-estates probably bequeathed by pious people. They have
succeeded to this jurisdiction simply by default. They rule Rome,
because there is no one else to rule it. We find St. Gregory the Great
feeding the pauper-masses of Rome, on the first day of every month, from
the fruitful corn-bearing estates in Sicily; keeping up the 'Panem;' but
substituting, thank Heaven, for the 'Circenses' at least the services of
the Church. Of course, the man who could keep the Roman people alive
must needs become, ipso facto, their monarch.

The Pope acknowledges, of course, a certain allegiance to the Emperor at
Constantinople, and therefore to his representative, the Exarch of
Ravenna: that is to say, he meets them with flattery when they are
working on his side; with wrath when they oppose him. He intrigues with
them, too, whenever he can safely do so, against the Lombards.

Thus the Pope has become, during the four centuries which followed the
destruction of the Western Empire, the sole surviving representative of
that Empire. He is the head of the 'gens togata;' of the 'Senatus
Populusque Romanus.' In him Rome has risen again out of her grave, to
awe the peoples once more by the Romani nominis umbra; and to found a new
Empire; not as before, on physical force, and the awe of visible power;
but on the deeper and more enduring ground of spiritual force, and the
awe of the invisible world.

An Empire, I say. The Popes were becoming, from the 5th to the 8th
centuries, not merely the lords of Rome, but the lords of the Western
Church. Their spiritual Empire, to do them justice, was not so much
deliberately sought by them, as thrust upon them. As the clergy were,
all over the Empire, the representatives of the down-trodden Romans, so
they naturally gravitated toward the Eternal City, their ancient
mistress. Like all disciplined and organized bodies they felt the need
of unity, of monarchy. Where could they find it, save at Rome? Rome was
still, practically and in fact, the fountain of their doctrine, of their
superior civilization; and to submit themselves to the Pope of Rome was
their only means of keeping up one faith, one practice, and the strength
which comes from union.

To seat the Pope upon the throne of the Caesars; to attribute to him
powers weightier than all which the Caesars had possest . . . It was a
magnificent idea. A politic idea, too; for it would cover the priesthood
with all the prestige of ancient Rome,