Chapter 49 Chapter XV The Decline of the Pope

In the thirteenth century AD, a great synthesis of philosophy, theology, politics and society was completed.This synthesis was slowly built up due to the combination of many factors.The first factor was pure Greek philosophy, especially that of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle.Then, as a result of Alexander's wars of conquest, there was a massive influx of Eastern beliefs.These factors took advantage of Orphic mystical beliefs and changed the worldview of the Greek-speaking world and eventually the Latin-speaking world.The dead and resurrected god, the rites of communion meant to eat the god's flesh, the rebirth into a new life through a ritual like baptism, etc., gradually became part of theology in much of the pagan Roman world.Combined with these factors was an ethic of liberation from the bondage of the flesh, which was at least theoretically ascetic.From Syria, Egypt, Babylon, and Persia came priesthoods separate from the lay people, who were more or less magical and could bring corresponding political influence.Some memorable religious ceremonies, mainly connected with belief in the afterlife, also draw from the same source.From Persia in particular came a kind of dualism, which sees the world as a shura field of two camps, one for the good led by Ahura Mazda and the other for Ahriman ruled by evil.The use of witchcraft is aided by Ahriman and his disciples in the spiritual world.A development of Satan Ahriman.

The influx of barbarian ideas and practices was combined with some Greek elements in Neoplatonic philosophy.In Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and some parts of Plato's writings, the Greeks developed views that were easily combined with Eastern views.Perhaps these ideas were borrowed from the East long ago.The development of pagan philosophy ceased with Plotinus and Pulphyrius. Although the thoughts of these people have a strong religious color, they are not enough to raise a popular religion that prevails in the world if they are not greatly reformed.Their philosophies are too difficult to be understood by ordinary people; their salvation methods are too intellectual for ordinary people.Their conservative thinking prompted them to maintain the traditional Greek religion, but in order to alleviate the immoral factors and reconcile with their philosophical monotheism, they had to make allegorical interpretations.In the end, Greek religion could not compete with the oriental rituals and theology, and tended to decline.The prophets fell silent, and the priests never formed a strong and special class.The attempt to revive Greek religion thus took on an archaic character, which endowed it with a degree of cowardice and pedantry, which was particularly marked in the case of the emperor Julian.As early as the third century A.D. some Asiatic religion could be foreseen to conquer the Roman world, but there were also competing religions which seemed to have a chance of winning.

Christianity has gathered all kinds of powerful factors.It received from the Jews a Bible, and a doctrine that all other religions are vain and evil; but it threw away the Jewish racial exclusivity and the inconveniences of the Law of Moses.Later Judaism had learned to believe in the afterlife, but the Christians gave a new certainty to heaven, hell, and the means of entering and escaping hell.Easter combines the Jewish Passover with the pagan rites of the risen God.The dualism of the Persians was also imbibed, but the Christians gave a firmer conviction of the ultimate omnipotence of their good principles, adding to it the conviction that the heathen were disciples of Satan.At first the Christians were not their rivals philosophically and ceremonially.But these deficiencies have been gradually improved.

Philosophy was initially more progressive in the semi-Christian Nestorians than in the Orthodox sects; but since Origen the Christians have developed a suitable philosophy by modifying Neoplatonism.Ritual among the early Christians was a vague matter, but at any rate by the time of St. Ambrose it was already very impressive.The power and special status of the priests were originally adopted from the East, but gradually strengthened through the ruling method. Within the church, this was thanks to the practice of the Roman Empire.The Old Testament, the mystical religions, Greek philosophy, and Roman administrative methods were all mixed within the Catholic Church, and combined to endow it with a power unmatched by any previous social organization.

The Western Church, like ancient Rome, developed slowly, but changed from a republic to a monarchy.We have seen the various stages in the growth of the papacy, from Gregory the Great, through Nicholas I, Gregory VII, and Innocent III, to the Hohenstaufen dynasty in the Prelovites and Kibelins The final defeat in the faction war.At the same time, Christian philosophy, always Augustinian and therefore chiefly Platonist, received new elements from its contacts with Constantinople and the Mohammedans.Aristotle, by the time of the thirteenth century A.D., was almost entirely known to the West, and thanks to the influence of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle was in the minds of scholars It became the highest authority after the Bible and the church.Among Catholic philosophers, he still maintains this status to this day.From a Christian point of view, I cannot but think that it was a mistake to replace Plato and St. Augustine with Aristotle.Temperamentally Plato is more religious than Aristotle.And Christian theology has been adapted to Platonism from the beginning.Plato taught:

