The RevelationAfter so and so many years, as I have read, there died in the renowned and ruin-rife city of Rome he who as successor of the Prince-Apostle and Vicar of Christ had held sway there, worn the triple crown, and shepherded the folk with the shepherd’s crook. But upon his death and over the burning question who should receive after him the sacred seat and inherit the power to loose and to bind, there ensued great and sanguinary conflicts, which God seemed not inclined to compose. For his spirit descended not in conciliation upon the Curia of ecclesiastics, nobles, and citizens; instead a schism cleft the people, and two hostile factions, each acclaiming its own candidate as the only worthy pretender to the throne of the world, opposed each other in violent dissension. One of them
