Chapter 3: , page 89 (59)

"The types of character that were developed in the Eastern
Church, as might be expected, were not of the very highest.
There was among them no St. Francis, no St. Louis. The
uniformity which pervades everything Byzantine prevented the
development of such salient characters as are found in the
West. It is difficult, no doubt, to form a true estimate of
the influence of religion on men's lives in Eastern countries,
just as it is of their domestic relations, and even of the
condition of the lower classes, because such matters are
steadily ignored by the contemporary historians. But all the
evidence tends to show that individual rather than heroic
piety was fostered by the system which prevailed there. That
at certain periods a high tone of spirituality prevailed among
certain classes is sufficiently proved by the beautiful hymns
of the Eastern Church, many of which, thanks to Dr. Neale's
singular felicity in translation, are in use among ourselves.
But the loftier development of their spirit took the form of
asceticism, and the scene of this was rather the secluded
monastery, or the pillar of the Stylite, than human society at
large. But if the Eastern Church did not rise as high as her
sister of the West, she never sank as low."

_H. F. Tozer,
The Church and the Eastern Empire,
pages 45-46._

{456}

"The Greek Church, or, as it calls itself, the Holy Orthodox,
Catholic, Apostolic, Oriental Church, has a venerable if not
an eventful history. Unlike the Church of the West, it has not
been moulded by great political movements, the rise and fall
of kingdoms, and the convulsions which have passed over the
face of modern society. Its course has been out of the sight
of European civilisation, it has grown up among peoples who
have been but slightly affected, if they have been affected at
all, by the progressive movements of mankind. It has no middle
ages. It has no renaissance. It has no Reformation. It has
given birth to no great universities and schools of learning.
It has no Protestantism. It remains very much as the fourth
and fifth centuries left it. … When the royal throne in the
days of the first Christian Emperor was removed from Rome to
Constantinople, there arose at once a cause of strife between
the bishops of old and new Rome, as Byzantium or
Constantinople was named. Each claimed pre-eminence, and each
alternately received it from the governing powers, in Church
and State. One Council decreed (A. D. 381) that the Bishop of
the new Rome should be inferior only to that of the old;
another declared (A. D. 451) the equality of both prelates.
The Patriarch of Constantinople at the close of the sixth
century claimed superiority over all Christian Churches,—a
claim which might have developed, had circumstances favoured
it, into an Eastern Papacy. The assumption was, however, but
short-lived, and the Bishop of Rome, Boniface, obtained from
the Emperor Phocas in 606 the much-coveted position. The
Eastern Church submitted, but from this time looked with a
jealous eye on her Western sister. She noted and magnified
every point of divergence between them. Differences or
apparent differences in doctrine and ritual were denounced as
heresies. Excommunications fulminated between the Eastern and
Western city, and ecclesiastical bitterness was intensified by
political intrigue. … In the ninth century the contest grew
very fierce. The holder of the Eastern see, Photius,
formulated and denounced the terrible doctrinal and other
defections of the Western prelate and his followers. The list
is very formidable. They, the followers of Rome, deemed it
proper to fast on the seventh day of the week—that is on the
Jewish Sabbath; in the first week of Lent they permitted the
use of milk and cheese; they disapproved wholly of the
marriage of priests; they thought none but bishops could
anoint with the holy oil or confirm the baptized, and that
they therefore anointed a second time those who had been
anointed by presbyters; and fifthly, they had adulterated the
Constantinopolitan Creed by adding to it the words Filioque,
thus teaching that the Holy Spirit did not proceed only from
the Father, but also from the Son. This last was deemed, and
has always been deemed by the Greek Church the great heresy of
the Roman Church. … The Greek Church to-day in all its
branches—in Turkey, Greece, and Russia—professes to hold
firmly by the formulas and decisions of the seven Œcumenical
or General Councils, regarding with special honour that of
Nice. The Nicene and Athanasian Creeds are the symbols of its
faith, the Filioque clause being omitted from the former, and
the eighth article reading thus: 'And in the Holy Ghost, the
Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, and
with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified.'
… The Greek Church, unlike the Latin, denounces the use of
images as objects of devotion, and holds in abhorrence every
form of what it terms 'image worship.' Its position in this
manner is very curious. It is true, no figures of our Lord, of
the Virgin, or saints, such as one sees in churches, wayside
chapels, and in the open fields in countries where the Roman
Church is powerful, are to be seen in Russia, Greece, or any
of those lands where the Eastern Church is supreme. On the
other hand, pictures of the plainest kind everywhere take
their place, and are regarded with the deepest veneration."

_J. C. Lees,
The Greek Church, (in the Churches of Christendom).
lecture 4._

See, also,
FILIOQUE CONTROVERSY.

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 337-476.
The fall of Imperial Rome.
The rise of Ecclesiastical Rome.

The political and religious history of the Empire from the
death of Constantine is so fully narrated under Rome that mere
mention here of a few events will suffice, viz.: the revival
of Paganism under the Emperor Julian; the reascendency of
Christianity; the formal establishment of Christianity as the
religion of the Romans, by the suffrages of the senate; the
final division of the Empire into East and West between the
sons of Theodosius; the three sieges and the sacking of Rome
by Alaric; the legal separation of the Eastern and Western
Empires; the pillage of Rome by the Vandals and its final
submission to the barbarians.

See ROME: A. D. 337-361, to 445-476.

For an account of the early bishops of Rome, see PAPACY.

