260 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



2Bunfc$,m.wi8h, desire 

 <Sdb.reibtafel, /. pocket 



book, tablet. 



(fdbretben, to write.) 

 SSer, prefix, away. 

 SBlumenbeet, n. flower- 



bed. (SBeet,. n. bed 



[in a garden.]) 

 fluf er, out of, beside. 

 33oft>, soon. 

 (Jtnige, #i. some. 

 eftriete,m.play-fellow 

 next. 



ot, n. v 

 Safdbft, there. 

 run, green, [seed. 

 @aat, /. cornfield, 

 2Btefe, /. meadow. 

 Saufenfc, thousand ; 



fdttig, adj. fold. 

 @c$mucfen, to adorn. 

 'flue, /. meadow. 

 3Jhtti|hriu'ig, playful, 



wanton. 

 Sutten, n. colt, foal. 



prung, m. spring, 



gambol. 



Jtirfcfje, /. cherry. 

 Dbfi, n. fruit. 

 @td; c tw6,l fctn laffcn, 



to make one's self 



comfortable. 

 9Jcd)t, very, right. 

 Bururf, back. 

 SKuffen, to be obliged. 

 J&erbft, m. autumn. 

 Sufcrtngen, to spend 

 Jseiji, hot. 



Better, serene,cheerf ul 

 SBeinflocf, m. vine. 



(totf, m. stick.) 

 9letf, ripe. 

 rauk, /. grape. 

 OKiflbect, n. hot-bed. 



(3Kifl, TO. manure.) 



m. branch. 

 9licterjte6,en, to bend 



down. ($tel;en, to 



draw, march, 



move.) 



ffirft first, only, no 

 till now. 



gcfl, n. feast, festival. 



fiieber, rather, dearer; 

 lieber effen, to pre- 

 fer to eat. 



SBotiiber, past, over. 



SSertteiben, to drive 

 away, to expel, 

 (tteiben, to drive.) 



2BtrHicf>, really. 



Jtennen, to know. 



8ortfaf>ren, to con- 

 tinue. 



Slafdb. e, /. pocket. 



@ette, /, page, side. 



@onberbar, singular, 

 strange. 



, to reflect. 

 , to follow. 



SWlannigfattig, mani- 

 fold. 



(Sinricfyten, to arrange, 

 (ricfyten, to right, 

 judge.) 



HISTORIC SKETCHES. XXXIII 



THE PAPACY. 



TIME was when there was no Pope of Rome, even though 

 Christianity had been established in the world's capital for 

 many years. Time was when, though there was a Pope, or 

 Father, or Bishop of Eome, there was no pontiff king ; when the 

 See of St. Peter, as it has been called, was ruled in spiritual 

 matters by men who came up and more than came up to the 

 standard of qualifications set by St. Paul for those who would 

 assume the office of bishop ; men who administered to their 

 brethren in spiritual things humbly, and with an ever-present 

 sense of the responsibility of their charge ; " not making them- 

 selves lords over God's heritage," but administering soberly, 

 fatherly, wisely. At this time the Roman Christians were not 

 under papal scrutiny, and the idea of secular authority 

 temporal power would have been looked on not only as incom- 

 patible with true spiritual power, but as preposterous and 

 entirely out of character with the province of a bishop. Let us 

 look back a little upon the Rome of former days, and watch 

 through the telescope of time the gradual growth of that enor- 

 mous dominion over the minds and consciences of men which is 

 now included in the Papacy, and the growth also of that other 

 subsidiary power, which includes the power of the sword, the 

 power which when St. Peter, in a moment of generous impulse, 

 arrogated to himself and exercised, he was bidden by his Lord 

 to forego it, and to put up his sword into its sheath. 



Christ died in the thirty-third year of his age, and the apostles 

 and their successors, beginning from the feast of Pentecost, 

 preached the Gospel of his kingdom both in the East and West 

 with singular success. Not without much suffering and perse- 

 cution did they achieve their work ; many were the witnesses 

 to truth who were required to lay down their lives for the sake 

 of Him who had in his own person shown them how to die and 

 how to overcome death. The noble army of martyrs had in- 

 creased to a prodigious size ere Constantino, the first Christian 

 Emperor of Rome, gave relief to its weary battalions. The 

 Church, during 300 years that it suffered violence, lived a life 

 purified by suffering, so that dissensions were few and heresies 

 almost unknown at least in that portion of the Church which 

 was immediately exposed to persecution. In Rome, for example, 

 whatever there might be in the Churches of Africa and Asia, 

 there was, comparatively speaking, unity; the presbyters, or 

 bishops, were just the heads of congregations, chosen by the 

 congregations as being the fittest for the post ; and they were 

 possessed of an authority not aggressive, and which was capable 

 of being curbed, if need were, by the voice of the other pres- 

 byters, or of the congregation itself. There was no pretence of 

 infallibility in any one ; but quietly, with singleness of heart, 

 in profound humility, and in daily waiting upon the Lord of the 

 Church, the Roman Christians lived and died, worked and 

 prayed ; their services being simple and un- Judaized by cere- 



monies, their chief and daily service the communion of the body 

 and blood of their Lord, whose death they lovingly desired con- 

 tinually to set forth till his coming again. 



