THE following graphic description of this powerful Pope, whose official title was Gregory VII., is taken from the Rev. Frank C. Raynor’s “The Giant Masquerade,” a review of which appeared in the Magazine some years ago. By his strong and daring rule he imposed his iron will upon kings and princes, and made the Church supreme over the State, a condition of things that gave rise to the term Hildebrandianism that is the doctrine that the State is in subjection to the Church. We now give the quotation: “Gregory VII. (1073-1085) was perhaps the greatest man who ever sat on the throne of the popes. It was he who consolidated the papal system into the fierce autocracy which it afterwards became. He saw with unerring clearness that the Pope was the keystone of the soaring arch of sacerdotalism, and that political power alone could maintain his supremacy. As a constructive politician, and known as St Hildebrand, he was one of the greatest minds of western history.
He was of lowly origin, and spent his youth in a monastery in Rome, where he had ample opportunity of seeing the corruptions of the times. He practised the harshest austerities and delighted in the suppression of all bodily instincts. Arriving at manhood, he determined to seek a more congenial place for the practice of his strange piety. He accordingly went to Clugny, in Burgundy, where Odilo had achieved a widespread reformation in the monastic life of France. Here Gregory soon became master of all the knowledge of his time. But the life of holy retirement was not suited to his scheming and energetic spirit. He returns to Rome, and attaches himself to one of the three conflicting Popes. Not until 1073, however, did he consent to ascend the throne which he had for so many years dominated; but when he did so, his hand was soon felt with double weight.
Gregory’s ambition was to make the so-called Chair of St Peter the Great White Throne of the world, before which all should bow. This was the crown and flower of his policy, the passion throbbing through all his resolutions and labours, and the reward which sweetened his adversities. He achieved his desire and his own ruin almost in the same hour, falling mortally stricken even as he planted the standard on the captured pinnacle. As his life ebbed away in exile, Gregory was solaced by the reflection that he had set the coveted jewel of temporal power, fairest and most resplendent of earthly gems, in the triple crown. But he did not know how that evil stone was to be reddened by the feuds of ages, till it burned fierce as a tiger’s eye with savage jungle passions and ravenous appetite. No occult jewel on the brow of Indian goddess ever smouldered through the pages of fiction with more sinister and mysterious revenge, cursing every hand that touched it and changing men into beasts.
The dream of temporal power did not originate with Gregory, but he gave it its most magnificent interpretation, and enshrined the evil thing in the papal Holy of Holies. It had flickered before the “Seat of the Apostles” for ages. Was it a disease endemic in that Papal Chair? or a legacy from that teeming Roman dust of the Seven Hills? or had he who lied in the wilderness also whispered by that throne those ancient words, so subtle and poisonous, “All these will I give thee if—?”
Temporal power was the “ignis fatuus” which lured, crazed, and finally betrayed these spiritual princes to their doom. Even the wisest of them escaped not its malign spell, but with a strange, blind infatuation they pursued this evil genius to the abyss. Some of them doubtless thought, by the possession of this charm, better to serve the Kingdom of God, but the sequel only emphasised the tragic fallibility of their judgments, and revealed to the world a succession of spiritual leaders who had bartered God’s pillar of fire for the occult glitter of diabolical jewellery. Temporal power—how easy is it to see this to-day!—was a devil’s bait, a brilliant fly of gauze and enamel, a splendid decoy, which made the most spectacular catch the toils of darkness have ever enthralled, leaving marks of uttermost desolation on the history of spiritual religion.
