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Cornell Catholic 
 Union Library. 
 
 OF THE FIVE WOUNDS 
 
 OF THE HOLY CHURCH 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 BX 1779.5 .R78 
 
 Of the five wounds of the Holy Church, 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 407 776 
 
Cornell Catholic 
 Union Library. 
 
 Clje jfibe aKounta of 
 tfje 3Ntg Cljurrf) 
 
 ANTONIO ROSMINI- 
 
 EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 h/p? LIDDON, D.D. 
 
 CANON (RESIDENTIARY^ OF ST. PAUL'S 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 WA TERL 00 PLACE, L OND ON 
 
 MDCCCI.XXXIII 
 
 ft 
 
TO THE HONOURED NAME 
 
 or 
 
 ALEXANDEE PENEOSE FOEBES, 
 
 LATE LORD BISHOP OF BKECHIN, 
 
 THIS 
 
 ENGLISH EDITION OP THE " ClNQUE PlAGHE,'' 
 
 PUBLISHED, AFTER A LAPSE OF YEARS, 
 
 IN OBEDIENCE TO HIS WISHES, 
 
 IS 
 
 REVERENTLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The author of the subjoined treatise, Antonio 
 Rosmini-Serbati, was born at Rovereto in the 
 Italian Tyrol, on Lady Day, 1797. His father 
 and mother were both people of good family, and 
 considerable fortune. Antonio was. the second of 
 their four children : his elder sister became a nun, 
 and his youngest brother died in infancy. His 
 parents were educated and devout members of the 
 Church ; and the atmosphere of his home must 
 have fostered the intellectual and devotional 
 tendencies which made him what he became in 
 later years. The boy studied first at the gym- 
 nasium of Rovereto, and then for two years at 
 home, under a tutor, P. Orsi, whose instructions 
 in philosophy had a considerable although ap- 
 parently an indirect and unintended influence on 
 his later life. When eighteen or nineteen years 
 of age, he determined to take Holy Orders. His 
 
viii Editor s Preface. 
 
 parents at first met this resolution on the part 
 of their eldest son with a determined opposition. 
 But his love for Grod and for his fellow-men 
 seemed to impel him to the one calling in life 
 which afforded the highest opportunities for its 
 practical exercise ; and in 1817, at the age of 
 twenty, he began his theological studies at Padua. 
 His father died in 1820, leaving him the bulk 
 of his property ; he was ordained priest in 1821, 
 and then, after a short visit to Rome, he settled 
 down at his old home in Rovereto. 
 
 Rosmini's boyhood happened on a time when 
 Italy was yet reeling under the effects of the First 
 French Revolution ; when old institutions had 
 largely crumbled before the irruption of the 
 armies of the Directory, and. old beliefs were still 
 more rudely assailed or undermined by the inva- 
 sion of infidel thought. Rosmini's mind fully 
 opened just as the religious reaction was making 
 itself felt ; and he shared the aspirations of the 
 best young men of that day in desiring to do 
 something towards restoring Religion to its true 
 place in human life. After his ordination, he 
 spent six years in his ancestral home, laying out 
 his time between severe study, and prayer, and 
 
Editor's Preface. ix 
 
 exercising his ministry among the poor of the 
 surrounding villages. During these years, he 
 worked hard at philosophy, mainly with a view 
 to its bearing on Christian Apologetics ; but he 
 also conceived and shaped the idea of a religious 
 institute, which should promote holiness and 
 learning among the members and teachers of the 
 Church. At first it was to be lay ; then lay and 
 clerical. In 1826 he removed to Milan, where he 
 began to publish ; while, under the influence of 
 Loewenbruck, he set himself to the task of organ- 
 izing his projected order. Thence, in February, 
 1828, he retired to Domodossola, the pretty Pied- 
 montese town, which the traveller remembers at 
 the Italian foot of the Simplon Pass. Here in the 
 cold winter months, he took up his abode in a 
 ruined house on the top of the adjacent. Calvary, 
 where he led a life of great austerity ; abstaining 
 from animal food, often from food altogether, 
 sleeping on leaves or on the dry ground, and 
 devoting his energies to reading, thinking, and 
 writing. Here he wrote a large part of his Nuovo 
 Saggio sull Origine delle Idee, and constructed 
 the Rule of his Institute. But his health soon 
 broke down under the strain and exposure ; and 
 
Editors Preface. 
 
 after a visit to his home at Rovereto, he made his 
 way to Rome, where he remained from November, 
 1828, until March, 1830, in order to secure the 
 encouragement and sanction of Pius VIII. for his 
 new Institute, and to publish his New Essay, to 
 the great satisfaction of the educated part of the 
 religious public. 
 
 In May, 1830, he returned to Domodossola, 
 and, although with weakened health, he betook 
 himself to his life of privation and solitude on the 
 Calvary. The welcome monotony of this was, 
 however, broken in upon by an invitation to found 
 a house of his order at Trent ; and between 1830 
 and 1834, he spent his time between that city and 
 Domodossola, in efforts to weld his Institute into 
 coherence and shape, and to promote sanctification 
 and learning among its members. It was during 
 this period of his life in 1832, that he composed 
 the Five Wounds of the Holy Church. The 
 anxieties which had led him to attempt the 
 formation of a new Institute and to discover a 
 philosophical basis, or setting, for Divine Reve- 
 lation, took, as a third and highly practical form, 
 the production of this treatise, designed to point 
 ut what Rosmini conceived to be the five chief 
 
Editor's Preface. xi 
 
 mischiefs which beset the Church of his day and 
 country. These evils her highest authorities were 
 thus implored to consider and remedy. To the 
 same date belong his Principles of Moral Science, 
 and part of his unpublished work on Supernatural 
 Anthropology. 
 
 In 1834 he undertook for a year the partial 
 charge of St. Mark's in Rovereto : but he resigned 
 it in 1835. He had undertaken it with reluctance, 
 and he returned with pleasure to the undisturbed 
 care of his Institute. But his popularity at 
 Rovereto was viewed with displeasure by the 
 Austrian Government, which saw in him at 
 once an Ultramontane ecclesiastic and an Italian 
 patriot. Austrian influences led to his resignation 
 of his cure ; and Austrian prejudice followed him 
 on his resuming his earlier occupations. He was 
 forbidden to connect his house at Trent in the 
 Austrian territory, with the " foreign " house at 
 Domodossola ; and at last the house at Trent had 
 to be broken up. In order to escape from these 
 perplexities, Rosmini, in 1837, fixed his home at 
 Stresa, on the Lago Maggiore ; and thus he 
 entered upon the most productive period of his 
 career. In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI. formally 
 
xii Editor's Preface. 
 
 approved of his Institute ; and it rapidly attained 
 to considerable importance. From this period 
 until 1846, were the most tranquil years of 
 Rosmini's life ; the only disturbing incident was 
 a controversy with Grioberti, who attacked Ros- 
 mini's philosophy with vehemence. Rosmini used 
 the opportunity to show that in thought and 
 speculation, no less than in his practical efforts, he 
 had kept in view the interests of the Christian 
 Religion and Church ; and Grioberti, in after years, 
 admitted that he had been mistaken in the motives 
 of his hostility. 
 
 With 1846, a new period in Rosmini's life 
 began. In that year Pius IX. became Pope ; and 
 the first years of his reign led Italy and the world 
 to believe that a brighter era had commenced both 
 for the Papacy and for Italy. It seemed, for a 
 moment, as if some of the hopes of Rosmini's life 
 were about to be realized, by the union of all 
 Italians in a confederacy of States under the pre- 
 sidency of the Pope. But this result could not be 
 practically realized without a preliminary struggle 
 with Austria. And Pius IX. was a pastor first 
 and afterwards a politician. In an Allocution 
 of April 29, 1848, he announced publicly that, 
 
Editor s Preface. xiii 
 
 as the common father of the flock of Christ, he 
 could not take part in a war against Austria. 
 Rosmini could not but submit ; but he still hoped 
 to gain his end, by some confederation of States, of 
 which the Pope would be ex-qfficio president, while 
 the direction of affairs would rest with the federal 
 congress. Meanwhile the Pope became more and 
 more inclined to separate himself from the political 
 aspirations of the Italian people, while the Eomans 
 were asking for a constitution and for some kind 
 of self-government. Rosmini published, in 1848, 
 his Constitution according to Social Justice, in the 
 hope of giving a religious turn to the popular 
 movement, and of retaining their due share of 
 power for the clergy and the upper classes under 
 liberalized institutions. This work had no prac- 
 tical results. In 1846, he had given to the world 
 the Five Wounds, which had been written in 
 1832. 1 He thought that with the accession of 
 Pius IX. new opportunities were opening before 
 the Church of Italy : but that, in order to take 
 advantage of them, she must reform herself in 
 
 1 The title of the book is, "Delle Cinque Piaghe della Santa 
 Chiesa, trattato dedicato al clero oattolico, con appendice di alcune 
 lettere sulla elezione de vescovi a clero e popolo di Antonio Rosmini. 
 Bastia, 1849." 
 
xiv Editors Preface. 
 
 accordance with Primitive rules, and must study 
 the conditions under which the spiritual society 
 founded hy our Lord can best influence the 
 modern world. 
 
 The most important episode in Rosmini's life 
 Avas the embassy to Rome, with which he was 
 charged by the Piedmontese Government. The 
 object of the Government in sending him was to 
 secure the countenance and aid of the Pope, while 
 carrying on its war against Austria. Rosmini 
 accepted the mission, but, at first, owing to some 
 misunderstanding, with a mistaken conception of 
 the work in hand. The Government wanted at 
 the time an armed alliance with Rome and the 
 other Italian States, against Austria; while Rosmini 
 was dreaming of a permanent confederacy of States 
 under the Pope as president. For a moment, 
 indeed, the Government, under the influence of 
 Gioberti, seemed to accept the programme of Ros- 
 mini, who accordingly started on this mission. 
 He was received at Rome with great consideration, 
 and even promised a Cardinal's hat. But the pros- 
 pect soon changed. No instructions, such as had 
 been promised, reached Rosmini from Turin for 
 some weeks ; and when they came, he was ordered 
 
Editor s Preface. xv 
 
 to abandon his favourite scheme, and to advocate 
 an armed alliance. Deserted by his own Govern- 
 ment, and opposed by the Papal minister Rossi, 
 Rosmini resigned his mission ; which had, however, 
 strengthened ihe Pope in his resolve to take no 
 part in the war against Austria or in the general 
 policy which found favour at Turin. This deter^ 
 mination of the Pope probably precipitated a poli- 
 tical crisis. Rossi was brutally assassinated. An 
 effort was made to compel the Pope to appoint a 
 liberal ministry. Rosmini, whose real mind was 
 imperfectly understood, was marked out by the 
 popular voice as its representative, and the Pope 
 conferred on him the presidency of the new cabinet, 
 with the department of Public Instruction. Ros- 
 mini declined : he would not accept a post which 
 had been offered to him by the Pope under pres- 
 sure ; and he may well have doubted his capacity 
 for grappling with the sterner duties of political life. 
 Events, however, were moving fast. In a few 
 days the Pope was a fugitive from his capital ; and 
 Rosmini followed him to Graeta. But the oppor- 
 tunity for distinguished public service had passed. 
 Those about the Pope had no difficulty in per- 
 suading him that his misfortunes were traceable to 
 
 b 
 
xvi Editor's Preface. 
 
 his encouragement of schemes with which Eos- 
 mini's name was identified. Eosmini left G-aeta, 
 and devoted himself to his religions publications at 
 Naples. His enemies, both at the Papal court and. 
 at Naples, were bent upon his ruin. Eosmini was 
 a Consulter of the Congregation of the Index ; but 
 not until three months had passed was he informed 
 of the meeting of the Congregation in which his 
 two books on the Constitution according to Social 
 Justice and the Five Wounds of the Church were 
 prohibited. He had entered Eome to receive the 
 promise of a place in the Sacred College ; he left 
 central Italy for his northern home in utter dis- 
 credit. The last seven years of his life were spent 
 at Stresa, in developing his Institute of Charity, 
 and in completing his philosophical publications. 
 A final effort was made to accomplish his ruin : 
 and it was hoped that his other works might be 
 condemned as easily as those on the Constitution 
 and the Five Wounds. But the Pope insisted on 
 his having fair play, and all Eosmini's publica- 
 tions were submitted to the Congregation of the 
 Index. Instead of meeting hurriedly with a prac- 
 tically foregone conclusion, the Congregation now 
 extended its labours over nearly four years ; and in 
 
Editor's Preface. xvii 
 
 1854, it declared that all the works of Rosmini 
 were fi^ee from censure. Rosmini only lived a year 
 after this triumphant acquittal; he died in the 
 peace of Christ on July 1, 1855. 
 
 Rosmini's philosophy has been recently recom- 
 mended to the English public by an able writer, 1 and 
 his Institute is well represented among the Roman 
 Catholics of this country. That his book on the 
 Five Wounds of the Church should not have been 
 translated into English is to be accounted for, partly 
 by the excessive redundancy of even good Italian 
 prose which unfits it for an idiomatic English render- 
 ing, but still more from the impression that the 
 characteristic ideas which it represents were likely 
 to be transient, and were not calculated to affect the 
 future of the Church in Italy. However, the late 
 Bishop of Brechin, Dr. Forbes, was anxious for a 
 translation of the work into English. It would 
 " show English Churchmen what, speaking from per- 
 sonal knowledge " some ten years ago, " he believed 
 some of the best Italian minds to be still think- 
 ing ; " and it was " by no means without bearings, 
 although indirect," upon our own circumstances. 
 
 1 " The Philosophical System of Antonio Bosmini-Serbati," by- 
 Thomas Davidson. London, Kegan Paul, 1882. 
 
xviii Editor's Preface. 
 
 The title of the hook is more mystical than its 
 contents would lead us to expect ; and may require 
 a word of explanation for at least some English 
 readers. It was probably suggested to the writer 
 by his sojourn on the hill of the Calvary near 
 Domodossola. It presupposes an analogy which 
 naturally results from tbe well-known language of 
 St. Paul, 1 between our Lord's natural Body, cruci- 
 fied through weakness, and His Mystical Body, 
 the Church, pierced by the sins and errors of 
 men in the ages of Christian history. The five 
 main evils of the contemporary Italian Church 
 correspond, in Eosmini's view, to the Five Wounds 
 of the Hands, Feet, and Side of the Divine 
 Eedeemer. These "Wounds, according to Rosmini, 
 are a legacy of feudalism. Beginning with the 
 Wound in the Left Hand of the Crucified, he sees 
 in it the lack of sympathy between the clergy and 
 people in the act of Public Worship, which is 
 due, not merely to the use of a dead language in 
 the Church Services, but to the want of adequate 
 Christian teaching. This is to be accounted for 
 by the Wound in the Right Hand,— the insufficient 
 education of the clergy : and this again was both 
 
 1 1 Cor. xii. 12, 27 ; Eph. i. 23 ; Col. i. 24. 
 
Editor's Preface. xix 
 
 caused and perpetuated by the great "Wound in the 
 Side, which pierced the Heart of the Divine Suf< 
 ferer, and which consisted in the divisions among 
 the Bishops, separating them from one another, and 
 also from their' clergy and people, in forgetfulnesa 
 of their true union in the Body of Christ. Such 
 divisions were to he referred to the nomination of 
 the Bishops by the Civil Power, which often had 
 the effect of making them worldly schemers and 
 politicians, more or less intent on selfish interests. 
 It formed the Wound of the Eight Foot. But 
 the claim to nominate was itself traceable to the 
 feudal period, when the freehold tenures of the 
 Church were treated as fiefs by an over-lord, or 
 suzerain, who saw in the chief pastors of the flock 
 of Christ only a particular variety of vassals or 
 dependants. In the modern results of this esti- 
 mate Rosmini notes the "Wound of the Left Foot. 
 
 It is unnecessary to point out why this half- 
 religious, half-political study would not have been 
 allowed to pass unchallenged. Its plain speakiDg 
 on the subject of public worship in Italy, could 
 only be welcome to those — a minority in all com- 
 munions — who care more for real improvement, 
 and for that preliminary recognition of short- 
 
xx Editor's Preface. 
 
 comings which promotes it, than for any lower 
 or selfish objects which are often to be secured 
 by a policy of quieta non movere. It was easy to 
 suggest that to criticize the education of the clergy 
 was to be disrespectful to their order, and that 
 to hint at disunion in the Episcopate was disloyal 
 to the Church. Then the Civil Power had its 
 own quarrel with an author, who could refer 
 ecclesiastical shortcomings to the State's exercise 
 of rights which did not originally belong to it. 
 The persecution to which Eosmini was exposed at 
 Naples was at any rate in part traceable to the 
 resentment of the still existing Bourbon Govern- 
 ment at his language on the subject of nomina- 
 tions to the Episcopate by the Civil Power ; and 
 his theory of the feudal origin of rights secured 
 by Concordats which modern Liberalism in France 
 or elsewhere knows so well how to use against 
 the Church, was not calculated to procure accept- 
 ance for his views in very different quarters. 
 
 Not that an English Churchman will find in 
 Eosmini an author whom he can accompany 
 without hesitation. Eosmini is an unfaltering 
 believer in the Papal Supremacy ; with him 
 the Pope rules, not only in the sphere of outer 
 
Editor s Preface. xxi 
 
 conduct and discipline, but in the court of con- 
 science and in the processes of secret thought. 
 It is not merely that he received great kindness 
 from successive Pontiffs, from Pius VIII., from 
 Gregory XVI., and at the beginning, and still 
 more particularly at the close of their intercourse, 
 from Pius IX. ; it is that he is, from first to last, a 
 conscientious Ultramontane, who seriously holds 
 the Papal Government to be an integral, or rather 
 the most important portion of the Divine Organi- 
 zation of the Church. The passages in which this 
 conviction is stated or implied are of course left 
 in their integrity, but the conviction governs the 
 general mind of the writer and, as we must think, 
 distorts his view of Christian history. Thus he 
 can only account for the separation of the Eastern 
 and "Western Churches by the increasing temporal 
 grandeur of the See of Constantinople. He does 
 not stop to reflect that the Eoman Chair gained or 
 suffered in the same way but on a larger scale, and 
 that the Eastern Church was really alienated by 
 Western pretensions which were unknown to the 
 first ages of the faith. Indeed, while "he urges 
 that the temporal grandeur which gathered round 
 the Bishops of the Middle Ages was a source of 
 
xx ii Editor s Preface. 
 
 weakness to the Church, by introducing motives 
 for conflicting action among her pastors, he never 
 applies this principle to Borne ; he has not a word 
 of criticism for such a Pontificate as that of Julius 
 II. ; nay, he sees a providential purpose in the 
 temporal power of the Papacy which is apparently 
 undiscoverable in the worldly aggrandisement of 
 Other sees. In like manner, he has not a suspicion 
 that the position of Gregory VII. and of Pascal II., 
 when nobly struggling with the Empire^ rested on 
 a radically insecure basis ; it does not occur to him 
 that the fabric of the Papal claims was largely 
 indebted for its existence to the false Decretals. 
 The deposing power, he admits, was novel, at 
 least in its exercise by Gregory, but then it had, 
 he thinks, always been latent in the idea or con- 
 stitution of the Papacy, and was only produced 
 when it was needed to chastise the misconduct of 
 a Christian sovereign. He seems for a moment to 
 be on the point of condemning Leo X. for conced- 
 ing to Francis I., in the Concordat of Bologna, the 
 very right of nomination to Bishoprics against 
 which earlier Pontiffs had struggled so earnestly ; 
 but he finds an excuse for the Pope in the hard 
 necessities of the times. Again, he has no eye 
 
Editor s Preface. xxiii 
 
 either for the causes or the effects of the Reforma- 
 tion. Some of his references to the worldliness and 
 cowardice of certain English Bishops in the Tudor 
 period may be accurate. But so vast a system as 
 that of the mediaeval Church would never have 
 been shattered as it was in tbe sixteenth century 
 unless there had been deep-seated and widespread 
 corruption both in belief and practice, and a cor- 
 responding alienation of the higher conscience of 
 the people from the hierarchy. The Papal 
 jurisdiction was theologically and historically 
 vulnerable ; but it might have lasted on in Eng- 
 land if it had not been long associated with 
 memories of ambition and avarice which English- 
 men could not forget. Looking at the whole 
 subject from beyond the Alps, and by the light of 
 the traditional teaching of the Roman Church on 
 the subject, Rosmini sees no difference between the 
 English Church, still preserving the means of full 
 communion with our Lord Jesus Christ, through 
 an apostolical ministry and real sacraments, and 
 those other bodies which have issued from the 
 Reformation with the loss of both, and, as we see 
 to our sorrow, day by day, with the prospect of 
 gradual forfeiture of those portions of the Christian 
 
xxiv Editor's Preface. 
 
 faith, which they had at first been enabled to 
 preserve. For Kosmini, all who are not in com- 
 munion with the Eoman See, are equally cut off 
 from Christ. His language about Grallicanism is 
 especially significant. Looking only or chiefly at 
 its bearing upon the question of nominations to the 
 Episcopate, and ignoring all in Christian antiquity 
 to which writers like Bossuet could appeal in its 
 behalf, Rosmini even makes it largely responsible 
 for the misfortunes of the Church of France at the 
 date of the Ee volution. As if no Ultramontane 
 clergy had ever been closely associated with a 
 corrupt or despotic court ! As if Pius VII., great 
 as were his virtues and his misfortunes, did not 
 sanction concessions, which, had they been only 
 the work of statesmen, or of a national clergy, 
 would have been condemned with an unsparing 
 severity ! 
 
 Eosmini, then, is an Ultramontane. His mental 
 attitude towards the Papacy was part of his 
 earliest religious creed, and he never had occasion 
 to examine the grounds on which it rested. But 
 is he therefore a writer from whom English 
 Churchmen have nothing to learn ? The present 
 treatise, it is hoped, will answer that question ; it 
 
Editor's Preface. xxv 
 
 is instructive and suggestive in more ways than 
 one. If we set aside what we must deem the 
 exaggerated phraseology, the mistaken historical 
 and moral estimates which belong to its Ultra- 
 montanism, we shall find ourselves in communion 
 with a sincere and beautiful mind, which those 
 who come after us will not improbably deem one 
 of G-od's greatest gifts to Western Christendom in 
 the present century. It would indeed be interest- 
 ing to follow him in his speculations on the nature 
 of ideas, and their mode of existence ; but, although 
 it is as a mental philosopher, to whom Locke, 
 Berkeley, Eeid, Kant, and Fichte are familiar 
 friends, that he is best known to Europe, we must 
 confine ourselves to the little treatise in which he 
 probably expresses his deepest thoughts respecting 
 the condition and dangers of the Church of Christ 
 in his native land. And surely one lesson 
 which may be learned from our author is that 
 a keen sense of evils besetting that portion of our 
 Lord's kingdom in which a man's lot is cast is 
 quite compatible with a loyal temper, and with 
 the patience and hopefulness which belong to it. 
 Rosmini is deeply sensible that the Church of 
 Christ in Southern Europe might do more than 
 
xxvi Editor s Preface. 
 
 she does for the moral and spiritual well-being of 
 man. He is no merely academical disputant ; he 
 feels himself face to face with real evils, and he 
 suggests, at least, some very practical remedies. 
 It may be true that in the Churches of the Eoman 
 obedience there are other and even graver mis- 
 chiefs to which no reference is made in this treatise 
 on the Five Wounds. But the points on which 
 Rosmini touches are sufficiently delicate. He 
 longs for an intelligent union of the clergy and 
 people in public worship, for a well-trained clergy, 
 for an Episcopate united in heart and soul, for a 
 restoration of the primitive method of electing 
 Bishops, for the emancipation of Church property 
 from the trammels of feudal tenure. In his lan- 
 guage on the subject of nominations to the Epis- 
 copate by civil governments, he traverses, however 
 cautiously and respectfully, Papal decisions as 
 embodied in concordats. But it never occurs to 
 him that such language is disloyal. Indeed, after 
 keeping his essay in his desk for fourteen years, he 
 only gives it to the world on the accession of a 
 Pope who will, as he hopes and believes, more or 
 less sympathize with its plea. 
 
 The "wound" which Rosmini feels most deeply, 
 
Editors Preface. xxvii 
 
 and on which he insists at the greatest length, 
 still exists, if indeed it has not widened. In 
 England and the United States the Roman Church 
 appoints its Bishops, without intervention on the 
 part of the State, although not, as Rosmini would 
 allow, in the primitive way of election by clergy 
 and people. But generally the Civil Governments 
 cling to what they regard as a right secured by 
 Concordats, while, from a religious point of view, 
 they have become less and less fit to exercise it. 
 If the nomination of the French Bishops by the 
 most Christian king was indeed open to such 
 serious objection, what is to be said of their nomi- 
 nation by the representative men of the Third 
 Republic? 1 Yet is it likely that the French 
 Government will surrender this means of control- 
 ling the Church, so long as the Church retains a 
 sou of the pittance which was left her at the Revo^ 
 lution in exchange for her old endowments ? 
 
 But, perhaps, the most useful way of studying 
 this treatise will be to consider, not so much its 
 direct bearing on certain portions of the system of 
 the Church of Rome, as whether it does or does 
 
 1 Cf. the striking passage in D'Haussonville, " L'Eglise Komaine 
 et le Premier Empire," torn. ii. pp. 216, 217. 
 
xxviii Editor's Preface. 
 
 not suggest anything analogous in the Church of 
 England. We have outlived that old conception 
 of loyalty to the English Church — the foe of 
 the humility which precedes improvement — which 
 held it treason to confess shortcomings at home 
 or to admit excellence abroad : the danger rather 
 is that in our reaction against this unthinking 
 optimism we should become forgetful of the 
 great blessings which Grod has given us. 
 
 So far as the English Church is concerned, the 
 Beformation has done much to heal the Wound of 
 the Left Hand ; and, as in the first days of the 
 Faith, our public worship is conducted, and our 
 sacraments administered, in "a tongue under- 
 stated of the people." But is this Wound so 
 entirely stanched, that the poor and uninstructed 
 among us bring their hearts and understandings 
 fully to the work of joining in public worship ? 
 
 Again, are our clergy so educated in the mys- 
 teries of the Kingdom of Heaven — as distinct from 
 the little packet of earthly knowledge which, in our 
 well-nigh secularized universities, is considered 
 necessary for the future squire or lawyer — as to be 
 able wisely to guide the steps of the living heaven- 
 ward, and to administer true comfort in the hour 
 
Editor s Preface. Xxix 
 
 of death ? And if the universities are failing us, 
 is the effort to establish, and raise the standard of 
 theological colleges sufficiently general and hearty 
 to secure to the Church of England a highly- 
 educated and devoted "clergy in the troublous 
 days which are probably before us ? 
 
 Once more, may we not ask whether our Bishops 
 are so entirely at harmony with each other, and so 
 united in heart and will with the clergy and the 
 faithful of their dioceses, as to enable us to say 
 that there is nothing in the Church of England 
 which corresponds to the Wound in the Side of 
 the Church in Italy? That they are nominated 
 to their sees by the Minister of the day is noto- 
 rious, and, where no capitular body exists, without 
 any check, however shadowy, on the part of the 
 Church. Are they always selected with a view 
 to the spiritual interests of the body over which 
 they are to preside, and without any reference to 
 political sympathies, or to personal bias ? 
 
 We may indeed gratefully recognize the fact 
 that, in some well-known instances, appointments 
 have of late years been made to the English Epis- 
 copate, at variance with the political interests of 
 the minister who has recommended them, and 
 
xxx Editors Preface. 
 
 solely with a view to what was believed to be the 
 highest good of the Church of Christ. So far 
 Rosmini's anticipations and arguments on -the 
 subject are contradicted by our happier experience ; 
 but this conscientious use of Crown patronage is 
 of comparatively recent growth in English history, 
 and it may be rash to assume that the days of Sir 
 Robert Walpole or of some later Ministers will 
 never return. 
 
 At the same time, it may be doubted whether, 
 as a Church, we are as yet in a condition to 
 make good use of this privilege if it should be 
 restored to us. Certainly so long as the mischiev- 
 ous fiction is maintained, that every Englishman 
 is, as such, a member of the Church of England, 
 an election by popular vote to the Episcopate 
 would be probably as disastrous in itself and in its 
 results, as is that of an incumbent in those few 
 parishes where every ratepayer has a vote in the 
 election. And even if the electors were to be 
 only Churchmen and communicants, would much 
 be gained by transferring to them the election of 
 their Bishops until they are instructed sufficiently 
 to realize what their Creed really means, and what 
 are the awful privileges and risks of membership 
 
Editor s Preface. xxxi 
 
 in the Holy Body ? Can the disestablished Church 
 of Ireland be said to have done so much for its 
 Episcopate by its recent elections, as did the Crown 
 in the years preceding the Disestablishment ? And 
 are there no English dioceses in which it may be 
 conjectured, that as yet nothing better would come 
 of an election by clergy and people than in an 
 average diocese in Ireland ? Rosmini would have 
 the Bishops elected, as in primitive days, by a 
 Church of serious believers, animated by a warm 
 desire to advance Christ's Kingdom and Grlory, 
 and duly instructed in the distinctive principles 
 of their Creed. 
 
 Eosmini's opposition to feudalism is probably 
 exaggerated, and if the representatives of religion 
 are to urge her claims in the great council of the 
 nation, they may as well do so in the capacity of 
 feudal barons as in that of the elected delegates 
 of mixed popular constituencies. But is it certain 
 that while sitting among the nobles of the land, the 
 pastors of the Church will always preserve a keen 
 unworldly temper, which is alive to the dangers of 
 a great social position, and fearless in its advocacy 
 of the cause and Kingdom of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 And must not we of the Church of England feel 
 
x x xii Editors Preface 
 
 the justice of bur author's remarks respecting the 
 idea of Church property, changed from that of a 
 common fund held in trust for the support of the 
 clergy and the relief of the poor, to that of a number 
 of separate estates absolutely appropriated by the 
 holders of single benefices ? If the last chapter of 
 the book is open to some obvious objections, at any 
 rate it supplies matter for very serious reflection. 
 
 It remains to say that the translation is due to 
 an accomplished friend, who has not thought it 
 necessary or desirable to follow the idiom or even 
 the words of the Original very closely. Metaphors 
 and epithets are omitted, and sentences and para- 
 graphs are condensed, where the true sense of the 
 Italian has seemed to permit, or the spirit of 
 English prose to require, such liberties. Whether 
 they should be , taken or not in any circum- 
 stances is, in the Editor's opinion, an open ques- 
 tion ; but at least there is no room for misunder- 
 standing, if the character of a translation is thus 
 notified to the reader. In comparing it with the 
 original the Editor has been assisted by one of our 
 .best Italian scholars, and he hopes that Rosmini's 
 sense is fairly represented; certainly it is in no 
 case intentionally obscured. Quotations from the 
 
Editor a Preface. xxxiii 
 
 Bible, and in some cases even from Greek councils 
 and writers, have been left in their Latin dress, as 
 characteristic of the author. The editions of the 
 work which have been used are those printed at 
 Bastia in 1849, and at Lugano in 1863 ; and it is 
 of course possible that these may contain errors 
 which the author's MSS. will hereafter furnish 
 means for correcting. For the headings of each 
 page, which necessarily involve to a certain extent 
 a running interpretation of Rosmini's meaning, 
 the present Editor is alone responsible. For the 
 materials which have furnished the earlier portion 
 of this preface, the writer is indebted to the intro- 
 duction prefixed to the Philosophical System of 
 Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, by Mr. Thomas David- 
 son, and to Delia Vita di Antonio Rosmini-Serbati 
 Memorie di Francesco Paoli, Paravia, Roma, etc., 
 1880. He has also pleasure in referring to the 
 first volume of the copious and interesting Life of 
 Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, founder of the Institute 
 of Charity, by G. S. Macwalter, London, Kegan 
 Paul, 1883, which, through the courtesy of the 
 author and publisher, he has been allowed to 
 
 examine before its publication. 
 
 H. P. L. 
 
 Christ Church, 
 
 Eastertide, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Author's Prepack ... .., ... .... ... xxxvii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Of the Wound in the Left Hand of the Holy Church, 
 which is the Division between the People and the 
 Clergy in Public Worship ... ... ... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Of the Wound in the Right Hand of the Holy Church, 
 
 which is the Insufficient Education of the Clergy 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Of the Wound in the Side of the Holy Church, which 
 
 is the Disunion of the Bishops ... ... ... 78 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Of the Wound in the Right Foot of the Holy Church, 
 which is that the Nomination of Bishops is given 
 up to the Lay Power ... ... ... ... 133 
 
xxxvi Contents, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Of the Wound in the Left Foot of the Holt Church, 
 which is the Servitus (ok Enforced Infringement of 
 the Full Eights) of Ecclesiastical Property ... 299 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 On 'The Election of Bishops by Clergy and People : 
 
 Letter I. ... ... ... ... ... 351 
 
 Letter II. ... ... ... ... ... 355 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 & feto i&ttesgarB Ifamarfog bg foag of preface. 
 
 I. I was staying in a country house near Padua, 
 when I began to write this book, in order to 
 relieve my own troubled mind, and possibly 
 also to comfort others. 
 
 Not without some hesitation, however. For 
 the question occurred to me : Can it be fitting 
 that a man without any jurisdiction should treat 
 of the woes of the -Holy Church ? Is there not a 
 certain audacity even in dwelling upon, still more 
 in writing about them, inasmuch as tbe care of 
 the. Church of God belongs of right to her 
 Pastors ? And may not some disrespect towards, 
 those Pastors be implied in thus displaying her 
 wounds, as though her Pastors . discerned them 
 not, or at all events were unable to find a remedy ? 
 , But to this I replied mentally that it cannot 
 
xxxviii Author's Preface. 
 
 be wrong even for a layman to ponder over the 
 woes of the Church, if he be moved so to do 
 solely by an earnest zeal for her welfare, and for 
 the glory of God. And on examining myself, I felt 
 as sure as a man can feel of his own motives, that 
 this alone was the source of all that I was think- 
 ing about. I also reflected that whatever these 
 meditations are worth,, there is no cause for con- 
 cealing them ; while if they are faulty, the Pastors 
 of the Church will reject them. I write with no in- 
 tention of deciding any question, but merely with 
 the design of giving expression to my thoughts 
 and submitting them to the Pastors of the Church, 
 especially to the Sovereign Pontiff, whose revered 
 utterances will always be for me the true and 
 safe rule with which to compare, and whereby to 
 correct, all my opinions. The Pastors of the 
 Church are absorbed and burdened with many 
 matters, so that they have little time for quiet 
 thought, and therefore they are wont to desire 
 that other men should set before them such reflec- 
 tions as might avail them in the government, 
 whether of the Church Universal, or of their 
 own especial branches of it. Moreover, I called 
 to mind how in all ages of the Church there 
 
Author's Preface. xxxix 
 
 have been found holy persons, such as St. Jerome, 
 St. Bernard, St. Catherine, and many more, who, 
 without wielding episcopal authority, spoke and 
 wrote with striking freedom and decision of 
 the evils besetting the Church in their times, 
 of the urgent necessity for curing them, and of 
 the mode of effecting it. Not that T would liken 
 myself to such great names for one moment ; but 
 I felt that their example proved that the investi- 
 gation I was led to make could not in itself 
 be wrong, any more than was the fact of calling 
 the attention of the heads of the Church to those 
 things which distract and harass the Bride of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 II. Thus reassured, and daring to entertain 
 the thoughts which crowded on my mind con- 
 cerning the present state of the Church, to commit 
 them to writing, and to mention them to others, 
 there arose within me a further doubt as to the 
 prudence, and even as to the honesty, of publishing 
 such thoughts. I called to mind that all who in 
 our times have written on these subjects, pur- 
 posing and professing to occupy a via media 
 between the two extremes, instead of pleasing 
 both powers, the Church and the State, have 
 
xl Author s Preface. 
 
 equally displeased both. This proved the great 
 difficulty of treating such subjects so as to give 
 general satisfaction. Hence I asked myself whether 
 in writing my reflections I should not probably 
 offend and clash with both those powers, instead 
 of gratifying them. 
 
 But to this I replied /that, if I acted conscien- 
 tiously, no one ought to blame me even although 
 I were mistaken. I was in no way seeking the 
 favour of men, nor any temporal advantage what- 
 soever. Thus, even supposing both parties found 
 fault with me, I should find a reward in the testi- 
 mony of my conscience, and in the expectation of 
 that Judgment from which there is no appeal. 
 
 III. Oh the other hand, I asked myself, in 
 what respects I might possibly offend men on 
 both sides? 
 
 On the side of the State, I could only see one 
 thing which might give offence. I could not 
 consent to leave the nomination of Bishops in the 
 hands of the secular authority. But while disap- 
 proving of this prerogative, I am deeply convinced 
 that it is not more * prejudicial to the Church than 
 
 I 1 Ital meno. But either this is a lapse for piu, or the words 
 (hiesa and etato have been transposed.]— Ed. 
 
Author's Preface. xli 
 
 to the State, and that to believe the contrary 
 is a serious political error. The proofs which I 
 hold of this seeming paradox, and which I have 
 set forth in this hook, are such, that I would 
 appeal to any statesman who knows how to fathom 
 a question, and who by a mental effort can over- 
 come ordinary prejudice ; who can see the far-off' 
 consequences of a political principle ; who can 
 calculate and combine all the concurrent causes by 
 which alone it is possible to predict and to mea- 
 sure the total result of any State maxim whatever. 
 This being premised, I think that I show no less 
 desire for the weal of the State than for that of 
 the Church, in maintaining my opinion, and that 
 therefore sovereign princes cannot reasonably 
 demur to . what I say, but should on the con- 
 trary approve of it. At the worst, those who 
 disagree with me can but urge that I know little 
 of politics ; but would that be a just cause for 
 making war upon me ? It has been said that 
 in politics, as elsewhere, you must judge by the 
 intention. 
 
 IV. On the side of the Church, I found no- 
 thing in the contents of my book likely to offend, 
 unless it be what I have said with respect to 
 
xlii Author's Preface. 
 
 the excess of pontifical reservations in elections. 
 But this abuse does not belong specially to the 
 present times ; it is historical. And all men of 
 sound sense will agree with me that there is no 
 reason to fear a frank confession of such patent 
 abuses, when it is required by the thread of the 
 treatise, since thereby it is plainly shown that my 
 object is not to advance the cause or works of men. 
 but the cause and Truth of God. Moreover, I do 
 not feel that I ought to refrain from writing, 
 for fear of displeasing persons who are more well- 
 intentioned than far-sighted, while I have good 
 reason to believe that what T write is not dis- 
 pleasing to the Holy See, to whose judgment I 
 would always submit everything. I have ever 
 found the mind of the Holy See noble, dignified, 
 and, above all, in harmony with truth and justice. 
 Now I have treated of no abuses but those which 
 have been recognized and dealt with as such by 
 the Supreme Pontiffs themselves. Among other 
 things, I called to mind that remarkable Congre- 
 gation of Cardinals, Bishops, and Abbots, to 
 which, A.D. 1537, Paul III. committed, under 
 oath, the charge of seeking out and freely ex- 
 hibiting to himself every abuse and departure 
 
Authors Preface. xliii 
 
 from the right way which had crept even into 
 the Roman Court. It would be impossible to 
 name more venerable personages than those who 
 were thus assembled. They comprised four 
 Cardinals — Contarini, Caraffa, Sadolet, and Pole ; 
 three of the most learned Bishops — Federigo 
 Fregoso of Salerno, Girolamo Alessandro of 
 Brindisi, and Griovammatteo Giberti of Verona. 
 To these were added Cortesi, Abbot of San 
 Giorgio at Venice, and Badia, Master of the 
 Sacred Palace, who were both made Cardinals sub- 
 sequently. 1 These men, so remarkable for their 
 learning, their prudence, and their integrity, that 
 their very names are sufficient, faithfully fulfilled 
 the Pope's commission. Among the abuses 
 which they pointed out to him, they did not fail 
 to include those connected with reversions and 
 reserves, together with other defects in the colla- 
 tion to benefices. Neither did they fail with keen 
 penetration to discover and point out the deep 
 roots of such abuses ; especially one which so 
 often leads, not only the State, but the ministers 
 
 P Cf. " Consilium delectorum Cardinaliwm et aliorum Prce- 
 latorum, de emendanda Ecclesia, S. D. N. D. Paulo Hi. ipso 
 jubente conscriptum et exhibitwm. MDxxmii. Imymmehatut anno 
 MDxxxwii." — Ed.] 
 
xliv Author s Preface. 
 
 of the Church to stray from the right path in the 
 use of their power. And this I have also indicated 
 as "the refined adulation of men of the law." 
 Assuredly nothing can be more frank or effective 
 than the language used on this topic by those 
 learned men in the memorial presented by them 
 to the Pope. They say, " Your Holiness, being 
 taught of the Holy Spirit, Who, as Augustine 
 says, speaks to the heart without sound of words, 
 knows well what has been the beginning of these 
 evils. It is that certain of your predecessors, 
 ' having itching ears,' * as the Apostle Paul says, 
 heaped to themselves teachers after their own lusts, 
 not in order to learn what was right to do, but 
 rather, through the study and astuteness of those 
 men, to find excuses for doing what they would. 
 Not to dwell on the fact that adulation clings to 
 all great people, as the shadow follows the body, 
 and that the ears of princes have rarely heard the 
 truth, it thus came to pass that doctors were forth- 
 coming who taught that the Pope was lord of all 
 benefices, and consequently, since a lord may sell 
 that which is his without injustice, that the Pope 
 cannot be guilty of simony. And, moreover, that 
 
 1 2 Tim. iv. 3. 
 
Author's Preface. xlv 
 
 the will of the Pope, whatever it be, is the rule 
 whereby his proceedings and actions are to be 
 guided. Thus, without doubt, it followed that 
 whatever the Pope might wish, was lawful. From 
 this fountain, Holy Father, even as from the 
 Trojan horse, there have burst forth upon the 
 Church of Grod so many abuses and such grievous 
 ills, that now we see her oppressed with them 
 almost without hope of deliverance, and the evil 
 report of them (may your Holiness believe us who 
 know ! ) has spread abroad even to the infidels, who 
 chiefly for this cause deride the Christian religion. 
 Thus through us — through us, we say — the Name 
 of Christ is blasphemed among the Gentiles." 1 
 
 [• In translating this passage we have followed the Latin, which 
 is as follows : — 
 
 "Ex quoniam Sanotitas tua Spiritu Dei erudita, Qui ut inquit 
 Augustinus, loquitur in cordibus nullo verborum strepitu, probe 
 noverat principium horum malorum inde fuisse, quod nonnulli 
 Pontifices tui "prfedecessores prurientes auribus, ut inquit apostolus 
 Paulus, coacervaverunt sibi magistros ad desideria sua, non ut ab 
 eis discerent quod facere deberent, sed ut eorum studio et callidi- 
 tate inveniretur ratio, qua liceret.id quod liberet ; inde effectum 
 est, preeterquam quod principatum omnem sequitur adulatio, ut 
 umbra corpus, difficillimusque semper fuit aditus veritatis ad aures 
 Principum, quod confestim prodirent Doctores, qui docerent Ponti- 
 ficem esse dominum beneficiorum omnium ; ac ideo, cum dominus 
 jure vendat id quod suum est, necessario sequi in Pontificem non 
 posse cadere Simoniam ; itaque voluntas Pontificis, qualiscunque ea 
 fuerit, sit regula qua ejus operationes ac actiones dirigantur : ex 
 
xlvi Author's Preface. 
 
 Having weighed all these considerations, I put 
 aside all my doubts, and with a clear mind and 
 free hand I sat down to write this little treatise, 
 praying God to use it to His glory, and to the 
 good of His Church. 
 
 COEKBTTOLA, 
 
 November 18, 1832. 
 
 quo procul dubio effici, ut quicquid libeat, id etiam liceat. Ex 
 hoc fonte, Sancte Pater, tanquam ex equo Trojano, irrupere in 
 Ecclesiam Dei tot abusua et tarn gravissimi morbi, quibus nunc 
 conspicimus earn ad desperationem fere salutis laborasse, vel 
 manasse harum rerum famam ad infideles usque (credat Sanctitas 
 vestra scientibus), qui ob hanc prsecipue causam, Christianam 
 religionem derident adeo, ut per noa, per nos inquimus, nomen 
 Christi blasphemetur inter gentes." — Ed.] 
 
OF THE FIVE WOUNDS 
 OF THE HOLY CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 <&i t&e CaounU fa t|ie Heft Han* of tfie f^ols ©Surcfi, 
 foijtrf) fe tije IMbfetoti fcetfoeen tfie people anU tije 
 ©lews fa public ^aorsfifp. 1 
 
 V. The Author of the Gospel is the Maker of 
 Man. Jesus Christ came to save the whole man. 2 
 Man is a being composed of body and spirit. 
 Therefore the law of grace and love must pene- 
 trate and possess itself both of man's mind and 
 of his body. It must be so set before the world 
 as to attain this end. It must so combine ideas 
 
 1 By " division," I do not mean a separation in communion 
 and in spirit, which can never be wanting in the Church of Jesus 
 Christ ; but only the lack of that practical union which exists 
 between the clergy and people when the latter fully understand 
 the rites and prayers recited and performed by the former in their 
 sacred duties. 
 
 2 St. John iii. 2-6. 
 
 B 
 
The work of the Gospel 
 
 Chap. i. with actions, thus appealing no less to intellect 
 than to feeling, that the whole man, yea, the very 
 dry bones of humanity may be touched by their 
 Creator's will and live through Him. 
 
 VI. It was not enough that the Gospel should 
 take possession of the individual man. The glad 
 message was destined to save all mankind. Not 
 only was it to act upon the several elements of 
 man's nature ; its Divine action was to accompany 
 our nature unfailingly in all its developments, 
 and to support it in all the stages of its history. 
 Thus instead of man's ruin being precipitated by 
 his natural gravitation towards evil, a kindly law 
 of progressive improvement would govern his 
 onward course. In short, the Gospel was to 
 mingle itself with and display itself in single 
 lives, and thence to pass into the communities 
 formed out of them. Having saved the individual 
 man, it was to renew and save every association 
 of men ; the family, the nation, humankind at 
 large. It was to impose wholesome laws on all 
 these associations of men, ruling them in the Name 
 of the God of peace. For associations are the 
 work of man ; and it is natural that the Divine 
 law which rules man himself, should also control 
 his handiwork. 
 
 VII. The Apostles, who were sent forth by 
 
in the race of man. 
 
 their Divine Master to teach and baptize all Chap. i. 
 nations, and who were trained by His Word and 
 His example, presented themselves to the world as 
 commissioned to do this great work, and showed 
 that they were endowed with that fulness of the 
 Spirit which was required for such a mission. 
 
 They did not pretend to found a school of 
 philosophy. Had this been all that was put 
 forward, men would not have thronged to listen 
 to the Apostles, although in their school nothing 
 but truth was taught. So it had happened 
 in the case of all the philosophical sects of 
 Greece. They were not more followed because of 
 the larger proportion of truth which they taught, 
 or the lesser proportion of lies which they upheld. 
 All the tongues together would have given forth 
 nothing but idea's, doubtless under various forms 
 of expression, but still only ideas. Whereas human 
 nature craved for something more, something to 
 be actually done for it. And the Apostles did 
 not, as the philosophers, pour out upon the human 
 race mere words : they announced acts. Had it 
 been otherwise, no gift of tongues would have 
 ensured the successful issue of their undertaking. 
 So that while they revealed luminous truths 
 and profound mysteries to the passive side of 
 man's understanding, and supplied by their own 
 
Insufficiency of teaching 
 
 Chap. i. lives heroic examples for imitation, they simul- 
 taneously gave to the active element in man's 
 nature a powerful impulse, a new direction, and a 
 new life. Let it here be borne in mind that when 
 I speak of the works by which the company of 
 Evangelists accompanied and completed the efficacy 
 of their words, I do not only allude to the miracles 
 which they worked on external nature, and by 
 which they proved the divinity of their mission. 
 The powers with which they showed themselves 
 to be furnished, and by which they bent the laws 
 of nature in obedience to and in witness of the 
 truth which they announced, could do no more 
 than convince men that their doctrine was true. 
 But the truth of their doctrine could be proved 
 in other ways, and men might be convinced 
 without being satisfied. For, as I said, while 
 human nature aspires to find truth in the sphere 
 of ideas, and cannot rest without attaining there- 
 to, it has also a no less urgent and pressing need 
 which causes it to aspire continually to find 
 happiness in something real. And to this it 
 gravitates by a law of its nature. 
 
 VIII. Were, then, these works, with which the 
 Apostles reinforced the sublime words which they 
 addressed to the human race, the virtues which 
 they themselves put in practice ? 
 
and example only. 
 
 Assuredly virtue is an essential need of man- chap. i. 
 kind. For without moral dignity man is despic- 
 able in his own eyes, and as such, he cannot be 
 happy. And the Apostles set before the eyes of 
 corrupt mankind a new spectacle. In their own 
 lives they practised all the virtues which they had 
 seen in their Divine Master and had learned of Him. 
 But what could this effect? The natural 
 need of virtue in man was stifled, suffocated, by 
 idolatry, by the artificial need of evildoing. Nor 
 could the virtues of the Apostles draw forth a 
 whisper of approbation from the depths of human 
 nature, since those depths had become an abyss, 
 guarded by human perversity, as by a fierce 
 Cerberus, lest any ray of light should penetrate 
 them. On the contrary, their virtues did but 
 serve to kindle against the Apostles of the Lord 
 the cruelty and ferocity of the sons of men, who 
 shed their blood with savage eagerness. Men had 
 forgotten the very outward semblance of virtue, 
 or they recognized it only as an object of hatred. 
 A few Were yet impressed by its beauty, and 
 were reached by some ray of its Divine attractions. 
 But they were without moral strength; and an 
 unattainable perfection of obedience to the com- 
 mands of Christ could only aggravate their own 
 despair of reaching it. Thus they were thrown back 
 
6 New virtues taught by the Apostles 
 
 Chap. i. into that degradation which results from despair, 
 and leads to the deadly torpor wherein depraved 
 human nature ceases to make any effort, and gives 
 itself up to open vice. Especially was this the 
 case, because, in the lives of these new messengers, 
 there appeared a class of virtues altogether new 
 to the world. They were supernatural. And 
 these supernatural virtues could not only not be 
 appreciated, they could not even, be justified with- 
 out a Wisdom which began by calling mere mad- 
 ness that which the human understanding had 
 hitherto esteemed as most precious, most advan- 
 tageous, most surely matter for self-congratulation. 
 IX. Thus the doctrines of the Gospel, whether 
 at first or in their development, could not be 
 rendered sufficiently powerful and effective to 
 penetrate and control humanity either by the won- 
 derful miracles or by the exemplary virtue which 
 accompanied them. For the miracles could only 
 bear witness to the truth of theories, 1 which, if 
 unaided, must be barren and ineffective ; and the 
 
 1 [It is right perhaps to observe that the depreciatory sense 
 which often attaches to the word "theory" in English, as meaning 
 speculation, in opposition to action or practice, is not characteristic 
 of the foreign use of the word, according to which it stands for 
 doctrine or speculation without, or not yet issuing in, practice or 
 action. The English use of the word is a product of the English 
 character. — Ed.] 
 
implied new means of grace. 
 
 value of the good examples could not and would chap. i. 
 not be appreciated by men sunk in vice. At 
 best they would receive a scanty and profitless 
 admiration from some few, as prodigies worked by 
 rare beings, whom ordinary mortals could not 
 imitate. Whence, then, was that hidden force by 
 which the Apostolic words became more than mere 
 words, and by which they so far exceeded those 
 of all the masters of human wisdom ? Whence 
 did they derive that saving power which grappled 
 with man within the last defences of the soul and 
 there triumphed over him ? What further special 
 agencies did the Apostles produce in order to save 
 man as a whole — his intellectual as well as his 
 practical nature — and to subject the entire world 
 to a Cross ? 
 
 In order to know these agencies with which 
 the messengers of Christ were charged to ac- 
 company their oral promulgation of His com- 
 mandments, we must go back to the text of the 
 commission which they received. What were the 
 words of Jesus Christ?— "Go ye therefore and 
 teach all nations, baptizing them -in the Name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Grhost." 1 Never had any human teacher spoken 
 thus to his disciples. In this commission was 
 
 1 St. Matt, xxviii. 19. 
 
Prayer and sacraments 
 
 Chap. i. combined that which the Apostles were to do with 
 respect to the passive part of human nature, as 
 well as with respect to its active side. As regards 
 the understanding, which is passive in so far that 
 its duty is to receive the truth, it was said, " Teach 
 all nations." At the same time an order was 
 given for the regeneration of the will, which com- 
 prehends all human activity, nay, man himself, in 
 the words, " baptizing them in the Name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Grhost." 
 Thus was instituted a sacrament, which is the 
 door to all other means of grace, through which 
 the unseen restorative power of the One Triune 
 Grod was to renew the face of the earth, by pro- 
 moting the resurrection of human nature, long 
 dead in sin and ruined for eternity. 
 
 X. The wonderful works, the mysterious rites, 
 by means of which the Apostles reformed the world, 
 were the sacraments ; and among these the great- 
 est — that sacrament which originated in the Sacri- 
 fice of the Lamb, Who before His death had fed 
 them with His own Flesh, saying, " This do in 
 remembrance of Me." 1 Certainly these sacra- 
 ments were words, that is to say signs, but 
 such words as the schools of Greek sages knew 
 not. They were not such words as only struck 
 
 1 St. Luke xxii. 19 ; 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25. 
 
how related to virtue. 
 
 upon the bodily ear, or only instructed the under- Chap. r. 
 standing ; they revealed to the awakened heart of 
 man the immortal beauty of truth, the royal 
 rewards of virtue ; they discovered God Himself 
 to the spirit of man — that God Who had hidden 
 Himself that He might not be contaminated by 
 the touch of impurity. In short, they were words 
 and signs, but from God ; words which created 
 a new soul within the old, a new life, new heavens 
 and a new earth. That which the Apostles added 
 to their preaching was the Catholic worship, which 
 chiefly consists in sacrifice, sacraments, and the 
 prayers thereto pertaining. 
 
 XI. The doctrines which they spread abroad 
 by preaching were so many abstract assertions ; l 
 but the practical force, the force of action, arose 
 from that worship, whereby man could attain the 
 grace of the Almighty. 2 It was not uncommon 
 to confuse the two words moral and practical, 
 and to use them in the same sense, speaking in- 
 discriminately of moral philosophy and practical 
 philosophy. Hence it arose that the philosopher 
 who taught moral precepts, held himself thereby 
 to be a virtuous man ; and his disciples con- 
 sidered themselves as free from vice and pos- 
 sessed of all virtue, inasmuch as they listened 
 
 1 [Ital., teorie— Ed.] 2 [Of. however, Ar. Eth. i. 3, 6, etc.— Ed.] 
 
io Superiority of grace to knowledge. 
 
 Chap. i. to definitions of vice and virtue. Fatal human 
 pride ! the devil's exaltation of intellect, which 
 imagines itself to contain all good, and which is 
 ignorant that knowledge is but a slender and ele- 
 • inentary principle of good ; and that that which is 
 truly and perfectly good belongs to genuine action, 
 to effective will, and not to a merely intellectual 
 process ! And yet this pride of intellect has been 
 until now the perpetual snare of mankind. It 
 began on the day in which it was said to man, 
 " Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be 
 as gods." x 
 
 XII. Meanwhile, when the Maker of man 
 undertook man's reformation, He was not content 
 with presenting moral precepts to the intellect, 
 He also gave to man's will the practical strength 
 to fulfil them. And if He attached this strength 
 to external rites, it was to show that He gave it 
 gratis to man, and could attach to it whatsoever 
 conditions He would. If, moreover, He willed 
 that these rites should be so many sacraments, 
 that is signs, it was because they were adapted 
 to the nature of the being for whose salvation 
 they were instituted, that is to say, of an intelligent 
 being, to whom life and salvation were most fitly 
 conveyed by signs and words. 2 
 
 1 Gen. iii. 5. 3 [St. Aug. De Doct. Christian^, iii, 11, § 13. Ed.] 
 
Significance of the outward side of worship. 1 1 
 
 XIII. That grace which strengthens the will chap. i. 
 is communicated by means of the understanding ; 
 and it is through a sign apprehended by the under- 
 standing that the Christian feels the presence of 
 God; and by this feeling lives, and is vigorous in 
 action. When the Apostles and their successors 
 added holy prayers, usages, outward symbols, and 
 stately rites to the sacraments instituted by Christ 
 Himself, in order that the public worship offered 
 to the Redeemer of men might be more worthy of 
 an Incarnate Grod, and more fit for the assembling 
 together of those who believed in His "Word, they 
 were but following the example of their Divine 
 Master. Nothing was introduced into His temple 
 without a meaning ; everything spoke and set 
 forth high and Divine truths. Nothing could be 
 mute and dark that was done in those solemn 
 assemblies, since their purpose was to adore and 
 pray to Him Who enlightens the understanding of 
 His intelligent creatures ; and in them the Supreme 
 Intelligence, while receiving a reasonable wor- 
 ship, Himself blessed, penetrated, and kindled the 
 natures He had created. And those usages, 
 those sacrameritals which the Church, in accordance 
 with the power given to her, has added to that 
 part of her worship which Christ Himself insti- 
 tuted, as being the foundation of all Catholic 
 
1 2 Intended unity of clergy and people 
 
 Chap. i. worship, not only have their special meanings 
 like the sacraments ; they also share in the life- 
 giving strength conveyed by the sacraments to 
 the spirit of man, and diffuse over his heart 
 a healing virtue, which rekindles within him the 
 will to do that which is right. 
 
 XIY. We may remark another fact respecting . 
 that Christian worship which was introduced at 
 the same time with Christian teaching. That 
 worship, to which Grod had annexed His grace, 
 in order to render men able to practise the moral 
 lessons inculcated on them, was not merely a 
 spectacle set before the eyes of the people. The 
 people were not to be only lookers-on without 
 any active part or share in the devotional scene. 
 Undoubtedly believers in Christ might have been 
 taught solely by seeing that which was done 
 in church, as simple spectators of a sacred 
 representation ; and God, sole Disposer of His 
 own gifts, had He so willed it, might have made 
 the mere view of the services offered Him by His 
 priests, to be a quickening means of grace. But 
 in His wonderful adaptation of all things to His 
 creature man, He would not do this; He willed 
 rather that the people gathered together in His 
 temple should contribute a considerable part to 
 His worship. Sometimes they are the subjects of 
 
in public worship. 1 3 
 
 the Divine action, as when the sacraments and Chap. i. 
 ministerial benedictions are administered to them ; 
 sometimes they are united with the clergy, not 
 only in thought, but in will and effort. Thus 
 it is whenever the congregation joins in the 
 prayers, when it answers to the salutations or 
 invitations of the priest, when it returns the 
 salutation of peace, when it makes its offerings, 
 and when it takes a direct part in the rite which 
 ' is administered, as in Holy Matrimony. In short, 
 the clergy of the Catholic Church at one time 
 represent Grod while speaking to and acting upon 
 the people in His Name. At another they are 
 identified with the people ; and as belonging to 
 the Head of mankind, united with His [mystical] 
 Body, they speak to Grod, awaiting His mys- 
 terious operations of moral healing and refresh- 
 ing. Thus the sublime worship of the Holy 
 Church is only one, rising up from clergy and 
 people, who, with well-ordered harmony and united 
 intention, promote together the same sacred work. 
 XV. All the faithful in the Church, clergy 
 and people, represent and form that beautiful 
 unity of which Christ spoke when He said, 
 " Where two or three are gathered together in 
 My Name, there am I in the midst of them ; " l 
 
 1 St. Matt, xviii. 20. 
 
14 Unity of soul in worship is lost 
 
 Chap. i. and again, addressing the Father, "The glory 
 which Thou gavest Me I have given them ; that 
 they may be one, even as "We are One." * This 
 ineffable unity of spirit, spoken of by Christ 
 Himself in words so sublime, so often repeated, 
 has its foundation in the " clearness of intel- 
 lectual light" which Christ gave to His Church 
 in order that the faithful might be one with 
 Him, cleaving to the same truth, or rather to Him 
 Who is Truth. Now in order to attain a perfect 
 consent in those petitions which they meet to- 
 gether to present before God, it is necessary that 
 all should understand what they say in the prayers 
 which they join in offering at the Throne of the 
 Most High. Thus we may almost say that this 
 perfect unanimity of feeling and affections is a 
 condition of Christian worship imposed by Christ 
 Himself, in order to its being acceptable to Him, 
 and to His being found in the midst of His 
 worshippers. It is worthy of note, too, how forcibly 
 Christ expresses this condition or law which 
 should distinguish the true Christian's prayer 
 from that of the Jew, which consisted in a 
 material worship, and an unrealized 2 faith. Our 
 Lord is not content with saying that His faithful 
 
 1 St. John xvii. 22. 
 
 3 [Ital., implicita, of. Heb. ix. 6-10. — Ed. J 
 
if the service be not understood. 1 5 
 
 people must pray, united to each other, and with Chap. i. 
 a consenting will ; He says expressly that they are 
 to be united " in all things whatsoever they should 
 ask." 1 So careful is Christ for the unity of His 
 people ! not only for a union of bodies, but for a 
 union of minds and hearts ; a union by means of 
 which all Christians of every rank are gathered 
 together like one man before their Saviour's altars, 
 even as Holy Scripture says of Israel that it fought 
 " as one man." 2 And when can we now say that 
 the Christian people are consenting in all things, 
 and perfectly one, unless it be when, assembled 
 together in the Lord's House, they join with one 
 accord in the sacred ordinances ; each one knowing 
 what is done, and what he has to do ; all sharing 
 the same interests ; all, in short, taking not merely 
 an outward part in Divine service, but also possess- 
 ing a full and perfect comprehension of the sacred 
 mysteries, of the prayers, symbols, and rites of 
 which the Divine service is composed ? There- 
 fore it is essential that the people should understand 
 the language of the Church in her public worship, 
 that they should be duly instructed in what is said 
 and done in the holy sacrifice, in the administra- 
 tion of the sacraments, and in all other ordinances of 
 
 1 [St. Matt, xviii. 19, Vulg.— Ed.J 
 
 2 [Judg. vi. 16, xx. 1, 8.— Ed.] 
 
j 6 Disastrous effects of 
 
 Chap. i. the Church. And for this reason, the fact that 
 the people are all but separated and cut off from 
 an intelligent share in the Church's worship, is 
 the first of those open, gaping wounds in the 
 mystical Body of Jesus Christ whence its life- 
 blood oozes forth. 
 
 XVI. The causes of this unhappy separation 
 are manifold ; but, among these, two appear to be 
 pre-eminent. 
 
 In the symbols which were instituted by Christ, 
 and in the rites added thereto by the Church, we 
 find expressed and as it were represented all 
 that is taught either by the dogma or by the moral 
 law of the Grospel, in a language common to all 
 nations, that is the language of signs, which sets 
 forth truth by means of visible representations. 
 But before this natural and universal language 
 can be fully understood by him to whom it is 
 addressed, he must have within himself a full 
 knowledge of those truths, which are thus to be 
 kept ever present to his soul. And consequently 
 the less our Christian people are instructed by 
 the preaching of the gospel, the less will they 
 understand and receive of the high truths set 
 forth in Christian worship. For this cause our 
 Lord appointed that they should be instructed in 
 the truth before an external worship was given 
 
a lack of evangelical teaching. 1 7 
 
 to them ; bidding His Apostles first to " teach all Chap. i. 
 nations," and then " baptize them." The first 
 cause, then, of the wall of division raised between 
 the people and the ministers of Christ's Church 
 is to be found in the lack of a full and living 
 teaching ; and this evil is fostered by a foolish 
 prejudice held to by some that the people should 
 be kept in a state of ignorance, or that they are 
 not capable of appreciating the more sublime truths 
 of the Christian Faith. 
 
 XY1I. I say advisedly, a full and living 
 teaching ; since, so far as the fact of teaching goes, 
 there is perhaps more now than of old. Every one 
 learns catechisms ; and catechisms contain those 
 dogmatic formulas, those final, simple, exact 
 expressions of truth, to which the Christian 
 doctrine has been reduced by the united labours 
 and careful thought of the learned of many ages, 
 assisted by the Holy Spirit present at the Councils 
 of the Church and speaking in her as dispersed - 
 throughout the world. Such precision and ex- 
 actness in doctrinal formulas is assuredly a gain. 
 The words convey truth, wholly and only. A 
 safe path is traced, by means of which teachers 
 may impart to the faithful, the most recondite 
 and sublime mysteries of the Faith without much 
 personal study. But is it equally an advantage 
 
1 8 Insufficiency of formularies 
 
 Chap. i. that these teachers of Christian truth should them- 
 selves be dispensed from a close and laborious 
 study of the truths they teach ? If it is made 
 easy to convey exact formulas to the ears of the 
 faithful learners, is it equally easy to impress these 
 formulas on their minds ; or to cause them to sink 
 into the heart, which is only reached through 
 the mind ? Granted that doctrinal language is 
 abridged, that the terms in which it is clothed 
 are brought to the most perfect dogmatic pre- 
 cision, and above all that it is finally fixed in 
 unalterable exactness. But is it really more ac- 
 cessible to ordinary intelligences ? May we not, 
 on the contrary, doubt whether a certain variety 
 and copiousness of expression was not an ad- 
 vantage in bringing truth to bear upon the souls 
 of the multitude ; one word casting light upon 
 another ; the style or expression which did not 
 suit one listener, being well adapted to another ? 
 In short, by thus calling into play all the resources 
 of God's great gift of language, was there not 
 more scope for trying every means by which 
 words can penetrate the spirit of the hearers ? 
 Is it not true that a single unchangeable expression 
 is lifeless as well as unchangeable, and leaves the 
 mind and heart of the hearer lifeless also ? Is it 
 not true that a teacher who merely repeats what 
 
without a living commentary. 19 
 
 he himself does not understand, however scru- Chap. i. 
 pulously exact may be his words, gives us a sensa- 
 tion as though his lips were frozen, and scattered 
 hoar-frost rather than the kindling rays of life over 
 his listeners ? The more perfect and full such words 
 or sentences are, the more they require intelligence 
 'to make them reach their aim, the more they re- 
 quire thoughtful explanations. To the multitude 
 they are like dry food given to a young child 
 whose digestion cannot receive it until it is 
 softened and prepared. Those formulas, imperfect 
 if we will, by which the Christian doctrines 
 were once taught, had this advantage from their 
 very imperfection, that they did not put truth 
 before men as a solid whole, but, so to say, 
 broken up into fragments ; while the comments 
 made on them amended any possible defects of 
 expression, and gathered together the seemingly 
 separated parts, so that the absolute truth, formed 
 and built itself up in the minds which received it, 
 and was thus completed and perfected. It is certain 
 that truth cannot influence hearts, if we are con- 
 tented with a lifeless image of it, instead of the real 
 living power; if we stop short in words, ever so pre- 
 cise in expression, which do not go beyond the 
 ear, beginning and ending there. Certainly, in 
 these days, when a child is to be admitted to the 
 
20 Value and drawbacks of Catechisms. 
 
 Chap. i. sacraments of the Church, we examine carefully 
 if he knows the chief mysteries. He repeats the 
 formularies, and that is the proof that he knows 
 them. And yet there is often room for doubt 
 whether a child who repeats the words of the 
 catechism by heart, knows any more about these 
 mysteries than another who has never learnt it." 
 What then ? Has the modern introduction of cate- 
 chisms been more hindrance than help to the Holy 
 Church? If so, it would be strange to see so 
 perverted a result of that which promised so well 
 in the abstract. But we must say of these admir- 
 able compendiums of Christian instruction, what 
 the Apostle said of the law of Moses ; " it is holy, 
 and just, and good, if a man use it lawfully." 1 
 So that the defect lies not with the thing itself, 
 but with men's use of it. Our modern cate- 
 chisms are in themselves excellent, and a natural 
 result of the law of progress to which all human 
 things are subject, under the influence of Chris- 
 tianity. Let the clergy take heed : of them it 
 will be required to give account of the good or 
 evil produced by this, as by all other wonder- 
 ful institutions with which the Holy Spirit con- 
 tinually enriches the Church of the Word ; for 
 these are, in themselves, dead, and must be 
 
 1 Rom. vii. 12 ; 1 Tim. i. 8. 
 
Providential purpose of the Latin language. 2 1 
 
 made to live, by the wise handling of the Chap. 1. 
 clergy. 
 
 XYIII. But it is not by rites alone that 
 Christians are taught. In the institution of 
 worship our Lord added to the language of 
 actions, and that which taught the eye, the in- 
 struction of the ear, or vocal teaching ; and His 
 Church has followed in the same path. Neces- 
 sarily this vocal teaching must vary with the 
 diversity of nations. To remedy this hindrance 
 to ready communication, Providence had raised 
 up the Roman Empire, which, binding many 
 nations into one, carried the Latin language well- 
 nigh to the ends of the earth. Thus the peoples . 
 who were called to the Grospel found themselves 
 possessed of a common speech, by means of 
 which they understood those words which accom- 
 pany sacraments and rites, explaining them, and 
 „ setting them more fully forth. Seeing then that 
 words are the form of sacraments, Christ willed 
 by these certain and definite signs to speak as 
 clearly as possible to the understanding, and 
 while doing this, to work mystically. Therefore 
 it was that the virtue of the sacrament was 
 not to be> attached only to the matter employed 
 in it, which by itself is silent and cannot ex- 
 press any clear meaning, but rather to those 
 
22 Latin now a dead language. 
 
 Chap. i. words which set before the mind the use of the 
 material substance, and the end which it is to 
 further. Thus the understanding received light 
 through the meaning of the things set before it, 
 and strength by the grace given in the sacred 
 rite. But wars and the intermixture of nations 
 altered languages. In this way, the language 
 of the Church long ago ceased to be the language 
 of the people. By this great change the people 
 found themselves in darkness. Their understand- 
 ing was separated from the Church which went on 
 speaking to them, of them, and with them, while 
 they could make no better answer than the pilgrim 
 exile in a foreign land, who hears all around him 
 unwonted sounds that have no meaning whatever 
 for him. 
 
 XIX. These two calamities, the decay of living 
 instruction, and the disappearance of the Latin 
 language from common use, fell at the same time 
 upon the Christian people, owing to a common 
 cause, namely, the general invasion of the south by 
 the northern barbarians. Paganism and its spirit 
 were deeply rooted in society ; up to that time, the 
 Christian faith had only taken hold of individuals. 
 The conversion of the Caesars themselves was 
 but the winning of single persons, powerful as 
 they were. And it was ordained in the unalter- 
 
Effects of the Barbarian invasion. 23 
 
 able destinies of Christianity that the Word of Chap. i. 
 Christ should penetrate society, that it should con- 
 trol science and art as well as man ; and that all 
 culture, every flower of human life, every social 
 tie should through it flourish afresh. Therefore 
 Providence condemned the earlier social system 
 to destruction, and tore it up from its very founda- 
 tions. Carrying out this ban, the barbarian 
 hordes, guided by the Angels of the Lord, poured 
 down in masses one upon the other, not merely 
 ruining the Roman Empire, but sweeping even 
 its ruins away. Thus was prepared a clear soil 
 for the grand edifice of the new society of the 
 faithful. In the history of mankind, the middle 
 age forms an abyss separating the old world 
 from the new ; there is no more communion be- 
 tween them than between two continents divided 
 by a pathless ocean. Weighed in the balance of 
 Divine Wisdom the two misfortunes of ignorance 
 and the loss of the Church's language, which 
 thus visited the faithful, were shown to be more 
 than counterbalanced by the radical destruction 
 of the social institutions and customs of idolatry ; 
 and by means of this terrible visitation, the Eternal 
 hastened the advent on earth of a society likewise 
 baptized, so to say, in blood, and regenerated by 
 the word of the Living Grod. 
 
24 Existing separation between clergy 
 
 Chap. i. XX. But if it pleased God to allow His 
 Church to receive so deep a wound by the separa- 
 tion of the Christian people from their clergy in 
 the solemn acts of worship, is this wound incur- 
 able ? Can it be that the people, who by primitive 
 rule not only witnessed but took part in the services 
 of the Lord's House, will now be satisfied with little 
 more than bare attendance there ? Scarcely so, I 
 think ; for it is too much to expect of an intelli- 
 gent and civilized people that they will come 
 mechanically to attend rites in which they have no 
 longer any share, and which they do not under- 
 stand. 1 And this their repugnance to frequenting 
 Christian Churches is unjustly made by men's 
 indiscretion an occasion for perverting most 
 strangely the Redeemer's words, " Compel them 
 to come in." 
 
 1 The institution of the Oratories and of the Marian Congre- 
 gations was the work of good men, who saw clearly that it was 
 needful to feed the devotion of our Christian people with some- 
 thing more than the public offices of the Church. Some severe 
 judges, holding fast to theories, and regardless of altered circum- 
 stances, raised a great outcry against these institutions, denouncing 
 them as new to the Church, and unknown to venerable antiquity ; 
 and as calculated to disturb the ordinary action of the Church, 
 since they imply that what sufficed to the first ages of the Church 
 no longer suffices in these times. But these harsh critics do not 
 bear in mind that in the intervening time the sacred services have 
 become almost inaccessible to the people ; while, on the other side, 
 St. Philip Neri, St. Ignatius, and other eminently holy men who 
 had no object but the good of souls, have borne strong testimony 
 to the truth of our words. 
 
and people cannot continue. 25 
 
 Surely if nations are capable of being healed, Chap.i. 
 much more are the ills of the Church curable. 
 It seems an insult to her Divine Founder to 
 imagine that He "Who prayed the Eternal Father 
 to make all His disciples "one, even as I and 
 the Father are One," 1 would suffer a perpetual 
 wall of separation to exist between the people and 
 the clergy, so that all that is said and done in 
 the celebration of the Divine mysteries becomes 
 unreal and meaningless ; that He would permit 
 the people for whom the Light of the Word was 
 born, and who were themselves born again for 
 the worship of the Word, to assist at the greatest 
 acts of His worship in no other capacity, so to 
 speak, than that of the statues and pillars of the 
 temple, deaf to the voice of their mother the Church 
 when in very solemn moments she addresses them 
 or intercedes for them as her children : or that the 
 priesthood, withdrawn from the people, on a height 
 which is ambitious and harmful because inac- 
 cessible, should degenerate into an aristocracy, a 
 peculiar society, severed from society in general, 
 with its own interests, language, laws and cus- 
 toms ! But these are the inevitable and deplorable 
 consequences of a seemingly slight cause ; conse- 
 quences to which a priesthood would be inevitably 
 
 1 St. Johnxvii. 11. 
 
26 Remedy is with the clergy. 
 
 Chap. i. exposed, when no longer united, except externally, 
 to the people, and in reality absent from the great 
 company of the faithful. 
 
