THE PAPAL TIARA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 47, 22 November 1900, Page 27

THE PAPAL TIARA.

Replyini; to a correspondent as to the origin and symbolic meaning of the triple crown of the Papal tiara the Avstral Light says that there is a great discrepancy as to the time of the first assumption of a crown by a Roman pontiff. Some place the date as far back as the time of St. Sylvester, in 325. The second crown was added about 1296 by Boniface VIII. The third was assumed by Urban V. in 1362. The tiara itself is really a combination of crown and mitre, and would appear to have been intended to symbolise the union of spiritual and temporal jurisdiction in the wearer. But we have met fully half-a-dozen explanations assigned for the triple character of the crown. The Standard Dictionary says that it represents the spiritual, temporal, and purgatorial dominion of the Pope. Darras, who is of opinion the tiara got ita present form only in the pontificate of John XXIII., A.D. 14i;5, suggests that it 1 represents either the three powers : royal, imperial, and sacerdotal, or the spiritual royalty over the faithful, the supremacy over the biehopp, and the temporal princedom of Rome.' Pagi explains the triple crown as being possibly on account of the mystic number, while others see in it an indication of the paternal power that should accompany the exercise of the spiritual and temporal jurisdiction. With such conflicting testimony before us, we feel entitled to strike out for ourselves. And it is our opinion (for what it is worth) that the tiara symbolises the union of spiritual and temporal power, but that the triple character of the crown has no symbolical meaning, and was the result of repeated attempts to make the pontifical head-dress as distinctive and imposing as possible.