The day is yet future when man, the Antichrist of 2 Thess. 2 energized and led on by Satan, will "exalt himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped;" but surely in the life and character of Gregory, we have a dark foreshadowing of that masterpiece of the enemy. Were it not for the proof and illustration of scripture which Hildebrand's designs afford, we would willingly pass over his history. No silver line of grace, no love, human or divine, can be traced in a single act of his public administration; but with great swelling words of the most daring blasphemy he speaks of himself as the successor of St. Peter, the follower of Jesus, and the utterance of the mouth of God. At the same time it is evident to all that he was the very incarnation of antichristian pride, arrogance, and intolerance. His language sometimes borders on the assumption of divinity, and nearly approaches the blasphemy of the man of sin.
From the time he entered Rome as the companion of Bruno till his advancement to the pontifical chair—a period of twenty-four years—he was the ruling spirit in the Vatican; but he was in no haste for preferment. With more than human sagacity he was studying the condition and relations of Church and State; he was acquiring a knowledge of man and of the affairs of all Europe; he was maturing a lofty but daring scheme of a vast spiritual autocracy in the person of the Pope. All this appeared when he ascended the throne, and assumed in his own person the responsibility of the power which he had so long directed, though in an inferior station. His avowed object from the first was the absolute freedom and independence of the clergy from imperial and all lay interference of every description, whether to nominate or to consecrate an ecclesiastic; and, on the basis of this liberty, he boldly asserted that spiritual authority was higher and more legitimate than temporal. These proud pretensions led the church of Rome, in the person of her pontiff, to usurp dominion over the western empire, and over all the kingdoms of Europe, or rather of the whole world. Nothing more is wanted to confirm these assertions than the following Dictates.