expound for you its hidden meaning and make clear all its
difficulties.

Here are the waters of eternal life, but I have created a channel that
will communicate these waters to you in all their sweetness without
sediment of error.

Here is the written Constitution of My Church. But I have appointed over
it a Supreme Tribunal, in the person of one "to whom I have given the keys
of the Kingdom of Heaven," who will preserve that Constitution inviolate,
and will not permit it to be torn into shreds by the conflicting opinions
of men. And thus my children will be one, as I and the Father are one.

Chapter XII.

TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES.

I. How The Popes Acquired Temporal Power.

For the clearer understanding of the origin and the gradual growth of the
Temporal Power of the Popes, we may divide the history of the Church into
three great epochs.

The first embraces the period which elapsed from the establishment of the
Church to the days of Constantine the Great, in the fourth century; the
second, from Constantine to Charlemagne, who was crowned Emperor in the
year 800; the third, from Charlemagne to the present time.

When St. Peter, the first Pope in the long, unbroken line of Sovereign
Pontiffs, entered Italy and Rome he did not possess a foot of ground which
he could call his own. He could say with his Divine Master: "The foxes
have holes and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man hath not
whereon to lay his head."(181) The Apostle died as he had lived, a poor
man, having nothing at his death save the affections of a grateful people.

But, although the Prince of the Apostles owned nothing that he could call
his personal property, he received from the faithful large donations to be
distributed among the needy. For in the Acts of the Apostles we are told
that "neither was anyone among them (the faithful) needy; for as many as
were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the
things which they sold and laid them before the feet of the Apostles, and
distribution was made to everyone according as he had need."(182) Such was
the filial attachment of the early Christians towards the Pontiffs of the
Church; such was the confidence reposed in their personal integrity, and
in their discretion in dispensing the charity of the faithful.

During the first three hundred years the Pastors of the Church were
generally incapable of holding real est