30 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 107:3-1085.
with the care of all Christendom (including the Greek Church, which never acknowledged him). He has absolute and final jurisdiction, and is responsible only to God, and to no earthly tribunal. He alone can depose and reinstate bishops, and his legates take precedence of all bishops. He is the supreme arbiter in questions of right and wrong in the whole Christian world. He is above all earthly sover eigns. He can wear the imperial insignia. He can depose kings and emperors, and absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance to unworthy sovereigns.
These and similar claims are formulated in a document of twenty-seven brief propositions preserved among Gregory's letters, which are of doubtful genuineness, but correctly express his views,1 and in a famous letter to Hermann, bishop of Metz.
Among his favorite Scripture quotations, besides the prophecy about Peter (Matt. 16 : 18, 19), are two passages from the Old Testament : the words of the prophet Samuel to Saul, which suited his attitude to rebellious kings (1 Sam. 15 : 23) : " Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubborn ness is as idolatry and teraphim ; because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected thee from being king " ; and the words of the prophet Jeremiah (48 : 10) : " Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood." He meant the spiritual sword chiefly, but also the temporal, if necessary. He would have liked to lead an army of sol diers of St. Peter for the conquest of the Holy Land, and the subjection of all rebellious monarchs. He projected the first crusade, which his second successor carried out.
1 Dictatus Papce, Migne, 148, 407 sq. ; Mirbt, Quellen, p. 113. Comp. the note of Gieseler, II. B. 7 (Germ. ed.). I quote a few: 12. Quod illi liceat imperatores deponere. 22. Quod Eomana Ecclesia numquam erravit, nee in perpetuum, Scriptura testante, errabit. 26. Quod catholicus non habeatur, qni non concordat Ecclesias Romance. 27. Quod a fidelitate iniquonim subjectos polcst absolvere.
§ 11. THE GREGORIAN THEOCRACY. 31
We must consider more particularly his views on the rela tion of Church and State. Public opinion in the Middle Ages believed neither in co-ordination nor separation of the two powers, but in the subordination of one to the other on the basis of union. Church and State were inseparably interwoven from the days of Charlemagne and even of Constantine, and both together constituted the Christian com monwealth, respublica Christiana. There was also a general agreement that the Church was the spiritual, the State, the temporal power.
But the parties divided on the question of the precise boundary line.1 The papal party maintained the theocratic superiority of the Church over the State : the imperial party maintained the csesaropapistic superiority of the State, or at least the equality of the two powers. It was a conflict between priestcraft and statecraft, between sacerdotium and imperium, the clergy and the laity. The imperialists empha sized the divine origin and superior antiquity of the civil government, to which even Christ and the Apostles were subject ; the hierarchical party disparaged the State, and put the Church above it even in temporal affairs, when they conflicted with the spiritual. Emperors like Otto I. and Henry III. deposed and elected popes ; while popes like Gregory VII. and Innocent III. deposed and elected em perors.
Gregory compares the Church to the sun, the State to the moon, which borrows her light from the sun.2 The episco pal dignity is above the kingly and imperial dignity, as heaven is above the earth. He admits the necessity of the State for the temporal government of men ; but in his con flict with the civil power he takes the pessimistic view that
1 See Mirbt, PuUizistik, 572-579.
2 Letter of May 8, 1080, to William of England. Jaff6, 419 sq. ; Migne, 148, 569. Gregory also compared the priesthood to gold and royalty to lead, Reg., IV. 2.