739
To one of these two great classes every in-
dividual must belong; to a treasure of divine
wrath or of divine riches, consciously or un-
consciously, he is every day adding, one or the
THE WATCHMAN
other of which he must meet in the great
reckoning day when God “shall render to ev-
ery man according to his deeds.”
THE RUIN OF THE PAPAL EMPIRE
ITH world-empire in Babylon came
wealth, wealth bred luxury, luxury
gave birth to vice, and vice, when it
had conceived, brought forth death,—
the utter ruin of that golden monarchy by the
hand of those rude mountaineers led by the
Persian Cyrus. In the end corrupt practices
and enervating influences had caused the once
mighty to fail, and they had become “as
women,” while a debauched and vicious Bel-
shazzar disgraced the throne.
It was the same story with the third world-
power-empire, Greece. Great as were the con-
quests of the youthful Alexander, he died in
a drunken debauch before the full flower of his
manhood had been reached. The boasted vir-
tue of a once great people became an empty
name. ‘The victors of Marathon — the im-
mortelles of Miltiades were no more. And
the sons of those who had annihilated the
Persians were themselves conquered by abun-
dance and opulence, by lucre and by lust.
The intoxication of unversal power was too
great for the descendants of the brave band
who with Leondias had held Thermopyle —
eating and drinking, voluptuousness, pelf, and
wantonness, led Greece to the grave. The
commonwealth might have survived the loss
of Alexander, but the moral in words written
centuries later was as true then —
“TI fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may perish, or may fade —
A breath can make them, as a breath has
made;
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”
And Rome, the iron monarchy of the
prophet — When Rome was young, and poor,
and small, she gave birth to an elder Brutus,
to a Horatius, to Coriolanus, and to Cincin-
natus. But when she became a world-power,
Tiberius and Cladius, Caligula and Nero —
human fiends and monsters of vice — sat upon
her throne, and till seventy times seven dis-
graced the Seven Hills. Temperate living,
once the glory of the Roman, was a forgotten
dream of bygone days. The religion which
worshiped the virtues,— Good Faith, Concord,
Valor, Truth, and Chastity, was no more, and
ugly saturnalias took their place. The once
strict marriage relation was supplanted by
adultery or even darker crimes. Once again
— for the fourth time —all these were the
products of world-empire, of universal lust
and universal power.
Then the giant fabric of the colossal empire
went down with a crash so terrific that men
thought the end of all things had come; and
the unlettered woodsmen of ancient Germania
sundered in ten parts the empire of the world.
And now — Did the empire of the popes
travel the same road? Did it encounter the
same doom? Did fulness of bread and idle-
ness revel there? From priest to pope was
it a life of self-sacrifice and sorrow, of chas-
tity and continence, of stainless rectitude and
untainted morals — or was it pride, fulness of
bread, and abundance of idleness as in “sis-
ter Sodom.” Were ecclesiastical courts free
from veniality? Were elections to benefices
honest? Were indulgences dispensed for the
benefit of the sinner or for the pouches of
priests and popes? Did lust and lucre, vol-
uptuousness and wantonness, pelf and pol-
troonery run riot in clerical circles?
In other words, did the time ever come in
the days of the papal empire when that world-
power was ruled by Belshazzars, Alexanders,
Caligulas, and Neros? And then did the rot-
tenness at the top spread to the roots, and ruin
all? Did papal Rome go the same way as
all the other universal empires?
The answer to these questions calls for bio-
graphical reference to some of the popes of
the Middle Ages. Indeed, the personal ac-
tions and private conduct of the popes neces-
sarily intrude themselves upon us. For the
unhappy character of those “was the inciting
cause of the movements in Germany, France,
and England, ending in the political extinction
of the papacy, as an actual political power.” 1
Pope Paul I ascended the throne a. pb. 737.