"A heathen historian traces the origin of the calamities which
he records to the abolition of sacrifice by Theodosius, and
the sack of Rome to the laws against the ancient faith passed
by his son. This objection of the heathens that the overthrow
of idolatry and the ascendency of Christianity were the cause
of the misfortunes of the empire was so wide spread, and had
such force with those, both Pagans and Christians, who
conceived history to be the outcome of magical or demonic
powers, that Augustine devoted twelve years of his life to its
refutation. His treatise, 'De Civitate Dei,' was begun in 413,
and was not finished till 426, within four years of his death.
Rome had once been taken; society, consumed by inward
corruption, was shaken to its foundations by the violent onset
of the Teutonic tribes; men's hearts were failing them for
fear; the voice of calumny cried aloud, and laid these woes to
the charge of the Christian faith. Augustine undertook to
refute the calumny, and to restore the courage of his
fellow-Christians. Taking a rapid survey of history, he asks
what the gods had ever done for the well-being of the state or
for public morality. He maintains that the greatness of Rome
in the past was due to the virtues of her sons, and not to the
protection of the gods. He shows that, long before the rise of
Christianity, her ruin had begun with the introduction of
foreign vices after the destruction of Carthage, and declares
that much in the ancient worship, instead of preventing, had
hastened that ruin. He rises above the troubles of the
present, and amid the vanishing glories of the city of men he
proclaims the stability of the city of God. At a time when the
downfall of Rome was thought to presage approaching doom,
Augustine regarded the disasters around him as the
birth-throes of a new world, as a necessary moment in the
onward movement of Christianity."

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

{457}

"There is as little ground for discovering a miraculous, as
there is for disowning a providential element in the course of
events. The institutions of Roman authority and law had been
planted regularly over all the territory which the conquering
hordes coveted and seized; alongside of every magistrate was
now placed a minister of Christ, and by every Hall of Justice
stood a House of Prayer. The Representative of Cæsar lost all
his power and dignity when the armies of Cæsar were scattered
in flight; the minister of Christ felt that behind him was an
invisible force with which the hosts of the alien could not
cope, and his behaviour impressed the barbarian with the
conviction that there was reality here. That beneficent
mission of Leo, A. D. 452, of which Gibbon says: 'The pressing
eloquence of Leo, his majestic aspect and sacerdotal robes,
excited the veneration of Attila for the spiritual father of
the Christians'—would be but an instance of what many
nameless priests from provincial towns did, 'not counting
their lives dear to them.' The organisation of the Latin state
vitalised by a new spiritual force vanquished the victors. It
was the method and the discipline of this organisation, not
the subtlety of its doctrine, nor the fervour of its
officials, that beat in detail one chief with his motley
following after another. Hence too it came about that the
Christianity which was adopted as the religion of Europe was
not modified to suit the tastes of the various tribes that
embraced it, but was delivered to each as from a common
fountain-head. … It was a social triumph, proceeding from
religious motives which we may regard with unstinted
admiration and gratitude."

_J. Watt,
The Latin Church
(St. Giles' Lectures, 4th series.)_

"The temporal fall of the Imperial metropolis tended to throw
a brighter light upon her ecclesiastical claims. The
separation of the East and the West had already enhanced the
religious dignity of the ancient capital. The great Eastern
patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem had up to
that time all held themselves equal, if not superior to Rome.
Constantinople had even assumed certain airs of supremacy over
all. The General Councils which had defined the Faith at Nicæa
and Constantinople had been composed almost wholly of
Orientals. The great Doctors of the Church, the men who had
defended or diffused the common Faith, had been mostly Greeks
by origin and language. None had been Romans, and it was
rarely, till the fourth century, that any of them had written
in the Latin tongue. When Athanasius, exiled from Alexandria,
came to Italy and Gaul, it was three years before he could
learn enough of the language of the West to address its
congregations in public. But this curious fact shows that the
Western Christians were now no longer the little Greek colony
of the first and second centuries. Christianity had become the
national religion of the native races. The Romans might now
feel that they were becoming again a people; that their
glorious career was assuming, as it were, a new point of
departure. … For at this moment the popular instinct could
not fail to perceive how strongly the conscience of the
barbarians had been affected by the spiritual majesty of
Christian Rome. The Northern hordes had beaten down all armed
resistance. They had made a deep impression upon the strength
of the Eastern Empire; they had, for a moment at least,
actually overcome the Western; they had overrun many of the
fairest provinces, and had effected a permanent lodgement in
Gaul and Spain, and still more recently in Africa. Yet in all
these countries, rude as they still were, they had submitted
to accept the creed of the Gospel. There was no such thing as
a barbarian Paganism established within the limits of the
Empire anywhere, except perhaps in furthest Britain."

