[109] As a reviewer in the _Tablet_ (whose courtesy it is the more pleasant to acknowledge since his point of view is altogether opposed to mine) has understood this passage as meaning that 'people imagined the Christian religion was to last for ever because the Holy Roman Empire was never to decay,' it may be worth while to say that this is far from being the purport of the argument which this chapter was designed to state. The converse would be nearer the truth:--'people imagined the Holy Roman Empire was never to decay, because the Christian religion was to last for ever.' The phenomen may perhaps be stated thus:--Men who were already disposed to believe the Roman Empire to be eternal for one set of reasons, came to believe the Christian Church to be eternal for another and, to them, more impressive set of reasons. Seeing the two institutions allied in fact, they took their alliance and connection to be eternal also; and went on for centuries believing in the necessary existence of the Roman Empire because they believed in its necessary union with the Catholic Church. [110] Augustine, in the _De Civitate Dei_. His influence, great through all the Middle Ages, was greater on no one than on Charles.--'Delectabatur et libris sancti Augustini, præcipueque his qui De Civitate Dei prætitulati sunt.'--Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, cap. 24. [111] 'Quapropter universorum precibus fidelium optandum est, ut in omnem gloriam vestram extendatur imperium, ut scilicet catholica fides ... veraciter in una confessione cunctorum cordibus infigatur, quatenus summi Regis donante pietate eadem sanctæ pacis et perfectæ caritatis omnes ubique regat et custodiat unitas.' Quoted by Waitz (_Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_, ii. 182) from an unprinted letter of Alcuin. [112] A curious illustration of this tendency of mind is afforded by the descriptions we meet with of Learning or Theology (_Studium_) as a concrete existence, having a visible dwelling in the University of Paris. The three great powers which rule human life, says one writer, the Popedom, the Empire, and Learning, have been severally entrusted to the three foremost nations of Europe: Italians, Germans, French. 'His siquidem tribus, scilicet sacerdotio imperio et studio, tanquam tribus virtutibus, videlicet naturali vitali et scientiali, catholica ecclesia spiritualiter mirificatur, augmentatur et regitur. His itaque tribus, tanquam fundamento, pariete et tecto, eadem ecclesia tanquam materialiter proficit. Et sicut ecclesia materialis uno tantum fundamento et uno tecto eget, parietibus vero quatuor, ita imperium quatuor habet parietes, hoc est, quatuor imperii sedes, Aquisgranum, Arelatum, Mediolanum, Romam.'--_Jordanis Chronica_; _ap._ Schardius _Sylloge Tractatuum_. And see Döllinger, _Die Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der katholischen Theologie_, p. 8.