His enunciations of the papal doctrine put claims that Hildebrand
himself had hardly ventured to advance, in the clearest and most
definite light. The Pope was no mere successor of Peter, the
vicegerent of man. "The Roman pontiff," he wrote, "is the vicar, not
of man, but of God himself." "The Lord gave Peter the rule not only of
the Universal Church, but also the rule of the whole world." "The Lord
Jesus Christ has set up one ruler over all things as his universal
vicar, and as all things in heaven, earth, and hell bow the knee to
Christ, so should all obey Christ's vicar, that there be one flock and
one shepherd." "No king can reign rightly unless he devoutly serve
Christ's vicar." "Princes have power in earth, priests have also power
in heaven. Princes reign over the body, priests over the soul. As much
as the soul is worthier than the body, so much worthier is the
priesthood than the monarchy." "The Sacerdotium is the sun, the Regnum
the moon. Kings rule over their respective kingdoms, but Peter rules
over the whole earth. The Sacerdotium came by divine creation, the
Regnum by man's cunning."

In these unrestricted claims to rule over church and state alike we
seem to be back again in the anarchy of the eleventh century. And it
was not against the feeble feudal princes of the days of Hildebrand
that Innocent III had to contend, but against strong national kings,
like Philip of France and John of England. It is significant of the
change of the times, that Innocent sees his chief antagonist, not so
much in the empire as in the limited localized power of the national
kings. When Richard of England had yielded before Henry VI, the
national state gave way before the universal authority of the lord of
the world. But Innocent claimed that he alone was lord of the world.
The empire was but a German or Italian kingdom, ruling over its