HILDEBRAND THE GREAT-POPE GREGORY VII.

"NOTHING can be great," says Longinus, "the contempt of which is great." Neither wealth nor honor gives a man a title to greatness, for one of the very marks of greatness of mind is to despise these gifts of fortune and to be above all desire of them. True greatness is not bound to any particular class; it often shines out from the by-paths of life, manifests itself under the pressure of poverty and distress, amidst the jeers and indignation of the world. No man whose sentiments or actions are little and grovelling is deemed great, but he whose soul is lofty, whose heart rises superior to misfortune, he only is truly great.

Of such stamp of character was St. Gregory VII., called also by his family name Hildebrand. His was a peculiar grandeur, and his place in history a peculiar elevation. His life was like a climax of greatnesses, moral, intellectual, and political, each one impressing us more favorably, till disposed together they form something sublime. As a youth he gave up human honors to follow, through affection, Gregory VI.; as a man he evidenced a glorious magnanimity in defence of spiritual supremacy; as a Pontiff he hurled defiance at an antagonistic world, alone and independent in his assertion of Religion's rights. Thus it would seem to all rightminded men, Hildebrand's name stirring up within their souls the most vivifying memories, while to many a mind it savors of evil

omen.

It is a great pity that modern writers like Villemain have been. so far derelict to justice and truth as to mould their judgment of Catholic heroes according to their predilections; it is a burning shame also that many a so-called liberal Catholic has followed their standard. Such is not writing history conformable to its lofty purpose. If personal feeling dictate to a writer the measure by which he is to picture a hero, then history assumes a dangerous aspect, and if writers treating prejudicially the character of St. Gregory VII. have labored to engage our belief, then their efforts have been malicious, unworthy of credence, and dishonorable. There is not in the whole life of this heroic Pontiff a quality more apparent nor more generally acknowledged than that capital attribute in human action-good intention. Why, then, with a property so

agreeable and a power so invaluable, have writers blackened his memory with the loathsome accusation of meanness and selfcreated supremacy? Again, is it lawful for us moderns to sit down and mete out judgment on the conduct of medieval personages according to our present views of life and our present rule of action? St. Gregory VII. consented to the deposition of Henry IV. of Germany, and because he committed this "foul crime," have we the right to judge his action inconsiderate of the circumstances of his times, his extraordinary power and his office of Mediator between Christian nations? If such be the case, truly, "cæcis erramus in undis."

The correct view which history presents of Gregory is that of a great director who steers successfully the doings of his age into the channel of time, and the scene is one wherein a towering genius and a gigantic mind predominate. Whether psychologically considered in the sanctuary of the soul's feelings and thoughts or viewed in the bright dramatism of the statesman's career, Gregory's character possesses a fascinating glamour; he is equally the subject of astonishment and reverence. Placed in juxtaposition with a long line of Papal predecessors, he rises above all in his rare union of golden qualities. For soundness of judgment, depth of penetration, and firmness of principle, he surpasses all his peers in the Papacy. Perhaps it is on account of this beautiful array of royal attributes that he has ever been the object of praise and animadversion. Hildebrand's life was in the main a continued tempest, but to meet its howling winds and dashing billows, he possessed an unyielding firmness of will. He was aggressive, but his aggressiveness centered in right, and when spurred on by the consciousness of justice and honesty, only then did his mind, disciplined to resistance, overleap impetuously the barriers to overwhelm opposition. That in his office of supreme ruler of Christendom he distinguished not between prince and peasant; that with all the innate vigor of his being he fought to confirm and strengthen ecclesiastical rights and privileges, is not condemnable; for if there be a duty plain to the conscience of a Roman Pontiff, if there be an obligation hallowed by all that is just and true in the doctrine of the Church, it is that of resistance to the lawless encroachments of the civil power. What Gregory VII. fought and suffered for in the eleventh century, Leo XIII. contends and suffers for to-day. And how other could these saintly Pontiffs act

after swearing at the foot of God's altar to defend His Church by every vital energy, even unto death?

Gregory's name is glorious and immortal. Yet its glory and immortality must be traced rather to the influence which his genius, schooled by affliction and vicissitude, has exerted over the development of ecclesiastical and civil power than to the hidden virtues and saintly character which so many writers have been at pains to asperse. It is an indisputable fact that from the time of St. Gregory VII., so potent was the revolution which he effected in Church and state, so fortunate were its results, that a distinct line of demarcation was drawn between the spiritual and the temporal arm, the independence of both spheres of rule was guaranteed, and thus society plunged into disorder and contention bent to receive its coup de grace from men who knew well how to value his example. Yet Gregory VII. established no new dynasty; he left, however, to the world the memory of his giant vigor and his devoted zeal, the dying declaration of his love for justice and his hatred for iniquity. Like to the strong and sturdy oak, "the pride of the forest," his genius expanded with time, ever increasing in vigor, acquiring extension by the displacement of less worthy and useless surroundings, until at length, towering in majestic beauty far above its companion works of nature, it symbolizes independence, fortitude, and perpetuity. Or like the rock imbedded 'neath the depths of an ocean waste, surviving the wash of tempest and storm, Gregory arises grand and haughty over the subsiding forces of revolution and chaos. Such he was as statesman, ruler, and Pontiff.

