How, then, are we to account for her triumphant progress?
Hobbes suggested one explanation when he called the Papacy "the ghost of
the Roman Empire." And it is true that the later Emperors found it convenient
to confer special privileges on the bishops of their ancient capital. But they
adopted this policy too late, when reverence for the Empire was already
declining in the West. By imperial grants the Papacy gained no substantial
powers, while individual Popes lost credit and independence by their special
connection with the New Rome on the Bosporus. They were compelled to play an
ignominious part in the squabbles of the Eastern Churches, they were loaded
with onerous secular duties; they became the emblems and the agents of an alien
tyranny, mistrusted alike by the barbarian invaders and the nominal subjects of
the Empire.
Other critics have explained the prestige of the Papacy as
the fruit of successful impostures. For this hypothesis there is little to be
said. One or two Popes, not the greatest, have condescended to use forged title-deeds.
But the effect of these frauds has been much exaggerated. The most famous of
them are the Donation of Constantine and the False Decretals. The
former, though probably of Roman origin, was little used at Rome, and only
served to justify the modest beginnings of the temporal power. The latter are
of more importance, and are sometimes regarded as opening an era of new
pretensions. In fact they are little more than reiterations and amplifications
of very ancient claims. Though frequently quoted by the canon lawyers, they are
not indispensable links in the claim of historical proofs and precedents. They
are chiefly significant as attesting the general desire of churchmen to find
some warrant for a vigorous exercise of the papal prerogative. A primate with real
powers was desired, not only by the clergy of the national churches as a
bulwark against the brutal oppression of the State, but also by all religious
thinkers as a symbol of corporate unity and a guarantee of doctrinal
uniformity.