THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST.
_The Age of Faith in the West is marked by Paganism.--The
Arabian military Attacks produce the Isolation and permit the
Independence of the Bishop of Rome._
GREGORY THE GREAT _organizes the Ideas of his Age,
materializes Faith, allies it to Art, rejects Science, and
creates the Italian Form of Religion._
_An Alliance of the Papacy with France diffuses that
Form.--Political History of the Agreement and Conspiracy of
the Frankish Kings and the Pope.--The resulting Consolidation
of the new Dynasty in France, and Diffusion of Roman
Ideas.--Conversion of Europe._
_The Value of the Italian Form of Religion determined from the
papal Biography._
[Sidenote: The Age of Faith in the West.]
From the Age of Faith, in the East, I have now to turn to the Age of
Faith in the West. The former, as we have seen, ended prematurely,
through a metamorphosis of the populations by military operations,
conquests, polygamy; the latter, under more favourable circumstances,
gradually completed its predestined phases, and, after the lapse of many
centuries, passed into the Age of Reason.
If so many recollections of profound interest cluster round Jerusalem,
"the Holy City" of the East, many scarcely inferior are connected with
Rome, "the Eternal City" of the West.
[Sidenote: Is essentially marked by the paganization of religion.]
The Byzantine system, which, having originated in the policy of an
ambitious soldier struggling for supreme power, and in the devices of
ecclesiastics intolerant of any competitors, had spread itself all over
the eastern and southern portions of the Roman empire, and with its
hatred of human knowledge and degraded religious ideas and practices,
had been adopted at last even in Italy. Not by the Romans, for they had
ceased to exist, but by the medley of Goths and half-breeds, the
occupants of that peninsula. Gregory the Great is the incarnation of the
ideas of this debased population. That evil system, so carefully
nurtured by Constantine and cherished by all the Oriental bishops, had
been cut down by the axe of the Vandal, the Persian, the Arab, in its
native seats, but the offshoot of it that had been planted in Rome
developed spontaneously with unexpected luxuriance, and cast its dark
shadow over Europe for many centuries. He who knew what Christianity had
been in the apostolic days, might look with boundless surprise on what
was now ingrafted upon it, and was passing under its name.
[Sidenote: Effects of the loss of Africa on events in Italy.]
In the last chapter we have seen how, through the Vandal invasion,
Africa was lost to the empire--a dire calamity, for, of all the
provinces, it had been the least expensive and the most productive; it
yielded men, money, and, what was perhaps of more importance, corn for
the use of Italy. A sudden stoppage of the customary supply rendered
impossible the usual distributions in Rome, Ravenna, Milan. A famine
fell upon Italy, bringing in its train an inevitable diminution of the
population. To add to the misfortunes, Attila, the King of the Huns, or,
as he called himself, "the Scourge of God," invaded the empire. The
battle of Chalons, the convulsive death-throe of the Roman empire,
arrested his career, A.D. 451.
[Sidenote: Fall and pillage of Rome.]
Four years after this event, through intrigues in the imperial family,
Genseric, the Vandal king, was invited from Africa to Rome. The
atrocities which of old had been practised against Carthage under the
auspices of the senate were now avenged. For fourteen days the Vandals
sacked the city, perpetrating unheard-of cruelties. Their ships, brought
into the Tiber, enabled them to accomplish their purpose of pillage far
more effectually than would have been possible by any land expedition.
The treasures of Rome, with multitudes of noble captives, were
transported to Carthage. In twenty-one years after this time, A.D. 476,
the Western Empire became extinct.
[Sidenote: Effects of the wars of Justinian.]
Thus the treachery of the African Arians not only brought the Vandals
into the most important of all the provinces, so far as Italy was
concerned; it also furnished an instrument for the ruin of Rome. But
hardly had the Emperor Justinian reconquered Africa when he attempted
the subjugation of the Goths now holding possession of Italy. His
general, Belisarius, captured Rome, Dec. 10, A.D. 556. In the military
operations ensuing with Vitiges, Italy was devastated, the population
sank beneath the sword, pestilence, famine. In all directions the
glorious remains of antiquity were destroyed; statues, as those of the
Mole of Hadrian, were thrown upon the besiegers of Rome. These
operations closed by the surrender of Vitiges to Belisarius at the
capture of Ravenna.
But, as soon as the military compression was withdrawn, revolt broke
out. Rome was retaken by the Goths; its walls were razed; for forty days
it was deserted by its inhabitants, an emigration that in the end proved
its ruin. Belisarius, who had been sent back by the emperor, re-entered
it, but was too weak to retain it. During four years Italy was ravaged
by the Franks and the Goths. At last Justinian sent the eunuch Narses
with a well-appointed army. The Ostrogothic monarchy was overthrown, and
the emperor governed Italy by his exarchs at Ravenna.
[Sidenote: Debased ideas of the incoming Age of Faith.]
But what was the cost of all this? We may reject the statement
previously made, that Italy lost fifteen millions of inhabitants, on the
ground that such computations were beyond the ability of the survivors,
but, from the asserted number we may infer that there had been a
horrible catastrophe. In other directions the relics of civilization
were fast disappearing; the valley of the Danube had relapsed into a
barbarous state; the African shore had become a wilderness; Italy a
hideous desert; and the necessary consequence of the extermination of
the native Italians by war, and their replacement by barbarous
adventurers, was the falling of the sparse population of that peninsula
into a lower psychical state. It was ready for the materialized
religion that soon ensued. An indelible aspect was stamped on the
incoming Age of Faith. The East and the West had equally displayed the
imbecility of ecclesiastical rule. Of both, the Holy City had fallen;
Jerusalem had been captured by the Persian and the Arab, Rome had been
sacked by the Vandal and the Goth.
[Sidenote: Steady progress of the papacy to supremacy.]
But, for the proper description of the course of affairs, I must retrace
my steps a little. In the important political events coinciding with the
death of Leo the Great, and the constitution of the kingdom of Italy by
the barbarian Odoacer, A.D. 476-490, the bishops of Rome seem to have
taken but little interest. Doubtless, on one side, they perceived the
transitory nature of such incidents, and, on the other, clearly saw for
themselves the road to lasting spiritual domination. The Christians
everywhere had long expressed a total carelessness for the fate of old
Rome; and in the midst of her ruins the popes were incessantly occupied
in laying deep the foundations of their power. Though it mattered little
to them who was the temporal ruler of Italy, they were vigilant and
energetic in their relations with their great competitors, the bishops
of Constantinople and Alexandria. It had become clear that Christendom
must have a head; and that headship, once definitely settled, implied
the eventual control over the temporal power. Of all objects of human
ambition, that headship was best worth struggling for.
[Sidenote: Its attitude toward the emperor.]
Steadily pursuing every advantage as it arose, Rome inexorably insisted
that her decisions should be carried out in Constantinople itself. This
was the case especially in the affair of Acacius, the bishop of that
city, who, having been admonished for his acts by Felix, the bishop of
Rome, was finally excommunicated. A difficulty arose as to the manner in
which the process should be served; but an adventurous monk fastened it
to the robe of Acacius as he entered the church. Acacius, undismayed,
proceeded with his services, and, pausing deliberately, ordered the name
of Felix, the Bishop of Rome, to be struck from the roll of bishops in
communion with the East. Constantinople and Rome thus mutually
excommunicated one another. It is in reference to this affair that Pope
Gelasius, addressing the emperor, says; "There are two powers which rule
the world, the imperial and pontifical. You are the sovereign of the
human race, but you bow your neck to those who preside over things
divine. The priesthood is the greater of the two powers; it has to
render an account in the last day for the acts of kings." This is not
the language of a feeble ecclesiastic, but of a pontiff who understands
his power.
[Sidenote: The Gothic conquest gives the pope an Arian master.]
The conquest of Italy by Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, A.D. 493, gave to the
bishops of Rome an Arian sovereign, and presented to the world the
anomaly of a heretic appointing God's vicar upon earth. There was a
contested election between two rival candidates, whose factions,
emulating the example of the East, filled the city with murder. The
Gothic monarch ordered that he who had most suffrages, and had been
first consecrated, should be acknowledged. In this manner Symmachus
became pope.