 XXI. But if the wound can be healed, who is 
 to apply the remedy ? 
 
 The clergy. The Catholic clergy alone can 
 first prepare, and then effect the cure. On their 
 lips is the Word of Life, and Christ has given it to 
 their charge for the salvation of mankind ; they 
 are the salt, the light, the universal salve of man. 
 Why then do they not make ready, and administer 
 the medicine ? That arises from another Wound 
 of the Church, which bleeds no less copiously 
 than the first, namely, the insufficient education of 
 the clergy themselves. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 <©f t\jz WLquvlU fn t&e Hiajbt l^anij of t&e ^olg GCfiutcJ), 
 fo&ttfj ts tfje Insufficient ©imtattott of tfie ©Urgg. 
 
 XXII. In the happiest times of the Church, preach- 
 ing and the liturgy were the two great schools 
 of the Christian people. The former taught the 
 faithful by words alone; the latter by words 
 conjoined with certain rites; and, especially by 
 those rites to which their Divine Author had given 
 power to work particular effects upon human nature, 
 namely, the Holy Sacrifice and the Sacraments. 
 Both were full of teaching. They did not ad- 
 dress themselves only to one side of human nature, 
 but to the whole man ; they penetrated, they 
 subdued him. They were not merely voices 
 to reach the intellect alone, or symbols which 
 impressed the senses only ; but both by means 
 of the intellect and of the senses, they reached 
 to the heart, and filled the Christian with an 
 
28 Character of the primitive clergy. 
 
 Chap. ii. exalted sense of God's mysterious and superhuman 
 works. This sense was as active and powerful 
 as was the grace which gave it birth ; for the 
 words of evangelical preaching issued forth from 
 saints who poured out upon" their hearers the 
 abundance of the Spirit with Whom they were 
 overfilled ; and rites, efficacious in themselves, 
 became still more so through the good soil into 
 which they fell. The hearts of the faithful 
 were well prepared to receive them by the in- 
 structions of their pastors, and by their own 
 clear apprehension of all that was done, or that 
 they themselves did, in the Church. From among 
 believers like these the clergy were chosen. They 
 brought to the Church, which had chosen them to 
 the high honour of her ministry, a groundwork 
 of doctrine, as large as their faith, which they 
 had imbibed in common with the rest of the 
 faithful ; praying the same prayers, visited by 
 the same Divine Grrace, by means of which they 
 knew and felt intimately all the fulness of the 
 sublime religion which they professed. Of a 
 truth we may predict what the ministers of the 
 Sanctuary will be, if we know the people whence 
 they spring ; and if we knew no more than the 
 character of the faithful in primitive times, and of 
 their holy assemblies, we should have materials 
 
corresponded to that of the faithful. 29 
 
 for judging what their clergy must needs have Chap. ii. 
 been. This throws light on events which are so 
 unaccountable in our eyes ; as when we find a 
 simple layman vehemently demanded by the multi- 
 tude for their pastor, and, in spite of his resistance, 
 transformed in a few brief days into a Bishop. 
 This was by no means rare in early times. There 
 are on record tbe instances of SS. Ambrose, Alex- 
 ander, Martin, Peter Chrysologus, and others, who 
 were raised at once from the humble condition of 
 faithful laymen, living in obscurity or employed 
 in secular offices, to the Episcopate. And no 
 sooner were these lights set on a candlestick, than 
 they shed a marvellous brightness over the whole 
 Church. 
 
 XXIII. By the same rule, our modern clergy 
 are such as are our laity. It cannot be otherwise ; 
 coming as they do from among Christians 
 who have perhaps never understood anything 
 of the Church services, and have assisted at 
 them like strangers witnessing scenes in which 
 they know not clearly what the clergy are 
 doing. Perhaps they had never felt the dignity 
 which belongs - to members of the Church ; 
 and had never- .conceived or experienced that 
 oneness of body and. spirit in which clergy and 
 people are prostrated before the Almighty, hold- 
 
30 Evils resulting from want of 
 
 Chap. ii. ^^ commTm i on w"itli Him, and He with them. 
 Probably many have looked upon the clergy as a 
 privileged and enviable caste, living on the pro- 
 ceeds of the Altar ; as an upper class, like any other 
 highly placed laymen ; as forming a separate 
 whole, and not as the noblest part of the 
 Church's Body, of which the laity, too, are 
 members, while all obtain the same blessings, pray 
 with the same voice, offer the same sacrifice, seek 
 the same grace from Heaven. Hence has arisen 
 the too-common saying that Church affairs are 
 the priest's affairs. How shall we begin to 
 teach and train, in a true and large clerical spirit, 
 pupils who come to the Church's school so full 
 of themselves ! Lacking, as they do, the very 
 first rudiments which we should suppose they 
 would already possess, and of which Church edu- 
 cation ought to be merely a development, such 
 men do not even bring a definite idea of what is 
 meant by a clerical temper ; they do not know 
 what they seek in seeking to become priests, or 
 what they are going to learn in the school of 
 the sanctuary. 
 
 XXIY. This want of fitting preparation in 
 aspirants for a clerical training, is more to be 
 regretted than appears at first sight. We can- 
 not build where there is no solid foundation, 
 
fitting preparation for clerical life. 3 1 
 
 especially where the instruction of the Catholic ° HAP ' IL 
 priesthood is in question. For this necessarily 
 presupposes Christian instruction ; Christian life 
 being the first step towards the priesthood. 
 Here is the reason why the pupils of the sanc- 
 tuary enter there with such a lack of the true 
 Church temper; or rather, with secular views, 
 which they have contracted from want of the 
 opposite teaching ; and, with these views, a 
 worldly mind which can hide itself under a 
 black cloak and accompany outward decency of 
 life. Thus it escapes the notice of those in 
 authority. They .fail to perceive that this will 
 not suffice for the Church of Christ. He came 
 to fill all things with Himself; especially the 
 minds of His priests. They should know and 
 impart to others the grandeur of a religion which 
 should subdue and save man's entire nature. 
 But the poverty and degradation of thought 
 and feeling which characterize the training given 
 in our modern Church institutions, only pro- 
 duces priests who do not even know what beseems 
 the Christian laity, or the Christian priesthood, 
 or the sacred bond that exists between them. 
 Such ministers, men of a troubled spirit and sordid 
 mind, in time become priests, and have charge 
 of Churches, and educate other priests, who turn 
 
2,2 The clergy anciently trained under 
 
 Chap. ii. out weaker and more miserable than themselves. 
 Then these again become fathers and teachers of 
 others, who thus sink lower with each genera- 
 tion, since " the disciple is not above his 
 master;" x until it shall please God Himself to lend 
 us His aid, and take compassion on His beloved 
 Church. 
 
 XXV. In truth, great men alone can form 
 great men ; and this was another gain in 
 the ancient education of the clergy, which was 
 conducted by the greatest men whom the Church 
 contained. Now, however, the contrary practice 
 is a second cause of the insufficient education of 
 our modern clergymen. 
 
 In the early ages of the Church, the Bishop's 
 house was the seminary of his priests and 
 deacons. The presence and the holy conversation 
 of their superior was for them a living, constant, 
 and sublime lesson. His pious conversation taught 
 the theory, his stedfast life of pastoral duty the prac- 
 tice, of religion. Thus Athanasius grew up beside 
 Alexander, and Laurence beside Sixtus. Almost 
 every great Bishop trained up in his own house- 
 hold a worthy successor, a fitting heir to his piety, 
 his zeal, his learning. It is to this system that 
 we owe the eminent Pastors for whom the first 
 
 1 St. Matt. x. 24. 
 
the eye of their Bishops. 33 
 
 six centuries of the Church were so remarkable. Chap. ii. 
 By means of this full and perfect system the 
 sacred deposit of Divine and Apostolic doctrine 
 was faithfully transmitted from one to another 
 through informal and oral communication. The 
 system was itself Apostolic, inasmuch as Irenaeus, 
 Pantsenus, Hermas, and so many others, had 
 gained their knowledge from the disciples of the 
 Apostles; just as these last — Evodius, Clement, 
 Timothy, Titus, Ignatius, Polycarp, — had been 
 brought up, in Scriptural phrase, at the feet of 
 the Apostles. 
 
 In those days men believed in grace. They 
 believed that the words of a Pastor, appointed 
 by Christ to rule and teach His Church, derived 
 a special and unique efficacy from the Divine 
 Founder. This belief imparted supernatural life 
 and energy to the doctrines taught, so that they 
 made an indelible impression on men's minds. 
 Everything combined to render them effectual — 
 winning eloquence, holiness of life, grave and com- 
 posed bearing, and the powerful influence of the 
 presiding Episcopal mind. "I remember," says 
 Irenseus, speaking of his - first training under the 
 great Polycarp, — " I remember what happened 
 then, better than all that has happened since, for 
 the things learnt in childhood, growing with our 
 
 D 
 
34 Salutary results of the 
 
 Chap. ii. growth, are never forgotten ; so that I could point 
 out the very spot where the blessed Polycarp sat 
 while he preached the Word of God. The gravity 
 with which he ever came and went is yet vividly 
 before my mind ; the sanctity of his general life ; 
 the dignity of his countenance and his whole 
 person ; the exhortations with which he fed his 
 people. I seem yet to hear him recount how he 
 had conversed with St. John, and with many 
 others who had seen the Lord Jesus Christ ; the 
 words he had gathered from their lips, and the 
 details they had told him concerning the Divine 
 Saviour, His miracles and His doctrine ; and all 
 this was in the fullest sense in conformity with 
 the Holy Scriptures, as being described by men 
 who had been living witnesses of the "Word, and 
 of His life-giving message. Of a truth by Grod's 
 mercy I listened eagerly and diligently to all 
 these things ; graving them, not on tablets, but 
 in the depths of my heart, and He has by His 
 grace enabled me to remember them, and ponder 
 continually upon them." x 
 
 XXYI. Such was the successful and wise 
 mode of education whereby great Bishops trained 
 their own clergy. As a result, there was a 
 
 1 This passage, from a letter written by the holy Bishop to win 
 Florinus from his errors, is quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., 
 lib. v. c. xx. 
 
primitive training of the clergy. 35 
 
 constant supply of great men, deeply conscious Chap. ii. 
 of the weight of their office, and filled with the 
 spirit of the priesthood. No need to say how 
 strong was the consequent union between the 
 chief Pastor and his disciples, his sons in the 
 faith. The terms higher and lower clergy 1 were 
 then unknown; a later age first uttered them. 
 And it is difficult to describe what harmonious 
 order in the Church's government arose from this 
 communion in learning, this holy intercourse, this 
 habit of life, this interchange of affection, whereby 
 the Bishop of old diffused and reproduced him- 
 self in the young clergy, being to them teacher, 
 pastor and father ; adding dignity to the compact 
 body of the priesthood, and securing a healthy 
 influence over the people. Thus selected and 
 educated, even a scanty supply of clergy amply 
 satisfied the wants of the Church ; while the order 
 of presbyters was so venerated and esteemed, that 
 even men of the most exalted rank deemed them- 
 selves honoured by entering it; the people and 
 Churches gazed with attention on such as were 
 destined to it by their Bishops ; 2 while the 
 
 1 [" Alto e basso clero." Ital.— Ed.] 
 
 2 In order to mark the importance attributed to the order 
 of presbyters, it will suffice to recall the words of the Martyrs of 
 Lyons, in their letter to Pope Eleutherius. St. Irenseus, then- only 
 a priest, was sent on an embassy to the Pope, and was thus 
 
36 Results of primitive training 
 
 Chap. ii. dignity of the priesthood served to exalt yet 
 more that of the episcopate, which was raised 
 on so noble a basis ; and thus the priest was 
 entirely and heartily, and in the natural course 
 of things, subject to his Bishop. 1 
 
 XXVII. We cannot wonder if these Bishops 
 
 commended by the Martyrs : " We beseech you to regard him as 
 a man full of zeal for the testimony of Jesus Christ. It is by this 
 title that we commend him to you. If we thought that rank and 
 dignity could confer righteousness upon any one, we would cer- 
 tainly have recommended him as a priest of the Church, for such 
 he is'' (Euseb., Hist. Eccles., lib. v. c. iv.). It is evident that in 
 our time a priest would not thus be commended to the pope ! 
 In proof of the interest taken by the people and the Churches in 
 the ordination of a new priest, it is sufficient to recall the rumours 
 excited when the celebrated Origen was ordained by the most 
 renowned Bishops of Palestine, among others, Theoctistus of 
 Csesarea, and St. Alexander of Jerusalem — rumours which are 
 attributed by St. Jerome to the jealousy of Bishop Demetrius of 
 Alexandria. In our day the ordination of a priest could never be 
 the subject of such jealousy or such commotion. 
 
 1 In St. Ignatius' letters to various Churches we find strong 
 commendation of this unity and submission to their Bishop, of 
 both people and clergy. In the letter to the Trail tans, after praising 
 their perfect submission to their Bishop Polybius, he says that 
 Polybius is " the mirror of the love which reigns among his dis- 
 ciples ; his mere exterior is a great lesson ; his exceeding gentle- 
 ness is his strength, so that even wicked men cannot but respect 
 him." Again, writing to the Church of Magnesia, he specially 
 praises its priests for their submission " to their Bishop Damasus, 
 although in years he is young." In a letter to the Ephesians, 
 having highly lauded their saintly Bishop Onesimus, he praises 
 them warmly because they " all were so closely united to him, 
 especially the presbytery (irpeo-/BuT6pioi/), that is, the clergy, and 
 because, by grace, they were joined in one accord with priests and 
 Bishop in the Lord Jesus Christ, breaking together one bread, 
 which saving remedy confers immortality and preserves from death." 
 
on the progress of Religion. 37 
 
 kept jealously to themselves the instruction of chap. ii. 
 their clergy, when they rarely and with difficulty 
 could be induced to entrust even that of the 
 people to other hands ; l believing, as they did, 
 that Christ had committed to them the whole 
 flock, both clergy and people ; that to their lips 
 He had entrusted the Word, and had conferred on 
 their order, beyond others, the power of giving 
 mission and grace. 
 
 XXVIII. Such being the habits and feelings 
 of the clergy, the religion of the Crucified had 
 triumphed over tyrants and heretics, and its 
 invisible Head destined it to achieve no less 
 noble a victory over the barbarian invaders. As 
 I said before, in sending the barbarian hordes to 
 destroy the very foundations of society, Divine 
 Providence intended to set before the world 
 the power of Christ's Word, which outlives the 
 
 1 It was an extraordinary honour when St. Flavian, Bishop of 
 Antioch, entrusted St. John Chrysostom with the instruction of the 
 people. Such instances were not common in the Church : and those 
 Bishops- who first permitted presbyters to preach the Gospel, did 
 so in consequence of the unusual holiness and learning of the men 
 so trusted. The talents of St. Augustine induced Bishop Valerius 
 of Carthage to commit to him the instruction of the people, as in 
 the case of St. Chrysostom. This was the case in the famous school 
 of St. Mark in Alexandria, where the teachers were always men 
 eminent for learning and holiness. It was then well understood 
 what men are worthy to teach the world, above all in the doctrine 
 of Christ ! By what misfortune is the influence of such a true and 
 salutary principle forgotten among us ? 
 
38 Temporal troubles how calculated 
 
 Ohap. 11. destruction of empires and of all the works of man, 
 and has power to restore life to dust and skeletons, 
 and to recreate a ruined society in a form worthy 
 of itself. It is worthy of note, too, that when 
 men, essentially social beings, find all the bonds 
 snapped that bind them together ; when they are 
 scattered, degraded, resourceless, hopeless, ship- 
 wrecked amid a sea of disasters, — they will, by a 
 spontaneous impulse or as a last resource, seek 
 supernatural aid, and will throw themselves upon 
 religion. Eeligion is ever welcome to all who 
 are in trouble; it can bid a new hope shine 
 before their eyes, a hope as vast as God Himself, 
 because it can promise that out of their utter loss 
 shall spring their eternal gain. Thus Religion, 
 which must always precede the development of 
 all social institutions, and which outlives their 
 destruction, is ever found guiding the peoples, 
 whether in their infancy or in their recovery from 
 ruin. And this Providential order, which from 
 the beginning caused all social links, all cultiva- 
 tion to spring from Religion, was preparing the 
 way destined of G-od for the work of Christianity 
 in the Middle Ages. The one true religion was 
 not inferior in its results to false and imperfect 
 religions; and inasmuch as the latter had pro- 
 moted social union and national progress accord- 
 
to secure influence for the clergy. 39 
 
 ing to the little portion of truth that they con- Chap. 11. 
 tained, so was this done far more effectually by 
 the Faith which owned the whole Truth, a pure 
 and full revelation, the grace of Redemption. 
 
 The peoples then, oppressed and harassed with 
 temporal calamities, had recourse to the shelter- 
 ing arms of that Religion from which they had 
 already learnt the awful beauty of things spiritual 
 and Divine. They sought for the first time from 
 it earthly succour. And the common Mother x of 
 the faithful, full of love and pity, was deeply 
 moved by the wants of the harassed and dis- 
 organized peoples, so that she became their 
 comfort, their shield, their ruler. 
 
 Thus the clergy beheld themselves at the head 
 of the nations, almost without knowing how. 
 Having yielded to the irresistible pressure of 
 compassion in coming to the rescue of a ruined 
 society, they found themselves suddenly installed 
 as the fathers of orphaned cities, and as rulers 
 where government had forsaken its duties. The 
 Church was all at once overwhelmed with worldly 
 honours and riches, which flowed in upon her as it 
 were by their own weight, even as the waters 
 pour in where landslips have made way for the 
 advancing sea. 
 
 XXIX. It was in the sixth century that these 
 
40 Increased wealth of the clergy 
 
 Chap. ii. new duties first devolved on the clergy. They 
 were very unwelcome to saintly prelates, who saw 
 the Church laden with worldly possessions, thereby 
 losing that holy poverty so much praised by 
 the early Fathers. 1 And they themselves were 
 weighed down with secular cares, which drew 
 
 1 See a famous passage in Origen. As an historical evidence 
 of the opinions held in his time by the most eminent members 
 of the Church as to the poverty and liberty of the clergy, it cannot 
 be set aside. This great teacher of Bishops and martyrs, in 
 one of his Homilies, publicly delivered at Alexandria, after 
 speaking of the idolatrous priests to whom the King of Egypt had 
 given possessions, proceeds, " The Lord does not give earthly 
 portions to His priests, inasmuch as He Himself wills to be their 
 portion ; and this is the difference between the two. Give good 
 heed, all ye who exercise priestly functions ; beware, lest ye be 
 rather Pharaoh's priests than the Lord's. Pharaoh wills that his 
 priests should possess lands, and should be occupied with them 
 more than with souls, or with the Law of God. But what does 
 Jesus Christ appoint for His priests 1 He saith that whoso doth 
 not leave all and follow Him, cannot be His disciple. I tremble as 
 I utter the words, for I accuse myself first of all. I speak my own 
 condemnation ! What are we doing ? How dare we read ai. 
 preach such truths to the people ? — we, who not only do not re- 
 nounce that which we possess, but who even seek to acquire more 
 than we had before we were the disciples of Jesus Christ ? But 
 if our conscience condemn us, can we therefore conceal what is 
 written 1 I will not be guilty of a further crime ! I confess 
 before all the people this is what the Gospel prescribes ; but I 
 cannot affirm that I have as yet fulfilled the precept. Since, how- 
 ever, we know our duty, let us from this moment seek to fulfil it ; 
 let us seek no longer to resemble Pharaoh's priests, but let -us 
 become priests of the Lord, even as Paul, as Peter, as John, who 
 had neither gold or silver, but who possessed such riches that not 
 the whole world could give the like " (In Genes. Horn. xvi. § 5). 
 This quotation needs no commentary ; every one knows how Origen 
 himself fulfilled the profession of poverty. 
 
lamented by saintly Bishops. 41 
 
 them away from the study of Divine things, and Chap. ir. 
 robbed them of time and strength which were 
 needed for dispensing the Word of Christ to the 
 faithful, for the education of the clergy, and for 
 perseverance in public and private prayer. 
 
 St. Gregory the Great, the great ecclesiastical 
 ruler of that age, was deeply afflicted by the perils 
 which, as he foresaw, must attend upon the new 
 career thus opened to the Church. His letters are 
 full of lamentations over the hard circumstances of 
 the times, which forced him to be more a treasurer 
 or adjutant of the Emperor than the Bishop of 
 his flock. " Under the pretext of Church adminis- 
 tration he was tossed on the waves of worldly 
 affairs, and often even buried beneath them." 1 
 
 This he repeats several times, especially in a 
 letter to Theoctista, sister to the Emperor Maurice. 
 In it he describes the peace which he had enjoyed 
 as a humble monk, in order to mark the contrast 
 of his present troubled life - in the Pontificate. 
 " Under the guise of the Episcopate," he writes, " I 
 have returned to the world, since in the new state 
 of things in the pastoral office 2 I am burdened 
 
 1 Epist., lib. xi. ep. i. Nos enim sub colore ecolesiastici regimi- 
 nis, mundi hujus fluctibus volvimur, qui frequenter nos obruunt. 
 
 2 This expression, " ex hac modern^ pastoralis officii conti^ 
 nentia," shows how new this burden of secular affairs was to the 
 Episcopate, hitherto unaccustomed to it. 
 
42 St. Gregory deplores the burden 
 
 Chap. ii. with many more worldly cares than I can remember 
 to have had while a layman. I have lost the lofty 
 pleasures of my quiet life, and, while to those with- 
 out I seem to have risen, I feel that I have really 
 fallen. Therefore I bemoan myself, as cast forth 
 from the Presence of my Creator. In those days 
 I continually sought to forsake the world and the 
 flesh ; to chase all earthly visions from my mental 
 sight, and to see only the things of Grod ; crying 
 not with my voice only, but from the depths of my 
 spirit, ' My heart hath talked of Thee, Seek ye My 
 Face ; Thy Pace, Lord, will I seek ' (Ps. xxvii. 9). 
 Thus, fearing nothing, and desiring nothing that 
 this world can give, I seemed to be raised above all 
 earthly cares, so that I almost believed that the 
 - promise given by the Lord through His prophet, 
 was made good in my own case, ' I will cause thee 
 to ride upon the high places of the earth.' 1 Por he 
 is truly raised upon the high places of the earth, 
 who in his mind spurns all that the world esteems 
 high and glorious." Having thus described the 
 happiness of his earlier life of privacy and thought, 
 he goes on to speak of the episcopal burden laid 
 upon him, " But from this new elevation I fell into 
 fear and anguish, not indeed for myself, but for those 
 committed to me. Thus finding myself buffeted by 
 
 1 Isa. lviii. 14. 
 
of secular cares. 
 
 the waves of business, and sunk by fortune, I say Chap. ii. 
 of a truth, ' I am come into deep waters, so that 
 the floods run over me.' * I seek to retire within 
 my heart when business is over, but the vain 
 tumult of thought excludes me. He Who is within 
 me is thus far from me, and I can no longer obey 
 the voice which cries, ' Turn ye even to Me with 
 all your heart.'" 2 Thus the holy Father con- 
 tinues to lament that "amid these earthly cares 
 he cannot think over the miraculous works of the 
 Lord, much less preach them publicly," and that 
 " oppressed by the tumult of secular affairs, he is 
 as one of those of whom it is written, 3 ' Thou 
 dost set them in slippery places, and castest them 
 down.' " 4 
 
 XXX. Meanwhile it was thus that the Provi- 
 dence of Grod, which never fails in its purposes, 
 brought about the introduction of Christ's Eeligion 
 into society, or, more strictly speaking, created a 
 new Christian society. In the Middle Ages the 
 Religion of Christ penetrated every section of 
 society : and was spread as healing oil over its 
 festering wounds, infusing a new life and strength 
 into the human race which was crushed by cen- 
 
 1 Ps. lxix. 2. 2 Joel ii. 12. 3 Ps. lxxiii. IT. 
 
 * Epist., lib. i. ep. 5. The same lamentations are found through- 
 out the letters of the first book, in letter 121 of the ninth book, 
 and in letter 1 of book xi. 
 
44 The new Christian civilization. 
 
 Chap. ii. turies of disaster. Religion took human nature 
 under her maternal care ; until, in its old age, it 
 had passed through a strange course of long and 
 cruel trials and had become once more a little child. 
 Religion educated this pupil, this child of her 
 tender love. And henceforward a new seed was 
 sown in the earth ; it blossomed into all modern 
 civil institutions. It was public justice ; a thing 
 essentially Christian, and unknown to the ancient 
 world. Although human passions ceaselessly try 
 to shroud it, it will shine for ever. For the 
 Providence of the Great King has pledged Itself 
 to maintain His works ; and, while disposing of 
 all things by the Word of His power, It has 
 but one aim, the greater glory of the Beloved 
 Son, and the glorious destinies of His kingdom, 
 so nobly won. Hence, as might be expected, the 
 heads of these newly formed nations felt the 
 strength of a religion which had given them 
 political being and had blessed their crowns ; and 
 they displayed hitherto unknown examples of 
 Christian virtues. This explains why the Middle 
 Ages produced so many illustrious saints among 
 the reigning sovereigns of Europe. Their proudest 
 boast was that they were sons and subjects of the 
 Church ; they made it the study of their lives 
 how they might temper a naturally fierce power 
 
Secularization of the clergy. 45 
 
 by the gentleness of the Gospel, which they had Chap. n f 
 received eagerly from the lips of their Bishops ; 
 and by the equity of their laws and the piety 
 and splendour of their royal estate, they sought 
 to promote the same object. But herein, too, we 
 find the reason why, when kings had entered on 
 the path of holiness, the clergy, on the contrary, 
 strayed into the ways of corruption, which in the 
 end cost them the saddest reverses. 
 
 XXXI. It was in the natural course of 
 things, that the clergy, who had at first with 
 bitter lamentations struggled to free themselves 
 from the pressure of secular interests and worldly 
 possessions which were thus forced upon them, 
 should, after a time., begin to take pleasure in 
 them and in the occupations which they involved. 
 These occupations were new to them, and they 
 were not sufficiently on the alert to guard against 
 the perils which were close at hand. Thus little 
 by little they forgot the gentleness and un- 
 worldly habits befitting pastoral influence, and 
 there appeared instead, only too plainly, the 
 rough and earthly temper of civil governments. 
 They sought to associate with the nobles, and 
 to emulate their habits, and from that time they 
 became unwilling to associate with the humble 
 flock of Christ. From that time political and 
 
46 Delegation of Episcopal duties. 
 
 Chap. ii. financial business became tbeir cbosen occupation, 
 and, with the sophistry common to self-indul- 
 gence, they easily persuaded themselves that they 
 were thus consulting the Church's best interests. 
 The Bishops made over to the inferior clergy the 
 instruction of the people, and the pastoral duties, 
 which had now become a burden to themselves. 
 Hence arose the formation of parishes, which in 
 the tenth century were first introduced into cities, 
 under the eyes of the Bishops. The Bishops' 
 houses ceased to be so many flourishing schools of 
 ecclesiastical learning and holiness for the young 
 students who were the hope of the Church ; they 
 became instead princely courts, over-crowded with 
 soldiers and courtiers. The glory of these houses 
 was no longer to be found in the ardent Apostolic 
 zeal, the deep meditation, or the eloquent instruc- 
 tions for which they were once renowned ; the 
 best praise that could be given them was that 
 they kept in check the rude military temper, and 
 imposed moderation upon the prevalent license. 
 All pastoral care of the people was little by 
 little abandoned to the subordinate clergy, so that 
 before long they grew to look upon the parish 
 priest as their Pastor, to the entire exclusion 
 of the Bishop, 1 who by Christ's appointment is 
 
 1 Thus, up to the time of St. Gregory, by " pastoral knowledge " 
 
Alienation of presbyters from Bishops. 47 
 
 alone their true Pastor. Thus, as the duties and Chap. ii. 
 interests of the Bishops and the lower clergy 
 became so divergent, and almost opposed, they 
 constantly drew more and more apart. The 
 familiar intercourse of a common life ceased. And 
 the interviews which took its place were as rare 
 and brief as possible, having no attraction for 
 either party ; as is the case between persons in 
 different ranks of life. The old veneration and 
 filial love of the priest became a timid subjection, 
 and the kindly paternal authority of the Bishop 
 took the airs of a superiority which was by turns 
 contemptuous and patronizing. Meanwhile the 
 lower clergy sank in popular esteem, and the 
 higher clergy acquired a proportionate grandeur 
 which was more apparent than real. 1 Can we 
 
 the knowledge -of the Bishops was meant ; but now in our seminaries 
 "pastoral knowledge" means that of the parish priest, and the 
 Bishop is never even mentioned in books treating of it. This ap- 
 plication of the word Pastor to the parish priest, to the exclusion 
 of Bishops, is principally to be attributed to the Protestants, who 
 cast aside the Episcopate mainly because the Bishops had de- 
 parted from those duties which were entrusted to them by Christ, 
 and which in themselves bore testimony to His having instituted 
 the office. Hence the people lost the idea of the Episcopal office, 
 and this ignorance was the foundation of Protestant errors and 
 separations from the Church. 
 
 1 In all this, I have said already and would repeat once for all, 
 I am speaking of the general state of the case. There were many 
 exceptions. There have always been most saintly Bishops in the 
 Church. 
 
48 Secularization of the clergy. 
 
 Chap. 11. wonder that much evil should have crept in 
 amongst a clergy thus degraded ; and that, when 
 they had become contemptible in the eyes of the 
 people, their own estimate of the priestly character 
 should be lowered ? No doubt the holy occupa- 
 tions of the care of souls, and of preaching, now 
 given up to the inferior clergy, might have 
 served to keep up their tone ; but from the 
 moment that the highest rank of the ministry 
 became an object of ambition for the sake of its 
 power and wealth, the presbyter naturally gazed 
 longingly at it. He envied his Bishop. And thus 
 the Word of Grod, the sacrifice, and the sacraments 
 became merely a lamentable trade, va which the 
 sin of Judas, who sold his Divine Master, was 
 daily renewed. In the same way sacred rites, 
 devotions, prayers, even the very doctrines of the 
 Faith, were recommended and ministered to tha 
 people according to the return which they yielded 
 to the clergy. Thus, while the people were ignorant 
 of much Christian teaching, they were intimately 
 acquainted with what was taught about suffrages, 
 benedictions, precepts of the Church, and indul- 
 gences, which afforded a revenue to the ministers 
 of the altar. Of a truth they knew more con- 
 cerning these matters than about many other parts 
 of Christian knowledge. Thus the priests sank so 
 
Alienation of Bishops and people. 49 
 
 low, that they were soon no longer held worthy of Chap. ii. 
 the Bishop's attention ; he need not trouble him- 
 self about an education which was thought un- 
 necessary for them. Yice abounded ; the attempt 
 was made to stay it by means of laws and penalties. 
 Such measures are better suited to secular than 
 ecclesiastical governments. Although unable to up- 
 root the moral evil, they did for a while restrain it 
 within bounds. But, in time, the restraint gave 
 way before the pressure, and the torrent over- 
 flowed the whole Church, threatening and visiting 
 with ruin even her worldly pomp and her temporal 
 greatness. The Mother of the Faithful was no 
 longer recognized by her own children; whole 
 nations fled from her face ; for the time it was 
 hidden from their weak sight. The Episcopate saw 
 itself chastised by Grod after an unexpected and un- 
 foreseen fashion. It had persuaded itself that its 
 interests were forwarded by every foot of ground 
 that it could grasp, by every addition to worldly 
 power that it could secure. But while thus absorbed 
 in petty calculations, it was blind to the fact that 
 the nations were withdrawing from it. While 
 the Bishops were forsaking the care of their people 
 for secular concerns, the people were in turn for- 
 saking the Bishops, carrying away with them 
 those interests which are never disjoined from 
 
50 Renewed vigilance of the Bishops. 
 
 Chai>. n. human lives. The Episcopate suddenly found it- 
 self rejected, set aside, almost effaced, scarcely 
 discoverable, in hundreds of dioceses. Then, self- 
 despised, the Bishops voluntarily stepped down 
 from their thrones. In Germany, France, and 
 England it was the Bishops themselves who threw 
 aside the coronet of their regal priesthood ; x they 
 shook off their lethargy; they trembled at their own 
 peril. For although the Episcopate may be chast- 
 ened, it cannot wholly perish ; Christ has promised 
 that it shall last to the end of the world. And 
 one of the first causes of the evil which presented 
 itself to the Bishops was, the neglected education of 
 the priesthood \ and, in order to meet this difficulty, 
 they resolved to provide the teaching of seminaries. 
 XXXII. Seminaries were invented to provide 
 some kind of education for the clergy, as catechisms 
 were invented to provide some kind of instruction 
 for the people. The Bishops had not courage (it 
 was hardly to be expected of them) to return to 
 ancient customs, and themselves be the teachers 
 of their people and clergy. They continued to 
 depute these duties to the inferior clergy. But 
 their vigilance was rekindled, and there was a 
 great restoration of discipline, and reformation in 
 
 1 [The author's meaning is somewhat indistinct here ; but the 
 fortunes and conduct of the episcopate in Germany, France, and 
 England have been too various to be thus summarily described. Ed.] 
 
Relative disadvantage of seminaries. 5 1 
 
 manners. The lower clergy showed great zeal in chap. 11. 
 the limited and largely nnspiritual sphere of duties 
 then open to them. But the art which had of old 
 supplied the Church with great men, with priests 
 alive to the vastness of their mission, had disap- 
 peared. The men were wanting who saw in the 
 Church her sublime grandeur and universality, 
 and who were, as it seemed, possessed and swayed 
 by that felt presence of the Word which had 
 .formed the character of the primitive clergy. 
 That living sense was no longer found which 
 absorbs the powers of the soul, draws it away 
 from a passing scene to that which lasts, and 
 teaches it to snatch from the eternal mansions a 
 torch wherewith to kindle the whole world. Only 
 great men, I repeat, can train great men. It is 
 enough to compare the teachers, if we would 
 estimate the difference between the disciples. 
 Alas ! on one side are the ancient Bishops or 
 some men of the highest distinction in the 
 Church ; on the other, the young principals of 
 our seminaries. What a contrast ! 
 
 XXXIII. Let it be considered with what hesi- 
 tation and reluctance any school other than the 
 Bishop's was set on foot' even for the people in 
 better times. 1 A separate school for the clergy 
 
 1 Yet the popular school of those days did not resemble that of 
 
5 2 Failure of modern seminaries 
 
 Chap. ii. was only allowed in consideration of the great 
 learning and saintliness of the men to whom it 
 was entrusted. Thus, for instance, the school of 
 Alexandria, already mentioned, probably the first of 
 the kind, was established in the time of St. Mark. 1 
 On the other hand, consider how masters fit to teach 
 the religion and doctrine of Christ to the clergy 
 now abound, or at least are thought to abound ! 
 Not only has every diocese its seminary, and 
 every seminary many teachers, but by reason of 
 this abundance, and of the facility with which in 
 these days Bishops can find priests to train their 
 young clergy, the teachers are usually changed 
 after a few years of work, in order that they 
 may be promoted to a less unremunerative post. 
 Others take their place who are as yet quite 
 inexperienced, and who perhaps have not yet 
 acquired the first principles of common sense. 
 But then they have gone through the routine 
 of the seminary, that ne plus ultra of modern 
 ecclesiastical wisdom. When it is over, the 
 
 our time. The whole scheme of Christian doctrine was unfolded be- 
 fore the eyes of the Christian poor, so that both people and clergy 
 were taught together ; that is, those who aimed at the priesthood 
 received the necessary preparation to enable them later on to profit 
 by an ecclesiastical education. So far off from this are we, that 
 many of our modern ecclesiastics could not understand what I am 
 saying, and will assuredly be displeased at it. 
 
 1 St. Jerome affirms it, De Vir. ill., c. 36. [But cf. Moehler, 
 K. G. iii. 10, ch.— Ed.] 
 
to train capable religious teachers. 53 
 
 young ministers of the Altar are, without delay, Chap. ii. 
 sent to their work, and thus honourably dispensed 
 from study. -Meanwhile, the theological knowledge 
 which very young teachers have acquired in a 
 seminary is fragmentary, or probably limited to 
 whatever may be necessary in order to enable them 
 to acquit themselves perfunctorily of those ecclesi- 
 astical duties which are exacted of them by the 
 authorities and by public opinion. And this weighty 
 knowledge has neither root nor coherence in the 
 young priest's mind ; it has hardly reached his 
 mind at all. Yet devoid, as he is, of the sympathies 
 of knowledge, and of its true value, knowing what 
 he knows as a mere matter of memory, he never- 
 theless considers himself better fitted for the office 
 of teacher than a really learned man who might 
 be promoted to it. Certainly, if mere memory 
 is required, his pupils may have that ! But the 
 educational method of his master which St. Clement 
 of Alexandria describes was far other than a mere 
 training of memory. "He was as a Sicilian 
 bee, which sucked the flowers of the apostolic 
 and prophetic fields, in order that he might form 
 within the souls of those who heard him the 
 honey of a pure and uncorrupt knowledge." x 
 
 1 Strom, lib. i. Eusebius thinks that the master of whom 
 St. Clement speaks is Pantsenus, who presided over the famous 
 Alexandrian school (Hist., lib. v. c. 11). 
 
54 The Fathers superseded by little manuals. 
 
 Chap. ii. Finally, in these times, when the rate of salary- 
 attached to an office is a sure test of the class 
 of men who fill it, may we not well doubt the 
 efficiency of the masters in our seminaries, whose 
 labours are so ill paid that they are over-joyed 
 when the day comes for them to leave the semi- 
 nary for some parochial benefice, which has all 
 along been their aspiration, rather than continue 
 their educational career ? 1 
 
 XXXIV. If the instruction of the clergy is 
 entrusted to such feeble hands, it can cause no 
 wonder that the writings of the saints and the 
 learned should be set aside in favour of little books, 
 " adapted for youth," as they say on the title- 
 page, and put together by persons not much wiser. 
 It is all after the same fashion, one evil leads to 
 another ; and the use of these meagre empty 
 
 1 It is most essential that in these days the stipends of our 
 Seminarist teachers should at least be equal to the best parochial 
 charges, and that these teachers should not be removed from their 
 collegiate chairs, except to be promoted to some canonry or 
 capitular dignity, or to the Episcopate. In the celebrated school 
 of Alexandria, St. Dionysius, St. Heraclas, and the great Saint 
 Achillas, all three went from the teacher's chair to the Bishop's 
 throne in that city, which was second only to Rome. But in those 
 days men had present to their hearing and their minds the words 
 of the Apostle to Timothy, bidding him find "men able to teach 
 others also," the doctrines of the Gospel. The Apostle character- 
 izes such men as "faithful," and bids Timothy "commit" the 
 faith to them : " et quae audisti a me per multos testes, hsec com- 
 menda fidelibus hominibus qui idonei erunt et alios docere" 
 (2 Tim. ii. 2). 
 
Books are classical or onesided. 55 
 
 manuals in our schools is the third cause of the chap. ii. 
 inadequacy of the education which is given there. 
 XXXV . There are two kinds of books. There 
 are solid and classical books, containing the best 
 wisdom of man, and written by its true represen- 
 tatives. These books are free from all that is arbi- 
 trary or barren, whether in method, style, or 
 teaching. We find in them not merely exact facts 
 and erudition, but those universal truths, that 
 healthy fruitful information, which conveys all 
 that is truly human, all common human feelings, 
 and needs, and hopes. On the other hand, there 
 are petty onesided books, the product of indi- 
 vidual thought, thin and cold ; in which great 
 truths are minced up and adapted to little minds. 
 The authors have been so exhausted by producing 
 them that they convey no impression but that of 
 effort, and have no power save to mislead. From 
 such books all who have passed childhood turn 
 away with contempt, finding in them nothing 
 that answers to their natures, thoughts, or affec- 
 tions. Yet our youth is cruelly and obstinately 
 condemned to the use of these books. Their 
 natural sense would resist. But too often the 
 want of something better leads them to the 
 use of bad books ; or else they acquire ■- a down- 
 right dislike for study, as well as a concealed 
 
56 Ancient supremacy of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Chap. ii. but deep aversion for all teachers and superiors ; 
 not to say a life-long hatred for books and for the 
 truths contained in them. This hatred, hardly per- 
 ceived by those who feel it, works for the most 
 part under other forms than that of hatred. It 
 is apt to conceal itself under any pretext, and 
 when it becomes manifest is a source of astonish- 
 ment to him who cherishes it. He was not aware 
 of its existence and cannot account for it. It has 
 the semblance of impiety, or of ingratitude towards 
 teachers, who in all else have been good to their 
 pupils, and have freely bestowed upon them their 
 care, their advice, and their love. 
 
 XXXVI. In the Church's early days Holy 
 Scripture was the only text-book on which instruc- 
 tion, both popular and ecclesiastical, was founded. 
 This Scripture is really the book of mankind, the 
 Book (fiifiXCa), the Scripture proper. In this 
 volume human nature is portrayed from the begin- 
 ning to the end. It begins with the origin of the 
 world, and ends with its future destruction. Here 
 man recognizes himself in his changeful history. 
 Here he finds a clear, sure, and final answer to 
 the great questions which he is ever asking him- 
 self; and while his mind is satisfied by its wisdom 
 and its mysteriousness, his heart is provided for 
 by its rules of life and its revelation of grace. 
 
Its unrivalled attractions. , 57 
 
 It is that " great " book which the Prophet says Chap. ii. 
 is written, "With a man's pen." 1 In it the 
 Eternal Truth speaks according to all those 
 modes in which man's speech is fashioned : 
 at one time it narrates, then it teaches ; now it 
 speaks in proverbs, now in song ; the memory is 
 fed with history, the imagination charmed with 
 poetry, the intellect enlightened with wisdom ; 
 and the feelings kindled by all these at once. Its 
 doctrine is so simple that the unlearned man may 
 think it framed specially for himself; and so sublime 
 that the wisest doctor cannot hope to fathom it. The 
 words seem to be human, but it is God Himself 
 "Who speaks. Thus St. Clement of Alexandria 
 says, "Holy Scripture kindles a fire in the soul, and 
 at the same time guides the mind's eye to con- 
 templation, now casting the seed into our hearts, 
 as the husbandman sows it in the earth, now caus- 
 ing to germinate that which we already possess." 2 
 If such words are applicable to general literature, 
 much more properly may they be applied to the 
 Word of God. 
 
 XXXVII. Such was the Book of our Chris- 
 tian schools. And this great Book, in the hands 
 of the great men who expounded it, was the 
 nourishment of other great men. As long as the 
 
 1 Isaiah viii. 1. 2 Strom., lib. i. 
 
58 Of old the Bishops were the chief teachers. 
 
 Chap. 11. Bishops were themselves the teachers of the people 
 and the clergy, they were also the authors who 
 wrote for the Church arid the public. Hence 
 nearly all the chief [Christian] works of the first 
 six centuries are the works of Bjshops. It is an 
 exception to the rule when we find any work of 
 those times which had not an Episcopal origin. 
 The exception occurs only in the case of some 
 remarkable minds, as were Origen, Tertullian, 
 and others, who attained to the post of Christian 
 teachers by reason of their great merits. These 
 Episcopal writings mark a second stage in the 
 history of the books used for the instruction of 
 youth in our Christian and ecclesiastical schools. 
 These works were bequeathed as a legacy to the 
 lower clergy, when the Bishops were forced, by 
 the general collapse of government and society, and 
 by the widespread demands upon their sympathy 
 and assistance, to forsake labours hitherto con- 
 sidered inseparable from their pastoral office. The 
 training of the people and the clergy gradually fell 
 to the inferior clergy ; 1 at first chiefly to those who 
 
 1 I say gradually, for such changes are never made rapidly or 
 generally. Fleury, speaking of the five centuries that followed 
 the first six, says, " The method of instruction continued the same 
 as in early times. The cathedrals or monasteries were the schools, 
 where the Bishop himself taught, or else some of his clerks, or 
 some learned monk appointed by him, so that the disciples at once 
 obtained knowledge of Church truths, and were trained in the 
 
Education conducted by canons and monks. 59 
 
 were most closely connected with the Bishops, Chap. 11. 
 and most venerated for their religious lives, that 
 is, the canons, and the monks, who at this period 
 were enabled by Providence to meet the pressing 
 wants of the Church. 1 This section of the clergy, 
 succeeding to the Bishops as trainers of Christian 
 youth, lay and ecclesiastical, reverently received 
 the precious inheritance from the venerable Fathers 
 of the Church, and looked upon it as a safe 
 
 duties of the ministry and in devotional habits, under their Bishop's 
 eye" (Eccles. Hist., from the year 600 to 1100). 
 
 1 " Most of the schools were in monasteries ; and the cathe- 
 drals in some countries, England and Germany, for instance, were 
 served by monks. The canons, whose government dates from the 
 middle of the eighth century, with the Rule of St. Chrodegang, led 
 a monastic life, and their houses were called monasteries. I con- 
 sider the monasteries to have been the chief means used by 
 Providence to preserve religion in those miserable times. They 
 were a refuge for learning and holiness, while ignorance, vice, and 
 barbarism overflowed the outer world. Then the old traditions 
 were followed in the sacred offices, and in the practice of Christian 
 virtues, which were handed down from the elder to the younger. 
 They also preserved the writings of earlier ages, and multiplied 
 copies of them. This, indeed, was one of the chief occupations 
 of religious houses, and without the monks' libraries we should have 
 preserved but few books" (Fleury, ibid. § xxii.). The Bishop lived 
 with his canons, thus preserving for a long time the primitive 
 tradition of episcopal life. When secular distractions put an end 
 to this pious community life, councils, led by zealous Bishops, 
 endeavoured to reform the ecclesiastical life upon the old model, 
 so that the same spirit has survived in the Church, and she strives 
 ceaselessly to repair her losses. We all know that St. Charles 
 wished to live in community life with his clergy: in short, the 
 desire has never been forgotten by the Church, and her wishes and 
 aims have always tended that way. 
 
6o Lack of originality in later writers. 
 
 Chap. ii. model for their guidance. Thus for a long time 
 the ancient Bishops continued to teach through 
 their writings. But there was a wide difference 
 between the living presence and voice, and the 
 mere written words, in themselves lifeless, and not 
 often rekindled into life by the teachers of those 
 hapless times. During the next five centuries, 
 the clergy of the second order did not attempt 
 anything original.. They merely repeated the 
 lessons and teaching which they had received from 
 the early Fathers ; * either because they knew them- 
 selves to be no masters in Israel, as the Bishops had 
 been, or because their mental activity had suffered 
 from the sad circumstances of the times, when the 
 world was filled with wars, devastation, and misery.. 
 When the invasions had ceased, and the barbarians 
 had established themselves in the countries which 
 they had overrun, the new teachers began to write 
 books which corresponded with the condition of the 
 writers. The books fell as far short of those of the 
 ancient Bishops in authority, dignity of language, 
 
 1 Fleury, speaking of the monks, says, " They studied the 
 doctrines of the faith in Holy Scripture and the Fathers, and 
 the discipline in the Canons. They had little craving for knowledge, 
 and little originality, but a profound veneration for the ancient 
 authors, confining themselves to the study of these, copying, com- 
 piling, abridging from them. We see this in the writings of Bede, 
 Babanus, and other medissval theologians ; they are wholly taken 
 from the Fathers of the first six centuries, and this was the surest 
 way to preserve tradition" (Hist. Eccles. § xxi.). 
 
Mediceval compendiums of theology. 61 
 
 and accurate thought, as the authors were inferior Chap. ii. 
 in weight and bearing to those old leaders of 
 the Church. Such works could not have the 
 stamp of originality. They were compendiums or 
 summaries in which the Christian doctrines were 
 scientifically registered. They were required to 
 furnish an easier method of learning the old 
 tradition of the Church ; with the lapse of time the 
 documents had greatly multiplied and the study 
 had become too vast. These compendiums mark 
 the epoch of scholastic theology, which may be 
 termed the characteristic work of the presbyters as 
 teachers. The first and most celebrated was com- 
 piled in the twelfth century by the Master of 
 Sentences, Peter Lombard. The idea of epitomising 
 the doctrines scattered through the vast literature 
 of ecclesiastical tradition was excellent. Those 
 documents were inevitably full of repetitions, 
 which add not a little to the student's labour. 
 But the compendiums did not confine themselves 
 to stating succinctly that which had often been 
 repeated ; they also stripped Christian doctrine of 
 all that referred to the heart and other faculties, 
 content if they satisfied the intellect. x Thus these 
 new books failed to impress mankind as had the 
 
 1 St. Bernard, St. Bonaventura, and some others, are noble 
 exceptions ; they wrote with all the dignity of the early Fathers. 
 
62 The priesthood as formed 
 
 Chap. ii. older writings. They touched a single side or 
 faculty of man's nature, not man himself. Thus 
 scholasticism acquired that narrow onesided 
 character, which separated its disciples from the 
 rest of the world ; they gave up common sense 
 for the subtleties of reason. It was a natural 
 result. It was natural that the Bishop, who 
 is not a mere teacher, but also a father 1 and 
 pastor, whose mission is not only to demon- 
 strate truth, but to make men love it, and 
 save men through it, should in his instruc- 
 tions be explicit, persuasive and searching. The 
 priest can do less ; he feels himself to be less 
 responsible ; he is content with putting truth 
 with cold exactness before disciples who almost 
 argue with him as with an equal ; 2 his method 
 is scientific; it is not persuasive, adapting itself 
 variously to various minds ; it is moulded upon 
 the objective sequence of doctrines which is 
 absolute and unvarying ; it avoids all amplifi- 
 cation ; and it introduces that element of rational- 
 
 1 St. Clement of Alexandria says, " We call those who catechized 
 us fathers. He who is taught is the son, who gathers up the sub- 
 stance of that in which he is instructed ; and in this sense 
 the Scripture says, ' My son, forget not my law' (Pro v. iii. 1)." 
 (Strom, i. 270 b.). 
 
 2 This is the reason why the doctors of these later centuries 
 followed the philosophy of Aristotle, while those of the first six 
 centuries had greater sympathy with that of Plato. 
 
by scholastic teaching. 63 
 
 ism which in the sixteenth century was fully Chap. n. 
 developed into Protestantism, 1 under which sacred 
 
 1 Protestantism, which in our time has forsaken revelation, and 
 takes its stand on pure reason (that is, on a systematic reason 
 ■which is not reason), is the full and perfect development of that 
 rationalistic element which the schoolmen introduced into the 
 Christian faith. This element of rationalism has not been without 
 its influence among Catholics, that is, among that portion of the 
 Christian world which did not venture to follow this development 
 on to its extreme point, which involves forsaking the Church and 
 revelation itself. It bore, even among these, some of the fruit we 
 might look for from such a root. In dogmatic theology it generated 
 the disputes between Catholic schools, which became irreconcilable, 
 chiefly concerning the doctrines of Grace ; while in civil and 
 canonical law, it produced such cavils as marred the usefulness of 
 the best laws. In morals, the effect was not dissimilar, for it led 
 to all that was said and done with respect to the subject of 
 probabilism, which had much to do with the lowered tone 
 of morals among Christian peoples, a falling away to be 
 attributed as much to the influx of what was called laxity, as 
 of what was called rigorism. The theological battles which so 
 greatly marred union among the clergy are too well known to 
 need dwelling on. Fleury writes thus concerning the cavils of the 
 men of the law in the thirteenth century : " Examine the Canons of 
 the great Lateran Council, and still more those of the first Council 
 of Lyons, and you will see to what an extreme point the subtlety 
 of litigants had attained in eluding the laws, and making them 
 serve as clokes for injustice, the which I call the spirit of sophistry. 
 The advocates and practitioners who were ruled by this spirit were 
 clerks, who then alone studied civil or canonical jurisprudence, 
 medicine, and the other sciences. If mere vanity and ambition could 
 suggest to philosophers and theologians such evil sophistries, over 
 which they contended ceaselessly, how much more would the greed 
 of gain excite lawyers? And what could be hoped for from 
 such a clergy? The spirit of the Gospel is sincerity, candour, 
 love, disinterestedness. These clerks, who were devoid of such 
 virtues themselves, were little qualified to teach them to others " 
 (Discours v. Hist. Eccles., § xvii.). As to the effect on morals of 
 the predominance given to human reason in the schools, Fleury 
 
64 Subsequent imitation of the schoolmen. 
 
 Chap. ii. knowledge and the religion of Christ were taken 
 from the hands of the clergy, and were completely 
 secularized. 
 
 XXXVIII. Scholastic summaries and com- 
 pendiums reached their climax of perfection in 
 the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thir- 
 teenth century. Later teachers in the schools 
 of Christianity, down to our times, while they 
 have doubtless made great advances in ^history, 
 criticism, languages, and elegance of style, have 
 done nothing for doctrine but follow the school- 
 men, repeating, glossing, abbreviating, much 
 as the teachers in the ages following the first six 
 centuries had done with respect to the Fathers. 
 Nor is this an invidious comparison ; every one who 
 
 expresses an opinion in which some do not agree: "The worst 
 result of the logical method (that is, the method which teaches 
 us to seek everywhere the pro and contra, as the schoolmen did) 
 is a despair of finding the truth, which led to the introduction and 
 authorization in morals of the probabilist opinions." The evil was 
 not their introduction, but their abuse. "In fact, this side of 
 philosophy -was not better treated in our schools than elsewhere. 
 Our doctors, having the habit of contesting everything, and of 
 finding out all probabilities, did the same as to morals, and they 
 were often tempted to stray from the right path by flattery of their 
 own or other men's passions. This was the origin of the laxity so 
 evident in the more recent casuists, which did not begin till the end 
 of the thirteenth century. Those doctors were satisfied with a cer- 
 tain calculation of proportions, the result of which did not always 
 agree with the Gospel or with good sense ; but they forced all 
 to harmonize by the subtlety of their distinctions " (Hist. Eccles., 
 dis. v. § ix.). 
 
The successors of the schoolmen. 65 
 
 looks below the surface will find it to be true. The chap. ii. 
 restoration of letters, in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries, drew the attention of men, who, for- 
 saking speculation for the charms of imagination 
 and feeling, let go the nervous fibre of Christian 
 philosophy. It died out, as before, the dignity and 
 fulness of doctrinal statement had died out. The 
 importance of the leading intrinsic reasons for 
 Christian doctrine was overlooked, though these 
 were still retained by the best of the schoolmen ; 
 just as they themselves had lost sight of the import- 
 ance of the grand and full exposition of trutb 
 in use among the Fathers. The schoolmen had 
 impoverished Christian philosophy by despoiling 
 it of all that belonged to feeling and that gave it 
 moral power. Their disciples (how should they be 
 superior to their teachers ?) curtailed it still further, 
 casting aside everything in it tbat was deepest, most 
 central, most real, avoiding its noblest principles 
 under pretext of facilitating study, but really be- 
 cause they themselves did not understand them. 
 Thus they reduced the science of religion to mate- 
 rialized formulas, isolated deductions, practical re- 
 marks such as the clergy could not dispense with, 
 if they wished to present religious matters to the 
 people, under the outward guise which had always 
 been customary in past times. And this is the 
 
66 Text-books used in seminaries. 
 
 chap. ii. fourth, and last epoch in the history of books 
 used in the schools of Christianity : the epoch of 
 theologians succeeding to school/men. By these 
 steps — Holy Scripture-, the Fathers, schoolmen, and 
 theologians — we have- come at last to those mar- 
 vellous text-books now used in our seminaries, 
 which instil so- much would-be wisdom, so poor an 
 opinion of our predecessors. These books, I believe, 
 will, in the more hopeful future days of the im- 
 perishable Church, be considered to be the most 
 meagre and the feeblest that have been written 
 during the eighteen centuries of her history. 
 They are books without life, without principles, 
 without eloquence, and without system ; 1 although 
 by a set and regular arrangement of materials, 
 which takes the place of system, they show that 
 the authors have exhausted their intellectual re- 
 sources. They are the product neither of feeling, 
 nor talent, nor imagination ; they are not epis- 
 copal nor priestly, but in every sense lay ; they 
 
 1 To cite some most learned writers, Tournely, or Gazzaniga. 
 Certainly they wrote a large, very erudite work on Grace. But 
 it is only quite at the end that they just glance at the question, 
 "In what the essence of grace consists ;" leaving it unsolved, as 
 rather a matter of curiosity than one of importance. But is it not 
 of foremost importance to know the essence and nature of the 
 thing treated of? Is it not necessary to know the nature of a 
 thing, in order to give a good definition of it ? And is not defi- 
 nition the fertile source from whence should issue all further 
 discussions on a subject ? 
 
No adequate system of training, 67 
 
 require only masters able to read mechanically, chap. ir. 
 and pupils who can listen as mechanically. 
 
 XXXIX. If the little books and little teachers 
 go together, can a great school be formed out of 
 such elements ? or can they aim at a dignified 
 system of instruction ? No. And this defect 
 of system is the fourth and last cause of the 
 Wound in the Church now under review, the 
 insufficient education of the clergy in our times. 
 We said that the habits of the clergy became de- 
 moralized when the schoolmen separated the educa- 
 tion of the heart from that of the intellect. 1 
 Later the attempt was made to correct the exces- 
 sive demoralization which had naturally ensued ; 
 and then in our well-regulated seminaries we find 
 a good, or at least decent manner of life. But the 
 root of the evil was left untouched ; no one tried 
 
 1 Fleury, speaking of the young students of the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries, says, "Dare I call attention to the customs 
 of our students, such as I have described them in my history, 
 following the testimony of contemporaneous authors ? You will 
 see that they were constantly fighting, either among themselves, or 
 with the citizens ; that their privilege was to deny the right of the 
 secular judges to try them for their misdeeds ; that the Pope was 
 obliged to concede to the Abbot of St. Victor power to absolve them 
 from the excommunication pronounced by the Canon law against all 
 such as struck a clerk ; that their disputes began, for the most part, 
 with drinking and debauchery at the common inns, often leading on 
 to violence and murder. In short, you will find the hateful portrait 
 drawn from life by Jacopo di Vitri. Yet all these students were 
 clerks, destined to serve or govern the Church " (Discours v. § x.). 
 
68 Knowledge and holiness, how related. 
 
 Chap. ii. to counteract the fatal separation of theory and 
 practice, or once more to make fathers of the 
 teachers. St. Chrysostom says, " To be a father, 
 it is not enough to have governed, but you must 
 also carefully educate a young man." 1 Nothing 
 was done beyond propping up and strengthening 
 the failing morality. But assuredly this is not 
 enough for the Church. The morality of the clergy 
 ought to spring from and be sustained by the 
 fulness and solidity of their knowledge of the 
 doctrine of Christ, inasmuch as we want not 
 merely respectable men, but Christians and priests 
 enlightened and sanctified by union with Christ, 
 This was the leading principle and foundation of 
 the system followed in the first centuries ; know- 
 ledge and holiness were closely combined, the one 
 springing from the other. It may be truly 
 said that knowledge sprang from holiness, since 
 the former was sought solely out of love to the 
 latter; knowledge, was sought after so far as it 
 was essential to holiness, and no other knowledge 
 was desired. Thus all was combined. In this 
 combination we find the true spirit of that doc- 
 trine which is destined to save the world : it is no 
 ideal doctrine, but practical and real truth. Once 
 
 l 06 t& mtipn iroiei var4pa idvov, 4\\ct xh. rb iraitievcrtu ua\&s (De 
 
 Anna, serm. i. § 3). [Ros. transl. mrttpm by "aver governato" 
 
 not accurately. — Ed.] 
 
Example of Papias. 69 
 
 take away from it its holiness, and can we believe Chap. ii. 
 that the wisdom taught by Christ remains? It 
 would be a delusion to think it ; esteeming our- 
 selves wise, we should be but fools ; we should 
 mistake a vain and lifeless shadow for the living 
 doctrine of Christ. 
 
 XL. Let us see with what a holy longing 
 after practical truth Papias, a celebrated disciple 
 of the Apostles, pursued his studies. Eusebius, 
 in his history, quotes Papias as saying, that he 
 sought not the society of those who talked much, 
 but of those who could teach him the truth. He 
 did not seek those who published abroad new 
 doctrines invented by men, but those who adhered 
 to the rules our Lord had left for the support of 
 our Faith, and observed by the Truth Himself. 
 Whenever he came upon any who were disciples 
 of the first Fathers, he eagerly gathered up all 
 their words. He would ask them, what St. Andrew, 
 St. Peter, St. John, St. Philip, St. Thomas, St. 
 James, St. Matthew had said, or any other disciple 
 of Jesus Christ, such as Aristion or the aged John. 
 For he held the teaching gathered from books to 
 be less profitable than that which he received from 
 the lips of those with whom he spoke. And he 
 noted in his writings that he was the disciple 
 of Aristion and John the aged, often quoting 
 
jo True value of oral instruction. 
 
 Chap. ii. them, and repeating things he had learnt from 
 them. 1 
 
 In this description given by Eusebius, we see 
 how strongly that characteristic of Christ's doc- 
 trine — the love of truth which improves us, apart 
 from idle curiosity — induced holy men in primitive 
 times not so much to seek knowledge, as to 
 gaze with the soul's eye into truth ; to feed 
 on it inwardly, as on living bread. Hence 
 they greatly preferred oral instruction to that of 
 books, especially as to the saored mysteries. 2 And 
 their disciples felt the practical benefit of the 
 system. One of the most valuable points in this 
 system employed by those great minds in forming 
 other great minds was that the instruction did 
 not end with the brief daily lesson. It was 
 continued in the constant intercourse of the 
 disciple with his master, of the young ecclesi- 
 astic with his venerable Bishop. This advantage 
 was lost when education was given up to the 
 
 1 Euseb., bk. iii. c. xxxix. 
 
 2 The disciplina arcani was expressly intended to prevent 
 the most sublime truths being set before those who were un- 
 worthy to hear them. Those great doctrines were only taught 
 orally, and then to none save to long-tried disciples, who had 
 proved themselves worthy by their consistent perseverance in 
 aiming at a holy life. The early writers allude to this caution and 
 reverence for revealed truth ; it is enough to cite Clement of 
 Alexandria, who speaks of it in the first book of the " Stromata," as 
 well as in other works. 
 
What teachers of the Gospel must be. 7 1 
 
 inferior clergy ; to mere instructors who were not chap. ii. 
 pastors. 1 
 
 XLI. Knowledge may be had by all, good and 
 bad. But the truth and practice of the Gospel are 
 found only among the good. Hence where know- 
 ledge only is taught, there is no need for anxiety 
 as to the morals of the teachers. But of old this 
 point was carefully investigated. The truth which 
 was to be taught was holy truth, and it was held 
 to be indispensable that he who taught it should 
 himself be holy. 2 Nor will the selection of dis- 
 
 1 Even in seeking to remedy the deficient education of the 
 clergy, the root of the evil was not reached. One remedy was the 
 foundation of universities ; but these only divided clergymen still 
 more from their Bishops, as they do still. Fleury says, " Another 
 defect in universities is, that masters and pupils are all clerks, some 
 beneficed. But they were all occupied with their studies, to the 
 exclusion of duties belonging to Holy Orders, except those in church. 
 Thus the pupils never learnt those things which are taught by prac- 
 tice — the art of instruction, the administration of the Sacraments, the 
 guidance of souls. They might have learnt these in their own coun T 
 try, by watching the priests and Bishops, and serving under them. 
 The doctors of the university were doctors and nothing more, 
 absorbed in speculation, and having full leisure to write endlessly 
 upon all manner of useless questions, which were so many subjects 
 of strife and dispute, every one seeking to subtilize more than the 
 rest. In the primitive times the doctors were Bishops, who were 
 engrossed with weightier occupations" (Discours v. § x.). 
 
 2 Another instance which shows how all things work together, 
 and the bad system involves bad teachers. How unlike the noble 
 views entertained of old of the Christian teacher ! How much was 
 required of him ! In a celebrated sermon of St. Gregory Nazianzen, 
 " Of Theology," he describes at length what he who teaches theology 
 should be : " Not every one," he says, " isfit to philosophize concern- 
 ing Divine truths ; those alone should do so who,are pure in body and 
 
72 Respect due to Sacred Truth. 
 
 Chap. II. ciples be good, where the main object is only- 
 scientific, instead of being truly moral as well. 
 Wherever, on the contrary, the wisdom of holi- 
 ness is chiefly considered, great pains would be 
 taken to remove from a school all those who are 
 not actuated by a holy desire for this wisdom. 
 This was done in early times, when a wise 
 selection of men for the service of the sanctuary 
 was easier. This was the received test which 
 showed who had a vocation or not, and the young 
 men who sought admittance into the schools, knew 
 what was expected of them, and what they came 
 to learn. Moreover holy and practical truth has this 
 superiority over merely ideal truth, that it inspires 
 respect and veneration in those who learn and in 
 those who teach, by reason of its own sacred and 
 Divine nature. And therefore such as hold the 
 sublime mission of communicating it to others, 
 ought wholly to shrink from wasting it on 
 those who are unworthy, as in so doing they 
 join in profaning its holiness. They must feel 
 the force of our Lord's words, when He for- 
 bade His disciples to " cast pearls before swine." 1 
 
 soul, or who at least seek to be such, and are advanced in contem- 
 plation of holy things "(Orat. xxxiii. and Orat. xxxix.). St. Clement 
 of Alexandria (Strom., lib. i., Pedag. in f.) treats at length of the 
 disinterestedness, the spiritual light, and the holiness necessary for 
 those who would teach sacred things. 
 1 St. Matt. vii. 6. 
 
Alexandrian reserve in teaching. 73 
 
 For this reason the primitive teachers, as de- Chap. ii. 
 scribed by Clement of Alexandria, " made long 
 trial, choosing from among their pupils the one who 
 was most apt to listen to their words ; watching 
 his conversation, his way of life, his movements, 
 his dress, his manner, and investigating whether 
 he were sand or rock, or trodden footpath, or 
 fertile ground, or thicket, or good field, fruitful 
 and well tilled, wherein the seed might multiply." 
 " They imitated Christ," says the same St. Clement, 
 " in that He did not reveal to the many those 
 things which were not meant for the many, but to 
 the few, for whom He knew they would be suit- 
 able ; because these could not only receive but 
 model themselves upon them ; that is to say, they 
 could correspond to the truth which they received 
 in their minds, by the rectitude of their lives." 1 
 According to this plan, there would be but few 
 priests. Well; Clement makes no other answer 
 to this objection save, " Pray ye the Lord of the 
 harvest, that He would send forth labourers into 
 His harvest." 2 
 
 XLII. Another result followed from the prin- 
 ciple, that " ecclesiastical instruction should convey 
 the living Word of Christ, and not human and 
 lifeless words." All the sciences were voluntarily 
 
 1 Strom., lib. i., 273 c. sqq. 2 Strom., lib. i. 
 
74 Spirit of early Christian instruction. 
 
 Chap. ii. subject to religious truth. In it they found 
 a point of unity ; and thus they paid their debt 
 of service and homage to Christ, and the minds 
 of men were better disposed to appreciate the 
 beauty and value of Gospel wisdom. There were 
 not in those days two educations ; one pagan 
 and the other Christian ; one teaching profane 
 science in a profane spirit, and the other teaching 
 ecclesiastical science ; one opposed and hostile 
 to the other. Young men were not corrupted by 
 an infusion of the spirit of heathen authors, and 
 by crooked and worldly aims in work which were 
 later on to be counteracted and corrected by the 
 maxims of the Christian Church. One sole aim was 
 set before them, and one only doctrine was to guide 
 them, that of Christ ; and thus even profane studies 
 did but serve to strengthen their faith. It was 
 owing to such a system that we find Origen 
 coming forth from the school of Pantsenus, and 
 Gregory Thaumaturgus from the school of Origen. 1 
 
 1 St. Jerome says that Origen made use of profane knowledge to 
 lead into the faith the philosophers and learned men who came to 
 hear him (D. V. M. c. 54). In the oration delivered by Gregory 
 Thaumaturgus (the most illustrious of Origen's disciples), at the 
 close of his studies, he describes the method by which Origen had 
 trained him; by which it appears that the first step had been the 
 correction of his manners, passing on to various sciences all so 
 ordered as to strengthen and mould the pupil's faith. Origen used 
 no compendiums, but read all the chief philosophic writings with 
 
Unity of early Christian instruction. 75 
 
 XLIIL At the same time that all education Chap - il 
 gained unity by the unity of its principle, and 
 the single aim of really Christian studies, all 
 other studies were completed and perfected by 
 its means. All was gathered together, especially 
 Eeligion ; her secret mysteries, her profound prin- 
 ciples, her noble precepts ; in a word, her whole 
 system. There were no arbitrary exclusions, 
 no unjust preferences of one point of doctrine to 
 another. The Word of Christ was loved ; it alone 
 was sought ; and hence the desire to discover 
 in it all that could be explored. And inasmuch as 
 men sought in that Word the hidden life, it was 
 
 his pupil, pointing out to him wherein they were in error and 
 wherein true. After these preliminary studies, by which he formed 
 the young man's mind, he inspired him with a longing for the 
 highest and most perfect doctrines ; and ended by setting the Holy 
 Scriptures before him, by which he was to attain to the doctrines of 
 God. I know that in our day we cannot give up compendiums, but 
 I know, too, that we shall never do anything with them alone ; we 
 shall not even succeed in starting the student on the highroad of 
 true learning. Their true use is to sum up briefly what has been 
 studied fully in great authors ; these must be read and explained. 
 Certainly all cannot be read, but some part may be ; and that part 
 will suffice to inspire the student, to give him an idea of the 
 grandeur of Christian knowledge, even as from the foot of Hercules 
 it could be seen what the whole man was. — But in this way we 
 should not get even the outlines of science in general ? — If mere out- 
 lines are required, no doubt these may be found in compendiums : 
 this, and no other, is their proper use. The knowledge which such a 
 system will give the student will be as though a painter's disciple 
 saw his master design a picture and partly colour it, leaving the 
 pupil to finish it after his master's style of colouring. 
 
7 6 Improvement only possible through 
 
 Chak ii. communicated amidst prayers and tears, and sacred 
 services : whence was derived the grace that 
 supernaturally fed with the light of truth souls 
 that were craving for righteousness. 1 
 
 1 St. Clement of Alexandria, when discussing the acquisition of 
 knowledge, always joins thereto the Sacraments of Christ. He would 
 have the Master not a mere teacher, but a husbandman giving all his 
 thought and care to the delicate plants he tends. He adds, " There is 
 a double tillage — one without books, another with them. In both 
 systems that husbandman of the Lord who has sown good seed, 
 watched the ears grow, and gathered in the harvest, will be indeed 
 a labourer for God. The Lord says, ' Labour not for the meat that 
 perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life eternal.' We may 
 understand by that meat food, and also the Word. Of a truth 
 blessed are the peacemakers who draw those hitherto lost in error 
 from their miserable condition, teaching them what is true, and 
 leading them into peace, which is found in the Word, and in the 
 life of God ; blessed too are they who feed with good food those 
 who hunger after righteousness " (Strom., i. 272 c). Here we see 
 how this disciple of the Apostles united together the giving of bread 
 with the teaching of the Word ; he had before compared instruction 
 with the Eucharist. He always describes the teacher of holy things 
 in a similar way — saying that he should be a heavenly labourer, 
 a pastor, a minister of God, and as he says soon after, " even one 
 with God Himself ! " Origen, Clement's disciple, holds the same 
 language. "None," he says, "should listen to the Word of God 
 who is not sanctified in body and soul, since he is shortly to enter 
 in to the wedding feast ; he is to eat the Flesh of the Lamb, and to 
 drink the cup of salvation " (In Exod., Horn. xi.). Is not this a 
 noble union of the Divine Sacrament with the Word ? One more 
 passage from the same author ; it is in a Homily taken down from 
 his lips : " O ye who are wont to be present at the Mysteries, well 
 do ye know with what care and respect ye receive the Body of the 
 Lord, fearful lest the least particle should fall, since ye would 
 esteem yourselves most guilty, were the smallest crumb to be lost ; 
 and if ye use so many precautions to preserve His Body, think ye 
 it is less guilty to despise His Word ? " (In Exod., Horn, xxiii.). 
 
the united action of the Bishops. J "J 
 
 XLIV- Ah, who will restore such a system ohav. II. 
 to the Church, the only system worthy of her ? 
 Who will restore to the schools of the priest- 
 hood their great books, and their great teachers ? 
 Who, in a word, will heal the deep Wound 
 of an insufficient education of the clergy, which 
 daily weakens and grieves the Bride of Christ ? 
 None can do it save the Bishops. Theirs is the 
 commission to rule her ; theirs the miraculous 
 gift of healing her when she is sick : but it is 
 theirs when they are united, not when divided and 
 scattered asunder. We need for this great work 
 the whole episcopal body joined together in one, 
 both in will and deed. But it is precisely this 
 union which is lacking in these evil times among 
 the Pastors of the Holy Church. And herein lies 
 the third Wound of the Church, which is by no 
 means less cruel than those of which we have 
 already spoken. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 <&i t&e MounK tit ti)e gbftrc of tlje f^olg eD&uttfc, 6o^tc5 
 
 is tljc Disunion of tfjc 23tsIjops. 
 
