Part 146

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."

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

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

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

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