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

74 PROGRESS OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY.priests unlawful. He next sent his legates throughout thevarious countries of Europe, to compel bishops and all ecclesiasticsto put away their wives. Having thus dissevered theties which connected the clergy with the world, and giventhem but one object for which to live, namely, the exaltationof the hierarchy, Gregory rekindled, with all the ardour andvehemence characteristic of the man, the war between thethrone and the mitre. The object at which Gregory YH.aimed was twofold:— 1. To render the election to the pontificalchair independent of the emperors ; and, 2. To resumethe empire as a fief of the Church, and to establish hisdominion over the kings and kingdoms of the earth. Hisfirst step towards the accomplishment of these vast designswas, as we have shown, to enact clerical celibacy. Hissecond was to forbid all ecclesiastics to receive investitureat the hands of the secular power.* In this decree he laidthe foundation of the complete emancipation of the Churchfrom the State ; but half a century of wars and bloodshedwas required to conduct the first enterprise, that of the investitures,to a successful issue ; while a hundred and fiftyyears more of similar convulsions had to be gone throughbefore the second, that of universal domination, was attained.Let us here pause to review the rise of the war of investitureswhich now broke out, and which " during two centuriesdistracted the Christian world, and deluged a great portion ofItaly with blood.^f In the primitive age the pastors of theRoman Church were elected by the people. When we comedown to those times, still early, when the office of bishop beganto take precedence of that of presbyter, we find theelection to the episcopate effected by the joint suffrages of theclergy and people of the city or diocese. After the fourth century,when a regular gradation of offices or hierarchy was setup, the bishop chosen by the clergy and people had to be approvedof by his metropolitan, as the metropolitan by hisDu Pin, Kccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 212 Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 201, 202.t Dunham's Europe during the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 158.