On the other hand, no opportunity is lost of calling
attention to the Roman primacy. Pope Siricius (384-398) writes in one of his
letters: "We bear the burdens of all who are oppressed; it is the Apostle
Peter who speaks in our person." Through the more confidential and
domestic utterances of these Popes there runs a vein of haughty self-assertion.
In the homilies of Leo I (440-461) the text Tu es Petrus rings like a
trumpet note; here we have the Roman ruler communing with his Roman people, the
pride of empire taking a new shape amidst the ruins of that secular empire
which the pagan Romans of the past had built up.
No less important was the political character which the
papal office assumed with the revival of the Empire. Already under Gregory the
Great we can trace the beginnings of a temporal power. Naturally and necessarily
the Pope, already like other bishops a functionary charged with important
secular duties, took upon himself the protection and government of Rome and the
surrounding duchy, when the rulers of Byzantium shook off these unprofitable
responsibilities. Naturally and excusably he claimed, over his vast Italian
estates, the powers of jurisdiction which every landowner was assuming as a
measure of self-defence against oppression or unbridled anarchy. In the time of
Pepin the Short a further step was taken. The Frank, unwilling to involve
himself in Italy yet anxious to secure the Holy See against the Lombards,
recognized Pope Stephen II as the lawful heir of the derelict imperial
possessions. And Charles the Great, both as King and as Emperor, confirmed the
donation of his father. To make the Pope an independent sovereign was indeed a
policy which he refused to entertain.
