Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Albert Hauck, and Walter Alison Phillips

“ The Latin Church, which, by combining the tradition of the Roman centralized organization with a great elasticity in practice and in the interpretation of doctrine, had hitherto been the moulding force of civilization in the West, is henceforth more or less in antagonism to that civilization, which advances in all its branches—in science, in literature, in art—to a greater or less degree outside of and in spite of her, until in its ultimate and most characteristic developments it falls under the formal condemnation of the pope, formulated in the famous Syllabus of 1864. ”

“ Christian Doctrine.—Two tendencies appeared in the thought of the primitive Church, the one to regard Christianity as a law given by God for the government of men’s lives, with the promise of a blessed immortality as a reward for its observance; the other to view it as a means by which the corrupt and mortal nature of man is transformed, so that he becomes a spiritual and holy being. The latter tendency appeared first in Paul, afterwards in the Gospel and First Epistle of John, in Ignatius of Antioch and in the Gnostics. ”

“ Considered from the standpoint of the world outside, the Roman Church is, no less than the Protestant communities, merely one of the sects into which Western Christendom has been divided—the most important and widespread, it is true, but playing in the general life and thought of the world a part immeasurably less important than that filled by the Church before the Reformation, and one in no sense justifying her claim to be considered as the sole inheritor of the tradition of the pre-Reformation Church. ”

“ This double conception of salvation and of the means thereto was handed down to the Church of subsequent generations and became fundamental in its thought. Christianity is at once a revealed law which a man must keep, and by keeping which he earns salvation, and a supernatural power whereby his nature is transformed and the divine quality of immortality imparted to it. From both points of view Christianity is a supernatural system without which salvation is impossible, and in the Christian Church it is preserved and mediated to the world. ”

“ A Christian was still dependent upon divine aid for salvation, and his life was still supernatural at least in theory. Indeed, the early conviction of the essential difference between the life of this world and that of the next lived on, and, as the Church became increasingly a world-institution, found vent in monasticism, which was simply the effort to put into more consistent practice the other-worldly life, and to make more thoroughgoing work of the saving of one’s soul. ”

“ Contributing also to the growth of the Church was the zeal of its converts, the great majority of whom regarded themselves as missionaries and did what they could to extend the new faith. Christianity was essentially a proselytizing religion, not content to appeal simply to one class or race of people, and to be one among many faiths, but believing in the falsity or insufficiency of all others and eager to convert the whole world. ”

“ At the council of Nicaea, and at the ecumenical councils which followed, the idea of an infallible episcopate giving authoritative and permanent utterance to apostolic and therefore divine truth, found clear expression, and has been handed down as a part of the faith of the Catholic Church both East and West. The infallibility of the episcopate guarantees the infallibility of a general council in which not the laity and not the clergy in general, but the bishops as successors of the apostles, speak officially and collectively. ”

“ We may gauge the energy with which the Greek intellect turned in this direction if we call to mind that the controversy about dogma was replaced by the controversy about images. This raged in the Eastern Church for more than a century (726–843) , and only sank to rest when the worship of images was unconditionally conceded. In this connexion the image was not looked upon merely as a symbol, but as the vehicle of the presence and power of that which it represented: in the image the invisible becomes operative in the visible world. ”

“ Organization.—The origin and early development of ecclesiastical organization are involved in obscurity. Owing to the once prevalent desire of the adherents of one or another polity to find support in primitive precept or practice, the question has assumed a prominence out of proportion to its real importance, and the few and scattered references in early Christian writings have been made the basis for various elaborate theories.
In the earliest days the Church was regarded as a divine institution, ruled not by men but by the Holy Spirit. ”

“ But, even while the Teutonic peoples were thus taking the lead, we can see the Latin races beginning to assert themselves. The monastic reform movement was essentially Latin in origin; and even more significant was the fact that scholasticism, the new theology, had its home in the Latin countries. Aristotelian dialectics had always been taught in the schools; and reason as well as authority had been appealed to as the foundation of theology; but for the theologians of the 9th and 10th centuries, whose method had been merely that of restatement, ratio and auctoritas were in perfect accord. ”

“ The ancient Church was the church of the Roman empire. It is true that from the 4th century onwards it expanded beyond the borders of that empire to east and west, north and south; but the infant churches which gradually arose in Persia and Abyssinia, among some of the scattered Teutonic races, and among the Celts of Ireland, were at first not co-operating factors in the development of Christendom: they received without giving in return. True historic life is only to be found within the church of the Empire. ”

“ Among the Christians who did most to spread the gospel in the Gentile world was the apostle Paul, whose conversion was the greatest event in the history of the early Church. In his hands Christianity became a new religion, fitted to meet the needs of all the world, and freed entirely of the local and national meaning which had hitherto attached to it. According to the early disciples Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, and had significance only in relation to the expected Messianic kingdom. To establish that kingdom was his one great aim. ”

“ Towards the end of the 2nd century they were combined by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons. To him salvation bears a double aspect, involving both release from the control of the devil and the transformation of man’s nature by the indwelling of the Divine. Only he is saved who on the one hand is forgiven at baptism and so released from the power of Satan, and then goes on to live in obedience to the divine law; and on the other hand receives in baptism the germ of a new spiritual nature and is progressively transformed by feeding upon the body and blood of the divine Christ in the eucharist. ”

