The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

INNOCENT III. 83The traditions and principles of the papal policy descendedto him matured and perfected. The man, too, was equal tothe hour. He had the art to veil a genius as aspiring asthat of Gregory VII. under designs less avowedly temporaland worldly. He affected to wield only a spiritual sceptre ;but he held it over monarchs and kingdoms, as well as overpriests and churches." Though I cannot judge of the rightto a fief," wrote he to the kings of France and England," yet it is my province to judge where sin is committed, andmy duty to prevent all public scandals.""*So lofty were hisnotions of the spiritual prerogative, and so much did he regardtemporal rule as its inseparable concomitant, that hedisdained to hold it by a formal claim. He exercised anomnipotent sway over mind, and left it to govern the bodiesand goods of men. We find De Maistre comparingthe Catholic Church in the days of Charlemagne to anellipse, with St Peter in one of the foci, and the Emperor inthe other.-f- But now, in the days of Innocent, the Church,or rather the European system, from being an ellipse, hadbecome a circle. The two foci were gone. There was butone governing point,— the centre ; and in that centre stoodPeter's chair. The pontificate of Innocent was one continuedand unclouded display of the superhuman glory of thepopedom. From a height to which no mortal had beforebeen able to climb, and which the strongest intellect becomesgiddy when it contemplates, he regulated all theaffairs of this lower world. His comprehensive scheme ofgovernment took in alike the greatest affairs of the greatestkingdoms, and the most private concerns of the humblest individual.We find him teaching the kings of France theirduty, dictating to the emperors their policy, and at thesame time adjudicating in the case of a citizen of Pisa whohad mortgaged his estate, and to whom Innocent, by spiritualcensures, compelled the creditor to make restitution of* Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 552."t"Du Pape, Discours Preliminaire.