_C. Merivale,
Four lectures on some Epochs of Early Church History,
pages 130-136._

"When the surging tides of barbarian invasion swept over
Europe, the Christian organization was almost the only
institution of the past which survived the flood. It remained
as a visible monument of what had been, and, by so remaining,
was of itself an antithesis to the present. The chief town of
the Roman province, whatever its status under barbarian rule,
was still the bishop's see. The limits of the old 'province,'
though the boundary of a new kingdom might bisect them, were
still the limits of his diocese. The bishop's tribunal was the
only tribunal in which the laws of the Empire could be pleaded
in their integrity. The bishop's dress was the ancient robe of
a Roman magistrate. The ancient Roman language which was used
in the Church services was a standing protest against the
growing degeneracy of the 'vulgar tongue.' … As the forces
of the Empire became less and less, the forces of the Church
became more and more. The Churches preserved that which had
been from the first the secret of Imperial strength. For
underneath the Empire which changed and passed, beneath the
shifting pageantry of Emperors who moved across the stage and
were seen no more, was the abiding empire of law and
administration,—which changed only as the deep sea changes
beneath the windswept waves. That inner empire was continued
in the Christian Churches. In the years of transition from the
ancient to the modern world, when all civilized society seemed
to be disintegrated, the confederation of the Christian
Churches, by the very fact of its existence upon the old
imperial lines, was not only the most powerful, but the only
powerful organization in the civilized world. It was so vast,
and so powerful, that it seemed to be, and there were few to
question its being, the visible realization of that Kingdom of
God which our Lord Himself had preached."

_E. Hatch;
The Organization of the Christian Churches,
pages 160-178._

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CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 347-412.
The Syrian Churches.

"St. Chrysostom was born there A. D. 347; and it was in his
time that Antioch, with its hundred thousand Christians,
became the leading Church in Asia, especially in the Arian
controversy [see ARIANISM], for Arianism was very prevalent
there. But all this lies outside our period. The so-called
'School of Antioch' has its origin just before … our period
[311, Wiltsch]. Dorotheus, … and the martyr Lucian may be
regarded as its founders. In contrast to the allegorising
mysticism of the School of Alexandria, it was distinguished by
a more sober and critical interpretation of Scripture. It
looked to grammar and history for its principles of exegesis.
But we must not suppose that there was at Antioch an
educational establishment like the Catechetical School at
Alexandria, which, by a succession of great teachers, kept up
a traditional mode of exegesis and instruction. It was rather
an intellectual tendency which, beginning with Lucian and
Dorotheus, developed in a definite direction in Antioch and
other Syrian Churches. … These notices of the Churches of
Jerusalem, Cæsarea in Palestine, and Antioch must suffice as
representative of the Syrian Churches. The number of these
Churches was considerable even in the second century, and by
the beginning of the fourth was very large indeed, as is seen
by the number of bishops who attend local Councils."

_A. Plummer,
The Church of the Early Fathers,
chapter 3._

"It has often astonished me that no one has ever translated
the letters of St. Jerome. The letters of St. Augustine have
been translated, and are in many parts very entertaining
reading, but they are nothing in point of living interest when
compared with St. Jerome's. These letters illustrate life
about the year 400 as nothing else can. They show us, for
instance, what education then was, what clerical life
consisted in; they tell us of modes and fashions, and they
teach us how vigorous and constant was the communication at
that same period between the most distant parts of the Roman
empire. We are apt to think of the fifth century as a time
when there was very little travel, and when most certainly the
East and West—Ireland, England, Gaul and Palestine—were much
more widely and completely separated than now, when steam has
practically annihilated time and space. And yet such an idea
is very mistaken. There was a most lively intercourse existing
between these regions, a constant Church correspondence kept up
between them, and the most intense and vivid interest
maintained by the Gallic and Syrian churches in the minutest
details of their respective histories. Mark now how this
happened. St. Jerome at Bethlehem was the centre of this
intercourse. His position in the Christian world in the
beginning of the fifth century can only be compared to, but
was not at all equalled by, that of John Calvin at the time of
the Reformation. Men from the most distant parts consulted
him. Bishops of highest renown for sanctity and learning, like
St. Augustine, and Exuperius of Toulouse in southern France,
deferred to his authority. The keen interest he took in the
churches of Gaul, and the intimate knowledge he possessed of
the most petty local details and religious gossip therein, can
only be understood by one who has studied his very abusive
treatise against Vigilantius or his correspondence with
Exuperius. … But how, it may be asked, was this
correspondence carried on when there was no postal system?
Here it was that the organization of monasticism supplied a
want. Jerome's letters tell us the very name of his postman.
He was a monk named Sysinnius. He was perpetually on the road
between Marseilles and Bethlehem. Again and again does Jerome
mention his coming and his going. His appearance must indeed
have been the great excitement of life at Bethlehem.
Travelling probably via Sardinia, Rome, Greece, and the
islands of the Adriatic, he gathered up all kinds of clerical
news on the way—a piece of conduct on his part which seems to
have had its usual results. As a tale-bearer, he not only
revealed secrets, but also separated chief friends, and this
monk Sysinnius with his gossips seems to have been the
original cause of the celebrated quarrel between Augustine and
Jerome."

_G. T. Stokes,
Ireland and the Celtic Church,
pages 170-172._

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.
The Frankish Church to the Empire of Charlemagne.

"The baptism of Chlodovech [Clovis—see FRANKS: A. D. 481-
511] was followed by the wholesale conversion of the Franks.
No compulsion was used to bring the heathen into the Church.
As a heathen, Chlodovech had treated the Church with
forbearance; he was equally tolerant to heathenism when he was
a Christian. But his example worked, and thousands of noble
Franks crowded to the water of regeneration. Gregory of Tours
reckons the Franks as Christians after the baptism of their
king, which took place at Christmas, A. D. 496. His conversion
made no alteration in the policy and conduct of Chlodovech; he
remained the same mixture of cunning and audacity, of cruelty
and sensuality, that he was before. … But, though his
baptism was to him of no moral import, its consequences were
wide spreading. When Gregory of Tours compares the conversion
of Chlodovech with that of Constantine the Great, he was fully
in the right. … And the baptism of Chlodovech declared to
the world that the new blood being poured into the veins of
the old and expiring civilization, had been quickened by the
same elements, and would unite with the old in the new
development. … That many of those who were baptized carried
with them into their new Christianity their old heathen
superstitions as well as their barbarism is certain; and the
times were not those in which the growth of the great
Christian graces was encouraged; the germs, however, of a new
life were laid."

