Chapter 3: , page 89 (58)

"If the world is indebted to Rome for the organisation of the
Church, Rome is indebted to Carthage for the theory on which
that organisation is built. The career of Carthage as a
Christian centre exemplifies the strange vicissitudes of
history. The city which Rome in her jealousy had crushed,
which, not content with crushing, she had obliterated from the
face of the earth, had at the bidding of Rome's greatest son
risen from her ashes, and by her career almost verified the
poet's taunt that the greatness of Carthage was reared on the
ruin of Italy. For in truth the African capital was in all but
political power no unworthy rival of Rome. It had steadily
grown in commercial prosperity. Its site was so advantageous
as to invite, almost to compel, the influx of trade, which
ever spontaneously moves along the line of least resistance.
And the people were well able to turn this natural advantage
to account. A mixed nationality, in which the original Italian
immigration lent a steadying force to the native Punic and
kindred African elements that formed its basis, with its
intelligence enriched by large accessions of Greek settlers
from Cyrene and Alexandria—Carthage had developed in the
second century of our era into a community at once wealthy,
enterprising and ambitious. … It was no longer in the sphere
of profane literature, but in her contributions to the cause
of Christianity and the spiritual armoury of the Church, that
the proud Queen of Africa was to win her second crown of fame.
… The names of Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine, at once
suggest the source from which Papal Rome drew the principles
of Church controversy, Church organisation, and Church
doctrine, which have consolidated her authority, and to some
extent justified her pretensions to rule the conscience of
Christendom."

_C. T. Cruttwell,
A Literary History of Early Christianity,
book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

"At the end of the second century the African Tertullian first
began to wrestle with the difficulties of the Latin language
in the endeavour to make it a vehicle for the expression of
Christian ideas. In reading his dogmatic writings the struggle
is so apparent that it seems as though we beheld a rider
endeavouring to discipline an unbroken steed. Tertullian's
doctrine is, however, still wholly Greek in substance, and
this continued to be the case in the church of the Latin
tongue until the end of the fourth century. Hilary, Ambrose,
even Jerome, are essentially interpreters of Greek philosophy
and theology to the Latin West. With Augustine learning begins
to assume a Latin form, partly original and
independent—partly, I say, for even later compositions are
abundantly interwoven with Greek elements and materials. Very
gradually from the writings of the African fathers of the
church does the specific Latin element come to occupy that
dominant position in Western Christendom, which soon, partly
from self-sufficient indifference, partly from ignorance, so
completely severed itself from Greek influences that the old
unity and harmony could never be restored. Still the Biblical
study of the Latins is, as a whole, a mere echo and copy of
Greek predecessors."

_J. I. von Döllinger,
Studies in European History,
pages 170-171._

From Carthage which was afterward the residence of "the
primate of all Africa … the Christian faith soon
disseminated throughout Numidia, Mauritania and Getulia, which
is proved by the great number of bishops at two councils held
at Carthage in 256 and 308. At the latter there were 270
bishops, whose names are not given, but at the former were
bishops from (87) … cities."

_J. E. T. Wiltsch,
Handbook of the Geography and Statistics of the Church._

CHRISTIANITY: Rome.

"In the West, Rome remains and indeed becomes ever more and
more the 'sedes Apostolica,' by far the most important centre
where, alongside of the Roman element, there are to be found
elements streaming together from all points of the Empire.
Greek names, and the long lasting (still dominant in the
second century) maintenance of Greek as the written language
of Roman Christianity are here noteworthy. … Rome was the
point of departure not only for Italy and the Western
Provinces, but without doubt also for Proconsular Africa,
where in turn Carthage becomes the centre of diffusion. …
The diffusion in the Græco-Roman world as a whole goes first
to the more important towns and from these gradually over the
country. … The instruments however of this mission are by no
means exclusively apostolic men, who pursue missions as their
calling; … every Christian becomes a witness in his own
circle, and intercourse and trade bring Christians hither and
thither, and along with them their Christian faith."

