In

III. Following up this aspect of the Pope's position, we arrive at his character as an Italian Bishop and an Italian As Italian Prince. Both go together. These belong to the prince. state of things at the beginning of the Middle Ages, out of which his power was formed. His more general and universal attributes are derived from other considerations which must be treated apart. But his Italian nationality and his Italian principality are the natural result of a condition of society which has long since perished everywhere else. The Pope's "temporal power" belongs to that feudal and princely character which was shared by so many great prelates of the Middle Ages. Almost all the German Archbishops possessed this special kind of sovereignty, and in our own country the Bishops of Durham. The Archbishops of Cologne were Princes and Electors more than they were Archbishops. the portraits of the last of the dynasty in the palace at Brühl, near Bonn, for one which represents him as an ecclesiastic, there are ten which represent him as a prince or as a soldier. Of all those potentates, the Pope is almost the only one who remains. His principality is now regarded as an anomaly by some or as a miracle by others. But when it first existed, it was one of a large group of similar principalities. When, therefore, the Pope stood defended by his Chassepot rifles, or, in his reduced state, still surrounded by his Swiss guards, he must be regarded as the last of the brotherhood of the fighting, turbulent, courtly prelates of the Rhine, of the Prince Bishop of Durham, or the Ducal Bishop of Osnaburgh. His dynasty through its long course has partaken of the usual variations of character which appear in all the other Italian principalities. Its accessions of property have come in like manner; sometimes by the sword, as of Julius II.; sometimes by the donations of the great Countess Matilda; sometimes by the donations of Joanna, the questionable Queen of Naples. Like the other mediæval prelates, the Popes had their hounds, and hunted even down till the time of Pius VI. Mariana, on the road to Ostia, was a famous hunting-seat of Leo X.

If the Pope were essentially what he is sometimes believed to be, the universal Bishop of the universal Church, we should expect to find the accompaniments of his office corresponding to this, But, in fact, it is far otherwise. In most of the con

ditions of his office, the Italian Bishop and the Italian Prince are the first objects of consideration. That the first prelate of the West should have been, as we have seen, the Bishop of the old Imperial city, was natural enough. But it is somewhat startling to find that the second prelate of the West is not one of the great hierarchy of France, or Germany, or Spain, or England, but the Bishop of the deserted Ostiabecause Ostia is the second see in the Roman States. It is he -with the Bishops of Portus and Sabina-who crowns and anoints the Pope. It is he who is the Dean of the Sacred College.

And this runs throughout. The electors to the office of the Pope, whether in early days or now, were not, and are not, the universal Church, but Romans or Italians.* In early days it was in the hands of the populace of the city of Rome. From the fourth to the eleventh century it was accompanied by the usual arts of bribery, fraud, and occasionally bloodshed. Afterwards it was shared with the 'civil authorities of the Roman municipality; and so deeply was this, till lately, rooted in the institution, that, on the death of a Pope, the Senator resumed his functions as the supreme governor of the city.t

Since the twelfth century the election has been vested in the College of Cardinals. But the College of Cardinals, though restrained by the veto of the three Catholic Powers, is still predominantly Italian; and the result of the election has, since the fourth century, been almost entirely confined to Italian Popes. The one great exception is an exception which proves the rule. During the seventy years when the Popes were at Avignon, they were there as completely French as before and since they have been Italians; and for the same reason-because they were French princes living in a French city, as now and before they were Italian princes living in an Italian city.

The feudal sovereignty over Naples was maintained by the giving of a white horse on St. Peter's day by the king of Napies down till the time of Charles II.; the protest against

*See the account in Mr. Cartwright's interesting volume on Papal Conclaves, p. 36.

+ His long train at mass is carried (amongst others) by the Senator of Rome and the Prince "assisting."

the annexation of Avignon by France has been abandoned since 1815.

Whatever ingenuity, whatever intrigues, surround the election of a Pope are Italian, and of that atmosphere the whole pontifical dynasty breathes from the time it became a principality till (with the exception of its exile in Provence) the present time.

As "the
Pope.'

IV. Then follow the more general attributes of the Pope. He is "the Pope." This title was not originally his own. It belonged to a time when all teachers were so called. It is like some of the other usages of which we have spoken, a relic of the innocent infantine simplicity of the primitive Church. Every teacher was then "Papa." The word was then what it is still in English, the endearing name of "father." In the Eastern Church, the custom continues still. Every parish priest, every pastor, is there a "Pope," a "Papa," and the ordinary mode of address in Russia is" my

("Batinska"). Gradually the name became restricted, either in use or significance. Just as the Bishops gradually rose out of the Presbyters, to form a separate rank, so the name of "Pope" was gradually applied specially to bishops. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in the third century, was constantly entitled "Most glorious and blessed Pope;" and the French bishops, in like manner, were called "Lord Pope." There is a gate in the Cathedral of Le Puy, in Auvergne, still called the "Papal Gate," not because of the entrance of any Pope of Rome there, but because of an old inscription which records the death of one of the bishops of Le Puy under the name of " Pope."

