In 1301 the contest was renewed, mainly because of the indiscretion of a papal legate, Bernard Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, who vilified the king and was promptly imprisoned for his violent language. Boniface took up the cause of Saisset and called an ecclesiastical council to regulate the affairs of church and state in France and to rectify the injuries wrought by King Philip. The claim to papal supremacy in temporal as well as spiritual affairs, which Boniface proposed thus to make good, was boldly stated in a new bull—that of Ausculta Fili—in 1301. At the same time the bull Clericis Laicos was renewed for France. Philip knew that the Franconians and his own Capetian predecessors had failed in their struggles with Rome chiefly for the reason that they had been lacking in consistent popular support. National feeling was unquestionably stronger in the France of 1301 than in the Germany of 1077, or even in the France of 1200; but to make doubly sure, Philip, in 1302, caused the first meeting of a complete States General to be held, and from this body, representing the various elements of the French people, he got reliable pledges of support in his efforts to resist the temporal aggressions of the papacy. It was at this juncture that Boniface issued the bull Unam Sanctam, which has well been termed the classic mediæval expression of the papal claims to universal temporal sovereignty.
In 1303 an assembly of French prelates and magnates, under the inspiration of Philip, brought charges of heresy and misconduct against Boniface and called for a meeting of a general ecclesiastical council to depose him. Boniface decided to issue a bull excommunicating and deposing Philip. But before the date set for this step (September, 1303) a catastrophe befell the papacy which resulted in an unexpected termination of the episode. On the day before the bull of deposition was to be issued William of Nogaret, whom Philip had sent to Rome to force Boniface to call a general council to try the charges against himself, led a band of troops to Anagni and took the Pope prisoner with the intention of carrying him to France for trial. After three days the inhabitants of Anagni attacked the Frenchmen and drove them out and Boniface, who had barely escaped death, returned to Rome. The unfortunate Pope never recovered, however, from the effects of the outrage and his death in October (1303) left Philip, by however unworthy means, a victor. From this point the papacy passes under the domination of the French court and in 1309 began the dark period of the so-called Babylonian Captivity, during most of which the popes dwelt at Avignon under conditions precisely the reverse of the ideal which Boniface so clearly asserted in Unam Sanctam.
Source—Text based upon the papal register published by P. Mury in Revue des Questions Historiques, Vol. XLVI. (July, 1889), pp. 255-256. Translated in Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar H. McNeal, Source Book for Mediæval History (New York), 1905, pp. 314-317.
The true faith compels us to believe that there is one holy Catholic Apostolic Church, and this we firmly believe and plainly confess. And outside of her there is no salvation or remission of sins, as the Bridegroom says in the Song of Solomon: "My dove, my undefiled, is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her" [Song of Sol., vi. 9]; which represents the one mystical body, whose head is Christ, but the head of Christ is God [1 Cor., xi. 3]. In this Church there An assertion of the unity of the Church is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" [Eph., iv. 5]. For in the time of the flood there was only one ark, that of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, and it was "finished above in one cubit" [Gen., vi. 16], and had but one helmsman and master, namely, Noah. And we read that all things on the earth outside of this ark were destroyed. This Church we venerate as the only one, since the Lord said by the prophet: "Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog" [Ps., xxii. 20]. He prayed for his soul, that is, for himself, the head; and at the same time for the body, and he named his body, that is, the one Church, because there is but one Bridegroom [John, iii. 29], and because of the unity of the faith, of the sacraments, and of his love for the Church. This is the seamless robe of the Lord which was not rent but parted by lot [John, xix. 23].
Therefore there is one body of the one and only Church, and one head, not two heads, as if the Church were a monster. And this head is Christ, and his vicar, Peter and his successor; for the Lord himself said to Peter: "Feed my sheep" [John, xxi. 16]. And he said "my sheep," in general, not these or those sheep in particular; from which it is clear that all were committed to him. An allusion to the Petrine Supremacy If, therefore, Greeks [i.e., the Greek Church] or any one else say that they are not subject to Peter and his successors, they thereby necessarily confess that they are not of the sheep of Christ. For the Lord says, in the Gospel of John, that there is one fold and only one shepherd [John, x. 16]. By the words of the gospel we are taught that the two swords, namely, the spiritual authority and the temporal, are in the power of the Church. For when the apostles said "Here are two swords" [Luke, xxii. 38]—that is, in the Church, since it was the apostles who were speaking—the Lord did not answer, "It is too much," but "It is enough." Whoever denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter does not properly understand the word of the Lord when He said: "Put up thy sword into the sheath" [John, xviii. 11]. Both swords, therefore, The proper relation of spiritual and temporal powers the spiritual and the temporal, are in the power of the Church. The former is to be used by the Church, the latter for the Church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the command and permission of the priest. Moreover, it is necessary for one sword to be under the other, and the temporal authority to be subjected to the spiritual; for the apostle says, "For there is no power but of God: and the powers that be are ordained of God" [Rom., xiii. 1]; but they would not be ordained unless one were subjected to the other, and, as it were, the lower made the higher by the other.
For, according to St. Dionysius,[534] it is a law of divinity that the lowest is made the highest through the intermediate. According to the law of the universe all things are not equally and directly reduced to order, but the lowest are fitted into their order through the intermediate, and the lower through the higher. And we must necessarily admit that the spiritual power The superiority of the spiritual surpasses any earthly power in dignity and honor, because spiritual things surpass temporal things. We clearly see that this is true from the paying of tithes, from the benediction, from the sanctification, from the receiving of the power, and from the governing of these things. For the truth itself declares that the spiritual power must establish the temporal power and pass judgment on it if it is not good. Thus the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power is fulfilled: "See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant" [Jer., i. 10].
Therefore if the temporal power errs, it will be judged by the spiritual power, and if the lower spiritual power errs, it will be The highest spiritual power (the papacy) responsible to God alone judged by its superior. But if the highest spiritual power errs, it cannot be judged by men, but by God alone. For the apostle says: "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man" [1 Cor., ii. 15]. Now this authority, although it is given to man and exercised through man, is not human, but divine. For it was given by the word of the Lord to Peter, and the rock was made firm to him and his successors, in Christ himself, whom he had confessed. For the Lord said to Peter: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" [Matt., xvi. 19].
Therefore, whosoever resisteth this power thus ordained of God resisteth the ordinance of God [Rom., xiii. 2], unless there are two principles [beginnings], as Manichæus[535] pretends there are. But this we judge to be false and heretical. For Moses says that, not in the beginnings, but in the beginning, God created Submission to the papacy essential to salvation the heaven and the earth [Gen., i. 1]. We therefore declare, say, and affirm that submission on the part of every man to the bishop of Rome is altogether necessary for his salvation.