Volume I—A To Elba (continued 31)

J. H. Kurtz, Church History, volume 1, page 70.

"If every church must so live in the world as to be a part of its collective being, then it must always be construed in and through the place and time in which it lives."

A. M. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology.

"The Church of the first three centuries was never, except perhaps on the day of Pentecost, in an absolutely ideal condition. But yet during the ages of persecution, the Church as a whole was visibly an unworldly institution. It was a spiritual empire in recognized antagonism with the world-empire."

F. W. Puller, The Primitive Saints and The See of Rome, page 153.

All the greater forces of the age, political and legal, and commercial, aided those working within the church to create an organic unity. "Speaking with some qualifications, the patristic church was Greek, as the primitive church had been Jewish, and the mediæval church was to be Latin. Its unity, like that of the Greek nation, was federative; each church, like each of the Grecian states, was a little commonwealth. As the Greece which resisted the Persians was one, not by any imperial organization, but by common ideas and a common love of liberty, so the church of the fathers was one, not by any organic connection, but by common thoughts and sympathies, above all by a common loyalty to Christ. Naturally the questions which agitated such a church were those which concern the individual soul rather than society. Its members made much of personal beliefs and speculative opinions; and so long as the old free spirit lasted they allowed one another large freedom of thought, only requiring that common instinct of loyalty to Christ. Happily for the world, that free spirit did not die out from the East for at least two centuries after Paul had proclaimed the individual relationship of the soul to God. … The genius of the Greek expressing itself in thought, of the Latin in ruling power, the Christianity which was to the former a body of truth, became to the latter a system of government."

G. A. Jackson, The Fathers of the Third Century, pages 154-156.

The Apostolic ideal was set forth, and within a few generations forgotten. The vision was only for a time and then vanished. "The kingdom of Christ, not being a kingdom of this world, is not limited by the restrictions which fetter other societies, political or religious. It is in the fullest sense free, comprehensive, universal. … It is most important that we should keep this ideal definitely in view, and I have therefore stated it as broadly as possible. Yet the broad statement, if allowed to stand alone, would suggest a false impression, or at least would convey only a half truth. It must be evident that no society of men could hold together without officers, without rules, without institutions of any kind; and the Church of Christ is not exempt from this universal law. The conception in short is strictly an ideal, which we must ever hold before our eyes. … Every member of the human family was potentially a member of the Church, and, as such, a priest of God. … It will hardly be denied, I think, by those who have studied the history of modern civilization with attention, that this conception of the Christian Church has been mainly instrumental in the emancipation of the degraded and oppressed, in the removal of artificial barriers between class and class, and in the diffusion of a general philanthropy untrammelled by the fetters of party or race; in short, that to it mainly must be attributed the most important advantages which constitute the superiority of modern societies over ancient. Consciously or unconsciously, the idea of an universal priesthood, of the religious equality of all men, which, though not untaught before, was first embodied in the Church of Christ, has worked and is working untold blessings in political institutions and in social life. But the careful student will also observe that this idea has hitherto been very imperfectly apprehended; that throughout the history of the Church it has been struggling for recognition, at most times discerned in some of its aspects but at all times wholly ignored in others; and that therefore the actual results are a very inadequate measure of its efficacy, if only it could assume due prominence and were allowed free scope in action. … It may be a general rule, it may be under ordinary circumstances a practically universal law, that the highest acts of congregational worship shall be performed through the principal officers of the congregation. But an emergency may arise when the spirit and not the letter must decide, The Christian ideal will then … interpret our duty. The higher ordinance of the universal priesthood will overrule all special limitations. The layman will assume functions which are otherwise restricted to the ordained minister."

J. B. Lightfoot, Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, pages 137-140, 237.

"No Church now existing is an exact counterpart of the Apostolic Church. … Allusions bear out the idea that the Church at Corinth was as yet almost struetureless—little more than an aggregate of individuals—with no bishop, presbyter or deacon."

J. W. Cunningham, The Growth of the Church in its Organization and Institutions, pages 73, 18.

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"Some time before the middle of the second century heresy began sadly to distract the Christian community; and to avoid imminent danger of schism, it was deemed expedient in a few great towns to arm the chairman of the eldership with additional power. A modified form of prelacy was thus introduced."

