over all, as in fulness so also in breadth, because he is the Vicar of
Him whose is the earth and the fulness thereof, the round world and
they that dwell therein. Further, as the priesthood excels in dignity,
so it precedes in antiquity. Both kingdom and priesthood," he allows,
"were instituted among the people of God; but," he adds, "while the
priesthood was instituted by divine ordinance, the kingdom came into
existence through the importunity of man." Hence it is not strange
that "not only in the Patrimony of the Church, but also in other
spheres, we occasionally exercise temporal jurisdiction," for "he to
whom God says in Peter, 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, etc.',
is His Vicar, who is priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek,
ordained by God to be judge of the quick and the dead."

[Sidenote: He secures power in Rome.]

But while the Pope assumed this all-embracing position, a considerable
share of his energies was absorbed in a very small and purely selfish
matter--the extension of the temporal dominion of the Papacy; and the
use for this personal object of the great powers which men willingly
acknowledged in the Pope as the upholder of the standard of morality
greatly prejudiced the success of Innocent's policy elsewhere. In its
origin this was a policy of self-preservation. The civil government of
Rome was in the hands of a prefect representing the Emperor and a
senator who was the spokesman of the Commune. The Pope was either a
prisoner or a nonentity in his own capital. The Empire being in
abeyance, it was not difficult to transform the prefect into a papal
officer, but a greater triumph was the nomination of the senator, for
it carried the ultimate control over the municipality, and thus
undermined the power of the Commune, which had paralysed the papal
influence in Rome for nearly sixty years. This signal victory was not