_W. Moeller,
History of the Christian Church,
pages 105-107._

"It has been contended, and many still believe, that in
ancient Rome the doctrines of Christ found no proselytes,
except among the lower and poorer classes of citizens. … The
gospel found its way also to the mansions of the masters, nay,
even to the palace of the Cæsars. The discoveries lately made
on this subject are startling, and constitute a new chapter in
the history of imperial Rome. … A difficulty may arise in
the mind of the reader: how was it possible for these
magistrates, generals, consuls, officers, senators, and
governors of provinces, to attend to their duties without
performing acts of idolatry? … The Roman emperors gave
plenty of liberty to the new religion from time to time; and
some of them, moved by a sort of religious syncretism, even
tried to ally it with the official worship of the empire, and
to place Christ and Jupiter on the steps of the same
'lararium.' … We must not believe that the transformation of
Rome from a pagan into a Christian city was a sudden and
unexpected event, which took the world by surprise. It was the
natural result of the work of three centuries, brought to
maturity under Constantine by an inevitable reaction against
the violence of Diocletian's rule. It was not a revolution or
a conversion in the true sense of these words; it was the
official recognition of a state of things which had long
ceased to be a secret. The moral superiority of the new
doctrines over the old religions was so evident, so
overpowering, that the result of the struggle had been a
foregone conclusion since the age of the first apologists. The
revolution was an exceedingly mild one, the transformation
almost imperceptible. … The transformation may be followed
stage by stage in both its moral and material aspect. There is
not a ruin of ancient Rome that does not bear evidence of the
great change. … Rome possesses authentic remains of the
'houses of prayer' in which the gospel was first announced in
apostolic times. … A very old tradition, confirmed by the
'Liber Pontificalis,' describes the modern church of S.
Pudentiana as having been once the private house of the same
Pudens who was baptized by the apostles, and who is mentioned
in the epistles of S. Paul. … The connection of the house
with the apostolate of SS. Peter and Paul made it very popular
from the beginning. … Remains of the house of Pudens were
found in 1870. They occupy a considerable area under the
neighboring houses. …
{449}
Among the Roman churches whose origin can be traced to the
hall of meeting, besides those of Pudens and Prisca already
mentioned, the best preserved seems to be that built by
Demetrias at the third mile-stone of the Via Latina, near the
'painted tombs.'… The Christians took advantage of the
freedom accorded to funeral colleges, and associated
themselves for the same purpose, following as closely as
possible their rules concerning contributions, the erection of
lodges, the meetings, and the … love feasts; and it was
largely through the adoption of these well-understood and
respected customs that they were enabled to hold their
meetings and keep together as a corporate body through the
stormy times of the second and third centuries. Two excellent
specimens of scholæ connected with Christian cemeteries and
with meetings of the faithful have come down to us, one above
the Catacombs of Callixtus, the other above those of Soter."
This formation of Christian communities into colleges is an
important fact, and connects these Christian societies with
one of the social institutions of the Empire which may have
influenced the church as an organization. "The experience
gained in twenty-five years of active exploration in ancient
Rome, both above and below ground, enables me to state that
every pagan building which was capable of giving shelter to a
congregation was transformed, at one time or another, into a
church or a chapel. … From apostolic times to the
persecution of Domitian, the faithful were buried, separately
or collectively, in private tombs which did not have the
character of a Church institution. These early tombs, whether
above or below ground, display a sense of perfect security,
and an absence of all fear or solicitude. This feeling arose
from two facts: the small extent of the cemeteries, which
secured to them the rights of private property, and the
protection and freedom which the Jewish colony in Rome enjoyed
from time immemorial. … From the time of the apostles to the
first persecution of Domitian, Christian tombs, whether above
or below ground, were built with perfect impunity and in
defiance of public opinion. We have been accustomed to
consider the catacombs of Rome as crypts plunged in total
darkness, and penetrating the bowels of the earth at
unfathomable depths. This is, in a certain measure, the case
with those catacombs, or sections of catacombs, which were
excavated in times of persecution; but not with those
belonging to the first century. The cemetery of these members
of Domitian's family who had embraced the gospel—such as
Flavius Clemens, Flavia Domitilla, Plautilla, Petronilla, and
others-reveals a bold example of publicity. … How is it
possible to imagine that the primitive Church did not know the
place of the death of its two leading apostles? In default of
written testimony let us consult monumental evidence. There is
no event of the imperial age and of imperial Rome which is
attested by so many noble structures, all of which point to
the same conclusion,—the presence and execution of the
apostles in the capital of the empire."

_R. Lanciani,
Pagan and Christian Rome,
chapter 1, 3 and 7._

The Church at Rome "gave no illustrious teachers to ancient
Christianity. … All the greatest questions were debated
elsewhere. … By a sort of instinct of race, [it] occupied
itself far more with points of government and organization
than of speculation. Its central position, in the capital of
the empire, and its glorious memories, guaranteed to it a
growing authority."

_E. De Pressensé,
The Early Years of Christianity:
The Martyrs and Apologists,
page 41._

CHRISTIANITY: Gaul.

"Of the history of the Gallican Churches before the middle of
the second century we have no certain information. It seems
fairly probable indeed that, when we read in the Apostolic age
of a mission of Crescens to 'Galatia' or 'Gaul,' the western
country is meant rather than the Asiatic settlement which bore
the same name; and, if so, this points to some relations with
St. Paul himself. But, even though this explanation should be
accepted, the notice stands quite alone. Later tradition
indeed supplements it with legendary matter, but it is
impossible to say what substratum of fact, if any, underlies
these comparatively recent stories. The connection between the
southern parts of Gaul and the western districts of Asia Minor
had been intimate from very remote times. Gaul was indebted
for her earliest civilization to her Greek settlements like
Marseilles, which had been colonized from Asia Minor some six
centuries before the Christian era; and close relations appear
to have been maintained even to the latest times. During the
Roman period the people of Marseilles still spoke the Greek
language familiarly along with the vernacular Celtic of the
native population and the official Latin of the dominant
power. When therefore Christianity had established her
headquarters in Asia Minor, it was not unnatural that the
Gospel should flow in the same channels which already
conducted the civilization and the commerce of the Asiatic
Greeks westward. At all events, whatever we may think of the
antecedent probabilities, the fact itself can hardly be
disputed. In the year A. D. 177, under Marcus Aurelius, a
severe persecution broke out on the banks of the Rhone in the
cities of Vienne and Lyons—a persecution which by its extent
and character bears a noble testimony to the vitality of the
Churches in these places. To this incident we owe the earliest
extant historical notice of Christianity in Gaul."

_J. B. Lightfoot,
Essays on the work entitled Supernatural Religion,
pages 251-252._

"The Churches of proconsular Africa, of Spain, of Italy, and
of Southern Gaul constitute, at this period, the Western
Church, so different in its general type from the Eastern.
With the exception of Irenaeus [bishop of Lyons] and
Hippolytus [the first celebrated preacher of the West, of
Italy and, for a period, Lyons] who represent the oriental
element in Gaul and at Rome, the Western Fathers are broadly
distinguished from those of the East. … They affirm rather
than demonstrate; … they prefer practical to speculative
questions. The system of episcopal authority is gradually
developed with a larger amount of passion at Carthage, with
greater prudence and patience in Italy."