[Sidenote: The emperor and pope conspire against him.]
[Sidenote: The Gothic king detects them.]
Hormisdas, who succeeded Symmachus, renewed the attempt to compel the
Eastern emperor, Anastasius, to accept the degradation of Acacius and
his party, and to enforce the assent of all his clergy thereto, but in
vain. On the accession of Justin to the imperial throne, Rome at last
carried her point; all her conditions were admitted; the schism was
ended in the humiliation of the Bishop of Constantinople, it was said,
through the orthodoxy of the emperor. But very soon began to appear
unmistakable indications that for this religious victory a temporal
equivalent had been given. Conspiracies were detected in Rome against
Theodoric, the Gothic king; and rumours were whispered about that the
arms of Constantinople would before long release Italy from the
heretical yoke of the Arian. There can be no doubt that Theodoric
detected the treason. It was an evil reward for his impartial equity. At
once he disarmed the population of Rome. From being a merciful
sovereign, he exhibited an awful vengeance. It was in these transactions
that Boethius, the philosopher, and Symmachus, the senator, fell victims
to his wrath. The pope John himself was thrown into prison, and there
miserably died. In his remonstrances with Justin, the great barbarian
monarch displays sentiments far above his times, yet they were the
sentiments that had hitherto regulated his actions. "To pretend to a
dominion over the conscience is to usurp the prerogative of God. By the
nature of things, the power of sovereigns is confined to political
government. They have no right of punishment but over those who disturb
the public peace. The most dangerous heresy is that of a sovereign who
separates himself from part of his subjects because they believe not
according to his belief."
[Sidenote: The conspiracy matures.]
[Sidenote: Subjugation of the pope by the emperor.]
Theodoric had been but a few years dead--his soul was seen by an
orthodox hermit carried by devils into the crater of the volcano of
Lipari, which was considered to be the opening into hell--when the
invasion of Italy by Justinian showed how well-founded his suspicions
had been. Rome was, however, very far from receiving the advantages she
had expected; the inconceivable wickedness of Constantinople was brought
into Italy. Pope Sylverius, who was the son of Pope Hormisdas, was
deposed by Theodora, the emperor's wife. This woman, once a common
prostitute, sold the papacy to Vigilius for two hundred pounds of gold.
Her accomplice, Antonina, the unprincipled wife of Belisarius, had
Sylverius stripped of his robes and habited as a monk. He was
subsequently banished to the old convict island of Pandataria, and there
died. Vigilius embraced Eutychianism and, it was said, murdered one of
his secretaries, and caused his sister's son to be beaten to death. He
was made to feel what it is for a bishop to be in the hands of an
emperor; to taste of the cup so often presented to prelates at
Constantinople; to understand in what estimation his sovereign held the
vicar of God upon earth. Compelled to go to that metropolis to embrace
the theological views which Justinian had put forth, thrice he agreed to
them, and thrice he recanted; he excommunicated the Patriarch of
Constantinople, and was excommunicated by him. In his personal contests
with the imperial officials, they dragged him by his feet from a
sanctuary with so much violence that a part of the structure was pulled
down upon him; they confined him in a dungeon and fed him on bread and
water. Eventually he died an outcast in Sicily. The immediate effect of
the conquest of Italy was the reduction of the popes to the degraded
condition of the patriarchs of Constantinople. Such were the bitter
fruits of their treason to the Gothic king. The success of Justinian's
invasion was due to the clergy; in the ruin they brought upon their
country, and the relentless tyranny they drew upon themselves, they had
their reward.
[Sidenote: The paganization of religion proceeds.]
In the midst of this desolation and degradation the Age of Faith was
gradually assuming distinctive lineaments in Italy. Paganization, which
had been patronized as a matter of policy in the East, became a matter
of necessity in the West. To a man like Gregory the Great, born in a
position which enabled him to examine things from a very general point
of view, it was clear that the psychical condition of the lower social
stratum demanded concessions in accordance with its ideas. The belief of
the thoughtful must be alloyed with the superstition of the populace.
[Sidenote: Division of the subjects to be treated of.]
Accordingly, that was what actually occurred. For the clear
understanding of these events I shall have to speak, 1st, of the acts of
Pope Gregory the Great, by whom the ideas of the age were organized and
clothed in a dress suited to the requirements of the times; 2d, of the
relations which the papacy soon assumed with the kings of France, by
which the work of Gregory was consolidated, upheld, and diffused all
over Europe. It adds not a little to the interest of these things that
the influences thus created have outlasted their original causes, and,
after the lapse of more than a thousand years, though moss-covered and
rotten, are a stumbling-block to the progress of nations.
[Sidenote: Gregory the Great.]
Gregory the Great was the grandson of Pope Felix. His patrician
parentage and conspicuous abilities had attracted in early life the
attention of the Emperor Justin, by whom he was appointed prefect of
Rome. Withdrawn by the Church from the splendours of secular life, he
was sent, while yet a deacon, as nuncio to Constantinople. Discharging
the duties that had been committed to him with singular ability and
firmness, he resumed the monastic life on his return, with daily
increasing reputation. Elected to the papacy by the clergy, the senate,
and people of Rome, A.D. 590, with well dissembled resistance he
implored the emperor to reject their choice, and, on being refused,
escaped from the city hidden in a basket. It is related that the retreat
in which he was concealed was discovered by a celestial hovering light
that settled upon it, and revealed to the faithful their reluctant pope.
This was during a time of pestilence and famine.
Once made supreme pontiff, this austere monk in an instant resumed the
character he had displayed at Constantinople, and exhibited the
qualities of a great statesman. He regulated the Roman liturgy, the
calendar of festivals, the order of processions, the fashions of
sacerdotal garments; he himself officiated in the canon of the mass,
devised many solemn and pompous rites, and invented the chant known by
his name. He established schools of music, administered the Church
revenues with precision and justice, and set an example of almsgiving
and charity; for such was the misery of the times that even Roman
matrons had to accept the benevolence of the Church. He authorized the
alienation of Church property for the redemption of slaves, laymen as
well as ecclesiastics.
An insubordinate clergy and a dissolute populace quickly felt the hand
that now held the reins. He sedulously watched the inferior pastors,
dealing out justice to them, and punishing all who offended with
rigorous severity. He compelled the Italian bishops to acknowledge him
as their metropolitan. He extended his influence to Greece; prohibited
simony in Gaul; received into the bosom of the Church Spain, now
renouncing her Arianism; sent out missionaries to Britain, and converted
the pagans of that country; extirpated heathenism from Sardinia;
resisted John, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who had dared to take
the title of universal bishop; exposed to the emperor the ruin
occasioned by the pride, ambition, and wickedness of the clergy, and
withstood him on the question of the law prohibiting soldiers from
becoming monks. It was not in the nature of such a man to decline the
regulation of political affairs; he nominated tribunes, and directed the
operations of troops.
[Sidenote: His superstition.]
[Sidenote: He materializes religion.]
[Sidenote: His hatred of learning,]
[Sidenote: and expulsion of classical authors.]
No one can shake off the system that has given him power; no one can
free himself from the tincture of the times of which he is the
representative. Though in so many respects Gregory was far in advance of
his age, he was at once insincere and profoundly superstitious. With
more than Byzantine hatred he detested human knowledge. His
oft-expressed belief that the end of the world was at hand was
perpetually contradicted by his acts, which were ceaselessly directed to
the foundation of a future papal empire. Under him was sanctified that
mythologic Christianity destined to become the religion of Europe for
many subsequent centuries, and which adopted the adoration of the Virgin
by images and pictures; the efficacy of the remains of martyrs and
relics; stupendous miracles wrought at the shrines of saints; the
perpetual interventions of angels and devils in sublunary affairs; the
truth of legends far surpassing in romantic improbability the stories of
Greek mythology; the localization of heaven a few miles above the air,
and of hell in the bowels of the earth, with its portal in the crater of
Lipari. Gregory himself was a sincere believer in miracles, ghosts, and
the resurrection of many persons from the grave, but who, alas! had
brought no tidings of the secret wonders of that land of deepest shade.