Knowledge is not perception, but an illusion of recollection; Aristotle was more of an empiricist, and St. Thomas, though not his intention, paved the way for the transition from Platonic dreaming to scientific observation. the way. External events played a far more important role than philosophy in the collapse of the Catholic complex from the middle of the fourteenth century AD.The Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Latins in 1204 and ruled by them from 1261 to 1261; during this period the religion of the government was Catholic rather than Greek Orthodox.The Pope lost Constantinople after 1261, and although there was a nominal annexation at Ferrara in 1438, the Pope never recovered the city.Due to the rise of the monarchy of France, England and other nations, the Western Empire (referring to the Holy Roman Empire-translator) was defeated in the conflict with the Pope, but the result did not bring any benefits to the Church; Politically it was only a tool in the hands of the King of France for most of the period.More important than these reasons was the rise of the wealthy merchant class and the increase in the knowledge of the laity.This situation all started in Italy, and until the middle of the sixteenth century AD, its development was often far ahead of other parts of the West.In the fourteenth century A.D. the cities of northern Italy were richer than the northern cities; the learned laymen, especially in law and medicine, were growing in number.These cities have an independent spirit, and since the emperor is now infested, they are apt to rise up against the pope.The same movement exists elsewhere, albeit to a lesser degree.Flanders prospered: the Hanseatic cities were not far behind.In England the wool trade became a source of income.During this period, what may be called broadly democratic tendencies were strong, but nationalist tendencies were even stronger.The Holy See has become very secular, acting largely as a taxing body, collecting huge taxes that most nations would like to keep within their borders.Popes no longer enjoy or deserve the kind of moral authority that gives them authority.St. Francis had previously been able to work with Innocent III and Gregory IX, but some of the most zealous of the fourteenth century were forced to struggle with the papacy.

At the beginning of the century, however, these reasons for the decline of the papacy were not immediately apparent.In his Bull Unam Sanctam Boniface VIII made extreme demands never made by any pope before.In 1300 AD, he created the jubilee system, and all Catholics who traveled to Rome and held certain ceremonies here could be granted amnesty.This brought enormous sums into the coffers of the Holy See and into the pockets of the citizens of Rome.It was originally stipulated that the jubilee ceremony should be held every 100 years, but it was shortened to every 50 years due to huge profits, and then shortened to 25 years, and has been passed down to modern times.The first jubilee ceremony in 1300 AD can be regarded as the pinnacle of the pope's success. At the same time, for convenience, this date can also be regarded as the date when the Holy See began to decline.

Boniface VIII was an Italian, born in Anagni. When he was in England, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for the Pope to assist King Henry III in conquering the rebellious princes.In 1267 AD he was rescued by Henry's son, later Edward I.In his time there had been a strong French faction within the church, and his election had been opposed by the French cardinals.He had a bitter conflict with King Philip IV of France over whether the king had the right to tax French monks.Boniface was often drawn upon relatives and at the same time insatiable; therefore, he was willing to control as many sources of income as possible.He may have been justly accused of heresy; he seems to have been an Aphroesian and did not believe in the immortality of the soul.He had a deep feud with the King of France.As a result, the latter attempted to depose him through the church meeting, and sent troops to arrest him.He was captured at Anagni, but fled afterwards to Rome, where he died.For a long time after that no Pope ventured against the King of France.

After a brief interim reign, the cardinals elected the Archbishop of Bordo as Pope in 1305, known as Clement V.He was a Canscanian and always represented the French sect in the Church, and he never went to Italy during his pontificate.He was crowned at Lyons and settled in Avignon in AD 1309, where popes continued for about seventy years.Pope Clement V had trumpeted his alliance with the King of France through joint action against the Knights Templar.Money was needed on both sides, the Pope for the habit of favoring private persons and cliques, and Philip for the war against England, the suppression of the Flemish rebellion, and the maintenance of a growing government.After he had robbed the Lombard bankers, he persecuted the Jews "so far as commerce would permit."He discovered that the Knights Templar were not only bankers, but had enormous estates in France, which he could seize with the pope's backing.So the king and the pope agreed that first the church would expose that the Knights Templar had fallen into heresy; and then the king and the pope would share the spoils in partnership.On a given date in 1307, all the leading Templars in France were arrested;