_S. Baring-Gould,
The Church in Germany,
chapter 3._

"The details of the history of the Merovingian period of
Frankish history are extraordinarily complicated; happily, it
is not at all necessary for our purpose to follow them. … In
the earlier years after the conquest, all ranks of the clergy
were filled by Gallo-Romans. The Franks were the dominant
race, and were Christian, but they were new converts from a
rude heathenism, and it would take some generations to raise
up a 'native ministry' among them. Not only the literature of
the (Western) Church, but all its services, and, still more,
the conversational intercourse of all civilized and Christian
people, was in Latin. Besides, the Franks were warriors, a
conquering caste, a separate nation; and to lay down the
battle-axe and spear, and enter into the peaceful ranks of the
Romano-Gallic Church, would have seemed to them like changing
their nationality for that of the more highly cultured,
perhaps, but, in their eyes, subject race. The Frank kings did
not ignore the value of education. Clovis is said to have
established a Palatine school, and encouraged his young men to
qualify themselves for the positions which his conquests had
opened out to them.
{459}
His grandsons, we have seen, prided themselves on
their Latin culture. After a while, Franks aspired to the
magnificent positions which the great sees of the Church
offered to their ambition; and we find men with Teutonic
names, and no doubt of Teutonic race, among the bishops. …
For a still longer period, few Franks entered into the lower
ranks of the Church. Not only did the priesthood offer little
temptation to them, but also the policy of the kings and
nobles opposed the diminution of their military strength, by
refusing leave to their Franks to enter into holy orders or
into the monasteries. The cultured families of the cities
would afford an ample supply of men for the clergy, and
promising youths of a lower class seem already not
infrequently to have been educated for the service of the
Church. It was only in the later period, when some approach
had been made to a fusion of the races, that we find Franks
entering into the lower ranks of the Church, and
simultaneously we find Gallo-Romans in the ranks of the
armies. … Monks wielded a powerful spiritual influence. But
the name of not a single priest appears in the history of the
times as exercising any influence or authority. … Under the
gradual secularization of the Church in the Merovingian
period, the monasteries had the greatest share in keeping
alive a remnant of vital religion among the people; and in the
gradual decay of learning and art, the monastic institution
was the ark in which the ancient civilization survived the
deluge of barbarism, and emerged at length to spread itself
over the modern world."

_E. L. Cutts,
Charlemagne,
chapters 5 and 7._

"Two Anglo-Saxon monks, St. Wilfrid, bishop of York, and St.
Willibrord undertook the conversion of the savage fishermen of
Friesland and Holland at the end of the seventh and beginning
of the eighth century; they were followed by another
Englishman, the most renowned of all these missionaries,
Winfrith, whose name was changed to Boniface, perhaps by the
Pope, in recognition of his active and beneficent apostleship.
When Gregory II. appointed him bishop of Germany (723), he
went through Bavaria and established there the dioceses of
Frisingen, Passau, and Ratisbon. When Pope Zacharias bestowed
the rank of metropolitan upon the Church of Mainz in 748, he
entrusted its direction to St. Boniface, who from that time
was primate, as it were, of all Germany, under the authority
of the Holy See. St. Boniface was assassinated by the Pagans
of Friesland in 755."

_V. Duruy,
History of the Middle Ages,
book 3, chapter 8._

"Boniface, whose original name was Winfrid, was of a noble
Devonshire family (A. D. 680), educated at the monastery of
Nutcelle, in Hampshire, and at the age of thirty-five years
had obtained a high reputation for learning and ability, when
(in A. D. 716), seized with the prevalent missionary
enthusiasm, he abandoned his prospects at home, and set out
with two companions to labour among the Frisians. … Winfrid
was refused permission by the Duke to preach in his dominions,
and he returned home to England. In the following spring he
went to Rome, where he remained for some months, and then,
with a general authorization from the pope to preach the
gospel in Central Europe, he crossed the Alps, passed through
Bavaria into Thuringia, where he began his work. While here
the death of Radbod, A. D. 719, and the conquest of Frisia by
Charles Martel, opened up new prospects for the evangelization
of that country, and Boniface went thither and laboured for three
years among the missionaries, under Willibrord of Utrecht.
Then, following in the track of the victorious forces of
Charles Martel, he plunged into the wilds of Hessia, converted
two of its chiefs whose example was followed by multitudes of
the Hessians and Saxons, and a monastery arose at Amöneburg as
the head-quarters of the mission. The Bishop of Rome being
informed of this success, summoned Boniface to Rome, A. D.
723, and consecrated him a regionary bishop, with a general
jurisdiction over all whom he should win from paganism into
the Christian fold, requiring from him at the same time the
oath which was usually required of bishops within the
patriarchate of Rome, of obedience to the see. … Boniface
was not only a zealous missionary, an earnest preacher, a
learned scholar, but he was a statesman and an able
administrator. He not only spread the Gospel among the
heathen, but he organized the Church among the newly converted
nations of Germany; he regulated the disorder which existed in
the Frankish Church, and established the relations between
Church and State on a settled basis. The mediæval analysts
tell us that Boniface crowned Pepin king, and modern writers
have usually reproduced the statement. 'Rettberg, and the able
writer of the biography of Boniface in Herzog (Real Ecyk, s.
v.), argue satisfactorily from Boniface's letters that he took
no part in Pepin's coronation.' When Boniface withdrew from
the active supervision of the Frankish Churches, it is
probable that his place was to some extent supplied in the
councils of the mayor and in the synods of the Church by
Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, a man whose character and
influence in the history of the Frank Church have hardly
hitherto been appreciated."

