first time the
States-General. Parliament, Sorbonne, episcopate, and
clergy, as well as the third estate, sided with the king in
maintaining the Pragmatic Sanction of 1269. It was
solemnly declared to be a fundamental principle of the
French law, that in temporal matters the kings of France
should recognise no superior on earth ; and the bull in
which Boniface, taking his stand on the false decretals of
Isidore, set forth his pretensions, was publicly burned J«n-««»
at Paris in the presence of the king.

Next followed the Germans. With them, indeed, the fjy**^
progress of events had been such as to prevent the growth Banrui
of a vigorous royal power ; and John XXII. took advan- xxii.
tage of tlie double election to the empire, which had
occurred after the death of Henry VIL, to issue a bull
(March 31, 1317) commanding, of his own absolute
power, the two rival candidates, Louis of Bavaria and
Frederick of Austria, each of whom had notified his
election to the pope, to lay aside their differences and
declare that on the vacancy of the empire all jurisdiction,
nde, and administration therein devolved upon the
Boman pontiff, to whom, in the person of St. Peter, God

^ On the pope asserting his supremacy over the civil power, the
Chancellor, Peter Flotte, replied : * Your power in temporal affairs is a
power in word ; that of the king, mj master, is a power in deed.*

256 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, himself had committed the rights of earthly as of spiritual
'^ — ^ — ' empire.^ At the same time, regardless of the German
rights of sovereignty in Italian territory belonging to the
empire, he nominated his favourite, King Eobert of Naples,
as vicar of Italy during the abeyance of the imperial
&pt. 28, crown. But the decisive victory of Louis at Miihldorf,
and the capture of his competitor, procured for the con-
queror freedom of action and universal recognition in the
empire. On the 8th of October, 1323, John XXTI. in-
stituted the first of his so-called ' Processes ' against Louis.
Having hitherto confined the papal claims to a vacancy of
the empire, he now proceeded to invade directly the
rights of imperialism, admonishing Louis, under pain of
excommunication, to abdicate within three months, and
forbidding his subjects to acknowledge or obey him.
Ijouis registered a formal protest (December 16, 1323)
against tliis proceeding, as a perversion of the Divine
ordinance of the two lights,^ inasmuch as the pope sought
to usurp one of them, the temporal power, for himself.
In one of the appeals, nailed shortly afterwards to the
door of the cathedral at Frankfort, Louis acknowledged
himself a true son of the Church, but refuted, both from
Eoman and canon law, the proposition that the imperial
dignity was instituted by the pope, who, on the contrary,
as he asserted, had no jurisdiction or authority in matters
temporal. In another instrument it was proved that the
emperor had simply to notify his election to the pope,
who was thereupon obliged to perform the ceremony of
anointing, unless the candidate in question was notori-

1 Raynaldus mb anno, cap. xxvii.

' 'Ipse, contra diviDS dispositionis ordinationem, per quam in
firmamento ecclesiae militantis duo magna luminaria Deus fecit, Pon-
tificalem scilicet auctoritatem et Imperatoriam majestatem, ....
manifeste nititur luminaria alterius, potestatis scilicet radios sscularia
Buffocare.* Herwart, i. p. 248.

LOUIS OF BAVARIA AND JOHN XXn. 257

ously unworthy. In case of unjustifiable refusal, the chap.
consecration could be performed by another Catholic, for — • —
it was intended only as a symbol of the protection of the
Church by the Empire ; such alone being the meaning of
the oath which the emperor took to the pope. The latter
might punish the emperor for his spiritual transgressions,
and he was also his ecclesiastical superior ; but he could
not exercise any temporal power. John replied to this
by a sentence of excommunication imtil Louis should
formally tender his obedience : but in the contest which Eiectona

, union at

ensued the nation more and more decidedly supported Bense,
the cause of the emperor ; and finally the German electors, issa
in their assembly at Kense, near Coblentz, proclaimed
their resolution to guard and defend against all assailants
the rights of the empire thus seriously impugned, and
especially their own privilege of electing its supreme
head. *By the advice and with the consent of the
electors and estates of the empire ' — so ran the manifesto
— * we declare that the imperial dignity is derived imme-
diately irom God alone ; that he only who is chosen by
all, or by the majority, of the electors becomes at once
and by virtue of his election both king and emperor,
and therefore does not require the approbation and sanc-
tion of the apostohc see ; and that all who oppose this
declaration or maintain the contrary shall be punished
as traitors.' This decree was confirmed without delay
by the emperor, and by the Diet convoked at Frankfort.

While, therefore, in former days the papacy had
found its best allies against the empire in the princes,
these now enter for the first time, as the English barons
had entered two hundred years before, into an aUiance
with the supreme power in the State against the encroach-
ments of the pope in the afiairs of the empire. And
throughout the whole of the next century, within the
limits of Germany, we find continually repeated the
VOL. I. s

258 DECLINE OF THE MEDIiEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, demand that the foreign influence of the papal Court,
' — ^ — ' particularly with regard to its fiscal exactions, shall be

checked and curtailed.
Anti.p«pai We have seen thus how one nation after another
^^'®"' asserted its independence against the usurpations of papal
authority in matters temporal. Contemporaneously with
this movement appeared a succession of writers who
maintained the freedom of the secular ifrom the eccle-
siastical power. Thus Dante, in his Z?^ Monarchid^ dis-
putes the right of the Church to temporal government.
Thus William of Ockham, the opponent of John XXII.,
and one of the heads of the popular Order of the
Minorites, or bare-footed friars, denies to the Church
all exercise of power or jurisdiction in matters not purely
spiritual, and asserts that whatever she has acquired of
civil immunities and property could be taken back by the
princes, even the estates belonging to the Church, if the
same could be turned to pious uses.
MwsUitisof Still more decidedly did Marsilius of Padua express
himself in his Defensor Pads, written in defence of the
imperial rights of Louis. ^ Starting with the Aristotehan
conception of the State, he insists upon its absolute inde-
pendence. It was the emperor's duty to preserve the
peace, but in this instance he was disturbed by the
usiupations of the pope and clergy. All human actions
must be subject to civil law, and every priest, therefore,
who transgresses it must abide by its censure ; nay, the
priest should be still more severely punished than the
layman, because he knows better to distinguish between
good and evil. Through the personality, therefore, of the
priest, an action can never become ecclesiastical, for in
that case civil jurisdiction would become a nullity. The
Christian religion robs no one of his rights ; but he who

* See Riezler, * Die literariachen Widersacher der Piibste zur Zeit
Ludwig'B dea Bayer/ 1874,

LTTERARY OPPONENTS OF THE PAPAL SYSTEM. 259

enjoys the advantages of State-membership must not
venture to exempt himself from State laws. Christ's
kingdom is not of this world : the priest enjoys only
spiritual privileges ; the Church can therefore claim no
temporal right of legislation or jurisdiction; the priest
can arrogate no sort of temporal power — as little, in fact,
as the Apostles had done. The coronation of the em-
peror gives to the pope no more right over him than the
anointing of the kings of France gives to the archbishop
of Eheims over his sovereign. As regards the authority
of the Church, by which term is understood the aggre-
gate of the faithful, laymen as well as ecclesiastics, Mar-
silius recognises only the Scriptures ; and the councils,
not the decrees of the popes, which are self-contradictory.
The papal dignity exists for the purpose of preserving
the unity of the Chiurch ; but it is a result of history, not
of Divine origin. The apostles were all equal, and needed
not the confirmation of Peter. The pope is subject to the
General Council ; he is only ita commissioned agent : not
he, but the Christian sovereign, is to convoke councils, and
laymen also ought to be admitted. Similarly, but within
narrower limits, MarsiUus demands that the congregations
shall choose their priests, and that no exconamunication
shall be pronounced without their consent.

The bold ideas of reform contained in this publication
fell upon a soil not yet prepared to receive them, since
the movement against the papacy was not yet directed
to its position within the Church. When Louis attacked
this, by declaring John a heretic, he failed to meet in
any quarter with support.

But the papacy now fell upon its own immediate ter-
ritory into a state of confusion and weakness, which
made it dependent on those political powers who had
hitherto been content with defending themselves against
its encroachments on their jurisdiction.

260

DECLINE OF THE MEDLEV^U. CHUllCII,

CHAP.

Suppres-
sion of the
Templars,
AJ>. 1811.

After the brief pontificate of Benedict XI., the suc-
cessor of Boniface ATII., Philip the Fair employed the
power he had acquired to procure, in 1305, the election
of the archbishop of Bordeaux, as Clement V., who ac-
quiesced in all his demands, even conceding to him for
five years the tenth of all the property of the Church, and
ratifying the abolition of the Order of Templars, which
had been pronounced by the Council of Vienne. This
Order, undoubtedly, could be reproached with degene-
racy ; most, indeed, of the ecclesiastical knightly orders liad
outlived their day,^ since the object for which they had
been founded, namely, the defence of Christianity by force
of anus against heathenism and Islam, was now no longer
pursued. Still, the suppression of the Templars was,
none the less on that account, an act of violence. Philip
sought, by so doing, to strengthen the power of the
Crown, to crush the imperium in imperio which that

^ The Teutonic Order was a solitary exception. As an ecclesiastical
brotherhood it had not only commanded the same fulness of spiritual
authority and political experience which raised the Church to the first
civilised power of the Middle Ages, but it was also spared the ex-
hausting struggle with Rome. Everywhere else the Church was either
the lord or the hostile neighbour ; in Prussia alone a member of the
State. Everywhere else the clergy were the mediators, in the ordinary
transactions of life, with the Koman see; in Prussia the Teutonic
Order alone remained the medium of intercourse between the clergy
and the pope. A third of the country was transferred to the four
bishoprics as their property ; but the provisions of the common law,
which protected the rights of the peasants no less than of citizens of
towns, extended equally over these episcopal possessions, which were
liable, moreover, to the obligation of military service. Beyond this, the
Church was forbidden to acquire any territory. As the internal
constitution of the Order comprehended the exercise of all spiritual
functions, so also it was supreme patron within its territories, and
enjoyed, within the episcopal third of the kingdom, the right of visita-
tion. More than this, all bishoprics and chapters, except those in
Ermland, were filled by spiritual brothers of this Order. Hence the
perfect unity of this ecclesiastical State ; hence also the fidelity of the
clergy to the Order, even in its contests with Rome. Treitschke,
* Ilistorische und Politische Aufsatze,' ii. p. 19.

SUPPRESSION OP THE TEMPLAHS. 261

Order had created, and to replenish his own finances by chap.
the confiscation of its property. The pope himself, by ^ — r— '
consenting to legalise this arbitrary measure, helped to
destroy an ecclesiastical knighthood whose members had
been among the foremost to raise the hierarchy to its
pitch of power.

An event, however, pregnant with momentous con- Bemorai of
sequences, occurred when, for the first time, the French JJS^ to
pontiff, Clement V., remained away from Eome, and es- t^sS.
tablished the papal Court at Avignon, where his six
immediate successors also resided. The papal palace
still stands in that city : half-monastery, half-castle, the
exterior in excellent preservation ; the interior, since the
French revolution, converted into barracks. Within are
still to be seen fragments of the frescoes with which
Giotto and Luca di Siena adorned the walls ; and the
vaults, blackened by sulphiu'ous exhalations, where the
screams of the victims of papal torture were smothered.
Justly did Petrarch^ and other Italian writers designate
this epoch of the papacy as the Babylonish Captivity of
the Koman Church. Although the popes acquired there
enormous riches,*^ together with the city of Avignon
and countship of Venaissin, they became the mere vassals

* lie calls Avignon the third Babylon and the fifth Labyrinth*
'Non hie career horrcndus, non tenebrosse domus error, non fatalis
uma humani generis fata permiecens, denique non imperiosus Minos,
non Minotaurus vorax, non damnato; Veneris monumenta deiuerunt.'
Ep. X.

* Hopeless of deriving any revenue from Italy, in its distracted
condition, the popes devised, for this purpose, two new and important
taxes. In addition to the fees of servitta communiay they claimed the jus
deportuumj originally demanded by the bishops from benefices to which
they had the right of appointment ; and consisting at first of a propor*
tionate chargo, but afterwards of a moiety of the lirst year's revenue
(ffuctuB medii temporis), so that the patron might reap the benefit of
each successive change. The other tax, which affected the disposition
rather than the vacancy of benefices^ was the Annates (^Annatae) — a

262 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

of the kings of France — nay, as a contemporary \vriter
puts it, copying the papal phraseology, tlie * servant of
servants ' of French magnates — and on that account, no
less from the open profligacy of tlieir lives, sank rapidly
into universal contempt.
Distracted Eomc, mcauwhilc, was the scene of violent contests
Some. between the factions, at one time of the aristocracy, at
another, of a fanciful republic, presided over, as tribune,
by the vain and eccentric Cola di Eienzi. After liis
overthrow, the desire became general to see the pope re-
turn to Eome ; for ruinous as the papacy had been to
Italy in general, it had brought corresponding profit to
the Eternal City, who, in consequence of the exile, had
lost all her former advantages as the centre of the
Christian world, and had sunk to the lowest stage of de-
cline. Twice had the popes, during their sojoiu-n at
Avignon, attempted to return to Eome. But Urban V.
fled to escape from a tumult, and Gregory XI. died soon
after his restoration in triumph by the Eomans. After
his death, two years later (1378), the populace extorted
from the terrified cardinals the election of an Italian ;
although seventeen members of the Sacred C/oUege were
Frenchmen, and only four Italians. The French cardinals,
however, who, incensed at the imperious conduct of
Urban VI., had retired to Avignon, publicly annulled his
election, as having been extorted by violence, and chose
one of their own number, under the name of Clement VII.

fixed charge, payable to the papal treasury, consisting of half the £rst
year's revenues of all bishoprics, abbacies, and inferior benefices, sub-
ject to the pope's appointment. They were called also Annatm Boni-
facianicBy as said to have been introduced by Boniface IX. (1889-1404),
to distinguish them from other taxes which in a larger sense were called
Annate. They formed a fertile source of gain, by the constant pro-
motion of ecclesiastics fi'om poorer to richer benefices, as well as by the
prohibition of pluralities*

TIIE GREAT SCHISM. 263

The new pontiff went back to Avignon ; and now began chap.
the great schism, which lasted for fifty-five years.^ ^ — ^ — '

This rupture damaged, of necessity, most materially The grett
the whole position of the papacy. The two grand facts — SeX*^.
for such they were believed to be — which had hitherto
given the firmest support, in the mind of Western
Christendom, to its assertion of Divine authority, were the
continuity of the papal oflSce, reaching back, in the popular
behef, as far as St. Peter ; and the unity of its govern-
ment. But a hnk was now broken in this majestic chain
of hii^tory. This imposing unity, as represented in all its
grandeur in the rule of the great pontiffs, was destroyed
as soon as two rival monarchs of the Church came forward,
each of whom claimed to be her la^vful sovereign. Only
one pope could be the true vicegerent of Christ : the other
who put forward similar pretensions was bound to be an
impostor and an anti-Christ. With this duality collapsed
at once the whole theory and system of an infallible
election, dictated by the Holy Spirit. The frailty was ex-
posed of the institution itself which laid claim to Divine its demom-
appointment, and, consequently, to judicial and adminis- effecfs on
trative supremacy on earth. The spell hitherto exercised ^^^'^^^"^ •
by the papacy was now, even to the most obtuse
observer, inevitably broken. It is difficult at the present
day to form any adequate idea of the terrible effects of
this scliism on that age. Even a doubt of the legitimacy
of a civil sovereign suffices to distract a nation. But the
misery of this division in the Church paralysed the whole
of Christendom, and called in question her entire legal

* Gregory XI., in order to break the paramount influence of the
French cardinals, had enjoined, by the Constitution 'Periculia et
delrimentis' (1378), that in the next Conclave the pope should be
elected by the simple majority. This was Uio first infraction of tho
principle established by Alexander III. (* Sicut de vitanda'), that u
majority of not less than two- thirds should bo required. This innova*
tioQ led to the Schism*

264 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, status. The disastrous effects of this disunion in her
^— *^ — ' head were naturally felt throughout the whole body of
the hierarchy. The cardinals, after the example of the
rival pontiffs, indulged in mutual warfare and malediction.
The bishops were divided, according as they sympathised
with this or that claimant to the papacy. As regards the
various sovereigns, each of the papal competitors en-
deavoured to purchase his recognition by the civil power
by the employment of every artifice at his command — a
pohcy aptly described by Lorentz as * wooing for the
privilege of obedience.* France, Scotland, Savoy, Lorraine,
Castile, Aragon, and Naples, espoused the cause of
Clement VII. ; Germany, England, Denmark, Sweden,
Poland, Prussia, and the rest of Italy adhered to Urban
VI. The confusion of Christendom was unbounded.
Cowidi'*^ A power thus divided in itself, as the papacy was at
demanded, that time, could ucver, by itself, recover its unity. The
quarrel between the rival pontiffs could only be adjusted
by a collective representation of the universal Church.
It was sought, therefore, to revert to the older days of
Christianity, when the unity of the Church was repre-
sented by the assembled episcopate. We have seen how
Marsilius of Padua upheld tlie theory of general councils.
Louis himself had repeatedly appealed to their authority,
when the pope came forward at once as a htigant and a
judge. On the same ground had Baldwin, archbishop of
Treves, appealed in 1334 to the Italian cardinals, in order to
determine the dispute between the emperor and the pope.
This growing conviction of the need of a General
Council was fiirther promoted by the schism itself.
During its continuance, the Church of France had per-
fected her fabric without reference to the pope, and had
fashioned a graduated and well-ordered series of appellate
jurisdiction, strictly confined to national limits, thereby
affording a proof that a national Chiu'ch could be estab*

MOVEMENT FOR UNITY. 265

lislied, if necessary, on a permanent basis without the chap.
intervention or assistance of Eome. But as the Gallican ' — ^ — '
community desired only from the first to be a member
of the universal Churcli of Christendom, so was she firmly
convinced of the necessity of heahng, if possible, the
schism which had wrought such heavy injury to the
Christian world. In this movement for unity the
University of Paris took the lead. John Gerson, her
famous Chancellor, in his treatise ' On the Eeformation of
the Church,* ^ laid down as maxims : that the pope was not
exalted above the temporal power, and still less above the
Gospel, but that it was lawful, on the contrary, to depose
him, should the welfare of the Church demand. Alone, he
had no manner of right to convoke a council, particularly
if it was to pass judgment on matters affecting himself;
but, in the present desperate state of affairs, a General
Council alone could effect the reformation of the Church.
It is obvious that these views were the exact opposite of
those which the popes had maintained in the plenitude of
their supremacy, namely, that the pope alone could
summon a General Council, but was in no way amenable
to its authority.

But the necessity of the times compelled men to break CouncUof
with this tradition. The cardinals of the two rival pon- 1409.
tiffs, urged by the Court of France and the University of
Paris, were reconciled to each other, and summoned a
General Council to meet at Pisa. This council failed,
indeed, to heal the schism in the papacy ; on the contrary,
by its election of Alexander V., it only added one more
to the numbers of the papal disputants. But it formed
the prelude to the next, and far more important council,
which, at the summons of Sigismimd and John XXIIL,
the successor of Alexander V., assembled at Constance in
November 1414.

^ 0pp. GeiEonii. ed. Du Vitif ii. 161, sqq.

266 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHTRCH.

CHAP. As it was the temporal sovereigns who mainly dictated

^, "^ ,^ this council, and who explicitly demanded the reforma-
Swtai^ tion of abuses, so, in conformity with the national
mi.^*^^ current that ruled the time, it was resolved, in spite of the
pope and his adherents, that the suffrages should be taken
in public session by nations, not by the head. The ob-
ject of this arrangement was to prevent the Italians, who
were most numerously represented, from impeding every
measure of reform. Each of the different nations —
France, England, Germany, Italy, and, later on (1416),
Spain — consulted, in separate and preUminary sessions, on
matters to be laid before the Council. They then
communicated their resolutions to each other for common
conference, and the article was finally resolved on by a
general congregation of the nations ; the collective
resolution being framed ' secundum majorem et saniorem
partem votorum, factft collectione zeh et numeri.' The
cardinals, who demanded at least a collective vote similar
to that possessed by the nations, failed, indeed, in this
demand; but subsequently they were allowed to hold
separate conferences in addition to participating with
their respective nations ; and their placet was invited
for the sake of form.
Decrees its The Couucil now cxpUcitly defined its authority by
Sfren?"' two resolutions, which decreed that a General Council
•nd April 6, derived its power immediately from Christ, and that every
person, of whatever rank or dignity, even the pope
himself, was bound to obey it in all matters concerning
the faith, the extirpation of schism, and the reformation
of the Church, both in its head and its members.

After this, the Council proceeded to its practical
business.^ Three things were expected of it — to protect
the Church against the rising heresy {causa fidei) ; to re-

^ Kaumer, 'Die grosscn Kirchenversammlungen des 15. Jalirh.'
Bifltor. Taschenb. 1810. HUbler, < Die Constanzer Keformation/ 1867.

COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 267

establish the unity of Church-government {causa unionis) ; chap.
and to reform her abuses [causa reformationis). Germany, ^ — ^ — '
supported at first by England, insisted on the immediate
reformation of the Church. Italy, with France and Spain,
demanded the previous election of a pope, on the ground
that it was impossible to regulate the constitution of the
Church unless her monarchical head were present ; just
as, in matters temporal, the work of legislation required
not only the estates of the realm, but the sovereign. The
views of Sigismund so far prevailed that a committee of
reformation was appointed to prepare a scheme for
future deliberation ; but only after the election of a new
pontiff. With regard to the internal government of the
Chiu'ch, the theory and doctrine of the Council dispensed
with the necessity of the papal confirmation of its
resolutions ; and a decree, or * pei'petual edict,' was
passed, which provided for the holding of periodical Oct9,i4i6,
councils, the next to take place in five years, a second
at the end of seven more, and after that one in every
ten years. The pope should never, except under urgent
circumstances, such as a war, siege, or plague, pro-
long these intervals ; and he was only empowered in
cases of necessity, and with the advice of his cardinals, to
abridge them. In the event of another schism, the Coun-
cil should, ipso jure^ assemble within twelve months after
its appearance ; ^ and every antipope, with his electors,
should appear before it in person, on pain of forfeiting his
dignity. Every election extorted by violence or undue
influence was declared void ab initio ; but the cardinals were
forbidden to proceed to another election until tlie Council
had given judgment upon the previous one, unless a positive
vacancy was created by the death or abdication of the
last legitimate pope. So far, the influence of Sigismund,

' ' Intelligatui* ipso jui*e terminus Concilii, tunc forte ultra annum
pendens; ad annum ptoximum bteviatUB.* V. d. Uardty iv. p, 1482.

268

DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP.

Martin y.
elected
pope, Kor.
1417.

aided by Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, who had
newly arrived at the Council, were able to procure the
consideration of Church unity and the extirpation of
schism. It was further decreed (October 30) that the
new pontiff should promise before his election to take in
hand with the Council the reformation of the Church in
her head, and in the Eoman curia.^

Wliilc the assembly was thus occupied with the ex-
tirpation of the great schism, the majority, which had
carried the previous consideration of a papal election, were
obliged to make the concession that the election for this
time should not be limited to the twenty-three^ cardinals
present, but that thirty other electors, six from each
nation, should be added to their number. Tliis college
dismissed all three contending pontiffs as unworthy,
John XXm., after evading, by flight, his promise to resign,
was formally deposed. Gregory XII. voluntarily abdi-
cated. Benedict XIII., who refused to do likewise, was
simply removed ; and the cardinal Colonna was elected
as the new pope, under the name of Martin V.^ ; France
alone objecting to him as a member of the Sacred College.

So far, the Council was a success. The popes, who
had hitherto claimed an absolute power, ordained by God
Himself, were placed by this schism in too flagrant an at-
titude of contradiction to their own pretensions, and were
forced to bow to the authority of the general assembly of

^ *Statuimus, quod futurus summus Pontifex, cum hoc sacro
Consilio vel deputandia per singulas nationes debeat reformare
Ecclesiam in capite et Curia Romana.' V. d. Hardt, iv. p. 1452. The
question of her reformation * in membris * was no longer discussed.

* Later on (May 2, 1418) the number of the cardinals was definitely
fixed at twenty-four, eligible, not by the pope alone, but by the
college, from all parts of Christendom.

* This was the second and last violation of the rule, that the pope
was to be elected by two -thirds of the cardinals — a rule which from
that time has been invariably adhered to.

ELECTION OF MARTIN V. 269

the Church. But scarcely was the schism repaired when chap.
the newly-elected pope employed his power to disavow - ^ L-
his engagements and to oppose the reformation which
was tlu'eatening Eome. Notwithstanding the stipulation
expressly prefixed to his election — that he should take in
hand, with the Council, the work of reformation —
Martin V. flatly ignored this condition ; and shortly after
his election, regardless of the precautionary decree, pub-
lished a Brief on the regulation of the Koman Chancery
(Regulce Cancellarioe)^ confirming all the abuses of his
predecessors. The decrees of the Council already men-
tioned, besides those relating to the election of bishops
and abbots, remained practically nugatory, Martin V.
denounced the proposition that a General Council was
superior to the pope, as * false, rebellious, and damnable ; '
and on April 22, 1418, dissolved the assembly, which
was powerless against this arbitrary edict. Thus, with
regard to the positive and most important duty of the
Council, the reformation of the Church in her head and
members, absolutely nothing was done at Constance;
while, with respect to matters of faith, it was only pos-
sible to maintain the status quo while the Bohemian
heretics were being burned at the stake.

Equally unfruitful of any practical result was the last of Conndi of
these three General Councils, that wliich assembled at Basle. 1431.'
Martin V., hard pressed by the danger arising from the
Hussites, and the political crisis of Eome, had been forced
to consent to its convocation. Deatli removed him before
it commenced its sittings ; but scarcely had the assembly
met (July 23, 1431), when his successor, Eugenius IV.,
pronounced its dissolution ; and it was not until two years
later that the Emperor Sigismund extorted from him its
recognition. But the Council meanwhile, encouraged by
the bold attitude of Ca^sarini, continued its sessions. The
decrees passed at Constance, asserting the supremacy of a

270 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CnURCH.

General Council, were renewed (February 15, 1432), with
the additional declaration that the pope should never dis-
solve, translate, nor prorogue a general assembly of the
Church, nor impeach or punish any of its members against
the will of the Council itself. The pope, it was declared,
was in no way absolute monarch of the Church, but
simply her ministerial head {caput ministeriale)^ superior,
indeed, to each of her members individually, but not
to the Church in her collective capacity. Accordingly,
it was further decreed that in the event of the Holy See
falling vacant during the holding of the Council, the elec-
tion should take place in the presence and under the super-
intendence of the assembly.^ Eugenius IV. immediately
declared the Council dissolved, and protested against these
resolutions, as subjecting to the Council the entire au-
thority— legislative, administrative, and judicial — of the
Church, and thus changing the monarchy ordained by
God, first into an aristocratic, and, finally, into a democra-
tic form of government. The Council, however, insisted
on its decrees, and demanded that the pope should ac-
knowledge its supremacy, and even ratify its resolutions
by oath. Eugenius IV., forced to yield, through the deser-
tion of his cardinals and the insurrectionary spirit of the
Eomans, revoked by his bull Dudum^ his edict of dis-
solution, and his legates were admitted to the Council
(April 26, 1434).
Decrees of After this the assembly proceeded with the reforma-
tioSr^ tion of the Church. The grievance which called forth the
greatest complaints was the reservation by the popes of the
appointment to an ever-multiplying number of benefices,

* * Statuitur . • . quod in eventum vacationis Sedis Apostolic®,
hoc sacro generali durante Concilio, electio summi pontificis in loco
istius sacri Goncilii fiat.' Seas. iv.