He made these wild fancies the actual, the daily, the practical religion
of Europe. Participating in the ecclesiastical hatred of human learning,
and insisting on the maxim that "Ignorance is the mother of devotion,"
he expelled from Rome all mathematical studies, and burned the Palatine
library founded by Augustus Cæsar. It was valuable for the many rare
manuscripts it contained. He forbade the study of the classics,
mutilated statues, and destroyed temples. He hated the very relics of
classical genius; pursued with vindictive fanaticism the writings of
Livy, against whom he was specially excited. It has truly been said that
"he was as inveterate an enemy to learning as ever lived;" that "no
lucid ray ever beamed on his superstitious soul." He boasted that his
own works were written without regard to the rules of grammar, and
censured the crime of a priest who had taught that subject. It was his
aim to substitute for the heathen writings others which he thought less
dangerous to orthodoxy; and so well did he succeed in rooting out of
Italy her illustrious pagan authors, that when one of his successors,
Paul I., sent to Pepin of France "what books he could find," they were
"an antiphonal, a grammar, and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite."
He was the very incarnation of the Byzantine principle of ignorance.
[Sidenote: Gradual preparation for the debasement of religion.]
[Sidenote: Corruption of Christianity.]
If thus the misfortunes that had fallen on Italy had given her a base
population, whose wants could only be met by a paganized religion, the
more fortunate classes all over the empire had long been tending in the
same direction. Whoever will examine the progress of Christian society
from the earlier ages, will find that there could be no other result
than a repudiation of solid learning and an alliance with art. We have
only to compare the poverty and plainness of the first disciples with
the extravagance reached in a few generations. Cyprian complains of the
covetousness, pride, luxury, and worldly-mindedness of Christians, even
of the clergy and confessors. Some made no scruple to contract matrimony
with heathens. Clement of Alexandria bitterly inveighs against "the
vices of an opulent and luxurious Christian community--splendid dresses,
gold and silver vessels, rich banquets, gilded litters and chariots, and
private baths. The ladies kept Indian birds, Median peacocks, monkeys,
and Maltese dogs, instead of maintaining widows and orphans; the men had
multitudes of slaves." The dipping three times at baptism, the tasting
of honey and milk, the oblations for the dead, the signing of the cross
on the forehead on putting on the clothes or the shoes, or lighting a
candle, which Tertullian imputes to tradition without the authority of
Scripture, foreshadowed a thousand pagan observances soon to be
introduced. As time passed on, so far from the state of things
improving, it became worse. Not only among the frivolous class, but even
among historic personages, there was a hankering after the ceremonies of
the departed creed, a lingering attachment to the old rites, and,
perhaps, a religious indifference to the new. To the age of Justinian
these remarks strikingly apply. Boethius was, at the best, only a pagan
philosopher; Tribonian, the great lawyer, the author of the Justinian
Code, was suspected of being an atheist.
[Sidenote: Episcopal splendour and wickedness.]
[Sidenote: Paganisms of Christianity.]
[Sidenote: It allies itself to art,]
In the East, the splendour of the episcopal establishments extorted
admiration even from those who were familiar with the imperial court.
The well-ordered trains of attendants and the magnificent banquets in
the bishops' palaces are particularly praised. Extravagant views of the
pre-eminent value of celibacy had long been held among the more devout,
who conceded a reluctant admission even for marriage itself. "I praise
the married state, but chiefly for this, that it provides virgins," had
been the more than doubtful encomium of St. Jerome. Among the clergy,
who under the force of this growing sentiment found it advisable to
refrain from marriage, it had become customary, as we learn from the
enactments and denunciations against the practice, to live with
"sub-introduced women," as they were called. These passed as sisters of
the priests, the correctness of whose taste was often exemplified by the
remarkable beauty of their sinful partners. A law of Honorius put an end
to this iniquity. The children arising from these associations do not
appear to have occasioned any extraordinary scandal. At weddings it was
still the custom to sing hymns to Venus. The cultivation of music at a
very early period attracted the attention of many of the great
ecclesiastics--Paul of Samosata, Arius, Chrysostom. In the first
congregations probably all the worshippers joined in the hymns and
psalmody. By degrees, however, more skilful performers had been
introduced, and the chorus of the Greek tragedy made available under the
form of antiphonal singing. The Ambrosian chant was eventually exchanged
for the noble Roman chant of Gregory the Great, which has been truly
characterised as the foundation of all that is grand and elevated in
modern music.
[Sidenote: and rejects learning.]
With the devastation that Italy had suffered the Latin language was
becoming extinct. But Roman literature had never been converted to
Christianity. Of the best writers among the Fathers, not one was a
Roman; all were provincials. The literary basis was the Hebrew
Scriptures and the New Testament, the poetical imagery being, for the
most part, borrowed from the prophets. In historical compositions there
was a want of fair dealing and truthfulness almost incredible to us;
thus Eusebius naïvely avows that in his history he shall omit whatever
might tend to the discredit of the Church, and magnify whatever might
conduce to her glory. The same principle was carried out in numberless
legends, many of them deliberate forgeries, the amazing credulity of the
times yielding to them full credit, no matter how much they might
outrage common sense. But what else was to be expected of generations
who could believe that the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot-wheels were still
impressed on the sands of the Red Sea, and could not be obliterated
either by the winds or the waves? He who ventured to offend the public
taste for these idle fables brought down upon himself the wrath of
society, and was branded as an infidel. In the interpretation of the
Scriptures, and, indeed, in all commentaries on authors of repute, there
was a constant indulgence in fanciful mystification and the detection of
concealed meanings, in the extracting of which an amusing degree of
ingenuity and industry was often shown; but these hermeneutical
writings, as well as the polemical, are tedious beyond endurance; with
regard to the latter, the energy of their vindictive violence is not
sufficient to redeem them from contempt.
[Sidenote: Painting and sculpture.]
[Sidenote: Adopts a typical model of the Saviour,]
The relation of the Church to the sister arts, painting and sculpture,
was doubtless fairly indicated at a subsequent time by the second
Council of Nicea, A.D. 787; their superstitious use had been resumed.
Sculpture has, however, never forgotten the preference that was shown to
her sister. To this day she is a pagan, emulating in this the example of
the noblest of the sciences, Astronomy, who bears in mind the great
insults she has received from the Church, and tolerates the name of no
saint in the visible heavens; the new worlds she discovers are dedicated
to Uranus, or Neptune, or other Olympian divinities. Among the
ecclesiastics there had always been many, occasionally some of eminence,
who set their faces against the connexion of worship with art; thus
Tertullian of old had manifested his displeasure against Hermogenes, on
account of the two deadly sins into which he had fallen, painting and
marriage; but Gnostic Christianity had approved, as Roman Christianity
was now to approve, of their union. To the Gnostics we owe the earliest
examples of our sacred images. The countenance of our Saviour, along
with those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, appears on some of their
engraved gems and seals. Among the earlier fathers--Justin Martyn and
Tertullian--there was an impression that the personal appearance of our
Lord was ungainly; that he was short of stature; and, at a later period
Cyril says, mean of aspect "even beyond the ordinary race of men." But
these unsuitable delineations were generally corrected in the fourth
century, it being then recognised that God could not dwell in a humble
form or low stature. The model eventually received was perhaps that
described in the spurious epistle of Lentulus to the Roman senate: "He
was a man of tall and well-proportioned form; his countenance severe and
impressive, so as to move the beholders at once with love and awe. His
hair was of an amber colour, reaching to his ears with no radiation, and
standing up from his ears clustering and bright, and flowing down over
his shoulders, parted on the top according to the fashion of the
Nazarenes. The brow high and open; the complexion clear, with a delicate
tinge of red; the aspect frank and pleasing; the nose and mouth finely
formed; the beard thick, parted, and of the colour of the hair; the eyes
blue, and exceedingly bright." Subsequently the oval countenance assumed
an air of melancholy, which, though eminently suggestive, can hardly be
considered as the type of manly beauty.
[Sidenote: and of the Virgin.]
