Transcript

Okay, so what we're going to do now is we're going to talk about the office of the papacy, or the bishop of Rome as the pope.

And so sometimes I talk about it, I call this lecture the rise and fall of the papacy.

Of course, we're only going to go to a certain point here, but this is relevant for a couple of reasons, even if you're not Roman Catholic.

This is relevant because the authority of the bishop of Rome as the pope Contributes to the split between the Eastern and Western churches, which we're going to talk about next week.

And it contributes to the reformers and their perceived need for reform in the church, which you will learn about in History 2. So all of this stuff is building to where you're going.

So, we're going to get into this and, you know, again, as always, you can ask questions while I'm doing this, but I'm going to go through it, I'm going to talk a little bit about it, and when I get into it, I'm going to talk about specific posts and use them as examples for the increasing authority to a point.

So we'll see that when we get to it.

What you have to remember from the beginning is a concept we talked about Remember the concept of apostolic succession.

Both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome.

And so both Peter and Paul are considered Romans in that sense, that this is the place where they paid the ultimate price.

On top of that, Roman tradition Jesus interprets Matthew 16, verses 18 and 19 as pointing to the supremacy of Peter.

Now I don't think anyone would really argue that when Jesus knew he was no longer going to be on the scene to lead the disciples himself, that he made Peter his right-hand man and his successor in terms of the leader of the The question is, to what extent does he also give the authority to the other apostles as well?

And we also looked at the passage where Jesus gives the so-called keys of the kingdom to Peter.

In other words, giving Peter the authority to forgive sin or not forgive sin.

And that authority also becomes extended.

But the point is that Peter becomes seen as the preeminent apostle.

And Peter also is, as I said, martyred in Rome, and so there's an association with Rome.

Tradition tells us that Peter went to Rome, and according to tradition, Peter went to Rome somewhere around the year 42, although we know that later he's in Jerusalem for the Jerusalem Council that we read about in the book of Acts, which is probably around the year 50. But he must have gone back to Rome because he was martyred there.

And so tradition tells us that Peter is the first apostle in Rome, and so Peter is traditionally given the title of the first bishop of Rome, even though, as you know, the office of bishop hasn't even developed yet during Peter's lifetime, let alone the office of a papacy.

But at any rate, Peter is given the honorary title of the first bishop of Rome.

And so successive bishops of Rome after that are seen as successors of Peter in terms of apostolic succession, right?

So in terms of the authority of the bishops of Rome.

We saw this when we looked at the document of 1 Clement, and we saw how Clement of Rome He writes this document, giving advice to the Christians in Corinth, and he writes with a sense of authority, as if they should listen to him, because he speaks from the office that Peter held.

On top of that, it also becomes a convention early on that it is important to agree with Rome on matters of theology.

And we see this already in some of the early bishops like Ignatius of Antioch.

And even later bishops who don't want to submit to the authority of Rome on disciplinary matters will still admit that every church should agree with Rome on matters of doctrine and theology.

Now you also remember that Constantine had given bishops the power of judges.

So under Constantine, Christian bishops come to have the authority to arbitrate over disputes and over cases.

The bishop of Rome comes to have the authority to decide cases between other bishops.

And again, as we've been walking through this whole semester, we've been looking at things that become stepping stones on this road toward the authority of the papacy.

And one of those stepping stones is the ways in which bishops in other cities, when they have disputes with other bishops, defer to the bishop of Rome, and it becomes important to agree with Rome, and whoever the bishop of Rome sides with usually comes out as the winner in that case.

We also saw how Constantine moved the capital of the empire out of Rome.

He moved the whole imperial court, except not the Senate, He creates his own new Senate in Constantinople, leaving the old pagan Senate behind in Rome, but it effectively undercuts any power they would have had.

And so when Constantine moves the capital out of Rome, who becomes the most powerful man in Rome but the bishop?

And so as the West becomes increasingly isolated from the East, The eastern emperors will appoint sub-emperors to the west, but even so, ultimately, the bishop of Rome is going to become the most powerful man in Rome.

When you think about Rome as a metropolitan, a city with authority over other cities, there really were seven metropolitans throughout the whole empire.

There were five in the East and only two in the West.

And so in the East, you have Alexandria and Antioch, who are sometimes at odds, and in some ways cancel each other out or, you know, fight for authority.

And neither of them are the capital, right?

So you have Constantinople, which asserts its own authority as a metropolitan because it will become the imperial capital.

So those three metropolitans, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, in some ways sort of cancel each other out because none of them become the primary metropolitan in the East.

And then you have Caesarea and you have Jerusalem, neither of which is really a contender for the authority.

In the West, though, there's only two metropolitans.

There's Rome and there's Carthage.

Carthage is a distant second.

So Rome is the clear leader, there's just no question.

And Rome really has no competition in that sense.

On top of that, as time goes on, the church in Rome, headed by the bishop, takes on roles that the government can no longer carry.

So in the early empire, The Dole is a government program for handing out food to hungry people in the city.

As time goes on, a lot of the farms get consolidated under wealthy people, and the family farmers move into the city.

You have an influx of people into the city.

You have a growing number of people within the city of Rome who are unemployed or underemployed, and so the government begins to hand out food.

But eventually, And especially after the emperor is no longer in the city, eventually the government is going to run out of money and is not going to be able to keep this up.

So who picks up the slack?

The church.

And the church will be the one that feeds the poor.

The church will be the one that helps the sick when there are plagues.

