Chapter IX: The Division between East and West

A.D. 680-A.D. 1054

[Sidenote: Outward unity of the Church broken]

So far we have contemplated the Church of Christ as one in external communion, no less than by the inner bonds of charity and of sacramental life; but we now come to a period in which this external unity began to be to a certain extent dissolved, and that in great measure by the same outward influences which had at first secured its cohesion. [Sidenote: with the breaking up of the Roman Empire.] Heresies and schisms, especially the great heresy of Arius, had indeed troubled the Church and threatened to break the visible union existing between its branches in different countries; but it was not until after the dissolution of the Roman empire that the breach really came.