Letter CLXXXIII. To Conrad, King of the Romans

(A.I). 1139.)

He urges upon him reverence for the Apostolic Sec.

Your letters and salutations I receive as gladly as I am unworthy of them; unworthy I mean in dignity, not in devotion. The complaints of the King are also mine, and especially those which you rightly make about the invasion of the Empire. I have never wished for the disgrace of the King, or the diminution of his kingdom; the violent my soul abhorreth. I have read indeed: Let every soul he subject unto the higher powers; he who resistcth fin-power resisteth the ordinance of God (Rom. xiii. 1,2). Which sentence I ask and warn you to observe in every way, by showing reverence to the supreme Apostolic See, and to the Vicar of Blessed Peter, just as you wish it shown to you by the whole empire. There are some matters which I have thought it best not to write of, but which I could more suitably perhaps speak of in person.