A REVIEW OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION IN CENTURY NINETEEN. NO. 18.
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE—CONTINUED.
ON Christmas day A.D. 800, Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Romans, by the hand of Pope Leo III. Then it was that the Holy Roman Empire was established and launched upon the troubled waters of religious-political strife. From that day forward until August 6, 1806, when, by the abdication of Francis II., the Holy Roman Empire came to an end, Europe knew but few peaceful days or quiet nights.
MEANING OF THE WORD "EMPEROR."
To the men of Old Rome and to the people who lived during the Middle Ages the word "emperor" signified much more than the title of "king." Augustus was the first Roman emperor. August, the eighth month of the year, derives its name from him. His name may well be taken as a synonym of the word "emperor." Augustus meant "powerful," "august," in the sense of supernaturally great. It was expressive of the thought contained in the word "augur-auguries." The augur was an official diviner who foretold events by the singing, chattering, or flight of birds. The emperor in Old Rome was always the Pontifex Maximus, i.e., chief priest. "Pontifex" is derived from two Latin words, "pons," which means a "bridge," and "facere," which means "to make." Pontifex gradually came to signify the bridge between heaven and earth, the connecting link between the divine and the human. Says Bryce:—
It was not merely that he [the emperor] was like a modern king, the center of power and the dispenser of honor: his preeminence, broken by no comparison with other princes, by the ascending ranks of no aristocracy, had in it something almost supernatural.
Again, the same writer speaks, if possible, with greater force and clearness:—
There is not a trace of the notion that the emperor reigns by an hereditary right of his own, or by the will of the people, for such a theory would have seemed to the men of the Middle Ages an absurd and wicked perversion of the true order. Nor do his powers come to him from those who choose him, but from God, who uses the electoral princes as mere instruments of nomination. Having such an origin, his rights exist irrespective of their actual exercise, and no voluntary abandonment, not even an express grant, can impair them.
From all of this it is obvious beyond a doubt that the emperor was a semi-sacred character whose duty it was to look after the interests of the church as well as the affairs of the State. And when we find this title being bestowed by the pope, it will not be hard to understand how great obligation the emperor was under to advance the interests of the Church of Rome. Therefore, when Pope Leo III. crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans, it meant popery enforced by the secular arm throughout all his dominions. It meant ecclesiastical tyranny and clerical swindling. In the olden day, when "might was right," it was the soldiers who tendered the imperial diadem to the candidate for the purple; but now an ecclesiastical despotism375over not only the bodies, but over the minds, of men had succeeded the soldiery, and the pontiff bestowed the crown.
THE UNIVERSALITY "ETERNITY" OF ROME.
Ancient Rome was a universal kingdom, and the Romans believed that it was bound to endure as long as the sun and the moon. Her poets, her orators, her jurists confidently predicted her eternity. The men of the Middle Ages could not conceive of the world existing without the Roman Empire. In fact, the ancient Romans and the men of the Middle Ages thought that if Rome should fall the world must come to an end; for she to them was the state by which all things were upheld. This theory was held by the Christians of Constantine's time. Lactantius, who was tutor to the sons of Constantine, wrote: "When Rome, the head of the world, shall have fallen, who can doubt that the end has come of human things, aye, of the earth itself."
Universality and eternity in this connection were very closely related. Hence it was that even after Rome was divided into ten kingdoms, according to the word of the Lord, the dignitaries of the Papal Church refused to admit the fact, but sedulously set to work to bring about another universal empire under the old name. If they admitted that Rome had fallen they must needs recant their theory about the end of the world coming at the fall of Rome. But Rome recants nothing, although proved in the wrong to her very face. The Holy Roman Empire never was HOLY, nor by any kind of sound reasoning can it be said to have been ROMAN. It was an EMPIRE at only a very few periods of its career, and these periods were of exceedingly limited duration. It was a theory from first to last, and a hollow theory at that.
