blessed archbishop of Constantinople, the new Rome, shall hold the second rank, after the holy apostolic chair of the elder Rome.'

The title of the pope to the supremacy of the church, was questioned by the bishop of Constantinople, after the death of Justinian; and was afterwards renewed by the tyrant and usurper Phocas, A.D. 606. But the edict of Justinian was never rescinded: no earthly code of laws was ever more extensive or permanent than his; it was published A.D. 529; it continued to be the base of European legislation, till it began to be shaken by the revolution of France, and the code of Napoleon; and from the year 529 to 533 would seem to be the period, as may subsequently be seen, during which the spiritual supremacy of the pope was first fully and authoritatively established. In thus constituting or confirming an ecclesiastical supremacy, the emperors of Rome were preparing the way of a more lordly domination than they or their predecessors had ever exercised—and the purple was soon to be outshone by the scarlet. By committing authority over the church of Christ to the successive bishops of Rome, the Roman emperors lost the power of retarding the grossest corruption of the purest faith. "The popular election of the Latin bishops endeared them to the Romans; the public and private indigence was relieved by their ample revenue; and the weakness or neglect of the emperors compelled them to consult, both in peace and war, the temporal safety of the city. In the school of adversity the priest insensibly imbibed the virtues and the ambition of a prince; the same character was assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the Greek, or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and after the loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. It is agreed that, in the eighth cen

tury, their dominion was founded on rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced and justified by the heresy of the Iconoclasts"* or breakers of images. True to the character of an apostate church, and giving palpable demonstration of a falling away from the simplicity and spirituality of the Christian faith, the papal power, in defending and maintaining the worship of images, triumphed over the imperial, which was exerted in vain for the suppression of idolatry. The edicts against image-worship, issued by the emperor Leo IV., were met by a sentence of excommunication, and an appeal to arms on the part of the "Father of the Church.” The Byzantine writers," in the words of Gibbon, "unanimously declare that, after a fruitless admonition, they (Popes Gregory I. and II.) pronounced the separation of the East and West, and deprived the sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue and sovereignty of Italy. Their excommunication is still more clearly expressed by the Greeks, who beheld the accomplishment of the papal triumphs. The modern champions of Rome are eager to accept the praise and the precedent; this great and glorious example of the deposition of royal heretics is celebrated by the cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine."+ The two original epistles from Gregory II to the emperor Leo, are still extant; and they exhibit the portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the papal MONARCHY. The limits of civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined by the pontiff.

* Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. c. 49. p. 131.

+Ibid. pp. 131, 132. The words of Baronius are, "Sic dignum posteris reliquit exemplum ni in Ecclesia Christi regnare sinerentur hæretici principes, si, sæpe moniti, in errore persistere obsti. nato animo invenirentur." Baron. A. D. 730. § 40." He thus left a worthy example to posterity, that, in the church of Christ, here. tical princes should not be permitted to reign, if, after repeated admonitions, they should be found to persist obstinately in error.”

To the former he appropriates the body; to the latter the soul; the sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrates; the more formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted to the clergy; and in the exercise of their divine commission, a zealous son will not spare his offending father; the successor of St. Peter may lawfully chastise the kings of the earth."*

The papal monarchy was thus founded; the supremacy of Rome was thus restored; the imperial power bowed down before the papal triumphs; and the pope, magnifying himself above either a Gothic king or a Roman emperor, became "lord of the ascendant." Out of the fourth monarchy, or Roman empire, the king, (a term used in other instances to denote a form of government, or succession of rulers) diverse from the rest, did according to his will; he exalted himself and magnified himself against every god. The pope not only exalted and magnified himself against earthly governors, or kings, (to whom the designation of gods is applied in Scripture, Ps. lxxxii. 6; John x. 34; 1 Cor. viii. 5.) and assumed the right of "lawfully chastising them, but as the successor of St. Peter he laid claim to far higher authority. All the dignities and prerogatives of the apostle, in utter forgetfulness of the true character of the followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, were held as the possession and patrimony of the pope of Rome. And magnifying his office infinitely beyond any other, Gregory II., in writing to the emperor, maintained that "all the kingdoms of the West held the apostle Peter as a Gon upon earth."+

It was not merely in name that the pope exalted and magnified himself. From the assumption of spiritual authority, he attained a temporal dominion.

* Gibbon's Hist. ib. pp. 134, 135.

† Ον ἅι πασαι βασιλεῖαι της δύσεως ως ΘΕΟΝ ἐπίγειον Exov. Greg. II. Epist. i. Bin. Tom. 5, p. 508.

"His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and potentates of the West, his recent services, their gratitude, an oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord ; and the face and inscription are apparent on the most ancient coins. Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the reverence of 1000 years."

In the middle of the eighth century the fate of kingdoms was influenced by the decision of the pope. "The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian family (i. e. the family of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great,) form the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and ecclesiastical history. The most essential gifts of the popes to the Carloviugian race were the dignities of king of France, and of patrician of Rome. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter, the nations began to resume the practice of seeking, on the banks of the Tiber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their fate." The ambassadors of France, in the name of the nobles, petitioned the Roman Pontiff to absolve them from their oath of fidelity to Childeric, the last descendant of Clovis, and to sanction the nomination of Pepin, the first of the Carlovingian princes. The rights of sovereignty yielded to the interests of the church. And as the temporal authority of the pope had begun by an act of rebellion in the defence of images, it was consolidated into an actual dominion, by Pepin and Charlemagne, because Pope Zachary, the "worthy" successor of the first of the Gregories, disannulled throughout a nation the sacred sanction of an oath, dethroned and degraded a monarch, and, in the first

* Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. p. 144.

Ibid. pp. 150, 151.

papal application of the royal unction, anointed an usurper in his stead.

"The gratitude of the Carlovingians was adequate to these obligations, and their names are consecrated as the saviours and benefactors of the Roman church. Her ancient patrimony of farms and houses was transformed by their bounty into the temporal dominion of cities and provinces; and the donation of the exarchate of Ravenna was the first fruits of the conquests of Pepin. The ample measure of the exarchate might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper limits were included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara; its inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which stretched along the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the midland country as far as the ridges of the Appenine. The splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute dominion, and the world beheld, for the first time, a Christian bishop invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince,the choice of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes, and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the dissolution of the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of the dutchy of Spoleto sought a refuge from the storm, shaved their heads after the Roman fashion, declared themselves the servants and subjects of St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary surrender, the present circle of the ecclesiastical state."*

"Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning: and the strong, though ignorant, barbarian was often entangled in the net of sacerdotal policy. The Vatican and Lateral were an arsenal and manufacture, which, according to the occasion, have produced or

* Gibbon's Hist. pp. 156, 157.