_E. De Pressensé,
The Early Years of Christianity:
the Martyrs and Apologists._

CHRISTIANITY: Spain.

"Christians are generally mentioned as having existed in all
parts of Spain at the close of the second century; before the
middle of the third century there is a letter of the Roman
bishop Anterus (in 237) to the bishops of the provinces of
Bœtica and Toletana; … and after the middle of the same
century a letter of Cyprian's was addressed to … people …
in the north … as well as … in the south of that country."

_J. E. T. Wiltsch,
Handbook of the Geography and Statistics of the Church,
pages 40-41._

{450}

CHRISTIANITY: Britain.

"All that we can safely assert is that there is some reason
for believing that there were Christians in Britain before A.
D. 200. Certainly there was a British Church with bishops of
its own soon after A. D. 300, and possibly some time before
that. Very little can be known about this Celtic Church; but
the scanty evidence tends to establish three points, (1) It
had its origin from, and remained largely dependent upon, the
Gallic Church. (2) It was confined almost exclusively to Roman
settlements. (3) Its numbers were small and its members were
poor. … That Britain may have derived its Christianity from
Asia Minor cannot be denied; but the peculiar British custom
respecting Easter must not be quoted in evidence of it. It
seems to have been a mere blunder, and not a continuation of
the old Quarta-deciman practice. Gaul is the more probable
parent of the British Church. … At the Council of Rimini in
359 Constantius offered to pay out of the treasury the
travelling expenses of all the bishops who attended. Out of
more than four hundred bishops, three from Britain were the
only clergy who availed themselves of this offer. Neither at
Rimini, any more than at Arles, do the British representatives
make any show: they appear to be quite without influence."

_A. Plummer,
The Church of the Early Fathers,
chapter 8._

CHRISTIANITY: Goths.

"It has been observed that the first indisputable appearance
of the Goths in European history must be dated in A. D. 238,
when they laid waste the South-Danubian province of Moesia as
far as the Black Sea. In the thirty years (238-269) that
followed, there took place no fewer than ten such inroads. …
From these expeditions they returned with immense booty,—corn
and cattle, silks and fine linen, silver and gold, and
captives of all ranks and ages. It is to these captives, many
of whom were Christians, and not a few clergy, that the
introduction of Christianity among the Goths is primarily due.
… The period of the inroads, which so strangely formed a
sowing-time for Christianity, was followed by a long period of
tranquillity, during which the new faith took root and spread.
… It is to the faithful work and pure lives of [Christian]
men … who had fled from Roman civilisation for conscience
sake, to the example of patience in misfortune and high
Christian character displayed by the captives, and to the
instruction of the presbyters sprinkled among them, that we
must look, as the source of Christianity among the Goths. …
The fact (to which we shall have to refer later), that, of all
the sea raids undertaken by the Goths between the years 238
and 269, the Visigoths took part in only two, while the
Ostrogoths, who were settled in Southern Russia along the
coast of the Euxine from the Crimea to the Dneister, were
engaged probably in all of them, makes it very unlikely that
the captives mentioned by Philostorgius were carried anywhere
else than the eastern settlements. To the influence of these
Asian Christians, exerted mainly, if not entirely upon the
Ostrogoths, must be added the ever-increasing intercourse
carried on by sea between the Crimea and both the southern
shore of the Euxine and Constantinople. To these probabilities
has now to be added the fact that the only traces of an
organised Gothic Church existing before the year 341 are
clearly to be referred to a community in this neighbourhood.
Among the bishops who were present at the Council of Nicaea
(A. D. 325), and who signed the symbol which was then
approved, we find a certain Theophilus, before whose name
stand the words, 'de Gothis,' and after it the word
'Bosphoritanus.' There can be little doubt that this was a
bishop representing a Gothic Church on the Cimmerian
Bosphorus; and if, following the Paris MSS., we read further
down the list the name Domnus Bosphorensis or Bosphoranus, we
may find here another bishop from this diocese, and regard
Theophilus as chief or arch-bishop of the Crimean churches.
The undoubted presence at this council of at least one bishop
of the Goths, and the conclusion drawn therefrom in favour of
the orthodoxy of the Gothic Church in general, led afterwards
to the greatest confusion. Failing to distinguish between the
Crimean and Danubian communities, the historians often found
their information contradictory, and altered it in the
readiest way to suit the condition of the Church which they
had specially in view. … The conversion of that section of
the nation, which became the Gothic Church, was due to the
apostolic labours of one of their own race,—the great
missionary bishop Ulfilas [see GOTHS: A. D. 341-381]. But to
him too was to be traced the heresy in which they stopped
short on the way from heathenism to a complete Christian
faith."

_C. A. A. Scott,
Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths,
pages 19-30._

"The superstitions of the barbarians, who had found homes in
the empire, had been exchanged for a more wholesome belief.
But Christianity had done more than this. It had extended its
influence to the distant East and South, to Abyssinia, and the
tribes of the Syrian and Lybian deserts, to Armenia, Persia,
and India."

_G. P. Fisher,
History of the Christian Church,
page 98._

"We have before us many significant examples of the facility
with which the most intelligent of the Pagans accepted the
outward rite of Christian baptism, and made a nominal
profession of the Faith, while they retained and openly
practiced, without rebuke, without remark, with the indulgence
even of genuine believers, the rites and usages of the
Paganism they pretended to have abjured. We find abundant
records of the fact that personages high in office, such as
consuls and other magistrates, while administering the laws by
which the old idolatries were proscribed, actually performed
Pagan rites and even erected public statues to Pagan
divinities. Still more did men, high in the respect of their
fellow-Christians, allow themselves to cherish sentiments
utterly at variance with the definitions of the Church."