Once the popes were caught in this glittering but fatal web, the Sword of the Spirit—that mystic Excalibur of conquest, whose triumphs had transfigured the early centuries—seemed to shrivel to a foolish toy, and was flung aside (nothing appears more vain and futile to a non-spiritual order than a reliance on heavenly power), now grasped the sceptre and clutched at the crown. Then, in the tumultuous panorama of historic scenes and rivalries which followed, the [so-called] successors of the Apostles snatch wildly at any means to power—sword, spear, cannon, arquebus, rack, thumb-screw, phial of poison, assassin’s dagger, or forger’s pen—for “they who stand in slippery places make nice of no vile hold to stay them up.” Century after century the fatal jewel works out its dark spell, and like a dreadful vice in the blood, the more it ruins, the more deadly-sweet its thrall-dom becomes. That sombre rock of temporal power, that papal Acropolis, crowned with that shimmering chair, must be sustained at any price; and who has a better right to employ the legions of the abyss to uphold his reign than that one who claims to hold the keys of hell? . . . . .
Gradually, by legend and presumption, the towering claim was built up. To these was added the still more daring ally—fraud. “After the middle of the eighth century,” says Janus, a Roman Catholic, “the famous Donation of Constantine was concocted at Rome.” The pretence was that Constantine, having been healed of leprosy by the Bishop of Rome, declared his intention of building a new capital in the East, and resigning to the Popes the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the West. “The forgery,” continued Janus, “betrayed its Roman authorship in every line; it is self evident that a cleric of the Lateran Church was the composer? Then in the middle of the ninth century rose “the huge fabrication of the Isidorian Decretals. About one hundred pretended decrees of the earliest popes, together with certain spurious writings of other church dignitaries and acts of synods, were then fabricated in the west of Gaul, and eagerly seized upon by Pope Nicholas I., to be used as genuine documents in support of the new claims put forward by himself and his successors? “Those forgeries,” says Gibbon, “were the two magic pillars of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes.” In spite of their absurd anachronisms, they were (so uncritical was the age) accepted as genuine until the dawn of the Reformation, and had an immense influence in advancing the pretensions of Rome.
It was upon this bizarre foundation of fact, fiction, and fraud that Gregory VII. determined to build. He began by attempting to reform the crying abuses among the clergy, most of whom kept their wives and concubines in their own homes. Gregory determined to enforce the law of celibacy (a celibate clergy, having no ties, were devoted slaves to the hierarchy), and called upon the people to forsake the immoral priest — a procedure which created for him legions of enemies. He then proceeded to make the election of the Pope independent of the Emperor, the Roman nobles, and people. To this end he called in the aid of the Norman robber-chiefs, who had made themselves masters of Southern Italy, to browbeat the Romans, while he snatched from them their prerogatives. He next took the step which was to embroil Europe in troubles for fifty years, and forbade the investiture of any priest by a layman. . . . Gregory’s act was aimed directly at the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry IV. He resisted, and summoned a Council at Worms which declared the Pope to be deposed. Gregory replied by deposing Henry from his throne, placing beneath him the ban of the Church, releasing his subjects from their allegiance, and exhorting them to the virtue of rebellion. There was much discontent in the Empire at the time, and princes, priests, and people abandoned their unfortunate Emperor, who was forced to bow to the storm, and endure the most humiliating penance. Crossing the Alps in the depth of winter, garbed in rough sackcloth, this prince, more accustomed to riding at the head of his armies, came at last to the Castle of Canossa, in the courtyard of which, shivering with cold and hunger, mocked by the beggars and passers-by, he waited three days and three nights, imploring absolution of the proud and triumphant priest, who with the Countess Matilda, enjoyed the spectacle from within. Never was humiliation more abject, never triumph more complete. But Henry had his revenge. A few years later he captured Rome, put it to fire and sword, and set up a new Pope. Gregory died in exile (1085). Gregory, however, had not lived in vain. The spectacle of Canossa had dazzled the imagination of Europe, and set the tiara scintillating with brilliance. The world had seen an Emperor prostrate in the dust before this almost supernatural “Vicar of Christ.” It could not forget.”
The eye may be watery, and the heart flinty. An apricot may be soft without, but it has a hard stone within.—Thomas Watson.
The doctrine of the death of Christ is the substance of the Gospel.—Stephen Charnock.