 XLV. Before the Divine Founder of the Church 
 left the world, He prayed His Heavenly Father 
 that His Apostles might be joined together in 
 a perfect union, even as He and the Father were 
 perfectly One, having one and the same Nature. 
 This sublime union, of which the God-man spake 
 in His wonderful prayer after the Last Supper 
 and just before His Passion, was chiefly an inward 
 unity, a unity of faith, of hope, of love. But to 
 this inward unity, which can never be wholly 
 wanting in the Church, there should correspond 
 an external union ; as the effect follows on its 
 cause, as the expression on the thing expressed, as 
 the fabric embodies the type or design to which it is 
 due. " One body and one spirit," the Apostle says. 1 
 
 1 Eph. iv. 4. 
 
Unity of the Apostolic Church. 79 
 
 This includes everything ; inasmuch as the body chap. hi. 
 signifies union in the- sphere of external and visible 
 things, and the spirit union in respect of things 
 which are invisible to our bodily sight. He adds, 
 " One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and 
 Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, 
 and in you all." L Here, once more, is the Unity 
 of the Divine Nature set forth as the momentous 
 foundation of that union which should exist among 
 men ; those scattered believers whom Christ has 
 gathered under His wings, " as a hen gathereth her 
 chickens," and has formed them into His one 
 Church. Here too is the ground of that unity in 
 the Episcopate of Christ's Church, of which the 
 first Bishops thought so highly, and of which St. 
 Cyprian treats so eloquently in his book " on the 
 unity of the Church." 
 
 XLYI. Very remarkably did the Apostles 
 maintain this twofold unity. As to the inward 
 unity, they shared in common one and the same 
 doctrine, and one and the same grace. As to 
 outward unity, one among them was first, 2 and the 
 origin of the one Episcopate, as the great Bishop 
 and Martyr of Carthage says, which all possessed 
 
 1 Eph. iv. 5, 6. 
 
 2 "Deus unus est" (so writes St. Cyprian in a letter), "et 
 Christus unus, et una Ecclesia, et Cathedra una super Petrum, 
 Domini roce fundata" (Ep. xl.). [Ed. Fell, xliii. ad plebem]. 
 
80 Strength resulting from sense of unity. 
 
 Chap. in. in its entirety. 1 To one alone was given in par- 
 ticular that which was given to all in general, and 
 upon one, as upon a single and individual rock, 
 was built that Church of which all, together with 
 him, were equally the foundation. 2 
 
 XLYII. The consciousness of this perfect Unity 
 in the hierarchy, in itself the beautiful expression 
 and faint reflection of their inward spiritual union, 
 strengthened the first successors of the Apostles. 
 Scattered as they were throughout the world, 
 they yet felt themselves to be a single commis- 
 sioned authority. Thus they realized the Divine 
 Ideal of a beneficent Power, which, like Grod 
 Himself, was found everywhere. This wonderful 
 unity they knew to be the last heritage of Christ 
 to His chosen ones, before His death ; that is, 
 before He shed the blood which sealed this His 
 new and eternal testament. Of a truth, the 
 unity of His chosen ones, typified in the Eu- 
 charistic Bread and in the seamless garment 
 which covered His Sacred Flesh, was the ulti- 
 mate aim of the prayers of Christ, the desired 
 fruit of His infinite sufferings. For He had 
 asked of the Father, " Keep through Thine own 
 
 1 " Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis pars in solidum 
 tenetur " (Lib. de Unit. Eccles. § 4). 
 
 2 [But cf . Langen, Vat. Dogm. p. 13, sqq. ; Hussey, Rise of Papal 
 Power, Leot. I. ; Maoaire, Theol. Dogm. Orth. ii. p. 246 sqq. — Ed.] 
 
Unity, how maintained. 81 
 
 Name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they Chap. hi. 
 may be one." 1 
 
 XLYIII. This great idea of Unity having 
 entire possession of the minds of the early Bishops, 
 and still more of their hearts, they neglected nothing 
 which might bind them together. They were not 
 content that all should maintain an absolute oneness 
 of Faith, and an equal love for the body of Pastors. 
 They went further, — and this was of the highest 
 importance to the wise government of the Church — 
 they desired nothing more ardently, they had, we 
 may say, nothing more at heart, than a perfect 
 unanimity of action. Any one who considers the 
 vast extent of the Church's rule — scattered as she 
 is among all nations — cannot but marvel to behold 
 everywhere such unity of doctrine, of discipline, 
 even of usages ; while the points of difference are 
 few and unimportant. 
 
 XLIX. But whence arose this Unity ? How 
 was it rendered permanent ? 
 
 1. By the personal intercourse of the Bishops. 
 It began for the most part before they became 
 Bishops, as a natural consequence of the lofty 
 type of education of those great men from among 
 whom the Church selected her prelates. They had 
 
 1 " Pater sancte, serva eoa in Nomine Tup quos dedisti Mini : 
 ut sint ununij sicut et Nos " (St. John xyii. 11). 
 
 G 
 
8 2 Constant personal communication 
 
 Chap. hi. generally been fellow-disciples under other great 
 Bishops, 1 or they had sought to become known to 
 each other by journeys arranged for that especial 
 purpose. In those days men did not spare long 
 and wearisome journeys, in order to obtain the 
 sight of any one celebrated for his holiness and 
 his teaching, to enjoy the privilege of hearing 
 him, and of sharing his intercourse. This was 
 because in those times it was held that books 
 alone did not suffice for wisdom, in the sense 
 then attributed to the word, which was, not a 
 barren knowledge, but a living intelligence, a deep 
 feeling, a practical conviction. On the contrary, 
 it was believed that the presence, the voice, the 
 
 1 For instance, St. John Chrysostom was trained under St. Mele- 
 tius of Antioch, and Socrates records that the holy Bishop, perceiving 
 the good dispositions of the youth, kept him ever at his side, bap- 
 tizing him after three years' instruction, appointing him reader, 
 and later ordaining him subdeacon and deacon. With St. John 
 Chrysostom, were Theodorus and Maximus, who later became 
 Bishops of Mopsuestia in Cilicia, and Seleucia in Isauria. Diodorus 
 who trained them in the ascetic life, was Bishop of Tarsus. Basil, 
 St. John Chrysostom's friend, was early raised to the Episcopate. 
 Here we find a whole nest of Bishops, who had been friends before 
 they attained that dignity. To take an instance from the West. 
 Look at the School of St. Valerian of Aquileia : — at the time he 
 visited St. Jerome, besides Heliodorus who was later a Bishop, that 
 school contained many learned and pious priests, deacons, and 
 lower ministers, such as the celebrated Rufinus, Jovinus, Euse- 
 bius, Nepotian, Bonosus, etc. It is well known that the house, 
 or rather the monastery of St. Augustine in Africa was a nursery of 
 future Bishops. 
 
among teachers in the Ancient Church. 83 
 
 gestures, even the commonest actions of great men 1 chap. hi. 
 had a virtue which communicated itself to others ; 
 a virtue able to kindle sparks of fire in young 
 minds which, without such contact, would remain 
 passive. St. Jerome went from Dalmatia to Rome 
 to seek his early education ; thence he travelled in 
 G-aul, visiting all the well-known men who dwelt 
 there ; thence on to Aquileia in order to hear the 
 Bishop St. Valerian, around whom were gathered 
 so many celebrities. After that he went to the 
 East to see Apollinaris at Antioch, enrolling him- 
 self among the disciples of G-regory Nazianzen 
 at Constantinople. Later on he did not esteem it 
 unworthy his grey hairs to learn that truth, which 
 in those days was sought after to the last hour of 
 life, from the lips of the blind Didymus of Alex- 
 andria. At that time, men travelled over half the 
 world, only that they might thoroughly understand 
 a single point of the Church's doctrine. Take, 
 as an instance, the priest Orosius, who went from 
 Spain to Africa in order to learn from St. Augustine 
 how best to confute the heresies then infesting 
 the Church. He was referred by Augustine to 
 
 1 This is still more the case in the order of supernatural things. 
 The saints communicate and pour forth the spirit of holiness on all 
 those around them ; as Christ Himself has declared in those words, 
 " He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his 
 belly shall flow rivers of living water " (St. John vii. 38). 
 
84 Correspondence between Bishops. 
 
 Chap. hi. St. Jerome, whom he then sought in Palestine. It 
 was thus that the priests of those ages studied 
 theology, and thus that the leaders among the 
 clergy diligently kept up their mutual intercourse. 
 L. 2. The second means by which episcopal 
 unity was preserved was the constant intercourse 
 maintained by correspondence even between 
 Bishops who lived widely apart from each other. 
 The means of communication were very different 
 from those in our times. It surprises us to find 
 Vigilius, Bishop of Trent, sending as a gift, accom- 
 panied by a friendly letter, part of the relics of 
 the Martyrs of Anaunia to St. Chrysostom at Con- 
 stantinople, and the other part to St. Simpli- 
 cian at Milan. Besides the letters of private 
 friendship that passed between the Bishops, the 
 Churches wrote one to another, especially the chief 
 Churches to those which were subject to them. 
 In this pious correspondence both the presbytery 
 and the people took part; the treasured letters 
 were reverently read in public on festivals. In 
 thus acting they were following the example of the 
 Apostles. Witness the Epistles of St. Peter, St. 
 Paul, St. John, St. James, and St. Jude, yet 
 preserved to us in the Canon of Holy Scrip- 
 ture. "Witness, too, the letters of the Pontiffs, 1 
 
 1 [This epithet is an anachronism. — Ed.] 
 
Common life of the Holy Body. 85 
 
 St. Clement and St, Soterius to the Church of Chap. hi. 
 Corinth, as also the epistles of St. Ignatius, and 
 of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, to various 
 Churches, specially that of Rome ; 1 together with 
 many more. 
 
 LI. 3. Another means of preserving unity was 
 the frequent visits of the Bishops to one another, 
 either from zeal in the affairs of the Church, or 
 in order to a mutual interchange of affection. 
 A Bishop's zeal was not confined to his own special 
 charge among the Churches ; it was yet greater 
 for the Church Universal. He knew that he 
 was a Bishop of the Church Catholic, 2 and 
 that a diocese can no more be severed from the 
 whole Body of the faithful than can a limb from 
 the living human body. Every member of\ 
 
 1 Among other things in this letter of Dionysius to the Roman 
 Church, the saint says, " This day we kept the holy feast of the 
 Lord's Day, and we read your letter, which we shall read continually 
 for our instruction, as well as those previously written to us by 
 Clement" (Buseb., Eccles. Hist., lib. iv. c. 23). We know of seven 
 epistles written by that eminent Bishop of Corinth to the faithful 
 qi different Churches, i.e. besides that to the Romans, one to the 
 Lacedaemonians, the Athenians, the Nicomedians, the Church of 
 Amastris in Pontus, the Church of Gortyna in Crete, and to the 
 Gnossians also in Crete. Still better known are the six beautiful 
 epistles of St. Ignatius which we yet possess— to the Ephesians, the 
 Magnesians, the Trallians, the Romans, the Philadelphians, and 
 the Smyrnians. So far did the relations between these holy Bishops, 
 their priests and people extend ! 
 
 1 They always signed themselves with this denomination. 
 
86 Comparative isolation of modern Bishops. 
 
 Chap. hi. the human body must needs be supplied by the 
 blood which flows through the whole body, pene- 
 trating to each extremity by means of arteries, 
 veins, and capillaries. This blood perpetually 
 passes from one vessel to another, so that it is 
 impossible to say that" any portion belongs to one 
 arm or leg ; since it belongs to the whole body. 
 So it is with other vital juices which circulate 
 through the frame ; the simultaneous action of 
 the various parts produces a single result, namely, 
 life. In this life each particle of the body 
 shares, not as having a life of its own, but 
 because the life of the body is the life of each of 
 its members. Thus, too, in the Catholic Church, 
 each individual diocese must live by means of 
 the life of the Universal Church, keeping up a 
 continual living intercourse with it, and receiv- 
 ing from it healthy influences. Any member 
 that separates itself, becomes as one that is life- 
 less. If free communication with the whole 
 Church is hindered, a languid feeble life only 
 remains as a natural consequence. So it would be, 
 were an arm tightly bound round with cords, which 
 must needs impede its movement and sensation ; or 
 if it were paralysed or stiffened with cold, so 
 that circulation was hindered, and all living func- 
 tions arrested or suspended. But such notions as 
 
Frequency of provincial councils. 87 
 
 these are strange to the greater part of our clergy, chap. in. 
 And the result is that we have Bishops, who are 
 rarely to be seen at the further boundaries of their 
 dioceses, and who suppose themselves to be satis- 
 factorily fulfilling their episcopal duty if they 
 have not failed to appear on the usual formal 
 occasions in their cathedral churches, or in their 
 seminaries ; if the external management of the 
 diocese is somehow provided for, so that there are 
 no complaints from the laity ; and finally, if they 
 have outwardly gone through all the functions 
 of the " Pontifical " or of the " Ceremonial " * pre- 
 scribed for Bishops. 
 
 LII. 4. Unity is secured by frequent gatherings, 
 especially in provincial Councils. Unity of will 
 and unity of intention are essential to the unity 
 of the Church ; and these are not promoted by 
 the exercise of individual authority. This too 
 often provokes an element of invidious or hostile 
 feeling, which causes less of enlightenment than 
 of irritation. Wherefore the Apostle himself said, 
 
 1 St. Cyprian writes thus of the Bishop's office in caring for the 
 Universal Church : " Copiosum corpus est sacerdotum concordise 
 mutuse glutinsa atque unitatis vinculo copulatum, ut si quis ex 
 collegio nostro hseresim f acere, et gregem Christi lacerare et vastare 
 tentaverit, subveniant cseteri. Nam etsi pastores multi sumus, 
 unum tamen gregem "pascimus, et oves universas, quas Christus 
 sanguine suo et passione qusesivit, colligere et fovere debemus " 
 (Ep. 68, ad Steph.). 
 
Consideration due to the laity. 
 
 Chap. iit. " All things are lawful unto me, but all things are 
 not expedient." 1 
 
 Hence also it arose that the wishes of the 
 people were constantly ascertained. In those days 
 the people may be said to have been a faithful 
 counsellor to the Church's rulers. 2 An account 
 was rendered by the Bishop to the people of all 
 that he did in the government of the diocese. 3 
 This consideration for the popular wishes when- 
 ever it was practicable — a course in itself so 
 charitable — was well suited to the spirit of 
 Episcopal government. This lofty and powerful 
 
 1 1 Cor. vi. 12. 
 
 2 Fleury says, "Everything in the Church was done with 
 counsel, so that reason, rule, and the will of God, might alone bear 
 sway." "Assemblies have this advantage, that there is always 
 some one present able to point out the right course, and to lead 
 others to see it too. Thus mutual respect is produced ; — men are 
 ashamed to be publicly unjust ; and those whose virtue is weakest 
 are upheld by others. It is not an easy thing to corrupt a whole 
 assembly ; but it is an easy thing to gain one man, or whoever 
 rules him ; and an individual decision is apt to be biassed by per- 
 sonal feelings, which have no counterbalancing influence. No 
 Bishop took any important measures without the council of pres- 
 byters and deacons, and the chief among his clergy. Often too 
 the whole people were taken into council, when they had an interest 
 in the transaction, as in the case of ordinations " (Discours i. § 5). 
 
 3 St. Cyprian used to give account to his people of all that he 
 did ; and when, in the times of persecution, he could not do so per- 
 sonally, he still did the same by letters, some of which are still 
 extant (see Bp. 38, Pam. 33). Two centuries later, St. Augustine 
 did the same. In his sermons he tells them all the wants of the 
 Church, and gives a minute report of his doings. These sermons, 
 355, 356, are specially worthy of attention. 
 
Consideration of Bishops for presbyters. 89 
 
 rule is so unlike that of earthly kings, inasmuch Chap. hi. 
 as it is only thus powerful for good, and not. for 
 evil. Its very essence is the adornment of humi- 
 lity, modesty, and vast charity. It must be 
 above all things just, and strong by means of 
 its gentleness. 1 Hence _also arose the intimate 
 union of Bishops with their presbyters, whose 
 advice they sought in every matter concerning 
 the government of the Church. The presbyters 
 had a share in plans and measures, which were 
 carried out according to the general wish, and 
 the object and reasons of which were thus under- 
 stood by those who were to give them practical 
 effect. 2 Hence also those Councils in which all 
 
 1 Meury says, " Such heed was paid to the assent of the people, 
 in the first six ages of the Church, that if they refused to accept 
 a Bishop, even after his consecration, they were not constrained, and 
 another more acceptable was provided " (Disc. i. § 4). St. Augus- 
 tine gives the reason in these words, addressed to his people : " We 
 are Christians for our own sakes, and Bishops for yours " (Serm. 
 359). 
 
 2 St. Cyprian, writing to his clergy from his place of concealment 
 in time of persecution, accounts for not having answered a certain 
 letter written by some of his priests, by saying that he was alone : 
 "And I determined from the beginning of my Episcopate to do 
 nothing by myself, without your counsel and the assent of the 
 people " (Ep. 14). This determination was founded on Apostolic 
 example. Remember the Apostolic proceedings as to the election 
 of deacons. Assuredly the Apostles had power to elect whom they 
 would. Yet with what gentleness and consideration they set the 
 matter before the faithful, that they might nominate those fittest 
 for the office ! " Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven 
 men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom 
 
90 The Metropolitans and the Pope. 
 
 Chap. hi. the Bishops of a province met twice a year, 1 as 
 so many brothers, to discuss their common in- 
 terests, to take counsel respecting difficulties occa- 
 sioned by particular cases, and to unite in framing 
 such measures as were best calculated to put an 
 end to disorders. They decided causes ; they 
 appointed successors to deceased Bishops. These 
 successors were not only known but acceptable to 
 them, and they thus contributed to preserve the 
 perfect harmony of the Episcopal body. Hence 
 also the greater Councils of several provinces, 
 and national and (Ecumenical Councils. 
 
 LIII. 5. Unity was preserved by the authority 
 of the Metropolitan who presided over the Bishops 
 of a province, and by that of the Chief Sees to 
 which several provinces and Metropolitans were 
 subject. By this well-ordered system of eccle- 
 siastical government the Body of the Church was 
 admirably united and bound together. There 
 was no risk of its high offices becoming merely 
 honorary and useless. 
 
 LIV. Lastly, unity was, above all, due to the 
 
 we may appoint over this business " (Acts vi. 3). " And the saying 
 pleased the whole multitude," Holy Scripture says further, and they 
 chose the seven first deacons of the Church. 
 
 1 The Fifth of the twenty disciplinary Canons of the Council of 
 Nicea ordains that in every province the Council should be held 
 twice a year. 
 
Moral elements of unity. 91 
 
 authority of the Supreme Pontiff, the chief stone Chap. hi. 
 of the Episcopal edifice — ever and alone im- 
 movable ; and therefore the true foundation-stone, 
 securing to the whole Church militant identity 
 and endurance. All Bishops and Churches had 
 recourse to him in every need, as to their father, 
 judge, teacher ; as to a centre, a common source 
 [of authority]. From him persecuted pastors 
 received consolation, and those who were pillaged 
 and despoiled received alms ; and the faithful of 
 every nation, nay, the Catholic world, found at 
 his hands light, direction, protection, safety and 
 peace. 1 
 
 LV. Such were the six golden links forming 
 that powerful chain, which, in the better days of 
 the Church, bound together the Episcopal body. 
 Grolden they were, in truth, forged out of no other 
 material than that of holiness and love ; of faith- 
 fulness to the pattern of Christ's Word and to the 
 Apostolic examples ; of zeal for the Church which 
 was founded by the Blood of Christ, and by Him 
 entrusted to the Bishops' hands ; of fearfulness 
 and trembling, because ever conscious of the in- 
 
 1 [This is inaccurate. In the earliest times no such authority 
 as the Papacy existed in the Church ; and when it was developed, 
 after the fall of the Western Empire, the assertion of its claims 
 occasioned the division of East and West. — Ed.] 
 
92 The Bishops enter on political life. 
 
 Chap. hi. exorable account to be one day required by that 
 same Lord, the Invisible Head and Pastor, Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 We have seen that the invasion of the bar-i 
 barians, who overthrew the Boman Empire, gave 
 rise within the Church to one of those new periods 
 which may be described as periods of movement. 
 At such times the Church rose and made a fresh 
 advance. There was developed in her a new 
 activity, which had hitherto lain dormant from 
 lack of any exciting cause. When aroused it 
 exercises a new influence on mankind, and pro- 
 duces a new series of beneficial results. 
 
 The character which marked the period of 
 which we are treating was that of " the intro- 
 duction of Bishops into political government." 
 The end which Providence had in view in so 
 great a change, may surely be said to have been 
 that the Eeligion of Christ should penetrate the 
 innermost recesses of society, and should by 
 ruling sanctify it. This end was attained, inas- 
 much as the order of Providence is unfailing 
 and sure. But it was attained at the cost of 
 serious evils. The human means, with which 
 Providence deigns to work, are all necessarily 
 limited and imperfect. And in addition to those 
 already enumerated, one noteworthy evil was the 
 
The Church not a merely human society. 93 
 
 disunion of the Episcopate. This sharp spear Chap. hi. 
 went far to tear the breast and pierce the very- 
 heart of the loving Bride of Jesus Christ. 
 
 LVI. Let us trace the steps by which so bitter 
 a trial came about. But first let me say a word 
 concerning the laws according to which Grod 
 tempers the vicissitudes of His holy Church, 
 There is both a Divine and a human element in 
 the Church. The eternal plan is Divine. And 
 the chief means whereby that plan was carried 
 out — the Redeemer's aid — is also Divine. Divine, 
 too, is the promise that this aid shall never fail ; 
 that the holy Church shall never be left without 
 light to know the true Faith, or without grace 
 to practise holiness, or without a Supreme ProT 
 vidence disposing of all earthly things as they 
 affect her. But besides this the principal element, 
 there are other and human elements which take 
 part in carrying out the designs of Grod. This is 
 inevitable, since the Church is a society composed 
 of men, and of men who ever, while they live, must 
 be subject to the imperfections and ills of humanity. 
 Thus the human element of this society obeys the 
 ordinary laws which regulate the course of all other 
 human societies, in its development and in its 
 progress. And yet those laws to which human 
 societies are subject cannot be altogether applied to 
 
94 Epochs of movement and of repose. 
 
 Chap. iii. the Church, precisely because it is, not a purely 
 human society, but also, in part, Divine. Thus, 
 for instance, the law that " Every society be- 
 gins, advances to its perfection, and then fails 
 and perishes," is not wholly applicable to the 
 Church, which is sustained by a Power far out 
 of the reach of human vicissitudes. That Infi- 
 nite Power repairs her losses, and pours new 
 life into her when she is faint. And thus this 
 singular and unique society does not move in the 
 sphere of the ordinary life of human societies, 
 simply because it contains an element which is 
 extraneous and superior to all societies that are 
 merely human. In a word, the Church is as 
 lasting as the society of the whole human race, 
 which, created contemporaneously with man, will 
 not perish until the last individual of the species 
 perishes. 
 
 Since, then, other particular societies are 
 formed, destroyed, and formed again, they have a 
 period of destruction succeeding a period of for- 
 mation, to be succeeded in its turn by another 
 period of new formation. But these periods of 
 organization, and of crisis, cannot be applied to 
 general human society, nor to the Church of 
 Jesus Christ, both of which endure perpetually. 
 They are only applicable to the accidental conditions 
 
Destruction and reconstruction. 95 
 
 of either : these alone are organized, destroyed, Chap. hi. 
 and re-organized. The moment in which the 
 presiding force of organization begins to act, may- 
 be called the epoch of movement \ that in which the 
 work of organization is completed, the stationary 
 epoch. The Church fihds herself by turns in these 
 two epochs ; at one time moving towards some 
 new and mighty development, at another resting 
 as though she had come to the end of her journey. 1 
 LYII. We may make a further remark with 
 respect to the laws which govern the progress of 
 society, as applied to the Church. In ordinary 
 societies reconstruction succeeds to destruction; the 
 tendency is to build up after a better fashion that 
 which has been destroyed. But in the Church de- 
 struction and formation are contemporaneous. Not 
 that, as elsewhere, the same object is destroyed and 
 reconstructed, but that while one order of things 
 is destroyed, another is formed. Let us take as 
 
 1 Let us distinguish, two epochs, and two periods. The point at 
 which a new order of things begins, is the epoch of movement ; the 
 point at which that order of things is formed, and sufficiently- 
 established, is the stationary epoch. Between these two epochs 
 there is a period in which society works at its own organization 
 with a view to perfecting the new order of things, and this we may 
 call the period of organization. This organization completed, and 
 thus the stationary epoch having arrived, human affairs cannot 
 remain motionless, and consequently there speedily arises a move- 
 ment in the opposite direction, that is to say, towards destruction, 
 and this we may call the period nf crisis. 
 
96 Engrossing character of secular business. 
 
 Chap, in, an example that memorable period when the in- 
 vasion of the barbarians * forced the clergy to 
 take part in temporal government. This epoch of 
 movement in the Church of G-od is the principal 
 object which claims our attention. 
 
 At that time the movement in the Church, the 
 new order of things which was being organized, 
 was the sanctification of civil society. This society, 
 hitherto pagan, was to be converted to Christianity ; 
 that is, it was to conform all its laws, its consti- 
 tution, and even its habits, to that new code of 
 grace and love, the Gospel. But simultaneously 
 with this progress there was the destruction of 
 a former order of things, and a retrograde 
 movement within the Church. The new move-, 
 ment which the Church carried into civil society f 
 brought with it the evil alluded to, namely, that 
 
 1 There were many causes which forced the clergy against their 
 will into temporal affairs. Fleury writes, " The Romans had a 
 profound hatred and contempt for their new masters (the bar- 
 barians), who were not only rough and fierce, but were also heathens 
 or heretics. On the other hand, the people increased in trust and 
 respect for the Bishops, who were all Romans, and for the most 
 part members of noble and wealthy houses." He adds, " In course 
 of time, however, the barbarians became Christians, and helped to 
 fill the ranks of the clergy, among whom they introduced their 
 own customs ; so that not only clergymen, but even Bishops became 
 hunters and warriors. They also became territorial lords, and as 
 such were obliged to attend the assemblies which regulated State 
 affairs, and which were at once Parliaments and National Councils " 
 (Fleury, Discours vii. § v.). 
 
Reaction from an "epoch of movement." 97 
 
 the Episcopate was withdrawn from its natural Chap. hi. 
 duties, Instruction and Worship, x and was 
 plunged into a sea of secular business. Such 
 occupation was, for the clergy, an untried, unfore- 
 seen temptation. Its danger was easily foretold, 2 
 but in resisting it they as yet possessed no experi- 
 ence. Hence, in course of time, human nature 
 failed under the severe trial : the standard of holi- 
 ness among the clergy was lowered, and the best 
 customs, and traditions of the Church perished. 
 This was the work of destruction which worked 
 on side by side with that of organization. Such, 
 I repeat, is ever the measure of human capacity. 
 We find it even in the Church, which in its pro- 
 gress and development is subject to havoc and 
 change. 
 
 LVIII. And what follows? When the in- 
 tended organization has been effected, when the 
 
 1 In Apostolic times, -when the question of "serving tables" 
 arose, the Apostles appointed seven Deacons, to fulfil that office, 
 saying of themselves that " it was not reason " that they should 
 undertake temporal affairs. They singled out the two ^truly Epis- 
 copal functions with the words, "Nos vero orationi, et ministerio 
 verbi instantes erimus" (Acts vi. 4). Prayer corresponds to Worship 
 and Preaching to Instruction. 
 
 2 This is proved by the fears expressed in the writings of St. 
 Gregory, and the other Bishops, who were the first to be dragged 
 into secular affairs. Little by little these fears and lamentations 
 died away among the clergy, a symptom that they were gradually 
 becoming attracted by worldly business. 
 
98 Epochs of. repose in Church history* 
 
 Chap. in. period of destruction has been traversed, and has de- 
 voured all that seemed to be given up to it by Pro- 
 vidence, then for a short time it appears as if this 
 completed destruction would imperil the very exist- 
 ence of the Church, and that the yawning abyss 
 would also swallow up all which had been won 
 and organized. In such a predicament the Church 
 is troubled, her faith hardly sustains her. In 
 her extreme perturbation she turns with piteous 
 supplications to her Divine Master, Who is asleep 
 in the storm-tossed vessel ; until the moment when 
 He shall awake, and control both the wind and the 
 sea. By this time experience has been gained. The 
 fatal effects of the principle of destruction have 
 been exhibited, and at last the remedy is sought. 
 Then begins the new period in which an attempt 
 is made to repair the breaches wrought in -the noble 
 vessel during her long and difficult voyage, It 
 is a stationary epoch ; for these repairs do not 
 advance the Church, they do not secure to her 
 any new development. They merely restore her 
 so far as she may have suffered in her fatiguing 
 journey. But meanwhile she has traversed a long 
 reach of her course, and when the imperishable 
 vessel is repaired, she must once more confront 
 new seas, and gales, and storms. 
 
 LIX. Providence has so ordered and ruled the 
 
A new epoch possibly opening. 99 
 
 Church, that the force of organization is ever Chap, til 
 stronger within her than the destructive force. 
 The two forces always act simultaneously, so 
 that events may come to pass speedily, and no 
 time may be lost. 1 When their work is once 
 finished, there may succeed within the Church a 
 season of repose. In this she neither makes 
 much progress, nor attempts great enterprises, 
 hut -she may diligently seek to repair her 
 breaches, until the time comes for her to weigh 
 anchor, and once more start on a sea of perils. 
 For many centuries after the memorable year 
 1076, and with renewed vigour since the Council 
 of Trent, she has laboured earnestly at the work 
 of careful restoration in Church discipline and 
 practice. Who knows if we are not now ap- 
 proaching a time, when the great vessel will once 
 more leave her shores, and unfurl her sails for the 
 discovery of some new, possibly larger continent ! 2 
 
 1 We may perhaps find an exception to this law only in the 
 first six centuries. Then the force of organization was alone in 
 operation, but antagonism was not lacking, and opposing forces 
 worked from without the Church, through heathen society. 
 
 2 Thus to the period of destruction, a period of reparation 
 succeeds. This reparation concerns, not the motion, but the 
 condition of the Church. Contemporaneously with destruction 
 we find a period of organization ; this belongs to movement, it is 
 a time of enterprise. Then there follows a weariness — the time 
 of rest. Thus in the time of movement there are two very 
 active forces at work, one building up, the other pulling down. 
 
ioo How Episcopal unity was impaired. 
 
 Chap. hi. LX. To resume, in the preceding chapters we 
 have considered the indefatigable activity of the 
 destructive force which worked upon the Church 
 'with respect to the education of the people and of 
 the clergy * during the centuries immediately fol- 
 lowing the first six. Let us now see how this 
 unfriendly force operated so as to dissolve the 
 union of the Episcopate. 
 
 The first successors of the Apostles, poor and 
 unknown, communicated with one another in 
 the simple manner which the G-ospel inspires, and 
 which is the expression of the heart alone. It is 
 thus that man imparts himself to his fellow-man, 
 and it is thus that the conversation of Grod's servants 
 is so easy, attractive, useful, and holy. Such was the 
 conversation of the first Bishops. But when they 
 became surrounded and hedged in by temporal 
 power, it became difficult to approach them. Worldly 
 ambition invented fixed titles and a code of outward 
 usage, exacting from men as the price of communi- 
 cation with their Prelates, at least a considerable 
 sacrifice of self-love, if not some degradation, be- 
 cause some insincerity and falsehood. At last things 
 
 In the time of rest, also, two forces are in operation, but neither 
 with much energy. The one seeks to repair losses, the other injures 
 afresh, but rather from carelessness than from design ; much as 
 one who, having built a house, neglects to keep it in good repair. 
 1 Chaps, i. and ii. 
 
Intercourse embarrassed by ceremonial. 101 
 
 reached a point when the intercourse of ordinary Chap. hi. 
 Christians with the heads of the Church was 
 thoroughly complicated by empty questions of form, 
 which, in fact, often admitted of no reasonable or 
 possible solution. The Pastor's mind, instead 
 of being devoted to meditating on sublime truths 
 and to devising wise counsels, was distracted with 
 the study of all these new rights and claims 
 within the Church, which arose from the new 
 code of usages. Hence the character became 
 suspicious, anxious, and disingenuous, from precau- 
 tions and from recriminations. The complication 
 increased, and henceforth an assembly of Bishops, 
 naturally so kindly and unassuming a meeting, ne- 
 cessitated long and serious consideration, inasmuch 
 as before taking part in it, a man required a long 
 study of the accompanying ceremonies, a long 
 purse to meet the expenses, an abundance of spare 
 time, and great strength to endure the fatigue 
 and weariness of the etiquette, which alonq was 
 sufficient to kill feeble old men. 1 
 
 LXI. Such hindrances separating the Bishops, 
 
 1 Fleury says, " The Bishops' intercourse was carried on as 
 between brothers, with much love and little ceremony ; and the titles 
 of Holiness, Venerable, etc. , with which they addressed one another, 
 are to be attributed to the custom which had been introduced at 
 the fall of the Roman Empire, of giving to every one the title suited 
 to his condition " (Discours i. § v.). 
 
io2 Unity of Bishops impaired 
 
 Chap. hi. and surrounding them with an atmosphere of 
 estrangement, were a sure sign that ambition had 
 made its stealthy way into their hearts. And 
 what could be a more powerful source of division * 
 and even of schism, than ambition, which is never 
 found without its satellites, the lust of wealth and of 
 power ? It is an unfailing fact in Church history, 
 that, "- wherever an Episcopal see has been joined 
 for any length of time to a considerable temporal 
 power, causes of discord are also sure to follow." 
 An example occurs at once to the mind in 
 Constantinople. Not a century after its foundation, 
 the Bishops of the New Rome, grown powerful 
 through being neighbours to the Emperor, sought 
 to overreach the most ancient and most illustrious 
 sees of the Church, and after many struggles they 
 succeeded in obtaining the second post of honour. 1 
 But not content with this, they entered into a 
 rivalry with Rome, which resulted in the fatal 
 Greek schism. 2 Thus the loss of the East to the 
 
 1 In the [(Ecumenical. — Ed.] Council of Constantinople, a. d. 381, 
 that see obtained the post of honour next to Rome, to which her 
 self -appropriated name of New Borne contributed not a little. 
 
 2 It was the protection of the State which encouraged these 
 Archbishops to rebel against Borne. They succeeded in obtaining 
 from the Emperor an ordinance called the Type by which they were 
 withdrawn from the authority of the Roman Church. [Muratori, 
 Scrip. Rer. Ital. ii. 149 ; iii. 145. Ducange, «.d.-Eb.] This docu- 
 ment was afterwards given up to Pope Leo II. when they submitted. 
 
by their temporal grandeur. 103 
 
 Church may be plainly traced as one of the terrible Chap. hi. 
 consequences of the annexation of temporal power 
 to the See of Constantinople. 1 In the West we find 
 an instance in the Exarchate of Ravenna, esta- 
 blished in the sixth century. Its Archbishops 
 speedily grew indocile and insubordinate to Rome, 
 and were at last only reduced by extreme measures. 2 
 But above all other sources of discord and disunion 
 in the Western Church, were the numerous Anti- 
 popes who arose; and, finally, the great Western 
 schism, in the fourteenth century, which even after 
 its extinction left deep roots of division and hatred 
 among Christian nations. These germs of evil won 
 new life through all that took place on occasion of 
 the schism from the ever-memorable Councils of 
 Pisa, Constance, and Bale. It was this schism which 
 paved the way for the defection of the North 
 from the Church, a century later. Although now 
 extinct outwardly, it still exists, its ill-omened spirit 
 works continually under the disguise of Gallicanism 
 
 1 [It would be more accurate to read ' Rome ' for ' Constanti- 
 nople,' in this sentence. But the excellent author is only repeating 
 the traditional Roman account of this passage of history. — Ed.] 
 
 2 Ravenna returned to obedience under Pope Donnus, a.d, 677. 
 These Archbishops rebelled again, a.d. 708, and it was by a dispen- 
 sation of Providence that this Exarchate came to an end, having 
 existed only 180 years, through the means of Astolfus, King of 
 Lombardy, who destroyed it a.d. 752. Thus Divine Providence 
 made use of these barbarian invaders of the Church's territories, 
 to consolidate the Roman dominion by destroying that of Ravenna. 
 
104 Ancient reasons for "Nolo Episcopari." 
 
 Chap. hi. and Aulicism : and its fruits are the ill-advised 
 ecclesiastical enterprises of an Emperor and a Grand- 
 duke ; the blind ambition of four German Arch- 
 bishops, who, contending with the Apostolic See, 
 the only and faithful protector of their temporal 
 dominions, lost those dominions ; and all that was 
 wished, said and attempted more recently, in a 
 Catholic Capital, in order to establish there a Patri- 
 arch and to produce a fresh schism in the Church. 
 LXIL We cannot wonder at the miserable 
 divisions which tear the breast of the Spouse of 
 Christ, if we reflect that, whereas the first Bishops 
 who were constrained to plunge into temporal con- 
 cerns were so holy-minded, so imbued with the true 
 episcopal spirit, that they did this with pain and 
 tears, such was by no means the case with all their 
 successors. Those who were animated by the secu- 
 lar temper, the love of money and of power, were 
 thereby widely removed from the Episcopate of 
 earlier days. It was poor, and it spent itself in 
 preaching the Gospel and in tending souls. For the 
 office involved little save labour and care ; often- 
 times persecution, exhaustion, and martyrdom. 
 So great was the courage and the spirit of 
 self-sacrifice which it demanded, that men might 
 well say, in the words of St. Paul, " If a man 
 desire the office of a Bishop, he desireth a good - 
 
General secularization of the clergy. 105 
 
 work." 1 But holy men of old shunned the office Chap. hi. 
 for a very different reason. They saw in it a dignity 
 altogether Divine, such as it wears to the eye of faith, 
 to which God alone could call and raise them; while, 
 possessed by a humble estimate of themselves, they 
 did not deem, themselves endowed with the high 
 qualities required by so great and sacred a ministry. 
 Thus it came to pass that, as no candidates 
 for the Episcopal sees offered themselves, the 
 Church was free in her choice. She herself 
 sought, without prejudice, the holiest men, un- 
 fettered as she then was by the inclination of 
 electors, or the manoeuvres of candidates. The result 
 was that such men as were pre-eminent for holiness 
 and learning were elected. But this desirable state 
 of things was changed as soon as the Episcopate 
 ceased to be a purely spiritual power, and under- 
 took the administration of great wealth and the 
 cares of temporal government. The office then be- 
 came an object of dread and avoidance to holy men. 
 They shrank earnestly from it, even binding them- 
 selves with vows in order to elude the charge; as did 
 those Apostolic men under Loyola, 2 who, some 
 
 1 1 Tim. iii. 1. 
 
 2 Many have found fault because religious orders have done so 
 much in the Church, ■without being Pastors, and even with privi- 
 leges which to a great extent set them free from Episcopal authority. 
 But is it not evident that this was a means whereby it pleased God 
 to strengthen His Church, at the very time when her Bishops were 
 
106 Degradation of the Episcopate. 
 
 Chap. .Hi. three hundred years since, founded a company 
 of indefatigable labourers in the Lord's Yineyard. 
 At the same time, there arose only too many 
 candidates for the Episcopate with which it might 
 well have dispensed ; namely, all who were seeking 
 a worldly fortune, and against whom all easier and 
 better opportunities for. making one were closed. 
 
 Then arose the formal and materialized de- 
 votion of the upper class of the clergy ; and among 
 the lower, the virtue of dexterous management of 
 business and knowledge of the Canon Law, in- 
 stead of zeal and earnestness in wielding the 
 sword of the Divine Word, and in guiding souls 
 heavenward. Henceforth the lords and princes of 
 this world looked on the larger and wealthier sees 
 merely as rewards for their ministers and flatterers-, 
 or as provision for their younger or illegitimate 
 children. That which had at first been done from 
 an instinct of inconsiderate covetousness, became 
 before long a political system, well-nigh a re- 
 cognized State procedure. I might cite almost 
 any Christian nation in Europe as an illustration. 
 
 distracted by secular dignities ? Evidently the mission of the 
 Mendicant Friars in the thirteenth century, and that of the Eegular 
 Clerks in the sixteenth, was to fill up and supply that which was 
 left undone by those who are but too fitly called the secular 
 clergy. [The later history of the Jesuit order shows that the secular 
 spirit was not a monopoly of the secular clergy. — Ed.] 
 
Its union destroyed by worldly ambition. 107 
 
 Attentive study will show in each case that the Chap. hi. 
 final confusion in the Church's government had 
 its beginning in the spirit and maxims- which 
 during its later years prevailed in the republic of 
 Venice. There all the Bishops were younger sons 
 of patrician families. They must apparently have 
 received their vocation to the Episcopate before 
 they were born. For they were condemned to be 
 Bishops before their birth by rapacious, cruel, pre- 
 sumptuous men ; who, by way of compensation for 
 this treatment, would dispense the Pastor of Christ's 
 Church from his most sacred duties, willingly 
 consenting to see him lead a life of ignoble 
 indolence, or of still worse dissipation. Could we 
 expect among such Bishops as these, to find large 
 endowments of love and moral strength, and that 
 truly pastoral union which springs from a mutual 
 zeal for the welfare of Christ's dear Spouse, the 
 Church, and from a wisdom which grows deeper 
 and stronger by the force of concurrence in com- 
 mon rules and by uniformity of action ? 
 
 LXIII. It was easy to bind together in close 
 intercourse and hearty friendship, men who had 
 but one object and aim, that of the progress of 
 mankind in truth and goodness. Truth is uni- 
 versal and immutable. A union among men which 
 aims at that heavenly blessing cannot but be 
 
108 Union of worldly Bishops impossible. 
 
 Chap. hi. itself universal. There need be no limit to the 
 number of its members. "When it is bound together 
 by truth, it cannot fail to be firm and enduring ; it is 
 not to be overthrown by trials, or by the changes 
 and chances of life. Such was the brotherhood 
 of the early Bishops. Its aim and bond was evan- 
 gelical truth ; Grod Himself was its foundation. But 
 when a man's mind turns towards worldly wealth, 
 and his aim is the enjoyment, and consequently the 
 preservation and increase of such wealth, he ceases 
 to be free. He can no longer be wholly devoted 
 to that Chief Good Who can be freely shared by 
 all without taking away aught from any, Whose 
 value is wholly contained in Himself and not 
 derived from anything external or changeable. 
 Then men become unreal; they have no longer the 
 power to be heartily loyal in their social relations, or 
 to contract a lasting, indissoluble friendship with 
 each other. Their intercourse cannot but be 
 conditioned by circumstances. Whatever maybe the 
 outward formalities and the conventional signs of 
 a restricted affection, there is always an under- 
 stood limit to union. It is shackled with fears, 
 cautions, and reserves, which greatly weaken it, 
 and altogether change its nature. "If at all, 
 with whom ? how ? how far ? is not union contrary to 
 other interests ? what is the object or the conditions 
 
Bishops involved in secular struggles. 109 
 
 of such union ? " these questions are always under- chap. hi. 
 stood to be asked. If, then, these rich and 
 powerful Bishops are not paragons of extra- 
 ordinary virtue, but rather men whose hope 
 and longing through life has been to gain a 
 wealthy see, what must be the inevitable result? 
 What can we expect from such successors of the 
 Apostles ? Who can doubt that their anxious 
 efforts will be devoted to their temporal power 
 and possessions? Content with the sufficiency of 
 their worldly position, they cannot feel any burning 
 desire to maintain spiritual intercourse with other 
 Bishops. Absorbed in secular business, they have 
 neither time nor inclination for earnest corres- 
 pondence on Church questions, which moreover 
 requires a different frame of mind, and other studies 
 than theirs. If perchance they do attempt some sort 
 of union and intercourse, it is certain to be em- 
 barrassed with all the hindrances alluded to above, 
 of fashion, persons, rank, and season ; and it 
 will not be allowed to interfere with the Pre- 
 lates' convenience, to disturb their comfortable 
 ease, or to run the least risk of lowering their 
 secular grandeur. 
 
 LXIV. Church history shows that the Bishops, 
 having become possessed of temporal baronies, 
 soon quarrelled among themselves. They were 
 
1 10 Episcopal character lowered by the world. 
 
 Chap. in. involved in factions, in wars, and in all the 
 horrible discords which for whole centuries dis- 
 tracted the world. These discords were cruelly 
 hurtful to mankind, fatal to the Church whose 
 very foundation is love, and painfully scandalous 
 where men are concerned to whom Christ has 
 said, " Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the 
 midst of wolves." 1 Yet it was but natural that 
 such Bishops, having become a constituent part 
 of the political body, possibly its most influen- 
 tial part, and clinging eagerly to their temporal 
 fortunes, should be involved in the struggles 
 and contentions which perpetually embroiled the 
 great personages of the world. For riches and 
 power are of themselves occasions of conflict, 
 whether for those who seek to keep what they 
 have, or those who take offensive measures to 
 add to it. Thus the holy, continuous, uni- 
 versal union of the early Bishops came to an 
 end, and was succeeded by partial and temporary 
 unions, such as arise out of secular interests, 
 mere confederations, leagues and factions. What a 
 difference 1 Could the unity of the Episcopal 
 body be preserved thus? Was it not inevitable 
 that little by little that general isolation of 
 Bishops should take place, which, unhappily, 
 
 1 St. Matt. x. 16. 
 
Results of frequenting Royal Courts. 1 1 1 
 
 is one of the deepest and most cruel wounds Chap. hi. 
 which ceaselessly afflict the Church of God ? 
 
 LXV. It is evident that Bishops who are 
 immersed in secular affairs must continually 
 mingle with princes and great personages. It 
 is also evident that this intercourse cannot 
 long continue, without leaving on the Bishops an 
 impress of the manners and customs of the world. 
 This impress is seen in their personal tastes, their 
 households, their dwellings. Moreover it is clear 
 that a worldly habit of life is widely different from 
 the life of the Church. Any man who adapts 
 himself to the pomp, the turmoil, and license of the 
 one is likely to shrink from the lowliness, the 
 regularity, and the strictness of the other. Thus 
 it was inevitable that a Prelate who was taken 
 up with worldly greatness, should be dis- 
 inclined to return to the poor of his flock, and to 
 his inferior clergy, and to devote himself to .the 
 lowly offices of the Church and the special 
 care of souls. He would prefer the society of 
 great persons in the world to that of his Episcopal 
 brethren, as being more lively, less critical, and, 
 according to his views, more profitable. 
 
 LXVI. Hence such Pastors forsook their 
 dioceses, not merely in order to attend parlia- 
 ments or national Councilsj but because they pre- 
 
H2 Degradation of courtier-bishops. 
 
 Chap. in. ferred residing near royal Courts, whence the 
 voice of many Councils vainly sought to recall 
 them. 1 And what had they to do at such Courts ? 
 Some, perhaps, sought to share in their pleasures ; 
 some to seek aggrandizement of that earthly pros- 
 perity which always kindles insatiable longings 
 in the heart of man ; others to satisfy their vanity, 
 by receiving homage and appearing great in the 
 eyes of men. They mingled, perhaps, in the 
 tricky and rough work of politics ; or they even 
 made war on the Church herself, on her doctrine, 
 or on her discipline ; or they filled the infamous post 
 of spies, satisfying personal animosities against 
 their brethren in the Episcopate, or kindling a 
 perfidious and sacrilegious war against their com- 
 mon father and master, the Roman Pontiff ; or they 
 basked with their degraded natures in the prince's 
 smile, perhaps flattering him, winking at his in- 
 famous pleasures, or his ruthless enterprises, with 
 
 1 In the year 341 the Council of Antiooh, not content with con- 
 demning Episcopal residence at Court, treats it as an almost unknown 
 irregularity, and ordains that no Bishop, priest, or other clerk, 
 should even pay an ordinary visit to the Emperor without letters of 
 permission from the Bishops of the province, signed by the Metro- 
 politan ; and whosoever infringed this ordinance of the holy Council, 
 should be excommunicate, and deprived of his office. Such was the 
 holy jealousy of those times for the freedom of the Church ! such 
 the fear of contagion from earthly greatness ! In a.d. 347 the Council 
 of Sardica ordained that Bishops should not go to Court even for 
 charitable objects, but that they should send one of their deacons as 
 a commissioner. 
 
The Gospel a force in politics. 113 
 
 good-natured indulgence ; or, worse, they blessed Chap. hi. 
 such enterprises, and sanctioned such pleasures 
 with a Bishop's solemn words — thus prostituting 
 the Gospel and all the ordinances of religion. 1 
 Would that I were speaking of mere possibilities ! 
 Of all my statements there are too many terrible 
 illustrations to be found in history. There they are, 
 written in clear, indelible characters, which neither 
 the bitter tears of the Church nor long-continued 
 efforts to obliterate them can ever efface. 
 
 LXVII. Doubtless one end for which Provi- 
 dence permitted the ecclesiastical power to gain 
 so much influence in civil governments was to 
 provide mediators between the governors and the 
 governed, between the strong and the weak. The 
 Churcb, after preaching for six centuries submis- 
 sion and unexampled meekness to the weak, was to 
 teach the strong how to moderate the use of power. 
 She was to subject rulers to the Cross, and, through 
 the Cross, to justice, thus making them ministers 
 of justice and beneficence to the people of God, 
 and not merely judges of earthly things. This 
 
 1 The history of the tyrant Christian of Sweden, and his adula- 
 tory Bishops, is a sufficient illustration. The Church owes her loss 
 of that nation to such Prelates ; and the same may be said of Ger- 
 many and England. [Whatever the character of some of Henry 
 VIII. 's Bishops, the English Reformation is due to causes inde- 
 pendent of any individuals concerned in it. — Ed.] 
 
114 Idea of the Christian Monarchy. 
 
 Chap. iii. office of the ecclesiastical power, this noble mission 
 of Christ's Church, was exercised by many Bishops, 
 who maintained the truth, or, as Holy Scripture 
 has it, the testimony of Grod, before kings. Amidst 
 the perversion of many among their brethren, 
 such Bishops were never wanting. The first out- 
 breaks of fierce resentment were often braved by 
 them.. Crowned monarchs were taught the exist- 
 ence of a moral power, utterly unlike their own 
 merely material resources* That peaceful, gentle 
 power could, nevertheless, direct and rule brute 
 force. Although hitherto unheard-of, it issued 
 in the Christian legislation which occasioned 
 so many struggles, which was the object of so 
 many reproaches and calumnies, which led the 
 Pontiffs of the Middle Ages to fight the battle 
 of the people against kings, and the result of 
 which was a wholly new sovereignty, a monarchy 
 of an entirely new character, the Christian mon- 
 archy. Thus the Eternal God willed that the 
 savage government of earthly lords should be 
 modelled upon the peaceful rule of the Church's 
 Bishops, and that slavery should cease in the 
 Christian world, since the Church of Christ owns 
 only sons ; that arbitrary power should cease, 
 since the Church's power is holy and reasonable ; 
 and, finally, that the few should no longer treat 
 
What the Church once did for the people. 1 1 5 
 
 the many as mere machines, because the Church's Chap. hi. 
 power is but a ministry and a service by which 
 the few sacrifice themselves for the good of 
 their fellow-men. All this G-od secured for man 
 through Christ; He secured it by the course of 
 events, and, where events failed, it was won by 
 the public condemnation of those who acted in a 
 contrary sense, and who were not screened from 
 condemnation by a great position. Hence the pre- 
 cepts of the Grospel, taking possession of the public 
 mind, laid the foundation of a new general feeling 
 which dealt justice freely to monarchs, and that 
 with a severity not to be found save among Chris- 
 tian nations. But this noble mission of the clergy 
 is over ; the period of the conversion of society 
 ended in the sixteenth century. At the present 
 time everything proves that a new epoch is before 
 the Church, which during the last centuries has 
 been labouring to amend her minutest defects. 
 A clergy which has become the slave and flatterer 
 of princes can no longer mediate between those 
 princes and the people who reject its mediation ; 
 and thus arise such times as our own, when irre- 
 ligion and impiety prevail. The Church's power 
 is out of joint ; it is no longer an intermediary 
 between the legal power of kings and the moral 
 power of the people. Absorbed by tbe former, it 
 
n6 Impotence of the modern Church. 
 
 Chap. in. becomes identified with, it ; and the royal power 
 itself loses its natural character. It is double-faced, 
 cruel on one side, fraudulent on the other ; pre- 
 senting here a military aspect, there a clerical one. 
 And so the world is overdone with military forces 
 and with an excessive number of useless ecclesias- 
 tics. Kings are face to face with the people; they 
 have either to receive a capital sentence, or, worse 
 still, to pronounce it. There is no longer any one to 
 give counsel, to join the two parties together, to bless 
 their contracts, and receive their oaths, now faith- 
 less and unsanctioned ; both sides fear and threaten, 
 they make ready for battle, and in a battle every- 
 thing is at stake. Who can be surprised if, when 
 in Russia, Germany, England, Sweden, Denmark, 
 and other countries, princes 1 once Catholic, under 
 the tyranny of some caprice or passion, chose 
 to declare themselves the religious heads of the 
 nation, and to separate their realms from the 
 Church, they found no resistance from the Epis- 
 copate ? or, if on the contrary, they found among 
 the Bishops their most active servants in carrying 
 out their designs of racking the Body of the 
 Holy Church? These schisms existed practically 
 before they were actually made : there was only 
 
 1 [This is rhetorical. Russia was never in communion with 
 Rome. And the incidents of the Reformation do not admit of this 
 general description. — Ed.] 
 
Bishops becoming mere courtiers. 1 1 7 
 
 the addition of some external forms, a change of ohap. hi. 
 name ; the ecclesiastical power which alone could 
 have prevented them, had already ceased to exist ; 
 it was lost in the temporal power. Bishops 
 had ceased to be Bishops, in order to become 
 courtiers ; they were not only disunited among 
 themselves, torn with jealousies and rivalries, but 
 they had also separated themselves from their 
 head, the Roman Pontiff, and from the universal 
 Church, preferring to be united as individuals to 
 their sovereign. Thus they had renounced the 
 law of their existence, in preferring to be the slaves 
 of men clothed in soft raiment, rather than the 
 free Apostles of the Christ, despoiled of His 
 garments. Alas, what a spectacle the Catholic 
 nations present at this day ! Where would be 
 the union and the disinterestedness of our Epis- 
 copate, if a sovereign were to think of separating 
 himself from the unity of the Church ? 
 
 LXVIII. Observe, too, that even if the degra- 
 dation of the chief Pastors stops short of such 
 extremities (yet there is no standing still, and 
 every social good and every social ill is developed 
 with time, and reaches its extreme point gradu- 
 ally), still the obsequious adherence of Bishops 
 to princes, and their continual immersion in 
 secular business, tended throughout to diminish 
 
1 1 8 Political Bishops becoming merely national. 
 
 Chap. iit. union among the Episcopal body. It was in- 
 evitable tbat the Bishop who was minister to his 
 prince, or wbo at all events had a powerful 
 influence in political affairs, should use great 
 circumspection in his dealings with men around 
 him, not excepting his Episcopal brethren. He 
 would naturally become cautious, reserved, silent, 
 difficult of access. Thus every political party in 
 the nation, every successive system of adminis- 
 tration, helped to divide the Episcopal body and 
 break it up into sections. These sections might 
 indeed hold together externally in times of public 
 tranquillity, since the ancient ecclesiastical forms 
 of brotherhood and love are still retained. But 
 nevertheless they are inwardly split asunder 
 all the more disastrously because they are 
 superficially covered with the cloak of pastoral 
 harmony. What, again, can we say of the union 
 of Bishops of different nations ? Having prac- 
 tically ceased to be Bishops of the Church Catholic, 
 they are no longer more than national Pontiffs ; 
 and, as the Episcopal order has changed to a mere 
 magistracy, an office like any other political office, 
 the Bishops treat each other as strangers, making 
 peace and war, truce or strife with one another, 
 and even with the Church of Grod. As early as the 
 fifteenth century this strange scandal was seen 
 
Representation of nations in Councils, i rg 
 
 in the Church, when a Council was assembled, Chap. hi. 
 divided into nations. 1 The authority committed 
 by Christ Himself to His Bishops to be judges 
 in the faith and masters in Israel was practically 
 denied. The dogmatic controversies of Chris- 
 tianity were decided, not by the Bishops' votes, 
 but by the votes of " nations." At each meeting 
 of " nations," the laity voted with the Bishops and 
 priests. Disastrous forerunner of the diets and 
 congresses of secular princes which took place in 
 Germany in the sixteenth century on the question 
 of Reformation, and of the decisions through which 
 so many civil magistrates, undertaking to judge in 
 religious matters, ended by renouncing the faith 
 of their fathers ! The Bishops had lost their 
 voice in the decision, it was swallowed up by the 
 lay power. After that, who can wonder at the 
 constitutional priests of France, or at the mon- 
 strous system of its" national Church! 
 
 LXIX. Yes, indeed ! the natural 'end is a 
 national Church, when the Episcopate ceases to be 
 regarded as a body of pastors and only as a first 
 estate ; when it has become a political magistracy, 
 a council of State, an assembly of courtiers. 
 And this nationalism of Churches, which existed 
 
 1 [Lenfant, Concile de Constance, ii. 46. Hallam, Midd. Ages, 
 ii. 42.— Ed.] 
 
120 The Pope and national Bishops. 
 
 Chap. hi. in fact before it was formally acknowledged, is 
 opposed to, and destructive of all Catholicity. 1 
 How can the head of the Church Catholic, 
 jealous for the well-being of the Bride of Christ, 
 make common cause with such national or royal 
 Bishops ? Is not this at once an ample reason 
 for the limit placed by the Roman Pontiff to the 
 Episcopal power, and for those Pontifical reserves 
 which have occasioned so many quarrels, and so 
 much calumny ? 2 What other means were there 
 of saving the Church amid the divisions of her 
 Bishops, and the general dissolution of her consti- 
 tuent elements, but that of concentrating strength 
 and energy at her centre ? Was it not an urgent 
 necessity that in such circumstances the head of 
 the Bishops should gather up in his own hand 
 the reins which they had let fall in so cowardly 
 
 1 [But of. Freeman, Norman Conq., i. 31. — Ed.] 
 
 2 Thus the French kings took it into their heads that, when a 
 Bishop of the State died, they succeeded to his rights as patron 
 of benefices, etc. Is it desirable for the Church that the rights of 
 Bishops, reduced to such a condition, should be extended ? Is it 
 not better that they should be diminjshed, so that the Church may 
 preserve at least some remains of her liberty, and may say to a king 
 as Gregory IX. wrote to the Emperor Frederick II., " Esto quod 
 in collatione beneficiorum morientibus succedas, ut dicis, Episcopis : 
 majorem in hoc ipsis non adipisceris potestatem " (cf. Oderic Ray- 
 nald, ad ann, 1236). These words were addressed by the Pontiff to 
 a sovereign who claimed a greater right over a vacant see than had 
 its living Bishop ! The French lawyers, called " pragmatists," 
 assert that, even if the king neglects to appoint to the vacant 
 benefices, and so ruins the souls of his subjects, his rights still 
 remain .goodj; and- the vacancy cannot be otherwise filled. 
 
The Papacy in 1832. 121 
 
 a fashion, lest the chariot of heaven should be Chap. hi. 
 hurried into the whirlpool ? In truth, if the 
 Church yet retains any particle of liberty (and 
 without it, she can no more exist than a man 
 without air to breathe), it is not to be found 
 among Bishops who are subject to Catholic 
 princes ; it is concentrated in the Roman See. We 
 may perhaps except such liberty as the Church 
 enjoys in the United States of America, or in other 
 Catholic countries, where it yet has some modified 
 existence. I say advisedly " some ; " for every- 
 thing possible has been and is being done, in 
 order to drag the Roman Pontiff into the chains 
 of the general slavery. If he is free, he is only 
 free from day to day. He is wearied with perpetual 
 struggles ; he is free, but like Samson in the midst 
 of the Philistines, on condition that he is per- 
 petually and with a mighty effort bursting through 
 the bonds which are continually woven around 
 him. He is yet free in spite of all the transactions 
 on which he is constrained sorrowfully to enter 
 with " the kings of the earth who stand up, and 
 the rulers who take counsel together, against the 
 Lord, and against His Anointed." 1 Because he is 
 free, and indomitable, and upheld by a more than 
 human strength, therefore the " nations furiously 
 
 1 Psalm ii. 2. 
 
122 The Pope, why exposed to general opposition. 
 
 Chap. hi. rage together, and the people imagine a vain 
 thing." Therefore the whole world rises against 
 him ; hell launches all its weapons against that 
 impregnable fortress, and all dissensions among 
 men are speedily quieted, so soon as they unite 
 together against the visible Head of the Church. 
 And therefore it is, that the Roman Bishop, the 
 common father, is an object of such hatred, not 
 only to the heretic and the impious, not only to 
 monarchs and rulers, but, in their secret hearts, to 
 Bishops, and to a clergy who are " national " and 
 courtier-like ; for he is the only obstacle they en- 
 counter in the destructive course on which they 
 have entered, whether from ignorance, weakness, 
 prejudice, corruption, or diabolic malice, — a course 
 which leads to apostasy, to the betrayal of Christ, 
 and to the despair of Judas. Yet they will not 
 perceive it ! Amid the sorrows which surround 
 the Spouse of the Redeemer, the faithful disciples 
 of a Betrayed Master would indeed be comfortless, 
 had He not said before His Agony, " Thou art 
 Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, 
 and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 1 
 
 1 S. Matt. xvi. 18. [In passages like the foregoing the excellent 
 writer's Ultramontanism blinds him to the fact that the secular 
 spirit, which, as he says, has so degraded sections of the Episcopate, 
 has been equally fatal to many Popes. What is gained by concen- 
 trating power in the hands of a Julius II. or a Leo X.I Quis 
 custodiet ? — Ed.] 
 
Bishops as stipendiary barons. 123 
 
 LXX. Another deplorable result of this false chap. iit. 
 position of the Bishops, which divided them more 
 and more, from each other, was the jealousy of 
 their sovereigns. As they became temporal lords, 
 they incurred jealousies, and shared in vicissitudes 
 like the nobility. When the Government feared 
 or strove with the lay lords, the Bishops suf- 
 fered even more. Thus they were more and 
 more watched and circumscribed in their work, 
 fettered at every step, shut in and guarded as 
 prisoners, not only within the State, but within 
 their dioceses. Divisions among them were fos- 
 tered for State reasons ; they were hindered from 
 attending Councils, and from meeting together ; 
 they were subjected to endless humiliations. 
 Their political power soon fell with that of the 
 nobles. But, weaker than the nobles, they were 
 more easily plundered of their baronies, which 
 the nobles grudged to them. The measure of 
 their degradation was filled up when they were 
 made stipendiaries. Of the centre of Christian 
 unity nothing was said ; it was a thousand miles 
 away. Every dissension between the Bishops 
 and their chief was encouraged ; the tares were 
 sown ; rebellion was upheld, promoted, and re- 
 warded. Thus the Pope,_ the father of fathers, 
 the supreme judge of the Faith, the universal 
 
124 Appeals to the Pope disallowed. 
 
 Chap. in. teacher of Christians, could no longer communi- 
 cate freely with his brethren and sons, with men 
 commissioned by Christ to govern the Church 
 with him. and under him. He could not correct 
 them, or summon them before his tribunal. Nor 
 could his oppressed children appeal to him for 
 redress. 1 His decisions in matters of faith, in 
 questions of morals, were submitted, before their 
 promulgation, to a lay tribunal, which assumed 
 superiority over all ecclesiastical tribunals. Nay 
 
 1 When the clergy had acquired great temporal wealth, the 
 sovereign assumed to dispense it, and to convey it to the Prelate, 
 who received it from the king as a gift, according to the wording 
 of the forms of Investiture of the Middle Ages. On such occa- 
 sions the king exacted an oath from the Prelate, by which he was 
 made to promise whatever the sovereign pleased. Eadmer (Hist. 
 Novorum. lib. ii.) relates among other things, how William II. of 
 England made new Prelates swear that they would neither appeal to 
 the Pope, nor go themselves to Borne without his sanction. All 
 Christians have the right of appeal to the Head of the Hierarchy, 
 as part of the intrinsic constitution of the Church, and opposition 
 to it is an attempt to destroy the Church. If abuses creep in, these 
 should be remedied, but the appeal itself should be intact. In like 
 manner, every Christian should have free access to the common 
 father, the Roman Pontiff — these are the rights of Christianity. 
 Rulers should defend, not destroy such rights ; and to hinder them, 
 under the pretext of evil consequences, is destruction. It is true 
 also that, under the pretext of putting a stop to these evil conse- 
 quences, princes introduced temporal despotism into the Church, — 
 a mere brute force, where moral force alone should rule, — thus 
 securing impunity for their wickedness. [This language, like that 
 in the text, iB only accurate if the Papal supremacy be a part of the 
 revealed will of God. English Churchmen must necessarily regret 
 it, as weakening the argument of the chapter. — Ed.] 
 
Work of the lawyers in recent ages. 125 
 
 worse, they were submitted to a prince, who was Chap. hi. 
 no Jew or Turk, but a baptized Christian, and 
 consequently a son and a subject of the Church. 1 
 She had taught him his faith, and he had vowed 
 at his Baptism to support her. As her son and 
 subject, he was as liable to be warned, rebuked, 
 punished as any other of the faithful. The Church 
 does not respect persons. All men are really 
 equal before the laws of Jesus Christ. At length, 
 as time advanced, a new department of police was 
 specially organized for ecclesiastics. It proved 
 to be a most minute and irritating system, under 
 which the Catholic clergy suffered a martyrdom 
 like that of the early Christians, who were covered 
 with honey, and then exposed to the sun, to die 
 a lingering death from the countless stings of flies, 
 wasps, and gadflies. Such a system as this could 
 not be perfected all at once. The vast edifice was 
 the slow, tedious, and learned work of the lawyers, 
 those subtle flatterers of all rulers. But the first 
 general idea of this achievement of earthly power 
 was naturally suggested to the policy of govern- 
 ments by the false position of a degraded clergy. 
 
 1 S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xvii. ad Civ. Naz. § 8) : Ti Si fyeir, 
 of Svvdvrcu ko! &pxot>Tf s ; . . . r\ olv (pare ; . . . nal 6 tov XdkttoS v6pos 
 imni8ri<ni' ipcis rfi i/irj Svveurrelif Kol t§ iu.$ fifi/mri. "Apxo/iey yap Kal 
 aiirol- itpoa-eii(ra Se 8ti ko! t{\v jueffoca Kal Te\emrepav hpxhv. This is the 
 
 doctrine of the Catholic Church. 
 
126 Baneful influence of Cardinal Richelieu. 
 
 Chap. in. Here was one of those thoughts which act upon 
 and influence the minds and the conduct of rulers 
 long before they are developed into shape, or 
 reduced to a theory. Some clever statesman at 
 length makes the idea his own, and thus it is 
 digested into a system and takes its name from 
 the minister who noticed and elaborated it. Then 
 the system is worked with untiring industry, 
 and developed to its extreme consequences. Who 
 would have believed that we should owe a system, 
 ruinous to the liberties, nay, to tbe very existence 
 of the Church, to a Prelate ? This Prelate was 
 animated by all that looked like piety, but he was 
 a king's minister. When Richelieu depressed the 
 nobles in order to set free the supreme power which 
 he held in his own hands, he knew not that he was 
 moulding that monarchy of modern Thrones which 
 has become intolerable to the people, who, being 
 strong, rebel against it ; intolerable, too, to the 
 clergy, who, being weak, submit to it. Nor is 
 there any hope of deliverance save in the secret 
 prayer which implores Grod to send a new Moses, 
 who may deliver His people from their Egyptian 
 bondage. May He Who dwells in the bush that 
 is not consumed, send such an one speedily to 
 His oppressed Church ! 
 
 LXXI. It is obvious that ecclesiastical wealth, 
 
Church wealth a source of disunion. 127 
 
 if not spent in works of charity, will be an object Chap. hi. 
 of envy to the lower orders ; of hatred to the 
 nobles, who look upon such wealth as so many 
 patrimonies alienated from their houses ; and of 
 covetousness to governments. Thus we find here 
 another copious source of disunion among the 
 people of God. We must also bear in mind that, 
 from the natural order of things, the unarmed 
 clergy have no- power to protect their possessions. 
 And all unprotected wealth will, sooner or later, 
 be the prey of the strong, whose covetousness is 
 powerfully excited by the spectacle of treasures 
 easy to seize. It is evident that the repeated 
 spoliations of the Church in all ages are due to 
 the weakness of those who possessed her wealth. 
 This explains why the nobles were so much less 
 frequently pillaged than were the ecclesiastics. 
 The nobles were much stronger : but whenever 
 they were weak in comparison with a hostile 
 power, it did not fail to pounce upon them, as 
 was finally seen in the French Eevolution — not 
 so novel a catastrophe as people in general are 
 apt to think. But -the most deplorable circum- 
 stance in the spoliation of the clergy is, that 
 ignorant men have conceived the false impression 
 that the wealth of the Church is one and the 
 same thing as the Church herself, and as the 
 
128 Mistaken use of excommunication. 
 
 Chap. hi. Christian Eeligion. The clergy themselves helped 
 to foster this mistaken belief. Having no means 
 of defending their temporal goods from the 
 spoilers, save by depriving such persons of spiri- 
 tual privileges, they made the guilt of a sacri- 
 legious robbery the same thing as the renunciation 
 of religion. Hence those princes who had resolved 
 at all hazards to despoil the clergy, took counsel 
 together how to separate themselves entirely 
 from the Church. Assuredly if the clergy are 
 prudent, they will take a more cautious line at 
 the present day. The excommunications which 
 followed on the seizure of ecclesiastical pro- 
 perty, served to increase its guilt, inasmuch as 
 the guilt of theft is increased when those who 
 commit it openly and wittingly incur separation 
 from the Church. The crime is greater, the 
 impiety deeper, and a religious people, among 
 whom the Faith yet lives, would be chary of 
 committing such a double sin ; and thus at certain 
 times and in certain places, excommunications 
 might protect the Church's possessions. 1 But in 
 
 1 In the better times of the Church these Canonical punish- 
 ments, which cut the offender off from her, were used with great 
 reserve, lest he should be reduced to despair. In the Council 
 held at Carthage by St. Cyprian, after the Decian persecution, 
 a.d. 251, the cases of those who had apostatized during it were 
 investigated, and, after long debate, it was decided "not to take 
 away from them all hope of communion, lest, being desperate, they 
 
Church wealth sometimes wisely surrendered. 129 
 
 unbelieving times, as indeed wherever passion chap, hi. 
 and wickedness are in excess and readv to 
 brave anything, excommunication does not re- 
 strain the sinner, but rather provokes and incites 
 him to pass all bounds. Perhaps in some 
 countries Catholicism might have been saved from 
 shipwreck, had it laid aside the ill-used wealth 
 which imperilled it ; just as in a hurricane, 
 men cast into the sea the most precious cargoes, 
 if by so lightening the ship they may save her 
 and the lives of the sailors. Had the Church 
 yielded in time to Grustavus Vasa, or to 
 Frederic I., or to Henry VIII., the great wealth, 
 or even a part of it, which she held in Sweden, in 
 Denmark, and in England, the impoverished clergy 
 of those nations might possibly bave saved both 
 her and themselves. They might have rekindled the 
 Faith by the very means whereby the Apostles 
 at first had planted it. But where shall we 
 find a very wealthy clergy courageous enough 
 to become voluntarily poor? When is their 
 mental vision clear enough to see that an hour 
 has come in which to impoverish the Church is to 
 save her ? Possibly a long and sad experience — 
 
 should become worse ; and, seeing the Church shut against them, 
 they might go back to the world and paganism." Such was the 
 tenderness for human weakness of those days ! 
 
 K 
 
1 30 Proposal of de la Mennais. 
 
 Chap. in. possibly the generous cry of liberty raised lately 
 by one who, whatever may be thought of him in 
 other respects, is governed by a noble aim which 
 raises him above everything petty, and by a 
 Catholic temper which is really uncommon and 
 which pervades all that he says, may not have 
 been uttered in vain. Not in vain it may have 
 reached the ears of the sentinels who are placed 
 by God to watch over Israel ! 1 The disquietude 
 
 1 I allude to the proposition made by a priest to the clergy of 
 Prance that they should renounce all government stipends, and 
 thus regain freedom ; a generous proposal, worthy of the first ages 
 of the Church. It recalls that liberty of which St. Paul was so 
 jealous, that for fear of damaging it he would not be maintained at 
 the expense of the faithful. He had the right, like any other 
 Apostle, to such maintenance. But he preferred to add the fatigue 
 of daily manual labour, whereby to supply his own necessities, to 
 the enormous labour of his Apostolate. " Omnia mihi licent," he 
 said, " sed ego sub nullius re&igw potestate " (1 Cor. vi. 12). Such 
 noble thoughts are strange to our times, yet surely some hearts 
 will receive them ; the seed sown will not perish without bringing 
 forth fruit, and the Word of God shall not return unto Him void. 
 