_C. Merivale,
Four lectures on some Epochs of Early Church History,
page 150._

"We look back to the early acts and policy of the Church
towards the new nations, their kings and their people; the
ways and works of her missionaries and lawgivers, Ulfilas
among the Goths, Augustine in Kent, Remigius in France,
Boniface in Germany, Anschar in the North, the Irish Columban
in Burgundy and Switzerland, Benedict at Monte Cassino; or the
reforming kings, the Arian Theodoric, the great German
Charles, the great English Alfred. Measured by the light and
the standards they have helped us to attain to, their methods
no doubt surprise, disappoint—it may be, revolt us; and all
that we dwell upon is the childishness, or the imperfect
morality, of their attempts.
{451}
But if there is anything certain in history, it is
that in these rough communications of the deepest truths, in
these [for us] often questionable modes of ruling minds and
souls, the seeds were sown of all that was to make the hope
and the glory of the foremost nations. … I have spoken of
three other groups of virtues which are held in special regard
and respect among us—those connected with manliness and hard
work, with reverence for law and liberty, and with pure family
life. The rudiments and tendencies out of which these have
grown appear to have been early marked in the German races;
but they were only rudiments, existing in company with much
wilder and stronger elements, and liable, amid the changes and
chances of barbarian existence, to be paralysed or trampled
out. No mere barbarian virtues could by themselves have stood
the trial of having won by conquest the wealth, the lands, the
power of Rome. But their guardian was there. What Christianity
did for these natural tendencies to good was to adopt them, to
watch over them, to discipline, to consolidate them. The
energy which warriors were accustomed to put forth in their
efforts to conquer, the missionaries and ministers of
Christianity exhibited in their enterprises of conversion and
teaching. The crowd of unknown saints whose names fill the
calendars, and live, some of them, only in the titles of our
churches, mainly represent the age of heroic spiritual
ventures, of which we see glimpses in the story of St.
Boniface, the apostle of Germany; of St. Columban and St.
Gall, wandering from Ireland to reclaim the barbarians of the
Burgundian deserts and of the shores of the Swiss lakes. It
was among men like these—men who were then termed
emphatically 'men of religion'—that the new races saw the
example of life ruled by a great and serious purpose, which
yet was not one of ambition or the excitement of war; a life
of deliberate and steady industry, of hard and uncomplaining
labour; a life as full of activity in peace, of stout and
brave work, as a warrior's was wont to be in the camp, on the
march, in the battle. It was in these men and in the
Christianity which they taught, and which inspired and
governed them, that the fathers of our modern nations first
saw exemplified the sense of human responsibility, first
learned the nobleness of a ruled and disciplined life, first
enlarged their thoughts of the uses of existence, first were
taught the dignity and sacredness of honest toil. These great
axioms of modern life passed silently from the special homes
of religious employment to those of civil; from the cloisters
and cells of men who, when they were not engaged in worship,
were engaged in field-work or book-work,—clearing the forest,
extending cultivation, multiplying manuscripts—to the guild
of the craftsman, the shop of the trader, the study of the
scholar. Religion generated and fed these ideas of what was
manly and worthy in man."

_R. W. Church,
The Gifts of Civilisation,
pages 279-283._

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 312-337.
The Church and the Empire.

"Shortly after the beginning of the fourth century there
occurred an event which, had it been predicted in the days of
Nero or even of Decius, would have been deemed a wild fancy.
It was nothing less than the conversion of the Roman Emperor
to the Christian faith. It was an event of momentous
importance in the history of the Christian religion. The Roman
empire, from being the enemy and persecutor of the Church,
thenceforward became its protector and patron. The Church
entered into an alliance with the State, which was to prove
fruitful of consequences, both good and evil, in the
subsequent history of Europe. Christianity was now to reap the
advantages and incur the dangers arising from the friendship
of earthly rulers and from a close connection with the civil
authority. Constantine was born in 274. He was the son of
Constantius Chlorus. His mother, Helena, was of obscure birth.
She became a Christian—whether before or after his
conversion, is doubtful. … After the death of Constantine's
father, a revolt against Galerius augmented the number of
emperors, so that, in 308, not less than six claimed to
exercise rule. The contest of Constantine was at first in the
West, against the tyrannical and dissolute Maxentius. It was
just before his victory over this rival at the Milvian Bridge,
near Rome, that he adopted the Christian faith. That there
mingled in this decision, as in most of the steps of his
career, political ambition, is highly probable. The strength
of the Christian community made it politic for him to win its
united support. But he sincerely believed in the God whom the
Christians worshipped, and in the help which, through his
providence, he could lend to his servants. … Shortly before
his victory over Maxentius there occurred what he asserted to
be the vision of a flaming cross in the sky, seen by him at
noonday, on which was the inscription, in Greek, 'By this
conquer.' It was, perhaps, an optical illusion, the effect of
a parhelion beheld in a moment when the imagination … was
strongly excited. He adopted the labarum, or the standard of
the cross, which was afterwards carried in his armies. [See
ROME: A. D. 323.] In later contests with Licinius, the ruler
in the East, who was a defender of paganism, Constantine
became more distinctly the champion of the Christian cause.
The final defeat of Licinius, in 323, left him the master of
the whole Roman world. An edict signed by Galerius,
Constantine, and Licinius, in 311, had proclaimed freedom and
toleration in matters of religion. The edict of Milan, in 312,
emanating from the two latter, established unrestricted
liberty on this subject. If we consider the time when it was
issued, we shall be surprised to find that it alleges as a
motive for the edict the sacred rights of conscience."

