778 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Meditating upon himself, it became the pope to remember that he was raised to his office not for the sake of ruling but of being a prophet, not to make show of power but to have care of the churches. The pope is greatest only as he shows himself to be a servant. As pontiff, he is heir of the Apos tles, the prince of bishops. He is in the line of the primacy of Abel, Abraham, Melchizedek, Moses, Aaron, Samuel, and Peter. To him belong the keys. Others are intrusted with single flocks, he is pastor of all the sheep and the pastor of pastors. Even bishops he may depose and exclude from the kingdom of heaven. And yet Eugenius is a man. Pope though he is, he is vile as the vilest ashes. Change of posi tion effected no change of person. Even the king, David, became a fool.
The things beneath the pope are the Church and all men to whom the Gospel should be preached.
The things around about the pope are the cardinals and the entire papal household. Here, greed and ambition are to be rebuked, the noise of appealed judicial cases is to be hushed, worthy officials are to be chosen. The Romans are a bad set, flattering the pontiff for what they can make out of his administration. A man who strives after godliness they look upon as a hypocrite.
The faithful counsellor waxed eloquent in describing the ideal pope. He is one of the bishops, not their lord. He is the brother of all, loving God. He is set to be a pattern of righteousness, a defender of the truth, the advocate of the poor, the refuge of the oppressed. He is the priest of the High est, the vicar of Christ, the anointed of the Lord, the God of Pharaoh ; that is, he has authority over disobedient princes.
Bernard distinctly grants the two swords to the pope, who himself draws the spiritual sword and by his wink commands the worldly sword to be unsheathed.1 It is true he lays stress upon Peter's Apostolic simplicity and poverty. Peter
1 De consid., IV. 3, Migne, 82, 776. Uterque Ecclesice et spirituaUs gladhis et materialis; sed is quidem pro Ecclesia, ille vero et ab Ecclesia exseremlus : ille sacerdotis, is militis manu, sed sane ad nutum sacerdotis, et jnssum imperatoris.
§1^3. PAPAL SUPREMACY IN CHURCH AND STATIC. 779
wore no gems, was attended by no bodyguard, and sat on no white horse. In adopting such outward show "the popes had followed Constantine, not the Apostle." It is also true that Bernard follows his generation in making the pope the vicegerent of God on earth.1
The views of Thomas Aquinas have already received notice (p. 673). His statements are so positive as to admit of no doubt as to their meaning. In the pope resides the plenitude of power. To the Roman Church obedience is due as to Christ.2 These are assertions made in his treatise against the errors of the Greeks written at a time when the second council of Lyons was impending and measures were being taken to heal the schism between the East and the West. The pope is both king and priest, and the temporal realm gets its authority from Peter and his successors.3
Thomas went further still. He declared for the infalli bility of the pope. In confirmation of this view he quoted spurious writings of Cyril, but also genuine passages from the Fathers.4
The popular opinion current among priests and monks was no doubt accurately expressed by Caesar of Heisterbach at the beginning of the thirteenth century when he compared the Church to the firmament, the pope to the sun, the em peror to the moon, the bishops to the stars, the clergy to the day, and the laity to the night.
1 Bishop Reinkens, of the old Catholic Church, in his annotated trans lation of Bernard's treatise, de considerations, argues for the other view ; namely, that Bernard does not present the theory of the "Caesar-pope." He also argues, pp. vi sq., that Bernard regarded the bishops as receiving their authority not from the pope but directly from God. His edition was issued at the time of the Vatican council of 1870 and as a protest against the dogma of papal infallibility. The position taken above is the position of most writers, both Protestant and Catholic.
2 Rom. ecclesice obediendum est tanquam domino J. Christo. Reusch's ed., p. 9.
3 Rom. episcopus did potest rex et sacerdos. . . . Sicut corpus per animam habet virtutem et operationem ita et temporalis jurisdictio principum per spiritualem Petri et successorum eius. De reyim., II. 10.
4 See Werner, D. hi. Thomas, I. 760 sqq., 794 sqq. ; and especially Reusch and Leitner.