penance for his unlawful acts, he shall be kept away from the most sacred body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and shall undergo a stern vengeance at the eternal judgment."
But if the blessed Gregory, the most gentle of teachers, decreed that kings who should violate his decrees in the matter of a single hospice should not only be deposed but also excommunicated and, at the last judgment, condemned: who, save one like to them, will blame us for having deposed and excommunicated Henry, who is not alone a scorner of the apostolic judgments but also, as far as in him lies, a treader under foot of holy mother church herself and a most shameless robber and atrocious destroyer of the whole realm and of the churches. As we have learned, through St. Peter's teaching, from a letter concerning the ordination of Clement in which it says: "If any one shall be a friend to those with whom he (Clement) does not speak, he also is one of those who wish to exterminate the church of God; and while, with his body, he seems to be with us, he is with heart and soul against us. And such an enemy is far more dangerous than those who ai*e without and who are open enemies. For he, under the guise of friendship, does hostile acts, and rends and lays waste the church." Mark well, beloved, if this pope so severely judges the friend or companion of those with whom, on account of their actions he is angry, with what condemnation he will visit the man himself with whose actions he is displeased.
But to return to the matter in hand. Is not a dignity like this, founded by laymen—even by those who do not know God,—subject to that dignity which the providence of God Almighty has, in His own honour, founded and given to the world? For His Son, even as He is undoubtingly believed to be God and man, so is He considered the highest priest, the head of all priests, sitting on the right hand of the Father and always interceding for us. And He despised a secular kingdom, which makes the sons of this world swell with pride, and came of His own will to the priesthood of the cross. Who does not know that kings and leaders are sprung from those who—ignorant of God—by pride, plunder, perfidy, murders—in a word by
