The pope to whom this remarkable document was addressed was a man of appropriate spirit. He was the third in the series of five able German popes, who labored so hard in the cause of disciplinary reform. At Hildebrand’s advice, he had laid aside the papal insignia, which he donned at his election, and came to Rome as a barefooted pilgrim in 1048. He aimed to put down simony, to stop the barter and sale of benefices, and to secure the celibacy of the clergy. To this end he used the synods with vigor, and was ready for almost any proposed reform which fell in with his line of operations. He was of the German, not the ultramontane party, and therefore was quite liberal in his construction of the great text, “Thou art Peter,” and went so far as to say that the Church should first of all be built upon the true rock, which was Christ. To him, then, the _Gomorrah Book_ went, and it made a stir. The next four popes occupied among them no longer period of ecclesiastical rule than from the year 1054 to the year 1061. Matters were unsettled. No one continued in office. But the finger of Hildebrand the cardinal was mightier than the hand of any pope. Nicholas II. was guided by him, and Alexander II., who came forward in 1061, was unquestionably under his control. And when Alexander appeared, it seemed that the _Gomorrah Book_ was still an element of unrest and disturbance, at a time when the claims of an Antipope (Honorius II.) had been set up by the Imperialist party, and it was necessary for even Hildebrand’s friends to give as little offence as possible to the clergy. For the election of Alexander was clearly irregular, because it was in defiance of the rules laid down by Nicholas II. at a Lateran Synod in 1059. With a genial and suave manner the new pontiff now borrowed the work for the ostensible purpose of having it copied by the help of the Abbot of St. Saviour. That was the last that Damiani saw of it for some little while. If Alexander thought that the hermit abbot of Fonte Avellana would submit to this method of suppression he flattered his soul in vain. Damiani, after a reasonable delay, appealed to his friend Hildebrand. The book was like a part of himself, and he had no desire to have it treated with neglect. One cannot here follow the windings of the story further than to say that Damiani got his book again, and now we have it too. I am surprised at the blindness which prevents some writers from seeing in this Peter de Honestis a most noble and consistent character. Morheim only pays him a merited compliment when he says that his “genius, candor, integrity, and writings of various kinds, entitle him to rank among the first men of the age, although he was not free from the faults of the times.” But how could one easily avoid the extreme of severity who was confronted by the grossest sins that ever carried a hissing sibilant in front of their names! Flagellation was a natural reaction from those fleshly lusts that warred against the soul.