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lates his views, which completely agree with this idea
of two different orders, separate, yet in so far inter-
dependent that they both work towards the same pur-
pose, i. e. the salvation of the souls of men. The next
step is marked by the forcible and clear doctrine of
St. Gregory the Great (.590). His relations with the
emperors are too well-known to need re-statement.
It will be sufficient to note that, in his own words, he
would go as far as possible to accept every law and
statute of the imperial throne. "If what he does is
according to the canons, we will follow him; if it be
contrary to the canons, then so far as may be without
sin, we will bear with him" (Epist., Lib. XI, 47, in P.
L., LXXVII, 1167). Indeed, when in actual fact the
Emperor Maurice prohibited public officials from en-
tering monasteries, Gregory promulgated the decree,
though at the same time warning Maurice that it by
no means agreed with the declared will of the Divine
Omnipotence. By thus acting he said he had per-
formed his duty of obeying the civil power and yet
hatl kept his faith with God by declaring the matter
of that obedience unlawful (Lib. Ill, 65, in P. L.,
LXXVII, 663).
A last example of the papal doctrine of this period may be taken from the writings of this same pope. Maurice had given judgment in some matter, con- trary to the sacred laws and canons. The Bishop of Nicopolis, who as Metropolitan of Corcyra happened to be concerned in the affair, appealed to the pope against the imperial rescript. Gregory wrote admit- ting the bishop's interpretation to be correct and adhering to it, yet declared that he could not dare publicly to censure the emperor lest he should seem in any way to oppose or despise the civil power. (Lib. XIV,"S, inP. L.,LXXXII, 1311). His whole idea ap- pears to have been that the prince represented God. Every action therefore of the public authority (whether it tended to the sacred ends for which Government was founded, or was apparently destructive of ecclesiasti- cal liberties) was equally to be respected or at least not publicly to be flouted. This curious position taken up by the popes, of excessive subservience to the civil rulers, was due to a threefold cause:
(a) The need of correcting a certain anarchical spirit noted by the Apostles (I Pet., ii, 15, 16; Gal., v, ] ; II Cor., iii, 17; I Thess., iv, 10, 11, v, 4).
(b) The relation in which the protected Church stood to the first Christian emperor, represented by the words of St. Optatus, "DeSchismate Donatista- rum". III, iii: "Non enim respublica est in Ecclesia, sed Ecclesia in republica est . . . Super Imperatorem non sit nisi solus Deus " (The state is not in the Church, but the Church is in the state . . . Let God alone be above the emperor).
(c) The influence of the Biblical language as regards the theocratic kingship of Israel.
The teaching of the papacy that civil authority was held independently of any ecclesiastical gift was continued even in the days of Charlemagne, whose father owed so much of his power to papal influence (Decretals, I, 6, 34). Yet even the new line of Caesars claimed to hold their power of God. Their titles run "Gratia Dei Rex" or "Per misericordiam Dei rex" etc. (cf. Coronation of Charlemagne in "Jour- nal of Theological Studies", April and .luly, 1901). Thus through the ninth and tenth centuries the sepa- ration-theory of Pope Gelasius was generally taught and admitted. Both pope and emperor claimed to hold their power direct from God. He is the sole source of all authority. A new theory, however, was developing. While admitting that civil rulers are of God, the good by God's direct ap)>ointment, the wicked by God's permission for the diasti.sement and correction of the people's sin (Ilincmur, "Ep. xv ad Karolum rogem ", in P. L., CXXVI. 98), some writers " partially broach the idea that without justice the king is no king at all, but a tyrant (Mon. Germ. Hist.:
Epp., IV, " Epistolse Varia; Karoli Magni Script.", 7
etc.), for he must govern according to the laws which
in turn depend on the consent of the people (Hincmar,
"DeOrdine Palatii", 8, in M. G. H.: Log., sect. II,
vol. II).
Thus the compact-theory of a mutually binding en- gagement between sovereign and subjects enters the full stream of European political thought. It is per- petuated in the Old English Coronation oaths (Stubbs, "Select Charters", Oxford, 1900, 64 etc.). The use made of this theory by the popes will appear shortly. So far then the papal political ideals sketched out two authorities, independent, separate; the one supreme in temporal matters, the other in spiritual. Then in the tenth century, the point was raised, at first in a perfectly academic way, as to the relative importance of these two spheres of Government, as to which took precedence of the other. At first, the result of the con- troversy left things more or less as they had been. The one side asserted that the priesthood was the higher, because, while it was true that the priests had to render obedience to kings in temporal matters and the kings to priests in spiritual matters, yet on the priests rested the further burden of responsibility of seeing that the king performed his temporal duties in a fitting way, i. e. that the king's actions were matters of duty, therefore matters of conscience, and therefore matters that lay under the spiritual juris- diction of the Church.
These arguments may be briefly summarized thus: (a) that both powers lay within the physical pale of the Church; (b) that the priest was responsible for seeing that the king did his duty; (c) that the priest consecrated the king and not vice versa. The others ("Tractatus Eboracensis", in M. G. H.: Libelli de Lite, III, 662 sq.) replied by asserting that the em- peror had no less to see that the Church affairs were properly conducted (as much later Sigismund at Council of Constance; Lodge, "Close of Middle Ages", London, 1904, 212). Thus Leo III and Leo IV had submitted practically to the interference of Charle- magne (.800) and Louis II (853); and the concrete ex- ample of the Synod of Ponthiou (S53), summoned by the pope and commanded by the enijieior, was a stand- ing example of this general responsibility of each for the other (M. G. H. : Leg., II, vol. II, no. 279) . It is interesting however to recall a distinction thrown out almost at hazard by a twelfth-century canonist (Ru- finus, "Summa Decretorum", D. xxi. c. 1). Com- menting on a supposed letter of Nicholas II to the people of Milan, he distinguishes the papal right to interfere in temporal matters by conceding to him not a. jus adminislraUonis but a, jus jurisdictionis, i. e. the right of consecrating, etc.
The advent (1073) of Gregory VII to the papal chair greatly affected the policy of the Holy See (Tout, "Empire and Papacy", London, 1909, 126; Gos.sclin, "Power of the Pope in the Middle Ages"). But it is not so much his actions as his theories which are here under consideration. He took over the old patristic teaching that all rule and govern- ment had its origin in the fall of Adam, that orig- inal sin caused the necessity for one man to have command over another. Consequently he had hard things to say of the imperial position. Moreover he claimed more power than his predecessors. Both he and the emperor took extreme views of their respec- tive offices. The pope wished to put liimself at the head of the temporal rule, exercising the |)i)wer de- scribed in Jeremias i, 10. The empcnjr spoke of his traditional right of appointing and dcposinf;; popes. Neither can be taken as represeiilinn (hi' freneral sentiment of their time. The story of Caiids.sa with its legendary details is no more reiircscnl ;il ivr of pub- lic opinion in the eleventh century than is the dra- matic surrender of Pa.scal II in the twelfth. Hilde- brand, despite his high courage and noble character,
