CHAPTER VII.06

XVII. At length Phocas, who ascended the throne after the murder of Mauritius, being more favourable to the Romans,—for what reason I know not, unless because he had been crowned at Rome without any difficulty,—granted to Boniface the Third what Gregory had never demanded,—that Rome should be the head of all Churches. Thus the controversy was decided. Yet this grant of the emperor could not have been so much to the advantage of the see of Rome, if it had not been followed by other things. For Greece and all Asia soon after separated from its communion. France reverenced it only so far as not to carry its obedience beyond its inclinations; nor was it reduced to entire subjection, till Pepin had usurped the crown. For after Zachary, the Roman pontiff, had assisted Pepin in the commission of treason and robbery, in deposing his lawful sovereign, and taking possession of the throne, he was rewarded by having the see of Rome invested with jurisdiction over the Gallican Churches. As robbers are accustomed to divide their common booty, so those worthy persons concerted together, that Pepin should have the temporal and civil sovereignty after the deposition of the rightful monarch, and that Zachary should be made the head over all bishops, and enjoy the spiritual power. At first this was feeble, as is generally the case with new establishments; but it was afterwards confirmed by the authority of Charlemagne, and almost from a similar cause; for he also was indebted to the Roman pontiff, for his exertions in raising him to the dignity of emperor. Now, though it is probable that the Churches, before that time, had in general been greatly disfigured, it is evident that in France and Germany the ancient form of the Church was then entirely obliterated. The archives of the parliament of Paris still contain brief registers of those times, which, in relating ecclesiastical events, make frequent mention of the treaties both of Pepin and Charlemagne with the Roman pontiff; from which it may be concluded that an alteration was then made in the ancient state of the Church.

XVIII. From that time, as things daily became worse and worse, the tyranny of the Roman see was gradually established and increased, and that partly through the ignorance, and partly through the indolence, of the bishops. For while the Roman pontiff was usurping every thing to himself, and proceeding from one assumption to another, without any limits, in defiance of law and justice, the bishops did not exert themselves with the zeal which became them to repress his cupidity, and where there was no want of inclination, they were destitute of real learning and knowledge, so that they were not at all equal to such an important undertaking. We see, therefore, what a horrible profanation of every thing sacred, and what a total disorganization of the Church there was at Rome in the days of Bernard. He complains that the ambitious, the avaricious, the simoniacal, the sacrilegious, the adulterous, the incestuous, and all who were chargeable with the most atrocious crimes, from every part of the world, resorted to Rome, in order to procure or to retain ecclesiastical honours by the apostolical authority; and that fraud, circumvention, and violence, were generally practised. He says, that the judicial process which was then pursued was execrable, and not only unbecoming of the Church, but disgraceful to any civil court. He exclaims, that the Church is full of ambitious men, and that there is not one who is any more afraid of perpetrating the most flagitious crimes, than robbers in their den when they are distributing the plunder which they have seized on the highway. “Few,” he says, “regard the mouth of the legislator; they all look at his hands, and that not without cause, for those hands transact all that is done by the pope. What a business it is, that they are bought with the spoils of the Church, who say to you, Well done, well done! The life of the poor is sown in the streets of the rich; silver glitters in the mire; people run to it from all parts; it is borne away, not by the poorest, but by the strongest, or perhaps by him who runs fastest. This custom, or rather this mortal corruption, commenced not with you; I wish it may end with you. In these circumstances you, a pastor, are proceeding, covered with abundant and costly attire. If I might dare to use the expression, these are rather the pastors of devils than of sheep. Did Peter act in this manner? Was Paul guilty of such trifling? Your court has been accustomed to receive men good, more than to make them so. For the wicked are not improved in it, but the good are corrupted.” The abuses of appeals which he relates, no pious person can read without the greatest horror. At length, respecting the insatiable cupidity of the see of Rome in the usurpation of jurisdiction, he concludes in the following manner: “I speak the murmur and common complaint of the Churches. They exclaim that they are divided and dismembered. There are few or none of them who do not either bewail or dread this plague. Do you inquire what plague? Abbots are torn away from their bishops, bishops from their archbishops. It is wonderful if this can be excused. By such conduct you prove that you have a plenitude of power, but not of justice. You act thus because you can, but the question is whether you ought. You are appointed to preserve to all their respective honour and rank, and not to envy them.” These few passages I have thought proper to recite, out of a great many, partly that the readers may see how sadly the Church had then declined, and partly that they may know into what sorrow and lamentation all good men were plunged by this calamity.

XIX. But though we should grant to the Roman pontiff in the present day the same eminence and extent of jurisdiction which this see possessed in the middle ages, as in the times of Leo and Gregory, what is that to the Papacy in its present state? I am not yet referring to the temporal and secular power, which we shall afterwards examine in its proper place; but the spiritual government itself of which they boast, what resemblance has it to the condition of those times? For the Romanists designate the pope no otherwise than as the supreme head of the Church on earth, and universal bishop of the whole world. And the pontiffs themselves, when they speak of their authority, pronounce with great superciliousness, that they have the power to command, and that to others is only left the necessity to obey; that all their decrees are to be received as if they were confirmed by the voice of St. Peter; that for want of their presence, provincial synods have no authority; that they have the power to ordain priests and deacons for all the Churches, and to summon to their see those who have been elsewhere ordained. In the Decretal of Gratian there are innumerable pretensions of this kind, which I forbear to recite, lest I should be too tedious to my readers. But the sum of them all comes to this; that the Roman pontiff alone has the supreme cognizance of all ecclesiastical causes, whether in judging and determining doctrines, in enacting laws, in regulating discipline, or in exercising jurisdiction. It would also be tedious and superfluous to enumerate the privileges which they assume to themselves in reservations, as they call them. But what is the most intolerable of all, they leave no judgment on earth to curb or restrain their cupidity, if they abuse such unlimited power. “It cannot be lawful,” they say, “for any one to reject the judgment of this see, on account of the primacy of the Roman Church.” Again: “The judge shall not be judged, either by the emperor or by kings, or by all the clergy, or by the people.” This is arrogance beyond all bounds, for one man to constitute himself judge of all, and to refuse to submit to the judgment of any. But what if he exercise tyranny over the people of God, if he divide and desolate the kingdom of Christ, if he disturb and overturn the whole Church, if he pervert the pastoral office into a system of robbery? Even though he should go to the greatest extremes of profligacy and mischief, he denies that he is at all accountable for his conduct. For these are the very words of the pontiffs: “God has been pleased to decide the causes of other men by the judgment of men, but the prelate of this see he has, without all question, reserved to his own judgment.” Again, “The actions of our subjects are judged by us; but ours by God alone.”