 But he who uttered this Divine saying, he who prized thus 
 highly the liberty of the Church, why did he lavish it on the 
 wicked ? why did he not see that liberty belongs to truth alone f 
 why did he make over the rights of unchangeable truth to false- 
 hood? why did he raise a godless humanity to that rank which 
 belongs solely to humanity rendered God-like by Christ? Why did 
 he not bring himself reverently to recognize in the Church, that 
 is, in the company of the sons of God, " the pillar and ground of 
 the truth," instead of hoping to find that 'pillar and ground among 
 the sons of Adam? Undoubtedly the system is coherent. If 
 truth belongs to sinful humanity, so may liberty. But I do not 
 believe that truth and righteousness can be separated. I believe 
 that truth appertains to good men only, and that the right of 
 
Speculations about the future. 131 
 
 of the people may express itself in materalized Chap. hi. 
 forms. A feeling which is struggling for expres- 
 sion does assume the first form which it meets with, 
 however inadequate and even contradictory to its 
 own idea. But perchance this very disquietude 
 and these murmurs may have a secret source, 
 undiscovered as yet by the peoples themselves. 
 Even where irreligion seems most triumphant, a 
 latent craving for the faith may lie concealed. 
 Men may feel the need for a religion that can be 
 freely imparted to the heart of the people without 
 
 freedom does not accompany error. Therefore man is not born free, 
 but is made free by Christ, through Whom he receives the light of 
 truth and righteousness. To those who know that they do not pos- 
 sess the truth, but are ever seeking it, while they cannot even deceive 
 themselves into thinking that they have more than a vain hope 
 never to be fulfilled, to such as these belongs that doctrine of 
 despair which asserts that " all thoughts issuing from the heart of 
 man have an equal right to propagate themselves, and to attack the 
 weak and yielding convictions of the people." A Catholic cannot 
 hold such a doctrine. He knows that he possesses the truth ; he 
 appreciates its dignity, its priceless value ; he feels that he has no 
 power to alienate its rights. And for this reason the Chief of 
 the Church made his voice heard when a doctrine was set forth 
 as Catholic, which he denied to be such .... May G-od give 
 light to that man's soul ! We -cannot speak of him without 
 unbounded esteem and affection. May He give him such victory 
 over himself, such strength of mind, that, conquering his own self- 
 love, and the flatteries of his friends and enemies, he may return 
 loyally to the way of truth. He has done it such good service, and 
 has testified towards it so much love and devotion, that, if he 
 would be consistent with himself, he has involved himself in a 
 positive necessity of recanting his errors and submitting himself 
 fully to the imperishable Chair, to which the teaching of truth is 
 entrusted. 
 
132 God may be preparing the Church 's freedom. 
 
 Chap. in. any intervention of princes and rulers. It may- 
 be that the irreligious cry lies even to itself, and, 
 in its hatred of the enslaved ministers of religion, 
 confuses true religion with the object of its hatred. 
 Divine Providence may be preparing a re-ordering 
 of nations with a purpose far other than that of 
 diminishing taxation ; since heavier taxes are en- 
 dured with patience by the people in times of 
 revolution. It may be intended by such means — 
 little as we can understand what heaven designs, 
 — to give freedom to the Church of Him, in Whose 
 hands are all things. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ©f tf)s SSSounK in t&e 3£toJ)t jfoot of tfie ^olg ©SurcS, 
 fofjtcl) ts tfjat tlje Nomination of aStsftops ts gttjtn 
 up to tjje Hag ^Potoer. 
 
 LXXII. Evert free society lias an inherent right 
 to elect its own officers. This right is as essential 
 and inalienable as that of existence. A society 
 which has given up to others the election of its 
 own officers, has in so doing parted with itself, and 
 has no independent existence ; those with whom 
 the election of its officers rests, can from moment 
 to moment maintain or put an end to its existence. 
 It only exists for the pleasure of another, and by 
 his permission. Thus it has only an apparent and 
 precarious, not a real and lasting, existence. 
 
 LXXIII. Now, if there is on earth one society 
 that has a right to exist, and this is the same 
 thing as having a right to be free, all Catholics 
 will certainly agree that it is the Church of Jesus 
 Christ. For she derives that right from the 
 
134 Th* Apostles chose their successors. 
 
 Chap. iv. undying promise of her Divine Founder. And 
 that promise, which will outlive heaven and earth, 
 is guaranteed by the words, " Lo, I am with you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world." 1 The 
 Church of God cannot give up her government 
 into the hands of others. She cannot in any way 
 barter away or alienate the election of her rulers. 
 For she cannot destroy herself; and every 
 concession of the kind referred to is in itself null 
 and void ; it is a contract invalid from the first, 
 a mere bond of iniquity. 
 
 LXXIV. Our Lord first chose the Apostles ; 
 they chose their successors. 2 And the right of 
 electing 3 those who should receive the deposit 
 which they are bound to transmit through the 
 world to the end of time, has always appertained 4 
 and always must appertain to the successors of the 
 Apostles. They alone must give account for it to 
 the Master Who has deigned to place that deposit 
 
 , 1 St. Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
 2 We read in the Acts of the Apostles, that Paul and Barnabas 
 " ordained elders in every Church " (xiv. 23) ; that is, Bishops 
 and priests. 
 
 3 [The author seems here to be confusing the right of election 
 with that of ratification. — Ed.] 
 
 4 St. Paul had consecrated Titus Bishop of Crete, and writes to 
 him, bidding him do the like for other cities : " For this cause left 
 I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that 
 are wanting, and ordain elders in every city " (that is Bishops), 
 " as I had appointed thee " (Titus i. 5). 
 
Spirit of the government of the Church. 135 
 
 in their hands. Thus the guilt of the evil selec- Chap. iv. 
 tion of the Church's Bishops falls on the head of 
 those earlier Prelates, who first let the election of 
 their successors pass out of their keeping ; or who 
 did not use every means in their power to discover 
 others with clean hands and fitted to receive the 
 sacred deposit of the Word and the institutions of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 LXXV. It is true that the government in- 
 stituted by our Lord in His Church is not an 
 earthly rule, but a service of good will to men, a 
 ministry of salvation to their souls. 1 Accordingly it 
 is not governed at the will of a stern authority. It 
 does not stand on harsh right. It is flexible, and 
 based .on humility and reason. It may be said to 
 take its laws from the subjects for whose benefit 
 it was established. Such is its constitution as to 
 have large capacities for good, and none for evil ; 
 the only right of which it boasts, is the right to 
 aid mankind. Hence arose that gentle principle 
 of ecclesiastical government, which was universally 
 
 1 Origen says, " He who is called to the Episcopate, is so called 
 not that he may command, but that he may serve the Church ; and 
 he must serve her with such modesty and humility as may benefit 
 him who renders and those who receive the service." He adds 
 this reason : " that such is the character of all Christian rule, and 
 specially of the Church,_inasmuch as the government of Christians 
 should be altogether different from that of the heathen, which 
 is hard, insolent, and vain" (Horn, in Matt. xx. 25). All the 
 Fathers held this evangelical doctrine. 
 
1 36 Bishops and presbyters chosen by the people. 
 
 Chap. iv. acted on in the first ages of the Church, and espe- 
 cially in the election of her chief Pastors. It was, 
 that "The clergy judges, the people counsels." Of 
 course, as a matter of strict and rigid right, 
 the Christian people could have no share in the 
 election of Bishops. But wisdom and charity 
 guided the rulers of the Church in their exer- 
 cise of the power which they had received from 
 Christ, softening and tempering it. Therefore 
 these wise Prelates avoided all secret or arbitrary 
 decisions. They desired the counsel and testimony 
 of others, and they held the advice of the whole 
 body of the faithful to be the most trustworthy 
 and the best. Thus the Church of believers acted 
 as one man ; and, although in this " man " the 
 head was distinguishable from the members, it did 
 not reject the services of those members, or cut 
 itself off from its trunk out of a desire of being 
 alone or independent. Thus it arose that the 
 wishes of the people designated both Bishops and 
 priests. 1 Nor was it unreasonable that those who 
 were to entrust their own souls (and what greater 
 trust could a believing people give ?) into the 
 hands of a man, should know what manner of man 
 
 1 The Roman Pontifical still retains the ceremony in which 
 the Bishop aaks of those about to be ordained whether they have 
 witnesses to their fitness among the faithful. But, alas ! what an 
 admission I make, when I say that the ceremony is retained ! 
 
\ Clergy the confidants of the people. 137 
 
 he was, and should have confidence in him, in his Chap - 1V - 
 holiness and his prudence. 1 , But when the Bishop 
 and the priest cease to be pastors save in name ; 
 when they cease to be the confidants, the friends, 
 the fathers of the faithful, who with hearty trust 
 give into their hands not only all they hold dearest, 
 but themselves also ; when the clergy confine 
 themselves to the forms and outward ceremonies of 
 religion, bringing themselves almost to the level 
 of the ancient pagan priests ; 2 when it has come 
 
 1 Origen says (Horn. xxii. on Num. and vi. on Levit.) that "in 
 the appointment of Bishops, besides the election of God, the 
 presence of the people is desired, in order that all may be assured 
 that the newly elected Pontiff is the best and most learned to be 
 found ; the holiest, and the most remarkable for all virtue. The 
 people should be present, so that none may have any cause to 
 complain, and that every scruple may be done away." 
 
 2 Such a view of the priesthood is but too prevalent : men 
 believe, or affect to believe, that the functions of the Christian 
 priest are confined to the material walls of the Church ! Listen 
 to' what M. Dupin said not long since in the Chamber of Deputies 
 of France (seance Feb. 23, 1833) : " J'ai le plus profond respect 
 pour la liberty du pre'tre, tant qu'il se renferme dans ses fonctions : 
 si cette liberte e"tait attaquee, je serais le premier a la de"fendre ; 
 mais que le pretre se contente du maniement des ehoses saintes, et 
 qu'il ne sorte pas du seuil de son Eglise ; hors de la, il rentre pour le 
 moins dans la foule des citoyens, il n'a plus de droits que ceux du 
 droit commune." Is it the Catholic priest, the priesthood founded 
 by Jesus Christ, that is thus spoken of ? When did He limit the 
 priesthood to the Church's walls ? Did He not rather say, " Go, 
 teach all nations"? Did He not say, "Ye are the salt of the 
 earth " ? When did the Divine Founder, Who taught that the 
 true believer must " worship the Father in spirit and in truth," 
 speak of material temples ? Did He not give His priests power to 
 
138 Interest of the people in their chief Pastors. 
 
 Chap. iv. to this pass in a religion which teaches men to 
 worship God in spirit and in truth ; then it is 
 easy for the people to receive with indifference 
 any Pastor who may be imposed on them. And 
 the right of electing such Pastors passes as easily 
 from hand to hand, from one authority to another, 
 as might be the case with the ownership of houses 
 or lands. Yet we hear invectives against the public 
 indifference in religious matters. And all the while 
 the people are trained, and required to receive 
 as their Bishop any unknown individual whatso- 
 ever, with whom they have no common interests, no 
 ties created by past benefits, whose good works they 
 have never witnessed, never even heard of ! Well 
 indeed is it if his works are only good works. 
 But when the people are required and taught to be 
 indifferent about their own Pastors, is it not equiva- 
 lent to teaching them indifference to the doctrine 
 which may be set before them, and to the course of 
 conduct in which they may be led? Is it not teach- 
 ing them that it is no longer necessary for men to 
 
 bind and to loose? and was that power valid only inside the 
 Churches ? When He bade them teach His truth from the house- 
 tops ; when He commissioned them, saying, "As the Father hath 
 Bent Me, so send I you ; " when He bade them confront the lords 
 and tyrants of the world with His Gospel, did He confine the 
 Christian priesthood within such restrictions as M. Dupin would 
 now impose? But his ignorance or prejudice is in a measure 
 excusable, as the result of the sad state of public affairs, and of 
 the difficulties raised in the way of religion by politics. 
 
Moral effects of an unwelcome Bishop. 139 
 
 have confidence in the ministers of religion ; that Ohap. iv. 
 they may set aside the needs of their souls and 
 repentance ; in short, that they can do without 
 religion, or that at all events they may rest 
 satisfied with its purely outward and material 
 aspects ? And what else is this than to lay upon 
 the people a blind, irrational obedience, which is 
 but the synonym for religious indifference ? x It 
 is true that when once a Christian people has been 
 , brought to this pass, it must be really perverted. 
 Christianity must be well-nigh extinct in souls, 
 and only the habits of religion left. Of such 
 an unfortunate people, which, by dint of a secret, 
 slow, steady corruption, has unconsciously lost 
 
 1 The great St. Leo knew well that to force the people to accept 
 an unwelcome . Bishop was to demoralize them, and this was one 
 reason whj- he persisted in upholding the ancient discipline of 
 the Church concerning the election of Bishops, as carried out 
 by the clergy; the people, and the provincial Bishops. For 
 instance, he writes thus to Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, 
 a.d. 445 (Ep. xiv. § 5) : " When it is a question of electing the chief 
 priest, let him be preferred above all others who is required by the 
 consent of both clergy and people ; and if the votes should be equal, 
 let the Metropolitan prefer him who has obtained most affection, 
 and is a man of greater merit ; only give heed that none shall be 
 elected who are not wished or asked for ; lest the people, being 
 thwarted should despise or hate their Bishop, and lest they should 
 become less religious than is fitting, not having obtained Mm they desired. 
 ' Ne plebs in vita Episcopum aut contemnat aut oderit ; et fiat minus 
 religiosa quam convenit, cui non licuerit habere quern voluerit.' " 
 So thought St. Leo. See further what the same Bishop writes' in his 
 letter to the Bishops of the province of Vienne, cap. 3, and in that 
 to Rusticus of Narbonne, c. 7. 
 
140 Results of the "conversion of society'' 
 
 Chap. iv. its religious principles, become dead to its religious 
 interests, practically independent of its Bishops, 1 
 indifferent to the ecclesiastic who may preside in 
 the choir and perform the sacred rites which it 
 does not understand, we may well quote what 
 was said by a Father of the Church in the third 
 century, " that Grod provides pastors for the 
 Churches' according to the deserts of the people." 2 
 LXXYI. But if we wish to discover the origin 
 of this sore trouble, we must go back to the fatal 
 epoch when the period which I have termed that of 
 the conversion of society began in the Church. It 
 is an epoch which explains all ecclesiastical history 
 after the first six centuries, since it contains the 
 seeds of all its prosperity and of all its woes. 
 It is an epoch when the clergy counted for much 
 in the balance of temporal power, because they 
 were both strong and correspondingly wealthy. 3 
 
 1 One fact suffices to show how close was the union and de- 
 pendence, in primitive times, of the people on their Bishop ; 
 namely, that not merely priests, but the faithful laity also who 
 moved from one province to' another, were expected to take with 
 them letters from their own Bishops, in proof that they were in 
 the communion of the Church. A Council of Aries accordingly 
 ordains " that even the governors of provinces, being of the faithful, 
 shall like others carry letters of communion from their Bishops, and 
 the Bishop of the place where they are in authority shall bear them 
 in mind, and excommunicate them if they are guilty of any breach of 
 discipline," It was the same with respect to all holding public offices. 
 
 2 Origen on the Book of Judges, Horn. iv. § 3. 
 
 3 At a still earlier period, when the emperors had but just 
 
Wealth and power dangerous to the clergy. 14-1 
 
 Of course, so soon as the clergy was powerful Chap. iv. 
 and rich after the manner of worldly greatness, 
 it became the interest and policy of monarchs 
 to keep the upper hand over them, and with this 
 object to take part in the election of Bishops. 
 Thus the first sees in which the lay power seized 
 upon the right of election were Antioch and Con- 
 stantinople, where the emperors resided, and where 
 the Patriarch's power was more widely extended. 1 
 
 become Christians, they made some attempt to interfere with the 
 election of Bishops, but in reality this was not so much their own 
 fault as that of unworthy ecclesiastics, who induced them thus to 
 aim at subverting the Church's constitution. It is so easy for a 
 secular prince to be deceived by the hypocrisy and effrontery and 
 ignorance of bad clergymen, above all in ecclesiastical matters ! The 
 great Athanasius himself had but too good cause to complain of 
 some such attempts on the part of Constantine the Great. That 
 mighty champion of the Divinity of the Word writes thus of 
 Constantine, "He, seeking to alter the laws, to dissolve the consti- 
 tutions of our Lord transmitted to us ly the Apostles, and to change the 
 customs of the Church, invented a new way of appointing Bishops ! 
 He sent them to an unwilling people from strange regions, even fifty 
 days journey off. They were escorted by soldiers. These Bishops, 
 instead of being received and judged of by the people, themselves 
 bore to their judges letters of menace " (Epist. ad solitariam vitam 
 agentes). Here we see how important a place the right election of 
 Bishops by clergy and people held in the Church's constitution, 
 and how the institution was considered as Divine, and maintained 
 by Apostolic tradition. St. Cyprian, too (Ep. lxviii,), affirms 
 that this manner of electing Bishops is of Divine right, "de 
 traditione divina et apostolica observatione descendit." Observe 
 well likewise the blame expressed by St. Athanasius to Constantine 
 because he sent Bishops " ex aliis locis et quinquaginta mansionum 
 intervallo disjunctis ! " 
 
 1 Nevertheless the Canonical election by clergy and people was 
 
142 Efforts of councils to protect 
 
 Chap. iv. LXXVII. The struggle with the secular arm, 
 striving to appropriate the election of Bishops, 
 lasted for many centuries. The Church promul- 
 gated her Canons in self-defence. But the value 
 of such instruments depends upon the religious 
 feeling that may exist among princes and people. 
 Thus the proportion in which freedom in the 
 election of the clergy was lessened, may be taken 
 as a sure gauge of the decline of faith, of morality, 
 and of piety, both in the rulers and in the nations. 
 The history is briefly this : — 
 
 required, as well as the emperor's command. For instance, Epi- 
 phanius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the beginning of the sixth 
 century, giving an account of his election to the Roman Pope 
 Hormisdas, after recounting that he was elected by the Emperor 
 Justinian and all the nobles, adds, "nor was the consent of the 
 priests, the monks, and the people, wanting." (" Simut et sacerdotum 
 et monacorum et fidelissimce plebis consensus accessit.") Again, in 
 the same century, the epistle of the Pope Agapetus, which was read 
 in the Synod of Constantinople, held under the Patriarch Mennas, 
 speaking of that Patriarch's election, says expressly that the im- 
 perial assent was given, but only as an accessory, dwelling on that 
 which was according to the Canonical law, namely, the election by 
 clergy and people. The Pope's words are as follows : — " Cui, 
 licet, prseter cseteros, serenissimorum imperatorum electio arriserit, 
 similiter tamen et totius cleri ac populi consensus accessit, ut et a 
 singulis eligi crederetur ; " breathing the true spirit of ecclesiastical 
 liberty. 
 
 What was the reason that at certain times the Patriarchate of 
 Constantinople became avowedly open to purchase ; and, again, 
 that the Papacy itself at other times was sold? What, indeed, 
 but the temporal goods which were no longer devoted to charity, 
 but to the pomp of these sees 1 Men of the world are not inclined 
 to spend without receiving an equivalent. 
 
the freedom of Episcopal elections. 143 
 
 Already in the sixth century the sovereign's Chap. iv. 
 favour had begun to weigh more with the Elec- 
 tors than the merits of the candidate, and the 
 Councils were eager to meet the danger by 
 means of Canons, designed to protect the freedom 
 of such elections. 
 
 In the year 500, in a Council held at Eome, 
 where 218 Bishops were assembled, Pope Sym- 
 machus published a decree confirming the 
 Canonical elections of Bishops, in opposition 
 to the lay power, which was continually striving 
 to interfere. The decree began thus : " We will 
 not that they should have any power to set up 
 in the Church those whom it behoves them to 
 obey, not to command ; " and after this preface, 
 he confirms the ancient manner of electing 
 Bishops by the votes of clergy and people. 1 
 
 1 From the first ages to the present time the Church has ever 
 attached the greatest importance to keeping the old form of Epis- 
 copal election inviolable ; that is to say, the assent of all, and the 
 decision of the clergy. While on a, subject of such deep interest 
 to the Divine constitution of the Church, I will cite several docu- 
 ments prior to the sixth century, which confirm the ever-watchful 
 care of the Church to maintain her elections uninfluenced by any 
 secular power whatsoever. 
 
 As early as the date of the Council of Nice it was found needful to 
 fix the Apostolic and Divine form of election by a Canon (the sixth), 
 and this proves that the emperors had hardly become Christian 
 before they threatened the liberties of the Church. For similar 
 reasons the ensuing Councils did not fail to publish decrees in 
 order to preserve intact the ancient and lawful method of electing 
 
144 Conciliar legislation in the sixth century. 
 
 Chap. iv. In the year 535, the Council of Clermont 1 
 enacted that Bishops should be appointed by the 
 election of the clergy and citizens, and with the 
 consent of the Metropolitan, without the interven- 
 tion of the favour of great men, without intrigues, 
 and without the employment of violence or bribery 
 to obtain the writ of election. If it were done 
 otherwise, the consenting candidate was to be de- 
 prived of communion with the Church he sought 
 to rule. 2 
 
 "We find a similar care to keep the elections 
 free from secular influence in the second Council 
 of Orleans, a.d. 533 ; 3 in the third, a.d. 538 ; 4 
 
 Bishops by the clergy and people ; among others, see the decrees 
 of the Council at Antioch (Can. 19, 23). 
 
 Among the Apostolic Canons we find the twenty-ninth speaking 
 thus : " If any Bishop has obtained his See by the influence or 
 favour of secular princes, he shall be deposed, and cut off, as shall 
 be all those who communicate with him." 
 
 Early in the fifth century, Pope Celestine I. put forth a decretal 
 with the same object: "Nullus invitis detur Episcopus ; cleri, 
 plebis et ordinis consensus et desiderium requiratur." 
 
 St. Leo the Great, who filled the Chair of St. Peter from a.d. 440 
 to 461, was constantly bent on guaranteeing the free and Canonical 
 election of Bishops. It will suffice to quote the injunction to Anas- 
 tasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, where he says, " Nulla ratio sinit, 
 ut inter Episcopos habeantur, qui nee a clericis sunt electi, nee a 
 plebe expetiti, nee a Provincialibus cum Metropolitan! judicio con- 
 secrati." 
 
 1 Can. 2. 2 Can. 4. 3 Can. 7. 
 
 * Canon 3. Meury, giving an account of this Council, says that 
 " in it was recommended the ancient form of election of the provin- 
 cial BiBhops, with the consent of clergy and citizens, probably by 
 
Royal assent made necessary. 145 
 
 as well as that in Clermont, a.d. 535, and others ; chap iv. 
 all of which plainly show how much need the 
 Church already had to protect herself against 
 the worldly power, which pressed more and more 
 heavily on her, and seized upon her rights. 
 
 Soon after this there was a successful effort in 
 France to obtain the sanction of the law of the 
 Church for the necessity of the Royal Assent. It 
 had already become a practical necessity in Epis- 
 copal elections. This was done by means of the 
 celebrated Canon of the fifth Council of Orleans, 
 a.d. 549, in which, however, the^rights of the 
 people and clergy are guarded. 1 
 
 Nor is it other than reasonable to require the 
 Eoyal Assent ; on the contrary, it is obviously 
 agreeable to the temper of the Church. Eager 
 for peace and unity she would have the Minis- 
 ters of the sanctuary acceptable to every one, 
 above all to the rulers of the people. But the danger 
 involved in the Assent is lest it should become a 
 command, 2 or a sovereign grace ; in which case the 
 
 reason of the unfit men who began to be thrust in by the temporal 
 power " (lib. xxxii. § 59). 
 
 1 Can. 10. "Nulli episoopatum praemiis aut comparatione liceat 
 adipisci, sed cum voluntate regis juxta electionem cleri acplebis." 
 
 2 As it only too soon fell out. Among the forms in use in France 
 under the Merovingian kings, which are preserved by Marculfus 
 (lib. i., formula 5. See also Sirmondus, 'f Concilia Antiqua 
 Gallise," vol. ii. App.), we find not that of the consent of the king 
 
 L 
 
146 Royal assent becomes Royal command. 
 
 Chap. IV. Church which, is free as a matter of grace, is a 
 slave as matter of justice. 1 The grace of kings is 
 of its nature arbitrary. And whether the Church 
 was to have more or less worthy Pastors would de- 
 pend on the will or caprice of laymen merely because 
 
 to the Bishops' election, but that of his precept. It is thus 
 worded: "With the counsel and will of the Bishops, and of our 
 nobles, according to the will and consent of the clergy and people 
 
 of the same city, in the aforesaid city N , we commit to you 
 
 in the Name of ,God the pontifical dignity. Therefore with this 
 same precept, we decide and command that the aforesaid city and 
 the properties of her Church, and her clergy, be subject to your 
 rule and authority." Nothing is more common among the writers, 
 of that period than the phrase " by command of the hing," such 
 and such a one was made Bishop. We find also the forms of 
 supplication presented by the people to the king, asking him to exer- 
 cise this power ; supplications, forsooth, for such an exercise of power! 
 1 Vanity and flattery invented these terms, which at first are 
 unimportant, but they quickly acquire only too real an import- 
 ance. Such language is not merely the expression of the steady 
 faithful respect due to kings ; it becomes, from time to time, bitterly 
 satirical. Surely that is a bitter irony of a learned author of the 
 last century, who, being censured for having said of the times we 
 treat of, that it was " a benefaction of the king which allowed the 
 clergy to enjoy freedom of election, and that the king was the 
 judge and arbiter of the elections " (as if the two assertions were 
 compatible !), defends himself by replying that the royal "benefac- 
 tion " meant that the kings had left off their usurpations ! Is not this 
 something like the benefaction of highway robbers, who spare their 
 victims' lives ? I give the words of the author, who is heartily 
 devoted to the secular power. "Jus eligendi penes clerum erat. 
 Sed quia ssepe reges electionum usum interturbaverant, assensum 
 in merum imperium vertere soliti, Ecclesia Gallicana his qui veterem 
 electionum usum restituerant, ut Ludovico Pio, plurimum se debere 
 profitebatur. Eorum certe beneficiorum erat asserta et vindicata 
 sacrarum electionum libertas," etc. (Natalis Alex, ad calcem Dissert 
 VI. in ssec. xv. et xvi.), 
 
Councils of Orleans and of Paris. 147 
 
 they were powerful, and of such and such men or Chap. iv. 
 women who might have acquired influence with 
 them. 
 
 This is exactly what came to pass. Not the 
 royal assent only was reckoned a grace, but even 
 the royal command. And at last it became a 
 grace which was sold very dearly, the price being 
 nothing less than the property of the Church, 1 her 
 degradation, and the loss of souls. 2 
 
 In consequence of this danger, the third 
 Council of Paris, which was held four years after 
 that of Orle'ans, a.d. 553, reinstated by a Canon 
 the ancient freedom of elections, without making 
 any mention of the royal consent. The eighth 
 Canon of that Synod says, " No Bishop shall be 
 appointed contrary to the will of the citizens, but 
 he only whose election has been heartily and volun- 
 tarily demanded by the people and the clergy, 
 No one shall be thrust in by royal command, or. 
 
 1 St. Gregory of Tours wrote, a.d. 527 : " Jam tunc germen illud 
 iniquum coeperat fruotificare, ut sacerdotium aut venderetur a 
 regibus aut compararetur a clericis." He writes thus after cit- 
 ing various instances of ecclesiastics who had obtained sees from 
 monarchs, not by reason of their virtues, but by purchase. 
 
 2 The Gothic kings even usurped the nomination of the Pope, 
 interrupting the Canonical election. After they were driven out of 
 Italy, Justinian assumed the right of confirming the papal elec- 
 tion, and his successors exacted from each new Pope a heavy mulct 
 as the price of this confirmation, which was paid up to the time of 
 Constantine Pogonatus, a.d. 668. 
 
148 Letter of Gregory the Great. 
 
 Chap. iv. by any other means, contrary to the will of the 
 Metropolitan, and of the con-provincial Bishops. 
 And if any one by an excess of audacity shall dare 
 to invade this dignity under pretext of the king's 
 appointment, he shall be counted unworthy to be 
 received by the con-provincials of that country, 
 who shall hold him to be unduly appointed." 
 
 Towards the end of this same sixth century, 
 the great Pope St. Gregory felt how much was 
 involved in the Church's freedom ; and at the 
 same time he saw plainly that such Bishops as 
 owed their exaltation to the secular power would 
 be the slaves of that power. On the occasion of 
 the death of Natalis, Bishop of Salona, the metro- 
 polis of Dalmatia, he wrote thus to the Subdeacon 
 Antoninus, in charge of the patrimony of that 
 province, a.d. 593 : " Give notice at once to the 
 clergy and people of the city, that they unite to 
 elect a Bishop, and send hither the decree of 
 election, in order that the Bishop may be con- 
 secrated with our consent, as of old. Above all, 
 give good heed that neither royal nor any other 
 power take part- in this matter, since whosoever 
 is appointed by their means, is constrained to 
 obey his patrons, at the expense of the Church's 
 property and discipline." 1 
 
 1 Ind. 11, bk. iii. ep. 22. St. Gregory was most vigilant with 
 
Opposition between French Councils and Kings. 149 
 
 In the year 615 the fifth Council of Paris also Ghap. iv. 
 proclaimed the freedom of elections, But Clothaire 
 II. modified its decision by an edict in which he 
 protested his desire that the Canons concerning 
 Episcopal elections should be carefully observed 
 except in the case of such Bishops as he chose 
 to have appointed, or whom he should send as 
 chosen from among the worthiest priests of his 
 Court : an edict which was maintained by his 
 successor Dagobert. 1 
 
 The Council of Chalons-sur-Sa6ne, however, 
 under Clovis II., a.d. 650, once more declared null 
 and void, without exception, all such elections as 
 did not proceed according to the forms prescribed 
 by the Fathers. 2 
 
 At this period we find a continual struggle, 
 although a secret and guarded one, going on in 
 France between the King and the clergy ; the 
 King striving to usurp the Episcopal elections, 
 
 respect to the freedom of Episcopal elections, and we find this argu- 
 ment often reiterated in his letters. Among others see iii. ep. 7. 
 
 1 The language of the edict, which is a contradiction in terms, 
 is as follows, " Ideoque definitionis nostrse est, ut canonum statuta 
 in omnibus conserventur. . . . Ita ut, Episcopo decedente, in loco 
 ipsius, qui a Metropolitano ordinari debet cum Provincialibus a 
 clero et populo eligatur.'' After these fair words, there follows 
 immediately, " Et si persona condigna fuerit, per ordinationem 
 principis ordinetur : vel certe, si de palatio eligitur, per meritum 
 personas et doctrinee ordinetur." This was how the civil power 
 meant the ' Canonum statuta' to be maintained m omnibus I 
 
 2 Canon 10. 
 
150 Opposition of Church and State in France. 
 
 Chap. iv. the clergy to maintain their freedom. * This 
 struggle was attended with various vicissitudes, 
 in which, however, the Church, if not altogether 
 conquered, was at least always hardly pressed 
 and weighed down by the heavy force opposed to 
 her. 
 
 Assuredly the Popes were not blind to the 
 
 1 To instance facts. Gregory of Tours (Lib. iv. c. 5, 6) relates 
 how the Bishops entreated Cato, who had been canonically elected 
 to the Bishopric of Clermont, to allow himself to be consecrated 
 without waiting for King Theobald's nomination, a.d. 554. He also 
 relates (Lib. vi. c. 7) how Albinus succeeded to Ferreolus in the see 
 of Uzes extra regis consilium ; going on to tell how, after Albinus' 
 death, the Royal Precept conferred this see on a certain Jovinus, 
 but the con-provincial Bishops being summoned to make a Canonical 
 election, they set Jovinus aside, and appointed the Deacon Mar- 
 cellus (Lib. vii. c. 31). The citizens of Tours asked the King to 
 appoint as their Bishop Euphonius, whom they had elected accord- 
 ing to the Canons. The King answered, " Prceceperam ut Cato 
 presbyter illic ordinaretur, et cur est spreta jussio nostra ? " 
 (Gregor. Touron. , lib. iv. c. 15). King Clothaire having appointed 
 Emerius Bishop of Saintes, he was tolerated ; but on the death of 
 the King the Metropolitan Leontius called together the Bishops 
 of the province, and deposed Emerius as being uncanonically 
 appointed, a.d. 562 (Greg. Tours. , lib. iv. c. 26). In a similar way 
 the Bishops of Aquitaine made haste to consecrate the priest Fau- 
 stinianus to the see of Aqui, although King Chilperic had destined 
 it for Count Nicetius (Greg. Tur. vii. 31). Hence Constantine 
 Eoncaglia wisely observes that, " the fact that the Bishops held it 
 to be a duty to oppose the King when he sought to meddle with 
 Episcopal appointments, proves that princes were never in tranquil 
 possession of the power they assumed of directing such appoint- 
 ments according to 'their will ; " and that " the Church never gave 
 her willing consent to such assumption, although she was often 
 constrained to put up with many such trials, rather than expose 
 her children to worse treatment. " 
 
Gregory II ; the second Council of Nice. 1 5 T 
 
 peril which was daily increasing, through royal Chap IVi 
 invasion of the right of Episcopal elections. Its 
 success would place the Church wholly in the 
 power of the Crown. Early in the eighth century 
 we find Gregory II. writing to the Eastern 
 Emperor to admonish him not to infringe the 
 sacred rights of the Church, with respect to the 
 selection of her own Prelates. 1 But meanwhile 
 the governing power was perpetually renewing its 
 attacks, and the Church could do nothing in self- 
 defence save by means of new laws- and Canon's. 
 
 The seventh (Ecumenical 2 Council, which was 
 held at Nice, a.d. 787, did not fail in one of its 
 Canons to shield the Church from the secular 
 power which considers itself free to do whatever 
 it can. The Holy Council says, 3 " All elections 
 of Bishops, priests, or deacons made by princes 
 shall be null, according to the law which decides 
 that whosoever obtains for himself a Church 
 through the secular power shall be deposed and 
 cut off, with all such as communicate with him. 
 Thus it is necessary that all who are to be pro- 
 
 1 Among other things he addresses the following remarkable 
 words to Leo the Isaurian : " Quemadmodum pontifex introspi- 
 ciendi in palatium potestatem non habet ac dignitates regias defe- 
 rendi : sic neque imperator in Ecclesiam introspioiendi et electiones 
 in clero peragendi " (Epist. ii. ad Leon. Isaur.). 
 
 2 [So-called.— Ed.] s Canon 3. 
 
152 Admonition of the Synod of Thionville. 
 
 Ohap. iv. moted to the Episcopate should be elected by the 
 Bishops, as was ruled by the Holy Fathers as- 
 sembled at Nice." 
 
 The Synod held near the town of Thionville, 1 
 A.d. 844, sent a solemn monition to the royal 
 brothers, Lothaire, Louis, and Charles, in order 
 that the Churches should not remain any longer 
 widowed of their Pastors. This was the case when 
 the Episcopal elections depended on princes, who, 
 distracted by their own quarrels, had neither 
 time nor inclination to consider the interests of the 
 Church. As a consequence, the Church shared all the 
 vicissitudes of the civil government. The fathers 
 of the Synod speak with dignity and freedom. " As 
 the ambassadors of God, we admonish you that 
 those sees which by reason of your discords now 
 remain without Pastors should forthwith, and 
 without any taint of heretical simony, receive 
 their Bishops, who should be given them by G-od, 
 conformably to the authority of the Canons, being 
 duly designated by you, and consecrated by the 
 grace of the Holy Spirit." 
 
 About the same time Pope Nicholas I., always 
 a strenuous supporter of the Canons, did not fail 
 loudly to protest against the abuse whereby the lay 
 power had taken to interfere with Episcopal elec- 
 
 1 Canon 2. 
 
- T _ : . — 
 
 \ Council of Constantinople, a.d. 869. 153 
 
 tions. This may be seen, among other documents, Chap. iv. 
 in a letter he addressed to the Bishops of Lothaire's 
 kingdom, commanding them under pain of ex- 
 communication to warn the King to remove Ilduin 
 from the See of Cambrai, which he had conferred 
 on that person, albeit unworthy and irregular, and 
 to allow " the Clergy and people of that Church 
 to elect a Bishop in the manner ordered by the 
 Canons." 1 
 
 The eighth (Ecumenical 2 Council of Constanti- 
 nople was convened in a.d. 869, under the suc- 
 cessor of the great Nicholas, Adrian II. At this 
 time the liberty of the Church had already been 
 seriously impaired. 3 The same protests were 
 made in its defence ; the same ancient rules 
 respecting the Episcopal elections were repeated ; 
 there were prohibitions against the appointment 
 of Bishops by the authority and command of 
 princes, under pain of deposition; 4 and, finally, 
 
 1 Ep. xli. 2 [So-called.— Ed.] 
 
 3 The Erench Bishops could not at that time leave the kingdom 
 without express permission from the King ; neither could a Metro- 
 politan send a Bishop as his legate beyond the kingdom, as we 
 find from the letter of Hincmar of Rheims to Pope Adrian, a.d. 
 869. 
 
 4 Can. 12. "Apostolicis et synodicis canonibus promotiones 
 et consecrationes Episcoporum, et potentia et prseceptione prin- 
 cipum factas penitus interdicentibus, concordantes, definimus, et 
 sententiam nos quoque proferimus, ut si quis Episcopus, per ver- 
 sutiam vel tyrannidem principum, hujus modi dignitatis conse- 
 crationem susceperit, deponatur omnimodis, utpote qui non ex 
 
154 Council of Constantinople, a.d. 869. 
 
 Chap. iv. laymen in high positions were forbidden to inter- 
 fere with Episcopal elections, unless invited to do 
 so by the Church. 1 
 
 Voluntate Dei, et ritu ac decreto ecclesiastico, sed ex voluntate 
 carnalis sensus, ex hominibus, et per homines, Dei donum possidere 
 voluit vel consensit." 
 
 Can. 22. " Promotiones atque consecrationes Episcoporum, 
 concordans prioribus conciliis, electione ac decreto Episcoporum 
 Collegii fieri, sancta haec et universalis Synodus definit et statuit 
 atque jure promulgat, neminem laicorum principum vel potentum 
 semel inserere electioni Patriarchse, vel Metropolitse, aut cujus- 
 libet Episcopi ; ne videlicet inordinata hinc et incongrua fiat con- 
 fusio vel contentio : prsesertim cum nullam in talibus potestatem 
 quomquam potestativorum vel caeterorum laicorum habere con- 
 veniat, sed potius silere ac attendere sibi, usquequo regulariter 
 a Collegio ecclesiastico suscipiat finem electio futuri Pontificis. Si 
 vero quia laicorum ad concertandum et co-operandum ab Ecclesia 
 invitatur licet hujus modi cum reverentia, si forte voluerit, obtem- 
 perare se asciscentibus ; taliter enim sibi dignum Pastorem regu- 
 lariter ad Ecclesise suse salutem promoveat. Quisquis autem 
 ssecularium principum et potentum, vel alterius dignitatis laicus, 
 adversus communem ac consonantem, atque canonicam electionem 
 ecclesiastici ordinis agere tentaverit, anathema sit, donee obediat ac 
 consentiat quod Ecclesia de electione ac ordinatione proprii prsesulis 
 se velle monstraverit." 
 
 1 Pleury says, "These Canons are the more remarkable, that they 
 were published in' the presence of the Emperor and of the Senate " 
 (Lib. li. § 45). Other Canons in defence of liberty were framed 
 by this Council. The principal among these are as follows : Can. 
 21. " Those who are powerful in the world shall respect the five 
 Patriarchs and not seek to wrench from them the possession of 
 their sees ; or do anything against their honour ; "" from which we 
 see that the Patriarchates were more exposed than other sees, 
 owing to their greater emoluments and temporal power. Can. 14. 
 "Bishops should not go far from their Churches to meet generals or 
 governors, — alighting from their horses, or prostrating themselves. 
 They should preserve the authority necessary for reproving great 
 personages, if needful." Can. 17. "Patriarchs have full right to 
 convoke the Metropolitans to their Council, when they shall see fit, 
 
Councils: how regarded by Christian princes. 155 
 
 But, alas ! reason and justice exercise but 'a Chap. iv. 
 feeble influence upon mankind compared to tbat of 
 the passions, above all when these are strength- 
 ened by external forces. The Christian princes, 
 instead of giving heed to the exhortations, the com- 
 mands, the threats of their mother the Church, 
 only attempted fresh usurpations of her liber- 
 ties, backed up with legal subtleties as well as 
 with violence. I speak generally, for at all times 
 there were some docile and respectful monarchs 
 who obeyed her. Moreover, almost all royal 
 personages were more or less influenced by 
 the decisions and enactments which were perse- 
 yeringly set forth by Popes and Synods concern- 
 ing the Church's discipline. Among these the 
 prominent point was always the right of election. 
 This somewhat restrained their eager efforts to 
 interfere with Episcopal appointments. They en- 
 deavoured to evade the Canonical laws by under- 
 hand means, while their usurpations were often 
 accompanied with respectful words and assurances 
 which contradicted and condemned their actions. 1 
 
 without these latter excusing themselves on the plea that they 
 are detained by the prince." These words are added, " We reject 
 with horror that which some ignorant persons have said, i.e.. that 
 Councils cannot be held without the presence of the prince." Such 
 was the language of (Ecumenical [?] Councils ! 
 
 1 For instance, observe with what a strange medley of command 
 
156 Hincmar and King Louis III. 
 
 Ghap. iv. All this did not diminish the need for great 
 vigilance on the Church's part, or for courage on 
 that of her leaders. They were called to fight the 
 battles of the Lord, and they were inevitably objects 
 of the world's calumnv. Their noble efforts to 
 defend the deposit entrusted to them, and to escape 
 the sentence of our Lord upon His unfaithful 
 servants, was attributed to personal pride and 
 ambition. 
 
 LXXVIII. One of these noble Prelates who, 
 towards the end of the ninth century, defended 
 the freedom of Episcopal elections with dignified 
 firmness, was the celebrated Archbishop of Rheims, 
 
 and entreaty, of submission and authority, of piety and self-asser- 
 tion, Louis II. writes to Adon, Bishop of Vienne, ordering or 
 beseeching him to appoint a certain Bernarius to the see of Grenoble, 
 merely because he was one of the Emperor Lothaire's clerks, and 
 that Emperor wished him to be made a Bishop. " Our beloved 
 brother Lothaire entreats our benignity (mansuetudinem nostram) 
 to appoint a certain clerk called Bernarius to the see of Grenoble ; 
 which we of our benignity have done (quod nos benignissimefecimus)." 
 Remark the authoritative action of his " benignity," — first doing the 
 thing, and then humbly asking leave of the Church ! " Therefore 
 we admonish (monemus) your Holiness to appoint him, and to obey 
 (obedias) speedily (mox), being assured of our consent that he be 
 consecrated in the Church of Grenoble." The recommendations of 
 Charles the Bald and Louis III. are in the same style, with as many 
 contradictions as there are words. Sometimes when recommending 
 a person, they added the clause, "if he be found worthy," — leaving 
 it to the Metropolitan to examine into his fitness ; but we may judge 
 howvmuch such a clause was worth by the occurrences at the Council 
 of Fismes in the time of Louis III., of which we shall shortly 
 have more to say. 
 
Hincmar and King Louis III. 157 
 
 Hincmar. Let us briefly review his dealings with Chap. iv. 
 Louis III. 
 
 The Council of Fismes was held a.d. 881, 
 Archbishop Hincmar presiding. The see of 
 Beauvais was vacant in consequence of the death of 
 Bishop Odo, and a clerk named Odoacer presented 
 himself before the Council with a decree of election 
 by the clergy and people of Beauvais, which had 
 been obtained by Court influence. The Council 
 exercised its right of examining the candidate be- 
 fore confirming his appointment, and pronounced 
 him unfit for it. The fathers then wrote a letter 
 to the King, in which they set forth the reasons 
 why they could not, in obedience to the Canons, 
 proceed to consecrate Odoacer. It was taken to 
 the King by a deputation of Bishops. This caused 
 a great stir at Court, and people said that " when 
 the King permitted an election, the object of his 
 choice should be elected. 1 Ecclesiastical endow- 
 ments were in his power, and he could give them 
 
 1 Remark the progress of usurpation. First, the secular power 
 hindered the Church's elections until she obtained permission 
 from it. Secondly, this permission became wholly a favour on 
 the sovereign's part, which he could arbitrarily concede or refuse. 
 Thirdly, this favour was no longer gratuitously granted, but" had to 
 be bought. Fourthly, at last this royal favour having beeirbought, 
 and permission to elect freely thus obtained, it was shackled with 
 the condition that the election should still only fall on the candidate 
 whom the monarch selected ! 
 
Hincmar and King Louis III. 
 
 Chap. iv. to whomsoever he would." 1 The King wrote to 
 Hincmar in indistinct and self-contradictory lan- 
 guage. He expressed his " desire to be guided by 
 the Archbishop's counsels in the affairs both of 
 Church and State, and intreated him to feel the 
 same concern on his account, as for the kings his 
 predecessors," adding, as a proof of his royal inten- 
 tion of following such counsels, " I beg that I' may 
 be enabled to give the Bishopric of Beauvais to 
 Odoacer, your dear son and my faithful servant, 
 with your assent and by your ministry. If you 
 oblige me in this, I will in all things have respect 
 to your wishes." 2 Is it fitting that Christ's Flock 
 be committed to a Pastor in order to oblige a man ? 
 Should souls redeemed by the Blood of Christ be 
 entrusted to a Bishop, not because he is wise and 
 holy, but because he is a royal favourite, and 
 therefore to be enriched with Episcopal endow- 
 ments ? What a reversal of all that is right ! 
 
 Hincmar was not unequal to his duty. He 
 replied " that the letter of the Council contained 
 nothing that interfered with the respect due to the 
 King or the welfare of the State. Its only 
 object was to maintain the rights of the Metro- 
 
 1 Observe the confusion of ideas among these courtiers. The 
 possessions of the Episcopate were regarded by them, not as mere 
 accessories, but as its very substance and reality. 
 
 2 Hincm., ep. 12, torn ii. p. 188. 
 
Hincmar addresses Louis III. 159 
 
 politan and the provincial Bishops in respect of Chap. iv. 
 the examination and confirmation of Prelates ac- 
 cording to the Canons." . He added, " The asser- 
 tion that you are master of these elections, and of 
 the Church's possessions, comes forth from hell 
 and the mouth of the serpent. Remember the 
 promise made by you at your consecration, signed 
 by your hand, and presented to Grod on His 
 altar before the Bishops. Read it over in the pre- 
 sence of your Council, and seek not to introduce 
 into the Church that which was never attempted 
 in the times of the great emperors who .pre- 
 ceded you. I hope ever to maintain the fidelity 
 and devotion which I owe you. I took no small 
 thought for your election. Do not therefore render 
 me evil for good, by seeking to induce me in my 
 old age to forsake the holy maxims which, by the 
 grace of God, I have followed up to the present 
 time, through an Episcopate of thirty-six years. 
 As to the promises you make me, I do not venture 
 to ask anything of you, save what concerns your, 
 own soul and in behalf of the poor. But I entreat 
 you to remember that ordinations contrary to the 
 Canons are simoniacal, and that all who have any 
 hand in them are partakers in the guilt. Nor do 
 I speak out of my own head or set forth my own 
 thoughts. I cite to you the words of Jesus Christ, 
 
160 Duty of the Church towards earthly princes. 
 
 Chap. iv. of His Apostles and His Saints who reign with Him 
 in Heaven. Beware how you heed them not ! The 
 Bishops are gathering together in council, in order 
 to proceed to a regular election with the clergy 
 and people of Beauvais, and with your consent." 
 
 Bishops who spoke the truth to kings, after 
 this fashion and without disrespect, considered that 
 they were giving the hest proof of their faithful 
 and inviolable attachment. How little do men 
 know each other ! Yet from whom should mon- 
 archs hope to hear the truth and the word of 
 Grod, if the Bishops withhold it? Would that 
 Bishops could learn the tone of that Apostolic 
 freedom, which is anything but a want of 
 respect or loyalty ! "Would that Catholic princes 
 could appreciate it ! and understand that it is a 
 precious gift of God to have men who will 
 speak conscientiously to them ; men who are 
 ready to face their displeasure, and the more 
 active indignation of flatterers and servile 
 ministers, rather than betray the truth or utter 
 agreeable falsehoods. These insincerities may seem 
 to honour royalty ; but in reality they stealthily 
 undermine its foundations, and prepare its ruin. The 
 Church, which is the " pillar and ground of the 
 truth," has always held it unlawful to deceive 
 even those princes who seek to be deceived, and 
 
Reply of Louis III. to Hincmar. 161 
 
 who punish men who will not deceive them. chap. iv. 
 This friendly loyalty of the Church tends to 
 strengthen the throne, by the support of piety 
 and justice. How has her faithful voice been 
 misinterpreted, misunderstood, calumniated by 
 those who are seemingly the zealous friends, 
 but really the deadly enemies of royalty ! They 
 know well enough that if a prince gives heed 
 to the severe admonitions of the Church, both 
 Church and State will prosper together ; yet they 
 persistently seek to persuade monarchs that the 
 Church would fain trench upon their rights, and 
 that the Apostolic liberty of Popes and Bishops is 
 only ambition and an audacious infringement upon 
 their royal dignity. 
 
 It was thus that the ministers of Louis III. 
 misrepresented the faithful and dignified answer 
 made to him by Hincmar. Instead of increas- 
 ing the young prince's reverence for and grati- 
 tude to the aged Prelate, it only irritated him. 
 He replied as follows : " If you will not consent 
 to the election of Odoacer, I shall esteem it a 
 proof that you refuse the respect due to me, 1 
 that you will not uphold my rights, and that 
 
 1 In what was this respect to consist? In a vile act, in the 
 betrayal of Christ's Church, and of the souls bought by Him with 
 His precious Blood ! 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Hincmar's rejoinder. 
 
 Chap. iv. you purpose in all things to resist my will. 
 With, an equal, I should put forth all my 
 power to maintain my dignity. 1 On a subject 
 who insults me, I shall only bestow my con- 
 tempt. I shall go no further in this matter 
 until I have laid it before my royal brother 
 and cousins, to the- end that a Council of all 
 the Bishops of our kingdoms, 2 may be summoned. 
 It will decide what is conformable to our dignity. 
 And if it be needful, we shall do that which is 
 according to reason." If Hincmar had been 
 actuated by motives of ambition or self-interest, 
 such an answer, threatening him with the loss of 
 royal favour, would doubtless have induced him 
 to yield. But he who acts for conscience' sake 
 cannot yield. No prince can lead him to betray 
 his trust, inasmuch as his fidelity to his prince is 
 built upon his fidelity to God. It is not a self- 
 interested fidelity; it is based solely on duty. 
 As to the reproach of failing in respect and obedi- 
 
 1 A dignity which consists in arrogant injustice ! 
 
 2 The caprice of one man was to inconvenience all the Bishops 
 of a kingdom by assembling them in Council. And for what ? to 
 oblige them to make a law not according to justice, but according 
 to his own pleasure, which he styles his " dignity." It seems a 
 strange thing to seek to avenge one's self on the uprightness of a 
 provincial Council by corrupting a national Council ! But have 
 we not seen similar aims and similar results 'in our own times? 
 Who has forgotten the National Council of Paris ? 
 
Hincmars rejoinder. 163 
 
 ence to the King, Hincinar" contented himself with Chap. iv. 
 giving a solemn denial to 1 the royal secretary. For 
 the rest, he answered thus : " With regard to what 
 you say you will do if necessary, I see plainly 
 that your object is to intimidate me. But you 
 have no power save that which is from on high. 
 May it please Grod by your means, or by any 
 other means, to release me from this prison — I 
 mean from this aged and infirm body — and to call 
 me to Him after Whom I long with my whole 
 heart. It will not be my desert — for truly I merit 
 nothing of good ; it will be His abundant mercy. 
 If I sinned by consenting to your election, against 
 the will and the threats of many, I pray God to 
 let me be chastised through you in this- life, rather 
 than in the next. And since you are so anxious 
 concerning the election of Odoacer, let me know 
 when the Bishops of the Province of Rheims, 
 with those who were sent to you by the Council 
 of Fismes, can assemble. If I am still living, 
 I will cause myself to be carried thither. Send 
 Odoacer thither also, with those who elected him, 
 whether they be of the palace or of the Church 
 of Beauvais. Come also yourself, if you will, or 
 send your commissioners ; and let us see whether 
 Odoacer has entered the sheepfold by the door. 
 But let him know, that if he does not come, we 
 
1 64 Death of Louis : Odoacer deposed. 
 
 Chap. iv. will seek for him wheresoever he may be in* the 
 province of Eheims. And he shall be judged by us 
 as the usurper of a Church, so that he shall never- 
 more exercise any ecclesiastical function in any 
 part of this province ; and all such as may have 
 shared in his crime will be excommunicate,, until 
 such time as they make satisfaction to the Church." 
 But these noble words, well worthy of the pri- 
 mitive Bishops, did not influence the government. 
 Louis III. was persuaded by his time-serving 
 courtiers to use violence. Odoacer was thrust 
 upon the see by the force of arms. The ill-starred 
 Church of Beauvais had to endure the hireling. 
 But she never inscribed him on the roll of her 
 Pastors. And a year later, when Louis III. had 
 departed this life to render account of his deeds to 
 the Judge of all men, 1 Odoacer was excommu- 
 nicated for this and other crimes, and deposed. 
 
 1 All who believe that Divine Providence rules over human 
 affairs, and that nothing happens save by His ordering, will ob- 
 serve the coincidence of this young sovereign's death with the 
 warnings of the Archbishop of Eheims on this occasion. Commenting 
 on the King's obstinacy in thrusting Odoacer into the see of Beau- 
 vais against the Canonical laws, he said, " If you persist in doing 
 wrong, God will set it right in His own good time. The Emperor 
 Louis did not live as long as his father Charles ; your grandfather 
 Charles did not live so long as his father, nor your father so long 
 as his father. And when you are at Compiegne in their stead, look 
 where they lie, and do not lift up yourself against Him Who died 
 for you, Who rose again, and lives evermore. You will soon depart 
 hence ; but the Church and her Pastors, under Jesus Christ their 
 
Disastrous exclusion of the laity from elections. 165 
 
 LXXIX. This persevering attempt on the Chap. iv. 
 part of the secular power to seize the right of 
 controlling episcopal elections, was in no small 
 degree aided by the division between the people 
 and the clergy, already alluded to. As the 
 people became more estranged from their Pastors, 
 and more corrupted, they grew more indifferent to 
 the character of those who were set over them. 
 On the other hand, the episcopal ; sees had 
 degenerated into posts of great worldly comfort 
 by reason of their abundant wealth and honours. 
 Hence they became the aim of the most covet- 
 ous, and the prey of the most intriguing., It was 
 thus natural that the injured people should be 
 sold and bought, divided into parties, roused to 
 tumults, as being tools of the unworthy flatterers, 
 to whom they looked for the toleration of their own 
 vices, rather than for the virtues which become a 
 Bishop. These disorders led to the exclusion of the 
 people from the elections. It first occurred in the 
 East, where the lay authorities had seized uporv the 
 elections. The West followed. Thus the Canons 
 were deprived of their sanction, which came chiefly 
 
 Head, -will endure, according to His promise." Fleury, who 
 is certainly not a credulous historian, after citing these words of 
 Hincmar, adds, " This threat of the Archbishop might be re- 
 garded as prophetical, when we observe that the young King Louis 
 died in the following year " (Lib. liii. § 32). 
 
1 66 Restriction of elections to the Cathedral clergy. 
 
 Chap. iv. through the people. And the clergy unconsciously 
 seconded the views of the secular power, if not 
 by deliberate counsel, by some unfailing instinct. 
 They were not content to retain for themselves the 
 fight of election without taking account of the 
 multitude of the faithful. There soon arose among 
 them a supremacy of the few over the majority. 1 
 These few appropriated to themselves the right of 
 electing their Bishops ; and being the canons 
 of Cathedrals, they succeeded in confirming this 
 assumed right, by the sanction of Church law. 
 Thus the elective body was weakened by the exclu- 
 sion from the Episcopal elections of the mass of 
 the people and of the clergy. It became power- 
 
 1 This occurred in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We 
 see from a letter of the famous Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, 
 that in his time (the ninth century) the country clergy, as well as 
 that of the towns, took part in the Episcopal elections. Writing to 
 Edemilf, Bishop of Laudun, to desire him to preside at the 
 election of the Bishop of Cambray, he expresses himself as follows : 
 " Quae electio non tantum a civitatis clericis erit agenda, verum et 
 de omnibus monasteriis ipsius Parochise, et de rusticanarum paro- 
 chiarum presbyteris occurrant vicarii commorantium secum Con- 
 cordia vota ferentes. Sed et laici nobiles ac cives adesse debebtint : 
 quoniam ab omnibus debet eligi, cui debet ab omnibus obediri. " The 
 fact of Hincmar's warning to Edenulf , is a proof that already there 
 was a tendency to change the ancient custom. At the end of the 
 twelfth century, Innocent III., in one of his decretals (de caus. 
 possess, et propriet., c. 3) ascribes the right of election, "ad Gathe- 
 dralium Ecdesiarum clericos." Finally, in 1215, the fourth Lateran 
 Council (can. 24r-26) restricted that right wholly to the canons of 
 Cathedrals. 
 
Policy of the Avignonese Popes. 167 
 
 less to maintain its rights against those who sought Chap. iv. 
 to appropriate them. 
 
 LXXX. This state of things, when the French 
 Popes were resident at Avignon, 1 led to the 
 Pontifical reserves, reversions pf rents, and annates 
 as a natural consequence. These were at first 
 winked at by the princes, and eventually required 
 by them, because they tended to weaken still 
 further the sanction of the Church's right to elect 
 her pastors. 2 For the sanction which pro- 
 tects a right must be strong in proportion to 
 the extent of that right ; and no one person, 
 
 1 Clement V., a.d. 1306, extended the Pontifical reserves to 
 Bishoprics. Benedict XII., who became Pope A.n. 1334, soon 
 made them universal. Towards the end of the fourteenth century 
 Boniface IX. extended annates to the Bishoprics, making them 
 perpetual. [Cf. Hallam, Middle Ages, ,ii. 14. — Ed.] 
 
 2 This explains a fact, otherwise inexplicable. The Council of 
 Basle, supported by the lay power, annulled Pontifical reserves. 
 What was the hidden motive which induced these princes to side 
 with the Council of Basle ? Did they seek to abolish reserves ? No, 
 but by gaining the mastery over the Church, they sought to weaken 
 her. We find a proof of this in the line taken by the King of 
 France. Charles VII. received the decrees of the Council of 
 Basle with seeming exultation, and declared them to be laws of the 
 State at the assembly of Bourges, where he published the Pragmatic 
 Sanction. Why? Shortly after, this same king, and his successors, 
 Louis XL and Charles VIII. requested the Pope to reserve certain 
 Bishoprics in order to bestow them according to their own desires. 
 They wished to maintain the reserves, but in an attenuated form, 
 and as bestowed by the Pope in accordance with their own wishes. 
 Thus the real aim of politicians was to "abrogate" reserves only 
 in the sense of weakening and then employing them to evade the 
 laws of the Church. 
 
1 68 Deplorable effect of Concordats, 
 
 Chap. iv. albeit invested with ever so high a dignity, can 
 possess power commensurate with the extension 
 of such a right as the election of all Bishops 
 throughout the world. Together with these 
 world-wide reserves, the Popes assumed a re- 
 sponsibility beyond their strength. They under- 
 took the exercise of a right so enormously vast, 
 that it was impossible for them to guard it with 
 any proportionate resources ; and a right thus un- 
 guarded is held precariously, if it is not lost. Hence 
 the lamentations of whole nations ; hence the 
 humiliation of concordats, wherein the Mother 
 of the faithful was constrained by her discontented 
 children to condescend to make terms with them j 1 
 
 1 Dining fifteen centuries, amid all her many trials, the Church 
 was never brought so low as to be forced to make compacts with 
 the faithful ! The sins of the clergy incurred this humiliation. 
 " If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted 1 it 
 is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden 
 under foot of men " (St. Matt. v. 13). It is useless to deny that con- 
 cordats are compacts — a Pope himself gives them this name ; 
 Julius III. says, " Nos attendentes concordata dicta vim pacti 
 inter partes habere," etc. (Constit., 14 Sept., 1554, apud Eaynald). 
 No compact holds good when it begins to be sinful, nor should com- 
 pacts with the Church be so stringent as to hinder her power of 
 benefiting the Christian world — a power which, essentially free, 
 cannot be bound. In saying this, I do not so much condemn con- 
 cordats, as lament their necessity. Neither they nor any other 
 human convention whatsoever can take away the Divine and 
 immutable rights of the Church, or fetter the legislative power 
 given her by Jesus Christ, or in any way diminish the fulness of 
 her power for good — by means of which she can lay her injunctions 
 on the faithful without limit where she sees it needful for their 
 
upon the elective rights of the Church. 169 
 
 hence, finally, a terrible Wound in the body of the Chap. iv. 
 Church. When her ancient elective rights were 
 gone, when the clergy took no part in the elec- 
 tions, and the chapters were despoiled of their 
 privileges, and the Popes of their reserves, the 
 nomination of Bishops fell everywhere through- 
 out Catholic Christendom into lay hands, although 
 their confirmation, a matter of little consequence, 
 was retained by the ruler of the Church. 
 Thus was accomplished the work of the wolf 
 in sheep's clothing, " the Church was enslaved 
 under the outward garb of liberty." 1 But be- 
 fore I proceed to set forth the bitterness of this 
 piteous Wound, of this fiction of liberty which 
 is a real slavery, I have yet somewhat to say 
 
 eternal salvation, and for the enlargement of Christ's kingdom upon 
 earth. [It is difficult to follow our author here. If a compact is 
 sinful, it ought not to be made ; if any compact is made, and can be 
 kept without positive immorality, it ought to be kept. Surely he 
 does "condemn" some concordats. — Ed.] 
 
 1 When Pope Adrian I. wrote to Charlemagne (a.d. 784), to 
 make him understand that the secular power had no right to take 
 part in Episcopal elections, and that they must be left free, he was 
 able to make use of an effectual and telling argument, namely, that 
 he himself (the Pope) did not meddle with the elections, because 
 they were better free. His words are, " Nunquam nos in qualibet 
 electione invenimus nee invenire habemus. Sed neque Vestram 
 Excellentiam optamus in talem rem incumbere. Sed qualis a clero 
 et plebe . . . electus canonice fuerit, et nihil sit quod sacro obsit 
 ordini, solita traditione ilium ordinamus " (Tom. ii. Cone. Gall., p. 
 95, 120). This telling argument could no longer be used by the 
 Popes, when the day of reserves had arrived. 
 
1 70 Origin of the feudal system 
 
 Chap. iv. about other reasons which brought Episcopal 
 elections to so pitiable a state. Something must 
 be said of the weary struggles of Popes and 
 Bishops, who did and bore much in the attempt 
 to keep the Church as truly free as she was by 
 the constitution of her Divine Founder. 
 
 LXXXI. When the northern chieftains fell 
 with their barbarian hordes upon the South and 
 1 conquered it, they styled themselves Kings of 
 France, of Italy, and of England, 1 that is, of the 
 possessions of Frenchmen, Italians and English- 
 men, and thereby of their persons. But it was 
 impossible for any one possessor, however great 
 his strength, to keep a hold over such wide 
 districts, while the received law enacted that " the 
 power to protect a right must correspond with 
 the extent of the right itself." Hence these 
 chieftains, who were a new kind of kings, in- 
 vented the feudal system, as a means of retaining 
 a principal claim upon their new possessions, 
 while ceding the present use of them to others. 
 Their tenants became the faithful guardians of 
 lands, which they would otherwise have endea- 
 voured to wrest from the chiefs ; whose com- 
 panions in arms would never have submitted to 
 be excluded from a share in the new conquests. 
 
 1 [This is, of course, too rhetorical to be history. — Ed.] 
 
and of ecclesiastical fiefs. 1 7 1 
 
 These men, who shared in the bounty of the king, Chap. iv. 
 and had to a great measure the same interests, were 
 his faithful men (fedeli) ; whence was derived the 
 name of fiefs (feudi), because they vowed fidelity 
 to the king, and a vassalage of fixed services, 
 chiefly of raising men-at-arms, and of serving them- 
 selves in the king's army. It was a clever arrange- 
 ment. By this means conquerors were able to 
 maintain a right in the conquered lands, and 
 also to keep in subjection those to whom they 
 were ceded ; as, whenever a feudatory died, his 
 fief lapsed to the king, who conferred it upon, any 
 one else, according to his pleasure. 1 
 
 It was not long before these new masters of 
 Europe perceived that it was more to their advan- 
 tage to make over their lands in trust to Bishops 
 and Churches, than to military dependants* 
 And thus, as early as in the time of Clovis, began 
 the system of ecclesiastical fiefs and baronies. 
 Charlemagne especially appreciated the value of 
 this plan. William of Malmesbury says, "Charle- 
 magne, seeking to subdue the ferocity of the 
 Grermanic nations, gave nearly all the lands to the 
 
 1 It was not till near the end of the second dynasty that lay fiefs 
 became hereditary in France, as is shown by Marc. Anton. Dominicy 
 (De Prserogativis Allodiorum, c. 15, Strasbourg, 1697) ; but out of 
 respect to ecclesiastical feudatories, who had no succession, they 
 were always more or less personal. 
 
172 Equivocal position of feudal Bishops. 
 
 Chap. iv. Church, reflecting, with consummate wisdom, that 
 men in Holy Orders would less easily cast aside 
 their fidelity to the Emperor than would the laity ; 
 and that, moreover, if the laity rebelled, they 
 would be able to control such rebellion by the 
 terrors of the spiritual power, and the authority 
 of excommunication." x 
 
 Such liberality, shown by princes towards 
 Bishops, closely resembled bribes offered to judges 
 by parties to a suit. Moreover, the very nature 
 of these royal bounties involved the Church's 
 servitude. The Bishops became so many vas- 
 sals, constrained to take the oaths of fidelity 
 and to do feudal homage to the king. 2 As his 
 
 1 De gestis regum Anglorum, lib. v. " Carolus Magnus pro con- 
 tundenda gentium illarum (Germanicarum) ferocia, omnes pene 
 terras Ecclesiis contulerat, consiliosissime perpendens, nolle Saori 
 Ordinia homines tarn facile quam laicos fidelitatem domino rejicere. 
 Praeterea, si laici rebellarent, illos posse excommunicationis auctori- 
 tate et potentise severitate compescere." 
 
 2 Nor did it stop here. The oath that at first was exacted from 
 the Bishops as feudatories, was soon exacted from them as Bishops, 
 per extensionem, as the lawyers said, and by this clause they thought 
 to justify the usurpation. The Church was not inactive ; she 
 forbade such Bishops as held no temporal possessions at the king's 
 hands to take this oath. At the fourth Lateran Council, the solemn 
 decretal of Innocent III. on this point was published (Can. 43) : 
 " Nimis dejure divino quidam laici usurpare conantur, cum viros 
 ecclesiasticos, nihil temporale detinentes ab eis, ad prsestandum 
 sibi fidelitatis juramenta compellunt. Quia vero, secundum Apos- 
 tolum, servus suo domino stat aut cadit, sacri auctoritate Concilii 
 prohibemus, ne tales clerici personis ssecularibus prssstare cogantur 
 hujus modi juramenta." 
 
Can a " man of God" be a " Kings man " ? 1 73 
 
 associates, sharing his earthly interests, and Chap. iv. 
 joining in his enterprises and wars, it was im- 
 possible for them any longer to appreciate the 
 Apostle's rule, " No man that warreth, entangleth 
 himself with the affairs of this -life." 1 They in- 
 evitably learnt to look upon the king solely as 
 their temporal lord, and themselves as his servants, 
 sharing his wealth and his power as a matter of 
 favour. They forgot that their king was but 
 a layman, a son of the Church, a sheep of their 
 f6ld ; and that they were Bishops chosen by the 
 Holy Spirit to govern the Church of God. In a 
 word, it was impossible that, having become King's 
 men, 2 they could have ever before them that they 
 were men of God ; forasmuch as "no man can 
 serve two masters." 3 
 
 LXXXII. The use of earthly advantages for 
 earthly euds rarely fails to blind men. All the 
 Church's power, all her liberties, belong to the 
 spiritual and invisible world. Who can wonder, 
 if, when power of an outward and imposing 
 
 1 2 Tim. ii. 4. 
 
 2 He who held an investiture from the king was called " homo 
 regis." There could be no expression which more fully describes 
 the king's absolute lordship over such a man, who became, so to 
 say, a royal possession. Who could imagine St. Peter, St. Paul, 
 St. Ohrysostom, or St. Augustine converted from "homo Dei," into 
 " homo regis " ! And in those days the word " homo " had become 
 a synonym for soldier ; cf. Du-cange ; Glos. med. et infim. latinit. 
 Voc. Miles. 3 St. Matt. vi. 24. 
 
1 74 The essence of the Episcopal office 
 
 Chap. iv. character and worldly and civil duties were added 
 to the spiritual office of the Episcopate, the 
 Bishops — who, after all, were but men — should, 
 like their princes, be dazzled and absorbed 
 by such accessories, and speedily learn to seek 
 in them the essence of their Episcopal dignity ? 
 Who can wonder that this secular rank which 
 royalty had bestowed, was mingled and confused 
 in men's minds with the spiritual power con- 
 ferred by Christ, until the invisible gift, through 
 its confusion with the earthly, vanished by de-- 
 grees quite out of sight? Hence the benefice 
 annexed to the office was called a bishopric, 1 for it 
 was no longer thought possible to separate tbe 
 Episcopal office from the temporal benefice, or that 
 the spiritual power could exist without it. The 
 ordinary forms of speech in that period, shaped 
 by public opinion, confirm this. They confuse 
 everything together. Instead of saying that the 
 king bestowed the temporal possessions annexed 
 to an Episcopal see, they speak of the king as 
 " giving, conferring a Bishopric, or the Episcopal 
 dignity," as "commanding, ordaining that such 
 a one shall be a Bishop ; " or they say that " by the 
 royal command so-and-so has been consecrated." 2 
 
 1 \Ital. episcopate — Ed.] 
 
 2 Fulbert of Ohartres, ep. 8 [ed. Migne. 35], writes of Frank, 
 
forgotten amidst its temporal accessories. 175 
 
 Once more, these expressions did not convey, Chap. iv. 
 at the time when they were coined, all their real 
 meaning ; they foreshadowed what would come to 
 be in the future. It is always thus ; expressions are 
 originated, worthless at first, mere concessions of 
 truth to passion, mere falsehoods. But deeds soon 
 follow words ; there is a law which leads men to 
 speak the truth, and which also leads them to treat 
 words as real which may have been idly spoken. 
 The forms of speech current in a nation show to 
 those who look below the surface of human affairs, 
 the path which it is treading, and its tendencies in 
 the future. This identification in common speech 
 pf the Episcopal dignity with its temporal endow- 
 ments, and this habit of attributing to the lay power 
 
 King Robert's Chancellor, that he was made Bishop, ' ' eligente clero, 
 suffragante populo, dono regis." As I said above, these words were 
 commonly used, and no one heeded their incorrectness. Among the 
 formulas of Marculfus, that which contains the King's order 
 says, addressing the Bishop designate: " Pontificalem, in Dei 
 nomine commisimus dignitatem ; " which form of speech demands 
 some explanation even from a zealous advocate of the royal privilege, 
 who adds as follows : " Quod saniori sensu et magis canonico in- 
 telligi non potest quam de regiorum jurium et feudorum investitura 
 et concessione quse Clodoveus ex ecclesiis manu liberali contulerat " 
 (Hist. Eccl. ssec. xiii., xiv., Dissert, viii. art. 3). St. Gregory of 
 Tours says of Cantinus, Bishop of Clermont (Lib. iv. c. 7) : " Tunc 
 jussu regis traditis. ei clericis et omnibus quse hi de rebus ecclesise 
 exhibuerant." And Clothaire II. , in the edict by which he modifies 
 the canon of the fifth Council of Paris, " ut si persona condigna 
 fuerit, per ordinationem principis ordinetur." We meet with such 
 expressions continually in the writings of that period. 
 
176 Royal usurpations disguised by courtesies. 
 
 Chai\ iv. the distribution of Episcopal offices as of any other 
 gifts which are naturally dependent on the will of 
 the donor, showed but too plainly the subserviency 
 and corruption of the clergy. They had already be- 
 come the vassals of secular princes, preferring the 
 good things of the world to the freedom of Christ. 
 The popular language also showed the tendency of 
 princes to grasp everything, to conquer the Church 
 as they had conquered the soil. This tendency 
 might for a time be restrained from its natural 
 development by the personal piety of individuals ; 
 but in the long run it would infallibly follow the 
 law of its natural gravitation, and bear the fruit of 
 which it sowed the seed. Thus we see that at 
 first, with the exception of some arbitrary acts 
 concerning elections, the kings recognized the 
 Church's right to choose her own Pastors. Even 
 when they disposed arbitrarily of Episcopal sees, 
 they accompanied acts of injustice with lan- 
 guage which softened them and which breathed 
 a pious spirit. They were unwilling abruptly 
 to offend the feelings of Bishops and people, who 
 were still strict and tenacious with regard to truth 
 and Canon law, and had not yet become yielding 
 and courtier-like. 1 Charlemagne's piety and recti- 
 
 1 The formulas preserved byMareulfus show how the Prceceptum 
 de Bpiscopatu of the Frank kings was attempered : " Cognovimus 
 
Revenues of vacant benefices seized. 177 
 
 tude, as well as his policy, went still further, and Chap. iv. 
 restored to the Church some part of that liberty 
 of which the Merovingian kings had robbed her. 
 Louis the Pious followed the example of his mag- 
 nanimous father. 1 But not so the kings their 
 successors. 
 
 LXXXIII. It was but natural that at the 
 death of any Bishop, his fief should return to the 
 king, and that the king should enjoy the revenues 
 of the vacant see, which were called " regalia!" 1 
 This was of the very essence of the feudal system. 
 But matters did not stop here. A covetous de- 
 sire to appropriate this income led monarchs to 
 
 Antistitem ilium ab hac luce migrasse, ob cujus sucoessorum sollici- 
 tudinem congruam una cum Pontificibus (vel proceribus nostris 
 plenius tractantes, dicrevimus illustri viro illi Pontificalem in ipso 
 urbe committere dignitatem." 
 
