y fault be found in bishops. But when
no fault requires it, all are equal according to the estimation of
humility." In Rome there is no growth by aid of the civil power from a
suffragan bishop to an universal Papacy. The Papacy shows itself already in
St. Clement, a disciple of St. Peter's, "whose name is written in the book
of life,"[219] and who, involving the Blessed Trinity, affirms that the
orders emanating from his see are the words of God Himself.[220] This is
the ground of St. Gregory's moderation; and whatever extension may
hereafter be found in the exercise of the same power by his successors is
drawn forth by the condition of the times, a condition often opposed to the
inmost wishes of the Pope. Those are evil times which require "a thousand
bishops rolled into one" to oppose the civil tyranny of a Hohenstaufen, the
violence of barbarism in a Rufus, or the corruption of wealth in a
Plantagenet.

Between St. Peter and St. Gregory, in 523 years, there succeeded full sixty
Popes. If we take any period of like duration in the history of the world's
kingdoms, we shall find in their rulers a remarkable contrast of varying
policy and temper. Few governments, indeed, last so long. But in the few
which have so lasted we find one sovereign bent on war, another on peace,
another on accumulating treasure, another on spending it; one given up to
selfish pleasures, here and there a ruler who reigns only for the good of
others. But in Gregory's more than sixty predecessors there is but one
idea: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it," is the compendious expression
of their lives and rule. For this St. Clement, who had heard the words of
his master, suffered exile and martyrdom in the Crimea. For this five
Popes, in the decade between 250 and 260, laid down their lives. The letter
of St. Julius to the Eusebian prelates is full of it. St. Leo saw the
empire of Rome falling around him, but he is so possessed with that idea
that he does not allude to the ruin of temporal kingdoms. St. Gregory
trembles for the lives of his beleaguered people, but he does not know the
see which is not subject to the Apostolic See. In weakness and in power, in
ages of an ever varying but always persistent adversity, in times of
imperial patronage, and, again, under heretical domination, the mind of
every Pope is full of this idea. The strength or the weakness of individual
cha