W. D. Killen, The Old Catholic Church, page 51.

Respecting the rise of the Episcopate as a distinct office there is a difference of opinion among scholars,—some holding that it was expressly ordained by the Apostles, others that it arose quite independently of them; a third class think that it was developed gradually out of the eldership, but not without the sanction of one or more of the Apostles. "For the Church is a catholic society, that is, a society belonging to all nations and ages. As a catholic society it lacks the bonds of the life of a city or a nation—local contiguity, common language, common customs. We cannot then very well conceive how its corporate continuity could have been maintained otherwise than through some succession of persons such as, bearing the apostolic commission for ministry, should be in each generation the necessary centres of the Church's life."

C. Gore, The Mission of the Church, pages 10, 11.

"Jewish presbyteries existed already in all the principal cities of the dispersion, and Christian presbyteries would early occupy a not less wide area. … The name of the presbyter then presents no difficulty. But what must be said of the term bishop? … But these notices, besides establishing the general prevalence of episcopacy, also throw considerable light on its origin. They indicate that the relation suggested by the history of the word 'bishop' and its transference from the lower to the higher office is the true solution, and that the episcopate was created out of the presbytery. … They seem to hint also that, so far as this development was affected at all by national temper and characteristics, it was slower where the prevailing influences were more purely Greek, as at Corinth and Philippi and Rome, and more rapid where an Oriental spirit predominated, as at Jerusalem and Antioch and Ephesus. Above all, they establish this result clearly, that its maturer forms are seen first in those regions where the latest surviving Apostles (more especially St. John) fixed their abode, and at a time when its prevalence cannot be dissociated from their influence or their sanction."

J. B. Lightfoot, Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, pages 151, 190, 191.

"Since then in the constitution of the church two elements met together—the aristocratic and the monarchical—it could not fail to be the case that a conflict would ensue between them. … These struggles between the presbyterial and episcopal systems belong among the most important phenomena connected with the process of the development of church life in the third century. Many presbyters made a capricious use of their power, hurtful to good discipline and order in the communities."

A. Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, volume 1, section 2.

"As a rule Christianity would get a footing first in the metropolis of its region. The lesser cities would be evangelized by missions sent from thence; and so the suffragan sees would look on themselves as daughters of the metropolitan see. The metropolitan bishop is the natural center of unity for the bishops of the province. … The bishops of the metropolitan sees acquired certain rights which were delegated to them by their brother bishops. Moreover, among the most important churches a certain order of precedence grew up which corresponded with the civil dignity of the cities in which those churches existed; and finally the churches which were founded by the apostles were treated with peculiar reverence."

F. W. Puller, The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome, pages 11 and 18.

"The triumph of the episcopal system undoubtedly promoted unity, order, and tranquillity. But, on the other hand, it was unfavourable to the free development of the life of the church; and while the latter promoted the formation of a priesthood foreign to the essence of that development of the kingdom of God which the New Testament sets forth, on the other hand a revolution of sentiment which had already been prepared—an altered view of the idea of the priesthood—had no small influence on the development of the episcopal system. Thus does this change of the original constitution of the Christian communities stand intimately connected with another and still more radical change,—the formation of a sacerdotal caste in the Christian church. … Out of the husk of Judaism Christianity had evolved itself to freedom and independence,—had stripped off the forms in which it first sprang up, and within which the new spirit lay at first concealed, until by its own inherent power it broke through them. This development belonged more particularly to the Pauline position, from which proceeded the form of the church in the Gentile world. In the struggle with the Jewish elements which opposed the free development of Christianity, this principle had triumphantly made its way. In the churches of pagan Christians the new creation stood forth completely unfolded; but the Jewish principle, which had been vanquished, pressed in once more from another quarter. Humanity was as yet incapable of maintaining itself at the lofty position of pure spiritual religion. The Jewish position was better adapted to the mass, which needed first to be trained before it could apprehend Christianity in its purity,—needed to be disabused from paganism. Out of Christianity, now become independent, a principle once more sprang forth akin to the principles of the Old Testament,—a new outward shaping of the kingdom of God, a new discipline of the law which one day was to serve for the training of rude nations, a new tutorship for the spirit of humanity, until it should arrive at the maturity of the perfect manhood in Christ. This investiture of the Christian spirit in a form nearly akin to the position arrived at in the Old Testament, could not fail, after the fruitful principle had once made its appearance, to unfold itself more and more, and to bring to light one after another all the consequences which it involved; but there also began with it a reaction of the Christian consciousness as it yearned after freedom, which was continually bursting forth anew in an endless variety of appearances, until it attained its triumph at the Reformation."