The church will be the one that will keep the barbarians out when the government can't. So when nomadic tribes are threatening the borders and the armies and emperor in the east don't have the resources to send armies to the west, when Attila the Hun is knocking at the door, who's going to help?

Who's going to keep someone like that out of the city of Rome?

The bishop of Rome.

Either by bribing the barbarians or by converting them.

But the point is that the church picks up the slack to do what the government can't. Feed the poor, help the sick, and keep the peace and keep security.

So, as time goes on then, Rome has some very strong personalities who are elected as the bishops there, who are really not matched outside of Rome.

And these strong personalities become the mediators, In disputes between other bishops, they become involved in the doctrinal disputes.

We've already seen how Leo becomes involved in the controversy over Christology.

And I'm going to talk about him in a minute.

But ultimately, the bishop of Rome becomes the highest court of appeals during times of conflict.

including the baptism controversy that we talked about, the Donatists, when Athanasius was on the run, and Augustine and Pelagius, Cyril and Nestorius, Flavian and Diasporus.

All of these, the bishop of Rome gets involved.

And then finally, after the Arian controversy, and then even more so probably after later councils, We have these ecumenical councils in the East that attempt to solve these doctrinal disputes, but the perception is going to be among Westerners that they don't really work that well, because you have the Council of Nicaea that was supposed to take care of Arianism.

Arianism migrates west.

You have councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon that were also supposed to take care of doctrinal issues, and yet there were things that came up in those councils that the West didn't necessarily So, even some of the Easterners became skeptical of councils.

But for the most part, the Eastern Church is going to place more authority in a council.

And let's face it, they don't really have one standout bishop anyway, and they have the Emperor over there.

But the Western Church is going to place less trust in councils and more trust in one person at the top of a pyramid, and that's going to be the Bishop of Rome.

So I'm going to talk about several of the Bishops of Rome and just kind of go through a whirlwind tour of the history of the Church, looking at how the Bishop of Rome Let's start with Leo.

You've met him already.

You've read his tome.

Leo I, or also known as Leo the Great, was bishop of Rome from 440 to 461. I mentioned Attila the Hun, right?

Leo was the one who persuaded Attila the Hun to stay out of Rome.

This was right around the time of the Council of Chalcedon.

He also wrote the Tome that was written in support of Flavian of Constantinople against Theosaurus of Alexandria.

and the Tome was accepted as Orthodox at the Council of Chalcedon.

Now, we talked about this, and so you know that the story is not as simple as some of the accounts would have you believe.

Some of the accounts say that they read Leo's Tome, everybody cheered for Leo and said, hooray, isn't it great how Leo speaks for Peter.

Now, take that with a grain of salt, but the point is that the Tome was accepted, and Leo's terminology of one person and two natures becomes the Orthodox understanding of Christ.

Leo claimed authority not only over the other churches, the other cities in his metropolitan area, but even over the other metropolitan bishops, even over the East Even over Constantinople.

So, again, Constantinople may be royal or imperial, but it is not apostolic.

Constantinople was the new kid on the block, right?

The newcomer.

And so Rome was seen as the original.

I mean, never mind the fact that really Jerusalem is the original, right?

But this is how it's presented.

Now, up until this time, the word that I keep saying, post, That's just an English word for what would be the Latin or Italian papa, meaning father.

Up until this time, any of the metropolitan bishops could be called papa or pope, in the sense that they have a fatherly authority over certainly the priests in their city, but even the bishops of the neighboring cities.

And as we talked about, a metropolitan bishop could even have the power of veto over the ordinations of priests in the neighboring cities, even perhaps over the elevation of a bishop in a neighboring city.

So they had this sort of fatherly role in their metropolitan area, in a region.

But again, any of the metropolitans could have claimed this title, Papa.

And to this day, in the Coptic church, for example, Their primary bishop is called their pope, so the Coptics have their own pope as well.

I mean, that's how we say it in English, but that's the idea.

It's probably with the next one that I'm going to mention, and you'll notice that I'm skipping.

I'm skimming across history here.

But it's probably with Gregory I that the term pope, as we know it, really applies only to the bishop of Rome.

So Gregory I, also known as Gregory the Great, he was bishop of Rome from 590 to 604. And so I would argue that, you know, in spite of the fact that sometimes I use the term Pope to go back to earlier bishops, because even in the 4th century, there are bishops of Rome who were called Pope.

But the point is that there were other bishops who would claim the title too.

So even though we kind of do that, realistically it's probably with Leo or Gregory, for sure Gregory if not Leo, that the term Pope as we know it really applies.

Now Gregory is an interesting story because it's actually a little bit like Bishop Ambrose.

If you remember when we were talking about Augustine, Ambrose was the sort of governor of the area where Milan is, and because he was known to be a good speaker and known to be orthodox, he was elected bishop, even though he hadn't even been a priest.

With Gregory, it's a similar story.

He had been the prefect of the city of Rome, which is kind of like the chief of police, and he decided to give up his career and sold all his possessions and became a monk.

And he had such a good reputation that he was chosen, he was made a deacon, and chosen by the Bishop of Rome to be his right-hand man, and then when that Bishop of Rome died, he was elected as the next bishop.

So he was only a deacon at the time, but then he would have to be ordained priest at the same time that he was elevated as a bishop.

By the time of Gregory, now, The barbarians are a constant threat.

And we're not going to take the time in class to talk too much about who the barbarians are, but it's in your reading.

But remember, we're talking about nomadic tribes from northern and eastern Europe who are coming into southwest Europe for basically the same reason why my parents moved to Florida.