When he died, the Duke of Nepi compelled
the consecration as pope of his own brother
Constantine. Later other electors chose
Stephen IV; the eyes of Pope Constantine
were then put out; the tongue of Bishop
Theodorus was amputated, and he was left in
a dungeon to expire in the agonies of thirst.
The relatives of Pope Adrian seized his suc-
cessor in the street, forced him into a nearby
church, and tried to put out his eyes and cut
out his tongue. At a later period when there
was an attempt to depose this pope, Rome be-
came given up to rebellion and murder, and
the torch. Stephen V was driven from Rome
in a most ignominious manner, while Paschal
I, who followed him, was accused of blinding
and murdering two ecclesiastics in the Lateran
Palace.
By force and violence Stephen VII intruded
himself into the see of Rome. One of his first
acts was to take the body of Pope Formosus,
who had been dead three months, from the
grave, clothe it in the papal robes of state,
prop it up in the pontifical chair, and try it
before a council. The tiara was placed upon
its head, and a pastoral baton in its hand.
A deacon was appointed as counsel and advo-
cate for the corpse, while Stephen addressed
it in the following words: —
“Bishop of Porto, why hast thou pushed
1 Draper, “Intellectual Development of Europe,”
Vol, 1, chap. 12, par 54.
thy ambition so far as to usurp the see of
Rome, in defiance of the sacred canons which
forbade this infamous action?”
The advocate who had been appointed, con-
fessed that the corpse was guilty. Upon this
Pope Stephen “pronounced a sentence of de-
position against the bishop of Porto; and, hav-
ing approached the pontifical seat, he gave a
blow to the dead body which made it roll at
his feet. He himself then despoiled it of all
the sacerdotal vestments, cut off three fingers
from the right hand, and finally ordered the
executioner to cut off the head, and cast the
dead body into the Tiber.” Afterward some
fishermen found the dead body, where it had
come ashore, and it was given burial. Never
theless this same Stephen was himself destined
to exemplify the depth to which the papacy
had fallen; he was thrown into prison, and
strangled to death. Cardinal Baronius de-
clares that Stephen richly deserved the fate
that overtook him: “since he entered the fold
like a thief, it was just he should die by the
halter.”
On Pope John IX Cardinal Baronius bestows
the eulogy that he was “the best of the bad
popes.” And regarding the papacy in general
during the ninth century he writes: —
“Never had divisions, civil wars, and per-
secution of pagans, heretics, and schismatics
caused it [the holy see] to suffer so much as
the monsters who installed themselves on the
throne of Christ by simony and murders.
The Roman Church was transformed into a
shameless courtesan, covered with silks and
precious stones, which publicly prostituted it-
self for gold; the Palace of the Lateran was
become a disgraceful tavern, in which ecclesi-
astics of all nations disputed with harlots the
price of infamy. Never [before] did priests,
and especially popes, commit so many adulter-
ies, rapes, incests, robberies, and murders; and
never was the ignorance of the clergy so great,
as during this deplorable period. . .. Thus
the tempest of abomination fastened itself on
the church, and offered to the inspection of
men the most horrid spectacle! The canons
of councils, the creed of the apostles, the faith
of Nice, the old traditions, the sacred rites,
were buried in the abyss of oblivion, and the
most unbridled dissoluteness, ferocious des-.
potism, and insatiable ambition usurped their
place.” 2
Bad, however, as was the condition of the
papacy during the ninth century, the condition
was worse in the tenth. Of it, this same
Roman Catholic cardinal is forced to write
that it was “an iron age, barren of all good-.
ness; a leaden age, abounding with all wick-
edness; and a dark age, remarkable above all
the rest, for the scarcity of writers and men
of learning. In this century the abomination
of desolation was seen in the temple of the
Lord; and in the see of St. Peter, reverenced
by angels, were placed the most wicked of
men, not pontiffs, but monsters.” 3
(To be continued.)
2 Quoted by De Cormenin, “History of the Popes,”
Stephen VII.
3 Quoted by Bower, “History of the Popes,” under -
Benedict IV.