received faith among the semi-barbaric western nations, his efforts were
equally great to heal the disorders of the Church. He reformed
ecclesiastical discipline in Africa, rent by Arian factions and Donatist
schismatics. He curtailed the abuses of metropolitan tyranny in Gaul. He
sent his legates to preside over the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.
He sat in judgment between Vienna and Arles. He fought for the
independence of the Church against emperors and barbaric chieftains. He
encouraged literature and missions and schools and the spread of the
Bible. He was the paragon of a bishop,--a man of transcendent dignity of
character, as well as a Father of the Church Universal, of whom all
Christendom should be proud.
Among Leo's memorable acts as one of the great lights of his age was the
part he was called upon to perform as a powerful intercessor with
barbaric kings. When Attila with his swarm of Mongol conquerors appeared
in Italy,--the "scourge of God," as he was called; the instrument of
Providence in punishing the degenerate rulers and people of the falling
Empire,--Leo was sent by the affrighted emperor to the barbarian's camp
to make what terms he could. The savage Hun, who feared not the armies
of the emperor, stood awe-struck, we are told, before the minister of
God; and, swayed by his eloquence and personal dignity, consented to
retire from Italy for the hand of the princess Honoria. And when
afterwards Genseric, at the head of his Vandals, became master of the
capital, he was likewise influenced by the powerful intercession of the
bishop, and consented to spare the lives of the Romans, and preserve the
public buildings and churches from conflagration. Genseric could not
yield up the spoil of the fallen capital, and his soldiers transported
to Carthage, the seat of the new Vandal kingdom, the riches and trophies
which illustrious generals had won,--yea, the treasures of three
religions; the gods of the capitoline temple, the golden candlesticks
which Titus brought from Jerusalem, and the sacred vessels which adorned
the churches of the Christians, and which Alaric had spared.
Thus far the intrepid bishop of Rome--for he was nothing more--calls
forth our sympathy and admiration for the hand he had in establishing
the faith and healing the divisions of the Church, for which he earned
the title of Saint. He taught no errors like Origen, and pushed out no
theological doctrines into a jargon of metaphysics like Athanasius. He
was more practical than Jerome, and more moderate than Augustine.
But he instituted a claim, from motives of policy, which subsequently
ripened into an irresistible government, on which the papal structure as
an institution or polity rests. He did not put forth this claim,
however, until the old capital of the Caesars was humiliated,
vanquished, and completely prostrated as a political power. When the
Eternal City was taken a second time, and her riches plundered, and her
proud palaces levelled with the dust; when her amphitheatre was
deserted, her senatorial families were driven away as fugitives and sold
as slaves, and her glory was departed,--nothing left her but
recollections and broken columns and ruined temples and weeping
matrons, ashes, groans, and lamentations, miseries and most bitter
sorrows,--then did her great bishop, intrepid amid general despair, lay
the foundation of a new empire, vaster in its influence, if not in its
power, than that which raised itself up among the nations in the
proudest days of Vespasian and the Antonines.
Leo, from one of the devastated hills of Rome,--once crowned with
palaces, temples, and monuments,--looked out upon the Christian world,
and saw the desolation spoken of by Jeremy the prophet, as well as by
the Cumaean sibyl: all central power hopelessly prostrated; law and
justice by-words; provinces wasted, decimated, and anarchical;
literature and art crushed; vice, in all its hateful deformity, rampant
and multiplying itself; false opinions gaining ground; Christians
adopting the errors of Paganism; soldiers turned into banditti; the
contemplative hiding themselves in caves and deserts; the rich made
slaves; barbarians everywhere triumphant; women shrieking in terror;
bishops praying in despair,--a world disordered, a pandemonium of devils
let loose, one terrific and howling mass of moral and physical
desolation such as had never been seen since Noah entered into the ark.