_E. L. Cutts,
Charlemagne,
chapter 12._

"Both Karlmann and Pippin tried to reform certain abuses that
had crept into the Church. Two councils, convoked by Karlmann,
the one in Germany (742), the other in the following year at
Lestines (near Charleroi, in Belgium), drew up decrees which
abolished superstitious rites and certain Pagan ceremonies,
still remaining in force; they also authorized grants of
Church lands by the 'Prince' for military purposes on
condition of a payment of an annual rent to the Church; they
reformed the ecclesiastical life, forbade the priests to hunt
or to ride through the woods with dogs, falcons, or
sparrow-hawks; and, finally, made all priests subordinate to
their diocesan bishops, to whom they were obliged to give
account each year of their faith and their ministry—all of
which were necessary provisions for the organization of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy and for the regulation of church
government. Similar measures were taken by the Council of
Soissons, convoked by Pippin in 744. In 747, Karlmann
renounced the world and retired to the celebrated Italian
monastery of Monte Cassino. As he left he entrusted his
children to the care of their uncle, Pippin, who robbed them
of their inheritance and ruled alone over the whole Frankish
Empire. … Charlemagne enlarged and completed the work which
had only been begun by Charles Martel and Pippin. … The
Middle Ages acknowledged two Masters, the Pope and the
Emperor, and these two powers came, the one from Rome, and the
other from Austrasian France. … The mayors of Austrasia,
Pippin of Heristal, and Charles Martel, rebuilt the Frankish
monarchy and prepared the way for the empire of Charlemagne;
… the Roman pontiffs … gathered around them all the
churches of the West, and placed themselves at the head of the
great Catholic society, over which one day Gregory VII. and
Innocent III. should claim to have sole dominion."

_V. Duruy,
History of the Middle Ages,
pages 119-122, 108._

See MAYORS OF THE PALACE;
FRANKS: A. D. 768-814;
and PAPACY: A. D. 755-774, and 774.

{460}

The coronation of Charlemagne at Rome by Pope Leo III. (see
ROMAN EMPIRE, A. D. 800) gave the Western Church the place in
the state it had held under the earlier Roman emperors. The
character of so great a man, the very books he read and all
that fed the vigorous ideal element in so powerful a spirit
are worthy of interest; for this at least he sought to
accomplish—to give order to a tumultuous and barbarian
world, and to establish learning, and purify the church:
"While at table, he liked to hear a recital or a reading, and
it was histories and the great deeds of past times which were
usually read to him. He took great pleasure, also, in the
works of St. Augustine, and especially in that whose title is
'De Civitate Dei.' … He practiced the Christian religion in
all its purity and with great fervour, whose principles had
been taught him from his infancy. … He diligently attended
… church in the evening and morning, and even at night, to
assist at the offices and at the holy sacrifice, as much as
his health permitted him.' He watched with care that nothing
should be done but with the greatest propriety, constantly
ordering the guardians of the church not to allow anything to
be brought there or left there inconsistent with or unworthy
of the sanctity of the place. … He was always ready to help
the poor, and it was not only in his own country, or within
his own dominions that he dispensed those gratuitous
liberalities which the Greeks call 'alms,' but beyond the
seas—in Syria, in Egypt, in Africa, at Jerusalem, at
Alexandria, at Carthage, everywhere where he learned that
Christians were living in poverty—he pitied their misery and
loved to send them money. If he sought with so much care the
friendship of foreign sovereigns, it was, above all, to
procure for the Christians living under their rule help and
relief. Of all the holy places, he had, above all, a great
veneration for the Church of the Apostle St. Peter at Rome."

_Eginhard,
Life of Charlemagne._

"The religious side of Charles' character is of the greatest
interest in the study of his remarkable character as a whole
and his religious policy led to the most important and durable
results of his reign. He inherited an ecclesiastical policy
from his father; the policy of regulating and strengthening
the influence of the Church in his dominions as the chief
agent of civilization, and a great means of binding the
various elements of the empire into one; the policy of
accepting the Bishop of Rome as the head of Western
Christianity, with patriarchal authority over all its
Churches."

_E. L. Cutts,
Charlemagne,
chapter 23._

The following is a noteworthy passage from Charlemagne's
Capitulary of 787: "It is our wish that you may be what it
behoves the soldiers of the church to be;—religious in
heart, learned in discourse, pure in act, eloquent in speech;
so that all who approach your house in order to invoke the
Divine Master, or to behold the excellence of the religious
life, may be edified in beholding you, and instructed in
hearing you discourse or chant, and may return home rendering
thanks to God most High. Fail not, as thou regardest our
favour, to send a copy of this letter to all thy suffragans
and to all the monasteries; and let no monk go beyond his
monastery to administer justice or to enter the assemblies and
the voting-places. Adieu."