^ ' Quinimmo prsefatam commutationem, translationem, seu dissolu-
tionem reyocantes, ipsum Concilium Basillense pure, Bimpliciter, cum
affectu et omni caritate amplectimur.' Mansi; zxix. p. 574.

COUNCIL OF BASLK 271

notso much for the collation itself, as for the annates realised chap,
by that means. The extension of this right of provision had ^- , -^
brought, in the fourteenth century, nearly all the impor-
tant benefices into the hands of the Curia ; it had extin-
guished the ancient right of presentation by the ordinaries,
and thereby provoked great bitterness among the higher
clergy. Only in a few countries, such as England, Sicily,
Hungary, Bohemia, Denmark, and Sweden, had the pro-
tecting power of the State succeeded in maintaining with
firmness the customary rights of patronage. The Council
of Basle now declared all papal reservations, annates, and
grants in expectancy {gratioe expectativce) to be abolished,^
and restored the right of capitular election, which, it
was declared, could only be refused by the Court of Eome
in case of a violation of the canons.^ The pope was for-
bidden the disposal of any benefices beyond those already
awarded to him by the Corpus Juris Canonici — in contra-
distinction to the Extravagantes. With regard to his juris-
diction, it was limited to the * causaB majores * enumerated
in the canon law, and to disputes relating to elections to
cathedral churches and monasteries, which were subject
immediately to papal cognisance. All other causes of
complaint, originating beyond a specified distance from
Eome, were to be determined by a local judge, recourse
being had further, on appeal, to his immediate superior.^
But a Council in which even a minority, though strong,
resisted these decrees of reformation, had not the power to
give them practical efiect. The quarrel broke out afresh ;
and when the Coimcil, after citing Eugenius IV. to its tri-
bunal, proceeded to suspend him (October 1, 1437) as guilty
of contumacy for refusing to appear, the fear was openl)''
expressed of a new schism in the Church, especially as the

^ Concil. Basil. Seas. xxi. 1 de Annatis.

' Ibid, Sess. xxiv, G.

* SesB. zxzi. 1, de CauM.

272 DECLINE OF THE MEDL^TV^AL CIIURCH.

Council haughtily rejected the mediation of the princes, and
extended its interference to temporal affairs. Eugenius
meanwhile had answered his citation by dissolving the
assembly and opening another synod at Ferrara (January 8,
1438), where its direction could be altogether under pa-
pal control. Violent disputes arose among the members
at Basle, which ended in the secession of the minority.
The majority, in spite of an intimation from the emperor,
through his ambassadors, that he would restore peace, pro-
ceeded to depose Eugenius IV. (May 28, 1439), and,
though supported by only one of the cardinals, elected, by
a college somewhat irregularly constituted, Amadeus, duke
of Savoy, under the name of Felix V. ; who, however,
was scarcely anywhere recognised, and shortly after abdi-
cated. The Council of Basle dragged on its sittings for
several years, notwithstanding the rival council under
Eugenius IV. — now removed from Ferrara to Florence
— ^but it failed to obtain a recognition of its decrees.

The doctrine of universal councils gained ground,
after all attempts to remedy the corruption in the Chiu'ch
and to extirpate the schism had broken down. Unity was
re-established, but the assembhes were incapable of effect-
ing a real reformation of the Church. The Council of Con-
stance bore an aristocratical character ; but the Christian
laity had nothing to gain from that fact, if the constitution
of the Church were, in reality, merely transformed from a
monarchy to an aristocracy, and only the prominent evil of
the papal curia, not the abuses of the episcopate and of
the clergy, were dealt with, the latter, on the contrary,
still firmly maintaining the hierarchical idea of the Church.
The Council of Basle, in consequence of the large numerical
representation of the lower clergy, had a more democratic
stamp ; but, for that very reason, it alarmed the ecclesi-
astical aristocracy and the princes, who feared that what
threatened the pope might also be attempted against them-

GROWING PRETENSIONS OF CHURCH COUNCILS, 273

selves, so far as concerned their relations with the State, chap.
The belief in the necessity of a monarchical head of the ^ — , — '
Church was still firmly maintained, while the hope of im-
provement from a personal change in the papacy waxed
gradually more faint. When once the schism in the Church Churdi
waa removed, the real strength of the councils was un- ud the
nerved, for as questions of faith and doctrine were alto- ^^*^'
gether avoided, and the proceedings were directed ex-
clusively to the constitution and discipline of the Church —
while even in these matters no attempt was made to estab-
lish a reciprocal relation between the two powers, the Pope
and the Council, as, in some degree, had been done be-
tween the Crown and the Estates of the realm, the issue
being always as to which of the two was the final autho-
rity— the solution arrived at by these councils could only
lead to the absolute and unconditional triumph of the one
or the other rival. When the Council of Basle was found
to conduct itself with just as much assumption of pride
and infallibility as the pope, the conviction prevailed that
the restoration of the old monarchical government, in its
absoluteness, was the lesser evil of the two. The coun-
cils by no means inclined in principle to the temporal
power, although they endeavoiu-ed to utilise it against
Eome. On the contrary, the advancement of the study of
jurisprudence, which gave to secular scholars and states-
men an insight and influence in ecclesiastical aflfairs — ^the
monopoly, in former times, of the clergy — ^had produced
a strong feeling of jealousy among the latter. The na-
tional independence of the difierent churches towards
Eome, which had been attacked by the councils, by no
means involved a settlement of those questions of Church
and State, so peculiarly important, of necessity, to the
temporal powers ; and hence it became a question with the
latter whether they could not more easily effect an un-
derstanding with the one great bishop at Bome, by making

VOL. I. T

274 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, concessions to him at the expense of their clergy, than fall

^ in with the pretensions of the local ecclesiastical potentates.
Thus it came to pass that the papacy, though remaining
weakened, indeed, by its long disorders during its contest
with the temporal powers, emerged, nevertheless, from
that conflict with its ecclesiastical authority essentially undi-
minished. A few years after the close of the CJouncil of
Basle, Pius 11., formerly, as ^neas Sylvius, a zealous
member of that assembly, condemned the proposition al-
lowing appeals from the pope to General Councils, as
a ' horrible, unheard-of abuse,'^ and in 1 5 1 6 a Council itself,
the fifth Lateran, proclaimed the absolute supremacy of
the papal power and the legal validity of the bull of
Boniface.
Triumph of This triumph of the Papacy over the Episcopate,
over the SO oftcu repeated in the history of the Church, was
^* * in nowise the result of accident. If once the unity of the
Church is made to rest on the external authority of man-
kind, the supremacy of the Court of Rome becomes the
logical and simple consequence of that principle. The
weak points of the Papacy are evident : it discards the
authority of Scriptiu'e ; its development has been purely
historical, and it depends on human forms of election.
The infallibility of the electoral college of cardinals, who
received this right at a late period, is confuted by the in-
trigues of the conclaves, by the intervention, in the most
various forms, of the secular power, and by the election of
antipopes. But the case of its opponent. Episcopacy, is
no better. The exclusive translation of the apostolic
office to the bishops, who in their collective capacity are
supposed to represent the Church, rests as little on Scrip-
ture as the primacy of the Eoman pontiff. The infallibi-
lity, denied to the pope, is to dwell with the (Ecumenical

^ ' Execrabilis et pristinis temporibus iDauditus tempestate nostril
inolevit abusus.* — Bull, Jan.23, 1460, in GobellinuSj iii. p. 91. Ed. 1614.

THE PAPACY AND THE EPISCOPATE. 275

Council : the individual members of this indefinite multi- chap.
tude, confessedly fallible by themselves, are to be made ^ — r^ — ■
infallible for the first time by the illumination of the Holy
Spirit. But as this illimiination is absolute and authorita-
tive, so its operation — as mankind were instructed to be-
lieve— could the more easily be represented by an indi-
vidual, whose real opinion is far simpler to discern than
that of a great assembly, the very oecumenical character
of which involves so many conditions of contrariety and
discord. And since the councils, from the nature of their
composition, can but seldom be unanimous, while the
Chiu-ch, on the other hand, demands a constant govern-
ment, it is obvious that the papacy, in opposition to such
assemblies, enjoys a position of considerable advantage.
The result of the whole movement was that pope and
Coimcil mutually damaged their respective authority,
until Luther drew the necessary conclusion that as both
contradicted each other, neither of them was entitled to
full belief.

With regard, meanwhile, to the various countries of NaUonti
Europe, since in respect of the papal rights of coUation, re-
servations, annates, and so forth, no common understanding
had been arrived at, nothing was now left but to conclude
separate concordats with the pope, or to proceed to legis-
tion independently of the Holy See. Germany adopted the
former alternative. The states of the empire, during the
vacancy of the imperial throne, with a view to further their
eflTorts at mediation between the pope and the Council of
Basle, had declared the neutrality of the German Church,
and renounced provisionally all obedience to both. But
while leaving afterwards the two contending parties to come
to an agreement, if possible, as to the internal government of
the Church, they took care to secure their independence of
Bome by means of a separate treaty. Such was the object Pngmatie
of the pretended Pragmatic Sanction of 1439, which gave Germuiy,^

276 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, statutory sanction to the decrees of reformation, passed at

^ Constance and Basle, and thus laid the foundation of a
1489. general ecclesiastical law for the empire.^ The free be-
stowal of benefices by canonical election, the independence
of the German Churches, the Umitation of the right of ex-
communication, and the reform of the judicial system of the
hierarchy, formed the essential points of this memorable
instrument. But the princes of Germany had no political
organisation wherewith to enforce the execution of these
demands. Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V. had already
promised to confirm these resolutions, when the latter pon-
tiff sent his legate, not to Aschaffenburg, to a conference
there, as he had promised, with the Estates of the Empire,
but to Vienna, where the newly-elected emperor, Frederick
ni., won over by the cunning of ^neas Sylvius, in the
conflict between dynastic and imperial interests, shamefully
Concordat sacrificcd, by the concordat of 1448, aU that had hither-
im^^^ to been gained by the Council of Basle and the Acceptation
of Mayence, the pope granting to him, in return, exten-
sive powers over the episcopate in his hereditary dominions.
The emperor conceded almost all the privileges of the
Court of Kome, which had been taken away by the de-
crees at Basle, particularly the annates, the benefices,
with some modifications, which had been assigned to the
Papal See in the Corpus Juris together with the Extrava-
ganteSf and all others which should fall vacant in the
months of January, March, May, July, September, and
November. The pope, on the other hand, granted to
Frederick m. the right of nominating to the six bishoprics
of his hereditary domains, together with a hundred of the
most valuable benefices, and the visitation of, and a tenth
of the revenues accruing from, the monasteries. This dis-

^ Lorentz. p. 242, sqq. See the ' Sanctio Fragmatica Germanorum
illostrata,' by Kocbi Argentor. 1789.

CONCORDATS WITH GERMANY AND FRANCE. 277

graceful compact frustrated the last attempt to establish a chap.
united and independent system of ecclesiastical law in — . — -
Germany ; and Eome, encouraged by this precedent, pro-
ceeded to purchase, by artful concessions, the obedience
of the most powerful princes of the empire. The elec-
tors of Mayence and Treves received the indultum of col-
lating to all benefices which might fall vacant during the
papal months. The elector of Brandenburg obtained the
right of nominating the bishops of Brandenburg, Lebus,
and Havelberg. The duke of Cleves and others were
similarly favoured. But Germany, as a nation, was de-
livered up, by this Concordat, defenceless to Eome, who
proceeded to inundate her Church with foreigners.

France, on the other hand, assumed an attitude of Fnmce:
independence. Substantially adhering to the principle of Sanson of
General Councils, Charles VII. enacted in 1438 thePrag- f^^
matic Sanction of Bourges. This charter, while avoiding ^*^
an open rupture with the pope, and abstaining from
interference in purely spiritual afiairs, adopted the pro-
position of his subjection to a General Council. The
authority of the Council of Basle, whose deputies were
present, was recognised in general terms, but its decrees
were rescinded, so far as they were judged unsuitable to
the Church of France. Annates, reservations, and ex-
pectatives were abolished. The freedom of canonical
election was established, the right to recommend candi-
dates remaining vested in the king, while the nobles of
the realm enjoyed that of presenting to benefices under
their patronage. The liberties of the Gallican Church
were confirmed anew, and in particular it was settled
that no papal bulls or briefs should be published without
royal sanction (pareatis), a provision aimed equally against
the spiritual usurpations as the fiscal exactions of Eome.
The execution of these provisions was entrusted to the

■

278

DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP.
X.

Church re-
fonnation
in Spain.

Courts of Parliament, which were charged to decide in all
cases of their violation {appel comme d'abus)}

Similarly, in other countries, were formed those
national Churches, which in point of doctrine, worship,
and constitution, abstained indeed from breaking with the
mediajval Church of Eome, but, with regard to their
legislation, jurisdiction, and administration, were subject
to the authority and supervision of the temporal govern-
ment. In this manner the universal Church acquired the
character of a federation.

The most conspicuous example of these national move-
ments was offered by the infant monarchy in Spain, which,
without disturbing either dogma or constitution, succeeded
in effecting a formal reformation of her Church.^ The
seven hundred years' contest with the Moors had kept
constantly alive in Spain an active religious zeal. The
pride of pure blood blended with that of orthodoxy ; and
not to be a pure CathoHc was regarded as a fault of race
no less than of disposition. But the Church, in this as
in other countries, had become demoralised during the
fourteenth century by worldUness and luxury.^ The
result of the councils had shown that any remedy from
that quarter was as hopeless as from the pope. At this

^ The parliaments) originally simple courts of justice, raised them-
selves into political corporations by insisting on, and eventually obtain-
ing, the right of having all new legislative ordinances submitted to them
for enregistration. Those laws which they rejected, they ignored in
their judicial proceedings.

^ Maurenbrecher, * Studien und Skizzen zur Gescbichte der Refor-
mationszeit,' 1874.

^ Accordingly, the Castilian cortes declared, in 1390, that they failed
to discern any valid reason why the clergy should claim the payment of
tithes. The precepts of the Old Testament, framed, as they had been, for
the maintenance of an indigent priesthood, were wholly inapplicable to the
present pampered clergy. If the priests desired to assimilate themselves
to the Levites, they might then be at liberty to enjoy the tithes ; but
they must surrender at tlie same time their worldly possessions.

CONCORDAT WITH SPAIN. 279

juncture, the government, which had put an end to the • chap.
long political convulsions and distraction of the country, ^— ^--i — '

undertook also to give a new shape and character to the
Spanish Church.^ By a clever manipulation of poUtical
events, Ferdinand and Isabella effected the Concordat of concoidat
1482, which granted to the Crown a power over the Church
hitherto unknown. Spain had, moreover, been hitherto
flooded by Eome with foreign ecclesiastics : the king now
obtained the right of nomination to all bishoprics and
higher offices in the Church. The government acquired
the Grand-mastership of the Ecclesiastical Orders, and the
disposition of the enormous property of the Church.
Papal bulls succumbed to the placet: all ecclesiastical
matters collectively were subjected to the intervention
and supervision of the civil power. Both king and queen
were sincere, no doubt, in their desire to purify the de-
moraUsed Church from its elements of corruption. But ReUgious
the means they employed were not the less partial, in- SS^cr
tolerant, nay barbarous. The Inquisition, which already ^JitJ"*
in the thirteenth century had launched its terrors against
the Albigenses, whose adherents had spread as far as
Spain, was now erected into an institution of the Crown.
This engine of persecution, whose instruments were the
creatures of the Crown, and whose judgments were liable
to the royal visa, was turned now against the remnant of

' The new kingdom now entered upon the inheritance of its Visi-
goth ic predecessors, who, even aflcr Reccared^s conversion to the Catholic
faith, had maintained with a strong hand their supremacy over the Church.
They fixed the limits of the dioceses, convoked councils, and reserved
to themselves the placet for the decrees there made. The Church was
obliged to renounce the Roman law ; the canons remained subject to
civil legislation ; bishoi)S as well as clergy had to conform to temporal
jurisdiction. On the other hand, the Church possessed great influence
in the State. The binhops co-operated in the work of legislation;
secular pimishments were inflicted for ecclesiastical offences, and ecclesi-
astical punishments for secular crimes. Dahn, 'Die Kbnige der Grer-
manen/ vol. v.

280 DECLINE OF THE M£DL£VAL CHUBOH.

CHAP, the conquered Moors and especially the Jews, who were
^ , -■ forced to embrace Christianity, These nuevos Christianas
— as they were called — ^were denounced and persecuted
as relapsed proselytes. But the purity of the faith was
guarded not merely from without. Within the Church
herself, all worldly ecclesiastics were removed ; the strict-
est discipline was restored among the general body of the
clergy ; and the rigour of mediajval asceticism was re-
vived in the monasteries. Preaching and the confessional
were zealously cultivated : the University of Salamanca,
in its punctilious regard to dogma and the hierarchy,
reverted to the tenets of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
But while, in this manner, all those outward blemishes of
the Church, which offend most deeply the popular con-
science, were removed by the initiative of the State, and
the Church, long robbed of reUgious Ufe, was reanimated
with a new spirit, the ground was taken away fix)m the
later reformation of the faith, and the way prepared for
the people to take up the battle for the preservation and
extension of the piu'ified Church of the priesthood.

In no other country but Spain has anything similar
occurred ; but the fifteenth century was an intellectual
epoch, too deeply stirred, to have rested content with
Effort* of mere lamentations over the decline of the Church. As
revival* ^^ sccular territory the German nation, notwithstanding
the impotency of the empire and the pohtical state of
anarchy, proved her strength by the colonisation of the
Slavonic East, by the growth and ripe prosj^erity of her
confederate cities, by the development of her trade and
commerce, of the arts and poetry; so in the spiritual
province an abundance of productive energy was dis-
played, which opposed a practical protest against the
worldhness of the Church. Although the hierarchy had
imparted by degrees an exclusively symbolic character to
the whole system of worship ; although the sale of in-

EFFORTS OF RELIGIOUS REVIVAL. 281

dulgences, the veneration of relics and saints, with its chap.

numberless festivals and pilgrimages, continually intruded -
upon religious life, while the preaching of the Gospel fell
altogether into the background, still all these purely ex-
ternal means of grace could never satisfy souls eager for
salvation, the less so, indeed, as the Church herself, by
her example of worldliness, destroyed the belief in their
efficacy. The more deeply rooted became the conviction
of her disease, the more strenuously were manifested the
reforming efforts of the laity, who not only denounced
aloui the prevailing corruption — witness the many satires
levelled against the immorahty of the clergy, and the evils
of confession, penance, and indulgences — but demanded
that the subjection of the flesh to the spirit should once
more be made a reahty. As yet, indeed, these efforts did
not produce an open rupture with the Church. Their
champions, like the age itself, were not educated enough
to penetrate to the root of the evil : they reUed, more-
over, mainly on a vague enthusiasm for an ideal of their
own creation, such as recommended itself most readily in
times, like those, of universal dissatisfaction. In opposi-
tion to the barren code of forms and traffic in indulgences
that marked the Church of the priesthood, they set up the
vague and formless assumption of new divine inspirations,
and of a profoimd and mystic knowledge of the truths of
salvation. But precisely because these assumptions were securUn
in reahty as shallow as they were one-sided, they were "faiMt the
powerless to effect any real reformation ; though they ^'^^ ^'
certainly exercised on the age a considerable influence ;
and one which would have been impossible had they
assumed a piurely negative ix)sition. Of this kind were
the sectaries like the Apostolists, the severe Franciscans —
known as the Zealous {Zelatores), or Spirituals — ^the
Beguines, and especially the Flagellants, who, with melan-
choly songs of their own composition, rambled through

282 DECLINE OF THE MEDI/EVAL CHURCH,

CHAP, the various countries, and scourged themselves till they
' — ,' — ' bled, in order by the new law — ^that of baptism by blood
— to avert the wrath of Heaven. Although these sects
abstained from preaching any actual heresy, their existence
was so far inimical to the Church, as they claimed the
right to hear confession and to grant absolution, and thus
made the priesthood superfluous. Popes and councils,
therefore, as well as the secular powers, interfered against
them. But anathema and civil edict were equally power-
less to suppress them : these penitential pilgrimages con-
tinued until the sickly sentiment which had suggested
them outlived itself. As these movements were a protest
The Mys- agaiust the externahsation of reUgion, so the Mystics, in
their revolt against the cold petrifaction of dogma and the
subtle entanglements of scholastic idealism, sought for a
counterpoise of mind and spirit through a self-absorption
in the contemplation of Divine mysteries, which had in
many respects a pantheistic, and almost always a fanatical
character. Condemned generally as heretics by the
Church, they acquired, nevertheless, great popularity and
influence by restoring once more to preaching in the com-
mon tongue its place of honour in Divine service,
i^ureore The significance of all these movements aUke consisted

oftheKe- . ® , • • i»

formation, in the protcst they entered against the externahsation of
the Church of the priesthood. But the mere counter-
process itself could never lead to any reformation, inas-
much as it was purely subjective, and therefore, in many
respects, arbitrary. Far more important and far-reaching
in its consequences, was the appearance of genuine pre-
cursors of the Keformation, who were destined to stamp
their character upon a new epoch. Of the various sects
already mentioned, the Waldenses had been the most im-
portant and the purest ; nor had all the rigours of perse-
cution been able wholly to suppress them. Similar in
their aims were the Brethren of a Common Life in Hoi-

PRECURSORS OF THE REFORMATION. 28S

land — a brotherhood of enthusiasts, who, after the ex- chap.
ample of St, Paul, maintained themselves by the work of ^ — , —

their hands, and sought to promote Christian life by
popular treatises on religion. But both these and the
Waldenses restricted themselves to quiet circles of ad-
herents, and never acquired any hold over popular life.

The first to win this triumph was John Wicliffe, who, John
in the true spirit of a refonner, reverted to Scripture as ^"="*-
the sole standard of faith, and conceded to the Church a
purely human authority. Starting with these principles,
not only did he endeavour to bring once more the Bible
home to the people, by preaching and translating it into
the national language ; not only did he combat the flag-
rant abuse of the efficacy of good works, and the worship
of saints and relics, but he advanced, by a natural process,
to assail the teaching of the medieval Church, wherever
it was not founded upon a Scriptural basis. Such, for ex-
ample, was the doctrine of the seven sacraments, but
especially that of Transubstantiation, which he designa-
ted as the unscriptural adoration of the creature ; all this
not m the spirit of mystical fanaticism, but with evangeli-
cal sobriety and moderation. He contrasted the Church
of the priests with the general priesthood of all beUevers :
he defended the rights of learning and of the State against
the liierarchy, and for these reasons, among others, found
numerous followers among the people, as the movement
of the Lollards, who joined him, served to testify.

The schism in the Church in Bohemia involved more
important results. There Christianity had been planted
by the Greek Church, and, even after its incorporation
into the Eoman hierarchy, had long maintainal a certain
independence, as was shown by the preaching in the
vernacular, the marriage of priests, and the administration
of the cup at the Eucharist. In the fourteenth century
some excellent men came forward at Prague, who de-

284 DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, nounced with zeal and fervour the corruption of the

— ^ — ' clergy and the doctrine of the efficacy of good works.
John Huaa. To thcsc Johu Huss attached himself, and, like Luther,
began by attacking indulgences and insisting on the
sanctifying power of faith. Less determined than Wicliffe
in his opposition to mediaeval dogma, Huss assailed with
all the greater vehemence the doctrine of the Church of
Eome. He distinguished the true, universal Church,
which was built upon Christ and Holy Scripture, and con-
sisted of all the faithful, from the Church as a visible
institution. As unbelievers can only be Christians in
name ; so the pope is then only the true successor of
Christ, when he represents His cause on earth : if he acts
contrary to Christ's command, he is anti-Christ. The
Council of Constance knew of no other answer to these
doctrines than the condemnation and burning of the
heretic, in violation of the safe-conduct granted to him
by the emperor. But how deeply the teaching of Huss
had taken root among the people of Bohemia was proved
by the frightfiil Hussite wars, as well as by the fact tliat
the Eoman Church ascribed to the national saint, Nepomuc,
traits from the character and life of Huss himself.
Savona- The last of these precursors of the Eeformation was

"*^ Savonarola, a man who, filled with the spirit of prophecy,

rebelled against the moral decline of the Church, but
sufiered shipwreck by connecting his attempt to purify
the Church with the idea of a theocratic republic,
iv-nida- The efforts of these reformers appear in proper relief,

{npn.'.'v!**^ if we consider the character of the papacy during the
ii:.o-!:oo. second half of the fifteenth century. Nicolas V. and
Pius 11. were the last pontiffs who represented its medi-
eval prestige and pretensions in the Church. Their suc-
cessors endeavoured, it is true, after the example of the
Vienna Concordat, to purchase from the sovereigns the
surrender of the principle of Church Councils, and to

DEGRADATION OF THE PAPACY. 285

regain their fiscal privileges, by conceding to them in chap.
return their national Churches. And in this they were — ^ — '
more or less successful — in Spain, partially, by the Con-
cordat of 1482 ; in France, more completely by that of
1516, by means of which Francis I. deprived the Chapters
of their electoral privileges and secured for himself the
nomination of bishops, while the pope retained the right
of institution, the annates being reintroduced and divided
between the Crown and the Court of Eome. But in the
main, the papacy, under Sixtus IV., Alexander VI., and
Julius n., relapsed into a mere Itahau principality. The
policy of those pontiffs dishonoured the priestly character,
and aimed solely at enlargmg the ecclesiastical State by
every possible method of violence or intrigue. Sixtus IV.
(1471-1484) conspired with the Pazzi to overthrow
the Medicis, and procured the assassination of JuUo de
Medici during the celebration of high mass. Julius II.
(1503) was the soul of the League of Cambray, the object
of which was to divide the territory of Venetia. Ban and
interdict were made subservient entirely to political ob-
jects. But to further these objects it was necessary, above
all things, to get money, and that by every possible
artifice or device. All offices in the Church were sold to
the highest bidder. Nowhere than in Eome itself was
more ridicule heaped on the simplicity of the fidthfiil,
who made pilgrimages to the Church jubilees in the Sacred
City, and thought to do honour to religion by dispensa-
tions and indulgences, while, all the time, the ostensible
purposes for which these taxes were demanded, such as
crusades against the Turks, the protection of the bones of
martyrs, and so forth, were empty and illusory pretexts,
the vast sums thus realised being squandered merely on
wars of the papal State, or on providing for the personal
expenses of the pope and his favourites. This grasping
and vicious policy reached its climax in the Borgias.

