The Growth Of The Temporal Power Of The Papacy

Author : Alfred Owen Legge
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331763567
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (635 download)

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Download or read book The Growth of the Temporal Power of the Papacy written by Alfred Owen Legge and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-19 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Growth of the Temporal Power of the Papacy: A Historical Review With Observations Upon the Council of the Vatican The present volume has no pretensions to be a History of the Papacy. That great subject, as a whole, has been ably dealt with by numerous writers; the separate aspect which is here presented, and which possesses a special interest at the present time, has not, so far as I am aware, received that adequate but concise treatment which I have felt to be a want in popular literature. With great diffidence I have ventured to attempt to fill this gap. The reader will therefore not find here much that he would naturally look for in a History of the Papacy. That history, prolific in characters uniting with every degree of intellectual power the most degrading vices or the most sublime piety, has been the subject of occasional side glimpses; the main object proposed being to present, in a succinct form, the processes by which the primogenial simplicity and unworldliness of the early Christian Church have been exchanged, under the fatal influence of a worldly ambition, for a corrupt and idolatrous faith, a temporal sovereignty, and a lordship over the human conscience which grows with the advancing years. I do not affect to be unacquainted with what early or modern writers have contributed to history on this subject. Here and there I have drawn freely upon these valuable resources. But in every case where the conclusions of other writers have been accepted I have, where unacknowledged in the usual way, attempted to express opinions so adopted in phraseology of my own, and claim the credit at least of independent thought and a fair amount of industrious research. Materials for my work have been gathered from various sources, most of them readily accessible. I desire, however, to make special acknowledgment of the courteous assistance which I have received on several occasions from the gentlemen in attendance at the Reading Room of the British Museum. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.