“ For the organization of these churches no divine sanction is claimed, though all are theoretically modelled on the lines laid down in the Christian Scriptures. It follows that, while in the traditional Church, with its claim to an unbroken descent from a divine original, the individual is subordinate to the Church, in the “free churches” the Church is in a certain sense secondary to the individual. The believer may pass from one community to another without imperilling his spiritual life, or even establish a new church without necessarily incurring the reproach of schism. ”

“ Nowhere were the nations Christian, but the Christian faith was everywhere accepted by a not insignificant minority. The foundation of the Mongolian empire in the beginning of the 13th century did not disturb the position of the Nestorian church; but the revival of the Mahommedan power, which was coincident with the downfall of the Mongolian empire, was pregnant with disaster for her. The greater part of Nestorian Christendom was now swallowed up by Islam, so that only remnants of this once extensive church have survived until modern times. ”

“ Thus over a great part of Europe the Catholic Church was split up into territorial or national churches, which, whatever the theoretical ties which bound them together, were in fact separate organizations, tending ever more and more to become isolated and self-contained units with no formal intercommunion, and, as the rivalry of nationalities grew, with increasingly little even of intercommunication. ”

“ Moreover, the feeling of unity which bound Christians everywhere together and made of them one compact whole, and which found expression before many generations had passed in a strong organization, did much for the spread of the Church. Identifying himself with the Christian circle from the 2nd century on, a man became a member of a society existing in all quarters of the empire, every part conscious of its oneness with the larger whole and all compactly organized to do the common work. ”

“ Under Justinian I. all its essential features were already formed: imperial power extended equally over State and Church; indeed, care for the preservation of dogma and for the purity of the priesthood was the chief duty of the ruler. To fulfil this duty was to serve the interests of both State and people; for thus “a fine harmony is established, and whatever good exists becomes the portion of the whole human race.” Since the emperor ruled the Church there was no longer any question of independence for the bishops, least of all for the patriarch in Constantinople ”

“ The effect of the legal view of Christianity was to make Christ an agent of God in the revelation of the divine will and truth, and so a subordinate being between God and the world, the Logos of current Greek thought. The effect of the mystical conception was to identify Christ with God in order that by his incarnation the divine nature might be brought into union with humanity and the latter be transformed. ”

“ Those who did not adopt the monastic life endeavoured on a lower plane and in a less perfect way to realize the common ideal, and by means of penance to atone for the deficiencies in their performance. The existence of monasticism made it possible at once to hold up a high moral standard before the world and to permit the ordinary Christian to be content with something lower. ”

“ The growth of the Church during the earlier centuries was chiefly in the middle and lower classes, but it was not solely there. No large number of the aristocracy were reached, but in learned and philosophical circles many were won, attracted both by Christianity’s evident ethical power and by its philosophical character (cf. the Apologists of the 2nd century) . That it could seem at once a simple way of living for the common man and a profound philosophy of the universe for the speculative thinker meant much for its success. ”

“ Intercommunication between the various Christian communities was very active. Christians upon a journey were always sure of a warm welcome and hospitable entertainment from their fellow-disciples. Messengers and letters were sent freely from one church to another. Missionaries and evangelists went continually from place to place. Documents of various kinds, including gospels and apostolic epistles, circulated widely. Thus in various ways the feeling of unity found expression, and the development of widely separated parts of Christendom conformed more or less closely to a common type. ”

“ This tendency has been common in the East also, where with the growth of racial rivalries the Orthodox Church has split into a series of national churches, holding the same faith but independent as to organization.
A yet further development, of comparatively recent growth, has been the formation of what are now commonly called in England the “free churches.” These represent a theory of the Church practically unknown to the Reformers, and only reached through the necessity for discovering a logical basis for the communities of conscientious dissidents from the established churches. ”

“ The late 2nd century movement known as Montanism was in essence a revolt against this growing secularization of the Church, but the movement failed, and the development against which it protested was only hastened. The Church as an institution now looked forward to a long life upon earth and adjusted itself to the new situation, taking on largely the forms and customs of the world in which it lived. This did not mean that the Church ceased to regard itself as a supernatural institution, but only that its supernatural character was shown in a different way. ”

“ But the Teutonic elements maintained their place in the law of the Frankish Church; and this was not altered by the fact that, since Christmas 800, the king of the Franks and Lombards had borne the title of Roman emperor. On the contrary, Rome itself was now for the first time affected by the predominance of the new empire; for Charlemagne converted the patriciate into effective sovereignty, and the successor of St Peter became the chief metropolitan of the Frankish empire. ”

“ According to this the Catholic Church is not a visibly organized body, but the sum of all “faithful people” throughout the world, who group themselves in churches modelled according to their convictions or needs. ”

“ Many of the terms in common use in them were employed in connexion with the Christian rites, and many of the conceptions, particularly that of sharing in immortality by communion with deity, became an essential part of Christian doctrine. Thus the early idea of the services, as occasions for mutual edification through the interchange of spiritual gifts, gave way in course of time to the theory that they consisted of sacred and mysterious rites by means of which communion with God is promoted. ”