_J. B. Mullinger,
The Schools of Charles the Great._

CHRISTIANITY: 5th-7th Centuries.
The Nestorian, Monophysite and Monothelite Controversies.

See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE, and MONOTHELITE.

CHRISTIANITY: 5th-9th Centuries.
The Irish Church and its missions.

The story of the conversion of Ireland by St. Patrick, and of
the missionary labors of the Church which he founded, is
briefly told elsewhere.

See IRELAND: 5TH-8TH CENTURIES.

"The early Church worked her way, in the literal sense of the
word, 'underground,' under camp and palace, under senate and
forum. But turn where we will in these Celtic missions, we
notice how different were the features that marked them now.
In Dalaradia St. Patrick obtains the site of his earliest
church from the chieftain of the country, Dichu. At Tara, he
obtains from King Laoghaire a reluctant toleration of his
ministry. In Connaught he addresses himself first to the
chieftains of Tirawley, and in Munster baptizes Angus, the
king, at Cashel, the seat of the kings. What he did in Ireland
reproduces itself in the Celtic missions of Wales and
Scotland, and we cannot but take note of the important
influence of Welsh and Pictish chiefs. … The people may not
have adopted the actual profession of Christianity, which was
all perhaps that in the first instance they adopted from any
clear or intelligent appreciation of its superiority to their
former religion. But to obtain from the people even an actual
profession of Christianity was an important step to ultimate
success. It secured toleration at least for Christian
institutions. It enabled the missionaries to plant in every
tribe their churches, schools, and monasteries, and to
establish among the half pagan inhabitants of the country
societies of holy men, whose devotion, usefulness, and piety
soon produced an effect on the most barbarous and savage
hearts.'"

_G. F. Maclear,
Conversion of the West: The Celts,
chapter 11._

"The Medieval Church of the West found in the seventh century
an immense task before it to fulfil. … The missionaries who
addressed themselves to the enormous task of the conversion of
Germany may be conveniently divided into three groups—the
British, the Frankish, and, entering somewhat later into an
honourable rivalry with these, the Anglo-Saxon. A word or two
upon each of these groups. The British—they include Irish and
Scotch—could no longer find a field for the exercise of their
ministry in England, now that there the Roman rule and
discipline, to which they were so little disposed to submit,
had everywhere won the day. Their own religious houses were
full to overflowing. At home there was little for them to do,
while yet that divine hunger and thirst for the winning of
souls, which had so possessed the heart of St. Patrick, lived
on in theirs. To these so minded, pagan Germany offered a welcome
field of labour, and one in which there was ample room for all.
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Then there were the Frankish missionaries, who enjoyed the support
of the Frankish kings, which sometimes served them in good
stead; while at other times this protection was very far from
a recommendation in their eyes who were easily persuaded to
see in these missionaries the emissaries of a foe. Add to
these the Anglo-Saxons; these last, mindful of the source from
which they had received their own Christianity, making it a
point to attach their converts to Rome, even as they were
themselves bound to her by the closest ties. The language
which these spoke—a language which as yet can have diverged
very little from the Low German of Frisia, must have given to
them many facilities which the Frankish missionaries possessed
in a far slighter degree, the British not at all; and this may
help to account for a success on their parts far greater than
attended the labours of the others. To them too it was mainly
due that the battle of the Creeds, which had been fought and
lost by the Celtic missionaries in England, and was presently
renewed in Germany, had finally the same issues there as in
England. … At the same time, there were differences in the
intensity and obstinacy of resistance to the message of truth,
which would be offered by different tribes. There was ground,
which at an early day had been won for the Gospel, but which
in the storms and confusion of the two preceding centuries had
been lost again; the whole line, that is, of the Danube and
the Rhine, regions fair and prosperous once, but in every
sense wildernesses now. In these we may note a readier
acceptance of the message than found place in lands which in
earlier times that message had never reached; as though
obscure reminiscences and traditions of the past, not wholly
extinct, had helped to set forward the present work."

_R C. Trench,
Lectures on Medieval Church History,
lecture 5._

"From Ireland came Gallus, Fridolin, Kilian, Trutbert and
Levin. … The order in which these men succeeded one another
cannot always be established, from the uncertainty of the
accounts. … We know thus much, that of all those
above-mentioned, Gallus was the first, for his labours in
Helvetia (Switzerland) were continued from the preceding into
the period of which we are now treating. On the other hand, it
is uncertain as to Fridolin whether he had not completed his
work before Gallus, in the sixth century, for in the opinion
of some he closed his career in the time of Clodoveus I., but,
according to others, he is said to have lived under Clodoveus
II., or at another period. His labours extended over the lands
on the Moselle, in the Vosges Mountains, over Helvetia, Rhætia
and Nigra Silva (the Black Forest). He built the monastery of
Sekkinga on the Rhine. Trutbert was a contemporary and at the
same time a countryman of Gallus. His sphere of action is said
to have been Brisgovia (Breisgau) and the Black Forest. Almost
half a century later Kilian proclaimed the gospel in Franconia
and Wirtzburg, with two assistants, Colonatus and Totnanus. In
the latter place they converted duke Gozbert, and were put to
death there in 688. After the above mentioned missionaries
from Ireland, in the seventh century, had built churches and
monasteries in the southern Germany, the missionaries from
Britain repaired with a similar purpose, to the northern
countries. … Men from other nations, as Willericus, bishop
of Brema, preached in Transalbingia at the beginning of the
ninth century. Almost all the missionaries from the kingdom of
the Franks selected southern Germany as their sphere of
action: Emmeran, about 649, Ratisbona, Rudbert, about 696,
Bajoaria (Bavaria), Corbinian the country around Frisinga,
Otbert the Breisgau and Black Forest, and Pirminius the
Breisgau, Bajoaria, Franconia, Helvetia, and Alsatis."