At first the cross was without any adornment; it next had a lamb at the
foot; and eventually became the crucifix, sanctified with the form of
the dying Saviour. Of the Virgin Mary, destined in later times to
furnish so many beautiful types of female loveliness, the earliest
representations are veiled. The Egyptian sculptors had thus depicted
Isis; the first form of the Virgin and child was the counterpart of Isis
and Horus. St. Augustine says her countenance was unknown; there
appears, however, to have been a very early Christian tradition that in
complexion she was a brunette. Adventurous artists by degrees removed
the veil, and next to the mere countenance added a full-grown figure
like that of a dignified Roman matron; then grouped her with the divine
child, the wise men, and other suggestions of Scripture.
[Sidenote: Consolidation of papal power in the West.]
[Sidenote: Roman Church anthropomorphized,]
[Sidenote: and necessarily becoming intolerant.]
While thus the papacy was preparing for an alliance with art, it did not
forget to avail itself of the vast advantages within its reach by
interfering in domestic life--an interference which the social
demoralization of the time more than ever permitted. A prodigious step
in power was made by assuming the cognizance of marriage, and the
determination of the numberless questions connected with it. Once having
discovered the influence thus gained, the papacy never surrendered it;
some of the most important events in later history have been determined
by its action in this matter. Perhaps even a greater power accrued from
its assumption of the cognizance of wills, and of questions respecting
the testamentary disposal of property. Though in many respects, at the
time we are now considering, the papacy had separated itself from
morality, had become united to monachism, and was preparing for a future
alliance with political influences and military power; though its
indignation and censures were less against personal wickedness than
heresy of opinion, toward which it was inexorable and remorseless, a
good effect arose from these assumptions upon domestic life,
particularly as regards the elevation of the female sex. The power thus
arising was re-enforced by a continually-increasing rigour in the
application of penitential punishments. As in the course of years the
intellectual basis on which that power rested became more doubtful, and
therefore more open to attack, the papacy became more sensitive and more
exacting. Pushed on by the influence of the lower population, it fell
into the depths of anthropomorphism, asserting for the Virgin and the
saints such attributes as omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence.
Everywhere present, they could always listen to prayer, and, if
necessary, control or arrest the course of Nature. As it was certain
that such doctrines must in the end be overthrown, the inevitable day
was put off by an instant and vindictive repression of any want of
conformity. Despotism in the State and despotism in the Church were
upheld by despotism over thought.
[Sidenote: Origin of the alliance of the papacy and France.]
From the acts of Pope Gregory the Great, and his organization of the
ideas of his age, the paganization of religion in Italy and its alliance
with art, I have now to turn to the second topic to which this chapter
is devoted--the relations assumed by the papacy with the kings of
France, by which the work of Gregory was consolidated and upheld, and
diffused all over Europe.
[Sidenote: Military results of the Arabian wars.]
The armies of the Saracens had wrested from Christendom the western,
southern, and eastern countries of the Mediterranean; their fleets
dominated in that sea. Ecclesiastical policy had undergone a revolution.
Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, had disappeared from the
Christian system; their bishops had passed away. Alone, of the great
episcopal seats, Constantinople and Rome were left. To all human
appearance, their fall seemed to be only a question of time.
[Sidenote: Independence of the pope.]
The disputes of the Bishop of Rome with his African and Asiatic rivals
had thus come to an untimely end. With them nothing more remained to be
done; his communications with the emperor at Constantinople were at the
sufferance of the Mohammedan navies. The imperial power was paralysed.
The pope was forced by events into isolation; he converted it into
independence.
But independence! how was that to be asserted and maintained. In Italy
itself the Lombards seemed to be firmly seated, but they were Arian
heretics. Their presence and power were incompatible with his. Already,
in a political sense, he was at their mercy.
One movement alone was open to him; and, whether he rightly understood
his position or not, the stress of events forced him to make it. It was
an alliance with the Franks, who had successfully resisted the
Mohammedan power, and who were orthodox.
[Sidenote: Conditions of his alliance with the Franks.]
An ambitious Frank officer had resolved to deprive his sovereign of the
crown if the pope would sanctify the deed. They came to an
understanding. The usurpation was consummated by the one and consecrated
by the other. It was then the interest of the intrusive line of monarchs
to magnify their Italian confederate. In the spread of Roman principles
lay the consolidation of the new Frankish power. It became desirable to
compel the ignorant German tribes to acknowledge in the pope the
vicegerent of God, even though the sword must be applied to them for
that purpose for thirty years.
The pope revolted against his Byzantine sovereign on the question of
images; but that was a fictitious issue. He did not revolt against his
new ally, who fell into the same heresy. He broke away from a weak and
cruel master, and attached himself on terms of equality to a
confederate. But from the first his eventual ascendancy was assured. The
representative of a system which is immortal must finally gain supremacy
over individuals and families, who must die.
[Sidenote: The conversion of Europe.]
Though we cannot undervalue the labours of the monks, who had already
nominally brought many portions of Europe to Christianity, the passage
of the centre of the Continent to its Age of Faith, was, in an enlarged
political sense, the true issue of the empire of the Franks. The fiat of
Charlemagne put a stamp upon it which it bears to this day. He converted
an ecclesiastical fiction into a political fact.
[Sidenote: Three points for consideration.]
To understand this important event, it is necessary to describe, 1st,
the psychical state of Central Europe; 2nd, the position of the pontiff
and his compact with the Franks. It is also necessary to determine the
actual religious value of the system he represents, and this is best
done through, 3rd, the biography of the popes.
[Sidenote: The psychical change of Europe.]
1st. As with the Arabs, so with the barbarians of Europe. They pass from
their Age of Credulity to their Age of Faith without dwelling long in
the intermediate state of Inquiry. An age of inquiry implies
self-investigation, and the absence of an authoritative teacher. But the
Arabs had had the Nestorians and the Jews, and to the Germans the
lessons of the monk were impressively enforced by the convincing
argument of the sword of Charlemagne.
[Sidenote: Labours and successes of the monks.]
[Sidenote: Influence of devout women.]
[Sidenote: Conversion of Europe.]
The military invasions of the south by the barbarians were retaliated by
missionary invasions of the north. The aim of the former was to conquer,
that of their antagonists to convert, if antagonists those can be called
who sought to turn them from their evil ways. The monk penetrated
through their most gloomy forests unarmed and defenceless; he found his
way alone to their fortresses. Nothing touches the heart of a savage so
profoundly as the greatness of silent courage. Among the captives taken
from the south in war were often high-born women of great beauty and
purity of mind, and sometimes even bishops, who, true to their religious
principles, did not fail to exert a happy and a holy influence on the
tribes among whom their lot was cast. One after another the various
nations submitted: the Vandals and Gepidæ in the fourth century; the
Goths somewhat earlier; the Franks at the end of the fifth; the Alemanni
and Lombards at the beginning of the sixth; the Bavarians, Hessians, and
Thuringians in the seventh and eighth. Of these, all embraced the Arian
form except the Franks, who were converted by the Catholic clergy. In
truth, however, these nations were only Christianized upon the surface,
their conversion being indicated by little more than their making the
sign of the cross. In all these movements women exercised an
extraordinary influence: thus Clotilda, the Queen of the Franks, brought
over to the faith her husband Clovis. Bertha, the Queen of Kent, and
Gisella, the Queen of Hungary, led the way in their respective
countries; and under similar influences were converted the Duke of
Poland and the Czar Jarislaus. To women Europe is thus greatly indebted,
though the forms of religion at the first were nothing more than the
creed and the Lord's prayer. It has been truly said that for these
conversions three conditions were necessary--a devout female of the
court, a national calamity, and a monk. As to the people, they seem to
have followed the example of their rulers in blind subserviency,
altogether careless as to what the required faith might be. The
conversion of the ruler is naïvely taken by historians as the conversion
of the whole people. As might be expected, a faith so lightly assumed at
the will or whim of the sovereign was often as lightly cast aside; thus
the Swedes, Bohemians, and Hungarians relapsed into idolatry.
[Sidenote: Conversion of England.]