I mean, it's nicely there.

It's warmer, and it's... So we have this influx of barbarians who are threatening the borders.

So just as Leo had negotiated with the Huns, Gregory had negotiated peace with a tribe known as the Lombards.

And again, basically by negotiated I mean bribed, them to stay out of Rome.

This was in 595. But he would eventually convert the family of the chieftain of the Lombards and baptize his son.

Gregory is also known for having gotten everyone to pray for the end of a plague, and then the plague ended.

And so he's credited with, his prayers are credited with ending a plague in Rome.

He took over the Joel, as I was talking about earlier.

And so, you know, he took over this major aspect of taking care of the people that once belonged to the state, now became within the realm of the church.

And this gave him great authority, not only in Rome, but in the West.

Now, meanwhile, The Bishop of Constantinople is looking at Gregory and is getting nervous about how the authority of the Bishop of Rome is increasing.

So Bishop John of Constantinople took for himself the title Ecumenical Bishop.

Now remember what ecumenical means.

If an ecumenical council is a worldwide council, ecumenical bishop is bishop of the whole world.

So Bishop John of Constantinople By the way, I'm the bishop of the whole world, not you.

Gregory wrote letters to many other bishops all over, primarily the West, and a lot of these letters still exist.

You could read them if you wanted to.

So he consolidates his authority over an ever-widening area.

He also consolidated the monasteries of Europe under his own control.

Now, monasteries have been growing and popping up all over Europe at this time, but in many ways they are autonomous.

Some of them are pretty well self-contained.

The problem, from the point of view of the hierarchy, is the same problem that the Church would encounter with the Montanists or any other group, and that is if these Monastics in these monasteries are seen as having any kind of charismatic authority.

What happens if they preach something that is not in line with what the rest of the church is doing?

And so it became important to Gregory to consolidate the monasteries under his control so that they would stay in line.

Now, by doing that, not only did he reserve for himself the obedience of the monks, So, you know, sort of confirming this hierarchical structure of obedience.

The monks are obedient to the abbot or abbess, and then that person, theoretically, would have to be obedient to their bishop, but perhaps even directly to the pope.

The point is that in addition to that, he also came to control the land and the money of these monasteries.

So if anyone with money joined a monastery, They gave up their possessions.

They gave their money, their possessions, to the monastery.

And so, as we move into the early Middle Ages, the monasteries become very wealthy because they become treasure houses to store the things that the people gave up to join.

And in fact, eventually the monasteries will become banks.

Loaning money of interest.

So from Gregory on, the office of the Bishop of Rome will keep the monasteries under his control.

Now there's a strategic reason also for wanting to control the monasteries, and that is that they then become the stopping point and the headquarters for the missionaries going out into Europe.

So Gregory sends missionaries out All over Europe, using the monasteries for protection in its basis of operation.

Okay, let's go on to, let's see, Zacharias.

U.S. or A.S.? A.S., Zacharias.

And let's see here.

I'm sorry to look up his days.

By the way, there is a great website.

If I haven't mentioned this, I probably have, but I'll mention it again.

If you just Google, list of popes, and one of the top choices will be the New Advent website.

New Advent is a great encyclopedia of all things Christian, although for the later churches, specifically Catholic.

But the point is, if you go to this site where it lists all the popes, it has the list of the bishops of Rome First, starting with Peter, all the way to the present, the dates that they were the Bishop of Rome, and their name and the links, so you can click on it and get a bio on them.

So if you're ever wondering when that person was the Bishop of Rome, you can go to that site.

Well, I mean, you know, dates are dates.

So if you say to me in a paper that, you know, Leo was the Bishop of Rome from 440 to 461, Nobody owns that information.

You don't need to cite that.

It is.

I'm assuming you can get it right.

So when you're writing your paper, you need to remind yourself.

I don't mind if you go to that website just to remind yourself what the dates were or double check something.

The point is that what you're not supposed to do is get the content of your paper from websites.

That's a bad idea.

So anyway, in the year 751, Zacharias is still having trouble with the Lombards.

And by now, the country we know as France is primarily Catholic.

And when I say Catholic, I mean Orthodox Christian at this point, still before the Reformation.

And so Zacharias decides to ask France for help.

The king of the Franks is Kilderic III. Pope Sicarius calls up Kilderic III and says, Can you help me out?

I've got these Lombards bothering me and overrunning my land here in Italy.

And threatening me, can you help?

And Kildarek says, sorry, can't help you.

Now, Kildarek III is one of those kings who doesn't bother himself with actual kinging.

He leaves the day-to-day operation of the kingdom to his sort of mayor of the palace, or second in control, maybe a viceroy would be another term.

Heaven is short.

And so, Zacharias decides to talk directly to Pepin, who, by the way, wants to be the king.

And Zacharias and Pepin make a deal.

Zacharias says, if you help me with these lombards, I will make you the king.

Now this is significant, because here we are in the 8th century, And we find that the Bishop of Rome can make and break a king.

The Bishop of Rome can remove a king from power and install a new one, which is exactly what happened.

And Hepin defeated the Lombards, and he gave the land that had been formerly occupied by the Lombards to the Pope.

Now you're going to read a document called the Donation of Constantine, The Donation of Constantine is a document written in the first person, like by Constantine himself, giving all of this land, coincidentally the exact same land we're talking about here in the 8th century, giving all this land to the bishops of Rome.

It's not three years, it's four years.