286 DECLINE OF THE MEDIAEVAL CHUECH.

c^p. Personally, these were not worse than many another
' — - — ' Italian dynasty of that time : the terrible mischief was,
that this family, with two such members as Calixtus HE.
and Alexander VI., should be allowed to sit upon the chair
of Peter. Nor is there any reason to suppose that a monster
like Alexander VI. (1493-1503), who wallowed in every
conceivable variety of crime, ever felt what a fearful con-
tradiction his life presented to his dignity and solemn
responsibilities as high-priest of the Christian religion.
While making his mistress, Julia Famese, sit for portraits
of the Madonna, he thought to obtain the especial pro-
tection of the Virgin. He added to the edifice of papal
dogma, by declaring that indulgences released from purga-
tory ; and he gave away the new world of America to
Spain and Portugal The Borgias, who upon a temporal
throne would be called only children of their time, ap-
pear, as popes, the true embodiments of anti-Christ : they
were, in fact, as Gregorovius remarks, ' a satire upon a
grand scale, or caricature of an ecclesiastical world, which
they themselves dishonoured and destroyed.' The elec-
tion of the Medicis also, in the person of Leo X., produced
only so far a change that a more refined sensualism and
intellectual pleasures took the place of those coarser forms
of enjoyment ; while, at the same time, a passion for free-
thinking gained ground, which extended to the denial of
the fundamental truths of all religion. Eoman prelates
chattered of the mysteries of Christianity, as the augurs
and philosophers, under the Roman emperors, had dis-
cussed the symbols of the national worship ; and cardinals
ridiculed the Fabula de Christo.

In this very degradation of the papacy, which had
completely renounced the ideas of its most illustrious
champions, lay the necessity of a general resistance to
its anti-Christian usurpations. The desertion from the
mediaBval Church first began, not when the Gregorys and

SPIRITUAL DECAY IN THE CHURCH. 287

Innocents carried to its highest pitch their claim to a chap.
universal monarchy, but when their degenerate successors ' — . — '
employed the spiritual power of the hierarchy solely as
an instrument to further their worldly and private am-
bition.

As in all other spheres, so also in the ecclesiastical, spiritiua
the stirring ideas of the middle ages had outUved their tSSiwcb
vitality. The Church of this age had lost religion, and
had proved that internally she was incapable of self-
reformation, so long as she clung to her old principles
and traditions. Corruption preyed more deeply than ever
upon her vitals : the clergy lived, by their immunities, in
luxury. The bishops scarcely troubled themselves about
ecclesiastical matters, but delegated them to deputies of
various kinds. For the ordinary duties of preaching in
the cathedral a vice-pastor was appointed. The jurisdic-
tion, so far as it was not in the hands of the archdeacons,
was delivered over to official deputies ; and other ecclesi-
astical duties were performed by the suffiragan bishops.
The religious houses had long abandoned their strict
monastic mode of life. They dividal with the bishops
the property of the Church : their inmates consumed their
share in comfortable idleness, and left the services of
religion to be performed by monks. Frequently the
prebends were united with parochial benefices, and the
latter administered by poorly-paid vicars. The high-
est offices, which, so long as the freedom of capitular
election remained, were accessible at least to the lower
nobility, who held many of them, fell more and more,
through the favour of the pope or the territorial magnates,
into the hands of posthumous children of the princes ; ^

' The Court of Rome pretended that the bishops must have the
asHiHtance of the prestige and power of the princely houses, to keep the
chapters in order ; but in reality her object was to combat the national
opposition by enlisting the princes in her interest.

288

DECLINE OF THE MEDLEVAL CHURCH.

CHAP, an abuse which provoked the hatred of the nobles quite
-- — , — ' as much as the fiscal rapacity of Eome had exasperated
the people. The longing increased for a real reformation
The wty of the Church in her head and members. It had already
Kr thTRe- manifested itself, and that in a positive manner, in the
ormation. yigQ^Q^^g assaiilts of Wicliffc and his fellow-champions of
Scriptural truth. In addition to that, the principle of
State independence towards the Church, in all temporal
matters, had penetrated the convictions of princes and
people. A third power now arose against the hierarchy,
in the humanistic civilisation of the world, with its revival
of classical studies, of the examples of ancient statesmen,
of the art of the Eenaissance, of the philosophy of Plato.
The ground was broken for that grand movement of man-
kind, in which three powerful currents were to imite to
effect a genuine and triumphant Reformation of the
Church.

289

». __

CHAPTER XI.

THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

Evangelical Tendency of the Age — ^Mabtu^ Ltttheb — His Cardinal Doc-
trine of Justification by Faith — His View of Scriptural Authority — His
Conception of the Church — His Principles irreconcilable with those of
Rome — His Conception of the State — Separation of Civil and Spiritual
Authority — Protest against Canon Law — ^Vindication of Liberty of Con-
science— National Character of Lutheranism — ^The Reformation not a
Political Movement — ^Permanent Nature of the Struggle with Rome.

A TENDENCY pervades all ages of the Church to measure ^5f^-
her doctrmes and life by the standard of Scripture. ^- '"■
This tendency, which at first was paramount and all-
controlling, yielded more and more, with the process of
development, to the encroachments of tradition. In
Augustine, the last and greatest teacher of early Christi-
anity, it appears in immediate opposition to the authority
of the visible Church, and to the maxim that membership
of that Church is the condition of salvation. With the
great migration of nations, and the foundation of the
German on the ruins of the Eoman empire, the hier-
archical feature of Church progress had constantly become
more prominent. But in- proportion as the hierarchy
became absorbed in the passion for self-aggrandisement,
and by constantly intermeddling in the domain of politics
and civil life, contracted more and more incurably the
taint of worldhness, its hostiUty reverted, with all the
greater energy, against the evangelical movement. The
key-note, first struck by the Waldenses, was re-echoed,
with increasing distinctness by the Mystics, by Wicliffe,
VOL. I. u

290 THE REFOKBIATION IN GERMANY.

caA.p. and by Huss. With this movement, which the Church
^" !■'' of Eome knew only to stifle and suppress, the Beform-
ation now allied her forces. Her motive power was not
that of Humanism — a power derived from literature
and art — active as were those influences on her teaching.
Her roots were planted, not in free enquiry, however
fearlessly she practised it, but in the conscience of man-
kind. She addressed herself, not to the great and learned
ones of the earth, but to the people at large ; and she
became for the first time a power by herself, when the
matured but tardily-awakened movement concentrated
all its energies in the person of one creative genius,
Martin Luther.
Mwtfn The character and acquirements of this marvellous

man peculiarly qualified him for his mission. His was one
of those powerful natures, which not only possess an ex-
traordinary measure of mental endowments, but consecrate
and exalt those endowments by an inflexible energy of
will, and a depth of spiritual feeling, to the dignity of an
apostle of mankind. Not in intellect alone, however, did
he surpass all his contemporaries : that which first gave
to his natural gifts and character their true sanction and
irresistible force, was the utter unselfishness with which
he made them subservient to a grand moral idea. It was
this earnestness of moral purpose that caused him to con-
sume his energies in the task of attaining salvation through
the mediating efficacy of the ancient Church. It was tWs
moral and intellectual power that made already one of his
teachers predict of the unknown monk that he would
confound all the learned doctors of Christendom and re-
form the whole Church of Rome. It was this that filled
even Cardinal Cajetan — himself a man of outward versa-
tility and refined worldly culture — with secret dismay, and
made him vow to discourse no longer with ' this beast,
whose head has deep-set eyes and is full of marvellous

MARTIN LUTHER. 291

speculations.' ^ And however readily we must acknow- chap.
ledge the services of his fellow-labourers, especially of *- — r^ — '
Melanchthon, still, in all those critical moments which called
for real promptitude and action, Luther rests upon himself
alone. Without him the whole movement of the Eeform-
ation is inconceivable; in him it became personified.
Strikingly does DoUinger remark of him —

' There has never been a German who so intuitively
understood his fellow-countrymen, and who in return has
been so thoroughly understood — ^nay, whose spirit, I
should say, has been so completely imbibed by his nation,
as this Augustinian friar of Wittenberg. The mind and
spirit of the Germans were under his control like the lyre
in the hands of a musician.'^ It was, therefore, quite
natural that, inasmuch as the impulse was given, and the
* path was cleared by Luther, the Protestant movement in
general should be called by his name.

The keystone of Luther's reformation was this, — that
he discovered the condition of salvation in the justifying Jnftifica-
power of faith in the grace of God, as manifested in the fidSi ^e
person of Christ, not in so far as this faith is a doctrine, hS^SS*
but inasmuch as it becomes in man a fact, prepared by ^'^^^
the longing for reconciUation awakened by the Holy
Spirit, and attested by the life of the believer. Faith,
therefore, is a Divine fact in man, which, so far as he
embraces it, must achieve in him good works, the latter
thenceforth being nothing but the necessary utterances of
the soul, justified by the pardoning grace of God, so that
' it is as impossible to separate faith and good works as
to separate burning and shining in a fire.' But this justi-

1 ' Ego nolo/ he said to Staupitz, * amplius cum hac bestir loqui ;
habet enim profundos oculos et mirabiles speculationes in capite suo.*
. Myconius, p. 33.

' ' 0ber die Wiederyereinigong der Christlichen Kirchen ' 1846, a

refutation of his own previous account of the Reformation.

292 THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

fying faith is made a positive verity by its agreement with
the Word of God. In the Bible had Luther found it, and
to the Bible, therefore, he appealed as the sole standard of
?8^*^ faith. And yet this was no new ' paper-pope,' as has been
torai an^ alleged, that he erected. Firmly as Luther beUeved in
the Divine inspiration of Scripture, he was far from
admitting that every word of the sacred text had been
dictated by the Holy Spirit. This theory of later dogma-
tism, which would destroy the spontaneity and indi-
viduality of the different authors, was wholly alien to his
lively sense of personality. He understood well enough
to distinguish between the separate books ; for the prin-
ciple of Justification by faith, which he derived from
Scripture, afforded him a gauge to test the relative worth
of its constituent parts. So far was he, indeed, from an
indiscriminate acceptance of Scriptural authority, that
while calling the Gospel of St. John the genuine arch-
Gospel of the New Testament, he scrupled not to designate
the Epistle of St. James — unjustly, it is true — as a mere
* Epistle of straw,' in comparison with those of St. Peter
and St. Paul.^

Nor did Luther regard the Scriptures as the sole and
exclusive source of faith ; on the contrary, he freely ac-
knowledged the authority of Nature, of history, and of
tradition. Firmly adhering to union with the ancient
Church, he accepted her symbols, her rites, and her
festivals ; all that he required was that nothing therein
should militate against the rule of Scripture. His per-
vading and characteristic idea is the harmonious unity of
the Divine with the truly human — a unity so necessary in

^ ' S. Jacob! epistolam non pofise dignitate certare cum epistolis SS.
Petri et Paull, sed Epistolam stramineam esse, si cum illis comparetor.'
Whitaker, after denying at first against the Jesuit Campian the ezLst-
ence of this expression in Luther's writings, discovered the passage
quoted above in a * very ancient preface ' of Luther, published in 1525
at Wittenber. See Bayle Diet. ' Luther.'

XI.

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 293

his opinion, that the human ceases to be truly itself, when -chap.
estranged from the divine. Man is made according to ^
God's image ; sin has destroyed his unity with Gkxi ; jus-
tification by faith in Christ's redemption re-establishes it.
In the Sacraments the divine and natural elements are
united by a mystic imion, as they were in Christ Himself;
and the resurrection of body and soul will bring this unity
to its fullness. Consequently the totality of human life, as
represented in family, state, church, science, and art, is to
constitute an harmonious unity, in which man is to de-
velope in difierent forms his divine character and sub-
stance.

In thus fixing the mainspring and centre of Christ-
ianity in the relation of the individual to God, Luther
came into immediate conflict with the Church of Bome.
Not that his principles were in themselves at all novel or
unknown to her: on the contrary, Luther was firmly
convinced that, in advancing them, he was reverting to
an original tradition of the Church; nay, so far from
contemplating secession at first, he hoped to convince the
bearers of ecclesiastical power at that age of the ortho-
doxy and necessity of his teaching. But his battle against
indulgences speedily led to a general conflict with eccle-
siastical authority. The Church, or rather the popes,
endeavoured to vindicate this traflSc by asserting, as a
doctrine of faith, that man was justified, not only by his
own good works, but by those of others — the so-called
saints, whose superabundant merits could be transferred
to particular persons by the payment of a sum of money.
Faith was made to consist solely in the obedient accept-
ance of the d(X'.trines of the Church. But on this very
point turned the contest between Luther and the Church
herself. The latter, according to the Catholic doctrine,
is the visible community, founded by Christ, of all the
faithful, in which the active operation of purifying from

294 THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

CHAP, sin and sanctifying mankind, developed in it during His
*- — r^ — ' existence on earth, is perpetuated, under the guidance
of His Spirit, to the end of the world, by means of an
apostolate, instituted by Him, and of uninterrupted dura-
tion. The bishops are the direct successors of the apos-
tles. To them are transferred, through ordination and
the laying on of hands, the same graces and spiritual
gifts which their predecessors received from Christ, and
which they, in like manner, transmit by ordination to the
priests. The Episcopate is, therefore, an institution or-
dained by God — the legitimate organ and exclusive
vehicle of the Holy Spirit. And since an institution of
this kind requires, for the purpose of asserting its unity,
a centre, God has placed at the head of the whole Chmx^h
a supreme overseer, the successor of the Prince of the
Ai>ostles, St. Peter, as His sovereign Vicar and repre-
sentative {hominem suce potestatis vicarium ei mini8trum\
whose further duty it is to govern the Church through
authorities appointed by himself. The hierarchy — or
the priesthood of the new dispensation — ^is essential,
therefore, for the continuance and completion of the work
of redemption.^ The Episcopate, through its head, thus
representing the Church, its decisions on points of doctrine
are consequently infallible. The Holy Writ is undoubt-
edly the source of faith ; but the Church is its standard of
interpretation ; nay, from her it derives in the first
instance its authority. She alone administers the means
of grace, the sacraments, which operate upon the re-
cipient with a mystic and objective efficacy, irresj^ective
of his personal character or conduct ; and for this very
reason the separation of the priesthood from the laity
is perfected by the doctrine of Transubstantiation, ac-
cording to which the priest continually repeats the

^ As Thomas Aquinas says: * Sacerdos constituitur mediua inter
Deum et populum/ Summ. iii . 22.

LUTHEB'S CONCEPTION OT THE CHURCH. 295

sax^rifice of Christ.^ In contrast to this Church — as the chap.
ruler and the teacher — stands the whole world of laymen, ^- ■'■>
simply as the * hearers and obeyers,' who by passive
obedience and the reception of the sacraments, manifest
their membership of this institution ordained for sal-
vation.

While now to this human absolution from sin, per- hu oon-

-^ ceptton of

formed by the Catholic Church through the agency of theChim*.
herself and her sacraments, Luther opposed the principle
of justification by the faith of the individual, transferring,
therefore, the act of reconciliation to an inward process of
the heart, completed by the true believer alone without
any human intermediary : he was forced also, of necessity,
to arrive at a totally different conception of the Church
herself. K personal faith — in other words, the relation of
the individual to God^-can alone determine his participa-
tion in the mercy of redemption, no further ground
remains for requiring, as a necessary condition of
salvation, his membership of a visible, settled, and organ-
ised institution for that purpose. The true beUever no
longer needs the mediation of a specially authorised class :
he is, in fact, his own priest ; and therewith the whole
theory of the separation of the priesthood and laity
becomes at once imtenable. Thus Luther declares, in his
* Address to the Christian Nobility of Germany,' ' Man's
invention has discovered that the pope, the bishops, the
priests, and the monks, are called the spiritual or eccle-
siastical state ; and that the princes, nobles, citizens, and
peasants are called the secular state or laity. A fine story,
forsooth ; but let no man be terrified by such fictions.
All Christians belong to the spiritual state ; nor is there
any other difference between them than that of the func-
tions which they discharge. We have all one baptism ,

* * Sacerdos novas legb in person^ Christi operator.' — ^Thom. Aquin.
Samm. qu«Rt. 22.

XI.

296 THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

CHAP, one faith ; and it is this alone which makes the spiritual
man or the Christian nation. If there were not a higher
consecration within us than that conferred by pope or
bishop, no mere consecration of pope or bishop could ever
make a priest. The consecration by the bishop is there-
fore nothing more than this : that, in place and person of
the whole congregation, each one of whom possesses equal
power, he selects one particular member, and directs him
to exercise this ix)wer on behalf of the rest. A priest,
therefore, is nothing else but an office-holder ; he enjoys
precedence, because he enjoys office ; as soon as he is de-
prived of office, he becomes a citizen or a peasant like his
neighbours. A priest therefore ceases to be a priest
when he is removed from office. But men have now in-
vented what they call characteres indelibiles^ and pretend
that a priest after his removal is still something different
from a plain layman ; nay, they fancy that a priest can
never become a layman again, or anything else than a
priest. All this talk, and these edicts of theirs, are purely
of man's invention. Hence it follows that the clergy and
laity, as they call them, have in reality nothing to distin-
guish them but their functions. They all belong to the
same estate, but all have not the same work to perform,
and to that extent all of them are not equal.' The uni-
versal priesthood therefore, as Luther contended, restores
to all mankind the faculty of approaching God without
the intervention of a human mediator. It does not ex-
clude the priestly office, but it does exclude the necessity
of priestly mediation as an avenue of access to God. The
Church, therefore, is not a legal institution standing
between Christ and the faithful, but the community of
saints and true believers, rendered necessary by the fact
that the religious life of man demands a community of
religion. * The Church, however,' as the Apology says,
* is not merely a community, like other societies {politiw)^

LUTHER'S CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH. 297

of outward observances and usages ; it is the community, . chap.
above all, of faith and of the Holy Spirit indwelling in the ^ — r^ — -
hearts of its members.' Thus, then, the distinction be-
tween the visible and the invisible Church, first illustrated
by the teaching of Christ and the apostles, reasserts its
prominence in Protestantism. As the reconciliation of
man with God is altogether an inward transformation, so
God alone can know the truly reconciled. These form
the real, universal, invisible Church of Christ, the kingdom
of God, whose members are dispersed over the whole
globe. Those who do not belong to her are they in whom
Christ works with no effect (nihil agit)y even though they
be members of the visible Church. That Church can only
assert herself in the community of those who acknowledge
as their standard the principles of justification by faith and
of the authority of Scripture. She proves herself to be the
Church of Christ by the pure teaching of the Gospel, and
by the administration of the sacraments in conformity
with the Gospel. As Luther declares,^ 'wherever the
pure Gospel is preached, there will be known for certain
the Christian community. For, just as one recognises by
the banner of an army, as by a sure sign, what description
of commander and army is in the field, so by the Gospel
it will be known where Christ and His army are en-
camped.' The visible Church can never prevent hypocrites
and bad men from wearing her colours, just as, conversely,
even where the Gospel and the sacraments have been neg-
lected or abused, there may exist, nevertheless, true
believers, the members, therefore, of the invisible Church.
But this relation of the invisible to the visible Church
involves no mutual antagonism : each, of necessity,
postulates the other. Tlie invisible universal Church
does not hover like an airy ideal over the various visible
Churches on earth; she is as much a reality as the latter,

^ ' Grand und Ursache aus der Schrift.*

298 THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

CHAP, only she is not outwardly perceptible in her members.
She, too, can derive her only sustenance from the Gkwpel
and the sacraments, since these are the sole divinely-ap-
pointed means of grace for every Christian community ;
and, on the other hand, it is the natural and necessary
aspiration of the visible Church, in so far as her teaching
is conformed to Scripture and her sacraments are rightly
administered, to melt insensibly into the Invisible. It is,
therefore, by no means the case, as Mohler asserts, that in
this evangelical conception, the invisible Church is, so to
speak, the prius^ and the visible the posterius : the one
co-exists with, and postulates the other. The distinction
is as far from making the visible Church superfluous,
as from converting the invisible one into a Platonic
commonwealth.^ It merely combats two fundamental
errors : that of the Sects and Anabaptists, with whom the
Church consists only of saints, who can be designated
singly as such ; and that of the Catholic Church, which
considers all who are held together by her institutions as
belongmg to the true Church, and all who stand outside
them as excluded from her communion. German Pro-
testantism recognises, in conformity with this conception
of the visible Church, her need of a constitution ; since
only in definite forms can the inner hfe of man assert its
power on earth. But it resists the assumption of Catholi-
cism, that a definite, external constitution of the Church
is of Divine origin ; and recognises, on the contrary, any
constitution which affords the possibihty of Scriptural
teaching and the due administration of the sacraments.
In the theory, therefore, of the Keformation, a visible
Church and a distinct confession of faith are inseparable
ideas ; for the principle that the Scriptures must be the
basis and standard of doctrine becomes objectless where

^ ' Neque vero somniamus nos Pla tonicam ciyitatem, ut quidam
impie cavillantur.' (^ Apologia,' 20.)

LUTHER'S'CONCEPTION OF THE CHURCH. 299

no doctrine exists. But Scripture gives no complete chap.
system of doctrine ; imity of doctrine can be arrived at - — r-^ — '
by the faithful only by a study of its contents. On the
other hand, in ftotestantism, unlike Catholicism, the
ideas of Church and of a given Church constitution are in
no wise necessarily interwoven ; on the contrary, the
constitution of the Church admits of different forms
according to time and place. 'For the real unity of
the Church,' says Article VII. of the Augsburg Confession,
* it is sufficient to agree on the teaching of the Gospel and
the administration of the sacraments ; nor is it necessary
that there should be everywhere the same traditions,
-usages and ceremonies, all of which are instituted by
man.'

On this fundamental distinction between the Pro- Hia views
testant and the Catholic conceptions of the Church, all aWewith
attempts at reconciUation with the traditions of Church Rome,
authority were bound to shipwreck. Luther had no inten-
tion from the very first of breaking with the established
Church and founding a new one. All that he desired
was that pope and bishops should give the Scriptures
free play ; in other words, should refrain from opposing
the proclamation of those saving truths which he himself
had experienced, and in which he saw the crowning con-
summation of all revelation. But it was precisely that
point which the hierarchy could not yield without
confessing themselves superfluous ; for they boasted of so
uniting in their own persons the fulness of the Christian
spirit, that all the laity could only attain to it through
their mediation. All attempts at reformation before
Luther had been duected against isolated abuses of the
hierarchy, furnished as it was with absolute and un-
qualified power. But Luther denied altogether its very
title. The issue was now no longer whether the Church
should be a papal monarchy or an episcopal aristoa'acy.

300 THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

CHAP. Luther refused to recognise tlie authority of the councils
- / ^ equally as of the pope ; he flatly denied the Divine
character of the constitution of the Boman Church, who
found it unavoidable, therefore, to expel him from her
communion.
Hu con- With this triumph over the theory of the mediaeval

the^state. Church, as the exclusive and all-suflScient institution for
salvation, Protestantism adopted of necessity a totally
different conception of the State. The hierarchy, which
claimed for the constitution of the Church the same
Divine authority as for her doctrine, was bound, in
consistency, to advance further and assert her superiority
over the State. The latter was, therefore, in the hier-
archical view, the mere earthly, unholy power, the
Sceculum ; nay, the Prince of this World was called in
Scripture the Devil. Not until the State-power had been
consecrated by the Church and obeyed her authority, was
it purified and made the instrument of higher aims. The
empire was only a Divine institution so far as it derived
its consecration from the representative of Christ, ap-
pointed immediately by God : He alone invested princes
with the temporal sword, and these, accordingly, were
only his plenipotentiaries. It is true that even Catholic
princes, like Henry IV., the Hohenstaufen, Louis of
Bavaria, and Philip the Fair, had resisted this assumption ;
and even at this present day a sovereign of unimpeachable
orthodoxy will refuse to admit that he wears his crown as
a feudatory of the ix)pe. But though the Church of Bome
has practically to accommodate herself to this resistance,
she has condemned the principle as recently as in the
Syllabus of our day, and must continue to do so if she
desires to maintain her original position.

This was the very principle which the Eeformation
contested ; and, in denying the controlling authority of
the visible Church, it was bound to dispute the dependence

mS SEPARATION OF CTVIL AUTHORITY. 301

upon her of the State. 'The nonsense/ says Luther, ^^^'
' which would exalt the papal power above the imperial, ' — * — "
is not worth a farthing ; and we will tolerate no longer
that arrogance, worthy of the Devil, which would make
the emperor kiss the feet of the pope or hold his stirrup ;
still less, which would have him swear homage and al-
legiance— acts which the popes are impudent enough to
demand, as though they had a right to them/ Accord-
ingly, no temporal matters are henceforth any longer to
be submitted to Rome, but must be left to the temporal
power ; for sovereignty is not conferred by the mediation
of the pope, but is an independent institution, like mar-
riage and the family, ordained by God. The Gospel does HUaepara
not dissolve the labnc oi the State, but cements it, and and ecdoi-
commands obedience from the subject, an obedience not power,
merely of fear but of conscience. All lawfully ordered
civil government is, therefore, equally ordained by God ;
and no Christian must be hindered from taking part in
it or sharing its benefits. ' The ecclesiastical and civil
powers,' says the Augsburg Confession,^ ' are not to be
confounded. The ecclesiastical power hath its own com-
mand to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments.
Let it not intrude upon another's office — let it not
transfer the kingdoms of the world — ^let it not abrogate
the laws of magistrates, nor withdraw from them lawful
obedience, nor hinder the execution of judgments touching
any civil ordinances or contracts — ^let it not prescribe laws
to governors concerning the form of the commonwealth,
since Christ saith, " My kingdom is not of this world."
In this way do our teachers distinguish the office of both
these powers, and warn all men to honour both powers
and to acknowledge each to be the gift and blessing of
God. The civil power deals with other matters than the
Gospel. It protects, not the souls, but the bodies and

1 Part II., vii. Art. 28, < Of Ecdesiaiitical Power.*

302 TUE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

CHAP, bodily things of its subjects. It defends them against
^- i' "^ violence from without, and compels men, with the sword
and punishment, to observe civil justice and peace.' In
this spirit, Luther raised his powerful voice against the
theocratic dreams of Munzer and Carlstadt, who, like the
Puritans of later days, sought to treat the ordinances of
the Old Testament as still vaHd law. * The law of Moses,'
he said, * concerns the Jews alone, and is no longer
binding upon us, for it was given solely to the people of
Israel.' In like manner, acting on his principle of a
separation of civil and ecclesiastical power, he exhorted
the Grand-Master of the degenerate Teutonic Order in
Prussia to put an end to the hybrid anomaly of an
ecclesiastico-secular State, and to give a ' grand, glorious,
and vigorous example by founding a properly ordered
rule, which, without double-dealing or false names, should
Stira of* ^^ agreeable before God and the world.' As for dvil
civil inde- government, it fulfils, of course, its mission in the highest
sense when it is conducted according to Christian princi-
ples. At the same time, its independence does not rest
on this condition. On the contrary, the Apology
distinctly declares,^ ' The Gospel brings no new laws on
the relations of civil society {de statu civili)^ but commands
all men to obey the existing laws, whether made by
heathens or any others, just as we must all submit to the
seasons and their changes.' Herein, therefore, as in
other points. Protestantism reverts to the apostolic doc-
trine, that all government is of God, and that obedience
is due for that reason, in all earthly matters, even to a
heathen one. Pointedly does Luther, in his ' Appeal to
the Cliristian Nobility of Germany,' exhort them to take
their privileged stand upon the law, against the preten-
sions of the clergy. *Thus supported,' he says, 'the
Christian civil power shall exercise its functions freely,

» viu. 65, 67.