Among such apostasies it is interesting to recall that of the
inhabitants of Britain, to whom Christianity was first introduced by the
Roman legions, and who might boast in Constantine the Great, and his
mother Helena, if they were really natives of that country, that they
had exercised no little influence on the religion of the world. The
biography of Pelagius shows with what acuteness theological doctrines
were considered in those remote regions; but, after the decline of Roman
affairs, this promising state of things was destroyed, and the clergy
driven by the pagan invaders to the inaccessible parts of Wales,
Scotland, and Ireland. The sight of some English children exposed for
sale in the slave-market at Rome suggested to Gregory the Great the
attempt of reconverting the island. On his assuming the pontificate he
commissioned the monk Augustine for that purpose; and after the usual
exertion of female influence in the court of King Ethelbert by Bertha,
his Frankish princess, and the usual vicissitudes of backsliding, the
faith gradually won its way throughout the whole country. A little
opposition occurred on the part of the ancient clergy, who retained in
their fastnesses the traditions of the old times, particularly in regard
to Easter. But this at length disappeared; an intercourse sprang up with
Rome, and it became common for the clergy and wealthy nobles to visit
that city.
[Sidenote: Irish and British missionaries.]
Displaying the same noble quality which in our own times characterises
it, British Christianity did not fail to exert a proselytizing spirit.
As, at the end of the sixth century, Columban, an Irish monk of Banchor,
had gone forth as a missionary, passing through France, Switzerland, and
beyond the confines of the ancient Roman empire, so about a century
later Boniface, an Englishman of Devonshire, repaired to Germany, under
a recommendation from the pope and Charles Martel, and laboured among
the Hessians and Saxons, cutting down their sacred oaks, overturning
their altars, erecting churches, founding bishoprics, and gaining at
last, from the hands of the savages, the crown of martyrdom. In the
affinity of their language to those of the countries to which they went,
these missionaries from the West found a very great advantage.
It is the glory of Pope Formosus, the same whose body underwent a
posthumous trial, that he converted the Bulgarians, a people who came
from the banks of the Volga. The fact that this event was brought about
by a picture representing the judgment-day shows on what trifling
circumstances these successes turned. The Slavians were converted by
Greek missionaries, and for them the monk Cyril invented an alphabet, as
Ulphilas had done for the Goths. The predatory Normans, who plundered
the churches in their forays, embraced Christianity on settling in
Normandy, as the Goths, in like circumstances, had elsewhere done. The
Scandinavians were converted by St. Anschar.
[Sidenote: Influence of Charlemagne on these events.]
Thus, partly by the preaching of missionaries, partly by the example of
monks, partly by the influence of females, partly by the sword of the
Frankish sovereigns, partly by the great name of Rome, Europe was at
last nominally converted. The so-called religious wars of Charlemagne,
which lasted more than thirty years, and which were attended by the
atrocities always incident to such undertakings, were doubtless as much,
so far as he was concerned, of a political as of a theological nature.
They were the embodiment of the understanding that had been made with
Rome by Pepin. Charlemagne clearly comprehended the position and
functions of the Church; he never suffered it to intrude unduly on the
state. Regarding it as furnishing a bond for uniting not only the
various nations and tribes of his empire, but even families and
individuals together, he ever extended to it a wise and liberal
protection. His mental condition prevented him from applying its
doctrines to the regulation of his own life, which was often blemished
by acts of violence and immorality. From the point of view he occupied,
he doubtless was led to the conclusion that the maxims of religion are
intended for the edification and comfort of those who occupy a humbler
sphere, but that for a prince it is only necessary to maintain
appropriate political relations with the Church. To him baptism was the
sign, not of salvation, but of the subjugation of people; and the
foundation of churches and monasteries, the institution of bishoprics,
and increase of the clergy, a more trustworthy means of government than
military establishments. A priest must necessarily lean on him for
support, a lieutenant might revolt.
[Sidenote: Reflex action of converted Europe.]
If thus Europe, by its conversion, received from Rome an immense
benefit, it repaid the obligation at length by infusing into Latin
Christianity what was sadly needed--a higher moral tone. Earnestness is
the attribute of savage life. That divorce between morality and faith
which the southern nations had experienced was not possible among these
converts. If, by communicating many of their barbarous and pagan
conceptions to the Latin faith, they gave it a tendency to develop
itself in an idolatrous form, their influence was not one of unmitigated
evil, for while they lowered the standard of public belief, they
elevated that of private life. In truth, the contamination they imparted
is often over-rated. The infusion of paganism into religion was far more
due to the people of the classical countries. The inhabitants of Italy
and Greece were never really alienated from the idolatries of the old
times. At the best, they were only Christianized on the surface. With
many other mythological practices, they forced image-worship on the
clergy. But Charlemagne, who, in this respect, may be looked upon as a
true representative of Frankish and German sentiment, totally
disapproved of that idolatry.
[Sidenote: The conspiracy of the papacy and the Franks.]
2nd. From this consideration of the psychical revolution that had
occurred in Central Europe, I turn to an investigation of the position
of the papacy and its compact with the Franks.
[Sidenote: Position of the Franks and Saracens.]
[Sidenote: Relations of Charles Martel to the Church.]
Scarcely had the Arabs consolidated their conquest of Africa when they
passed into Spain, and quickly, as will be related in a subsequent
chapter, subjugating that country, prepared to overwhelm Europe. It was
their ambition and their threat to preach the unity of God in Rome. They
reached the centre of France, but were beaten in the great battle of
Tours by Charles Martel, the Duke of the Franks, A.D. 732. That battle
fixed the religious destiny of Europe. The Saracens did not, however,
give up their attempt. Three years afterward they returned into
Provence, and Charles was himself repulsed. But by this time their power
had expanded too extensively for consolidation. It was already giving
unmistakable tokens of decomposition. Scarcely, indeed, had Musa, the
conqueror of Spain, succeeded in his expedition, when he was arrested at
the head of his army, and ordered to give an account of his doings at
Damascus. It was the occurrence of such disputes among the Saracens in
Spain that constituted the true check to their conquest of France.
Charles Martel had permitted Chilperic II. and Thierry IV. to retain the
title of king; but his foresight of approaching events seems to be
indicated by the circumstance that after the death of the latter he
abstained from appointing any successor. He died A.D. 741, leaving a
memory detested by the Church of his own country on account of his
having been obliged to appropriate from its property sufficient for the
payment of his army. He had taken a tithe from the revenues of the
churches and convents for that purpose. The ignorant clergy, alive only
to their present temporal interests, and not appreciating the great
salvation he had wrought out for them, could never forgive him. Their
inconceivable greed could not bear to be taxed even in its own defence.
"It is because Prince Charles," says the Council of Kiersi to one of his
descendants, "was the first of all the kings and princes of the Franks
who separated and dismembered the goods of the Church; it is for that
sole cause that he is eternally damned. We know, indeed, that St.
Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans, being in prayer, was carried up into the
world of spirits, and that among the things which the Lord showed to
him, he beheld Charles tormented in the lowest depths of hell. The angel
who conducted him, being interrogated on this matter, answered him that,
in the judgment to come, the soul and body of him who has taken, or who
has divided the goods of the Church, shall be delivered over, even
before the end of the world, to eternal torments by the sentence of the
saints, who shall sit together with the Lord to judge him. This act of
sacrilege shall add to his own sins the accumulated sins of all those
who thought that they had purchased their redemption by giving for the
love of God their goods to holy places, to the lights of divine worship,
and to the alms of the servants of Christ." This amusing but instructive
quotation strikingly shows how quickly the semi barbarian Frankish
clergy had caught the methods of Rome in the defence of temporal
possessions.
[Sidenote: The epoch of Pepin.]
[Sidenote: His conspiracy with the pope.]
[Sidenote: Its results.]
Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, introduces us to an epoch and a policy
resembling in many respects that of Constantine the Great; for he saw
that by an alliance with the Church it would be possible for him to
displace his sovereign and attain to kingly power. A thorough
understanding was entered upon between Pepin and the pope. Each had his
needs. One wanted the crown of France, the other liberation from
Constantinople and the Lombards. Pepin commenced by enriching the clergy
with immense gifts, and assigning to the bishops seats in the assembly
of the nation. In thus consolidating ecclesiastical power he occasioned
a great social revolution, as was manifested by the introduction of the
Latin and the disuse of the Frankic on those occasions, and by the
transmuting of military reviews into theological assemblies. Meantime
Pope Zachary, on his part, made ready to accomplish his engagement, the
chaplain of Pepin being the intermedium of negotiation. On the demand
being formally made, the pope decided that "he should be king who really
possessed the royal power." Hereupon, in March, A.D. 752, Pepin caused
himself to be raised by his soldiers on a buckler and proclaimed King of
the Franks. To give solemnity to the event, he was anointed by the
bishops with oil. The deposed king, Childeric III., was shut up in the
convent of St. Omer. Next year Pope Stephen III., driven to extremity,
applied to Pepin for assistance against the Lombards. It was during
these transactions that he fell upon the device of enforcing his demand
by a letter which he feigned had been written by St. Peter to the
Franks. And now, visiting France, the pope, as an earnest of his
friendship, and as the token of his completion of the contract, in the
monastery of St. Denis, placed, with his own hands, the diadem on
Pepin's brow, and anointed him, his wife, and children, with "the holy
oil," thereby reviving the Jewish system of creating kings by
anointment, and imparting to his confederate "a divine right." Pepin now
finally defeated the Lombards, and assigned a part of the conquered
territory to the pope. Thus, by a successful soldier, two important
events had been accomplished--a revolution in France, attended by a
change of dynasty, and a revolution in Christendom--the Bishop of Rome
had become a temporal sovereign. To the hilt of the sword of France the
keys of St. Peter were henceforth so firmly bound that, though there
have been great kings, and conquerors, and statesmen who have wielded
that sword, not one to this day has been able, though many have desired,
to wrench the encumbrance away.
[Sidenote: The reign of Charlemagne.]
Charlemagne, on succeeding his father Pepin, thoroughly developed his
policy. At the urgent entreaty of Pope Stephen III. he entered Italy,
subjugated the Lombards, and united the crown of Lombardy to that of
France. Upon the pagan Saxons burning the church of Deventer, he
commenced a war with them which lasted thirty-three years, and ended in
their compulsory Christianization. As the circle of his power extended,
he everywhere founded churches and established bishoprics, enriching
them with territorial possessions. To the petty sovereigns, as they
successively succumbed, he permitted the title of counts. True to his
own and his father's understanding with the pope, he invariably insisted
on baptism as the sign of submission, punishing with appalling barbarity
any resistance, as on the occasion of the revolt, A.D. 782, when, in
cold blood, he beheaded in one day 4500 persons at Verden. Under such
circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that clerical influence
extended so fast; yet, rapid as was its development, the power of
Charlemagne was more so.
[Sidenote: He is crowned Emperor of the West,]
In the church of St. Peter at Rome, on Christmas-day, A.D. 800, Pope Leo
III., after the celebration of the holy mysteries, suddenly placed on
the head of Charlemagne a diadem, amid the acclamations of the people,
"Long life and victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by
God, the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans." His head and body
were anointed with the holy oil, and, as was done in the case of the
Cæsars, the pontiff himself saluted or adored him. In the coronation
oath Charlemagne promised to maintain the privileges of the Church.
[Sidenote: and carries out his compact with the papacy.]
The noble title of "Emperor of the West" was not inappropriate, for
Charlemagne ruled in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary. An inferior
dignity would not have been equal to his deserts. His princely
munificence to St. Peter was worthy of the great occasion, and even in
his minor acts he exhibited a just appreciation of his obligations to
the apostle. He proceeded to make in his dominions such changes in the
Church organization as the Italian policy required, substituting, for
instance, the Gregorian for the Ambrosian chant, and, wherever his
priests resisted, he took from them by force their antiphonaries. As an
example to insubordinates he, at the request of the pope, burnt some of
the singers along with their books.
[Sidenote: He declines image-worship,]
[Sidenote: but permits relic-worship.]
[Sidenote: His policy as respects slavery.]
The rapid growth of the power of Charlemagne, his overshadowing
pre-eminence, and the subordinate position of the pope, who had really
become his Italian lieutenant, are strikingly manifested by the event of
image-worship in the West. On this, as we shall in another chapter see,
the popes had revolted from their iconoclastic sovereigns of
Constantinople. The second Council of Nicea had authorized
image-worship, but the good sense of Charlemagne was superior to such
idolatry. He openly expressed his disapproval, and even dictated a work
against it--the Carolinian books. The pope was therefore placed in a
singular dilemma, for not only had image-worship been restored at
Constantinople, and the original cause of the dispute removed, but the
new protector, Charlemagne, had himself embraced iconoclasm. However, it
was not without reason that the pope at this time avoided the
discussion, for a profitable sale of bones and relics, said to be those
of saints but in reality obtained from the catacombs of Rome, had
arisen. To the barbarian people of the north these gloomy objects proved
more acceptable than images of wood, and the traffic, though
contemptible, was more honourable than the slave-trade in vassals and
peasant children which had been carried on with Jews and Mohammedans.
Like all the great statesmen of antiquity, who were unable to comprehend
the possibility of a highly civilized society without the existence of
slavery, Charlemagne accepted that unfortunate condition as a political
necessity, and attempted to draw from it as much benefit as it was
capable of yielding to the state. From certain classes of slaves he
appointed, by a system of apprenticeship, those who should be devoted to
the mechanical arts and to trade. It was, however, slavery and warfare
which, during his own life, by making the possession of property among
small proprietors an absolute disadvantage, prepared the way for that
rapid dissolution of his empire so quickly occurring after his death.
[Sidenote: The European slave-trade.]
Yet, though Charlemagne thus accepted the existence of slavery as a
necessary political evil, the evidences are not wanting that he was
desirous to check its abuses wherever he could. When the Italian dukes
accused Pope Adrian of selling his vassals as slaves to the Saracens,
Charlemagne made inquiry into the matter, and, finding that transactions
of the kind had occurred in the port of Civita Vecchia, though he did
not choose to have so infamous a scandal made public, he ever afterwards
withdrew his countenance from that pope. At that time a very extensive
child slave-trade was carried on with the Saracens through the medium of
the Jews, ecclesiastics as well as barons selling the children of their
serfs.
[Sidenote: Improvements of the physical state of the people.]
[Sidenote: State of the clergy.]
Though he never succeeded in learning how to write, no one appreciated
better than Charlemagne the value of knowledge. He laboured assiduously
for the elevation and enlightenment of his people. He collected together
learned men; ordered his clergy to turn their attention to letters;
established schools of religious music; built noble palaces, churches,
bridges; transferred, for the adornment of his capital, Aix-la-Chapelle,
statues from Italy; organized the professions and trades of his cities,
and gave to his towns a police. Well might he be solicitous that his
clergy should not only become more devout, but more learned. Very few of
them knew how to read, scarcely any to write. Of the first half of the
eighth century, a period of great interest, since it includes the
invasion of France by the Saracens, and their expulsion, there is
nothing more than the most meagre annals; the clergy understood much
better the use of the sword than that of the pen. The schools of
Charlemagne proved a failure, not through any fault of his, but because
the age had no demand for learning, and the Roman pontiffs and their
clergy, as far as they troubled themselves with any opinion about the
matter, thought that knowledge was of more harm than good.
[Sidenote: Private life of Charlemagne.]
[Sidenote: His relations with the Saracens.]
The private life of Charlemagne was stained with great immoralities and
crimes. He indulged in a polygamy scarcely inferior to that of the
khalifs, solacing himself with not less than nine wives and many
concubines. He sought to increase the circle of the former, or perhaps
it should be said, considering the greatness of his statesmanship, to
unite the Eastern and Western empires together by a marriage with the
Empress Irene. This was that Irene who put out the eyes of her own son
in the porphyry chamber at Constantinople. His fame extended into Asia.