A. Neander, General History of the Christian Religion and Church, volume 1, section 2, B.

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"Though the forms of [pagan] religion had broken away, the spirit of religion was still quick; it had even developed: the sense of sin, an almost new phenomenon, began to invade Society and Philosophy; and along with this, an almost importunate craving after a revelation. The changed tone of philosophy, the spread of mysticism, the rapid growth of mystery-worship, the revived Platonism, are all articulate expressions of this need. The old Philosophy begins not only to preach but to pray: the new strives to catch the revealed voice of God in the oracles of less unfaithful days. … In the teeth of an organised and concentrated despotism a new society had grown up, self-supporting, self-regulated, a State within the State. Calm and assured amid a world that hid its fears only in blind excitement, free amid the servile, sanguine amid the despairing, Christians lived with an object. United in loyal fellowship by sacred pledges more binding than the sacramentum of the soldier, welded together by a stringent discipline, led by trained and tried commanders, the Church had succeeded in attaining unity. It had proved itself able to command self-devotion even to the death. It had not feared to assimilate the choicest fruits of the choicest intellects of East and West. … Yet the centripetal forces were stronger; Tertullian had died an heresiarch, and Origen but narrowly and somewhat of grace escaped a like fate. If rent with schisms and threatened with disintegration, the Church was still an undivided whole."

G. H. Rendall, The Emperor Julian, Paganism and Christianity, pages 21-22.

"The designation of the Universal Christian Church as Catholic dates from the time of Irenaeus. … At the beginning of this age, the heretical as well as the non-heretical Ebionism may be regarded as virtually suppressed, although some scanty remnants of it might yet be found. The most brilliant period of Gnosticism, too, … was already passed. But in Manichæism there appeared, during the second half of the third century, a new peril of a no less threatening kind inspired by Parseeism and Buddhism. … With Marcus Aurelius, Paganism outside of Christianity as embodied in the Roman State, begins the war of extermination against the Church that was ever more and more extending her boundaries. Such manifestation of hostility, however, was not able to subdue the Church. … During the same time the episcopal and synodal-hierarchical organization of the church was more fully developed by the introduction of an order of Metropolitans, and then in the following period it reached its climax in the oligarchical Pentarchy of Patriarchs, and in the institution of œcumenical Synods."

J. H. Kurtz, Church History, volume l, pages 72-73;

to which the reader is also referred for all periods of church history.

See, also, P. Schaff, History of the Christian Church;

For biography, W. Smith and H. Wace, A Dictionary of Christian Biography.

"Missionary effort in this period was mainly directed to the conversion of the heathen. On the ruins of Jerusalem, Hadrian's colony of Ælia Capitolina was planted; so that even there the Church, in its character and modes of worship, was a Gentile community. Christianity was early carried to Edessa, the capital of the small state of Osrhene, in Mesopotamia. After the middle of the second century, the Church at Edessa was sufficiently flourishing to count among its members the king, Abgar Bar Manu. At about this time the gospel was preached in Persia, Media, Parthia, and Bactria. We have notices of churches in Arabia in the early part of the third century. They were visited several times by Origen, the celebrated Alexandrian Church teacher (185-254). In the middle of the fourth century a missionary, Theophilus, of Diu, found churches in India. In Egypt, Christianity made great progress, especially at Alexandria, whence it spread to Cyrene and other neighboring places. In upper Egypt, where the Coptic language and the superstition of the people were obstacles in its path, Christianity had, nevertheless, gained a foothold as early as towards the close of the second century. At this time the gospel had been planted in proconsular Africa, being conveyed thither from Rome, and there was a flourishing church at Carthage. In Gaul, where the Druidical system, with its priesthood and sacrificial worship, was the religion of the Celtic population, several churches were founded from Asia Minor. At Lyons and Vienne there were strong churches in the last quarter of the second century. At this time Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, speaks of the establishment of Christianity in Germany, west of the Rhine, and Tertullian, the North African presbyter, speaks of Christianity in Britain. The fathers in the second century describe in glowing terms, and not without rhetorical exaggeration, the rapid conquests of the Gospel. The number of converts in the reign of Hadrian must have been very large. Otherwise we cannot account for the enthusiastic language of Justin Martyr respecting the multitude of professing Christians. Tertullian writes in a similar strain. Irenæus refers to Barbarians who have believed without having a knowledge of letters, through oral teaching merely."

