THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE by Percy T. Magan

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 9, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 23.

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

By Percy T. Magan

A REVIEW OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION IN CENTURY NINETEEN. NO. 17.

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.

HISTORIANS still recognize the importance of the date 476 [A.D.] as that which left the bishop of Rome the dominant personage in Italy and marked the shifting of the political center of gravity from the Palatine to the Lateran. THIS WAS ONE OF THOSE SUBTLE CHANGES WHICH ESCAPES NOTICE UNTIL AFTER SOME OF THEIR EFFECTS HAVE ATTRACTED ATTENTION.—John Fiske.

The object of this article will be to tell what the Holy Roman Empire was, and in the narration of the facts setting forth what it was, to show clearly what it was for. To write the factual history of this extraordinary, impracticable, sublime, yet ridiculous, religio-political governmental monstrosity is not the design of this paper. To do this would require a good-sized book. We will therefore confine ourselves to the theory upon which the Holy Roman Empire was built, rather than to the facts which make up the annals of its career.

The old Roman Empire, that is, the Pagan Roman Empire, was a despotism of the worst sort. This is a fact so patent that it needs no proof here. In it the pagan Church was allied with the pagan State; but the church was subordinate to the State. The deities of those days were only great because they had been made so by the Roman State. The Romans used to create their gods. And after they had made them, they mocked at them; that is, all the educated and intelligent Romans did; for they knew that their creations (these gods) were humbugs of the completest kind, to be used in duping the common people on matters of State. So Seneca in his tract "Against Superstition" wrote:—

The whole of that vulgar crowd of gods which for ages past a protean superstition has been accumulating, we shall worship in this sense, viz., that we ever remember the worship we pay them is due rather to good manners than to their own worth. All such rites the sage will observe, because they are commanded by the laws, not because they are pleasing to the gods.

In the Pagan Empire the religion was "an integral of the political constitution, a matter far more of national or tribal or family feeling than of personal." When Constantine adopted Christianity as the religion of the State, and threw off the languid paganism of his times, he adopted a system which hitherto had never been "an integral part of the political constitution," but which "was already a great political force, able, and no more able than willing, to repay him by aid and submission."

Now since the Christian Church "was already a great political force," it was impossible to make her an "integral part of the political constitution" in the same way and on the same basis that the pagan church had been. The ministers of the pagan church had ever been willing to be obedient servants of the State. The pagan church had been perfectly content to be the submissive wife of the pagan State, a domineering husband. The Christian church was equally determined to be the domineering mistress of a submissive State, a passive and pliant husband. It is therefore manifest that, with the feelings existing in the Christian church, she could never be identical with the civil power in the same way that the pagan church had been. She therefore became the counterpart of the State, and, in due process of time, elevated herself to the paramount place in all things in heaven and in earth, in civils and in spirituals. Then well indeed might Pope Boniface VIII. show himself to the crowding pilgrims at the Jubilee of 1300 A.D., seated on the throne of Rome, equipped with scepter, crown, and sword, shouting aloud, "I am Cæsar! I am emperor!"

Constantine the Great,—"great," in the elegant language of Dean Stanley, "rather by what he did than by what he was," gave to the fallen Christian church an ecclesiastical organization, which was the exact counterpart of the civil administration. For every civil officer there was a corresponding ecclesiastical functionary. How bitterly did his successors rue the day when he thus forged fetters which in after days bound them like bands of iron! That nothing of permanence can be accomplished without organization is an undisputed fact. And the more oppressive the proposed despotism, the more perfect must be the organization designed to carry it out. Pagan Rome was a despotic power, and to the perfection of her organization the united voices of governmental theorists in all ages since declare. And when her first Christian emperor gave to the fallen church an organization similar in every detail to that of the State, he placed in her hands that which was afterwards to become a terrible engine of tyranny to be used against his own successors with fearful success.

The pagan religion of the old empire was extinguished by Theodosius I. A.D. 379–395; but the empire itself lingered on in the West until A.D. 476. Then it was that Odoacer, chief of the barbaric Heruli, "sent the handsome boy Romulus, son of Orestes, better known as 'Little Augustus,' from his imperial throne to the splendid villa of Tucullus, near Naples, and gave him a yearly pension of $35,000 [6,000 solidi] to console him for the loss of a world."

While it is true that the old Roman Empire of the West passed away in A.D. 476, when Odoacer became patrician—while this is true in an attenuated sense, in the strictest sense it is not true at all. The real truth of the situation is summed up by John Fiske in the language which forms the motto of this treatise, and which, for the sake of perspicuity, we quote again, viz., "Historians still recognize the importance of the date 476 as that which left the bishop of Rome the dominant personage in Italy, and marked the shifting of the political center of gravity from the Palatine to the Lateran."

Such is the significance in verity of 476 A.D. For by the events which occurred in 476 the papal church secured such a foothold upon things political that all power was indeed removed from the Palatine to the Lateran—from the seat of the empire to the chair of St. Peter.

This transition of power came about after this manner: Odoacer, the barbarian conqueror of Italy, compelled, as has been said, Romulus Augustus to relinquish his throne. He then commanded a deputation from the Senate to journey to the Eastern court at Constantinople and lay the insignia of royalty at the feet of the reigning emperor, Zeno. This act was not regarded by those living at that time as the extinction of the Roman Empire of the West, but merely as a reunion of the empire of the West with that of the East under one head, as in days of old. And it is true that there was no legal extinction of the empire of the West at all. Rome (Papal) afterwards made great use of this to her own aggrandizement.