_G. P. Fisher,
History of the Christian Church,
pages 87-88._

"Towards the end of the year Constantine left Rome for Milan,
where he met Licinius. This meeting resulted in the issue of
the famous edict of Milan. Up to that hour Christianity had
been an 'illicita religio,' and it was a crime to be a
Christian. Even in Trajan's answer to Pliny this position is
assumed, though it forms the basis of humane regulations. The
edict of Milan is the charter of Christianity; it proclaims
absolute freedom in the matter of religion. Both Christians
and all others were to be freely permitted to follow
whatsoever religion each might choose. Moreover, restitution
was to be made to the Christian body of all churches and other
buildings which had been alienated from them during the persecution.
{452}
This was in 313 A. D. … But the causes of dissension
remained behind. Once more (323) the question between paganism
and Christianity was to be tried on the field of battle, and
their armies confronted one another on the plains of
Hadrianople. Again the skill of Constantine and the trained
valour of his troops proved superior to the undisciplined
levies of Licinius; while at sea Crispus, the eldest and
ill-fated son of Constantine, destroyed the enemy's fleet in
the crowded waters of the Hellespont, sowing thereby the seeds
of his father's jealousy. Byzantium fell, but not without a
vigorous resistance; and, after one more crushing defeat on
the site of the modern Scutari, Licinius submitted himself to
the mercy of Constantine. … What we notice in the whole of
these events is the enormous power which still belonged to
paganism. The balance still wavered between paganism and
Christianity. … Constantine had now, by a marvellous
succession of victories, placed himself in a position of
supreme and undisputed power. At this juncture it is of
interest to observe that … the divided empire, which
followed the reign of Constantine, served to sustain
Catholicity at least in one half of the world. … The
foundation of Constantinople was the outward symbol of the new
monarchy and of the triumph of Christianity. … The choice of
this incomparable position for the new capital of the world
remains the lasting proof of Constantine's genius. … The
magnificence of its public buildings, its treasures of art,
its vast endowments, the beauty of its situation, the rapid
growth of its commerce, made it worthy to be 'as it were a
daughter of Rome herself.' But the most important thought for
us is the relation of Constantinople to the advance of
Christianity. That the city which had sprung into supremacy
from its birth and had become the capital of the conquered
world, should have excluded from the circuit of its walls all
public recognition of polytheism, and made the Cross its most
conspicuous ornament, and the token of its greatness, gave a
reality to the religious revolution. … The imperial centre
of the world had been visibly displaced."

_A. Carr,
The Church and the Roman Empire,
chapter 4._

With the first General Council of the Church, held at Nicæa,
A. D. 325 (see NICÆA), "the decisions … of which received
the force of law from the confirmation of the Emperor, a
tendency was entered upon which was decisive for the further
development; decisive also by the fact that the Emperor held
it to be his duty to compel subordination to the decisions of
the council on penalty of banishment, and actually carried out
this banishment in the case of Arius and several of his
adherents. The Emperor summoned general synods, the fiscus
provided the cost of travel and subsistence (also at other
great synods), an imperial commissioner opened them by reading
the imperial edict, and watched over the course of business.
Only the bishops and their appointed representatives had
votes. Dogmatic points fixed … were to be the outcome of
unanimous agreement, the rest of the ordinances (on the
constitution, discipline and worship) of a majority of votes."

_W. Moeller,
History of the Christian Church,
page 337._

"The direct influence of the emperor, however, does not appear
until the Emperor Marcian procured from the Council of
Chalcedon the completion of the Patriarchal system. Assuming
that Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch were Patriarchates by the
recognition of their privileges at the Council of Nicæa
(though the canon of that council does not really admit that
inference), the Council of Chalcedon, by its ninth,
seventeenth and twenty-eighth canons, enlarged and fixed the
patriarchal jurisdiction and privileges of the Church of
Constantinople, giving it authority over the Dioceses of
Thrace, Asia and Pontus, with the power of ordaining and
requiring canonical obedience from the metropolis of those
Dioceses, and also the right to adjudicate appeals in causes
ecclesiastical from the whole Eastern Church. The Bishop of
Jerusalem also obtained in this council patriarchal authority
over Palestine. The organization of the Church was thus
conformed to that of the empire, the patriarchs corresponding
to the Prætorian Prefects, the exarchs, to the governors of
the Dioceses, and the metropolitans to the governors of the
provinces—the Bishop of Rome being given by an edict of
Valentinian III., of the year 445, supreme appellate
jurisdiction in the West, and the Bishop of Constantinople, by
these canons of Chalcedon, supreme appellate jurisdiction in
the East. … Dean Milman remarks that the Episcopate of St.
John Chrysostom was the last attempt of a bishop of
Constantinople to be independent of the political power, and
that his fate involved the freedom of the Church of that
city."

_J. H. Egar,
Christendom: Ecclesiastical and Political,
from Constantine to the Reformation,
pages 25-27._

"The name of patriarch, probably borrowed from Judaism, was
from this period the appellation of the highest dignitaries of
the church, and by it were more immediately, but not
exclusively, designated the bishops of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. One patriarch accordingly
presided over several provinces, and was distinguished from
the metropolitan in this, that the latter was subordinate to
him, and had only the superintendence of one province or a
small district. However the designation applied only to the
highest rulers of the church in the east, and not to those in
the west, for here the title of patriarch was not unfrequently
given, even in later times, to the metropolitan. The first
mention of this title occurs in the second letter of the Roman
bishop, Anacletus at the beginning of the second century, and
it is next spoken of by Socrates; and after the Council of
Chalcedon, in 451, it came into general use. The bishop of
Constantinople bore the special title of œcumenical bishop or
patriarch; there were also other titles in use among the
Nestorians and Jacobites. The Primates and Metropolitans or
Archbishops arose contemporaneously. The title of Eparch is
also said to have been given to primates about the middle of
the fifth century. The metropolitan of Ephesus subscribed
himself thus in the year 680, therefore in the succeeding
period. There was no particular title of long continuance for
the Roman bishop until the sixth century; but from the year
536 he was usually called Papa, and from the time of Gregory
the Great he styled himself Servus Servorum Dei."

