William Holden Hutton

“ And that is what the worship of the East has always striven to express. It is immemorial, conservative beyond anything that the West can tolerate or conceive; but it belongs, in the present as in the past, to the closest thoughts, the most intimate experiences, of men to whom religion is indeed the guide of life. The Church of S. Sophia, the worship of the East, are the living memorials of the great age of the great Christian emperor and theologian of the sixth century. ”

“ Lingering on the terrace he looks over the Golden Horn and the vast city, a city of gardens and minarets, stretching as far as the eye can see. As the hour for prayer draws near, men pour from every street, across through the market, or by the open arid space that extends westwards till the narrow streets close round, stretching down to the harbour. Hundreds and hundreds they seem, of all ages, in every kind of attire, of every race, some light-haired and fresh-coloured, as of more than half European blood; some, negroes from Africa, but all males and all Moslems. They enter the great mosque ”

“ Constantinople had never been captured, men easily believed that it never would be. Its walls, so magnificent in their decay, had proved and were thought still to be impregnable. The subtle influence of Oriental habits had eaten, it seemed, into the life that had been so strong and fierce under Justinian or Heraclius. Men, as they had ceased to contend earnestly for faith or morals, had sunk down into a luxurious pleasure-loving life, almost like that of old Rome or modern London. ”

“ For the historian there is a story of almost unmatched attraction; the story of how a people was kept together in power, in decay, in failure, in persecution, by the unifying force of a Creed and a Church. And there is the extraordinary missionary development traceable all through the history of Eastern Christianity: the wonderful Nestorian missions, the activity of the evangelists, imperial and hierarchical, of the sixth century, the conversion of Russia, the preludes to the remarkable achievements in modern times of orthodox missions in the Far East. ”

“ Within is safe anchorage in one of the finest harbours of the world.
South of the Golden Horn, on the narrow tongue of land—narrow it seems as seen from the hills of the northern shore—is the city of Constantine and his successors in empire, seated, like the old Rome, on seven hills, and surrounded on three sides by sea, on the fourth by the still splendid, though shattered, mediæval walls. Northwards are the two towns, now linked together, of Pera and Galata, that look back only to the trading settlements of the Middle Ages. ”

“ There was, however, even at the best a great change from the times of Roman rule. For civilisation, literary culture, law, we find substituted in the pages of Gregory of Tours savagery, scenes of brutality, drunkenness, robbery. Law and civilisation seem to sleep. It was in this state of the country, when every man's hand was against his neighbour, when law was unheard amid the strife, that feudalism arose, a natural development of the desire for self-preservation, which led to associations to supply the mutual protection which there was no strength behind the law to enforce. ”

“ The group of buildings seen as one descends from the hill on which the Seraskierat stands, or from the tower, has a charming effect. The cypresses mingling with the domes and minarets make the most peaceful scene that Stambûl can show. In the city of trees and gardens, of domes and minarets, this seems the picture typical of the whole as the Moslems have made it. Here is, one feels, the true poetic East, the home of the poets we have read. We might be in the Arabian Nights,
Whilst there o'er mosque and minaret
That rise against the sunset glow,
broods the great calm of a nation of fatalists. ”

“ At the close of the tenth century a pope and an emperor of great ideas stand forth from the blackness of an age when, according to the evidence of councils and of monastic chronicles alike, vice was rampant—"the more powerful oppress the weaker, and men are like fishes in the sea, which everywhere in turn devour one another"—and the bishops and clergy alike neglected their duties. ”

“ A few hours later Hypatius was proclaimed Emperor, and as the mob surrounded the palace it seemed that there was nothing for the Emperor but flight. It was then, when Justinian was ready to yield and cross the Bosphorus to the safety of Chalcedon, that Theodora showed herself worthy of the purple. "No time is this," she cried, "to ask whether a woman should be bold before men or valiant when men are afraid. They who are in extremest peril must think of nothing but how best to meet what lies before them. To fly, if ever it be expedient, would now not be so, I declare, even if it preserved us. ”

“ It confirmed a strong union between Church and State in England, and it witnessed a revival of Christian learning in which Alfred himself and a Welshman, Asser, whom he made bishop of an English see, were the leaders. Alfred was a bright example of what Christianity could do for mankind. Warrior, scholar, saint, pattern king whose heart was given to his people, he bore himself nobly before the world as one who loved and worshipped the Master Christ. Under his sway the Church rose again to instruct and guide the people, and when he died he left the English land a united Christian nation. ”

“ To some art critics, and notably to Jesuit writers, whose sympathy with the genuine expression of artistic ideas has never been profound, S. Sophia seems to mark not only the culmination of Byzantine art but a distinct step in its decadence. Supreme indeed it is, but it is difficult for any one who knows Constantinople to doubt that the work which is at its greatest in S. Sophia was continued centuries after Anthemius had passed away. The same dignity, and sincerity, and splendour, are striven for, and if they are never attained it is only because the greatest genius is never repeated. ”

“ During the intellectual and moral weakness which the barbarian invasions brought upon the West the Church in Ireland appeared to stand forth resplendent in the security of her faith and virtue and in the cultivation of learning. In the warm Celtic nature the Gospel, so late introduced, had found a natural home. The monasteries which rose all over the land, with the huts of hermits and the cells of anchorites, were the seed-plots of religion and sacred lore. ”

“ BRONZE DOOR OF SOUTHERN ENTRANCE TO THE NARTHEX, ST SOPHIA
The brightness of the great church, when all the splendid lamps made the mosaics glitter as the heavens with stars, finds record again and again in poem and history. That glory is departed, though when the thousands of lamps are lighted on the nights of Ramazan (the twenty-eight days fast) , something of what it must have been may perhaps be guessed. The mosaics are covered, not everywhere indeed, but over a great part of the vast space, with paint and whitewash. The head of Christ may be dimly traced over the sanctuary. ”

“ Sea, sunlight, the quaint houses that stand close upon the water's edge, the white palaces, the crowded quays, and the crowning glory of the Eastern domes and the mediæval walls—these are the 2 elements that combine to impress, and the impression is never lost. Often as you may see again the approach to the imperial city, its splendour and dignity and the exquisite beauty of colour and light will exert their old charm, and as you put foot in the New Rome you will feel all the glamour of the days that are gone by. ”

“ Missionaries and martyrs had changed the face of Europe, and the fierce tribes which were pouring over the Continent in the fifth century, barbarous and heathen, were now for the most part tamed and converted to the love of Christ. Out of a land which had been wild and barbarous, and where one of the greatest of saints and missionaries had met his death, had come a revival in Christian form of the old imperial idea, and the great men who had been nourished by it had given new health to the central Church of Europe. ”