[Sidenote: Outward union never since restored.]
Since that time the two great Branches of the One Vine, whilst still drawing Life and Nourishment from the same Divine Root of Jesse by means of the same Holy Sacraments, have yet abstained from all acts of outward communion, and have failed to recognize in each other those essential marks of Catholicity which God's Mercy and Providence has preserved to them even in the midst of all their respective defects of Charity, or their errors in theory and practice.
[Sidenote: Foundation of the temporal power of the Popedom.]
The temporal power of the Popes gradually increased after the ninth century, when part of the territory since known as the States of the Church was bestowed on them by Pepin, whose son, the famous Emperor Charlemagne, confirmed the donation. The change thus wrought in the position of the Popes, who to their spiritual office of Bishop now added the temporal one of sovereign, was productive of a corresponding change in the claims they made upon the submission of the rest of Christendom, and these altered claims first assumed a definite form in the eleventh century.
[Sidenote: Papal claims to spiritual supremacy.]
The Bishops of Rome had at first limited their ideas of universal supremacy to spiritual things: it was as Universal Bishop that they desired to be honoured and obeyed, and we have seen in the preceding chapter that a certain priority seemed to accrue to them by force of { 101} circumstances. Rome had come to be regarded as the Mother of the Churches, much as Jerusalem was in the first ages of Christianity, and appeals for advice and help were at first voluntarily made to the learning and piety of the Bishops of Rome. [Sidenote: Further claims to temporal authority.] Later, instead of advisers they claimed to be absolute judges in ecclesiastical matters, and when the temporal possessions of the Popedom made the chair of St. Peter an object of ambition to covetous, designing men, the character of Bishop was too often merged in that of Prince, and spiritual power ceased to satisfy those who thought it their duty or their interest to enforce what was in fact an Universal Sovereignty.
[Sidenote: Plausibleness and actual advantages of Papal supremacy.]