To Odoacer was given the title of PATRICIAN—one pregnant with meaning to after ages. This title had been introduced by Constantine "at a time when its original meaning had been long forgotten; it was designed to be, and for a while remained, the name, not of an office, but of a rank, the highest after those of emperor and consul. Gradually it came to express 'undefined authority,' implying 'in particular the duty of overseeing the church and promoting her temporal interests. It is usually associated with the terms 'defensor' and 'protector.'"

Now legally this title could of right emanate from the incumbent of the imperial throne alone. But early in century eight the Roman bishop threw off the yoke of the Eastern Empire because the latter did not believe in the worship of images. Gregory III. was the reigning pope. Freed from the emperors of the East, he was in immediate peril from the Lombard sovereigns of North Italy. In his dilemma he appealed to Charles Martel, mayor of the Frankish palace, and virtual ruler of the Frankish realm, begging him to haste to the succor of the Holy Church. Charles Martel died before he could obey the summons; but Pepin, his son, surnamed the Short, made good use of the new friendship with Rome. There is something interesting about this scene in the drama.

Charles Martel desired the throne of the Franks for himself and his line (the Carolingian). There was no earthly reason why he should have it any more than the Merovingian line, which had held it ever since the days of Clovis, who was the real founder of the Frankish monarchy.

The Carolingians were therefore clearly usurpers. They knew it and the Frankish (French) nation knew it, and they knew that the Frankish nation knew it, and would resist their illegal endeavors to secure the throne. The pope wanted protection from the Arian Lombard heretics. He also wanted to be a temporal sovereign in Italy. The Carolingian wanted the Frankish throne. "I know you are a rascal; but if you will defend me from the Lombard, I will tell the good Catholic nation of the Franks that your claim to the throne is a valid and a holy one, and they will accept you without a blow. Moreover, I will depose Childeric, the present Frankish king of the Merovingian line." "Agreed, said the Carolingian, and the bargain was struck." Says Bryce:—

A course was taken whose dangers no one then foresaw: the Holy See, now for the first time invoked as an international power, pronounced the deposition of Childeric, and gave to the royal office of his successor, Pepin, a sanctity hitherto unknown, adding to the old Frankish election, which consisted in raising the chief on a shield amid the clash of arms, the Roman diadem, and the Hebrew rite of anointing.

This does not speak very well for infallibility. It does not speak very well for Rome's first escapade in trying to arrange the internal affairs of a European nation. She took the side of a usurper, one whom the nation would not have received had it not been for the cloak of sanctity which she threw over his crimes. She is indeed a faithless friend, ever ready to barter her services to him who is the highest bidder, and who promises to be the most docile ally.

Pepin's son Charles, or Charlemagne, succeeded his father to the Frankish crown and the Roman diadem. At the bidding of Pope Hadrian he crossed the Alps, and in a single campaign annihilated the power of the Lombards.

He immediately proceeded to Rome with his triumphant troops, "the first," says the historian above quoted, "to find her love more deadly than her hate." "He yielded to the pontiff the place of honor in processions, and renewed . . . the gift of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, which Pepin had made to the Roman Church twenty years before."

In A.D. 796 Pope Leo III. succeeded Pope Hadrian. And on Christmas day A.D. 800 he crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans, in the basilica of St. Peter. Before gazing at the scene itself, or at the consequences of the scene, let us glance for a moment at the motives which had led each of the principal actors to play their part in the dramatic role.

To be called "emperor of the Romans" was an empty honor to the Frankish chief. But the name aroused his vanity. When this has been said about Charlemagne, there has been said, as far as we know, the worst thing that can be urged against him in this particular connection.

How now stands the case of the popes? Let Sir James Bryce answer:—

The policy of the popes was prompted by motives less noble. Ever since the extinction of the Western Empire had emancipated the ecclesiastical potentate from secular control, the first and most abiding object of his schemes and prayers had been the acquisition of territorial wealth in the neighborhood of his capital. He had indeed a sort of justification—for Rome, a city with neither trade nor industry, was crowded with poor, for whom it devolved on the bishop to provide. Yet the pursuit was one which could not fail to pervert the purposes of the popes and give a sinister character to all they did. It was this fear for the lands of the church far more than for religion or the safety of the city—neither of which were really endangered by the Lombard attacks—that had prompted their passionate appeals to Charles Martel and Pepin; it was now the well grounded hope of having these possessions confirmed and extended by Pepin's greater son that made the Roman ecclesiastics so forward in his cause. And it was the same lust after worldly wealth and pomp, mingled with the dawning prospect of an independent principality, that now began to seduce them into a long course of guile and intrigue.

And now the Holy Roman Empire was really set up—strange fabric of a strange age. And the steps of the Papacy to bring about this desired end had been marked, as has been seen, by trickery and cunning. Craft prospers ever in her wicked hand. The worst has not yet been told. The pope gave the Roman diadem to Charlemagne; but it was not his to give. He did not own it. No vote of the people had ever given it to him. He had no more right to give it to Charlemagne than I have a right to take your property and give it to your neighbor. His action was illegal, unlawful. He showed that God had named him aright "that lawless one." History and historians can never denounce this flagrant usurpation too strongly. The pope took good care that the legal side of his act should not be discussed—a practice which the Papacy has steadfastly adhered to—and the greatest fact that stood out to posterity was that the crown was bestowed by the pontiff. This fact the Papacy advertised far and wide, while all facts of a legal nature she sedulously avoided. This is the character of the Papacy now and always.

(To be continued.)