Of the hundred and more Christian sects now existing in this country, does not each take the Bible as its standard of authority, and does not each member draw from it a meaning different from that of his neighbor? Now, in the mind of God the Scriptures can have but one meaning. Is not this variety of interpretations the bitter fruit of your principle: "An infallible Bible is enough for me," and does it not proclaim the absolute necessity of some authorized and unerring interpreter? You tell me to drink of the water of life; but of what use is this water to my parched lips, since you acknowledge that it may be poisoned in passing through the medium of your interpretation?
How satisfactory, on the contrary, and how reasonable is the Catholic teaching on this subject!
According to that system, Christ says to every Christian: Here, my child, is the Word of God, and with it I leave you an infallible interpreter, who will 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.
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.