The Crusades have carried us into the thirteenth century. We must turn back to the eighth and ninth centuries, and note certain political changes that occurred in those ages, which contributed material aid to the Papacy in fulfilling its destiny.
It was the deep aim of the Pope to plant his seat in a place where he should owe no subjection to any civil power. He desired to have a country of his own, such as might be sufficient to maintain his grandeur, and whence he should reign as a temporal king as well as a spiritual sovereign. For a business like this, much time and labour were needed. The project was manifestly unattainable so long as an emperor reigned in the West, or the Gothic monarchy subsisted in Italy. But strange to say, events conspired to make empty and void a place where the Pope might set up his combined spiritual end temporal sovereignty, so long his cherished but unavowed aim. The first step was overthrow of the Gothic power in Italy by Justinian. Italy and Rome now became a province of the Eastern Empire. The jurisdiction of the absent emperor was henceforward shadowy and weak; but even that slight restraint was impatiently borne, and Pope Gregory II, began to plot how to be rid of it altogether. The conflict between the Eastern and Western Churches on the subject of image-worship was then raging. The Romans zealously maintained the cause of images. The emperor, with the Eastern Church, were ranged in opposition. Pope Gregory instigated the Romans to refuse the tribute to the emperor. The revolt was successful; the imperial representative at Ravenna was slain, and the last vestiges of the emperor's jurisdiction over Rome and Italy were annihilated. (It is worthy of note, by the way, that the Romans by their revolt against lawful emperor put their necks under a yoke that continued to gall them for twelve centuries. They did not succeed in breaking it till 1870.)
The Pope was now in sight of independent temporal sovereignty, but he had not yet fully achieved it. Tidings out of the north troubled him. The Longobards had crossed the Alps, and were already at Ravenna. There was no power in the spiritual artillery to arrest the victorious advance of these hardy warriors. In his extremity, Pope Zachary turned his eyes to Pepin, who, from Grand Marshal had become King of France. The Pope did not supplicate in vain. Pepin first, and his son Charlemagne next (A.D. 774), conquered the Longobards, and endowed the papal chair with all the cities and lands in Italy which had been subject to the jurisdiction of the Greek rulers. The Pope was now a crowned monarch.
This was the third intervention by arms in the Pope's behalf, and the third Gothic power which had fallen before him. First, the Vandals established themselves in the diocese proper of the Pope, occupying his pre-destined domain, and hindering his predestined development. The arms of Justinian under his general Belisarius, swept them off. Second, the Ostrogoths planted themselves in Italy, and their near neighborhood overawed the Pope, and prevented his expansion. They, too, were rooted out by the arms of Justinian. Last came, as we have said, the Longobards, pressing onwards to the gates of Rome. The sword of France drove them back. Thus, a field was kept clear on which the Pope might develop both his spiritual and temporal sovereignty; and thus was fulfilled what Daniel (Daniel 7:8) had foretold, that of the ten horns, or dynasties of the modern Europe, three should be "plucked up" before the little horn, or papacy. Their kingdoms and crowns were given to the Pope, and it is probable that it was in memory of these events that it became customary for the Pope, in the following centuries, to array himself in a tiara. The pastor of the Tiber had become a monarch with a triple crown.
Was the Pope now content? He sat amid the princes and kings of earth as their equal. But to be simply their equal he held to be an affront to his superhuman office as God's vicegerent. He aspired to plant his throne among the stars, and thence look down upon all the dignities and princedoms of earth. And to this dazzling height he at last climbed up.
There arose in the eleventh century a Pope of vast capacity, of inflexible resolution, and towering pride, Gregory VII. –Hildebrand. He put before the world, with a precision, a boldness, and an argumentative force, never till then brought to its support, the claim to be the Vicar of Christ. This was the foundation-stone on which he rested his scheme of pontifical jurisdiction and grandeur. As Christ's Vicar, he claimed to surpass all earthly monarchs in glory and power, as far as the sun surpasses the moon in brightness. He claimed, in short, to be God upon the earth. There followed a series of popes who struggled through two dreadful centuries of war and bloodshed to convert Gregory's theory into fact. The struggle was successful in the end: the mitre triumphed over the empire. The scheme of Gregory VII, in all its amplitude of jurisdiction and magnificence –and, we may add, in all its amplitude of despotism and blasphemy –was exhibited to the world in the person and reign of Innocent III, in the thirteenth century. The history of the world does not show another achievement of equal magnitude. The glory of the Pharaohs; the state and power of the Kings of Babylon; the victories and magnificence of the Caesars, all pale before this great conquest of the Popes. Now had come the noon of the Papacy; but, as we have remarked elsewhere, the noon of the Popedom was the midnight of the world.
The career both of Christ and of Antichrist was to end on a throne; though each was to reach his destined elevation by a very different road. Not till we find them on their respective thrones shall we see the parallelism perfected and completed. This we must reserve for a subsequent chapter. Meanwhile we pursue the parallelism through its successive preparatory stages, till it reaches this great climax.