It's a document that sort of pops up at this time, Oh look, I have this document by Constantine granting all this land to the Pope.

And so on the basis of that document, Pepin gave all of this land to the Pope.

And this land, major chunks of land in Italy, come to be known as the Papal States.

In other words, a kingdom controlled by the Bishop of Rome.

The Popes held this land until 1870. 1870 is the year of the final unification of Italy, when Rome, the city of Rome itself, was invaded and forced to get on board with the unification of Italy as a country.

So the modern country of Italy goes back to this time.

But until then, the Pope controlled all this land.

Now this is significant because the Bishop of Rome owns land.

Why is that a big deal?

Because if you have land, you have to defend it.

And if you have to defend it, you need an army.

So not only is the Pope going to have land, he is going to have an army.

So this is where the Pope effectively becomes a king, with an army.

Now, Pepin rules France, he's the King of the Franks now, but everyone knows he owes his crown to the Pope.

And this implies that on the social hierarchy, the Pope is above a king.

In other words, if the Pope can make or break the king, that puts the Pope above a king on the ladder of the social hierarchy.

And so more and more kings will appeal to the Pope for arbitration when there is a dispute between kings.

Now because Pepin was not a descendant or the son of Pilderic, by removing Pilderic and putting Pepin the Short in as the King of the Franks, it begins a new dynasty in that realm.

This is known as the Carolingian Dynasty.

And Pepin's son, whose name is Charles, you may know him as Charlemagne, Charles the Great.

Charlemagne is just French for Charles the Great.

So in the year 800, this folk happens to be Leo III, in the year 800, Charles Leo is in Rome on Christmas Day, worshiping in the church of St. Peter's. Now, not the one that exists now, the one that was there before, but on the same site.

And the story goes that when Charles, or Charlemagne, kneeled to pray, Leo III locked a crown on his head, crowning him not King of the Franks, but Holy Roman Emperor.

This is the origin of what comes to be called the Holy Roman Empire.

So, if you've heard that term before, Holy Roman Empire, that does not refer to the Roman Empire under Constantine.

It refers to this attempt at a rebirth at Constantine's vision for the Roman Empire.

And in fact, you can see it in the churches of Rome, because there are churches built at this time that are intentionally built to look like the older ones and that have imagery in the mosaics that are meant to remind the viewer of the glory days, as they saw it, of the church under Constantine.

Charlemagne then becomes the emperor of What we now know of as Europe.

In fact, by military force, he gathered together most of Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, Belgium, Holland, and part of Spain into an empire known as the Holy Roman Empire.

And his vision for the Holy Roman Empire was Sincerely Christian, in the sense that he had read Augustine's City of God, and he wanted to create the City of God, he wanted to create the empire of God, and so his vision for this empire was that all inhabitants, all citizens of the empire, would also be baptized Christians.

Not only did he expand his authority as a leader, but he expanded the church at the point of a sword.

So you have forced conversions, you have forced baptisms, but he was creating He was creating, or trying to create, the city of God on earth.

Again, a situation where every citizen is also a church member.

In a sense, he was trying to be the new Constantine.

And in the cathedral of Rome, St. John Lateran, there are two statues in the two porticos, the two entryways.

There is a statue of Constantine, And there's a statue of Charlemagne.

And they're both in the same position.

Question?

Well, yeah, I'm just jumping, I'm just sort of jumping around.

So, Zacharias was Bishop of Rome in the middle of the 8th century.

Leo comes later, and then the defining moment is in the year 800. So, again, if you want their exact dates that they were bishops of Rome, you can look it up.

Well, yeah, okay.

I'm not necessarily being real precise about that.

But it's worth clarifying in this sense.

All popes are the bishop of Rome.

But it's not technically true that all bishops of Rome are the pope, you know, because at the beginning, the office just didn't have that authority.

And so, when did the bishop of Rome become the pope?

Well, somewhere around here.

After that, the terms become interchangeable.

The bishop of Rome is the pope, and the pope is the bishop of Rome, and that condition exists today.

So then how does Leo change?

He's not.

He's the bishop of Rome.

The king is, well, first Pepin the Short and then Charlemagne.

Leo crowns Charlemagne.

So, you know, again, depending on the version of the story, was Charlemagne in on this or not, you know, I mean, if you want to present Charlemagne as, you know, the humble Christian warrior, he didn't see it coming.

You know, he kneels to pray and, wow, there's a crown on his head.

But, you know, I mean, the point is that, again, if a pope can make or break a king, Now the point is that the pope can make an emperor.

So now the pope is on the social ladder, the social hierarchy, at the top, even above an emperor.

Because the pope crowned the emperor, the pope created the emperor.

Does that make sense?

Charlemagne called his emperor the Third Rome.

Remember, Rome was the original Rome, and Constantinople was the new Rome.

This is now meant to be the third Rome.

And so, again, as I said, the point is that the Pope is now above even an emperor, but this is going to alienate the Eastern emperors, because when the Pope crowns Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, and says, ah, we now have An empire in Europe, and by the way, the word Europa emerges at this time to describe this thing.

We now have the reborn Roman Empire and the Byzantine Christians, the Eastern Empire, saying, hello, we didn't go anywhere, we're still here.

And so this alienates the East because it was seen as a rejection of the Eastern emperors.

Charlemagne himself reigned from, let me write it down, From 768 to 814. So he becomes King of the Franks in 768, he becomes Holy Roman Emperor in 800, and he reigns until 814. And his reign is often referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance.

