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 century their dominion was founded on rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced, and justified, by the heresy of the Iconoclasts; but the conduct of the second and third Gregory, in this memorable contest, is variously interpreted by the wishes of their friends and enemies. The Byzantine writers unanimously declare that, after a fruitless admonition, they 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; and, as they are more strongly attached to their religion than to their country, they praise, instead of blaming, the zeal and orthodoxy of these apostolical men. 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; and, if they are asked why the same thunders were not hurled against the Neros and Julians of antiquity, they reply that the weakness of the primitive church was the sole cause of her patient loyalty. On this occasion, the effects of love and hatred are the same; and the zealous Protestants, who

21

21 Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem aut Julianum, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis (honest Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont. 1. v. c. 7). Cardinal Perron adds a distinction more honourable to the first Christians, but not more satisfactory to modern princes-the treason of heretics and apostates, who break their oath, belie their coin, and renounce their allegiance to Christ and his vicar (Perroniana, p. 89).

seek to kindle the indignation, and to alarm the fears, of princes and magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and treason of the two Gregories against their lawful sovereign.22 They are defended only by the moderate Catholics, for the most part, of the Gallican church, who respect the saint without approving the sin. These common advocates of the crown and the mitre circumscribe the truth of facts by the rule of equity, scripture, and tradition; and appeal to the evidence of the Latins, and the lives 23 and epistles of the popes themselves.

Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor Leo, are still extant; 24 and, if they cannot be praised as the most perfect models of eloquence and logic, they exhibit the portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the papal monarchy. "During ten pure and fortunate years," says Gregory to the emperor, 66 we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink with your own hand, the sacred pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers. How deplorable is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You now accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you

22 Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage (Hist. de l'Eglise, pp. 1350. 1351), and the vehement Spanheim (Hist. Imaginum), who, with an hundred more, tread in the footsteps of the centuriators of Magdeburg.

23 With some minute difference, the most learned critics, Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini, Muratori (Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.), are agreed that the Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued by the apostolical librarians and notaries of the viiith and ixth centuries; and that the last and smallest part is the work of Anastasius, whose name it bears. The style is barbarous, the narrative partial, the details are trifling; yet it must be read as a curious and authentic record of the times. The epistles of the popes are dispersed in the volumes of Councils.

24 The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved in the Acts of the Nicene Council (tom. viii. pp. 651-674). They are without a date, which is variously fixed, by Baronius in the year 726, by Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 120) in 729, and by Pagi in 730. Such is the force of prejudice, that some Papists have praised the good sense and moderation of these letters.

betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments; the first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion; and, were you to enter a grammar-school and avow yourself the enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked to cast their horn-books at your head.” After this decent salutation, the pope attempts the usual distinction between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or dæmons, at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles, the innocence and merit of this relative worship. He must indeed have trusted to the ignorance of Leo, since he could assert the perpetual use of images from the apostolic age, and their venerable presence in the six synods of the Catholic church. A more specious argument is drawn from present possession and recent practice; the harmony of the Christian world supersedes the demand of a general council; and Gregory frankly confesses that such assemblies can only be useful under the reign of an orthodox prince. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than an heretic, he recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to his spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. The limits of civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined by the pontiff. To the former he appropriates the body; to the latter, the soul: the sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate; the more formidable weapon of excommunication is entrusted 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. "You assault us, O tyrant! with a carnal and military hand; unarmed and naked, we can only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body and the salva

tion of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance, I will despatch my orders to Rome; I will break in pieces the image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in chains, and în exile, to the foot of the Imperial throne. Would to God that I might be permitted to tread in the footsteps of the holy Martin; but may the fate of Constans serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church! After his just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut off, in the fulness of his sins, by a domestic servant; the saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, among whom he ended his banishment and his life. But it is our duty to live for the edification and support of the faithful people; nor are we reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation of the city may perhaps expose it to your depredation; but we can remove to the distance of four-and-twenty stadia,25 to the first fortress of the Lombards, and then- -you may pursue the winds. Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union, the mediators of peace, between the East and West? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere, as a God upon earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from our hands the sacrament of baptism.26

25 Είκοσι τέσσαρα στάδια ὑποχωρήσει ὁ ̓Αρχιερεὺς Ρώμης εἰς τὴν χώραν τῆς Καμπανίας, καὶ ὕπαγε δίωξον τοὺς ἀνέμους (Epist. i. p. 664). This proximity of the Lombards is hard of digestion. Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu Beneventi, in the Script. Ital. tom. v. pp. 172, 173) forcibly reckons the twenty-four stadia, not from Rome, but from the limits of the Roman duchy, to the first fortress, perhaps Sora, of the Lombards. I rather believe that Gregory, with the pedantry of the age, employs stadia for miles without much inquiry into the genuine measure.

26 ̓Απὸ τῆς ἑσωτέρου δύσεως τοῦ λεγομένου Σεπτέτου (p. 665). The pope appears to have imposed on the ignorance of the

The barbarians have submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice of the shepherd. These pious barbarians are kindled into rage; they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East. Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head."

The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had been witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West, who related, with grief and indignation, the sacrilege of the emperor. But on the reception of his proscriptive edict they trembled for their domestic deities; the images of Christ and the virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in all the churches of Italy; and a strong alternative was proposed to the Roman pontiff, the royal favour as the price of his compliance, degradation and exile as the penalty of his disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed him to hesitate; and the haughty strain in which Gregory addressed the emperor displays his confidence in the truth of his doctrine or the powers of resistance. Without depending on prayers or miracles, he boldly armed against the public enemy, and his pastoral letters admonished the Italians of their danger and their duty. 27 At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the

Greeks; he lived and died in the Lateran; and in his time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced Christianity. May not this unknown Septetus have some reference to the chief of the Saxon Heptarchy to Ina king of Wessex, who, in the pontificate of Gregory the Second, visited Rome, for the purpose, not of baptism, but of pilgrimage?. (Pagi, A.D. 689, No 2, A.D. 726, No. 15).

27 I shall transcribe the important and decisive passage of the Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasi contra hostem se armavit, renuens hæresim ejus, scribens ubique se cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis. Igitur permoti omnes Pentapolenses atque Venetiarum exercitus contra Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes se nunquam in ejusdem pontificls condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis defensione viriliter decertare (p. 156).