 1 Pope Adrian X. had admonished Charlemagne that it was his 
 duty to leave Episcopal elections unfettered ; and that great man 
 received this admonition from the Head of the Church with that 
 'docility which is a far greater proof of a noble mind in princes, than 
 is their resistance and disobedience. Charlemagne even set forth 
 and sanctioned this liberty in the decree we find in his Capitu- 
 laries of Aix-la-Chapelle, A. d. 803 (c. 2) : " Not being unaware of the 
 sacred Canons, we have given our assent to the ecclesiastical order 
 (so that Holy Church may securely possess her due honour), that 
 Bishops be elected by their own dioceses, by election of the clergy 
 and people, according to the rules of the Canons, without any 
 acceptance of persons or bribes, according to their personal merit 
 and wisdom, so that they may always benefit those under them by 
 their example and their teaching." In a.d. 806, Louis the Pious 
 confirmed this law of Charlemagne in the Capitulary published after 
 the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 N 
 
1 78 Royal permission for episcopal elections. 
 
 chap. iv. keep dioceses without Pastors for a length of 
 time. 1 They delayed the elections by insisting that 
 no Bishop could be elected without the royal 
 permission. 2 Thus they made the G-ospel and the 
 
 1 This usurpation reached the culminating point in the eleventh 
 century. Not to multiply instances, it will suffice to notice what 
 happened to two Archbishops of Canterbury, Lanfranc and St. 
 Anselm, under two English kings, William I. and William II. When 
 Lanfranc demanded of William I. the property which his predeces- 
 sors had held, the King answered fiercely, " Se velle omnes baculos 
 pastorales Angliee in manu suatenere." The historian who narrates 
 this (Gervasius Dorobernensis,. in Imaginationibus de discordiis 
 inter monachos Dorobernenses et Baldeuinum Archiepisc. ; see 
 Histories Anglicanse Scriptores Antiqui, p. 1329), says that the 
 Prelate was amazed on hearing this, and remained silent out of 
 prudence, fearing lest the King should do still greater injury to the 
 Church. And the history of St. Anselm, Lanfranc's successor, still 
 further shows the state to which the Church was reduced at that 
 time. Eadmer relates (Lib. i. Hist. Novor.) that William II:, having 
 left Churches and Abbacies without Pastors in order to appropriate 
 their revenues, Anselm' thought it his duty as Primate to remon- 
 strate with the King, setting forth all the evils which arose from 
 the lack of Prelates, and humbly intreat'ing the King to cease from 
 thus injuring his own soul. The historian goes on to say that on 
 hearing this remonstrance of the holy Archbishop, " non potuit 
 amplius spiritum suum Rex cohibere, sed oppido turbatus cum 
 iracundia dixit : ' Quid ad te ? numquid Abbatise non sunt men 1 
 Hem, tu quod vis agis de villis tuis, et ego non agam quod volo de 
 Abbatiis meis? ' " To which the holy Prelate could do no less than 
 answer respectfully, that the possessions of the Church were his 
 only that he might protect and defend them, for that they were 
 God's, and intended for the maintenance of God's ministers. To 
 which the King wrathfully replied, " Pro certo noveris, mihi valde 
 contraria esse quae dicis. Non enim antecessor tuus auderet ulla- 
 tenus patri meo dicere : et nihil faciam pro te." To such straits 
 had the Church's freedom and possessions come in those days ! 
 such was the predominance and assumption of the lay power ! 
 
 2 The Church ever testified her reluctance to submit to such 
 
Priests to be ordained by Royal permission. 1 79 
 
 salvation of souls dependent on the king's will, Chap. iv. 
 his caprice, and above all, his covetousness. And 
 inasmuch as even presbyters had a share in the 
 Church's revenues, it was ordered that from hence- 
 forth the Church of Grod should be powerless to 
 
 dependence, and history is full of the struggle between the Church, 
 seeking freedom of actidn, and the secular power, seeking to subject 
 her to itself. Hence disputes were perpetually arising about elec- 
 tions which had been made without first obtaining the royal assent. 
 Richard I., in a letter to the Bishop of London about the year 1190, 
 complains loudly of an election as to which he had not been con- 
 sulted : " Quod si ita-est, regiammajestatemnostram non modicum 
 esse offensam.'' He declares, " Non enim aliqua ratione sustinere- 
 mus quod a prsefatis monachis vel ab aliis quidquam cum detrimento 
 honoris nostri in electione Episcopi fieret ; et si forte factum esset 
 quin in irritum revocaretur." In Richard's time the secular power 
 had made great progress in its invasion of the Church's rights, and 
 oppression of the Church's freedom ; while the power of resistance 
 on her part grew feebler, so that she would have succumbed, had 
 not God, taking care for her preservation, raised up Popes of extra- 
 ordinary courage and devotion, who once more set her free. What 
 would the Church in her brighter days have thought of monarchs 
 who claimed the right of controlling her choice' of her own Pastors, 
 and required that their consent should be sought before any elec- 
 tion could be made ? What would the Chrysostoms and the 
 Augustines have said, could they have beheld a son of the Church 
 striving to fetter his Mother's hands, leaving her only such liberty 
 as a slave might receive at a master's pleasure ? With what noble 
 and holy wrath would they have answered such pretensions, main- 
 taining the sacred rights of the Spouse of Christ ? Even in the 
 tenth century, and in the East, the Church bore witness that she 
 felt all the degradation to which she was brought by such oppres- 
 sion. Cedrenus relates that Phocas Nicephorus had forbidden 
 Episcopal elections to be made without his consent, and many as 
 were the crimes of that Emperor, the historian ranks this prohibi- 
 tion among the foremost of them : "Id omnium gravissimum, quod 
 legem tulit, cui et episcopi quidam leves atque adulatores" (here lay 
 the root of the evil), " subscriber unt, ne absque imperatoris sententia 
 
1 80 All Church property treated as fiefs, 
 
 chap. iv. ordain one of her humblest priests, save by royal 
 concession and favour ! 1 
 
 LXXXIY. Again. The men of the law, who 
 are to royal Courts what sophistical demagogues 
 are to a corrupt populace, discovered the following 
 singular argument : — 
 
 " The principal involves that which is ac- 
 cessory ; but among the Church's possessions her 
 
 ac permissu Episcopus vel eligeretur vel ordinaretur." When 
 Phocas' successor, John Zymisca, came to the throne, the then 
 Patriarch of Constantinople, Polieuctes, refused to admit him or his 
 followers into the Church, or to assist at his coronation, until he 
 had made atonement for his crimes, and until he had abrogated the 
 law of the last Emperor, which was fatal to the Church's freedom. 
 The new monarch obeyed, and the law was torn up in the presence 
 of all the people (Cedren. ad. ann. 969, p. 255). 
 
 1 Among the formulas of Marculfus (19) we find one entitled 
 " Prseceptum de clericatu," which is the required licence given 
 by the king to all candidates for the priesthood. It is called 
 " praeceptum," inasmuch as flattery assumed that whatever came 
 from the royal lips was such. Would that princes could banish all 
 this false courtier phraseology, and rest their power solely on the 
 truth ! How much stronger and more venerable their thrones 
 would be ! Yet the world mocks at such a proposal ! The Bishops 
 nevertheless continued to ordain priests regardless of this royal 
 mandate. Among Gerbertus' Epistles we find one from an Arch- 
 bishop of Rheims (Ep. 57), in which he speaks of himself as 
 " accused of crime against the king's majesty by reason of 
 having conferred ecclesiastical orders without his permission or 
 license." The French kings even sought to contest the liberty 
 of the faithful to quit the world, and devote themselves to God 
 in the religious life. Hincmar, in a letter to Charles the Bald, 
 tells that monarch emphatically that the Church has never acknow- 
 ledged any such law. This letter is published by. P. Cellotti with 
 the Council of Douzi. 
 
Kings appropriate proceeds of vacant sees. 1 8 1 
 
 fiefs are the principal ; hence all Church, pro- Chap. iv. 
 pe'rty must assume the character of fiefs, and be 
 subject to the same legislation." x 
 
 By means of this singular argument all the 
 Church's possessions had the honour of being con- 
 sidered " noble things " ; 2 possessions of the first 
 rank, and thus, in a manner, royal. 3 Hence the 
 king assumed feudal rights, not only over fiefs 
 which were really his, but over all ecclesiastical 
 property indifferently. From all he exacted his 
 regalia, that is, the proceeds of vacant benefices, 4 
 which were destined to fall into his hands at the 
 death of those who held them ; and generally he 
 disposed of them at his pleasure, as his personal 
 property. 5 Thus the character of fiefs was- ascribed 
 
 1 See Natalis Alexander. In ssec. xiii. et xiv. , dissert, viii. art. 1. 
 
 2 [Ital. enti nobili.— Ed.] 
 
 3 These, they said, enjoyed a more powerful protection and 
 defence ; but is not the civil power bound to protect all property 
 alike ? 
 
 4 The word benefice, which is universally retained in the Church, 
 is derived from the early military benefices, and later, ecclesiastical 
 benefices, assigned to their lieges by the mediaeval monarchs. The 
 very name reminds us how the clergy sold their liberty to those 
 monarchs. They exchanged it for wealth. 
 
 6 The Church was not silent, she v sought to defend herself 
 against such usurpations. But she could only set her Canons 
 against military force. Already, in the year 451, the great 
 (Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon had framed this Canon (25) : 
 " Redditus vero viduatse Ecclesise integros reservari apud ceco- 
 nomum ejusdem Ecclesise placuit." 
 
 The Council of Riez, a.d. 493, Can. 6, decrees, " Stabili de- 
 
1 8 2 Tithes feudalized, and held by laymen. 
 
 Chap. iv. to the free possessions of the Church ; thus the 
 tithes were infeoffed ; 1 and, advancing step by 
 
 finitione consultum est, ut de csetero observaretur, ne quia ad 
 earn Ecclesiam, quae Episcopum perdidisset, nisi vicinse Ecclesiae 
 Episcopus exequiarum tempore accederet, qui visitatoris vice tamen 
 ipsius curam districtissime gereret, ne quid ante ordinationem dis- 
 cordantium in novitatibus clericorum subversioni liceret. Itaque 
 cum tale aliquid accidit, vicinis vicinarum Ecclesiarum inspectio, 
 recensio, descriptioque mandatur. " 
 
 In the Spanish Councils of Valentia and Ilerda, a.d. 524, 525, 
 the discipline of the Council of Chalcedon is confirmed. 
 
 In the second Council of Orleans, a.d. 533 (c. 6), it is decreed, 
 that in the event of the death of a Bishop, the neighbouring Prelate 
 shall come to his burial, and, assembling his priests, shall make 
 an exact inventory of the Church's properties, entrusting them to 
 faithful and safe persons. 
 
 The fifth Council of Paris, a.d. 614 (c. 7), ordains that no one 
 shall meddle with the property of any defunct Bishop or priest, 
 and that no " royal precept" shall have any claim upon it, under 
 pain of excommunication. It rules that " ab Archidiacono vel 
 clero in omnibus defensentur et conserventur," 
 
 Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, wrote thus to his Bishops, 
 in the ninth century (Ep. 9) : " Et sicut Episcopus et suas et 
 ecclesiasticas f acultates sub debita discretione in vita sua dispensandi 
 habet potestatem, ita facultates Ecclesise viduatas post mortem 
 Episcopi penes ceconomum integrse conservari jubentur futuro 
 successori ejus Episcopo ; quoniam res et facultates ecclesiasticas 
 non imperatorum atgue regum potestate sunt ad dispensandum vel 
 invadendum, sive diripiendum, sed ad defensandum atque tuen- 
 dum." Hincmar wrote in the same strain to King Charles the 
 Bald (Ep. xxix., and in various other letters, xxi. xlv.). 
 
 Another Archbishop of Rheims, Gerbert, afterwards Pope 
 Sylvester II., sets forth the same doctrine in his letter to his 
 clergy and people (Ep. cxviii.). 
 
 These laws being so taught and reasserted by the Church, the 
 princes of the ninth century could not seize upon the Church's 
 rights without incurring public disapproval : thus the " Bertiniani 
 Annales," a.d. 882, speak of the crime committed by Charles the 
 Fat, who made over the possessions of the Church of Metz to 
 
Laymen and soldiers, in Abbacies and Sees. 183 
 
 step, tithes, or other free property, were in this Chap. iv. 
 way granted in fief to laymen ; as was often 
 done with respect to real fiefs upon the death of 
 the Bishops or Ahbots who held them. 2 And 
 inasmuch as the spiritualities were considered in- 
 separable from the temporalities, the spectacle was 
 witnessed of laymen, nay, of soldiers, reigning in 
 abbacies over monks instead of their rightful 
 Abbots, and in sees as Bishops over their clergy. 3 
 
 Hugo, son of Lothaire the younger : " Quos sacri Canones futuro 
 episcopo reservari prsecipiunt." 
 
 1 It is well known that the tithes were usurped by the laity, 
 and conferred and given in fief by princes, as well as by Bishops and 
 Rectors. This appears from the canon law. See Estravag. de 
 Decim., c. 26, and Estravag. de iis quae fiunt a Prselat. sine con- 
 sensu, c. IT. 
 
 2 For examples, see Nat. Alexan., scec, xiii. and -xiv. Dissert, 
 viii. art. iii. 
 
 3 The Council of Meaux, a.d. 845, did not fail to address 
 Charles the Bald with Apostolic freedom, because he was guilty of 
 this despotism, granting the Church's lands to laymen, " so that, 
 contrary to all rule, contrary to the decrees of the Fathers, and to 
 that which is becoming for the Christian religion, we find laymen 
 presiding in monasteries as lords and masters among the priests 
 and Levites and other religious, regulating their life and con- 
 versation, sitting in judgment upon them, as though they themselves 
 were Abbots ; granting dispensations and formally providing for the 
 charge of souls and of the sacred tabernacles, not only without the 
 Bishop's presence, but without knowledge on his part of what was 
 being done " (Can. 10 and 42). Therefore these Fathers, addressing 
 Charles the Bald, decreed, " ut praecepta illicita jure beneficiario de 
 rebus ecclesiasticis facta a vobis, sine dilatione rescindantur, et ut 
 de csetero ne fiant, a dignitate Vestri nominis regii caveatur " 
 (Can. 18). Setting before him the enormity of thus rending the 
 seamless garment of Christ, which was not done even by the soldiers 
 
184 Kzngs assume spiritual authority. 
 
 Chap. iv. LXXXV. This identification of the tem- 
 poralities with the spiritualities led necessarily 
 to the usurpation of things spiritual as well as 
 temporal. And thus we find princes granting 
 investitures with the emblems of spiritual autho- 
 rity, the ring and pastoral staff. Hence it came 
 to pass that Bishoprics remained vacant while 
 the sovereign seized upon their revenues. 1 The 
 
 who crucified Him, they proceed : " Ante oculos reducentes tunicam 
 Christi, Qui vos elegit et exaltavit, quam nee milites ausi fuerunt 
 scindere, tempore vestro quantocitius reconsuite et resarcite : et . 
 nee violenta ablatione, nee illicitorum prseceptorum confirmatione 
 res ab Ecclesiis vobis ad tuendum et defensandum ac propagandum 
 commissis auferre tentate ; sed ut sanctse memorise avus et pater 
 vester eas gubernandas vobis, fautore Deo, dimiserunt, redinte- 
 grate, prseeepta regalia earundem Ecclesiarum conservate et 
 confirmate " (Can. 2). It is to be observed that this Council dis- 
 tinguishes' between lands given to the Church as freeholds, and 
 those given in fief ; the King is rebuked chiefly for giving the 
 former to laymen. 
 
 1 In the Appendix to Flodoardus we find a "Notitia de Villa. 
 Novilliaco " thus expressed : " Defuncto Tispino Archiepiscopo, 
 tenuit Dominus Rex Carolus Remense Episcopium in suo dominatu, 
 et dedidit villain Novilliacum in beneficio Anschero Saxoni," etc. ; 
 that is, to a soldier, where we see the confusion of the temporal 
 benefice with the Bishopric. And since there is nothing which 
 covetousness and power united will not attempt, the princes, when 
 urged not to leave dioceses vacant, bethought them of sending com- 
 missaries called Chorepiscopi, instead of Bishops, retaining the 
 revenues of the see meanwhile. These false pastors grievously 
 afflicted the Church ; and thus we find numerous complaints and 
 decrees against Chorepiscopi in the Councils of the eleventh century, 
 until these anomalous officers, after damaging the Church for a long 
 time, were done away with. Flodoardus (lib. iii. Hist. Remensis, 
 c. 10), writing of an epistle from Hincmar to Pope Leo IV. says, "In. 
 hac vero epistola, de his quos temeritas chorepiscopalis ordinare, vel 
 
Resulting evils which afflicted the Church. 185 
 
 kings generally interfered with elections. 1 There chap. iv. 
 was an unlawful trade in Episcopal sees. They 
 were sold to the highest bidder. The high places 
 of the Church 1 were filled by unworthy men, 
 possessing no other merit than that of their un- 
 worthiness ; they were devoted to their prince, 
 and truckled to his vices. Degradation and cor- 
 ruption abounded both among clergy and people, 
 and a long train of evils was heaped upon the 
 hapless Church, in consequence of this wretched 
 state of things. And, although monarchs 
 were blind to the fact, these evils reacted upon 
 the State, disturbing and dividing it, and retard- 
 ing that progress of civilization towards which, 
 if the secular power be righteous, nature and 
 Christ's religion, happily associated, of themselves 
 guide the nations in their onward course. 
 
 LXXXVI. Under such oppression, the clergy 
 grew daily more oblivious of their trxie dignity 
 and freedom ; willingly accepting an increase of 
 
 quod Spiritum Sanctum consignando tradere prsesumebat, requisivit. 
 Et quod terrena poteatas hac materia ssepe offenderet, ut videlicet, 
 Episcopo quolibet defuncto, per Chorepiscopum solis Pontificibus 
 debitum ministerium perageretur, et res ac facultates Ecclesise 
 ssecularium usibus expenderentur, sicut et in nostra Ecclesia jam 
 secundo actum est," etc. 
 
 1 Tor a statement of the steps by which princes usurped 
 elections, beginning with intreaties and recommendations, and end- 
 ing with commands and violence, see Tommassinus, Vet. et Nov. 
 Eccl. Discipl., P. I. lib. i. c. 54. 
 
1 86 Moral deterioration of the clergy. 
 
 Chap. iv. wealth and temporal power in the place of those 
 treasures, of which they no longer knew the value. 1 
 
 1 The abject words of Bishop Arturicus, quoted by Blmoldus (in 
 Cronico Sclavorum, lib. i. c. 69 and 70) suffice to show how God's 
 ministers had deteriorated under their increased temporal advan- 
 tages. " The investiture of Pontiffs," says that Prelate, " is solely 
 the right of the imperial dignity, which alone is excellent, and after 
 God most sublime among the sons of men," (A Bishop thus to speak 
 of the Emperor, forgetful that whatever his rank in the Church 
 as a temporal sovereign, he is but her son and a layman !) " This 
 honour was acquired at a great price." (It is not a question of 
 honour ; the power of appointing to Bishoprics is a most important 
 office, a sacred and inalienable right of the Church. Can she sell 
 that right ? Can princes buy it with earthly riches 1 What else 
 was the sin of Simon Magus 1) " Nor was it in mere wantonness 
 that our most worthy Emperors styled themselves Lords op the 
 Bishops." (A Bishop praising such language !) " But they compen- 
 sated this inroad " (It was an inroad then ?) " with abundant wealth " 
 (Can the Church's freedom be compensated with money ? Can she 
 cast aside the only true wealth of the Spouse of Christ in order to 
 assume that bestowed by secular princes ?) " whereby the Church 
 was more plentifully adorned." (With virtues, or with an empty 
 exterior magnificence ?) " Nor does she now hold herself to be 
 lowered by such subject/ion ; nor does she blush to bow down, in 
 order that she may rule over many." (A singular opinion, truly 
 worthy of a successor of the Apostles ! But the Church does not 
 seek to rule, rather to save men ; the first is done through tem- 
 poral power, the latter by the grace of God's Word and the Holy 
 Spirit. If the Church became the slave of any one man, though 
 through him she reigned over all the world, she would be repudiated 
 by Christ.) The whole tenour of this Bishop's language is so extra- 
 ordinary that I must quote some of the original words, lest it be 
 thought I have misrepresented him : " Investiturse Pontificum im- 
 peratorise tantum dignitati permissse sunt, quae sola excellens, et 
 post Deum in filiis hominum prseeminens, hunc honorem non sine 
 fsenore multiplici conquistavit. Neque Imperatores dignissimi 
 levitate usi sunt, ut Episcoporum domini vocarentur, sed compensa- ' 
 verunt noxam hanc amplissimis regni divitiis, quibus Ecclesia 
 copiosius aucta, decentius honestata, jam non vile reputet ad 
 
Florus on Episcopal elections. 187 
 
 Not that from amidst these depths of humiliation Chap. iv. 
 the solemn voice of truth ever failed in the Church. 
 That voice can never be silenced ; if the undying 
 Church could cease to raise it, she would cease to 
 be herself. But it was a plaintive solitary voice, 
 rising up like the cry of a land of mourning. 
 
 It may suffice to quote a passage from Florus, 
 a deacon of Lyons, who, in this tenth century, 
 when the freedom of Episcopal elections was 
 well-nigh lost, wrote a book on the subject, " in 
 order to set forth what were the sacred laws 
 of the Church, and to confute the opinion which 
 was little by little asserting itself at Court, that 
 the king's assent was necessary to the lawfulness 
 and ratification of an Episcopal election." He 
 ' begins by setting forth .clearly the true doctrine 
 on this matter : " It is plain to all who hold the 
 priestly office in Grod's Church, that they are bound 
 to obey all that is commanded by the authority 
 of the sacred Canons, and by ecclesiastical custom, 
 according to the disposition of the Divine Laws, and 
 Apostolic tradition, with respect to the Ordination 
 of Bishops. Accordingly, when a Pastor dies, 
 and his see is vacant, the post of the departed 
 
 modicum cessisse subjectioni ; non erubescat uni inclinare per quem 
 possit in multos dominari. " Who would believe that after citing 
 this passage Natalis Alexander should have added " prceclare 
 dictum ! " 
 
1 88 Florus appeals to Antiquity. 
 
 Chap. iv. Prelate should be rightly filled by one of his 
 clergy, elected by the general and unanimous con- 
 sent of that clergy and people, solemnly and openly 
 designated by public decree, and consecrated by 
 the legitimate number of Bishops. There is no 
 doubt that an appointment so made by the Church 
 of Grod, is confirmed by justice and the Divine 
 Law. These things have been established by 
 the Councils of the Fathers, by the decrees of 
 the Apostolic See, and by the Church of Christ 
 from the beginning." In proof he quotes from 
 St. Cyprian's epistle to Antoninus, concerning the 
 election of St. Cornelius : " A man should be 
 made Bishop by the judgment of Grod and of His 
 Christ, by the witness of all the clergy, by the 
 votes of the people, and by the consent of the 
 venerable priests, and of good men " (bonorum 
 virorum). 
 
 He then proceeds, " It appears from these 
 words of the Blessed Cyprian, that from Apostolic 
 times, and for something like three hundred years, 1 
 all Bishops of the Church of Grod were appointed 
 by the Christian people, and lawfully governed 
 them, without any interference of earthly power. 
 When princes began to be Christian, we have one 
 
 1 \_Ital. anni quasi quattrocento. But if so, Floras made a 
 mistake. — Ed.] 
 
Florus appeals to Antiquity. 189 
 
 plain proof that, speaking generally, the Church Chap. iv. 
 maintained her freedom in the appointment of her 
 Bishops. It was not possible that an emperor, 
 ruling all the world, could know and select all 
 the Bishops who must needs be appointed in 
 the widely spread countries of Asia, Europe and 
 Africa. Nevertheless those appointments made 
 by the Holy Church after the Apostolic tradition, 
 and with due religious observances, were always 
 validly completed. If in some countries a custom 
 of consulting the sovereign concerning Episcopal 
 appointments crept in, it was only out of brotherly 
 love, and in order to preserve peace and harmony 
 with the powers that be ; not in any way to make 
 the holy ordination more valid or authoritative ; 
 since that ordination cannot be conferred on any 
 one by royal power, but only by God's will, and 
 with the consent of the faithful. And this for- 
 asmuch as the Episcopate is no human office, but a 
 gift of the Holy Spirit .... Whence it comes that 
 any prince who believes himself able to confer as 
 his benefice that which Divine G-race alone dis- 
 penses, sins grievously : in such concerns his 
 power may follow in confirmation, but it may not 
 take the lead." x 
 
 1 "Cum ministerium suae potestatis in hujus modi negotium 
 peragendo adjungere debeat, non prseferre." This is the true idea 
 
190 Miseries of the tenth century. 
 
 Chap. iv. LXXXVII. Nevertheless we must confess 
 that the continued perseverance with which the 
 lay power sought to reduce the Church to subjec- 
 tion, at one time by benefits conferred, at another 
 by underhand dealings, was at last successful. The 
 conquest was achieved. In the tenth century 
 the Church herself seemed weary of struggling 
 and protesting in vain against usurpation. She 
 appeared to have lost voice and breath, to have be- 
 come hoarse, so rarely and so feebly did she speak. 
 This was the most ill-starred of centuries. We 
 find the clergy out of their rightful path, blinded 
 by worldly wealth, and well-nigh accustomed to 
 traffic with dignity and conscience. A further 
 and noteworthy cause of the enslavement of the 
 Church was the power of Otho I., who humbled 
 the nobles, and strengthened his sovereign autho- 
 rity by making it more absolute. Thereby society 
 would have greatly benefited if the sovereign 
 power had not strayed into usurpations of the 
 Church's rights. But, with such precedents and 
 vicious customs, every addition to the Imperial 
 power did but tend to promote its usurpations. 1 
 
 of the part princes should take on the Church's behalf ; not con- 
 stituting themselves legislators, but lending their aid in order that 
 all her laws and arrangements may be carried out strictly according 
 to her mind. 
 
 1 This did not occur at once. Otho I. was a religious prince, and 
 
The Church in England and France. 191 
 
 Thus in the beginning of the eleventh century the ° HAP - IV > 
 freedom of election was altogether extinct. 
 
 In England the Abbot Ingulfus, in the time 
 of William the Conqueror, writes thus : " For 
 many years past we have not had any really 
 free and Canonical election of Prelates ; but every 
 dignity, whether of Bishop or Abbot, has been 
 conferred with ring and staff by the royal Court, 
 according to its pleasure." * Respecting France 
 under Philip I., the Pope complains to Procleus, 
 Bishop of Chalons, thus : " Among the other 
 
 ranks third with Alfred the Great and Charlemagne. Several facts 
 are recorded of him which prove his respect for the Church and 
 her authority. One of his nobles having applied for the revenues 
 of a certain monastery in order to maintain troops, he answered 
 indignantly, that "were he to give the Church's revenues to the 
 laity, he should fear to sin against Christ'^ precept, ' Give not that 
 which is holy to the dogs.' " He did much for the Roman Church, 
 confirming the free election of the Pope. Otho was not the man 
 to end by destroying ecclesiastical liberty, but it owed its extinction 
 to the increased power left by Otho as an inheritance to his suc- 
 cessors, who were not so upright as he was, or so generous and 
 large-hearted. It may even be added that one thing which for- 
 warded that total ruin of the liberty of the Church which took place 
 in the first half of the eleventh century was the very religious zeal 
 of pious princes, especially of the first and third Othos, and of the 
 saintly Emperor Henry. They meddled with the Church solely 
 with a view to her benefit, of which she was so fully conscious that 
 she offered no opposition ; but by this means their successors 
 obtained a power which they used to their own ends. 
 
 1 "Amultis annis retroactis nulla electio Praelatorum erat mere 
 libera et canonica ; sed omnes dignitates tarn Episcoporum quam 
 Abbatum per annulum et baculum regis Curia pro sua complacentia 
 conferebat." 
 
192 Anselm of Lucca to the Anti-pope. 
 
 Chap. iv. princes who in our time .... have trampled upon 
 their Mother as though she were a bondslave, 
 we know on good authority that Philip of France 
 has so oppressed the Gallican Churches, as to have 
 reached the climax of this detestable crime. The 
 which thing grieves us the more, forasmuch as it 
 is known how prudent and religious and energetic 
 and faithful to the Roman Church that kingdom 
 has been heretofore." - 1 
 
 Of Germany, St. Anselm, Bishop of Lucca, a 
 contemporaneous writer, says, " Thy King " (he 
 addresses the Anti-pope Gruibert) " continually 
 sells Bishoprics, publishing edicts forbidding that 
 he should be Bishop who is elected of the clergy, 
 or required of the people, unless the royal will has 
 first chosen him ; as though the monarch were the 
 porter of that door of which the Truth hath said, 
 ' To him the porter openeth.' You tear asunder 
 the limbs of the Catholic Church, which you have 
 invaded, throughout the kingdom, and which, after 
 reducing her to servitude, you retain in your 
 
 1 "Inter caeteros nostri hujus temporis principea, qui Ecclesiam 
 Dei perversa cupiditate venumdando dissipaverunt, et matrem suam 
 ancillari subjections penitus conculcarunt, PhUippum regem Fran- 
 corum Gallicanas Ecclesias in tantum oppressisse certa relatione 
 didicimus, ut ad summum tam detestandi hujus facinoris cumulum 
 pervenisse videatur. Quam rem de regno illo tanto profecto tulimus 
 molestius, quanto et prudentia et religione et viribus noscitur fuisse 
 potentius, et erga Romanam Ecclesiam multo devotius." — Gregory 
 VII., Ep. i._35, ad Rodericum (Rodenum) Cabilonensem Episcopum. 
 
Gregory VII becomes Pope. 193 
 
 keeping as a miserable slave. You exchange the Chap. iv. 
 freedom of God's service for a degrading sub- 
 servience to the Emperor, when you say that 
 Bishoprics, Abbacies, all Churches, without excep- 
 tion, are subject to the imperial jurisdiction ; 
 whereas the Lord says, ' My Church, My Dove, My 
 Sheep ; ' and St. Paul, 'No man taketh this honour 
 unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was 
 Aaron.'" 1 
 
 LXXXVIII. But in these most unhappy times, 
 when the Church of God seemed hopelessly lost, 
 Christ did not forget His promise. He raised up 
 an extraordinary man, who, with an enormous 
 moral power, which was certainly not of this world, - 
 braved all, dared all, and remained triumphant 
 over all. He avenged the Church, repaired her 
 losses, and, we may say, strengthened the king- 
 dom of God upon earth. No one will doubt 
 who was the messenger of God in the age re- 
 
 1 The flatterers of the Emperor used such boasting language, and 
 the Bishop of Lucca strove to refute them by an opportune, frank 
 and generous work, breathing that spirit of primitive times, which, as 
 I have said, was never wholly wanting in the Church. He introduces 
 the argument of the second book thus : " Opitulante Domini nostri 
 dementia, qui nos et sermones nostros Suo mirabili nutu regit atque 
 disponit, accingimur respondere his qui dicunt, regali potestati 
 Christi Ecclesiam subjacere, et ei pro suo libito, vel prece, vel 
 pretio, vel gratis, liceat Pastores imponere, ejusque possessiones vel 
 in sua vel in cujus libuerit jura transferre." This answer of the 
 holy Bishop is full of learning and vigour. 
 
194 The work appointed him to do. 
 
 Chap. iv. ferred to ; it will be felt that we are describing 
 Gregory VII. 
 
 This most remarkable man was raised to St. 
 Peter's Cbair, a.d. 1073. Complaints of Henry IV.'s 
 unbounded dissoluteness, bis unparalleled tyranny 
 towards bis Christian subjects, and the havoc 
 which he had wrought in the Church had already 
 been laid before Gregory's predecessor. But death 
 had prevented Alexander II. from doing anything 
 to heal the deep and deadly Wounds in the Body 
 of Christ. 1 It was for the lonely monk Hilde- 
 brand that God in His Providence had reserved 
 the hard task of curing the ancient and cankered 
 sore by sharp steel. All gentler means of cure had 
 failed. 2 Gregory at first declined the Pontificate. 
 
 1 The year before his death (a.d. 1073) that Pope had summoned 
 Henry to Rome to give satisfaction to the Church for the crimes of 
 which he was accused by the Saxons. Thus when Gregory VII. 
 was raised to the Apostolic See he found the case already begun by 
 his predecessor, who had bestowed all his energies in stemming 
 the overflowing tide of evil in the Church, and in repressing 
 simoniacal elections and restoring liberty. Otho of Frisinga says 
 of him, " Ecclesiam jamdiu ancillatam in pristinam reduxit liberta- 
 tem" (Lib. vi. c. 34). 
 
 2 The witness of contemporaries is rarely disinterested, and for 
 this reason I am careful to test their assertions, before quoting from 
 such a mass of confused accounts given by partisans. The follow- 
 ing is the story as told by Marianus Scotus (in Cronic. ad. an. 
 1075) : "He (the Emperor Henry) did not scruple to tarnish and 
 eclipse Christ's only and beloved Spouse, by means of concubines, 
 that is heretics ; treating the spiritual offices of the Church, which 
 are the free gifts of the Holy Spirit, as mere merchandise, accord- 
 
Temper and resolution of Gregory VII 195 
 
 Having accepted it for conscience sake as the will chap. iv. 
 of God, he saw clearly that in such sad times any 
 Pope who was resolved to do his duty must fall 
 a victim to it. Kindled with the spirit of self- 
 sacrifice, he soon showed the world that he shared 
 in that noble conception of the Episcopate which 
 had inspired the primitive Bishops. Writing to 
 his colleagues, he says, " Considering duly, that 
 
 ing to the sin of Simon, with vile bargains, contrary to the Catholic 
 Faith. For which cause, certain of the Church, beholding and 
 hearing these and other such misdeeds of the King Henry, were 
 filled with zeal for Israel's sake, even as was the prophet Elias ; and 
 making loud lamentations, as well as written complaints, they sent 
 messengers to Rome, who set before Alexander, Bishop of the 
 Apostolic See, those numberless things which were said and done 
 in the German empire by the mad simoniacal heretics, the King 
 Henry being the leader and patron of all. Meanwhile, the Apos- 
 tolical Lord Alexander departing this life, Gregory, also called 
 Hildebrand, a monk, undertook the government of the Apostolic 
 See. Gregory hearing the lamentations and just complaints of 
 Catholics against Henry, and the impunity of his misdeeds, was 
 kindled with zeal for God, and pronounced sentence of excom- 
 munication upon the King, ehiefly on account of his simony.'' Con- 
 temporaneous writers agree in describing Henry as given to every 
 kind of disorder in his private life, as well as guilty of tyranny 
 over his subjects, and of profane insolence towards the Church. Yet 
 the writers of the last century have undertaken his defence ! While 
 the righteous, noble Gregory, who set aside his ease and his life in 
 order to restrain this brutal tyrant, to protect an oppressed people, 
 and to save Christendom from ruin, is treated as an ambitious man 
 who deserves the hatred and execrations of mankind ) But, thank 
 God, even Protestants can see in Gregory VII. the true champion, 
 not of the Church only, but of mankind, the author of modern 
 civilization. (See the German work called "Hildebrand and his 
 Times.") Of a truth the times of Gregory will supply abundant 
 material for the reflections of future ages. 
 
196 Henry TV. desires Gregory to abdicate. 
 
 Chap. iv. by reason of the shortness of this life, and the 
 frivolous nature of earthly governments, no one 
 is more worthy of the title of Bishop than he 
 who suffers persecution for righteousness' sake, 
 we have determined rather to incur the enmity of 
 wicked men by obeying the commandments of the 
 Lord, than to provoke the wrath of Heaven by 
 an unworthy compliance with their wishes " (Lib. 
 ix. ep. ii.). 
 
 LXXXIX. He tried, however, to prevail with 
 Henry by fatherly gentleness and patience. It 
 was all in vain. The Pope's nuncios, his letters, 
 his affectionate efforts were all alike despised and 
 mocked. Then he summoned his Cardinals and 
 Bishops in synod, and took counsel with them. 
 He set before them the steps which he had taken 
 to recall the wanderer. He described the insults, 
 and the bolder wrong-doing with which Henry 
 had met his efforts. He noted the attempt which 
 Henry had made to create a schism in the Church 
 by means of certain corrupt Bishops his minions, 
 in Lombardy and Germany. The imperial letters, 
 brought by ambassadors who attended the Synod, 
 were read. They were full of sacrilegious vitu- 
 peration. The ambassadors themselves were 
 allowed to speak. In full Council they addressed 
 the Pope as follows : " Our Lord the King desires 
 
The Reply. 197 
 
 that thou quit the Apostolic See and the Papacy, chap. iv. 
 forasmuch as they are his, and that thou infest 
 no longer this sacred place." * All the circum- 
 stances were duly weighed ; the strange times, the 
 evil which seemed to be irremediable without a 
 drastic remedy. Then the fathers unanimously 
 counselled the Pope, that if ever severity was 
 expedient, it was expedient now. It was a last 
 resource ; the Church owed to herself as well as 
 to posterity, a solemn example of ecclesiastical 
 faithfulness. Moreover, they said, the Emperor 
 had not received his crown unconditionally. He 
 had sworn to observe terms and conditions. A 
 valid contract between himself and the Christian 
 people had been made, upon his election. Both 
 parties had incurred reciprocal obligations. The 
 people had taken their oath of fidelity con- 
 
 1 A contemporary records this fact as follows : " Cum igitur dis- 
 simulare amplius tanti facinoris malitiam non posset, Apostolicus 
 excommunieavit tam ipsum, quam omnes ejus fautores, atque 
 omnem sibi, regiam dignitatem interdixit, et obligates sibi sacra- 
 mentis ab omni debito fidelitatis absolvit : quia quod verecundum 
 etiam est dicere, prseter hssreticam quam prselibavimus culpam, 
 aderant in sancto concilio nuntii illius sic audentes latrare : ' Prse- 
 cipit Dominus noster Rex, ut Sedem Apostolicam et Papatum, ut 
 pote suum, dimittas, nee locum hunc sanctum ultra impedias. "... 
 Igitur quem sui solius judicio Dominus reservavit, hie non solum 
 judicare, verum etiam ( suum ' dicere, et quantum in ipso est, audet 
 damnare : quam 6b causam 6mnis ilia sancta Synodus, jure indig- 
 nata, anathema illi conclamat atque confirmat." — S. Anselmi Lucen-~ 
 sis Psenitentiarius, in ejus Vita., c. iii. (Migne exlviii. col. 913.). 
 
198 Excommunication of Henry IV. 
 
 chap. iv. ditionally on Henry's observance of certain terms, 
 chiefly touching the liberty and maintenance of 
 religion. The Church was the mother and guar- 
 dian of all Christians; she had received the imperial 
 oath in her own name, and that of the people. In- 
 asmuch as the people could not set themselves free 
 from their oaths, they had a right to expect that 
 the Primate of the Church, as the interpreter and 
 judge of oaths, would provide for her well-being 
 and for their religion. Consequently, the Pope 
 was now bound, as well for the Church's sake as 
 for that of the faithful people, to pronounce sen- 
 tence. He must declare the Emperor to have 
 broken his faith, and thereby to have set the 
 people free from their engagements to him. Such 
 is the substance of the counsel unanimously given 
 to Pope Gregory VII. by the Synod. 1 Thereupon 
 
 1 Such a doctrine concerning the popular right was common 
 among Christians at that time, and no one denied it. Kings were 
 then really constitutional, although as yet that word was not 
 invented. The Council assumed this fact. Faulus Bernr. in 
 his Life of Gregory VII., quotes the words used : "Tua, sanctis- 
 sime Pater, censura, quern ad regendum nostri temporis sseculum 
 Divina peperit dementia, contra blasphemum, invasorem, tyrannum, 
 desertorem, talem sententiam proferat, quse hunc conterat, et futu- 
 ris sceculis transgressionis cautelam conferat. . . . Tandem omnibus 
 acclamantibus definitum est, ut honore regio privaretur, et anathematis 
 vinculis tam prsenominatus Rex, quam omnes assentanei sui colli- 
 garentur. Accepta itaque fiducia, Dominus Papa, ex totius Synodi 
 consensu, etjudicio, protulit anathema" (S. Greg. VII. Vita, auctore 
 Paulo Benriedensi, §§ 62, 63). 
 
Its effects. 199 
 
 Gregory, constrained by his conscience, excom- chap. iv. 
 municated Henry IV., and declared his subjects to 
 be loosed from their oaths of fidelity, a.d. 1076. 
 
 XC. This great event, as I have already said, 
 marks an epoch; it was a period of renovation in the 
 Church. It was the sign for a fierce battle. After 
 many years of oppression beneath an ignominious 
 yoke, the Church now raised herself anew. A 
 violent struggle between the oppressed and the 
 oppressor was inevitable. Nor did she triumph 
 until three centuries of strife had passed. Scarcely 
 had she forcibly cast aside her subjection to the 
 secular power, when she was torn asunder by the 
 great Western schism. This was hardly extinct, 
 when the heresies of the North began to distract 
 her ; nor did she begin to find rest until the 
 Council of Trent. 1 Meanwhile, the two great 
 objects which Gregory had in view, were per- 
 manently established ; to wit, the freedom of the 
 ecclesiastical power, and the good conduct of the 
 clergy. The first bore immediate fruit. It enabled 
 the Church to triumph over her enemies, and it was 
 the true motive power of the Council of Trent. 
 From the date of that Council the second began 
 to yield results in the reformation of ecclesiastical 
 discipline and morals. 
 
 1 [Did she then ? or afterwards ? — Ed.] 
 
200 Results of Gregory's work in after ages. 
 
 Chap iv 7 . XCI. This threefold and terrible struggle, 
 with the civil power, with schism and with heresy,, 
 was inevitable. The two latter were born of the 
 former, and outlived their mother. When Gre- 
 gory YII. came to the throne, the seeds of these 
 evils were quickening. The remedy was effective 
 and at hand. But it could not be applied in time 
 to prevent the outbreak of evils which were 
 already imminent. If it could not prevent them, 
 at least it successfully subdued them. The Church 
 which Gregory came to rule might be compared to 
 the dawn of a winter day, when nature is still dark 
 and frozen. But the sun will presently be in the 
 sky, and his warm rays will melt the frost, and will 
 kindle new life where all was numbed and sterile. 
 XOII. We must, however, dwell yet a while 
 upon this resolution of the Roman Council and 
 of Gregory to dissolve the oath of fealty which his 
 subjects had taken to the Emperor Henry. It has 
 given rise to much idle talk and calumny directed 
 against the Apostolic See. 
 
 Divine Providence had endowed the Church 
 with wealth and temporal power. This began 
 with the conversion of the Roman emperors. But 
 it dated chiefly from the invasion of the barbarians 
 who destroyed the empire, and founded the modern 
 kingdoms. The object was to hallow society as 
 
Christianity creates constitutional government. 201 
 
 well as the individual, and to make the influence of Chap. iv. 
 the Gospel felt in the laws and government of the 
 world at large. If at first this good influence was 
 visible in the increase of justice and equity in all 
 branches of public administration, it was also found 
 at a later period to have no less affected the very 
 essence of the supreme power. The nature of this 
 power was changed. But this change had been 
 so gradual, that it was accomplished before men 
 discovered the silent work of the Gospel, nor 
 was it easy to trace the steps by which Christ's 
 religion had produced an effect of such import- 
 ance. Heathen, or natural sovereignty, had 
 been absolute; Christianity made it constitutional. 
 Let no one take offence at this word : I fully 
 grant that in modern times it has been profaned. 
 But if I may be allowed to set forth what I mean, 
 before judgment is passed, it will be seen that 
 I am far from entering on the perilous questions of 
 these days, in which men seek after what is 
 good without clearly recognizing it. A cele- 
 brated author and statesman, who cannot be 
 suspected of favouring popular insubordination, 
 writes thus : " The Popes have educated mon- 
 archy as we find it in modern Europe ; " and "the 
 nature of this monarchy, and that which .raises it 
 so far above the governments of earlier times, is 
 
202 Constitutionalism, how created by the Gospel. 
 
 Chap. iv. that fundamental law by which monarchs, inspired 
 by the Gospel spirit of justice and charity, lodge 
 the right of punishment in the hands of duly 
 constituted tribunals." Thus this eminent writer, 
 who frankly states that a political constitution 
 cannot be framed by man, has recognized the 
 fact that when monarchy became Christian it 
 received its fundamental laws. So be it clearly 
 understood that, when I speak of a Constitution, 
 I mean something very different from that which 
 political parties seek to thrust upon either peoples 
 or sovereigns ; very different from the theories 
 of ingenious or well-meaning men. I do not 
 mean a constitution framed by man, but one that 
 has arisen spontaneously in the course of time, 
 and from the hidden force of circumstances. Such 
 a constitution is framed by God Himself : since it 
 is the natural result of a religious doctrine pre- 
 vailing by its intrinsic evidence, taking possession 
 of convictions, both of kings and subjects, and 
 leading to tangible and practical results. I main- 
 tain that the powerful, unchangeable doctrine, 
 which thus won acceptance in all European so- 
 ciety, was the Gospel. And the result of this 
 doctrine upon the opinions of monarchs and of 
 peoples was that they " ceased to be arbitrary, and 
 began to proceed upon unchanging principles." 
 
The Gospel influence on the hearts of men. 203 
 
 In other words, princes submitted to the Constitu- Chap. iv. 
 tion imposed on them by the Gospel, and they 
 thereby accepted and recognized the principle and 
 the imperishable source of all civil reforms. 
 
 Undoubtedly such a constitution did not at once 
 come to light when the Emperors became Christians. 
 We are now speaking of an actual Constitution. It 
 was necessary for the Gospel to be first known 
 and embraced by people and sovereigns, and then 
 to penetrate their hearts, and rule their opinions. 
 This was the work of time. Then it followed 
 that the inevitable consequences of Gospel prin- 
 ciples should be drawn out, and applied to the 
 existing governments. This likewise was no speedy 
 operation. Lastly, Christianity had to obtain such 
 a hold over the temper of monarchs, as to force 
 them to declare, " We are Christians ; we will be 
 consistent; the Gospel law shall control our power, 
 and master our personal passions." This was the 
 important matter ; and little by little it was 
 realized. Until the power of religion was dis- 
 played in princes, they did not bow their proud 
 heads, or become, instead of absolute, Constitu- 
 tional monarchs, out of obedience to God Who 
 had deigned to become the Brother of all mankind. 
 Now I affirm, that when this constitution was 
 formed, it was not confined to the single point 
 
204 Christianity and Government ; three periods. 
 
 Chap. iv. touched upon by the illustrious writer quoted 
 above. There were other points ; indeed all which 
 the Gospel temper has dictated and will dictate 
 to mankind. 
 
 XCIII. We may distinguish three several 
 conditions of Christianity, with respect to the 
 political world : (1) before rulers had entered the 
 Church ; (2) when, having entered it, they were 
 still not subject to the influence of the Gospel; 
 and (3) when this influence had produced its 
 happiest effects upon them. 
 
 So long as the Church possessed the people only, 
 and the rulers were yet without her, she could only 
 proclaim her heaven-sent teaching to the people. 
 "Do you," she said, " faithful people, who groan 
 under the yoke of tyrants, and of worshippers of 
 false gods, bear patiently their oppressions. Be- 
 lieve that all is ordered by God's good Providence. 
 He watches over you, nor would unbelieving 
 princes have such power, unless the Almighty 
 Father so willed it for your good. Sin only is evil ; 
 virtue only is the true good. Seek after this, and 
 leave all else to your Heavenly Father. "When He 
 shall see that a different order of things better 
 enables you to gain life eternal, He will change 
 the outward course of events, and your princes will 
 be joined to you. Meanwhile, respect those who are 
 
The Gospel and half-converted Kings. 205 
 
 set over you, obey them in all save that which is Chap. iv. 
 contrary to God's law ; fight, die for them. Do 
 this not from fear, but for conscience' sake, honour- 
 ing in them God, Who orders all human events." 
 
 When, later on, the emperors were converted . 
 to the Faith, the Church still held the same 
 language to the people. But she also undertook 
 to teach the rulers, and since at first their know- 
 ledge of the Gospel was but superficial, she took 
 them, so to say, aside, and while bidding the 
 people never to rebel against their sovereign, what- 
 ever his faults, since humility, submission and 
 sacrifice are the marks of a Christian people ; she 
 held this language to sovereigns : " Remember 
 that you, too, are but men, and that in the sight of 
 God all men are equal. You will be judged by 
 Christ with the same judgment as the lowest and 
 feeblest of your subjects ; perhaps all the more 
 sternly, since it is written, ' Judgment must 
 begin at the House of God.' Know that your 
 position is one to be feared, and not to be desired 
 by a faithful heart. It is through righteousness 
 and charity alone that you can escape eternal 
 perdition, and save your, souls. Beware of setting 
 your hearts upon your earthly grandeur, all of 
 which will drop off from you at the hour of death. 
 Providence has placed you as rulers over the 
 
206 The Gospel and truly Christian Kings. 
 
 Chap. iv. Christian people not for your own, but for their 
 advantage. Your dignity is but a ministry, a 
 service ; and in order to be greatest of all, you 
 must make yourselves least of all." Such were 
 the sublime and most human truths which the 
 Church set before sovereigns who became her 
 sons. They listened respectfully, marvelling to 
 find a new glory, which they could not win 
 through earthly power, or regal state, but only by 
 the lowliness of the Redeemer's Cross. What was 
 the result ? These truths penetrated men's hearts, 
 and prevailed. Almost every European throne 
 boasted of heroes who lived according to the 
 Gospel precepts. They administered and fought 
 for justice with one hand, while with the other 
 they succoured their newly found brethren, the 
 poor, even ministering in person to them. They 
 saw, in His poor, Christ Himself; and in aiding 
 the poor they relieved His needs. 
 
 When the Church had thus taught the Gos- 
 pel theoretically and practically to both parties, 
 she addressed them in common, after this fashion : 
 " my sons, ye princes, who are now enlightened 
 by the Gospel, will ye in all things conform your- 
 selves to it ? " " We will." " If so, bear in mind 
 that ye are taught by that Gospel that ye have 
 been made heads over God's people, not by chance, 
 
Allegiance to Christian Kings, conditioned. 207 
 
 but by His Divine Will, in order that ye might chap. iv. 
 keep peace, administer justice, and above all pro- 
 tect and defend His best gift, Eeligion. Are ye 
 willing ? " " Certainly, we are willing ; it shall be 
 our glory to govern God's people righteously and 
 peacefully, and to defend our Mother, Christ's 
 Church." '' Then swear to it, in my hands, before 
 your people." " We swear." " What surety do 
 you give for your oaths ? Is it not right and just, 
 in order that your people may have full confidence 
 in you, as in the representatives of Christ, that 
 they should receive some pledge of that which 
 you promise ; so that the Christian people may 
 never be ruled by unbelieving or rebellious 
 princes?" "It is right; may Grod visit us with 
 every calamity, if we are wanting to our oaths." 
 " Say, then, are you ready to quit your thrones, 
 should you stray from the Church's obedience? 
 do you declare yourselves unworthy to wear a 
 Christian Crown, which marks whoso wears it 
 as the vicar of Christ, the King of Kings, if ye 
 should become enemies of His Church ? and are 
 you willing to own that the oaths of fidelity taken 
 by your subjects would become null and void in 
 the case of such enormity ? " " We own it ; we 
 agree to all this ; we agree that the sons of the 
 Church should be governed by faithful sons of 
 
208 Conditions of allegiance of the people 
 
 Chap. iv. that same Church ; forasmuch as a prince who 
 ceases to be Christ's minister for the good of the 
 , faithful, is as an enemy to Christ Himself." " Then, 
 princes and people, my children, take with pure 
 hands this sacred G-ospel ; may the mutual oaths by 
 which ye now bind yourselves, ever remind you of 
 the fundamental and immutable laws of all Christian 
 kingdoms ; they will be sources of endless happiness, 
 if ye observe them religiously, and of tribulation 
 and malediction to him who first breaks them." 
 
 This is no dream, but sober reality ; this is the 
 constitution of Christian kingdoms which arose in 
 the Middle Ages, when the spirit of the Gospel 
 had absorbed and subjected the highest ranks in 
 human society. Those princes were penetrated with 
 the teaching of Christ, and would have endured all 
 things rather than renounce it. Confident in their 
 intentions, they did not shrink from oaths which 
 seemed to them just and right. They were 
 willing to bind their descendants with the same 
 generous bonds of justice and charity to their 
 people, whom, as baptized with the same Baptism as 
 themselves, they deemed their brethren, — a sacred 
 trust committed to them by the King of Kings. 
 Thus zeal for the Faith prevailed over ambition and 
 the love of power. For the sake of the Faith, for 
 the real good of the people, princes were content to 
 
to Christian monarchs. 209 
 
 transmit to their successors an empire which was Chap. iv. 
 externally less absolute, but which was in truth 
 nobler,, because more just, more religious. Thus 
 they gave substance and stability to the sceptres 
 that bowed before those eternal laws of love and 
 righteousness, in obeying which man truly reigns. 
 This Christian constitution was partly written, 
 partly traditional, but it was agreed to by all ; 
 and of old neither princes nor people cast a doubt 
 upon it. While men were at peace, and religious, 
 there was no cause for doubt. It was a common 
 possession, every one had an interest in its main- 
 tenance. Later on it was reduced to more formal 
 and exact laws, such as governed the Roman 
 Empire and the kingdom of Germany ; we may 
 see this as we follow Henry's history. 
 
 XCIY. Henry, finding himself threatened 
 with deposition by the German nobles assembled 
 at Tribur, came to the Pope at Canossa, to seek 
 release from excommunication. He alleged, as a 
 reason for his immediate release, that a year had 
 almost expired since the sentence, while the Palatine 
 laws pronounced a king who remained a year 
 and a day out of communion with the Church to 
 be unworthy of the throne, and to be ipso facto 
 deposed, without possibility of restoration. 1 This 
 
 1 Lambertus Scafnaburgensis, a.d. 1076, says, " Ut si ante hanc 
 diem excommunicatione non absolvatur, deinceps juxta Palatinas 
 
2io Henry TV., why absolved by Gregory. 
 
 chap. iv. argument induced the Pope to grant absolution. 
 He was deceived by tbe outward show of repent- 
 ance which the unhappy Henry assumed. 
 
 Just as in Germany the period of a year and a 
 day of excommunication was fixed as depriving a 
 monarch of his throne, so almost every Christian 
 monarchy was held by an understanding between 
 the interested parties, that heresy and infidelity were 
 equivalent to deposition, and the oath of fidelity was 
 only taken by subjects on condition that the prince 
 was faithful to the Christian and Catholic faith. 1 
 
 leges indignus regis honore habeatur, nee ultra pro asserenda in- 
 nocentia sua audientiam mereatur : proinde enixe patere, ut solo 
 interim anathemate absolvatur," etc. Were not these Palatine laws 
 practically a constitution ? 
 
 1 Henry acknowledged that this condition had its rise in the 
 Church's traditions, in a letter addressed to Gregory VII. : " Me 
 quoque, licet indignus inter Christianos sum, ad regnum vocatus, 
 te teste, quem sanctorum Patrum traditio soli Deo judicandum 
 docuit, nee pro aliquo crimine nisi a fide (quod absit) exorbitaverim, 
 deponendum asseruit." St. Thomas, who has collected ecclesiastical 
 tradition more surely and more extensively than any one else, and 
 whose decisions are considered as the voice of the Church, maintains 
 that this "constituent law" of Christian kingdoms,by which a Catholic 
 king loses his throne on falling into heresy, proceeds from the con- 
 stitution of the Church as framed by Christ Himself, and is not 
 merely an expressed or understood convention between princes and 
 their subjects, with the Church's mediation (Sum. II. ii. 13, 2). 
 It is certain that until this convention was carried out, until this 
 doctrine was received as just and good both by people and princes, 
 the time had not come when the chiefs of the Church could ex- 
 ercise their right over the faithful ; a fact which has not been 
 sufficiently regarded by those who infer that this power was an 
 abuse, because it was not exercised in the primitive ages of the 
 
Political mediation of the Church. 2 1 1 
 
 XCV- From this it is clear that the deposi- Chap. iv. 
 tion of a Christian prince depended upon a suit, » 
 the decision of which appertained to the Church's 
 tribunal. All decisions concerning the Faith ap- 
 pertain to her, as well as the power of retaining 
 in or rejecting from her bosom the faithful of 
 every rank. Moreover it was fitting that the 
 Church, who as a common Mother had drawn 
 princes and people into a loving union, of which 
 she had received the pledge, should have the 
 power to judge between the parties in case of 
 any violation of it, before either side proceeded 
 to vindicate its rights by force. Before the 
 creation of this Christian understanding between 
 nations and their rulers, the royal power was, as 
 we have said, absolute, by divine right. 1 It 
 
 Church. The Church had first to effect the reform of individuals, 
 and then that of society in general ; when that was achieved, she. 
 was able to apply the laws sanctioned by Christianity. [The fatal 
 objection to the theory is that it requires moral inerrancy in the 
 Pope. Eosmini's argument would hold good of an assembly 
 really representative of the whole Church of Christ. — Ed.] 
 
 1 It is in this sense that St. Paul said, " Omnia potestas a Deo ; " 
 and St. Peter, " SubdiW estote omni humane ckeatub,.2E propter 
 Deum. " Thus St. Thomas expressly teaches, that to withdraw from 
 obedience to an unbelieving prince is contrary to the Divine right. 
 "Est ergo contra jus divinum prohibere quod ejus judicio non 
 stetur, si sit intidelis " (Expos, in ep. i. ad Cor. c. vi. sec. 1). 
 But on the other hand the holy Doctor recognizes the possibility of 
 a case, in which the prince being Christian, the Church's authority 
 may loose his subjects from their oath of fidelity. " Et ideo quam 
 cito aliquis per sententiam denuntiatur excommunicatus propter 
 
212 Characteristics of Christian Kingship. 
 
 Chap. iv. was established as such by God's Providence. 
 While this condition of things lasted the Church 
 did not. recognize the possibility of Christian sub- 
 jects casting off their obedience to their sovereign. 
 But when the sovereigns themselves, giving heed to 
 the voice of justice and charity, added to the lustre 
 of their crowns by submitting to the Gospel and 
 to its maxims ; when they rejoiced to be the 
 ministers and viceregents of Christ over free men, 
 instead of being masters of slaves ; when they 
 voluntarily incurred the blessed obligations of duti- 
 ful sons of the Church of Christ, thenceforward 
 monarchy existed, so to say, by "human-ecclesi- 
 astical right," and the Church recognized the 
 possibility of a case in which subjects might be 
 loosed from their oaths of fidelity. 
 
 This great change in human society did not 
 come to pass all at once, but insensibly and 
 without attracting notice. We therefore cannot 
 wonder if, when an occasion arose for the first 
 time for pronouncing so grave a judgment, in the 
 days of Gregory VII., the Pope's act startled many 
 men and gave rise to much calumny. The Church 
 had long exercised a jurisdiction issuing from the 
 same principles of public Christian right without 
 
 apostasiam a fide, ipso facto ejus subditi aunt absoluti a dominio 
 ejus et juramento fidelitatis, quo ei tenebantur " (Sum. II. ii. xii. 2). 
 
Gregorys action novel, not his jurisdiction. 213 
 
 encountering the slightest opposition, or causing chap. iv. 
 the least surprise, because as yet her acts had all 
 been acts of indulgence, not of severity, not such 
 as ran counter to stubborn and powerful vice. 
 
 XOVI. Moreover, those who object to the line of 
 conduct pursued by the Church towards Henry IV., 
 make great account of the evils to society which 
 for so long a time arose out of the struggle between 
 the Church and the Empire. I would beg such 
 objectors to bear in mind, first, that for this very 
 reason the Church held back from extreme measures 
 until the reign of Gregory YII. 1 It is not 
 quite fair to make use of her long forbearance 
 as an argument against her jurisdiction, when 
 the excessive corruption of the eleventh century 
 forced her at last to sterner action. Further, 
 I would beg them to consider calmly, whether 
 " the step taken by Gregory was of such a 
 nature as of necessity to cause all the evils that 
 ensued." 
 
 XCVII. In truth this fearful struggle was 
 not, as is commonly supposed, between the priest- 
 
 1 Henry himself, in a letter to the Pope, speaks of Julian the 
 Apostate as not having been deposed, through the prudence of the 
 Church, not from any want of right on her part. " Cum etiam 
 Julianum Apostatam prudentia sanctorum Episcoporum non sibi, 
 sed soli Deo deponendum commiserit." And this was the ordinary 
 opinion of those times. Whence do the modern, views of public 
 Christian right arise ? It is an important question. 
 
214 The struggle really with bad clergy. 
 
 chap. iv. hood and the Empire ; it was a struggle entered 
 on " in the name of the priesthood and of the 
 Empire." It was occasioned by a division of the 
 priesthood into two sections, one of which fought 
 for the Church, and was the Church ; while the 
 other fought for itself against the Church, shelter- 
 ing itself under the semblance of zeal for the 
 imperial rights. The nobles and the people were 
 on the Pope's side, 1 but there were many rich and 
 
 1 The German Princes appealed to the Pope against Henry. 
 Not the Saxons only, as some modern historians seek to make 
 out, but the Suabians and other German nations, as is shown by 
 Bruno in his "De Bello Saxonico." After describing Henry's 
 tyranny and his vice, Bruno proceeds : " Gens vero Suevorum, 
 audita Saxonum calamitate, clam legates suos ad illos misit, et 
 foedus cum .eis fecit, ut neuter populus ad alterius oppressionem 
 regi ferret auxilium : . . . Eamdem querimoniam fecerunt ad in- 
 vicem omnes pene regni Teutonici principes, sed tamen palam nullus 
 audebat fateri " (Ep. 18). Later, when Gregory VII. sent a letter 
 "breathing a truly evangelical spirit of peace to the princes assembled 
 at Gerstenge, dissuading them from electing another emperor, the 
 princes who meant to do this were "pars longe maxima." Some 
 years later the princes again met at Tribur with the same object. 
 They finally referred the matter to the Pope, sending envoys to 
 Henry, who was now humbled and ready to accept any conditions, 
 with this message, " Tametsi nee in bello nee in pace ulla unquam 
 ei justitise vel legum. cura fuerit, se legibus cum eo agere velle " 
 (What were these laws according to which the German princes dealt 
 with Henry, if not fundamental laws; in a word, the Christian 
 constitution of the State ?) " et cum crimina quae ei objioiuntur 
 omnibus constent luce clariora, se tamen rem integram Romani Pon- 
 tificis cognitioni reservare," etc. From which it is evident that those 
 very German nobles who were about to elect the Emperor referred 
 the cause to the Pope ; and also that this electoral body con- 
 sidered themselves hon&fide to possess the right of electing another 
 
No wish to tamper with Imperial' rights. 215 
 
 powerful Bishops against the Pope. The cause is Chap. iv. 
 evident. The Pope had in no sense made war upon 
 the Emperor, whom he treated with paternal kind- 
 ness, much less upon his crown or any of his 
 rights, which no one ever wished to take from 
 him. But the Pope had made war upon a dissolute 
 and simoniacal clergy. He held himself bound 
 in conscience to attempt, even at the price of his 
 own blood, to exterminate vices, which had at- 
 tained such proportions that they would have 
 exterminated the Church, had they been any 
 longer left unchecked. 1 
 
 Emperor, if Henry persisted in his crimes. For after prescribing 
 what he must do to give satisfaction to the State, whose laws 
 he had broken, they go on to say, " Porro si quid horum pree- 
 varicetur, turn se omni culpa, ornni jurisjurandi religione, omni per- 
 fidies infamia liberates, non expectato ulterius Puomani Pohtificis 
 judicio, quid reipublicse expediat, communi consilio visuros." Such 
 was the jus publicum of those times. Nor was this language refuted 
 by Henry, or rebuked by the Pope, or looked upon as strange or 
 contrary to Justice and equity. It was left for the philosophers of 
 our times to be scandalized at it, and to call it rebellion. 
 
 1 A certain Hugo Maviniacensis thus describes the true cause of 
 the so-called struggle between the priesthood and the Empire: " Ob 
 hanc igttwr causam, quia scilicet sanctam Dei Ecclesiam castam esse 
 volebat (Gregorius), liberam, atque Oatholicam ; quia de sanctuario 
 Dei simoniacam, et Neophytorum hseresim, et fcedam libidinosse 
 contagionis pollutionem volebat expellere ; membra diaboli cceperunt 
 in eum insurgere, et usque ad sanguinem prsesumpserunt in eum 
 manus injicere ; et ut eum morte vel exilio confunderent, multis 
 eum modis conati sunt dejicere. Sic surrexit inter regnum et sacer- 
 dotium contentio, accrevit solito gravior sanctse Dei Ecclesise 
 tribulatio" (In Chron. Virdunensi, ad an. 1073). 
 
 Fleury says, "All those Bishops who were on the Emperor's side, 
 
216 League against Gregory. 
 
 Chap. iv. The integrity and holiness of this great man, 
 thus raised by God to the Apostolic See for the 
 deliverance of His people, alarmed all the vicious 
 clergy, and those who had purchased their Bishop- 
 rics from Henry. They were powerful both by 
 reason of their baronies and their influence in the 
 government. They rose with one accord, joined 
 in a formidable league out of hatred of righteous- 
 ness, and put in motion every means of opposition 
 which the most consummate malice could sug- 
 gest. 1 Their watchword was the cry that " all 
 men must defend the rights of their own sovereign." 
 But what rights belonging to their sovereign did 
 these Bishops affect to defend ? "Was it the right 
 to be simoniacal, and the insolent defender of 
 clerical concubinage ? For what other of Henry's 
 rights was invaded ? Had Gregory VII. ever 
 
 and who urged him on against the Pope, had been previously ex- 
 communicated for simony, heresy, immorality or other crimes ; men 
 to whom Henry had himself sold ecclesiastical benefices. What 
 courage did a Pope require, who had to govern a Church with such 
 a clergy, still more a Pope who aimed at its reform ; the secular 
 powers being involved in the same vices, and ruled chiefly by the 
 most corrupt among the clergy ! " (Lib. lxii. 12). 
 
 1 These clergy employed not only brutal violence, but every 
 conceivable form of lie, calumny, and sophistry against Gregory VII. 
 The Archbishop Guibert of Ravenna, who was later an Anti-Pope, 
 did not scruple to falsify Nicholas II.'s decretal so as to make it 
 appear that the Papal election had always been in the Emperor's 
 hands. By such inventions many were deceived, and the whole 
 question was complicated. 
 
Henry ruined by bad ecclesiastics. 217 
 
 propounded the slightest infringement of any chap. iv. 
 other right save that the Emperor should cease to 
 treat Episcopal sees as marketable goods, or to pro- 
 stitute them by, improper appointments ? It was 
 solely to prevent a total and imminent ruin of the 
 Church, that, other means having failed, and the 
 Emperor growing worse and worse under the perfi- 
 dious guidance of the Prelates who were his boon 
 companions, Gregory finally excommunicated him. 
 Nor did the corrupt clergy rest content with 
 having dragged Henry into this depth of evil ; x 
 they kept him there, and prevented the struggle 
 from being put an end to. It was natural. War 
 
 1 From his earliest youth Henry had been the tool of disre- 
 putable ecclesiastics, and several saintly men had been sent away 
 from his Court because they would not pander to his evil ways. 
 Bruno attributes Henry's excessive profligacy to his intimacy 
 with Adalbert, Bishop of Bremen. He says, "Hac, igitur, Episcopi 
 non Episcopali doctrina, rex in nequitia confortatus ivit per libi- 
 dinum prsacipitia sicut equus et mulus, et qui multorum rex erat 
 populorum, thronum posuit in se libidini cunctorum reginse viti- 
 orum," etc. Henry himself, in a moment of repentance, true or 
 feigned, writing a confession of his errors to Gregory, attributes 
 many of them to his evil counsellors : " Heu criminosi nos, et 
 infelices ! partim pueritise blandientis instinctione, partim pro- 
 testativas nostras et imperiosce potential libertate, partim eorum, 
 quorum seductiles nimium secuti sumus consilia, seductoria de- 
 ceptione, peccavimus in ccelum et coram vobis, et jam digni non 
 sumus vocatione vestrae filiationis. Non solum enim nos res 
 ecclesiasticas invasimus, verum quoque indignis quibuslibet et 
 simoniaco felle amaricatis et non per ostium sed aliunde ingredi- 
 entibus ecclesias ipsas vendidimus, et non eas, ut oportuft, defend- 
 imus," etc. (Vid. t. i. Constitut. Imperial. Goldasti). 
 
2 1 8 Evil clergy prolong the struggle. 
 
 Chap. iv. cannot cease, until the enemy is vanquished. And 
 in this case the only enemy was the corruption of 
 these clerical courtiers. If Henry had but listened 
 to the paternal warnings of the ruler of the 
 Church, or if, after his first reconciliation with the 
 Pope at the Castle of Canossa, he had not been 
 drawn back into his old ways by the wicked 
 Bishops, who made him a screen for their own 
 vices, all the storm would have been laid. The 
 Emperor, loosed from the bonds of excommunica- 
 tion, would have been at peace with the Church. 
 He would have preserved his dominions, and the 
 pious heart of the venerable Pope would have joyed 
 over him with a father's joy. But if the pre- 
 tended struggle between the priesthood and the 
 Empire had thus come to a speedy end, as should 
 have been the case, what would have become of 
 all the simoniacal, dissolute Prelates, and of the 
 men who had been forced upon their sees ? They 
 were well aware what would be the consequences. 
 They knew how fatal such peace would be to their 
 vices and pleasures, to the rich benefices they had 
 purchased at enormous cost, and to their favour 
 with the prince who was now their accomplice. 
 What marvel, then, if such men were in de- 
 spair at any prospect of reconciliation between 
 Henry and the Pope, or if they made use of every 
 
Pascal II and the Emperor Henry V. 219 
 
 means to precipitate the Emperor into fresh sins, chap. iv. 
 and thus again to secure his rupture with the 
 Church. 1 
 
 XCVIII. Is any further proof required to 
 show that the rights of the Empire were not 
 really the object of this long and disastrous 
 contest? Let us look on to what took place 
 half a century later between Henry V- and Pascal 
 II. No Bishop of primitive days could have 
 held more saintly or dignified language, or could 
 have proved more nobly that St. Peter's mind still 
 governed his see, and that the Gospel of Christ 
 knows neither yesterday nor to-day, but is of all 
 time. I will quote the very words addressed by 
 this great Pope to Henry V., because they are a 
 clear proof that, even in the darkest times, the 
 Church never lost that unworldly tone which 
 
 1 When Henry obtained release from his sentence of excom- 
 munication at Canossa, the Bishops of his party were in despair at 
 finding their cause abandoned by the Emperor. Robert of Bamberg, 
 tJdalric of Costreim, and others foremost among his evil counsellors 
 were to be dismissed from court by express condition ; and 
 these men, together with sundry Lombard Bishops of the same 
 stamp, raised so great an outcry, threatening rebellion, all out of 
 pretended anger at Henry's loss of dignity, that they drew the 
 Emperor from his better mind, and he returned to his evil ways. 
 Certainly their logic was peculiar ! The royal dignity, forsooth, 
 was dishonoured because Henry had submitted to the Pope's correc- 
 tion of his vices ; but they on their side proposed to punish the 
 Emperor in a very practical way indeed ! 
 