Amid this dreary wreck of the old civilization, which had been supposed
to be eternal, what were Leo's designs and thoughts? In this mournful
crisis, what did he dream of in his sad and afflicted soul? To flee
into a monastery, as good men in general despair and wretchedness did,
and patiently wait for the coming of his Lord, and for the new
dispensation? Not at all: he contemplated the restoration of the eternal
city,--a new creation which should succeed destruction; the foundation
of a new power which should restore law, preserve literature, subdue the
barbarians, introduce a still higher civilization than that which had
perished,--not by bringing back the Caesars, but by making himself
Caesar; a revived central power which the nations should respect and
obey. That which the world needed was this new central power, to settle
difficulties, depose tyrants, establish a common standard of faith and
worship, encourage struggling genius, and conserve peace. Who but the
Church could do this? The Church was the last hope of the fallen Empire.
The Church should put forth her theocratic aspirations. The keys of
Saint Peter should be more potent than the sceptres of kings. The Church
should not be crushed in the general desolation. She was still the
mighty power of the world. Christianity had taken hold of the hearts and
minds of men, and raised its voice to console and encourage amid
universal despair. Men's thoughts were turned to God and to his
vicegerents. He was mighty to save. His promises were a glorious
consolation. The Church should arise, put on her beautiful garments,
and go on from conquering to conquer. A theocracy should restore
civilization. The world wanted a new Christian sovereign, reigning by
divine right, not by armies, not by force,--by an appeal to the future
fears and hopes of men. Force had failed: it was divided against itself.
Barbaric chieftains defied the emperors and all temporal powers. Rival
generals desolated provinces. The world was plunging into barbarism. The
imperial sceptre was broken. Not a diadem, but a tiara, must be the
emblem of universal sovereignty. Not imperial decrees, but papal bulls,
must now rule the world. Who but the Bishop of Rome could wear this
tiara? Who but he could be the representative of the new theocracy? He
was the bishop of the metropolis whose empire never could pass away. But
his city was in ruins. If his claim to precedency rested on the grandeur
of his capital, he must yield to the Bishop of Constantinople. He must
found a new claim, not on the greatness and antiquity of his capital,
but on the superstitious veneration of the Christian world,--a claim
which would be accepted.
Now it happened that one of Leo's predecessors had instituted such a
claim, which he would revive and enforce with new energy. Innocent had
maintained, forty years before Leo, that the primacy of the Roman See
was derived from Saint Peter,--that Christ had delegated to Peter
supreme power as chief of the apostles; and that he, as the successor
of Saint Peter, was entitled to his jurisdiction and privileges. This is
the famous _jus divinum_ principle which constitutes the corner-stone of
the papal fabric. On this claim was based the subsequent encroachments
of the popes. Leo saw the force of this claim, and adopted it and
intrenched himself behind it, and became forthwith more formidable than
any of his predecessors or any living bishop; and he was sure that so
long as the claim was allowed, no matter whether his city was great or
small, his successors would become the spiritual dictators of
Christendom. The dignity and power of the Roman bishop were now based on
a new foundation. He was still venerable from the souvenirs of the
Empire, but more potent as the successor of the chief of the apostles.
Ambrose had successfully asserted the independent spiritual power of the
bishops; Leo seized that sceptre and claimed it for the Bishop of Rome.
Protestants are surprised and indignant that this haughty and false
claim (as they view it) should have been allowed; it only shows to what
depth of superstition the Christian world had already sunk. What an
insult to the reason and learning of the world! What preposterous
arrogance and assumption! Where are the proofs that Saint Peter was
really the first bishop of Rome, even? And if he were, where are the
Scripture proofs that he had precedency over the other apostles? And
more, where do we learn in the Scriptures that any prerogative could be
transmitted to successors? Where do we find that the successors of Peter
were entitled to jurisdiction over the whole Church? Christ, it is true,
makes use of the expression of a "rock" on which his Church should be
built. But Christ himself is the rock, not a mortal man. "Other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ,"--a
truth reiterated even by Saint Augustine, the great and acknowledged
theologian of the Catholic Church, although Augustine's views of sin and
depravity are no more relished by the Roman Catholics of our day than
the doctrines of Luther himself, who drew his theological system, like
Calvin, from Augustine more than from any other man, except Saint Paul.
