LIBERATION
vitalistic sub-structure of human nature was of evil. This feeling was stronger in him than in Paul, Dominic, Bernard of Clairvaux, Ig- natius of Loyola, not to mention Francis. It is, however, doubtless the ultimate source of his greatness as an ecclesiastical politician. When he mercilessly enforced the ancient law of clerical celibacy despite all revolts of the flesh and all the tears of those whom the law affected, he gave historical validity to the teaching that a state, the officials of which are unmarried and continent, is unconquerable. More than any other statesman he had the courage and the power to regard politics as the art of the impossible. Though he often failed because reality was stronger than he, it is even more evident that he triumphed over reality in his own time and, by his influence, in later ages. If it is a basic characteristic of the Roman Church to posit its spiritual cosmos against the constant peril of chaos latent in the instincts of man, and to be as hard and determined in so doing as nature itself, sacrificing si- lently and mercilessly the individual to the welfare of the whole, then Gregory was the greatest among those who helped to make that heroic characteristic dominant.
How was his ideal to be realized? With those same things which had always stirred men, had convinced their minds, had enabled them to win victories. He, too, did not escape the tragic fate that lies in every struggle to establish a better world. Believing that the higher right was on his side, he fought to gain control of the greater power. It was not the dignity of his person that he defended nor was it the power of his personality which determined the course of his life. He was simply die steward of a heritage, which he added to and then passed on to the next man in the list on which was written his own name. The Papacy never seems greater than when it bends beneath itself like slaves the greatest of those who represent it. It is an exalted idea and it compels even genius to serve its ends. History never sees in any of the Popes, even in Gregory who was perhaps the greatest among them, the expression of a creative energy existing for its own sake. This monk with a crown upon his head is memorable only because of the tremendous strength and fixity of purpose with which he served the rights and the significance of the spirit through the agency of the Church. Still mightier than his damon was the tiara on his head.
REFORM