The Khalif Haroun al Raschid, A.D. 801, sent him from Bagdad the keys of
our Saviour's sepulchre as a mark of esteem from the Commander of the
Faithful to the greatest of Christian kings. However, there was
doubtless as much policy as esteem in this, for the Asiatic khalifs
perceived the advantage of a good understanding with the power that
could control the emirs of Spain. Always bearing in mind his engagement
with the papacy, that Roman Christianity should be enforced upon Europe
wherever his influence could reach, he remorselessly carried into
execution the penalty of death that he had awarded to the crimes of, 1,
refusing baptism; 2, false pretence of baptism; 3, relapse to idolatry;
4, the murder of a priest or bishop; 5, human sacrifice; 6, eating meat
in Lent. To the pagan German his sword was a grim, but a convincing
missionary. To the last he observed a savage fidelity to his bond. He
died A.D. 814.
[Sidenote: Course of events after the death of Charlemagne.]
[Sidenote: Social condition of Europe.]
Such was the compact that had been established between the Church and
the State. As might be expected, the succeeding transactions exhibit an
alternate preponderance of one and of the other, and the degradation of
both in the end. Scarcely was Charlemagne dead ere the imbecile
character of his son and successor, Louis the Pious, gave the Church her
opportunity. By the expulsion of his father's numerous concubines and
mistresses, the scandals of the palace were revealed. I have not the
opportunity to relate in detail how this monarch disgracefully
humiliated himself before the Church; how, under his weak government,
the slave-trade greatly increased; how every shore, and, indeed, every
country that could be reached through a navigable river, was open to the
ravages of pirates, the Northmen extending their maraudings even to the
capture of great cities; how, in strong contrast with the social
decomposition into which Europe was falling, Spain, under her Mohammedan
rulers, was becoming rich, populous, and great; how, on the east, the
Huns and Avars, ceasing their ravages, accepted Christianity, and, under
their diversity of interests the nations that had been bound together by
Charlemagne separated into two divisions--French and German--and civil
wars between them ensued; how, through the folly of the clergy, who
vainly looked for protection from relics instead of the sword, the
Saracens ranged uncontrolled all over the south, and came within an
hair's-breadth of capturing Rome itself; how France, at this time, had
literally become a theocracy, the clergy absorbing everything that was
worth having; how the pope, trembling at home, nevertheless maintained
an external power by interfering with domestic life, as in the quarrel
with King Lothaire II. and his wife; how Italy, France, and Germany
became, as Africa and Syria had once been, full of miracles; how,
through these means the Church getting the advantage, John VIII. thought
it expedient to assert his right of disposing of the imperial crown in
the case of Charles the Bald (the imperial supremacy that Charlemagne
had obtained in reality implied the eventual supremacy of the pope); how
an opportunity which occurred for reconstructing the empire of the West
under Charles the Fat was thwarted by the imbecility of that sovereign,
an imbecility so great that his nobles were obliged to depose him; how,
thereupon, a number of new kingdoms arose, and Europe fell, by an
inevitable necessity, into a political chaos; how, since there was thus
no protecting government, each great landowner had to protect himself,
and the rightfulness of private war became recognised; how, through this
evil state, the strange consequence ensued of a great increase in the
population, it becoming the interest of every lord to raise as many
peasants as he could, offering his lands on personal service, the value
of an estate being determined by the number of retainers it could
furnish, and hence arose the feudal system; how the monarchical
principle, once again getting the superiority, asserted its power in
Germany in Henry the Fowler and his descendants, the three Othos; how,
by these great monarchs, the subjection of Italy was accomplished, and
the morality of the German clergy vindicated by their attempts at the
reformation of the papacy, which fell to the last degree of degradation,
becoming, in the end, an appanage of the Counts of Tusculum, and,
shameful to be said, in some instances given by prostitutes to their
paramours or illegitimates, in some, to mere boys of precociously
dissolute life; before long, A.D. 1045, it was actually to be sold for
money. We have now approached the close of a thousand years from the
birth of Christ; the evil union of the Church and State, their
rivalries, their intrigues, their quarrels, had produced an inevitable
result, doing the same in the West that they had done in the East;
disorganizing the political system, and ending in a universal social
demoralization. The absorption of small properties into large estates
steadily increased the number of slaves; where there had once been many
free families, there was now found only a rich man. Even of this class
the number diminished by the same process of absorption, until there
were sparsely scattered here and there abbots and counts with enormous
estates worked by herds of slaves, whose numbers, since sometimes one
man possessed more than 20,000 of them, might deceive us, if we did not
consider the vast surface over which they were spread. Examined in that
way, the West of Europe proves to have been covered with forests, here
and there dotted with a convent or a town. From those countries, once
full of the splendid evidences of Roman civilization, mankind was fast
disappearing. There was no political cause, until at a later time, when
the feudal system was developed, for calling men into existence.
Whenever there was a partial peace, there was no occasion for the
multiplication of men beyond the intention of extracting from them the
largest possible revenue, a condition implying their destruction. Soon
even the necessity for legislation ceased; events were left to take
their own course. Through the influence of the monks the military spirit
declined; a vile fetichism of factitious relics, which were working
miracles in all directions, constituted the individual piety. Whoever
died without bequeathing a part of his property to the Church, died
without confession and the sacraments, and forfeited Christian burial.
Trial by battle, and the ordeals of fire and boiling water, determined
innocence or guilt in those accused of crimes. Between places at no
great distance apart intercommunication ceased, or, at most, was carried
on as in the times of the Trojan War, by the pedlar travelling with his
packs.
[Sidenote: Expected end of the world, A.D. 1000.]
[Sidenote: Effects of the union of Church and state.]
In these deplorable days there was abundant reason to adopt the popular
expectation that the end of all things was at hand, and that the year
1000 would witness the destruction of the world. Society was dissolving,
the human race was disappearing, and with difficulty the melancholy
ruins of ancient civilization could be traced. Such was the issue of the
second attempt at the union of political and ecclesiastical power. In a
former chapter we saw what it had been in the East, now we have found
what it was in the West. Inaugurated in selfishness, it strengthens
itself by violence, is perpetuated by ignorance, and yields as its
inevitable result, social ruin.
And while things were thus going to wreck in the state, it was no better
in the Church. The ill-omened union between them was bearing its only
possible fruit, disgrace to both--a solemn warning to all future ages.
[Sidenote: Value of the new system estimated from the lives of the
popes.]
3d. This brings me to the third and remaining topic I proposed to
consider in this chapter, to determine the actual religious value of the
system in process of being forced upon Europe, using, for the purpose,
that which must be admitted as the best test--the private lives of the
popes.
[Sidenote: Apology for referring to the biography of the popes.]
To some it might seem, considering the interests of religion alone,
desirable to omit all biographical reference to the popes; but this
cannot be done with justice to the subject. The essential principle of
the papacy, that the Roman pontiff is the vicar of Christ upon earth,
necessarily obtrudes his personal relations upon us. How shall we
understand his faith unless we see it illustrated in his life? Indeed,
the unhappy character of those relations was the inciting cause of the
movements in Germany, France, and England, ending in the extinction of
the papacy as an actual political power, movements to be understood only
through a sufficient knowledge of the private lives and opinions of the
popes. It is well, as far as possible, to abstain from burdening systems
with the imperfections of individuals. In this case they are inseparably
interwoven. The signal peculiarity of the papacy is that, though its
history may be imposing, its biography is infamous. I shall, however,
forbear to speak of it in this latter respect more than the occasion
seems necessarily to require; shall pass in silence some of those cases
which would profoundly shock my religious reader, and therefore restrict
myself to the ages between the middle of the eighth and the middle of
the eleventh centuries, excusing myself to the impartial critic by the
apology that these were the ages with which I have been chiefly
concerned in this chapter.
[Sidenote: The popes from A.D. 757.]