G. P. Fisher, History of the Christian Church, pages 45-46.

CHRISTIANITY: Alexandria.

"Christianity first began its activity in the country among the Jewish and Greek population of the Delta, but gradually also among the Egyptians proper (the Copts) as may be inferred from the Coptic (Memphytic) translation of the New Testament (third century). In the second century, Gnosticism [see GNOSTICS], which had its chief seat here as well as in Syria, and, secondly, towards the close of the century, the Alexandrian Catechetical School, show the importance of this centre of religious movement and Christian education."

W. Moeller, History of the Christian Church, page 105.

"Never perhaps has the free statement of the Christian idea had less prejudice to encounter than at Alexandria at the close of the second century. Never has it more successfully vindicated by argument its right to be the great interpreter of the human spirit. The institutions of the great metropolis were highly favourable to this result. The Museum, built by the Ptolemies, was intended to be, and speedily became, the centre of an intense intellectual life. The Serapeum, at the other end of the town, rivalled it in beauty of architecture and wealth of rare MSS. The Sebastion, reared in honour of Augustus, was no unworthy companion to these two noble establishments. In all three, splendid endowments and a rich professoriate attracted the talent of the world. If the ambition of a secured reputation drew many eminent men away to Rome, the means of securing such eminence were mainly procured at Alexandria. … The Christian Church in this city rose to the height of its grand opportunity. It entered the lists without fear and without favour, and boldly proclaimed its competence to satisfy the intellectual cravings of man. Numbers of restless and inquiring spirits came from all parts of the world, hoping to find a solution of the doubts that perplexed them. And the Church, which had already brought peace to the souls of the woman and the slave, now girded herself to the harder task of convincing the trained intelligence of the man of letters and the philosopher."

C. T. Cruttwell, A Literary History of Early Christianity, book 4, chapter 1 (volume 2).

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"The question … came up for decision towards the close of the sub-apostolic age, as to what shape the Church was finally to take. Two types were set before her to choose from—one the Hebrew-Latin type, as we may call it, into which … she finally settled down; the other the Hellenist type of a Demos, or commonwealth of free citizens, all equal, all alike kings and priests unto God, and whose moral and spiritual growth was left very much to the initiative of each member of the community. In Alexandria, as the meeting-point of all nationalities, and where Judaism itself had tried to set up a new type of thought, eclectic between Hebraism and Hellenism, and comprehending what was best in both, naturally enough there grew up a Christian type of eclecticism corresponding to that of Philo. … Into this seething of rival sects and races the Alexandrian school of catechists threw themselves, and made a noble attempt to rescue the Church, the synagogue, and the Stoics alike from the one bane common to all—the dangerous delusion that the truth was for them, not they for the truth. Setting out on the assumption that God's purpose was the education of the whole human family, they saw in the Logos doctrine of St. John the key to harmonise all truth, whether of Christian sect, Hebrew synagogue, or Stoic philosophy. … To educate all men up to this standard seemed to them the true ideal of the Church. True Gnosis was their keynote; and the Gnostic, as Clemens loves to describe himself, was to them the pattern philosopher and Christian in one. They regarded, moreover, a discipline of at least three years as imperative; it was the preliminary condition of entrance into the Christian Church."

