Empire and Papacy—A Modern Problem

Extract

Sir John Marriott has suggested that to cut out of of an English history book all the pages that concerned the relation of Church and State would leave but a few pages in the book. That the problem is no dead one is testified by the present conflict in Mexico. In its widest, most universal form, the problem arises in the relations of the Empire and the Papacy—a problem which, I think, can be shown to continue long after the break up of the mediaeval system, and, recently, to have received a fresh emphasis.

In a side group from the Lateran Mosaic (appropriately reproduced by the Temple Edition of Dante’s Latin Works) are shown Peter and Constantine receiving the symbols of their authority from Christ, while Peter alone gives these symbols to Leo and Charlemagne—an apt summary of European history from the start of the Christian era to the Reformation. But it represents even more than that. Napoleon was content to refer to ‘Charlemagne, my august predecessor, Emperor of the French’! This statement (however false historically) was used as a bludgeon against the Pope.

Always has there been a conflict between Caesar and Peter. And yet, always, Caesar has been forced to confess his indebtedness to Peter. Charlemagne was crowned at Rome by the Pope : Charles V as near Rome as possible, at Bologna: and Napoleon— though he brought the Pope to Paris, kept him waiting in the Church, and snatched the crown from his hands—was unable to bend him to do his will. Even Bismarck had to go half-way to Canossa.