220 Remarkable proposal of Pascal II 
 
 Chap. iv. ought to raise the Christian priesthood above all 
 earthly and transitory aims, and to brace it with 
 the might of God's word. At the same time the 
 passage shows how clearly the Popes saw the. 
 truth of what I have been urging, namely, that 
 the servitude and corruption of the clergy arose 
 from their entanglement in worldly affairs. Pope 
 Pascal magnanimously proposed that the clergy 
 should renounce all their fiefs and secular dignities, 
 in lieu of which entire liberty should be restored 
 to them. Surely this was a grand proposal, con- 
 sidering the condition of the Church. Ecclesiastical 
 historians have not dealt with it as it deserves. 
 Future times, however, will do it justice, and will 
 reckon it one of the brightest facts in the Church's 
 history. But this high-minded proposal of the 
 Pope, worthy as it was of the Apostles, appeared 
 strange and preposterous to his contemporaries. The 
 German clergy took fright, rebelled against the 
 Pope, and induced the Emperor, who had already 
 received and accepted the proposal, to reject 
 it. What else could be expected ? Thus for the 
 third time the fascination which worldly wealth 
 had for the clergy was fatal to peace between the 
 priesthood and the Empire. The Empire withdrew 
 from obedience to the Church to make itself the 
 slave of a corrupt clergy ; it was coaxed and 
 
Pascal's Letter to Henry V. 221 
 
 intoxicated by the adulation which will always Chap. iv.. 
 effect its purpose when employed by a class of 
 clergy who have neither dignity nor self-respect to 
 lose. Thus the Empire was a mere pretext and 
 accessory in the great struggle. The profligate 
 clergy cunningly involved it in their own quarrel ; 
 they fought for themselves while talking of the 
 Emperor's rights and making use of his assistance. 
 But let us hear Pascal himself. He wrote thus 
 to the Emperor : — 
 
 " According to the tenor of the law of God, 
 the sacred Canons have forbidden priests to occupy 
 themselves with secular cares, or to attend the 
 Court, save to intercede for those who are con- 
 demned, or who suffer injustice. But in parts of 
 your kingdom Bishops and Abbots are so occupied 
 with secular cares, that they cannot but assiduously 
 frequent the Court, and are compelled to render 
 military service. Ministers of the Altar have be- 
 come ministers of the State, having received from 
 Monarchs, cities, duchies, marquisates, money, 
 castles, and other things appertaining to the service 
 of the country. Hence arose a custom in the 
 Church, that Bishops elect should not any longer 
 receive consecration until they were invested by 
 the royal, hand. 1 Thus some have received in- 
 
 1 Here was the real origin of investitures — fiefs. 
 
222 Pascal's Letter to Henry V. 
 
 Chap. iv. vestiture while the Bishop of the see was still 
 living. These and numerous other, evils which 
 often arose by reason of investitures, moved onr 
 blessed predecessors, Gregory VII. and Urban II., 
 who frequently assembled the Bishops in Council, 
 and condemned these investitures by laymen. They 
 pronounced clergymen who held Churches on such 
 tenure to be deposed, and those who had invested 
 them to be excommunicate, according to the 
 Apostolic Canon which says, ' If a Bishop make 
 use of the secular power to obtain a Church, let 
 him be deposed, and let those who communicate 
 with him be excommunicate.' Wherefore we will, 
 King Henry, our beloved son, that those royal 
 rights which clearly appertained to the State in 
 the times of Charles, of Louis, of Otho, and of 
 other thy predecessors, be restored to thee. And 
 we prohibit and interdict under pain of anathema, 
 any Bishop or Abbot, present or future, from tres- 
 passing hereafter on the royal rights, that is to 
 say, on cities, duchies, marches, counties, moneys, 
 tribute, advocacies, military rights, or, in short, 
 anything appertaining to the State, the army, or 
 the camp. We further decree that the Churches 
 with their oblations, and their hereditary posses- 
 sions, which clearly never belonged to the State, 
 shall remain free, as on thy coronation day thou 
 
Pascal's Letter to Henry V. 223 
 
 didst promise to the Lord Almighty, in the face Chap. iv. 
 of the whole Church." 1 
 
 Is this the language of a usurper ? Is such 
 generosity, such readiness to give up temporal 
 power lawfully earned by the Church in earlier 
 
 1 " Divinse legis institutionibus sancitum est, et sacris Canonibus 
 interdictum, ne sacerdotes curis ssecularibus occupentur, neve ad 
 comitatum, nisi pro damnatis eruendis, atque pro aliis qui injuriam 
 patiuntur, accedant. In vestri "autem regni partibus, Episcopi vel 
 Abbates adeo curis ssecularibus occupantur, ut comitatum assidue 
 frequentare, et militiam exercere cogantur. Ministri vero Altaris, 
 ministri Curiae facti sunt, quia civitates, ducatus, marchionatus, 
 monetas, turres, et csetera ad regni servitium pertinentia, a regibus 
 acceperunt. Unde etiam mos Ecclesias inolevit, ut electi Episcopi 
 nullo modo consecratioftem acciperent, nisi per manum regiam 
 investirentur.. Aliquando etiam vivis Episcopis investiti sunt. His 
 et aliis plurimis malis, quae per investituram plerumque contigerant, 
 pr83decessores nostri Gregorius VII. et Urbanus II. felicis recorda- 
 tions Pontifices excitati, collectis frequenter episcopalibus Con- 
 ciliis, investituras illas manu laica damnaverunt, et si qui cleri- 
 corum per earn tenuissent Ecclesias, deponendos, datores quoque 
 communione privandos percensuerunt, juxta illud Apostolicorum 
 Canonum Capitulum, quod ita se habet : ' si quis Episcopus sseculi 
 potestatibus usus, Ecclesiam per ipsas obtineat, deponatur, et 
 segregentur omnes qui illi communicant. ' Tibi itaque, fili carissime 
 Henrice Rex, et regno regalia ilia dimittenda praecipimus, quae ad 
 regnum manifeste pertinebant tempore Caroli, Ludovici, Ottonis, et 
 csetororum praedecessorum tuorum. Interdicimus etiam et sub 
 anathematis districtione prohibemus, ne qui Episcoporum seu Abba- 
 torum, prsesentium vel futurorum, eadem regalia invadent, id est 
 civitates, ducatus, marchias, comitatus, monetas, teloneum, advo- 
 catias, juracenturionum, et curtes quae regni erant, cum pertinentiis 
 suis, militiam et castra. Porro Ecclesias cum oblationibus et hsere- 
 ditariis possessionibus, quaa ad regnum manifeste non pertinebant, 
 liberas manere decrevimus, sicut in die coronationis tuse omni- 
 potent! Domino in conspectu totius Ecclesias promisisti." — Ep. xxii. 
 (Migne's edition, Ep. 314, vol. clxiii. col. 283). 
 
224 Moderation of the Pope's Letter. 
 
 Chap. iv. times, by her services to the State, a proof of Papal 
 ambition and covetousness ? 1 And what was 
 
 1 Pope Pascal has been blamed by some for not maintaining the 
 rights of the Church, when thus ready to give up her temporal 
 riches to others. To these I would reply, It seems as though the 
 acquisition of riches and power had not only actively demoralized 
 the clergy, but had also given rise generally to an overweaning 
 trust in human means for the protection of religion. Later on, 
 this temporal wealth was but too vigorously defended, as we 
 shall see hereafter. The ancient ecclesiastical maxim was that 
 " It is better to give up, than to assert rights when such assertion 
 is likely to produce spiritual evil ; " inasmuch as temporal pos- 
 sessions are not indispensable to the Church, as are her liberty and her 
 holiness, and therefore they do not deserve an absolute, unqualified 
 defence. We may learn from St. Augustine's sermons, and espe- 
 cially Serm. cccxvi., what were his views as to the possessions of 
 the Church. He says, " If any one thinks to despoil his children 
 in order to endow the Church, let him seek another than Augus- 
 tine to receive the gift, or rather, I hope it may please God that he 
 may not find such an one; " thereby implying that his opinion was 
 common among the Bishops of that period. He adds, " How 
 worthy was the deed of Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage ! There was 
 a man who, being childless, and without any hope of oflspring, left 
 all his goods to the Church, reserving the income to himself. But 
 later he had children, and the Bishop restored all the gift to him, 
 when he little looked for it. The Bishop might have retained it 
 according to worldly laws, but not according to God's Law." 
 
 St. Ambrose also writes : " Quid igitur non humiliter responsum 
 a nobis est? Si tributum petit (imperator) non negamus. Agri 
 Ecclesiae solvunt tributum : si agros desiderat imperator, potestatem 
 habet vindicandorum, nemo nostrum intervenit " (De Basilicis 
 tradendis, n. 33). And with regard to this matter of tribute there 
 has been too much eagerness to exempt ecclesiastical property 
 from taxation. Where the Church's possessions are large, this 
 exemption seems unjust and odious. Nay more, it was rather 
 injurious than profitable to the Church in temporal things, since 
 therefrom chiefly arose the great evil of mortmain, so that, as 
 Barbosa says, " Regnorum utilitas postulat ut bona stabilia sint in 
 commercio hominum non privilegiatorum et exemptorum " (Lib. ii. 
 de Pensionibus., vol. xxvi. n. 19). The just arrangement would 
 
Liberty of the Church, its real object. 225 
 
 asked of the secular power in exchange for the Chap. iv. 
 renunciation of such extensive rights ? Did any- 
 deep design lurk beneath ? Was it a political trick 
 on the part of the Roman Court ? Let G-od judge 
 between those who would say so, and Rome. The 
 Popes demanded nothing in return save Liberty 
 for the Church, already oppressed well-nigh to 
 extinction. I dare to say that they never demanded 
 anything more : their ambition and their covetous- 
 ness went no further. 1 But it is just this very 
 
 have been, " Let the State renounce all regalia with respect to pro- 
 perty not originally bestowed by it, and let the Church pay tribute 
 like the rest of the community." 
 
 1 Pascal II. knew well that the question was complicated by the 
 suggestions of bad men, and consequently he wrote thus to the 
 King of England : " Amid all these contradictions we implore thee. 
 O Bong, not to let any one suggest to thy mind, that we seek, to 
 diminish anything of thy power, or that we only seek to vindicate 
 our greater influence in the promotion of Bishops. Do thou for 
 the love of God give up pretensions which are manifestly contrary 
 to God, and not to be acted on with His approval, and which, 
 for our own soul's sake and thine, we cannot concede. For the 
 rest, we will concede to thee whatsoever thou shalt ask according to 
 God's will, with hearty good pleasure, gladly promoting all that can 
 redound to thine honour and exaltation. Think not that thou 
 weakenest thy power in desisting from this profane usurpation. 
 Bather wilt thou reign with greater safety, efficiency, and honour, 
 inasmuch as Divine Authority will reign with thee." These last 
 remarkable words of Pascal indicate a fact which has been dwelt on 
 by a profound writer of our own times, namely, that " although the 
 Popes opposed sovereigns who sought to oppress the Church, they 
 never abased them. The submission of kings to the Church's 
 authority conferred upon sovereignty a sacred element, a kind of 
 reflection of Divine splendour." Pascal's words to the English 
 King exactly tally with this •: " Nee existimes quod potestatis 
 
 Q 
 
226 Church Reform resisted by bad clergy. 
 
 Chap. iv. liberty, this life of the Church which gives offence. 
 The one unpardonable offence of the Popes 
 throughout the struggle was, that they asserted 
 and demanded it. Then the world cries out that 
 thrones are insulted, and their rights usurped by 
 Papal ambition. Such is the unjust and untrue 
 motive power of the declamations made against 
 the Eoman Pontiffs ; declamations which are 
 characteristic of the last century. Such, too, is 
 the real mainspring of that affected zeal for 
 monarchical rights in times which are really doing 
 all in their power to sweep kings from the face of 
 the earth, while kings alone are blind to the fact. 
 
 XOIX. The proposition which I maintain is 
 that the real cause of the struggle between 
 the priesthood and the Empire was a depraved 
 clergy, who resisted the reform which the Church 
 sought to enforce. This fact becomes more and 
 more self-evident at each step of the history of 
 the contest. If we open any of the chronicles 
 of the period, whatever may be the party or 
 opinion which they represent and whatever page 
 we glance at, fresh proofs will appear of the truth 
 
 tuse columen infirmetur si ab hao profana usurpatione desistaa. 
 Imo tunc validiua, tunc robustius, tunc ' honorabilius regnabis, 
 cum in regno tuo Divina regnabit auctoritas " (Eadmer, lib. iii. 
 Hist. Nov. ; Paschal II., ep. xlix.) We might add that he alone 
 truly reigns who obeys God, justice, and truth. 
 
Pascal II and Henry I. of England. 227 
 
 which I affirm. It is astonishing that modern Chap. iv. 
 historians should shut their eyes to so patent a 
 fact, too often written in characters of blood. It 
 were useless to bring additional proofs of that 
 which history continuously demonstrates. But the 
 truth has been so disguised and obliterated, that 
 to many it sounds like novelty, and therefore it 
 deserves a new and careful proof out of respect 
 for popular opinion. For this reason, and in 
 order to show how that which has been here 
 maintained applies generally to the contest be- 
 tween Popes and princes, I shall leave the German 
 Emperors, and shall briefly refer to what passed 
 between Pascal II. and Henry I. of England. 
 
 Like his contemporaries, Henry appointed 
 Bishops in all directions. The Pope warned him 
 that the office was sacred, and not to be treated 
 as merchandise ; that it belonged to the Church 
 to fill vacant sees ; and that the successors of 
 the Apostles should be duly called of Christ by 
 means of Canonical election. The King resisted. 
 Letters and embassies followed ; 1 Pascal remained 
 
 1 On the occasion of a first embassy sent by Henry I. to Home in 
 order to obtain from Pascal II. the right of investing Bishops, that 
 Pope made this dignified answer : "Thou askest of the Church 
 of Rome right and faculty to appoint Bishops and Abbots by 
 investiture, and that the regal power may be enabled to do what 
 our Almighty Lord has declared can only be done through 
 
228 Pascal II and St. Anselm of Canterbury, 
 
 Chap. iv. firm as a rock; St. Anselm the Primate of England 
 supported him. This holy Archbishop had already 
 
 Himself. He hath said, ' I am the Door ; by Me if any man 
 enter in, he shall be saved.' But when kings arrogate to them- 
 selves to be the Church's door, they are not shepherds, but thieves 
 and robbers ; as saith the Lord, ' He that entereth not by the 
 door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same 
 is a thief and a robber.' Verily, if thou askedst of us anything 
 which we could righteously and in the sight of God grant to thee, 
 willingly we would do so. But that which thou askest is so 
 grave, so unworthy a request, that the Catholic Church can in no 
 way receive or admit it. The blessed Ambrose let himself be 
 driven to extremities without yielding the government of the 
 Church to the Emperor. He said, ' Do not wrong thyself, 
 Emperor, by supposing that thou hast any imperial right over 
 Divine things. Be not wroth, but if thou wouldst enjoy a long 
 reign, submit thyself to God. It is written, " Render unto God 
 the things which be God's, and to Csesar the things which be 
 Caesar's." Palaces appertain to emperors, churches to ecclesiastics : 
 thou hast right over the secular, not the sacred buildings. What 
 wouldst thou with an adulteress ? Yet she who is not united in 
 lawful marriage is an adulteress.' Hearest thou, O King, that 
 Church styled adulteress which has not contracted legitimate 
 marriage ? And the Bishop is the spouse of his Church. If, then, 
 thou art a son of the Church, let thy Mother contract lawful 
 marriage, not by means of man, but by Christ, God and Man. 
 Eor the Apostle shows that Bishops were chosen of God if they be 
 canonically elected, when he says, ' No man taketh this honour to 
 himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.' And the 
 blessed Ambrose : ' I believe that he is chosen of the Divine 
 judgment, who is demanded by all ; ' and again: ' Where universal 
 consent demands any one, we cannot doubt that the Lord Jesus 
 Christ is Author of the will, and Ruler of the demand, President 
 of the ordination, and Giver of grace.' Thus, too, the Prophet 
 David saith, ' Instead of thy fathers, thou shalt have children, 
 whom thou mayest make princes in all lands.' Here we see the 
 Church generating sons, and making them princes. In truth it 
 were monstrous to say that the son generated the father, and 
 that man can make a God ! It is plain that Holy Writ calls the 
 
in controversy with Henry I. 229 
 
 suffered persecution and exile for the Church's Chap, iv. 
 freedom under Henry's predecessor, "William. 
 Henry had recalled him, from political motives, 
 and had received him honourably. But the Arch- 
 bishop was incorruptible, and never would make 
 the concession of allowing him to invest Bishops 
 with his royal hand. In order to bring the dis- 
 pute with Anselm to an end, a fresh embassy was 
 sent to the Pope ; three Bishops on the King's 
 part, two monks on that of the Primate. They 
 returned without having effected anything. The 
 Pope's firm and dignified letters 1 to Anselm were 
 read before an assembly of Bishops and nobles, 
 convened by the King. The matter seemed to be 
 decided and the King to be yielding. But at that 
 
 clergy gods, as being the vicars of God. Hence the Holy 
 Roman and Apostolic Church did not hesitate by means of our 
 predecessors to oppose the usurpations of kings, and the abomi- 
 nable investitures they sought to give ; nor could the persecutions 
 of tyrants, with which she has been oppressed till now, move her. 
 But we trust in the Lord, and Peter, Prince of the Church and 
 first of Bishops, shall not lose the might of his faith so far as we 
 are concerned " (Eadmer, lib. iii. Hist. Nov.). 
 
 1 " Thy wisdom will remember with what efficacy, vigour, and 
 severity our Fathers in past times fought against that poisonous root 
 of simoniacal depravity, investiture. In the time of our revered pre- 
 decessor in Christ, Urban, a venerable Council of Bishops and Abbots 
 was gathered together near Bari, at which both your holiness and 
 we ourselves assisted, as those who accompanied us will remember, 
 when sentence of excommunication was published against that plague. 
 We also, of the like mind with our fathers, feel the same, and testify 
 the same." Pascal to Anselm. This letter is dated Dec. 12, a.d. 1102. 
 
230 Bad conduct of three English Bishops. 
 
 Chap. iv. very moment, when peace was apparently won, 
 and the rights of the Church restored to her, 
 everything was thrown back again by those very 
 three Bishops who had been sent to the Pope. 
 By means of a bold and insolent lie they won 
 the King back to his evil resolve, and perpetu- 
 ated the Church's slavery. Their imposture 
 was speedily exposed, and punished with excom- 
 munication. They affirmed that in a private 
 interview with them the Pope had conceded to the 
 King that which he had refused in his letters, on 
 the ground that if it were committed to writing 
 other princes would demand similar concessions. 1 
 
 1 To this discreditable lie of the three courtier Bishops, Pascal 
 replied, " We call to witness Jesus, Who tries the hearts and reins, 
 that never from the moment we undertook the Holy See did we 
 even imagine so cruel a sin. And may God ever preserve us from 
 having one thing on our lips, and another in our hearts, remember- 
 ing the imprecation, ' Lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord.' 
 If we were silently to allow the Church to be damaged by the gall 
 of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity, how could we clear our- 
 selves before the Eternal Judge, inasmuch as the Lord hath said of 
 His priests through the Prophet, ' I have made thee a watchman 
 unto the house of Israel ' ? He does not well guard the city who, 
 while he watcheth not, letteth the city be taken of the enemy. And 
 if a ^secular hand gives the sign of pastoral office, the staff, and 
 that of faith, the ring, what is the use of Pontiffs in the Church ? 
 The Church's honour would be overthrown, the vigour of her dis- 
 cipline dissolved, all Christian religion spurned, were we to permit 
 audacious laymen to do that which none but ecclesiastics should do. 
 No, the laity must not betray the Church, nor sons stain their 
 Mother with adultery ; the laity's part is to defend the Church, not 
 to betray her. When Uzziah stretched forth his hand to the priest's 
 
Misapprehension of modern historians. 231 
 
 In vain the two monks who had also been ofcHAP. iv. 
 the embassy denied the story ; they were insulted 
 and silenced. Thus all hope of peace was lost, 
 and that not through any obstinacy on the King's 
 part, but through the misconduct of these time- 
 serving, simoniacal Bishops. 
 
 Thus we see that it is an obvious injustice on 
 the part of modern historians, to leave on one 
 side the real point of the question, in order to 
 bring forward a mere accessory. They lose sight 
 of the cause, to consider the combatants. No doubt 
 the Popes and sovereigns were the chief com- 
 batants. But the cause of strife was the clergy. 
 The Popes sought to restore them to their ancient 
 virtue and dignity, while the sovereigns sought 
 to retain them in vice. So that in fact princes 
 became merely captains 1 in the pay of the dregs 
 of the ecclesiastical order, who sought for impunity 
 under the royal shield. 
 
 C. What, then ? Was it fitting that the Chief 
 of the Church should let himself be frightened by 
 mere brute force wielded by a corrupt clergy ? 
 
 office, he was smitten with leprosy ; and when the sons of Aaron 
 offered strange fire upon the altar, they were consumed by the fire 
 of the Lord." He goes on to prove that no prince can lawfully give 
 Bishoprics at his will, and ends with excommunicating the impostors, 
 and those who had meanwhile received Episcopal investiture from 
 the King. 
 
 1 [Ital. condottieri. — Ed.] 
 
232 No reform possible without opposition. 
 
 Chap. iv. or that the successors of St. Peter should flinch 
 before the difficulty ef the undertaking ? Could 
 they neglect to provide for the safety of God's 
 Church solemnly committed to them, from fear of 
 recusant and unfaithful ecclesiastics, in that her 
 hour of trial ? Would such poverty of spirit have 
 been worthy of the Popes ? Were they not bound 
 to gird themselves up in a self-sacrificing temper 
 to the noble work ; their faith in the promises of 
 Christ filling them with sure hope of success ? 
 On the other hand, was any great reform ever 
 effected without much confusion ? When were 
 inveterate and widespread abuses ever overcome 
 without opposition and hindrance ? Did any 
 people ever regain their lost dignity without 
 sacrifices ? or did any nation ever attain to pros- 
 perity, save through trial and hardship ? And 
 could we expect the Catholic Church, formed out 
 of so many combined nations, when she had been 
 degraded and enslaved, to rise up from the depths 
 of degradation and become free, without a mighty 
 effort and great social agitation ? Of a truth 
 men of petty minds know not wha.t they say when 
 they sit in judgment on great men raised up by 
 Providence to lead the Christian nations, and to 
 undertake the reformation of mankind. 
 
 CI. Consult the historians who are most 
 
Testimony of Hume and Robertson. 233 
 
 opposed to the Papacy, Protestant authors such as chap. iv. 
 Huine and Robertson. They fully recognize the 
 fact that " the restoration of society as well as of 
 the Church, which both had reached the lowest 
 point of degradation, coincides with the period of 
 Gregory YII.'s Pontificate." * It only needs an un- 
 prejudiced eye to see that this coincidence was 
 not casual, and that it is explained by the noble 
 conduct of the Pope who is so abused by the histo- 
 rians. His acts, if attentively studied, will be seen 
 to have benefited civil society no less than the- 
 Church, as indeed the interests of the two are in- 
 dissolubly bound up together. But we are only 
 treating of the Church's liberty in Episcopal elec- 
 tions, 2 and to that subject we will confine ourselves. 
 
 1 The disorders in the feudal system, together with the corrup- 
 tion of taste and manners consequent upon these, which had gone 
 on increasing during a long course of years, seem to have attained 
 their utmost point of excess towards the close of the eleventh cen- 
 tury. From that era, we may date the return of government and 
 manners in a contrary direction, and can trace a succession of causes 
 and events which contributed, some with a nearer and more con- 
 spicuous, others with a more remote and less perceptible influence, to 
 abolish confusion and barbarism, and to introduce order, regularity, 
 and refinement (Robertson, View of the State of Europe, Wks. IV. 
 p. 25. Hume, Hist. Engl., ii. p. 441.) 
 
 2 It would be a serious and useful study to trace out the work 
 of Gregory VII. in a barbarous society, by setting forth principles 
 of justice, equity, and humanity, as well as their results. For 
 instance, at one Roman Council he established laws in favour of the 
 shipwrecked, ordaining that " on whatsoever shore they may be 
 cast, their calamity be respected, and that no one hurt either their 
 
234 Revived earnestness in the Church 
 
 Chap. iv. CII. The whole Church of. God was roused 
 from the lethargy into which she had fallen, 
 by the cry of liberty which Gregory "raised. It 
 was a new, welcome, useful cry. The dying em- 
 bers of faith, justice, and respect for the Church, 
 were rekindled in every breast. All the Bishops 
 of particular Churches, who remained true, an- 
 swered to the appeal. 1 They enrolled themselves 
 under the common standard. They repeated the 
 ancient protests of Canons and treatises against 
 secular usurpation. These had scarcely been 
 heard of during the preceding century. 2 
 
 persons or their goods.'' "Ut quicumque naufragum quemlibet et 
 illius bona invenerit, secure tarn eum quam omnia sua dimittat" 
 (Concil. iv. Rom. sub. Gregor. VII.). This is one of those humane 
 enactments which passed into the public law of Europe. 
 
 1 Witness some of the Canons confirmed by Councils after Pope 
 Gregory raised the standard of reform and liberty, before the end 
 of the eleventh century. The Council of Clermont, a.d. 1095, 
 decreed, " Nullus ecclesiasticum aliquem honorem a manu laicorum 
 accipiat" (Can. 15). " Nullus presbyter cappellanus alicujus laici esse 
 possit, nisi concessione sui Episcopi " (Can. 18). 
 
 Council of Nimes, a.d. 1096. " Clericus vel monacus, qui 
 ecclesiasticum de manu laici susceperit beneficium, quia non intravit 
 per ostium, sed ascendit aliunde sicut fur et latro, ab eodem separetur 
 officio " (Can. 8). 
 
 Council of Tours, a.d. 1096. "Nullus laicus det vel adimat 
 presbyterum Ecclesise sine consensu Praesulis " (Can. 6). 
 
 2 Time would fail to recount all that was done and suffered on 
 behalf of the Church's liberty, in consequence of the stimulus given 
 by Gregory, by such men as St. Peter Damian, St. Anselm of Can- 
 terbury, St. Anselm of Lucca, St. Ivo of Chartres ; and later, St. 
 Bernard, and many other great Prelates. 
 
due to the energy of Gregory VII 235 
 
 The work was manifestly of God. For in- Chap. iv. 
 deed what earthly counsel could have saved the 
 Church in her extremity ? Whence could have 
 arisen so remarkable a man to fill the Apostolic 
 Chair ; a man who dared to attempt a thorough 
 reformation of an old and corrupt world ; to 
 confront all external powers, all internal foes : a 
 man who, within the space of a few years, in 
 eleven councils, dealt with all the rankest and most 
 inveterate evils of the time, purged the Church of 
 them, and finally left to his successors instruc- 
 tions so clear and precise as to be of themselves 
 sufficient to uphold the Church's rule ? What 
 save God's Providence ordered that long series 
 of Pontiffs, who succeeded Gregory YII., among 
 whom were Victor III., Urban II., Pascal II., 
 Gelasius II., Calixtus II., who all partook of the 
 strength and uprightness of their predecessor ; 
 who all looked upon him as their father and 
 teacher, 1 and all, without exception or swerving, 
 continued his great work of setting Episcopal 
 
 1 In the profession of faith made by Pascal II. at the Lateran 
 Council, a.d. 1112, he says that he embraced the decrees of the 
 Popes his predecessors, " et prsecipue decreta Domini mei Papae 
 Gregorii VII. et beatse memoriae Papas Urbani : quse ipsi laudave- 
 runt, laudo ; quae ipsi tenuerunt, teneo ; quae confirmaverunt_. con- 
 firmo ; quse damnaverunt, damno ; quae repulerunt, repello ; quse 
 interdixerunt, interdico ; quae prohibuerunt, prohibeo in omnibus, 
 et per omnia, et in his semper perseverabo." 
 
236 Influence of Gregory VII. 
 
 Chap. iv. elections free, and of purifying the morals of the 
 age ? * And most needful it was that so it should 
 
 1 All these Popes, even those whose reigns were brief, fought 
 bravely for the freedom of elections, all held Councils, and issued 
 decretals. To recount all their efforts is impossible, but I will select 
 some of their most important decretals. Victor III., who only 
 lived two years, held a Council at Benevento, a.d. 1087, where he 
 published the following decretal : " We decree, that if henceforth 
 any one shall receive an episcopate or an abbacy from any layman, 
 he shall not be held to be a Bishop or Abbot, nor receive the re- 
 spect due to such office. Moreover, we reject such a one from the 
 bosom of the Blessed Peter, and all entrance to the Church until 
 he hath repented and given up the office he received by so great a 
 crime of ambition and disobedience, which is idolatrous wickedness. 
 And likewise of inferior ranks and offices in the Church. Again, 
 if any emperor, king, duke, prince, count, or any other secular 
 power whatsoever, presume to confer the Episcopal or other eccle- 
 siastical dignity, let him be bound by the same sentence. And 
 this forasmuch as the 318 Fathers of the Nicene Council excom- 
 municated all such buyers and sellers, pronouncing anathema both 
 on those who give, and those who receive." Urban II. vindicated 
 the same liberties in three Councils which he held at Melfi, Cler- 
 mont, and Rome, a.d. 1089, 1095, and 1099. In the second- of 
 these Councils the two following Canons were set forth : I. " The 
 Catholic Church is pure in the faith, and free from all secular 
 bondage." II. "Bishops, Abbots, and others of the clergy shall 
 not receive any ecclesiastical dignity from princes or any layman 
 whatsoever. " 
 
 Pascal II. withstood the same abuse in eight Councils, of which 
 five were held in Pome, in the years 1102, 1105, 1110, 1112, 1116, 
 and the other three at Guastalla, a.d. 1106, Troyes, 1107, and 
 Benevento, 1108, where he strove for ecclesiastical rights with mar- 
 vellous wisdom and gentleness. The Council of Guastalla proves 
 that the reform of the Church was beginning to bear fruit. " For 
 long" (so it said), " evil men, clergy as well as laymen, damaged 
 the Church, whence in our times many schisms and heresies arose. 
 Now, by Divine grace, those evildoers being discomfited, she regains 
 her liberty. Wherefore it is fitting that we provide for the thorough 
 destruction of the causes of such schisms. To which end we con- 
 
felt in succeeding ages. 237 
 
 be. For the struggle was continual. It demanded chap. iv. 
 persevering loyalty to those principles for a much 
 longer period than any one man's life. It needed 
 an indefatigable, courageous assertion of the truth, 
 with Apostolical tenderness and by many Popes in 
 succession. They thus seemed to represent only 
 one undying Pontiff, just as it was one and 
 the same Papacy which could overcome prejudices, 
 subdue passions, and cause the slow power of truth 
 to penetrate the minds of sovereigns, and subject 
 
 firm the constitutions of our fathers, and prohibit all lay investitures. 
 And if any violate this decree, if he be a clerk thus guilty of insult 
 to his Mother, he shall be thrust out of his office ; if a layman, he 
 shall be put without the Church's bounds." 
 
 Gelasius II., harassed, driven out of Rome,, and persecuted, 
 fought manfully for the same cause. 
 
 Calixtus II., who after much difficulty concluded a peace, 
 when Henry V. gave up investitures, had previously pronounced a 
 solemn condemnation of the abuse in the Council of Rheims, sup- 
 ported by 420 fathers. We will quote the words of the Bishop of 
 Chalons, who was sent as the Pope's ambassador to the Emperor. 
 Having convicted the Emperor of breach of faith by his own hand- 
 writing, he thus clearly set the matter before him : " Sire, as 
 regards us, thou wilt find us punctually faithful to all our promises. 
 Nor does our Lord the Pope aim at impairing in any way the con- 
 dition of the kingdom or of the crown, as some mischief-makers have 
 affirmed. On the contrary, he teaches publicly that all men should 
 serve thee by military service, and by all such services as were of old 
 rendered 'to thee and to thy predecessors. But if thou thinkest that 
 thy kingdom is imp overished because henceforth thou mayest not 
 sell Bishoprics, that is an error. It is for the benefit of thy 
 kingdom that thou shouldst give up such claims as are contrary 
 to the law of God." Such was the universal language ; we may 
 defy modern sophistry to prove that the Popes sought anything , 
 further. 
 
238 The Pontifical reserves. 
 
 Chap. iv. them ultimately to Christ. This was at last done 
 when they solemnly renounced their usurpations 
 at Worms, a.d. 1122, and the following year 
 at the (Ecumenical 1 Lateran Council, forty-nine 
 years after Gregory VII. had first anathematized 
 the abuse of investitures ! And who but Divine 
 Providence finally perfected the great work, 
 when unforeseen events led Otho TV., a.d. 1209, 
 Frederic II., a.d. 1213 and 1220, and Rudolf I., 
 a.d. 1275, to renounce the abused rights of regalia, 
 of sequestration, and of deprivation, which greatly 
 curtailed the liberties of the Church ? 
 
 CIII. The Church, under the guidance of the 
 Holy See, may be said to have fully triumphed 
 when Rudolf took the oaths at Lausanne. Every- 
 thing implied that freedom of election was estab- 
 lished for ever, and that the Flock of Christ 
 might be expected to enter on a period of renewed 
 life. 
 
 But at this very moment the enemy of souls 
 invented a new and subtle method of troubling 
 the peace and prosperity of the Church. This — 
 ought I to say it ? — lay in the unlimited reserves. 
 The position which the Holy See had obtained 
 by its lawful and just triumph over the secular 
 powers, secured for it great confidence. Its needs 
 
 1 [So-called.— Ed.] 
 
Anti-papal laws in England and France. 239 
 
 almost constrained it. Other causes more to be Chap. iv. 
 deplored helped forward this serious change in 
 its discipline. Not that the Holy See has not 
 a right to reserve elections to itself, when any 
 extraordinary cause requires it. The right to save 
 the Church from peril must always exist. But it 
 was the system of ordinary and universal re- 
 serves which raised all classes against the Papacy. 
 The dispute arose simultaneously with the re- 
 serves. As early as the thirteenth century Gregory 
 IX., in order to pacify the English, conceded the 
 point respecting benefices which had lay patrons. 1 
 Soon after, a provision was demanded of the Coun- 
 cil of Lyons. 2 When this was refused, the Mother 
 of all the Churches lost in public consideration. 
 She was the object of hostile demonstrations. 
 In England Edward III. annulled the Papal 
 provisions. 3 In France the Grallican Clergy issued 
 decrees on their own account, by which they 
 imposed laws on the Pope. In a.d. 1406, Charles 
 VI. adopted these decrees as laws of the State. 
 The Council of Constance was urged on all sides 
 to seize the Pontifical reserves. Although that 
 Council was restrained by some lingering rever- 
 ence for the Chief of the clergy, the Council of 
 Basle, which followed speedily, was at once more 
 
 1 Ep. xiii. (ap. Mansi). 2 a.d. 1245. 3 a.d. 1343. 
 
240 The Popes lose moral weight 
 
 Chap. iv. impatient and more daring. It laid hands on 
 them without scruple. The decrees of this Council 
 against reserves, expected bounties, and annates 
 were received as providential interferences by 
 France, which had demanded their enactment. 
 In the year 1438 they were embodied in the 
 too famous Pragmatic Sanction. In the following 
 year Germany imitated the example thus set ; 
 the Popes yielded more and more, and at last 
 the dispute was arranged by means of Concordats 
 granted by Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V. in the 
 years 1446 and I448. 1 This time the abuse was 
 on the Church's side ; we are bound to acknow- 
 ledge it candidly, as the Popes themselves have 
 done. And thus this affair of reserves ended in 
 humbling the Apostolic See, as much as it had 
 been raised in public estimation by the results 
 of the dispute about investitures. 
 
 CIY. The worst evil, however, lay in the fatal 
 consequences which accrued to the Church after 
 this matter was practically at an end. Doubtless 
 the battle concerning investitures had been fiercer. 
 But it was of a less damaging character, and the 
 strife was more easily healed. In that struggle, 
 Rome shone forth with the splendour of justice, 
 
 1 The first of these Concordats was agreed on at Frankfort, the 
 second at Aschaffenburg, under Frederic III. 
 
through the question of reserves. 241 
 
 and disinterested generosity ; brute force, depravity Chap. iv. 
 and falsehood were her only antagonists. 1 But 
 with the question of reserves it was otherwise. 
 In this matter nations, Churches, prinees attri- 
 buted to Rome no motive save a low self- 
 interest. Men were more disgusted than angry. 
 And contempt is more damaging than anger, 
 
 1 I have already observed that as the Popes never interfered 
 in Episcopal electionSj unless in cases of obvious necessity, they 
 were able to take a high tone when they exhorted prinees likewise 
 to abstain from interference. Pope Adrian could write forcibly 
 to Charlemagne, " Nunquam nos in qualibet electione invenimuB, 
 nee invenire habemus." And with what weight he continues, 
 " Sed neque vestram excellentiam optamus in talem rem incumbere. 
 Sed qualis a clero et plebe . . . electus canonice fuerit, et nihil shV 
 quod sacro obsit ordini, solita traditione ilium ordinamus " (Tom. 
 ii. Cone. Gall., pp. 95 and 120. See Car. Mag., op. Pt. I. Sect. iii. 
 p. 518). 
 
 All through the discussion the Popes could assure the princes 
 that, in sustaining the Church's liberties, they had no personal 
 object or desire of influence in the matter. Pascal II. wrote to 
 Henry I. of England, "Inter ista, Rex, nullius tibi persuasio pro- 
 fana surripiat, quasi aut potestati tuse aliquid diminuere, aut nos in 
 Episcoporum promotions aliquid nobis velimus amplius vi7idicare" 
 (Eadmer, lib. iii. Hist. Novor. ; Paschal, ep. 49). In the twelfth 
 century, Alexander III. having founded the city of Alessandria 
 and appointed a first Bishop, announced with great delicacy that he 
 had no intention by that appointment to assert any wish to 
 interfere with the free election of its future Bishops: "De 
 novitate et necessitate processit, quod nulla prsecedente electione, 
 auctoritate nostra, vobis et Ecelesife vestrse electunt providimus. 
 Statuhnus ut non prsejudicetur in posterum quominus electionem 
 liberam habeatis, sicut canonici Ecclesiarum Cathedralium, quse 
 Mediolanensi Ecclesise subjacent." So delicate and high-minded 
 were the Papal proceedings, in those days, respecting elections. 
 
 E 
 
242 Widespread estrangement from the Papacy. 
 
 Chap. iv. just as the loss of temporal goods from violence 
 and persecution is much less serious than the loss 
 of moral dignity. Divine Providence saw fit to 
 purge the Papacy of covetousness, and to that end 
 it was permitted to undergo a severe and bitter 
 trial. Covetousness, which never yields save to 
 overwhelming force, was conquered by means of 
 violence, hatred, and contempt. But Rome's 
 discomfiture left traces on the minds of men, 
 which have permanently weakened the Church of 
 Christ. This circumstance especially favoured 
 the heresies of the sixteenth century. Those 
 heresies found the princes of Europe cold and 
 languid in their love and esteem for the Holy 
 See, and ill disposed to uphold it, in consequence 
 of the scandal it had given. Perhaps some even 
 rejoiced to see rebellion stirred up against the 
 Popes amid the clergy themselves, who sought 
 to throw off an old and galling yoke. And the 
 liberty thus sought, speedily became license. It 
 was more pregnant with consequences than the 
 sovereigns of that period understood. It was 
 really the assertion of the independence of natural 
 reason in presence of revelation. It was a fatal 
 rationalism which, like a deadly germ, developed 
 in course of years into the mighty tree of un- 
 belief, overran the world, changed social manners, 
 
Were spiritual ends sacrificed to temporal ? 243 
 
 shook thrones, and caused the more thoughtful Chap, iv, 
 part of mankind to have misgivings as to their 
 future destiny. The revolutions of France and of 
 Europe may be traced back to this distant source. 
 CV. A further disastrous result of this matter 
 of reserves was, as we have already said, that the 
 nomination of Bishops was ceded to the secular 
 princes. 1 Thus that liberty of elections which 
 had cost such efforts, such risks, and such weary 
 toil to Gregory YII. and his indomitable suc- 
 cessors, was impaired. Must we admit that Rome 
 ceded part of that precious liberty in the Con- 
 cordat of Bologna, a.d. 1516, in order to preserve 
 certain temporal advantages? We will never 
 affirm it, or let drop one word of blame concern- 
 ing that which was done by Leo X. after most 
 deliberate reflection, and with the concurrence of 
 a General Council. 2 But we must lament the 
 
 1 In England, shortly before Leo X.'s Concordat with Francis I., 
 the nomination of Bishops had been ceded to the King as a Papal 
 indulgence. Can it be true that Leo's successor, Adrian VI., ceded 
 to Charles V. and the future kings of Spain the nomination of 
 Spanish Bishops, as a proof of gratitude to his royal pupil for 
 many benefits conferred on the Papal See ? Is it possible that the 
 Church's liberty could have been thus used in payment for personal 
 obligations ? Such liberality would indeed be deplorable ! 
 
 2 One cannot but smile at the words used by Natalis Alexander 
 with respect to the elections : " Jus plebis inReges Christianissimos 
 Mcclesice GallicancB libertatibus et antiquo more ab Ecelesia tacite 
 saltern approbate transfusum est " (Hist. Eccles. in § i. Dissert, viii). 
 
244 Hue of absolute monarchies. 
 
 Chap. iv. unhappy circumstances which made so burdensome 
 a convention necessary, as a lesser evil ; and the 
 hard fate which awaited the combined wisdom of 
 such a Pope and of such a Council who were con- 
 strained to abandon once more to the lay power a 
 large share of that precious freedom of elections, 
 to secure which whole centuries of agitation and 
 discord in the Church and the world were supposed 
 to have been worthily employed. 
 
 CVI. If, as has been said, the actual power of 
 the Papacy had reached its climax at the time 
 when the question of investitures was settled, the 
 power of temporal princes, on the other hand, 
 declined from that hour. The nobles, taking 
 advantage of the strife, had risen against them. 
 Here and there they shook off all allegiance, and 
 established in Europe new and smaller princi- 
 palities. But from the epoch of restored peace, 
 the Papal power, having attained its climax, de- 
 clined through those very means which, as human 
 short-sightedness imagined, were to strengthen it. 
 These were the reserves and other advantages 
 which it appropriated, and which brought it a 
 great deal of wealth. The secular princes profited 
 
 Truly it is an odd liberty which subjects God's Church to temporal 
 princes ! It might well be called the servitude of the Gallican 
 Church. 
 
Episcopal nomination ceded to them. 245 
 
 by a season of repose to repair their losses ; they chap. iv. 
 missed uo opportunity of enlarging their power 
 and authority. At last, in the fifteenth century, 
 a cruel French prince — Louis XI. — utterly un- 
 restrained by principle, taugbt all the sovereigns 
 of Europe how the nobles might be overthrown 
 by violence, so as to give the monarch absolute 
 power. This policy was practically adopted by 
 all the Courts of Europe, though not always with 
 equal boldness and undisguised tyranny. It was 
 persevered in until Francis I. and Charles Y- had 
 completed the foundations of the great work, 
 which gave a new form and character to European 
 sovereignties. The Popes of the sixteenth century 
 had to treat with these monarchs. The result 
 was that they were forced to give up yet more 
 of the Church's liberty, namely, Episcopal nomina- 
 tions, retaining only the right of confirmation. 
 What was this style of discipline in substance but 
 a division of the reserves themselves between the 
 sovereigns and the Pope? "And to this day the 
 arrangement lasts, constantly widening one of 
 the sorest and most pitiable wounds of the crucified 
 Spouse of Christ. 
 
 CVII. Yet all men do not perceive it. They 
 say that if only the nomination is conceded to the 
 temporal power, while the Pope retains the right 
 
246 What would Hincmar say now ? 
 
 Chap. iv. of confirmation, there is no great interference with 
 ecclesiastical liberty. 
 
 But this reasoning in favour of the existing 
 discipline would have been treated, in better times, 
 as a veil thrown over a wound which it does not 
 heal, nay, without healing it, and if I may say so, 
 as a mere diplomatic ruse. What was the Church's 
 mind on this subject before the last period referred 
 to ? Let us infer from it what the ancient Prelates 
 would have said, could they have beheld the 
 nomination of Bishops abandoned to the lay power. 
 In the ninth century the lay power was 
 constantly interfering with the elections, and thus 
 with the Church's liberty. In the following 
 century this aggression reached its climax. It 
 was first of all required that no election should 
 be made until leave had been asked and obtained 
 of the prince. Diplomatists would say that this 
 did not hinder a free election. But the Church 
 of that time held all such pretensions to be 
 a violation of her liberties. "We have seen how 
 Archbishop Hincmar and others of his period 
 withstood the imposition of such bonds upon 
 the Church. They declared that "an obligation 
 on the part of a diocese to ask leave from a 
 sovereign to elect a Bishop, was practically the 
 same thing as constraint to elect whomsoever 
 
Invention of " royal petitions." 247 
 
 the sovereign pleased." That was the opinion Chap. iv. 
 then held of this aggression. What would those 
 Prelates have said, if, instead of their asking for 
 power to elect, the sovereign himself had nomi- 
 nated as of right the person to be elected ? Would 
 they not have feared as an inevitable result that 
 there would be no Bishops save those whom it 
 pleased the ruling princes to place over the 
 Churches ; and that the Papal confirmation would 
 degenerate into a mere form, which would never 
 be refused so long as the person nominated was 
 not notoriously guilty of great crimes ? But is 
 this immunity from flagrant crime sufficient of 
 itself to insure fit Bishops for our dioceses ? And 
 if the Church's wishes are not consulted, not even 
 hearkened to, what ecclesiastical liberty remains 
 ■ — or, at least, to what purpose ? 
 
 CVIII. The lay power made another step in 
 advance during this century, with respect to its 
 influence upon these elections, by means of " royal 
 petitions." What more harmless than a simple 
 petition ? It constrains no one ; the electors need 
 not heed it. What said the Church ? The cele- 
 brated St. Ivo of Chartres, a most ardent advocate 
 of harmony between Church and State, 1 looked 
 
 1 It will suffice to read St. Ivo's letter (ccxxxviii.) to Pascal 
 II. in order to see how ardently he sought peace and concord, and 
 
248 Papal confirmation of slight practical value. 
 
 Chap. it. upon the royal petition as virtually annulling 
 ecclesiastical freedom. 1 The holiest and most in- 
 telligent Prelates of the ninth century concurred 
 with him in protesting against it. But let it be 
 considered, whether it be worse to express a wish, 
 as was then done by the prince to the electors, 
 with respect to some individual ; or at once, and 
 as of right, to nominate a person to be elected. 
 If the royal wish was held to interfere with 
 due Canonical election, what became of such elec- 
 tions, when the sovereign nominated the Bishop, 
 and all that was left to the Pope was a possible 
 refusal of confirmation ? Could the Pope always 
 and freely withhold this confirmation ? Certainly 
 not. First of all, he could only refuse it in 
 event of the nominee being guilty of some 
 serious crime. This crime must have come to his 
 ears, and he must be able to prove the fact of 
 guilt. Nor was this all. The Pope had good 
 
 how by every means in his power he strove to keep a good under- 
 standing between the State and the Church. In that letter the 
 following words occur : " Novit enim Paternitas vestra, quia, cum 
 Regnum et Sacerdotium inter se conveniunt, bene regitur mundus, 
 floret et fructificat Ecclesia. Cum vero inter se discordant, non 
 solum parvse res non crescunt, sed etiam magnse res miserabiliter 
 dilabuntur." 
 
 1 See Epist. Ixvii., lxviii., and cxxvi. of this great Bishop. In 
 Epist. cii. he says, "Non licet regibus, sicut sanxit octava Synodus, 
 quam Romana Ecclesia commendat et veneratur, electionibua Episco- 
 porum se immiscere." 
 
^ 
 
 'xisting practice compared with ancient \ 249 
 
 reason to beware, lest by a refusal he should Ciur. iv. 
 irritate the sovereign, and involve the Church in 
 some greater evil. This matter depended on the 
 prince's individual character, on his religion, and 
 on the ministers who ruled him. What could be 
 easier for any prince than to instil such a fear 
 into the Pope's mind, above all in times of incre- 
 dulity, lukewarmness, and general hostility to the 
 Apostolic See ? What, then, remains to us of true 
 liberty, as distinct from its form, in the election of 
 Bishops ? What would the ancient Church have 
 said of such a state of things as our own ? 
 
 CIX. Observe, too, that I do not measure these 
 remnants of the Church's- liberty by the maxims 
 of primitive times, but only by those of the 
 Bishops of the ninth century. That was an age 
 of torpor, in which an enervated clergy was 
 already pretty well inured to the royal yoke. Yet 
 even , then men had not forgotten wherein liberty 
 consisted. Let us examine the mind of a suc- 
 ceeding century, when the Church shook off the 
 yoke, and ecclesiastical liberty was once more 
 restored by holy and vigorous Popes. Let us 
 see what such Popes would think of our present 
 condition, when through the chief part of Catholic 
 Christendom, all Episcopal appointments proceed 
 from the sovereign ; and whether they would 
 
250 Investiture conceded to Henry V. 
 
 Chap. iv. think appointments so made likely to turn out 
 well or otherwise. Two facts will suffice. During 
 Henry V.'s fierce persecution of Pascal II., what 
 did he succeed in winning from the Pope, by 
 dint of imprisonment, ignominy, want, fear of 
 death, the desolation of Rome and its territories, 
 violence, robbery, and the general dismay caused 
 by the invasion of a wild soldiery, incited by the 
 perjured Emperor himself? The privilege of in- 
 vesting Bishops with Episcopal revenues by means 
 of the staff and ring. This was on condition that 
 they were first elected canonically, freely, without 
 simony, without "violence." 1 There were other 
 conditions limiting the privilege. And Henry 
 thought himself victorious when he had won 
 such a privilege from the oppressed Pontiff. Yet it 
 gave him no pretence for meddling with either 
 elections or consecrations. All that he obtained 
 was the privilege of giving his consent, and of in- 
 stalling the person elected in his Bishopric. But 
 what followed ? The whole Church rose against 
 Pascal. The cry was that he had lessened her 
 freedom. A schism seemed imminent. This was 
 merely because he had allowed the monarch to 
 invest with staff and ring, the symbols of a Bishop's 
 
 1 ". . . ut regni tui Episcopis et Abbatibus libere prceter mo- 
 lentiam et simoniam, electis investituram virgse et annuli conferas " 
 (William of Malmesbury, DeGestis Begum Anglorum, lib. v. p. 660). 
 
Self-condemnation of Pascal. 251 
 
 jurisdiction. In vain did the Emperor assert that chap. iv. 
 he intended by this ceremony to claim no more 
 than the right to invest a new Bishop with his 
 temporal possessions. 1 The Church would not be 
 satisfied, for in truth the staff and ring meant 
 more than this. Moreover, investiture involved 
 the royal assent before the person elected could 
 enter upon his Episcopate. On all sides, Councils, 
 Prelates, assemblies of Cardinals protested against 
 the concession thus extorted from the Pope. Many 
 threatened to renounce obedience to him in conse- 
 quence. Nothing but the Pope's courageous hu- 
 mility could have appeased the commotion. He 
 confessed that he had exceeded the lines of duty. 
 He summoned a Council at the Lateran Basilica. 
 He presented himself before it as a criminal. 
 He accused himself. He laid down the insignia 
 of his office. He declared himself ready to resign 
 the Papacy by way of satisfaction to the Church, 
 and to submit to the judgment of the assembled 
 fathers. " This document," he said, " I executed 
 without the counsel or subscription of my brethren, 
 under the pressure of urgent necessity, not for my 
 life, my welfare, or my fame, but by reason of the 
 necessities of the Church. Under such circum- 
 
 1 " Nan Ecclesise jura, non officia quselibet, sed regalia sola se 
 dare assereret" (Henricus).. Peter Diaoonus, lib. iv. Chronici 
 Cassinensis, c. xl. 
 
252 The concession annulled by a Lateran Council. 
 
 Chap. iv. stances no conditions or promises are obligatory. 
 And as I recognize that it was ill advised, so I 
 confess the act to be wrong, and I desire with 
 the Divine aid to correct it. The mode of such 
 correction I refer to the counsel and judgment of 
 my brethren here assembled, to the end that no 
 mischief may thereby accrue to the Church, and 
 no hurt to my soul." The Council having in- 
 vestigated the matter, gave sentence as follows : 
 " We, assembled in this Council with our Lord 
 the Pope, pronounce that this so-called privilege 
 is null, having been extorted through violence by 
 King Henry from the Lord Pope Pascal ; and we 
 condemn it with Canonical censure, and with 
 ecclesiastical authority, by the judgment of the 
 Holy Spirit, declaring it void and cancelled ; and 
 under pain of excommunication we pronounce it 
 to have no authority or force, more or less." 
 And the following reason is given for a similar 
 sentence : " It is condemned, inasmuch as this 
 privilege implies that whosoever is canonically 
 elected by the clergy and people, shall not be 
 consecrated until he be invested by the King; 
 which is contrary to the Holy Spirit, and the 
 institutions of the Canons." 1 
 
 1 "Et hoc ideo damnatum est, quod in eo Privilegio oontinetur 
 quod Eleotus canonice a Clero et populo, a nemine consecretur nisi 
 
Later concessions exceed Pascal's. 253 
 
 Thus the fathers and the whole Church de- Chap. it. 
 cided it to be intolerable that a Bishop, lawfully- 
 elected by the clergy and people, should require 
 the royal assent or investiture before he could be 
 consecrated. What would they have said bad 
 Pascal utterly destroyed all free canonical election, 
 by yielding to the Emperor the yet greater privi- 
 lege, that only his nominee could be consecrated ? 
 Would they not have thought the circumstances of 
 
 prius a rege investiatur. Quod est contra Spiritum Sanctum et 
 canonicam institutionem. " There were two flaws in this privilege. 
 1. The Bishop could not assume the government of his diocese with- 
 out the royal assent, which might be refused either from caprice or 
 with intention to damage the Church ; while the Church was hampered 
 in the exercise of her ministry, which she has received authority 
 from Jesus Christ to exercise freely throughout the world ; for which 
 reason Innocent II. decided that the King's dissent should only be 
 heeded when it was founded on fair reasons, lawfully proved. 2. The 
 word " investiture " was equivocal ; since to speak of " investing a 
 Bishop, " appeared to imply conferring on him Episcopal jurisdiction, 
 which it was heresy and contrary to the Holy Spirit to attribute to 
 the secular power. To these we might add, 3. That it is injustice 
 and fraud if the King proposes to invest a Bishop with the free 
 estates of the Bishopric, as by his royal authority, and not as by 
 virtue of a privilege granted him by the Church who has power 
 over her own property. It was fair that the King should by his 
 own authority invest Bishops with feudal estates, inasmuch as these 
 always pertain to the prince, the feudatory only holding the usu- 
 fruct. But in those times the two kinds of property were confused, 
 and all the Church's estates were treated as feudatory, which came 
 to pass, not so muoh from the personal covetousness of rulers, as 
 from the nature of those governments, under which all property 
 was not defended alike, but the royal estates were best defended. 
 From this advantage of feudal estates over others, arose the 
 "feudioblati." 
 
254 Innocent II. and Louis VII. 
 
 Chap. iv. Pascal's time less deplorable than those of the 
 sixteenth century, when a Pope was reduced to 
 thinking it a less evil to the Church of Grod to 
 concede the nomination of Bishops _ to a temporal 
 prince, than to encounter the consequences of a 
 refusal ? 1 I. refrain from enlarging on this topic. 
 But surely it is most suggestive. 
 
 CX. We may further conceive what the 
 Church of the twelfth century would have thought 
 of royal nominations, from another incident. It 
 occurred under Innocent II. The Archbishop of 
 Bourges had died, and Louis VII. left full liberty 
 to the clergy and people of that Church to elect its 
 own pastor. He made one condition. They 
 must not elect Peter de Castra. Peter, he swore, 
 
 1 Pascal condemned himself in another Lateran Council, 
 A.d. 1116. The description he gives of how he was led on to make 
 the concession is touching, from its humility and dignity. "When 
 the Lord had worked His will, with His own, and had given me 
 and the Roman people into the Emperor's hand, I saw daily and with- 
 out intermission rapine, incendiarism, wars, adulteries. I desired 
 to put away such miseries from the Church and the people of God, 
 and that which I did, I did in order to free God's people. I did 
 it as a man, inasmuch as I am but dust and ashes. I confess that 
 I did wrong, and do ye all raise your prayers for me to God, that 
 He would pardon me. As for that unhappy document, which was 
 made in the tents of the soldiers, and which to its shame contains a 
 sacrilege, I condemn it with perpetual anathema, so that no one 
 may be willing to remember it, and I pray ye all that ye do the 
 like." Then all cried out, "Be it so. Be it so." Such were the 
 trying circumstances which extorted from Pascal a concession, which 
 seems to me as a mere trifle compared with the right of royal 
 nomination conceded four centuries later. 
 
Louis' objection to P. de Castra not allowed. 255 
 
 should not be a Bishop. Nevertheless, Peter was ouap. iv. 
 elected. He was at Eome. The Pope conse- 
 crated him without heeding the exception made 
 by King Louis. The Pope ruled that " there 
 could be no true liberty in an election where a 
 prince might make any exceptions that he pleased, 
 unless he could prove before an ecclesiastical 
 judge that the person elected was deficient in the 
 necessary qualifications. In that case the King was 
 to be heard, like any other of the faithful." * Now 
 here it was merely a question of allowing the King 
 to exclude an individual. Yet this was treated 
 by popes of high authority as a violation of eccle- 
 siastical liberty. Liberty is a delicate thing, and 
 will not bear to be trifled with. But what would 
 Innocent II. have said had the question been, not 
 whether the King should have power to exclude 
 one man, in one single case, in one diocese ; but 
 whether he should permanently appropriate the 
 nomination of all Bishops throughout his kingdom ? 
 Would he not have thought that the Church's 
 liberties were indeed hopelessly lost under such 
 a state of things ? Nor may we say, as the 
 ignorant and covetous are ever prone' to do, that 
 
 1 . . . "judicante veram non esse electionis libertatem ubi 
 quia exoipitur a Principe, nisi forte docuerit coram ecclesiastico 
 judice ilium non esse eligendum : tunc enim auditur ut alius. " 
 
256 St. Bernard agrees in principle with Innocent; 
 
 Chap. iv. the extended views which these popes held concern- 
 ing the liberty of Christ's Church were exag- 
 gerated. 1 I would appeal to the holiest and most 
 thoughtful men of those ages ; to St. Bernard, 
 whose Catholicity was held up as an example by 
 Napoleon himself. The wise Abbot of Clairvaux 
 viewed the subject precisely as did Innocent II. 
 When entreating Innocent for once to indulge 
 Louis YII. by consenting to an appointment to 
 the see of Bourges of some other person than 
 Peter de Castra, he in no way differed from the 
 opinions expressed by the Pope. St. Bernard 
 was both loyal and frank in the terms of his 
 letter to Eome ; although he undertook to intercede 
 for the King. He wrote thus to the Cardinals : 
 " In two matters we make no excuse for the 
 King ; for his illicit oath, and for persevering 
 unjustly in that oath. But this he did not will- 
 ingly, but out of shame. As thou knowest,- he 
 
 1 Such views have never ceased, and never can cease to exist in 
 the Church : they are as eternal as truth. It is sufficient proof that 
 the Roman Pontiffs in the sixteenth century did not think other- 
 wise than their predecessors, when we find Julius II., the pre- 
 decessor of Leo X. , appointing Bishops in opposition to the King, as, 
 in the century before, Innocent VIII. had done with respect to the 
 See of Angers. Without entering upon the question of right and 
 wrong (which does not at this moment concern us), such a line of 
 action on the part of the popes proves how clear and unchangeable 
 were the views which were held concerning the liberty of the 
 Church. 
 
Condemns, while pleading for, Louis. 257 
 
 thinks it ignominious not to maintain his oath Chap. iv. 
 before. the Franks, although he swore publicly to 
 what was evil, and every one knows that illegal 
 oaths are null. We confess that we cannot excuse 
 him herein, nor do we seek to do so. We only ask 
 forgiveness for him. Consider whether you can 
 in any way find excuse for his anger, his youth, his 
 royal position. You may, if you will, esteem 
 mercy above judgment. Reflect that he is but 
 a boy and a King ; forgive him this time, on the 
 condition that in future he shall not again so 
 presume. And I would beg you to pardon him if 
 possible, retaining the while all the Church's liberty, 
 and all the veneration due to an Archbishop con- 
 secrated by Apostolic hands. This is what the 
 King himself humbly asks. This is what our 
 afflicted Church earnestly prays for." 1 Thus St. 
 Bernard saw no excuse for a King who interfered 
 so far as to exclude a single man from election. 
 He held such interference to be a blow to ecclesias- 
 tical liberty. According to these principles, which 
 are immutable in the Church, what will become 
 of royal nominations? Was the period of their 
 introduction one of freedom or of slavery ? and 
 should the sons of the Church rejoice or weep over 
 them? 
 
 1 Ep. ccxix. 
 
258 Freedom of elections lost, a.d. 15 16. 
 
 Chap. iv. CXI. To understand the malignant character 
 of this "Wound of the Church, we must bear in mind 
 that when the system of royal nominations came 
 in, it involved the abandonment of the Church's 
 most cherished principles concerning elections. 
 These principles had guided her for ages. Hither- 
 . to she had jealously guarded them. ' Let us 
 examine these principles one by one. They were 
 lost to the Church, so far as their effect is 
 concerned, in the year 1516. But they live in 
 the pious longings of the faithful. 
 
 It was an inviolable maxim of the Church that 
 " the best man attainable should be elected Bishop." 
 This plain, just principle implies a high idea of 
 the Episcopate. The Church does not hold that 
 there is a certain standard of teaching-power, 
 goodness, and wisdom which will suffice for that 
 office. She maintains that the highest and best 
 gifts of any man are insufficient for a charge, which 
 was said to be a " weighty burden for angel's 
 shoulders." But if there were none really fitted 
 for so great a dignity, at least the Church would 
 have the best man possible elected to it. 1 But the 
 
 1 All antiquity sets forth this principle. Let us see how Origen 
 taught it in the second century. Describing how, under the ancient 
 law, Aaron was matte High Priest, he shows therein the foreshadow- 
 ing of a due appointment of Bishops under the new Law. " Let us 
 see how the High Priest was appointed. Moses gathered together 
 
The best man should be the Bishop. 259 
 
 Concordat which sanctioned royal nominations was Chap. iv. 
 forced to substitute a new maxim for the old one. 
 The nominee, it ruled, must be " a serious man, a 
 master in theology or law, and at least twenty- 
 seven years of age." 1 We hear no more about 
 the best man ; only about one sufficiently good. 
 Certainly the prince who takes upon himself the 
 nomination, is not released from an obligation to 
 choose the best. But what guarantee has the 
 Church that he will do so ? The Church can only 
 
 the Synagogue, read the sacred text, and said, ' This hath the 
 Lord commanded.' Ye see that although the Lord Himself had 
 commanded the institution of the High Priest, and elected him, 
 yet he cdhvened the Synagogue likewise. And thus in the ordi- 
 nation of any priest, the presence of the people is required, in 
 order that all may know and testify that he who is elected is 
 the most excellent, the most learned, the holiest, and the most eminent 
 for virtue among all the people; — ut sciant omnes et certi sint 
 quia qui prsestantior est ex omni populo, qui doctior, qui sanctior, 
 qui in omni virtute eminentior, ille eligatur ad sacerdotium" 
 (Horn. vi. in Levit. § 3). This has been the unbroken tradi- 
 tion of the Church. In the ninth century the Visitor, that 
 is, the Bishop sent by the Metropolitan and by the prince to 
 preside over an election, was wont to address the electors as follows : 
 "We bid you by the royal command, and by that faith ye have 
 sworn to preserve towards God, and our Lord the Emperor Louis, 
 to the end that ye fall not under the heavy sentence of condemna- 
 tion, and that terrible anathema which calls us all before the 
 tribunal of the Judge, that ye hide not from us which among this 
 congregation ye know to be the best, the most learned, and the most 
 remarkable for a pure life." " Ut eum quem meliorem et doctiorem 
 et bonis moribus ornatiorem in ista Congregatione conversari 
 noveritis, nobis eum non celare dignemini. " 
 1 These are the words of the Concordat. 
 
260 Lower standard of Royal nominations. 
 
 Chap. iv. reject the royal nominee, in case he be not " a 
 serious man, a master in theology, and of the 
 requisite age." What guarantee has the diocese 
 to which he is appointed ? When he was elected 
 by the diocese, it could take its own precautions. 
 When the provincial Bishops or the Pope ap- 
 pointed, it was in order that the Catholic Church 
 might make the choice. She knew who would 
 meet her wants. If a wrong choice was made, 
 she only injured herself. No one else wronged 
 her. But when a nominee is thrust upon her, she 
 is obliged to accept him, provided that he is equal 
 to the office. And what is the " seriousness " or 
 the degree in theology worth ? or the twenty-seven 
 years ? Even supposing an examination before con- 
 firmation by the Holy See, what guarantee does 
 that afford to the diocese ? It guarantees that the 
 new Bishop is a serious man, and a graduate. But 
 is that enough for the diocese ? Will any " serious 
 graduate " supply all that is wanted ? What 
 latitude the words suggest ! How many shades of 
 " seriousness " there are ! what differences in doc- 
 trine among men who have taken their degree ! 
 Can we stop short at such words ? or must we not 
 also look at the facts ? Do we trust our Univer- 
 sities, or does the doctrine they teach come down 
 straight from heaven ? Is it the wisdom of 
 
The Bishop should be valued by his flock. 261 
 
 Solomon, altogether good and sure ? Are we Chap. iv. 
 not, in short, reduced to accepting Bishops whose 
 merits are negative, men to whom no serious public 
 blame is attached? The inspection of the Holy 
 See can go no further. If it could and would, the 
 struggles with royalty would be incessant. Thus 
 a Bishop is at last elected, not because he unites 
 in himself the largest share of deserts, but because 
 there is no crime, or, more accurately, no proved 
 accusation laid against him. But is such negative 
 goodness sufficient to make a good Christian, not 
 to speak of a good Bishop ? 
 
 CXII. Another of the Church's inviolable 
 maxims was that the Bishop to be elected should 
 be " a priest, known, loved, and desired by all 
 those whom he was to rule ; " 1 that is to say, by 
 the clergy and people of his future diocese. Thus 
 a man might possess very great merit, and yet not 
 satisfy the ancient requirements of the Church 
 for the Bishop of a diocese. He might be un- 
 known to the diocese. He might not suit the 
 
 1 See above. A Bishop not known to his diocese was held to 
 be illegitimate, and an intruder. In a letter of Julius I. to the 
 Orientals (ad Antiochenos, apud Athan. Apol. 2), he says that 
 Gregory, who had been placed in the see of Alexandria, was an 
 intruder, "quia nee multis notus, nee a presbyteris, nee ab 
 Bpiscopis, nee a populo postulatus fuerat." And St. Celestine I. : 
 "Nullus invitis detur Episcopus" (Ep. iv. § 5). St. Leo: "Qui 
 praefuturus est omnibus, ab omnibus eligatur " (Ep. x.). 
 
262 The Bishop not to be a stranger. 
 
 Chap. iv. special needs of his intended flock. He might be 
 unacceptable to them. Churches, like individuals, 
 have more confidence in one minister of the altar 
 than in another. The wish to have as father and 
 Pastor a man in whom most confidence is placed 
 is itself good and just. It ought to be satisfied. 
 But if the prince nominates the Bishop, this wish 
 will seldom be gratified, and the wise and chari- 
 table maxim of the Church is thus set aside. 
 
 CXIII. A third invariable principle in the 
 Church was that " the Bishop to be elected should 
 be a priest long known to the clergy of his 
 future diocese, and not a stranger from a distant 
 country." 1 He must have lived, and so to say 
 grown old in the diocese. He must know the cir- 
 cumstances and the people ; their wants, and how 
 best to meet them. He must be known and valued 
 for his long services : if he is already a father to 
 the people, and a brother to the clergy, all will be 
 attached to him, and ready to respect him. But 
 this plain, evangelical principle is inevitably dis- 
 regarded by royal nominations. It is a natural 
 result. A monarch cannot, will not, or, at all 
 
 1 All antiquity solemnly affirmed this : "Ex presbyteris ejusdem 
 ecclesice, vel ex diaconis optimiis eligatur " (St. Leo, ep. xiv. § 6). 
 And Innocent I., in his Epistle to the Synod of Toledo (Ep. iii. 
 cp. 2), condemns the affair of Rufinus, "qui contra populi volunta- 
 tem et discipline rationem Episcopum locis abditis ordinaverat. " 
 
Will kings observe primitive maxims ? 263 
 
 events, does not give heed to such details. He ° SAP - iv. 
 sends the men whom he desires to promote from 
 any place whatever; possibly not merely from 
 without the diocese, but from without the province, 
 or even natives of a foreign country. Here is a 
 stranger, who perhaps speaks a different language, 
 perhaps offends national prejudices. His only 
 reputation is that he is a royal favourite, an able 
 man, and a courtier. How can he become the 
 confidant, the friend, the father of his people ? 
 How can such a father preserve or promote the 
 regenerate life of his flock ? I do not say that 
 a saintly flock might not prosper under such a 
 Bishop. Perhaps if the flock consists of saints, 
 the Bishop is not wanted ! But we are talking of. 
 Christian people as they really are. And to lead 
 men to live up to the Grospel precepts another 
 class of Bishops is required. The system under 
 discussion is well fitted to un-Christianize the 
 world ; and when that is once accomplished, how 
 long will princes be able to govern it ? 
 
 OXIV. It may be said that a good sovereign 
 could of his own will maintain these principles of 
 antiquity, which can never be renounced by the 
 Church. Certainly. But to that end, it should 
 be inserted in the compact that all princes are to 
 be born good ! Suppose, however, that the sove- 
 
264 Every corporation best knows its own needs. 
 
 chap. iv. reign is good. Can it be expected that a layman, 
 immersed in the cares and pleasures of temporal 
 government and of Court life, will be a pro- 
 found theologian ? Will he be familiar with the 
 principles of ecclesiastical discipline, or appreciate 
 their full importance ? Will he be kindled with 
 such an Apostolic zeal as to prefer these principles 
 to all self-interest, to maintain them against the 
 seductions of flattery, the evil passions, and the 
 intrigues of those around him, on whose counsels 
 he depends ? Surely it is too much to expect of 
 mortal man ! 
 
 But even taking so improbable a state of 
 things for granted, it would not suffice. The 
 prince must not only know, and seek to uphold the 
 unalterable principles of the Church's discipline. 
 He must be able to uphold them. But to this end, 
 he must personally know each individual Church 
 as well as it knows itself, and having identified 
 himself with the Universal Church, he ought to 
 identify himself with each single Church. Who 
 does not feel that this is impossible ? But, in 
 truth, one consideration, confirmed by general ex- 
 perience, and resulting from the nature of things 
 and of mankind, settles the question. " Generally 
 speaking, every person or corporation is the sole 
 true judge of its own necessities." It sees things 
 
The Church cares chiefly for souls. 265 
 
 with the keen and watchful eyes of self-interest, chap. iv. 
 There may be exceptions. But this is in the main 
 a governing law of corporations and associations. 
 Especially is it applicable to the Church, whose 
 interest is spiritual and moral, and for that reason 
 straightforward, simple, consistent, clear as day- 
 light. Hence it follows, that if the Pastors of 
 Churches are appointed by others, they will never 
 be chosen with the faultless judgment which the 
 Church would exert on her own behalf, and which 
 was exercised in her behalf for so many ages. Thus, 
 if a good Prince nominates, the Church's rights are 
 still damaged, for who can deny the claim of the 
 faithful to have the best possible Pastor ? 
 
 The Church has one interest in electing her 
 Pastors ; she is concerned for souls. A prince has 
 many interests. Is it likely that amid all his own 
 interests, and all those of his adherents, he should 
 think of nothing save the Church's interests in the 
 nomination of Bishops ? Is it possible that the 
 study of her welfare should be ever uppermost in 
 his mind, overruling all other considerations ? 
 Such a sovereign would indeed be a hero or 
 an apostle. A. sovereign should be content if a 
 Bishop be a consistently faithful subject ; and this 
 every holy man, whose heart is full of the spirit 
 of the Gospel and the Church, must inevitably be. 
 
266 Kings expect political service from Bishops. 
 
 Chap. iv. But a sovereign should exact no more. He should 
 not require a Bishop to be his secret agent, or, 
 if I may venture to say it, a police officer. This 
 destroys the Episcopal character. It violates the 
 fundamental principles of the Episcopate. " No man 
 that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs 
 of this life," is a maxim so delicate that even a 
 thought might violate it. There is a wide dif- 
 ference between the evangelical loyalty which 
 springs from conscientious motives, and which is 
 founded on justice and uprightness, and a poli- 
 tical fidelity dictated by human interests, and 
 founded on utilitarian motives without regard to 
 justice. A Bishop is a man of justice. He ought 
 to be such of his free will. A Christian prince 
 should not build any political or worldly specula- 
 tions on a Bishop's sacred character. But speaking 
 frankly, and of the generality, what is the chief 
 guide of princes save policy ? Indeed in all things, 
 Religion excepted, it must necessarily be so. 
 How, then, can such a matter as the nomination of 
 Bishops, in which policy should have no part, but 
 which should be altogether regulated by pure and 
 spiritual motives, be safely entrusted to a man 
 whose position, education, habits and precedents, 
 all force him to act from a political point of view ? 
 Can we rest in full assurance that the interests 
 
Why are kings eager to nominate Bishops ? 267 
 
 of religion will be considered before those of Chap. iv. 
 policy ? And what is policy ? Is it not ever on 
 the watch to turn everything to its own advantage, 
 and to appropriate for that object whatever it can 
 lay hands on ? "What, then, will a Bishop be 
 who is appointed for political reasons ? Surely 
 the Church does not need that her sons should be 
 the offspring of political astuteness. 
 
 OXY. There was a time when the Church 
 waged unsparing war against simony. It was held 
 to be the most disgraceful and fatal of vices. But 
 is secret simony not simony ? Is simony less vile 
 and lamentable because it is disguised under a 
 political veil ? Is a painless gangrene less fatal 
 than a wound which causes the patient acute dis- 
 tress ? And what but simony is the pursuit of 
 secular ends when making Episcopal nominations ? 
 what else are the adroit means used to obtain 
 vacant sees from princes ? A refined, decent, nay 
 modest simony it may be ;. not barefaced or exter- 
 nally offensive. But none the less there is the 
 gangrene. Nothing but the knife can remove it. 
 
 Why is a sovereign so eager to appropriate 
 the nomination of Bishops-? Is it solely with a 
 view to the Church's welfare ? If so, he would 
 assuredly let her choose her own Bishops. He 
 cannot pretend to choose better than she could. 
 
