B. They say no; for the power they pretend to is derived from this, that when a king was converted from Gentilism to Christianism, he did by that very submission to the bishop that converted him, submit to the bishop’s government and became one of his sheep; which right therefore he could not have over any nation that was not Christian.
A. Did Sylvester (which was Pope of Rome in the time of Constantine the Great, converted by him) tell the Emperor, his new disciple, beforehand, that if he became a Christian he must be the Pope’s subject?
B. I believe not. For it is likely enough, if he had told him so plainly, or but made him suspect it, he would either have been no Christian at all, or but a counterfeit one.
A. But if he did not tell him so, and that plainly, it was foul play, not only in a priest, but in any Christian. And for this derivation of their right from the Emperor’s consent, it proceeds only from this, that they dare not challenge a legislative power, nor call their canons laws in any kingdom in Christendom, further than the kings make them so. But in Peru, when Atabalipa was King, the friar told him, that Christ being King of all the world, had given the disposing of all the kingdoms therein to the Pope, and that the Pope had given Peru to the Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth, and required Atabalipa to resign it; and for refusing it, seized upon his person by the Spanish army there present, and murdered him. You see by this how much they claim, when they have power to make it good.
B. When began the Popes to take this authority upon them first?
A. After the inundation of the northern people had overflowed the western parts of the empire, and possessed themselves of Italy, the people of the city of Rome submitted themselves, as well in temporals as spirituals, to their bishop; and then first was the Pope a temporal prince, and stood no more in so great fear of the Emperors, which lived far off at Constantinople. In this time it was that the Pope began, by pretence of his power spiritual, to encroach upon