They all had to answer a series of pre-planned leading questions, and under torture, they confessed to having worshiped Satan and various other scandals; in 1313 AD, the Pope finally suppressed the order and confiscated all its treasures. property.On this case Henry C.Lee narrates it best in his History of the Inquisition.After a thorough investigation, he concluded in the book that the charges against the Knights Templar were completely baseless. Throughout the Knights Templar affair, the pope and king were aligned financially.In most parts of Christendom, however, the interests of the two conflicted in most cases.During the period of Boniface VIII, Philip IV had the support of people from all walks of life and even the monks when he had a dispute with the Pope for taxation.When the pope submits to France politically, some monarchs who hate the king of France must also hate the pope.This had led to the Emperor's patronage of William of Occam and of Massiglio the Bartua; and in later ages John of Gaunt to protect Wycliffe.

On the whole, the bishops were by this time in complete obedience to the Pope; and the number of bishops actually appointed by him was increasing in proportion.The monastic orders were equally subservient as the Dominican order, only the Franciscan order retained a certain degree of independence.This led to a conflict between them and Pope John XXII, of which we have already spoken of William of Occam.During the conflict, Massiglio urged the emperor to attack Rome.The Roman crowd crowned the emperor, and at the same time elected a Franciscan anti-pope after the crowd had deposed John XXII.All these things had no effect but a general weakening of the respect for the papacy. The rebellion against papal rule took different forms in different regions.Sometimes it was combined with the nationalism of the monarchy, and sometimes it was combined with the Puritan distaste for the corruption and worldliness of the Holy See.In Rome itself this rebellion was combined with an archaic democracy.During the reign of Clement VI (AD 1342-1352), Rome, under the leadership of an outstanding figure, Clara di Lienzi, once sought to break away from the rule of the Pope who had lived far away for a long time.Rome suffered not only from the Pope's rule, but also from the local nobles who continued to riot in the tenth century and lowered the prestige of the Holy See.It is true that part of the reason why the Pope fled to Avignon was to escape these lawless Roman nobles.Li Enji is the son of a tavern owner. At first he only rebelled against the nobles, and for this he won the support of the Pope.He summoned such enthusiasm that the nobles fled in fright (1347).The poet Petrarch admired him very much and wrote an ode to him, encouraging him to continue his great and noble cause.He took the title of Tribune and proclaimed Roman sovereignty over the Holy Roman Empire.He seems to have understood this sovereignty democratically, for he had assembled representatives from the Italian cities into a kind of parliament.Victory, however, gave him a false sense of self-importance.This time, as on many other occasions, there were two contenders for the imperial throne.Li Enji summoned the two of them and the electors to settle the matter in front of him.This naturally caused both candidates for the throne to rise up against him, together with the Pope, who thought it his duty to pronounce judgment in such matters.Li Enji was arrested by the Pope (1352 AD), imprisoned for two years, and was not released until the death of Clement VI.He then returned to Rome, where he resumed his presidency for several months.This time, however, his popularity was short-lived, and in the end, he was murdered by the mob.Byron, like Petrarch, wrote poems in his praise. Clearly, if the Holy See was to effectively maintain the primacy of the Catholic Church, it had to return to Rome and break free from the French yoke.In addition, the Anglo-French war— France had suffered a number of disastrous defeats in the war - had made France no security at all. So Urban V moved back to Rome in 1367; but Italian politics were too complicated for him, and he returned to Avignon shortly before his death.The successor, Pope Gregory XI, was more decisive.Hatred of the French papacy drove many Italian cities, especially Florence, to extreme hostility to the pope, and Gregory did his best to save the situation by returning to Rome and opposing the French cardinals.Even so, at the time of his death the French and Roman factions in the Episcopal Conference were still out of harmony.In accordance with the wishes of the Roman faction, the Italian, Bartholomew Polignano, was elected pope, known as Urban VI.However, some cardinals declared that the election of Polignano violated the canon, and elected Robert, a Frenchman from Geneva, who claimed that Clement VII lived in Avignon. Thus began the great schism which lasted for forty years.France, of course, recognized the Pope of Avignon, while the hostile states of France recognized the Pope of Rome.Scotland was the enemy of England, and England was the enemy of France; therefore Scotland recognized the Pope of Avignon.Each pope selects cardinals from his own party, and whenever a pope of one party dies, his cardinals promptly elect another to succeed him.Therefore, unless there is exercise