Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/248

228 because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." Revelation iii. 16.

Macchiavelli represents this scorn of inefficient mediocrity in an epigram on Peter Soderini:—

The same idea is intensified in the old ballad of Carle of Kelly-Burn Brees, Cromek, p. 37:—

52. This restless flag is an emblem of the shifting and unstable minds of its followers.

59. Generally supposed to be. whose great refusal, or abdication, of the papal office is thus described by Boccaccio in his Comento:—

"Being a simple man and of a holy life, living as a hermit in the mountains of Morrone in Abruzzo, above Selmona, he was elected Pope in Perugia after the death of Pope Niccola d' Ascoli; and his name being Peter, he was called Celestine. Considering his simplicity, Cardinal Messer Benedetto Gatano, a very cunning man, of great courage and desirous of being Pope, managing astutely, began to show him that he held this high office much to the prejudice of his own soul, inasmuch as he did not feel himself competent for it;—others pretend that he contrived with some private servants of his to have voices heard in the chamber of the aforesaid Pope, which, as if they were voices of angels sent from heaven, said, 'Resign, Celestine! Resign, Celestine!'—moved by which, and being an idiotic man, he took counsel with Messer Benedetto aforesaid, as to the best method of resigning."

Celestine having relinquished the papal office, this "Messer Benedetto aforesaid" was elected Pope, under the title of. His greatest misfortune was that he had Dante for an adversary.

Gower gives this legend of Pope Celestine in his Confessio Amantis, Book II., as an example of "the vice of supplantacion." He says:—

Milman, ''Hist. Latin Christianity'', VI. 194, speaks thus upon the subject:—

"The abdication of Celestine V. was an event unprecedented in the annals of the Church, and jarred harshly against some of the first principles of the Papal authority. It was a confession of common humanity, of weakness below the ordinary standard of men in him whom the Conclave, with more than usual certitude, as guided by the special interposition of the Holy Ghost, had raised