So went on for hundreds, nay, for thousands of years, the growth of humanity; and the two powers went further and further apart, coming more and more the one into opposition with the other.

And the people, the nations, gradually grew in power, grew in intelligence, to a considerable extent.

The priest was still the teacher, and still the schools and the temples were united.
Unfortunately, after a while the religions became corrupted as well as the royalties, and priests began to share the worldliness that had already degraded the Kings; and then, with the failure of the priesthood, practically ceased the education of the people for many and many a long century, and intelligence was not developed, and the power of the mind was not assisted to manifest itself.
And so onward and onward till we come to Middle Age Europe, and we find a down-trodden proletariat, an indifferent and luxurious kingship and priesthood, allied now to oppress, not to raise.

Therefore, contest between the Church and the State, until the Pontiff of Rome remained the only representative of the union of the spiritual and temporal authority--his spiritual authority enormous, his temporal authority growing smaller, and badly used, so that in the States of the Church in Italy there was almost the acme of bad temporal government; and there was little to choose, really, between the States of the Church and the odious tyranny of Naples.

In the States of the Church the old ideal of the Priest-King was degraded to its lowest point, and neither on the side of Pontiff, nor on the side of King, was the ruler of Rome the father, the shepherd of his people, but often only a devouring wolf.