That is grand and something
to rejoice at! _Ecclesia Triumphans!_ Would not Christ rejoice
at it? How well Innocent III has expressed the 'Idea' of the
conquering Church, as Plato would call it. You know Plato--the Pope
has just paid five thousand ducats for a manuscript of the
_Timoeus_. Pope Innocent says: 'St Peter's successors have
received from God the commission not only to rule the Church but
the whole world. As God has set two great lights in the sky, he has
also set up two great powers on earth, the Papacy, which is the
higher because the care of souls is committed to it, and the Royal
power which is the lower, and to which only the charge of the bodies
of men is committed.' If you have any objection to make to that,
brother, speak it out."
"No, not against that, but against everything which I have seen and
heard."
"For example? Do you mean eating and drinking?"
"Yes, that also."
"How petty-minded you are! I speak of the highest things, and you
talk about eating and drinking. Fie! Martin! you are a meat-rejector
and a wine-eschewing Turk! But I accept your challenge. Our Lord
Christ allowed His disciples to pluck ears of corn on the Sabbath;
that was against the law of Moses, and was disapproved of by the
Pharisees.... You are a Pharisee.
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