But arrogant and unfounded as was the claim of Leo,--that Peter, not
Christ, was the rock on which the Church is founded,--it was generally
accepted by the bishops of the day. Everything tended to confirm it,
especially the universal idea of a necessary unity of the Church. There
must be a head of the Church on earth, and who could be lawfully that
head other than the successor of the apostle to whom Christ had given
the keys of heaven and hell?
But this claim, considering the age when it was first advanced, had the
inspiration of genius. It was most opportune. The Bishop of Rome would
soon have been reduced to the condition of other metropolitans had his
dignity rested on the greatness of his capital. He now became the
interpreter of his own decrees,--an arch-pontiff ruling by divine right.
His power became indefinite and unlimited. Just in proportion to the
depth of the religious sentiment of the newly converted barbarians would
be his ascendancy over them; and the Germanic races were religious
peoples like the early Greeks and Romans. Tacitus points out this
sentiment of religion as one of their leading characteristics. It was
not the worship of ancestors, as among the Aryan races until Grecian and
Roman civilization was developed. It was more like the worship of the
invisible powers of Nature; for in the rock, the mountain, the river,
the forest, the sun, the stars, the storms, the rude Teutonic mind saw a
protecting or avenging deity. They easily transferred to the Christian
clergy the reverence they had bestowed on the old priests of Odin, of
Freya, and of Thor. Reverence was one of the great sentiments of our
German ancestors. It was only among such a people that an overpowering
spiritual despotism could be maintained. The Pope became to them the
vicegerent of the great Power which they adored. The records of the race
do not show such another absorbing pietism as was seen in the monastic
retreats of the Middle Ages, except among the Brahmans and Buddhists of
India. This religious fervor the popes were to make use of, to extend
their empire.
And that nothing might be wanted to cement their power which had been
thus assured, the Emperor Valentinian III.--a monarch controlled by
Leo--passed in the year 445 this celebrated decree:--
"The primacy of the Apostolic See having been established by the merit
of Saint Peter, its founder, the sacred Council of Nice, and the dignity
of the city of Rome, we thus declare our irrevocable edict, that all
bishops, whether in Gaul or elsewhere, shall make no innovation without
the sanction of the Bishop of Rome; and, that the Apostolic See may
remain inviolable, all bishops who shall refuse to appear before the
tribunal of the Bishop of Rome, when cited, shall be constrained to
appear by the governor of the province."
Thus firmly was the Papacy rooted in the middle of the fifth century,
not only by the encroachments of bishops, but by the authority of
emperors. The papal dominion begins, as an institution, with Leo the
Great. As a religion it began when Paul and Peter preached at Rome. Its
institution was peculiar and unique; a great spiritual government
usurping the attributes of other governments, as predicted by Daniel,
and, at first benignant, ripening into a gloomy tyranny,--a tyranny so
unscrupulous and grasping as to become finally, in the eyes of Luther,
an evil power. As a religion, as I have said, it did not widely depart
from the primitive creeds until it added to the doctrines generally
accepted by the Church, and even still by Protestants, those other
dogmas which were means to an end,--that end the possession of power and
its perpetuation among ignorant people. Yet these dogmas, false as they
are, never succeeded in obscuring wholly the truths which are taught in
the gospel, or in extinguishing faith in the world. In all the
encroachments of the Papacy, in all the triumphs of an unauthorized
Church polity, the flame of true Christian piety has been dimmed, but
not extinguished. And when this fatal and ambitious polity shall have
passed away before the advance of reason and civilization, as other
governments have been overturned, the lamp of piety will yet burn, as in
other churches, since it will be fed by the Bible and the Providence of
God. Governments and institutions pass away, but not religions;
certainly not the truths originally declared among the mountains of
Judea, which thus far have proved the elevation of nations.