J. B. Heard, Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theology Contrasted, pages 37-38.

The two great Christian writers of Alexandria were Clement and Origen. "The universal influence of Origen made itself felt in the third century over the whole field of Greek theology. In him, as it were, everything which had hitherto been striven after in the Greek field of theology, had been gathered together, so as, being collected here in a centre, to give an impulse in the most various directions; hence also the further development of theology in subsequent times is always accustomed to link itself on to one side or the other of his rich spiritual heritage. … And while this involves that Christianity is placed on friendly relations with the previous philosophical development of the highest conceptions of God and the world, yet on the other hand Christian truth also appears conversely as the universal truth which gathers together in itself all the hitherto isolated rays of divine truth. … In the great religious ferment of the time there was further contained the tendency to seek similar religious ideas amid the different mythological religious forms and to mingle them syncretistically. This religious ferment was still further increased by the original content of Christianity, that mighty leaven, which announced a religion destined to the redemption and perfecting of the world, and by this means a like direction and tendency was imparted to various other religious views likewise. The exciting and moving effect of Gnosticism on the Church depended at the same time on the fact, that its representatives practically apprehended Christianity in the manner of the antique religious mysteries, and in so doing sought to lean upon the Christian communities and make themselves at home in them, according as their religious life and usages seemed to invite them, and to establish in them a community of the initiated and perfect; an endeavour which the powerful ascetic tendency in the church exploited and augmented in its own sense, and for which the institution of prophecy, which was so highly respected and powerful in the communities, afforded a handle. In this way the initiated were able to make for themselves a basis in the community on which they could depend, while the religio-philosophical speculations, which are always intelligible only to a few, at the same time propagated themselves and branched out scholastically."

W. Moeller, History of the Christian Church, pages 215, 213, 130-131.

"At Alexandria, Basilides (A. D. 125) and Valentine exerted in turn an extraordinary influence; the latter endeavored to establish his school at Rome about the year 140. The Gnostics of Syria professed a more open dualism than those of Egypt. The Church of Antioch had to resist Saturnin, that of Edessa to oppose Bordesanes and Tatian."

E. De Pressensé, The Early Years of Christianity; The Martyrs and Apologists, page 135.

"There was something very imposing in those mighty systems, which embraced heaven and earth. How plain and meagre in comparison seemed simple Christianity! There was something remarkably attractive in the breadth and liberality of Gnosticism. It seemed completely to have reconciled Christianity with culture. How narrow the Christian Church appeared! Even noble souls might be captivated by the hope of winning the world over to Christianity in this way. … Over against the mighty systems of the Gnostics, the Church stood, in sober earnestness and childlike faith, on the simple Christian doctrine of the Apostles. This was to be sought in the churches founded by the apostles themselves, where they had defined the faith in their preaching."

G. Uhlhorn, The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, book 2, chapter 3.

"Greek philosophy had joined hands with Jewish theosophy, and the Church knew not where to look for help. So serious did the danger seem, when it was assailed at once and from opposite sides by Jewish and Greek types of Gnosticism, the one from the monotheistic point of view impugning the Godhead, the other for the Docetic side explaining away [us a spiritual illusion] the manhood of Christ, that the Church, in despair of beating error by mere apology, fell back on the method of authority. The Church was the only safe keeper of the deposit of sacred tradition; whoever impugned that tradition, let him be put out of the communion of saints."

Reverend J. B. Heard, Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theology Contrasted, page 41.

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"The interest, the meaning, of Gnosticism rest entirely upon its ethical motive. It was an attempt, a serious attempt, to fathom the dread mystery of sorrow and pain, to answer that spectral doubt, which is mostly crushed down by force—Can the world as we know it have been made by God? 'Cease,' says Basilides, 'from idle and curious variety, and let us rather discuss the opinions, which even barbarians have held, on the subject of good and evil.' 'I will say anything rather than admit that Providence is wicked.' Valentinus describes in the strain of an ancient prophet the woes that afflict mankind. 'I durst not affirm,' he concludes, 'that God is the author of all this.' So Tertullian says of Marcion, 'like many men of our time, and especially the heretics, he is bewildered by the question of evil.' They approach the problem from a non-Christian point of view, and arrive therefore at a non-Christian solution. … Many of them, especially the later sectaries, accepted the whole Christian Creed, but always with reserve. The teaching of the Church thus became in their eyes a popular exoteric confession, beneath their own Gnosis, or Knowledge, which was a Mystery, jealously guarded from all but the chosen few."

C. Bigg; The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, pages 28-29.

CHRISTIANITY: Cæsarea.