HIS VINDICATION OF CIVIL INDEPENDENCE, 303

unhindered, and regardless whether it be pope, bishop, or chap.
priest whom it strikes. Whosoever is guilty, let him >■ »' ^^
suffer. Whatever the priestly law says to the contrary is
a mere fiction of Eoman arrogance ; for St. Paul says to
all Christians, " Every soul " — I hold this to include the
pope — " shall be subject to the higher powers " If a
priest is killed, the country is laid under an interdict ;
why not also when a peasant is killed ? Whence comes
such a huge difference between the same fellow-Christians ?
Solely from the laws and inventions of man/

Consistently with those principles of equality, Luther His protest
launched his determined protest against the bmding Snon
vahdity of the Canon Law ; feeling, as he did, with justice
that it exhibited an incongruous confusion of matters
spiritual and temporal, by attaching a legal sanction to
whatever the authorities of the Church had declared to be
binding on the conscience. He is ready to acknowledge the
validity of Church ordinances, so far as they conflict not
with the Word of God ; but he denounces as brutal and
un-Christian the doctrine that a violation of the Canons
entails the loss of salvation. Accordingly, he repudiates
the entire canonical legislation on marriage, and separates,
with perfect propriety, the civil from the ecclesiastical
side of matrimony, by recognising the fact that marriage,
as the basis of all family rights, belongs to the dominion
of the State, and must be regulated, of necessity, by civil
law ; its consecration by the Church being merely added
as a testimony and confession of its loftier moral attributes.
* Marriage and the marriage state,' he says, * are civil
matters, in the management of which we priests and
ministers of the Church must not intermeddle. But
when we are required, either before the Church, or in
the Church, to bless the pair, to pray over them, or even
to marry them, then it is our bounden duty so to do.'

1 'Traubttchlein.'

304 THE REFORMATION IN QERMANY.

CHAP. He speaks out plainly against the celibacy of
' — ^ — ' priests. * The devil,' he says, * has persuaded the pope
to forbid the clergy to marry ; ' but the pope has as little
right to forbid marriage as he would have to forbid eat-
ing and drinking, particularly since the prohibition of
marrying contradicts the plain words of Scripture. He
calls on the Estates of the Empire to tolerate no longer
the papal invasion of their rights, as, for instance, the
interdict which silenced Divine service throughout a
whole country. He exhorted them not to submit to the
taxation of their territories by indulgences, annates,
papal months, expectative grants, commendams, reserves,
pall-money and such like exactions, nor to the official
begging by ecclesiastics, which was practised by the
mendicant Orders.

But while Luther thus insisted on the independence
and Divine right of the State, it was very far from his
object to substitute for the unlimited authority of
the mediaeval Church the absolutism of the secular
power. The boundaries of civil government are pre-
scribed already by its separation from the ecclesiastical.
As the Church is not to interfere in civil matters, so the
State has as Uttle right to intermeddle in matters purely
ecclesiastical, except where Ufe and property are at stake.
*God cannot and will not allow anyone, but Himself
alone, to rule the soul. As to faith, that is a free work ;
no one can be forced to it. Whenever, therefore, the
temporal power presumes to legislate for the soul, it en-
croaches upon the government of God, and seduces and
corrupts the soul. God alone can know the hearts of
men ; it is impossible and futile, therefore, to command
or constrain by violence any man to beUeve this way or
that. Let them command as strictly, and rage as ftiriously
as they will, they cannot force the people further, than to
follow them with their mouths and hands. Even should

AND OF LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 305

they rend themselves to pieces, they cannot coerce the chap.

coiucience.

heart.' Nay, even for open heresy Luther demands ^ — r^~
hberty of conscience : * Heretics must be vanquished with
the pen, as the Fathers have done, not with fire. If
to conquer heretics by fire were an art, the executioners
would be the most learned doctors on the earth ; there
would then be no more need of study, but the man who
subdued his opponent by force would be entitled to bum
him. Heresy is something spiritual, that cannot be cut vindicar
out with steel, nor burned with fire, nor drowned with iib^rtv of
water. Exhort the heretics ; do not admit them to your *^**°*^ ®
pulpits, that everyone may know to look on them as noxious
weeds. " Avoid the unbehevers ;" says St. Paul, but he
does not tell men to kill them.' Luther, in short, asserts
the liberty of conscience in the most unqualified form.
Notwithstanding his respect for the higher powers, he
shrinks not fi:om attacking, fearless of consequences,
sovereigns Uke Duke George, Duke Hans of Brunswick,
and even Henry VIII. of England, when their actions, in
his opinion, are contrary to the teaching of the Gospel.

There is, therefore, no contradiction or uncertainty
whatever in Luther's fundamental conception of the re-
lations of Church and State. He insists only on the
special rights of the State and the still higher right of
personal liberty of conscience, each within its proper and
apportioned sphere. He desires that the Government
should govern in a Christian spirit, should feel that it is
the organ of the Kingdom of God ; but he does not make
this a condition of its right to independence. On the
other hand, he maintains to its fiill extent the apostolic
doctrine that obedience is due to God in preference to
man ; and he upholds accordingly the right of passive
resistance, whenever the Government, by its regulations,
imposes burdens upon the conscience ; just as the apostles,
martyrs, and fathers of the Church had upheld that right

VOL. I. X

306 THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

CHAP, of old against the edicts of the Eoman emperors, and
•^ — r^— just as that right must at all times be vindicated, unless
the omnipotence of the State is to be substituted for that
of the pope. Well might Luther's fiery zeal bum with
impatience against the destroyers of the Church and of
the people. It must be owned, no doubt, that with re-
gard to Hutten, he hesitated too much, for a while, in
rejecting his schemes, because he saw in that opponent of
the papacy, though not an ally, yet a fellow-combatant ;
but he very soon remembered that a righteous cause can
be fought and carried only by righteous means. ' We
want swords, bows, javelins, and bombs,' wrote Hutten,
* in order to repel the fiiry of the devil.' * I will not resort
to arms and bloodshed,' was Luther's reply (January 16,
1521), * for the defence of the Gospel. By the Word has
the world been conquered ; by the Word has the Church
been saved ; by the Word also she will be restored, and
anti-Christ will fell without the use of violence.' Hence
he refused to lend the support of his moral authority to
the enterprises of Sickingen and Hutten, as soon as he
detected the revolutionary character of their designs. On
that account he declared against the peasants, severely as
he condemned the wrongs inflicted upon them. He
approved, indeed, of some of the demands contained in
their Twelve Articles, but he saw clearly that no Christian
community could be established by the tumultuous risings
of rebeUious masses. Although, therefore, the violent
manner in which, later on, he denounced the Peasants'
War, may deserve censure, inasmuch as it aJBTorded to the
princes and lords, who conceived their secular rights
pecuharly endangered by that revolt, the very pretext
they desired for the merciless suppression of even the
Intimate objects of that movement ; nevertheless, in his
main principle Luther was completely in the right, be-
cause he perceived that violence must prove fatal to the

HE CONDEMNS CIVIL REBELLION.

spiritual struggle for liberty of faith and conscieuce.
Hence he was able to say of himself afterwards : ' I have ■
never drawn the sword, but have fought only with my
tongue and with the Gospel ; and with those weapons still
fight against pope, bishop, monk, and priest, against
idolatry, error, and sects ; and therewith have I achieved
more than all the emperors and kings could have ac-
complished with all their violence and might. I have
wielded only tlie weapon of His Word, and have struck
straight at the heart ; I have left God to dispose and
govern, and the Word to operate. This it is that has
made such a hubbub in the papacy, and created therein
such a schism. Behold, there, the might of this hero :
such a giant is he, that he wants no other weapons but
the Word alone.'

But while Luther, by declaring the Word to be the
true sword, condemned the use of force or violence as
well for the coercion of conscience as for the champion-
ship of truth, still he was fiilly aware that the Word
itself can only operate when all men have learned to
comprehend it. The Church of the middle ages had
created a wide chasm between herself and the people by
the use of a foreign and unknown language, and had
directly prohibited them from reading the Bible in their
native tongue. Much of the active influence of the '
Mystics was due essentially to their revival of preaching rfLuiher-
in German. But Luther did not write or speak in common
German. His language was a new creation, which com-
bined the virtue of being intelligible to the people, with a
soaring enthusiasm that took his hearers by storm, and
which blended with High-German the peculiai' advantages
of other dialects. His translation of the Bible was there-
fore a decisive step towards the foundation of a uniform
German language ; and has exercised, together with his
catechism and hjTons, the most powerful and far-reaching

308 THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY.

CHAP, influence upon the entire culture of the nation ; so much
r^ so, that even those who execrate him as a heretic are

forced to think and write in his language. This creation
of a new language, of which Agricola declared that God
Himself had begun to speak in German, was only rendered
possible to Luther by the deep love with which he clung
to his fatherland, and by his heartfelt indignation at the
manner in which she was plundered by Eome. ' I mean
faithfully, and from my whole heart, by the German
country,' he exclaims, * to which God has appointed me.
I must take care of poor Germany — miserable, despised,
betrayed, and sold — as is my bounden duty to my beloved
fatherland/ His words kindled the enthusiasm of Hutten;
they called forth the national songs and pamphlets, in
which the movement of that stirring time found expression,
Civu as, later on, in the caustic satire of Fischart. And as the
fostered by Separation of secular and spiritual power which the Ee-
miStion.^ formation effected, first rendered possible the freedom
and independence of nations, so its principle of liberty of
conscience could alone give birth to civil and political
liberty, for the true Christian, as Luther says, has a
noble, lofty, and undaunted spirit ; he will exercise his
free judgment not merely in the province of religion, but
everywhere and on all subjects alike.

This propensity of Protestantism to liberty has, as

has frequently been shown, nothing in common with

democratic sovereignty or revolution; on the contrary,

it excludes these, because the liberty of the Gospel binds

mankind to the laws of God.

The Rcfor- And, as agaiust these aspersions of Ultramontanism,

a demo. SO axc wc bouud to vindicate the Eeformers against the

movement culogy of Gcrviuus, who dcclarcs that their principles

contained the seeds of democracy, which since then has

ripened slowly but incessantly to maturity. The Eefor-

mation remained a purely religious movement, even in

THE REFORMATION NOT POLITICAL. 309

ZI.

the eccentricities of fanatical spirits. Miinzer, Karlstadt, ^^f ^*
and John of Leyden put forward their extravagant pre- ""
tensions, not like the Socialists of our day, in the name
of, and as representing the only rational constitution of
the State and society, but as a form of theocratic govern-
ment, revealed and enjoined upon them by God. And
on that account even the madness that wished to break
with all the precedents of history, bore exclusively the
character of religious fanaticism, in which political as well
as social revolution was intended merely to serve as the
means. There is nothing in the nature of Protestantism
itself that must lead to a democratic form of government,
as is proved by the examples of aristocratic England, by
the patriciate of Holland, by the nobility of the Huguenots.
Faithful to its principle of imposing no ordinances on
secular matters, it demands no particular form of State
and society. On the contrary, it is compatible with any
which respects the rights of conscience and fidfils the
proper duties of civil authority, and it has prospered
equally under the most diverse forms of government.
But it remains an everlasting title to glory of the Eefor-
mation, that i)olitical liberty — which has nothing neces-
sarily in common with democracy — first became possible
through its principles, in a manner very diJBferent, indeed,
to that of antiquity, when the dvil importance of a small
minority rested uix)n the dark background of the slavery
of the masses. The principles of liberty of conscience
and of universal priesthood, which make man inwardly
free, lead also involuntarily to outward liberty. A people
who no longer feel themselves in the position of an obe-
dient and submissive laity, at the service of a privileged
clergy, will refuse to continue any longer in a state of
passive obedience to the Government, without any rights
of their own.

It is evident that the principles of the Eeformation ,

310 THE REFORMATION INGERMANY.

CHAP, in their entirety, were diametrically opposed to those on
— r^ — ' which Church and State had previously rested. If the
new order were to prevail and penetrate society, all ex-
isting forms of life must be fashioned anew. The question
was now no longer one of local and isolated movements ;
everywhere the conduct and words of Luther awakened
spirits hke-minded as himself. The Eeformation spread
abroad on the wings of the storm. But it was only
natural that the old order of things, as it had slowly grown
up in the course of centuries, and had embodied itself in
institutions firmly organised and knit together, should not
quit the field without a struggle. The principles of
Luther became the starting-point of a new movement of
Permanent the world, which cvcu at the present day has not reached
of the its termination. The Eomish Church was obhged, if she
wiSome. would not surrender her own existence, to take up the
challenge against the principles of the Eeformers. She
did so ; she carries on the conflict to this day, and will
continue it as long as she exists at all. There may be
truces, pauses of exhaustion in the conflict, but no real
peace. All well-meant endeavours, such as have been
made since the Eeformation, to heal the schism in the
Church by mutual advances, originate firom a want of
clearness of perception, and must be lost in the sand with-
out profit or result ; for the issue is not about difierences
of degree and temperament, as between Gallicanism and
Ultramontanism, but one which involves an irreconcil-
able antagonism of nature.

For the progress of this conflict everything now de-
pended on what resistance the Church of Eome and her
adherents should be able to oppose to the Eeformation ;
and how the latter should develope itself upon its own
territory.

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION. 311

XJI.

CHAPTEK XTL

PROGRESS OP THE REPORMATION.

Hostility of Oharles V. to the Reformation — ^Hia Alliance with the Pope —
Edict of Worms — Diet of Spire— Zwingli — Oalvin — ^Luther's view of the
Priestly Office — ^Reformation supported by the Evangelical Princee of
Germany — Coercive tendencies of the Reformers — Union of Oivil and
Spiritual Authority in the Princes — Church weakened by State Patronage
— Establishment of Consistories — Religious Peace of Augsburg — ^The
JvM Refonnandi — Territorial Principles in Religion — ^Zwingli*s State Re-
ligion— Calvin's Religious State — Protestant Church in France— Con-
fession de Foy — Synodal Constitution.

The papacy, which about this time had abandoned not Cf^p.
only the control of, but all participation in the religious
life of the West, could not fail to be taken by surprise, so
thoroughly unprepared as it was, by the Eeformation.
The re-awakening of antiquity which took place in Italy
sliowed no trace of that purifying moral power which
classical studies, under moral influences, attest. The
Eenaissance and Humanism remained, with the exception
of isolated minds gifted with profound intuition, like that of
Michael Angelo, whose glorious poetry breathes the true
spirit of the Gospel, an intellectual pastime, elegant in
form, but for the most part pagan in its sensuaUsm.

No wonder, therefore, that the Curia was wholly un- Luthcr'»
able to understand the nature of Luther's teaching. It unintd?
was perfectly compatible with the fashion of free-tliinking i^ml! **
then prevalent in Italy to yield an outward homage to
the system of Church doctrine, nay, even to enlarge its
authority. But for the profound reUgious faith and the
strict morality of the German monk there was no place at

A.D. 1519.

312 PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP. Eome. Nothing there was known of those facts of inward

XII .

' — r-^— ' experience, to which Luther appealed. His conception
of sin and mercy was regarded simply as extravagant and
pernicious nonsense, as is shown in the enumeration of
his forty-one errors in the bull of excommunication
Exsurge Do mine ^ (June 15, 1520), which condemned
Luther without a hearing, and gave him and his adherents
only a term of sixty days to recant. But Eome knew well,
with the sure instinct of self-preservation, that in this con-
flict, now begun, her very existence was at stake ; and
accordingly she lost no time in invoking the aid of the
temporal sword to suppress the growing heresy.

Ovaries V. At this crisis it was a circumstance of decisive moment

eloctcd

emperor.^ that in Charlcs I., king of Spain, the newly-elected em-
peror, Charles V., all influences concurred to make him the
enemy of Protestantism. Family tradition, as well as per-
sonal sympathies, inclined him to the ancient faith. Born
and educated in Flanders, he was an utter stranger to the
German mind. He was a stranger even to the German
language ; and, more than all, the centre towards which
his policy gravitated was not in the empire. His election
had revolutionised the face of politics in Europe. Li
France the struggle with the great feudal nobles and witli
England had strained the authority and taxed the utmost
resources of the Crown. Now at length the unity of the
kingdom was established, and a young and ambitious
monarch employed it in furtherance of a grand scheme of
policy. Francis I. had exhausted all his efforts to obtain
the imperial crown. He had been forced, indeed, to
succumb to his rival, Cliarles V. ; but since his failure
in Germany the antagonism between France and the
Hapsburg power in Spain was a foregone conclusion ; and
of this Charles was so firmly convinced that he declared

' Lutheri 0pp. edit. Jente. i. 423. Luther's reply is given in
vol. ii. p. 286.

HOSTILITY OF CHARLES V. 813

he would either become a poor emperor himself or make ^^^•
the king of France a poor man. When to this source of * — r-^—
anxiety was added the danger from the Turks in the
East, where the victorious Solyman was pushing his con-
quests, the postiure of affairs warned Charles V. to look
round for allies. And since, for this purpose, the assist-
ance of the German princes was essential, his sympathies,
if only from a political point of view, naturally disposed
him to regard with disfavour a religious movement which
threatened to disconcert his schemes. It was all the more
important to him to preserve a good understanding with
the pope, who felt his own position endangered by the
Italian policy of Francis I., and had already in 1519,
shortly before his election, effected an agreement with
Charles. Add to this, that the latter adopted to the full
the mediaeval theory of the imperial title, as the highest
dignity in Christendom. Pope and emperor were to
govern the Christian world between them ; the source of
all mischief, according to his view, lay in the failure of so
many princes to pay the proper homage to both these
supreme heads. What the middle ages had not succeeded
in accomplishing, in consequence of the quarrels between
the popes and the emperors, was now to be effected by
their union. It was thus the old idea, in its complete-
ness of a universal monarchy, which he wished to re-
establish; on a different footing, it is true, to that of
the Salian and Hohenstaufen emperors, but founded
equally on the principle that, as there was only one true
faith, there should only be one supreme power to protect
it. In so doing, however, Charles was far from disposed
to rest content with playing the part of an obedient son
of the Church. As a pupil of the Eefonnation in Spain,
he was not blind to the defects of Rome. He wished
indeed to exalt the supremacy over the Church, which his
predecessors had exercised within their kingdom, into the

314 PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

^i^' ancient spiritual protectorate enjoyed by the Boman
^77 — ' emperor. But the essence of the medisBval Church was
tmtytothc to remain everywhere as untouched as it had been in
tion. Spain. Accordingly the fiery siunmons of Hutten to
Charles V., exhorting him to place himself at the head of
the movement/ died away perforce unheeded and without
result. The emperor hated the Eeformation, and though
he might temporise with it, still he never abandoned his
intention to suppress it either by concihation or violence :
even in his retirement in the monastery of St. Just, he
reproached himself for not having done so at the proper
time. True it is that his diplomacy did not scruple to
employ Protestantism against the Curia, in order to force
the latter to purify the Church according to the pattern
of the Spanish Eeformation, as well as to wring from the
hard-pressed pontiff large secular concessions. When the
papal nuncio Aleander arrived at the imperial court with
the Bull of excommunication against Luther, the significant
answer was returned to him that the emperor would r^u-
late his conduct to the Pope, by the tenor of the pope's
conduct towards himself — in other words, by his refusal to
support his enemy Francis I.^ An understanding, how-
ever, was effected between them. By the Treaty of
Treaty of Worms, m 1521, Leo X. surrendered Milan and Naples
i62i!^ to Charles, who undertook, in return, to suppress the
Eeformation, and to ' revenge all wrong that had been
done to the apostolic see as if the same had been done
to himself.' From the day of this alliance dates the edict
Alliance of of outkwry which was issued against Luther; and be-
pap^icy.*^^ cause the latter was not actually beheaded, the Curia
characteristically refused to believe that the emperor

^ Luther himself, in his strictures on the Bull of Leo X., had
already appealed to Charles V. to oppose the kingdom of anti-Christ,

^ ^ Csesarem ita se gesturum erga Pontificem, uti se Pontifex erga
Caesarem,' Pallavicini, p. 91.

TERBITORIAL CHURCHES IN GERMANY. 315

wished to observe his promise of safe conduct to the chap.

. XII.

reformer, but fancied he desired to reserve him for his ' — r-^

own purposes, in order eventually to extort further grants
from Eome. Such was, however, by no means the
case ; the alliance between Empire and Papacy, thus in-
augurated by Leo X., was only strengthened by the
election, shortly afterwards, of his successor, Adrian VI.,
the former tutor of Charles V., and grand inquisitor of
Spain ; and it suffered no interruption even from the tem-
porary disputes of the emperor with Adrian's successors.
For Germany the consequences of this alliance were
disastrous in the extreme. The Council of Eegency,
scarce yet estabhshed, was neutralised; the intended
convocation of the Diet came to nothing ; while, on the
other hand, the emperor and pope were not powerful
enough to punish the princes who protected the Eeforma-
tion, still less to suppress the movement itself At the
Diet of Spire in 1526, even the episcopal members of the
assembly voted for extensive concessions ; and it was finally Diet of
resolved that in respect of the Edict of Worms, all the R^serf
princes should so conduct the administration of their chupcheem
States, pending the decision of the proposed Council, ^'

as they would have to render an account to God and to
the emperor.'^ By this resolution, the territorial prin-
ciple became now predominant in the sphere of rehgion ;
for instead of a renovated Church of Germany, a multi-
tude of new churches were formed, coiuciding with
the various states of the empire. On the other hand, a
new source of dissension arose within the empire itself,
and alliances and counter-alliances were formed among
the adherents and opponents of the new doctrine. The
unity of that imperial system which liad been founded on
the assumption that the limits of Church and State are
co-extensive, was now destroyed ; and the reconstruction

^ Sleidan, vi. p. 88.

316 PROGllESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, of its central authority became impossible- The Pro-
• — r^—^ testant States looked with distrust upon the emperor as
the head of the Catholic party, and sought further to
weaken his political power, more especially as this was the
sole point in which they met with support from their Catho-
lic co-Estates. Since, moreover, later on it was settled
by the EeUgious Peace of Augsburg (1555) that in
matters of religion no resolutions of the majority should
be binding on all — awhile all the wars of the next century
were wars of religion — the empire itself remained from
that time neutral in all great poUtical questions, and left
the territorial princes to take part in them individually,
which they did for the most part through the medium of
external alliances. Thus originated the series of foreign
Effects of interventions wliich began with the support of Philip of
tonal prin- Hcssc by Fraucis I., and has only ended in the present
^^^ day. And hke the emperor and princes of Germany, so
the other civil powers of Europe sided for or against the
Keformation, according as they inclined to the new or the
old faith, and favoured or feared the pohtical consequences
of the principles of the Eeformers. National distinctions
fell into the background, and Europe was divided into
two ecclesiastical camps. Mischievous as this territorial
principle has undoubtedly been in the sphere of politics
as of the Church, it cannot be denied that, in face of the
hostility of the emperor, the advancement of Protestantism
was only rendered possible by the territorial powers, who
refused to execute the Edict of Worms. So long as the
imperial power wavered in the balance, the movement in
the Church allied itself with the movement of the nation.
During the critical period between 1519 and 1521, in
which the principles of the Eeformation were developed,
Luther was inclined to act in concert with the Eques-
trian order, and to give to their activity the basis and
support of religious enthusiasm. Humanism at that

LtJTHER APPEALS TO THE PRINCES,

317

time exercised a powerful influence on his mind — au
influence derived partly from the writings of Hiittou, ■
particularly his edition of Laureutius Valla — and partly
from Melancbthon, the intimate friend of Eeuchlin ; and
it was precisely because he took the tide of national
thought at its flood, that he attained his eminence as a
reformer. It was a tremendous concession, that even his
enemies had to submit to negotiate with a heretic.

When Luther, however, found himself forced to sur-
render all hope of gaining the emperor, while, on the j
other hand, his sound sense prevented him from joining J
Hutten and Sickingen in their now violent conduct; and '
when, moreover, a social revolution broke out among the
Anabaptists and the insurgent peasants, nothing was left
to him but to ally liimself with those states of the empire
which were favourably inclined to the Reformation. And
in spite of the territorial dismemberment of the empire,
the mere secular power of the State would not have
HufHced to stem the ever-swelUng torrent of the Eeform-

»ation. There was a moment when Germany was as good
as Protestant. The Venetian ambassador reported in
1557 that seven-tenths of the nation belonged to the I
Lutheran faith, two-tenths to the Eeformed or other sects ; '
one-tenth only bad remained Catholic. Switzerland, the
Netherlands, France, England, Scandinavia, and Hungary
were seized by the movement, and it had showed itself
even in Italy and Spain. If, then, a conflict between the
■ old and new doctrines was inevitable, the combatants
H were not so unequally divided. The disparity was first
H created by the dissensions, on the one hand, in the Pro-
I testant camp itself, and, on the other, by the fact that
I even among the leaders of the Kefonnation, their organ-
B ieing talent for giving life and practical effect to their
I ideas was not commensurate with their gift for asserting
I the principles of religious tnith. And with these elements

318 PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, of weakness, inherent in the Eeformation, coincided a

XII. . . . . .

regeneration of Catholicism, which in the latter half of

the sixteenth century, abandoned her previous attitude of
defence, and succeeded in reconquering no inconsiderable
portion of her lost dominion.
2^11 This is not the place to examine in detail the differ-

1484-1681. ences of dogma between the Lutheran and the two Swiss
reformed Confessions ; suffice it to remark, that these diflfer-
ences substantially result from a divergent conception, on
either side, of the common principles of the Eeformation.
Luther began by attacking indulgences and justification
by works ; he insisted, above all, on the inner relationship
of the individual to God, and, consistently with this, made
that relationship the condition of belonging to the true,
universal, invisible Church. As for the visible Church,
his intention was simply to purify her, as she existed,
from all that openly contradicted the Word of God ; not
until that effort had proved impracticable did he proceed
to organise a new visible Church, endowed with a con-
stitution, provisional at first, and afterwards definitive.
Zwingli's stand-point was very different from this. Unlike
Luther, his training and antecedents were not purely
ecclesiastical, but had been formed in the circle of the
Humanists, who gathered round Erasmus at Basle. Nor
had he Luther's respect for tradition. From the very
first he wished to break with the Koman Church, and to
reject everything which could not be plainly proved from
Scripture. His primary aim, moreover, was different from
that of Luther. It was the regeneration of the Swiss re-
pubUc through the Gospel. To have confronted the masses,
demoralised as they were by mercenary soldiering, with
Luther's preaching of the liberty of the Christian man,
and of the universal priesthood, would have been sense-
less and unmeaning. What they needed was a severe
exposure of sin, a stern call to repentance, to obedience
to the commands of God, and to strict discipline ; and

ULRICH ZWINGLL

319

these the visible Church alone could give. Ahhoiigh in cqap.
principle, therefore, Zwingli, quite as much as the German ■
reformers, developes the idea of the invisible Church, yet
practically he lays all stress upon the visible one, as the
only instrument capable of educating man to holiness.
This fact explains in substance the difference in the
theories of the sacraments entertained by the two Re-
formers. Wliile Luther made their true significance
consist in the commuuication of Divine gifts to the indi-
\'idual by the grace of God, through the medium of the
elements, and understood the Holy Supper to represent
the identity of the Divine and human nature in Christ,
Zwingli perceived in the sjicraments only symbols of
Church fellowship,' Differing, therefore, from the German
view, as expressed in the Augsbui*g Confession,* he under-
stands the symbols of the sacraments as purely earthly and
material, and makes the Communion of the Body and
Blood of Christ consist simply in the community of the
partakers ; the individual, by his participation, confessing
his membership of the Chiurh, and promising to live
according to her faith and doctrine.

