The Growth Of The Temporal Power Of The Papacy A Historical Review With Observations Upon The Council Of The Vatican Etc

Excerpt from The Growth of the Temporal Power of the Papacy: A Historical Review With Observations Upon the Council of the Vatican The present volume has no pretensions to be a History of the Papacy. That great subject, as a whole, has been ably dealt with by numerous writers; the separate aspect which is here presented, and which possesses a special interest at the present time, has not, so far as I am aware, received that adequate but concise treatment which I have felt to be a want in popular literature. With great diffidence I have ventured to attempt to fill this gap. The reader will therefore not find here much that he would naturally look for in a History of the Papacy. That history, prolific in characters uniting with every degree of intellectual power the most degrading vices or the most sublime piety, has been the subject of occasional side glimpses; the main object proposed being to present, in a succinct form, the processes by which the primogenial simplicity and unworldliness of the early Christian Church have been exchanged, under the fatal influence of a worldly ambition, for a corrupt and idolatrous faith, a temporal sovereignty, and a lordship over the human conscience which grows with the advancing years. I do not affect to be unacquainted with what early or modern writers have contributed to history on this subject. Here and there I have drawn freely upon these valuable resources. But in every case where the conclusions of other writers have been accepted I have, where unacknowledged in the usual way, attempted to express opinions so adopted in phraseology of my own, and claim the credit at least of independent thought and a fair amount of industrious research. Materials for my work have been gathered from various sources, most of them readily accessible. I desire, however, to make special acknowledgment of the courteous assistance which I have received on several occasions from the gentlemen in attendance at the Reading Room of the British Museum. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.