History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

by John William Draper

The two pillars on which the papal system now rested were the College of Cardinals and the Curia. The cardinals, in 1059, had become electors of the popes. Up to that time elections were made by the whole body of the Roman clergy, and the concurrence of the magistrates and citizens was necessary. But Nicolas II. restricted elections to the College of Cardinals by a two-thirds vote, and gave to the German emperor the right of confirmation. For almost two centuries there was a struggle for mastery between the cardinal oligarchy and papal absolutism. The cardinals were willing enough that the pope should be absolute in his foreign rule, but they never failed to attempt, before giving him their votes, to bind him to accord to them a recognized share in the government. After his election, and before his consecration, he swore to observe certain capitulations, such as a participation of revenues between himself and the cardinals; an obligation that he would not remove them, but would permit them to assemble twice a year to discuss whether he had kept his oath. Repeatedly the popes broke their oath. On one side, the cardinals wanted a larger share in the church government and emoluments; on the other, the popes refused to surrender revenues or power. The cardinals wanted to be conspicuous in pomp and extravagance, and for this vast sums were requisite. In one instance, not fewer than five hundred benefices were held by one of them; their friends and retainers must be supplied, their families enriched. It was affirmed that the whole revenues of France were insufficient to meet their expenditures. In their rivalries it sometimes happened that no pope was elected for several years. It seemed as if they wanted to show how easily the Church could get on without the Vicar of Christ.

Toward the close of the eleventh century the Roman Church became the Roman court. In place of the Christian sheep gently following their shepherd in the holy precincts of the city, there had arisen a chancery of writers, notaries, tax-gatherers, where transactions about privileges, dispensations, exemptions, were carried on; and suitors went with petitions from door to door. Rome was a rallying-point for place-hunters of every nation. In presence of the enormous mass of business-processes, graces, indulgences, absolutions, commands, and decisions, addressed to all parts of Europe and Asia, the functions of the local church sank into insignificance. Several hundred persons, whose home was the Curia, were required. Their aim was to rise in it by enlarging the profits of the papal treasury. The whole Christian world had become tributary to it. Here every vestige of religion had disappeared; its members were busy with politics, litigations, and processes; not a word could be heard about spiritual concerns. Every stroke of the pen had its price. Benefices, dispensations, licenses, absolutions, indulgences, privileges, were bought and sold like merchandise. The suitor had to bribe every one, from the doorkeeper to the pope, or his case was lost. Poor men could neither attain preferment, nor hope for it; and the result was, that every cleric felt he had a right to follow the example he had seen at Rome, and that he might make profits out of his spiritual ministries and sacraments, having bought the right to do so at Rome, and having no other way to pay off his debt. The transference of power from Italians to Frenchmen, through the removal of the Curia to Avignon, produced no change—only the Italians felt that the enrichment of Italian families had slipped out of their grasp. They had learned to consider the papacy as their appanage, and that they, under the Christian dispensation, were God's chosen people, as the Jews had been under the Mosaic.

At the end of the thirteenth century a new kingdom was discovered, capable of yielding immense revenues. This was Purgatory. It was shown that the pope could empty it by his indulgences. In this there was no need of hypocrisy. Things were done openly. The original germ of the apostolic primacy had now expanded into a colossal monarchy.

NEED OF A GENERAL COUNCIL. The Inquisition had made the papal system irresistible. All opposition must be punished with death by fire. A mere thought, without having betrayed itself by outward sign, was considered as guilt. As time went on, this practice of the Inquisition became more and more atrocious. Torture was resorted to on mere suspicion. The accused was not allowed to know the name of his accuser. He was not permitted to have any legal adviser. There was no appeal. The Inquisition was ordered not to lean to pity. No recantation was of avail. The innocent family of the accused was deprived of its property by confiscation; half went to the papal treasury, half to the inquisitors. Life only, said Innocent III., was to be left to the sons of misbelievers, and that merely as an act of mercy. The consequence was, that popes, such as Nicolas III., enriched their families through plunder acquired by this tribunal. Inquisitors did the same habitually.

