But to estimate the pontificate of Gregory by the disasters of its closing years would be to misconceive its significance for the history of the papacy entirely. On the contrary, his reign forms an important chapter in the history of the popedom as an institution; it contains the germs of far-reaching modifications of the church, and it gave new impulses to both theory and practice, the value of which may indeed be differently estimated, but of which the effects are indubitable. It was he who conceived and formulated the ideal of the papacy as a structure embracing all peoples and lands. He took the first step towards the codification of ecclesiastical law and the definite ratification of the claims of the apostolic chair as corner-stones in the church's foundation. He educated the clergy and the lay world in obedience to Rome; and, finally, it was due to his efforts that the duty of the priest with regard to sexual abstinence was never afterwards a matter of doubt in the Catholic Christianity of the West. On the 25th of May 1085 he died, unbroken by the misfortunes of his last years, and unshaken in his self-certainty. _Dilexi justitiam et odivi iniquitatem: propterea morior in exilio_--are said to have been his last words. In 1584 Gregory XIII. received him into the _Martyrologium Romanum_; in 1606 he was canonized by Paul V. The words dedicated to him in the _Breviarium Romanum_, for May 25, contain such an apotheosis of his pontificate that in the 18th and 19th centuries they were prohibited by the governments of several countries with Roman Catholic populations.