Now the prophecy had said that Rome should be divided; and Jesus had declared that before the end of the world there should be "wars and rumors of wars." More than this, the prophet distinctly stated that Rome when once divided should never be united again. The Papal Church said that Rome should not be divided, and when the Roman world was divided in spite of her, she was determined to unite it again. The Papal Church did her very best to prevent the making of modern languages, knowing that differences in language are a potent element in stirring up national hate in human breasts. She forbade the study of the subject of civil government, knowing that that would reveal the superiority of democracy over an ecclesiastical despotism,—government of the people, for the people, by the people, instead of government of the pope, by the pope, for the pope. She did everything she could to prevent the fulfillment of the word of God, which decreed that the face of Europe should be divided.
THEORY OF THE EMPIRE.
The theory of the empire rested upon the basis of one world-wide State and one world-wide Church. In other words, one empire was to fill the world and one church was to fill the empire; and that church was to be the Papal Church. Rome argued that if there were one world-wide empire, there could be no war. But God had said there should be war, and although the Papacy said there should not, there always was; and more than that, the Papacy herself was nearly always at the bottom of it and the prime instigator of it. But of course she only made war in order that the enemies of the church might be conquered, so that there might be peace.
Rome elevated Charlemagne, and his successors in office, to the imperial place. She next religiously inculcated her pet theory of governmental policy, which we give in the language of Bryce:—
The realistic philosophy, and the needs of a time when the only notion of civil or religious order was submission to authority, required the world State to be a monarchy; tradition, as well as the continuance of certain institutions, gave the monarch the name of Roman emperor. A king could not be a universal sovereign, for there were many kings; the emperor must be, for there had never been but one emperor; he had in older and brighter days been the actual lord of the civilized world; the seat of his power was placed beside that of the spiritual autocrat of Christendom. His functions will be seen most clearly if we deduce them from the leading principle of medieval mythology, the exact correspondence of earth and heaven. As God, in the midst of the celestial hierarchy, ruled blessed spirits in paradise, so the pope, his vicar, raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigned over the souls of mortal men below.
Let us understand the latter part of this quotation before proceeding. Read the last sentence of the quotation carefully. According to this doctrine the pope usurps the place of God entirely on earth, and reigns in the place of Jesus Christ over the souls of men. Then what becomes of Christ on earth? Why, he is driven off the earth and out of the hearts of men, and the Papacy put in his place. Christ said to his disciples, "But be not ye called rabbi [master]; for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren." But according to the doctrine quoted above the pope is MASTER over the souls of men, in the place of Christ. But the Bible ascribes that piece of usurpation to the "mystery of iniquity." Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" And again to the Romans: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." These verses reveal God's methods of making men holy through faith in Jesus Christ. By this, God's own plan, the Holy Spirit reigns in and "over the souls of mortal men below." But Paul said of the "mystery of iniquity," "He as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." And according to the history just cited the papal theory is that the pope reigns "over the souls of mortal men below." But this is the place and prerogative of God, according to his own divine word. So therefore there is no escaping the conclusion that the Papacy is the "man of sin"—"the mystery of iniquity." Now read more "medieval mythology:—
But as God is Lord of earth as well as of heaven, so must he (the imperator cœlestis) be represented by a second earthly viceroy, the emperor (imperator terrenus), whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this present world the soul cannot act save through the body, while yet the body is no more than an instrument and means for the soul's manifestation, so must there be a rule and care of men's bodies as well as of their souls, yet subordinated always to the well being of that which is the purer and the more enduring. It is under the emblem of soul and body that the relation of the papal and imperial power is presented to us throughout the Middle Ages. The pope, as God's vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the emperor,
as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their dealings with one another that they may be able to pursue undisturbed the spiritual life, and thereby obtain the same supreme and common end of everlasting happiness. In this view of the object his chief duty is to maintain peace in the world, while toward the church his position is that of advocate, a title borrowed from the practice adopted by churches and monasteries of choosing some powerful baron to protect their lands and lead their tenants to war. The functions of advocacy are twofold: at home to make the Christian people obedient to the priesthood, and to execute their decrees upon heretics and sinners; abroad to propagate the faith among the heathen, not sparing to use carnal weapons. Thus does the emperor answer in every point to his antitype, the pope; his power being yet of a lower rank, created on the analogy of the papal, as the papal itself had been modeled after the elder empire.