From

And yet, further, if there was any one Bishop in those early times who was peculiarly invested with this title above the rest, and known emphatically as "the Pope," it was not the Bishop of Rome, but the Bishop of Alexandria. the third century downwards he was "the Pope" emphatically beyond all others. Various reasons are assigned for this honor; but, in fact, it naturally fell to him as the head of the most learned church in the world, to whom all the other churches looked for advice and instruction.

* The name is first applied to the Bishop of Rome in the letter of a deacon to Pope Marcellus, A.D. 275, but it was not till 400 that they took it formally.

In the early centuries, if the Bishop of Rome had the title at all, it was merely like other bishops. It was in Latin properly only used with the addition "My Pope," or the like, and this is the earliest known instance of its application to the Roman Pontiff. It was not till the seventh century that it became his peculiar designation, or rather, that dropping off from all the other western bishops, it remained fixed in him, and was formally appropriated to its exclusive use in the eleventh. What "Papa was in Greek and Latin, “Abba" was in Syriac, and thus accordingly was preserved in "Abbot "Abbé," as applied to the heads of monastic communities, and to the French clergy, almost as generally as the word "Papa" has been in the Eastern Church for the parochial clergy.

It is curious that a word which more than any other recalls the original equality not only of Patriarch with Bishop, of Bishop with Bishop, but of Bishop with Presbyter, should have gradually become the designation of the one preeminent distinction which is the keystone of the largest amount of inequality that prevails in the Christian hierarchy.

It is also to be observed that a word used to designate the head of the Latin Church should have been derived from the Greek and Eastern forms of Christianity.

What is it which constitutes the essence of this power of the Pope?

We have already seen that his dignity at Rome is inherited from the Roman Emperors-his territory from his position as an Italian Prelate. But his power as the Pope is supposed to give him the religious sovereignty of the world.

It is often supposed that he possesses this as successor of St. Peter in the see of Rome. This, however, is an assumption which, under any theory that may be held concerning his office, is obviously untenable. That St. Peter died at Rome is probable. But it is certain that he was not the founder of the Church of Rome. The absence of an allusion to such a connection in St. Paul's Epistles is decisive. It is

"Papa suus, ""Papa meus, 99.66 'Papa noster," is the only form in which it occurs in the third and fourth centuries, as a term not of office, but of affection, and meaning not a bishop but a teacher. (Mabillon, Vetera Analecta, 141.) So the head of the Abyssinian clergy is called Abouroa, i.e., Father."

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also certain that he was not Bishop of the Church of Rome or of any Church. The office of "Bishop" in the sense of a single officer presiding over the community (with perhaps the exception of Jerusalem) did not exist in any Church till the close of the first century. The word, as we have seen, was originally identical with the word "Presbyter." The alleged succession of the early Roman Bishops is involved in contradictions which can only be explained on the supposition that there was then no fixed Episcopate. There is not only no shadow of an indication in the New Testament that the characteristics of Peter were to belong to official successors, but for the first three centuries there is no indication, or at least no certain indication, that such a belief existed anywhere. It is an imagination with no more foundation in fact than the supposition that the characteristics of St. John descended to the Bishops of Ephesus.

But, further, it is also a curious fact that by the theory of the Roman Church itself, it is not as Bishop of Rome that the Pope is supposed to acquire the religious sovereignty of the world.

It is important to observe by what channel this is conveyed. He becomes Bishop of Rome, as all others become Bishops, by regular consecration. He becomes Sovereign, as all others become Sovereigns, by a regular inauguration. But he becomes Pope, with whatever peculiar privileges that involves, by the election of the Cardinals; and for this purpose he need not be a clergyman at all. Those whose suppose that he inherits the great powers of his office by the inheritance of an Episcopal succession mistake the case. If other Bishops, as some believe, derive their powers from the Apostles by virtue of an Apostolical succession, not so the Pope. He may, at the time of his election, be a layman, and, if duly elected, he may, as a layman, exercise, not indeed the functions of a Bishop, but the most significant functions which belong to a Pope. The Episcopal consecration, indeed, must succeed as rapidly as is convenient. But the Pope after his mere election is completely in the possession of the headship of the Roman Catholic Church, even though it should so happen that the Episcopal consecration never followed at all.

In point of fact, the early Popes were never chosen from the