_J. E. T. Wiltsch,
Handbook of the Geography and Statistics of the Church,
pages 70, 71 and 72._

{453}

"Christianity may now be said to have ascended the imperial
throne: with the single exception of Julian, from this period
the monarchs of the Roman empire professed the religion of the
Gospel. This important crisis in the history of Christianity
almost forcibly arrests the attention to contemplate the
change wrought in Christianity by its advancement into a
dominant power in the state; and the change in the condition
of mankind up to this period, attributable to the direct
authority or indirect influence of the new religion. By
ceasing to exist as a separate community, and by advancing its
pretentions to influence the general government of mankind,
Christianity to a certain extent, forfeited its independence.
It could not but submit to these laws, framed, as it might
seem, with its own concurrent voice. It was no longer a
republic, governed exclusively—as far, at least, as its
religious concerns—by its own internal polity. The
interference of the civil power in some of its most private
affairs, the promulgation of its canons, and even, in some
cases, the election of its bishops by the state, was the price
which it must inevitably pay for its association with the
ruling power. … During the reign of Constantine Christianity
had made a rapid advance, no doubt, in the number of its
proselytes as well as in its external position. It was not yet
the established religion of the empire. It did not as yet
stand forward as the new religion adapted to the new order of
things, as a part of the great simultaneous change which gave
to the Roman world a new capital, a new system of government,
and, in some important instances, anew jurisprudence. … The
religion of the emperor would soon become that of the court,
and, by somewhat slower degrees, that of the empire. At
present, however, as we have seen, little open aggression took
place upon paganism. The few temples which were closed were
insulated cases, and condemned as offensive to public
morality. In general the temples stood in all their former
majesty, for as yet the ordinary process of decay from neglect
or supineness could have produced little effect. The
difference was, that the Christian churches began to assume a
more stately and imposing form. In the new capital they
surpassed in grandeur, and probably in decoration, the pagan
temples, which belonged to old Byzantium. The immunities
granted to the Christian clergy only placed them on the same
level with the pagan priesthood. The pontifical offices were
still held by the distinguished men of the state: the emperor
himself was long the chief pontiff; but the religious office
had become a kind of appendage to the temporal dignity. The
Christian prelates were constantly admitted, in virtue of
their office, to the imperial presence."

_H. H. Milman,
History of Christianity,
book 3, chapter 4._

"As early as Constantine's time the punishment of crucifixion
was abolished; immoral practices, like infanticide, and the
exhibition of gladiatorial shows, were discouraged, the latter
of these being forbidden in Constantinople; and in order to
improve the relation of the sexes, severe laws were passed
against adultery, and restrictions were placed on the facility
of divorce. Further, the bishops were empowered, in the name
of religion, to intercede with governors, and even with the
emperor, in behalf of the unfortunate and oppressed. And
gradually they obtained the right of exercising a sort of
moral superintendence over the discharge of their official
duties by the judges, and others, who belonged to their
communities. The supervision of the prisons, in particular,
was entrusted to them; and, whereas in the first instance
their power of interference was limited to exhortations
addressed to the judges who superintended them, in Justinian's
reign the bishops were commissioned by law to visit the
prisons on two days of each week in order to inquire into,
and, if necessary, report upon, the treatment of the
prisoners. In all these and many other ways, the influence of
the State in controlling and improving society was advanced by
its alliance with the Church."

_H. F. Tozer,
The Church and the Eastern Empire,
pages 56-57._

"The Christians were still a separate people. … It can
scarcely be doubted that the stricter moral tone of
Constantine's legislation more or less remotely emanated from
Christianity. … During the reign of Constantine Christianity
continued to advance beyond the borders of the Roman empire,
and in some degree to indemnify herself for the losses which
she sustained in the kingdom of Persia. The Ethiopians appear
to have attained some degree of civilization; a considerable
part of the Arabian commerce was kept up with the other side
of the Red Sea through the port of Adulis; and Greek letters
appear, from inscriptions recently discovered, to have made
considerable progress among this barbarous people. … The
theological opinions of Christianity naturally made more rapid
progress than its moral influence. The former had only to
overpower the resistance of a religion which had already lost
its hold upon the mind, or a philosophy too speculative for
ordinary understandings and too unsatisfactory for the more
curious and inquiring; it had only to enter, as it were, into
a vacant place in the mind of man. But the moral influence had
to contest, not only with the natural dispositions of man, but
with the barbarism and depraved manners of ages. While, then,
the religion of the world underwent a total change, the Church
rose on the ruins of the temple, and the pontifical
establishment of paganism became gradually extinct or suffered
violent suppression; the moral revolution was far more slow
and far less complete. … Everywhere there was exaggeration
of one of the constituent elements of Christianity; that
exaggeration which is the inevitable consequence of a strong
impulse upon the human mind. Wherever men feel strongly, they
act violently. The more speculative Christians, therefore, who
were more inclined, in the deep and somewhat selfish
solicitude for their own salvation, to isolate themselves from
the infected class of mankind, pressed into the extreme of
asceticism; the more practical, who were in earnest in the
desire of disseminating the blessings of religion throughout
society, scrupled little to press into their service whatever
might advance their cause. With both extremes the dogmatical
part of the religion predominated. … In proportion to the
admitted importance of the creed, men became more sternly and
exclusively wedded to their opinions. … While they swept in
converts indiscriminately from the palace and the public
street, while the emperor and the lowest of the populace were
alike admitted on little more than the open profession of
allegiance, they were satisfied if their allegiance in this
respect was blind and complete. Hence a far larger admixture
of human passions, and the common vulgar incentives of action,
were infused into the expanding Christian body.
{454}
Men became Christians, orthodox Christians, with little
sacrifice of that which Christianity aimed chiefly to
extirpate. Yet, after all, this imperfect view of Christianity
had probably some effect in concentrating the Christian
community, and holding it together by a new and more
indissoluble bond. The world divided into two parties. …
All, however, were enrolled under one or the other standard,
and the party which triumphed eventually would rule the whole
Christian world."

