Valois observes that the Popes scrupulously followed, in the early ages
of the church, the custom of placing their names after that of the
person whom they addressed in their letters. This mark of their humility
he proves by letters written by various Popes. Thus, when the great
projects of politics were yet unknown to them, did they adhere to
Christian meekness. At length the day arrived when one of the Popes,
whose name does not occur to me, said that "it was safer to quarrel with
a prince than with a friar." Henry VI. being at the feet of Pope
Celestine, his holiness thought proper to kick the crown off his head;
which ludicrous and disgraceful action Baronius has highly praised.
Jortin observes on this great cardinal, and advocate of the Roman see,
that he breathes nothing but fire and brimstone; and accounts kings and
emperors to be mere catchpolls and constables, bound to execute with
implicit faith all the commands of insolent ecclesiastics. Bellarmin was
made a cardinal for his efforts and devotion to the papal cause, and
maintaining this monstrous paradox,--that if the pope forbid the
exercise of virtue, and command that of vice, the Roman church, under
pain of a sin, was obliged to abandon virtue for vice, if it would not
sin against _conscience_!
It was Nicholas I., a bold and enterprising Pope, who, in 858,
forgetting the pious modesty of his predecessors, took advantage of the
divisions in the royal families of France, and did not hesitate to place
his name before that of the kings and emperors of the house of France,
to whom he wrote. Since that time he has been imitated by all his
successors, and this encroachment on the honours of monarchy has passed
into a custom from having been tolerated in its commencement.
Concerning the acknowledged _infallibility of the Popes_, it appears
that Gregory VII., in council, decreed that the church of Rome neither
_had erred_, and _never should err_. It was thus this prerogative of his
holiness became received, till 1313, when John XXII. abrogated decrees
made by three popes his predecessors, and declared that what was done
_amiss_ by one pope or council might be _corrected_ by another; and
Gregory XI., 1370, in his will deprecates, _si quid in catholicâ fide
erasset_. The university of Vienna protested against it, calling it a
contempt of God, and an idolatry, if any one in matters of faith should
appeal from a _council_ to the _Pope_; that is, from _God_ who presides
in _councils_, to _man_. But the _infallibility_ was at length
established by Leo X., especially after Luther's opposition, because
they despaired of defending their indulgences, bulls, &c., by any other
method.
Imagination cannot form a scene more terrific than when these men were
in the height of power, and to serve their political purposes hurled the
thunders of their _excommunications_ over a kingdom. It was a national
distress not inferior to a plague or famine.
Philip Augustus, desirous of divorcing Ingelburg, to unite himself to
Agnes de Meranie, the Pope put his kingdom under an interdict. The
churches were shut during the space of eight months; they said neither
mass nor vespers; they did not marry; and even the offspring of the
married, born at this unhappy period, _were considered as illicit_: and
because the king would not sleep with his wife, it was not permitted to
any of his subjects to sleep with theirs! In that year France was
threatened with an extinction of the ordinary generation. A man under
this curse of public penance was divested of all his functions, civil,
military, and matrimonial; he was not allowed to dress his hair, to
shave, to bathe, nor even change his linen; so that upon the whole this
made a filthy penitent. The good king Robert incurred the censures of
the church for having married his cousin. He was immediately abandoned.
Two faithful domestics alone remained with him, and these always passed
through the fire whatever he touched. In a word, the horror which an
excommunication occasioned was such, that a courtesan, with whom one
Peletier had passed some moments, having learnt soon afterwards that he
had been about six months an excommunicated person, fell into a panic,
and with great difficulty recovered from her convulsions.