ed in a marble palace; they were clothed in purple
and fine linen; they were surrounded by sycophants; nobles and generals
waited in their ante-chambers; they were the companions of princes; they
controlled enormous revenues; they were the successors of the high
pontiffs of imperial domination.

Yet for three hundred years few of them were eminent. It is not the
order of Providence that great posts, to which men are elected by
inferiors, should be filled with great men. Such are always feared, and
have numerous enemies who defeat their elevation. Moreover, it is only
in crises of imminent danger that signal abilities are demanded. Men are
preferred for exalted stations who will do no harm, who have talent
rather than genius,--men who have business capacities, who have industry
and modesty and agreeable manners; who, if noted for anything, are noted
for their character. Hence we do not read of more than two or three
bishops, for three hundred years, who stood out pre-eminently among
their contemporaries; and these were inferior to Origen, who was a
teacher in a theological school, and to Jerome, who was a monk in an
obscure village. Even Augustine, to whose authority in theology the
Catholic Church still professes to bow down, as the schools of the
Middle Ages did to Aristotle, was the bishop of an unimportant See in
Northern Africa. Only Clement in the first century, and Innocent in the
fourth loomed up above their contemporaries. As for the rest, great as
was their dignity as bishops, it is absurd to attribute to them schemes
for enthralling the world. No such plans arose in the bosom of any of
them. Even Leo I. merely prepared the way for universal domination; he
had no such deep-laid schemes as Gregory VII. or Boniface VIII. The
primacy of the Bishop of Rome was all that was conceded by other bishops
for four hundred years, and this on the ground of the grandeur of his
capital. Even this was disputed by the Bishop of Constantinople, and
continued to be until that capital was taken by the Turks.

But with the waning power, glory, and wealth of Rome,--decimated,
pillaged, trodden under foot by Goths and Vandals, rebuked by
Providence, deserted by emperors, abandoned to decay and ruin,--some
expedient or new claim to precedency was demanded to prevent the Roman
bishops from sinking into mediocrity. It was at this crisis that the
pontificate of Leo began, in the year 440. It was a gloomy period, not
only for Rome, but f