both
parties had been true to their compact. In their privacy, hollow-eyed
monks muttered to one another under their cowls, "Homagium diabolo fecit
et male finivit."

To a degree of wickedness almost irremediable had things thus come. The
sins of the pontiffs were repeated, without any abatement, in all the
clerical ranks. Simony and concubinage prevailed to an extent that
threatened the authority of the Church over the coarsest minds.
Ecclesiastical promotion could in all directions be obtained by
purchase; in all directions there were priests boasting of illegitimate
families. [Sidenote: Commencing protest in the Church against its sins.]
But yet, in the Church itself there were men of irreproachable life,
who, like Peter Damiani, lifted up their voices against the prevailing
scandal. He it was who proved that nearly every priest in Milan had
purchased his preferment and lived with a concubine. The immoralities
thus forced upon the attention of pious men soon began to be followed by
consequences that might have been expected. It is but a step from the
condemnation of morals to the criticism of faith. The developing
intellect of Europe could no longer bear the acts or the thoughts that
it had heretofore submitted to. The dogma of transubstantiation led to
revolt.

[Sidenote: Primitive agreement of philosophy and theology.] The early
fathers delighted to point out the agreement of doctrines flowing from
the principles of Christianity with those of Greek philosophy. For long
it was asserted that a correspondence between faith and reason exists;
but by degrees as one dogma after another of a mysterious and
unintelligible kind was introduced, and matters of belief could no
longer be co-ordinated with the conclusions of the understanding, it
became necessary to force the latter into a subordinate position.
[Sidenote: Their gradual alienation.] The great political interests
involved in these questions suggested the expediency and even necessity
of compelling such a subordination by the application of civil power. In
this manner, as we have described, in the reign of Constantine the
Great, philosophical discussions of religious things came to be
discountenanced, and implicit faith in the decisions of existing
authority required. Philosophy was subjugated and enslaved by theology.
We shall now see what were the circumstances of her revolt.

In the solitude of monasteries there was every inducement for those who
had become