158 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
subjects from the oath of allegiance. He may enforce sub mission by placing whole nations under the interdict. Peter alone went to Jesus on the water and by so doing he gave illustration of the unique privilege of the papacy to govern the whole earth. For the other disciples stayed in the ship and so to them was given rule only over single provinces. And as the waters were many on which Peter walked, so over the many congregations and nations, which the waters repre sent, was Peter given authority — yea over all nations what soever (universes populos).1 In this letter he also clearly teaches papal infallibility and declares that Peter's successor can never in any way depart from the Catholic faith.
Gregory VII. 's illustration, likening the priestly estate (^sacerdotium) to the sun, and the civil estate (regnum or imperium) to the moon, Innocent amplified and empha sized. Two great lights, Innocent said, were placed by God in the firmament of heaven, and to these correspond the " pontifical authority and the regal authority," the one to rule over souls as the sun rules over the day, the other to rule over the bodies of men as the moon rules over the night. And as the moon gets its light from the sun, and as it is also less than the sun both in quality and in size, and in the effect produced, so the regal power gets its dignity and splendor from the pontifical authority which has in it more inherent virtue.2 The priest anoints the king, not the king the priest, and superior is he that anoints to the anointed.3 Princes
1 Nam cum aquce multce sint, populi multi, congregationesque aquarum sunt warm, per hoc quod Petrus super aquas marts incessit, super universos populos se potestatem accepisse monstravit. II. 209; Migne, 214, 760; Potthast, 82. In this letter Innocent quotes no less than twenty-five passages of Scripture.
2 Sicut luna lumen suum a sole sortitur, quce re vera minor est isto quantitate simul et qualitate, situ pariter et effectu, sic regalis potestas ab auctoritate pontificali suce sortitur dignitatis splendorem, etc. See Mirbt, Quellen, 130.
8 Minor est qui unguitur quam qui ungit, et dignior est unguens quam unctus. Migne, 216, 1012, 1179 ; Potthast, 98.
§ 37. INNOCENT'S THEORY OF THE PAPACY. 159
have authority in separate lands ; the pontiff over all lands. The priesthood came by divine creation ; the kingly power by man's manipulation and violence.1 " As in the ark of God," so he wrote to John of England, " the rod and the manna lay beside the tables of the law, so at the side of the knowledge of the law, in the breast of the pope, are lodged the terrible power of destruction and the genial mildness of grace." Innocent reminded John that if he did not lift his foot from off the Church, nothing would check his punishment and fall.2 Monarchs throughout Europe listened to Innocent's exposition and obeyed. His correspondence abounds with letters to the emperor, the kings of Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily, France, England, the Danes, Aragon, and to other princes, teaching them their duty and demanding their submission. Under Innocent's rule, the subjection of the entire Chris tian world to the Roman pontiff seemed to be near realiza tion. But the measures of force which were employed in the Latin conquest of Constantinople, 1204, had the opposite effect from what was intended. The overthrow of the Byzantine empire and the establishment of a Latin empire in its stead and the creation of a new hierarchy of Constantinople only completed the final alienation of the Greek and Latin churches. To Innocent III. may not be denied deep concern in the extension of Christendom. But the rigorous system of the Inquisition which he set on foot begat bitterness and war of churchman against Christian dissenter and of Christian against Mohammedan. More blood was shed at the hand of the Church during the pontificate of Innocent, and under his immediate successors carrying out his policy, than in any
1 Sacerdotiitm per ordinationem divinam, regnum autem per extorsionem humanam. He also speaks of the unity of the Church as the product of grace and the divisions of the empire as the product of or judgment of sin. Ecclesia per Dei gratiam in unitate consistit, et imperium peccatis exigentibus estdivisum. Migne, 216, 1179 ; Potthast, 98.
2Migne, 217, 922. Gregorovius pronounces this "probably the most im perious document of the papal power." V. 104.