On the death of Pope Paul I., who had attained the pontificate A.D. 757,
the Duke of Nepi compelled some bishops to consecrate Constantine, one
of his brothers, as pope; but more legitimate electors subsequently,
A.D. 768, choosing Stephen IV., the usurper and his adherents were
severely punished; the eyes of Constantine were put out; the tongue of
the Bishop Theodorus was amputated, and he was left in a dungeon to
expire in the agonies of thirst. The nephews of Pope Adrian seized his
successor, Pope Leo III., A.D. 795, in the street, and, forcing him into
a neighbouring church, attempted to put out his eyes and cut out his
tongue; at a later period, this pontiff trying to suppress a conspiracy
to depose him, Rome became the scene of rebellion, murder, and
conflagration. His successor, Stephen V., A.D. 816, was ignominiously
driven from the city; his successor, Paschal I., was accused of
blinding and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran Palace; it was
necessary that imperial commissioners should investigate the matter, but
the pope died, after having exculpated himself by oath before thirty
bishops. John VIII., A.D. 872, unable to resist the Mohammedans, was
compelled to pay them tribute; the Bishop of Naples, maintaining a
secret alliance with them, received his share of the plunder they
collected. Him John excommunicated, nor would he give him absolution
unless he would betray the chief Mohammedans and assassinate others
himself. There was an ecclesiastical conspiracy to murder the pope; some
of the treasures of the Church were seized; and the gate of St.
Pancrazia was opened with false keys, to admit the Saracens into the
city. Formosus, who had been engaged in these transactions, and
excommunicated as a conspirator for the murder of John, was subsequently
elected pope, A.D. 891; he was succeeded by Boniface VI., A.D. 896, who
had been deposed from the diaconate, and again from the priesthood, for
his immoral and lewd life. By Stephen VII., who followed, the dead body
of Formosus was taken from the grave, clothed in the papal habiliments,
propped up in a chair, tried before a council, and the preposterous and
indecent scene completed by cutting off three of the fingers of the
corpse and casting it into the Tiber; but Stephen himself was destined
to exemplify how low the papacy had fallen: he was thrown into prison
and strangled. In the course of five years, from A.D. 896 to A.D. 900,
five popes were consecrated. Leo V., who succeeded in A.D. 904, was in
less than two months thrown into prison by Christopher, one of his
chaplains, who usurped his place, and who, in his turn, was shortly
expelled from Rome by Sergius III., who, by the aid of a military force,
seized the pontificate, A.D. 905. This man, according to the testimony
of the times, lived in criminal intercourse with the celebrated
prostitute Theodora, who, with her daughters Marozia and Theodora, also
prostitutes, exercised an extraordinary control over him. The love of
Theodora was also shared by John X.: she gave him first the
archbishopric of Ravenna, and then translated him to Rome, A.D. 915, as
pope. John was not unsuited to the times; he organized a confederacy
which perhaps prevented Rome from being captured by the Saracens, and
the world was astonished and edified by the appearance of this warlike
pontiff at the head of his troops. By the love of Theodora, as was said,
he had maintained himself in the papacy for fourteen years; by the
intrigues and hatred of her daughter Marozia he was overthrown. She
surprised him in the Lateran Palace; killed his brother Peter before his
face; threw him into prison, where he soon died, smothered, as was
asserted, with a pillow. After a short interval Marozia made her own son
pope as John XI., A.D. 931. Many affirmed that Pope Sergius was his
father, but she herself inclined to attribute him to her husband
Alberic, whose brother Guido she subsequently married. Another of her
sons, Alberic, so called from his supposed father, jealous of his
brother John, cast him and their mother Marozia into prison. After a
time Alberic's son was elected pope, A.D. 956; he assumed the title of
John XII., the amorous Marozia thus having given a son and a grandson to
the papacy. John was only nineteen years old when he thus became the
head of Christendom. His reign was characterized by the most shocking
immoralities, so that the Emperor Otho I. was compelled by the German
clergy to interfere. A synod was summoned for his trial in the Church of
St. Peter, before which it appeared that John had received bribes for
the consecration of bishops, that he had ordained one who was but ten
years old, and had performed that ceremony over another in a stable; he
was charged with incest with one of his father's concubines, and with so
many adulteries that the Lateran Palace had become a brothel; he put out
the eyes of one ecclesiastic and castrated another, both dying in
consequence of their injuries; he was given to drunkenness, gambling,
and the invocation of Jupiter and Venus. When cited to appear before the
council, he sent word that "he had gone out hunting;" and to the fathers
who remonstrated with him, he threateningly remarked "that Judas, as
well as the other disciples, received from his master the power of
binding and loosing, but that as soon as he proved a traitor to the
common cause, the only power he retained was that of binding his own
neck." Hereupon he was deposed, and Leo VIII. elected in his stead,
A.D. 963; but subsequently getting the upper hand, he seized his
antagonists, cut off the hand of one, the nose, finger, tongue of
others. His life was eventually brought to an end by the vengeance of a
man whose wife he had seduced.
[Sidenote: The papacy bought at auction A.D. 1045, by Gregory VI.]
After such details it is almost needless to allude to the annals of
succeeding popes: to relate that John XIII. was strangled in prison;
that Boniface VII. imprisoned Benedict VII., and killed him by
starvation; that John XIV. was secretly put to death in the dungeons of
the Castle of St. Angelo; that the corpse of Boniface was dragged by the
populace through the streets. The sentiment of reverence for the
sovereign pontiff, nay, even of respect, had become extinct in Rome;
throughout Europe the clergy were so shocked at the state of things,
that, in their indignation, they began to look with approbation on the
intention of the Emperor Otho to take from the Italians their privilege
of appointing the successor of St. Peter, and confine it to his own
family. But his kinsman, Gregory V., whom he placed on the pontifical
throne, was very soon compelled by the Romans to fly; his
excommunications and religious thunders were turned into derision by
them; they were too well acquainted with the true nature of those
terrors; they were living behind the scenes. A terrible punishment
awaited the Anti-pope John XVI. Otho returned into Italy, seized him,
put out his eyes, cut off his nose and tongue, and sent him through the
streets mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail, and a wine-bladder
on his head. It seemed impossible that things could become worse; yet
Rome had still to see Benedict IX., A.D. 1033, a boy of less than twelve
years, raised to the apostolic throne. Of this pontiff, one of his
successors, Victor III., declared that his life was so shameful, so
foul, so execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a
captain of banditti rather than a prelate. The people at last, unable to
bear his adulteries, homicides, and abominations any longer, rose
against him. In despair of maintaining his position, he put up the
papacy to auction. It was bought by a presbyter named John, who became
Gregory VI., A.D. 1045.
[Sidenote: Conclusion respecting this biography.]
More than a thousand years had elapsed since the birth of our Saviour,
and such was the condition of Rome. Well may the historian shut the
annals of those times in disgust; well may the heart of the Christian
sink within him at such a catalogue of hideous crimes. Well may he ask,
Were these the vicegerents of God upon earth--these, who had truly
reached that goal beyond which the last effort of human wickedness
cannot pass?
[Sidenote: The philosophical conclusion at last attained.]
[Sidenote: The evils imputed to the nature of papal election.]
Not until several centuries after these events did public opinion come
to the true and philosophical conclusion--the total rejection of the
divine claims of the papacy. For a time the evils were attributed to the
manner of the pontifical election, as if that could by any possibility
influence the descent of a power which claimed to be supernatural and
under the immediate care of God. The manner of election was this. The
Roman ecclesiastics recommended a candidate to the College of Cardinals;
their choice had to be ratified by the populace of Rome, and, after
that, the emperor must give his approval. There were thus to be brought
into agreement the machinations of the lower ecclesiastics, the
intrigues of the cardinals, the clamours of the rabble of Rome, and the
policy of the emperor. Such a system must inevitably break to pieces
with its own incongruities. Though we may wonder that men failed to see
that it was merely a human device, we cannot wonder that the emperors
perceived the necessity of taking the appointments into their own hands,
and that Gregory VII. was resolved to confine it to the College of
Cardinals, to the exclusion of the emperor, the Roman people, and even
of the rest of Christendom--an attempt in which he succeeded.
[Sidenote: Human origin of the papacy.]
No one can study the development of the Italian ecclesiastical power
without discovering how completely it depended on human agency, too
often on human passion and intrigues; how completely wanting it was of
any mark of the Divine construction and care--the offspring of man, not
of God, and therefore bearing upon it the lineaments of human passions,
human virtues, and human sins.