of a power over the two popes, there is no way to cure this division.One of the two must obviously be legitimate, and we must therefore find a power over the legitimate pope.The only solution lay in the convening of a Synod, and the University of Paris under Geysin developed a new theory of granting motions to the Synod.The lay rulers supported this theory because it was inconvenient for them to divide the Church.In 1409 A.D. a meeting was finally called in Pisa. Yet the meeting failed hilariously.It deposed two popes simultaneously on charges of heresy and schismatics, and elected a third, who died thereupon; but his cardinals installed an ex-pirate, Baldassary Cole Sarah as his successor, known as John XXIII.Thus there were three Popes instead of two, and the Pope elected by the Synod was a notorious villain.The situation now seemed more hopeless than at any previous age. Supporters of the conference movement did not stop, however.A new council was called at Constance in AD 1414, and positive action was taken.It begins by declaring that the pope has no right to dissolve the council, and must submit to it in some respects.The meeting also decided that the future pope must convene a general meeting every seven years.The meeting deposed Pope John XXIII and persuaded the then Pope to resign.The pope of Avignon refused to resign, and after his death a successor was elected under the patronage of the king of Aragon.But France, which was at the mercy of England at this time, refused to recognize him.Since then, his party members have gradually declined, and finally ceased to exist.In this way, there was no opposition at last to the Pope elected by the Synod, who was elected in AD 1417 and was called Martin V. These measures are laudable, but not so in the case of Hess, Wycliffe's Bohemian protégé.Hess had been promised his safety before being taken to Constance, but on arrival there he was convicted and burned. Wycliffe died a good death, but the council ordered his bones to be exhumed and burned.Supporters of the Congress movement were eager to shake off any suspicion of violating orthodoxy. The Synod of Constance saved the schism, but it wanted to do more and replace the papal dictatorship with a constitutional monarchy.Martin V made many promises before he was elected; some he kept, some he broke.He assented to the decree to call a general council every seven years, and has always strictly observed it.The Council of Constance was dissolved in A.D. 1417, and a new one - as it turned out to be unimportant - was held in A.D. 1424; thereafter, in A.D. 1431, another was held at Bazel.Martin V happened to die at this time, and his successor, Eugenius IV, fought fiercely throughout his term with the innovators who controlled the council.He dissolved the council, but the council refused to recognize the dissolution; he conceded for a time in 1433.But in 1437 AD it was re-ordered to dissolve it.Nevertheless, the council continued until AD 1448, by which time the pope's total victory became known.The 1439 meeting lost the sympathy of public opinion by announcing the abolition of Martin V and the election of a rival pope (the last one in history).But the man resigned almost immediately. In the same year Eugenius IV convened a separate council in Ferrara, thereby boosting his prestige.The Greek church there made a nominal surrender to Rome because of its excessive fear of the Turks.As a result, the Holy See gained political momentum, but at the same time its moral prestige was greatly weakened. Wycliffe (c. A.D. 1320-1384) by his life and teachings illustrates the decline of papal authority in the fourteenth century.Unlike the previous scholastics, he was neither a monk nor a dervish, but a secular priest.He was well known at Oxford and received his Doctorate of Divinity in AD 1372.He served briefly as headmaster at Barrio College.He was the last significant Oxford Scholastic.As a philosopher he was not progressive; he was a realist, more a Platonist than an Aristotelian.He disagreed with some people's claims, and believed that God's command is not arbitrary; the actual world is not one of the possible worlds, but the only possible world, because God has the obligation to choose the best.It wasn't these things that made him an interesting character, nor did he seem to have much interest in them.Because he actually retired from Oxford University as a country priest.During the last ten years of his career he was ordained priest of the diocese of Lutwalds, but he continued to lecture at Oxford. It is remarkable how slowly Wycliffe's ideas developed.A.D. 1372, when he was in his fifties or more, was orthodox; but after that age it became evident that he had become a heretic.His belief in heresy seems to be driven entirely by a sense of morality—his sympathy for the poor, and his aversion for rich secular monks.At first, his attacks on the Holy See were limited to political and moral aspects and did not involve doctrinal aspects; it was only because he was forced that he gradually embarked on a broader road of resistance. Wycliffe's departure from orthodoxy began with a series of lectures "On Civil Government" given at Oxford in AD 1376.He argued that only the righteous deserved the right to rule and property; unjust monks did not have these rights; and whether a priest should retain his