_Immoralities of the Papal Court at Avignon.--Its return to Rome.--Causes of the great Schism.--Disorganization of the Italian System.--Decomposition of the Papacy.--Three Popes._ _The Council of Constance attempts to convert the papal Autocracy into a constitutional Monarchy.--It murders John Huss and Jerome of Prague.--Pontificate of Nicolas V.--End of the intellectual influence of the Italian System._ [Sidenote: "The Everlasting Gospel."] About the close of the twelfth century appeared among the mendicant friars that ominous work, which, under the title of "The Everlasting Gospel," struck terror into the Latin hierarchy. It was affirmed that an angel had brought it from heaven, engraven on copper plates, and had given it to a priest called Cyril, who delivered it to the Abbot Joachim. [Sidenote: Introduction to it by the General of the Franciscans.] The abbot had been dead about fifty years, when there was put forth, A.D. 1250, a true exposition of the tendency of his book, under the form of an introduction, by John of Parma, the general of the Franciscans, as was universally suspected or alleged. Notwithstanding its heresy, the work displayed an enlarged and masterly conception of the historical progress of humanity. In this introduction, John of Parma pointed out that the Abbot Joachim, who had not only performed a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but had been reverenced as a prophet, received as of unimpeachable orthodoxy, and canonized, had accepted as his fundamental position that Roman Christianity had done its work, and had now come to its inevitable termination. He proceeded to show that there are epochs or ages in the Divine government of the world; that, during the Jewish dispensation, it had been under the immediate influence of God the Father; during the Christian dispensation, it had been under that of God the Son; and that the time had now arrived when it would be under the influence of God the Holy Ghost; that, in the coming ages, there would be no longer any need of faith, but that all things would be according to wisdom and reason. It was the ushering in of a new time. So spake, with needful obscurity, the Abbot Joachim, and so, more plainly, the General of the Franciscans in his Introduction. "The Everlasting Gospel" was declared by its adherents to have supplanted the New Testament, as that had supplanted the Old--these three books constituting a threefold revelation, answering to the Trinity of the Godhead. At once there was a cry from the whole hierarchy. [Sidenote: Attempts to destroy the book.] The Pope, Alexander IV., without delay, took measures for the destruction of the book. Whoever kept or concealed a copy was excommunicated. But among the lower mendicants--the Spiritualists, as they were termed--the work was held in the most devout repute. With them it had taken the place of the Holy Scriptures. [Sidenote: The Comment on the Apocalypse.] So far from being suppressed, it was followed, in about forty years, A.D.