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

66 RISE OP THE TEMPORAL SUPREMACY.which, in almost one continuous and stunning roar, reverberatedbetween the Tiber and the Rhone.*There is no needto darken the horrors of the time by the fable (if fable it be)of a female pope, who is said about this time to have filledSt Peter's chair. The traditionary Pope Joan is found,perhaps, in the sister-prostitutes, the well-known Maroziaand Theodora, who now governed Rome. Their influence,founded on their wealth, their beauty, and their intrigues,enabled them towould ;place on the pontifical throne whom theyand not unfrequently they promoted, without a blush,their paramours to the holy chair. Such were the darktransactions of the period, and such the scenes that signalizedthe advent of the Papacy to temporal power. Therevels of Ahasuerus and Haman were concluded with thebloody decree which delivered over a whole nation to thesword. The yet guiltier revels of the Papacy were, in likemanner, followed in due time by ages of proscription andslaughter.-f-In tracing the rise of the temporal supremacy, we are nowOtho the Greatbrought to the middle of the tenth century.appears upon the stage. With a vigorous hand did theseGerman conquerors grasp the imperial diadem which thedegenerate descendants of Charlemagne were no longereither worthy to wear or able to defend. Otho found thePapacy running a career of crime, and in some danger ofperishing in its own corruption. He interposed his sword,* Romanist historians have drawn this part of the pontifical annalsin colours as dark as those employed by Protestant writers. Tlie bestfriends of the Popedom, such as Petavius, Luitprand, Baronius, Hermann,Labbe, Du Pin, &c. &c. labour for language to depict the enormous abusesof the papal rule. Baronius speaks of these pontiffs entering as thieves, anddying, as tliey deserved, by the rope. Of the three candidates which occasionedthe schism of a.d, 1044, Binius and Labbe remark, " A three-headedBeast, rising from the gates of hell, infested in a woful manner the holycliair,"This monster, of course, is a link in the chain of apostolic succession,(See Edgar's Variations, chap, i.)+ See G ibbon, vol, ix. p, 200 ; and even the papal historians of the period.