Carolingian Renaissance.

Again, part of that renaissance is this idea of the rebirth of the glory days of the Constantinian Empire.

But on top of that, Charles wanted to improve what he saw as problems in the church, church discipline, clergy abuses.

He wanted to improve the education of clergy.

The monasteries in some ways became schools He set up a court school in his capital, in case you're keeping score, his capital is in the city of Aachen.

But he wanted to improve this, and then he also wanted to standardize church practice and liturgy across the empire.

In other words, he's thinking, if I'm going to have this empire, I can't have the church in one place doing things differently than the church in another place.

And so he wanted to standardize the liturgy, tried to make the Roman liturgy universal for all of the Western Church, and in doing this, this is where the addition of the filioque clause in the Creed becomes mandatory for the Western Church.

Remember, brief review, filioque, we kind of are introduced to the idea by Augustine, it comes into the Creed in the Spanish Church, expressed from there, But Charlemagne basically is the one we credit for making it mandatory that all of the Western Church use it.

Again, this alienates the Eastern Christians because they're saying, hey, we wrote that creed at two ecumenical councils.

You don't have the right to change any.

Right?

I mean, you can kind of see the point.

So, Charlemagne makes that mandatory.

Now, yeah, question.

Well, because he wants everybody to be on the same page.

He wants everybody to be using the same creed.

So it's not going to work for him to have some people using it and other people not using it.

And actually, at this time, There's still some Arianism lingering.

So, you know, just to be safe, if we have to choose between everybody using it and everybody not using it, let's everybody use it just to be on the safe side.

But it was more about uniformity.

Well, you know, Charlemagne wants to be the new Constantine.

He kind of got his wish because, just like what happened when Constantine died and his sons couldn't get along, same thing happens.

When Charlemagne died, the empire breaks up in civil war between his sons.

As I said, he died in the year 814. And so the empire is broken up and the resulting treaties are, in many ways, the beginning of the boundaries of the countries of Europe.

But what emerges out of this is that not only is now the Bishop of Rome, sort of a king in a sense, with his own lands and armies, but bishops, other bishops, also become like landlords, controlling land, controlling armies, if only volunteer, controlling large sums of money.

And so, as you might imagine, problems are going to creep in when These bishops have this kind of power, in addition to ecclesiastical power, they have the power of land ownership and the power of military.

Now, at this point we have a bit of a break, because next week we're going to talk about the split between the Eastern Church and the Western Church.

A split that results in an Eastern Orthodox Church and a Western Roman Catholic Church.

That split is more or less finalized in the year 1054. Now we're going to talk about that next week, but I mention it now because I'm going to keep talking about the papacy, but everything I'm going to talk about from here on out happens after 1054. So this is after that split, and so this is relevant only for the Western Church.

Does that make sense?

So 1054 is that split point, and everything I'm going to talk about now for the rest of today is only relevant for the West.

The next Bishop of Rome, or Pope, that I want to note is Gregory VII. Gregory VII was bishop of Rome from 1073 to 1085. Again, so you'll notice we're after 1054. Gregory wrote a document that codifies all of the authority, Building authority of the papacy up till this point.

It's called the Dictatum Popi.

Not like Popeye the sailor, but flagged.

And the Dictatum Popi defines what the power of the Pope is.

So I'm going to run down a list, and I'll repeat myself, so if I go too fast, just tell me.

And a lot of this has to do with not just what the power of the pope is, but that only the pope has these powers, right?

So, only the bishop of Rome can be called the universal or ecumenical bishop.

So only the bishop of Rome can be called universal or ecumenical bishop, worldwide bishop.

Again, the point being that the bishop of Rome is meant to be the top of the social hierarchy and has authority over all of their bishops all over the whole world.

Except, of course, the fact that all the bishops in the East are going, yeah, whatever, because the East has split already.

Only the bishop of Rome can depose or reinstate other bishops.

Only the bishop of Rome can remove a bishop from office or reinstate a bishop.

This goes back to the controversies over people like Athanasius.

Only the bishop of Rome can transfer a bishop.

that one of the canons of the first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicaea, was no translating bishops, right?

Bishops are not supposed to move from one place to the other, because of apostolic succession, they're supposed to stay in their spot.

But, almost immediately, bishops start moving around, because during the continuing Arian controversy, they're vying for power.

So the Dichotomy of Popeye now says that bishops can be transferred, but only by the Pope.

Only the bishop of Rome can divide a see or create a new one.

Remember, the word see refers to the bishop's sphere of influence.

So, you know, if a person is the bishop of a certain metropolitan city, that is his see.

So, you know, Cardinal George's see is Greater Chicago, right?

Only the Bishop of Rome can divide up a scene into two or create new ones.

Only the Bishop of Rome can call a general council.

Now obviously, after 1054, there are not going to be any more ecumenical councils that include both East and West.

But as we look at the continuing history of the Western Church, there will be other general councils that are meant to be authoritative Any sentence passed by the bishop of Rome cannot be reversed by anyone else.

His word is binding and final.

He is the ultimate judge in church matters, and he may be judged by no one.

He's the ultimate judge in church matters, and he may be judged by no one.

So, what I said before, that is, any sentence passed by the Bishop of Rome cannot be reversed by anyone else.

So, when it comes to church matters, he is the ultimate authority, and is under the authority of no one, at least no human person.

The bishop of Rome can depose an emperor or a king and free the subjects from a king's reign.

And you'll see how this gets used in a few minutes.

So, you know, the pope can remove emperors and kings.

