Page:Toleration and other essays.djvu/160

136 Alcestis, Pelops, and Heres had returned to life long before men spoke of the resurrection of Jesus; and Romulus was born of a vestal virgin more than seven hundred years before Jesus began to be regarded as virgin-born. Compare, and judge for yourselves.

When your altar of Victory had been destroyed, the barbarians came and finished the work of the priests. Rome became the prey and the sport of nations that it had so long ruled, if not repressed.

It is true that you still had consuls, a senate, municipal laws; but the popes have robbed you of what the Huns and Goths had left you.

It was in earlier times unheard of that a priest should set up royal rights in any city of the Empire. It is well known all over Europe, except in your chancellery, that, until the time of Gregory VII., your pope was but a metropolitan bishop, subject to the Greek, then the Frankish, emperors, and then to the house of Saxony; receiving investiture from them, compelled to send a profession of faith to the bishops of Ravenna and Milan, as we read expressly in your Diarium Romanum. His title of "patriach of the west" gave him much prestige, but no sovereign rights. A priest-king was a blasphemy in a religion of which the founder expressly says in the gospels: "There shall be no first and last among you." Weigh well, Romans, these other words that are put in the mouth of Jesus: "To sit on my right hand and on my left it is not mine