It is then the government, not the religion, which Leo inaugurated, with
which we have to do. And let us remember in reference to this
government, which became so powerful and absolute, that Leo only laid
the foundation. He probably did not dream of subjecting the princes of
the earth except in matters which pertained to his supremacy as a
spiritual ruler. His aim was doubtless spiritual, not temporal. He had
no such deep designs as Hildebrand and Innocent III. cherished. The
encroachments of later ages he did not anticipate. His doctrine was,
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the
things which are God's." As the vicegerent of the Almighty, which he
felt himself to be in spiritual matters, he would institute a
guardianship over everything connected with religion, even education,
which can never be properly divorced from it. He was the patron of
schools, as he was of monasteries. He could advise kings: he could not
impose upon them his commands (except in Church matters), as Boniface
VIII. sought to do. He would organize a network of Church functionaries,
not of State officers; for he was the head of a great religious
institution. He would send his legates to the end of the earth to
superintend the work of the Church, and rebuke princes, and protest
against wars; for he had the religious oversight of Christendom.
Now when we consider that there was no central power in Europe at this
time, that the barbaric princes were engaged in endless wars, and that a
fearful gloom was settling upon everything pertaining to education and
peace and order; that even the clergy were ignorant, and the people
superstitious; that everything was in confusion, tending to a worse
confusion, to perfect anarchy and barbaric license; that provincial
councils were no longer held; that bishops and abbots were abdicating
their noblest functions,--we feel that the spiritual supremacy which Leo
aimed to establish had many things to be said in its support; that his
central rule was a necessity of the times, keeping civilization from
utter ruin.
In the first place, what a great idea it was to preserve the unity of
the Church,--the idea of Cyprian and Augustine and all the great
Fathers,--an idea never exploded, and one which we even in these times
accept, though not in the sense understood by the Roman Catholics! We
cannot conceive of the Church as established by the apostles, without
recognizing the necessity of unity in doctrines and discipline. Who in
that age could conserve this unity unless it were a great spiritual
monarch? In our age books, universities, theological seminaries, the
press, councils, and an enlightened clergy can see that no harm comes to
the great republic which recognizes Christ as the invisible head. Not so
fifteen hundred years ago. The idea of unity could only be realized by
the exercise of sufficient power in one man to preserve the integrity of
the orthodox faith, since ignorance and anarchy covered the earth with
their funereal shades.
The Protestants are justly indignant in view of subsequent encroachments
and tyrannies. But these were not the fault of Leo. Everything good in
its day is likely to be perverted. The whole history of society is the
history of the perversion of institutions originally beneficent. Take
the great foundations for education and other moral and intellectual
necessities, which were established in the Middle Ages by good men. See
how these are perverted and misused even in such glorious universities
as Oxford and Cambridge. See how soon the primitive institutions of
apostles were changed, in order to facilitate external conquests and
make the Church a dignified worldly power. Not only are we to remember
that everything good has been perverted, and ever will be, but that all
governments, religious and civil, seem to be, in one sense,
expediencies,--that is, adapted to the necessities and circumstances of
the times. In the Bible there are no settled laws definitely laid down
for the future government of the Church,--certainly not for the
government of States and cities. A government which was best for the
primitive Christians of the first two centuries was not adapted to the
condition of the Church in the third and fourth centuries, else there
would not have been bishops. If we take a narrow-minded and partisan
view of bishops, we might say that they always have existed since the
times of the apostles; the Episcopalians might affirm that the early
churches were presided over by bishops, and the Presbyterians that every
ordained minister was a bishop,--that elder and bishop are synonymous.
But that is a contest about words, not things. In reality, episcopal
power, as we understand it, was not historically developed till there
was a large increase in the Christian communities, especially in great
cities, where several presbyters were needed, one of whom presided over
the rest. Some such episcopal institution, I am willing to concede, was
a necessity, although I cannot clearly see the divine authority for it.