Royal persons must kiss the feet of the bishop of Rome.

So, in case you weren't sure that the bishop of Rome is at the top of the hierarchy, kings have to kiss his feet.

Whoever is not at peace with the Roman Church is not Catholic.

Now, let me say that again.

Whoever is not at peace with the Roman Church is not Catholic.

Now, you might hear that and say, well, I guess that makes sense.

But the point is that the word Catholic here is still being used in the sense of universalism.

So even after the split in 1054, the Western Church is going to say, we're Catholic and you're not, and the Eastern Church is going to say, we're Orthodox and you're not, right?

But the word Catholic here is still being used in that sense of universal.

So it's as if to say that whoever is not in the good graces of the Roman Church is not Christian.

It's really what it means.

Because at this point there is little or no room for the idea that we saw briefly with the Novationists that there could be some Christians who are Christian but not Catholic.

Finally, the Roman Church cannot be wrong.

The Roman Church cannot be wrong.

Now, again, notice the language here.

And I'm actually going to give you the exact wording of this one.

But notice that the language does not say the Bishop of Rome cannot be wrong.

It says the Roman Church, so it's the office, not the person.

So the exact wording of this one goes like this.

The Roman Church has never erred, nor will it err to all eternity, the Scripture bearing witness.

I'll repeat that.

The Roman Church has never erred, Nor will it err to all eternity, the Scripture bearing witness.

What Scripture says that?

Well, it has to do with Peter, but even more than that, it has to do with, well, does anybody know what Scripture we have in mind when the doctrine says this?

The Roman Church has never erred, nor will it err to all eternity, the Scripture bearing witness.

When Jesus says, again this goes back to Matthew, when Jesus says to Peter, remember the story, who you say that I am, Peter gets it right, yes, you're right, and it's not flesh and blood that reveals this to you, etc.,

etc.,

and on this rock I will build my church.

What does he say next?

And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

And this is taken as Jesus' promise.

that the church cannot go astray to such an extent that it ceases to be a church.

Because if it did, hell wins.

So, anyway, that's the scripture that's in mind.

Now, again, much of this, if not most of it, was not new.

It's not like he made this stuff up.

He was just putting it in writing.

Some of the Dictatus of Popeye is no longer followed, even by the Roman Catholic Church.

There's a line in there that All popes are automatically saints.

But, starting with Gregory VII, the papacy becomes even more and increasingly like a monarchy, with a court, and a bank, and lawyers, and ambassadors, etc. So, the Pope functions like an emperor or a king.

In fact, you know, the emperor, the Pope is kind of like the emperor of emperors.

I'm not going to say the other one.

Because only Jesus is the king of kings, but you get the idea.

And so, not only the Pope, but also bishops have become like landlords with land and with armies.

Now imagine if If you are the king of some smaller kingdom in Europe, there are no doubt going to be bishops within your realm, and those bishops then are landlords, they have land, and they have armies.

And how do you ensure that the bishops within your kingdom won't use their armies against you?

Well, What would start happening is the kings would choose the bishops themselves who would take up the seas within their realm.

Sometimes the bishops were literally given a sword by the king in a ceremony that conferred the power.

But this was seen as a problem, right?

If you're Gregory VII, this is a problem because you can't have secular kings deciding who's going to be the bishop.

Sometimes even perhaps a person who wasn't already a priest or even very interested in the church.

But you can't have the secular kings deciding who's going to be the bishop.

By the way, this is referred to as lay investiture.

This is the lay investiture controversy.

In other words, lay people, secular kings, are investing religious authority.

So Gregory VII challenged this and deposed bishops and abbots who were given their position by secular rulers.

And he came up against A king, well the Holy Roman Emperor at the time was Henry IV, not to be confused with Henry IV of England, so we don't need to worry too much about the names here.

But the point is that the Holy Roman Emperor demanded that Gregory step down from his office as Pope.

So Gregory deposes some bishops, the Holy Roman Emperor demands that Gregory step down.

Gregory countered by deposing Henry as the emperor and permitting anyone to serve him as emperor.

In other words, what he's saying is, you know, he's playing his trump card, which is his ability to free subjects from the reign of a king or an emperor.

He's saying, oh, all you folks, all you people, that guy is no longer your emperor.

And so what he's doing is he's calling the allegiance of the people.

to himself as opposed to the emperor.

And in playing that card, who do you think the people are going to side with?

I mean, you know, he's putting the people in a spot where they have to choose between the pope or the emperor.

Who are they going to choose?

Yeah, I mean, the emperor might kill you, but the pope can excommunicate you.

And excommunication can put your salvation at risk.

So they side with the Pope, and the Emperor went to the fortress where the Pope was hanging out, and, according to the story, stood there for three days in the snow, barefoot, begging for mercy.

Of course, Gregory forgave him on the condition that he submit to the authority of the Pope.

So these things come up that challenge the Pope's authority as it's presented, and when push comes to shove, The Pope's authority wins out.

Another thing that was done to reinforce this idea that lay people, secular authorities, should not be choosing church leaders, a ruling was made that no lay people could be involved in the election of church leaders.

When clergy were elected, when bishops were elected, laypeople were excluded from the elections.

And, in fact, from the Third Lateran Council in 1179, the only people who were allowed to vote in an election for the new bishop of Rome, the new pope, were the cardinals.

And we haven't talked about what the cardinals are.

Maybe I'll just give you the quick and dirty, what is a cardinal?

The bishop of Rome is a metropolitan bishop, right?

