CHAPTER X. THE PATRIARCHAL AND THE PAPAL GOVERNMENT. I. THE patriarchal government. This form of the hierarchy we shall dismiss with a very brief notice. The principles on which it was based, and its characteristics, were essentially the same as those of the metropolitan. The state of the church under this organization has of necessity been anticipated in the preceding remarks. It was only a farther concentration of ecclesiastical power, another stage in the process of centralization, which was fast bringing the church under the absolute despotism of the Papacy. Man naturally aspires to the exercise of arbitrary power; or, if he must divide his authority with others, he seeks to make that number as small as possible. This disposition had already manifested itself in the church. In many of the provinces there were ecclesiastical aspirants among the higher orders of the clergy, who, even to the fifth century, had not established an undisputed title to the prerogatives of metropolitans. But the continual effort and strife of the bishops for a greater consolidation of ecclesiastical power ended in the establishment of an ecclesiastical oligarchy in the fifth century, under the form of the patriarchal government.1 In the course of the period from the fourth to the sixth cen 1 Comp. Planck, Gesell. Verfass. I. S. 598-624. Ziegler's Versuch. etc. S. 164-365. tury, arose four great ecclesiastical divisions, whose primates bore the title of Patriarch. These were Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch. Few topics of antiquity have been the subject of so much controversy as that relating to the patriarchal system, as may be seen in the works of Salmasius, Petavius, Sismondi, Scheelstrate, Richter and others. Suffice it to say, however, that the council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, established five patriarchates. The council of Nice, A. D. 325, c. 6, 7, of Constantinople I, A. D. 381, c. 2, 5, and of Ephesus, A. D. 531, Act. 7, had already conferred the distinction without the title. The incumbents of these Episcopal Sees were already invested with civil powers. Theodosius the Great, conferred upon Constantinople the second rank, a measure greatly displeasing to Rome, and against which Alexandria and Antioch uniformly protested. Jerusalem had the honor and dignity of a patriarchate, but not the rights and privileges.2 The aspirations of prelatical ambition after sole and supreme power are sufficiently manifest in that bitter contest, which was so long maintained by the primates of Rome and Constantinople, for the title of universal patriarch or head of the church universal.3 Great political events finally decided this controversy in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries in the West, and in the East in the seventh century in favor of the church of Rome. This decision resulted in the supremacy of the Pope and the establishment of the papal system. II. The papal government. This was the last refinement of cunning and self-aggrandize 2 Hence the Romans were accustomed to say, Patriarchae in ecclesia primitus fuere, tres per se et ex natura sua,-Romanus, Alexandrinus et Antiochenus; duo per accidens, Constantinopolitanus et Hierosolymitanus. Comp. Justinia. Nov. Constit. 123. Schroeckh, Kirch. Gesch. Thl. 17. S. 45, 46. Comp. Art. Patriarch, in the works of Augusti, Siegel, Rheinwald, W. Böhmer, etc. 3 Πατριάρχος τῆς οἰκουμένης, episcopus oecumenicus, universalis ecclesiae papa, etc. ment; the culminating point of ecclesiastical usurpation, towards which the government of the church under the Episcopal hierarchy had been for several centuries approaching. It was an ecclesiastical monarchy, a spiritual despotism, which completed the overthrow of the authority of individual churches as sovereign and independent bodies.4 The bishop of Rome was originally indebted, for his authority and power, to the emperor of the East; an indebtedness which he continued for some time to feel. The bishop of Constantinople, on the other hand, acted with more independence. In some instances, he successfully resisted the will of the emperor. But the decline of the Eastern empire greatly promoted the ambitious designs of the bishop of Rome and the extension of his power in Italy. Meanwhile the territorial government of the Eastern church was greatly reduced in the seventh and eighth centuries; the hopes of Constantinople and of her patriarch suffered a corresponding reduction. Territory after territory fell away and was lost. The dioceses of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria were overrun with Mahomedanism. Thrace became tributary to Bulgaria, and Constantinople herself was besieged by the Saracens. The bishop of Rome now began his splendid career. It commenced with the overthrow