We may condemn, therefore, the violence of Luther's
polemics against the Zwinglian doctrine of the Eucharist ;
but a superficial view alone can reproach him with actual
inconsistency. For, in truth, those Swiss reformers had
a totally different spirit. Least of all did it escape the
penetrating eye of Luther that eveiy schism in the move-
ment of Reformation must become a source of weakness
in the confiict with the papacy ; and nothing but his pro-

• ' Signa et cercmoniff, quibus ae homo ecclesia; probat aut canUi-
datam aut militera esse Chriati, reddnntque eccleaiBiii potiua certiorem
de tuil fide quam te.'— Zwingli, 0pp. iii. p. 231,

' Art. xiii. ' De mm Sooramentorum docent, qudd Sacramenta
instituta aat, noa modo ut aint nolce proftMionie inter homiiiM, seil magie
ut tunt aigna et leiitinionia voluntatiit Dei trga noa, iid excitandam ct
confirmandam fidem in his, qui nteh'intur, jiropositu.'

320 PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, found conviction of truth could determine him to cling
* — r-^ inflexibly to what he recognised as right doctrine.
John The case is different again with Calvin, who belongs

to the second generation of Keformers. * The first out-
break of the Keformation,' says Hundeshagen, * was over ;
the foundations of Protestant dogma were already laid.'

Calvin's work, masterly as was its character, was
simply a systematic and precise digest of religious
elements, which had long been in circulation, and had
become the basis of practical embodiment. Undoubtedly,
however, the impress of Calvinism upon the Protestant
Church was pecuUarly its own, and destined to stamp
its character on a special form of Churchdom. A
greater enemy to tradition than ZwingU himself, he
insists even more rigidly than his fellow-countryman or
Luther upon the strict letter of the Bible. Never, as
Luther had done, would he have affirmed a distinction to
exist between the books of Scripture according to their
relative worth. The whole Bible to him was something
absolutely authentic in itself (aiTOTriVroy), which dare not
be subjected to criticism {demonstratiani et rationibus).
Kampschulte is therefore perfectly right in saying that in
the Calvinistic theory ' Christianity becomes almost like
Islamism, a religion of the Book ; and withdrawn fix)m
all the influences of history and philosophy, it stands
there complete, once and for ever, in doctrine, constitu-
tion, and life, and chained to the literal record of Scrip-
tural revelation.'^ To Calvin the Scriptures are all-
suflScient, not merely for the knowledge of salvation, but
also for the external fabric of Christianity. He admits,
therefore, for the constitution also of the Church, a basis
of his own construction, chosen as the only one consonant
with Scriptiure ; and for this pm-j^ose the Old Testament

^ ' Johann Calvin, seine Kirche und sein Staat in Gen£* 1869.
Vol. I p. 260.

JOIIN CALMN. 321

plays a far more prominent part with him than with chap.
Luther, who rejected the apphcation of the Mosaic law ^ — r-^
to modern times. But the doctrine which governs his
whole system, quite as much as Justification by faith
governs that of Luther, is Predestination. If the salvation His doc-
of man can only be achieved through Divine grace, then, destio*.
according to Calvin, it rests solely upon the free-will of ^^^^
God whether he is to participate in salvation or not. An
eternal decree of God has preordained what is to become
of every man. All are not created on equal terms : some
are predestined to eternal life, others to eternal dam-
nation.^ Not all the Calvinistic churches, it must be ad-
mitted, especially those in Germany, have accepted this
doctrine ; at least not in its utmost rigour. But certain it ia
that it pervades the whole positive divinity of Calvin, and
Kampschulte^ pointedly and correctly remarks that his
doctrine of the Last Supper is only the logical sequel of
Predestination, since the elect alone receive with the
external symbol the inward gift of grace. Although,
therefore, Calvin agreed with Luther in condemning the
Zwinglian conception of the sacraments as unscriptural
and profane, and admitted a miracidous and personal,
though piu-ely spiritual communication of Christ, still the
difference between him and the Lutherans remained very
considerable. And quite as considerable is the influence His exdo-
of the doctrine of Predestination upon Calvin's conception of the
of the Church. The true Church is, of course, the in- '^
visible Church, which embraces the whole body of the
elect. These God alone knows, and man, therefore, can-
not distinguish them fron\ the non-elect, mixed with whom
they form the visible Church. But since in the visible

^ ' Prasdestinationem vocamus sternum Dei decretum, quo apud se
coDstitutum habuit, quid de unoquoque homine fieri vellet.* — Inst iii.
c. xxi. § 5.

» Ibid. p. 263.

VOL. I. Y

322 PROGRESS OF TIIE REFORMATION..

CHAP. Church alone we can recognise the invisible — in other

XII. .

— ^-T-^-" words, come in contact with the elect — ^it follows that
participation in the visible Church is a necessity and a
condition of salvation. The diflTerence between this and
the Lutheran theory is clear. While, according to the
latter, the communion in the invisible Church of the
true believers is distinctly made the sole condition of sal-
vation, the invisible Church of Calvin is the kernel and
quintessence of the elect, which can only be reached
through the outer covering of the visible Church. If,
therefore, the Church of Calvin is distinguished by its
strenuous assertion of the theory that only by a perfect,
moral life of the community can the elect give outward
and practical expression to the power of the Word ; and if
it proceeds accordingly to realise that ideal by a strict code
of moral discipline ; nevertheless, it cannot be denied that
Calvin, by maintaining that salvation is nowhere to be
found outside the visible Church — ^in other words, of
course, outside the Church of Calvin — relapses into the
pure theory of Catholicism.

These opposite ideas as to the position of the indi-
vidual towards the Church, and the signification of the
visible Church itself, differing, as they did, according to
the concrete relations in Central and Northern Germany,
as opposed to Switzerland, led now to corresponding
varieties of opinion as to the constitution of the Church
and her position towards the State.

I have already observed that the invisible Church of
Luther is in no respect an ideal, but a thoroughly real
one. On the other hand, it is evident that, inasmuch as
God alone can know her true members, her theory, so
Luther's far as regards the constitution of the visible Church, is
Church. purely negative. The positive aspects of that constitution
are as follow : — As for ' the unity of the Church, it is
quite sufficient to agree upon the teaching of Scripture

"hyj iu /.•..

■V

LUTHER'S THEOBT OF THE VISIBT.E CHUBOF.

and the atlmiiiistratiou of the sacraments ; so unity in the cha?; j
manifestation, and therefore in tlie confession of the faith,
together -with a conaiatent conduct of daily life, must
form the first and chief foundation of an EvangeUcal
Church, whilst, unlike the Catholic Church, it requires no
homogeneity or unity of constitution. But unity of con-
fession, or a creed, presupposes a community of those
confessing; for the individual simply confesses hia belief
aloud, that he may unite with his fellow-worshippers and
regulate hia relationa with them accurdiugly. ■ The com-
munity of confeffiors, therefore, is the keystone and basis
of every Protestant Church constitution ; and the collective
aggregate of such communities, no matter how variously
constituted, forms the Church. It is essential, however,
to observe that the community of the Church, viewed by
itself, has no necessary connection with that of the State.
As Church life finds its first development in the local
community, the latter also must form the first nucleus of
the visible Church ; and its proper organisation requires,
from the first, the offices of teaching and administering
the sacraments {ministerium docendi EvangelH et porri-
gendi sacramenta) — functions to which Luther expressly
limits the priestly office, in opposition to the Catholic
theory of the clergy as the pastors and rulers of the flock.
Agreeably with this limitation, the call to the priestly
office' is not the result of an act which, like ordination
among the Catholics, confers upon the person so called a
Divine capacity for office, and which, if repeated by the
Lutherans, would create anew a privileged class ; but it
is made simply for the sake of good order and con-
venience. The minister is appointed by the community,
each member of which, by virtue of the universal priest-
hood, has an equal right to the office, though all cannot

' 'Nemo debet in ecolasift publics docere ant RacrRmentA admi-
niHrare nUi riU vocatut.' — Confcs'. Avg. Art. xiv.

324 PHOGRESS OF THE REFORMATIOX.

CHAP, exercise it — for the sake of teaching the Gospel and ad-
' — .-'— ^ ministering the sacraments. * A priestly class in Christen-
dom,' says Luther, * must be nothing more than office-bear-
ei"s. Such office is nothing more than a public ministry,
entrusted to an individual by the whole community, be-
cause that which is common to all none can take to
himself without the will and command of the community/
In the clearest manner, therefore, Luther separates
the class from the office. The priestly class he repudiates
altogether. To the dignity and administrative powers of
the office he firmly adheres ; but, in the true spirit of
apostolic times, he refuses to make the office-bearer the
master of the community ; insisting forcibly on the right
of the latter not only to elect their minister, but to ex-
clude, if necessary, a member from their communion. To
this conception of community and office Luther has in-
variably remained faithful in principle. The notion that
he had been led to adopt it by the War of the Peasants
and the excesses of the Anabaptists is utterly erroneous,
and is refuted by the Augsburg Confession, of much later
date, which faithfully reflei'ts the views expressed in his
earlier writings. On the contrary, Luther substantially
approved of the demand of the peasants, ' that the whole
community shall elect its own priest ; ' ^ though obviously
none but an organised and properly constituted com-
munity is fit to undertake such election. When Luther
said that some should be chosen from the general body,
to exercise office on behalf of the community, he could
certainly not have been thinking of the unbridled masses,
who perverted the imiversal priesthood into the liberty of
the flesh, and the license to do as they pleased ; but of
such an organisation as should guarantee the election of
men to the office who were qualified for it, in preference

' 'Dass die ganze Gemeyn soil ein Pfarrer selbs erweelen und
kyefen.'

HIS CONCEPTION OF PRIESTLY OFFICE. 325

to Others, by their superior culture and personal character, chap.
Accordingly, he separates the case when no appointed -^ — r-^
preacher of the Word is at hand, and when everyone — as
Stephen, Philip, and A polios had done — may preach who
feels himself qualified, from that where an organised
Christian community already exists. * The law of the
community demands, however,' he says, * that one, or as
many as are convenient to the community, shall be elected
and accepted, who in the place and name of all the mem-
bers, equally situated as to rights, shall publicly perform
this ministry ; so that the terrible evils of disorder may
not arise among the people of God, nor that Church
become a Babylon, in which all things are to be done
" decently and in order." ' ^

Sensible, however, as was Luther of the importance
of ecclesiastical government ; fully aware, as he was, that
the Church needed something more than the spirituality
of the Eeformation to ensure her proper working as an
institution, he was far too cautious and practical a re-
former not to see the mischief of precipitation. It was
an act of signal wisdom on his part that he abstained, in
those stormy and excited times, from resorting at once to
an organisation which he foresaw would soon degenerate,
under the existing conditions of society, into factions.
In his * German Mass,' published in 1526, he laments
his want of proper ministers for that purpose. ' Eeal
evangelical assemblies,' he says, *do not take place
in a pell-mell fashion, admitting people of every sort ;
they are formed of serious Christians, who confess the
Gospel by their words, and by their lives.' But he adds :
' I cannot at present institute such assemblies ; for I have not
the proper persons to place in them ; if the thing becomes
possible, I shall not be wanting in this duty.' ^ The same

' Letter to the Senate and people of Prague.
^ Richter * Kirchen-Ordnungen,' p. 36.

326 PROGRESS OF TIIE REFORMATION.

^xil' practical sagacity induced him to dissuade the Landgrave
' ' of Hesse against giving effect to the synodal constitution of
the Church, wliich had been prepared by the enthusiastic
young Francis Lambert, little disposed as Luther was
personally to object to that constitution on its merits.^
He saw, in fact, that the moment was inopportune. * To
j)rescribe,' he says, * and to execute are two things widely
different. Laws seldom succeed which are put too early
into use and practice : they must first fashion themselves ;
after that it is easy to arrange and execute them.*

Equally incorrect is the notion that Luther's theory
of the relations of Church and State betrayed a change of
principles. Certain it is, that he conceives the vocation of
civil government as that of a Christian one, though, as
has been already mentioned, he does not base upon that
condition the duty of the subject to obey. But in no
respect does he concede to this Christian government the
fight of regulating the ordinances of the Church. When,
in his * Address to the Christian Nobility of Germany/ he
says, * Forasmuch then, as the secular power is baptised
with us, and has the same faith and gospel, we must let its
members be priests and bishops, and count its office as one,
which is convenient and useful to the Christian commu-
nity ' ; it is clear that Luther is claiming for the government
no rights over the Church, but simply mentions, by way
of example, that ecclesiastical functions may be conferred
by that community upon one member of the body
politic as well as on another. In the Augsburg Con-
fession, also, as indeed before that, the independence
of Christian from secular authority is most emphatically

* This constitutioQ was decidedly democratic — a reaction, poaaiblj,
as D'Aubigne remarks, against the opposite hierarchical extreme. Its
fundamental principle Avas the self-government of the Church ; not i
word is said in the prologue of either State or Landgrave. (See
Schminke, * Monumenta Hessiaca/ ii. p, 588 sqq.)

HE APPEALS TO THE PROTESTANT PRINCES.

asserted. No one knew better than Luther and Melan- cyAi"-
chthon how important it would have been for the indepen-
dence of the Church to presen-e the continuity of episcopal
power, if only that power would have left the Gospel free,'
instead of arrogating a Divine right, such as in England
as in Scandinavia attached to the office of bishop.
But since in Germany not only did the prelates, with a
few solitary exceptions, belong to the most determined
enemies of the Reformation, but even the Protestant
princes were afraid to abohah the old bishoprics or transfer
their diocesan rights to evangelical pastors — nearly all the
bishoprics being parcels of, and therefore guaranteed by
the empire — nothing, therefore, now remained to the
leaders of the Eeformation but to lean for support on
that power in which alone they found safety, and which,
from the turn events had taken, was alone able to protect

them against the tyranny of the emperor and the turbu-

lence of the masses. They looked, in short, to the The Hefor-
evangeUcal states of the empire. That these governments «ip|«rtea
should interpose the civil arm against 'discord, faction, eJ«iiKeii-
and revolt,' lay quite within their proper scope and pro- '"'**
vince. That they should regulate the expenditure of the
revenues of the suppressed monasteries upon the mainten-
ance of pastors and school-masters, and should organise
the education of the peojjle, was unquestionably their
lawful right ; and the Reformers therefore did very wisely
in assisting the territorial princes in such matters with
their advice. Moreover, they expressly guarded them-
selves, in BO doing, against allowing the regulations of
these princes to be imposed as 'strict commands,' or
tolerating the issue of 'new papal decretals.' Luther
himself was only one of several otliers who were appointed

' Thus Mflan chthon writea {Ep. ad Camerarium) ' Udnam, utinam
poBOtn HOD c|uidem dominationem conGnnare, aed admiaistiatioDem
rcBtituera episcopalem.'

328

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP.
XII.

Coercive
tendencies
of the Ke-
funuers.

to superintend the visitation of the Churches. It is true
that a passage in one of his letters, written on the occasion
of tlie Saxon electoral visitation, is highly significant, as
ominous of future errors. In that letter he strains the
right of the government to prevent schism so far as to
extend it to the suppression of differences of doctrine,
'just as the Emperor Constantine summoned the bishops
to Nica^a, because he neither would nor should tolerate
the scliism among Christians created by Arius, but held
them firm to agreement in doctrine and faith.^ Melan-
chthon even contends that the magistrate, who bears
the sword, should forbid heresies — in other words, god-
less doctrines — and should punish heretics, their authors ;
allowing, however, the voice of the Church to be first
heard in cases of doubt or difficulty.^ And in another
passage he declares, in plain terms, that the ultimate aim
of the State is the establishment in human society of the
true knowledge of God. Hence his unfortunate descrip-
tion of government as the guardian of the two tables of
the Law — a description false, in the first instance, for this
reason, that it presupposes the bearers of civil power to
be really pious and right-minded Cliristians. In these
opinions of the Reformers, due to the influence of Augus-
tin's writings, we find a manifest desertion from their
former avowal, so correctly expressed, that heresy is a
spiritual matter, in which worldly power has no right to
interfere. In other respects, however, they adhered in

' In connection with these opinions of Luther, it is only fair, of
course, to take into consideration the meagre knowledge of history at
that time. Constantine still stood in the light of a Christian emperor,
as represented by tradition.

* Richtcr, * Evangel. Kirchen-Verf.' p. 78. The Book of Instruction
issued to the commissioners appointed for the visitation well deserves
perusal. I^ay Protestants, whose opinions were found incorrect, were
subjected to a course of instruction, and if they persevered in reject-
ing the truth, were ordered to quit the country within a given time.

LUTIIERAN STATE-CnURCHES. 329

substance to their original theory, namely, that the chap.
practical direction of ecclesiastical affairs, imposed by — r-^
circumstances upon the State, was in no way to be regar-
ded as a right inherent either in the government or its
subjects. In that sense Luther conceded to the princes
the character only of provisional bishops, when he de-
clared that the elector, in his episcopal capacity, was not
to be held responsible to secular authority.

In spite of these precautions, however, the fact MiacMer-
became more and more established, and Luther himself, rfciwi^ind
though supporting in principle the separation of the two cS^^tb^'
powers, was forced to allow, that one and the same p^i^ii.****
person might exercise both of them separately. It cannot
be denied that, according to Protestant principles, this
union of separate authority in one and the same person is
possible in tkesi. But it is equally certain that such a
union is impossible in practice, that it can only end in the
mischievous domination of the Church by the State,
and that, therefore, it must also be false in principle. If the
supreme episcopacy is not an office of the Church, it has
no right to govern the Church in her internal affairs ; if it
is an ecclesiastical office, how can it be hereditary, and
pass, like the Crown, to a wicked or profligate monarch ?
Both Luther and Melanchthon had a presentiment of
this evil, and frankly expressed their apprehensions.
*I see already,' ^vlltes Melanchthon, in a letter lament-
ing the impossibility of maintaining the episcopal power,
*what kind of Church we shall have after all eccle-
siastical constitution is dissolved. I see in the future a
tyranny more intolerable than has ever existed before.'
And Luther says, ' Satan remains Satan. Under the pope
he pushed the Church into the State ; now he wishes to
push the State into the Church.' But if Luther was sen-
sible of the evil, he underrated the difficulty of removing
it ; and when he went on to say, * however, by the help

830

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP.
XII.

Want of
cohesion
amonii; the
Protestant
Churches.

Their de-
generation
uto State>
Churches.

of God, we will resist this, and strive like men to keep
both calUngs distinct/ he had yet to prove that the
problem could be solved by good intentions, however
manly and confident of success. No doubt the crude and
chaotic condition of many Church communities presented
serious obstacles to their independent organisation ; but
it is none the less certain that Luther allowed himself to
be too easily deterred from the attempt by tlie failure of
the Reformers at Wittenberg, Leisnig, Magdeburg,
Orlamiinde, and other places. Because the Protestant
cause appeared to prosper under the conduct of the civil
government, he abandoned even later all attempts to in-
crease the independence of the various national Churches ;
and left them mutually devoid of any organic union, such
as alone would have made them, for the first time, a
genuine Church. It is no disparagement to Luther's
greatness, frankly to confess that he, who succeeded in
restoring to the light of day the long-imprisoned Truth,
was not equally gifted with the talent of giving it a prac-
tical shape and embodiment. At the same time it is
diflBcult to deny that, by this very union, daily more
closely riveted, of the civil and ecclesiastical powers in
the person of the territorial princes, the true energies of
the Eeformation in Germacny were first nipped in the
bud, and then blasted. The function of the government
to watch over the purity of doctrine and worship grew,
between 1530 and 1540, from a temporary and make-
shift expedient into an established principle of duty.
The right of the spiritual community to co-operate
in the election of their ministers and in the disciphne of
the Church — a right insisted on by the Reformers them-
selves— either fell altogether into desuetude, or passed
over, as was the case particularly in the cities of the
Empire, to the civil community. In this manner, as
Hundeshagen pertinently observes, there were created

ESTABLKnMENT OF CONSISTORIES.

only paiishea, but no communities deserving tlie name
of Churches. Their members, like those of the Catholic ■
Chureh, sank into a purely passive position, and re-
tained only a modicum of rights in places where, as in
Hesse, the influences of the Cahiuist party still survived.
This degeneration into a State-Church was all the more
to be lamented, since it was utterly aUen to Lutheran-
ism, which, in opposition to the theory of Calvin, granted
the freest scope and liberty in the formation of a Church
constitution.

With the year 1540 this tendency assumed a definitive
shape by the establishment of Consistories, and from that
time to this it has governed the Lutheran Church in
Germany. The Consistories were collegiate coimcils, e
composed of jurists and theologians, who, after the model c
of the official episcopal tribimals, were intended originally "
to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction, so far as was gene-
rally deemed necessary or suitable, in accordance with
Protestant principles. Their competence, however, rapidly
extended to the general government of the Church, out-
side of the rights reserved by the ruling princes ; and
accordingly the earlier appointed ecclesiastical superin-
tendents, whose duty, analogous to that of bishops, had
been to supervise the larger communities, were soon sub-
ordinated to the Consistories. The mixture of jurists and
theologians in the latter promoted the constant enlarge-
ment of their field of activity, by transferring to them
functions which, according to the plainly-expressed princi-
ples of the Reformers, belonged not at all to the Church,
but to the State. It became now a circumstance of
peculiar importance that, as early as the beginning of the
Eeformalion, those jurists who favoured the movement
_ had displayed no small repugnance against Luther's attacks
H on the obligation of the Canon Law, which he had burned
H in the same bonfire with the Papal Bull of excommunica-

332

PROGRESS OF THE REFORALVTION.

CHAP.

XII.

Their en-
croach-
ments on
eccleniasti-
cal jnriB-
diction.

tion. The former had been accepted concurrentlj^ with
the Eoman Law, and had influenced the formation of the
Common Law, and especially the course of procedure, not
only in ecclesiastical, but also in civil causes. Accord-
ingly the fundamental rejection of its validity necessarily
led to a serious interruption of the continuity of law, par-
ticularly as no compensating element was introduced to
supply the gap thus made.^ Although at this time even
the Canon Law was not recognised as exclusively binding
whenever — as, for instance, in its assertion of the -sacra-
mental character of marriage — it conflicted with the
cardinal principles of Protestantism, still, so far as it sup-
ported the extension of spiritual jurisdiction, its authority
was repeatedly invoked. For this very reason the Consis-
tories, which the Elector of Saxony had appointed, in the
first instance, at the request of the Wittenberg divines,
for the adjudication of matrimonial causes, soon excited
the secret anxiety of Luther. He feared that, from this
confusion of Divine and secular law, grave mischief might
ensue to the Church. And this fear was justified, in
proportion as the authority of the Consistories, composed,
as they were, in a great measure of jurists, became en-
larged. By degrees they assumed the right of main-
taining the purity and unity of doctrine and worship ;
of ensuring regular attendance at church and reception
of the sacraments ; and in cases of proved irreligion of
pronouncing the ban of excommunication against the
offender — all of which duties the Eeformers had expressly
reserved for the joint action of the religious community.
Civil pimishments likewise awaited the excommunicated,
such as the withdrawal of licenses from artisans, and
the deposition of persons holding office ; nay, the local
sovereign had it in his power to inflict only secular
pimishments of that kind. Obstinate offenders were

' Stiutzing Ulrich Zasius, p. 218.

CIVIL ENCROACHMENTS ON TIIE CHURCH. 333

kept in prison until they promised to amend or quit ^xvl'
the country : Church disciphne became a system of ' — ' — '
secular police.

These principles prevailed beyond the Kmits of con-
sistorial jurisdiction. Even in the duchy of Prussia, where
the Consistories had not been introduced, but where the
government of the Church was committed to two Evan-
gelical bishops, the territorial sovereign was the protector
of the purity of the faith. It was thought, that just as
the poisoning of wells was prohibited by law, neither
should the poisoning of souls be permitted ; and the pre-
cedent of the kings of Israel was appealed to, as those
who punished idolatry in their subjects. All this was an
utter relapse into the false principle of Theocracy, which
would make the State maintain orthodoxy and religious
life by secular means, and punish sin as a crime. Simi-
larly, the Church Constitution of Palatine Deux-Ponts of
1557 lays it down distinctly as the first duty of the terri-
torial sovereign to pro\dde his subjects with the doctrine
of the Gospel > pure and undefiled.' ' Next to, but not
before that, he is to institute and maintain, in the tem-
poral government, and for the preservation of temporal
peace, useful ordinances and regulations.' The State
therefore, took upon itself independently the task which
formerly it had exercised only imder commission from
the hierarchy, and ecclesiastical government became a
branch of the civil.

This result, meanwhile, was greatly furthered by the
course of the political struggle, on the one side, between
the old Church and the Imperial power; on the other,
between Protestantism and the Protestimt States of the
Empire. The decree of the Diet of Spire, by its provisions
above-mentioned, had given protection, it is true, to the
cause of the Keformation, but simply on a territorial
basis. After that the convocation of an impartial council,

834 PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, demanded by the Evangelical States of the Empire, having
^^ — »-— ' been frustrated by the Pope and Charles V., and the
attempt of the Emperor to suppress the Eeformation by
force having proved equally abortive, a conclusion was
ReUgious finally arrived at in 1555 by the Keligious Peace of
Augsburg. Augsburg. This famous compromise provided that no
subject of any State of the Empire should be injured or
molested on accoimt of his adherence to the Augsburg
Confession. All other sects or denominaticms, however,
were expressly excluded from the benefits of this peace,*
whose provisions accordingly were limited to the con-
tracting parties, the States of the Empire. The right of
reformation {jus reformandi), as it was called, now for-
Tht juM re- mally recognised, was nothing new in principle, but
iKJSdJis simply placed the new relations on the old footing —
^Jl^ga^,^ namely, that the exercise of religion depended on the
temtoriai- judgment of the local government. Henceforth, as in
the Middle Ages, the civil power was to watch over the
maintenance of the true faith. As to the territorial
princes, the adherents of the Augsburg Confession enjoyed
coequal rights with those of the Catholic or old religion ;
and the penalties attaching to subjects not confessing the
rehgion of their prince were mitigated by the substitution
of banishment from the country {benejicium emigrationis)
for the former and more severe punishments imposed on
heretics. All this, imquestionably, marked a considerable
advance against the exclusive pretensions of Catholicism.
The exemption of the Protestant States from the authority
of Pope and Council; their admission, on equal terms
with the Catholics, to the appointment of members of the

1 This did not exclude the Reformed, who at that time adhered to
the Augsburg Confession. It was not until 1561, at the Conference at
Passy, that the adherents of Calvin rejected some of its articles, parti-
cularly the one ' De Coentl Domini/ At that Conference the name of
Calvinista originated.

REUGIOUS PEACE OF AUGSnUEO.

