Page:Vactican as a World Power.djvu/156

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LIBERATION

city was an uncertain terrain on which neither of the wrestling powers could ever depend. Chased from his altar with stones and arrows, the aged Pontiff sat one evening in an open field near St. Paul's out- side the walls. He was tired, sad, tearful and still half clothed in liturgical raiment. He looked for all the world like some jokester who had lost his mind. There was nothing he could do but seek refuge in France, of which country one who meditated on this same scene hundreds of years later said that it had always been a haven for the troubled barque of Peter. There he ended the years of suffering which his pontificate had been, dying on the ground clad in the habit of the Benedictines of St. Giles.

The few cardinals who had gone with him elected to the Papal throne France's mightiest prelate, Guido de Vienne, a relative of the Emperor and a Burgundian nobleman. When this choice was as- sented to by Rome, he became (1119) Calixtus II and prepared to go to the end of the road he had long since pointed out, a voice crying in the wilderness of strife. After an effort to reach a peaceful settle- ment had failed, the Council of Rheims imposed the ban anew on the Emperor and his anti-Pope. The hundreds of bishops who as- sented to this deed by throwing their burning candles on the ground seemed to be a new phalanx marshalled by the dead Pontiff of Salerno. Yet the peace was nearer than anyone could have expected. The end- less struggle had caused many minds to weigh the rights of both camps. On each side there were learned speakers who asked what things were God's and what were the Emperor's. They distinguished logically between a spiritual and a temporal aspect of the episcopal office, and drew a line between what was ecclesiastical property and what Im- perial treasure in the diocese, and thus made it easier to conduct the lengthy negotiations out of which a new order emerged. The danger that both Church and State would be disrupted was so great, the pres- sure of the German princes as well as the clamour of bishops and abbots for protection against thundering robber bands was so strong, that both parties were compelled to seek peace. Since there was a com- mon need for self-preservation, a modus vivendi could be arrived at. Soon after he had made his impressive entry into Rome, Calixtus saw the anti-Pope being driven out in an almost clownish way. Seated on his camel, the poor cleric was pelted with stones by the mob. The


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