ntres. Independent of the papacy, they were not independent of the lay
rulers within whose dominions they lay. On the contrary, their members
were deeply engaged in lay activities; they were landlords, feudatories,
and officials in their various countries. In the face of these facts,
the Gregorian movement of the eleventh century pursues two closely
interconnected objects. It aims at asserting the universal primacy of
the papacy; it aims at vindicating the freedom of the clergy from all
secular power. The one aim is a means to the other: the pope cannot be
universal primate, unless the clergy he controls are free from secular
control; and the clergy cannot be free from secular control, unless the
universal primacy of the papacy effects their liberation. Gregorianism
wins a great if not a thorough triumph. It establishes the theory, and
in a very large measure the practice, of ecclesiastical unity. The days
of the _Landeskirche_ are numbered: the days of the Church Universal
under the universal primacy of Rome are begun. But when the universality
of the Church has once been established in point of extension, it begins
to be also asserted in point of intensity. Once ubiquitous, the papacy
seeks to be omnicompetent. Depositary of the truth, and only depositary
of the truth, by divine revelation, the Church, under the guidance of
the papacy, seeks to realize the truth in every reach of life, and to
control, in the light of Christian principle, every play of human
activity. Learning and education, trade and commerce, war and peace, are
all to be drawn into her orbit. By the application of Christian
principle a great synthesis of human life is to be achieved, and the
_lex Christi_ is to be made a _lex animata in terris_.

This was the greatest ambition that has ever been cherished. It meant
nothing less than the establishment of a _civitas Dei_ on earth. And
this kingdom of God was to be very different from that of which St.
Augustine had written. His city of God was neither the actual Church nor
the actual State, nor a fusion of both. It was a spiritual society of
the predestined faithful, and, as such, thoroughly distinct from the
State and secular society. The city of God which the great mediaeval
popes were seeking to establish was a city of this world, if not of this
world only. It was a fusion of the actual Church, reformed by papal
direction and governed by papal control, with actual lay society,
similarly reformed and