268 A simoniacal understanding possible 
 
 Chap. iv. Is it that the Bishops may be his faithful subjects, 
 according to the precepts of the Grospel, and the 
 spirit of the Church ? If so, for that very reason 
 he should let the Church choose them. The more 
 worthy a man is to be a Bishop, the more holy, the 
 more Apostolic he will be, and consequently the 
 more loyal, with true Christian loyalty. But 
 remember, I say loyal, even at the cost of life. I 
 do not say he will be a flatterer, a courtier, a party 
 man. I do not say that he will be the servile 
 minister of the royal or the ruling will, which it 
 is his duty to enlighten and guide by the Gospel 
 Law, of which he is the interpreter. 1 If, then, these 
 
 1 Wel) were it, if all, princes and subjects alike, knew wherein 
 lies true fidelity ! It does not consist in unworthy actions, in 
 bargaining with conscience. It always goes hand in hand with 
 justice and sincerity. Thus I offer this very work as a proof, not only 
 of my faithful attachment to the Church, but also of my fidelity to 
 my sovereign. May it be received as it is meant ! May the purest 
 intentions not be perverted and calumniously interpreted ! The 
 conception of evangelical fidelity, of which I speak, is continually 
 found in ecclesiastical tradition. I will quote one instance which 
 has reference to our special subject, "the election of Bishops. In 
 the eleventh century the King of France imposed an ignorant and 
 unworthy Bishop upon the Church of Chartres. The canons of 
 that Church sought to persuade the Archbishop Of Tours and the 
 Bishops of Orleans and Beauvais to apply to the King, with the 
 object of inducing him to remedy the damage done to ecclesiastical 
 discipline. They added these words : "Neither be ye slow to do 
 this, out of respect due to the King, as though not to do it proved 
 your fidelity towards him. For ye will be really most faithful to 
 him, if ye correct those matters in his kingdom which need cor- 
 section, and if ye lead him to will their correction " (See Fulbert, 
 Bishop of Chartres, ep. 132). 
 
if Bishops are nominated for State reasons. 269 
 
 are not the reasons which make a sovereign so Chap. iv. 
 desirous of retaining Episcopal nominations, it is 
 evident that he seeks in them a support which is 
 not moral, but material, as being by its very nature 
 political ; not of Grod, but of man. He does not 
 seek it only for the purposes of justice. And is 
 not this simony? and, therefore, is not simony 
 at the root of royal nominations ? Is not 
 the Church's character thereby changed, and the 
 Episcopal office degraded and injured? Indeed, 
 if the sovereign honestly aimed at nothing but 
 the spiritual good of the Church, and found 
 himself in a position to nominate Bishops, he 
 would not trust either himself or his ministers ; 
 he would rather take the Church herself as his 
 counsellor, and would give faithful heed to her 
 judgments. 1 
 
 1 One chief reason why the Church never liked sovereigns to 
 dispose of Bishoprics, was that she foresaw simony to be, in such a 
 case, inevitable. In the Council of Rheims, when it was a question 
 of peace between the Church and Henry, Calixtus II. declared 
 that nothing should be left undone to banish simony from the 
 Church, "quae maxime," he said, "per investituras contra Ecclesiam 
 Dei innovata erat." Pope Pascal had already affirmed that the root 
 of simony was to be found in lay, influence over Episcopal appoint- 
 ments. And in the Lateran Council, a.d. 1102, he renewed the 
 prohibition against receiving at the hands of the laity either 
 Church appointments or ecclesiastical property. "Hoc est enim," 
 he says, " simoniaca pravitatis radix, dum ad percipiendos honores 
 Ecclesiae, ssecularibus" personis insipienter homines placere desi- 
 derant." This is self-evident. The best Prelates of the Church 
 
2 jo What a prince would do, if well advised. 
 
 Ghap. iv. CXVI. But further, I maintain that it is the 
 true temporal interest of a prince to leave the 
 Church free to choose her own Pastors. This 
 may at first seem a paradox. Ordinary politicians 
 have treated it as being one. But considering 
 the question from a higher point of view, and 
 taking a wide and deep view of a prince's 
 interests, we shall see the practical truth of this 
 fair principle, " That which is just and conform- 
 able to the spirit of the Christian Religion, is also 
 generally most useful to a Christian prince." I 
 say generally, supposing it to be accepted as a 
 State maxim. Let us apply this principle to the 
 subject before us. 
 
 A Bishop who is not appointed by the sove- 
 reign will be a mediator between prince and 
 people. A monarch can entirely trust him. For 
 the Catholic Church has always inculcated the 
 
 have never ceased to deplore it. St. Anselm of Lucca calls all 
 such dependence on the royal will the seed of simony. He 
 doubts if the Christian religion can long endure under such a 
 system. "Quia enim non advertat," he says, " hanc pestem semi- 
 narium esse simoniacse hsereseos, et totius Christiance religionis 
 lamentabilem destructionem. Nempe cum dignitas Episcopalis a 
 principe adipisci posse speratur, contemptis suis Episcopis et clericis, 
 Ecclesia Pei deseritur," etc. (Lib. ii.). They sought not only 
 to extirpate simony from the Church, but its every root and seed ; 
 and are these to be left unheeded because they are out of sight ? 
 A corrupt jurisprudence would lead us to such an absurd conclusion. 
 But so false a theory cannot last, because the Church of Christ 
 will endure while the world exists. 
 
What kind of Bishops can best support him. 271 
 
 doctrine that " subjects may not rebel against chap. iv. 
 their sovereign for any cause whatsoever." Thus 
 the more he is endowed with the ecclesiastical 
 spirit, the more entirely he is the Church's chosen 
 servant, the more earnest will a Pastor be in 
 teaching submission, obedience, endurance, even 
 under the greatest oppression. The people will 
 hang on the lips of one who inculcates gentle- 
 ness and who sets an example of it. They will 
 deem him an impartial man, a priest of Christ 
 owning no law save the Gospel. But in Bishops 
 appointed by the sovereign, the people see only 
 so many State officers, who practically have the 
 same interests as their princes. How will their 
 words be received ? They will be without moral 
 weight. Thus the influence of religion, which 
 should be so great, is rendered useless to a sove- 
 reign, inasmuch as no partisan can be a mediator. 
 A sovereign may derive political support from the 
 clergy, when they have become a section of the 
 nobility, and hold large possessions, and thus have 
 numerous adherents. But the unconquerable 
 moral force which is peculiar to the Church and 
 the Gospel ; the power of righteousness in the 
 human heart, which God gives, and which subdues 
 the world, is not found in countries where the 
 Bishops are appointed by the secular power. 
 
272 The Church in the French Revolution. 
 
 Chap. iv. Where sovereigns have grasped too much, they 
 have lost more than they have gained. More- 
 over the result is hurtful to religion. Religion 
 becomes odious to the people when she shares in 
 the hatred stirred up against princes by political 
 factions. So far is she from being able to support 
 the throne that she can scarce hold her own ground. 
 We have seen this come to pass in our own 
 times in France. The French clergy could not 
 rein in the frenzy of the rebellion of which v 
 together with the King, it became the victim, 
 precisely because it was identified with the royal 
 policy, and was chosen by the sovereign him- 
 self. Truly it is a terrible lesson to us ! The 
 clergy who fell honourably beneath the guillotine 
 were learned, pious, even heroic. Yet they had 
 no weight with a nation which was not dead 
 to the voice of Christianity, or to the generosity 
 of virtue. The noblest endowments availed no- 
 thing. Gallicanism * was the ruin of the French 
 clergy. It taught a State religion. Its original 
 sin was that it was the sovereign's creation. 
 That was enough to make it a mark for all the 
 opprobrium and bitterness which was showered 
 
 1 [This is surely inaccurate. The essential features of Galli- 
 canism are independent of the question of the election of Bishops, 
 and the French clergy " fell " because it had been enervated by 
 wealth and to a certain extent, by worldlinesa. — Ed.] 
 
Political value of good Bishops. 273 
 
 upon it. But that hatred was not hatred of the Chap. iy. 
 clergy. It was hatred of the King. It perse- 
 cuted him as identified with the clergy, and so 
 it persecuted religion itself. 
 
 CXVII. Again, it is easy to see that a 
 conqueror or a usurping adventurer would find 
 it useful to have Bishops who prefer temporal 
 possessions to religion, and who are ready to 
 sell their souls to him. But surely a Christian 
 prince, recognized as legitimate, cannot ask for 
 more than to be surrounded by disinterested men, 
 who will speak the truth, even at the risk 
 of his displeasure ? Now I maintain that no 
 greater service can be rendered to a Christian 
 Prince than that of teaching him a true concep- 
 tion of justice and the real advantages of the 
 Christian religion. There is no surer way of 
 filling the Church's - high places with such men, 
 than by leaving their selection to the Church her- 
 self. She is guided by the Holy Spirit. "Where- 
 as no one assumes that the temporal government 
 can know and have the Spirit of God better 
 than the clergy and the Church. Thus it 
 seems to me, that if a sovereign desires to 
 have Bishops who are heartily loyal, and free 
 teachers of truth, and yet seeks to appoint them 
 himself, he should do it secretly. He should let 
 
274 True interests of Governments. 
 
 Chap. iv. no one know that the choice is his. Let it 
 once he known, and he will he deceived. 
 But who appreciates the modest, yet straight- 
 forward freedom of the Grospel, which essentially 
 belongs to the Episcopal character ? What sove- 
 reign, what policy is clearsighted enough to per- 
 ceive that this evangelical liberty on the part of 
 Bishops would save the State from excesses, would 
 keep it back from the edge of the abyss towards 
 which the passions or the heedlessness of rulers 
 often drive it ? How many revolutions, and 
 what anarchy would have been averted, if this 
 precious liberty, a balm which, wherever it exists, 
 can preserve Christian states from corruption, had 
 been appreciated as it deserves ? But rulers, far 
 from understanding the benefit which would accrue 
 from such a check, so important to their safety, 
 upon their injustice and passions, are swayed by 
 worldly prudence. They obey nothing but a blind 
 and unlimited desire for power ; they deem any 
 limit to it a hindrance to their policy. As if a 
 government which has set aside every restraint, 
 however lawful, and has thus come to be free to 
 do whatsoever it will, just or unjust, could last ! 
 As if it was not sure to find its own destruction 
 in the limitlessness of its power ! No monarch, 
 if really absolute, could retain his throne for many 
 
Gregory a true friend to Henry IV. 275 
 
 days. The checks upon his will which he might chap. iv. 
 seek to destroy in the sphere of right would reap- 
 pear aggravated and enhanced in the province 
 of fact. It has been justly observed that, 
 " when princes seek to shake off all subjection to 
 the Church, they find themselves mere slaves to 
 the people." This saying illustrates the political 
 events of our own day. In spite of the mists 
 raised by men who are at once the flatterers 
 and the hidden enemies of royalty, and of the 
 systematic prejudice of modern historians who 
 have treated of the eleventh century, I wish here 
 to make one reflection, and I appeal to all dispas- 
 sionate and far-seeing men whether it be not just. 
 The reflection is as follows : — Were not the free 
 clergy, as represented by Gregory VII., of more 
 advantage even in temporal things to Henry IV., 
 although in seeming opposition to him, than his 
 own clergy, who obeyed and fawned on him, and 
 were the real causes of his downfall? Strange 
 as the assertion may seem, it is easily proved. It 
 is enough to recall the proceedings of the German 
 barons. Indignant at the Emperor's irregularities 
 and at his tyranny, the Saxon and German nobles 
 rebelled against him. Complaining bitterly of 
 the Pope's moderation and delay, they threatened 
 to elect by themselves another Emperor, without 
 
276 Henry ruined by his servile clergy. 
 
 Chap. iy. awaiting his judgment. The Pope, on the con- 
 trary, held back. He sought to arrange matters. 
 He acted as a true mediator between the sovereign 
 and his nobles. He hoped that Henry would 
 return to a better mind. In that case the Pope 
 was ready to support him. But the German lords, 
 impatient of further delay, made their choice 
 without the Pope's consent. He still strove for 
 conciliation. They elected Eudolph of Suabia, 
 thus making the confusion hopeless, and wholly 
 ruining Henry. But if Henry had held stead- 
 fastly to the Pope, he would have been one 
 of the greatest of sovereigns. All dissensions 
 would have been adjusted by the help of the free 
 clergy, whose very independence enabled them to 
 conduct such a mediation. Who, then, deprived 
 Henry of this advantage, leading him on to his 
 melancholy end, as a dethroned, poverty-stricken 
 wanderer ? Surely those very servile clergy to 
 whom he had sold their Bishoprics. They blindly 
 counselled him, not to maintain a rightful au- 
 thority, but to claim obstinately an unbounded 
 power ; a vain assertion of power to work his 
 will for good or evil without restraint ; or, more 
 truly, to work evil, since no one denied his right 
 to do good. This servile clergy was the means 
 of Henry's destruction. A clergy loyal to him, 
 
Bishops degraded, when used for political ends. 277 
 
 not from policy, but on true Christian principles, Chap. iv. 
 would have saved him. 1 
 
 CXVIII. Now this attempt to find in the 
 Episcopate a support per fas et nefas — a means, 
 not of making due authority more esteemed by 
 the people, but of enslaving the people to any 
 authority, — this principle to which the secular 
 power clings so closely, tends inevitably to the 
 nomination of Bishops who are real enemies to 
 the Church. Such men keep up an externally 
 
 1 The truth of these conjectures is borne out by what occurred 
 with respect to Henry IV. of France. The Pope had no personal 
 hostility towards him, no political aspirations in the matter ; he 
 only desired that France might have a Catholic King. But the 
 Catholic confederates in France did not share his views. In a. 
 letter addressed to the Pope's legate Gaetano, they urged the Pope 
 to nominate another King for France, and the Sorbonne was of the 
 same mind. " Sorbona, hujus sententise est, urgetque Pontificem ut 
 ipse regem Galliee pronuntiet, declaretque ; alioquin Gallia concla- 
 mata est, expersque remedii, et esse hanc potestatem Pontifici 
 regem declarandi, rationibus plane evidentibus, multisque exemplis 
 ostendunt. Immo adjungunt, ubi Pontifex regem pronuntiaverit, 
 isque in Gallia denuntiatus fuerit, continuo a clero et ab omnibus 
 catholicis receptum iri " (Sub an. 1592, die 16 April). But what 
 did the Pope do ? He did not become a partisan of either side ; he 
 held the dignified place of mediator, and finally his mediation bene- 
 fited Henry, who forsook his heresy, was reconciled to the Church, 
 and thereupon was recognized as King of France by the Pope and 
 by all France. But had he persisted in heresy, in spite of all his 
 personal courage he would doubtless have been overthrown. A 
 clergy who urged him on against the Pope and the Church, would have 
 been a worse enemy than the Pope ; the Pope's remonstrances helped 
 him to regain the Church's favour and the affection of his subjects. 
 It is thus that a free Church holds prinGes in or restores them to 
 their true interests, and promotes even their temporal advantage. 
 
2 78 Faithful Bishops often unwelcome to politicians. 
 
 Chap. iv. venerable appearance which is indispensable in 
 our day. But instead of being the free ministers 
 of Grod, they are no more than royal ministers 
 clothed in Episcopal vestments. The fidelity re- 
 quired of them having its source in earthly 
 motives, they must be men who appreciate earthly 
 aggrandizement. It is necessary carefully to 
 avoid the choice of men who look for a higher 
 prosperity, and who esteem the riches and digni- 
 ties which they receive from the prince as an 
 added weight which they accept without exulta- 
 tion, but with resignation and for the love of Gfod. 1 
 Such evangelical men, whom the "truth has 
 made free," are feared by worldly politicians as 
 hindrances to their shallow enterprises. Conse- 
 quently now, in contrast with primitive times, the 
 Church rarely sees such men filling her Episcopal 
 sees. The world lacks honest preachers of the 
 G-ospel. Grod's eternal Justice lacks teachers and 
 priests. Sovereigns lack faithful friends and 
 counsellors. 
 
 The very fact that a Bishop should be capable 
 of rendering loyal service to his prince by fully 
 
 1 Cardinal Godfrey, Abbot of Vend6me, writing to Calixtus II. 
 on Investitures, says, "Ex jure autem humano tantum illis de- 
 bemus (to temporal princes), quantum possessionem diliyimm, quibus 
 ab ipsis vel a parentibus suis Ecelesia ditata et investita dig- 
 nQBcitur" (Opuse. iv.). 
 
How Government officials are selected. 279 
 
 setting forth the truth, proves what I said before, Chap. iv. 
 that ordinary minds are unequal to the Epis- 
 copal office. It requires the greatest courage and 
 discretion. He Who said, " The Grood Shepherd 
 giveth His life for the sheep," 1 required no 
 common generosity of spirit in His Bishops. 
 These words are not counsels of perfection, but 
 rules of duty. A man who is worthy enough 
 in ordinary life, might when raised to an Epis- 
 copal Throne be no better than a " wolf," or a 
 " dumb dog ; " as Scripture styles those Pastors 
 who, can neither die for their flocks nor warn 
 them of their danger. But what monarch makes 
 it a point of conscience to appoint no Bishops 
 save men of such vigour and earnestness as to 
 be ready to die rather than keep back the truth 
 when it should be spoken ? 
 
 CXIX. There are yet further objections to 
 royal nominations. Looking upon Bishops as so 
 many political officers, sovereigns and their minis- 
 ters select them on the principles which are fol- 
 lowed in other departments of government ; and 
 naturally require in them the same political 
 views as their own. Consequently Bishops can- 
 not confine themselves to the study of eternal 
 truth and justice. They cannot avoid taking a 
 1 St. John x. 11. 
 
280 Extreme case of a foolish or wicked king. 
 
 Chap. iv. part in politics. They cannot be content with pro- 
 moting peace and love among mankind through 
 the G-ospel precepts. It follows inevitably that as 
 the heads of Cabinets change, and with them the 
 character of political government, Episcopal ap- 
 pointments will correspondingly vary. To-day 
 a certain class of men will be selected, to-morrow 
 another ; instead of, as might be desired, always 
 disinterested men, free from party spirit. Thus 
 private interests and passions are considered and 
 provided for, rather than the spiritual welfare of 
 the people, and the preservation of the Church 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 CXX. I will not attempt to follow out all that 
 might occur to damage both Church and State 
 from the nomination of Bishops in the unhappy 
 case of a foolish or wicked King, an enemy of 
 the Church, or surrounded by ministers of that 
 character. We know too well what has occurred 
 in such circumstances. It is unfortunately too 
 notorious how easily, not only bad princes, but 
 even good sovereigns who sincerely desire the 
 Church's welfare, are deceived by false or plausible 
 heretics, who always abound in Courts. 1 Heresy 
 
 1 It vras in this manner that Arianism was propagated, as indeed 
 all heresies are spread abroad through Court favour, and by means 
 of princes who have yielded to the artifice of heretics. How many 
 heretical Bishops have been forced upon the Church by the secular 
 
How good princes appoint bad Bishops. 281 
 
 veils itself beneath a show of piety, and lay Chap. iv. 
 theology is not always quick to detect the fraud. 
 Ambition and self-indulgence are fostered by 
 smooth words ; fraud and hypocrisy cost nothing. 
 Thus really good princes have appointed decided 
 heretics who feigned to hold Catholic truth, until 
 such time as, having gained strength and poisoned 
 the country, they have cast aside the mask, when 
 they no longer cared to wear it. Such things 
 have but too recently been witnessed by the Church. 
 But I would speak of a yet more fearful, because 
 more hidden danger, or rather of an existing evil. 
 CXXI. At the present time, and for a long 
 while past, an indefatigable power has been at 
 work in every corner of the world, with the 
 object of scattering the poisonous seeds of schism 
 in the Church of Glod. There exists a system of 
 schism, but as yet it is unseen ; it only becomes 
 visible when it explodes. Meanwhile its agents, 
 
 arm ! If the sixteenth, century did not see a universal intrusion of 
 such Prelates as arose in England, Sweden, etc., it was chiefly 
 because too often the very Episcopate itself was overthrown and set 
 aside by heresy. The secular power has no means of guarding 
 against false systems of religion save a close adherence to the leaders 
 of the Church, and trust in her government ; inasmuch as there is 
 no other living, supreme, enduring, guiding voice. Do they wait 
 the Convocation of an (Ecumenical Council ? Is it always possible 
 to summon this extraordinary tribunal? and meanwhile are they 
 to let themselves be deceived ? Let them turn to the Gospel, and 
 read, "On this rock I build My Church ; " and let them believe the 
 Gospel. [This, of course, begs some important questions. — Ed.] 
 
282 How monarchs are led astray. 
 
 Chap. iv. many of whom are men of good faith, whisper 
 seductive and insidious words into every royal 
 ear in Europe. They persuade kings that such a 
 system is a necessary bulwark to their authority 
 and power. They denounce the Catholic system 
 as a mere human invention, an evil imagination 
 of Papal ambition. Who can wonder if monarchs 
 are led astray? Can it be expected that they 
 should have sufficient penetration and disinterested 
 love of the truth to enable them to judge wisely 
 between this schismatic system and the Church's 
 true teaching ? Surely not. Their only way 
 to discover the truth is to turn a deaf ear to 
 all private and unauthorized teaching, and to 
 give heed to the Pastors of the Church, according 
 to their rank in the hierarchy, resting -finally on 
 Christ's own words, that His Church is founded 
 on Peter. Those words utterly condemn the 
 princes who have chosen to follow any other 
 teacher than the head of the Church. 1 But too 
 often every prince has his own theologians, and 
 thinks himself justified in the sight of God in 
 following the counsels of some particular Bishop 
 of his realm. Such a course must involve him 
 in a vicious circle. How can he be sure that 
 
 1 [The reader will remember that the writer takes the Roman 
 Catholic interpretation of St. Matt. xvi. 18 for granted. — Ed.] 
 
A King's wishes reflected in his courtiers. 283 
 
 the voice of God is heard through private theo- Chap. iv. 
 logians ? or that it is the Church who speaks ? 
 The Church whom he hears should be free, not 
 enslaved. She should speak through her regular 
 hierarchy, not through any one member who sets 
 himself up in opposition to the rest. Otherwise 
 there is no opinion, however wild, that may not 
 be maintained on the authority of individual 
 theologians, or of Bishops who are the vassals 
 of their sovereigns. It is not thus that truth is 
 attained. The sovereign will by this means only 
 arrive at the reflection of his own wishes, or at 
 the interests of those whom he consults. But 
 meanwhile that schismatical system of which I 
 speak is already too prevalent ; it prevails almost 
 universally. And nothing more tends to give 
 it increased extension than the royal nomi- 
 nation of Bishops. Naturally, princes who are 
 themselves attached to this false system nomi- 
 nate Bishops whose opinions are well known to 
 them. Moreover, since the schism is concealed as 
 fire beneath cinders, it is evident that not even 
 the Pope's reserve of confirmation can obviate 
 this secret mischief to the Church. All declara- 
 tions and oaths are useless palliatives, powerless 
 to bind men who are dead to the pleadings of 
 conscience, since their very profession is deceit and 
 
284 The schismatic Church in France. 
 
 Chap. iv. seduction. Would that these lamentable truths 
 were not proved by experience ! But when 
 throughout a kingdom there are only such Bishops 
 as these to be found, the first trifling occasion will 
 give rise to schism, and it will speedily assert itself 
 unchecked. If but a minority of the French 
 Church proved schismatical on the occasion of 
 the Concordat between Napoleon I. and Pius VII., 
 it was owing to a happy inconsistency in that sin- 
 gular clergy. While through national pride they 
 had founded in Europe the schismatic system 
 I allude to, they were in practice faithless to their 
 hollow theory, by reason of their innate piety. 
 And if that small schismatic Church did not suc- 
 ceed in disturbing and crushing the whole Church 
 of France, or even the Universal Church, as might 
 have happened under different circumstances, it 
 was solely through the intervention of Divine Pro- 
 vidence, which permitted that the policy of the great 
 man who was master of France, ruling all things 
 with a rod of iron, should attach him to the Church 
 and the Pope, thereby rendering the schismatic 
 faction powerless, though none the less arrogant. 1 
 
 1 Richelieu, whose testimony is unimpeacKable, since he was so 
 undoubted a supporter of an absolute policy, considered Gallicanism 
 to be a schismatic system. He saw the spirit of schism in the 
 pretension on the part of an individual Church to decide important 
 questions which affect the interests of the Church and of all Christian 
 
Abuses of free elections always limited. 285 
 
 CXXII. Whatever abuses and irregularities Chap. iv. 
 may creep into elections when made by dioceses 
 or provinces, they will always be only partial. 
 Their evil consequences will not become national. 
 They will not be the results of a system, or the 
 first essays of a malignant attempt to control all 
 elections and to pervert whole kingdoms. But 
 once give up nominations to the sovereign, and 
 what a terrible power for evil is intrusted to the will 
 of an individual ! Or surrender them to a Cabinet, 
 and what an alarming power is created outside 
 the Church ! This power will outlast individual 
 princes, and will endure as long as Cabinets exist 
 with their maxims of worldly policy. 
 
 Alas, that this schism has already attained so 
 much strength ! Its foundations have been covertly 
 laid throughout Europe. Of a truth they are 
 strangely unlike the stones whereupon the temple 
 of the Lord is raised ! 
 
 States — questions which can only be decided by the Pope and by 
 (Ecumenical Councils. What, then, if the Church of anyone nation, 
 or an individual Bishop, counsellor, or professor of theology pre- 
 sume not merely to decide such questions, but to decide them 
 contrary to Councils and Popes and their express decisions : are 
 not such proceedings schismatical ? Can any Christian prince 
 conscientiously abide by such individual judgment % Can he affect to 
 have rightly sought after the truth and the doctrine of the Holy 
 Catholic Church ? Can he in good faith believe that he is only seek- 
 ing to maintain his own rights, and not to infringe on those of 
 others ? [These questions may at certain periods of Church history 
 be answered in more ways than one. — Ed.] 
 
286 Protest of two priests in France. 
 
 Chap. iv. Yet men go quietly to sleep while the Catholic 
 Church is surrounded with these fatal dangers ! 
 The worldly wise of our age think that all is 
 well. Others, yet more prudent, hold that Catho- 
 lics should not venture to protest, that they 
 should maintain a rigid silence, lest uneasiness 
 should be created and offence given. All dis- 
 turbance they consider imprudent and rash. Such 
 prudence fatally undermines the Church ; it works 
 secretly, and those who denounce its stealthy 
 actions and disclose its treachery are branded as 
 agitators and the enemies of society. Meanwhile 
 the Church groans, and may but too justly utter 
 the Prophet's saying that "in peace her bitter- 
 ness became most bitter." x And if some faint 
 whisper, breaking this deathlike stillness, is raised 
 with a hope of restoring the Cburch's health, 
 whence comes it ? From among the lowly faithful, 
 or at most from some poor but courageous priest. 
 During tbe Revolution, when France renounced 
 Catholicism for a State religion, two poor priests 
 alone dared to present a petition to their Bisbops, 
 and to lay before them these reflections on nomi- 
 nations to the Episcopate. 
 
 " So long," they said, " as the Chiefs of our 
 Eeligion are men chosen by herself, Eeligion has 
 
 1 Isaiah xxxviii. 37. "Vulg. 
 
Protest of two priests in France. 287 
 
 nothing to fear. The Churches of the East, of Chap. iv. 
 Germany, and of England were not destroyed by 
 persecution or by starvation. They perished 
 through the evil intervention of force in the ap- 
 pointment of their Bishops ; either through a volun- 
 tary barter of independence on the Bishops' part, or 
 through their ignorance of the limits within which 
 free and faithful men are justified in resisting 
 sacrilegious aggression. And now, ye venerable 
 remnant of our Episcopacy, your turn is come to 
 encounter the covert onslaught of men in power. 
 They have already considered your hairs, blanched 
 by all that you have suffered ; they have numbered 
 your years ; they rejoice over your advancing age, 
 knowing that man's term - of life is limited. As 
 one by one you fail, they will fill up your sees 
 with such priests as are honoured with their 
 confidence. These Bishops will decimate your 
 ranks without seeming to destroy unity. In time 
 the lingering remains of shame will be cast aside. 
 Secret ambition will form vile contracts. And 
 when the last of you shall lie down to rest beneath 
 the high altar of his Cathedral it will be with 
 the conviction that his obsequies are the obsequies 
 of the Church of France." 
 
 CXXIII. What, then? will the Church be 
 forsaken ? Is there no hope that Catholicism will 
 
288 No help save in God. 
 
 Chap. iv. shake off this oppression, and that Episcopal 
 elections will once more be free, since otherwise the 
 Church cannot subsist? No, none. All the strength 
 is on the side of schism. The Church can boast 
 of nothing but weakness. In the present state of 
 things, neither Bishops nor Pope can remedy the 
 evil : there is no human power equal to the emer- 
 gency. But there is siich a thing as persuasion. 
 And there is the Word of Grod. This should be 
 pressed upon the world although rejected by it. 
 Thus the Lord's ambassadors will at least save 
 their own souls, which they would imperil by 
 silence. Nor is this state of things new to the 
 Church. In other days she has seen no help in 
 man. In truth, she never did see any. But she 
 knows that Divine Providence is greater than 
 man. God wills that all the glory shall be His 
 alone. He wills that the sole Invisible Head of 
 the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, shall be exalted 
 over all. He will triumph even when His enemies 
 fondly imagine their victory to be complete, and 
 when the faithful who trust in Him are bereft 
 of all succour, save through Him alone. It is 
 especially in the matter of free elections, without 
 which the Church must perish, that, overruling 
 all human thoughts, the Almighty Providence of 
 Him Who has received of the Father " all power 
 
Bases of a Christian constitution. '289 
 
 in heaven and in earth," has ever been con- Chap. iv. 
 spicuous. 
 
 CXXIY. The Christian people, and Christian 
 nations, as members of this people, have a consti- , 
 tution by right ; by the right of existing facts ; 
 and this is truly Divine right. All facts are of 
 Divine right ; they are of God, Who alone rules all 
 things. Woe to him who touches this constitution ! 
 Woe to the nation which breaks its laws ! The evil 
 consequences of doing so will overtake it, and it 
 will be ceaselessly distracted and torn asunder 
 until it retraces its steps, and once more restores 
 the constitution in question. The laws of this con- 
 stitution are simple, universal, and unchangeable. 
 
 The bases are essentially two : 1. A supreme 
 right ; 2. A general fact, which results from par- 
 ticular facts : namely, that there is, first, a supreme 
 legislative power, or, if you will, a power which 
 enunciates the highest laws ; and, next, a power 
 which sanctions them. And these two powers are 
 never united in the same person, but always belong 
 to different persons. Let me explain myself. 
 
 In the Christian people is ever heard a voice 
 announcing the Gospel law, which is perfect 
 righteousness. This office is committed to the 
 Church ; and it is the power which makes and 
 promulgates laws. But what sanction does it get ? 
 
290 Physical force not committed to the Church. 
 
 Chap. iv. I do not mean in the next life, but in this ? The 
 Church is defenceless so far as material weapons 
 go, and her essential character is described in the 
 words with which Christ gave their mission to the 
 Apostles : " Behold, I send you forth as sheep in 
 the midst of wolves." 1 It is not in the natural 
 order of things that temporal authority should be 
 in the hands of the Church. There is another 
 power. Grod has kept law and its sanction apart. 
 The promulgation of laws He has committed to 
 His Church, reserving to Himself alone their 
 temporal sanction ; so that none should glorify 
 himself, or tyrannize over his fellow-men. For 
 the Church cannot wield this sanction by reason 
 of her physical weakness. Still less can the 
 temporal government wield it, since there is little 
 cause for men to glory in brute force. Yet God 
 does not ordinarily give His temporal sanction to 
 the law of the Church by miracles. He has or- 
 ganized among His people the sanction of the law 
 as announced by the Church ; that is to say, He 
 has so constituted the body of believers as to 
 make them feel the happy necessity of them- 
 selves sanctioning the Divine law. Thus the 
 Power which sanctions that law has given up 
 its authority to His people. What I am going 
 
 1 St. Matt. x. 16. 
 
Three powers in a Christian nation. 291 
 
 to say will throw light on this assertion, at which chap. iv. 
 no one ought to take offence. 
 
 Among Christian peoples, that is to say, in 
 every Christian nation, there are always, in fact, 
 three powers : the supreme or governing power, 
 the power of the nobles, and the power of the 
 people. Wherever any one of these three powers 
 is in fault, it meets with resistance and punishment 
 from the other two, which join together to defend 
 justice against the transgressing power. This is 
 simply an historical fact; I abstain from entering 
 upon any question of right. In order that each 
 of the powers may be kept in the subjection which 
 provides against its offending with impunity, it is 
 evidently necessary that at all times any two of 
 the powers should be stronger than the third, 
 since it is only thus that their alliance on behalf 
 of justice can afford her a practical sanction. But 
 such sanction will be efficacious in proportion to 
 the superior strength of the two allied powers ; and 
 justice will be defended and assured accordingly. 
 And forasmuch as the aggression may proceed 
 from any one of the three powers, the best division 
 of strength in favour of justice is undoubtedly 
 that " by which in any case the authority of 
 justice against the aggressive power shall be most 
 effective." Hence it follows that the division of 
 
292 Conditions most favourable to justice. 
 
 Chap. iv. strength which is most favourable to justice 
 in a Christian people, is that which establishes a 
 perfect equilibrium among the three powers, so 
 that each should possess an equal strength, and in 
 the event of any transgression the offending party- 
 should meet with an overwhelming opposition, in 
 the proportion of two to one. But if one power 
 alone becomes stronger than the two others put 
 together, the result is a tyranny. And if two powers 
 combine to maintain injustice, and to oppress the 
 minority, the result is conspiracy against the State. 
 But if all the three powers conspire together 
 against justice, so that while they remain at liberty 
 the Church become the victim of oppression, then 
 indeed that nation will assuredly lose catholicity, 
 and will ere long forsake Christianity itself. 
 These are the three radical diseases of civil society 
 in the Christian world. It would be hard to say 
 what the destiny of a nation thus detached from 
 the Church, and withdrawn from the rule of truth, 
 will be. It ceases to belong to the people of Grod ; 
 it ranges itself among unbelieving nations. Such, 
 at least, must be its / end. Infidel nations are 
 subject to their own peculiar ills. But it takes 
 to itself something more dreadful than do infidel 
 countries, namely, a law of degradation which will 
 carry it to incalculable depths, unless intervening 
 
Freedom of elections, how secured. 293 
 
 circumstances arise. History contains no example Chap. iv. 
 
 of a nation which has undergone all the changes 
 
 to which such a condition condemns it. A point 
 
 has always been reached at which the downward 
 
 course has been arrested, and the guilty nation 
 
 has shrunk back in terror from the abyss before 
 
 it, and has once more approached, or re-entered, 
 
 the Catholic Church. Setting aside, then, the 
 
 case of deadly apostasy, and speaking only of 
 
 those other evils to which Christian nations are 
 
 liable, tyranny and conspiracy against the State, I 
 
 say that any Catholic nation which is labouring 
 
 under either, will never regain its tranquillity 
 
 until it has cast out the seed of its malady, and 
 
 re-established the law of its Divine constitution ; 
 
 namely, that two powers shall always be stronger 
 
 than the third alone, and ever ready to protect 
 
 justice if that third power infringe it. 
 
 CXXV. It was this very constitution, peculiar 
 to Christian States, that Providence employed to 
 free Episcopal elections, when one of, the three 
 powers strove to usurp them. There was a time 
 when the nobles obstructed this liberty, straining 
 every nerve to exercise an arbitrary control over 
 the elections. Then Divine Providence made use 
 of the princes and people united, to preserve the 
 rights of the Church, and to restore the freedom 
 
294 Freedom of elections, how secured. 
 
 Chap. iv. of her elections. 1 At another time the aggression 
 came from the people, and then the Church 
 found her defenders in the sovereigns and the 
 nobles. 2 Imperishable benefits were rendered to 
 
 1 In the eighth century an armed and arrogant nobility invaded 
 the Bishoprics on feudal grounds. Charlemagne and Pepin defended 
 the Church, and for this reason Pope Zachary gave to the latter 
 the privilege " ad personam " of nominating Bishops. The Abbot 
 Lupo di Ferrara writes : ' ' Pipinus a quo per maximum Carolum et 
 religiosissimum Lodovicum imperatores duxit rex noster originem, 
 exposita necessitate hujus regni Zacharise Romano Papae, in 
 Synodo, cui Martyr Bonifacius interfuit, ejus accepit consensum, 
 ut acerbitati temporis, industria sibi probatissimorum, decedentibus 
 Episcopis, mederetur" (Ep. lxxxi.). 
 
 2 There were two periods in which the nobles and the supreme 
 power attempted to seize upon the elections — in the first by open 
 assault, in the second by underhand arts ; and thus insensibly they 
 attained their end. In France the supreme power combined with 
 the people in opposition to the nobles and to the freedom of the 
 Church, thus producing a conspiracy against the State. At the 
 assembly of the Commons, a.d. 1615, the third order was for 
 Gallicanism, and the Catholic system was defended by the clergy 
 and the nobles, so that, as Barthol. Grammont, President of the 
 Parliament of Toulouse, writes (Lib. i. Hist, ad arm. 1615), the 
 Catholic party said, " Clerum et nobilitatem convenire in eandem 
 sententiam, nee ideb contrariam opinionem valere quia ita populus 
 censet : duorum vota et calculos uni prsevalere." 
 
 In the year 1673 the clergy again set forth the same doctrine, but 
 a.d. 1682 they contradicted their forefathers. The clergy of royal 
 nomination under a despotic King like Louis XIV. were altogether 
 royal ; and then Gallicanism took shape and achieved its triumph. 
 But in what did this conspiracy on the part of the supreme power 
 and the people against Church and State, result? In the King's 
 ruin. The nobles being all but crushed, the King found himself 
 face to face with the people, whom he had himself excited. Two 
 opposed powers without a mediator cannot long go on without 
 strife, and in this case the people dethroned and murdered their 
 King. What a lesson ! Surely it is a false policy which only seeks 
 
Freedom of elections, how secured. 295 
 
 the Church by those pious monarchs, which she Chap. rv. 
 will commemorate to the end of time. Finally, 
 the monarchs themselves became the aggressors 
 and tyrannized over the elections. Hence the great 
 struggle which began in the time of Gregory TIL, 
 when the nobles and people together maintained 
 the Church's cause against the sovereign's usurp- 
 ation. When the sovereigns were depressed, the 
 nobles once more regained power ; and they skil- 
 fully acquired a hold both over the elections and 
 the Episcopal sees. They so contrived, that the 
 people and the greater part of the clergy should 
 be excluded from any voice in the matter, and that 
 the elections should depend upon the Cathedral 
 Chapters, which were filled, with some few 
 exceptions, with the dregs of the nobility. But 
 the sovereigns again got the better of a degenerate 
 nobility, repressing, and at last altogether con- 
 trolling it. Then, in their turn, the princes 
 obtained the nomination of Bishops, or at all 
 events the principal influence in elections. This 
 
 to render the supreme power unlimited ! Extremes meet, and 
 whoso is unduly exalted, will fall the more miserably. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that Cardinal Richelieu took part with 
 the Church against Gallicanism, although he it was who paved the 
 way for its triumph ; for he was the great instrument of the de- 
 pression of the nobles, and of absolute monarchy. That great man 
 did not foresee the consequences of what he was doing ; and how 
 many who think they see, are in truth equally shortsighted ! 
 
296 Political importance of a restoration 
 
 Ohap.iv. influence was legalized under the form of pro- 
 tection ; it was employed with caution, and with 
 attention to outward form and to the gentle 
 refinements of diplomacy. But meanwhile the 
 schism becomes daily more irreparable. Who will 
 save the Church from it ? Who will save the 
 world ? Who will save the thrones which have 
 laboured to prepare for themselves the most awful 
 and strange calamities ? Of which of these three 
 powers will Divine Providence avail itself to en- 
 force the law of justice, and to restore to the Church 
 that complete liberty which no mortal hand may 
 assail with impunity ? A glance at the world 
 enables us to answer the question. The awful judg- 
 ment of Divine Providence is not veiled or doubt- 
 ful. It has already begun, and resounds in various 
 quarters of Europe and of the world. England 
 and Ireland, the United States, and Belgium elect 
 Bishops freely : and assuredly God will not delay 
 the restoration of a similar liberty to all Christian 
 nations ; let the monarchs reckon upon that as a 
 certainty. The people is the rod which He wields. 
 Rebellions are execrable, and no one execrates or 
 condemns them more than the Church. But that 
 which is not done by the Church or by good men, 
 will be done by the power of Jesus Christ, Who is 
 Lord of both kings and people, Who makes all 
 
of full liberty to the Church. 297 
 
 things bow before His Will, and Who is ever Chap. iv. 
 wont to bring good out of evil. He can use even 
 the wicked to His own wise ends. 1 
 
 CXXYI. Yes, I dare to assert boldly, that the 
 general confusion of Europe is inevitable. One 
 measure only could avert it ; the restoration to 
 the Church of her full liberty, with just and re- 
 spectful treatment. But this measure is precisely 
 the only one not contemplated, or it is obstinately 
 rejected. All resources in turn are tried; the force 
 of arms and the persuasions of diplomacy. But all 
 such means are only equivalent to the last suc- 
 cours rendered to a dying man. At best they 
 only serve to prolong his mortal agony for some 
 few moments. Is it intelligence that is wanting ? 
 No. It is faith, it is love of justice that are 
 wanting. Men do not believe that Providence 
 has an unchangeable rule in the government of 
 events : they do not believe that the Church has 
 a mission which must be fulfilled at any cost ; 
 they persuade themselves that they can do with- 
 out her. Thus unbelief overpowers intelligence, 
 and renders unintelligible the sacred and universal 
 cry of Christian peoples for Liberty. The peoples 
 
 1 [Our author is betrayed into an exaggeration by the strength 
 of his convictions. Revolutions surely depend on other causes and 
 have other results than those on which he insists. — Ed .J 
 
298 A great need of our time. 
 
 Chap. iv. give a false reason for their rebellions; they lie 
 to themselves ; because, although they have a pro- 
 found instinctive apprehension of the true reason, 
 they bave no power of expressing it. Would 
 that tbey might learn that Christians, who are 
 essentially free, cannot obey man, unless in him 
 they obey Grod's authority ; cannot obey, save as 
 they learn from the Church's teaching that Gospel 
 law of humility and gentleness, which an enslaved 
 and despised Church is no longer able to teach 
 them ! Would that these truths were appreciated ! 
 Even yet it might not be too late ! 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
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 tobtci) is tfie Jbetbftus (or (Knforair Enfttngtmmt of tfje 
 JPull SRtojjts 1 ) of CEccIestasttcal ^roputg. 
 
 CXXVII. From that which has thus far heen set 
 forth, we see that the fall of heathen Rome, 
 foretold by Holy Scripture under the name of 
 Babylon, was, in the course of Divine Providence, 
 something more than an act of justice avenging 
 the blood of the Martyrs and extirpating the 
 last relics of idolatry. It was further designed 
 by the Divine Wisdom with which the King of 
 
 1 [Ital. Servitu'. Phillimore's International Law, I. 390. " The 
 doctrine of servitus occupies an important place in the Eoman Law ; 
 and in some shape, and under some application or other, exists of 
 necessity in the jurisprudence of all nations. This obligation to 
 service constitutes a right in the obligee, or the person to whom it 
 is due, and it ranks among the jura in re, while it operates as a 
 diminution and limitation of the right of the proprietor to the 
 exclusive and full enjoyment (libertcus rei) of his property." In 
 the following pages the word is translated " servitus," with a 
 meaning which will have to be borne in mind. — Ed.] 
 
300 The Wounds of the Church 
 
 Chap. v. kings governs human events, to secure that, when 
 the old and decrepit society had gone to pieces, a 
 new society, the daughter of the Church of the 
 Incarnate God, should take its place. On her 
 forehead is traced a sacred and indelible sign to 
 make her, like her mother, undying, so that 
 together they should continually advance towards 
 a hitherto unknown civilization. But it was 
 fitting that the glory which was thence destined 
 to accrue to the Divine element in the Church 
 of Christ should be attempered and almost counter- 
 balanced by the humiliation which was to attend 
 on the human element in her. It was thus in- 
 tended that all good in her should be attributed 
 to the Lord and His Christ, and not to man. 
 Hence God permitted that the barbarian con- 
 querors whom He used as His instruments for the 
 destruction of the Roman Empire, and who were 
 unconsciously moved to become disciples of the 
 Church, should introduce Feudalism, which in 
 course of time extinguished the Church's liberty. 
 This was the source of all her ills. In truth, 
 wealth alone would not have precipitated the 
 clergy into the abyss which we have been ex- 
 ploring ; nor would temporal dominions have had 
 so fatal an effect if they had been independent. 
 Indeed God employed temporal sovereignty to 
 
traceable to Feudalism. 301 
 
 preserve the freedom of the Apostolic See, so that Chap. v. 
 at least the Head of the Church might escape the 
 universal servitude, and, being free, might in time 
 set free its members likewise. This great work 
 Rome must yet achieve. 
 
 CXXYIII. Feudalism was in fact the only, or 
 at all events the principal source of all these evils. 
 As a system combining profane and barbarous 
 overlordship with servitude and vassalage to tem- 
 poral princes, it, so far as it was overlordship, 
 divided the clergy from the people (Wound i.). 
 It split the clergy into two sections, invidiously 
 styled superior and inferior clergy. It substituted 
 the estranging relationship of overlord and vassal 
 for the more binding tie of father and son. 
 Hence the neglected education of the clergy 
 (Wound ii.). Hence also the division among the 
 higher clergy, namely, the Bishops, who forgot 
 that they were brothers through jealousies, roused 
 on their own account, or on that of princes 
 whose vassals they were. Thus each Bishop be- 
 came separated from the people, and stood apart 
 from the Episcopate as a whole (Wound iii.). 
 Moreover, Feudalism, so far as it was vassalage, 
 by making the Bishops personally subject to their 
 prince as his liegemen, chained the Church with 
 all her possessions to the chariot of the lay power 
 
302 Corruption caused by feudalized wealth. 
 
 Chap. v. which dragged her over the rocks and precipices 
 upon which in its irregular and headlong course 
 it is often broken and ruined. Thus after count- 
 less degradations and disasters, the Church, de- 
 prived summarily of her endowments, finds her- 
 self so exhausted that she can no longer defend 
 even the right of nominating her own Pastors 
 (Wound iv.). And, I say, Feudalism enslaved 
 the Church with all her possessions. For the 
 barbarian rulers, accustomed to see vassals all 
 around them, looked at ecclesiastical matters as 
 at everything else ; while time-serving lawyers 
 aided to shape what was mere barbarous de- 
 spotism into a- theory of rights. They argued that 
 " the principal involves the accessory," and they 
 thence deduced the rule that, as the royal fiefs 
 were principals, the freeholds of the Church were 
 also to be considered feudal possessions. Thus feu- 
 dalism absorbed everything, leaving neither the 
 persons nor the property of Churchmen free. 
 
 CXXIX. I put aside the temporal sovereignty, 
 which is peculiar to the see of Rome. It could 
 have no reference to any other sees, at least for 
 a long time past, and it saves the Papacy from 
 ignominious servitude. But I affirm that the 
 clergy are corrupted and debased, not by free 
 but by " enslaved " property. The servitus of 
 
Legacy of feudalism to our age. 303 
 
 ecclesiastical property was the unhappy cause Chap. v. 
 which hindered the Church from maintaining her 
 ancient rules concerning her possessions, and 
 from regulating, as she would, their acquisition, 
 their administration, and their disposal. And this 
 loss of suitable provision for the administration 
 and use of Church property, in accordance with 
 the rules of antiquity and in the temper which - 
 befits Churchmen, is precisely the fifth Wound, 
 which pierces and rends the Body mystical. 
 
 CXXX. Feudalism has well-nigh perished, 
 and will soon altogether vanish before advancing 
 civilization, as clouds disperse before the sun's 
 rays. The Church no longer holds any fiefs. But 
 the legal principles, the customs and the spirit of 
 Feudalism survive. The policy of governments 
 draws its life from this source, and modern codes 
 inherit from the Middle Ages this luckless bequest. 
 I point out the cause, with a view to studying 
 the effects. 
 
 CXXXI. The Primitive Church was poor, but 
 she was free. Persecution did not deprive her 
 of free government, nor did the violent spoiling 
 of her goods interfere with her true liberty. She 
 was subject to no vassalage, to no " protection," still 
 less to " tutelage " or " advocacy," there. Under 
 these specious and treacherous names the servitus 
 
304 i. All offerings should be voluntary. 
 
 Chap. v. of ecclesiastical property was introduced. From 
 the time of its introduction the Church could no 
 longer maintain her ancient rules respecting the 
 acquisition, the management, and the disposal of 
 her material property ; and the neglect of rules, 
 which were a safeguard against the evil and cor- 
 rupting influence of siich possessions, led her into 
 the greatest dangers. Let us survey the most 
 important of these rules. 
 
 CXXXII. The first rule concerning the acqui- 
 sition of property was, that all oblations should 
 be spontaneous. Christ said to His Apostles, 
 " Into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, 
 Peace be to this house . . . And in the same 
 house remain, eating and drinking such things 
 as they give, for the labourer is worthy of his 
 hire." 1 These last words became the rule of the 
 Apostles, and are continually repeated by St. 
 Paul. 2 By them Christ imposed on the faithful 
 an obligation to maintain the Grospel labourers, 
 and on these latter He conferred the right to be 
 maintained by the faithful. It was really a pre- 
 cept, but this does not make the act of giving less 
 spontaneous ; because adhesion to the Gospel, and 
 incorporation with the Body of believers was to be 
 spontaneous. Spontaneity of human action does 
 1 St. Luke x. 5-7. 2 1 Cor. iv. 4, 15 ; 1 Tim. v. 17, 18. 
 
Our Lord. St. Peter. 305 
 
 not cease until moral obligation is reinforced by Chap. v. 
 active coercion. But Cbrist added no more 
 stringent sanction than " And whosoever shall not 
 receive you nor hear your words, when ye depart 
 out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your 
 feet." 1 The punishment of such offenders is left to 
 Divine Justice, according to the gentle spirit of the 
 Heavenly Law-giver, Who nevertheless has pro- 
 mised that in His own good time He will visit 
 them. 2 The history of Ananias and Sapphira 
 proves the same thing. " Peter said, . . . Whiles 
 it remained, was it not thine own ? and after it 
 was sold, was it not in thine own power?" 3 
 And in like manner, the collections which 
 St. Paul enjoined the Churches of Gralatia and 
 Corinth to make, in order to provide for the needy 
 Christians of Jerusalem, were to be left to the 
 discretion and charity of each believer : " Upon 
 the first day of the week let every one of you lay 
 by him in store, as God hath prospered him." 4 
 
 CXXXIII. Again, the precept by which 
 Christ enjoined the faithful to maintain the clergy, 
 refers only to the necessaries of life. This is 
 shown by the words, which direct the evan- 
 gelical labourers to " eat and drink " in " what- 
 
 1 St. Matt. x. U. 3 Acts v. 3, 4. 
 
 2 St. Matt. x. 15. " 1 Cor. xvi. 2. 
 
306 St. Paul. Tertullian. 
 
 Chap. v. soever house " they enter. " Edentes et bibentes 
 quas apud illos sunt." And St. Paul keeps close 
 to our Lord's language when he writes to the 
 Corinthians : " Have we not power to eat and 
 to drink ? " 1 If the supply of positive necessities 
 for the primitive clergy was left to the voluntary 
 exertions of the faithful, how much more would 
 any offerings that exceeded these limits have been 
 matters of free will ? 
 
 CXXXIV. Tertullian bears witness that these 
 spontaneous offerings were continued at the end 
 of the second and beginning of the third cen- 
 turies. In his "Apology " he says, " Each one lays 
 by a little money every month, or when he can and 
 will, for no one is constrained ; all is given freely. 
 These are as it were the deposits of piety." 2 
 
 We find the same maxim more or less set forth 
 through all the brightest ages of the Church. 
 She willed and taught not only that the faithful 
 should not be constrained to make their obla- 
 tions, but that they should not be induced to do so 
 by any artifices or persuasions. And as late as the 
 ninth century we find Canons published by the 
 third Council of Chalons with a view to pro- 
 
 i 1 Cor. ix. 4. 
 
 2 "Modicam unusquisque stipem menstrua die, vel ourn velit, 
 et si modo possit, apponit : nam nemo compellitur, sed sponte 
 confert. Etec quasi deposita pietatis sunt " (Apol. c. xxxix.). 
 
Tithes neither enjoined nor forbidden by Christ. 307 
 
 tecting the gifts offered by the faithful to the Chap. v. 
 Church from any such abuse. 1 
 
 CXXXV. The law of tithes, appointed by 
 Grod under the old Levitical covenant, was not 
 confirmed by Christ under the new Covenant. 
 The reason I believe to be that the Author of 
 Grace would not lay any burden upon His people 
 beyond that which was required by the nature of 
 things. And as this involved no more than the 
 maintenance of the clergy by the faithful among 
 whom they laboured, and as such maintenance 
 would vary according to circumstances, any fixed 
 contribution was liable to be at one time excessive, 
 at another insufficient. But since our Lord 
 in no way forbade such oblations, leaving them 
 to the discretion of the faithful, many, especially 
 those who came from the synagogue, from the 
 earliest times voluntarily offered tithes according 
 to the ancient custom. 2 And in the sixth century 
 Justinian, at the instance of some Bishops, strong 
 adherents of the old rules, forbade the use not only 
 of force, but of ecclesiastical penalties in recovering 
 them. 3 The Church might easily reduce to a pre- 
 
 1 Tommasin, P. iii. L. i. c. xxiii. 
 
 2 Irenaeus, lib. iv. c. xiii. ; Origen, Horn, in xi. Num. St. Cyprian, 
 De Unitate Eoclesise, c. xxvi. "At nunc de patrimonio nee decimas 
 damus " seemingly a reproof to those who were less zealous, and did 
 not pay tithes. 3 L. 39, Cod. De Episcop. et cleric. 
 
308 Ecclesiastical rights — a creation of the Gospel. 
 
 Chap. v. cept what was thus established as a custom. This 
 she did, first somewhere in the sixth century, 1 and 
 later universally, — whenever she found this pro- 
 vision for the maintenance of the clergy to be 
 convenient or necessary. But such offerings only 
 ceased to be voluntary when the secular authority 
 enforced them. This came to pass in the seventh 
 century under the influence of feudalism. 2 
 
 OXXXYI. And here we must bear in mind, 
 that the Gospel introduced a new kind of rights 
 to the world, which we may term ecclesiastical 
 rights. At first men knew only of the rights 
 of strict justice, and beneficent actions. The first 
 might be enforced by outward violence, the second 
 were altogether free. But the Divine Lawgiver 
 Who reformed the world, introduced between these 
 two laws of moral action, a third ; of which the 
 right which He gave to the ministers of the altar 
 to live by the altar is an instance. This right 
 is protected solely by the threat of Divine dis- 
 pleasure, to which Canonical and spiritual penal- 
 ties equally correspond. The greatest penalty 
 which the Church can inflict is that of separating 
 the disobedient and contumacious from the body of 
 the faithful, and thus depriving them of the bene- 
 
 1 Second Council of Macon, a.d. 585. 
 
 2 In Capital. Ann. 779, 798, 801. 
 
Ecclesiastical and natural rights. 309 
 
 fits of communion. Such penalties, by means of Ohap. v. 
 which the Church maintains her rule and her 
 rights, are altogether strange to a secular govern- 
 ment. This was taught by Christ in the words, 
 " Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise 
 dominion over them, and they that are great 
 exercise authority upon them, but it shall not 
 be so among you." x What happened, then, when 
 ecclesiastical property fell under the temporal yoke, 
 thereby ceasing to be free in the Church's hands ? 
 That which should not have happened. The civil 
 power endowed it with the sanction of coercion. 
 The civil power possessed and knew of no other 
 sanction. Moreover, it believed itself to be thus 
 doing the clergy a signal benefit : " et qui potes- 
 tatem habent super eos, benefici vocantur." 
 
 CXXXVII. Tt was undoubtedly just, and in 
 no way opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, that 
 such property as the Church had acquired through 
 free gifts, should be protected, like any other 
 property, by public authority. For all such dona- 
 tions carried with them rights according to strict 
 justice. But the exercise of force in constraining 
 the faithful to make offerings, such as tithes, firsts 
 fruits, and similar gifts, was contrary to the 
 ancient principle. Nor could the originally spon- 
 1 St. Matt. xx. 25, 26 ; St. Luke xxii. 25, 26. 
 
310 Evil of enforced oblations. 
 
 Chap. v. taneous nature of such gifts be forfeited because 
 it had become customary to offer them. 'It is a 
 mere legal sophism to say that a free giver becomes 
 a strict debtor, simply because he has continued 
 his gifts during a long period of time. 
 
 CXXXVIII. This first degee of servitus, to 
 which voluntary oblations were subjected, lessened 
 goodwill between the faithful who offered them 
 and the clergy. It abolished the kindly ties of 
 benefactor and benefited, or more truly of mutual 
 benefaction, since the one gave temporal, the other 
 spiritual things, according to the Apostolic precept, 
 " Si nos vobis spiritualia seminavimus, magnum 
 est si nos carnalia vestra metamus ? " 1 For such 
 primitive and natural relations the chilling and 
 odious relations of debtor and creditor were sub- 
 stituted, depriving the gift of all merit and grace, 
 and the giver of all gratitude ; while the clergy, 
 being assured of their living, saw no increase or 
 diminution proportioned to their labourp in the 
 offerings made to them. 
 
 CXXXIX. But a yet more fatal step towards 
 servitus was that which confounded all free 
 property freely bestowed upon the Church with 
 fiefs. All was gradually absorbed under the head 
 of feudal tenure. Thus the idea gained ground 
 1 1 Cor. ix. 11. 
 
2. A common administration. 311 
 
 that the possessions of the Church were the pro- Chap. v. 
 perty of the feudal lord, to whom the Churchmen 
 owed allegiance. To this day we retain the proof 
 of this servitus in our language, calling the 
 Churches " mainmort," which signifies a class of 
 serfs. 1 This evil seed, after having secretly borne 
 most mischievous fruits among the clergy, led 
 finally to the modern spoliations of the Church ; as, 
 for instance, to the solemn decree of November 24, 
 a.d. 1789, in which the National Assembly of 
 France pronounced all ecclesiastical estates to be 
 national property. It was thus that the Revolu- 
 tion in the name of civilization inherited the spoils 
 of Feudalism. 
 
 CXL. The second maxim which shielded the 
 Church from the corruption consequent on worldly 
 possessions was, that " where she had such posses- 
 sions, they should have a common administration 
 and be dispensed in common to all." Thus the 
 primitive Christians laid the price of their houses 
 and fields which they had sold at the Apostles' 
 feet, and it was dispensed to the faithful according 
 to their several needs, " prout cuique opus erat." 2 
 
 1 The tenant could not call his land a property, "because the 
 tenants or serfs of the glebe were styled 'mainmort,' inasmuch 
 as they could hold no personal property " (Cibrario, Dell' economia 
 del medio evo, L. iii. c. iii.). 
 
 2 Acts iv. 35. 
 
312 Property of the Church common 
 
 Chap. v. Surely this community of goods greatly promoted 
 love and unity, both between believers generally, 
 and between the clergy and the faithful ! " The 
 multitude of them that believed were of one heart 
 and of one soul : neither said any of them that 
 ought of the things which he possessed was his 
 own, but they had all things in common." 1 The 
 pleasing spectacle of this fraternal love, hitherto 
 unknown, led the Hebrew Philo of Alexandria, to 
 write its eulogy. The saints always considered it 
 as the best illustration of evangelical love. And 
 history shows how St. Chrysostom desired to in- 
 troduce it among his flock at Constantinople ; 
 while Horace describes a somewhat similar state of 
 things as the perfection of Rome's happiest times, 
 when he says that private expenditure was smallj 
 but that of the community large. 2 
 
 CXLI. This principle was long observed 
 among the clergy. The Bishops, as successors 
 of the Apostles, were depositaries of all the 
 Church's goods. These they distributed, for the 
 most part, every month ; according to the needs of 
 their clergy. No one held any personal property. 
 When, in the year 321, Constantiue permitted the 
 Church to inherit property by testamentary bene- 
 factions, he worded the permission thus : " Let 
 
 1 Acts iv. 32. 2 Carm; ii. 15. 
 
in the fourth and fifth centuries. 313 
 
 each, one be free to leave at his death such property Chap. v. 
 as he thinks fit to the holy and venerable Council 
 of the Catholic Church." 1 
 
 Later, as we see by a rescript of the fifth 
 century, attributed to the holy Pope Gelasius, the 
 Church expressly forbade any separate estate 
 to be ceded to any individual ecclesiastic, in 
 order that ecclesiastical property might be better 
 administered and preserved. 2 The same spirit 
 dictated a law of Valentinian, forbidding all 
 legacies or inheritances to individuals among 
 the secular or regular clergy. 3 Of this law the 
 good men of that period, such as St. Ambrose 
 or St. Jerome, did not complain. They did 
 greatly complain of the clergy who to their shame 
 had caused its enactment. " I do not lament the 
 law," says Jerome, " but I lament that we deserve 
 it. The cautery is excellent, but why is there the 
 wound to need cauterizing ? Let there be an heir, 
 but let it be the mother of the children, that is, 
 the Chuxch ; let her who brought forth the flock, 
 
 1 Cod. Theod., lib. xvi. De Episcopis, Ecclesiis et olericis, 
 tit. ii. § 4. 
 
 2 Gratianus, Caus. xii., Qusest. ii. c. xxiii. " Nee cuiquam 
 clerico pro portione sua aliquod solum Ecclesiae putetis esse 
 deputandum, ne per incuriam et negligentiam minuatur : sed omnia 
 pensionis summam ex omnibus praediis rusticis urbanisque collectum 
 ad Antistitem deferatis." 
 
 s Cod. Theod., lib. xvi. tit. ii. § 20 (ed. Goth. vol. vi. p. 48). 
 
314 Growth of separate benefices. 
 
 Chap. v. who nourished and pastured it, be its heir.' Why- 
 should we interpose between the mother and the 
 children?" 1 Nor would the saint permit indi- 
 viduals among the clergy or the monks to inter- 
 vene between the Church as depositary of pious 
 offerings, and her children, to whom she distri- . 
 buted them as need might require. It is hard to 
 say to what extent this community of goods, 
 administered by Episcopal wisdom with the counsel 
 of the clergy, 2 contributed to preserve a whole- 
 some unity, both among the clergy themselves, 
 and between the clergy and the people. 
 
 CXLII. But as the Grospel spread into villages, 
 and it became necessary to establish country 
 churches at a distance from the Cathedrals, a 
 separate maintenance was required for every such 
 church. 3 This arrangement was at first excep- 
 
 1 Ep. ad Nepotianum, § 6. St. Ambrose alludes to this law when 
 he says, " Quod, ego non ut querar, sed ut sciant quid non querar, 
 comprehend! ; malo enim nos peounia minores esse, quam gratia." 
 He adds, ' ' The Church's possessions belong to the poor. Count 
 how many captives she has redeemed, how many poor she has fed, 
 how many exiles she has pensioned " (Ep. Class i. Ep. xvii.). 
 
 2 Berardi says, " Etenim ea aetate, quotiescumque negotium 
 ecclesiasticum peragendum erat, Episcopus cleri consilium, con- 
 vocata synodo, expetebat " L (Gratiani Canones, etc., De Gelasio., 
 c. xlvi.). 
 
 3 "Postea vero primum factum, ut presbyteris ruralibus, quos 
 parochos adpellabant, bonorum administrationem concederent, 
 eorumdemque, exemplo presbyteris illis, qui in civitatibus titulos, 
 sive ecclesias tegere dicebantur. Id etiam totum constat ex 
 
Separatist tendency of feudal tenures. 3 1 5 
 
 tional. Temporary incomes were allotted to Chap. v. 
 monasteries, to deserving. clergy, and to pilgrims, 
 as Pope Symmachus had ordered in the sixth cen- 
 tury. 1 Hence the name " precarii." a But the 
 primitive customs as to the tenure, administra- 
 tion, and use of ecclesiastical property gradually 
 died out. The clergy held separate benefices. 
 As a consequence, the common life among the 
 clergy gradually disappeared. Its loss was greatly 
 regretted by the Church, and she repeatedly but 
 ineffectually strove to restore it, by laws and 
 canons. But the obstacle to her doing so was 
 again the barbarous feudal system. 
 
 CXLIII. Feudalism involves personal service, 
 which in itself is unsuited to a clergyman's 
 character, since he ought to be his own master. 
 But a vassal's property was further subject to 
 a special servitus, in consequence of the personal 
 service required of the usufructuary. This was 
 another ground of intrinsic opposition to the 
 
 Concilio Agathensi, cui prsefuit idem Caesarius anno 506, prsesertim 
 vero Can. 32, et 33 (Gratiani Decreti Pars Secunda Caus. xii., 
 Qusest. 2, c. 53 and Berardi, ibid.). 
 
 1 Gratianus, Decreti Pars Secunda Caus. xvi. , Qusest. i. c. 61. 
 
 2 A recent author observes that at first the enjoyment of a 
 special property was never conceded to individuals, except where 
 no congregation of priests existed, "as their community life pre- 
 served the ancient state of things for some time " (Walter, Manual 
 of Ecclesiastical Law, § 241). 
 
3 1 6 Separatist tendency of feudal tenures. 
 
 Chap. v. spirit of the Church, and of the clerical office. 
 For the personality of Christ's ministers alto- 
 gether disappears in the Divine constitution 
 which He left to His Church. They do not 
 represent themselves, but the Church. The 
 whole Church acts by their means, and in all 
 their ministrations by the Power of her Head. 
 They, as organs, have no more a distinct per- 
 sonality than the foot or the hand, or any .other 
 member of the human body. Thus a perfect 
 mystical unity is the very foundation of this 
 admirable constitution. And just as, if the mem- 
 bers of the human body sought each to become 
 independent, the body would lose its proportions 
 and its beauty, and become a monster, or, more 
 truly, would cease to exist, so is it with the Church. 
 But it was precisely this which the feudal system 
 attempted to effect. Each vassal can represent 
 only himself and the person whose vassal he is, with 
 his possessions. Thus this vassalage is a service 
 rendered to a temporal lord, with an object and 
 duty essentially temporal and secular. As long 
 as it was a question of free possessions, they 
 might be used for spiritual purposes, as, indeed, 
 had always been the case with the free property 
 of the Church. It was administered and dis- 
 pensed both theoretically and practically for 
 
Personal service attached to feudal tenures. 317 
 
 charitable purposes. By it Divine worship was Chap. v. 
 maintained and the ministers of the sanctuary 
 were supported. The hands of the poor, the 
 the widow, leper, the slave, the pilgrim, and of all 
 who suffered were the precious caskets wherein 
 the Church stored her treasures, safe from human 
 rapacity. In so doing the Mother of the faith- 
 ful did not go beyond the requirements of the 
 Church's ministry, which is one of maternal love 
 and of Christian pity. 1 But the vassal, the 
 servant who is constrained to consider his lord's 
 service, and to employ his possessions for his 
 benefit, sets out with an essentially different aim. 
 His aim is no longer ecclesiastical ; he is no longer 
 a " good soldier of Jesus Christ ; " he, despite the 
 Apostolic precept, is " entangled 2 with the affairs 
 of this life." He is no longer representative only 
 of the Church ; he is an isolated individual ; he 
 
 1 It will be desirable here to call the reader's attention to the 
 opinion expressed upon this subject by an author of the fifth 
 century, Julianus Pomerius ; he says, "Nunc autem quod Christiani 
 temporis sacerdotes magis sustinent quam curant possessiones 
 Ecclesise, etiam in hoc, Deo serviunt ; quia si Dei sunt ea quse 
 conferuntur Ecclesise, Dei opus agit, qui res Deo consecratas, non 
 alicujus cupiditatis, sed fidelissimse dispensationis intentione non 
 deserit. Quapropter possessiones quas oblatas a populo suscipiunt 
 sacerdotes, non sunt inter res tnundi deputari credendop, sed Dei" 
 (De Vita Contemplative, L. ii. c. xvi. 4). 
 
 2 "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus 
 Christ. No man thatwarreth entangleth himself with the affairs of 
 this life "(2 Tim. ii, 3, 4). 
 
318 Feudal origin of "benefices" 
 
 Chap. v. is like any one else ; he is a courtier, who, ever 
 bearing in mind his lord's honour and interests, 
 must hold his court, maintain a certain personal 
 pomp and display, or even put himself at the 
 head of his soldiers. He must, in short, play the 
 count or the baron in his own and his lord's 
 interests ; he cannot be simply the Bishop, seek- 
 ing only the welfare of the Church, and of his 
 people, as intimately associated with him. 
 
 CXLIV. This unnatural transformation of 
 Churchmen impressed the mediaeval Bishops with 
 a sense of their individuality. It weakened their 
 sense of unity in the body of the Episcopate and of 
 the clergy. It loosened the bonds which in happier 
 times rendered the Church so glorious and so 
 mighty through Christ for good. It divided 
 dioceses like states and baronies. It divided and 
 subdivided ecclesiastical possessions ; and these, as 
 they were united or divided, implied or caused the 
 moral union or division of their possessors. At 
 last these possessions were entirely cut up into in- 
 dividual tenures. Hence the origin of the word 
 " benefice," which comes from the feudal vocabu- 
 lary ; the first benefices were lands granted by the 
 prince to be held by his courtiers and comrades in 
 guerdon for their services. 
 
 CXLY. It is to be observed that when an 
 
Feudalism hostile to church unity. 319 
 
 idea or a form impresses itself powerfully on the Chap. V. 
 intelligence and imagination of men, it becomes 
 the norm or model by which are shaped those 
 thoughts and actions that can take the im- 
 pression ; while those which cannot, still range 
 themselves in a subordinate position, and group 
 around it, as handmaids round their mistress. 
 Thus in the Church's primitive times, the great 
 idea of Unity was graven on every Christian 
 mind ; and the thoughts and words of the faithful 
 and the clergy, the ecclesiastical arrangements 
 and the disposition of property, all were influenced 
 and illuminated by the ruling idea of the Unity 
 of Christ. But feudalism was based upon an 
 altogether opposite idea, namely, on the idea of 
 division, which results from that of individuality, 
 and on the specific idea of individuality which 
 results from that of seigniory. And as the feudal 
 system prevailed in temporal matters, it also 
 impressed its leading idea on the mind of the 
 clergy. Hence the woes of the Church. 
 
 CXLVI. The barbarians who conquered 
 Europe had for their leading idea that of force, 
 violence, personal bravery, dominion. Little by 
 little the Church instilled her own antagonistic 
 idea into their rude minds. Hence arose a struggle 
 between the two ideas. And just as when two 
 
320 Alternations of the struggle. 
 
 Chap. v. social bodies governed by opposing ideas are 
 brought face to face, some among them fight 
 openly, each using their own 'weapons, while 
 others seek to conciliate and combine, yet secretly 
 maintaining a hidden opposition, so was it with 
 the barbarian rulers. On one hand they op- 
 pressed the Church, striving to subject her to 
 their idea of overlordship, which was violent, 
 selfish, earthly. On the other hand they almost 
 insensibly received and appropriated the opposite 
 idea, the ministerial, moral, unitive, spiritual idea 
 of the Church. Thus their action was twofold 
 and contradictory ; it combined pious deeds and 
 benefactions to the Church, with wicked deeds 
 of despotism most injurious to her, according 
 as one or the other idea prevailed. The same 
 thing occurred among the clergy. One section 
 subdued and taught these wild men by the 
 Gospel message, instilling into their minds the 
 unifying idea of charity ; while another section 
 suffered in the struggle and received into itself 
 the opposite idea. So that in the action of the 
 clergy saintly and heroic examples and efforts to 
 maintain the unity of Christ are found in a like 
 contradiction side by side with profanity and ir- 
 regularity, unworthy complaisance, and selfish 
 tendencies, destructive of unity and all Christian 
 
Ultimate victory of religion. 321 
 
 and ecclesiastical communion. The struggle be- Chap, v, 
 tween two ideas, and the contradictory action that 
 ensued, both in temporal and ecclesiastical matters, 
 is characteristic of the Middle Ages ; it fully 
 explains the events of that period, especially the 
 collisions of the Empire and the Church. The 
 Church cannot perish ; her ruling idea cannot be 
 altogether extinguished ; inasmuch as Heaveu and 
 earth will pass away, but the word of Christ will 
 not pass away. And therefore each time that the 
 ideas of worldly and violent dominion and disunion 
 have asserted themselves in opposition to the 
 Church, and. have crept in among the clergy so as 
 to compromise their very existence, the Church has 
 arisen like a giant who awakes from sleep. With 
 unexhausted vigour she has in her extreme peril 
 found means to overthrow her enemy, to force him 
 back from the. ground which he had won, and to 
 reassert for herself and for her ministers that 
 principle on which her very life depends. 1 
 
 N 1 We have said that any reconciliation of the two. ideas of 
 individuality as peculiar to the barbarian rule, and of organic union 
 as peculiar to the Church, is impossible, and that their passing 
 fusion is only apparent ; the first often bid fair to annihilate its 
 opponent, but the Church ever rose anew with fresh strength and 
 power. Dare we then predict that there will never be peace be- 
 tween the temporal and spiritual powers ? God forbid so fatal a 
 prediction. Peace may be had, and will be had, but on one 
 condition only, namely, that the temporal power should banish the 
 idea of individuality, a mere relic of barbarism and feudalism, and 
 
322 Church possessions treated as private property. 
 
 Chap. v. CXLVII. Now this explains the sudden vicissi- 
 tudes of ecclesiastical property. Mediaeval suze- 
 rains, acting according to their principle of indi- 
 viduality, were not content with considering the 
 freeholds of the Church as fiefs. They actually 
 seized them, treated them as their own property, 
 disposed of them to the laity, alienated them. 
 These usurpations naturally fomented discord 
 between them and the Church. She resisted the 
 abuse with conciliar enactments, Papal laws, and 
 canonical penalties. 
 
 Those Prelates who were lieges to the prince, 
 and who had imbibed the principle of individuality 
 with their fiefs, imitated their leaders, and dis- 
 posed of ecclesiastical property as if it had been 
 their own. They forgot that it was common 
 property ; they enfeoffed it, exchanged it, gave it to 
 laymen, expended it in pomp, in luxury, in enjoy- 
 ments, armies and contests. To this the Church 
 
 build itself up anew on the Church's principle which cannot fail — 
 the principle of organic Christian unity among men. This is the 
 only possible reconciliation ; not of the two principles which cannot 
 be reconciled, but of the two orders — temporal and spiritual, which 
 are perfectly reconcileable. Thus all temporal seigniorial govern- 
 ments should be changed into Civil Societies. After nearly a 
 thousand years' struggle, is not this desirable change now approach- 
 ing ? All European society tends that way. Thus the long struggle 
 which Providence permitted, and which assumed the form of a 
 conflict between the lay and ecclesiastical powers (though not such 
 really), will end in a perfect and finished work. 
 
