in one hand. He thought it false to say that Constantine had given secular power to the Papal Chair, for this it possessed from the nature of the case and directly from Christ, who founded a kingdom, and gave to Peter the keys both of earthly and heavenly sovereignty. Secular power was only so far legitimate as secular princes used it by commission from the Pope. Constantine had in truth only given back to the Church part of what was hers from the beginning, and what he had no right to hold. If possible, he spoke even more disparagingly than Gregory VII. of the origin of secular princedoms and their possessors. Innocent IV. supplemented the hierarchical organization by adding a link hitherto wanting to the papal chain, when he established the principle that every cleric must obey the Pope, even if he commands what is wrong, for no one can judge him. The only exception was if the command involved heresy or tended to the destruction of the whole Church.1 Boniface VIII. gave a dogmatic and

1 Comment. in Decretal. Francof. 1570, 555. Innocent wrote this commentary as Pope. He has openly told us what amount of Christian culture and knowledge, both for clergy and laity, suits the Papal system. It is enough, he says, for the laity to know that there is a God who rewards the good, and, for the rest, to believe implicitly what the Church believes. Bishops and pastors must distinctly know the articles of the Apostles' Creed; the other clergy need not know more than the laity, and also that the body of Christ is made in the sacrament of the altar.-Com

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biblical foundation to the doctrine of the universality of papal dominion in his Bull, Unam Sanctam, where he condemns the independence of the civil power in its own sphere as Manicheism. He affirms that the Pope is judge over all secular matters where sin is involved, and holds the two swords, one to be used by himself, the other by kings and warriors, but at his beck and by his permission; that he judges all, but is judged by none, being responsible to God only; and that whoever denies this subjection of every human being to the Pope cannot be saved. His violent perversion of the clearest texts of Scripture in support of these claims was matter of astonishment and mockery even at the time.1

After the removal of the Papal See to Avignon, when the Curia had become French both in its personnel and its political line, the juristic dogmatism of the Popes was applied principally to the empire, and for centuries the steady aim of their policy was to break the imperial power in Germany and Italy and dissolve

ment. in Decr. 2. Naturally, therefore, the laity were forbidden to read the Bible in their own tongue, and, if they conversed publicly or privately on matters of faith, incurred excommunication by a Bull of Alexander IV., and after a year became amenable to the Inquisition.-Sext. Dec. 5, 2.

1 See the writings of contemporarv French jurists and theologians in Dupuy's collection.

its unity. Clement v. declared "by apostolical authority" that every emperor must take an actual oath of obedience to the Pope, so that he might form no alliance with any sovereign suspected by him.1

The Popes even insisted to the Greek emperors and patriarchs on the undoubted truth of faith that all fulness of spiritual and secular power, at least in Christendom, belonged to them. Thus Gregory IX. and Gregory X. “We know this,” said the latter, "from reading the Gospel." Innocent III. wrote to the Patriarch of Constantinople that "Christ has committed the whole world to the government of the Popes." And he gives, as conclusive evidence of this, that Peter once walked on the sea, -the sea signifying the nations,-whence it is clear that his successors are entitled to rule the nations.2

One of the most far-reaching principles gradually developed from the Gregorian system was, that every baptized man becomes thereby a subject of the Pope, and must remain such all his life, whether he will or no. Every Christian, even though baptized outside the papal communion, is not only therefore subject to all papal laws (though invincible ignorance may be a 1 Clementin. de Jurej. Tit. 9, p. 1058 (ed. Böhmer).

2 Innoc. III. lib. ii. 209, ad Patr. Constantin. "Dominus Petro non solum universam Ecclesiam, sed totum reliquit sæculum gubernandum.”

conceivable excuse in particular cases), but the Pope can call him to account and punish him for every grave sin, and this may extend to the penalty of death. For, in the first place, all disobedience to a papal command is either heresy or proximate heresy; and, moreover, the Pope can excommunicate him for his offences, and if he does not submit and receive absolution within a year, he is declared a heretic, and incurs death and confiscation of his goods.

§ IX.-Papal Encroachments on Episcopal Rights.

In order completely to subvert the old constitution of the Church and the regular administration of dioceses by bishops, the institution of Legates was brought in from Hildebrand's time. Sometimes with a general commission to visit Churches, sometimes for a special emergency, but always invested with unlimited powers, and determined to bring back considerable sums of money over the Alps, the legates traversed different countries surrounded by a troop of greedy Italians, and armed against opposition by ban and interdict, and held forced synods, the decrees of which they themselves dictated. Contemporaries in their alarm compared

the appearance of these legates to physical calamities, hailstrokes or pestilence.1 Complaints and appeals to Rome availed nothing, for it was a fixed principle with the Popes to uphold the authority of their legate.

The Pope in the new system is not only the chief, but is in fact the sole legislator of the Church.

He, as Boniface VIII. expressed it, carries all rights in the shrine of his breast, and draws out thence from time to time what he thinks the needs of the world and

Church require. And so it comes to pass that a single Pope of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, an Innocent III., Gregory IX., or John XXII., has made more laws than fifty Popes of an earlier period put together. The notions about the plenary powers of the Cæsars prevalent in the latter days of the Roman empire had their influence here, and the Popes called their acts by the same name as the Cæsarean laws, Rescripts and Decrees. And as the Pope makes laws by his supreme authority, so too he can wholly or temporarily suspend them; thus he, and he alone, can dispense with Church laws, whether canons of Councils

1 Cf. e.g., Johann. Sarisb. Opp. (ed. Giles), iii. 331. Polycrat. 5, 16: "Ita debacchantur ac si ad Ecclesiam flagellandam egressus sit Satan a facie Domini."-Petri Blesensis epist. ap. Baron. a. 1193, 2 ff.