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Men were slow to realize that the mighty hold which the papacy had once possessed on the deep heart of the world was being sapped at its foundation. Diplomatic pontiffs still managed for a time to play off one sovereign against another, and to have their battles fought by foreign armies on a business basis.
The man whose armies sacked Rome, who laid his sacrilegious hands on Christ's vicegerent, and kept the infallible head of the Church a prisoner to serve his own political ends, was then no bigot. He believed in nothing; save that when the course of his imperial will was impeded, and the interests of his imperial house in jeopardy, pontiffs were to succumb as well as anabaptists.
Vigilant as was the Holy See then, as in every age, yet there is no Pope, I may say, during that period, who has impressed his character upon his generation; yet how well instructed, how precisely informed, how self-possessed an oracle of truth, nevertheless, do we find the Church to be, when the great internal troubles of the fourth century required it! how unambiguous, how bold is the Christianity of the great Pontiffs, St.
The reverence of the early pontiffs shrank from dismembering the bodies of the saints. To Queen Theodelinda Pope Gregory I. would accord only oil that had burnt in the lamps at their tombs, or ribbons that had touched them.
All men know the zeal and unceasing vigilance with which these same Roman Pontiffs have kept inviolate the deposit of faith, discipline among the clergy, purity and science in the education given to the members of the church, the holiness and dignity of Christian marriage: how they studied day by day to promote the Christian education of the youth of both sexes, to foster among all classes the love of religion, the practice of piety and purity of morals as well as everything that might conduce to the tranquillity, the good order and the prosperity of civil society.
But Yezid preferred the councils of mercy; and the mourning family was honorably dismissed to mingle their tears with their kindred at Medina. The glory of martyrdom superseded the right of primogeniture; and the twelve imams, or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation.
Agnes, near Zwolle, following the rule of the Order of Canons Regular, which monastery is in the diocese of Utrecht: likewise on behalf of the servants of this same House, and of other Priors, Canons, Brothers, members of the community, and servants, who shall dwell from time to time in the aforesaid monastery; wherefore that in future they may be ordered in more wholesome wise we beseech your holiness to deign of your grace to grant them Indulgence to the effect following, namely, that as long as they continue in the verity of the faith, the unity of the Holy Roman Church, in obedience and in devotion to your holiness and your successors, the Chief Pontiffs of the Holy Roman Church, who shall be canonically elected, so long a suitable Confessor chosen by them shall have power under the authority of the Apostolic See to grant to them when in articulo mortis full remission of all sin which they may have confessed with contrition of heart.
"Our idea," said Lutorius, "was to arrange that Truttidius be present with a number of horse-hair sieves, practically with his whole stock of his best, and that one of those be chosen before the whole College of Pontiffs, perhaps by your Majesty, perhaps by some one of the altar-boys, blindfolded, if you like that idea, or in any other manner which seems good to you."
Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the college of pontiffs. The Roman year consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days, and, in the time of Caesar, the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in advance, so that January was an autumn month.
The pontiffs of Rome mentioned them in their bulls; and Bembo has celebrated them in those historical pages which add lustre to the glory of Venice.
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