In like manner other changes became necessary, which did not militate
against the welfare of the Church, but tended to preserve it. New
dignities, new organizations, new institutions for the government of the
Church successively arose. All societies must have a government. This is
a law recognized in the nature of things. So Christian society must be
organized and ruled according to the necessities of the times; and the
Scriptures do not say what these shall be,--they are imperative and
definite only in matters of faith and morals. To guard the faith, to
purify the morals according to the Christian standard, overseers,
officers, rulers are required. In the early Church they were all
brethren. The second and third century made bishops. The next age made
archbishops and metropolitans and patriarchs. The age which succeeded
was the age of Leo; and the calamities and miseries and anarchies and
ignorance of the times, especially the rule of barbarians, seemed to
point to a monarchical head, a more theocratic government,--a
government so august and sacred that it could not be resisted.
And there can be but little doubt that this was the best government for
the times. Let me illustrate by civil governments. There is no law laid
down in the Bible for these. In the time of our Saviour the world was
governed by a universal monarch. The imperial rule had become a
necessity. It was tyrannical; but Paul as well as Christ exhorted his
followers to accept it. In process of time, when the Empire fell, every
old province had a king,--indeed there were several kings in France, as
well as in Germany and Spain. The prelates of the Church never lifted up
their voice against the legality of this feudo-kingly rule. Then came a
revolt, after the Reformation, against the government of kings. New
England and other colonies became small republics, almost democracies.
On the hills of New England, with a sparse rural population and small
cities, the most primitive form of government was the best. It was
virtually the government of townships. The selectmen were the overseers;
and, following the necessities of the times, the ministers of the gospel
were generally Independents or Congregationalists, not clergy of the
Established Church of Old England. Both the civil and the religious
governments which they had were the best for the people. But what was
suited to Massachusetts would not be fit for England or France. See how
our government has insensibly drifted towards a strong central power.
What must be the future necessities of such great cities as New York,
Philadelphia, and Chicago,--where even now self-government is a failure,
and the real government is in the hands of rings of politicians, backed
by foreign immigrants and a lawless democracy? Will the wise, the
virtuous, and the rich put up forever with such misrule as these cities
have had, especially since the Civil War? And even if other institutions
should gradually be changed, to which we now cling with patriotic zeal,
it may be for the better and not the worse. Those institutions are the
best which best preserve the morals and liberties of the people; and
such institutions will gradually arise as the country needs, unless
there shall be a general shipwreck of laws, morals, and faith, which I
do not believe will come. It is for the preservation of these laws,
morals, and doctrines that all governments are held responsible. A
change in the government is nothing; a decline of morals and faith is
everything.
I make these remarks in order that we may see that the rise of a great
central power in the hands of the Bishop of Rome, in the fifth century,
may have been a great public benefit, perhaps a necessity. It became
corrupt; it forgot its mission. Then it was attacked by Luther. It
ceased to rule England and a part of Germany and other countries where
there were higher public morals and a purer religious faith. Some fear
that the rule of the Roman Church will be re-established in this
country. Never,--only its religion. The Catholic Church may plant her
prelates in every great city, and the whole country may be regarded by
them as missionary ground for the re-establishment of the papal polity.
But the moment this polity raises its head and becomes arrogant, and
seeks to subvert the other established institutions of the country or
prevent the use of the Bible in schools, it will be struck down, even as
the Jesuits were once banished from France and Spain. Its religion will
remain,--may gain new adherents, become the religion of vast multitudes.
But it is not the faith which the Roman Catholic Church professes to
conserve which I fear. That is very much like that of Protestants, in
the main. It is the institutions, the polity, the government of that
Church which I speak of, with its questionable means to gain power, its
opposition to the free circulation of the Bible, its interference with
popular education, its prelatical assumptions, its professed allegiance
to a foreign potentate, though as wise and beneficent as Pio Nono or the
reigning Pope.