"The chief points of interest in the history of the Church of Cæsarea during this period are the residence of Origen there (first between A. D. 215 and 219 and again after his final departure from Alexandria in 231), the education of Eusebius, the foundation of the great library by Pamphilus, and the martyrdoms during the Diocletian persecution. Most of these will come before us again in other connexions, but they require mention here. It would be difficult to over-estimate the effect of what they imply on the Church at large. Had the work of Origen, Pamphilus, and Eusebius at Cæsarea remained unrecorded, there would be a huge blank in ecclesiastical history, rendering much that is otherwise known scarcely intelligible. Had that work never been done, the course of ecclesiastical history would have been very different. In the whole of the second and third centuries it would be difficult to name two more influential Christians than Origen and Eusebius; and Pamphilus laboured earnestly to preserve and circulate the writings of the one and to facilitate those of the other. It was from the libraries of Pamphilus at Cæsarea and of Alexander at Jerusalem that Eusebius obtained most of his material" for his "Ecclesiastical History," which has preserved titles and quotations from many lost books of exceeding value.

A. Plummer, The Church of the Early Fathers, chapter 3.

CHRISTIANITY: Edessa.

"Edessa (the modern Urfa) was from the beginning of the third century one of the chief centres of Syrian Christian life and theological study. For many years, amid the vicissitudes of theological persecution, a series of flourishing theological schools were maintained there, one of which (the 'Persian school') is of great importance as the nursery of Nestorianism in the extreme East. It was as bishop of Edessa, also, that Jacob Baradæus organized the monophysite churches into that Jacobite church of which he is the hero. From the scholars of Edessa came many of the translations which carried Greek thought to the East, and in the periods of exciting controversy Edessa was within the range of the theological movements that stirred Alexandria and Constantinople. The 'Chronicle of Edessa,' as it is called because the greater number of its notices relate to Edessene affairs, is a brief document in Syriac contained in a manuscript of six leaves in the Vatican library. It is one of the most important fundamental sources for the history of Edessa, contains a long official narrative of the flood of A. D. 201, which is perhaps the only existing monument of heathen Syriac literature, and includes an excellent and very carefully dated list of the bishops of Edessa from A. D. 313 to 543."

Andover Review, volume 19, page 374.

The Syriac Versions (of the Gospel) form a group of which mention should undoubtedly be made. The Syriac versions of the Bible (Old Testament) are among the most ancient remains of the language, the Syriac and the Chaldee being the two dialects of the Aramaean spoken in the North. Of versions of the New Testament, "the 'Peshito' or the 'Simple,' though not the oldest text, has been the longest known. … The 'Curetonian' … was discovered after its existence had been for a long time suspected by sagacious scholars [but is not much more than a series of fragments]. … Cureton, Tregelles, Alford, Ewald, Bleek, and others, believe this text to be older than the Peshito [which speaks for the Greek text of the second century, though its own date is doubtful]. … Other valuable Syriac versions are 'Philoxenian' … and the 'Jerusalem Syriac Lectionary' … a service-book with lessons from the Gospels for Sundays and feast days throughout the year … written at Antioch in 1030 in a dialect similar to that in use in Jerusalem and from a Greek text of great antiquity." A recent discovery renders these facts and statements of peculiar interests.

G. E. Merrill, The Story of the Manuscripts, chapter 10.

CHRISTIANITY: Rural Palestine.

"If Ebionism [see EBIONISM] was not primitive Christianity, neither was it a creation of the second century. As an organization, a distinct sect, it first made itself known, we may suppose, in the reign of Trajan: but as a sentiment, it had been harboured within the Church from the very earliest days. Moderated by the personal influence of the Apostles, soothed by the general practice of their church, not yet forced into declaring themselves by the turn of events, though scarcely tolerant of others, these Judaizers were tolerated for a time themselves. The beginning of the second century was a winnowing season in the Church of the Circumcision. … It is a probable conjecture, that after the destruction of Jerusalem the fugitive Christians, living in their retirement in the neighbourhood of the Essene settlements, received large accessions to their numbers from this sect, which thus inoculated the Church with its peculiar views. It is at least worthy of notice, that in a religious work emanating from this school of Ebionites the 'true Gospel' is reported to have been first propagated 'after the destruction of the holy place.'"

J. B. Lightfoot, Dissertation on the Apostolic Age, pages 78-80.

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CHRISTIANITY: Carthage.

"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.

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"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.

"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.

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"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).

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"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."