The struggle between the French and Italians for the possession of the papacy inevitably led to the schism of the fourteenth century. For more than forty years two rival popes were now anathematizing each other, two rival Curias were squeezing the nations for money. Eventually, there were three obediences, and triple revenues to be extorted. Nobody, now, could guarantee the validity of the sacraments, for nobody could be sure which was the true pope. Men were thus compelled to think for themselves. They could not find who was the legitimate thinker for them. They began to see that the Church must rid herself of the curialistic chains, and resort to a General Council. That attempt was again and again made, the intention being to raise the Council into a Parliament of Christendom, and make the pope its chief executive officer. But the vast interests that had grown out of the corruption of ages could not so easily be overcome; the Curia again recovered its ascendency, and ecclesiastical trading was resumed. The Germans, who had never been permitted to share in the Curia, took the leading part in these attempts at reform. As things went on from bad to worse, even they at last found out that all hope of reforming the Church by means of councils was delusive. Erasmus exclaimed, "If Christ does not deliver his people from this multiform ecclesiastical tyranny, the tyranny of the Turk will become less intolerable." Cardinals' hats were now sold, and under Leo X. ecclesiastical and religious offices were actually put up to auction. The maxim of life had become, interest first, honor afterward. Among the officials, there was not one who could be honest in the dark, and virtuous without a witness. The violet-colored velvet cloaks and white ermine capes of the cardinals were truly a cover for wickedness.

The unity of the Church, and therefore its power, required the use of Latin as a sacred language. Through this, Rome had stood in an attitude strictly European, and was enabled to maintain a general international relation. It gave her far more power than her asserted celestial authority, and, much as she claims to have done, she is open to condemnation that, with such a signal advantage in her hands, never again to be enjoyed by any successor, she did not accomplish much more. Had not the sovereign pontiffs been so completely occupied with maintaining their emoluments and temporalities in Italy, they might have made the whole continent advance like one man. Their officials could pass without difficulty into every nation, and communicate without embarrassment with each other, from Ireland to Bohemia, from Italy to Scotland. The possession of a common tongue gave them the administration of international affairs with intelligent allies everywhere, speaking the same language.

Not without cause was the hatred manifested by Rome to the restoration of Greek and introduction of Hebrew, and the alarm with which she perceived the modern languages forming out of the vulgar dialects. Not without reason did the Faculty of Theology in Paris re-echo the sentiment that, was prevalent in the time of Ximenes, "What will become of religion if the study of Greek and Hebrew be permitted?" The prevalence of Latin was the condition of her power; its deterioration, the measure of her decay; its disuse, the signal of her limitation to a little principality in Italy. In fact, the development of European languages was the instrument of her overthrow. They formed an effectual communication between the mendicant friars and the illiterate populace, and there was not one of them that did not display in its earliest productions a sovereign contempt for her.

The rise of the many-tongued European literature was therefore coincident with the decline of papal Christianity; European literature was impossible under Catholic rule. A grand, a solemn, an imposing religious unity enforced the literary unity which is implied in the use of a single tongue.

While thus the possession of a universal language so signally secured her power, the real secret of much of the influence of the Church lay in the control she had so skillfully obtained over domestic life. Her influence diminished as that declined. Coincident with this was her displacement in the guidance of international relations by diplomacy.

CATHOLICITY AND CIVILIZATION. In the old times of Roman domination the encampments of the legions in the provinces had always proved to be foci of civilization. The industry and order exhibited in them presented an example not lost on the surrounding barbarians of Britain, Gaul, and Germany. And, though it was no part of their duty to occupy themselves actively in the betterment of the conquered tribes, but rather to keep them in a depressed condition that aided in maintaining subjection, a steady improvement both in the individual and social condition took place.