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

;42 RISE OF THE TEiAIPORAL SOVEREIGNTY.transferred tliis implicit obedience to the Roman clergy,who most willingly accepted the implied superiority andpower, and used every means toimprove and extend theirinfluence. " It was the sturdy shoulders of these childrenof the idolatrous north," remarks Dr D'Aubigne, " that succeededin placing on the supreme throne of Christendom apastor of the banks of the Tiber."* The people veneratedthe clergy, and the clergy were bound to implicit obedienceto the pontiff". By this time, too, the unit^ of the Churchynot in theScriptural, but Romish sense,—not as consistingin one baptism, one faith, one hope ;but as consisting in oneoutward body governed by a visible head, the Roman pontiff*,—hadestablished itself in the minds of men. The termPore or Father, originally a divine, and next an imperialtitle, formerly given to all bishops, now came to be restrictedto the Bishop of Rome,-f according to the saying afterwardsemployed by Gregory VIL, that there was but one pope inthe world. The overthrow of the Ostrogoths and Vandalsabout this time, by the arms of Belisarius, contributed alsoto the expansion of the Papacy. The former had establisjiedthemselves in Italy, and the latter in Sardinia and Corsicaand their near presence enabled them to overawe the popedom; but their extirpation by the victorious general of Justinianrid the Pope of these formidable neighbours, andtended to the authority as well as the security of the Romansee.But it was in the eighth century that the most considerableaddition was made to the temporal power of the popes.A singular combination of dangers at that period threatenedthe very existence of the Papacy. The iconoclast disputes,then raging with extreme violence, had engendered a deepand lasting variance between the Roman see and the emperorsof the east. The Arian kings of Lombardy, intent onthe conquest of allItaly, were brandishing their swords be-* History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 43.+ Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. vii. p. 39.