Between A.D. 324 and 334 the Emperor Constantino built 

 the city which was called after him Constantinople ; and re- 

 moving the court thither, made it the seat of government and 

 the capital of the empire. Rome lay too open to the attacks of 

 the northern and western men, who were coming down gradually 

 from their inhospitable homes, and were pressing closer and 

 closer upon the borders of the empire. The empire, vast and 

 unwieldy as it was, was beginning to feel the fatigue of sup- 

 porting its own body, and Constantino was anxious to with- 

 draw to a spot where his authority was more unquestioned than 

 in the West. The effect of Constantino's conversion was to 

 bring about the conversion of many lesser potentates, whose 

 people, prepared for the change by the zealous, self-denying 

 Christian missionaries, speedily followed. Thus the kings and 

 people of Iberia, Armenia, of part of Abyssinia, and of India be- 

 came Christians, while large numbers of the Goths and Germans 

 in the Imperial army embraced the same faith. The national 

 religion of the Roman Empire, or as it was now called, the 

 Greek Empire, was changed from paganism of various kinds to 

 Christianity. 



The Church scarcely throve so well under prosperity as under 

 adversity; but one of the first things done for her under the 

 new regime was to give her the emperor, a layman, for her 

 head. Constantino was acknowledged to be the supreme head 

 of the Church, because it was deemed necessary to have some 

 head ; and the wisdom of the time and of any time could think 

 of no one better than the man who was the Church's protector 

 and champion, and who, being a layman, without jj,ny pontifical 

 attributes, could not be suspected of spiritual despotism. The 

 Church was administered by 1,800 bishops 1,000 in the Greek, 

 and 800 in the Roman provinces whose dioceses varied in ex- 

 tent, according to the population, but whose rank was equal. 

 These bishops were elected by the clergy and the people of the 

 diocese, the emperor claiming a right to interfere in their final 

 appointment if he thought fit. But soon there was established 

 by Constantino himself a distinct order of ecclesiastics bishops 

 who, once appointed, were absolute over their clergy, and 

 who had the power, among other things, to excommunicate 

 those whom they deemed fit subjects for it. The secular arm 

 was lent to enforce the sentences of these rulers, who were com- 

 pared with the other prelates as archbishops to bishops ; but 

 even among these privileged few distinctions were soon taken, 

 according to which Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and 

 afterwards Constantinople, were selected to form patriarchates, 

 or primacies. 



Councils met in the spring and autumn of each year to con- 

 sider the affairs of the whole Church. Archbishops could sum 

 mon to council all their dependent bishops and clergy, and the 

 patriarchs could do the same by the whole of the clergy in their 

 see ; but an extraordinary council, or grand synod, containing 

 representatives from all Christendom, could be summoned by the 

 emperor alone. At the grand synod were discussed matters 

 affecting the whole Church of Christ, and as it was supposed 

 that the Spirit of God must necessarily be present among those 

 who were met to decide upon the affairs of the flock, it came 

 to be maintained that a General Council was infallible, and 

 superior to the Pope a doctrine which has obtained in the 

 Roman Church ever since. As an instance of this, the General 

 Council of Constance, in 1414, even deposed Pope John XXIII., 

 and elected Martin V. in his place. 



In the seventh century the followers of Mahomet (Mahomet 

 died A.D. 631) streamed northward and westward from their 

 Arabian home, and swept away the patriarchates of Antioch and 

 Alexandria, establishing the crescent in the place of the cross. 

 The see of Antioch had never been very powerful, but that of 

 Alexandria was, perhaps, the first of all first in point of 

 numbers, first in bigotry, first in power. It was corrupt, and 

 it fell before the Saracens, and the Christian Church in Africa 

 has never taken deep root since. Carthage soon followed the 

 fate of Alexandria, and schism springing up between the 

 Churches of Rome and Constantinople, the former was left to 

 pursue that policy of self-aggrandisement which it has labor- 

 iously carried out, wherever practicable, ever since. 



A remarkable chain of circumstances contributed to the 

 development of the Roman policy. About the year 728 the 