property had to be decided by the secular regime.He went a step further and taught that property is the result of sin, and that Christ and his followers had no property and therefore, monks should also be propertyless.These teachings offend all priests except the dervish.The English government welcomed these teachings, because the Pope often diverted huge tributes from England, and this teaching that disapproved of sending money from England to the Pope was beneficial to the government.This was especially the case when the pope was subservient to France, and England was at war with France.John of Gaunt, ruler in the boyhood of Richard II, looked after Wycliffe as long as he could.Gregory IX, on the contrary, denounced the existence of eighteen arguments in Wycliffe's lectures, accusing them of originating from Massiglio the Batua.Wycliffe was summoned to stand trial before a court of bishops, but the queen and the mob protected him, while Oxford refused to recognize the pope's jurisdiction over the university's faculty. (Universities in England believed in academic freedom even in those days.) From 1378 to 1379 AD, Wycliffe continued to write some academic treatises, advocating that the king is the agent of God, and the bishop should obey the king.After the Great Schism came, he intensified his branding of the Pope as an antichrist, and said that the recognition of Constantine's gift made all subsequent popes apostates.He translated the Latin Bible into English; and established the "poor priests" Sangha with lay monks. (He finally offended the dervishes for this measure.) He sent out "poor priests" as itinerant preachers, emphasizing his preaching work among the poor.Finally, when he attacked priesthood, he went on to deny incarnation, calling incarnation a folly of deceit and blasphemy.John the Gaunt had ordered him to be silent on this point. The peasant uprising led by Wat Taylor in 1381 put Wycliffe into a more difficult situation.Although we have no evidence that he actively instigated the uprising, he, unlike Luther in similar events, avoided condemning the uprising.One of the leaders of the rebel army, John Baller, the socialist dispossessed priest, had praised Wycliffe, much to Wycliffe's embarrassment.John Baller had been jailed as early as 1366, but Wycliffe was still adhering to orthodoxy.We may therefore suppose that John Baller must have formed his own opinion alone.Wycliffe's communist views, though undoubtedly propagated by the "poor priests," were written in Latin, so that the average peasant could not directly read them. It is surprising that Wycliffe did not suffer more disasters for his views and democratic activities.Oxford defended him as best it could against the bishops. When the House of Lords condemned his traveling missionaries, the House of Commons refused.No doubt disputes would have accumulated had he lived longer, but by the time of his death in AD 1384 he had not been formally convicted.He died at Lutwalds and is buried there.His body rested here until the Constance Synod ordered his bones to be exhumed and burned. His English followers, the Lollards, were brutally persecuted and practically destroyed.However, because Richard II's queen was a Bohemian, his theory was able to spread in Bohemia.Hess was his disciple here; though there were persecutions in Bohemia, they continued until the Reformation.Although these people were forced to go underground in England, their ideas against the Holy See were still deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Therefore, the breeding soil was prepared for the growth of Protestantism. In the fifteenth century A.D., various causes besides the decline of the Holy See caused rapid changes in political culture.Gunpowder eliminated feudal aristocracy and strengthened centralized politics.In France and England, Louis XI and Edward IV each united their wealthy middle classes, who helped them quell the anarchy of aristocracy.Italy, which remained almost unmolested by northern armies until the end of the fifteenth century AD, achieved rapid economic and cultural development.The new culture was pagan in nature, admiring Greece and Rome, and scorning the Middle Ages.The architectural and literary styles are modeled after ancient models.When Constantinople, the last remnant of antiquity, fell to the Turks, Greek refugees who fled to Italy were welcomed by humanists.Vasco de Gama, and Columbus enlarged the world, and Copernicus enlarged the heavens.The gift of Constantine was dismissed as nonsense and ridiculed by scholars.With the assistance of the Byzantines people gradually became acquainted with Plato directly, and no longer only from the second-hand sources of Neoplatonists and Augustine.The terrestrial world is no longer a valley of tears, a place of pilgrimage to the other world, but a place of pagan pleasure, fame, beauty, and opportunities for adventure.Centuries of asceticism were forgotten in the tumult of art, poetry, and pleasure. Indeed, even in Italy the Middle Ages died after a struggle; Both Savanarola and Leonardo were born in the same year.But on the whole, the old terror is no longer frightening, and the new freedom of the spirit has become intoxicating.The intoxication did not last, but for the moment it took away the fear.In this moment of joyful liberation, the modern world was born.