Papal Supremacy: Innocent III

Who was greater: the Pope or the Emperor/Kings? Ever since the legalization of Christianity in 313, popes and emperors have been involved in numerous disputes about who was the head of Christian society. Emperors claimed authority, making reference to precedence such as Constantine and the Council of Nicea in 325. The papacy on the other hand, argued papal primacy with such ideas as the Petrime theory, the history of orthodoxy, and the fact that the Pope …

…Innocent III, "The decretal Novit (1204)," in Crisis of Church & State ed. Brian Tierney (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1964), 134-135. Innocent III, "The decretal Per Venerabilem (1202)," in Crisis of Church & State ed. Brian Tierney (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1964), 136-138. Pope Innocent III, "The Moon and the Sun," in Documents of the Christian Church (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1946), 156. Pope Innocent III, "Venerabilem," in Western Awakening (New York: Meredith Publishing Company, 1967), 18.