The Historians' History of the World 08

The obscurity of the bishops of Rome was not in this alone their strength. The earlier pontiffs (Clement is hardly an exception) were men who of themselves commanded no great authority, and awoke no jealousy. Rome had no Origen, no Athanasius, no Ambrose, no Augustine, no Jerome. The power of the hierarchy was established by other master-minds; by the Carthaginian Cyprian, by the Italian Ambrose, the prelate of political weight as well as of austere piety, by the eloquent Chrysostom. The names of none of the popes, down to Leo and Gregory the Great, appear among the distinguished writers of Christendom. This more cautious and retired dignity was no less favourable to their earlier power, than to their later claim of infallibility. If more stirring and ambitious men, they might have betrayed to the civil power the secret of their aspiring hopes; if they had been voluminous writers, in the more speculative times, before the Christian creed had assumed its definite and coherent form, it might have been more difficult to assert their unimpeachable orthodoxy.

The removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople consummated the separation of Greek and Latin Christianity; one took the dominion of the East, the other of the West. Greek Christianity has now another centre in the new capital; and the new capital has entered into those close relations with the great cities of the East, which had before belonged exclusively to Rome. Alexandria has become the granary of Constantinople; her Christianity and her commerce, instead of floating along the Mediterranean to Italy, pour up the Ægean to the city on the Bosporus. The Syrian capitals, Antioch, Jerusalem, the cities of Asia Minor and Bithynia, Ephesus, Nicæa, Nicomedia, own another mistress. The tide of Greek trade has ebbed away from the West, and found a nearer mart; political and religious ambition and adventure crowd to the new eastern court. That court becomes the chosen scene of Christian controversy; the emperor is the proselyte to gain whom contending parties employ argument, influence, intrigue.

That which was begun by the foundation of Constantinople, was completed by the partition of the empire between the sons of Constantine. There are now two Roman worlds, a Greek, and a Latin. In one respect, Rome lost in dignity, she was no longer the sole metropolis of the empire; the East no longer treated her with the deference of a subject. On the other hand, she was the uncontested, unrivalled head of her own hemisphere; she had no rival in those provinces, which yet held her allegiance, either as to civil or religious supremacy. The separation of the empire was not more complete between the sons of Constantine or Theodosius, than between Greek and Latin Christianity.b

[42-395 A.D.]

The advance of Christianity involved an emancipation of religion from all political elements, and this was inevitably followed by the establishment of a distinct ecclesiastical body, with a constitution peculiar to itself. In this separation of the church from the state consists, perhaps, the most important and most effectually influential peculiarity of Christian times. The spiritual and temporal powers may come into close contact—they may remain in the most intimate communion; but a perfect coalition can only take place occasionally, and for short periods of time. In their reciprocal relations and position with regard to each other, has since then been involved one of the most important questions presented by all history.

St. Radegonde, Wife of King Clotaire, receiving Religious Robes from St. Medard

(From an old woodcut)