_H. H. Milman,
History of Christianity,
book 3, chapter 4-5._

"Of this deterioration of morals we have abundant evidence.
Read the Canons of the various Councils and you will learn
that the Church found it necessary to prohibit the commission
of the most heinous and abominable crimes not only by the
laity, but even by the clergy. Read the homilies of such
preachers as Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory, and you may infer
what the moral tone of a Christian congregation must have been
to which such reproofs could be addressed. Read, above all,
the treatise on Providence, or De Gubernatione Dei, written at
the close of our period by Salvian, a presbyter of Marseilles.
The barbarians had over-spread the West, and Christians had
suffered so many hardships that they began to doubt whether
there was any Divine government of human affairs. Salvian
retorted that the fact of their suffering was the best
evidence of the doctrine of Providence, for the miseries they
endured were the effects of the Divine displeasure provoked by
the debauchery of the Church. And then he proceeds to draw up
an indictment and to lend proof which I prefer not to give in
detail. After making every allowance for rhetorical
exaggeration, enough remains to show that the morality of the
Church had grievously declined, and that the declension was
due to the inroads of Pagan vice. … Under this head, had
space permitted, some account would have been given of the
growth of the Christian literature of this period, of the
great writers and preachers, and of the opposing schools of
interpretation which divided Christendom. In the Eastern
Church we should have had to notice [at greater length the
work of] Eusebius of Cæsarea, the father of Church History and
the friend of Constantine; Ephrem the Syrian, the
poet-preacher; the three Cappadocians, Basil of Cæsarea,
Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus, each great in his
own way, the first as a preacher and administrator, the second
as a thinker, the third as a poet and panegyrist; Chrysostom,
the orator and exegete; Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret
of Kyros, along with Chrysostom the most influential
representatives of the School of Antioch. In the Western
Church we should have had to speak of Ambrose, the eloquent
preacher and voluminous writer; of Jerome, the biblical
critic; and of Augustine, the philosopher and
controversialist, whose thoughts live among us even at the
present day."

_W. Stewart,
The Church of the 4th and 5th Centuries
(St. Giles' Lectures, 4th series)._

See ROME: A. D. 323, to 391-395.

"Hitherto Christian asceticism had been individualistic in its
character. … In the third century hermits began to form a
class by themselves in the East and in Africa; in the fourth
they began to be organized into communities. After the
institution of monastic societies, this development of
Christian asceticism spread far and wide from the deserts of
the Thebaid and Lower Egypt; Basil, Jerome, Athanasius,
Augustine, Ambrose, were foremost among its earliest advocates
and propagators; Cassian, Columbanus, Benedict, and others,
crowned the labours of their predecessors by a more elaborate
organization."

_I. Gregory Smith,
Christian Monasticism,
pages 23-25._

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 318-325.
The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicæa.

See ARIANISM:
and NICÆA, THE FIRST COUNCIL OF.

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 330-1054.
The Eastern (Greek, or Orthodox) Church.

"'The Eastern Church,' says a well-known writer, 'was like the
East, stationary and immutable; the Western, like the West,
progressive and flexible. This distinction is the more
remarkable, because at certain periods of their course, there
can be no doubt that the civilization of the Eastern Church
was far higher than that of the Western.'"

_G. F. Maclear,
The Slavs,
page 25._

It is the more remarkable because this long-continuing
uniformity, while peculiarly adapted to a people and a church
which should retain and transmit an inheritance of faith and
culture, stands in singular contrast to the reputed character
of the Greek-speaking peoples of the East. The word Greek,
however, has, as an adjective, many meanings, and there is
danger of wrong inference through inattention to these; some
of its distinctive characters are therefore indicated in
brackets in various places in the following matter. "The New
Rome at the time of its foundation was Roman. … But from the
first it was destined to become Greek; for the Greeks, who now
began to call themselves Romans—an appellation which they
have ever since retained—held fast to their language,
manners, and prejudices, while they availed themselves to the
full of their rights as Roman citizens. The turning-point in
this respect was the separation of the empires of the East and
the West in the time of Arcadius and Honorius; and in
Justinian's time we find all the highest offices in the hands
of the Greeks, and Greek was the prevailing language. But the
people whom we call by this name were not the Hellenes of
Greece proper, but the Macedonian Greeks. This distinction
arose with the establishment of Greek colonies with municipal
government throughout Asia by Alexander the Great and his
successors. The type of character which was developed in them
and among those who were Hellenised by their influence,
differed in many respects from that of the old Greeks. The
resemblance between them was indeed maintained by similarity
of education and social feelings, by the possession of a
common language and literature, and by their exclusiveness,
which caused them to look down on less favoured races; but
while the inhabitants of Greece retained more of the
independent spirit and of the moral character and patriotism
of their forefathers, the Macedonian Greeks were more
cosmopolitan, more subservient, and more ready to take the
impress of those among whom they were thrown: and the
astuteness and versatility which at all times had formed one
element in the Hellenic character, in them became the leading
characteristic. The influence of this type is traceable in the
policy of the Eastern Empire, varying in intensity in
different ages in proportion to the power exercised by the
Greeks: until, during the later period of the history—in the
time of the Comneni, and still more in that of the
Palæologi—it is the predominant feature."