Imperial Chamber ; the suspension of ecclesiastical jurisUic- ^xu^'
lion withiu their territories, were important objects to have — ■ — '
achieved. But aide by side with this religious liberty con-
ferred on the States of the Empire the compact recognised,
BB a binding obligation, the religious dependence of all
mediate States and subjects on the territorial prince. Al-
though the Augsbui^ Confession, therefore, when adopted
as the religion of the State, was acknowledged to confer
an equality of rights upon its followers, irrespective of
any subsequent change of religion by the sovereign ; al-
though also the Protestants retained the confiscated pro-
perty of the Church, subject to the clause to be explained
hereafter, and known as the Ecclesiastical Reservation ; still
the effect of vesting the right of reformation in the ruling
prince was practically to deprive the subject of all hbcrty
of conscience. Whatever rehgion — whether Protestant
or Catholic — his sovereign chose to introduce, the sul)-
ject was forced to accept. Cnjus reffio, ejus relhjio. The o.jm
immediate consequence of this principle was the dismera- '■'" '
berraent of the one Protestant Church of Germany into as
many fragments as there were Lutheran States of the
Empire. Henceforth an organic development of the
Church, in its integrity, became a sheer impossibility.
Clerical as well as lay subjects were exposed to the arbi-
trary will or mere caprice of the tenitorial prince, or to
the accidents of dynastic change. Under such conditions
it was inevitable that, whatever creative energy and spirit
of reform tlie Protestant Church of Germany possessed
ehoidd rapidly verge to utter exhaustion.

In Switzerland the Eeformatiou, starting from a dif- Pofenr
ferent application of first principles, arrived much earlier Swi
than in Germany at a mutual fusion of Cliurch and State.
Zwingli.inhlscontest with hierarchical principles, was led gUn
& to reject entirely all ecclesiastical authority. The Church,
B in his view, presented simply the spiritual, the State the

336 PllOGKESS OF Tim llEFORMATION.

CHAP, secular, side of the same Christian commonwealth. Hence

XII

^*- — f-^ he arrived, by a natural process, at the idea of a Christian
government in this sense — that no government should be
tolerated which is not Christian, and does not direct its
conduct by tlie exclusive standard of the Gospel. Hence
also, notwithstanding his original proposition that no
compulsion is allowable in matters of rehgion, he advanced
to the very questionable conclusion that while, on the one
hand, a Christian government — ^if such it be in reality —
should be entitled to punish those whose actions contravene
the Word of God, and to conduct the affairs of the Church ;
on the otlier hand, a government which is not really
Christian degenerates into a tyrannical power, which its
subjects have the right to oppose. He forbids, indeed,
for this purpose the use of insurrection, mm'der, or civil
war. He would simply expel elected governments by
not re-electing them ; but where tliis cannot be done, he
maintains, by appealing to precedents in the Old Testa-
ment, the right of the nation to resist. If subjects, he de-
clares, bend the knee before a wanton tyrant, they also
share his punishment. Here, then, there is no struggle,
as in Germany, for the independence of the new Church ;
but her whole organisation proceeds from the State.
Accordingly, Zwingli took his seat in the cantonal council
of Zurich; and thence he organised, through his in-
fluence, the whole Swiss Kcpubhc, 'in order,' he says,
* for the sake of God, to assist our Lord Christ to resume
once more His rule in our land.' At Berne, where a
general Edict of Eeform was pubHshed in 1528, the go-
vernment of the Church was conferred on the Great and
Lesser Councils. At Basle the Senate, yielding to the
popular movement, conceded simultaneously democracy
and the Gospel ; but the worthy (Ecolampadius failed in
his exertions to secure the self-government of the Church ;
all that was done being a resolution passed in 1531 by a

CALMN'S RELIGIOUS STATE. 337

Diet of the four Eeformed cantons, that whenever any chap.
difficulty should occur with regard to doctrine or worship,

a meeting of Divines and laymen should be convoked,
in order to examine what the Scriptures said on the
matter.^

At Geneva substantially the same result was arrived caivin's
at, though in a different manner. Calvin recognised in staST'"
principle Church and State as two independent orders.
* He who knows,' he said, ' to distinguish between the
body and the soul, will have no difficulty in perceiving
that the spiritual kingdom of Christ and civil government
are things very widely separated.'^ The State, in his
view, is an indispensable and Divine institution. Every-
one must obey the government, even should it rule im-
justly, so long as it restricts itself to the sphere of
outward life. Only when it impugns the hcmour and
prerogatives of God does an exception to this duty of
obedience occur; for the State has no rights over the
conscience. ' We are subject,' he says, ' to the men who
rule over us, but subject only in the Lord.'^ In con-
trast to the State, as an institution, Calvin places that of
the Church, composed, according to his theory that the
Scriptures are all-sufficient, not only for doctrine but for
constitution, of four distinct offices, arranged on a purely
Scriptural pattern. These were the Teachers (doctores),
whose occupation consisted simply in the interpretation
of the Word ; tlie Pastors {pastores\ whose duty it was
to preach the Word and administer the sacraments ; the
Presbyters, who, with the advice and assistance of the
teacliers and pastors, conducted tlie discipline of the
Church ; and the Deacons, who were charged with the

* Ilottinger, iii. 554.

^ * Spirituale Chriwti regnum et civilem ordinationem res esse
plurimum scpositas.* (Inst, iv. 20, § 1.)
» Ibid. iv. 20, § 32.

VOL. I. Z

338 PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, care of the poor and sick, and other duties of like nature.
^ — r^— The collective authority of the Church was vested in a
General Assembly of the community, each member of
wliicli derived from Scripture a sufficient source of illumi-
nation, and which was cliarged with the election of its
office-bearers.^

This fundamental separation — or rather distinction—
between Church and State is practically revoked, how-
ever, by Calvin's demand that, as the Church is boimd to
assist and support the government by the preaching of
Christian \irtues, so the State, whose true foundation is
the rchgiousness of the people, should recognise the
duty of admitting the penetrating influence of the Church,
of promoting her effiaicy in every way, and of assist-
ing directly in the work of extending the Kingdom of
God. Calvin, in pursuing this idea, arrived at a reUgious
State, just as Zwingli, on his part, developed the theory of
a State-religion. While the latter delegated the guidance
of Church and State to the Christian government, at
Geneva the State was placed under the guidance of the
Church and of her s})iritual head, Calvin.*"^ In conjunction
with Farel, he began by compiling, in twenty-one articles,
a Confession of Faith,^ * to give,' as Beza says, * some shape
to the newly-estabUshed Chiu-ch.' This confession, together

* * Habemus ergo esse banc ex verbo Dei legitdmam ministri voca-
tionem, ubi ex populi consensu et approbatione creantur, qui viai
fuerint idonei. Prceesse autem electioni debere alios pastores, ne quid
per levitatem vel per mala studia vel per tumultum a multitudine
peccetur.' Ihid, iv. 3, § 15. The notion that this constitution is the
only one consistent with Scripture has been amply refuted by Vitringa,
as a member of the Reformed Church.

* In the protocols of the Lesser Council, which Kampschulte exa-
mined, the expression occurs regularly — * It was resolved to consult
M. Calvin.*

^ Confession de Foy^ laquelle iotts le^ bourgeois et habitans de
Oeneve et sujectz du pays doiventjurer de garder et de tenir.

CALVIN'S RELIGIOUS STATE. S

with a Bclieme of ecclesiastical polity, which claimed -ciu
among other thioga the power of excommunication for — ^
the Church, was adopted by the Council of Two Hundred,
and afterwards ratified on oath by the assembled citizens.
The severity of these enactments, so distasteful at first to
the gay Geuevese, provoked an opposition so strong that
Calvin was forced to leave Geneva. But a reaction soon
Bet in ; and when he returned in triumph in 1541, hia
first act was to revive, with increased rigour, his scheme
of Church-go vemmeut, now fully developed in hia 'Insti-
tutes,' A commission, acting under hia direction, pre- iiis
pared for this pui-pose the Ordonnances EccUsiasiiques de tic^ o
CEglise de Geneve, which were finally accepted by tlie """^
General Assembly on January 2, 1542,^ and were in-
tended, as a fundamental law of the Church, to convert
the republic into a theocratic SUxte, after the model of
Israel. The civil power is charged to take care of the
external government and welfare of the Kingdom of God,
But as regards the natiu-e of this duty, it must submit to
tiie instruction of the Church ; so that in reality the State
simply executes what the Church has sanctioned and
determined. Although Calvin denied to the Church
herself the right to employ secular means of punishment
or coercion,^ the State at Geneva employed those means
under commission from the Church.^ Inasmuch as false
' Kampschulte, p. 259. They conaiated of no less thnn 168 articles,
' 'Neque enim jua glndii hubet ecoliaia, quo puniat vol coerceat,
son imperium, ut cogat, doq pccnaa aliaa, qus solent iDlligi a magig-
\ trntu. Deiode non hoc oglt, ut qui peccavit, invitiia plcutatur, mi ut
I Toluntaria castigutiuno pccnitentiam proflteatur.' {Inst, iv. II, ^ 3.)

' Tlie civil polity consisted of ihe General Assenibly of [ho titizena,
t Ifthich furnied the chief depositary of political power; the Council of
:, Sixty ; and, after Ehu union with Berne and Friburg in 1526, the
Council of Two Hundred. Beaiiles ihew there wa» the ordinary
Executive Council of Sixteen, with the addition of the four mogiBtiatea,
or syndics, elected annually by the General Asaembly, the four ex-
•yndiva, and ilie city treasurer.

340 PROGHESS OF THE REFORMATIOX.

CHAP, doctrines corrupt Christian society, the State was bound
-- — r-^-^ not to tolerate them. Accordingly, Catholics were ex-
pelled ; and heretics — in other words, those who rejected
or in any way opposed the accepted confession of faith —
were punished like criminals. Anabaptists were flogged ;
persons suspected of heresy were tortured, if they refused
to confess ; three men, who had laughed during a sermon,
were sentenced to imprisonment. A code of civic ordi-
nances, compiled in a like spirit as the ecclesiastical,
applied the same rigorous method to the relations of social
life. Adultery was punished with death ; a woman was
^ to be burned for singing immodest songs. Between 1542
and 1 546 no less than fifty-eight persons were sentenced
to death, and seventy-six to banishment. Wlien, in 1553,
Servetus was burned at the stake for denying the Trinity,
there was little left to distinguish the intolerance of the
Council from that of the Inquisition.

But with all tliese vast powers of the Church, exer-
cised through the medium of the criminal law, her inde-
pendence was largely prejudiced by the transfer of rights
strictly appertaining to herself to the jurisdiction of a
political assembly. The Lesser Council confirmed the
appointment of ministers nominated by the clergy ; and
not until this sanction was obtained were they presented
to the community for approbation — a mere form, which
practically annulled, for that reason, the principle of
general election, established by Calvin himself. The
twelve lay elders of the Consistory — the supreme tribunal
of the Church ^ — were chosen solely from the Council of

' The Consistory included six pastors. One of the syndics was
properly its president, but Calvin himself held that oflSce during his
life. The other Church court was the Venemble Company of Pastors ;
but their functions were limited to examining and ordaining candi-
^ dates for the ministry. This preponderant admixture of the laity was
imitated by the Church of Scotland.

CALVIN'S RELIGIOUS STATE. 341

Two Hundred and the Council of Sixteen, viz. two from chai>.
the former and four from the latter ; and though nomi- ' — -^ — ^
nated by the ministers, were elected by the Council. A
similar disregard to the community was sliown in all
ordinances of Church discipUne. Calvin himself was in
no way blind to these deviations from his principles, but
on March 14, 1542, soon after the acceptance of his
Ordinances, he wrote, ' We have now an ecclesiastical
tribunal and such a form of religious discipline as these
troublous times will allow.' ^ And in fact, notwith-
standing these evident defects, his work left its stamp on
the histoiy of the world. The secret of this success lay
not in any conscious sympathy, on his part, with insur-
rection against the constituted civil authorities, such as
might stimulate pohtical malcontents in other countries,
but in his steadily refraining from hierarchical tendencies,
and pursuing — with a gloomy and rugged severity, no
doubt — but with perfect consistency of purpose, a grand
moral idea. The energy of tlie Swiss Reformer converted
an undiscipHned and disorderly multitude into that
peculiar religious State which, acting on inward convic-
tion, erected tlie most inflexible system of morality into a
code of civil law, and by straining to the uttermost all
the moral forces at its command, and profiting by the ^
mutual jealousy of other Powers, such as France, Spain,
and Savoy, maintained its national independence, in the
forcible language of Ranke, as a * warlike-religious
borderland on the confines of a hostile world, equally apt
for purposes of attack or of defence.' Although Calvin
failed in that which the German Reformers had been un-
able to realise — namely, to secure a moral and ecclesiastical
government through the medium of a presbyterian con-
stitution— ^he made Geneva the starting-point and centre
of a movement which has exercised the most far-reaching

* Kampschulle, p. 259.

342

PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION,

CHAP.
XII.

Beformed
Church in
Fraaoe.

Confeuion
de Poy^
May 28,
1659.

influence and efiect, especially in those countries where
any fusion of Church and State was impossible from the
hostility of the reigning family to the Eeformation, and
where, for that very reason, the original principles of
Calvinism could acquire a purer form and reaKty.^

Such was peculiarly the case with the Protestant
Church in France. She was not only unsupported, as at
Geneva, but persecuted by the State. She had therefore
to rely upon hei'self entirely for her organisation. Calvin
and his fiiends were, it is true, in close communion with
her ; they freely profiered their advice and provided her
with ministers, since France still offered few opportunities
for clerical education ; but they asserted no claim to any
guidance or control. When, now, the number of Protestant
Churches, in spite of persecution, continued to increase,
the idea of an organic union impressed itself upon their
members ; and in 1559 the first National Synod at Paris,
consisting of deputies from all the Churches in France,
and assembled, as Beza says, * pour s'accorder en imit^
de doctrine et discipline conform^ment k la parole de
Dieu,' established a confession of faith and a common
Church constitution. This Confession de Foy^ which, in
respect of dogma, adheres to Luther and Calvin, has this
peculiarity, that it contains also directions for the govern-

* * n subordonna,* says M. Mignet in his paper on Tlie Reforma-
tion at Geneva^ read before the Academic des Sciences Morales
et Politiques, * TEtat k TEglise, la soci^t^ civile k la soci^t^ religieuse,
et pr^para dans Geneve une croyance et nn gouvemement h. tons ceux
en Europe qui rcjeteraient la croyance et s'insurgeraient centre le
gouvemement de leur pays. . . , Le Calvinisnie, religion des insurg^s,
fut adopts par les Hugtienots de France, les Ghieux des Pays-Bas, lea
Preshyteriens d'Ecosse, les Furitains et les Independants d'Angleterre.
Expression, sous une autre forme, du grand besoin de croire avec
liberty qu'6prouvait alors le genre humain, il foumit un module et un
moyen de reformation aiix peuples dont les gouvemements ne voulurent
pas Top^rer eux-memes, sans etre toutefois assez forts pour Tempecher.'
{Ed. Rev, cxxxi. p. 140.)

PROTESTANT CHURCH IN FRANCE. 843

ment of the Church, and prescribes the presbyterian form ^^^j^-
of constitution as the only one compatible with Scriptiu-e.^ * — »■— ^
This instrument of Church doctrine is supplemented by
the Discipline Ecclesiastique^ which proceeds to perfect,
in forty articles, the fabric of the ecclesiastical constitu-
tion, based, as it professes, on a strictly Apostohc model.
The elders and deacons elect the minister, and present ^
him to the lay community, which has the right of protest,
subject to appeal to the Pro\incial Synod.^ With him,
and under his presidency, they form the Consistory, or
ecclesiastical Senate, whicli is charged \vith the government
of the local Church .' Twice in every year the ministers,
together with at least one elder or deacon of each Church
of the province, are to meet for deliberating on matters of
grave moment or on appeals.* The keystone of the

* Art. XXIX. — * Quant est de la vraye Eglise, nous croyons qu'elle
doit estre gouvemde selon la police que notro Seigneur Jesus- Clirist a
establie, c'est qu^il y ait des Pasteurs, des Surveillans et des Diacres.*
[Here, therefore, the doctor ea of Calvin are already omitted.] ....
Art. XXX. — * Nous croyons tons vrais pasteurs, en quelque lieu qu'ils
fioyent, avoir mesme autorit^ et <^gale puissance sous un seul chef, seul
Bouverain et seul universel Eveque, Jesus-Christ, et pour ceste cause
que nuUe Eglise ne doit prdtendre aucune domination ou seigneurie sur
Tautre.' . . . Art. XXXI. — * Nous croyons quo nul ne se doit ingerer
de son autoritc propre pour gouverner TEglise, mais quo cela se doit
faire par Election, en tant qu*il est possible et que Dieu le pcrmet.'
(Beza, Hist, des Eglisea rcfoinn. en France^ edit. 1580, vol. i.
p. 182.)

* Art. VI. — * Que les Ministres seront eslous au Consistoire par lea
Anciens et Diacres, et seront pr^sent^s au peuple, pour lequel ils seront
ordonnc^s; et s'il y a opposition co sera au Consistoire do la juger; et
au cas qu'il y eust mescontentemcnt d'une part ou d'autre que le tout
sera rapporte au Concilo Provincial, non pour contraindre le peupio
k recevoir le Ministre esleu, niais pour sa justification.*

* Art. V. — * Que les Ministres et un Ancien ou Diacre pour le
moins de chacune Eglise ou province s'assembleront deux fois Fannie.*

* Art. XX. — Les Anciens et Diacres sont le Sonat de TEglise,
auquel doyveut pr^sider les Ministres de la parole.

344 PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, edifice is the General Synod, to which, by a subsequent
-.^ — r-^-^ regulation, each Provincial Synod is directed to send one
or two ecclesiastical delegates, and as many elders, and
whose president is elected in the same manner as at a Pro-
vincial Synod. This Discipline EccUsiastique^ therefore,
embodies an excellent practical organisation of the Church;
since, on the one side, the election of ministers is left not
to the general body, who retain a simple right of protest,
but to the Provincial Synod ; while, on the other side, the
domination of the community by its minister is made
impossible by the latter being made responsible for every
act to the consentient vote of the lay members of the
Consistory. Thus, then, this organisation, compared vrith
that of the Genevan Chiu-ch, exhibits the remarkable
advance of a Synodal union of the various congregations.
The General Synod is reserved for extraordinary occasions ;
the centre and nucleus of the system are the Synods of
the different provinces.^ As an intermediate link between
the Consistories and the Provincial Synods there were
introduced, in 1572, the Colloquies — composed of two
deputies from each Consistory of a certain district, which
met every three months and decided on matters of common
interest, besides passing censure, when necessary, on the
ofiice-bearers of the Church. In this well-ordered organ-
isation, quite as independent of the State as it was
mindful of civil rights, and continuing, with more or less
modifications, down to the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, a pattern and example are given which no Pro-
testant Church, that desires to maintain her own rights
against the State, and yet not to become a mere Cliurch

* Art. XXXIX. — * Nulle Eglise ne pourra rien faire de grande con-
sdqiience, oii poiirroit estre compris Tint^rest et dommage des autres
Eglises, sans Tadvis du Synode Provincial.* (Beza, ut supra, p.
190.)

ITS SYNODAL CONSTITUnON. 345

of the clergy, can venture to ignore, when she comes to chap.
elaborate her constitution.^ ^- ■ -^

* The remarkable history of this work is told by Dr. Heppe.
(Zeitschj-i/t fur histor. Theol, 1875, p. 506 sqq.) He says truly, that
the assembly was full of the Apostolic spirit, deliberating in the name
of God, w unanimous that the members had only to speak out what
everyone thought in common, and despising the terrible dangers that
menaced them from without. Cfilvin had the chief part in drafling
the Confession, which he sent to Paris by three adherents, and which
was little changed. (0pp. Calvini. vol. ix., Proleg. p. Ivii-lix. ed,
Baum.)

346 THE STRUGQLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAPTER Xin.

THE STRUGGLES OP THE REFORMATION.

Reforms of Adrian VI. — Fruitless Attempts at Compromise by Rome-
Contest of Charles V. with the Protestants — Reactionary Policy of the
Vatican — Order of the Jesuits — Their Services utilised by Rome — Council
of Trent — Question of Episcopal Infallibility — Advantages gained by
Rome — Ferdinand I. and the Pope — Suppression of Protestantism in
Italy — In Spain — In the Netherlands — In France — The Huguenots —
Galilean Reaction under Henry IV. — Views of Church and State —
Mariana — Protestantism in Germany — Counter-Movement of the Jesuits
— Protestant Sympathies of Maximilian II. — Reaction under Rudolf 11. —
Degeneracy of the Lutheran Church — Episcopal Power of the Sovereign
— Formula of Concord — Protestant Disunion — The Reformation in Eng-
land— Anglican Church of Elizabeth — Ecclesiastical Legislation — Dis-
senters— Anti-Catholic Policy of the Queen — War of Independence in
the Netherlands — William the Silent — The Reformation in Scotland —
Knox's First Covenant — Popery abolished by Parliament — First and
Second Books of Discipline — Settlement of 1602.

CHAP. The Vatican, having failed in its first attempt to strike
* — r-^ down the Eeformation witli the ancient weapons of coer-
AdSVi. cion from the armoury of the mediaeval Church, now re-
sorted to a change of tactics. Leo X. died in 1 522, and was
succeeded by Adrian VI., of Utrecht, the former tutor of
Charles V. The new Pontiff had been nursed in the
principles of the Spanish Eeformation, and wished to
extend them to the whole Church, He was a man of
serious temperament and strict morality, and had been
elected for that very reason, since it w^as felt that a man
of that character was necessary for the Apostolic chair.
At his enthronisation the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia openly
confessed that the Church had shown manifold defects
under the last Popes, and called on Adrian to ' reform
these maladies, so far as the times would allow, by

REFORMS OF ADRIAN VI. 347

Councils and the Canons, in order that she might have chap.

. XIII

the outward appearance of a holy Church instead of a * — r-^

brotherhood of sin/ And Adrian proved at once that he
accepted the task in full earnest. He abolished the
sumptuous court and household of his predecessor ; he
re-established order at Eome ; and, more than all, he co-
operated with the general of the Augustinian Order in a
project for the genuine purification of the Church. The
magnitude of the schism had opened his eyes to the
corruption of the Cathohc clergy ; and he instructed his
legate to reply to the Hundred Grievances of the German
nation, submitted to him by the princes at the Diet of
Nuremberg in 1522, by frankly avowing that everything
in the Church was perverted to bad, and that the sick-
ness had descended from the head to the members.^
Adrian lived too short a time to carry out his plans ; but
twelve years later a memorial of nine Eoman prelates, Fruitie*
suggested by Paul lU. himself, plainly declared that the 2J^,S?**
theory of Papal absolutism over the Church had been g^jjj^^
invented by sycophants, and was the source of all the wide-
spread corruption that had inundated the Church. But
the day of compromise was past, nor could any such
language of conciliation avail to bring about an agreement
with the Eeformers. Eome at that time would wilUngly
have made great concessions, in respect of excrescences
of dogma and ritual, if only Luther and Melanchthon had
consented to surrender their Church principle, and re-
cognise the Divine authority of the hierarchy and the
supremacy of the Pope. But precisely these points the
Eeformers could not yield, more especially as, by the

^ ' Scimus in hac sancta sede aliquot jam annis multa abominanda
fuisse, abusus in spiritual ibus, excessus in mandatis, et omnia denique
in perversum mutata. Nee mirum si eegritudo a capite in membra,
a summis pontificibus in alios inferiores prelate descenderit.' (fiay-
naldus ad ann. 1522.)

348 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, presentation to the Emperor of the Augsburg Confession

XIII.

in 1530, they had established in its integrity the
Evangelical creed. Accordingly, the flattery and the
threats of the Papal legate in his interviews with Luther
proved equally unavailing. The breach was too great to
be healed by conferences, disputations, or attempts at
Diet of compromise. With the religious conference at Ratisbon
Aj>.\bSi\ in 1541 the dilatory policy of overtures to the Reformers
came to an end. At that meeting the Papal representa-
tive, Contarini, in his desire to re-establish Church unity,
had made considerable advances to the Germans ; but
his admissions were disavowed at Rome as going too
far.

Meanwhile ominous clouds were gathering also on
the secular horizon. With the presentation of the Augs-
burg Confession the Reformation had reached its spiritual
zenith. Its most determined enemies w^ere overpowered
by so convincing a demonstration of Scriptural truth. A
number of Catholic princes, and even Hermann, Elector
and Archbishop of Cologne, and the Bishop of Augsburg,
were gained over to the Confession ; the Duke of Bavaria
himself was wavering.* Everything, for the Reformers,
depended on making full use of the favourable moment
for achieving religious liberty, and to this end Luther
repeatedly urged his exliortations. When these attempts
failed, and when the Emperor and the Vatican sought
to prolong the matter by negotiations, his prophetic
mind foreboded mischief. The Diet concluded with an

* He observed to Eck, after the Confession had been read aloud,
« You have formerly told me very different things about this faith : can
you refute this Confession by sound argument ? * * Not from the
writings of the Apostles or Prophets,* replied Eck, * but certainly from those
of the Fathers and Councils.* * Well, then,* said the Duke sharply, * the
Lutherans take their stand upon the Scriptures, and we take our stand
by their side.*

HOSTILITY OF CHARLES V. 349

unsatisfactory resolution, not accepted by the EvangeK- ^^^^
cal States. The Empire was divided into two hostile — •— -*
camps.

The policy of Charles V. during these commotions Policy of
was guided by the course of events. At first, the situa-
tion did not allow him to interfere in a decisive manner
between the contending parties. The Eeformation
continued to spread, and he was forced to content himself
with persecuting it in the Netherlands by the Inquisition.
But he had never abandoned his twofold project of com-
pelling the Pope to remove the abuses in the Church, and
of restoring Germany to the position of a Catholic Power.
Protestantism he not only hated as heresy, but feared as
a political foe which tlireatened the unity of the Empire,
besides involving the danger of an alliance between the
Evangehcal princes and France, and favouring the designs
of the Sultan. At length, in 1545, his supremacy in
Europe seemed so firmly established as to enable him to His contest
proceed to the execution of his twofold scheme of policy. League of
The refusal of the Protestant princes to consent to the
intended Council of Trent, on the ground that both the
})lace and the assemby foreboded the advancement of
Papal authority, gave him a pretext to pronounce the
ban of the Empire against them ; and, in the war of
Smalcald, which now broke out, the assistance of Maurice,
Duke of Saxony, enabled him to terminate the campaign
by the decisive victory of Miihlberg (April 24, 1547).
The triumph, however, was only temporary, nor such as
Charles had designed. Maurice, after long soliciting in
vain the liberation of his father-in-law, Philip of Ilesse,
espoused the cause of his fellow-Protestants against the
threatened liberties of Germany, and compelled Charles,
at the Treaty of Pjissau, to give peace to the Protestants,
and to assemble a Diet within six months for the deter-
mination of the long religious contest. The result, which

350 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP. Maurice, however, did not live to see axxomplished, was
' — •---' the famous Peace of Augsburg.^

Nor was Charles more successful with Eome in his
projects of reform. Paul III., under the pressure of
political difBculties, had at length consented to the Council
Reaction- SO long demanded, and had convoked it to meet in 1545
of Rome, at Trcut. But he obstinately resisted all attempts of the
Emperor to effect the reformation of the Church, Mean-
while, after Caraffa's influence had triumphed over Con-
tarini, the Papal policy veered round to one of inflexible
restoration.

