reyhound.[621] It is impossible to make a definite
statement of the results of the Venetian effort to resist the
church system, but that such an effort was made in Italy is an
important historical fact.

+268. Use of the Inquisition for political and personal
purposes.+ In spite of the religiosity of the age there were
princes and factions which cared more for political power than
for theological questions. When the power of the Inquisition was
established many ecclesiastical and civil persons desired to
employ its agency for their personal or party ends. Boniface
VIII, in the bull _Unam Sanctam_, laid down in full force the
doctrine of papal supremacy and independence. Any one who
resisted the power lodged by God in the church resisted God,
unless, like the Manichaeans, he believed in two principles, in
which case he was a heretic. If the pope errs, he can be judged
by God alone. There is no earthly appeal. "We say, declare,
define, and pronounce, that it is necessary to salvation that
every human creature be subjected to the Roman pontiff." "It was
soon perceived that an accusation of heresy was a peculiarly easy
and efficient method of attacking a political enemy."[622] John
XXII, in his quarrel with Visconti, trumped up charges of heresy
which won public opinion away from Visconti, disassociated his
friends, and ruined him. Heresy and damnation were used to and
fro, as interest dictated, and only for policy.[623] This is the
extreme development of the action against dissenters in its third
stage, the abuse of power for selfish purposes. "Heretic" became
an epithet of immense power in factional quarrels, and the
Inquisition was a weapon which any one could use who could seize
it. Hence effects on the mores were produced in an age when
factions were numerous and their quarrels constant. In these
cases, however, the selectional effect was only against the
personal enemies of the powerful, and was not a societal effect
at all.

+269.+ We have distinguished four stages in the story of the attempt to
establish religious uniformity under papal control in the Middle Ages.
I. The church taught doctrines and alleged facts about the wickedness of
aberrant opinions. II. The masses, accepting these teachings, built
deductions upon them, and drew inferences as to the proper treatment of
dissenters. They put the inferences in effect