"With comprehensive mind and truth endowed,

No vulgar passion his great soul control'd;
Rich in the science that a priest required,

With ardent zeal which love divine inspir'd."

St. Gregory appeared when the world was in a state of transition. In earlier days from Rome, which the poet called Rerum pulcherrima Roma, had gushed forth the spring-tides that had infused life and energy into civilization. We know how, from her haughty hills—those symbols of her arrogant sovereignty-ancient Rome ruled the world, and how turreted on these seven mountaintops she proudly boasted of her world-wide dominion. We also have read how, in the economy of the world's Eternal Ruler, this

Queen of the Universe, wrapped in her drapery of luxury and power, was forced to bend her haughty head to the sweet yoke of Christianity. Centuries of unrestrained empire had elevated Rome unwisely beyond all healthful prudence, and it was some impulse, more than a natural one, which drove in aftertimes the serried hordes of Goth, Visigoth, and Hun from their fastnesses in the very heart of barbarism down to the golden gates of Roma Æterna. Rome gradually falls. She never dares to raise her head, and the student of history may vainly look and fondly peer down the long vista of time for her subsequent rise; he must despair of her regeneration evermore, till the sacred Labarum waves high over her heaven-blessed walls. Then Rome awakens from her lethargy, and becomes the Fons Sacradotii and Roma felix. She again rises before the world, but devoid of the false glitter of her ancient material brilliancy, Christian and free. Peace and contentment now smile over her, till restless of her Western home she seeks an abode in the Orient. This act of her ruler in changing the seat of empire to Byzantium was political suicide, and as the years go on she sinks into oblivion. One power alone preserves strength enough to re-establish rule, and that power was the Church. An independent realm now appears above the horizon of anarchy, and though centuries intervene and a long winter of darkness settles over the earth, it does not die, but "only sleepeth."

The first Pope who raised the Church from the rending influences of disorder and misrule to a high standard of union and strength was Pope Sylvester II., the first Frenchman whose privilege it was to attain to the Pontifical throne. From the reign of Leo III. a wide difference had existed between the spiritual and the temporal power. Sylvester II. restored the former harmony between them, and though Pope had to depend on prince for aid and support, this close intimacy did not for many years prove prejudicial to the interests of religion. At his death his admirable work was undone, and party clangor, forced for years to be silent, burst forth with a fury that exceeded the bounds of precedent and parallel. The sacred diadem of the Church became the object at which a new vandalism grasped, and it seemed to aim at the total destruction of Christian faith. It was a foolish labor-this attempt to create popes unlawfully, and its folly was a curse to the world. Amidst the dissension which grew thick and fast in the bosom of the Church, while crime and disloyalty polluted the office of the

sacred ministry, a great Pontiff, as if specially missioned by Divine Providence to undertake the herculean task of purifying the ranks of the clergy and checking the inroads of the temporal on the spiritual sphere, now appeared to bear the honors as well as the tribulations of the Papal insignia. At this stage of history, St. Gregory VII. arises a massive obelisk over the wavering, tottering fabric of mediæval polity that sinks crushed by the weight of its mountainous excesses in Church and state. The beginning of the eleventh century gave birth to the man who was thereafter to be the glory of Italy, the pride of the Church, and the regeneration of society. Little is known of his early youth save that he was of humble origin, and yet that little mirrors his future. It was said that while a child, as he was sitting beneath the carpenter's bench of his father, he so disposed the shavings that fell from it as to form these words of the Psalmist: "Dominabitur a mare usque ad mare," a wonderful forecast of his future dignity. Although his early years are shrouded in darkness, we may well suppose that many a noble inspiration, many a longing of soul must have come over him, and living as he did under the golden glow of the incomparable Tuscan sunshine, he felt all the soul-inspiring sentiments which the deep, soft blue skies of his native land evoke. His times were not noticeable for intellectual life, and if many a dark mist overhung his earlier days, he seemed not to come under its influence; he was providentially fitted for greater days to come.

Gregory began the drama of his varied life early, for as a youth we find him following him that was afterwards Pope Gregory VI., his teacher, into the cloister of Cluny. This free-will act shows the vitality of his feelings. Love for his preceptor and spiritual father draws him away from the world; this same transcendent vitality animates the whole of his memorable career. Later, he makes the quick transition from the sombre halls of Cluny to the brilliant royalties of the German court. Henry III. has bidden him to come and instruct his heir; the king recognized in him already that,

"His were the loftiest attributes of mind,

The solid judgment and the taste refined,

The quick perception and the searching scan,

Which measures motives and which looks through man." The young Tuscan monk had drunk deeply of the cup of religious life; his soul was uplifted; his thoughts and aim enlarged; his