The most characteristic symptom of this change was
the foundation of the Order of the Jesuits. Ignatius, or
inigo more properly Inigo Loyola, the son of a Spanish noble-
1491-165C man, was born in 1491. Nursed in the traditions of
Spanish-Catholic chivalry, and a soldier by profession, he
was crippled by a cannon-shot received at the defence of
Pampelima against the French. Confined by his wound
to the sickroom, the study of a book on the * Lives of
the Saints ' convinced him of the wickedness of his pre-
vious life.^ After terrible struggles and penitential casti-
gations, he formally dedicatal himself, body and soul, to
the service of the * Blessed Mother of God,' and imitated
the laws of ancient chivalry by enlisting himself under
the standards of spiritual warfare. With a view to effect
the conversion of tlie East, he made a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land ; but findmg that learning was indispensable
for his spiritual objects, he began in- his 33rd year to
learn Latin, and afterwards went to the Universities of

' See supraj p. 335. The Catholics regarded this compromise as
the only means to check the progress of the new faith. The Archduke
Charles declared, in a letter to Philip II., that, without this Peace,
Catholicism would have become extinct in Germany. (Gachard, Cor^
reap, de Philippe II., vol. ii. p. 59.)

* M. Ritter, Ign. v. Loyola his zur Stiftung dea Jesuttenordens.
(Sybel, Ilistor. Zeiischrijt, 1875.)

LOYOLA AND THE JESUITS. 851

Salamanca and Paris. Untouched by the Galilean ten- chap,
dencies of the Sorbonne, he wrote his Spiritual Exercises
— a collection of precepts, according to which the exer-
citant has to attain to union with God by a solitary
training of his spirit on definite principles of action. He
admitted the necessity of studying the Bible in the
original language, but prescribed a preliminary study of
the scholastic tlieology and the obligation to defend the
text of the Vulgate. In Paris he won a few adherents
to his ideas, and now for their propagation formed the
plan of founding an Order. Its constitution shows that
the personal views of the founder became the laws of the
Society. Filled with a burning and unselfish zeal for the
fiiith, to a gloomy and fanatic spirit he added inflexible
energy of will and a vast talent for organisation. His
starting-point was this, that the principle of Catholic
authority must die directly Home condescended to prove
her title and to enter into argument with heretics ; that the
Pope, in short, could only maintain his position as Vicar
of Christ by having the power to compel unconditional
obedience. As a champion of ecclesiastical absolutism he
founded the * Company of Jesus.' ^ In this respect he
deviated from the principles of the Spanish Eeformation,
wliich, so far from aiming at closer relations with the Pope,
sought rather to strengthen the independence of the
bishops. Loyola, on the contrary, discarded all national con-
siderations, and devoted himself entirely to the service of
the Universal Church and her head. To this principle he
gave expression in his * Constitutions,' by superadding to
the ordinary vows of secresy and fidelity to the Order the

* The moat recent account of the organis-'ition and hintory of tins
Order is given by J. Iluber — Der Jesuiten Orderly Berlin, 1873 —
a work, on the whole, impartially compiled. The most important docu-
ments are contained in the Institutum Societatia Jesu, Prague, 1757,
2 vols.

352 THE STKUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, injunction that every member of the Society was bound
* — «— ^ in duty to devote his life, in unqualified obedience, to
the constant service of Cluist and of His representative the
Supreme Pontiff of Eome, and to comply with everything
that the existing Pope should command with regard to
the salvation of his soul and the propagation of the faith.
The intention, therefore, of Loyola was not to found a
new monastic order, but to create an institution which,
by arming its chief with the strictest powers of discipline,
should combat all enemies of Papal absolutism and
represent the Church miUtant. Henc<3 the double-meaning
title of the ' Company of Jesus.' Compania was, at that .
time, the technical expression for a division in the Spanish
army. This ecclesiastical body-guard of the Pope, com-
pletely officered, and trained to obey one commander, was
intended to operate like a military corps, and to represent
the cause of the whole Church — to be, in fact, the
fighting power of Jesus.^
Organisa- The machinery of this Society was admirably adjusted

Jesuits. to correspond with and carry out the objects of its founder.
By a long course of education, consisting cliiefly of spirit-
ual exercises, by systematically conducted meditations
and self-scourgings, it was intended to temper the feeUngs
and imagination to an absolute submission to the authority
of the Church and of the Order. Each member is made
the supple tool of his superiors. At their head is the
General {proepositus generalis)^ invested with almost ab-
solute power : the Jesuit takes his oath ' to God and to
the General, His representative.' To prevent the pos-
sibility, however, of his abusing that power to the detri-
ment of tlie interests of the Society, the General also is
subjected to control. While he nominates singly all

> The French clergy and the Sorbonne protested against the pre-
tensions of an order which claimed by this name the representation
o£ the Church.

THEIR SERVICES TO THE PAPACY.

officers at discretion, decides on the open or secret ad-
mission or expulsion of members, and has actually the ■
power of admitting persons convicted of crime, provided
that the crime is beneficial to the Society, he is attended
by a Council of Supervision, consisting of four assistants,
the monitor, and the fatlier-confessor. These watch over
his conduct, and convene the general congregation at his
death, or should liis deposition become necessary. He
dare not abdicate, nor even leave Eome except in com-
pany with a member of the Council of Supervision. In
this manner the organisation acquires the most perfect
aptitude for offence, by practically utilising, and yet con-
trolling, every power that is capable of serving it. Again,
just as the individual Jesuit surrenders unconditiunally
his judgment, his conscience, and his inclinations — nay, is
forced to stifle his love for his blood-relations as an affec-
tion of the flesh, in order to live exclusively for the in-
terests of the Order — in Uke manner the Chxler itself is
■wholly engrossed in the service of the Papacy. It was
for the sake of this solidarity of interests that the Popes
thought it safe to confer such vast privileges on the Society,
privileges which frequently were at variance with the
constitution of the Church. Paid HI. (1534-49) granted
to them the right of altering their constitutions or statutes,
as time or circumstances might dictate, and even of
making new ones, which he r.itifled beforehand ; and Pius i
V. (1566-72) conferred upon tliem all privileges which i
had ever been, or might thereafter be, given to any other
order, with the additional provision that their own were
never to be abrogated. In this manner the Society was
virtually withdrawn even from Papal control, and ac-
quired the power of emancipating itself from the Curia,
as soon as tile latter opposed it, or a Pope introduced
dbpleasing innovations. The condition, in short, of its
absolute devotion to the Holy See came to this, that the

354 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

^AP. latter should obey its guidance and dictation. In vain
^ — r-^ did Paul IV. (Caraffa) and Sixtus V. endeavour to restrict
their power, when it grew inconvenient to the Papacy.
In vain did the Spanish Jesuits themselves remonstrate
against the tyrannical government of the greatest politician
of the Order, their general Acquaviva, at Borne. When,
in the 17th century, the Jesuit missionaries in China were
accused by the Dominicans of having introduced heathen
rites and superstitions into their worship, and the Pope
sent a cardinal to examine into the matter, the latter was
received with scorn, and thrown into prison, at their in-
stigation, by the Portuguese. Nay more, when Innocent
XI. (1676-89), who was sensible of the injury inflicted on
the Catholic cause by the doctrine of Probabilism, de-
veloped to its extreme by the Jesuits — ^that is 'to say, the
system which converts what is probably right into the
standard of moral conduct — ^had procured the election of
their general Gonzalez, who shared his views, the Order
refused to submit, and contrived to checkmate their own
superior through the controlliog authority of the Council
of Supervision and by means of repeated accusations.
The Order, in fact, had become a State within the Church.
Their ser- It was clcar that a Society thus constituted, under-

pio^'by taking, moreover, as it did, with great devotion all other
ecclesiastical duties, such as preaching, gratuitous instruc-
tion, confession, and missionary enterprises, was the very
instrument of attack to be employed against heresy ; and
heresy the Curia was using every eflTort to suppress.

Meanwhile, since the Council, so long demanded by
the princes, had become inevitable, the great question for
Eome was how to conduct its proceedings, for that reason,
in such a manner as to cause the least possible detrimient
to the Papal power. The task which lay before that
assembly was one of immense difficulty. All the earlier
Councils and Popes had only had single burning questions

vices em-
ployed hy
the Curia.

COUNCIL OF TRENT. 355

to deal with in their decisions. Now, for the first time, chap.
the whole dogma of the Church, her constitution, her — r-^
ritual, and her disciphne, had to be determined. A new
edifice, in other words, had to be constructed, of materials
dispersed over more than a thousand years, not one frag-
ment of which could be rejected, though the decisions
of Popes and Councils abounded in mutual contradictions.

At length, after a tedious delay, and protracted nego- Cooncii of
tations with the Emperor, Paul m. summoned the Council imms.
to meet at Trent; and on the 13th of December, 1545,
it was declared to be opened with twenty-five prelates.
The minority, small in numbers, who, under the leadership
of Cardinal Pole, were ready to concede a quaUfied assent
to Lutheran principles, with regard to justification by
faith and the authority of Scripture, were soon worsted.
Nor can it be denied that the majority were perfectly
logical in their proceedings. It was false tactics on the
part of the Catholics to try to defeat the Eeformers by
an appeal to Scripture : their sole hope of success lay in
making the authority of tradition explicitly co-ordinate
with that of the Bible. As to what tradition consists in,
is a question to be decided not by historical investigation
but by the infellible doctrinal office of the Church. The
proposition to make a full statement of all traditions was
rejected under the pretext of want of time, but in reality
because the proof was wanting to substantiate the various
traditions. And what proof, indeed, could be produced
for the withholding, for instance, of the sacred cup from
the laity, when Christ Himself declared * Drink ye all of
it' — which was done, in fact, even late in the middle
ages. The Roman Church would be in an awkward posi-
tion, if she had to prove that her doctrine and discipline
were founded on the Bible and on ApostoUc usage. Her
principles can only be defended by erecting a standard of
her own creation by the side of historical tradition ; the

A A 2

356 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP. Church deciding what is to be believed by the faithful

XIII .

- — r-^ from the vast mass of tradition.

This, in fact, was the position assumed by the Coimcil of
Trent. In direct opposition to Protestantism, the Council
confirmed the articles of Catholic doctrine of the co-ordinate
validity of tradition with Scripture, of the exclusive right
of the Church to interpret the sense of Scripture, of the
authority of the Latin translation in preference to the
original Hebrew and Greek, of the merit of works, of sin,
of justification, and of the sacraments. The Council
recognised, therefore, the hierarchy, which was based
upon the doctrines thus confirmed. It was only through
the persevering pressure of the Emperor and the Spanish
bishops that the assembly proceeded to publish the de-
crees of reformation, such as those which imposed upon
the bishops the duty of residing at least for six months of
the year in their dioceses, and laid down rules concerning
the episcopal visitation of cathedral chapters, the super-
vision of the monastic orders, the plurality of benefices,
Papal dispensations, and other matters of Church discipline.
From that time the Vatican sought the earliest possible
opportunity to dissolve the Council. Paul HI., after
recalling his legate from the Imperial Court, removed the
assembly in 1547 to Bologna, where, in defiance of the
emperor's protest, it was virtually dissolved.

Still less could any agreement be effected when, after
a resumption of mutual overtures between Charles V. and

A.D. 1661.* the Pope, the Council was reopened in 1551, at Trent,
in the presence of ambassadors from the Protestant States
of the Empire. At the news of the victory of Maurice of
Saxony, and of the Emperor's flight from Innspruck, the
Council suddenly broke up.

J«j«aryi6, When it finally reassembled, in 1562, the face of

16o2.

Europe was completely changed. The Religious Peace of
Augsburg, which followed the Treaty of Passau, had
assured to the Protestants a position of independence.

COUNCIL OF TRENT. 357

Henceforth the proceedings of the Council applied only chap.
to members of the Church of Eome. Yet even in this ^ — r-^

Catholic assembly there arose, directly the articles of
doctrine were discussed, far-reaching and important de- oemanda
mands, put forward in particular by the ambassadors of Powers,
the secular Powers. France insisted on the wine at the
Eucharist being given to the laity, on the Mass being
celebrated without the adoration of the Host, on the use
of the popular language in Divine service, on the abolition
of the worship of images. The Emperor of Germany de-
manded further that the clergy should be allowed to
marry. The French invoked the authority of the old
tenet of the Sorbonne, that the Council was superior to the
Pope. The Spaniards, while rejecting that tenet, main-
tained the Divine origin of the bishops, and the right of
episcopal investiture independent of the Holy See.

The voting, however, at Trent was not conducted, as ppoum.
at Constance, by nations, but by heads ; and the Italian h^ticai
bishops, who were most numerously represented of all,
were in no way disposed to submit to such demands.
Characteristically enough, the first decree of the reassem-
bled Council (February 26, 1562) was the one which
prescribed, in ten articles, the suppression of prohibited
books. ^ These articles confirmed the condemnation of all
books proscribed either by Pope or Council up to 1515,

' Sess. XVIII. The earliest prohibition of this kind by the
Council of Carthage had been issued against the pagan classics. Con-
stantino afterwards assumed this censorship against particular authors of
heretical doctrines, and his example was followed bj Martin V. in his
Bull against Luther and his writings. But the vague denunciations
of his successors — such as the Bull In Coma, levied against all heretics
and their works — bred confusion, for the heretics not being condemned
by name, the question of heresy was left to be judged by the nature of
the book. This uncertainty was largely remedied in Spain by the diligence
of the inquisitors, whose catalogues were printed by Philip in 1558.
These compilations formed the basis of the Index prepared in the
following year by Paul IV. (See Sarpi, Brent's trans., ed. 1620,
p. 472.)

358 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, and condemned all heretical writings published after that

XIII .

- — .-^ date. No one was allowed to read the Bible in the ver-

nacular, except by special permission from the bishop or
inquisitor. The printing of all books was subject to the
same approval. The book-shops were to be visited from
time to time ; and the sellers and buyers of prohibited
writings were liable to heavy punishment. If any person
had brought a book into a town, he was forbidden to lend
it to others without the permission of the clergy. Even
licensed books might be prohibited, in case the spiritual
censors deemed such prohibition beneficial to the Church.
It would be hard to invent any method more effectual
than this to suppress all freedom of thought and enquiry.
With regard to interference of the bishops in civil
matters, the governments, through their ambassadors,
protested in vain. The majority of the Council repUed
to their demand by bluntly reaflSrming all canonical
ordinances on that subject.^ It was only after a lively
opposition that they agreed simply to recommend to the
princes and civil authorities the observation of the law of
the Church, * as fixed by the holy canons and Councils.' *
After this, however, the Papal party, under the leader-
ship of Lainez, the general of the Jesuits, succeeded in
dividing the Opposition by means of separate negotiations
with the Emperor and the ambassadors of France and Spain.
Negotia- Ferdinand I., in a letter to the Pope, had remonstrated in
tween Fer- stroug tcHus agaiust the conduct of the legates, who arro-
nnd the * gated the exclusive right of proposing resolutions, and
received their decrees from Eome ready-made. Pius IV.
thereupon despatched Cardinal Morone, a man well versed
in diplomacy, to Innspruck ; and his astuteness succeeded

> This act caused Charles to remark, * Cela ferait rogner lea ongles
aux roys, et croistre les leurs, chose que je ne suis pas pour endurer.'
(Sept. 11, 1563.)

2 Seas. XXV. De Ref. c. 20.

Pope.

COUNCIL OF TRENT. 359

in silencing the discontented Emperor, and showing him chap.
that his only choice lay between a rupture with Rome and * — r-^
a speedy dissolution of the Council. On some points
Morone yielded, or at least made specious promises ; on
others, as, for instance, on the question of the fundamental
relations of the Council to the Pope, they agreed to avoid
a decision. Most of his demands of reformation, however,
Ferdinand was compelled to abandon, in order to obtain
any result at all. The issue of this negotiation influenced
all the more the assembly at Trent, since the ambassadors
of France and Spain had quarrelled on the right of pre-
cedence, and no longer worked together in concert. As for
Philip n., he was well aware, in his contest with the here-
tics in his country, that his power depended largely for
support on ecclesiastical interests. The Cardinal of Lor-
raine was won over at Some ; the Guises gave to French
pohcy a more and more Catholic direction. Thus from
all quarters alike came adherents to the Papacy.

The most serious obstacle to union lay in the dispute J^b Dim-
concerning the Divine right of the episcopate. Its epiacopate.
advocates declared that if tJiis jits Divinum^ as opposed
to the jus pontijicium, was denied, not even the unanimity
of all the bishops could command a final and absolute
authority.^ Such authority, they argued, as represented
by the agreement of the collective episcopate, could pro-
ceed only from the same source whence each individual
bishop derived his own. To this argument Lainez, who
spoke last, rephed with better logic, that precisely because
each particular bishop might err, they might err all to-
gether. If the authority of the Council proceeded from
the authority of the bishops composing it, no council

* For the arguments at length on both sides see Sarpi's History of
the Council of Trenty translated , though clumsily, by Brent, ed. 1620, pp.
596, sqq. Pallavicinrs History of the Council^ first published at Rome
in 1656-7, was the Papal reply to Sarin's exposure of Jesuit intrigues.

360

THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP.
XI I r.

Advan-

piined by
Kuiiie.

could ever be called (Ecumenical, because only a com-
paratively small fraction of the episcopate was represented.
Councils were simply deliberative assemblies, whose pre-
cepts and opinions, as was clear from the formula * appro-
bante concilio,' only obtained authority ftt)m the con-
firmation of the Pope. After long debates the Council
adopted an ambiguous resolution,^ which evaded the
question of the supreme authority of the Pope, but re-
frained from expressing the opinion of the Opposition, so
that each party was at hberty to put its own construction
upon it.

After this the remaining questions were disposed of in
three sessions (XXIII.-XXV.) The important dogmas
of the consecration of priests, the sacrament of marriage,
indulgences, purgatory, and the worship of saints created
no difficulties. The reformation of Church discipline, the
education of the clergy, the supervision of parish priests,
the co-operation with them of the inmates of religious
houses, were regulated in the sense desired by the Curia.
At the last session (December 3, 1563) it was expressly
declared that all the decrees were passed without pre-
judice to the authority of the Apostohc See.* On the fol-
lowing day the Council was dissolved.

The result of these proceedings was extremely impor-
tant. Although the Catholic Church b^an by losing

* Can. VII. A suggestion made by the Archbishop of Otranto
removed the main difficulty. Instead of declaring bishops to he by
institution of Christ, as the Spanish prelates demanded, it was resolved
to use the words, by Divine ordination, thus leaving undecided whether
that ordination was immediately from God or from the Pope. (Water-
house, Council of Trent, p. ccxviii.)

* * Omnia et singula, et quibuscunque clausulis et verbis, quae de
morum reformatione, atque ecclesiastica discipline, tam sub fel. rec.
Paulo III. et Julio III., quam sub beatissimo Pio IV., pontificibus
maximis, in hoc sacro Concilio statuta sunt, ita decreta fuisse, et in his
snlva semper auctoritas Sedis Ai)ostoIicfe et sit et esse intelligatur.'
(Cap. xxi.)

COUNCIL OF TRENT. 361

a krge portion of her dominion, still, within the limits chap.
of that which she retained, she had established the unity ^ — r-^
of the faith, solemnly acquiesced in and confirmed by the
bishops. Although France refused to recognise the
decrees of the Council, on the grounds that it was com-
petent to legislate only on matters of doctrine, not on
the constitution of the Church, and that the decrees of
reformation invaded the civil province ; although Philip II.
expressly reserved the exercise of his royal prerogative ;
still, for all that, the Tridentine Confession has remained
the standard of faith for the Catholic Church, and its
adoption is synonymous with membership of her com-
mimion. The Vatican issued from the Council witli her
authority not merely imimpaired, but enlarged. Not
only had the article above mentioned reserved in their
integrity all existing rights of the Pope, but Pius IV.
declared in his Bull of Confirmation — and his declaration
was not contested — that the Apostolic See was competent
to interpret the decrees of the Council,^ and prohibited
the pubhcation of any * commentaries, glosses, annotations,
schoha, or any kind of interpretation ' thereon, without
Papal permission.

But, besides this, Rome had in no way relinquished
the design of recovering what was lost. The extent of
the schism created by the Eeformation had suspended
in many countries the exercise of the duty imposed upon
the civil power of suppressing heresy. Protestantism,
however, for that very reason remained in the eyes of the

* To give practical effect to this declaration, Pius IV., and after-
wards Sixtus v., established the Ck)ngregation De Interpretando Tri-
dentino CanciliOj charged with the duty of deciding minor points
of di«cipline, any weightier matters, however, being still left to the
Pontiff himself. The decisions of the Congregation, contested after-
wards by the canonists on the ground of their want of publicity, were
made known in 1739 in a series of reports, commencing with 1718 and
continued to 17G9. (Murat. ap. Mo^heim.)

362 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP. Curia a heresy of emergent magnitude, and the Papacy
accordingly directed its endeavours to reclaiming the
governments to a perception and practice of their obliga-
tions towards the Church. This policy of restoration
reached its climax at the accession of Cai^a to the Papal
chair, in 1555, as Paul IV. He was the first of those
Pontiffs who, while labouring no less energetically than
his predecessor for the restoration of discipline and strict
morality in the Church, put every agency into motion to
revive and reconsohdate the principles of the hierarchy.
suppre»- The next important question was to crush the efforts

Refoml'l^ of the Reformation in those countries which had remained
it^y^ faithful in general to CathoUcism. In Italy the doctrine
of justification by faith had met with considerable assent.
Valdez taught it in his treatise * On the Benefit of Christ/
which had an enormous circulation. Ochino, the general
of the Capuchin friars, confessed it ; Flaminio explained
the Psalms in a Protestant sense and spirit; Contarini
and Pole leaned to the same belief, which spread exten-
sively among the higher and middle classes. But the
Inquisition persisted with uncompromising severity in its
persecution of the new faith. To its tribunal, reorganised
already by Caraffa, under the Pontificate of Paul HI.,
and vested with the right of appointing delegates in every
quarter, armed alike with absolute power, every person
without exception was to be subject. Those of Protestant
sympathies either took refuge in flight, or were delivered
over to the executioner and the flames. In Venice,
Tuscany, Naples, and Savoy the civil power controlled,
but could not prevent, the Inquisition. Pius TV. declared
to the Duke Emmanuel Philibert, who wished to bring
back the Waldenses, by means of a conference, to the
bosom of the Church, that notliing was done with heretics
by moderation, but that experience showed that justice
alone, and ultimately force, could accomplish that object.

PROTESTANTISM SUPPRESSED IN SPAIN. 363

In a short time the Protestant movement was suppressed ^^A^-
in Italy ; even the academies of humanists were closed.^ ^

The Spanish Inquisition, meanwhile, on which Caraffa ^^ Spain,
had modelled his own tribunal in Italy, entered now,
under Philip II., into foil activity. Spain, hitherto
isolated and exclusive, had been brought too frequently,
under Charles V., into relations with the other countries
of Europe not to become infected with the influence of
the Eeformation. Spaniards studied in Germany and
Flanders,^ and these students, as well as the Spanish
troops who had fought in Protestant lands, introduced
the Lutheran faith into their homes ; while the proximity
of Navarre and Languedoc led to an alliance with Cal-
vinism. Protestant doctrines were preached in secret ;
Protestant books were circulated ; a Spanish Bible,
printed in Germany, was introduced. But the merciless
rigour of the Inquisition proved too much for the per-
manence of Protestantism. A Bull of Paul IV. caused
Philip n. to issue an edict, threatening the followers of
the new faith with death at the stake ; and the Grand
Inquisitor, Fernando Valdez, Archbishop of Seville, was
just the man to carry the edict into effect. In 1559 the
first autO'da-fi took place at Valladolid. Innumerable
others followed, and the Pope granted an indulgence of
forty days to all who assisted at the spectacle. In Spain,
as in Italy, the persecution was so searching and complete
that in a short time every spark of sympathy with Pro-
testantism was extinguished, notwithstanding that its
adherents were mostly in high positions.

* See McCrie's History of the Progress and Suppression of the
Reformation in Italy, first published in 1827. The same learned
author has written a similar work on Spain.

^ Schlegel (Notes to Mosheim) points out that all the Spanish theo-
logians whom Charles V. took with him to Germany to refute the
Lutheran heretics fell victims, on their return, to the Inquisition.

364

THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP.
XIII.

- I

in the
Nether-
lands.

Growth of
the Refor-
mation in
France.

In the Netherlands the task was more difficult.^ There
the penal edicts of Charles V. had been only imperfectly
executed, since the national temper revolted too strongly
against the Inquisition ; and during the last year of his
reign the emperor was forced to confess that his efforts
to extirpate heresy in that country had been in vain.
But Philip, whose Spanish nature knew of no considera-
tions for Dutch traditions, proceeded in a very different
manner. In the revolt which his rigorous measures pro-
voked the nobihty assumed the lead. The clergy also
joined the movement at first, for the Inquisition was as
distasteful to them as to the laity, and the establishment
of thu1;een new bishoprics threatened to curtail the in-
comes of the existing sees. But the religious turn taken
by the revolt soon alarmed the whole priesthood in the
Netherlands, who rightly saw in Protestantism a danger
far more formidable than civil absolutism. Soon even
the most discontented of the clergy ranged themselves
on the side of the Crown, and to their support it is essen-
tially to be ascribed that Alva's reign of terror was able
to reduce the southern provinces to Catholic unity and
to the dominion of Spain.

In France the new aggressive pohcy of Rome en-
countered more strenuous resistance. Here the balance
long wavered between the old and the new faiths. A
statesman like Francis I. (1515-1547) saw clearly the
natural relations of Protestantism to the secular power.
At his court Luther was spoken of with respect. He
himself was connected with Calvin, through his sister, Mar-
garet of Navarre, and he thanked the Genevan Eeformer
for his services in strengthening the opposition of the
German princes against his rival the emperor. But
though he wilUngly went the length of concluding an
alHance with Philip of Hesse, yet, personally indifferent

See Brandt's * liefonnation in the Low Countries/

PERSECUTION OF THE HUGUENOTS. 365

as he was to religious questions, and engrossed in his chap.

XIII.

absorbing contest with Charles, he scrupled to break with
his clergy and the Court of Eome, more especially since
the last Concordat in 1516 had given him extensive rights
over the French episcopate. But under his successors the
Protestants continued to multiply, despite all persecution.
The parliament refused to ratify the decree of Henry U.
in 1557, appointing civil commissioners to assist the
bishops in the extermination of heretics. In Navarre,
during the regency of the mother of Charles IX., the new
faith obtained an official triumph. The Peace of St.
Germain-en-Laye (August 15, 1570) recognised, after a
bloody conflict, the freedom of Protestant worship ; and
in the following year the famous Synod of La Eochelle,
convoked by royal letters patent, with Beza as mode-
rator, and in the presence of Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of
Navarre, Prince Louis, Count of Nassau, the prince of
Cond^, Admiral Coligny, and the whole flower of French
Protestantism, solemnly confirmed the Confession of 1559,
the bulwark of the Galilean Church. The Venetian am-
bassador reported at this time to his Senate that the
success of the Huguenots would seciure the universal
victory of Protestantism.

This toleration of the Protestants was obstinately Penecn-
resisted by the universities and the clergy, and their Hngu^
efforts were partly successful. But the guiding impulse °^^
of the Catholic reaction proceeded from the influence of
Spain, of the Curia, and particularly of its agents and
coadjutors the Jesuits. Alva, who feared the influence
of Cond^ and Coligny in the Netherlands, wrote to Charles
IX. that his concessions to the Huguenots were an invasion
of the prerogatives of God.^ Pius V. announced his

^ ' II vaut beaucoup mieux avoir iin rojaume min^, en le conserrant
pour Dieu et le roi, que de I'ayoir tout entier au profit du d^mon
et des heretiques, ses aectateurs.' (Gachard, * Corresp. de Philippe 11./
vol. i. p. 609.)