_J. E. T. Wiltsch,
Handbook of the Geography and Statistics of the Church,
volume 1, pages 365-367._

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 553-800.
The Western Church.
Rise of the Papacy.

"Though kindly treated, the Church of Rome did not make any
progress under the Ostrogoths. But when their power had been
broken (553), and Rome had been placed again under the
authority of the Emperor of Constantinople [see ROME: A. D.
535-553], the very remoteness of her new master insured to the
Church a more prosperous future. The invasion of the Lombards
drove a great many refugees into her territory, and the Roman
population showed a slight return of its old energy in its
double hatred toward them, as barbarians and as Arians. … It
was at this favorable point in the state of affairs, though
critical in some respects, that Gregory the Great made his
appearance (590-604). He was a descendant of the noble Anicia
family, and added to his advantages of birth and position the
advantages of a well-endowed body and mind. He was prefect of
Rome when less than thirty years old, but after holding this
office a few months he abandoned the honors and cares of
worldly things for the retirement of the cloister. His
reputation did not allow him to remain in the obscurity of
that life. Toward 579 he was sent to Constantinople by Pope
Pelagius II. as secretary or papal nuncio, and he rendered
distinguished services to the Holy See in its relations with
the Empire and in its struggles against the Lombards. In 590
the clergy, the senate, and the people raised him with one
accord to the sovereign pontificate, to succeed Pelagius. As
it was still necessary for every election to be confirmed by
the Emperor at Constantinople, Gregory wrote to him to beg him
not to sanction this one; but the letter was intercepted and
soon orders arrived from Maurice ratifying the election.
Gregory hid himself, but he was discovered and led back to
Rome. When once Pope, though against his will, he used his
power to strengthen the papacy, to propagate Christianity, and
to improve the discipline and organization of the Church. …
Strengthened thus by his own efforts, he undertook the
propagation of Christianity and orthodoxy both within and
without the limits of the old Roman Empire. Within those
limits there were still some who clung to paganism, in Sicily,
Sardinia, and even at the very gates of Rome, at Terracina,
and doubtless also in Gaul, as there is a constitution of
Childebert still extant dated 554, and entitled: 'For the
abolition of the remains of idolatry.' There were Arians very
near to Rome—namely, the Lombards; but through the
intervention of Theudalinda, their queen, Gregory succeeded in
having Adelwald, the heir to the throne, brought up in the
Catholic faith; as early as 587 the Visigoths in Spain, under
Reccared, were converted. … The Roman Empire had perished,
and the barbarians had built upon its ruins many slight
structures that were soon overthrown.
{462}
Not even had the Franks, who were destined to be perpetuated
as a nation, as yet succeeded in founding a social state of
any strength; their lack of experience led them from one
attempt to another, all equally vain; even the attempt of
Charlemagne met with no more permanent success. In the midst
of these successive failures one institution alone, developing
slowly and steadily through the centuries, following out the
spirit of its principles, continued to grow and gain in power,
in extent and in unity. … The Pope had now become, in truth,
the ruler of Christendom. He was, however, still a subject of
the Greek Emperor; but a rupture was inevitable, as his
authority, on the one hand, was growing day by day, and the
emperor's on the contrary, was declining."

_V. Duruy,
History of the Middle Ages,
pages 114-115, 108-109, 117._

"The real power which advanced the credit of the Roman see
during these ages was the reaction against the Byzantine
despotism over the Eastern Church; and this is the explanation
of the fact that although the new map of Europe had been
marked out, in outline at least, by the year 500, the Roman
see clung to the eastern connection until the first half of
the eighth century. … In the political or diplomatic
struggle between the Church and the Emperors, in which the
Emperors endeavored to make the Church subservient to the
imperial policy, or to adjust the situation to the necessities
of the empire, and the Church strove to retain its autonomy as
a witness to the faith and a legislator in the affairs of
religion, the Bishop of Rome became, so to speak, the
constitutional head of the opposition; and the East was
willing to exalt his authority, as a counterpoise to that of
the Emperor, to any extent short of acknowledging that the
primacy implied a supremacy."

_J. H. Egar,
Christendom: Ecclesiastical and Political,
from Constantine to the Reformation,
page 99._

"The election system was only used for one degree of the
ecclesiastical dignitaries, for the bishopric. The lower
dignitaries were chosen by the bishop. They were divided into
two categories of orders—the higher and the lower orders.
There were three higher orders, namely, the priests, the
deacons, and the sub-deacons, and four lower orders, the
acolytes, the door-keepers, the exorcists, and the readers.
The latter orders were not regarded as an integral part of the
clergy, as their members were the servants of the others. As
regards the territorial divisions, the bishop governed the
diocese, which at a much later date was divided into parishes,
whose spiritual welfare was in the hands of the parish priest
or curate (curio). The parishes, taken together, constituted
the diocese; the united dioceses, or suffragan bishoprics,
constituted the ecclesiastical province, at whose head stood
the metropolitan or archbishop. When a provincial council was
held, it met in the metropolis and was presided over by the
metropolitan. Above the metropolitans were the Patriarchs, in
the East, and the Primates in the West, bishops who held the
great capitals or the apostolic sees, Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, Jerusalem, Cesarea in Cappadocia,
Carthage in Africa, and Heraclius in Thrace; among them Rome
ranked higher by one degree, and from this supreme position
exercised a supreme authority acknowledged by all the Church."

