RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Peter Damian
his appointment as cardinal, would oppose his desire.
The relationship between him and Hildebrand was a remarkable one. At one as to their great aims, the two differed fundamentally both in regard to the means to be employed
2. In the and in their own characters. Hilde- Time of brand had by far the stronger will;
Hildebrand. Peter therefore yielded to him, although not without resistance. He calls him " the flattering tyrant, who showed pity with the love of a Nero, caressed by boxing the ears, stroked with eagle's talons "; in bold paradox he called him " holy Satan." Nicholas II. refused Peter permission to resign; the times were far too serious to let a power like his expend itself in the service of a single monastery. Not merely did Peter remain a cardinal; he had also to assume the administration of the bishopric of Velletri. When through the movement of the Patarenes (q.v.) in Milan intolerable conditions had arisen, and the moment seemed to have come for Rome to intervene, Peter was sent thither as legate, together with Anselm of Lucca (Alexander II.). He justified to the full the confidence which had been placed In him. He succeeded in inducing the clergy of Milan to abjure simony and the marriage of priests, and in bringing the church of St. Ambrose into subjection to the see of Peter.
The schism which, after the death of Nicholas II.,
broke out between Alexander II. and Honorius II.
found Peter on the side of the former.
3. In the For him he labored with glowing zeal, Time of by means of letters to the antipope as Alexan- well as by composing the Disceptatio
der II. synodalis in view of the assemblage summoned to Augsburg for Oct., 1062, which was to decide between the rivals. When Alexander II. had actually attained recognition, Peter exerted himself anew for permission to return to his monastery. The answer was that the pope sent him as a legate to France, to settle a quarrel between the cloister of Cluny and the bishop of Macon. This journey, too, was a success. But Peter could also become disagreeable. That on his own responsibility he asked Archbishop Anno of Cologne to work for the calling of a general council for the purpose of doing away with the schism, did not correspond with the wishes of Alexander II. When the synod met at Mantua, Whitsuntide, 1084, it ended indeed in a triumph for Alexander. The papal court was also dissatisfied when Peter, without being instructed to that effect, sent in 1065 an earnest exhortation to King Henry IV. of Germany to come to Italy, annihilate Cadalus and get himself the imperial crown; this journey to Rome might easily have led to a strengthening of the royal influence in Italy, to undermine which had been one of the chief aims of papal policy since the days of Stephen IX.
In the year 1067 Peter finally brought about his release from his episcopal duties; yet, not only did he continue to have the titles of cardinal and bishop, but was also occasionally further employed by Alexander II. in difficult cases. Thus he was sent to Germany as legate in 1069, when Henry
IV. wished to be divorced from his consort Bertha.
In this case, too, the persuasive power of his
oratory was brilliantly exercised; at
4. Mission the diet at Worms he succeeded in
to Henry making Hemy yield. He was also suc- IV. of cessful in reconciling Ravenna — which
Germany, had allowed itself to be drawn by
Archbishop Hemy over to the side of
Cadalus— with Rome after the archbishop's death.
III. Influence: The greatest merits of Peter Damian lie in the reform of life within the Church. In the struggle against the " incontinence " of the clergy, under which concept were included not merely immoral acts (cf. the Liber Gomorrhianus, MPL, cxlv. 159-190) but also the marriages of priests, he was the most important and most persistent of those in the front rank of the fight; he was second to none in preparing the way for the legislative measures of the papacy intended to enforce the compulsory celibacy of priests. His second great life-task was the conflict with simony. This evil had taken on vast dimensions and forms so various that its fundamental character, the purchase of an ecclesiastical position, was often disguised. Of especial difficulty was the question of what corollaries are to be drawn from the simoniacal transfer of an office, whether the office of priest or bishop could be obtained at all in this way. On this problem views within the Gregorian party were very divergent. Peter stood for the view (Liber gratissimus, MPL, cxlv. 99-154) that, since the quality of a consecrating priest can never affect the consecration performed by him, even a simoniac can impart real ordination, and that the orders are valid even in case the person ordained had knowledge of the simoniacal taint of the ordainer. Therefore, he rejects the repetition of an ordination which had been performed by a simoniac, and wishes to leave in office those who have, free of charge, received orders from a simoniac. In his time the question of Investiture (q.v.) by laymen was not yet in the foreground, but from numerous passages in his writings it is plain that he considered Church and State to be two coordinated powers with different spheres of duty; that he wished their harmonious cooperation; and that, though he disapproved of investiture by secular princes, he did not reject it in principle. In these maxims of ecclesiastical politics is seen an after-effect of the time of Henry III. The controversy between Berengar of Tours and Lanfranc about the doctrine of the Eucharist did not much concern him; neither did the outbreak of the great schism between Rome and Byzantium in 1054.
IV. Characterization: Peter Damian was through and through a monastic; he remained so even when he entered involuntarily the college of cardinals. But he possessed great gifts which procured him signal successes when he was compelled to come out into the world. Not with injustice did a contemporary name him " old Jerome," whom indeed he resembled in many respects. His greatest achievements pertained to the religious and moral elevation of the Italian monks and secular clergy. In the Roman Catholic Church he was soon reverenced as a saint, even though he was not canonized. In
Peter the Deacon Peter Lombard