366 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, readiness, if the king would declare open war against
' — r-^ the heretics, to consent to an ahenation of Church pro-
perty to the amoimt of a million and a half of frimcs,
and actually sent papal auxiliaries for the campaign,
whose commanders were directed to give no quarter to
prisoners. The Jesuits, who, in spite of the hostile verdict
of the Sorbonne,^ had contrived to establish themselves
in France, exhausted every effort and intrigue, through
their college at Clermont and the influence of Lainez
over Catherine de Medicis, to blow the flames of rehgious
war. They were the soul of the Catholic League. For
a long while, indeed, the issue of the contest hung in the
balance ; and more than once it seemed as if Coligny's
idea of placing France at the head of a coalition against
Spain, and of identifying thus the interests of French
patriotism and Protestantism, would be crowned with
success. But ultimately the influence of the Guises over
Catherine de Medicis prevailed. The night of St. Bar-
tholomew (August 22, 1572), which Gregory XTTT. cele-
brated by a Te Deum and salvos of artillery, was in the
A.D. 1684. eyes of those Catholic fanatics,, who were not ashamed to
form a league with Philip EC., only a step towards the
final aim — namely, of suppressing Protestantism in France
as in the Netherlands, and of preventing the succession
of a heretic whom the pope had declared to have forfeited
all title to the throne of France.
Gaiiican It is truc this schcmc of reducing France to a mere

^e^^ province of a universal and absolute Cathohc monarchy
16^689/ w^ ^s fruitless as the coimter-project of Coligny. The
fanaticism of the Catholic League served only to provoke
a Gaiiican reaction. Already at the excommunication of
Henry III. the parliament of Paris declared that the

^ A.D. 1554. 'Haec societas videtur in negotio fidei periculosa,
pacis ecclesiee perturbativa, monasticse religionis evasiya, et magis in
deHtructionem qiiam in scdificationcm.'

EDICT OF NANTES. 367

authority of Home did not extend to the civil province, chap.
and that the person of the king was inviolable. They ^.^V^' >
ordered the Bulls of Sixtus V. and Gregory XTV. against
Henry of Navarre to be burned by the hands of the
common hangman, as * null, founded on abuse, vexatious,
deceitful, and seditious, and contrary to the holy decretals,
councils, prerogatives, and hberties of the Gallican Church.'

This reaction reached its climax at the accession Henry iv.,
of Henry IV. A convert to Catholicism from political ^^^^^^^^•
motives,^ he treated all Church questions with sole re-
ference to his own interests and those of France. He
was, perhaps, the first statesman who fastened on the
idea of equal rights to all confessions, so far as they sub-
mitted themselves to the State, hoping thereby to esta-
blish peace among his subjects, and thus to employ the
power of a reunited France to humble that of Spain, the
champion of aggressive Catholicism. From this stand-
point we must judge his concessions to his former co-
religionists, and not be tempted to ascribe them to any
profoimd sympathy on his part for the Eeformed. He
treated them personally with frequent unfriendliness:
thus, in a prearranged conference on religion with Du
Plessis-Mornay, he made his old friend appear to come off
vanquished, and celebrated this fictitious victory as a
triumph of the Catholic faith, for which, in reality, he
cared as little as for the Protestant. For the same
reason, on the other hand, he viewed with unconcern the
anger of the pope at the Edict of Nantes, which the latter
had denounced to the French ambassador as an * ^dit le
plus maudit qui se pouvait imaginer, par lequel ^tait

1 See his apology to Wilkes, the ambassador of Queen Elizabeth,
Camden Ann. ad Ann. 1593. D'Aubign^, in his * Hist Univ.,' makes
Henry IV. say of his conversion, * Je fend voir k tout le monde que
je n'ai est^ persuade par autre theologie que la ntosssitd de Tfitat *
(torn. iii. p. 294).

368 TIIE STRUGGLES OF TIIE REFORMATION,

CHAP, permise liberte de conscience k tout chacun, qui ^tait la
.-™^' ^ pire chose du monde/ ^ His object in promulgating that
Nanteil^ cdict, which was less a religious one than a treaty, or
im^' confirmation of previous treaties between two political
parties, as is shown by his permitting the Protestant
garrisons to be maintained for eight years longer in the
specified 'towns of surety,* was to secure to the Pro-
testants an equality of civil rights with the Catholics. For
this reason the edict conceded to the members of the
Reformed faith — which was still described as the * religion
pretendue E^form^e*^ — ^not only unlimited liberty of
conscience, and, with some restrictions, of worship, but
participation in all oflices and honours, including a seat
in the new instituted Clhamhre de FEdit^ of the parlia-
ment of Paris, which had hitherto prosecuted the Hu-
guenots with inexorable severity. The latter were now
able to consolidate their Church system, though their
numbers had been greatly thinned by the religious wars.
Not less finnly did Henry maintain his independence
against the hostile attitude of pope Clement VIH. He
possessed a powerful counterpoise to papal aggression in
the marked increase of Gallican sympathies displayed by
his bishops. Of the entire body of 118 no less than 100
gradually came over to his cause. They absolved him
from the excommunication of the pope ; he exercised his
right of nomination; and the parliament forbade an
appeal to Eome against the appointment of his nominees.

» Ossat Dip., March 28, 1599.

* Du Plessis-Mornay had previously proposed the substitation in
all public documents of the words, *La religion que nous disons
E^form^e ou dicte R^form^e.' (Du Plessis, torn. iv. p. 394.)

^ This tribunal was composed of sixteen counsellors, charged
especially to decide all causes in which Protestants were concerned
within the jurisdiction of the Parliaments of Paris, Rennes, and Rouen,
(Weiss, ^Ilist. of French Protestant Refugees': Hardman's tranalationi
1854, p. 3.)

GALLICAN VICTORIES UNDER HENRY IV. 369

XIII.

The archbishop of Bourges actually proposed to consti- ^J/^f-
tute the French Church under a patriarch.^ The Jesuits,
who continued to preach against the king, even after
his conversion to CathoUcism, were forced to quit
France.

Thus the pope, pressed hard also by Spanish influence,
found himself obUged to capitulate, and to consent to the
readmission of Henry to the bosom of the Church. The
king, thereupon, gave him at once to understand that there
could be no question of any recognition of the papal supre-
macy in secular matters, or of his own personal rehabilita-
tion ; that he would only accept absolution * for the com-
plete quieting of his soul, and for the general satisfaction
of his* subjects ; ' and the pope was compelled to yield,
and to content himself with designating the absolution given
by the bishops as not quite correct (minus recte et rite facta).
Similarly, with regard to the Tridentine decrees, Henry re-
fused to allow their publication in France, except * with
reservation of all matters which cannot be introduced with-
out disturbing the peace of the kingdom.* The importuni-
ties of his clergy in this matter he met continually with fresh
evasions ; just as he refused to them the price they had
demanded for their submission — ^namely, the restoration
to the chapters of episcopal election. While thus the
pressure of circumstances compelled the Curia to let the
French king have his own way, although Pius V. de-
nounced his tendencies — the ' sect of politicians ' he called
his government — as the worst type of heresy, beaiuse the

* Francis I., it appears, had thought of offering the patriarchate in 1525
to Wolsey. Edward Lee, the King's Almoner, writes thus to the Car-
dinal : * In the lettre showed ua by Monsr. le Buclans from the Emperor,
of the wiche mention is made in the cjphrers, was written in terms
that the Frenche king wolde offre to yovr Grace the Papalite of Frounce^
vel Patriarchatum, for the Frenchemen wolde no more obey the Churche

of Rome If his Grace will have now the Patriarchatvmy I doubt

not he shall have it.' Ellis, Orig. Letters, 3rd Series, ii. 98.

VOL. L B B

370 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, most injurious to the authority of the Church, the reign
V ^}^'^f of Henrv IV. became the noontide of Gallicanism.

Gtiiican The fundamental principles of that system were ex-

chorchaiid pouudcd by Pierre Pithou in his * Liberty de TEglise
GaUicane.' ^ Edmund Bicher went further.* Not only
did he deny the infallibility of the pope and adjudge it
solely to the Church, but he maintained that the latter —
in other words, the external and mutable, as opposed to
the internal and immutable Church, or * mystic body of
Christ' — could exist without a pope at alL* It was a
monarchical polity, he argued, instituted for spiritual
purposes, and tempered with an aristocracy, as the
most convenient form of government.* It possessed, by
Divine commission, neither secular dominion nor secular
rights. These belonged to kings and princes, who alone,
as protectors of the Church, enjoyed the right of vindi-
cating and executing the Divine law, determining all
appeals ah abusu^ and of compelling obedience, if neces*

' He epitomises these liberties under two heads: — 1. 'Que les
Papes ne peuvent rien oommander ni ordonner, soit en g^n^ral on en
particulier, de ce qui conceme les choses temporelles 6a pays et terres
de rob^iraance et souverainet^ du £07 tr^s-Chrestien, et s'ils j com-
mandent ou statuent quelque chose, les sujets du Roy, encore qu'ils
fussent clercs, ne sont tenus leur ob^ir pour ce regard.' 2. ' Qu'encore
que le Pape soit reconnu pour suzerain ^s choses spirituelles, toutefbis
en France la puissance absolue et infinie n'a point de lieu, mais est
retenue et bom^e par les canons et regies des anciens conciles de
I'Eglise re^us en ce royaume.' (Edit. 1594, pp. 2, 8.)

* * De Ecclesiastica et Politica Potestate,' Paris, 1612.

' ' Duplicem esse statum Ecclesiffi, alterum absolutum, essentialem,
internum atque invariabilem ; alterum externum, mutabilem, et aoci-
dentalem. . . . Christum, caput essentiale Ecclesiee, ad statum essen-
tialem, immutabilem Scclesiffi sponeae; Papam vero ad externum,
accidentalera, et mutabilem spectare.' {Ibid. lib. iv. cap. i. § 17.)

^ ' Ecclesia est politia monarchica ad finem supematuralem, spiii-
tualem instituta, regimine aristocratico, quod omnium optimum et
naturae convcnientissimam est, temperata,' (Ibid, lib. iv. cap. i. § 1.)

HICHEB, MARIANA, AND BELLARMIN. 371

sary, by force.^ Herein unquestionably Bicher went too chap.

XIII.

fer, just as the abuse of secular followed that of spiritual
power. The parliaments, instead of restricting them-*
selves to the protection of the subject against the arbitrary
encroachments of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, usurped the
hearing of all appeals, not only from laymen but ec-
clesiastics, in purely Church questions, included all ex-
communications in the definition of public injuries, inter-
fered in internal matters of the Church, and enforced their
judgments by means of heavy fines and civil imprisonment.

But in all this, just as in Eicher's writings, it is easy ^ J[^*®'*
to detect the reaction against the school of the Jesuits. J««>f

, *-^ teaching.

That school aimed at subjugating, as absolutely as pos-
sible, the State-power to the papacy ; and for that purpose,
while asserting the supremacy of the pope, asserted also
the sovereignty of the people. Lainez already, at the
Council of Trent, had maintained that the general body
simply delegated, but did not renounce, its power to the
Government. Bellarmin declared that the power to rule
proceeded indisputably from God, since it resulted from
the natural condition of man. His creature ; but that in-
asmuch as that power was not given to any individual
in particular, it belonged therefore to the multitude.*
Mariana, who, as the friend of Philip in.'s tutor, published
in 1598 his treatise, ^De Bege et Begni Institutione,'
went still further. He, too, starts with the proposition
that the people at large are the fountain of sovereignty .•

' ' Princeps politiciis vindex atque executor legis divinse .... jus
habet dirigendi et cogendi omnes cives ambitu reipublicsB contentos.*
(Ibid. lib. y. cap. iii. ^1.) He adds, ' Quam veram et orthodoxam doc-
trinam nullus in dubium revocavit in Galliis, antequam Jesuitas
docerent' (Ibid. § 23.)

' ' Totius est multitudinis.'

' * Certe a republicft, unde ortum habet regia potestas, rebus exigen-
tibusregem in jus vocari posse, neque itain principem jura transtulit, ut non
sibi majorem reservarit potestatem.' (Lib. i. p. 57, ed. Moguntin, 1605.)

BB 21

372 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION,

^xm' ^^7 ^^^® *'^^ ^8^^ ^ ®^^^* *^^^ ^^^8 5 ^^^ ^^ *^® ground
^^ — ' — ' of utility, he considers an hereditary monarchy to be the

• best form of government.^ He then proceeds to draw a
brilliant picture of a good king who rules like a fiEither of
his country, and in contrast to this paternal monarch
depicts the tyrant who oppresses his people. But the
crucial test of each is the attitude he adopts towards
religion. * The good king,' he says, * protects religion.
There is but one religion — namely. Catholic Christianity.
He allows no other to be practised in his country ; any
departure from that reUgion he steadily suppresses, and
he tolerates no religious liberty, for such liberty corrupts
the soul.' On the other hand, * the king who hinders the
free exercise of the Catholic religion — or rather the sole
autocracy of the Boman Cathohc Church — and grants
religious liberty to his subjects, is a tyrant.' To kill such
a man Mariana declares is not only permissible, but meri-
torious.* This maxim he endeavoiu's to support by pre-
cedents drawn from the Old Testament and from classical
antiquity ; and he points to the murder of Henry rCL by
the Dominican monk Clement as a salutary lesson that
godless attempts, such as those of the king who sought to
procure the crown of France for a heretic whom the
pope had debarred from the succession, do not remain
unpunished. This work was published with the appro-
bation of Acquaviva, the general of the Jesuits, and is not
included in the papal Index ; a fate which, on the con-
trary, befell Bellarmin's treatise *De Potestate simimi
Pontij&cis in Temporalibus,' because the latter maintained
that the pope enjoyed only a qualified, not immediate,

^ Ibid. lib. i. capp. 2, 3. ' Adjoncta est regia majestas quaai mul-
titudinis custos, vno preelato de qno magna erit opinio probitatia et
prudentiffi' (p. 18).

^ ' Est tamen salutaris cogitatio, nt dt principibus persuasmn, si
vitiis et fceditate intolerandi erunt, ek conditione vivere) ut non jure
tantum, sed cum laude et gloria perimi possint.' (Ibid. p. 61.)

CATHOLIC MOVEMENT IN GERMANY. 373

authority over sovereigns, aad could depo«e them, not maU, qnAP.
but merely in extraordinary cases.^ Both of these works, ^ — r-^
however, were burned by order of the Parhament of
Paris, as tending to the overthrow of royalty and the
repudiation of its Divine institution ; and their printing and
sale were declared to constitute high treason. But the
proof that Mariana's doctrines bore fruit is given by the
assassination of Henry IV. Eavaillac, very likely, had
never read his book, but the idea of regicide, as he pro-
claimed it, was well known, and was openly approved by
the party of the Jesuits.

Meanwhile the chief aim of the Catholic reaction, cathoUe
already noticed, remained the suppression of Protestantism £*gS
in that country, whence the latter had first proceeded. In ™*°^'
Germany the new faith was still advancing up to the close
of the Council of Trent, notwithstanding all the dissensions
between the Lutherans and Eeformed. The Palatinate
and Baden jomed the EvangeUcal princ^ during the last
half of the sixteenth century. The Bavarian and Austrian
Estates, as well as those of Cleves, extorted from their
sovereigns, who still adhered to the old Church, conces-
sions of no inconsiderable importance. Even the ecclesi-
astical principahties, so far as the people were concerned,
were essentially Protestant. Their rulers remained
Cathohc for the present, because the Ecclesiastical Eeser-
vation of the Eeligious Peace of 1555 declared them to
forfeit their position in case they went over to the Augs-
burg Confession ; but they were forced to tolerate the
secession of their civil oflScers and clergy to the Eeforma-
tion. Throughout the Protestant North of Germany that
Ecservation was practically unheeded. The archbishoprics

' 'Non potest papa ordinarie temporalea principea deponere eo
modo, quo deponit episcopos, tamen potest mutare regna et uni auferre
atque alteri conferre tanquam summus princeps spiritualiB, ai id neces-
Barium sit ad salutem animarum.*

874 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFOBMATION.

CHAP, of Magdeburg, Bremen, and Halberstadt, and the bishop-

XIII.

rics of Liibeck, Verden, and Minden fell into Protestant
hands. All the nniveraities were Protestant ; the mon-
asteries could no longer be maintained.

Such was the state of things when, in 1560, the
Jesuits appUed their eflforts to the reconquest of their lost
dominion ; and cleverly they knew how to plant their
levers at the right points. The Eeligious Peace of Augs^
burg had placed the future condition of each territorial
Church at the decision of the local sovereign. At first
this arrangement had been beneficial to Protestantism.
But the Emperor, the Duke of Bavaria, and the majority
of the spiritual princes still remained Cathohc ; and in
Protestant- their territories the first thing to be done was to establish
pressedin the orthodox faith. Although Duke William IV. of

Bavaria, ,

Bavaria had issued, as far back as 1522, a strict edict
forbidding any of his subjects to presume to desert the
ancient faith, still Protestantism had made its way into
his country, and soon succeeded in wmning over the
nobility and the towns, both of whom united to enforce
religious concessions in return for their consent to be taxed.
Pius IV. now proceeded to meet the chronic insolvency
of the princes by voluntarily surrendering to them a con-
siderable portion of Church revenues, and conceding the
adjudication of disputes concerning the competency of
episcopal jurisdiction. Thus the Bavarian princes, secure
in their friendly relations with Eome and their own clergy,
and consequently independent of the local Estates, were
able to direct their whole power to the strengthening of
their territorial sovereignty and the suppression of Pro-
testantism within the hmits of their dominions. Duke
Albert, in the exercise of his right of reformation, ex-
cluded the Protestant nobility fi-om the Landtag, and
compelled the refractory to emigrate. No Protestant was
allowed to settle within the whole duchy ; no Lutheran

SUPPRESSION OF PROTESTANTISM. 375

or Eeformed service was allowed to be celebrated. The chap.

XIII.

Jesuits were invited to Ingolstadt ; they founded a new ^ — r-^
college at Munich. Within a few years Protestantism
was suppressed throughout the whole of Bavaria ; and the
Duke made use of his position as guardian of the Margrave
of Baden to re-establish CathoUcism throughout those tndin
dominions. Through the influence of the Jesuit Canisius
the ecclesiastical districts of Eichstadt, Treves, Mayence,
Fiilda, and Hildesheim were completely purged of Pro-
testantism. Gebhard, Count of Truchsess and Archbishop-
Elector of Cologne, who had gone over to the Calvinists,
was disavowed by his own chapter, acting under Spanish
support, and compelled to resign his electoral dignity and
archbishopric. Wurzburg and Bamberg followed; the
entire body of the clergy had to subscribe the Tridentine
Confession ; schools and colleges were founded by the
Jesuits in all directions.

In Austria the Jesuits had established themselves
under Ferdinand I., but they failed to make any progress
under Maximilian 11. Under this emperor, on the con-
trary, there appeared once more the possibihty of a radical
change of affairs. There is no doubt that, before his Prote«t«nt
accession, he had formed the intention of going over to of Maxi-
Protestantism. He had incurred the enmity of his father
by taking a Lutheran preacher into his service, and he
was on intimate terms with the leaders of the Protestant
party. ^ Political interests, it is true, soon convinced him
that such a step would isolate him from all the Catholic
Powers ; and dynastic considerations, moreover, withheld
him from his purpose, since he reckoned on the succession
of one of his sons to the Spanish throne, which, as
Philip n. was then without issue, was likely to devolve on
his family. But although, under the influence of these
motives, he made a public confession of the Catholic faith,

' Gratiana's ' Vie de Commendon/ translated by Fl^chier, p. 286.

S7mpathie«

ofMaxi-

milianll.

376 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, he retained his early leanings to the Beformation, and
^ » -^ gave it liberal toleration and free scope in his hereditary
dominions, intervening even to prevent a threatened
schism between the Lutherans and Calvinists, and forbid-
ding the Catholics to interfere in their disputes. Almost
the whole of Austria had now embraced the Protestant
faith ; and the nobihty, the towns, and the universities
headed the ranks of its adherents. In the oath of a
doctor of divinity, binding him to acknowledge the
Roman CathoUc Church, the word *Eoman' was ex-
punged. The Estates succeeded in obtaining permission
to conduct private worship in accordance with the
Augsburg Confession, and began to organise a Lutheran
Church. But this season of toleration for Protestantism
Reaction was short-livcd. Even before Maximilian's death in 1576
Kudoifii., a strong reaction set in, for which the harshness and
1676-1612. Q|3gtinacy of the Lutherans were largely responsible ; and
when Eudolf 11., who had been educated at the court of
Philip n., succeeded to the throne, a total change of
policy ensued. Protestantism, widely as it had spread in
Austria, had never taken firm root in that country. It was
a political rather than a religious principle. It owed its
success, as in Bavaria, to the obstinate resistance of the
Estates to Catholicism : as soon as that resistance was
broken, the root of the movement was destroyed. And
to achieve that end Eudolf 11. scrupled not to employ
every means which his early training by the Jesuits and
his own intolerance suggested. The persecution which he
set on foot was no paltrj^ system of oppression, such as
only seryes to irritate and to incite resistance, but one so
terrible and sweeping that none but spirits of extraordinary
fortitude could withstand it.

Thus we see Protestantism in Germany, at the close
of the sixteenth century, steadily losing ground. Much
of tliis result was due, no doubt, to the zeal, both in

CAUSES OF PROTESTANT DEFEAT. 877

preaching and teaching, displayed by the Jesuits. But chap.
much more was due to violence. Executions of heretics, * — r-^

the confiscation of their property, the destruction of their
churches, were the order of the day. Banishment from
the country was considered an act of mercy. Not an inch
of German soil was won back to Catholicism without
blood.

It is true, indeed, that those Catholic princes were Cauaesof
moving upon the lines and within the limits of the un- defeats in
happy Eeligious Peace of 1555, which, at the time of its ®®™*°y-
conclusion, had seemed to the Protestants a valuable
acquisition. Its maxim of cujus regio, ejus religio was
now turned against them ; for under the influence of the
Jesuits Protestantism was suppressed in the territories
not only of those princes who had remained Catholic, but
of those who had been reclaimed to Bome. The Jesuits
accepted for every Catholic government the right of
reformation as a simple renewal and confirmation of
their obligations to the Church; but they denied the
legaUty of its exercise to Protestant princes, as treason to
the government of the Church, conferred by God upon
the pope. Had the Eeformation, indeed, then possessed
its original vitality and power, those States who adhered
to the Augsburg Confession would never have allowed
this persecution by fire and sword of their co-rehgionists,
in whose fate their own was involved. Already the
Jesuits denied the validity of the Eeligious Peace, on the
pretext that it had be.en concluded without the consent of
the pope. At all events, they argued, it could only have
been intended as an interim^ pending the convocation of
the Council of Trent. And in 1584 Gregory XTTT. sent
to the German bishops the Bull In Ccena Domini^ which,
after a long enmneration of all the heresies, proceeded to
condemn their supporters, and commanded the bishops to
insist on the execution of the sentence.

878 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP. Time was when such a mandate would have been

XIII.

-^^ — r-^ scorned by the Protestants of Germany. But the unhappy
JJ^f'the principle of State-Churchdom had paralysed their enei^es.

chSch!* ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^® ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ *^® manly tone, so confident
of victory, with which Luther had commenced his work.
Destitute of all organised co-operation with the community,
such as the presby terian form of government had brought
about in France, the Lutheran Church dwindled gradually
into a Church of theologians, who saw their whole mission
comprised in a dogmatic elaboration of her teaching. The
consequences of this were twofold. Li the first place,
the government of the Church came to be ascribed, as of
Divine right, to the territorial prince. The authority
formerly exercised by the bishops over the Protestants,
which had been suspended by the Eeligious Peace, was
assumed now to revert to the sovereign, as its original and
legitimate possessor ; so that the government of the Church
experienced no intrinsic alteration, but simply changed
Episcopal hands. The local sovereign received, together with his
Sbcprinces. officc as civil govcmor, that of supreme director of the
Church — ^in other words, the attributes of episcopal supre-
macy. But as he still remained a layman, he was boimd
to recognise, in all matters of feith, the spiritual authority
of the teaching class or clergy, whose duty it was further
to take care that the episcopal power of the sovereign
was exercised upon proper principles. The organs for
this purpose were the synods of the clergy, which repre-
sented the conscious independence of the Church, and
together with the local sovereign conducted her l^islation,
leaving the work of administration to be performed by
consistories, composed of theologians and jurists. Herein
was revealed a twofold departure firom the original
doctrine of the Eeformation. On the one hand, an ex-
clusively Divine title to Church government was claimed
for the secular power, and that by Calvinist princes.

EPISCOPAL POWER OF LUTHERAN PRINCES. 879

such as Frederick HI., Elector Palatine, as well as by chap.

YTTT

Lutheran princes, contrary to the principles of Luther — , -^
himself^ who admitted only a delegation of government
by the community, who, for the sake of order, commis-
sioned * one out of the general body ' to exercise those
functions on their behalf. And, on the other hand, an
episcopal autocracy was thus established in a purely
CathoUc sense, inasmuch as the community of the Church
was reduced once more to the condition of * servants and
obeyers.'

The second consequence of this episcopal system,
which prevailed throughout the whole of the seventeenth
century, was this, that the Lutheran teachers not only
elaborated and stereotyped their dogma, but hedged
themselves in, with corresponding churlishness, agamst
the Eeformation in Switzerland. The diflferences between
Luther and Zwingli I have already adverted to. Zwingli's
doctrine of the Eucharist led to this result, that men like
Capito and Bucer sided with Luther and Melanchthon, and
Justus Jonas in 1536 with the Wittenberg agreement.
Between these two parties now stepped in Calvin, who
separated himself openly from Zwingli and adhered to the
Augsburg Confession. The differences between Calvin
and Luther never amounted to imfriendliness. To the
Saxon Keformer Calvin's treatise ' On the Last Supper '
(1540) was quite as attractive as the doctrine of Zwingli
was abhorrent. To Predestination Luther was originally
inclined, while Melanchthon, in spite of his personal friend-
ship with Calvin, evinced a decided repugnance to that
doctrine. Although, later on, it was repudiated, or at
all events not accepted in all its harshness, by the Keformed
princes of Germany, still at that time it formed the pith
and essence of Calvinism, and, with the spread of Calvin's
teaching, soon acquired an importance which made it the
more necessary for the Lutherans to renounce it in explicit

380 THE STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAP, terms. Besides this disputed article of faith, there were
^ — r-^ numerous other controversies on points of doctrine, which

Concord.

made a general decision of the Church appear desirable.
Formula of This decisiou was arrived at on the whole in the spuit
of Luther, by means of the Formula Concordioe^ drawn up
in 1577 at the instance of the electors of Brandenburg and
Saxony. We are bound to admit that in this instrument
of faith the doctrine of Predestination — a doctrine which
destroys in effect all human freedom and responsibility, and
makes God, in consequence, the author of sin — ^is refiited
in a manner strictly consonant with Scripture, and proving
to conviction the fallacy of Calvin's expressed opinions
thereupon. We must also acknowledge that in con-
structing the system of dogma it was

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Church and state : their relations historically developed"

See other formats