_H. F. Tozer,
The Church and the Eastern Empire,
pages 9-10._

{455}

"What have been the effects of Christianity on what we call
national character in Eastern Christendom? … The Greeks of
the Lower Empire are taken as the typical example of these
races, and the Greeks of the Lower Empire have become a byword
for everything that is false and base. The Byzantine was
profoundly theological, we are told, and profoundly vile. …
Those who wish to be just to [it] … will pass … to the …
equitable and conscientious, but by no means, indulgent,
judgments of Mr. Finlay, Mr. Freeman, and Dean Stanley. One
fact alone is sufficient to engage our deep interest in this
race. It was Greeks [Hellenist Jews] and people imbued with
Greek ideas who first welcomed Christianity. It was in their
language that it first spoke to the world, and its first home
was in Greek households and in Greek cities. It was in Greek
[Hellenistic] atmosphere that the Divine Stranger from the
East, in many respects so widely different from all that
Greeks were accustomed to, first grew up to strength and
shape; first showed its power of assimilating and reconciling;
first showed what it was to be in human society. Its earliest
nurslings were Greeks; Greeks [Hellenist Jews] first took in
the meaning and measure of its amazing and eventful
announcements; Greek sympathies first awoke and vibrated to
its appeals; Greek obedience, Greek courage, Greek suffering
first illustrated its new lessons. Had it not first gained
over Greek mind and Greek belief, it is hard to see how it
would have made its further way. … The Roman conquest of the
world found the Greek race, and the Eastern nations which it
had influenced, in a low and declining state—morally,
socially, politically. The Roman Empire, when it fell, left
them in the same discouraging condition, and suffering besides
from the degradation and mischief wrought on all its subjects
by its chronic and relentless fiscal oppression. … These
were the men in whose childish conceit, childish frivolity,
childish self-assertion, St. Paul saw such dangers to the
growth of Christian manliness and to the unity of the
Christian body—the idly curious and gossiping men of Athens;
the vain and shamelessly ostentatious Corinthians, men in
intellect, but in moral seriousness babes; the Ephesians,
'like children carried away with every blast of vain
teaching,' the victims of every impostor, and sport of every
deceit; the Cretans, proverbially, 'ever liars, evil beasts,
slow bellies;' the passionate, volatile, Greek-speaking, Celts
of Asia, the 'foolish' Galatians. … The Greek of the Roman
times is portrayed in the special warnings of the Apostolic
Epistles. After Apostolic times he is portrayed in the same
way by the heathen satirist Lucian, and by the Christian
preacher Chrysostom; and such, with all his bad tendencies,
aggravated by almost uninterrupted misrule and oppression, the
Empire, when it broke up, left him. The prospects of such a
people, amid the coming storms, were dark. Everything, their
gifts and versatility, as well as their faults, threatened
national decay and disintegration. … These races whom the
Empire of the Cæsars left like scattered sheep to the mercy of
the barbarians, lived through a succession of the most
appalling storms, and kept themselves together, holding fast,
resolute and unwavering, amid all their miseries and all their
debasement, to the faith of their national brotherhood. …
This, it seems to me, Christianity did for a race which had
apparently lived its time, and had no future before it—the
Greek race in the days of the Cæsars. It created in them, in a
new and characteristic degree, national endurance, national
fellowship and sympathy, national hope. … It gave them an
Empire of their own, which, undervalued as it is by those
familiar with the ultimate results of Western history, yet
withstood the assaults before which, for the moment, Western
civilisation sank, and which had the strength to last a
life—a stirring and eventful life—of ten centuries. The
Greek Empire, with all its evils and weaknesses, was yet in
its time the only existing image in the world of a civilised
state. … The lives of great men profoundly and permanently
influence national character; and the great men of later Greek
memory are saints. They belong to the people more than
emperors and warriors; for the Church is of the people. …
The mark which such men left on Greek society and Greek
character has not been effaced to this day, even by the
melancholy examples of many degenerate successors. … Why, if
Christianity affected Greek character so profoundly, did it
not do more? Why, if it cured it of much of its instability
and trifling, did it not also cure it of its falsehood and
dissimulation? Why, if it impressed the Greek mind so deeply
with the reality of the objects of faith, did it not also
check the vain inquisitiveness and spirit of disputatiousness
and sophistry, which filled Greek Church history with furious
wranglings about the most hopeless problems? Why, if it could
raise such admiration for unselfishness and heroic nobleness,
has not this admiration borne more congenial fruit? Why, if
heaven was felt to be so great and so near, was there in real
life such coarse and mean worldliness? Why, indeed? …
Profoundly, permanently, as Christianity affected Greek
character, there was much in that character which Christianity
failed to reach, much that it failed to correct, much that was
obstinately refractory to influences which, elsewhere, were so
fruitful of goodness and greatness. The East, as well as the
West, has still much to learn from that religion, which each
too exclusively claims to understand, to appreciate, and to
defend."

_R. W. Church,
The Gifts of Civilisation,
pages 188-216._