_V. Duruy,
History of the Middle Ages,
pages 109-110._

"The divergence of the two Churches, Eastern and Western, was
greater in reality than it appears to be from a superficial
view. It was based on essential variations in the character
and disposition of the people in the East and in the West, on
the nature of their civilization, and on the different, almost
antagonistic, development of the Christian idea in one Church
and in the other. … The Eastern Church rejoiced in its
direct affiliation with apostolic times, in its careful
preservation of traditions, and was convinced of its especial
right to be considered the true heir and successor of Christ.
… The letter of the law superseded the spirit; religion
stiffened into formalism; piety consisted in strict observance
of ceremonial rites; external holiness replaced sincere and
heartfelt devotion. … Throughout the West the tendency was
in a contrary direction—towards the practical application of
the religious idea. The effete, worn-out civilization of the
past was there renovated by contact and admixture with young
and vigorous races, and gained new strength and vitality in
the struggle for existence. The Church, freed from control,
became independent and self-asserting; the responsibility of
government, the preservation of social order, devolved upon
it, and it rose proudly to the task."

_A. F. Heard,
The Russian Church and Russian Dissent,
pages 6-10._

"On the overthrow of the Western Empire, and the
demonstration, rendered manifest to all, that with the
complete triumph of the new world of secular polities a new
spiritual development, a new phase of Divine guidance, was
opening, the conscience of the believers was aroused to a
sense of the sinfulness of their cowardly inactivity. 'Go ye
into all nations, and baptize them,' had been the last words
of their blessed Master. … It is to this new or revived
missionary spirit which distinguished the sixth century, of
which I would place Pope Gregory the First, or the Great, as
the central figure, that I desire now to introduce you.
Remember that the Empire, which had represented the unity of
mankind, had become disintegrated and broken into fragments.
Men were no longer Romans, but Goths and Sueves, Burgundians
and Vandals, and beyond them Huns, Avars, Franks, and
Lombards, some with a slight tincture of Christian teaching,
but most with none. … Let but the Gospel be proclaimed to
all, and leave the issue in God's hands! Such was the contrast
between the age of Leo and the age of Gregory! … The
conversion of Clovis and the Franks is, I suppose, the
earliest instance of a Christian mission carried out on a
national scale by the common action of the Church represented
by the Pope and See of Rome. It becomes accordingly a great
historical event, deserving the earnest consideration not of
Churchmen only, but of all political enquirers."

_C. Merivale,
Four Lectures on some Epochs of Early Church History,
pages 172-177._

{463}

"Christianity thus renewed its ardor for proselytism, and
Gregory contributed to its success most wisely by enjoining
precepts of moderation upon his missionaries, and by the
skillful manner in which he made the transition to Catholicism
easy to the pagans; he wrote to Augustine: 'Be careful not to
destroy the pagan temples; it is only necessary to destroy the
idols, then to sprinkle the edifice with holy water, and to
build altars and place relics there. If the temples are well
built, it is a wise and useful thing for them to pass from the
worship of demons to the worship of the true God; for while
the nation sees its old places of worship still standing, it
will be the more ready to go there, by force of habit, to
worship the true God.' In the interior Gregory succeeded in
arranging the different degrees of power in the Church, and in
forcing the recognition of the supreme power of the Holy See.
We find him granting the title of Vicar of Gaul to the bishop
of Arles, and corresponding with Augustine, archbishop of
Canterbury, in regard to Great Britain, with the archbishop of
Seville in regard to Spain, with the archbishop of
Thessalonica in regard to Greece, and, finally, sending
legates 'a latere' to Constantinople. In his Pastoral, which
he wrote on the occasion of his election, and which became an
established precedent in the West, he prescribed to the
bishops their several duties, following the decisions of many
councils. He strengthened the hierarchy by preventing the
encroachments of the bishops upon one another: 'I have given
to you the spiritual direction of Britain,' he wrote to the
ambitious Augustine, 'and not that of the Gauls.' He
rearranged the monasteries, made discipline the object of his
vigilant care, reformed Church music, and substituted the
chant that bears his name for the Ambrosian chant, 'which
resembled,' according to a contemporary, 'the far-off noise of
a chariot rumbling over pebbles.' Rome, victorious again with
the help of Gregory the Great, continued to push her conquests
to distant countries after his death."

_V. Duruy,
History of the Middle Ages,
page 116._

See,
CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800,
and ROME: A. D. 590-640.

CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 597-800.
The English Church.

"It seems right to add a word of caution against the common
confusion between the British Church and the English Church.
They were quite distinct, and had very little to do with one
another. To cite the British bishops at the Councils of Arles
and Rimini as evidence of the antiquity of the English Church
is preposterous. There was then no England; and the ancestors
of English Churchmen were heathen tribes on the continent. The
history of the Church of England begins with the episcopate of
Archbishop Theodore (A. D. 668), or at the very earliest with
the landing of Augustine (A. D. 597). By that time the British
Church had been almost destroyed by the heathen English. …
Bede tells us that down to his day the Britons still treated
English Christians as pagans."

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