So, by that authority, he has authority over the other bishops in his metropolitan area.

So it would be like if Chicago had a bishop, but Evanston had a bishop too, and the bishop of Evanston would be, you know, sort of have to submit to the authority of the bishop of Chicago.

Kind of like that.

Well, the other bishops within the metropolitan area of Rome began to function Like a cabinet of advisors to the bishop of Rome.

But over time, the bishops of Rome wanted to choose their advisors, as opposed to just being stuck with whoever the neighboring bishops were.

So the advisors to the pope came to be whatever bishops, no matter where they are, the pope chose as his advisors.

And this eventually becomes the College of Cardinals.

And so, by this time, only the Cardinals are allowed to vote in elections for pope, which is how it still is today, as you probably know.

But sometimes they can't decide, or they can't agree.

And in the early 13th century, there was a period of three years with no election of a new pope.

And so the cardinals couldn't make up their minds, and so a bunch of laypeople locked the cardinals in a room and said, we're not letting you out until you decide, until you elect a new pope.

And in fact, the room was locked from the outside with a key, so they couldn't get out, with a key, and in Latin the phrase, with a key, His conclave, or conclave, and that's where you get the word conclave, which is how we talk about the assembly of cardinals that elects a new pope.

So, the conclave, the idea of the conclave eventually became the rule for how popes are elected.

Anyway, that's just a bit of an aside.

Alright, let's move on.

Let's talk about Innocent III. I already introduced you to Innocence III when we were talking about Francis.

Innocence III is the one who gave Francis the right to turn his community into a religious order, with a rule and everything.

Innocence III, and he was Bishop of Rome from 1198 to 1216. This pope's pontificate was the peak of papal power.

Say it with me.

This pope's pontificate was the peak of papal power.

In other words, when we talk about the rise and fall of the papacy, this is the high point in terms of the authority.

No pope after Innocent will ever have quite the power that Innocent had.

In the year 1201, King Philip II of France wanted to get out of a marriage that was one day old.

And so he wanted to have this marriage annulled, I guess, and he got the French bishops to approve of it, and his wife appealed to the Pope.

So Innocent placed the country of France under what is called the Interdict, The Interdict is basically saying, okay, all you French people, that Philip guy is not your king anymore.

You have no obligation to serve him.

You don't have to listen to a thing he says.

Oh, and by the way, all you English people, if you were ever thinking of attacking France, now would be a good time because they don't have a king.

Get you back down.

Later, King John I of England Confiscated some church property in a dispute over who would be the Archbishop of Canterbury.

And so it is in place, England under the Interject.

And said, all you English people, by the way, King John, John is not your king anymore, you have no obligation to serve him.

And oh, by the way, all you French people, if you're ever thinking of attacking England, now would be a good time to say I'm no king.

And so again, in both cases, the king submits to the Pope.

So when push comes to shove, The Pope wins, and it comes out on top.

Innocent III also was, I guess his authority was either demonstrated or perhaps granted even more by the fact that he promoted the Crusade.

And again, we're not going to talk too much about the Crusade, but in the West, he was popular for that.

He instituted an inquisition, not the Spanish Inquisition, that comes later, but he instituted an inquisition that was meant to search out heretics.

And there were two specific groups of heretics that he had in mind.

One is known as, I guess I gotta erase these guys, One group is known as the Waldensians.

Have you heard of these guys?

The Waldensians was a movement within Europe that was a separatist or schismatic movement that rejected the sacraments of the Church.

They really are sort of a precursor to the Protestant Reformation.

The other group is known as the Albigensians.

Or, also known as the Cathars, this was a group that was basically docetic in its understanding of Christ.

Remember docetism.

And there's some theory that this sort of thing was brought back from the East by some of the Crusaders who were returning.

But at any rate, we have these two groups within Europe who were seen as heretical.

And so Innocent III created an inquisition made up primarily of, interestingly, mendicants, like the Dominicans, who reported directly to the Pope because some of them thought the bishops were too lenient.

So the idea was that the bishops in these areas where these guys were were not taking care of business, so Innocent III creates this inquisition to deal with it directly.

Again, this is not, you know, So, in talking about his authority, Innocent III said that Christ gave to Peter authority to govern not just the church, but the whole world.

And that royal power is derived from papal power, like moonlight from the sun.

So in other words, just like the light that comes from the moon is not really from the moon, you know, it's reflected from the sun, any power that kings or emperors have is only granted to them by the bishop of Rome.

And so, certainly the pope is above the law, but even Even clergy are above the law, subject only to the church.

So if there are issues with the clergy, they answer only to the church.

Alright, so that is the high point in terms of the authority and power.

Now we have to talk about the decline.

We're talking about the rise and fall of the papacy, now we have to talk about the decline.

In the year 1305, a French pope was elected.

In 1309, he moved the office of the papacy out of Rome to France, to Avignon.

So the Avignon papacy, now technically, the pope is still the bishop of Rome, just doesn't have to be in Rome anymore.

The Avignon Papacy is from 1309 to 1377. This French Pope had no interest in being a spiritual leader, was interested only in secular power, and moved the papacy to Avignon where the French rulers were collaborating and where corruption could reign free.

So the Bishop of Rome has little or nothing to do with Rome anymore.

In 1370, an Italian Pope was elected.

Let's see, let's do this.

So, Clemens...

