Full Text for How Peter Became Pope, part 4 (Text)

the sword and shield of the Ohurch. He forbade the bishops to have several wives and to seduce the wives of others. (Schick, 241.) The minutes of church synods are full of censures and punish- ments for clerical sins and vices, like fornication, intemperance, avarice, hunting and hawking, gambling, betting, attending horse- races, going to theaters, and keeping houses of prostitution. Alcuin advised Karl to send a work by Bishop Felix of East Anglia to Pope Leo III, 795-816, toPaulinus of Aquileja, to Theo- dOl'e of Orleans, and to Richton of Trier. "If they agree in their arguments, that will be evidence of the truth of their conclusions. But if they do not agree, then that ought to stand valid which is most fully in accordance with the testimonies of Holy Scripture and of the ancient Fathers." (Ang. Br.> p.140.) Evidently Alcuin knew nothing of an infallible Pope. Karl knew nothing of getting his empire from the Pope. Feeling his end coming in 813, he took the crown from the altar of the Aachen Dam, and with his own hands placed it on the head of his son Ludwig, thereby showing that he and his held their titles neither from the Pope nor from the Romans, but directly from God. Karl was buried in the choir of the great Dom, sitting on a marble throne, robed and crowned, before him the open Gospel-book - "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Karl held his imperial trust from God. He regarded his sover- eignty as the highest thing on earth, higher even than the spiritual sovereignty of the Vicar of Ohrist. In his preface to the famous Oarolingian books he candidly states that the Church has been committed to his care and that he controls the rudder. He brought one Pope to judgment before him in his camp, and he wrote often to another to point out to him the defects of his pontifical administration. He presumed to give Pope Adrian a lesson in orthodoxy on the question of the veneration of images, and he interfered unduly in the Filioque dispute. At his synod at Frankfurt he condemned the Second Council, of Nicaea, although it had the sanction of the Holy See. 646 How Peier Became Pope. It is not too much to say that more than once it seemed as if Oharlemagne ruled the Ohurch while the Pope was the imperial chap- lain. The plain fact is that the reign of Karl the Great was one of the principal scenes in the dramatic struggle between the Ohurch and the Staie. In the eighth century the secular arm won the dispute. Three centuries later Hildebrand was able to reverse the decision. One wonders how even the great Oharlemagne would have fared had he tried to dictate to Pope Gregory VII. O. F. R., reviewing Oharles Edward Russell's Ohwl'lemagne, in Milwaukee Sentinel, June 7, 1930. The missionary work of Boniface was carried on by his convert, Abbot Gregory of Utrecht, a Merovingian prince. Willibald, a rela- tive of Boniface, was made bishop of Eichstaedt in 741. He called his brother, sister, and others from England as missionaries to the Germans. The sturdy Saxons in Hanover, Oldenburg, and Westphalia hated the Franks and Rome. Karl the Great made war on them for thirty-three years, 772-805. He made them see the light by slaughter- ing five thousand and exiling ten thousand families in 804. Then he gave them the bishoprics of Osnabl'ueck, Muenster, Minden, Pader- born, Verdun, Bremen, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt. The Danes raided Ireland and traded with Holland and thus heard of Ohristianity. When Willibrord was expelled from Fries- land in 700, he became the first missionary to Denmark. He was favored by King Y ngrin, organized a church, and brought thirty boys to be educated as missionaries. St. Sebaldus, son of a Danish king, was a product of this effort. In 800 King Harold Klak brought a Frank of Amiens, who became Ansgar, the