of the emperor's authority in Italy, and ended in results auspicious to this aspiring prelate beyond his most ardent expectation. The incursion of the Longobards into Italy favored greatly the designs of the Roman bishop; indeed, without the concurrence of this invasion, his hopes might never have been realized. The important results of this circumstance to the Pope, the decline of the Eastern empire by the dismemberment of different provinces, and the influence of Gregory and Zacharius in promoting the papal supremacy by means of the war respecting image worship and other devices, is very clearly exhibited by 4 Comp. Planck, Gesell. Verfass. I. S. 624-673. Ziegler's Versuch. etc. S. 365-402. Ziegler.5 But Gregory III. surpassed all his predecessors in his political manœuvres. After making use of the invasion of the Longobards to reduce the power of the emperor, he took care to have them removed from the neighborhood of Rome, if not from Italy. Their presence had been the means of inspiring the people with a belief in the holiness of the Pope. The Franks were also deeply impressed with the same sentiments. It was accordingly the policy of Gregory to throw himself into the arms of the brave Charles Martel, that so the secular government of Rome might be removed as far as possible from the city. His next political manœuvre was, by the aid of the Franks, to expel the Longobards entirely from Italy. This crafty alliance of the Pope with Pepin, proved advantageous only to the designs of the prelate, and the chief means of establishing his secular power.6 This important point in history distinctly marks the date of the establishment of the papal power in Rome, which in the middle ages became so vast that all Europe trembled before it. Thus, as we have seen, ecclesiastical history introduces first to our notice, single independent churches; then, churches having several dependent branches; then, diocesan churches; then, metropolitan or provincial churches; and then, national churches attempered to the civil power. In the end, we behold two great divisions of ecclesiastical empire, the Eastern and the Western, now darkly intriguing, now fearfully struggling with each other for the mastery, until at last the doctrine of the unity of the church is consummated in the sovereignty of the Pope of Rome, who alone sits enthroned in power, claiming to be the head of the church on earth. The government of the church was at first a democracy, 5 Versuch. etc. S. 367. 6 Comp. Ziegler as above. Bowers, Gesch. der Papste, 4v. Thl. S. 398 seq. Le Bret, Gesch. von Ital. 1v. Thl. S. 36 seq. Especially Hullmann, Ursprünge der Verfass. in Mittelalter. Ranke's Hist. of Popes, B. 1. c. 1. § 7. allowing to all its constituents the most enlarged freedom of a voluntary religious association. It became an absolute and iron despotism. The gradations of ecclesiastical organization through which it passed, were, from congregational to parochial-parochial to diocesan-diocesan to metropolitan -metropolitan to patriarchal-patriarchal to papal. The The corruptions and abominations of the church, through that long night of darkness which succeeded the triumph of the Pope of Rome, were inexpressibly horrible. The record of them may more fitly lie shrouded in a dead language, than be disclosed to the light in the living speech of men. successors of St. Peter, as they call themselves, were frequently nominated to the chair of " his holiness" by women of infamous and abandoned lives. Not a few of them were shamefully immoral; and some, monsters of wickedness. Several were heretics, and others were deposed as usurpers. And yet this church of Rome," with such ministers, and so appointed,—a church corrupt in every part and every particular, -individually and collectively,—in doctrine, in discipline, in practice," this church, prelacy recognizes as the only representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the period now under consideration, invested with all his authority, and exercising divine powers on earth! She boasts her ordinances, her sacraments, transmitted for a thousand years, unimpaired and uncontaminated, through such hands! High-Church Episcopacy proudly draws her own apostolical succession through this pit of pollution, and then the followers of Christ, who care not to receive such grace from such hands, she calmly delivers over to God's "uncovenanted mercies!" Nay more, multitudes of that communion are now engaged in the strange work of "unprotestantizing the churches" which have washed themselves from these defilements. The strife is, with a proud array of talents, of learning, and of Episcopal power, to bury all spiritual religion again in the grave of forms, to shroud the light of truth in the gloom of popish tradition, and to sink the |