Clemson V was 1305-1314, and then Gregory XI was finally elected, and he was the Bishop of Rome 1370-1378. And it was Catherine of Siena who finally convinced Gregory XI to move the papacy back to Rome, which he attempted to do in 1377. So that's why I've got this going for 1377. So he tries to move the papacy back to Rome in 1377, again, because he was convicted by Catherine of Siena.

But when he did that, the French elected their own rival pope in Avignon.

So, from 1378 to 1409, there are two popes.

One in Avignon, one in Rome.

Now, this time period is basically contemporary with a man named John Wycliffe.

And if you know anything about the Reformation yet, Wycliffe was one of the first people who wanted to produce Bibles in English.

He was really one of the first reformers, even before Luther and the others.

And so, this is really when the Reformation begins.

I'm assuming you're going to learn about the Reformation in history too, but I want to point out that you can see why someone might think Some reform was needed.

So we got two popes.

And an effort was made by some to say, well, wait a minute, maybe this whole pope thing isn't working out so well.

Let's try councils instead.

It's known as the conciliar movement.

And the conciliar movement was an effort to put the power into councils rather than popes.

The Council was held in Pisa, 1409. A new pope, but the other two wouldn't step down.

So from 1409 to 1417, there are three popes.

There might have even been four at one time.

In 1417, another council is held, the Council of Constance.

And at the Council of Constance, the popes in Avignon and Pisa were deposed, the pope in Rome voluntarily resigned, and a new pope was elected who would finally again be the one and only pope.

This is Martin V. Martin V was a pope from 1417 But you get the point, that from 1309 to 1417, it was a big mess.

And I see your hand there, but let me just say, you can imagine that we don't have to go into the gory details, But many of these men elected Pope, or who became Pope during this time, were not that interested in being the spiritual leader of the church.

They were interested in other things.

Yeah, question?

Which ones resigned?

The Avignon one and the Pisa one resigned?

The Avignon one and the Pisa ones were deposed.

They were kicked out by the Council of Constance.

The one in Rome resigned.

To be replaced by Martin Luther?

To be replaced by Martin Luther, yes.

So basically this period from 1309 to 1417 marks the lowest point of the papacy.

Not that they never had any problems after that, but that's the low point.

Now that's as far as we're going to go historically, but I want to end with just a few words on the concept of papal infallibility, because people always ask about it, so we might as well deal with it.

The idea of apostolic succession, again, is the basis for this whole thing.

Specifically, the Bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter.

In fact, the Bishop of Rome comes to be called the Vicar of Peter.

Now, you know what the word vicar means?

The word vicar means a stand-in, a substitute, like our word vicarious.

If you live vicariously through someone else, watching them eat a pizza when you can't have any or whatever.

So, vicar is standing.

So, to talk about the bishop of Rome as the vicar of Peter is to say he stands for Peter.

So, when he speaks, he speaks for Peter.

Eventually, by about the 15th century or so, the bishop of Rome will be called the vicar of Christ.

So, apostolic succession, that idea evolves And into the Middle Ages, we have this idea that the bishops of Rome are infallible.

And you saw it with Gregory VII. In the Dictatus Papi, it basically says as much.

It says that whoever holds this office cannot be wrong, because if he could, he could lead the Church astray to the point where it's not the Church anymore.

And even during all of this time, these folks were all too busy with whatever they were doing to do anything that led the church as a whole down the wrong path.

But the idea is that it really is about the office and not so much the person.

It's not as though if you have one of those jars of jelly beans, you're supposed to guess how many.

Like, you know, when the Pope was there, he'd have to get it right, you know.

It's not like, you know, like that.

But it is the sense that when he speaks for the Church, the idea being that the Holy Spirit prevents him from leading the Church astray.

So the concept is referred to as, and I've mentioned this before, ex cathedra.

Ex cathedra.

The cathedra is the throne, or the chair, the seat of the bishop's authority.

So when this bishop speaks from the chair, or from the seat of his authority, then he is infallible.

Now, the concept of papal infallibility, though, was not really formally pronounced in this way.

until 1870. And it was in 1870 that the Pope at the time, Pius IX, basically defined the ex cathedra concept of papal infallibility by using it.

So I would say that This was the first use of the concept that when the Pope speaks specifically ex cathedra, he is infallible.

And as I told you last week, it's only been used one other time, with the assumption of Mary.

So, 1870. What was happening in 1870? Again, you know, like, why then?

If it's always assumed anyway, why make it a formal pronounciation?

What was happening in 1870 That would make Pius IX want to do this.

Well, that's part of it, but there's a bigger thing.

Right.

What I tell you earlier, the Pope held the papal states until 1870. So what was happening was that the Pope was losing If you want, I can read the By the way, 1870 was the time of the first Vatican Council.

This comes out of Vatican I. And I can read you the verbiage here from Vatican I. I don't expect you to write it all down or anything like that.

I don't expect you to regurgitate this on your essay.

But I'll read it just so you can hear it in the words from Vatican I. For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter Not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.

Okay, so I'm skipping a bit, but so far you see what it's saying.

The Holy Spirit assists the bishop of Rome not to say anything new, but to guard what the apostles had given us.

So then it goes on a little farther down.

When the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines the doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy, And what I want to point out in that language, and believe me, I get that this bothers a lot of people and did at the time, but what I want to point out in there is that what it is saying here is that what a pope is doing when he does this is Confirming what the church already believes, not creating something new.

And so, for what it's worth, that's what's going on there with papal infallibility.

Now, let me stop there and see if there are questions.

Okay.

Alright, well, why don't we turn off the camera?