Influence of the monastic orders. 323 
 
 opposed numerous canons and decrees, which only chap. v. 
 riveted still closer the chains of alienation, admini- 
 stration and disposition of property ; while they 
 loosened the bond between the Prelates and the 
 inferior clergy, whom the Church was forced to 
 protect by many minute provisions, against the 
 arbitrary dealings and cruelty of their superiors. 
 Hence the struggle we so often witness now 
 between Chapters and Bishops, and the difficulty 
 of removing parish priests, which, to a great 
 extent, deprives the Bishops of the power to apply 
 a prompt remedy to the scandals and spiritual 
 troubles of the people. 
 
 CXLYIII. But inasmuch as the Divine 
 Founder of the Church willed that the principle 
 of a common ecclesiastical property should not 
 perish, either as regards its possession, its admini- 
 stration, or its enjoyment, He saw fit to raise up 
 and multiply religious orders and monasticisra, 
 which made express and public profession of this 
 wholesome principle. And the faithful, guided by 
 that Christian instinct which never fails them, 
 were from that hour more inclined to carry their 
 gifts and .oblations to the regular clergy, who 
 preserved rigidly the ancient principle, than to the 
 secular clergy. So that when the third Lateran 
 Council, a.d. 1179, enforced the restitution of tithes 
 
324 3- Clergy should use only what they need. 
 
 Chap. v. alienated to the laity, these tithes were for the most 
 part given up to monasteries, and not to the 
 Churches to which they had belonged. This was 
 practically permitted by the Popes themselves, 
 provided it was done with Episcopal consent. 1 
 
 CXLIX. A third and precious maxim of an- 
 tiquity was that " the clergy should only use that 
 which was really necessary for their maintenance, 
 and that the rest of "the Church's goods should 
 be employed in pious works, especially in relieving 
 the poor." Christ had founded the Apostolate on 
 poverty, and on that trust in Providence which 
 had moved the faithful to support their teachers 
 in the gospel. He had Himself given a sublime 
 example. " The foxes have holes, and the birds 
 of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not 
 where to lay His Head." 2 Such was the prospect 
 He held out to those who would follow Him. And 
 Peter had left even his humble nets to follow his 
 Master. The Apostolic College had a common 
 purse, wherein the oblations of the faithful were 
 deposited ; thus setting forth what the Church was 
 to do, and what she did. When the paralytic 
 asked alms, Peter was able to answer, " Silver and 
 
 1 Decret., Greg., L. iii. tit. x, 0. vii. ; L. v. tit. ttyyjjj c . iii. and vi. : 
 L. iii. tit. xiii. c. ii. § 2. 
 * St. Matt, viii, 20 ; St. Luke ix. 58. 
 
Primitive clergy rejoiced to be poor. 325 
 
 gold have I none." 1 But necessaries were insured Chap. v. 
 to the Apostles by the right of living in the houses 
 of the faithful who received them, and who, in so 
 doing, received more than they gave. Thus St. 
 Paul taught his disciple Timothy that " Godliness 
 with contentment is great gain. For we brought 
 nothing into this world, and it is certain we can 
 carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, 
 let us be therewith content." 2 Thus to enter the 
 ranks of the clergy, in the better days of the 
 Church, was equivalent to a profession of evan- 
 gelical poverty. 3 In those days the expression, 
 secular clergy, was not invented ; it only appeared 
 in that decay of ancient discipline, when appa- 
 rently even the world might have its own clergy. 
 For long the profession of poverty continued to be 
 the ornament of the priesthood, so that those who 
 were admitted into it generally resigned their own 
 property, or gave it away among the poor, because, 
 as says Isidore of Pelusium, " turn voluntaria, 
 
 1 Acts iii. 6. 2 1 Tim. vi. 6-8. 
 
 3 We have it on the express authority of Julianus Pomerius, 
 who writes, " Itaque sacerdos, cui dispensationis cura commissa 
 est, non solum sine cupiditate, sed etiam cum laude pietatis, accipit 
 a populo dispensanda et fideliter dispensat accepta ; qui omnia sua, 
 aut pauperisms distribv/it, aut ecclesice rebus adjungit, et se in numero 
 pauperum, pcmpertatis amore, cmstituit; ita ut wide pauperibus 
 subministrat, wide et ipse tamquam pauper voluntaries vivai " (De 
 Vita Contemplativa, lib. ii. c. xi.). 
 
326 Julianus Pomerius on episcopal poverty. 
 
 Chap. v. paupertate gloriabantur." 1 The administration and 
 dispensation of the Church's possessions came to be 
 entrusted to these upright and disinterested men, 
 as guardians of the treasures of the poor. Julianus 
 Pomerius, after citing as instances of voluntary 
 poverty two great Bishops, Paulinus of Nola and 
 Hilary of Aries, — who being rich men had made 
 themselves poor for Christ's sake, — goes on to say, 
 "From which it is easy to see that such men — who 
 that they might be Christ's disciples, renounced all 
 that they possessed — convinced that the Church's 
 riches are no other than the prayers of the faithful, 
 the satisfaction for sins, and the patrimony of the 
 poor, did not use property for private purposes, as 
 though it was their own, but dispensed it to the 
 poor, as being held only in trust. That which 
 the Church has, she has in common with those 
 who have nothing, and therefore she may not 
 give to those who already have enough of their 
 own, since to give it to any who already have 
 is simply to throw it away." 2 Thus the clergy 
 took their means of living from the common fund ; 
 
 1 Lib. v. ep. 21. 
 
 2 De Vita Contemplativa, lib. ii. c. ix. The following sentence 
 is ■worthy of note, " Quod habet Eoclesia cum omnibus nihil 
 habentibus habet commune ; " as proving that at that time the 
 Church's possessions were considered as belonging to the community, 
 not to individuals. 
 
Church possessions not meant for wealthy men, 327 
 
 as they formed a part of those poor to whom that Chap. v. 
 fund appertained. The Bishop was first among 
 the poor, and while he dispensed the common fund 
 to the poor, it was but just that he should take 
 a portion for himself 1 and for the clergy under 
 him. This great principle was so deeply rooted 
 in the public mind that it was not thought seemly 
 for a priest who retained any possessions of his own 
 to live by the Church's funds. Since he was not in 
 need, he had no right to them ; he would be 
 encroaching on the rights of the poor. This is 
 asserted by the fifth-century author already cited : 
 " Those who, having possessions of their own, yet 
 seek to receive something, cannot without great 
 guilt receive any of that which of right belongs 
 to the poor. Of a truth the Holy Spirit hath said 
 of the priesthood : 2 ' They shall eat of ' the sins 
 of My people.' Now those who have nothing of 
 their own, do not receive sins, but the food which 
 is needful for them ; and so those who have 
 possessions, do not receive food of which they 
 have abundance, but they take other men's sins. 
 
 1 This maxim is found also in a decree of Gratian, Can. xii. q. 1, 
 cap. xxii., where an Apostolic Canon is quoted: "Ex his autem, 
 quibus Episcopus indiget (si tamen indiget) ad suas necessitates et 
 peregrinorum fratrum usus et ipse percipiat, ut nihil ei possit 
 omnino deesse. " [Of. Labbe and Coss. III. Cone. i. pp. 34, 35. — Ed.] 
 
 2 Hosea iv. 8. 
 
328 Church possessions not meant for wealthy men. 
 
 Chap. v. Thus even if the poor, by industry and labour, 
 can avoid taking that which is chiefly due to the 
 weak and sick, they should do so; since if all 
 those who can dispense with assistance take the 
 Church's alms, she cannot succour as she should 
 those who have no other succour. Let those who 
 serve the Church in too carnal a fashion, beware 
 lest they be more anxious for worldly stipends 1 
 than for eternal rewards. If any minister of the 
 Church has not wherewithal to live, the Church 
 does not give him a reward, but lends him that 
 which is needful ; in order that he may receive 
 hereafter that reward of his labours which even in 
 this life, trusting in the promise of the Lord, he 
 awaits with confidence. As for those who having 
 possessions do not claim anything as due to 
 them, and yet live at the Church's cost, it is not 
 for me to describe how great their sin is, in 
 taking the bread of the poor. They who ought 
 to help the Church with their means, burden her 
 with their expenses; they live in the congregation, 
 not as though their duty was to feed the poor, or 
 to lodge guests, but to save their private outlay." 2 
 CL. Before the Middle Ages the abuses which 
 were opposed to this generous principle could only 
 
 1 How much less "benefices,'' a word which implies a gift of a 
 (feudal) lord to whomsoever he will. 
 
 2 De Vita Contempl., lib. ii. c. x. 
 
The ancient principle destroyed by feudalism. 329 
 
 be partial. For they originated with individuals, chap. v. 
 and not with Church authority which naturally 
 repudiated them. But how was the principle to 
 be generally maintained when the Church's pos- 
 sessions, losing their primitive character, became 
 feudalized, and all the most eminent ecclesiastics 
 so many feudatories ? From that moment the 
 disposal of property was subject to another law 
 and took a new direction. Instead of any longer 
 flowing continually into the hands of the poor, the 
 stream either became stagnant, or flowed back into 
 the hands of the feudal lord. The primitive idea 
 was effaced, or rendered inoperative ; the idea of 
 absolute property was substituted for it : the sacred 
 deposits were henceforth subject to depredation. 
 
 CLI. This dispersal of the common fund into 
 benefices assigned to individual clergy, deprived 
 the priesthood generally of a human stimulus to a 
 fulfilment of their sacred duties. They no longer 
 received a quota from the Bishop proportioned to 
 their labours or their merits. At the same time 
 they were separated from the Bishop, as they be- 
 came independent of him in respect of their main- 
 tenance ; x while the bright example of the Church 
 
 1 We learn this from St. Cyprian, who distributes an equal 
 portion to the readers Celerinus and Aurelius as to the priests, 
 "ut et sportulis eisdem cum presbyteris honorentur" (Ep. xxxiv.), 
 and St. Gregory the Great in various letters. Writing to a Bishop, 
 
33° Lay philanthropy now separately organized. 
 
 Chap. v. publicly and ministerially maintaining the poor was 
 lost. With the temporal, the spiritual provision 
 for the poor was also diminished. The Church 
 had specially cared for those poor who depended 
 on her. Through that care they were taught, 
 and stimulated by gratitude to know, venerate, and 
 love the Church, who became their mother in a 
 twofold sense. Hence arose the secularization of 
 charitable works, which, in the paucity of clergy, 
 were undertaken by separate institutions. In these, 
 little by little the laity came to take a chief part. 
 In this state of things it doubtless pleased Divine 
 Providence to ordain that many good Christians 
 grew more fervent in good works. But the mis- 
 chief was that, as these works were no longer 
 animated by a Church spirit, or by the wisdom 
 which religion inspires, they became more earthly ; 
 they lost the religious character which refined them 
 and enabled them to promote the salvation of souls.' 
 Thus ancient is the origin of modern philanthropy. 
 This loss, however, will be repaired when the clergy 
 once more become generous and unselfish. When 
 that wished-for time comes (and it seems to he 
 
 he says, "De reditibus Bcclesise, quartam in integro portionem 
 Ecclesise tuss clericis, secundum meritum ve"l offioium, sive laborem 
 suum, ut ipse uniouique dandum perspexeris, [dare prOspexeris] sive 
 aliqua praebere debeas tarditate " (Lib. xiii. ep. xliv. ad Joannem 
 Panormitanum Bpiscopum). 
 
4. Church property devoted to fixed purposes. 331 
 
 approaching), the laity will no longer he willingly Chap. v. 
 estranged and divided from the clergy. By this 
 division they forfeit spiritual understanding, and 
 their material works are religiously barren. "When- 
 ever the laity and clergy put aside their divisions, 
 and become once more one body in Christ, the 
 co-operation of the laity will be most useful and 
 precious, as the members of our human body are 
 precious to the head. Thus we see that the 
 creation of separate benefices hindered the spon- 
 taneous flow of the Church's wealth into the 
 hands of the poor. The duty of almsgiving 
 was divided amongst the holders of benefices, 
 guided by their own wisdom alone and unaided 
 by the Bishops ; and thus the poor ceased to be 
 what they had been, a sacred body, watched over 
 by the Church as her special trust. 
 
 CLII. The fourth maxim which regulated eccle- 
 siastical property, and prevented it from becoming 
 injurious to the honesty of the clergy, was that " not 
 only such property was to be used for pious and 
 charitable ends, but also, to avoid all danger 
 of arbitrary or selfish expenditure, it was to be 
 portioned out for fixed purposes." As soon as the 
 Church's property became considerable, and grave 
 abuses arose, although they were but partial and 
 accidental, the Church wisely intervened by in- 
 
332 Ancient partition of Church property. 
 
 Chap. v. sisting on an appropriation of her funds to certain 
 defined objects. Thus arose the ancient division 
 of her property into four parts. One was for the 
 Bishop, another for the subordinate clergy, a third 
 for the poor, and the fourth for the maintenance of 
 Divine worship and of the Church's material fabric. 
 This partition is prescribed by the Council of 
 Agde, a.d. 506, and that of Orleans, a.d. 511 ; 
 and they refer to more ancient Church rules. 
 Gregory the Great frequently alludes to it in his 
 letters. 1 Certainly nothing could be better cal- 
 culated to obviate the corruption which might 
 attend wealth, than to regulate its employment by 
 precise laws ; 2 inasmuch as abuse is inevitable 
 , where the use of large property is left to the 
 arbitrary disposal of an individual holding it in 
 trust. Many monasteries have apparently been 
 demoralized and ruined by the fact of their pos- 
 
 1 iv. 11, v. 12, viii. 7, xi. 64. In Spain the portion destined 
 to the poor was united to those of the clergy and Bishop, so that 
 the division was tripartite. 
 
 2 It seems probable that the division was not always into four 
 equal parts, but that the proportion of each part might be varied as 
 necessary. 0. Sebast. Berardi, in his work on the Decree of 
 Gratian, refers to a Canon of Pope Gelasius, adding, " In quo sane 
 illud observandum est quadripartitam illam ecclesiasticorum redi- 
 tuum distributionem non adeo rigide esse intelligendum, ut ad 
 proportionem quandam, ut vocant, geometricam, non ad arith- 
 meticam rationem exigatur " (Gratiani Canones, P. ii. c. 51 ; De 
 Gelasio.) 
 
Feudalism opposed to "this principle. 333 
 
 sessing enormous wealth, without any definite Chap, v, 
 laws as to the first claims on it, so that it has 
 been spent according to the fancy of the Abbots 
 or other superiors, into whose hands it may have 
 fallen. 
 
 CLIII. But how could the old and sacred rule 
 be kept up, when once feudalism had entered the 
 Sanctuary ? It was to the interest of the feudal 
 lord, or rather of that fierce aristocracy which was 
 the result of the feudal system, that property should 
 accumulate in the hands of the great families, in 
 the hands of the few. This accumulation was the 
 very foundation of the secular power, which conse- 
 quently opposed the scattering of riches, by an 
 equitable and charitable distribution. The crea- 
 tion of separate benefices became necessary in order 
 to insure the maintenance of the weaker portion 
 of the clergy, who would have perished of hunger 
 and misery if they had not been shielded from 
 the rapacious grasp of the great nobles. Among 
 these the Bishops must be reckoned ; for they no 
 longer belonged, as of old, to the people. The 
 early Bishops, though often of noble and wealthy 
 houses, made themselves one with the people, 
 whose poverty they shared, by the fact of be- 
 coming Bishops. They now belonged to the class 
 of invading and domineering aristocrats. From 
 
334 5- "More blessed to give than to receiver 
 
 Chap. v. that time, the abuse became law ; the Church's 
 Canons were evaded bj endless verbal quibbles, 1 
 if not by open infraction and violence. The four- 
 fold division, the fixed destination of Church 
 revenues was considered intolerable. The old 
 principle, together with the spirit which inspired 
 it, had practically been wrecked. 
 
 CLIV. The fifth principle with which the 
 Church counteracted the perils of riches in the ages 
 preceding feudalism was, " A generous spirit, free 
 to give, chary to receive." She ever proclaimed 
 boldly the holy but little heeded precept of 
 Christ, "It is more blessed to give than to re- 
 ceive." 2 She continually preached this doctrine as 
 glad tidings to a world enslaved by selfishness ; it 
 shone forth in all her acts and proceedings. The 
 Bishops esteemed temporal possessions and their 
 administration as a burdensome weight, which they 
 endured only for charity's sake. 3 There were as 
 
 1 Among other deplorable verbal glosses, or more truly, posi- 
 tive lies, must be included commendations. In order to elude the 
 law which forbade one person to accumulate several benefices, they 
 were given in commendam., that is, the administration was en- 
 trusted to such a person. This was done even with Episcopal and 
 conventual property, which was "commended" to laymen, who 
 enjoyed its revenues undisturbed : much as though a lamb were 
 given to the wolf's care, and specially recommended to his atten- 
 tion ! All jurisprudence became perverted by similar iniquitous 
 falsehoods. 
 
 2 Acts xx. 35. 
 
 3 St. Augustine wrote (Bp. cxxvi. § 9), " God is my witness, 
 
St. Ambrose respects family claims. 335 
 
 yet no laws which threw great difficulties in the Chap. V. 
 way of the alienation of Church possessions ; 
 wealth was received with great reserve, and 
 distributed with corresponding freedom. St. Am- 
 brose was wont to refuse such offerings or legacies 
 as might injure the donor's poor relations. " Non 
 qugerit," so he wrote, " donum Deus de fame 
 parentum ; " 1 and he added, " Misericordia a do- 
 mestico progredi debet pietatis officio." The Church 
 could do this, in the days when she was free, 
 not yet fettered by a thousand shackles, among 
 which the chief was the so-called protection of the 
 secular arm. One result of the Church's enforced 
 servitus, is that she is no longer able to perform 
 those generous acts, which were common among 
 the earlier Bishops, and which made her shine 
 with such moral beauty. I have already referred to 
 St. Augustine and Aurelius on this topic. In one 
 sermon by the great Bishop of Hippo, he defends 
 himself against a current rumour to the effect that 
 " Episcopus Augustinus de bonitate sua donat 
 totum, non suscipit " (a strange accusation !) ; in 
 consequence of which the people complained that 
 
 that I tolerate but do not love all the administration of these 
 ecclesiastical matters with which we have to do, inasmuch as I owe 
 my service to the love of the brethren and the fear of God ; so 
 that if I could set them aside without hurt to my office, I would 
 gladly do so." 
 
 1 In Luc. C. xviii. 
 
336 Si. Augustine and Church property. 
 
 Chap. v. no one would give, or leave inheritances any more 
 to the Church of Hippo. Possidius, in his Life 
 of St. Augustine, relates how a certain magnate of 
 Hippo, having formally given a possession to the 
 Church, afterwards repented of his liberality, and 
 asked for it again for his son. St. Augustine 
 restored the gift, refusing even to retain a donation 
 for the poor. But at the same time he set before 
 the covetous man the guilt of his action. It is also 
 told of St. Augustine that, perceiving certain of 
 the subordinate clergy to be envious of the Bishop,, 
 in whose hands were the Church's means, 1 he 
 discussed the subject with the people of God, to 
 whom in those days the Bishops communicated 
 everything ; setting forth how " he would have 
 preferred to live on the contributions of the people 
 of God, rather than to bear the charge and govern- 
 ment of these possessions ; and that he was ready 
 to give this charge up to them, so that all Cod's 
 servants and ministers might live as we read in the 
 Old Testament ; they that serve the altar, partaking 
 of the altar. But the laity would in no wise 
 consent." a 
 
 1 Human nature is always imperfect, but I wish to distinguish 
 a partial and exceptional error from one that has become a universal 
 custom, damaging the whole social body, and doing away with the 
 principles which govern it. 
 
 2 "Sed nunquam id laici suscipere voluerunt " (Possid. in Vita 
 August., cp. xxiii.). « 
 
Si. Chrysostom on Church property. 337 
 
 CLV. St. John Chrysostom tells his people Chap. v. 
 why the Church no longer lived by the accidental 
 collections of the faithful, while yet she accepted 
 donations of permanent property. He says that 
 the clergy were obliged to do this, not for their 
 own sakes, but in order to provide for the poor. 
 The primitive fervour of charity had been 
 lessened among the faithful. "It is by reason 
 of your niggardliness," he says, " that the Church 
 requires what she now has. If every one acted 
 according to the Apostolic laws, her revenue 
 would be in your hearts, which would be a sure 
 and safe deposit, and an inexhaustible treasure. 
 But now that ye lay up treasure on earth, and 
 shut up everything in your coffers, it behoves the 
 Church to make expenditure for the widows, for 
 the virgins, for guests, and for the needs of 
 travellers, or of those who are in chains, as well 
 as for the distress of others who are maimed or 
 mutilated, and for many other purposes. What is 
 she to do " ? 1 
 
 CLYI. Who would not lament that such a 
 change should have supervened in the ages of 
 destruction and barbarism which succeeded in the 
 Church ; and that a clergy, once of such a noble 
 temper, so liberal and so full of charity, should 
 
 1 Horn. xxi. in Bp. ad Cor. 
 
 Z 
 
338 New direction of Church legislation 
 
 Chap. v. have fallen so far below its early condition as to 
 deserve the stigma of the words 
 
 " In cui usa avarizia il suo soperchio ! " 
 
 Let us examine two causes of this. One is the deeds 
 of barbarian princes ; the other the measures which 
 the Church was constrained to take in her own 
 defence, in order to avert a still greater evil. 
 
 CLYII. Feudalism, as we have seen, had 
 changed the character of ecclesiastical property, so 
 that it was frequently alienated, and ceded to lay- 
 men by sovereigns, and even by feudal prelates 
 themselves. The Church was obliged to oppose the 
 abuse by means of her laws ; and from that time 
 forward her legislation began to take a direction 
 altogether contrary to the ancient principle. It 
 facilitated as much as possible the Church's acqui- 
 sition and preservation of temporal property, and 
 threw obstacles in the way of any alienation of it. 
 Legislators are wont to propose measures of im- 
 provement when an abuse is greatest. In this case 
 it was excessive. But it often happens that when 
 an abuse has been remedied as far as possible, they 
 do more than is wanted. Or they fail to weigh 
 duly the mischief which may arise from the legis- 
 lation itself, or the, good which may be forfeited 
 by an increased restriction of liberty. Thus 
 abuse and good use are linked together ; or, as it 
 
against alienating ecclesiastical property. 339 
 
 sometimes happens, the legislation whose rightful Chap. v. 
 aim was the extermination of an abuse, survives 
 the abuse after its suppression, and presses heavily 
 on society when the cause which justified it has 
 ceased to exist. In the case we are considering it 
 was no doubt a great evil that ecclesiastical wealth 
 should be diverted from its right destination, ap- 
 plied to profane uses, and bestowed as the reward 
 of secular services. It thus failed to fulfil the pious 
 intentions of those who had offered it to Grod. 
 But at the same time it was a great gain that the 
 Bishops with their clergy should be able to re- 
 nounce, when it was desirable, offerings and inherit- 
 ances bestowed on the Church; that they should 
 be able, without excessive difficulty and formalities, 
 to sell her property, and distribute it to such as 
 had need, so that the Church might be able to 
 relieve all the ills to which mankind is liable. 
 The Church is rich enough, if she has the treasure 
 of charity, and an ample flow of benevolence : 
 she is happy enough when she can say with - 
 St. Ambrose, " Aurum Ecclesia habet, non ut 
 servet, sed ut eroget, et subveniat in necessita- 
 tibus." 1 Surely, then, it is most grievous, and 
 
 1 The "Corpus Juris Canonici" contains the grand doctrine, 
 held by St. Ambrose and other Fathers, respecting the spirit of 
 liberality with which the Church should be ready to break even 
 her precious vessels in order to succour the living vessels which 
 
34-0 Some mischiefs resulting from the 
 
 Chap. v. very damaging to the Church's true interests, 
 when room is given for the scandal that her * 
 clergy's hands are ever open to receive, but 
 unready to give. Undoubtedly the thought that 
 whatever flows into the Church's treasury will 
 never again issue forth is saddening. It breeds 
 contempt, excites envy, and extinguishes liberality 
 among the faithful. It produces a suspicion that 
 the Church is hoarding treasures which the people 
 need in order to maintain their families, to extend 
 commerce, and to defend the State. It gives 
 ground for government interference with the 
 disposal of ecclesiastical property, through the dis- 
 honourable laws of mortmain. It widens the 
 breach between the people and the Church and 
 clergy. It gives rise to unbelief, provokes the 
 calumnies of bad men, and too often under their 
 influence kindles the fury of the multitude, or 
 the cupidity of the powerful, so that they violently 
 break open the Church's treasuries in search of 
 gold, and even tear down the gates of the Sanc- 
 tuary to rob it of its wealth. I cannot but believe 
 it to be much more desirable, much more useful 
 for the Church of God not to give occasion for 
 any such disasters, than to abound in temporal 
 
 are redeemed by the Blood of Christ. See Gratian, Caus. xii. 
 Q. ii. C. lxx. lxxi. 
 
legal inalienability of Church property. 34 1 
 
 wealth, or to prevent the possibility of alienating, chap. v. 
 even inconsiderately, some part of her possessions. 
 OLVIII. Little by little the Church succeeded 
 in restraining her barbarian conquerors by means 
 of admonitions, of Canons, and of penalties, so 
 that they should not squander the ecclesiastical 
 patrimony at their will. But it must be borne 
 in mind that the secular power did not only 
 injure the Church by violence and depredation. It 
 inflicted a yet greater injury through its very 
 bounties, and through its legislation, which ex- 
 tended a secular and profane guardianship and 
 protection to the Church and her property. Civil 
 government has not an ecclesiastical instinct, and 
 whenever it puts forth a hand upon the Sanc- 
 tuary, its touch chills and enfeebles. Charle- 
 magne and Otho I. favoured the Church. But 
 their unfortunate gift of fiefs was suggested to 
 them not solely by devotion to the Church, but 
 also by the policy which sought both to weaken 
 the power of the nobles, and to subject the 
 Bishops to themselves. It was a fatal bait by 
 which the clergy were caught. From that hour 
 the secular power continually concerned itself with 
 the Church, until at last its favours and caresses 
 deprived her of liberty, which is as necessary to 
 her as the very air she breathes. How can a 
 
34 2 Government protection possibly disastrous, 
 
 Chap.v. temporal government aid the Church except by- 
 material force, which is its only natural instrument 
 of action ? But violence is altogether opposed to 
 the spirit of the Church ; we shrink with horror 
 from a picture of the Church armed with chains, 
 fetters, and the axe. What a cruel misrepresen- 
 tation, by which not bad men only, but the good 
 are repelled ! Moreover the temporal power 
 neither knows nor respects the limits of its pro- 
 tection. Accustomed to command, it seeks to com- 
 mand wherever it can ; incapable of appreciating 
 the real good of the Church, it claims to be a 
 judge of what that good is, and makes it consist 
 solely in worldly advantages. It treats the ad- 
 ministration of the Church's property on the same 
 principle as its own, ignoring the wide difference 
 which exists between them ; it accumulates as 
 much, and spends as little as it can ; it enriches 
 the Church, if necessary, even with privileges and 
 immunities, extending to it an exceptional and 
 exaggerated protection, sometimes opposed to 
 justice, and to civil equality, and always odious 
 to the people who have no share in it. 1 In this 
 
 1 The immunity from taxation should be viewed from two 
 different periods of history, since all European States have under- 
 gone a complete transmutation between their foundation and the 
 present time. In the first period they were seigniories, and the 
 tributes levied on the subjects were the private property of the prince 
 
if the Church cannot control her property. 343 
 
 way the rule of readiness to give, and chariness to Chap. v. 
 receive, which intrinsically belongs to the Church, 
 becomes practically impossible, her possessions 
 being no longer at her own disposal, but subject 
 to the lay power. 
 
 who ruled and maintained the State on his own account ; so that 
 when he remitted tribute, he disposed of what was his own ; and 
 thus the nobles and ecclesiastics were exempt. But slowly, the 
 secret influence of Christianity and of the Popes changed these 
 European States into true Civil Societies. And now the ques- 
 tion arises whether it is just that in a civil society the Church 
 should be exempt from public charges. On the hypothesis that 
 her property does not exceed that which is needed for the main- 
 tenance of the clergy, or that any surplus is given to the poor, 
 such a privilege would not be unjust. But all property which 
 exceeds these demands, and is not, as formerly, applied to 
 benevolent purposes, should in all reason pay tribute like any other. 
 Such a course would certainly be the most respectable ; and even 
 profitable to the Church herself. The formalities required for the 
 alienation of ecclesiastical property were multiplied over and above 
 those which were necessary in that of ordinary property ; for in- 
 stance, the years of prescription were prolonged : while, on the 
 other hand, the ordinary proofs of validity required for wills were 
 diminished when the heritage went to the Church. If these 
 privileges are looked upon as a defence against the frauds employed 
 more extensively against the Church than against private indi- 
 viduals, they cannot be blamed ; and from another point of view, 
 some such rules may even be praised as an emendation of the civil 
 law, making way for a more equitable system for all men alike. 
 The formalities required in proof of the validity of a will by the 
 Roman law were excessive. The Church repealed these as con- 
 cerned ecclesiastical property, and thus increased the general free- 
 dom. But the laws once amended, it is not desirable that the Church 
 should be privileged in worldly matters ; enough if she retains her 
 privilege, or more truly her sacred and inviolable right of liberty — 
 full liberty, not only to receive and administer the offerings, past 
 or present, of the faithful, but also to dispose of her property in accord- 
 ance with the spirit of charity which animates and rules her. 
 
344 6. Expenditure subject to public scrutiny. 
 
 Chap. v. CLIX. The Church again exhibited her eleva- 
 tion of purpose in her sixth principle, which was 
 " a desire that the disposal of her property should 
 be known publicly." This principle was carried 
 out in primitive times. We have already seen 
 how the early Bishops took counsel in all things 
 with their people and their clergy ; and this 
 they did with respect to temporal as well as spiritual 
 matters. Furthermore, the priests and deacons 
 who administered Church property were necessarily 
 elected by the Christian people, according to Apos- 
 tolic tradition, as persons known and trusted by 
 the faithful. 1 With what delicacy St. Paul sug- 
 gests to the Corinthians that they should them- 
 selves choose the bearers of their alms sent to the 
 needy Christians of Jerusalem ! " Upon the first 
 day of the week let every one of you lay by him in 
 store, as Grod hath prospered him, that there be no 
 gatherings when I come. And when I come, 
 whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them 
 
 1 When the first Deacons were appointed, the Apostles called 
 the multitude of disciples, and said, "Brethren, look ye out 
 among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and 
 of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business " (Acts vi. 
 2, 3). They left the selection to the multitude, "look ye out," 
 while they retained to themselves only the confirmation and ordi- 
 nation of those selected ; thus using as lightly as possible the 
 ample powers which they had received from Christ. Surely such 
 holy prudence should be a model to all Prelates ! 
 
St. Paul's instructions to the Corinthians. 345 
 
 will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. Chap. v. 
 And if it be meet that I go also, tbey shall go 
 with me." * He was both Apostle and Bishop ; he 
 had full powers ; yet he would not select the alms- 
 bearers, but let the people choose for themselves. 
 " All things are lawful unto me, but all things are 
 not expedient." 2 Would they have mistrusted the 
 Apostle? No; but that was not enough. The 
 Apostle abstained as far as possible from interfer- 
 ing in temporal matters. Reserving his Apostolic 
 powers for necessary occasions, he left the people 
 free as to the rest. It is a natural and just 
 satisfaction for the people that they should be 
 able to do something ; that they should see with 
 their own eyes, use their judgment, share in the 
 general interest, and help to forward it. In the 
 same spirit St. Ohrysostom did not shrink from 
 offering to give account to his people of the em- 
 ployment which he made of the Church's revenues : 
 " We are also ready to give an account to you." 3 
 The early Bishops acted generally in the same 
 spirit. 
 
 CLX. It is not enough that Church property 
 be conscientiously administered : nor will an ac- 
 count sent in only to her rulers satisfy Christians 
 
 1 1 Cor. xvi. 2-4 2 1 o r. vi. 12. 
 
 3 In Ep. ad Cor., Horn. xxi. 
 
346 The Church should herself audit her accounts. 
 
 Chap. v. who have piously given of their substance to 
 the Church. It would be a great advantage to 
 the Church, if the application of her property, and 
 especially when held by religious orders, were 
 determined, with all possible precision, by wise 
 laws of her own making. A suitable amount, 
 neither too large nor too small, would be assigned 
 to each purpose ; and an annual account would be 
 published, so that all the world might know- 
 clearly how much had been received and ex- 
 pended. Thus the faithful would be able to give 
 expression to their approval or disapproval of the 
 disposal of the Church's revenues. The govern- 
 ment would also have all tbe information it 
 needed. It is assuredly neither good nor ex- 
 pedient that the justice and charity with which 
 the Church directs the administration of. her pro- 
 perty should remain hidden under a bushel ; she 
 should, on the contrary, shine as a light set on a 
 candlestick. Such a measure would conciliate the 
 minds of the faithful. Such an instructive ex- 
 ample would influence the world. Her ministers, 
 supported by public opinion, would not fail 
 through weakness, when under temptation. Men 
 are much less prone to open than to concealed 
 sin ; and the necessity of rendering a public 
 account to the faithful, and to the world in 
 
7. Faithful administration of Church property. 347 
 
 general, would quicken the consciences of any Chap. v. 
 who are inactive for want of stimulus, and would 
 show the importance of filling all ecclesiastical 
 ofiices with men of thorough rectitude and true 
 piety. 
 
 CLXI. The seventh and last principle to be 
 noticed was that " the Church should administer 
 her own property with the utmost vigilance and 
 faithfulness." This she has ever inculcated on 
 those to whom she has entrusted any administra- 
 tion, on the ground that her substance belonged 
 to G-od and His poor, and that to squander it by 
 carelessness or sloth was sacrilege. This prin- 
 ciple is of the more importance, since its neglect 
 has given a pretext to governments for interfering, 
 and thus perpetuating the servitus of the Church 
 and her possessions. 
 
 CLXII. It is true that the Church, often per- 
 secuted and oppressed, always struggling with the 
 temporal power whether it were friend or enemy, 
 and burthened with the arduous care of souls, had 
 never leisure to perfect the system of her admin- 
 istration, or to establish a well-organized system 
 with respect to her property. If we consider 
 how much she has received during the course of 
 centuries, and how much she has lost from lack 
 of a vigilant and economical administration, it 
 
348 Why Church property has been neglected. 
 
 Chap. v. [ B evident that she would be very differently cir- 
 cumstanced now, had her property always been 
 wisely managed. But human strength is limited. 
 It can never achieve two separate undertakings 
 simultaneously, even although they may be closely 
 allied. And the spiritual labours of the Church 
 must necessarily have absorbed nearly all her 
 attention. She could not therefore devote much 
 care to the well-being of her temporal interests 
 until the more important part of her discipline, 
 which concerns the good of souls, was first, fully 
 established ; or until experience had demonstrated 
 what great mischief might accrue to her spiritual 
 interests through serious neglect of her temporal 
 affairs. That attention to her temporal concerns 
 was at first neither possible nor expedient, seems 
 to be taught by the example of our Lord, Who 
 permitted a faithless administrator to remain 
 among His own Apostles, possibly as a warning 
 that they were not to be distracted from spiritual 
 interests, even by the danger of temporal loss. 
 
 And here I close my remarks with a con- 
 clusion which follows from the evidence produced ; 
 namely, that when Pascal II. magnanimously pro- 
 posed to renounce feudal property, he put the axe 
 to the root of the evil tree. But the times were 
 too diseased to bear so strong a remedy. 
 
The author's hopes in 1846. 349 
 
 CLXIIL This work, begun in the year 1832, Chap. v. 
 
 and finished in the year following, was laid aside 
 
 in the author's study, and all but forgotten. The 
 
 times did not seem propitious for the publication of 
 
 what had been written rather as a relief to his own 
 
 soul, which groaned under the afflictions of the 
 
 Church of G-od, than for any other object. But 
 
 now (1846) that the Invisible Head of the Church 
 
 has placed a Pope in St. Peter's Chair who 
 
 seems destined to renew our failing life, and to 
 
 give to the Church a fresh impulse which will 
 
 lead her in a new and glorious course, tbe author 
 
 calls to mind these forsaken papers, and no longer 
 
 shrinks from entrusting them to the hands of 
 
 friends who, in bygone days, shared his sorrows, 
 
 as they now share his brighter hopes. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 ON TEE ELECTION OF BISHOPS BY CLERGY AND PEOPLE. 
 
 Letter I. 
 
 Stresa, June 8, 1848. 
 
 Eeverend Sir, 
 
 I am desirous of thanking you for the honourable 
 mention which you have made, in your valuable journal, 
 of the little work published v by me recently at Milan, under 
 the title, " La Costituzione secondo la Giustizia sociale," etc. 
 Instead of offering barren thanks, allow me to profit by this 
 opportunity to explain more fully my opinion on the point 
 to which you allude when you say that I should like to 
 " restore the democratic element even to ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment." 
 
 Everywhere I love union, and hate discord. For union 
 is charity ; or, more correctly, charity is real union. It was 
 inculcated by our Divine Master upon individuals no less than 
 upon all human societies. Loving the people most heartily, I 
 specially love their union with the clergy. By this I do not 
 mean that the people ought to have a direct share in the 
 Church's government : that, I know full well, was entrusted 
 by Jesus Christ to the Apostles and their successors the 
 Bishops, who form a beautiful and united hierarchy, which 
 centres in the Primacy left by St. Peter as an inheritance to 
 the Popes. The people's share can only be that of charity 
 and counsel, as when fathers and sons correspond. 
 
 It was to such a share as this that I alluded when, in the 
 
3 5 2 Moral and constitutive right. 
 
 ArpENDix. little work above-mentioned, I proposed as a healing, and 
 indeed as a necessary, remedy for our evils, that we should 
 return to the ancient custom of electing Bishops, by the 
 clergy and people. This custom only gave the people an 
 opportunity of expressing their wishes about the candidates, 
 of honouring them by their testimony, and of accepting the 
 elected Bishop with confidence. I added that this form of 
 election, which is confirmed by innumerable Canons and 
 Councils, is of Divine right. St. Cyprian says in his sixty- 
 eighth Epistle, " Quod et ipsum videmus de divina auctoritate 
 descendere, ut sacerdos, plebe praesente, sub omnium oculis 
 deligatur, et dignus atque idoneus publico judicio ac testi- 
 monio comprobetur." 
 
 In order to make my meaning quite clear, I would add here 
 that I am not speaking of a Divine constitutive right, but of a 
 Divine moral right. These are two altogether different things. 
 The infraction of the latter does not involve invalidity. 
 Therefore those Bishops who are nominated by civil govern- 
 ments are legitimate Pastors, since they are confirmed and 
 commissioned by the Pope, as is defined by the Council of 
 Trent (Sess. xxiii. c. 8). This distinction between the Divine 
 constitutive right and the Divine moral right will serve to 
 reconcile the different opinions expressed on this question 
 by various authors. 
 
 The essential element of Divine constitutive right in the in- 
 stitution of Bishops is to be found in their consecration and 
 in the mission given them by the Church. These two things 
 are altogether independent of the people and of all lay 
 power, as the Council of Trent teaches : " Docet insuper 
 Bacrosancta Synodus in ordinatione Episcoporum, sacerdotum, 
 et caeterorum ordinum, nee populi nee cujusvis saecularis 
 potestatis, et magistratus consensum, sive vocationem, sive 
 auctoritatem ita requiri, ut sine ea irrita sit ordinatio : quin 
 potius decernit, eos qui tantummodo a populo aut sseculari 
 potestate ac magistratu vocati et instituti, ad hsec ministeria 
 
Moral rights of the Church. 353 
 
 exercenda adscendunt, ut qui ea propria temeritate sibi 
 sumunt, omnes non Ecclesiae ministros, sed fures et latrones 
 per ostium non ingressos, habendos esse " (Sess. xxiii. cap. iv.). 
 
 But let us turn to the Divine moral right, and let us see 
 how at the present time this is injured by the continuance 
 of the irregular election of Bishops. Such irregularity is no 
 longer necessary, and there can be no fear that our pious 
 monarchs, who have seen fit to make so many concessions to 
 their subjects, would be angry with the Church if she were 
 to reassert her rights in all their fulness. The Divine moral 
 right, then, as to the election of the Pastors of the Church, 
 enacts : — 
 
 I. That these elections be made freely by the Church, 
 that is, by ecclesiastical authority. But is not this liberty 
 enormously restricted and diminished when the right of 
 nomination is ceded to the secular power ? How can the 
 Church assure herself that the worthiest man, and he in whom 
 the people have most confidence, will be elected ? What 
 guarantee does or can the lay power give her ? Any diminu- 
 tion of the Church's liberty in the choice of her Pastors, 
 wounds the Church's Divine moral right; for Jesus Christ 
 created her free and independent. So that in our time, when 
 it is quite possible, it is convenient that her liberty be at once 
 reaffirmed and reinstated in this particular. 
 
 If. That the Christian people should have a voice in the 
 elections, that their testimony should be received ; and that 
 they should not be forced, even morally, to accept a Pastor in 
 whom they have no confidence, and who may be unknown to 
 them by look, by name, by works, even by repute. For our 
 Lord says that the sheep know their shepherd (St. John x. 4). 
 I do not say how this is to be carried out : that is a further 
 question ; what the best way is must be matter for considera- 
 tion. But, meanwhile, it is clear that there can be no im- 
 possibility in finding it at a time when the people elect their 
 parliamentary representatives without difficulty. All I seek 
 
 2 A 
 
354 How the Church ceded this right to kings. 
 
 to establish is, that such a limited share in Episcopal elections 
 is of Divine right as well as of natural right ; that is to say, 
 that it proceeds from the nature of the institution of Pastors. 
 St. Athanasius refers to Apostolic tradition when, in order 
 to prove that Gregory had unduly invaded the Church of 
 Alexandria, he says that the election was not conducted 
 " secundum verba Pauli congregatis populis et spiritu ordinan- 
 tium cum virtute Domini nostri Jesu Ohristi " (Ep. ad Ep. 
 ©athod., § 2) ; so that the opinion set forth by certain authors, 
 founded on a passage of St. Jerome, alluding to the priests 
 and omitting the people, that the first Bishops of Alexandria 
 were appointed regardless of the people, will not hear investi- 
 gation, as undoubtedly St. Athanasius must have known the 
 traditions of his own Church better than any one else. More- 
 over, the people do not elect the Bishops, and St. Jerome is 
 speaking solely and briefly of the election. It is enough that 
 the people accept willingly, and recognize the election. Thus 
 Alexander Natalis writes : "De traditione Divina et Apostolica 
 observatione descendit, quod populus in electionibus sacris 
 suffragetur suo testimonio, concedo ; judicio, nego " (Diss, de 
 jure Christianse plebis ; Thesaurus Theologicus Zacharise xii. 
 p. 614). But where there is a royal nomination, the people 
 practically know nothing of the matter, and can take no 
 share in it, without coming into collision with the supreme 
 authority, and with the physical force of the lay rulers. 
 
 It is true- that the Church ceded the right of nomination 
 to the sovereigns ; but only because she was constrained to do 
 so by hard circumstances, in order to avoid still greater 
 evils. When your life is in danger, you give up your purse 
 readily. But it is none the less certain that theft and assault 
 are prohibited by God's laws. 
 
 In a work lately published I have set forth at greater 
 length what share in Episcopal elections belongs to the people ; 
 and how urgent the necessity is that the present exceptional 
 form of such elections should be done away with, and the 
 
Will they consent to give it back? 355 
 
 legitimate Canonical practice be restored. I will therefore 
 say no more here, than that I am, gratefully and respect- 
 fully, 
 
 Tout humble servant, 
 
 A. EOSMINI. 
 
 Letter II. 
 
 While kindly acknowledging my letter of June 8th, in 
 which I declared the free election of Bishops to be of Divine 
 right, inalienable, unalterable, you invite me to throw light 
 upon the difficulties which present themselves to you as 
 standing in the way of the practical restoration to the Church 
 of this important right. 
 
 You think it unlikely that the sovereign will be ready 
 voluntarily to renounce Episcopal nominations, and that 
 it is a very arduous task to decide how to work for such an 
 end without involving the evils of discord. Such difficulties 
 would have been more serious formerly than now: for instance, 
 in the last century. In our own times, it seems to me that 
 they do not exist, or, at any rate, that they may be easily 
 overcome, if the clergy desire it. There are no liberties 
 belonging to the Church which may not be reasserted, if the 
 clergy so will. Physical force must yield to moral force, 
 and that which is just and reasonable is sure to find a suit- 
 able practical issue. 
 
 At present, I will only allude to your first difficulty. 
 You fear that monarchs will refuse to cede voluntarily the 
 usurped right of Episcopal nominations. I think that such 
 resistance is chiefly caused by the thick veil of ignorance 
 which ha» for long shrouded the whole subject of Episcopal 
 elections. Let that veil be lifted up, and the light of truth 
 will do the rest. 
 
 I believe it is enough to proclaim loudly, so that -all, 
 
356 Kings will yield when duly instructed. 
 
 clergy and laity, may hear, that the election of Bishops by 
 the clergy and people is of Divine right, as I explained in my 
 former letter ; that the Church's liberties in general, and this 
 liberty in particular, are of Divine right ; and that if, after 
 centuries of struggle in their defence, the Church gave up 
 some part of them, it was in order to avoid still greater evils, 
 in order to put a limit to the still greater usurpations which 
 were threatened by the arrogance of the secular power, which 
 had become absolute in the time of Francis, King of France. 
 It will suffice to publish this fact on the housetops to make 
 known why the restoration of freedom in elections is the 
 first and foremost requirement of the Church at present ; to 
 make known to all men, specially to the laity, that this is the 
 only way by which the clergy can be reformed and rendered 
 equal to the exigencies of our day. Not that our existing 
 clergy are deficient in teaching or practice. But both need 
 enlargement. The Evangelical Word should shine with a 
 brighter light in their mouths, in their lives, in the abundance 
 of their good works. Such a revival of the spirit of the 
 Church is desired and called for by all, save the devil and his 
 angels. We must, then, set forth how it is to be attained ; 
 we must convince all men that the shortest, the only sure 
 way, is to put an end to the Church's slavery as regards the 
 election of her ministers, and to restore her full liberty. 
 
 When once our Christian princes are convinced that they 
 inflict a grievous injury upon the Church of Christ (and it 
 belongs to the clergy so to convince them) by retaining the 
 nomination of Prelates in their own hands, instead of leaving 
 it to the Church herself according to the natural order of 
 things, conscience will make itself heard. And if we might 
 fear that in some cases the appearance of greater temporal 
 power might prevail over conscience, at least I cannot think 
 this of Charles Albert. I believe in his pure intentions, in his 
 piety, in his attachment to the Church and in the influence 
 that the heroic sanctity, of which his ancestors gave him the 
 
The clergy should educate public opinion. 357 
 
 example, and which is the brightest ornament of his family, 
 must have upon him. I believe that God will bless him if he 
 is a loving son to the Church, if he glories in restoring her 
 freedom, if he makes himself the champion of her liberty. 
 May he prove that God has chosen him as the restorer of 
 justice, as the servant of His eternal Spouse ! May he prove 
 another Constantino, a new Charlemagne! 
 
 But, while I believe Charles Albert capable of a magnani- 
 mous and holy act of justice like the restoration of free 
 action to the Church, whence he would derive imperishable 
 glory, I also believe that this great good is to be largely 
 promoted by the clergy, if they educate public opinion by 
 teaching the people. Why are the clergy assailed by calum- 
 nies ? Why, but because the Bishops are of royal nomination ? 
 The faithful receive them in their dioceses without any 
 knowledge of them, without confidence in them ; as, indeed, 
 the diocesan clergy do likewise. A Prelate is thrust upon 
 both priests and people, who must take him as he is. He 
 may be most excellent, but he will have to contend with 
 indifference and even aversion before his possible gifts and 
 virtues can bear good fruit to his flock. Our seminaries are 
 subjects of criticism. Give us Bishops nominated by the 
 clergy and the people, and our seminaries will soon receive 
 a new life. The people are not over respectful to their 
 Pastor; the diocesan clergy themselves are wanting in union 
 with him. But once let the Bishop be elected by the clergy, 
 and accepted by the people, and all this will be set right. 
 Men suspect the Bishops' of being creatures of the Court, and 
 consequently opposed to such reforms and liberties as appear 
 to diminish the royal power. However false such a suspicion 
 may be, it exists, and it does serious damage to the Church 
 and to religion. But such a suspicion would be extinct as 
 soon as there was no longer any ground for imagining the 
 Bishop to be a favourite or pensioner of .the prince who 
 nominates him. 
 
358 The throne best aided by independent Bishops.. 
 
 I could say much more, but that I wish to write briefly. 
 There is not a single point of Church reform that can be 
 demanded, which might not be satisfied through the free 
 election of Bishops. Let the subject only be carefully and 
 popularly treated by learned ecclesiastics ; let them explain 
 the highly important consequences of free elections, and we 
 shall soon witness the power of an enlightened opinion 
 urgently calling for this precious liberty. Who can doubt 
 that it will be granted by our princes ? 
 
 You fear that princes will hold fast that which by threat- 
 ening worse evils they formerly wrested from the Church, 
 under the idea of securing their own interests, and from 
 their sense of the moral influence of the Bishops upon the 
 people ? I do not. think that such a theory of increasing the 
 prince's power by sacrificing the liberties of the Church, and 
 of the people, will stand in our times. I believe our princes 
 too wise to err so grossly in their calculations ; they cannot 
 be so blind after so many lessons. 
 
 Bishops nominated, as at present, by the sovereign, cannot 
 have much influence with the people, especially with free 
 peoples who are especially jealous for their newly acquired 
 freedom. A sovereign cannot reckon much on the influence of 
 Bishops, who, in the eyes of the people, are tainted with an 
 original sin. But matters are yet worse if such Bishops have 
 but little influence with the people on behalf of the monarch 
 who promoted them, and whose partisans they are generally 
 considered; and if , they have not much on behalf of the faith, 
 of morals, and of Eeligion. And can it be for the real interest 
 of a sovereign that his people should be indifferent about 
 religion, misbelievers, neither respecting nor hearkening to 
 their Pastors ? No, of a truth ; it is contrary to the interests 
 of all ; it is thus that princes have been driven from their 
 thrones, and trampled on by mobs. These excesses will occur 
 again, or at least we may continually look for them until 
 both princes and people return to their obedience to their 
 
The experience of three centuries. 359 
 
 mother the Church. And this will never be while the 
 Eishops are nominated by the sovereign. 
 
 If justice is the only solid foundation of thrones, let 
 princes begin by being at least just to the Church, if not 
 ..generous, — to that Church which existed before them, and 
 which will exist after them. Let them sincerely desire to have 
 impartial, pacific, authoritative arbitrators between them- 
 selves and the people, men who are esteemed and loved by both 
 sides. Such they will find in Bishops elected freely, without 
 royal interference. Princes have nothing to fear if they seek 
 only justice: they have much to fear if they seek abso- 
 lute power. But there can be no greater gain for a great 
 and just prince (as I write these words, I am thinking of 
 Charles Albert) than to be surrounded by men who are the 
 ministers of the God of peace and righteousness, and who will 
 tell him the unvarnished truth. Thiers said of late but too 
 truly to his French constituency, that princes have been 
 ruined because they have grasped too much. 
 
 Three centuries have proved that sovereigns (and I 
 include their governments) are not fit to appoint worthy men 
 to the sees of the Church; and that therefore Beligion is 
 reduced to the present low ebb. When was the Church ever so 
 barren in men illustrious for their sanctity, their teaching, 
 their energy, their largeness of aim, as during these three 
 centuries, in which the Church has groaned under these 
 usurped elections ? No, the system is not good for sovereigns, 
 it is not good for the people, for the general well-being, for 
 liberty, or for the temporal prosperity of the world. 
 
 Now that we dare speak freely, and proclaim aloud these 
 facts, they may reach the ears of sovereigns. It may be that, 
 hearing them, they will humbly say, " We have cast bonds 
 around the Church, and God has punished us." It may be that 
 in a quiet hour they will reflect upon the tremendous responsi- 
 bility which they assume before Jesus Christ in undertaking 
 the nomination of Bishops, when even such moderate authors 
 
360 The question, if deferred, not settled. 
 
 as St. Alfonso Liguori could say that the sovereign who does not 
 appoint the most worthy priests whom he can find is guilty of 
 mortal sin. What prince can in all good faith affirm that he 
 has always promoted the worthiest man he knew to any 
 vacant see ? Will his incapacity to judge he an excuse hefore 
 our Lord Christ? Neither the sovereign, nor the secular 
 power generally, knows or can know the Church's true needs. 
 They cannot justly appreciate the suhlime gifts of the true 
 Pastor ; and therefore they are unfit to recognize and select 
 him from amid the multitude, even if human views and 
 interests do not pervert their aim. Let each fulfil his own 
 office : the laity can do their own part admirahly, but not 
 that which is peculiar to the Church. 
 
 In conclusion, the true interest of princes, both temporal 
 and spiritual, a wide enlightened conception of their interest, 
 urges them to restore to the Church her right of electing her 
 Pastors. I hope they will listen to this advice while it is time. 
 If they do not, it will be seen that the people, seeking their 
 own interests for themselves, and better advised than their 
 sovereigns, will endeavour to wrest power from the hands of the 
 sovereigns and to resume the right of electing their Bishops. 
 This right is as sacred to the people as to the clergy, as we 
 have seen ; and it is certainly the best guarantee which they 
 can have of the liberties granted to them in a constitutional 
 government. If at the present moment the Christian people 
 seem to give hut little heed to the importance of Episcopal 
 elections, the day will come when they will be fully alive to 
 it, and then at the latest hour they will assuredly recover 
 their liberty. 
 
 I have the honour, etc. 1 
 
 1 It is to be noted that the Giomale Rrraano, from 'which P. Ventura 
 quoted this letter in his brochure, " Sui Martiri di \ienna," omitted these 
 last lines. 
 
 Cornell Catholic 
 Union Library. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Achillas, St., 54 
 
 Adalbert, Bishop, 217 
 
 Adon, Bishop, 156 
 
 Adrian I., Pope, 169, 177, 241 
 
 Adrian VI., Pope, 243 
 
 Africa, 82, 83 
 
 Agapetus, Pope, 142 
 
 Agde, Council of, 332 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, 177 
 
 Albinus, Bishop, 150 
 
 Alessandria, 241 
 
 Alesaandro, Bishop Girolamo, xliii. 
 
 Alexander, St., 29, 32, 36, 195 
 
 Alexander III., Pope, 241 
 
 Alexandria, 36, 37, 40, 52-54, 83 
 
 Amastris, Church of, 85 
 
 Ambrose, St., 29, 224, 228, 313, 
 
 314, 335, 339 
 America, United States of, 121 
 Anastasius, Bishop, 139, 144 
 Anaunia, martyrs of, 84 
 Andrew, St., 69 
 Anselm, St., Archbishop, 178, 228, 
 
 235 
 Anselm, St., Bishop, 192, 193, 197, 
 
 235, 270 
 Antiooh, 37, 83, 144 
 
 Council of, 112 
 
 Antoninus, Sub-deacon, 148, 188 
 Apollinaris, 83 
 Aqui, 150 
 Aquileia, 82, 83 
 Aquitaine, 150 
 
 Aschaffenburg, Concordat of, 240 
 Athanasius, St., 32, 141 
 Aries, Council of, 140 _ - . -' 
 Aristion, 69 
 
 Arturicus, Bishop, 186 
 Aristotle, 9, 62 
 
 Astolfus, King of Lombardy, 103 
 Augustine, St., xliv., xxlv., 10, 82, 
 
 83, 88, 89, 173, 334-336 
 Aurelius, Bishop, 224, 335 
 Avignon, 167 
 
 Badia, Master of Sacred Palace, 
 
 xliii. 
 Bale, 103 
 Barnabas, St., 134 
 Basil, St., 82 
 
 Basle, Council of, 167, 239 
 Beauvais, 157, 158, 160, 164 
 Bede, Venerable, 60 
 Benedict XII., 167 
 Benevento, Council of, 236 
 Berardi, 314, 315, 332 
 Bernard, St., 61, 235, 256, 257 
 Bernarius, 156 
 Bologna, Concordat of, 243 
 Bonaventura, St., 61 
 Boniface IX., 167 
 Bonosus, 82 
 Bourges, 167 
 Bruno, 217 
 
 C/ESAKEA, 36 
 
 Calixtus II., Pope, 235, 237, 269, 278 
 
 Cambrai, 153, 166 
 
 Canons, The, of Antioch, 144 
 
 Clialons-sur-Sa6ne, 149, 306 
 
 ■rr—i Clermont, 234 
 
 Constantinople, 153, 154 
 
362 
 
 Index. 
 
 Canons, The, of Lateran Councils, 
 63, 172, 252 
 
 Lyons, 63 
 
 Meaux, 183 
 
 Nice, 143, 151 
 
 Nicea, 90 
 
 Nfmes, 234 
 
 Orleans, 145 
 
 Pope Gelasius, 332 
 
 Eiez, 181 
 
 Thionville, 152 
 
 Tours, 234 
 
 Canossa, 209, 218, 219 
 Cantinus, Bishop, 175 
 Caraffa, Cardinal, xliii. 
 Carthage, 37, 79 
 
 Council of, 128 
 
 Cato, Bishop, 150 
 
 Cedrenus, 179 
 
 Celestine I., Pope, 144, 261 
 
 Chalcedon, Council of, 181, 182 
 
 Chalons-sur-Sa6ne, Council of, 149, 
 
 307 
 Charlemagne, 169, 171, 176, 177, 
 
 241, 294, 341 
 Charles, St., 59 
 Charles V., Emperor, 243, 245 
 Charles the Bald, of .France, 152, 
 
 156, 180, 183 
 Charles VJJ, jofSPrance, 167 
 CharieftT^Hl. of France, 167 
 v.'CMiperic, King, 150 
 Christian, King of Sweden, 113 
 Chrodegang, St., 59 
 Chrysologus, St. Peter, 29 
 Chrysostom, St. John, 37, 68, 82, 
 
 84, 179, 312, 337, 345 
 Cibrario, Del Eeonomia del Medio 
 
 Evo, 311 
 Clement, St., of Borne, 85 
 Clement, St., of Alexandria, 53, 57, 
 
 62, 70, 72, 73, 76 
 Clement V., 167 
 Clermont, 150, 175 
 
 Council of, 144, 145, 236 
 
 Clothaire, 11, 149, 150, 175 
 
 Clovis II., 149, 171 
 
 Cod. Theod., 313 
 
 Compiegne, 164 
 
 Concilia Antiqua Gallise, 145 
 
 Consilium delectorum Cardinalium, 
 
 xliii. 
 
 Constance, 103 
 
 Council of, 239 
 
 Constantino the Great, 141, 312 
 
 Pogonatus, 147 
 
 Constantinople, 83, 84, 103, 142, 312 
 
 Council of (a.d. 381), 102 
 
 Patriarchate of, 142, 180 
 
 '.Synod of, 142 
 
 Contarini, Cardinal, xliii. 
 Corinth, Church of, 85, 305 
 Cornelius, St., 188 
 Corpus Juris Canonici., 339 
 Cortesi, Abbot, xliii. 
 Crete, 85, 134 
 
 Cyprian, St., 79, 87-89, 128, 141, 
 188, 307, 329 
 
 Dagobert, 149 
 
 Dalraatia, 83,, 148 
 
 Damasus, Bishop, 36 
 
 Dempfcrilis, Bishop, 36 
 
 Denmark, 116 
 
 iJidymus, 83 
 
 Dominicy, M. Antoine, 171 
 
 Diodorus, Bishop, 82 
 
 Dionysins, St., Bishop of Alexan- 
 dria, 54 
 
 Dionysius, St., Bishop of Corinth, 
 85 
 
 Donnus, Pope, 103 
 
 Ducange, 103, 173 
 
 Dupin, M., 137, 138 
 
 E 
 
 Eadmbb, Hist. Novorum, 124, 178, 
 226, 241 
 
 Edward ID. of England, 239 
 
 Edenulf, Bishop, 166 
 
 Eleutherius, Pope, 35 
 
 Elmoldus, Chronic Slavorum, 186 
 
 Emerius, Bishop, 150 
 
 England, 50, 113, 116, 170, 243, 281 
 
 Epiphanius, Patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople, 142 
 
 Eugenius IV., Pope, 240 
 
 Euphonius, 150 
 
 Eusebius, 34, 36, 53, 69, 70, 85 
 
 Evodius, 33 
 
Index. 
 
 363 
 
 F 
 
 Ferbeoltjs, Bishop, 150 
 Fismes, Council of, 157, 163 
 Flavian, St., Bishop of Antiooh, 
 
 37 
 Fleury, Histoire Ecclesiastique, 
 
 58-60, 64, 67, 71, 88, 89, 96, 101, 
 
 144, 154, 215 
 Flodoardus, Hist. Remensis, 184 
 Flbrinus, 34 
 
 Floras, Deacon of Lyons, 187, 188 
 France, 50, 145, 170, 171, 277, 284, 
 
 286, 311 
 Francis I. of France, 245 
 Frank, Chancellor, 174 
 Frankfort, Concordat of, 240 
 Frederic I. of Denmark, 129 
 Frederic II., Emperor of Germany, 
 
 120, 238 
 Frederic III., Emperor of Germany, 
 
 240 
 Fregoso, Federigo, Bishop of 
 
 Salemo, xliii. 
 Freeman, Norman Conquest, 120 
 
 G 
 
 Galatia, Church of, 305 
 
 Gazzaniga, 66 
 
 Gelasius II., Pope, 235, 237, 313, 
 
 332 
 Gerbertus, 180, 182 
 Germany, 50, 113, 116, 192, 196, 
 
 209, 210, 240 
 Gervasius, Hist., 178 
 
 Giberti, Bishop, Giovamatteo, 
 
 xliii. 
 Godfrey, Cardinal, 278 
 Gratianus, 313-315, 327, 332, 340 
 Gregory II., Pope, 151 
 Gregory VII., 192-195, 198-200, 
 
 210, 212, 213, 216, 217, 233-236, 
 238, 243, 275, 295 
 
 Gregory IX., 120 
 
 Gregory the Great, St., 41,. 46, 97, 
 
 148, 149, 329, 332 
 Gregory of Tours, St., 147, 150, 
 
 175 
 Gregory Nazianzen, St., 71, 83, 
 
 125 
 Gresrorv Thaumaturgus, St., 74 
 
 Grenoble, 156 
 Guastalla, Council of, 236 
 Guibert, Archbishop, 216 
 Gustavus Vasa, 129 
 
 H 
 
 Hallam, Middle Ages,, 119 
 Haussonville, D', L'Eglise Eo- 
 
 maine etle Premier Empire, xxvii. 
 Heliodorus, Bishop, 82 
 Henry I. of England, 227, 229, 241 
 Henry VIII. of England, 113, 129 
 Henry IV. of France, 277 
 Henry IV, Emperor, 194-196, 198, 
 
 209, 210, 213, 214, 216-218, 275 
 Henry V., 219, 237, 250, 252 
 Heraclas, St., 54 
 Hilary, Bishop, 326 
 Hildebrand. See Gregory VII. 
 Hincmar, Archbishop, 153, 157, 
 
 158, 161, 166, 180, 182, 184, 246 
 Hippo, 335, 336 
 Horace, .312 
 Hormisdas, Pope, 142 
 Hugo Flaviniacensis, 215 
 Hume, Hist, of England, 233 
 Hussey, Bise of Papal Power, 80 
 
 Ignatius, St., 24, 33, 36, 85 
 Ilerda, Council of, 182 
 Dduinj, Bishop,, 153 
 Ingulphus, Abbot; 191 
 Innocent I., Pope, 262 
 Innocent H., Pope, 254, 255 
 Innocent III., Pope, 166, 172 
 Innocent VIII., Pope, 256 
 Irenseus, St., 33, 35, 307 
 Isidore of Pelusium, 325 
 Italy, 170 
 Ivo. St., of Chartres, 235, 247 
 
 Jambs, St., 69, 84 
 
 Jerome, St., 36, 52, 74, 82, 83, 84, 
 
 313 
 John, St., 69, 84 
 
364 
 
 Index. 
 
 Jovinus, Priest, 82 
 
 Jovinus, 150 
 
 Judas Isoariot, 122 
 
 Jude, St., 84 
 
 Julianus Pomerius, de Vita Com- 
 
 templativa, 317, 326, 328 
 Julian the Apostate, 213 
 Julius I., Pope, 2(51 
 Julius II., Pope, 122, 256 
 Julius III., Pope, 168 
 Justinian, Emperor, 142, 147, 307 
 John Zymisca, Emperor, 180 
 
 Lambertus, Scafnaburgensis, 209 
 Lanfraric, Archbishop, 178 
 Langen, Vat. Dogm., 80 
 Lateran Councils, the, 63, 166, 172, 
 
 238, 254, 269, 323 
 Laudun, 166 
 Laurence, St., 32 
 Lausanne, 238 
 
 Lenfant Concile de Constance, 119 
 Leo the Isaurian, 151 
 Leo., St., Pope, 139, 144, 261, 262 
 Leo II., Pope, 103 
 Leo IV., Pope, 184 
 Leo X., Pope, 122, 243, 256 
 Leontius, Metropolitan, 150 
 Lombard, Peter, 61 
 Lombardy, 103 
 
 Lothaire," Emperor, 152, 153, 156 
 Louis the Pious, 177 
 Louis I. of France, 152 
 Louis II., 156 
 
 Louis III., 156, 161, 164, 165 
 Louis VII., 245, 256 
 Louis XI., 167, 245 
 Louis XIV., 294 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 105 
 Lupo di Ferrara, Abbot, 294 
 Lyons, Council of, 63, 239 
 Lyons, Martyrs of, 35 
 
 M 
 
 Macaibe, Theol. Dog. Orth., 80 
 Macon, Council of, 308 
 Magnesia, Church of, 36 
 
 Marcellus, Bishop, 150 
 
 Marculfus, 175, 176, 180 
 
 Mark, St., School of, at Alexandria, 
 
 37, 52 
 Marianus Scotus, 194 
 Martin, St., 29 
 Matthew, St., 69 
 Maurice, Emperor, 41 
 Maximus, St., Bishop, 82 
 Meaux, Council of, 183 
 Meletius, St., 82 
 Melfi, Council, 236 
 Mennas, Patriarch, 142 
 Milan, 84 
 Mopsuestia, 82 
 Muratori, 102 
 
 N 
 
 Napoleon I., 256, 284 
 
 Natalis, Alexander, 146, 181, 183, 
 
 187, 243 
 Natalis, Bishop, 148 
 Narbonne, 139 
 Nepotian, 82 
 Neri, St. Philip, 24 
 New Borne. See Constantinople. 
 Nice, Councils of, 143, 151, 152 
 Nicea, Council of, 90 
 Nicetius, Count, 150 
 Nicholas I., Pope, 152, 153 
 Nicholas V., Pope, 240 
 Nimes, Council of, 234 
 
 O 
 
 Odo, Bishop, 157 
 
 Odoacer, Bishop, 157, 158, 163, 164 
 
 Onesimus, Bishop, 36 
 
 Origen, 36, 40, 58, 74, 135, 137,307 
 
 Orleans, Council of, 145, 147, 182, 
 
 332 
 Orosius, 83 
 Otho I., 190, 191, 341 
 Otho IV., 238 
 
 Palestine, 36 
 Pantasnus, St., 33, 53, 74 
 
Index. 
 
 365 
 
 Papias, St., 69 
 
 Paris, Councils of, 147, 149, 175, 
 
 182 
 
 ■ National Council of, 162 
 
 Pascal II., Pope, 219,224-227,229, 
 
 230, 235, 236, 241, 247, 250, 252, 
 
 253, 269, 348 
 Paul, St., 84, 130, 134, 173, 211, 305, 
 
 306, 325, 344 
 Paul III., Pope, xlii. 
 Paulus Benriedensis, 198 
 Paulinus, Bishop, 326 
 Peter, St., 69, 84, 122, 173, 211, 
 
 305 
 Peter Damian, St., 235 
 Peter di Castra, 254, 256 
 Pisa, Council of, 103 
 Pius VII., Pope, 284 
 Philip, St., 69 
 
 Philip I. of Fiance, 191, 192 
 Phillimore's International Law, 299 
 Philo of Alexandria, 312 
 Phocas, Emperor, 179, 180 
 Plato, 62 
 
 Polo, Cardinal, xxiii. 
 Polybius, Bishop, 36 
 Polycarp, St., 33 
 Polyeuctes, Patriarch, 180 
 Procleus, Bishop, 191 
 
 B 
 
 Babantjs, 60 
 Bavenna, 103 
 Bheims, 153, 163, 164 
 
 Council of, 237, 269 
 
 Eichard I. of England, 179 
 Eichelieu, Cardinal, 126, 284, 295 
 Biez, Council of, 181 
 Bobert, King of France, 175 
 Bobert of Bamberg, 219 
 Bobertson, View of State of Europe, 
 
 233 
 Borne, 54, 102, 143 
 
 Councils of, 236 
 
 Boncaglia, Constantine, 150 
 Budolf I., Emperor of Germany, 
 
 238 
 Eudolph of Suabia, 276 
 Bufinus, 82 
 Bussia, 116 
 Bustious of Narbonne, 139 
 
 S 
 
 Sadoleto, Cardinal, xliii. 
 Salona, 148* 
 Sardica, Council of, 112 
 Seleucia, 82 
 Socrates, 82 
 Sorbonne, The, 277 
 Soterius, St., 85 
 Simplician, St., 84 
 Sirmondus, 145 
 Sixtus, St., 32 
 Spain, 83, 243, 332 
 Sweden, 113, 116, 281 
 Symmachus, Pope, 143 
 
 Taesus, 82 
 
 Tertullian, 58, 306 
 
 Theoctista, 41 
 
 Theoetistus, Bishop, 36 
 
 Theodorus, Bishop, 82 
 
 Tliessalonica, 139, 144 
 
 Thiouville, Synod at, 152 
 
 Thomas, St., 69 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, St., 210 
 
 Timotheus, 33 
 
 Titus, Bishop of Crete, 33, 134 
 
 Toledo, Synod of, 262 
 
 Tummassinus, Vet. and Nov. Eccl. 
 
 Discip., 185, 307 
 Tournely, 66 
 Tours, Council of, 234 
 Trent, 84 
 
 Council of, 99, 199 
 
 Tribur, 209 
 
 Troves, Council of, 236 
 
 Type, the, 102 
 
 U 
 
 Udalbic of Costreim, 219 
 Urban II., Pope, 235, 236 
 Uzes, see of, 150 
 
 Valentia, Council of, 182 
 Valerian, St., 83 
 Valerian, St., School of,, 82 
 Valerius, Bishop of Carthage, 37 
 Venice, 107 
 
3 66 
 
 Index. 
 
 Victor III., Pope, 235, 236 
 Vienne, 139, 156 
 Vigilius, St., Bishop, 84 
 Vitri, Jacopo di, 67 
 
 W 
 
 Walter, Manual of Ecclesiastical 
 , Law, 315 
 
 William I., 178 
 William II., 124, 178 
 William of Malmesbury, 171, 250 
 Worms, 238 
 
 Zachaby, Pope,, 294 
 
INDEX OF TEXTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Genesis iii. 5 10 
 
 Judges vi. 16 15 
 
 xx. 1,8 15. 
 
 Psalm ii. 2 121 
 
 xxvii. 9 42. 
 
 Ixix. 2 43 
 
 lxxiii 43 
 
 Proverbs iii. 1 62 
 
 Isaiah viii. 1 57 
 
 liii. 14 42 
 
 lviii. 14 43 
 
 Hoseaiv. 8 327 
 
 Joelii. 12 43 
 
 St. Matthew v. 13 168 
 
 vi. 24 173i 
 
 vii. 6 72 
 
 viii. 20 324 
 
 x. 14 305 
 
 15 305 
 
 16 llOj 290 
 
 xvi. 18 122 
 
 xviii. 19. 13 
 
 xx. 25,26 309 
 
 xxviii. 19 7 
 
 20 ...... 15^134 
 
 St. Luke ix, 58 324 
 
 x. 5-7 304 
 
 xxii.19.... 8 
 
 25,26 309 
 
 St. John iii, 2-6 1 
 
 x. 11 ..„..,. ..... 279< 
 
 PAGE 
 
 St. Johnxvii. 11 25, 81 
 
 22 14 
 
 Acts iii. 6 325 
 
 32 312 
 
 iv. 35 311 
 
 v. 3,4 305 
 
 vi. 2, 3 344 
 
 4 97 
 
 xiv. 23 134 
 
 xx. 35 334 
 
 Romans vii. 12 20 
 
 1 Corinthians iv. 4, 15 304 
 
 vi. 12... 88, 130, 345 
 
 ix. 4 306 
 
 11 310 
 
 xi. 24, 25 8 
 
 xvi.'2 305 
 
 2,4 345 
 
 Ephesians iv. 4 78 
 
 5,6 79 
 
 1 Timothy i. 8 20 
 
 iii. 1 105 
 
 v. 17, 18 304 
 
 vi.6-8 325 
 
 2 Timothy ii. 2 54 
 
 3,4 317 
 
 4 173 
 
 iv. 3 xliv. 
 
 Titus i. 5 134 
 
 Hebrews ix, 6-10 14